brickbride

Like I've said before, I think LEGO are done with the modular system. That's just my impression, though. I fully agree with you about the gimmicks - like this year's March wave consisting mostly of weird banners -, but I wouldn't even know where to start speculating on those.

@krimimimiYou're welcome! Since some themes are already getting set numbers and prices for 2024 (not HP though), I'm putting down some speculation. Without knowing any set numbers or prices, here's what I think we might get in 2024: Durmstrang ship Hogsmeade expansion with the Hog's Head and possibly Zonko's (though I'm more confident about the HH) Knight Bus (last one came out in 2019, so we'll probably see a remake within the next 1-3 years) UCS Burrow from the survey (unless the Knight Bus is a UCS version, then the Burrow might be for 2025) Diagon Alley expansion in the style of the new WWW A successor to the Hogwarts modular system, so people have to start collecting anew Buildable objects galore (the Sorting Hat from the survey sounds like an awful idea to me, but so do all of the buildable objects that have already been made, so what do I know?)

@BrickBob Studpants You might want to pick out your Deadpool costume ;-)

To be fair, that's not necessarily true either. I'm not trying to blame the shadowy people upstairs for everything. Sure, you won't get a Benatar-quality set if you have to design a ship that should be easily four times the Benatar's size on less than the Benatar's budget. But also, if Mark Stafford could get the Bugle made, clearly the designers have some input on which sets get produced. I mean that's one of the biggest Marvel sets in years, and one of the few not backed by the MCU. We just don't know how much influence they do have.

Yeah, that's kind of the problem: We don't know enough to do anything but speculate. Like, for example: 76207 Attack on New Asgard is, to me, a badly designed set. That antagonist looks just goofy instead of menacing, and I've heard that it also doesn't resemble anything in the movie (I haven't actually seen the movie). But we don't know what happened here. Maybe the designer thought this looked cool. Or maybe they figured that spending a large part of the budget on three minifigs was worth the trade-off. (The set does seem to be good value for money - a rarity in Marvel Lego nowadays). Or maybe they were given concept art that looked just like this and faithfully recreated it, only for the art to then not be featured in the finished movie. We just don't know. Even when we get designer statements, I take them with a grain of salt. For example: the 76405 Hogwarts Express. Presumably someone upstairs went like "Hey, we really need a EUR 500 Hogwarts Express" (spoiler alert: we really don't). I then read an interview with the designer which made it seem like the decision to turn it into a display piece that won't run on any tracks and includes only a teeny-tiny slice of King's Cross Station (as opposed to making a fully motorized version with tracks and a decent-sized railway station, which was what people seemed to actually want) was theirs. But it's interesting that the current wave of HP sets includes a Hogwarts Express that runs on tracks with a train station. So it might well be that the designer was discouraged from making something like that (because the two sets would have been too similar) and also discouraged from talking about it (because it would have been a spoiler for the current wave). Bottom line: We just don't know.

I thought that was the Bugle, the set no one had expected. The BP bust, on the other hand, was pretty clearly meant to capitalize on the movies and related events (and so presumably ordered by someone upstairs). Meh, the colours are also pretty off. But of course we don't know what concept art they had to work with.

The Bugle was by Mark Stafford, who Brickset also lists as the designer for the BP bust. 😀 The Benatar was by Chris Perron, who also did the much less popular Bowie. (To be fair, it's probably not the designer's fault that the Bowie is exponentially bigger, AND had less of a budget.) So, yeah.

Fair enough. I don't know either of these franchises well enough to compare them. I just feel that the A-Team has the same relative popularity and nostalgia factor going for itself, while at the same time the military angle, mental illness played for laughs, sexism, and excessive smoking would be much more problematic today. Much like Indy's premises and tone, which are also fairly dated. But I've never even seen Ghostbusters, so for all I know it's the same thing there?

What do you mean? Every Batman fan wants to have Batman's utility belt made of LEGO on display! /s

Insert obligatory "giving the finger" joke here, which may also be why they've avoided this in the first place.

