mirkwoodspiders

I am currently past the underground section and onto the bank itself. The vaults portion was a great build. I almost want to say it's a goblets parts pack lol. I think my display solution will be Gringott's to the far left of Diagon Alley, next to Ollivander's. The vaults will go below, resting on a different shelf about a 14 inches below the shelf on which the bank rests. It'll render the supports on the top of the vault section moot, but I think it will look cool. I'll try and include a picture when it's all done.

I had forgotten, thank you for the reminder! Super excited for the show. I'm hoping my interest for the sets related to the show will increase once I see them on-screen.

I'd prefer a diorama, but I could see this having some neat functions. Maybe the door blowing off, or even a little sliding brick to move Threepio and R2 across the main hall with some flick lasers shooting at them from somewhere lol.

Absolutely. It's been over 20 years since the first release, and it's about time. I mean, an un-opened copy of the original goes for $1,000 at minimum right now. There's clearly an interest. Barring an absolute choke job on design, this will be a definite buy for me. Also, getting it out of the way (let's be real - we all knew an updated UCS Tie Interceptor was going to happen) clears one more from the backlog of future UCS sets and makes room for some prequel UCS sets. They'll happen - just be patient.

I'm happy TPM is finally getting some substantive representation, but I'd be bummed if the podracers only come in diorama form. They'd have to be on the smaller side instead of mini-fig scale. RIP to the helmets, I've had fun collecting the lot of them. Glad to see the UCS line keeps chugging along, but I doubt we'll get details on the $240 May the 4th set for a long time.

So, to display the Devastator on my LEGO room shelving was almost impossible. The room itself is a small, 12 ft. x 4 ft. room, so it's tight to begin with. I had to put up two metal shelving tracks, fastening them to studs in the wall. I then placed a 12 in. deep wooden shelf on top of two brackets, then fastened an A-frame bracket onto the top surface of the shelf (the bracket is upside down). The A frame was also fastened to another stud in between the two metal shelving tracks, so the adjustable brackets underneath and the A frame bracket above are essentially keeping each other in check. After all of that, I had to extend the wooden shelving out an additional 3 inches, since placing the Devastator against a wall on a shelf requires at least 14 inches of space between the wall and the outer portion of the set. This extension required mending plates on top and bottom to connect the extension to the 12 in. shelf and enable it support the weight of the Devastator. Anyway, after about 2 days of finagling, I finally got it done. It is one of my proudest LEGO achievements, and I have no desire to do it again for awhile, sorry Venator lol. I'll upload a picture later when I get a chance. I have this same problem - my LEGO room ran out of display space months ago and the unopened sets are in the dozens now. Odds are the Venator will have the same size box as the Walker, Falcon, etc. and will not even be simple to display un-opened.

I couldn't care less about Rex. I'll take the ship, thank you. There's a new rumor the Venator is 40 inches long, about 3 inches shorter than the Devastator set. So, this thing will be in a box for ten years while I try to figure out where to display it, I guess.

Ok, it's a bad set but this take is out there. The idea has precedent - buildable figures like BB-8, Yoda, Grogu, etc. The only horrifying part of the model is the face. The build might not be the best, but sans the face, do you really think it looks that bad? I think it sells poorly and I think it was a mistake, but I absolutely don't think LEGO is trolling anyone with this. Probably a sign they have the capital to try stuff that's out there and will hopefully learn from sales whether to do things like this in the future.

I think it's a really convincing model aside from the face. This is one of those sets, though, whose details (a la the face) you gotta make sure you can nail before green-lighting the production process. The comments regarding the face are universally "ugh" so far. The bow-caster does look pretty cool from what I can see, too.

That's my only big issue with the set - display-ability. I have nowhere that fits the footprint and height well together. I tend to think I'll do the bank alone with the dragon on top, pulling out the vaults for an impressive party trick from time to time. It's cool, but the vault is just not terribly pleasing to the eye in my opinion. Also, I have the larger DA set and want to have the bank with that more than anything else.

Let us know when your design is finalized! That does sound like a cool idea.

From Lego's site: "Construct a spiraling vault cart track with a mechanism that stops the cart at each of 3 underground vaults – including Bellatrix’s vault, which has a magical surprise inside!" Do we have any idea what the "surprise" is? Or is this just a reference to the spell in the movie?

I have a feeling they devoted so much to the vaults in case people wanted Gringott's without the large DA set. Standalone, the bank isn't much to write home about. As small as it looks (and sort of is), it needs the rest of DA to look good. Yet, if you don't want to drop close to $1000 for both and just want Gringott's, you can still have a substantial display piece with the vaults underneath. That said, I still can't believe they devoted so much of the piece count to the vaults. I imagined one vault, minimal track, maybe one story underground max. It looks cool.

I'm excited to see how the drop-down feature works for the cart as it travels to the vaults. The grainy picture looks great. I will not sleep well tonight waiting for the reveal. Honestly, the more I look at it, the toughest thing to figure out from the pic for me is the scale. If it's compatible with the large DA as has been said, this thing is fairly substantial.

excellent

I really hope the Gringott's reveal truly is tomorrow. I trust exabrickslegogo, but I would have thought a picture or two would have leaked by now before an official reveal.

Will LEGO still sell entire boxes of CMF in this new format?

How likely is it that LEGO makes a UCS Ghost someday? If I knew they would, I'd probably pass on the forthcoming model. It's nice, but I'm a sucker for minifig-scale models.

I already have the old Disney Castle, so I picked up the UP house, Celebration train, and 1 of the minifigs and got the GWP. I can't believe how quickly it has sold out in the US.

Exactly haha. Just... hold still, focus, take a few more seconds. I bought the previous castle and probably would have gotten this one if the model were an entirely different castle. No sense to me in buying a remake that's about 80% or so the same castle. I will get the figures some other way if I want. I can see a lot of the reviews saying, "If you didn't get the first one, it's definitely worth it... if you did get the first one, there's not enough to justify having this one too." It looks really good, though.

Shield looks ok, but wow it has zero appeal to me otherwise. No functions. No handle. Eyesore from the back. Repetitive build. Un-interesting minifigure. The price is ok, but there are dozens of other ways I'd rather spend $200. I think they are partially banking on collectability here. Mjolnor, Gauntlet, Black Panther Bust, etc. Collect them all, even if the individual items aren't that compelling.

I'm a novice Batman fan, so I don't have a strong opinion on the accuracy or detail of the figures. That seems to be a big gripe of many of this set's detractors. If I were a bigger fan, I'm sure my gripes would be the same. On the set's own merits or flaws, I think LEGO tried too hard here with the shadow-box concept, and even then didn't execute it will for what shadow-boxes are supposed to look like. I like the detail of the rear wall and the functions, but don't like the shape of the set, the entire front wall, or the shadow-box concept in general. I'm honestly not sure what I was expecting/wanted, but it's not this. If I had to say at this point, I'm 60/40, with the 60 being I won't buy it.

Patronus stag looks ugly and awful. Nothing transparent is just insult to injury. HE with Hogsmeade looks pretty cool, along with BoH. I stopped "completion collecting" HP a little while back and I'm liking the choice more and more with each successive wave.

Totally agree. I think many of us undersold it before seeing/reading reviews. It looks far better in the videos I've watched. I have the 2013 version and I still think I will pick this new one up.

Excellent question. As of now, I have the playsets un-opened in storage for whenever I may have the space to build and display. The D2Cs are built and on display. If I never have the space to display the other sets, I'll probably end up trying to sell them in the future. Hard to keep up across multiple themes I like and have the space needed to display everything.