MaxHeadroom

Brick built Dobby’s sock set, the prophecy was real. My time has finally come. I want to buy it but $430 for Gringotts though, wow. Guess I’ll have to start saving for that. I’m confused by the rest of the sets though. Other than the battle of hogwarts which seems straightforward and is more DH stuff so looking forward to that.

Looking at the spielwaren pics and wow the bright blue legs on DH2 Harry look even cartoonish and silly than the Grimmauld Place figure, not to mention Malloy still having brightly colored hair. The pixie sticker remains incredibly tacky and the random clear bars don’t make much sense either, maybe they’re meant for posing flying figures? The display cases built into pillars are also bizarre. The plethora of pin and axle holes don’t make much sense to me considering the snake didn’t split into a million parts in the movie if I remember right. I definitely wouldn’t need the ones facing the camera in the third pic above the stickers. They just make it look like an unfinished build made out of whatever parts could be found, not an official Lego set. In general seeing it removed from all the roof garbage and with everything in place the main build isn’t THAT bad but it’s still not great. No surprise they avoided photographing the roof sections though, despite those probably taking up a third of the parts budget. The arches and gaps in the construction of the smaller roof are odd, the general existence of the sink room is bizarre (between the polyjuice postion set and this, this Hogwarts system has as many rooms with sinks as classrooms), the scroll room is pointless, and the weird tower that attaches to the side is both pointless and ugly. So many completely useless bits of castle too boring for kids to play with and too ugly for adults to display eating up so much of the set’s budget. Personally I would’ve scrapped all of it and put the parts towards making the ROR configure into different versions (display cases aside the rest of the builds in this version are already removable). Being able to add in the vanishing cabinet or switch out all the junk for a training dummy and a chalkboard would’ve given kids a lot more to do. Still even if they needed to have a lot of roof stuff, a sink and a scroll were really the best they could do? A nitpick but looking at the official pictures, I noticed that the small side tower uses the standard square window frame to prop up the top of the cylindrical roof instead of the arched window frame like every other roof using that technique in this system has used (afaik) including the other larger cylindrical roof in this very set. I know actual the windows have never been remotely consistent in the 2021+ line but the windows used for structure can’t even be consistent? Honestly feels like a joke.

I got the Sirius Rescue set as a Christmas gift and while I wasn’t planning on buying it myself I was pretty happy to get it since I did think it looked good when it was revealed despite most people being critical of it. After building it, what an awful set! First and foremost the colors for the stickers are closer to white than tan. They were a bit too dark in 2018/19 and perfect in 2020, why can’t they match the color anymore? I compared with the staircase promo and that also has the same bright stickers although they don’t suck out as badly there. Frankly it looks like it’s either a bootleg or been sitting in direct sunlight for half a century. It’s completely unacceptable imo, especially with the box and product images making it actually match the color of the tan parts. The build itself is also a let down. I didn’t mind the grated floors but the wedge floors are a cost cutting measure too far (at least for the courtyard itself, I can excuse the “roof” sections). The parts budget for the useless barrel and chicken leg thing with nowhere to go should’ve been spent on proper floors kids could’ve played with. Unless the courtyard modules are on the ground level they’re completely useless for this multilevel hogwarts system. Considering this is meant to be an interior based system though, doing a two layer 8x16 courtyard was a strange choice in the first place. None of the interiors in this set are good anyway though. Really they should’ve cut the whole bottom layer (as much as I like seeing the spiral staircase again) and sold the set for $25 (even cutting the Hermionie figure if they needed to). They also should’ve fixed the awful buckbeak color. I’ve got the original sure but the kids who don’t deserve better. Sorry for my initial positivity when the set was revealed, I was too swept up in seeing curved castle elements again. The people who complained were right.

New leadership will probably want to do their own thing and bring their own spin to the line rather than stick with what came before, regardless of the quality of the current system. 3 years is the standard for LEGO and it gives the new leadership a year to settle in before another soft reboot. I would be surprised if it lasted into summer 2024. As for the 2018 era ending while I could believe that they ran out of recognizable buildings at first, the marketing of the current reboot quite thoroughly disproves that old theory. If consumers will buy sets with buildings as niche and even made up as the ones covering the front of the boxes for all the new Hogwarts sets (bar the Great Hall and Clock tower which actually are recognizable) then I don’t think something like the bell towers would’ve actually been that hard of a sell. I’ll be interested to see what happens with the current castle system under new leadership though. They’ve historically struggled to decide to make decent interiors or decent exteriors each wave of this new system and based on the new ROR they’ve chosen to do neither. Looking at this castle format as whole there’s an incredible lack of classrooms considering it’s meant to be a school. DADA and the cramped astronomy room are all this system has unless I’m missing something. obviously that’s because of the Moments books (releasing competing interior hogwarts based sets probably wasn’t a great idea for this system) but now that those are gone I think getting a classroom set in the box style seems like a realistic guess for summer 2023.

