Accio Lego

If the Ideas contest proves real, it’s worth remembering that big Ideas set + CMF is how Lego did handled D&D…

Given that we’re all low-key expecting Shrek 5 sets closer to when the movie actually comes out, I wonder if the ogre characters will each have their own molded heads or if there will be a sort of universal ogre head with the ear stalks that can be paired with different wigs like we saw with the Na’vi in the Avatar sets.

I was referring to the Jessica Drew Spider-woman from the movie – who is visibly pregnant and also one of the leaders of the Spider Society, making the snub of her in favor of background/cameo characters like Spider-cowboy, Spider-cyborg, and Spider-werewolf rather blatant.

I’d be more interested in seeing the big belly torso that’s been floating around in concept art form for years. (It would make up for not giving us a pregnant belly in the Spiderverse series like they should have)

I mean, can we entirely rule out that none of these are K-Pop Demon Hunters, and whatever sets that franchise is getting aren’t coming later than these and haven’t gotten leaks yet?

Personally, it’s a ‘finding things later’ thing for me. Year long threads are easier to look through and reference than multiple-year ones, and if nothing else, a change in name to accurately reflect the time period covered would be preferred.

Possibly, but a moot point for this thread since the September CMF is apparently an IP that’s never had sets before, so if P, B, or Lollipop is connected to the CMF it can’t also be the one that’s a returning theme.

I suppose that could still theoretically work in conjunction with the CMF if the license in question is Street Fighter. We still don’t know if any of these are connected to the CMF though, it’s all just a ‘what if’ to keep in mind while we wait for more info.

Finally got my back ordered Lovegood house this week. A couple of fun things I noticed: We’ve finally got a new Quibbler cover print. It’s not super obvious since it’s tucked away in the printing press when the set is built, but there’s a 2x3 tile with a print of the unnumbered edition featuring a large multiheaded caricature (previous Quibbler tiles were always the iconic no. 240274 with the spectraspecs). It gets zero attention in the shop@home set photos, but there is a specialized tile+sticker to recreate Luna’s painting of her friends on her bedroom ceiling. This was a lovely detail from the books that never made it to the movies since they decided to cut out the part where Luna’s room is visited, so I’m really happy to see it on Lego form. The clear parts used for the projector feature are printed with the Deathly Hallows symbols, not stickers. It seems like a good fact to put out there since some people were probably worried about how well that play feature would work with their sticker applying abilities (or just stickers in general).

I think ‘B’ is probably the rumored K-Pop Demon Hunters sets – in part because there are two 12+ sets there and experience says that’s more likely to be because they’re buildable objects rather than playsets for a more mature theme (examples: the Wednesday playsets are 10+ despite the show being very dark. Harry Potter playsets are between 7-10+ but several of the buildable objects/animals are 14+). A buildable Derpy Tiger is an obvious choice for a set (there have been multiple Ideas submissions), so I could easily see him being 72421 or 72422, the other one being a buildable Huntr/x logo with a trio of minidolls or minifigs, and 72423 being a big stage playset with plenty of characters. The leak didn’t specify if we were looking at two returning themes and one new, or one returning theme and two new, so ‘P’ and ‘Lollipop’ are really up in the air. Personally, I think ATLA has a stronger chance of getting new sets than TMNT or SpongeBob simply because Legend of Aang is coming out this year and the theme has definitely seems more popular than the other two as far as Lego Ideas submissions go.

Latest leaks name three code-named themes that are ‘new IP and returning’: - P (one set: 72306 $160) - B (three sets: 72421 [12+], 72422 [12+], 72423 $120) - Lollipop (one set: 72537 $70) And I’m dropping the info here because conceivably one of these could be a tie in set for the September CMF since new IP is mentioned. (I suspect B is the rumored K-Pop Demon Hunters sets and one of the others is supposedly a returning theme, but that still leaves a medium or large sized set) It seems prudent to bring up the possibility, since the biggest sticking point for IPs like Shrek and Narnia is “majorly important quadrupedal characters are too large to be a Minifigure accessory”, which having a tie in set would fix.

