a guy from somewhere

I could see that happening. Also, from the plot synopsis, "a spinjitzu master ninja must train a new generation of heroes" - not Wu? We see Lloyd training Arin and Sora, but Im more concerned at where Wu comes into play here.

If all the villains names start with R Im going to start calling her "The Rempress". Ooh I forgot about that. Maybe a Red herring as Doc hinted? He must be having a laugh at how strung out we have been!

I think thats what Harren meant. But yes, its probably a villain. We can rule out the empress. Maybe an unseen villain? Also regarding Ras being the imperial dragon hound, I also think thats likely, as that would give him a reason to be around and not be some random grunt.

Was thinking more along the lines of dragon noises, no other dragon has spoken before apart from the overlord dragon. But im not really sure who else it could be.

New character called “Riyu” coming, voiced by Brian Drummmond. Wonder who they could be. Maybe the dragon?

I doubt it, although id like to see that. Maybe in a latter wave if they stick around.

Another thing, Zane's race car has 2 gliders and a small flying robot, im pretty sure the gliders are the villain speeders that are flying about, we see that the missile pods on the back can come off and fly on their own in one trailer.

Oh yeah, thanks! I guess that means the Imperium will be Hunting that specific dragon. I believe its the same dragon seen just standing in the first trailer we got.

Was the Imperium dragon mentioned in sets? I take it thats what we are calling the big green one with the ram horns and gold crest. The name seems familiar but I cant put it anywhere.

Both watching Docs twitter... Im very interested about the "Ninjago writer-producer Doc Wyatt assured fans on Twitter earlier this year that Dragons Rising is a brand-new series, not a continuation of the previous 11-year story" line. https://www.animationmagazine.net/2023/04/netflix-builds-on-lego-ninjago-franchise-with-new-series/ website link for those interested.

Sounds exciting, although still no mention of Zane and the others.

Heads up, Ive found some new information and pictures on a website. Not Krux is officially called Rapton, as predicted. Their voice actors are also listed. Dragons rising will also be released on Netflix on June 1st. Ahhhh beat me to it!

Contemplating building a MOC of the racer mechs that we have seen in the show, im gonna get the vintage motorcycle creator set for the wheels as I’m pretty sure those are the wheels the mech will use in the show (same ones on the Kai raider from last summer) but im not sure how to make the mech balance? Obviously it can be explained in universe by a gyroscope but I’ll be interested to see how the Lego designers do it. Coles quake mech had a bar that it could sit back on but idk if the racer mech with have that as well. What do you guys think? Is it worth building? Or should we just wait for pictures?

So what we know so far is Wu pulled the good old “ninja there’s something I haven’t told you” card, and this was the “coalescence” which means merging of mass. It looks like the realms will all merge together. I have been meaning to make a post about it but I think this is set up for a big villain down the line. There’s no way this just happens. Also Wu said that it was meant to happen a long way off, so it’s prematurely happened. I thought The realm merging event thing would be a massive part of the season but it seems like this season focuses on the aftermath of it. Like I said, I won’t be surprised if we find out some big bad did this in 4 years time. After the “merge quake” the realms crashed into one, this may have been brought about by the destabilisation of the entire realm system due to djinjago and the cursed realm being destroyed, and what we are left with is a single large realm with qualities of both. A large time skip seems to have happened as well.