I’ve been campaigning for a Zabini probably as long as I’ve been active on EB so I’m very happy to finally have him. The Second Task set is excellent and the banners are take it or leave it like the moments books. That ROR though, I have some thoughts. The summer 2022 castles were a genuine improvement from the earlier sets. The exteriors looked solid considering the box constraints and while the interiors weren't anything amazing they were solid enough, even if they were clearly put on the back burner. The Room of Requirement meanwhile couldn’t be more of a step back. What are we getting for an interior here? An 8x16 area with a fun door function, display cases awkwardly built into pillars, a small pile of undecorated 2x2 bricks, two other container pieces, a small record player, a bust with a helmet, and an extremely tacky pixie sticker. Then there’s a 8x8 room with a sink(?), a roof piece with a random scroll, an empty roof piece, and another empty roof piece. Where’s the vanishing cabinet? The parts budget for the random sink room and roof pieces could’ve easily gone there. Also things like the HBP book or a training dummy which I’m sure kids who missed the 2020 set would appreciate. Not to mention making the only stack of things they do include a bit taller to make use of the increased height for this module. If the interior was nice I wouldn’t care but since it isn’t I’ll say the exterior is awful. It’s a mess of different textures, colors, empty arches, window designs, and roof designs. The minifigures and the fact it’s a DH2 set in the first place are the only things this set succeeds in. I still love the concept of the modular hogwarts sets and the Polyjuice Potion set is an excellent example of what could’ve been. I just wish they would’ve fully committed to interior sets and not wasted so much parts budget on exterior details roof modules, loosing the interiors in the process most the time. Committing to a consistent roof and especially window design would’ve been cool too. We’re at the point now where they’re probably planning for the next system (this one will probably continue in summer 2023 and maybe spring 2024?) and I’m ready to move on to it.

Blaise Zabini is one of my favorite minor characters so I’m really glad we’re finally getting a figure of them. Not too sure about the set in general just because it’s presumably in the 2021+ castle format, those have slowly been getting better though. Nice to finally have two whole DH sets. The second task is what it is and I’m sure it will be solid, was only a matter of time until they made it. This is definitely the best winter wave of the reboot but that’s saying very little.

Bought Grimmauld place and the Shrieking Shack to get the two GWPs. The Ministry was the set I wanted most but I figured since it's not a retail exclusive it would be showing up elsewhere on sale sooner than the others, along with the carriage which I would also like to get some point. I'm also tempted by the dragon since it's minifigure scale but I'll definitely pass on the castle sets, especially with the price on Dumbledore's office being raised. They're an improvement on last year's castle builds and I think the combined castle looks much better than it did but it's too little too late for me and I really couldn't justify getting into it now. Only one more year of this system until they introduce a new one anyway, hopefully it's exterior based again and they've taken some time to actually plan it using what they've learned from the last two. Pretty happy overall with this wave for what it is. It's given OOTP some much needed representation, finally scratched the surface of DH, and the shack filled one of the few remaining gaps in 1-4. Looking forward to finally building it. Still plenty left on my wishlist though. Along with the obvious Gringotts and dragon I'd like to see (in order of importance), a battle of Hogwarts focused set, the trio's tent, the second task, Borgin and Burke's, and the Durmstrang ship since we have the BB carriage. If we get a couple of those and at least one set is DH focused I'd probably be content with any wave.

Are these movies meant for adults? I remember the first one at least was marketed as introducing the Wizarding World brand to a new generation of children. That would explain the lack of LEGO sets based on it but the first two both had a couple of LEGO products each.