At the end of the day, both Star Wars and GotG have both gotten Christmas specials (even if the holiday was renamed in the rather infamous Star Wars offering). Ninjago hasn’t, and after so many years as one of LEGO’s in-house evergreen themes, I’m assuming there’s multiple reasons why it’s never had an advent calendar before. (One of those reasons probably has to do with the fact that none of LEGO’s more specialized in house themes have gotten advent calendars since they started doing them regularly.) And none of this really has anything to do with the rumors that Harry Potter won’t have an advent calendar this year.

Bring back the trans clear and trans green mug (from the Harry Potter polyjuice set) as green beer? Although the issue there might be Lego’s ‘no realistic/contemporary alcohol’ rule

Uh… because the ninjas are culturally Japanese, Christianity is practiced by less than 1% of Japan’s population, and Christmas officially doesn’t exist in the Ninjago universe?

They used the same buildable props gimmick in the 2018 Friends calendar, which was similarly unpopular, so I’m not sure why they’d repeat that known mistake with Harry Potter years later (or why it would kill the theme’s annual advent calendar).

That can’t be right. The Harry Potter advent calendar always sells out before most of the others on Lego shop@home. But has there ever been a Lego or retailer exclusive advent calendar before?

The series 17 chef (who is much more similar to a chocolatier than any of the other professions you listed) didn’t though. So it’s not like there’s any hard precedent.

The problem is exactly that they’re both obviously Slytherin rooms so it might be hard to immediately recognize that they aren’t part of the same complex of rooms. The Grand Staircase Tower had only the first three stone challenges (all connected) in the underground section while the Great Hall featured two distinct locations separated by an obvious plain corridor module to make it obvious they’re not connected.

1) The Hospital Wing is not a large castle section, it’s a medium one less than half the size of the other sets with common rooms. So they already have changed their pattern. 2) The Chamber of Secrets takes up A LOT of space and is subterranean. The Slytherin common room is also subterranean. Trying to include them both in the same set would be difficult size-wise (and, frankly, visually confusing to have the great big snake themed Chamber with a small snake themed module squashed next to it that doesn’t actually have any physical connection to the larger underground section). Therefore, some of us have already theorized that the Lego designers put this year’s commonroom/house ghost combo into the much smaller Hospital Wing set in the winter wave so the largest summer wave set could devote its entire underground section to the Chamber of Secrets with Myrtle as the ghost. It would mean the pattern is ‘one house ghost + common room per year’ instead of ‘house ghost + common room in every large set’ (which as discussed has already been broken by point 1). We’ll likely get the Slytherin common room and Bloody Baron next year.

The Minifigures team seems to be consciously going out of the way to give us at least one period (but not medieval or pirate) character in recent normal series. We’ve had the Steampunk Inventor, Noir Detective, Newsboy, and the Marie Antoinette expy. I like the trend, personally. It breaks up the rut of castle-city-futuristic space that CMFs could easily get stuck in if they only went with popular demand, and it definitely fits the ‘not wanting something that could come in a normal set’ ideal a lot of people mention as wanting from the theme. (also, all these characters are just objectively fun, even if they’re not all something I’d personally buy)

The list of observations put out by the leaker seems to be one for each fig in the same order as the character list they put out (for instance: ‘Soccer Goalkeeper, Marine Biologist, Tuba Player’ corresponds to ‘new soccer ball, new Nemo fish element, new tuba’). That means the observation about the brown D&D dragon piece goes with the Chocolatier. Meaning the dragon is likely appearing in brown because it’s a chocolate sculpture. The Chocolatier is also stated to be Willy Wonka adjacent, so we should expect a character with period clothes instead of a modern chef’s jacket.

