Faefrost

One thing that I found helps. There is a behind the scenes documentary about making the television show South Park. I think it's called "3 days to air". In it one of the creators Try Parker explains how he uses Lego as a stress relief and an outlet as part of his creative process for the show. Without intending it as such he gave one of the best public descriptions of what an AFOL is, and how enjoyable it is for an adult.

I would think we would be almost guaranteed a Krusty, Apu and Karl in the CMF's.

It means our worst fears have been realized and the Google and Facebook databases have evolved sentience. But on the positive side, they appear to be Lego fans. All hail our new cybernetic AFOL Overlords!

That's probably not a bad starting set. Although a lot will depend on what you want him to do with it. For pure play value few things beat the Yellow Cargo Train http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-City-Cargo-Train-7939/dp/B003A2JCR2/ref=pd_sim_t_4 With its crane and small cars and sidings. Just lots of stuff to do. Although it is substantially more expensive.

She's Israeli, so she has the Mediterranean look about her. She just seems a bit scrawny for WW to my eyes.

Maybe not the routine retail stuff, but the D2C and special stuff. yes please. I love the credit that they give with the designer video's. I would love to be able to fully appreciate an individual designer or sculptors work.

We need to be careful in seeking to apply one size fits all adult gender perceptions to kids. Children's perceptions of gender evolves as they age. Young children are pretty much gender neutral. Products aimed at the lower range of TLG's target audience do well with a good gender mix. Note genders are quite balanced in Duplo. And we still see more female Minifigs in City then we do elsewhere. As kids age their perceptions age and as a result so do their play styles and preferences. They do begin to rather sharply sex segregate (heck if you check all the major news sites today you will find a rather concrete study proving that these differences are wired in.) during these ages boys do tend to look dis favorably on female toys for play purposes, while girls evolve a very different play style. Ninjago as a result is more targeted at these slightly older boys and Friends at the slightly older girls. As they age further the preferences will start to converge again in the more adult or advanced subjects (Modulars, Winter Village, Trains, CMF's as collectables, etc) and we once again see a broader spread of minifig representation. (Hmmm? Now that I actually type this out it dawns on me that maybe TLG has a much better idea of what they are doing than anyone gives them credit for?) Licensed stuff is mostly at the mercy of the License. Indiana Jones has a surprisingly high number of female characters and figs. Tolkien is a sausage fest ( not surprising once one realizes that the LotR books were in part his way of dealing with the memories, trauma and PTSD from fighting in the trenches of WWI. Where women were rare and were mainly nurses.) I'll concede that the Superhero lines are probably the biggest disappointment given the plethora of female source material. But the line is still aimed squarely at the Ninjago crowd. At a minimum maybe increasing the ratio of sane vs insane female characters would go a long way.

Well we generally assume that TLG does have accountants. and they are evaluating the sets not just on overall line sales, but on a one to one basis of price point, and a host of other metrics. How many times has a line or group of sets "sold out at the factory" and had to go back to production for more? How are the lines playing out vs estimates. Ninjago this year is probably a fairly good direct comparison to the Middle Earth stuff. The numbers of sets were fairly close. I don't think there is any question that Ninjago sales far surpassed the ME stuff. I get the impression that while the Middle Earth has done well, and is profitable, it might not be quite as good as they were hoping. Which can be a dangerous place to be when the shelves are growing crowded and the theme sitting next to your favorite is far exceeding expectations. (Just ask the Alien Conquest fans about their wave 2.). LotR'sa and The Hobbit most certainly have far exceeded things like PoP and Speed Racer. But I don't think it is doing substantially better than PotC did, and LR may have even edged them out, at least the last LotR release.

Well the torsos don't look too bad... Homers and Flanders might be useful. But those heads? They are the things of nightmares. Once seen they cannot be unseen.

New rule.. no use of the word "breeding" in Lego set names. It's just kinda creepy

Good catch. Actually if anything the AUJ Nazgul looks more like the one to the right of the Witch King in the FotR pic. The crown isn't quite right, but it is closer. And the hair and face look close.

I think her solution is solving a problem from 3-5 years ago. The actual spread of male to female minifigs has greatly changed in the past two years. (with some variation depending on who exactly a line is targeted at). And TLG shows every inclination to continue increasing female minifigs in sets. I think the janus head solution comes off as clumsy. and would feel like taking away the expressiveness of the current dual expressions or emotions.

Probably not. They have said that they get an order of magnitude more return on something like that when they have an actual movie tie in. At best we might hope they can squeeze in a non licensed Pirates subject before the next PotC movie? (I'm probably just dreaming)

You never ever want to encourage a small male child to "build the fire themselves". Trust me on this. They are prone to be quite inventive and astonishing authentic in their approach.

That's wonderful. I love all the little details. Those fantastic cut out windows are my favorite.

Those aren't physical billboard adds anymore. They are more like website banner advertising. The billboards in the parks are simply green screens. The adds are added digitally by the broadcasters. Lego simply paid for x amount of ad time. They really had no choice over what popped up next to them. And it would not be the same in all markets. Edit. Whoops I thought you meant the in camera advertising during the game. Not back to back commercials.

Pay attention to the forthcoming Legend of Chima Spirit Beast sets. They are organic animals in the general size you are looking for, and in particular they will be featuring some new small socket joint parts that will work well for what you are looking to do.

