Faefrost

I don't know if this has been seen. Some footage and character art from TMNT season 2. shown off at one of the comic cons. It may give a pretty good idea of what new figs we might be geting. Baxter Fly, and others.

That isn't so much a 'Star Wars" thing as it is a "Large Sculpted Maxi Figures thing". The Dino Theme had similar price points for the same reason. The big figs eat up a lot of price and part volume.

Technically twice as she also appeared in a very similar set in the first Batman line. But the figs are similar but with slight differences. And yeah we need more with her. Heck we need a Birds of Prey set with all girls. Batgirl, Black Canary, Huntress and Catwoman.

It is a licensed theme from a forthcoming movie. Any decisions on any pics or reveals cme from the licensor. New Line tells Lego precisely when and what they can show. The information schedule serves New Lines needs as a promotional tool and movie tie in. It's almost completely outside of Lego's control. Most licensor's aren't as strict regarding things that have already been seen or are well known. Hence we got early views of the Unexpected Gathering. (It's the opening scene in the book, Bag End had already been seen in LotR's and PJ had released a ton of "making of" info from the scene).

Is it even possible for them to do a larger sized UCS slave one, without it looking like an 8 bit video game ship? Lego does not do complex curves real well.

Nicely done. It has a bit of the same feel as the Redtail fighter from Cowboy Bebop.

Probably not. The problem is CuuSoo is a limited production run, limited release product. Maybe 20,000 to 50,000 pieces typically made. They can't amortize the costs of new tooling over that small of a run. Regular retail sets have production runs of 1 million +. So for a regular retail set a new part may add 2-5% to the retail cost of a set. Significant, but with minimal impact on sales. For a CuuSoo set a new part increases the set price by 25-30%. A huge jump that undercuts the products perceived value. Now if TLG were to pursue a full blown Zelda theme license from Nintendo we would see new parts. But pretty much never through CuuSoo, regardless of how many times 10k people vote.

Wow! I can't remember when the last time our best guesses and expectations were completely blown away in such a stunning manner. This set looks to be everything we could possibly desire. Details, colors, architectural design, populated interiors. Rare useful pieces. It has everything. And may be the best modular yet to be offered. Well done Lego! The blonde feathered hair is a newer Luke Skywalker hairpiece from a few years back. The slightly styled traditional hair is from AGENTS.

It closed because it was over designed and overly expensive to produce (Lego really didn't have enough experience in this arena at the time, and grossly over micro managed the actual game developers) contrasted with a monthly subscription pricing model ala WoW that only attracted around 20,000 paying subscribers worldwide. If it had been developed later it probably would have been a hit as a free to play cash shop type game. But it's subscription business model was not effective for its younger skewing target audience.

I actually think Birds would or will have an easier time in review than Portal. It's not so much simply that it has to be a franchise or a licensed IP. It is also "how much reliable data do they already have to help predict sales?" The Birds project may actually fare pretty well under review. It is a project that we know has the eye and effection of the designers, and it is similar enough in nature to many of the "Creator" themed sets and subjects that Lego would probably feel they have excellent predictive data.

Hmmm? That trailer might explain the lack of any Smaug themed sets this wave. There looks to be so much going on, that I get the impression that a good chunk of the Smaug story arc might be in the third movie? That leaves me a little more hopeful for a nice dragon set.

A rather nice Lego rendering of what is in real life a truly garish and hideous example of architecture gone mad. (Do the roof and windows leak on the Lego version too?) I understand why Lego chose it. It's a well known and easily recognizable building. But still it sits in the annals of architectural don'ts just above that British building that lights people on fire and melts cars.

It's not a matter of depicting any particular country. TLG has a stated policy of not producing toys that depict "modern era" real world war or violence. Stylized fantasy or history is ok. But no modern (20th century+) soldiers and no guns for Police or criminals. They may be creeping a little bit into the 20th century with some of the industrial era steampunk vibe of Monster Fighters. And they have briefly crossed their declared lines with some licensed sets (Indiana Jones, Smallville, Toy Story) But they will still be very very picky about anything that comes close to modern style warfare. And yeah I know that there are thousands of Internet rules lawyers who will seek to pick apart inconsistencies in TLG's policy or look for loopholes. But honestly I think we all do really understand what it is they are doing, and what the contexts are that they seek to avoid.

I always assumed the changes in the head stud were just changes and improvements to the production engineering, and didn't really have any deeper meaning or purpose then "better mold release" or "cleaner print indexing" etc.

I always assume these leaked set names have been bounced through 3 languages and badly translated at each step. It may make more sense in it's original language, and it probably has a better "in context" english name in reality. But the straight translation of one to the other often comes out weird.

Chances are sending it in like that absolutely guarantees that the design team would never ever see it. Most companies like TLG go to great lengths to try and firewall their actual designers from any such outside idea stream to avoid legal issues or bad publicity. Just look at what that poor designer of the Haunted House went through. If you want to offer a suggestion for what you would like to see made, be very very general. Minimal specifics (ie no minifig lists, etc) and send it directly to the marketing research department, not the designers.