It gets even more frustrating when we’re having this whole conversation in a thread about Collectible Minifigure Series. “Lego already made a $300 18+ set and Brickheadz for the Teens Fight Supernatural Monsters streaming show, why wouldn’t they use the potentially R-rated movie based off my favorite Adults Beating Each Other Up video game as the license for their latest line of traditionally 5+ blind boxes that commonly gets sold in checkout lines next to the candy and soda?”

Technically, Crabbe would be new and Goyle hasn’t been done since 2011.

Molds don’t really retire. If they go out unused for long enough it becomes a little more expensive to bring them back, but the mold still exists unless the master gets damaged in some way (this apparently is what happened to the goat) or Lego’s style evolves so much it’s no longer in system. The smooth haired cat and kitten molds have been in pretty consistent use since they were introduced – cats are domestic animals that can be thrown into generic City sets and modular buildings very easily. So even though the longhair hasn’t appeared outside of a CMF yet, I really don’t think there’s anything to worry about. (And if Mrs. Norris does show up using the longhair mold, then she’ll keep it in general use for years) I’m expecting the entire underground section to be devoted to the actual Chamber. The set is huge, but wit the chute and landing area, tunnel collapse, and inner chamber there’s a lot of ground to cover, so I don’t think the Slytherin common room will actually fit. In the upper levels, Myrtle’s bathroom and the graffitied corridor outside are a must. But with the Hospital Wing, Dumbledore’s Office, Dueling Club, and even Transfiguration classroom having all been done already, the rest of the upstairs probably will be based off location rather than movie association (similar to how the Grand Staircase Tower features Dumbledore’s Office because that’s where the office is located despite the fact that the rest of the set is based off the first movie). That section of castle included the Library in the 2018 microscale, and while that set played a bit fast and loose with a lot of locations, the Library is a solid choice to include here as a larger room that features in many of the movies but doesn’t have any scenes worth making a standalone set of (the last and only decently sized version was bundled with the previous Dumbledore’s Office set). Character wise, I’m not inclined to be optimistic about getting a new polyjuice trio. Previous polyjuiced minifigures have been in sets that exclusively represent the scene the characters were polyjuiced during. In contrast, the big showstopper here is supposed to be the Chamber of Secrets. Nobody wants have Harry fighting the Basilisk with the sword of Gryffindor while wearing Slytherin robes. Likewise, nobody wants the Harry from one of his most climatic scenes stuck with one expression because he’s got Goyle’s face on the back of his head. We might get polyjuiced Hermione, since she doesn’t participate in the final fight, but not the boys. Since we know there are a dozen minifigures, I’d say: 1)Harry, 2) Ron, 3) Ginny, 4) Tom Riddle, 5) Lockhart, and 6) Myrtle are all pretty certain, with the two Weasleys the strongest candidates for the set’s anniversary patronus. For the rest, my guesses are 7) Hermione, 8) Filch with Mrs. Norris, 9) Justin, 10) Crabbe, 11) Goyle, 12) a Ravenclaw student (I won’t even pretend to know who it will be, but all the large installments of this castle system have included at least one student from each house so far). I don’t care what color Lockhart’s robes are as long as he has a proper cloth cape. He needs to be able to collapse on the tunnel floor and he can’t to that with a plastic cape like the one he’s wearing in the Dueling Club set.

You’re right, and I am rather irked that Lego didn’t make use of it for the shop attendant in Quality Quidditch Supplies – the Sprout hairpiece with the built in earmuffs just isn’t as versatile as they want to pretend it is. I don’t see why a new Mrs. Norris is something to get glum about. Sure, the first version was great and I’d rather get a new Crookshanks, but with how big the East Wing is I’d be disappointed if it didn’t include the graffitied wall in minifig scale for the first time and Mrs. Norris to go with it. Think of it like the Snape minifigures – the 2018 version was excellent and the best we’d ever seen, but later versions with arm printing details were a delightful step up. Mrs. Norris is fluffy. Mrs. Norris is the first victim in CoS. Logically, an absolutely massive CoS set should include Mrs. Norris, and she should use the fluffy cat mold now that it’s available.