Hearing that WB won't make any more FB movies if this doesn't do well has massively incentivized me to avoid the new film despite my mild curiosity, and I saw the last two on their opening nights. The original was a clunky mixed bag but there was just enough whimsical creature stuff to make it passable. COG seemed to learn all the wrong lessons though and was a real disaster. I can't imagine the kids who saw it got anything out of it and (based on reviews) I'd guess that is the case for the new film too. This could've been a perfect film series for kids and merchandisers if they just focused on Newt and the titular beasts. I'm still a little bit surprised LEGO got away with releasing absolutely nothing for this movie (not even the brickbuilt Niffler many of us speculated about) but it doesn't seem like WB has any deals for this movie with any merchandisers. I at least haven't seen anything for it anywhere. Based on the negative reception the last two entries have gotten I think these movies are probably doing the brand more harm than good. I'm not sure this theme is really a great example of LEGO not avoiding critical things. DH was avoided for a long time (still only two CMF figures and a brickheads set for part 2) plus they're completely avoiding the new FB movie for the people who care about those.

No Gringgotts, what a relief. There are enough good sets to keep me occupied already without another $470 dropped. I'd rather have it be a $200 set with a dragon anyway without any forgettable shops as padding.

Well things are definitely going to get expensive and we haven't even seen the D2C yet (after seeing these I really hope its easy to skip and not Gringotts). After 2020 the things I wanted were the Shrieking Shack, more OOTP sets, and DH1+2 sets. At least two of those are fully crossed off for me. Shrieking shack looks great (if overpriced, I might wait for a sale on that one) and OOTP now has enough stuff that it matches the 2018-2020 sets for movies 1-4, and 6 for me. It's nice that we're getting a start on DH but I would need the tent and the battle of Hogwarts before I'd be content (wouldn't say no to a set for Gringotts or the dragon either). I didn't expect to be interested in the Horntail but since it's minifigure scale and the stand isn't too conspicuous I actually really like it. Those castle sets are shocking IMO. The stand on a completely different level than the 2021 sets (flying lesson notwithstanding) and spring 2022 set. CURVES! Curved walls of castles! Not just ugly curved brown windows awkwardly jutting out of squares, but actual parts of the structure! Plus there's only one awkward "window with roof popping out of flat wall" design to go with the standard single stud wide hole windows and the standard lattice windows (although we get both gold and black lattice windows for some reason). That's without even mentioning the buildings finally having angles (and not in the middle of what's actually meant to be one flat structure like the clock tower was). Why they didn't start out with sets like this is beyond me. The 2001 sets had angles and curves too so they really had no excuse to be so flat and dull. The texturing is also far better on these sets, they aren't remotely as labored and it doesn't feel like the designers are desperately trying to make the boxes interesting by forcing in as many window designs, build techniques, and textured parts as possible. At first I thought they were so much of an improvement that I actually considered actually buying them but giving it more thought I would still hesitate to call them good. As for interiors Dumbledores' office is good and the library is fine if a bit bland and empty, but the rest of the interiors are all mostly empty which really defeats the whole point of this system. It's also great to have angles again but the courtyard is a 90 degree angle and Dumbledores office as a whole seems to be able to do 90-180 at most. That means that if we put these sets together the exteriors will mostly close in on themselves exposing the interiors which is is what eventually convinced me to not buy these. Don't get me wrong, these are a massive step forward but there's still a ways to go. They could perfect this format next year but at that point this system will probably be on its way out. I don't like having most of this post be negative since I really like this wave overall but the good stuff about all the fantastic non-Hogwarts sets have already been discussed here. The one thing I really like that hasn't been said yet is that it's nice to get a bit more forest again which I think was really missing last year. The trees aren't always amazing but I like getting a bit of nature and slowly building a forbidden forest. In general my ranking of all the 2018 revival waves would be 2019> 2020> 2022> 2018> 2020.

Are the sets coming out in June even in the US? I wasn't paying attention much after the leaked prototypes last year but I do remember the sets being delayed until July in 2019 and roughly August in 2020. Haven't been this interested in new sets since the DA so I'm really looking forward to seeing them, hopefully it's not the last theme to get revealed in full.

It's not a hard rule anyway since we didn't have one at all last year and the previous year was just a flying car repackage. Vehicle sets were never my favorites but I miss them, along with the HP line in general after last year.

Completely forgot that included the carriage. For some reason I thought it was just the thestrals and some trees.

Manor and Battle of Hogwarts were both very obvious choices a few years ago when LEGO was getting a bit closer to death scenes but now that we know LEGO is generally avoiding the later films and trying to keep things whimsical both of those sets seem unlikely. The DH Ministry scene is one thing but the Manor is closely tied with Dobby's death (and to a lesser extent Pettigrew's death). Meanwhile the battle of Hogwarts had quite a few deaths. Honestly I think the only reason we're getting the ministry from DH is to avoid the death scene there from OOTP. Durmstrang ship seems like the most likely possibility to me as this wave is without a vehicle set (although so was last year, maybe the bird sculptures have replaced the need for them).

