Accio Lego

Yeah, it was buried way down at the bottom. I’m not even sure why I scrolled that far but a real nice surprise nonetheless. Between the points from the July sets and the ones I got from waiting to buy the Hogwarts Castle until it was double points in November plus a few things in the meantime I’ll have enough to get both the August sets with VIP credit so I’m pumped.

So the July calendar didn’t have anything but this the latest VIP email says there will be double points starting July 1st.

I can’t imagine working and the biggest chain bookstore in the country and somehow not knowing anything about Harry Potter. Between the special displays most stores have up full time now and the regular Harry Potter events many have you’d think it would be hard not to pick things up by osmosis if nothing else. At least they helped you with your reservations :). It’s interesting that Barnes and Noble doesn’t seem to be getting the Expecto Patronum set at all, or at least not early with the rest of the sets. It might have something to do with it’s size - I noticed that the Aragog and Grindelwald sets tend to linger longer on the shelves, and a market analyst might see that and think the lowest price point set won’t be as popular, without realizing that the subject matter of this one will make it much more tempting.

The antlers are a separate piece though - they’re made out of an entirely different plastic then the rest of the stag. It’d be fairly simple to just replace the antlers with a ‘blank’ piece when the animal is assembled in the factory.

They’d need the original mold modified, or a separate ‘plug’ piece made, but it would still be better that making a new large creature from scratch.

I’ve downloaded it on my laptop. Doesn’t look like there are any double points on all purchases like there was last year, but there also isn’t anything about the monthly 2x points sets. I wouldn’t be completely surprised if they decided to stop putting the VIP points promotions on the calendars altogether, since they’d already stopped naming the specific sets that would be double points each month and we’ve only finally gotten the gift with purchase promos back on the calendars.

It would just be recoloring an existing piece, but I don’t think Aberforth’s goat ever appeared in the movies (he casts a patronus, but it’s one of those big shockwave ones that the studio never figured out were a lot less cool than a proper corporeal patronus). We’ve probably got a much better chance of getting DA ones next year and/or Snape’s for DH.

I agree, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley are the best candidates for D2Cs as far as I’m concerned - I think the question always was if the various pubs would be included in those larger sets, as opposed if they’d get sets of their own. I definitely like the idea of getting Madam Rosmerta and Aberforth Dumbledore as well, they’re both rather minor characters that have fun unique character designs.

Either that or house elves can get drunk off just sugar. Not out of the question considering that even in the real world different animals process drugs differently. In any case, the real life version of butterbeer formulated for the parks is non-alcoholic. I suspect when JKR invented it she was thinking of drinks like ‘root beer’ and ‘ginger ale’ - it is essentially ‘butterscotch beer’ after all.

Both pubs serve alcoholic beverages (like mulled mead and firewhiskey) but presumably have a strict policy of not serving them to students. It occurs to me that it probably helps if the alcohol the characters are drinking is entirely fictional too - as far as I’m aware the signature brew in the theme parks is their own creation, they haven’t brought to like any of the alcoholic beverages like they did butterbeer. Since the reason for the ban is to prevent small children from recreating realistic scenes of drunkenness and alcohol abuse, I presume the more fictional it is the better.

When you look at Lego’s guidelines for, say, an Ideas contest, they specifically warn against depictions of alcohol use in ‘present day’ settings. Theoretically, that means fantasy, sci-fi or historical settings are ok. Plus, it’s not like butterbeer is alcoholic.

True, it’s a notable location, but I think most people wouldn’t immediately associate it with Diagon Alley, either because they know it’s not a proper part of the Alley or because there are so many more notable store that are in the Alley itself. In any case, I think it’s better suited to being a stand alone set next wave if only to flesh out the number of HBP sets. Particularly because it’s likely to fall into the $30-40 range.

Yeah, it’s just not on the B&N website. I wonder if it’s going to be a temporary retailer exclusive like the Quidditch/Hogwarts Express sets were last year.

I think you’re overestimating how iconic Borgin and Burke’s is, especially in relation to Diagon Alley. Frankly, I consider its inclusion in the 2011 set one of the drawbacks - I’d much rather have had the twins’ shop or Flourish and Blott’s. Besides, if we’re going by historical sets, back in 2001-02 there were small sets for Quality Quidditch Supplies, the Magical Menagerie, and a general magical supplies shop. I think an important thing to remember is that even if the non-fans don’t know the names of all the shops, they can get excited about the magical contents and feel of them. Plus, one could argue that a $400 model of Hogwarts would only appeal the the ‘super fans’ as well, but the current D2C seems to be selling well enough.

So the Harry Potter sets are up on the Barnes and Noble website, as well as a special page advertising the promo, and it looks like they really only have the 4 sets, no Expecto Patronum.

