Faefrost

George Washington is fairly close to what we got with the Revolutionary soldier. The non smile. The powdered wig and the blue uniform. I bet we might see a Ben Franklin. He has a very distinctive look, and he would be a good reuse of the Shakespeare headpiece. Thomas Jefferson would not be widely recognizable, which is a shame. It would be a great excuse to get the Will Turner / Josamee Gibbs hair piece as a red head. Pilgrims are probably doable in a none religious way. They are remembered less for faith and more for Thanksgiving.

I think they deliberately left it vague and open to the builders interpretation. It clearly could be Treebeard, but by not naming him it leaves open the possibility of them making a stand alone Treebeard set with him, Merry and Pippin in some future wave. Naming him in the Orthanc set doesn't really impact sales of that set. But by not naming him in it, it keeps any future set as a more desirable must have.

One question for those others that have seen the AUJ EE

We're getting one in the Lego Movie theme, in the Western Plane set.

The practice wasn't completely abandoned. Three of the 2009-10 Power Miners sets were designed to be combined into one larger vehicle. I believe there may have also been some sort of combined alt model with the Atlantis series as well.

Me too! One of my all time favorite themes. I especially love the ADF forces. Also noteworthy for repurposing to ADF standards, the Ninjago Jay's Stormfighter set.

I love the shaping. I think it could use just a touch more yellow as a trim color to really bring it out as Blacktron. Otherwise it looks more Batman than Blacktron. Maybe the 1x1 round tiles around the engines?

This right here will be a huge deciding factor (and is undoubtedly the reason for point and click) "Work on the tablet version has been accelerated by the allocation of more resources" Tablet version. Mobile gaming market. Far far deeper penetration of a younger audience, and a more willing micro transaction clientele than PC gaming.

I think it's just lighting. He seems pretty clearly black in most other pics. I am actually warming to the fig now that I have seen a few better pictures. It doesn't look so much like an ape, as a wailing ghost printed on a black minifig. I think the head, if paired with a black hood, will make an extremely useful piece for Castle and Horror builders. It has a sort of Edward Muench Scream feel to it.

Go look at the title again. It isn't "Cavalry" it's "Castle Calvary" so Calvary is probably the name of the Castle. (Actually kind of shocking that Lego would use that name for a set these days, given their current stated aversion to religious subject matter?) "Calvary" has been a fairly comon name for Churches, Chappels and Castle over the course of modern history in the Christian / Western world. It is the hill outside Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified. (and apparently loosely translates to "Hill of the Skull", isn't history full of such fun morbid facts?). So Calvary seems sort of an odd choice for a transforming Pod Racer shaped attack plane? ("Bring forth the Holy Hand Grenade"?)

Some minor spoilers from the AUJ extended edition. Overall the added scenes really do change the movie, mainly by giving reasons that make sense. They bring out into the open stuff that was only hinted at. Things that then tie directly and smoothly into LotR. It shows why Thranduil turned away from the Dwarves when Smaug attacked (and no he wasn't simply being megablocks). It clearly lays out why Elrond and the White Council do not want THORIN returning to Erebor. And on the same note it implies what drew Smaug to Erebor in the first place. (Of the seven, four were devoured by dragons, two returned to Sauron before his defeat, the fate of the last Thror's remains unknown). It is wonderful to see this talked about and brought into the lore. The extended Rivendell scenes are particularly rich in new lore and character goodies, although the included musical number is a bit uneven. The Goblin town scenes now play out much more closely to the book or if you prefer the old Rankin Bass movie. A bit deeper bit of the Goblin King interrogating the dwarves, and the books traditional musical number. It's a bit surreal, and I can kinda see why the musical didn't make the theatrical cut. Although it is cool to see for the Tolkien fan.

We are getting too hung up on series numbering and differentiating between licensed, unlicensed and other. The chances are Series 11 will be the last of that numbered series. What we are calling series 12 is the internal movie tie in ( probably also a marketing teaser to license partners). What we call 13 will be the Simpsons line. Obviously unconnected to previous. Now comes the fun one. What we are thinking of as series 14. This will almost guaranteed to be reset to series 1 under a slightly different name to reflect its MMO tie in nature. It has to be, because it is designed to add a Skylanders type component to the collecting which previous series do not have. They can't allow the numbering of those previous series to act as a barrier to entry nor a point of confusion. So it gets reset to 1. Now the good news! The game and its collectable element insures that no, CMF's are not going all licensed. In fact it insures probably at least 4 or 5 more series of what we view as regular or classic style CMFs to support it.

I can't escape the feeling that Nya was supposed to be in the Dragonoid set, and got cut in order to hit the price point. The set features her car and her graphics. They probably figured that she was the most flexible of the Minifigs in terms of scene and sales draw. ( green ninja boosts sales, set needed Sensei Garmadon and evil Wu, and needed a minion for play value/opposition.)

If you look at some of the still covered sets, it is obvious that many of these sets either have a conversion mechanism or are 2 in 1 builds. IE the Ice Cream Truck has both a normal Ice Cream Truck mode and a flying attack vehicle mode. So this may convert into some sort of gate house pr watch tower? It's kind of nice to see the molded lion head facade piece again.

