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nhk

Eurobricks Vassals
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Everything posted by nhk

  1. nhk
    Given the increased complexity of Technic set functions in recent years, I'm surprised that more of them don't have some sort of gear/axle issues. Was always wondering how those small gears can take the necessary amount of force. On the subject of availability - it looks like the local retailers put this set on sale a week before August 1st and it was cleaned out immediately. On a related note, what's the most appropriate Lego email contact in cases like this ? Those of you who tried, what did you use ?
  2. nhk
    My first thought upon watching the video was 'beautiful'. Very clean panel work and excellent detail give it a great deal of realism. This is something that could very well work as an official set.
  3. nhk
    Where was this ?
  4. nhk
    Just checked eBay Germany and there were some sold at 4000+ Euro by a Lego® Authorized Seller. I wonder what TLG would have to say about that.
  5. nhk
    I've been pretty aggressive in my stance against Lego, because this is the first Technic set in over a year that I've been interested in. Now that I've cooled off a bit, I have to say that they're probably not as malicious as I painted them to be, but their lack of transparency still stands as a serious question mark against them. - Precisely my thoughts on point 1, although admittedly there could be another explanation. If they were anticipating or still debating the cancellation, Lego could have opted to not send review samples in case it was recalled as it transpired in the end. That would could also explain how some sets made it to retailers. But why send them if they're close to cancelling it in the first place ? The equally plausible alternate version is that they cancelled the set internally long before it was announced, but by then they had produced a certain amount of sets. Thus they could have pulled this current stunt in order to have a excuse to offload their stock to retailers and in reality have nothing in storage. - TLG don't have an anti-military contractor point in their policy, just anti-military sets. In fact it is stated that they support all military personnel if I'm remembering correctly. It's absolutely true that they haven't been woken up from anything, they just miscalculated how their own language will be used against them. In fact, the poor writing of said policy is what got them in trouble, since they have been treating it as 'will not produce military themed' for years, but the text didn't reflect that. Instead of admitting this they opted to uphold the appearance of stricter values than their actual standard. Also it's very likely that an internal dispute did take place, as suggested, and likely a SJW executive made the final decision, where obviously a lot of people were fine with it, since the set got produced in the first place. - It's going to be pretty unfortunate if Sariel isn't allowed to post a review of this set. Lego's legal and/or PR teams have been overreacting a huge deal in the past months.
  6. nhk
    Exactly my thoughts. I'd like to see the look on their faces when they realize that their appeal didn't produce the desired effect and they got a harmless toy cancelled for nothing.
  7. nhk
    Exactly, because in the end of the day, that's the most they can accomplish. I don't think they're afraid of e certain president, they just know how powerless they are, so they use every opportunity they can. And Lego handed them one on a silver platter. They are two-faced already, but they're good at spinning things so it appears differently to the general public. I think we'd all rather have them admit that their actual mistake in the poor writing of said policy and amend it to reflect their intent. That way we can get the generic unlicensed sets and the licensed non-militaristic Osprey. But despite appearances TLG isn't the type of company to admit a mistake of such magnitude. They're just another rigid corporate entity. Or maybe someone just needs to write them an email about it ?
  8. nhk
    You're trying to pigeonhole me into something I don't mean. No, Lego didn't recall the set for that reason, they knew its history in advance, after all they worked with Boeing on it, and proceeded all the way to production anyway. They are withdrawing it to avoid the appearance that they're not following their own guidelines and in the process they're exposing those guidelines as insincere. I hope I've made myself clear now. It's also evident from the sequence of events - the anti-war group simply requested that TLG should refrain from working with Boeing, remove the branding and issue a generic tilt-rotor aircraft. In response Lego cancels the Osprey outright, but there is no mention of cutting ties with Boeing - if that isn't proof enough, then I don't know what is. The majority of fans already realize the pretense of TLG's 'values' on some level and don't hold it against them when they bend the rules to the point of breaking, because it gives us variety in the sets they create. The rest are in denial because they like certain things, be it Star Wars, Marvel or whatever. But now that a line has been crossed into something they don't like, they become vocal about it, not realizing their own complicity in the matter.
