strangely

The third Squidward seems to have differently colored legs from the other two, I guess that could indicate it's a different character from the other two. I'm somewhat disappointed the landspeeder isn't more updated. The printing on the turbines is welcome, but it looks almost the same otherwise. Though I suppose that might change in the final. The bar portion of the set doesn't disappoint at least. Hopefully Obi-Wan is updated, I've always kind of thought the face could be more refined. I'm interested to see how they've done Luke's legs. I wonder if they used the same method of adding colors onto the legs as they did with the Simpsons short legs (Molding two colors together). Personally I feel like it's about time that the colors reach all the way around the leg.

That's a reasonable assumption, so I somewhat agree. However I will point out that the Wolverine mold might have already existed. It is highly possible they created the mold for Wolverine back when the first X-men set was made, but wasn't used. Storm's hair might not be ready as well, it is a bit more complicated of a design and so they might still be working on it. I will point out though that Flash and Batgirl lacked their headgear in their prelims and those sets were to be released only a few months later. So the prelims aren't an exact science on what we will or won't get. It's not uncommon for things to end up almost completely different. In the end I think it could go either way on this one. I guess it wouldn't be completely disappointing if she ends up with that hairpiece, but for now I guess I want to hope for the tiara.

They somehow managed to make my favorite version of Wolverine. Good job Lego! I still think we'll be seeing a character flying the plane. My guess is either professor Xavier or Cyclops. It's weird that we've seen 2/3 of that prelim picture, but are lacking the middle part. They were never going to make a giant minifigure like in the game. It's just not practical. Likely the final version will be much more refined. Perhaps we'll even see a molded head for it (Though that's not really vital to me). At least they learned their lesson from last time and gave this robot knee's.

Didn't we get a list of rumored sets for this theme quite a while back? I still feel like what was mentioned on that list is still a possibility in the summer. Personally I think we'll get a small line of sets. Honestly just the house and CMF makes no sense to me.

Well if they keep on going the "celebration" route with characters I would expect Episode 1 Padme from the celebration after the battle of Naboo. Honestly any Padme variation is welcome, but this one would fit perfectly with the other celebration minifigures contained in these books. Plus there's no reason she'd ever appear in a set like this, so this is a good enough opportunity for this particular variation. As for a wild card guess I'll go for either ep1 or ep2 C3PO. Both variations are welcome. In fact any other variation of him is welcome (Please Lego, give us variations for all the movies).

The rumpus room behind the garage is missing as well as Marge and Homer's ensuite. Maggie's room is gone and instead her crib has been placed in her parent's bedroom. Also the dining room and front sitting room is absent. Looking at it closely the main problem with the build is that it isn't deep enough, it would have to go back much farther in order to fit the front sitting room and dining room. Bart and Lisa's room are also in the wrong positions. Again all of these issues could be fixed if the house extended farther back. I'll probably end up hunting down the bricks to do that at some point. I'd guess it'll have to be a third wider to fit everything.

Seeing everything up close makes this look even better. $200 like I thought. Too bad, for another $50 we could have gotten that loft. I'm happy to see we now have a piece to represent a Toddler's body. Now all we need is a proper baby body and teen height and we'll have all the ages of minifigure development covered.

They do look printed, but I would think the printing would scratch off around the arm joint if it were. And if it is printing it really looks solid, usually the colors end up looking a bit thin when you print a solid color over a solid color. Perhaps by molded it means two colors of plastic molded together. It is definitely impressive. I can't wait to find out the process behind it. It's on the back of the box, there's a little picture of Bart lying in his bed. Granted we can only see a portion of it.

That's true, it mostly caught me off guard. I fully understand why they didn't bother with it and it doesn't ruin the look by any means. It's just disappointing that they missed it. It wouldn't be too much to add a facade if I really find it bothers me. The colors are common enough to track down and assemble. I already knew I'd want to change the room layouts, I'll just have to add this to my list of things to fix. At least when it comes to missing elements it wasn't overly vital.

You're right. Above the garage is the children's bathroom I believe (And I think below it was the entrance to the basement or something (I'm a little foggy on that, but there was a room underneath that and behind the garage)). It seems like an oversight that they literally forgot a full section of the house. That sort of bums me out, an entire chunk of the house is missing. I suppose it might have been taken out due to the fact that the garage is sort of separate from the rest of the house which would admittedly make it difficult to implement. I suppose this just gives me another reason to mod it some. They probably had to axe that section of the house to lower the price point as well. I'm sure the prototypes for this house were very interesting. And yes, Futurama please. I would buy all of them. Hypnotoad commands you to make Lego sets. Edit: The blueprints online show that a child's playroom is located behind the garage (I recall a joke about Maggie and a credenza taking place in that room). So yes, indeed a section of housing is missing from the house. Also the blueprint reveals that the house isn't deep enough, really it would have to be twice as deep to fit all the rooms. For being poor the Simpsons do live in a remarkably large house.

The light only blurs Maggie's crib, and there's a close up on the box anyway. And there's one bathroom between Lisa and the parents room. Though the close-up picture above the room only shows a sink and toilet, no bathtub, so indeed the Simpsons will be filthy all over . Still Marge and Homer's bathroom is gone and replaced by Maggie's crib. So instead of two bathrooms we have at least one.