Been thinking about Wu a bit, im going to be honest Im doubting hes actually going to die now. Lets review the facts: Wu is coming in the bounty set (pretty much confirmed by the tea tray on the forward deck of the bounty) Whilst its a new show, its still lego property. And we know lego doesnt want the main cast changed much. I dont think they would remove Wu from the show unless he either comes back at a later date, or he comes back in Wubot form as an AI based on him? Thats a little far fetched. Maybe his sets weren't selling as well? I wonder if its a SotFS type story where this season will focus on Kai, Nya, Lloyd, Arin and Sora, and then the next season in 2024 will be more focused on Zane, Wu, Jay and Cole. I can imagine the last shot of this season being the other guys riding about in Zane's race car looking for a way back to ninjago. Think @Classic_Spacemans plot speculation of the ninja being separated and then Lloyd, Kai and Nya search for the others is most likely what will happen, and then we could get a hunted storyline where the main stuff focuses on L,K and N, then theres a side plot of C, W and J. Sidenote, I hope the temple of the dragon energy cores is a villain base now, I love the grey and orange tron look for them and would love to get a giant geometric building for them. As for more plot speculation, I think the triceratops guys are hunting dragons for their energy cores, and they need them for something, and im guessing this big green dragon is leading the counter offensive. Weird that its not showing up in any sets (unless its in the temple, but its massive).

In the official lego trailer, the second one we got today - 0.03 in the bottom left corner is the shrine for Wu. I do think hes dead. 0.06 hydro whipper in main square just right of the central sign 0.09 Bone warrior can be seen standing next to a green trashcan far in the background. Kinda hard to make out 0.12 hollow bounty (comparing the set and the show, they are vastly different, to the degree where I much prefer the show variant to the set, although that may change when I see official pictures. The show bounty just feels more different and unique, whilst also making the unique features look good. The set one doesn't really. This is why we need pictures. 0.27 weird top hat guy holding geometric artefact (dragon core?) I think its Important to recognise one of the biggest things about this season, and the reason why it feels so different and defined. I dont want to jinx it by maybe having a sky bound finale situation on our hands, but from what we now know, this season opens with an opposition to to season 16s (and prior seasons) biggest problem. The status quo. We know that there will be a massive time skip. Theres a real possibility of Wu dying. New characters introduced. The realm and world of ninjago changed as a whole. This is something completely new, right of the bat it is already breaking away from the status quo and changing the world. Its giving ninjago dragons rising its own identity and name, pushing it away from older ninjago. Its trying new things, and I think after an extremely stale ending to Crystallized (fake out deaths, underused overhyped concepts, drawn out release, status quo etc.....) its going to be a shock to the system, but a good shock. Im cautiously (very) optimistic, and I cant wait to see what Doc and Kevin can bring to the show. Ive seen a couple people online saying how ninjago has been milked to death and this doesn't even look like ninjago any more at the slightest change. They are the same people complaining about how everything is a rehash and how its all the same. Nothing will satisfy them. Its fine to have your own opinion, but if your going to preach 2 opposing ideas about the series, then really your just hating on it for the sake of hating. Hopefully this is a fresh start to a new treasure trove of brand new topics and interesting developments.

Some things ive found whilst watching the trailers in slow mo - 2nd trailer - hydro whippers and core bone warriors can be found throughout the shots The new bountys front section is somewhat hollow. Theres a shot at 12 seconds in where the walls of the bounty hull extend down far bellow where the deck level is. The deck level is only as thick as the thin middle section. Not sure how to describe it. Its as if the bounty is made up of 2 separate parts that are joined in the middle by the mast. I'm convinced it splits in half now. Theres some sort of hexagonal ball artefact that seems important. The dragon with the gold crest that is captured by the gold triceratops villains is the same one that saves the bounty, as it has a large flared out tail end. 1st trailer - Arin has a green ninja mask, possibly Lloyd gives it to him during the merge quake and then Arin has kept it the whole time. Lloyd has Wu's staff, and a mural or picture of him can be seen in the second trailer in the bottom left of the monastery. Maybe Wu really is dead? If so, they should have done it in crystallised. then have the excuse of the merge quake coming out of nowhere be "Wu couldn't tell the ninja because he is dead" as apposed to "Wu didn't tell the ninja because he decided not to". Hexagons/geometric shapes are the main villain motif. Lloyd does Airjitzu(?) at the end of the trailer. Its not much, but its clear some scenes from both trailers overlap in order. Very hyped for this season though, I really hope we get official pictures soon. I feel like you have hit the nail dead on with this plot assumption by the way.