  9. nhk
    The nuance came through just fine, you simply don't understand that Lego didn't make choice A. It's all choice B, which they thought they could get away by ignoring. They didn't, but now they pretend to be making choice A, which you are buying into. You might have seen through the original issue, but you're not seeing the current one. Meanwhile Lego has been making choice B for years and will continue doing it, but mask it by quoting a pretense policy with zero ethical value. If they admit that, and vow to never release another violent or military inspired set, that would be a show of integrity, but also a severe limitation in the diversity of their catalogue impacting both them and us. As a matter of fact, their pretend policy has long outlived it's purpose, and should be further adjusted to cover specifically modern military themed sets, which is how they have already been treating it. Then the Osprey would be fine, as it has a rescue theme. Problem solved to the satisfaction of all parties but those asking for cutting ties with Boeing, which isn't happening even now, so that point is superficial.
  10. nhk
    You had me rolling on the floor here. Lego has no integrity, they were just called out on what they've been doing for years, but this time their pretense values in written form didn't protect them. Of course they wouldn't outright admit that, so they put the necessary spin to come out clean of this situation and you, among others, bought it hook line and sinker.
  11. nhk
    TLG has never put out such a statement, but amid the smokescreen nobody realizes the primary purpose of this 'protest' isn't accomplished. They'll just do pure civilian sets and Boeing will still get their cut, to the chagrin of the German Peace Society, who will have no backing in that case.
  12. nhk
    Maybe, but Boeing isn't the reason TLG cancelled the set, it's because of the Osprey's exclusive military use. If it had a civilian version, or if it was a different civilian craft from Boeing, it wouldn't have been cancelled, regardless of the amount of defense contracts the company holds.
  13. nhk
    That's funny, they practically state they're anti-licensing in this case, not anti-military, probably taking advantage of specific language in Lego's policy. If this was a Boeing model in civilian use they would have nothing to stand on. So their anti-Boeing argument is utterly flat. Also it sheds light on the fact that they contacted Lego months ago, but TLG did nothing up until the last moment possible and then some. This definitely appears to be some kind of stunt designed to get away with releasing a set they knew violated their fake policy from the start, or gain some goodwill by pretending to concede to the protest. Either way TLG wins. Emperor Palpatine would be proud.
  14. nhk
    There's enough indication that this isn't the case - you don't spend over a year in licensing, development and production because of stupidity. Simply put - TLG doesn't really care whether they put out military sets or not. They only care whether they can be called out on it, which is why their policy, created in the post-Star Wars license days, is specifically written to allow them the greatest flexibility possible in creating military sets, including real-world ones, with the narrow exception of modern times. The confidence they built up by producing thinly veiled or 'fictionalized' military models tripped them up here, as it led them to believe that re-badging the plane as rescue would be enough. They didn't realize until too late that the licensing would put them into the narrow exclusion created to appear as though they have an anti-military policy. The question is - where were those same anti-war groups were when Lego was releasing Blue Power Jet and Sonic Boom, which are painfully obvious military craft ? And why should an interesting and quality set be recalled to support the appearance of some superficial standards that Lego obviously doesn't even follow anyway ?
  15. nhk
    Sounds like a conspiracy theory when you put it like that, but if you consider that if it were fully released, any statement they made would sound even more hypocritical. Currently the majority are actually giving Lego credit, instead of pointing out how self-serving their policy is in general.
  16. nhk
    The more I think about it, the more the whole thing seems like some kind of stunt by Lego. Since they didn't send out review copies, it's obvious that they were about to cancel the set anyway. It seems like too much of a coincidence that an anti-war group suddenly decides to protest, just around the time review embargoes are lifted. Unless that group had actually contacted them weeks in advance, but for an incomprehensible reason made it public only a few days ago.
