Accio Lego

January City wave is mainly vehicles, so pretty stingy on animals. But there is a standard grey shark in one set and a new color of vested dog (tan with orange) in the Coast Guard Rescue Boat. And as an embarrassment of riches, the Friends style axolotl appears in both pink and aqua in the same set!

Luckily, the Bloody Baron as he appeared in the movies really needs a brand new hair mold. GWPs never really introduce new molds, so as long Lego doesn’t do a Louis XIV style character in a CMF we don’t really need to worry about them locking him behind a limited time threshold like that.

I feel like if they were going to do it, they’d have done it when the theme launched to take advantage of the mold budget to flesh out the new theme quickly like they did with the Harry Potter reboot.

I think a DC series has a good chance of happening. Even if we ignore the chance for Lego to subtlety plug their upcoming Batman game, there must be someone high up at the company kicking themselves after the Superman movie did so well this summer and all they had to offer with the character was one small set that will be retiring soon (and if you want anything with Krypto, Lois Lane, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Supergirl, or Mister Terrific? Fat chance). A Minifigure series would be the quickest way to reassure fans that they are, in fact, aware that heroes other than Batman exist in that universe, and would probably sell insanely well if they slipped in Krypto and some other super pets. Still scratching my head over how Sesame Street, a show that is at its core a fun way to teach kids the basics before they start school, and Lego, a toy built around creativity and learning, did not use that Ideas set to kickstart a longer collaboration involving several 4+ sets. It just seems like such an obvious choice. But things have shaken up with the show recently and now Netflix is hosting it, so we might see something new considering how many other Netflix shows are currently being made into Lego.

If nothing else, we’re vastly overdue with getting the raven in black with natural looking printing for the eyes. There are plenty of options that would pair well with one as an accessory after all.

Third party accessory sellers aren’t necessarily the best indicator of success. They’ll put out those frames no matter what because they know there will be some business for them, but they don’t disclose sales details anymore than Lego does. I dare say there are probably some F-1 fans who’d rather get the more compact version of the complete set instead of the larger speed champion style versions that Lego put out, but only so much of any CMF’s profit is collectors buying complete sets. Mini F-1 cars just isn’t going to have the same casual appeal as Disney characters or even an unlicensed series of minifigs, and parents might indulge their kids desire to find their favorite character, but are more likely to just buy however many cars their kids need to all race each other and be done with it or just skip the blind box and get the speed champion version if their kid is actually in to car racing enough to have a favorite team. Still not sure why Lego did let make it its own separate thing like Unikitty or Mario.

They also banked on the Space Jam sequel getting a younger audience interested in the characters and then the movie kinda flopped.

Harry Potter series 1 probably has the best odds because it’s a popular IP and has one of (if not the) largest number of unique characters in a single series at 22. Although since Disney has gotten 3 separate series (the most of any IP), they’ve probably done well in the past too. Any recent series with 12 slots is going to have trouble selling more units than the old ones that had 16 or more.

I mean, the kid appeal is debatable (they have actually done a kids show in the universe), but I’m going to have to disagree with you on the outfits. There are multiple different Star Trek series and most of them (and even some of the movies) have their own unique variations on the standard uniforms before you even get into things like dress uniforms. Then there’s space suits and the crew’s civilian clothes (not to mention when they use the holodeck or time travel), and there’s several characters and races that aren’t part of Starfleet and have their own uniforms. It would be pretty easy to fill a twelve slot CMF and not have any of the torso prints be repeats.

I think the benefit of using non-short legs on the fish suit was that it allowed the designers to include scale printing around the hips. Two thirds of this series has something extra going on with the legs, and the Fish, Frog, and Dalmatian specifically have prints that I’m pretty sure Lego just doesn’t do on short legs for manufacturing reasons.

