Black Falcon

Yeah exactly, what I thought too. I´d rather gather more peasants honestly, but I guess better than nothing, and there are surely people that can use it anyways.

Hmm. I am not really a fan of it, looks more like a modern Jester, than a Medieval one.

Well, of course other themes do have an influence on each other when it comes to sales, but I would actually say that Ninjago probably had a bigger influence on the sales of Castle, than LotR had, even if those themes are more similar to each other, but especially in a time where Lego was not as popular among adults as today. Well I don´t think they test those sets but they will still do market research about what in general what they are interested in.

LotR has nothing to do with it. Lego does a lot market research, so if they think it is better to produce something else, rather than castle, or that a creator castle is enough instead of a whole castle line it will have its reason. I would actually rather say that both LotR and Castle share the same fate - if Lego would make sets for them, I belive neither of them would sit on the shelves and Lego surely wouldn´t make a loss with them, but still can probably make more with producing something else instead. But who knows, maybe one day we will get smaller sets for one of them again...

Well, I am not talking it down and actually have argued that LotR playsets would be a success in this very thread before, because of Adult LotR fans + Castle fans would outweight the lower interest from kids, I think. And I don´t think they would be sitting on the shelves either, but still despite that it might just be better for Lego to produce something else because of the reasons I stated above, as much as I would love to have LotR playsets personally. And especially now that they apparently shut down Dreamzzz, Monkey Kid and degraded Jurassic World to a Adult line only theme, likely to free production capacity for Pokemon and maybe Spongebob, if that one is really coming, I guess the chances for a LotR playset-line aren´t all that good right now. The best chance IMO were Sets for a new Film, but it doesn´t seem that the Hunt for Gollum is getting people all to excited so that might lower the chances for that aswell.

Most kids would still prefer Harry Potter, Ninjago, City, Friends and DIsney, though. I don´t think small Sets would do all that bad because of Castle and LotR fans, but the number of kids interested in them would probably not be the highest. But in the end Lego has just the production capacity to do so and so much sets every year, and other themes might just be more popular nowadays especially among kids - and with Adults there is always the question how much smaller sets lower the numbers of the bigger ones sold. I would really love more Dwarven builds, namely Mines of Moria and the Erebor, even if the second is very unlikely to happen I guess.

Not really interested in it honestly. Looks to close to the Medieval Blacksmith to my taste, but goes more the fantasy route than the medieval one, so not really what I am looking for - but it is still a nice build, with nice details. Just in the end there are so many sets out there nowadays you have to decide what to buy and what not.

I actually think it is just an error. If you open the catalogue the number of the page is always on the right side of the right page, aswell as the names of the themes that are shown on both pages - and in this case the left page shows Classic, the right one shows the minifigures, so I do belive someone just made a mistake and wrote classic series instead of minifigure series. Edit: In the german version of the catalogue it is actually named Minifigure Series 29 so that would fit to what I said above, but I realised that the english version actually has the pages in a different order and classic isn´t on the left page there. Still could be the reason though, since who knows when they actually edit those pages. Anyways, leaks stated the two already revealed would be the only throwback figures, so right now I tend to belive that, instead of putting to much hope based on the word classic in the catalogue ;).

Not going to say it is impossible, but I kinda think we would have heard if that one is Pokemon by now already, but who knows

You mean like Game of Thrones? Eitherway there is just not any proof around that HP would be almost dead or unpopular by kids nowadays. Actually quite the oposite, when you look in local shops/bookstores nowadays.

Well, personally I never really understood what they were trying with those, but there are several people out there that would tell you the third failed only because they replaced Depp. If there wouldn´t be a fanbase that is big enough they wouldn´t even make a series. And that despite the fact that the films are still quite fresh and many of the adult fans say they don´t need a series because they are happy with the films.

Harry Potter is still very popular among kids. Of course adults will always have influence on their kids and surely many kids nowadays also come in touch with Harry Potter because their Parents loved it themselves as kids but IMO it is a bit easy to just say all the popularity comes because parents force it on their kids.

