The Stud

I found and picked up a Lego Batman Movie set at a Walmart somewhat near me back in February. It was a slightly damaged 70902 Catwoman Catcycle Chase just laying in front of some recent Marvel and DC sets. I think it must have been found under a shelf or something since that particular location has been moving stuff around recently. Also my Barnes and Noble tends to have a few older sets in the Lego aisle. They still have some 2019 Ninjago sets, DC Super Hero Girls set (41233 Lashina Tank), 41954 Captain Salazar Brickheadz and a trio of 75119 Jyn Erso Buildable Figures. Until recently, they also still carried 70606 Spinjitzu Training from The Lego Ninjago Movie.

Not to mention the new molds for the Figment figure that they’d hopefully include!

While constructing the Ninjago City Gardens, I made some progress on my Ninjago rewatch. I got through Seasons 5 and 6, watched Day of the Departed, and got through the first two episodes of Season 7. Rewatching Season 5 was very nostalgic for me. I first got into Ninjago in 2015, so Seasons 4 and 5 hold a special place for me. I haven’t seen this season in years so it was nice to go back and rewatch it. I don’t have much to say about it, but it’s definitely one of my favorite seasons. Season Six gets a lot of flak, but I found myself really enjoying it when I watched it this weekend. I only saw these episodes as they were posted on Youtube in early 2016, so my memory of this season was very foggy. I guess it’s not too surprising that I found myself enjoying this one, since Jay and Nya are my two favorite characters and the season revolves around them and their relationship. I think Nadakhan is one of the best Ninjago villains and I hope he returns in a future season. I want a Legacy Misfortune’s Keep even more now! Day of the Departed was as underwhelming as I remembered it to be. Again, I only saw this special when it aired and that was it. It has great character development for Cole and it’s cool to see certain villains return, especially getting a bit of a redemption for Morro, but the rest of the special feels pretty half baked. I suppose that’s understandable since they had to rush it out when The Lego Ninjago Movie got delayed a year. It gave me one of my favorite Ninjago waves ever though, as well as some of my favorite Ninja outfits, so no complaints here! I’m only two episodes into Season Seven and find it to be decent so far. I don’t remember being too fond of this one when I watched it (again, I’ve only seen it once) so it’s at least better than I was expecting. If I’m being honest though, I’m ready to get past it and onto what I consider the peak of Ninjago: Seasons 8 and 9.

^I just finished the Gardens yesterday as well. I was very impressed by the creative building techniques. It might even surpass the original City in terms of out-of-the-box part usage and color palette. The set is massive and looks great side by side with the original City and my TLNM Destiny’s Bounty. I also think that it’ll go down as the best set of 2021 and, for me personally, it’s the best set Lego has put out since the underrated Welcome to Apocalypseburg. (Something about this $300-350 sets just makes them winners.) I defended the minifigure selection of the set when we first saw pictures of it, as that was probably the most divisive part of the set. Now that I have it in hand, I do have to say that the civilian figure selection is rather generic. I binge watched the show during part of the time I built the set and couldn’t help but think of figures they could have included instead. Oh well, that’s just a nitpick!

I think once the Disney Castle is retired, then that will make room for a Disneyland Castle. I don’t think Lego would want both on shelves at the same time, and I imagine that Disney/Lego would want the 2016 Castle still around for another year to coincide with Disney World’s 50th Anniversary. Maybe for the 2025 Disney Parks D2C? (Which would be nine years since Lego released the Cinderella Castle and first CMF series which is just bonkers to me.) Personally, I’m hoping for Space Mountain or EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth next, though I still need to get the Castle and decide if I’m getting the Train Station or not.

The ‘66 Batmobile looks fantastic! I’m glad that it has a little display stand and hope they continue making different versions of the Batmobile in this format. Like others have been saying, I’m disappointed by the lack of Robin. I’ll just have to Bricklink the 2016 figure I suppose. No interest in the 4+ set though.

Just finished building the amazing Ninjago City Gardens!

Also the fact that Lego wouldn’t make new molds (for Korg and likely Miek too) for a promotional set.

Hopefully we get a Robin with this ‘66 set!

That looks pretty good! I could immediately recognize what it was, though me playing through Fallen Order five times might play a part in that. I look forward to seeing what you make next!