I mean, I could easily throw together a list of twelve, I just don’t think there’s a need to when Harry Potter gets two full waves, a D2C, and an advent calendar every year (plus the occasional book with exclusive minifig). The two Harry Potter CMFs we got came out in a three year period where it was fairly obvious almost everything was pre planed following the reboot. I don’t think the designers were certain the theme would become evergreen until after the twentieth anniversary and the first switch of castle systems, and they wanted to get characters like Trelawney, Moody, Kingsley, and Harry’s parents done when they weren’t sure if the theme would continue, and use the mold budget from the CMF to kickstart the theme with a ton of custom parts. Now, though, it’s one of the better selling themes and they can drop characters like house ghosts, obscure teachers, and Xeno Lovegood at their leisure, so there’s no incentive to use a CMF slot for that. In contrast, licenses that don’t have any sets at all (Looney Tunes, Muppets), or large casts but only one or two sets (Simpsons, D&D, Spiderverse [yes, there are a lot of Spider-Man sets, but only a couple have been specifically based on the movie, which is centered around there being hundreds of spider people]) can make much better use of the extra characters and mold budget. If How to Train Your Dragon didn’t focus so much on the actual dragons, I’d say it was a prime candidate for a CMF (as is, their strange choice to make sitting chibi Toothless might have killed our chances of getting more from that license). I don’t know much about Zelda, but I’m pretty sure that would be a decent candidate too. Star Trek has had multiple generations of shows, all with full ensemble casts and unique alien designs, it’s actually a little surprising we didn’t get something to go with the eminent Enterprise set. And there have been plenty of Ideas themes that would work well (still not sure why the Sesame Street set didn’t turn into a 4+ theme – who knows, maybe Netflix will negotiate something now that it’s under their umbrella).

I imagine whoever designed that poster didn’t have access to the mold designers plans for the new motorcycle parts – presuming the new designs were even finished at the time the poster were made. I can understand Lego not showing the artist mid development new parts for a bit of promotional art like that.

It could also be something entirely new – this year’s was Spiderverse after all, which is actually a completely different license from the previous Marvel series. I’m also not expecting anything from Harry Potter, despite it being my favorite licensed theme, it’s well established enough by now that we’ve gotten a lot of characters and can feel pretty secure that the theme will continue on long enough to give up the ones that are missing eventually. If Simpsons gets a third series (not something I’m personally interested in) it will probably be in 2027 to coincide with the second movie coming out. D&D, Disney, and DC are all possible. Especially D&D since that was very well received even amongst non-fans and a two year gap between a license’s first and second series is something we’ve seen multiple times before.

I’m talking about a scene from the original book, which was not adapted for the movie. Luna takes Harry directly from the Room of Requirement to Ravenclaw tower to see what the Diadem looks like, where they get into a confrontation with the Carrows (with McGonagall becoming involved because the brother can’t get into the Ravenclaw common room without her answering the door knocker riddle for him). Afterwards McGonagall simultaneously casts three copies of her patronus at once to alert the other teacher to what’s happening. That’s how we know her patronus takes the form of a cat identical to her animagus form. The movies obviously cut all that for time – and Harry never saw Ravenclaw’s Diadem in the Room of Hidden things in the sixth movie like he did in the book, so seeing a statue with it wouldn’t have help much. That’s why McGonagall is lucky her patronus is the same animal as Umbridge’s, who cast on screen in a scene that has previously been made into a Lego set and is so reviled that nobody wants to see her celebrated in an anniversary series. In contrast, Arthur Weasley (Weasel), Cho Chang (Swan), Ernie McMillan (Boar), and Seamus Finnigan (Fox) were all shown casting their patronuses in the book, but had those scenes cut from the movie, so I think the likelihood of them showing up is next to none. Ginny, Aberforth, and Kingsley do get their patronuses shown though (ironic, since Ginny actually isn’t explicitly shown in the books), (and the former two are even preexisting molds) which is why Kingsley’s Lynx has the highest chance of becoming a new animal after the obvious Doe. Ironically, Dumbledore only casts his patronus ambiguously in the books (without the reader ever being told it’s a Phoenix) and never in the movies, so he’s relying entirely on the prominence of his character to make the cut.

Pretty sure you can see the real thing. The set leak includes several lifestyle shots and the otter is present in a few of them. Definitely looks satin instead of sparkly.

I don’t think Lego wants you to look that deeply into the implications… but I can’t say you’re wrong either… Honestly, Lego should have just leveraged the fact that they were featuring Hermione’s patronus to just skip the ‘class’ and Professor aspect and thrown Myrtle in as the second minifig and said it was based off the polyjuice brewing.

