Accio Lego

Mrs. Norris was made using the old kitten mold (when was that even last used?) in 2010, a few years before the current cat mold was introduced, so lego only used it back then because it was the only thing available. Obviously, we have no way of knowing if a new longhaired cat mold is involved, but it doesn’t matter if Mrs. Norris is a new cat mold or the current one, she’s going to have to be some shade of brown to be screen accurate and properly differentiate her from Crookshanks, and even if she uses the current cat mold that means a new color for it. Mrs. Norris was notably absent when her human companion Mr. Filch appeared in a set back in 2018 (which by all rights should have included her as well) so I’m kind of hoping that her finally appearing now in a set where she isn’t truly relevant means that a new longhaired Crookshanks actually is going to appear in one of the sets we don’t have character lists for, and lego is taking advantage of the new mold to do Mrs. Norris properly as well. That’s just me crossing my fingers and hoping for the bast though.

Not sure if you’re counting fantasy creatures - but there’s a rumor that one of the new Harry Potter summer sets will have a new Thestral (winged horse) foal. Mrs. Norris is said to come in one of the other Harry Potter sets, and while we have no way of telling if that could mean a new longhaired cat mold, I’m pretty sure the current cat mold has never come in brown before (correct me if I’m wrong), so that means at least a recolor.

Hard to say for sure. I’m seeing more sources saying May than April, but I don’t recall seeing a catalog spread of series 22 with a little blurb in the corner teasing the release month of the next series like we’ve gotten in previous years, so it’s possible that it’s all conjecture based on previous release dates. As for favorite muppets, I’m torn between Beaker and the Swedish Chef, with Animal and Miss Piggy high up there too, so I’m very glad they all made it into the CMF lineup

I think that’s the idea really, they’re all called tributes and feature the red ribbon and seal on the corner of the box. They’re all similar in sized and spending threshold (Amelia Earhart was cheaper but she didn’t come with multiple minifigs or molded animals). They all have relatively small footprints that allow you to tuck them on whatever shelf or desk corner you’d like. And I really like the angle of featuring significant historical figures. It seems lego is getting on a roll with these and I’m really looking forward to seeing more in the future.

The $120 set is almost certainly a retailer exclusive set. All the set details we get - names, piece counts, descriptions, and preliminary images - come from promotional material passed around to secondary retailers so they can decide how many units they’re going to stock, and for obvious reasons retailer exclusives don’t get included in that. It will get released at the same time as everything else. Personally, I also hope it isn’t more buildable figures, but my hopes are more towards No. 12 Grimmauld Place. (Fingers crossed that’s where the leaked lavender Tonks-esque hair comes from) We usually see pics in late April - early May, but we got the promo video for the Hogwarts Trunk coming out next week at the beginning of December and there are already June 1st Star Wars sets listed on shop@home so who can say for sure anymore.

While I can definitely see some very valid comparison points between LOTR/Hobbit and Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts, I’m not sure it’s a direct one to one comparison, and in any case, I don’t think that’s the real problem here. The thing is, having collected Harry Potter lego since the beginning, it’s fairly obvious that the level of detail in sets has gone way up, and with it our expectations for accuracy. Just look at the old Graveyard Duel set - Lego clearly had the concept art for Harry’s outfit, the winged death statue on Riddle Sr.’s grave, and not much else. There’s really no way to recreate the resurrection scene properly, as the statue that pins Harry to the headstone is far from ground level and lacks the scythe it had in the movie, presumably because Lego didn’t know it would do that. Add onto that the large number of extraneous builds that were ultimately just padding and Lego would never be able to get away with something similar today. Case in point, when Lego recreated the graveyard scene in 2019 it was much smaller and focused mainly on a screw accurate version of the gravestone whose main design feature was the fact that Harry could be trapped against it like in the movie. Now consider that while Lego has spent the last 20 years getting increasingly more detailed with their set construction, the movie industry has been getting increasingly more rabid about preventing spoilers and leaks, to the point of ruining their own movies because even the actors don’t actually know what’s going on. Sets that don’t accurately portray what people see in the movie just aren’t going to sell as well, and merchandising partners like lego are getting less and less information on what’s actually going on. Lego sort of got around that for the one CoG set they did by focusing on something simple that featured in the first trailer, but there were still plenty of accuracy complaints about the minifigs and ultimately it portrayed things that only appeared in the very first scenes and then disappeared for the rest of the movie. Of course the nostalgic and excitingly detailed Harry Potter sets were much more popular that year. Honestly, I think accuracy is one of the main things guiding Lego’s decisions here (just look at how they’re going back to early MCU movies when there’s constantly new content they’re also making sets for), because there really is a fairly obvious way to handle sets for the Fantastic Beasts franchise. Sure, none of the locations are on screen long enough to be set worthy (no matter how gorgeous some of them are), but Lego knows full well that buildable creature play sets based on a beast that only showed up for a scene or two in one movie can sell - that’s why there’s been at least one every single year since the theme rebooted. In fact, it looks like this will be the first year that doesn’t have at least one buildable creature in a playset, and since the two smallest sets both feature large molded creatures and it’s the third year running of buildable creature display sets I think there’s still ample evidence that Lego knows magical creatures sell. So it really can’t be a matter of Lego not knowing what to make sets of.

