Faefrost

I realize that they had dropped the armor and pans by Mt Doom. My point was more that by just including those few details for them to drop you would have a play set that easily covers their entire journey across Mordor, while at the same time making the figs and set a bit more desirable.

They don't drill holes in the parts. The holes are molded in. They didn't put the holes in the phase 2 helmets, because of how the mold release works on them. On the old helmets the mold seam ran centrally front to back. This allowed the holes to be molded in and the parts to still release cleanly from the mold. On the new mold the primary seams run at different angles in order to support the more detailed molded front. Putting the holes in would have fouled up mold release.

If you look, the castle is modular and compatable with the Gatehouse Raid set. So you can use the 3 segments of the gatehouse to expand the castle walls. This would not be possible if the castle was sitting on a traditional elevated baseplate. So sacrifice one feature for another.

I wonder why they haven't expanded this lines reach? Could it be language or translation issues with the books?

Before w get our hopes up, do we know what the name for that smaller 70720 set is? It looks like a small Nindroid vehicle. Given how erratic Lego's set naming can be, and how badly translated leaks frequently are, Destructoid could be literally anything up to and including the ride on lawn mower polybag.

Agreed. Remember Han talking about som hokey old religion from the past. It always left the feeling that the Jedi were something that only the oldest really remembered, and they had passed more into the realms of disbelief. Part of that might have been that there really were only a handful of Jedi. Maybe less than 100 total masters, knights and Padawans, at the time of the Clone Wars, and as a result they really were all but unseen by the general public. But still the original story left the feeling of a much greater degree of separation. And not just of Jedi, but of force users in general. Remember the Death Star Officers disdain and disbelief of Vader's abilities in Ep IV? Would that have been the case if Lightsaber wielding Sith inquisitors were still running around 5 years prior?

I honestly don't think we will get a prologue Mt Doom set. But with a little thought they could probably make a nice mid to low priced Hobbits at Mt Doom play set. It is the climactic scene of the trilogy after all. Now it doesn't't have to be a retread set. Make it a smallish play set. Steps, ledge, lava. A lot of black and orange. While the figures are a given, they can te made worthwhile. Say Orc dressed Sam and Frodo with optional helms and breastplates. ( as it is Sam only appears in one set.) Gollum (sadly not much they can do with him print wise. Maybe make his face totally crazed?) Gandalf the White (we only have 1 of him) and an Eagle. (Gotta use the mold!) give it the ubiquitous Gollum flinger, some collapsing breakaway action. Toss in a few details like a brick built backpack for Sam, with a clip to hold his pans, and in one $30-40 set you can probably get all of the little details you would need for Sam and Frodo's trip across Mordor, and the final destruction of the ring. All you would need to add would be Orc's.

Oh Man we so need an Imperial Stormtrooper Ninja Cycle!

If you think those are bad go back a few pages in that thread and see the recast bootleg TMNT and Chima figs.

One thing that may be an interesting gauge would be to take note of how popular Bionacle is on Netflix? If Bionacle were to return it would not simply be as a toy. It would require a new show like Chima or Ninjago to drive it. Would there be a market for such a thing on Cartoon Network or Nikolodean etc? While Transformers thrives over the years some other revivals fall flat (Thundercats).

They are clear copyright violations. They outright copy and mimic the unique artwork. But what always puzzles me is why? I can understand the bootleg Ninjago figs. But why would they even bother copying something like the chef or the Octan guy that closely? How much benefit coud here be for the effort required and the limitations it brings in distribution? With just some minor art changes they could actually sell into anywhere including western nations without risk of legal action or enforcement? Is there really enough of a market for a bootleg Octan guy to make it worth making?

Haven't we seen the Dol Guldur Ambush set translated as "Elrond Ambush" or "Elrond Attack" in some of the leaks? If so that might give us an idea of who might be the hero figure in the set?

Probably the two most city or region specific are the Palace Cinema and the Fire Brigade. The Palace Cinema is very much based on that strange California "Faux" architecture that gave us things such as the Chinese Theater. (Whereas a more common American Theater would probably be more Art Deco). The Fire Brigade just screams US Industrial Northeast from early to mid 20th century. Pretty much any area from New England and New York across the rust belt to Cincinnati or Chicago. For the others I always thought the Town Hall looks a bit more American than European, as I tend to picture the Euro ones having a bit more in the way of ornate decorations nailed on. But that may just be my misperceptions. Pet Shop and Green Grocer feel more European than North American, but not outrageously so. Grand emporium feels a little more London than US, in sort of the opposite of the Town Hall, it has a bit more ornate decoration going on than you typically see in similar US examples. But as in all things there are exceptions, and it works fine mentally on either side of the big pond. Cafe corner always makes me think of Amsterdam. But it works fine for say New York (just add a layer of grimy yuch.) The Parisian Restaurant is a great example of how we should be careful reading too much into locations for these things. Yeah it is obviously meant to represent a "Parisian Restaurant", and really carries off the look and feel. But I think the designer was actually inspired by a restaurant in New England. Now what we really need is an example or two of building styles from South America or the Far East. (Hmmm? Hong Kong strip club would probably be vetoed on brand fit, wouldn't it?)

