Faefrost

This might not be a bad fit for the "Which set should I buy?" thread. As for the question. If you can find it get the Uruk Hai Army set now. It's retiring and may be gone from store shelves any day now. What stock the stores have is all they will ever get. And it is a set that will jump in price on the aftermarket.

Am I wrong in thinking that Benny's Starship from the Movie sets might be in the running for largest? Otherwise, just counting the Lego "Space" series ships, I think the SP III Galactic Enforcer is probably the largest in terms of overall volume, weight and enclosed seating capacity, although a few others might have greater length or wingspans. If you broaden the range to allow for Licensed themes than the largest "system" or minifig scale Starship is easily the 10179 Millenium Falcon, with the 10213 Shuttle Adventures at 2 and 10212 Tyderium Shuttle probably at number 3. Taking UCS off the table I would guess the System scale (non UCS) 10198 Tantive IV. (I discount the Star Destroyers and Death Star as they are really out of scale playsets built inside wildly out of scale models. I kind of made a distinction between them and selectively compressed models that still maintained a minifig scale cockpit, hatches and playfeatures such as the Tantive IV, Republic Cruiser, etc) just my 2c

It's not strange at all. It's probably not a policy change. Just a computer glitch. All of the product information and web pages are in the computer well before the products become available for sale. Normally the system should only be making those visible to the public on the products set "release date". It sounds like the system is ignoring the release date field and instead is toggling the S@H web site pages active as the product hits the shelf in the warehouse.

Those are all some fairly expensive and hard to find sets. Most go for well over $100 used and complete these days. (If you want some fun look up the current price for a Graveyard Duel)

There are a few cases of companies trademarking certain custom mixed colors as part of their identity. (Typically blues that aren't found in nature or organically.) Maersk is one of the best known examples and the only one that Lego has in their pallets. Grumman Aerospace has or had a unique "Gruman Blue" trademarked to them. As does Richard Petty racing teams, which have "Petty Blue".

This! Honestly the only other true X Men villains that probably have broad enough pop culture recognition would be Juggernaut, Sabertooth, Mystique, Dark Pheonix and the Sentinals. And figure Juggs would need a full big fig, Sabertooth would need something like Chewbaca or Beorn, if not a half big fig like Dogpound. The Sentinals would make a great set ala the Superman Lex Luthor set. Dark Pheonix was already done as a cursed SDCC exclusive. I'm still praying for a classic comic style Mystique. (Maybe also use the head for a Chiss over in SW? I can dream can't I?) Bad news then Storm is normally depicted either with white eyes when powered up, or blue eyes when not. I think the box at the bottom is a Guardians of the Galaxy box, and the dark blue figure with a helmet is probably Star Lord. He would be a dark blue military type uniform, white gloves, and a helmet with a similar domed profile to Magneto's but with a more elaborate gas mask type piece on the front.

Sony sold the merchandise rights to the Spider-Man movies back to Disney last year. So we may see ASM2 type sets. X Men and FF movie sets are still under Fox's control. (Although TLG now has a business interest with Fox via the Simpsons, so other Fox related sets may not be farfetched. )

I think as Lego has matured and gotten much deeper global penetration some of the older themes just look a little uncomfortable. How would Orient Expedition look in China or India today? They kind of seem heavily vested in that Colonial period "Passage to India" type vibe. While an new Asian or Eastern themed line would be great, it might work better under a Castle theme. The whole "Johnny Thunder crew seeking treasure in foreign lands" thing heads into dangerous territory without a very tight fantasy type story backing it up. Better something with a more fleshed out and well rounded set of local protagonists.

I think you are sort of highlighting the potential problem with the Sea Cow as a hugely priced D2C set. It may turn out to be just a bit too weird and wacky for that high of a price point. I know the Pirate fans would love a good ship even a strange fantasy one. The SciFi and Adventure folks would love a nice Steampunk ship. But this one looks like it might be just a hair over the top for either group. If it hits around $150 USD it might do well. $250 It will be a shelf warmer. Whereas Benny's space ship quite possibly might be the best selling set at that $100'ish price point next year. (Although it will face stiff competition from the ATAT.)

Well cafe's and restaurants are by far the most common small commercial property. As far as another bike shop, ummm maybe the designer likes bike shops? Doesn't your layout feature several dozen hardware shops? (Also remember its creator so there will be a B build)

The Hobbit sets have been scheduled for Dec 1 every year, because the movies were releasing in mid December. Wasn't TABA originally scheduled for an August release, and got pushed back because of post production delays at the last minute? If so an October 1 release in Hungary might correspond to a planned August 1 release in the US, which would have dove tailed with TABA's original release date. So we still can't derive anything from the timing.

