snefroe

the exxon torso is a US exclusive i think... don't remember that one....

happy bday! hope you have a great day!

no more white because we've had more than enough white. sometimes change is good... tired of the colour combination white-orange... i'd rather have the trans-black canopies. all the different trans colours just make the model look like a toy, not a space ship UFO had soooo many printed parts it made the model look like crap...

to be honest, i'm a bit split on what to think of the news. It all depends on how Lego is going to proceed. if the sets have the quality of the city sets then i'll be quite happy, even if the details or the colours are not particularly what i'm looking for... I'll even be quite happy with giant or super sized models, as long as the quality is good... BUT: there are a few things that can ruin everything: (Copmike: please copy/paste for your dailly briefings to Lego's board ) bad minifigs. The insectoids and the UFO-dudes of the past were really not great. We need airtanked folk with good looking headgear and some decent space guns would be great too! not the eh... megaphone crap, like the stormtroopers of the past... Space fans won't be happy having to deal with megaphones when sw has brand new , high class weapons! bad transparent colours. Please, please, please, no ugly trans green (horrible, not fitting any space moc), trans orange (tiiiiiiired of those), trans yellow-green (i'm sure there's a word for it, but why waste my time to look it up for such a crappy colour anyway) Holes in the designs. a space ship does not have gaps in a cockpit! Having gaps in your cockpit when flying into space can really ruin your day! gaps indicate bad quality design or lack of willingness to create a real good model. don't want that Too many big parts. ok, they may not always juniorise the model, but they surely give the impression that a model IS <insert that tiresome argument>. besides, most of the big parts are ugly, not compatible with any kind of decent MOC. Plastic wheels... don't like them, especially the smaller ones. it's not that they can't be realistic, it's the colour they come in (like orange or blue - have you ever seen orange wheels? I havent.), and they remind me too much of the fact that lego is a toy and a space set, a set for kids... I did use them as batteries in the past, but now they're not even good for that anymore! shooting mechanisms. if they're in there, i'll ritually burn them and cast a voodoo spell over any one who came up with them in the first place. crappy cockpit. a seat in a space craft is not a cockpit! that's just a seat in a space craft. i want printed - not stickered- printed tiles and computers! too many lego technic bricks. i'll allow just a few of these technic bricks for structural reasons, but going over the limit means --> same treatment as in the case of the shooting mechanism too many printed parts other than computers that look more like a Picasso in space than a printed space part. please read "shooting mechanisms" white as a basic colour. please, please, please, NO WHITE!!!!! crappy parts of which nobody knows their real meaning. things that can either be a gun or a loud speaker, a bazooka or a camera... make up your mind! no engine or a really bad one... it's a space ship, space ships neeeeeeeed BIG engines! no crappy sticker with a printed arrow saying the tile underneath this arrow is supposed to be an engine... that basically sums it up... oh no, wait! i want BIIIIIIIG space ships, not just these 5 part flying things that were just built with some sw left overs...

happy birthday Sandra! Hope the weather's really beautifull in Germany (after all, everybody should have the right to celebrate his/her bday in a sunny 25 degrees ). Enjoy!!

hmmmm.... for once, not ALL dirty secrets were unveiled during an EB-interview... did you guys know that : 1) Bony looks EXACTLY like Belgium's prime minister! in fact, Bony, I'd ask mum and dad for a DNA test for your birthday! 2) this guys knows every lame song in Dutch musical history! Yes, from Flemmish origin AND Dutch! André Hazes, Zangeres Zonder Naam, Kori en de Rekels, Bond Zonder Naam, Paul De Leeuw, ANY Schlager song,... He knows them all... 3) and btw, he may be a hot shot here on EB, his girl told me she's the one behind the steering wheel at home, no wonder this guy travels around the world so much!