They have pretty unequivocally said no religious figures. At least none from modern religions. So no Jesus, Moses, Mohamed, Budda etc. I wouldn't rule out a Medieval Friar to hang with the Forrestmen. But I think that's about the best we might ever get.

Is anyone else getting a bit of a Hanna Barbera Whacky Racers type vibe off of this entire theme?

Alice would be a reasonable set to make. And has some potential for something fun and different. Others on the list of "commoner" type Princess sets could be a Peter Pan and Wendy set, Lilo and Stitch maybe (ok Lilo might be tough as a minidoll, but her sister is perfect. A nice little surfing beach set.) Maybe something like Mary Poppins would work well in minidolls as well? Not to mention the "core" Princesses that they haven't touched on yet. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty / Aurora. Mulan. etc. And figure there will be at least one tie in set to the next movie, Frozen. That seems almost tailor made for these type sets.

I have had nothing but good experiences with BL. I think one situation where a part was missing and the seller was very apologetic and quickly found and shipped it. Overall a very good experience. Whereas buying Lego from E-Bay is often a bit of a horror. New sealed sets are OK, (so long as they aren't current, available sets. Beware the dropship scam!). But used stuff? Large blocks of parts missing. Parts that look like they have been sandblasted. Weird oddly applied stickers. Other bits of weird gross child related organic substances stuck on the parts. Tons of non lego parts in specified sets. My general rule with used Lego on E-bay is that it pretty much never ever is as advertised. Just horrible.

We saw a heavy Ep II and the Ep III waves because they were supposed to tie into theatrical 3d re releases of the films. Those got shelved, and TCW got cancelled with the Disney sale, probably putting Lego's SW plans in a holding patern until closer to the new movie and TV shows. They went with the Ep II Ep III focus because they really didn't have much to replace it with. By next summer the newer plans will have solidified and we will be starting to see the results I would think. I don't think we will see a full or even a heavy wave of Rebels sets in the Summer. But I do think we will see a small number of teaser sets to start drumming up interest, and to insure that there is something on shelves when the show starts. Lucasfilms is particularly notorious for teasing stuff like that. Remember Boba Fett's fame is not from his rather pathetic performance in the movies. It is because he was the first teaser toy we got back in 77-78 to let us know there would be a new movie.

Characters from the Expanded Universe may also in some cases get into weird rights or licensing issues. Lucasfilms normally is very very tight in how they control such things, but it still comes down to TLG basing product designs on another non Lucas producers published works and art. Yeah, they have done it a few times, such as Biowares TOR ships. But I can understand why in many other cases both TLG and LF would be hesitant to put things to the test unless or until they have a character locked down on film in one of their directly owned properties such as a movie or TV show.

This months Lego Club magazine has a full page spread of the Dul Guldur Battle scene, with some nicely detailed pictures of Radaghast and Beorn among other things.

Probably not as CuuSoo. I would think the best hope for a new Monorail would be as a "City" / "Trains" set, ala the Airport Monorail. Hey! Maybe TLG's ongoing partnerships with Disney will prompt them to do one of those? (I can dream). You are probably reading a little too much into it. The best piece of advice in any CuuSoo proposal will be "be reasonable in what you are asking for". - The CuuSoo project at Lego has a limited budget. It does not support new tooling. (To keep this in perspective most "exclusive" D2C sets do not support new exclusive tooling.) - Keep your projects size and scope limited. Figure a parts budget at 10-12 cents per part, $2-$3 per minifig with a goal to keep the set under $99. (I personally would limit exceptions to the $99 rule to stuff TLG is well established with. Technic, Modular Buildings, Trains, and maybe a non licensed UCS type model. And even then I would try and keep any of those except Technic under $199). Skew your estimates more towards the 12 cents per part if you are expecting to use existing parts in new colors or custom printing. - Honestly ask yourself if your project or license is not just cool, but is kid friendly, and appropriate for a minimum 6-12 age? - Give some careful thought to licensed projects. Do the benefits outweigh the negatives? Is the license really needed to accomplish what the goal of your project is? Remember a license increases your chances of getting 10k votes, but it can actually reduce the chances of your project passing review as it adds another layer of complexity.

Doesn't the Penguin smoke cigarettes in one of those old style long thing cigarette holders?

I doubt they will be completely replaced. They are still oddly useful parts, and the new FF mounting pieces are very useful. So we will probably see them continued to be used in a variety of strange ways. (Shooting spiders, rocks, cow skulls, people skulls, grappling hooks, etc) mostly that just don't look right with spring shooters.

I think by Summer Lucasfilms will start a gradual push away from the PT and specific CW battles. We may see one or two Rebels teaser sets. I also would not be surprised to see a new Tantive IV as it stretches from RotS to TCW to (theoretically, but a safe guess) Rebels, to ANH. So it would offer broad play possibilities. Maybe with Leia, Bail, the Droids and a pair of Rebels?