RichardGoring

Made for Hobbits. Priced for Elves. Although it is a problem when you're following something of both the scale and quality of Rivendell. In isolation it's generally an excellent set (trees notwithstanding).

Tiago Catarino has a designer interview video up. At about 6:10 in the video, he talks about the original concept had the Balrog incorporated into the back wall of the book nook in a 2.5D style, as we speculated might be an option earlier. Then they thought it would be a shame not to have it as a full figure and they could use the wings from the fellbeast GWP. And the size of it was build around the wings. At 7:30, asked if they considered putting more fire, and the answer is that it depends on what part of the movie you look at for reference. Apparently lots of trans-orange inside to give it that idea. 11:45 he shakes the Balrog around a lot and it's very sturdy. He said it was designed for play. 14:45 he points out a 1x1 round plate in silver, which is mithril! I rather like his sense of humour. He points out that it's modular and you can stack multiple on top of each other! The product page is up now - The Lord of the Rings: Balrog™ Book Nook 10367 | Lord of the Rings™ | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US And there is a portfolio image with all four recent sets. It really does make Bag End look small!

If the yellowing is self-propelling, is there any explanation for the many pieces I have that are yellowed on one side, or even only half of a side, with the other half still nicely white? That implies to me that it's sunlight that causes it, but only to the area exposed. But at the same time, I am not a chemist or materials scientist. Is this a case of multiple potential mechanisms that all lead to a similar outcome?

The last few waves haven't particularly excited me, but I think all of these look great and I will get all of them. Maybe two of the classic space and another skirt or two in red. Is the blue werewolf/monster supposed to be anything specific?

If they did that, people would complain that the hunt for classic space figures would be too easy... Or, given that two new colours are appearing in complete form in the Ideas gumball machine, that there are too many and it's far too common. I hope we get air tanks and helmet soon. Are there even any other style of helmet in this colour?

Just found this, and also can't view the photos. Would love to see it. The original is still one of my favorite sets.

Agreed! It looks far better than I expected it to with the sides being mostly empty, and the Balrog looks decent from most angles too. I still think it's overpriced in comparison with other models and the value it will likely deliver. It doesn't look like that much 'stuff' and I can't believe that the build experience will be mind-blowing. Pleased that it's better than the blurry leak suggested though (which is often the case).

That looks incredible!

I wish they'd shown these rules to the designers of The Simpsons Krusty Burger! This could be the case, but we really don't know. We don't get to see the sales patterns for sets. It could well be that the target market for them tends to buy quickly, so the sets don't have much of a sales tail and so can be retired earlier. Whereas Star Wars and Harry Potter have a broader target market, including lots of children, so sales could continue fairly consistently for an extended period. For LEGO, it may be that they maximize their revenue by releasing nostalgia sets more frequently to generate the hype for the next thing in a pretty engaged market, have everyone buy it, and then move on. Or it could be that they are halo products to get more people out of their dark ages and then spend on other sets that they wouldn't have seen otherwise. Or it could be that they don't sell that well as you suggested. Even with hindsight I suspect we won't truly know.

Sadly I missed it due to work, but the General Store isn't that expensive on the secondary market, so I might still consider it.

I'm really looking forward to some BDP submissions for these new factions. Even better, some official LEGO sets too! I hope it generates different styles of castle, in the way that the Wolfpack did. Too many of the BDP finalist castles are similar to Lion Knights Castle, and I prefer variety after a while.

StyleCounselor in the Brickset comments has provided the link to buy on May 20 - https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/shop.page

I can't find any other information about it though. I'm in the US and not had an email about it, despite buying in previous rounds, having a regular Bricklink buyers account, and having sold on Bricklink. I wonder what qualifies you to be able to buy something. I was tempted by the General Store in round 1 but didn't go for it, thinking I had nothing else to pair it with. Then the train came along, which was fabulous, and it made me considering parting it out, so this would be a much easier way to get it.

Well, it looks something like a Krusty Burger, although the Krusty signs are disappointing. I don't like the way the hair is done especially. It's probably in scale with the Kwik-E-Mart, and while the exterior looks pretty simple, I hope the interior has some more interesting builds. What is the significance of the car? It looks like Homer's car painted/decorated, but I've not seen that before.

Wow. So essentially no kids toys at all? Because most of them have a load of small pieces/accessories. Even the cartridges of a handheld can be left on the floor. What a shame.

Someone on Reddit suggested an orange lighting kit and I think that might make it look a lot better.

That's bizarre! I'm fascinated by the reaction and the underlying reasons, but also personal information on the internet etc.

Looking at it on a larger screen, I just can't see how this is $120 or 1200 pieces. It looks so empty compared with the Sherlock Holmes book nook and I still think the lack of backing will make it look really odd in most real-life scenarios. It's such a shame that they didn't add another 200 pieces to make that happen and fill it out. I like the way the bridge projects from the expanded back wall though. That works really nicely.

I personally don't like it nearly as much as the Holmes one. I think the lighting effects are doing a lot here and without them it may look very sparse. But looking forward to more details soon

Because Potter uses a train or flying car, Holmes uses a horse-drawn carriage, but Hobbits walk everywhere, and they only have little legs.

It seems like a decent reason to have a new retro set more frequently, as people will likely buy them not too long after release, but they don't want to release a full wave and saturate the market. The 3 in 1 dinosaur probably survives because it's a dinosaur, which kids like and there are new kids all time and because it's cheap enough to be a quick pick up gift without much thought other than 'it's a dinosaur and kids like dinosaurs'. I recently had a birthday party where I put a load of LEGO sets out and said to all the kids who came that they could pick a set, build it, and take it home. There were about six different sets, and two or three of each (all small boxes), and two of them took the 3 in 1 dinosaur, over other Creator 3 in 1 animals, Friends, and City sets.

True, there is no evidence for it, which is why I posed a thought, rather than making an assertion. On the Walmart front, there was speculation at the time that it was an overstock rather than a promotion, and that Walmart do odd things to balance stock levels. But either way, you're right, I didn't give another option of it being perfectly popular enough and it all fits with LEGOs strategy of a successful product. There is still presumably a reason behind it retiring after only a year, and a reason why something like the 3 in 1 Mighty Dinosaur gets extended to eight years. We just don't know what those reasons are. FWIW, whether it's a lower volume product or not, I don't think it matters so much to LEGO. If we assume it's a lower volume product (which it may not be), I think it's fair to say that a lot of the people that buy these kinds of sets are high lifetime value customers for LEGO, so keeping that demographic happy with sets that draw them back to the portfolio and generate media attention are very valuable. They're a halo product that generate additional sales of other sets too. Low sales does not automatically mean not successful.

How do you think they built those enormous castles and towers? They definitely had outside help.

Whilst the boxing gloves would be a shame, at least, bizarrely, it will be a 'cheap' way to get a small mob of kangaroos!

Yes, very good point!