The Star Wars license has been a merchandising juggernaut since 1978. Empire and RotJ were literally paid for from toy profits. And they have barely let off the throttle since then. There is something in the Star Wars stuff that calls to a very broad range of toy consumers. From the 6 year old desiring something swoosh able, to the nostalgic father, to the AFOL. There is a reason why SW is the primary gateway drug for AFOLs that drags them back out of their dark ages. LotR's is a great license. But it is a darker more complex story that skews older. It doesn't have as broad a base. It is a book selling juggernaut. Not a toy selling one. Much like Harry Potter. To be viable as a toy property it really does need, or at least greatly benefit from a contemporary media tie in such as movies. Without those the broad interest level returns to the printed pages. The best we can do is hope and pray that we get what we want while the theme is available. To put this more in perspective. When Harry Potter was at its peak around 2003 it was the third most portable line TLG had. Now look at 2013. A fairly safe estimate probably puts the list of profitable themes something like this, 1. City, 2. Star Wars, 3. Ninjago, 4. Friends (also highest growth), 5. Super Heroes, 6. (At best and if taken together) possibly LotR and Hobbit. (And this leaves Duplo and Technics out of the equation). And that's being generous to the Middle Earth stuff. We really don't know if it cracked the top 10. We can just safely estimate that it is not in the top 5. We know what those are. And those rankings will impact where shelf and production space is allocated each cycle. LotR's has probably been a reasonably profitable line. But not a runaway license to print money. So it will get its time in the sun, and then be replaced by something new. At least until Peter Jackson and the Tolkien estate make peace and agree to make a Silmarilion or War in the North type movie (just imagine the fan outrage)

I thought Simpsons was pretty well known to be Spring? April or May? As for SW, it will vary wildly from country to country, but normally parts of Europe see them first. Mid December feels about right for them to be showing up.

I think we are overdue for a new Dagobah set. Especially with a new Yoda head in the mix.

Ummm what? Those two ships are video game only. The Tie Avenger is from Tie Fighter and the X Wing / Tie Fighter space sim games. By its own internal lore it was never in any theater of operation that would have put it on screen for the movies. Plus it is basically the "production" version of Darth Vaders Tie Advanced. So not a ton of clear design difference that would justify it as a stand alone subject for a retail product. The Tie Phantom is from 1996. It post dates even the reworked special editions. So no it did not appear on screen, nor can it even be implied to be just off screen. However you may have some hope there. The Tie Phantom was actually based on some early concept art for the Lambda shuttle. The Rebels show like TCW before it is going back and using a lot of the old concept art as the basis for intermediary designs between the PT and OT. So it may show up there in some form. We are not going to see many (any) EU designs that don't have some cross media tie in. Be it a TV show or heavily pushed game. The Tie Defender did horribly. And the other game tie ins have been so so at best. Tie Crawler anyone? Rogue Shadow? And how well are the Republic Striker and Defender doing? I think the only one that did moderately well was the Sith Fury. And then only because it's Imperial Tie type Herritage really shone through. Our only real hope for some of the obscure non movie ships we love will be if they get recycled into some other presentation. Much like the way the E Wing showed up as a Yoda Chronicles ship, or the Z95 and armored Y Wing came in via TCW. I wouldn't expect a lot of EU experimentation going forward. There is too much in the way of new stuff looming in the background as it is. - Rebels TV show. Expect lots of new and variant ships. - New movies. Figure we have 18 months before some of the new stuff from those start trickling out. - SWTOR, if they do any EU stuff it will probably be a new player star fighter from this game to correspond with the games space fighter expansion pack. Good news is that would probably be a Sith Fighter which is kinda Tie'ish. - Star Wars Battlefront. EA Is making a big new AAA Battlefront game. Disney Lucas might opt to have Lego make a tie in. If so it would probably be a ground vehicle. Just given the nature of the game. - TCW. There is a planned release of the final TCW story arcs in early 2014. Once again Disney may have some sort of tie in to capitalize on those (although less likely). With all of this we will be lucky to see much PT and OT stuff for the next few release waves.

Brickwarriors Scimitar is the closest I have found so far. It's not quite right in the curves. But the size is right and it has the hilt. http://www.brickwarriors.com/Scimitar.aspx I am hoping somebody has one on the design board. Maybe in a nice GITD Blue?

I honestly don't think they would skip out on making a Balrog because some people might think it looks like a demon or devil. Have you looked at some of the Hero Factory and Bionacle faces? The assorted undead? The grim reapers over in Castle? It just seems like an overly insane reason not to make a thing well described in classic literature. They have plenty of cover with it. I think with the Balrog it's more a matter of how to complete the scene in a fun manner at a reasonable price. The Balrog is an easy constraction fig (Hello new ball joints over in Chima). But to do it right you need the Balrog and Gandalf on a bridge that collapses as a play feature. How much of your sets budget do you want to waste on that bridge? Besides, if you are going to refer to the Balrog as a demon or demonic, then we really should take it all the way. Yes there is a bit of demon in the Balrog. Tolkien was a devout Catholic and much of the books do leverage that a bit. But by the same token, is Gandalf not considered an Angel? Made to be a tool and messenger by the creator. Sent to Middle Earth to protect the world and its people from the evil of another like him who had fallen?

Looking at the shelves of Walmart last night I think TLG is the ONLY company that doesn't hold a "Duck Dynasty" license. Which is a shame. I could find a lot of interesting uses for the beard pieces that would come with it.

Does Lego even have the Blimp Molds and tooling anymore? It's been a long time since we saw those parts, and a long time since they cleaned out most of their overlarge "<insert that tiresome argument>" type specialty parts. So the Adventurers Blimp may have been lost to posterity?