What did the final release wave or two of Harry Potter look like? The one commensurate with the unexpectedly split second Deathly Hallows movie? I think that is going to be our best predictor for what we have remaining from Middle Earth. Just eyeballing it, the two core themes probably track very similarly in terms of size, target market group, sales, etc. ( at least the tail end of HP). And let's be completely honest with ourselves. There is a fairly good chance we might not see a Smaug set, and if we do see one it will undoubtedly be a major disappointment to most around here simply because of the level of compression that will be needed to pull it off. (And no I'm sure we would not see a "big fig" Smaug. Probably just the head and tail would be molded. Trying to do the whole dragon as molded would probably go too far in compromising the design philosophy of Lego construction sets.)

If you have the entirety of the Typhoon vs Trex set that could easily more than make up for any non Lego parts. That set is crazy expensive these days.

I'm surprised. They really are not supposed to put the clearly identifiable licensed IP characters in there? The Lois Lane might be generic enough to rate a pass. But the Padme torso probably should not be there.

I'm pretty sure Phantom is the name of a small stubby wedge shaped fighter that is carried by the Ghost. So that is most likely a Rebels set, and is designed as a small add on to the larger Ghost set. I think in Rebels we will be more prone to see the Tie Phantom design show up as it's originally intended purpose. As an Imperial Shuttle.

The oceans may dry. The fish may flee. Empires and republics will come and go, but a squid and a sponge still need a job. So they work the crusty cantina. You'll never find a greater hive of scum and villainy. Especially if you fail to tip!

Nope, they actually ripped off AFOL customizers who published their custom figs on the internet or sold them on ebay. It's like if they saw your 60's Duplo Batman figs and decided to just make them themselves.

So Action, Arctic and a Steampunk Pirate Ship. Wow! I'm kinda at a loss as to what to suggest for the future. They just about gave me everything I wanted at once. Maybe a modernization of the classic Adventurers line, ala the Uncharted Video Games or National Treasure movies?

I'm just speculating that it's a Robot vs a Dragon. I figure its the safe end of the betting pool for Ninjago. because Ninjago = Robots and Dragons. For all we know at this point it may be the dance competition with Cole's father.

It depends on if it is simply a "hairstyle" or if it is a clearly identifiable character trait of a licensed character. And even then there is a little bit of spillage. As an example Harry Potter's hair will only ever appear on Harry Potter, in that color. There is really nothing character defining about Hermione's hair. (The characters hairstyle changes throughout the movies, and is really nothing outside the norms). Whereas stuff like Jack Sparrows hair is absolutely unique to Jack and is license restricted, just like Stormtrooper helmets etc. Actually hairstyle shape or molding alone is tough to restrict to one license or IP. It normally needs more specific identifiers such as color, markings or extra details like Jacks bandana. Of the current hair pieces I can only think of a few "hair pieces" alone that are probably IP or character restricted that don't have non hair identifiable details. Superman with its spit curl, the new Slave Leia, and just possibly Leia's classic buns are ones that jump to mind. And even then they may be allowed to use Leia's buns in blonde for a Bavarian girl should they choose. Also do not forget that Lego has its own internal IP's or identifiable characters if you prefer. They may choose to reserve certain hair piece / color combinations for those named characters. Such as Wildstyles hair, Emetts hair or Possibly Lloyd the Green Ninjas color and style combo.

I don't think the line flopped for Lego. Heck I think they made more money off the property than Disney. Mostly just because it was a decent western them, that had not been seen in decades. The Constitution Train Chase set seems to have disappeared practically overnight by me. With the Silver Mine not far behind it. Given how horrid the movie did they aren't going to push it for more than a one and done 8 or 9 month theme.

Mentally I always viewed Alpha Team as an older legacy operation that eventually evolved into Agents. With Charge being the last old timer in Agents. (Now a more clean cut veteran, well shaved with a crew cut.)

Battle for Ninjago City? Giant Robot vs Giant Dragon? Which seems to follow along with most Ninjago tropes.

The sets are probably appearing as they become available in the warehouse. They were pre prepped in the system, but no hard date was actually set. So as the warehouse inventories and stocks them, the sku gets toggled to available and up it pops on S@H. And it is probably taking the warehouse a few days to get a large delivery inventoried and shelved. These things get packed by weight etc, so there may be no theme logic to it. Simply what comes out of the containers first vs whats on the bottom. I suspect the root problem is the S@H system is ignoring set release dates in favor of "in stock" notifications from inventory.

Thank you, you just made the lightbulb go off for me regarding what the Phantom is. The Phantom is a hero ship. It is a mini fighter that is carried by the Ghost. Chances are the Phantom model will be designed to attach to the Ghost. It is a sort of wedge shaped fighter that slides into the upper rear of the ghost just above the main engines. It is white or light grey with yellow markings in the concept art. http://www.therpf.com/attachments/f47/star-wars-rebels-new-animated-series-9381470438_89e9017c4b_o.jpg-213509d1375053660 The upper right picture in that link shows the Phantom docked in its bay.