Retro Brick Reviews

Looks like Just2Good has found ANOTHER store selling the Escape from the Lost Tomb for $40. The plot thickens...

It's fake, it's just an edit of the current 212th design (note that all of the withering in the colored paint is identical, it's just green instead of orange and the gray markings have been removed).

I mean, presuming there's an announcement/statement coming next week there's a fair shot it would've already been sent to our dear social media guy so they could prepare and schedule the announcement. So they probably would know by now. (And even if not, they've definitely noticed all the spam comments about 77014.)

Not sure if you mean that in the sense of "if they get promoted they won't manage the social media anymore", or in the sense of "if they get promoted they'll be assassinated by the beaurecracy a la Brazil (1985)". Either is equally likely from the LEGO Group.

...I mean, there we have it. They've acknowledged the Temple of Doom. Surely we're all satisfied now

Just2Good managed to buy the Lost Tomb and apparently it was only $40. Not sure what this means for the official price, but it's clear there's very little communication between LEGO and retailers regarding these sets. I'm probably going to dip from the forum until we get a reveal or more concrete information (for better or worse). LEGO's really bungled this lineup and release, and discussing it is just killing my excitement for the few sets we are getting. At the very least, one way or another we should know by the end of next week what's happening with this theme, be it with an announcement, a shadowdrop, or LEGO just canceling the theme outright and keying @BrickBob Studpants's car for good measure. At least we'll know.

Oh RIP

No, but it would confirm that it was at least intended to release as of the Toy Fair, which would debunk the "cancelled months ago" claim which as a whole damages the (still likely but not proven) claim that the set has been definitively cancelled.

Exactly! That's why I want to parse this out, because between this and the set descriptions we got yesterday it seems more and more like the decision to cancel/delay the Temple of Doom was a VERY recent one - Nuremberg TF was only last month, so if the ToD leaked from there the first rumors of its cancellation came only a couple of weeks after it was shown off with intent to release.

Fair, fair, but with the timing being so coincidental and no other image leaks happening until yesterday, it definitely seems correlated. Do we actually know if any of the Indy sets were actually on display aside from the Temple of the Golden Idol? Maybe that was the only one they brought a physical prototype model of and they just had box pictures for the other sets.

Yeah, didn't the initial Indy pics leak from Nuremberg toy fair?

I mean, considering that Indy has gray hair in DoD it would've made no sense to use hats with brown hair in any of those sets. With the Temple of Doom I can at least sort of understand where you'd be coming from, but imo it'd make way more sense to just recycle the plastic for future use than throw a bunch of extra hats in sets for no reason. (Especially since that would be a meaningless gesture when there are tons of other new parts and prints that aren't seeing the light of day - It's not like they're throwing a couple Mola Ram headdresses into every set.)

Not to mention that one of the sets that actually is releasing literally includes a historically accurate Nazi pilot when that uniform isn't even visible in the movie. Brand values, my butt. Hypothesizing the ToD was cancelled due to the film's more objectionable aspects made sense as a knee-jerk reaction, but that idea just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Hopefully we find out some day what really happened behind the scenes (or, ideally, the set just comes out), but that's most likely not it. ...In what way does that POSSIBLY point to the other sets being canned? I don't even disagree that they probably are, I just don't see the particular logic here.

Yeah, but I'm not sure there would be a way to have them securely attached at the correct angle if there was a mechanism involved. I think it was a fair trade-off.

That makes no sense, considering that the Temple of Doom has seemingly been Osprey'd (or delayed, optimistically) out of the lineup, meaning the others are clearly intended to release on schedule. Or are you proposing they made four sets, canned one of them with plans to release the other three, and then decided to can all of them three weeks before release just for the heck of it?

Nah, actually the best metaphor is Belloq finally opening the Ark after so much anticipation just to find it full of sand... and then getting his head exploded by God Himself.

Yeah, across the sets Ellie uses three different heads weirdly enough, though it should be noted none of them are new. In the Triceratops Research and Visitor's Center she has her 2018 head, in the Brachiosaurus Discovery she has the head for Phoebe from Friends (which was clearly designed for Ellie so it's great to FINALLY see on her), and then in the 4+ set she uses Rachel's head from the Friends Apartments set (which doesn't really fit with the other two imo but I suppose it's cool to get a previously rare head in a much cheaper 4+ set). And yeah, the lack of the molded boots is really cheap and disappointing. They just came in one of the Avatar sets last year, so it's not like they're discontinued.

