RichardGoring

Do we know if this is LEGO Store exclusive? If it eventually makes it to widespread release I suspect it's a good candidate for one we'll see on sale. But there will still be plenty of people buying it day one at full price.

Ah. So hope that they, and others, may still appear.

But also really expensive, as are all the baby things sadly.

Aside from that being absolutely amazing, I'd love some steampunk space pirate sets to go alongside the Sea Cow.

The problem is that if it sells well at this price point, then they know they can charge at this level again and people will buy it.

I can't see them? They don't appear to come up filtering for newest, by the set, or a search them?

Call it a v-jet? Or a ^-jet?

I don't like the gold, but you make a compelling case for steampunk MOCs! Gold really does seem to be either love or hate. Given that most of the rest seem to be relatively evenly split (from a small sample size here), I wonder if gold will win but also be the least popular at the same time, as those voting for other colours don't like gold, but would probably be happy with any of the others. Yes! I voted for dark azure, for what it's worth, but would be happy with any of them (but less so with gold).

The Beagle really would be great. I assume it's a lot more famous than Endurance, but it seems that I'm wrong. Some lovely ideas and models in those links!

Way more iconic, but a lot bigger. And what parts of the school would they actually include? The front, Mrs Krabappel's classroom, the playground? If they change their style/approach it might work, but if they stick with the same kind of scaling as the other sets it might feel small/disjointed, or, trying to cram in other areas like the cafeteria and Principal Skinner's office, everything will feel too small? Happy to be wrong. Although either would be great. Moe's tavern. Is that still off the table for LEGO after all the 18+ sets for the last few years? It's more iconic than any of the other locations.

Minifigures? You'd get Sauron, the Mouth, two nazgul, six orcs, Frodo (repeat), Sam (repeat), and Gollum. Oh, OK, maybe seven orcs.

I like to see a LEGO set larger than my house. First million piece set?

Absolutely. I've thought for years that Friends is probably the best theme LEGO does, as it encapsulates everything that LEGO is good at so very well. From purely anecdotal personal experience, my three year old seems to find it easier to play with and pose minidolls, perhaps because the feet are fixed, so it's easier to place on studs. Although they bend more easily at the waist, so it's not quite that simple. Attaching them to seats with the foot grips is also easier, possibly. Maybe this is a reason for choosing minidoll if they expect younger fans to be into the sets? Also, does the more human-like proportion of minidolls make it easier to build real-world settings to a more accurate scale/proportion, which is important to IP owners and model appeal, or am I overthinking it?

Back in 2021, there was a Pillars of Creation window display in some LEGO stores, which included a LEGO Art version of it that I always liked. Does anyone know if instructions were ever released for this? Google isn't helping bring up anything at all about it, so I assume not, but this is the place to ask if there is anything out there.

I was surprised how much I liked Ashnflash's black colour swap of the BTAS Batmobile. It does look really good in black, and it hides the terrible wheel arches nicely. But I'm still glad they made it in dark blue.

Cue a repeat of pages 101 to 104 of the thread!

I love microbuilds. This is great! Put it on its side and it's a canoe with an outrigger.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I do feel this misses some of the key considerations. Creators that apply to LEGO/LAN may not have the subject matter expertise for each theme, but they are generally LEGO fans and represent some portion of the LEGO community. And what they lack in subject matter expertise for a thoroughly detailed and thought-through review, they make up for with generally high viewing figures. LEGO fans looking for LEGO reviews will find it most easily on LEGO-focused channels. Being first to review it is clearly an advantage, but I don't think you can say that anyone would get high views on sets early. There are many variables, but subscriber numbers and content matching recommendation algorithms are probably as important, maybe more so? The idea of going to a specialist channel and asking them to do a review is a nice idea, but in practice it's hard. Hard for LEGO to find the right people, get them under NDA or appropriate agreement (which a large corporation like LEGO would have to do in some form). It's also hard for the creator. YouTube can really penalize channels for posting unpopular videos or non-conforming videos, so it's a big risk to them. Also, the opportunity cost is probably huge. Barad Dur is probably a 10-12 hour build? Especially for an inexperienced builder. Then you've got the time required to script, film, edit, and release the video. All for something that the channel's core audience don't want? Far better to put that time into content that people who subscribe to the channel actually want? You could say that LEGO could pay the creator to do it, but then does that invalidate the review? Especially as it would have to be marked as an ad. And no one will respond well to that. LEGO does sometimes send out sets to subject matter appropriate channels. I remember Tavarish (a car channel) doing some of the Technic supercars. His videos typically get 0.5 - 3 million views. His Technic Bugatti Chiron video got 2m views - not bad! His Porsche 911 GT3 RS got 45k views, which is terrible and a huge opportunity cost wasted. I don't know much about Star Wars, but actually I've bought a few Star Wars sets after watching non-Star Wars LEGO channels review a couple of the sets. I've tried watching SolidBrixStudios videos - a Star Wars channel - and I just don't like it. There is something much easier to get into for a casual observer to watch a casual reviewer, who looks at things as I would look at it. Yes, it would be nice if a specialist could review them too. But to me it would be a huge mistake if it was only a specialist. Completely agree. Brickset, Jay's Brick Blog, and New Elementary are all excellent.

Tiago Catarino has them both together in his review and Rivendell just looks so much nicer to me. Tiago also said the build experience was better on Rivendell, which I can believe, because that is hard to beat. Even an army of orcs wouldn't change my mind as it's not something I particularly value. I prefer the build, playability, and aesthetics over figures. I do like the look of Barad Dur, but the conflict between nanoscale exterior and minifigure scale interior gives the playability a slight ding for me. If I could only choose one, it would be Rivendell. But fortunately 'both' is an option for me, and I will choose that.

It's certainly tantalizing. Only six months to wait! It really is a shame how modern it looks compared to pirate ships though. If it includes sails, it will be great at first glance, but likely quickly come undone. With that number of pieces, it may be a perfect candidate for modifying closer to a pirate ship though.

Oh, that's a shame. Was it best seller or standard parts?

I'm new to BrickHunter and it's so amazing. Saves a vast amount of time ordering things for MOCs. Definitely agree that a custom addition to the tower to increase the height will be better than just repeating a section. Looking forward to seeing all the talented builders come up with something! Tiago Catarino has one too.

Possibly. I don't quite understand why they would lie about it though. And the set shown in Sep 2023 had a load of temporary 3D printed parts for the new elements and pre-production art work, so it definitely wasn't finished. Although now I think about, the big survey leak was in February 2023, before Rivendell was released, and that had a pretty decent/completed version of Barad Dur in it. So yes, you're likely right. But why on earth would they say that then? Bizarre.

Interesting point at the start of this designer interview that they didn't know there would be another Lord of the Rings set until after Rivendell released. So it may have been influenced on the success of Rivendell early on.

Most exclusive torsos aren't, with Blacktron being the exception so far. What that really means is, we have no idea.