I don’t think so really, Hogsmeade is always covered in snow, but the Winter Village sets have a distinct holiday theme which isn’t present in those scenes. Besides, many of the people collecting the Harry Potter sets won’t be too interested in the winter village sets, so I doubt they’ll be taking business away. Plus, is Lego really going to complain if some winter village collectors grabs Honeydukes and the Three Broomsticks to beef up their winter village display? I’m beginning to think that we might at least get Gringott’s and Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes as separate sets. If nothing else it means they can make those sets fully based off DH and HBP respectively, while having the bulk of the Alley in the D2C be based off the first two movies. It helps that neither building shares a wall with the main block of shops in the alley, and by doing those two separately the smaller shops in the D2C (Ollivander’s, Florish and Blott’s, etc.) would get a little more attention design wise.

Weird, what Barnes and Noble mailing list are you on? I get their emails regularly but I haven’t got that one yet. In any case, this seems to mesh with what we already knew, except for perhaps the absence of the Expecto Patronum set from this list.

Fun fact (if I’m remembering correctly) the interior of the Three Broomsticks was actually designed and built for the theme park before it was built and filmed in the 6th movie, so the theme parks do have some precedence. With the places that actually fully appear in the movies you’ve already got The Three Broomsticks, The Hog’s Head, Honeydukes’, and the Shrieking Shack. Add on Zonko’s and any other well known locations (such a shame the parks don’t have Madam Puddifoot’s ) and you’ve got more than enough for a D2C, you’ve just got to choose which buildings. As for the giant magical creatures, I don’t think anyone would mind a Horntail do over. I don’t see why just because one Harry Potter D2C is a ‘display piece’ (which still has a very doll house feeling interior and plenty of characters) that Lego can’t do other Harry Potter D2Cs that are system scale. They do plenty of both for other themes like Star Wars (just look at your average UCS spaceship vs the Cloud City set).

I was thinking that Borgin and Burke’s would be an excellent medium set for next year’s wave - especially since the microscale Diagon Alley makes it look like they want to make the eventual full sized set more accurate, hence no way to sneak Borgin’s in the way they did in 2011. I was also thinking, essentially the DA room configuration is more focused on the characters and what they do there (making it more playable) while the Room of Hidden Things configuration is all about the items. It would be pretty easy for Lego to give us a polybag/minifigure pack type thing that would allow us to add the second Vanishing Cabinet, Draco in his black suit, and maybe some extra Death Eaters. Take the target dummy out of the DA room and put in the vanishing cabinet and a couple other things and Boom - room of hidden things. If nothing else we could cross our fingers for a DH room of hidden things, then we could set it on fire ?

Death scene aside, any big castle section from next year is going to have to include a version of the room of requirement, and I can’t help think that the DA meeting room has more playability than the room of hidden things.

When you think about it, only 3 out of the 7 minifigures are actually Christmas themed, even though 2 of the remaining 4 have new elements as well. You could easily draw out the missing Yule Ball characters for years if you compliment them with standard variations that already exist or preexisting Yule Ball variants. Still hoping they temper that with selections based of the 2nd, 5th, 6th and 7th movies as well.

The Astronomy Tower is almost certainly going to come next year - the question is whether they’ll actually do that scene or make it OotP themed like the Clocktower is GoF themed, despite featuring more in PoA and having all the rooms necessary to recreate the scenes if you have the right minifigures (I’m inclined to think the latter, since the Rise of Voldemort shows a clear reluctance to depict an actual death in a set, but a willingness to give older fans the parts to put it together if they want).

Yeah, and a great way for us to get an updated Professor Sprout, although there’s a good chance she’ll show up in a CMF like Flitwick did, but then we’d at least have somewhere to put her. As far as I’m concerned, Sprout is one of the only minifigures introduced in the 2010-11 wave that is in desperate need of an update (there actually aren’t that many characters left that truly need radical updates, Lockhart and diary Riddle mainly, although the non-Ron Weasleys and a handful of others could do with some sprucing up too). Sprout was wildly inaccurate even when she first showed up in the battle of Hogwarts set. The old skirt piece made her taller than all the other characters (despite being about midway between Flitwick and the rest of the teachers in height) and the classic witch’s hat just doesn’t work for her. I’d love to see her in a CMF or greenhouse set with mid legs and a fabric skirt piece with a new hat-hair piece as well - you know, something that actually looks like her.

The fact that you’re almost certainly right about this is rather exciting. Because the longer the theme goes on, the more characters they’ll have to pull from for the calendar (notably, the only possible new face print this year is Flitwick, which is probably why we have so many new torsos) Since this year’s calendar is almost completely based off the first movie I wonder if they’ll pull from Chamber of Secrets polyjuice scene (Harry/Goyle, Ron/Crabbe and Draco are pretty easy, Percy would be an interesting exclusive character for completion’s sake - the only tricky thing is that cat Hermione definitely needs a different hair piece than the current cat eared one available) for next year’s? Or maybe take advantage of the existing Yule Ball figs and have the trio in their dress robes as the repeats with the Patil twins and spoorn Moody or Neville+Ginny as the new exclusives?

Honestly I was thinking the same thing, although Draco doesn’t part his hair straight down the middle like that, it’s still pretty close