I'm guessing that if the rumored prices are correct, and we will be getting a $100 TMNT set, really the only things that it could be are either some variant of the Technodrome or TCRI. There just aren't any other locations in the TV show that would be big enough. We already have a Turtle Lair and the Shellraiser. Sio unless Michael Bay has added some sort of ball swinging gigantic constructacon into the TMNT movie, the big set will probably be one of those two.

I'm thinking that's assuming an intentional pattern where it is likely that none exists. The actual planning probably goes more like "we need a big set? Hmmm? Haven't made an ISD in a few years." And not much more than that in the way of rules or patterns..

Is anyone else concerned with this wave, that only one set seems to have any even partial correlation to the book or classic story, Lake Town? Everything else is new PJ subjects and scenes. And even Lake Town, seems to be a new unknown scene staged in a familiar setting? This differs somewhat from just about every other LotR or Hobbit sets we have had released thus far. While minor details may have changed in the prior sets (such as Legolas and Tauriel in the Mirkwood Spiders set), the root of the sets were still fairly well known points or elements of the story, regardless of how you came to be familiar with it. Book or Movies. But as the conversation around here shows. Dedicated Tolkien fans really have no idea what to expect in most of these sets? They have no idea what these scenes are depicting. That could be part of the reason that New Line and Lego are keeping reveals under wraps. But it also may be a source of sales problems. Especially early release sales. Bag End sold like hot cakes because it had 4 movies and 4 books all triangulating in on it to spread familiarity and a desire to make it ones own. There is however pretty much no casual or classic familiarity with Dol Guldar. That's going to have some impact.

Wow. That is some fantastic work. The details are amazing and I love the curved facade.

Wishful thinking on my part, but I would really love to see a Dash Rendar's Outrider set. Otherwise for the upper end sets I think we are due for either a minifig scale ATAT, a nice Sandcrawler or a new MTT. It's kind of a shame that we probably will not see any more TCW sets. There were a few great ships that we never saw in Lego. The Crucible Jedi training ship would have been sweet.

The pics in the retailers catalog are almost always preliminary pics and subject to change. In most cases details about specific figs will change, such as printing, or character specific head molds. The preliminaries are often just mock ups or prototypes and not the final look for the Minifigs. On rarer occasions they have changed or removed a figure from a set. When they do it there is normally some production or cost reason. They normally don't opt to reshuffle the figs as a core set design change this late in the game. They probably will not mess around with a battle packs Minifigs this late in the production schedule, unless they are having an issue producing something such as a new helmet.

And season 2 has begun! And it's off to a very good start. Overall a solid episode. It probably stands as one of the series better ones. Complete with a lot of setup for the rest of the season. It looks like we will be seeing LOTS of new and interesting mutant characters (and lots and lots of minifigs of them I hope ).

Tying into this wasn't it revealed that the Stormtroopers in this show are not Clones, but may have been trained by some of them? Show of hands... who thinks "how to accurately shoot a laser rifle" was not on the curriculum?

I think the current molds with just a head printing with classic style white eyes would more than satisfy the old timers. The actual shape of the turtle minis is more than acceptable for pretty much any incarnation save possibly the worst of the live action movies. Based on this weeks episode, I think we can now understand why we are getting a Batman Man-Bat set this wave, and can probably speculate that we will be seeing "Wingnut" in a set as well. They saw enough convergence between Chima, Super Heroes and TMNT that they can really make use of a bat wing piece of some sort. Probably in a smaller set that gives us a Turtle Glider or two. And as embarrassed as I am to admit this, given my advanced age, you are probably doing yourself a disservice if you don't check out the new Nikolodean TMNT show. It really is astonishingly good.

BLEAH! I was really unsure about the Simpsons theme, but if these are legit than yeah I'll be skipping this one. The heads are nicely made, just to weirdly oversized for the minifig bodies.

The problem I am seeing is less that the only villain we have seen looks like a generic video game Sith clone that we have seen a hundred times in a hundred increasingly bad games. But rather they just committed the same horribly confining mistake that they made with TCW. Think about it. This is set 14 years after RotS. That means it has at best 2 years of timeline before the events of ANH. The good is we will probably see Leia as a main character. But the bad is the same as with the later seasons of TCW. There is a very finite termination point looming for the story. They didn't give themselves a lot of room to work with. TCW was starting to have an issue where they had more days shown in the show then there feasibly were for the war itself. Also at 2 years back this show isn't really a transitional point between the PT and OT. This is pretty much smack dab on top of the OT. And there is no way that doesn't start to get awkward.

I think it it's more last year was unexpectedly heavy with leaks and things walking out of the factory. More so then they had ever had happen before. TLG has probably taken steps to clamp down on both types of occurrences. The regular announcement schedule hasn't changed. They are just taking greater steps to prevent people from breaking their license contract reveal dates. Their efforts are probably more focused on the licensed properties, where they do have a contractual obligation regarding the schedule, then on their own in house properties. Which is why we have seen a few Ninjago and Chima leaks but very little LotR, Hobbit, TMNT and even Star Wars leaks (although there were a few glimpses of the SW catalog pages.)