Accio Lego

You should be able to sign up online without purchasing anything. https://www.lego.com/en-us/vip this is the link to the US VIP site, if the link isn’t working or you’re in another country it’s pretty easy to get to from the shop@home homepage. Just open the drop down menu and the link saying ‘VIP’ with a little crown should be towards the bottom.

I mean, at the very least they can’t put off the official CMF reveal longer then that. And at this point I’m hoping the CMF reveal is being coordinated with the Diagon Alley reveal - it’s the only reason I can see putting it off so long when the figs have already escaped into the wild.

There’s no guarantee we’ll actually get a gwp at this point. Sure it’s possible but by no means certain.

Yeah, grammar is the thing most likely to get screwy with translation programs like whatever that Japanese description was put through. That might be part of it, plus I suspect they’ll be going with the theme park version of Fortescue’s and featuring a giant ice cream cone on the facade (it would explain why we only see a specials menu on the leaked sticker sheet - Lego isn’t cruel enough to make us apply stickers to a cone), so that will be pretty distinctive as well. Incidentally, both those stores are probably better known for featuring in the Orlando theme park then their appearance in the movies. In fact, the only stores in the set to not have an actual location that you can go in and buy things from is Flourish & Blotts and the Daily Prophet offices.

I think we can safely say that coordination between different departments/offices and cutting edge digital platforms are not LEGO’s forte.

Yes that is where they first appeared, and since the only other time they appear in the movies is on the Hogwarts Express it makes sense that this would be the only set they could possibly appear in. Frankly, that would be even better than getting Arnold as an accessory for Ginny in a CMF, since it would mean getting multiples in pink and purple. I mean, it was put up before the set was officially announced and taken offline shortly after, so that’s probably exactly what happened.

While it’s a bummer Gringotts doesn’t seem to be in the set, out of all the buildings they could have skipped over it’s certainly the one most likely to get its own set, probably next year in fact, so it’s something I’ll begrudgingly accept. The fact that this seems to confirm the ice cream parlor as being a fully realized storefront is pretty awesome though. And the phrase “includes your favoritecharacters, magical creatures, familiar places, etc.“ sounds very promising.

Not necessarily, it specifically says “There are lots of famous shops that appear in movies, such as the entrance!” Perhaps they simply left out the name?

5,444 does sound pretty great for DA if it’s true. That would give it around 1000 pieces each for WWW and Gringotts (which better be included for that piece count), 650 each for Ollivander’s and F&B (since they need interiors), 450 each for Scribbulus, QQS, the Daily Prophet offices, and Fortescue’s, and a couple hundred left over for some roadway and a brick wall play feature to represent the entrance.

If you bought a complete series through amazon it was probably a reseller. There will likely be plenty of people selling complete sets at a markup like that on amazon, ebay, and other sites like that. Those of us who are talking about buy a whole box are considering it because they typically would have done so anyway or the COVID crisis in our area has made our normal bag feeling methods untenable and we’d rather buy a box and sell the extras ourselves than buy a full series at a markup.

Basically, the headlining characters of the series are all Gryffindors. As far as students go, the only main characters not in Gryffindor are Draco Malfoy and Luna Lovegood. It’s probably hard to squeeze in random students in Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff/Slytherin robes when you’re working around half the slots already filled by Potters, Weasleys, and Grangers - that’s why so many people were receptive to the idea of a CoS polyjuiced trio, it was a good opportunity for Slytherin robes.

But Jack has fairly small a nondescript feet, as opposed to Bugs’ big rabbit feet. And even if they can potentially pull off tall skinny characters that doesn’t solve other nonstandard body types like Taz, Sylvester, or Tweety Bird.

I mean, the price did increase from $3.99 to $4.99, so presumably? It just wasn’t super apparent in the DC or series 20 sets, but it definitely is here.

Still, it’s hard to really tell because our pictures of both the box art and pamphlet is subpar, it will be great to finally get confirmation from photos of the actual piece.

Ginny and Lily have double sided heads too! Nice. Looks like Griphook doesn’t though, so that leaves him and Kingsley as only having one face option and Neville still unknown, a pretty great number for a CMF.

Okay, I’ve been operating under the assumption that the sword of Gryffindor was silver with red printing for the rubies, but this picture actually makes it look like there are trans red elements molded in the hilt?!? I really need promobricks to release the next section of their review, not getting a proper look at that sword is driving me crazy.