I actually think its 2 factions, one is the dragon hunters (not-Krux and the gold triceratops looking fellas on go-carts) and then the cyberpunk futuristic Ras and Empress faction. That would explain why Ras is fighting against not-krux. Or Ras just switched sides. But I think the target Is the baby dragon (Rapture? Or maybe that what not-krux is called?). The dragon hunters (triceratops guys) want rapture purely because he is a dragon, whist the empress knows something we don’t and orders Ras to get the baby dragon as it has special abilities (maybe it can undo the merge?)

Yeah at the start we see the mech bike in its regular form, im personally calling it “pod” because that’s what it looks like to me. Front cockpit is titled forward so it’s gone from facing up to facing the front. Wheels all pull in very tight under it, so it looks very top heavy and tall compared to its width and length. as for who’s narrating, im pretty sure it’s just some random person brought on by the marketing team, no one special to the show.

So @Classic_Spaceman was right. The merge quake is only a small part of the season, I was expecting a realm hopping season with tons of new characters which would have been great. But it seems like Ninjago has been merged with all the other realms, which now means a greater expansion to the island as a whole. Can’t wait. The animation and colours look gorgeous. Can’t wait to see what happens now. We must get set pictures today, they can’t give us 2 trailers and call it quits there. I’m going to go through frame by frame and look for our missing ninja. They must appear at some point, I mean Zane has a car as a set. Oh yeah and the bounty is just straight up missing the front part of the ship on the show which is really weird.

Agreed good point, and I’ll play devils advocate here. Would they really bring back another villain right after a season about bringing together old villains? I still hope it’s Krux, it would be cool to see him back, and would give a nice jump point of information to king onto. Apart from the appearances of the characters, we know next to nothing about this season at all. I also wonder if the lightning dragon vs empress mech will be a first borne situation where it’s not actually Jays dragon, although it does say elemental dragon so it is tied to him in some way.

Thanks, The Arch above the workshop is actually from the lego overwatch Hanzo vs Genji set. I was just looking through my parts and actually have a couple of vidiyo tiles, maybe I could build a records shop, although it wouldn't really fit the building theme. Maybe just a regular apartment will work.

Ah, trust the trailer to release right after I put my MOC up. Shame about that, hopefully you guys like it. As for the trailer, HOLY DAMN that looks amazing.

As news has been kind of slow recently, I've decided to (amateur-ly) photograph my brand new Ninjago City module. I present: Ninjago City workshop: Its a 16 x 32 module that consists of a noodle shop (between a rock and a hard place), a hangout area above the shop, a smuggling cave with space to store barrels on the second floor, and then on the upper city level, we have the flyboard workshop, with cabinets for tools, a small robot (Tek), a rolling garage door, computers and a removable back wall for easy access. Above it, an empty room which I couldn't quite figure out what to put in there, any recommendations would be great. Access to this is granted by the walkway by the workshop (a door into it on the side) and a ladder takes you up to the empty room, and up to the rooftop. Up there you will find a small tree, a comms computer, and a shed with the main tower on top of it. I've also thrown in a couple of quickly built civilians to populate it. A few other features include the railing infront of the workshop can fold down to fly the flyboards out of it. Purple crystal can be found in the rock face by the noodle shop as a reference to crystallised. And finally, I must credit Instagram user @lego_by_kessel who also used the creator noodle shop set. Ive taken direct inspiration from his noodle shop ground floor build and the larger light nougat empty building on the 2nd floor upper city level. Please go and check out the other stuff he has built as he, along with wiskeyshred on YouTube, have by far some of the most amazing and expansive Ninjago City layouts.

I was looking at the leaked image for markets and it looks like the green and brown building on the left may actually be a corner module. This would be very interesting to see if lego goes through with it, it would essentially be a 2 in one where its both a corner and a straight module. I did not consider this, but it would be so damn cool to see. that may explain the monorail/cablecar build.