1. Clock Tower/Yule Ball 2. Burrow 3. Astronomy Tower 4. Hagrid's Hut 5. Graveyard Duel 6. Diagon Alley 7. Umbridge encounter 8. Hogwarts Express 9. Great Hall 10. Privet Drive

I keep checking in, writing half an in-depth post, and then giving up halfway through once a month lol. An idea that inspired me to check and post here; have we considered that the D2C could be a slightly expanded rerelease of the 2018 Hogwarts Castle set? Similar to what went down with the Death Star a few years ago where it was briefly discontinued before returning with some slight revisions and a $70ish price increase. Considering that set was the opposite of the current play scale Hogwarts (adult focused, exterior based, visually appealing, tiny interior) I could see LEGO still wanting it or something similar on the market.

If I can't get sets based on DH or castle exteriors (my favorite type of set) this wave is the next best thing. Nice to see OOTP finally get its due and it's nice to get the last major POA thing we were missing. As for the ministry figure situation I don't think any option makes much more sense than the rest. DH would go against the gold statue build and LEGO's previous DH avoidance (although the DH scene is probably more tame than the OOTP battle), but the dementors don't make sense anywhere else. In general I don't think we should read too much into Umbrige being there. I could see them throwing her in just to give kids someone to put in one of the offices and she's a far more visually interesting figure than the OOTP minister of magic who would just blend in with the rest of the figures in dark clothes.

Making my now bimonthly visit here and I'm glad to see Dobby's sock still remains. If the ridiculously expensive D2C is Gringotts/DA2 then I hope the summer sets are so blatantly awful I don't have the slightest temptation to purchase them and spend potential DA money. Otherwise I hope that like last year we get one good set this wave. I definitely don't have the excitement and optimism I used to with this line but I still feel like we could still get something worthwhile amongst the brickbuilt creatures and rectangles. This name/description reveal feels a bit like taking a bandage off. I know it'll sting no matter what but I just want it over with.

You've only listed three buildings (the pervious set had four and was $70 less) and only two of those buildings are actually from Diagon Alley. There just aren't enough buildings to justify another $470 set. Another DA set would just be Gringotts, the Leaky Cauldron (although considering LEGO won't even do DH sets for the HP line I'm not sure they would do a bar), and a number of forgettable shops to pad out the set like Scribbulus and the Daily Prophet in the 2020 set. I'd rather see Gringotts get a stand-alone $200 set compatible with the 2020 DA than an entire second street also featuring rejects from the 2020 set and maybe a Leaky Cauldron if we're lucky.

Now that the sets aren't all must-buys for me anymore (1/14? Is a very low amount) having a price list isn't very useful, but it's still cool to have. As for the D2C I really hope it isn't DA/Gringotts. IMO there aren't enough interesting or iconic DA buildings to justify a $470 set. I think a Quidditch Pitch is the best idea I've read here. I've seen plenty of large MOCs if it so there's clearly some interest and it would be a good opportunity to make some interesting and obscure characters to fill the stands. It would also be just uninteresting enough for me to skip it and not want to buy it.

Wow, just wow. That clock tower is absolutely abysmal. If there was an already produced building that would translate perfectly to the new style it was that and they somehow still messed it up. It doesn't even have the basic silhouette. They could've just released the top two floors of the 2019 model but slightly thicker with 2021 style open sides. I'm glad we're finally getting some hinges which this line has been severely lacking, they're in the middle of a flat rectangular building though because of course they are. The flat sides of a modular buildings would make better display pieces than this thing. If we're supposed to forgive these awful exteriors because of the interiors then why aren't those they being shown in catalogues and the front of the boxes? Of the four main sets only one had interiors better than the 2018-20 line (bathrooms) one was on par (chamber of secrets) and the others were arguably worse. That's all I have for now (I hate just coming in to be negative but there's not much to be positive about, a Pomfrey figure that should've been a $5 CMF being turned into a $50 set?). I hope everyone has a nice ending to the year, may your Dobby's socks be warm. See everyone when the summer list leaks, hopefully we'll get at least one solid set like we did this year with Hogsmeade.