I’m honestly flabbergasted that we haven’t heard anything about Secrets of Dumbledore sets. The fact that when they introduced the collectible chocolate frog cards last year there was a separate little subsection of Fantastic Beasts characters that were even identified as such on the checklist included in the instructions seemed to me to indicate that Lego was actively trying to keep that subtheme alive (or at least remind people of its existence). I just can’t imagine why’d they do that if they weren’t planning on doing more with Fantastic Beasts. hadn’t really occurred to me - mainly because Harry Potter ghosts are typically monochromatic transparent, and while Star Wars force ghost do often appear that way, I seem to recall at least one instance of full color with a blue aura like the new piece gives the affect of. But you’ve got a point - while it’s not particularly screen accurate to either the graveyard duel (where the echoes appear like light and smoke) or the resurrection stone scene (where the summoned spirits look almost normal) it would be a neat way of showing incorporealness for characters we already have.

I mean, I wouldn’t be shocked if that were the case, but it takes more time than that to plan sets so I could also see Lego deciding that the mini August wave was going to be Fantastic Beasts on movie release years and Harry Potter on the years in between, but then the combination of the third movie being delayed (even before Covid hit) and neither of the August waves selling well made them decide that that particular release format wasn’t working (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they didn’t do an August wave in 2020 and then in January 2021 we saw the first Harry Potter winter wave).

The lack of piece count and set name means it’s almost certainly a retailer exclusive, and in previous years those have always come out at the same time as the rest of the sets in the same leaked number group have. The Fantastic Beasts sets in 2018 and the Rise of Voldemort and Beauxbatons Carriage sets in 2019 both came out in mini August waves, but we always knew the FB sets were separate that year and the 2019 set numbers were leaked separately from the rest at a later time. We’ve known 76408 is a Harry Potter set since the set numbers all leaked together, so it’s safe to say it will come out at the same time as the others – and any retailer that arranges to sell a set exclusively is going to want it to become available at the same time as all the other sets.

So now that we got pretty decent confirmation that the character lineup for the Ministry of Magic is DH1 based, that still leaves the question of where the Tonks who will be wearing the leaked lavender hair piece is going to appear. I see a few possibilities: 1. The rumored accessory pack 40560 is based on the OotP Ministry battle and will feature Tonks, Harry or another Order member, and a couple of generic Death Eaters. There’s some precedent for this as the two CMFs both had characters that ‘belonged’ in sets released alongside them, just in different years then what the set itself depicted (like quidditch Draco or HBP Luna from series 1 or advanced guard Kingsley from series 2) and last year’s accessory pack was clearly meant to enhance either the Hogsmeade set or Diagon Alley. 2. The Advent Calendar could be themed around Grimmauld Place, although this seems a tad tenuous as Tonks doesn’t appear in the Christmas scene. That being said, last year’s Advent Calendar broke away from the Christmas theme a bit (can’t say I’m thrilled at the idea of that becoming a pattern, but it gave us some nice builds) and with the 2020 calendar being Yule Ball themed that means the top contenders for this year’s to be based on are PoA and OotP. We’ve seen new recolors in the ACs before so it’s not impossible that OotP Tonks might turn up there. 3. The retailer exclusive set 76408 is still a complete unknown, and the $120 price tag seems to fit with the price the No. 12 Grimmauld Place would have to go for. With the Hogwarts Carriage now seemingly being the only OotP set for this year it wouldn’t be crazy to assume this mystery set might also be OotP based to balance things out. Those are my thoughts - curious to see what everyone else thinks is most likely.

Seems like a nice solid build for a gwp. Sturdy looking base with a little stream, nice selection of small trees, and obviously the Minifigure and chimps are great. Looks like a decent assortment of plant parts too. It looks very fun, looking forward to getting it.

Personally, I’m hoping that the lack of having to make sure a car can be securely balanced in the branches means that, even as a side build, this year’s Whomping Willow will be a bit more menacing than the 2018 one. And since the Shrieking Shack exterior is only ever seen from a distance and it’s ultimately more known for the scene that takes place inside rather than its lovely architecture, I think that lego can get away with a pretty bare bones build for that.

I actually once saw an entire calendar that was nothing but those pictures of goats in trees - there’s definitely a market for it

I can’t remember if it’s been specifically mentioned in regards to this set, but I know that the idea has been brought up before. I’m also wondering whether the higher price and the fact that it reportedly doesn’t follow the same format as Hedwig and Fawkes (according to that stonewars article) isn’t a sign that we might get more than one Minifigure. Because the most obvious choice would be first task Harry, with the golden egg if they don’t want to do a new mold, but he was already released in a cheaper set three years ago, so that hardly fits the pattern of including exclusive figs with these sets (and as the closest thing to a ‘remake’ we have this year I can’t really see Lego forgoing an exclusive minifig to entice collectors). Now, a First Task Harry with a new mini dragon mold and an exclusive Barry Crouch Sr. with the sack mold recolored purple, that I can see pulling in collectors to a buildable dragon set that apparently doesn’t have the same wing flapping function as Hedwig and Fawkes.