Actually I thought that the movie begins several years after the accident. The 158 days referred to the last time Banner had Hulked out. Which may have been out in the Canadian wilderness somewhere etc (and boy would I love to see that scene on film.) The origin and much of the backstory of the MCU Incredible Hulk was pretty much taken as given to be similar to the old Incredible Hulk TV series from the 70's. They just subtly implied that it was that origin, that the broadest swath of the public already knew. (Yay! No gamma poodles!) where Banner had been a wandering homeless nomad for a few years. and honestly that approach to origin worked really well in that case. Probably an important lesson there for movie makers. The public does not need to be re taught the origins of Some of the more mainstream superheroes every few years. We don't need to waste half the movie on Spider-Man, Batman or Superman's origin. Granted there are some exceptions. Iron Man's backstory was less well known, and part of the joy of the character is watching him build and create and invent. So that worked well. I'm not sure that we needed quite as much origin as we got in Captain America. Really all we need to know is that he is a Super Soldier, and the nicest most honorable guy alive. The rest can be taken as a given. Wheedon really nailed that concept of assuming the audience could keep up and giving them just enough in the Avengers, so I am hopeful it continues going forward.

I actually see some neat signs of Agents aesthetic and design in the new upcoming Ninjago stuff. Which makes me very happy. While we will probably not see a new AGENTS theme, we have seen 6 or 8 waves of the overall Super Agents sub genre between Alpha Team and Agents. We will see its like again.

Is this the first "non Star Wars" set to carry one of those UCS Style display name plates?

I think Nesquik is probably spot on. My only speculation is I still would not be surprised to see that this one is actually 2 buildings like Pet Shop. We are overdue for another 16x32 pairing to break up the block a bit. Maybe one building the Restaurant and one a Bakery at street level? With an apartment above each?

I think we can almost guarantee that one of the Bay'esque movie sets will be the new movie Turtle Van that we have seen set pictures of. It looks like it was pretty much designed from the outset to be a toy (who says Bay learned nothing from Transformers?)

But let's remember that while Lego's choices for key subjects seem erratic strange or downright absurd to the more hardcore Tolkien fan base, they do actually have a great deal of experience in what makes a very good, very sellable, Lego set. I would be willing to bet that the much derided Pirate Ambush may eventually be discovered to have been one of the themes top sellers. Just because, while a so so LotR's scene, it is an utterly fantastic Lego set that oozes playability at every point. Plus it has a cross theme appeal to more traditional Lego fans. (I know it's not scientific or probably even accurate, but in the non Lego owned retail outlets by me I don't see many ships left on the shelves and have never seen one at discount. I see lots of the "black wall of blackness and more black" sets still around. )

In this case TLG has no choice in the matter whatsoever. This is a license tied to an upcoming movie release. The licensor has total control over when any info or images are to be released. TLG has absolute hard dates on everything from New Line and WB. Take those type stories with a grain of salt. Things will vary around the world. In this case much of this seems to be coming from Germany. Licensed sets and themes traditionally are slow sellers in Germany. Harry Potter didn't do well there, etc. but the licensed themes do orders of magnitude better in North America and parts of Asia. It's possible the theme is so so sales wise? But I think it falls pretty much within the parameters of its predecessor HP. There are a few assumptions there that we do not know are true. The core being the length of the license and how many waves were planned. Remember when TLG paid for the license it was to coincide with 2 movies. With a strong possibility that it would end or come up for renewal after that second movie. How splitting two movies into three effected the Hobbit license, the LotR license, TLG's established plans, or even their ongoing interest in the property is any bodies guess at this point. It's possible that both licenses may end in the spring, a few months after the second movie, having been tied to a date rather than the story or theatricals released scenes. Did New Line want more money when it became 3 films? Did TLG expect give backs after New Line screwed up their release and marketing plans? Are both sides currently happy with the other and happy with the property and product? What sacrifices or major changes is TLG having to engineer to their long term product and shelf space plans in order to accommodate the third movie? (And this is not a minor point. Keep in mind the second wave of Alien Conquest was cancelled, not because of poor sales of the first, but because at the last minute they ran out of available retail space due to licensed product changes.) The point is we don't know. Above and beyond fans love of the property, these are business and legal decisions. And there have been some weird curveballs thrown at this one from the licensor.

When the Lake Town Chase was revealed at SDCC there was an MTV interview showing off the set. In it the Lego person was asked how many sets there were. The answer I believe was 5 or 6, leaving some speculation that there us probably a yet unseen exclusive floating around somewhere out there. The official list we have seen comes from the retailer catalog and does not include store exclusives or D2C.

If you are a Historic builder than Fire Temple. No question. It's the best and most distinctive Asian themed building Lego has ever produced. Plus the Red Fire Dragon is one of the better dragons. Good figures too. Worthwhile runners up are the Ultrasonic Raider and the Spic Dragon Battle. Which have great Ninja selection. For the lower priced sets a lot will depend on what you are looking for in terms of set, play value, etc.