Well really the Simpsons aren't meant to be 3D. Even with different eyes they'd still look bad. Fact of the matter is that they're 2D characters forced into another dimension. What looks good flat rarely looks good with the added dimension. If you've ever played any of the video games you'll notice how dreadful the character designs really look in 3D, they just don't translate well. This is exactly why they should have just gone with the traditional Lego head, at least then we would have gained some interesting hair pieces. But of course I'm sure Fox insisted on sculpted heads. Personally I think the weird expressions on their faces is on purpose. Homer looks tired after work, Marge looks embarrassed, Bart looks bored, Lisa looks disappointed. Really Lego did capture those specific moods pretty well and these are true to the nature of their characters in the show. Perhaps really these facial expressions are really just references to the show. Really they couldn't include normal versions in this set, they needed new variations to make them rare and collectible. I guess they could have put these variations in the CMF's, but then it would have been expensive to get those normal versions that appear in the set. It seems one way or the other somebody loses. At least this way we'll have two variations of each of the main Simpson family members in it's initial run.

She doesn't. If you look at the picture of the back of the box you'll notice the spot in the house where a glare of light is blocking out the picture. This is where Maggie's crib is as indicated by the separate picture that points to this section of the house (The picture of Maggie in the crib and Marge vacuuming points to the glare). This part of the house is merely the other half of Marge and Homer's room. Literally the crib would be located at the foot of their bed when the house is closed.

The Batman head is interesting, it's in the same style as Flash's head. I've always disliked how his neck on the regular minifigure isn't covered by the mask, so this eliminates that problem for me. It makes me wonder if they'll use a similar printing technique for the Superman vs. Batman sets in 2015. Rumor is that the cowl will be pretty different from the previous movies so that means there's a good chance we'll see a redesigned cowl for the Lego sets. If that does happen I suspect we'll see a cowl designed in the same style as the Flash helmet, which would mean this black head is a good indication of what his head would look like for that type of cowl. Or they might just keep on using this "bucket" helmet for Batman (I don't particularly the current cowl), I don't like how the eyes on the cowl don't match up to his actual eyes (Lego please fix that). Either way I wouldn't mind the black head becoming the standard, it just makes more sense to me. I definitely love Penguin's design in this set. I have the Arkham one, but I actually like this one better. It makes more sense to me. Penguin often seems to be featured in icy locations or weather, so this sort of fits with that motif better than his tuxedo. I do feel like the duck could have been better designed. It looks good from the side, but not really from any other angle. Perhaps a large version of it would have looked better. And while I like the idea of the duck very much I can't help but think I would have rather had the submarine instead. Either way it's well worth the price.

From what I can tell it's missing the front two rooms (dining room and sitting room with fireplace). It's missing the attic and basement. Also absent is Marge and Homer's bathroom which in the show is accessed from their room. Maggie's room is also absent and her crib is now moved in with Homer and Marge. The foyer is also gone. All the other rooms are present (although position and layout of most are changed or condensed), really I'm surprised they fit in as much as they did. I'm kind of disappointed the stairs aren't in quite the right position and the foyer is gone. When I buy this I'll definitely be modding a few areas. I'm sort of assuming they might appear in the collectible minifigure series.

I remember how my mother always wanted me to glue my Lego sets together so I wouldn't lose the pieces and I would refuse for obvious reasons. So really this entire movie could just be a kid trying to stop his mother from ruining his Lego sets. That's not what I would prefer, but if that turned out to be what it was I could live with it.

With as much promotion as Green Lantern is getting I'm betting he's going to appear some time this year. I'd almost bet he'll show up in a store exclusive that nobody was expecting (In the superheros theme). They wouldn't give this much advertising to a product that they never intended to exist.

I would really like to see C3PO in the Cantina. After all the droid scanner is useless if there's no droid to attempt coming in. Plus TC-4 includes new leg printing and I'm dying to for a C3PO with that printing and there's only so many possibilities in this years sets for him to appear. The Sandcrawler is just too expensive for me to buy, so I would rather not have him exclusive to that set.

That'll probably change in 2015. The contract for the theme only ran from 2012-14, so that means that it's probably been renegotiated. And that opens up the possibility that this new contract allows for more sets every year. It would only make sense that they've increased the amount of sets. So while this year is underwhelming, next year has the potential to be better than ever. And who knows, maybe there's an exclusive DC set coming this summer or something, Lego has the habit of surprising us.

The inside in interesting. Although the kitchen and living room are switched in position, the bathroom is likewise in the wrong position. Admittedly though, I'm surprised they managed to fit this many rooms inside. I'm also waiting to see the stairs more clearly, they certainly look interesting.

It won't cost that much. As I pointed out previously this set only has three hundred more parts than the Palace Cinema which was $150. So this is only slightly bigger. Granted this is a licensed set and contains special molds, but remember that the cost of the molds and licensing is also built into the collectible minifigures and any future sets that might come. It won't go over $250. There's just not a market above that price point and Lego is already taking a risk to begin with on an uncertain theme, I don't see them pushing the limits on price. It will be less than you think.

Well the palace cinema had 2200 pieces and managed to be $150, so I'm hoping since this is only three hundred pieces larger it'll be around $200. And somehow I just don't think Lego would put a $250 price tag on that, I mean this entire theme is a tough sell to begin with, another $50 would be pushing it pretty far. Though I've been wrong before.

I definitely expect a new C3PO now. It is a little odd where the printing stops on the legs, but it still looks good.

Commence jumping up and down. So printed short legs, printed skirts for Marge and Lisa. Interesting, Maggie appears to have an entirely new mold to make her shorter, we now have toddler legs. I'm surprised how muted the color scheme is. I was expecting this to be obnoxiously bright, instead it seems like it could fit into the Lego neighborhood easily.

For the same reason that the USM sets feature the villains of ASM2. Lego is simply creating a product with similar characters and piggybacking off the hype for the movie. So with the X-men sets, even though they're not movie based, will contain some of the characters from the movie. Right now the big advertising push for XMDOFP features a lot of Magneto, Xavier and Wolverine, so undoubtedly Lego will want to include them as they'll be pretty popular with the kids. The movies tend to set the trend of which characters are going to be most popular and thus most profitable.