Umm… Thestrals appear in multiple scenes throughout the movie? And are symbolic to one of the overarching themes of the entire series??? To say nothing of how they’re enough of a fan favorite to be used as a hook during the opening of Crimes of Grindelwald. Definitely agree, and I’m doubly stoked for the Shrieking Shack as a result. The one thing I was worried about was that we wouldn’t get a new werewolf because Lupin doesn’t transform there, but clearly Lego are actively working around that. And the only thing I didn’t like about the transforming box from the original set was that it was a solid block of plastic that didn’t really blend in with anything else, something built in to the Willow or Shack would be perfect.

And people were still grumpy about it, although not as openly hostile. But I imagine the lack of info has a lot more to do with Lego cracking down much harder on leaks.

Wait, I heard March 3-15. Anyone have any clarification?

Don’t forget that last year we were also seeing a lot of chatter about how the $250 Harry Potter D2C “had to” be Gringotts, right up until the name leaked and people started getting cynical. I definitely agree the Gringotts would work much better as a stand-alone set, and I think too many people are too quick to discount the possibility of a motorized Hogwarts Express or another sculptural piece. Given then number of minifigs we got in Diagon Alley, I don’t think four full quidditch teams are in the cards, but otherwise it’s still a possibility. I think the reason most would consider it less likely is because it’s not as in your face as we’d expect the most expensive Harry Potter set ever to be. I think Lego could definitely make the idea work (they’re on what? The third international stadium set?) it is hard to imagine they’d do it at such a high price tag. But then, that’s the issue with pretty much any D2C theory right now, isn’t it? What new thing could Lego possibly do for that price?

Lee and Angelina are definitely at the top of my wishlist for missing student Minifigures. Not sure if I’d really want another quidditch set the size of the last one, but I’d definitely snap it up for those two. I do think we’d be better off getting an accessory pack or battle pack type set with at least one player from each house, mainly because it’s the only real format that would allow up to build up a Ravenclaw team as well.

Yeah, that would be a day one but for me I mean, rewatch the GoF scene where Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape discuss Harry’s entrance into the tournament. The lighting sucks so it’s hard to tell, but it looks like that outfit has a lot of black as well. And the picture promobricks used was from DH2 so they’re not giving much away.

True, but… there was a theme thing going on with the Moments sets (which are by necessity not as screen accurate). And we all know they only included Luna in the Chamber of Secrets set last year to complete the set of new house robes torsos, when they did that back in 2018 for the sweaters we proceeded to not see the Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff ones again until they did an accessory pack in 2020, so I don’t think Cho is meaningless filler here.

40560 and 40577 are both supposed to be for the Harry Potter theme and the 40xxx number series is used for accessory packs, brickheadz, and GWPs, so yes it’s practically confirmed. 40560 is already rumored to be an accessory pack, and with 40577 being a no sequential number it’s likely to be something different, although whether that means Brickheadz or a GWP we know about really far ahead of time is yet to be seen. As for CMFs, no luck this year. The two upcoming ones are Muppets and another unlicensed series.

While I do doubt we’ll get the pre-constructed transformation box again, I wouldn’t discount the possibility of the designers using technic parts to build something similar into the Shack itself. After all, something must be causing that low piece count/price point discrepancy, and some technic panels, gears, and spring mechanisms could explain part of it. Let’s face facts, with the current Castle System it’s far more likely that weld see the Lego designers put a bunch of owls in a 8x8 module and roof section attached to a larger set so they can at least give us something owlery-like than it is for us to get an actual separate tower (whose interior would mostly contain massive piles of bird poo). Sort of the same way that people are theorizing that Ginny comes in the Sirius’ Escape set because some part of Gryffindor tower (like the Fat Lady portrait entrance) makes up the module located under the cell where Sirius was held. True, but Cho kinda narrows it down a bit. She doesn’t appear in the movies before GoF, and by HBP she and Harry are avoiding each other. That means it pretty much has to be GoF or OotP, and if was the latter featuring Dumbledore’s dramatic exit why no Umbridge? Makes a little more sense if it’s the ‘staff meeting’ where we first see Dumbledore using his pensieve plus a side of painfully awkward teen romance and Filch stalking the halls. Plus, that could theoretically make the known summer sets 2 PoA, 2 GoF, and 2 OotP which is very satisfyingly balanced.

I mean, for the scene to work you do need to be able to steal the locket off Umbridge and I’ll hardly say no to another patronus, especially one that can double as McGonagall’s Unfortunately, I don’t think that will line up. The only time Dumbledore is shown with both Snape and McGonagall in his office during the movies is GoF, so that’s probably the movie the set is based off of, long before Dumbledore obtains the ring.

I’d definitely expect Fudge, Bellatrix, Dumbledore, or Voldemort, or maybe even all four, if this was an OotP set. The fact that we have none of them and Umbridge instead is definitely food for thought.