Oky

Very cool pictures, Captain Nemo! I think you should post all of them here, or at least provide a link to your Flickr so that we can see them in their full glory! Hobbestimus, yours aren't bad either, but they're quite grainy. What camera are you using? If you can, you should play with the adjustments a bit to fix that, or you can take the pictures in regular light and then darken them afterwards. Anyway, merry Christmas everyone! Let's all sing it now: Jingle Bells, Batman smells... And the Joker Got Away by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr

Yeah! Let's talk Pixar! Indeed, Toy Story rules, and I look forward to MU. Not so sure about FN2 as I don't think they can top the first one. And let's not forget The Good Dinosaur, The Inside Out, and that Día de los Muertos film which all sound intriguing! I also think that Cars 2 was better than people give it credit (in fact, I enjoyed it more than the first Cars due to its fast pace and complex story), and I like planes better than cars, so I'm kinda looking forward to Planes too, even though it's not made by Pixar. And I wouldn't mind some sets based on it, although I'm not sure how profitable it would be for TLG since I don't think the Cars sets did so well. I'm really hoping for Monsters Inc/University sets though. There are lots of possibilities there. Brave, however, was pretty disappointing. It was falsely advertised and the story was just a mixture of other Disney movies. Let's hope they can recover from these two duds.

The Helicarrier was $50...

Very good review, Cloney. I think you covered it quite well, so I don't think I'll bother reviewing it myself. But you're still missing a poll. I really like this set too, both for the minifigs and vehicles. Gotta love that BTTF-style hover car, but it looks like we'll be getting a real DeLorean time machine very soon!

Thanks everyone. I'm glad you liked it. Yes, that's the most noticeable change, but I think they did this to make more space for the discs to shoot out. There are other more minor differences too. For example, they used a regular yellow 2x2 brick instead of a textured 1x2 on the nose and they used this boat hull underneath instead of this one. I was thinking that too, but in the The Batman episode "The Big Chill" which this set is based on, he didn't have a white vehicle either because he didn't have much time to prepare to face Mr. Freeze, so it kinda makes sense this way. And Artic is most definitely a typo since the official images of the box say "Arctic". Yeah, I think everyone likes the B:TAS Mr. Freeze the best. And yes, Albino Batman is a bit silly, and I think that's one of the main issues people had with The Batman, that they introduced too many gimmicks such as this suit just to sell toys. But it makes for a pretty cool looking minifig and I prefer getting a variation like this rather than yet another regular Batman. And I think it has already been confirmed that they are making Man of Steel sets, but I'm not too excited for those because they will probably only have Superman, one or two of his enemies, and maybe some supporting characters in them. We can always use a second opinion. I also bought the Spider-Cycle Chase, Kraang Lab Escape, AT-RT, and the two SW battle packs. I might review those too, so stay tuned! Yes, I guess I forgot to mention that. His cowl is the new design, but they fixed the issue of it not aligning with the head.

Hm... I guess you're right. Somehow it looked different to me. Thanks, I'll change my comment.

Thanks! What do you not like about the boat?