  17. nhk
    I'm not really confused about it. It's been pretty clear to me, since I got into the hobby, that that while Ole Kirk Christiansen had principles, the modern TLG has little ethics, but all the hypocrisy to claim they do. What I'm confused about is why a lot of others actually believe in some imaginary company values, even more now, when they've practically confirmed their lack of integrity with this recall. While this might make sense from a profit standpoint, it's completely unethical. It's also what will likely happen to over 90% of sets. All brought to you by the gracious foresight of The Lego Company themselves, who really can't stop it at this point, but I doubt they care about the situation anyway. Their part is done, controversy avoided, political move successful.
  18. nhk
    Indeed. All those stores Lego mentioned are surely going to sell for retail price They're piling on one failure upon another in handling this situation.
  19. nhk
    I'm puzzled why people are so quick to accept that fantasy vs fiction justification clause. It's not okay - if they want to avoid war they should do so entirely and if not, just admit they don't care about it that much. The whole 2010 policy write-up is obviously done in a way to convince themselves that it's okay to hold licenses like Star Wars etc. But if that's acceptable, then this rescue version should be fine too. From an ethical standpoint there are sets much more offending than this one, but they're given a free pass, because Lego wrote their policy in legal fine print to give them an out. This set just fell on the wrong side of that text, even though it's much less violent than a bunch of others they produced. The only thing this accomplishes, is expose Lego's hypocrisy. It does not prove in any way that they're sticking to some standard for anti-violence or anti-war.
  20. nhk
    This is something that JANG touched upon, which is that the founder of Lego created the rule against the glorifying of war, because he lived through WW2. Thus defined this should even preclude the creation of 'fictionalized and historic' war sets, and this clause is simply a cheat introduced in 2010 to give the appearance of conformity to it's founder's wishes. Ironically Lego has even produced 'fictionalized' versions of WW2 vehicles. The problem is that the original policy itself is too broadly defined in the first place and is neither enforceable nor feasible in the modern market. They need to admit that and work on finding a better solution. The fact stands that there are countless sets which violate the original rule far more than 42113 ever did.
  21. nhk
    Neither stickers nor manual feature the aircraft name, at least for the version I've seen. The manual only ever shows the set number, thus the only named reference is actually on the box itself. They could still keep the Bell/Boeing branding, but re-badge it as a fictional rescue aircraft and we're all good. After all they have done fictional licensed vehicles before from both Volvo and BMW. P.S. OK, my bad. The back of the manual features a very small print where the V-22 is mentioned.|
  22. nhk
    Could it be they'll add some stickers on top of the labels, like they do in the states with EU boxes ? That would be the cheapest and fastest solution to the issue. P.S. Bell/Boeing V-33 Rescue anyone ? :D
  23. nhk
    Aren't most of the dimensions of the curved panels known already, since they're pretty much the same as the non-tapered version of that piece. It just needs some tweaking to look a little bit like the real thing, it's not like we're striving for 100% accuracy, but rather a reasonable digital model. As for the rotors themselves, close-enough should be good-enough, since they don't really interact with anything beyond their connection points.
  24. nhk
    Given that Star Wars is currently a significant part of their lineup to the point that it's the only current space theme, it probably helped keep the company afloat. And if we consider conflict in general, they have been doing that since the days of Blacktron vs Space Police back in the 80s. Whether we admit it or not, it lends itself to much more interesting interpretations than houses and cars. Right now the only one they're fooling with their 'rules' is themselves - they need to admit it and either adjust them to be less restrictive or stay out of the violence business altogether. But while 1 set may not make or break their bank, I sincerely doubt they will be inclined to drop Star Wars, Marvel, DC or even Ninjago.
  25. nhk
    Their reputation is suspect altogether. As already discussed their rule is written in such a way to specifically allow them to profit from "fictional" violence, even though such sets are significantly more egregious in their depiction than this one set in particular. There's no integrity, standard or policy being protected, there's only a political defense, to avoid admitting what they've already been doing for years.
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