honestly, in this case, it's a question of marketing. 6 months before the release is just too short for pirates to copy sets into details. what they did is this: the informed the customers what's coming in 2009. they got every one really exciteted about 2009 and about lego. they even told the community their biggest secret for next year: the return of pirates. What better advertising can you get then entire internet communities discussing the brand new sets? at the same time, the excitement will boost current sales, cos people are talking about lego right now, so they wanna play with lego right now too, and they wanna buy lego at this very moment as well. Customers will also fear that certain sets won't be around any more next year, so announcing the arrival of new sets also means "make sure you buy the 2008 stuff this year, cos we've got looooots of other stuff planned next year... and it works!! on the other hand, they can't afford those pics to stay on for the next couple of months. People would get tired of looking at them, by the time the sets are available, most people would have MOCed copies already. Now people know what's coming, but they're not really sure what's coming... memories will fade and they'll be all excited yet again the moment the official catalog comes out...

well i believe Dino was part of an experiment. I think Lego was trying to find out if it was a better option to give the US and Europe different products and different lines. I think the US was supposed to get Dino and Europe was supposed to get Vikings. Both continents complained about that and Lego decided to release vikings on a limited scale in the Us, and Europe got european versions of the US dinos, thinking Europe would never accept the violent nature of the original theme... It seems to me they've now completely left that path...

great retro, brickster! let's face it... dino took every one by surprise... one piece dinos, oversized and not really fantastic models, not the best color combination, no larger context for this theme, it just came out of the blue and most people responded with 'what the ...?' the theme was gone by the time we got used to it... all i can say is that better lines replaced this one...

i believe it's even "English" English... i remember Jipay almost bit off some one's head when he referred to European football as "soccer"... YEAH!!! that'll teach the stupid Americans !! and am i glad, this site is not in French! It's the second language in Flanders (which is the Dutch speaking part of belgium, at least for the time being ) but if this were a French speaking site i'd probably have 4 posts instead of 4000...

well the city sets look the best of all the things i've seen so far. especially that red tractor and the minifig pack remind me of the town classics. the farm looks great too even though i don't think young boys will go for it if you release big and great looking construction sets as well... the construction sets... what to say... i kinda like them all except for the construction yard... that's just too big, look <insert that tiresome argument> too and the crane isn't really fantastic either, but i'm sure it'll sell quite well.. the camper looks great too. my only fear is that the truck is a bit too big

the best thing that can be said about the pirate theme is that it'll push down prices of high demand parts, like shakos, cannons, pirate figs,... as for the rest, i think they did a pretty good job. Expectations were always really high and many were afraid we'd get low quality, high playability sets. It seems to me that the sets aren't really brilliant, but they don't disappoint me either. they're a nice compromise between lego's options and the public's dreams... the fact that we do get pirates in 2009 should be the main thing, it's ok if it doesn't produce the best set of 2009. it is true that the ship is conservative in design. it looks like a copy of the old ones, but then, those are still insanely popular, so who's complaining anyway? i don't really care much about the smaller sets. they're not great, but not bad either. they look like general pirate sets to me: fillers for a theme that is going to be based on a big pirate ship and the large fort... in general, Lego designers did a nice job with this theme, but i don't think it'll have the best sets of 2009. it almost looks as if pirates never went away after... what was it again? 1994? it's as if time stood still, i'm willing to except that for the first year but 2010 better has stuff that's a bit more innovative

i believe EB's been asked to not post the pics, so an admin, or the poster might want to remove them...

the striker is the best set of both themes, however, i always loved the big ships of both themes too. I know, they don't look as smashing as the older classic space ships, but they're both well designed and offered a great range of parts. the problem with both themes, imo, was a lack of a great space station... Loooooove the rebel hunter too!

well yes! we shouldn't let any opportunity for torturing a Swede pass on just like that... that's why i'm proposing to also torture him to get some more info on city sets!

it depends... are you a great looking girl, living very close to the street where i'm working right now? all i'm saying is that all this news is just too good to be true.... it also sounds too much like a return to the old days of space police... you know those moments in films when the hero kinda gets suspicious cos a plan works out juuuuuust a little bit too easy? i kinda feel like that right now... but hey, if you guys want to fantasize or speculate, go right ahead... but i say, let's torture that EB-amb first...

