Accio Lego

I mean, at least with that you have the excuse that his hair might have grown out since his photo was taken.

The Dragon Escape from Gringotts is perfect for its own set, and frankly Lego would be stupid to try and roll it into a D2C. It has far too much potential to make money on its own. Too many people love dragons and would gladly pay out for a medium set no matter what theme it came from - why waste that by sticking it into one of the more expensive D2Cs?

Not necessarily. The architect’s statue from last year’s calendar features much more prominently in the Christmas scene from CoS, and things like the house banners, snowman, and miniature Hogwarts Express are purely random. I could easily see us getting some nanoscale dragons.

While I agree that a dead unicorn might be pushing it, I can still see Lego doing a set of that scene minus the corpse. With Harry, Draco, Firenze, the robed figure, and Fang. The only issue is that’s a tad minifigure heavy for a set with no obvious build choices - it’s not like the Aragog or Grawp sets where there’s a large creature build as the focal point. On an actual 2020 related note, now that the Star Wars advent calendar has been revealed, how long do you think it will be until we see the others? (I’m assuming that Harry Potter will be revealed with the non-licensed calendars since there are no regular sets left to be revealed with)

I agree. Hogsmeade is definitely my first choice for a D2C if we get another one. And it might be the only location left on a scale large enough for a D2C as well (although I think it should still probably come in at a lower price point than Hogwarts or DA). It would also be a great opportunity to give us some generic students in winter gear. Plus it’s the only way we’re getting Rosmerta and would significantly increase our chances of getting Aberforth as well.

You’ve actually stumbled across one of the things that irk me about the movie adaptation. In the books Ginny’s Pygmy Puff Arnold is purple, but in the movies they made him pink. Wonder why Warner Bros. went out of their way to change it to the more stereotypically ‘girly’ color , not that I think Ginny would necessarily hate the color but it’s annoying that they think we need the color pink to tell us ‘this character is a girl!’

Yeah, Tonks deserves a cocky smirk

Honestly, I just miss the old chromed swords. Pearl silver just doesn’t cut it for the Sword of Gryffindor.

Honestly, I was sort of hoping that Ron and his patronus would be a polybag/GWP type thing. But that was back when we were assuming that Luna’s patronus would just be a recolor of the preexisting rabbit piece. The reveal of the new hare, and more recent confirmation that Lego seems to be making all the patronuses hollow (presumably the plastic they’re using doesn’t look right when it’s molded too thick), sort of nixes that idea though, since Ron can’t just use a recolor of the current terrier mold. Ron and his patronus wouldn’t be a bad idea, but the matching versions of Harry and Hermione already exist in a set, and I’m not sure if Lego would want to do a mismatched trio (they were all clearly matching in series 1 after all). I’d personally put my money on A) a currently unseen matching trio modeled off a specific movie scene (I’ve favored the CoS polyjuice scene as a possibility since long before kingnono started his fake hints) + plus the leaked HBP Harry as a second version (like invisibility cloak Harry from series 1), or 2) the leaked HBP Harry is the only Harry, and is accompanied by HBP versions of Ron and Hermione (perhaps Ron in his quidditch gear and Hermione in her spectating outfit plus her flock of conjured birds - although I guess those would match more with Luna than Harry in this case). Ron with his patronus is still a possibility (see the DC series from earlier this year that had first appearance Batman and Wonder Woman, but surprised people by featuring a later version of Superman), but given the lack of unique outfit to go with an admittedly desirable accessory, I still would bet on it.

Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t something similar to this happen last year? The official US website said August for awhile but then changed closer to the July 1st release date, presumably because August was the general release but July was the exclusive release for B&N and Lego stores and that might have made things confusing behind the scenes? Maybe I’m wrong but I seem to remember going through this before.

Yeah, pretty sure the only things left for this theme that Lego hasn’t officially announced yet are the CMF and D2C, which typically have less time between their announcement and release than regular sets, and we really only know about those because of a couple of leaks.

I definitely agree that there’s a decent chance of getting multiple versions of some characters, especially the main trio. The main problem is that the more ‘doubles’ you have, the fewer obscure unique characters we’re likely to get, and I would love to get at least a couple random shoppers to add to the ambiance. I suppose if it’s just the golden trio that get two versions it wouldn’t be so bad though. And I can definitely sympathize with being impatient for more news. I’m in the US and can’t really justify the extra expense of having the sets shipped over before they’re released here, so I don’t even have building the current wave to keep me occupied while I wait. Discussing all the possibilities is definitely what’s holding me over for the next month or so.