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, and welcome to Aquaman on Ice! No, it's not an ice-skating show. I'm talking about the latest set in the Batman and Friends Super Heroes theme, "Arctic Batman vs. Mr. Freeze: Aquaman on Ice." Is that the longest Lego set name ever? I guess they were trying to squeeze the names of all three characters into the title. Anyway, I was lucky enough to order this set (along with some other 2013 sets) when Amazon had them up for sale for a short time, so I am able to bring you an early review of this set! Set Number: 76000 Name: Arctic Batman vs. Mr. Freeze: Aquaman on Ice Theme: Super Heroes Subtheme: DC Universe Year of Release: 2013 Pieces: 198 Minifigs: 3 Price: $19.99 USD S@H description: Mr. Freeze has trapped Aquaman in a block of ice and only Batman can release him! Speed to the rescue in the powerful Batboat with exhaust flames, deploy the missiles and release the bombs to bust that block of ice. It's time to turn the heat up on Mr. Freeze! Includes 3 minifigures: white Arctic Batman, Mr. Freeze and Aquaman, all with assorted weapons. Brickset Bricklink Brickshelf The Box The box is the same size as that of all sets of this price range this year and it's very blue, which fits the winter theme well. It has a nice illustration of Batman in his nifty new arctic suit in the top right corner. The boxart shows our two heroes battling Mr. Freeze on what is presumably a frozen Gotham City Bay. My copy of this set appears to have a typo in the set title as it says "Artic Batman". Hopefully they'll catch on to this before these are widely released as it is quite embarrassing to have a typo right on the front of the box. The back of the box is mostly orange for some reason. It doesn't go very well with the winter theme, but it doesn't look bad. It shows an alternate action shot and all the play features. Contents Inside the box you'll find an instruction booklet, a relatively large sticker sheet, a comic book, and four bags. Surprisingly, none of them are numbered. The comic is about Batman's enemies escaping from Arkham and Batman, Robin, and Aquaman trying to stop them. There's also a short comic featuring the Tumbler and Bat, but it hardly has any story. The TDKR Bane on the cover looks a little out of place to me. The instructions also have an orange background which doesn't suit this set at all and is a bit distracting, but other than that the instructions are pretty easy to follow. As usual, there's a slight image of three figs from this wave in the top right corner of some of the pages: Aquaman, TDKR Batman, and Arkham Asylum Joker. Quite a random group of characters. I think it would have made more sense if it were the three figs from this set, but oh well. These are some of the notable pieces in this set. The long Ninjago blade appears for the first time in pearl silver and the rock piece comes in trans-light-blue for the first time. The colors of the big flame piece seemed different to me too, but it turns out they're the same. I think there was just a little more red mixed into it than usual. Minifigs The minifigures are the main selling point of this set as they are all new and exclusive. Batman comes in a new, mostly white suit that is supposed to keep him from freezing. I guess that makes him the Light Knight? He looks pretty cool, in every sense of the word, although this specific suit wont be very versatile. Mr. Freeze gets a complete redesign from his previous incarnation. The biggest difference is that he now sports a sand-blue Atlantis diver helmet. It looks pretty good and I really wanted to like this fig since Freeze is one of my favorite Bat-villains, but the face just ruins it for me. He looks more like an angry zombie than Mr. Freeze. He is supposed to be emotionless, so why is he so angry? And where are his goggles? Only the worst interpretations of this character didn't have goggles, so I really don't like that he doesn't have them. There are people who are fans of Aquaman, and then there are people who view him as a joke. Unfortunately, I am one of the latter. I can't believe that out of all the DC superheroes they could have put into this set, they chose Aquaman. I mean, he's just a guy who talks to fish! I would have much rather gotten Green Lantern, or the Flash, or Martian Manhunter, or anyone really. But I guess in the context of the set, it kinda makes sense for him to be included, and I find it pretty funny that TLG seems to think that he is a joke too since he merely plays the role of a damsel in distress in this set. It's even implied in the set name! I would probably feel warmer towards this minifig if it at least looked cool, but it doesn't. It looks like Aquaman, yes, but there's something about the face or the hair that makes him look too boyish. He looks more like Justin Bieber in pajamas than the king of Atlantis. I do like the printing on his torso though. Here are some reference images. Mr. Freeze seems to be based on his Arkham City design whereas Batman's Arctic suit originates from the The Batman cartoon. Aquaman is based on his usual comic appearance. They are all very accurate. Looking at them from the back, you can see that Aquaman also has some nice printing on his back. Batman with his white cape and cowl blends into my white background like a ninja! I have taken off his cape and cowl and Mr. Freeze's helmet so that you can see their back printing too. It's pretty detailed, and considering that they don't really need it, it's nice that TLG added it anyway. Mr. Freeze also has some great printing on the front. Batman and Aquaman have double sided heads with angry expressions. Mr. Freeze, however, doesn't. He's just angry all the