Yeah, I wondered about that when I first saw it. I mean, Disney series 3 seems pretty inevitable with the Winnie the Pooh Ideas set in the pipeline. And there were substantial enough rumors about a Marvel series earlier this year that I figured Lego must have at least finally gotten the right licenses for it (making it another inevitability). This rumor kind of comes out of left field. I’m also a little wary about how a Loony Toons series could be done given the format. The standard minifigure design is pretty blocky and obviously uniform, which works okay if you’re translating real life actors or working with a cartoon that roughly sticks to normal human proportions for most of its characters. But one of the most recognizable parts of the Loony Toons cast is their zany body proportions. Tall, lanky characters like Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote, characters with long arms and torsos but short legs like Sylvester and Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety Bird’s large head and feet with a comparatively tiny body, whatever the heck is going on with Taz... heck, I could probably write a whole essay on why feet shape is important to recognizing some Toons and we all know that minifigure feet are vestigial at best. The point being that the uniformly blocky minifigure bodies could be a real stumbling point to making some of the most popular characters. Another reason I’m skeptical is I’m not sure how popular Loony Toons are with kids right now. Sure a bunch of AFOLs are excited at the idea, but for every full case that Lego sells to one of us they probably sell the equivalent of a dozen more in parents and kids grabbing a few blind bags for fun. That doesn’t exactly work if kids aren’t interested in the characters. So, yeah, grain of salt indeed.

Personally, I’m almost certainly going to be delaying getting DA the same way I did with the Hogwarts D2C. Avoid the initial rushes and selling out and wait for a slightly more convenient time. Since I suspect that I’m going to end up investing in a full box of the CMF (and selling off the extras), I’m going to prioritize getting that first. After all, the CMF will only be produced for 4 months and then stay on shelves on as long as it takes to sell out afterwards. Meanwhile, D2Cs will get produced for a couple of years, so there’s no worry that it won’t be there after the initial rush. Pretty sure my local Lego store is hard lining the September 1st release of the regular sets, so I’ll likely get a look at the display model while I’m in to get those and take a chance to fawn over it and figure out how much shelf space I have to prepare though

Great to finally have high resolution pictures of at least some of the characters. The trio are well done even if none of us were really waiting with bated breath for these variants - still, very nice prints on all of them and the butterbeer mugs and copy of Advanced Potion Making are amazing (and I am absolutely delighted at the inside 1x2 tile, absolutely perfect). Dumbledore’s also great, love the fact that his skirt piece has printing on the back as well, and Fawkes is amazing. Can’t wait to see the next batch (high res pics of the Sword of Gryffindor!) Question though, do promobricks do English translations of their articles? I’d love to be able to read the actual reviews.

It would also make them a little more distinct from Arthur.

Yeah, I’ve been checking here frequently, expecting to see another 20 pages pop up the minute we get a full set of HD pics but nothing so far

I am not in one of the states where the infection rate is low enough for me to consider browsing Target or Walmart a good idea, but I assume if anyone had found the CMF stateside then we’d have more leaked pics by now. Target and Walmart are more likely just to put the sets out whenever they arrive, but I still wouldn’t expect anything from them until mid August.

We know it can be reach via the floo network, since Harry (tries) to use it to get there in CoS. But since Harry doesn’t come out at the right grate it’s never stated where in the Alley the connected floo fireplace is. Most people assume the Leaky Cauldron, but I can see it being somewhere else to bypass the brick wall entrance. Presumably, adult wizards and witches will also apparate directly into the Alley, since I can’t imagine trying to land in the middle of a cramped pub would be considered convenient, or polite for that matter.

That’s definitely a good point, and how crazy would it be to get all three sets of the trio’s parents in one year. The only stumbling block I can see is that muggles might be considered too ‘normal’ to take up minifigure slots that could otherwise be filled by quirky witch or wizard characters.

I think it’s more likely that we’ll get a Borgin & Burke’s set, since literally no other Knockturn Alley shops are mentioned in the books or movies (there are a couple other dummy storefronts in the KA section of the theme park, but as cool as they are to watch and play with they wouldn’t make for a great minifigure scale display). On the bright side, that makes it much easier for Lego to do it whenever they feel like - since one small shop could easily be done as a moderately priced regular wave set. With 2021 probably being DH based, we could potentially see B&Bs as soon as 2022 (which would be rather fitting as that would be the 20th anniversary of its first appearance on the silver screen).