Those black star spangled capes from the 2001-02 waves really are a nostalgia trip aren’t they? And the material they made them out of back then must have had a tendency to stick to itself because I have a nice little handful of extra capes from the sets I got back then. I think whether or not we get CoS versions of the trio + Draco and Ginny depends a lot on whether Lego decides to give us older and younger variations in the same set. If we’re only getting one version of each character I suspect they’ll stick to HBP, (although perhaps with Lockhart and Lucius still hang out in Flourish and Blotts) just because WWW will be such a strong presence if it’s there and the casual clothes are more interesting. For that matter, even if we do get the Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Draco from CoS I could see us getting PS/SS Harry to go with them, because he’s only wearing a solid colored shirt and pants under his cloak and his oversized hand me downs are much more iconic since they appeared in the Ollivander’s scene (on a related note, Ron is wearing his Weasley Christmas jumper under his cloak, the same one from last year’s advent calendar).

Given how small a part the flashbacks have in the movies (and even in the books) I think it’s far more likely that 2022 will see them start going back and do things like the Forbidden Corridor and the Chamber of Secrets. The Chamber especially has been talked about and coveted since the theme’s reboot and 2022 will be the 20th anniversary of the original set too.

Out of curiosity, for those who already have the Room of Requirement, are the hare and otter hollow? None of the leaked or official pictures have show the undersides, but it kind of looks like they’re both hollow and open at the bottom, as opposed to a solid piece of plastic like other animals of that size.

I can’t weigh in on how things will be done in Europe, but: - no official news on when the polybag will release - so far all we know about September’s CMF is what we saw on the leaked package - Most leakers were claiming that 75978 is the D2C before kingnono came along, and with him discredited most people are going back to assuming that’s the case, especially since as time goes on it gets less and less likely that we wouldn’t have heard about a regular retailer exclusive set. - no news on the Hagrid and Buckbeak brickheadz, but there hasn’t been much brickheadz news recently (if you don’t count the news that some of the assumed brickheadz sets were actually accessory packs), so I wouldn’t be totally surprised if there was a very short turnaround time between the images dropping and the official release

No. Only B&N and Lego stores had them in July (except for Expecto Patronum, that was a Target or Walmart exclusive, along with a number of other summer wave sets of the same price point). All other retailers didn’t get the Harry Potter sets until August.

Yeah, especially since Lego stores had them available at that time too. There’s usually double vip points the first couple days of July and if you’re going to get several sets anyway it’s nice if it lines up with a promo like that.

Ugh, yeah, the biggest let down of the Quidditch set is that they felt the need to make the Quaffle stud shooter compatible

Personally, I’d be happy with a minifigure pack now that they’re on the table. It’s not even like they’d have to use unnamed characters for it - Cho Chang, Roger Davies, Cedric Diggory, and Zacharias Smith - there, two from each house. Add in a little side build, a bunch of broomsticks and the golden snitch and you’ve got a perfect little accessory pack.

The way I see it, with the world the way it is right now there’s hardly anything you can buy that won’t put money in the pockets of someone with unpalatable social stances. Since she’s one of the few people to get off the billionaires list by donating to charity, I see JKR as at least being a better option than someone like Jeff Bezos, even if I am disgusted by what she’s saying on Twitter right now. And it always does well to remember that most of the money you pay for merchandise goes the company who designed and made it, only a very small percentage of it would be for royalties (and as you said, that’s already been paid before the products hit the shelves anyway).

I saw that. The earlier pictures that showed the polybag contents didn’t have the clip piece, just the hollow stud, but the image of the package makes it clear that the pieces are supposed to be combined to allow Hedwig to carry the broom as many people here had been speculating about.

Do we have anyone reliable who’s said they have inside information on what the D2C is though? I was under the impression that the initial leaks were just that there was a Harry Potter D2C and most of the people reporting it have just said it’s probably Diagon Alley. (Not that there aren’t good reasons to suspect it’s DA, but until there’s official word or physical leaks that couldn’t come from anything else it seems prudent not to get too invested in the idea)

Ah yes, I remember the 2011 castle had a snake on the floor of a ‘dungeon’ space and I spent several minutes trying to get it to stick down on the studs before finally realizing that the blasted thing didn’t actually fit like I thought it would - pretty sure the only previous sets of gotten snakes in were ones like the CoS or Slytherin common room were they’re clipped to the wall, so the revelation that they didn’t fit around studs was a bit shocking.

I remember that! In hindsight the debate about whether or not he was legitimate or a fake was hilarious.