time for some reason. This is very disappointing since they could have easily given him a second face too, one with a calm expression and perhaps even goggles. I really don't understand why they didn't do this. Here's a comparison with the old Mr. Freeze. I don't have the trans-clear helmet the old one is supposed to have, so I used the closest thing I had. The suit on the new one better, I think, and so does the freeze gun, although I kinda like the piece they used for the freeze beam on the old one better. Of course, if you have the old Mr. Freeze, you can easily swap their heads, and this is what you get. I think this combo looks very good and makes me wonder why they didn't go for a similar face design on the new head. Perhaps the new face could be explained like this: Here's a lineup of all of Batman's different suits so far. The Arctic suit fits in well with the rest. And here you can see Mr. Freeze next to the Atlantis divers. They look quite good together. One could almost think his suit is a left-over design from a scrapped wave of Atlantis sets. The Build The first thing you build is Mr. Freeze's freeze gun. It looks nice and retro. I like the energy cell attached to it, but I'm not too fond of the overall lance shape. Batman gets two of his usual black batarangs. This seems like a missed opportunity to make Batarangs in new colors like white or blue, but oh well. Aquaman fittingly comes with an Atlantis trident. Next, you build Aquaman's ice prison. The base is comprised of slopes and tiles. Then you put Aquaman in the middle and trap him inside the two rock pieces. See ya, fish whisperer. He fits inside easily, but it can be difficult to close the trap when he is carrying his trident. Overall, the ice block looks pretty good, but I think I prefer the marbled rock pieces from the old Batcave set. In order to save him from becoming a fish-stick, you simply push down the white tab on the side. Since the rock pieces are only attached by one stud, it works fairly well. Then comes the main part of the build, the Batboat. Here's a picture of it in mid-build. As usual, there several randomly colored pieces used during the build, but most of them become invisible in the finished model. And here it is, the completed Batboat! I must say, it looks even better in person than on the official pictures! It looks pretty good from the back too! Like Aquaman, this batboat is almost identical to the one from the videogame Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes which is pretty neat. The differences are only very minor. Here's a shot of it from the front which has the obligatory Bat-logo sticker. And here it is from the back. Don't get too close to that exhaust port! It looks very sleek and streamlined from the side. There is a clip on each side for attaching the Batarangs which I really like. So far, none of the Batvehicles have had any place to store those things. Much like the Batwing, the Batboat has the shape of a bat when looking at it from above. The "bat ears" are only attached by a hinge and tend to snap off when moved sideways, but they can just as easily be snapped back on. Play Features The Batboat has several features. The cockpit opens up and there is a steering wheel and two control panels inside. It's kind of a tight fit, though, and it's impossible to seat batman inside without wrinkling his cape. Each side of the boat has a pin for shooting discs which I guess are supposed to be some kind of heat-batarangs. It works well and the discs shoot pretty far. On the back, it has two bombs which can be deployed by simply pushing them off the stud they're attached to. It's pretty low-tech, but it works. You can also spin the engine flame. The Complete Set Here's the full set. I think it all fits together nicely. You get a cool vehicle, a nice piece of exploding scenery, and three exclusive figures. It's a worthy opponent to its Marvel counterpart, Spider-Man's Spider-Cycle Chase. Ratings Design: 5/5 - I love the Batboat. It's so sleek and swooshable. It looks like a bat and has several play features, including Batarang holders. I think it's my favorite Batvehicle so far. The block of ice looks good too. Build: 4/5 - The build is varied, not repetitive, and overall quite satisfying. It's a bit of a pain to put on all those stickers though. Minifigs: 4/5 - The minifigs are pretty good for the most part. Arctic Batman looks great and Aquaman looks decent too, although the choice of hair piece could have been better. Mr. Freeze looks pretty good in his Arkham City style suit, but they really screwed up on his head in my opinion. Playability: 5/5 - Like I said before, the Batboat is very swooshable and has 2 disc shooters and 2 bombs. What more could you want? The exploding feature of the ice block is nice too. Parts: 4/5 - You get a good variety of useful parts, some of them in rare colors. Price: 4/5 - 198 pieces is a decent amount for a $20 set, especially a licensed one. Overall: 4.5/5 - This set is a good value. It gives you one of Batman's signature vehicles from the videogame, an exploding piece of scenery, Batman in one of his special suits, a new Mr. Freeze (who will go nicely with the upcoming Arkham Asylum), and another hero to add to your Lego Justice League, as useless as he may be. It's a good buy for Batman fans of all ages and a very fitting set to build during the winter season. The only thing that keeps it from being great are Mr. Freeze's and Aquaman's terrible heads, but that's just my opinion. I hope you enjoyed this review and that it was helpful to you. And to finish it off, here's one more Aquaman joke: Are You Friggin Kidding Me? by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr

