Faefrost

Is it wrong to hope more for a classic green and yellow Electro fig, than a fig of Jamie Foxx spray painted silver? (Rust-o-leum! It'll cover anything!) I just think the classic 4 color comic colors seem to work so much better as Minifigs than the attempts at more subdued live action coloring.

It's not a sense if entitlement. It is a failure to fully understand the nature of ones audience and customer base is, and what their own actual product is. Here's the problem. The Super Heroes. The Comic Book based figs. This is really where most of the pure hate is coming from. And TBH it is not entirely unjustified. In the past year or two Lego has been releasing their highly successful Superhero lines. And yet the comic con figs rather clearly show that at a minimum their marketing people do not fully grasp what the allure is to this product line. In their previous licensed lines like Star Wars or Indiana Jones or PotC while important, and a major driving force of set sales, the individual characters were not really the core of the sets. Star Wars is ultimately all about the cool ships and scenes. And the actual pool of characters is somewhat limited. The characters are there to populate the sets. But what the TLG marketing people rather clearly have totally failed to grasp is something that any fan of comics or superheroes could have told them. For Superheroes, this relationship flips. Rather drastically. While in SW and PotC the characters and Minifigs are there to populate the sets, in Superheroes the only purpose of the sets is to give the characters someplace to stand. The draw, the focus, the actual product is the unique and colorful characters. And they all have stories. Every single one of them has as much story as Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker. And as such they all each have their fans. And they are what brings the fans out to buy the products. For the super hero lines the characters are never bonus materials. They are the core product, and the customers reasonably expect to be able to purchase them from the company. Even with or in spite of the draw of "collectibility". Restricting a portion of the core product in this manner is legitimately infuriating to this customer base. If you were a SW fan, how would you feel if TLG put together and packaged up an absolutely perfect UCS AT-AT, and then handed out 100 of them at ComicCon, never to be seen or made again? How would the Harry Potter fans feel if only 1000 Ron figures were ever made and they would never have any chance to even see one? For Hobbit fans, what if the only way to complete your set of Dwarves was to get one of the lucky 1000 13th Dwarves handed out at a single nerd fest? What impact would that have on your desire to hand over money to the merchant to get the other 12? The problem is not that they are doing convention exclusives. It is that they are using unique and in many cases fairly popular characters for those exclusives, thus eliminating any chance that they will be made in regular production mechanisms that the paying customers have access to. Using a variant or recolor for a con exclusive is fine. It creates a neat novel collectables. Using the only version of a character that will ever be available as a con exclusive is a marketing move on par with peeing on ones customers.

Don't forget about Dagobah. It's been how many years since we have seen a Dagobah set? Plus there's that nice new movie Yoda head mold they need to use.

The donut ship may be tough to achieve in a set. Maybe something built on a spine of railroad tracks, like the Alien Conquest ship?

I think the biggest areas that CuuSoo needs to work on remain better mechanisms for presenting projects to casual visitors and browsers. We don't want the niche supporters to have a hard time voting for the stuff they like. We need the system to be better at showing them more stuff that they would like and hooking them on other projects. Because guess what. Pretty much all of we AFOLs were "niche " fans the day we ended our dark ages. The day we found this hobby. Something brought us back. Rather than being upset at what that something is for a different group, leverage it. Better search tools and category tools available from the front page. Being able to drill down based on subjects of interest, and not simply a semi random and user defined "search tags" system of categorization. Better rotating banners that pull from the full breadth of the pool of projects, not simply the most recent and most supported. Etc.

I think those articles illustrate pretty much everything that is ethically bad or unsound with the nature of these exclusives. It just illustrates that the Lego marketing people ave no idea what sort of venue it is hey are attending. They have no idea exactly who their exclusive figures are for, or who the actual target audience or customers is for these, or why doing it this way is essentially pissing on that target audience. They give these things to kids innocently, seeming to fail to realize that all they have done is rigged it so some folks get to exploit their kids for profits. What exactly does this exclusivity of these figures gain Lego? What is the benefit to them? Yeah it drives foot traffic to their booth, but it overwhelms the products actually being presented. It pisses off heir real fans, who have no chance to get these, all for the apparent obscene benefit of questionable third party sleazy eBay merchants. So once again, how does Lego benefit from this? There are some exclusives that work very well. The I Love NY Yoda is a great example. It's topical. It's special. But it's more of a soveneir. It's neat to have but the true fan or collector will not miss it if they don't have it. It is a unique variant, not a unique character. Lego would get much better attention, PR and goodwill by making these type figs more broadly available. In store or s@h bonus's. promo things like the chrome red key chain to VIPs, etc. spread the love around a bit so the fans feel it. Making only 1000 pieces that are given out in a single sweaty mercenary nerd fest is just stupid. It's poor business. Or rather it is putting a group of sleazy third parties business needs over yours.