I haven't seen the new one, but wouldn't it pretty much have to be better than ToD? Like, it not being wildly racist and needlessly violent, and it not having a super annoying sidekick character would be enough. What am I missing here? Is ToD somehow considered the high point of the franchise? I thought that was LC, Sean Connery and all, or possibly Raiders for introducing the character.

That comment made my day, LOL. That said, I'm not sure it will flop, at least not hard. The subject matter does suck, but Wolverine probably has more fans than Black Panther at least, and given how little merchandising there is for them, LEGO X-Men fans might well be desperate enough to buy this.

So random body parts made out of LEGO are a thing now? Helmets, fine. At least they, as the recent Star-Lord version proved, only include the artificial parts when the helmet doesn't cover the entire head. Thanos' gauntlet, fine. Ironman's gauntlet, fine. Black Panther's whatever, fine. But unless I'm mistaken, Wolverine's claws are actually a permanent part of his body, so what's next? Looking forward to Spiderman's toenails and similar sets ...

I think @Clone OPatra referred to the fact that Stuntz motorcycles have an in-built friction motor (I think, I've never actually used one) and so might not be included in regular sets because of that feature, not because of "exclusivity".

Adding "Eternals" to the first category. The movie is the second-lowest grossing one in the MCU and the sets were marked down like everywhere. Also, "Fantastic Beasts".

Also, Indy isn't LotR. LotR is like the bestselling fantasy novel (well, trilogy) of all time, never even mind the movies and streaming series. I see Indy more along the lines of, say, the A-Team - something with it's beloved place in pop culture but nowhere near the universal appeal. And something that, again like the A-Team, hasn't aged all that well. Honestly a D2C would surprise me.

Hp231 (Ron from the Astronomy Tower set) also seems to have some sort of knit(?) pattern on his shirt, if that helps.

Oh, yeah, I don't have the DA set and forgot that QQS was in it. When I made my list, I did notice that most of the old sets have been redone in some fashion. The ones that to the best of my knowledge haven't been (the ones I marked with ???) are mostly smaller sets - Draco's Encounter with Buckbeak had like 30 pieces - and we all know that LEGO HP simply doesn't go in for small sets anymore because clearly a theme marketed primarily to kids needs LOTS of DC2s and not a SINGLE set per year in the allowance/small gift range /sarcasmoff. But the Durmstrang ship is the notable exception in that it's the only one on the list that has never been redone AND is big enough to easily carry a set. So I'd be really surprised if they did't remake it soon.

That said, personally I'd expect a Durmstrang ship within the next few years. Reasoning: 1) LEGO does seem much more comfortable retreading well-worn paths than giving us actual new content. It's worth noting that of the old 2001 to 2010 sets, most have been remade in some fashion, excluding by my count: - The Final Challenge (but we did get Quirrell, Harry, and the Mirror of Erised in the Great Hall set) - The Sorting Hat (but there's a buildable Sorting Hat rumoured) - Chamber of Winged Keys (???) - Troll on the Loose (but we did get a stand-alone bathroom set) - Dobby's Release (but we did get that awful buildable figure) - Slytherin (but we did get the polyjuice scene with Ron/Crabbe and Harry/Goyle instead) - Dueling Club (but that scene was sort of included in the new Chamber of Secrets) - Draco's Encounter with Buckbeak (???) - Harry and the Marauders' Map (???) - Quality Quidditch Supplies, Knockturn Alley (but both are possible candidates for a Diagon Alley expansion) - Lupin's Class (but we did get Moody's class in a Moments book instead) - Durmstrang Ship (???) So the Durmstrang ship is one of the more noteworthy omissions. 2) It would make a good stand-alone set. Within the last years, LEGO has done stand-alones based on the Triwizard Tournament (the Beauxbatons Carriage some time ago, the Hungarian Horntail last year, this year the Lake Task), so they might well continue with it. 3) The Karkaroff head as described above 4) LEGO could offer the large group of AFOL pirate fans a pirate ship without actually having to revive the Pirates theme. ;-) 5) Apart from Krum, who already exists in LEGO form, we don't really know any of the Durmstrang students. So - put in Karkaroff's existing head, Krum's existing head and hair, some uniform and some random re-used heads and hair pieces, and you can include a fairly large minifigure selection fairly cheap. 6) I guess you could argue that the ship doesn't really feature in the story, but that didn't stop them when they made the Beauxbatons Carriage. All you really can play with that is "The guests arrive and have tea". (While standing, 'cause three out of four characters in this set are incapable of sitting.) Really, the main draw in that set was the winged horses (and the carriage itself with its suspiciously princess-y colours, but it's not like LEGO have a lack of princess carriages in their portfolio). I have no doubt a pirate ship - branded Harry Potter or not - would sell much better.