Are you sure? Because if you go to the website now, it says that you enter the code on Steam to "get your PC copy of LEGO® Batman 1."

Thanks everyone, and nice shots, Wayno and Hobbestimus. The holidays make me feel nostalgic, so here are some recreations of some of the most iconic scenes from the first Toy Story movie. Code Red by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr The New Toy by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr Chasing the Moving Van by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr

This is kind of old news, but I haven't seen it mentioned here: The 10-Disc Avengers box set has a new release date of April 2 and comes with a slightly different briefcase along with an exclusive preview of Iron Man 3 and the other Phase Two movies! Can't wait!

PC versions are always pretty cheap for that very reason. They don't sell, so just like Lego Universe eventually being given out for free, they decided to give us the first Batman game for free too apparently. As you can see in the review posted above, it comes on a card in the Tumbler set.

Hm, looks like the code really does unlock a free pc version of the first Lego Batman videogame like I thought. Pretty neat, although it sucks for those who bought the game back when it was new. I had the Wii version which I didn't like very much, so I might try playing it on my desktop. I ordered this and the Spider-Cycle set too and they should get here on Thursday, so when I get them, I'll review them too. But if you look at the official pics, you'll see that Aquaman does have a double sided head, and I'm pretty sure he has back printing too. And the news about the Freeze fig is disappointing indeed. I think he's the worst Superheroes fig so far.

Fair enough. I guess it's debatable whether it fits into the show or not. While I kinda agree with you that it doesn't, I think it's okay to do one out-of-place episode, unlike doing a whole arc that's out of place like Mortis, plus I'm not sure where else they could have done an episode like this. Oh well, let's see how the rest of this arc turns out. No need, I am fluent in German. It may not be a huge spoiler, but it does reveal several things from the next episode, so I'd still consider it a spoiler. Yes. I think the chronology of this season goes like this: 1. Younglings arc 3. Rebels arc 2. Revival The rebels arc must be between the others because Adi Galia is still alive, but Hondo is already using his personal yacht instead of the flying saucers. So basically they were going backwards in the timeline, which is very annoying.

Nice ones, Runamuck! I was thinking of doing something similar. And thanks for the comments on the Gungan Style funny, but I can't take credit for the idea since this joke has been done many times before. Anyway, here are some more from me. I hope they aren't too inappropriate. P-Tower by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr Tongue Twister by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr Hutt Sex by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr

I don't think so. The Lair isn't categorized as Hard To Find on S@H, unlike the Baxter set. Maybe TRU and Amazon will just get it a bit later like the Batcave last year.

Yup. They also have the Mr. Freeze set under "Super Heroes Arctic Baan vs Mr Freeze 76000".

Thank you! Someone who actually agrees with me! He wasn't really trying to kill himself, that's just what WAC thought, and this is not the first time we've seen signs of suicide on this show (Father, that Death Watch terrorist, and a few clones sacrificed themselves), but it's still remarkable since it was mentioned quite often throughout the episode. Plus they said the word "die" a few times too, which is usually a no-no in kids shows. Uhm, spoilers? Also, where did you get that description? I guess it makes sense, but it would have made more sense if the republic sent him. And couldn't he be a commando commander?