ok, ok, ok... i'll be the synical bastard among us and say these are rumours untill i've actually seen some sort of confirmation. For that, i would propose to kidnap our brand new amb and torture him untill he tells us everything he knows about this. however, let's just speculate for now, cos that's soooooo much fun and we can't stop ourselves from doing so anyway, so here it goes: a pirate line without a big ship is like a pub without beer: IMPOSSIBLE!!! so my guess is that this bounty thing is a ship, i'm just wondering about the quality of the thing, and most of all, what about the cannons? what's the age of the targeted audience? are there sw shooting mechanisms in it or do we get the old cannons? the kraken thing is probably going to be something with bionicle parts or so... i don't expect a real brick built thing... soldiers AND pirates sounds like a fig vs fig theme to me, (which is also the case in the space theme i think) that makes me suspicious, honestly.... since when is Lego going back to a fig vs fig theme?

if you look at the entire list of sets it almost sounds too good to be true. space police? could be... if MM ends this year, then we do have a slot for a new space line... it would be interesting to see how that relates to star wars and the two space sets we currently have... Let's just wait until we have confirmation before we totaly go insane, shall we?

aaahhh... the fireman torso... that brings back memories... think i only had one police torso, a few shell guys, and a red cross dude... ah yes, the blue working torso too... the others... don't even recognise them...

thanks people it was looots of fun! but only got small lego sets though.... nothing like a UCS MF or anything

well what to say? i got this boat late 70s, when we were on our way to Italy to spend the holidays there. My parents always needed to keep my quiet during the 3-day trip, and the best way to do that was to buy me a lego set... I got this one in a gas station in Germany. As far as I remember Italy didn't have lego sets, so a gas station close to the Italian border but still in Germany or Austria was very often their last chance. I often saw large quantities of lego sets in those gas stations though... i remember seeing yellow castle and... the galaxy explorer, standing on a shelf. It would be my birthday 1-3 week(s) later so i always made sure they knew what to buy for me...

1) about your original question: a lego piece normally has the name "lego" on it, if it's not there, then chances are that it's not Lego... 2) I don't think scala is part of the Lego system, like bionicle. That means scala (and bionicle) parts are not supposed to be mixed with lego system parts, but sometimes they do go together. so in this case, I'd say, if it works, then do it...

i'm sorry to crush your hopes, people, but let's put a few things in perspective, ok? 1) these products you're all quoting are sold in the Lego theme parks for several years now. Clothes, hats, swords,... whatever, they've been there since my first visit to the parks 5-6 years ago... nothing new there... 2) those parks aren't affiliated to Lego anymore, they just buy their stuff based on their attractions 3) many attractions of the parks are from the pirate theme, like the classic pirate "swinging" boat, you can find them in nearly any theme park in the world, no real link with lego in there 4) Lego has released duplo pirates a while back, so if there were a link between lego customers and the parks then it's that link, not a link between the parks' products and some new mysterious pirate line for 15-25 year olds... 5) the parks mainly target a very young type of customer, not the 15 year old pirate fan... so if we do get more pirates, it'll be duplo stuff 6) the reason why they sell weird products like pirate ice cubes is because people will simply buy anything when they're in those theme parks, lego or not-lego related... (yes, i've got these pirate ice cubes too ) 7) I'm not sure if there's production capacity for a pirate line. We know that MM may disappear , we know that exo force will be gone in 2009, but i don't know if that's enough room to set up an entirely different line. i only see 1 element that suggests Lego pirates is still somewhere in the Lego company and that's the two minifigs we saw on that photo with the other figs, that's all...

voted for the last one in the poll, even though i think it was the first outpost of the pirate theme... why? because it has all the classic components a pirate theme/set should have: some soldiers protecting the outpost, a very popular canon in a fairly cheap set (back then anyway, think it was about 500 BEF, 10-15 euro or so), a great setting, nice color combination, a palm tree and a boat. It's this type of sets that made the line highly popular from the start. damn! all this Pirate talk at the mini EB-event from last weekend has lured me into the pirate section again!

we'll try not to hold it against you... congrats!