I second wanting a Fire Temple remake. I remember when rumors for Ninjago Legacy first popped up, that was one of the main sets mentioned being remade. Of course now we know that it was either mistaken for the Monastery of Spinjitzu or cancelled, but I still hope Lego revisits it at some point. I’ll also say that I want a Battle for Ninjago City remake. I missed out on that set despite having the chance to get it at Toys R Us (RIP) multiple times.

Lego has already made a lot of police sets this year... so no? I think the cancellation of this is weird. I can’t really think of any reason why this set should be cancelled, but I don’t think the true reason is as political or controversial as people will make it out to be. Lego cancels sets for arbitrary reasons all the time.

Hmmm, maybe a mixture of dark tan and pro gold pieces?

Fortunately, I don’t think these movie delays will affect Lego at all and thankfully, we don’t have the entire movie slate pushed back again. I’m seriously ready for Black Widow to come out. I’m sure that I’ll enjoy it, but I’m ready to move onto other things at this point.

I’m more into the minifigure-scaled stuff, but I think all three of these sets look fantastic! I’m especially impressed by how great the Probe Droid looks, but the two helmets are nice too. I must be the only one who doesn’t think that the Vader looks off though. Not sure if and when I’ll get these, but I am pleased by what I see!

I mean neither is the Batwing, but we got that last year. Still, any guess right now is a shot in the dark.

*Practically guaranteed.*

We wouldn’t see any gold anniversary figures until next year anyway, so I’m not too bothered about those right now. If the CMF is indeed MCU based, the only figure I really expect to see is Spider-Man’s homemade suit. They have some choices when it comes to variants of the other main MCU heroes that would be guaranteed a slot, but the only Spidey costumes we’re missing are the homemade suit and the red/black suit which we’re already guaranteed to be getting in October.

I still think it’s gonna be the Batman Returns Batboat to keep up with the Michael Keaton Batman theme. I don’t see them doing any other D2C Batmobiles with the ‘89 one still on shelves and this is the only vehicle from the Burton duology that we’re missing. That or it’s gonna be some sort of playset, which I’m such would be preferable to a lot of us. I look forward to seeing what it will be!

Ah, I see I was mistaken then. I guess if we do see Tim pop up somewhere, he’ll be using that hairpiece from the magazine.

Lego has kept a lot of The Rise of Skywalker sets in production, so there’s still a decent balance of each era on store shelves right now. They don’t necessarily need to make more sequel sets right now. Besides, there’s not really many more sequel sets left to make other than starting to remake some of the sets we’ve already gotten.

Weird that this magazine didn’t use TLBM Joker hairpiece in gray like the show did. As far as I know, that element is still in production. (It’s part of the Architecture Statue of Liberty’s torch, which is still being produced, and I’m sure I’ve seen it pop somewhere else recently.) Whatever the reasoning is, I could definitely see us getting Twitchy Tim in some sort of Minifigure Accessory Set. I believe we’ve gotten a new Ninjago pack annually for several years now so it stands to reason that we’ll get one this year. (I think they might have skipped 2018, so excluding that.)

I wouldn’t have expected anything based on that game yet anyway. Lego has yet to make any Jedi: Fallen Order products despite that being one of the most successful single-player story games in the last few years. What’s more likely to happen is the GK versions of Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood and Robin showing up in random, unrelated sets, like what happened with last year’s Avengers game.

This is a very reductive and pessimistic way of looking at things. I’m not a fan of any the themes Lego has tried to integrate this smart phone technology with, but I still admire that they don’t stop trying to keep up with the technology and trends of the times. They actually try to innovate instead of resting on their laurels and doing the same shtick with blocks and bricks for all of eternity. Let’s not forget that kids are the core audience of Lego’s sales and if Lego isn’t able to appeal to them, then they certainly won’t be able to support AFOLs like the members of thus forum. Lego is still popular with the kiddos, but technology is obviously playing more and more of a role in their lives with each generation. They need to try to keep up with the whims of their target demographic in order to survive.

Cody requiring a new helmet mold is part of the reason I wasn’t expecting him to be in the UCS. Unless it’s a playset, Lego rarely makes new molds for minifigures in their UCS ships, as they’re usually not really the highlight of the set. Lego really needs to just make a new helmet for P2 Clones that allow for attachments like with the P1 helmets. Hopefully we’ll get that with Hunter and/or Crosshair in the Bad Batch Shuttle, since the latter needs a rangefinder on his helmet.