Chocolate Frog

Is it true that a Black Pearl UCS is coming this year or just a flimsy rumour?

I think they’ll make the TV show sets the ‘toy’ sets but keep the movie sets for collectors with an adult budget. I also think they’ll make the TV show sets minidoll rather than Minifigure to make it easy for buyers to differentiate.

Is it likely that we’ll get a HP GWP or double points with the sets coming out on June 1, and if not, are these likely for the Hogsmede release in September?

The current Harry Potter line has a very particular target market - it isn’t ‘just’ aimed at kids, and it isn’t ‘just’ aimed at AFOLS, it’s aimed at buyers who grew up with the original books/ films, who now have children of their own and are buying them the toys they wish they’d had when they were children. The same thing happened with Star Wars when it came back in 1997. When the line restarted in 2018 it was intended as a kids line with a side order of nostalgia, but that’s because it had ‘entertainment support’ from new content, the Fantastic Beasts films. But those were clunkers, kids dismissed them and the line became more about capturing the budgets of adults who craved nostalgia and could buy themselves a present while pretending it was for their kids (can you tell I know a little about this? ;-)). I would have thought that after the series comes out most sets will be aimed at kids except for some sets based on the films that will be priced for AFOLS.

Mechs would work as ‘steampunk’ type designs. As for the age appeal I think HP appeals to older collectors because there’s so little else for them in terms of toys that build up a vast collection reflecting the whole HP universe. There’s some very high end 1/6 figures, some cheaper ones, but no big action figure/ Playset line in any scale.

I cannot believe the negative reactions to this calendar. First, it’s not a £300 set aimed at adults, it’s a kids set designed to provide them with a fun activity every day in the run up to Christmas. EIGHT new Minifigures and a proper build every day (as opposed to a table made of three bricks with a roast chicken on top, or two brick built wrapped presents) will look great from a kids point of view. The figures are collectible too, like the ones in funko AC’s. And why aren’t they any good for displays? They may be non-canon but so is one of the Flitwick’s (!) or a number of background wizards Lego have made or any of the non HP wizards or witches Lego put in other sets which people put in HP displays. Or Peeves… anyway, the torsos look nicely done and will be great for making extra students to use in Christmas scenes eg in the Great Hall or Hogsmead (particularly with the 18+ set coming in September). I also think it’s cool to have some ‘Expanded Universe’ type figures in HP, which generally gets much less weird stuff than other fandoms (eg Star Wars - Blue Snaggletooth anyone, or Jaxxon) but is fun to have - and dare I say it will probably become highly collectible. So, I respect the views of people who don’t like it, but I definitely don’t agree with them.

To me the best one is still the 2001 Fluffy.

I’d love to see some version of the staircase where Harry first meets McGonagall and that amazing ceiling, perhaps as part of the Great Tower set. One of my daughters is at the Oxford college where it was filmed and goes up those stairs to dinner in Hall every night!

The thing I want most from the Great Tower is that it’s ROUND.

That’s great advice - thank you.

I really wish they’d give us a school robes multipack - say five of each house - with generic heads (or maybe they could run a competition for kids to be featured as a print!); and to make it perfect they’d do them with robe prints on the legs like they did in the first CMF series. Also, I wish we could get a Potter magazine - those stickers were so charming, I would love to see original stories in a magazine from the first couple of years with funny endings. I know JK controls everything closely but Lego know how to do this and wouldn’t make anything controversial.

No one’s mentioned the new series yet. If that begins filming in mid-2025 then all the attention will be on the new cast from then on, and especially if the cast is more diverse (or different characters are different ethnicities). How far in advance does Lego work - two years? If that’s the case, then they won’t be designing sets from the movie series now to go on shelves in 2026 while the the new series is airing. And if the lead characters for the series haven’t been cast yet then they won’t be designing sets to tie in with the TV series now. That’s why I feel summer 2025 might be the last wave of the current HP theme, and why there’s no D2C which would be on shelves for too long. If they started on new sets based on the tv series in 2025 then they would be on shelves in 2027, just in time for the second series.

Wow. The Entertainer has 160 stores and you could write off the impact on the line from them - but 850 is a sizeable number in terms of volume and reach. It’s shocking that Tesco has handed over their toy aisle to people whose views are fairly extreme.

This may seem off-topic at first, but bear with me - has anyone (in the UK) noticed that some large Tescos now have their toy aisle run for them by The Entertainer? Two things here - firstly, none of the ones I’ve visited have any Lego - but more disturbingly, the fact The Entertainer is running them means we will never see any HP Lego in these locations, because of their well-known refusal to stock Harry Potter products, which they regard as blasphemous.

The Hogwarts Express Collector’s Edition came back into stock today for a few hours but is now sold out.