Lego has done a few other buildable object + concealed playset room sets in their minidoll lines (most of them being flowerpot based). The cauldron definitely pushes the limits of what they’ve done previously, with impressive results (the working stir stick is delightful), and minifigs being more compact allows for a little more elbow room on the inside too.

Damn, the Cauldron is an amazing display piece, plus has some neat parts inside. I might not be able to skip that. Also, looks like the patronuses will be pearlescent trans light blue this time, so anyone who wants all of them to match can’t rely on having the previous four that were released.

Plus, I’d argue that the Snape we got in the 2018 Bricktober pack isn’t really a ‘definitive version’ or without room for improvement. That minifig used a recolored Scarecrow hat that had an accessory pin hole – the original version came with a crow that you could theoretically get off bricklink if desired but wasn’t included in the pack. Of course, a crow isn’t a vulture, and Lego has never made a vulture mold at all, let alone one compatible with that hat. Given that the vulture adorned hat is the most notable part of Augusta Longbottom’s ensemble, I’d hope that Lego would eventually get around to making a proper version of it.

Let’s not forget the owls being nearly as tall as a short legs minifig. Makes first year Harry Potter look rather comical hauling around a pet practically the same size as himself.

The ‘bright side’ of this is that January will get almost all of the repeat patronus forms out of the way (Harry’s Stag is unsurprisingly being saved for later). That means the summer wave will definitely have new sparkly blue animals. You’re right that the Doe is pretty much guaranteed given its plot significance, which should be a new mold. Another one that’s practically certain is Ron’s dog, which may or may not be a new mold. To round out the wave (and possibly the D2C) top contenders would be Ginny’s Horse, Aberforth’s Goat, and Kingsley’s Lynx – all of which appear in some form in the movies – and Dumbledore’s Phoenix – purely due to his significance as a character. Of those, only the Lynx would be a new mold. There are a decent number of other canon patronuses, but most of them are handicapped by the fact that they never appeared on screen and their characters aren’t as critical as Dumbledore (McGonagall lucked out with her patronus animal being the same as Umbridge’s, since her cool patronus scene was cut from the movies).

The ‘same building’ designation is moot with the modular format, especially if they do a standalone classroom module like Potions or Charms for DADA. And let’s not forget that the last time Lego did the Chamber of Secrets they made Myrtle’s bathroom an entire separate set despite the Chamber set devoting an entire room to the slide down that didn’t work properly if you didn’t have the bathroom and its trapdoor installed directly above. In other words, if something exciting enough happens somewhere, then that location might get its own set, even if it’s connected to somewhere else.

Padma is (annoyingly) depicted as a Gryffindor in the movies, and it’s Parvati who has the giant cobra/jack-in-the-box boggart in the movie – Lupin even addresses her by name (and let’s not address how questionable it is to make her biggest fear a cobra when it’s canonically a mummy in the books). As an aside, whoever’s supervising character choices in the theme seems conscious of how much Padma’s house swap irks some of us, because her two minifig appearances so far (the 2020 advent calendar and Diagon Alley: Madam Malkin’s and Ollivander’s) have both had her out of uniform.

Lego typically loads new (non-D2C) sets to the ‘coming soon’ section of their website roughly a month ahead of time (so late November or early December for the January sets), and officially speaking third party retailers should follow the same timeline. In practice, the recent Stranger Things leak is an excellent demonstration of the fact that some third party retailers already have the set images and there are numerous ways they could be leaked to the public through them (in that case, someone accidentally uploaded the images to the listing for a completely different set).

The nice thing about DADA is that with the constantly changing Professors you could technically do half a dozen different versions of the classroom without actually repeating yourself (case in point, this is the third version since the reboot and they’ve all been radically different). And personally I’ve still got my fingers crossed for a proper Transfiguration classroom down the road. That said, the inclusion of the dementor makes me think that the scene represented is actually the Patronus lesson Lupin gives Harry, meaning that the module actually represents Lupin’s office. (I could be wrong, but with us getting Penelope and the Grey Lady instead of Neville and Boggart Snape, it seems more likely.) It would be a very easy mistake for someone to make.