Fair, but I think an even better analogy for this launch is the opening of Raiders when Satipo runs off with the Idol only to get impaled up the entire vertical length of his body approximately five steps later.

It's an unhinged statement, but there are a lot of unhinged values predicated on it. (That said, none of those values relate to the situation that may or may not exist regarding the Temple of Doom, obviously.)

This means either the Temple of Doom was cancelled after the official descriptions were already written and they forgot to edit, or it has just been delayed and will be releasing after the other sets. Either way, I feel this safely debunks the rumor that it was cancelled MONTHS ago.

AYO?

...Official pics?

Back last summer it was rumored at $150, but it's been known to be $170 since it was confirmed as the Temple Escape scene. I just included it for the sake of completeness.

So our good friend echoalive122_ on Instagram managed to look up the Indy sets in the Target database via the barcodes from the copies they purchased elsewhere, and from this has found what seem to be the finalized official prices for these sets: 77012 Fighter Plane Chase: $39.99 77013 Escape from the Lost Tomb: $79.99 77015 Temple of the Golden Idol: $169.99 The Fighter Plane Chase and Temple are far prices and were honestly what I expected, but $80 for the Lost Tomb is insane. Hopefully it's just a mixup since $80 was the planned price for the Temple of Doom, but then again LEGO could've raised the price BECAUSE of the ToD being removed from the assortment. If that is the actual price, I see this set being a chronic shelf warmer...

Reminder that there is no substantiated evidence or information from trusted leakers that the DoD sets are cancelled. An Instagram post from a leak-reposter account and continuous fearmongering from one person in this forum is hardly reason to panic or even to suspect that these sets aren't coming out. LEGO usually holds official reveals until close to release (have y'all forgotten about Diagon Alley?), when they want to they can keep even basic information close to the chest (LEGO Mario was completely unknown before it was unveiled, and beyond that I can't think of a single time any set names were known more than 24 hours before the official reveal), and with this being an upcoming movie that's intended to be one of the year's big blockbusters it makes sense this is one where they'd keep it secret and keep it safe (think all the Marvel movies with set reveals withheld until very close to the film's release, or the The Last Jedi sets that weren't revealed until the day AFTER the movie came out and still weren't leaked). All of this just feels like everyone's overreacting to the probable cancellation of the Temple of Doom, with no other evidence beyond "hey wouldn't it suck if they cancelled the sets that are the entire reason for LEGO Indy being brought back in the first place?". The only reasons to panic would be A.) if the three classic sets are shadowdroped with no fanfare or press release, or B.) there is fanfare but it completely ignores Dial of Destiny. Until either of those things happen, it can be assumed the sets are releasing as expected, and are just unknown like most smaller licensed themes are at this distance from release. ANYWAY, the reviews posted on Instagram have taken the three classic sets from "pretty cool" to "incredible" in my opinion. The plane chase was already great, but it's nice to see that the wings can snap off and the Grail Diary tile is a nice touch. I'm also getting used to the more cartoony faces they're using in this theme. I think the Indy face actually works pretty well for the lighter, more comedic tone of Last Crusade, though I wish the frown was more stern/ticked than inquisitive since it's also used for Raiders. The Well of Souls is still my least favorite of the sets, but I think I finally get what they were going for. It's less a typical playset and more an interactive diorama, just without the black base. I still would've prefered the former, but as a diorama I think it's pretty good, even if it was disappointing to see that most all of the "gold" details are bright light orange (even though most of those pieces exist in pearl gold and/or metallic gold). It also helps that this set has easily the best minifigure selection of the wave for Sallah and Marion, though I'm still not a fan of the awkward sand green cube the mummy pops out of and the Ark is the most disappointing thing in any of these sets. But the Temple of the Golden Idol... oh, the Temple of the Golden Idol! I hadn't planned on picking this set up, but upon seeing it this might be one of the best minifig-compatible LEGO sets ever made, the more I look at it I might even like it more than Rivendell. It has the best appearance of any of the 18+ dioramas, but what makes it amazing are all of the incredible play features, and especially how they managed to tie them all to aesthetically-pleasing equidistant knobs even though the Technic build would've been a lot easier for the designers if they just had triggers near the play features. For me the quality of the design of a LEGO set adds to the value far more than prints or part count, and this looks like one of the smartest-designed sets I've ever seen. Easily a day-one pickup for me. (P.S. not relevant to the discussion at hand, but how do you add a signature to your posts?)