strangely

It makes me think there might be another minifigure set.

One of the sets leaked. Minifigures yall!

I feel conflicted about this set. At 60cm I just have no interest in the ship, it's too much space and I hate when there are minifigures but no way for them to inhabit the build or interact with it. At the same time, I really want the minifigures. I'm tempted to just wait and see if they do other sets down the line. I think the deciding factor for me will be the GWP. If it's a minifigure compatible shuttle (and actually looks good) then I'll buy the set to get the minifigures and GWP and then sell the main ship secondhand. Really I would prefer they do a line of midi scale ships and then minifigure playsets for the interiors and planets. I really don't like that they went UCS, but I guess it makes sense if this ends up being a one and done sort of franchise for Lego.

The new broom handle is used in Privet Drive for the downspout too, recolored to black.

Looking at Peter's apartment more, I'm noticing there's a black element on the roof that appears to be the balcony that can be attached over the front door for if you attach the apartment to the bodega.

I'm thinking there's an attachment that goes on the studs on either side to make it a balcony. I really like the builds for the Spider-man sets, but the minifigures are a bit of a mixed bag. The Goblins and Doc Ock are pretty amazing, I love how they turned out. MJ is pretty good, I'm wondering if her look is inspired by her appearance in the Spider Man 2 video game. Jameson and May are okay, but the torsos aren't great. I'm disappointed by the reuses for Spider-Gwen/Woman, Miles.

I love the Wario build. I really would like them to make brickbuilt versions of Mario, Luigi and Peach (I hate the digifigs).

I like the set overall, but it's a shame that the Fantasticar didn't make it in. My main criticism is Mr. Fantastic. Why not just use the Avatar legs, why go brickbuilt?

Fluffy just leaked, the new molds are surprising, i really expected them to at least reuse the head from the 2021 version, it's shocking to see a new head mold and a new body mould. And despite the new molds, there's still a brick built portion. It's like a weird combo of the first two versions. I definitely like this one the best of the three, they even managed to include a collar. This makes me really excited to see the rest of the tower. Edit: someone on reddit mentioned the mouths opening. Looking at the image closer, it does seem possible, but I can't tell for certain.

New Elementary dropped their review for the BATB castle and it included a designer interview. Belle's blue dress was cut for budget reasons, the wardrobe was originally designed to reveal her yellow dress.

It's so utterly bizarre for them to include a feature to store Belles dress, but not include a change of clothes. Side note, my new head canon is that the real reason the townies think Belle is so peculiar is because she's been caught hiding in random wardrobes lol. I'm holding out some hope that the blue dress will appear elsewhere. The new dress piece in the Shire set would be perfect for Belle's blue dress. Speaking of that new dress piece, I hope Lego gives us a new version of Alice using that piece (and in general just give us Alice in Wonderland sets), as well as Cinderella's peasant outfit. Come on Lego, make it happen.

There appears to be a new skirt piece in the Shire set, it's similar to the Disney skirt piece but a bit longer and falls down straighter. It would be great to see this recolored and used for the female Hogwarts uniform.

If you look at the side there's a window piece, so there's a hollow space at least 2 studs deep behind her.

I really like these sets. The new velociraptor mold is excellent and I can't wait to get more recolors of it so I can replace my JP raptors. The minifigure pieces are nice, a lot of variety in clothing and faces and a lot of printed shorts. I think i might be able to use the tan shorts to upgrade Muldoon. The builds are pretty good too. I'm glad that this lineup isn't just vehicles and not much else. They seem to have balanced out the theme better this go around.

The wardrobe is connected to a hinge so it can swing out the entire thing like a door. It's hiding something, it's just a matter of what.

When they released the Diagon Alley set a few years back they included a Harry variant that wasn't advertised on the box, so it's definitely something they've done before. Admittedly, it's a longshot, but I like to dream.

Yup, day one purchase. I really love this model. I do wish it was a little more spacious, but I'm glad they didn't go completely overboard either, I feel like this is more affordable than I expected it would be. I'm happy to see that they include pieces to create a sitting version of Belle (using the method from the Lord of the Rings set). Im excited to see what's hidden behind the wardrobe (if it could turn out to be Belles blue dress, that would be perfect!). Also interested to see what's behind the doors on the first floor. Cogsworth is a little too big, but i also feel like they could have just sized Lumiere up a little to match. I would have liked to see a proper kitchen and bedroom. Overall, I'm very impressed with this set. I would love to see them do more sets based on the classic Disney films.

I don't mind that they didn't give Doc Ock the green coat, I think all the greens in the Lego library are too vibrant to really capture how it looks in the film. I do think this was a missed opportunity to include a battle damaged version of Spider-Man. I hope they at least include a better face for Tobey Maguire's face. I still might get the set depending on the build and civilian minifigures. It would be great if they could make 2 of the civilians Aunt May and Mary Jane. While neither of them appear in the train scene, they both do have up close encounters with Doc Ock that are memorable, so I think it would make sense to include them here. Also it would just be a waste to have all of the civilians being unnamed, unimportant characters. Granted, we probably won't get that lucky, but a guy can dream...