I'm speculating that 76277 might be a mech (based purely on pricing). Also wondering how come Super Heroes still gets EUR 10 and EUR 15 sets, whereas the cheapest (!!!) Harry Potter set in 2023 was EUR 30 (and that didn't even have a single minifigure!).

I'm not really into DCU, but I agree. From the MCU perspective, I roughly followed the story till Endgame. I did skip some movies, but I had enough context that it didn't matter. But now with most every incoming movie based on at least one - possibly more - Disney+ series that I don't follow, I've lost interest. GotG 3 was a must-see for me because I like the Guardians and it was easy to get up to speed (I was only missing the holiday special). But for my part, I want character-driven superhero movies, not just special effects. If I don't know who the heck half these people ARE going in, the movie is automatically less appealing to me. Plus, and I think that's a big factor as well, movie ticket prices (and concession prices) have skyrocketed within the last few years, at least in my country. And that's during a time when even basic living expenses are going through the roof. Which means that the bar for movies has been raised significantly. Before, people would go to the cinema for the experience, and if the movie wasn't all that great, so what? But now, people think twice about shelling out that kind of money for a movie that's only "meh" to them. They expect something extraordinary. I hear more and more people say "Things have gotten so expensive! We just stay home as a family, make popcorn, and watch our streaming service." Which might or might not be Disney+.

I saw a trailer at the cinema when watching GotG 3. So they did advertise it, at least here.

Meh. With the exception of the Astronomy Tower (which we won't get, because there's an Astronomy "tower" on top of the Chamber of Secrets set, and it even includes the professor for the subject), none of these are iconic enough locations to carry a set. LEGO don't even think that something like the library (where many scenes happen) can attract buyers on its own, it had to be paired with Dumbledore's Office - so I'm pretty sure we won't get a stand-alone Owlry. If buyers want another courtyard they can buy another copy of Sirus' Rescue. If they want small room modules, well, they can buy multiples of PPM and start MOCing, I guess? Like I've said many times before, while I think there would be a market for smaller modular sets, LEGO clearly doesn't want to go in that direction. And anything "big" that's actually part of the castle (so not Hagrid's Hut or the Quidditch Pitch) has been covered - not very well in many instances, but it has been covered.

Several reasons actually: - We've had several modular sets per wave initially but are now down to one per wave in 2023, they've slowed down. - Both of the 2023 sets were based on DH. I don't really see them starting anew with the older books in the same system. - The older system ran from 2018 to 2020 so three years seems par for the course. - The Hogwarts silhouette as apparently intended is now complete. - Who's going to buy any further expansions? Given both the pricing and the sizes of previous sets, people are ging to run out of money and space eventually (since the sets are meant to be displayed all together). Whereas you could convince them to invest both money and space in something fresh and new. What do you mean "more modular than ever"? The build is pretty lacking, but so were several others (Fluffy Encounter, Sirius' Rescue ...). I think most buyers just got it either for the figs or under the assumption that they'd have the complete castle now and be done with it, see above.

Since I guess LEGO is done with the modular castle system, and in any case I've given up hoping for any more small and affordable modular sets, I decided to give my modular castle at least another bathroom based on "Troll on the Loose'". I used a spare Polyjuice Potions Mistake set (without the figs), MIkita's free "76386 Troll Attack" instructions on rebrickable with some small modifications of my own, and stuck a Hermione with short legs and a scared face (from a Moments book I think?) into it. The result's pretty cool! For anyone who has a spare PPM set or can pick one up cheap, I definitely recommend it.