Well of course if you´re increasing the size in all dimensions it would work. But I still won´t agree that the Great Hall is terible. Sure it is very small inside especially compared to the first one after the Theme came back but compared to the original from the films it is quite true to that - and while I also thought it is rather small, increasing its size would have just meant that they would have to make everything else bigger - and in the end more expensive too.

Well they can´t do a big set for every theme every year, especially if they want to keep making fresh one offs too.

I wouldn´t say that a magical menagerie shop would be that unlikely to happen. Probably they wouldn´t make it the big but the small shop of a set, since animals are the more expensive pieces, but should still be easy to do. And maybe we even get some Raven for it or so...

Well, but then they could have done a 1st Gate of Minas Thirith Set, with the gate and some walls left an right, and maybe with Gond and some minifigures it would even be recognizable. But I still doubt that is what many people would have wanted - even though it surely wouldn´t be a unpopular set. All the popular places in the city are way to wide from each other, not to mention half of them are actually not even in the city at all, whereas with Rivendell the most important locations could be better mashed into one set, so I would still argue that MinasTirith is more comparable to Barad-Dûr.

I do actually wonder if they would go all the way back to fantastic beasts one day and make a buildable Niffler. They could ofc just wait till the new series shows them, though. Wether it was popular or not, I can´t imagine them doing another one so soon eitherway. I would actually think it is quite likely the Adventscalendar. My guess for 76476 would be that it is the "big" September Set and the other one likely just a skipped number. Considering they might do sets for the series next year, I could seee them not doing a Hogwarts Express and instead making one for the series. Personally wouldn´t be surprised if there is no Express on the shelves for a year eitherway. Maybe even just half a year anyways...

Check the shape of Barad-Dur, which (of course in another style, size etc.) has also a shape that is somewhat similar to what we would expect from the city - and there they had no problems to fit intererior inside and to me doesn´t look poor executed either. I still disagree here. And especially with your last point. You can take the best of both worlds and sure, at some point it will influence design decisions and there will be compromisses needed. But first of all especially for the outside of the city I doubt that there are even any major changes needed and secondly, there are always pros and cons while you are just seeing the cons it seems ;). I doubt that is actually true. I am not going to say it would cost the same with the stuff added on the back but I don´t actually think that it really adds that much cost compared to the overall price of the set anyways. I mean, it isn´t like the build would just be empty in the back then, but all the empty room would have been probably been filled with more structure to make the build stable etc. Then you would need pieces for the minifig-stand. This discussion makes me really wonder, with Barad-Dûr already around, how many people, knowing how it looks now, would actually rather prefer a Minifigure-Scale or Microscale version of it rather than the actual Set?

Yeah, they showed it in skaerbag I belive. But the model they created was never meant to become a set, as it would have been way to big.

There is still the GWP. But yeah, aside from that I don´t think we will see any more sets.

Interesting, but just shows that there isn´t really a system behind it really. Yeah, I think so too, and apparently either Lego has no strict rules about it or they just make a lot mistakes there (or very likely both). Sometimes makes just no sense like having the cape that is used by Palpantine in Star Wars but also used in Ninjago or for the Beastmaster CMF still locked from PAB, that piece is just so generic...

The question is, if it is an reliable one. And so far I haven´t seen it mentioned anywhere aside from one post in this forum without even mentioning a source...

Who says it is going to be poor? In the end we don´t know what will be inside or how it will look, and actually I would say, if they were just going to do a stand we would get two Gondorian Soldiers max.

For who else should I speak if not for myself? ;). But that is exactly the point. You have another opinion about it than I do and it is just impossible to categorize it so that it fits for everyone ;) Pirate fans would probably keelhaul you now ;). And well Kingdoms is a subtheme, and a quite modern one, so bad example, because all newer sets are sorted by their official theme now (though as subtheme of castle). But if we take a look at older castle subthemes, IMO that is quite a mess, because the sets are basically sorted by factions and not really themes, which splits sets from the same time with oposing factions into different themes, while in Kingdoms to stay with your example they didn´t devide the theme into dragon and Lion Knights ;). But yeah, obviously. my opinion, and noone has to agree with it ofc ;).

I would expect them to use the existing moulds, it is very unlikely we will get new moulds for existing dinos that allow more articulation IMO. Especially since later dinos tend to rather use less parts than more.