I'm quite impressed with the build of the castle so far. It seems like the ballroom might actually be two floors like the movie. Definitely looking forward to seeing more of the build. I don't know if this has been brought up, but Belle's dress is a new print. Her collarbone is different on the torso, she now has chest lines. The ruffles on the dress are different and there's sparkles added to both pieces. It's interesting that they decided to update the design so quickly after the first version. Beast is a little bit of a letdown, a larger torso piece would have been much better to represent his beast form. The legs are also clearly colored for the end scene as the prince, rather than matching the ballroom dance scene. I'm hoping they include alternate outfits for Belle and Beast. The ballroom outfits are nice, but I'd like to have variations that represent how they look for the majority of the movie, not just that one scene. I would like to see them include Gaston, Lefou and Maurice too since they're important to the story of the movie. I expect all the servants that have appeared in the minidoll sets will appear here, I hope they improve Cogsworths design (he's the only one I haven't really seen them perfect as of yet). I don't imagine they'll include the human versions of the servants since they have so little screentime (I also just imagine they'll be stingy with the minifigure selection).

The hall of Armour set is okay by itself, but stacked up against previous versions it's a bit lacking, it doesn't really bring anything new to the table. I do really like this Iron Patriot variation though, I might bricklink it. The new orange color for Peppers hair looks pretty good. The choice of hairpiece doesn't work for her as she pretty much always has bangs. It's too bad they didn't recolor the Dreamz ponytail instead, it would have been closer. I love the Hulk set, it is campy and wonderful. When a sale hits I might actually pick it up. The legs on Hulk are a downgrade and I also think Thanos is a pretty boring choice of villain for this. I think the Oscorp minifigure lineup is okay, but definitely might end up sucking depending on what variations they go for. I'm happy to get another Kraven. And Norman Osborn is exciting if they give him a comic design, but could be terrible if he's all recycled pieces. I'm hoping the presence of Spider-Girl means that Gwen is a civilian. And if they could do a ASM #121 inspired look for her, that would be perfect. If they can give me comic versions of Gwen and Norman and even a halfway decent build, then I'll buy it.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I meant that I'd rather they just sell these classroom modules all as standalone sets rather than including half baked versions in bigger sets just to pad out space. I would have rather they left the two spots open and charged $50-$60 for the flying lesson instead.

I wasn't saying that the Charms classroom should have been in the set instead. I'm saying that the classroom they included in the $80 set is lackluster in comparison to the $20 classroom of the same size they put out at the same time. This is a recurring issue with the new modular Hogwarts. They included a crappy portrait hallway in the Great Hall to fill space, and now they've created a crappy classroom for the Flying Lessons set. And then they're creating $20 sets to replace the crappy modules they make in the big sets. It's just kind of a waste to include crappy classrooms that they suggest you replace with better sets for additional money. I'd have rather they not include the transfiguration classroom in the first place if they weren't going to bother to make it any good.

I really enjoyed the Charms Class set, I found the build very satisfying. Building it made me realize what I don't like about the Flying Lesson set; the Transfiguration class and Quidditch storage builds suck in comparison to the charms Class. They could have created modules with the same level of detail as the Charms Class, but instead cheaped out. They didn't even bother to include cat Mcgongall (which is funny that all these years later they still haven't done).

Dueling Club looks great. I love that it fits in the Great Hall and I love the new Lockhart variant. Definite first day buy for me. Charms Class is a slight upgrade on the previous version. Minifigures are pretty boring though. The stickered parts are great though. I will end up getting this one too. Might wait for a sale though.

I don't think it's Lego being cheap, I think it's Lego knowing what price point they can get the consumer to pay out for a product. For Gru's house, you'd be looking at $200+ to turn that into a modular style dollhouse and is any Despicable Me consumer seriously going to pay that much? I think Malfoy Manor has a similar issue: how many people were going to pay $200-$300 for a modular dollhouse version of it. It doesn't even appear very much in the movies and only a handful of scenes take place there. Then you have a second issue: the scenes that do take place there involve murder, kidnapping and torture. So already the set is less kid friendly, alienating a large section Lego's usual consumer base. So you have a set that's basically more palleteable for adults, but also is not a popular location from the films. So was Lego really going to put out a high priced set for this? It just feels like a modular version of Malfoy Manor would have been a big gamble. I actually really like the set the way they did it. The facade is flat, but so is the actual facade of the building it's based on, so that works for me. If it has the long table and a few other things like a dungeon, balcony, etc then I'll be pleased with it.