Haven't thought much about LEGO HP or visited here since June and I definitely miss it. I finally got to place the 2021 Chamber of Secrets alongside the 2001 castle (and every other minifigure scale Great Hall set) and it really made the problems with the 2021 set that previously I could't place very clear. The designers who worked on the 2021 sets were not used to this simplistic style and seriously struggle to adapt. It seems like they've used every trick they could come up with to make these rectangles interesting using textured parts (round 2x2s, logs, bricks, ice cream cones, 1x1s with scrolls, and a plethora of latticed windows) and colors like reddish brown, nougat, and tan. The original is open and impressionistic while the remake is incredibly labored forcing as much detail as possible into its simple shapes. They remind me of the detailed fan-made texture packs for the otherwise simple blocky game Minecraft. 2001 style sets with modern techniques and details is an interesting experiment but I'm not sure it should've made it to market, let alone have multiple waves worth of sets. As for the new suitcase set, I find it very confusing. We already have an ongoing line of gimmicky Hogwarts interior focused rectangles and an ongoing line of gimmicky Hogwarts interior focused books, do we really need a gimmicky Hogwarts interior focused suitcase? Do kids buy all three? Do they play with all of them together? It's a great set I just don't understand it's place in the line. Personally I think I'll start looking for a hogsmeade set (strange to think that's the only traditional set out of the three most recent waves we have set lists for) but I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the remaining 2021 castle sets or even the one I already own. I'll probably decide once the set list for next summer is leaked and I can know what exactly to expect. If sets like these are all we're getting for the foreseeable future (which I'm doubtful of since the lead designer stepped down) then at the very least there are only two more years until we switch to another new Hogwarts style which hopefully I'll like more.

If your criteria for definitive is based on which era has more specific minifigures and more new moulds then great. My criteria for definitive is which covers the story as whole better and which condensed the story into its number and size of sets better. The 2010 line condensed the story into 10 sets and they're all well chosen. There are changes I would make (like replacing Ernie Prang with the Grim and Sirius Black or replacing Filch and the statue room with Umbridge and her office) but they're all relatively minor minifigure swaps with the occasional Hogwarts room change. The 2018 line had 18 sets (one of which was $400), 2 advent calendars, 2 minifigure series, and a bricktober pack. Not only does it not cover all of the major elements the 2010 line did (Gringotts, Battle of Hogwarts) but it also misses other things that I would expect from a line this size like the Ministry of Magic and trio's tent. There were plenty of good decisions made for an iteration of HP the size of the 2018 one (having characters age, including all four houses, representing the Triwizad tournament, including plenty of teachers) but there were also some questionable or even bad decisions (making the BB carriage but no sets from DH, including everything from scribbulus to F&B in the DA set in favor of Gringotts) and let's not even talk about the strange choices in Hogwarts' interior. I don't really have the time or energy right now to make one myself but I'm sure someone here could put together a list of 18 sets, 2 ACs, and 36 additional minifigures that would cover the series better than the 2018 iteration did. This is incredibly interesting stuff. I wonder how many of the decisions being made right now are down to WB.

I meant wave 1 Voldemort, I completely forgot about ghost Lily since it's such a throwaway figure. I guess that means we have 3 DH CMF figures. If I only had three choices for DH CMF figures Lily definitely wouldn't have been on my list. Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is that Hogwarts really wasn't a big part of the 2018-2020 line (as much as I wish it was, with how nice the sets we got were and how much I like the castle). Even excluding FB and non-minifigure scale sets Hogwarts is in less than a third of the 2018-2020 sets. Also I feel like LEGO is forgetting that Hogwarts was in DH. They could've easily made a standard Hogwarts set with all the "wizarding school" features and just thrown in a few relevant DH2 figures and an exploding features, it worked in 2011 and it would've worked in 2021. Plus if LEGO couldn't handle even doing that, they could've just made a castle set or two from the older movies and had the rest of the wave be DH focused. There is no reason that the reboot had to happen this year. We have no reason to believe that the 2018-20 line wasn't doing well and needed to be fixed. Even if it did, there's no reason they couldn't have also made some DH sets this year or just delayed a DH wave and make us all wait until next year like everyone speculated. Speaking of waiting, why did it take an entire year for us to learn this? We easily could've been told this when the Hogwarts Moments sets were announced. Why string everyone along for a full year (actually longer, since I'm sure most collectors and especially kids haven't seen this and will continue thinking there will be a DH wave next year as widely speculated). Now that we know the 2018 iteration of the theme is definitely complete, I can confidently say that the 2010-11 line remains the definitive iteration of the theme. The rest of the 2018 line being so extensive makes omissions like Gringotts and the last two films even incredibly bizarre when treating it like a complete collection. I'd really like to know how the line's reputation has changed with the 2021 reboot among kids, HP collectors, and general LEGO collectors.