Accio Lego

I mean… it also has an unprinted light grey little owl on the front as a figural sign, the same way the Magical Menagerie has a kitten. I feel that’s a more obvious indicator that it’s Eeylops.

Now that we’ve got HQ images you can see the Prate Quartermaster has a gold tooth - very cute!

It’s also in a Dreamzzz set too

No. In both the book and the movie the time turner creates a bootstrap paradox – Harry and Hermione were only able to go back in time to save Buckbeak (and cast the patronus charm) because they’d already gone back in time to save Buckbeak. There is no separate timeline where he doesn’t survive.

In other (unexciting) Harry Potter set news – the microscale Diagon Alley not only has an unprinted grey kitten to represent the Magical Menagerie (previously appeared in the Gringotts set), but it also seems to include a new (presumably also unprinted) owlet for Eeylops/the post office. Hard to tell if it’s in the light grey we’ve already seen or white (which would be a new color).

One thing I haven’t seen anyone mention yet is that the Dueling Club includes casting wands for both Draco and Harry – and Harry’s appears to be the correct dark brown! That’s pretty exciting in my book because when the part was first introduced they only did it in black and white with the final battle in mind, so the Harry in the Expecto Patronum set has the wrong color of wand. If these ones come with spares like the previous sets I’ll definitely be switching out the Expecto Patronum one with the spare brown.

By all rights we should have gotten a special mold for Bellatrix’s double edged throwing knife - its shape is pretty distinct and it could easily make the jump to Ninjago and Monkey Kid. But I can see why they went with the preexisting single edged knife in the kitchen instead. Despite being a distinctive prop that knife is only used for two things, and given Lego’s track record of skirting around the darker aspects of Harry Potter it’s enough that we actually get the two characters those things were done to in this set with Bellatrix.

What’s up with the Lego designers and toilets? Hogsmeade Station and The Burrow featured them as well

I doubt they’ll be removing them anytime soon. Blind boxes are always going to suffer stock loss from greedy customers ripping them open to see what’s inside, but having an identification method that’s easily google-able and accessible with free fan apps is probably cutting those numbers down to around what the old blind bags were. Marvel series 2 and the first wave of shipments for Series 25 didn’t have useable data matrix codes, so Lego has a decent set of data for comparison. Given that the two series since have both featured codes from the start, I’m guessing that data says the codes are best for Lego in the long run.

That’s interesting. Quality issues tend to be structural issues with the build – like the neck on the WALL-E Ideas set. But the Knight Bus is a vehicle, which Lego practically puts out in their sleep, and it’s the fourth version of this particular vehicle that Lego has made. So for there to be structural issues with the build that need to be corrected they presumably must be adding a new play feature that’s different from what we’ve seen before.

I feel sorry for Pterodactyl CostumeFan and Cat Lover having zero votes since they’re tied for second for me (Longboarder having zero votes is unsurprising though)

Aunt Marge is probably one of the trickiest characters for us to get in Minifigure form just because she only appears in one scene and it’s a location that has more playset friendly scenes in other movies, plus she’s a boring muggle, so she’s unlikely to show up in an advent calendar or a companion book. So a PoA Privet Drive would be the only way we’re likely to get her. And Lego even already has the bulldog for Ripper.

That’s the thing – the only people getting a full series of these are the F-1 super fans on a budget that puts getting all the larger sets out of their reach. But most adults on a budget are probably just going to get the Speed Champions of their favorite team(s), and adults not on a budget will just get the Amazon bundle with all the Speed Champions for $270. For actual gifts, kids are going to favor the City and Speed Champions sets with actual minifigures or even things like pit crews. The 4+ set provides a pair of cars with minifigs for only $10 more than buying two of the blind boxes, so it’s not like this series is really providing cars at a price point that is significantly more affordable than other offerings. All the stores stocking these better be prepared to put them right at the registers, because they’re not going to sell them in significant numbers anywhere else. I’d say Lego shot themselves in the foot by not putting them out later in the year to market as cheap stocking stuffers, but let’s face it, there will still be plenty of boxes on shelves by Christmas of next year.

Colors and some very basic prints. And given that series 27 is on par with previous numbered series mold wise, Spiderverse better use the leftover mold budget to knock our socks off in September. Give us the pregnant belly torso, Lego, we know it’s in the budget after this.

QQS is actually one of the easiest to identify. It’s midway along the left side of the street – you can see the golden snitch repurposed as a giant sign with a set of hoops (1x1 round plate with bar) above it. I can’t identify anything to the right of QQS, but to the left we have Madame Malkin’s (shades of purple), the Magical Menagerie (kitten used as an oversized figural sign), and the Leaky Cauldron with the Knight Bus parked out front. On the other side, after the muggle world facade (with tiny phone booth) you can easily see WWW (color palette and top hat), Flourish and Blotts (greens), Fortescue’s Ice cream Parlor (light yellow with a brown roof), an unidentified blue building (might be Wiseacres Wizarding Equipment?), Ollivander’s, Scribbulus (light blue with a quill for a sign), and then another unidentified building at the end before Gringott’s.

Pretty mixed honestly. It looks nice for what it is – a microscale street scene. And as nice as seeing the entirety of both sides of the street is, the lack of prints/stickers means that even the super fans will struggle to identify some of the shops. I can make a solid go at it, but even I can’t make out what the ones closest to Gringotts are supposed to be (although that might just be because of the perspective on the image we have). With no sign of an exclusive minifig in sight like the previous microscale castles, I’m not sure how well this will sell.

I think you’re right. That mold is a braid and shorter than Luna’s hair in DH2 but it works better than their choice for Narcissa’s hair I guess.

Luna is using a new hairpiece unless I’m wrong right? I tend to notice all the ponytail ones and I don’t remember any with asymmetrical bangs like that.

It doesn’t even look like the heads under the helmets have any printing on them – so literally the only minifigure part in these are the helmets

Not without doubling the price. There’s an upcoming 4+ set with two F-1 cars and two minifigures to go in them and its retail price will be $20. That’s $10 per car, twice as much as the CMF slot stealers.

The really weird thing is that high quality images of the F-1 series box just dropped today. You’d think it would be time for series 27 as well.

Lego, you just introduced a new dual molded forearm part specifically for buildable figures, why on Earth would you not use that for Harry instead of doing… that?

That’s true. The original kittens were done in orange, white, and dark grey, the preexisting cat is most easy to find in dark orange with cream markings on its muzzle and chest, and the new longhaired mold is being introduced in white – that’s basically as close to the Aristocats as you can get without an official license. I wonder if someone at Lego is a fan?

The second kitten definitely looks cream colored. In addition to the moth in the Spanish Garden there’s also an olive green frog and a light yellow songbird.

I’m actually fully expecting to see Spider-Cat in Lego form