Well, I usually do that too, but I made an exception in this case because I don't think this episode can really be compared to any of the other TCW episodes. It has a completely different approach, concept, and tone, so all I could do is judge it by its execution. You're obviously not getting the point of this episode. It was an attempt to make a unique episode by taking all the Jedi and war stuff out of it and making it as minimalistic as possible, so cutting away to Jedi discussing the war would completely go against that goal. We already know why the Republic needs the module (the narrator said in the previous episode that they need it to decode a message from Grievous in order to reveal his plan) we just need to know what it will reveal to the Republic, but we wont know that until they have delivered the module, so that's for another episode. This episode is meant to stand on its own, much like Secret Weapons, even though both of these episode are within the same story arc. The stakes are still there since the Republic is still relying on the droids to complete their mission in order to win the war, so everything depends on D-Squad to make it out of the Void and deliver the module as Gascon keeps reminding us. The desperate tone in his voice conveys the urgency quite well in my opinion, so the stakes are presented in a much more subtle way, which is one of the things that make this episode so remarkable. As for why the Republic hasn't sent help yet, I don't think D-Squad has been in the Void for more than a day, so it probably hasn't been long enough for the Jedi to start worrying. I'm sure they will start getting suspicious in the next episode and send help (how else would the Republic Commando end up in the Void?). So, as I said before, this episode was an experiment to make a completely new and different kind of episode by taking a minimalistic approach. It may not have advanced the story arc in which it takes place and may not be the greatest TCW episode, but it wasn't trying to. It just did its own thing, and I think it did it well. It's this kind of pioneering that made Star Wars great in the first place and I appreciate their effort in trying to make art for art's sake rather than just trying to make a decent TV show. It is unfortunate that apparently not many others can appreciate it. Well, at least I'm not alone on this one. And yes, the second half does seem to be much better than the first, so I hope they wont let us down.

Good point. I think your proposal sounds pretty good. It's generalized enough while it still covers most of the licensed themes. Does Everyone else approve this? Sorry, that didn't come out the way I wanted it to. I'm sure they've been very busy and I don't blame them for forgetting about this, but it has been bugging me a little since it makes the forum seem out of date and it seems like an easy fix, so I hope one of the admins will get around to it soon.

Am I the only one who liked this episode? I thought the dark humor, philosophy, and mature themes were a huge improvement over the previous episode, and considering that this was an episode about nothing, they did a decent job. And does it surprise anyone that this episode was George's idea and that most of the CW crew didn't even want to do it? Check out the featurette to see what I'm talking about.

Yeah, I was thinking about this recently too and I'm a bit frustrated that nothing has been done about this yet. I definitely think that Toy Story 3 should be changed to just Disney, and Batman and "Spiderman" to Superheroes. We might as well also add TMNT and maybe the Lone Ranger (to differentiate it from the Western theme).

Yeah, this episode was just OK until Lunaception happened which made it pretty good. Makes me wonder if Celestia can enter day dreams. Magic Duel wasn't bad either, but it was predictable and felt like one big fan service. Gotta love those Fluttershy moments though. Nope. Not many easter eggs this season. Where are you Derpy? Yes, it's definitely an enjoyable show, as I said a couple of pages ago. I never got into TMNT before this series either, but this is one of my favorite shows currently. I still prefer the 2003 series though.

Nice one, Hulk_Smash! I also have some ideas with Legolas and hope to get the Mirkwood Spiders set soon so that I can execute them. Anyway, here's some more from me: Hulkasaurus Rex by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr Always Alert by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr There's an Appa for that. by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr

Uhm... Isn't that a good thing? I know it's just one day earlier than January 1st and still wont be out before Christmas, but I can't wait to get this set, so any day it gets released earlier is a good thing in my book!