Sadly unlike other similar lines like PotC, there really aren't a lot of other named, recognizable characters that aren't the Ranger and Tonto. There are a few vaguely interchangeable thug types (including the one thug in a dress that they always include in these Bruckheimer Disney actioners but that we somehow never get a minifig of. (I want a Pintel and Ragheti pair of minifigs damint!).

That came out fantastic. The only thing that looks slightly off from the show is those red horns on the helmet. But sadly there is no real alternative for them. I love how much better the treads look as real flat functional treads.

They probably do have actual internal Lego set or product numbers someplace, just not anyplace tht we would ever see them as they are not packaged individually. (The set number is probably on the big box o parts that TRU gets to stage the promotional event. ) these most likely are 100% real Lego designs and Lego does provide the materials. It's a promotional marketing thing I am sure. These are probably designed by the same group that comes up with the monthly store builds and similar items.

I believe GB is the direct source. He has a number of analytical tools that he runs against CuuSoo and offers a great deal of information on his Blog. While we all can debate how effective his tools are or what data points they are picking up (personally i trust them) he is actually the one doing the math himself and can be viewed as a valid and trustworthy source. He is not repeating something he read on the Internet. What he presents is his own data analysis and his methodology is sound.

It reminds me oddly of the "Narcissus" escape pod from the first Alien movie.

I did do the math. CuuSoo is a short run single subject mechanism with an initial run of either 10,000 or 20,000. The number I quoted you is conservatively assuming the maximum designers cut for a very large $100 set at a 10,000 piece run or a more common $50 set at a 20,000 piece run. Assuming that CuuSoo would release any sets in the price range of the Modulars, UCS or large AFOL targeted exclusives is at best speculative fantasy. The business case analysis would need to show a clear fairly guaranteed target market and path to profitability for the set or subject. And honestly? Probably one of the few cases were they may have clear data for a small special run product in the $150-$300 range would be in an advanced Technic subject. Which is its own special niche and may not be indicative of other set pricing limits. I honestly don't see most CuuSoo sets crossing the $99 threshold any time soon. If TLG likes Marshall's design, they can either produce it via CuuSoo or they can make some outside flat fee contractual arrangement to compensate him for it should they seek to produce it or something clearly derivative from it. They will do this because as you say, they are there to maximize profits to their shareholders. That means not doing questionable things to save pennies that have long term costs of dollars. They would either make a deal with Marshall, simply because it is cheaper and much better PR to pay Marshall then it is to pay the lawyer who would tell them they should have paid Marshall, and the PR person to undo the damage. Or they would simply make something else that has no potential conflict. (Note this applies to the MWT only. The Sandcrawler is a different story as it is likely that Lucasfilms would not allow them to pay Marshall as the designer of a design that Lucas already considers theirs.) The key point being that it is easier and cheaper for a company such as TLG to not create the conflict or the illusion of a conflict in the first place. Believe it or not, in most cases when faced with a choice corporations will in fact do the right thing, in large part because doing so is almost always the best business decision with the fewest risks or downsides.

That is fantastic. It looks just perfect. And it would work well for most large American cities circa the late 19 th century as well. There really isn't much difference in Apparatus at that time. So it would go along decently in a later era Western MOC.

Beorn's house is one of the first movie sets that was revealed to the public, and that we (and the Lego design team) had detailed looks at. This alone makes me suspect that Lego has something Beorn based in the works. They tend to work with what information they have, and the earlier they have it the more likely it is it will be included as a set.

This always helps me http://amodularlife.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/modular-standards-for-lego-city-buildings/ Also 9 to 11 or so bricks height is a good range for typical "non vaulted ceiling" floors.

As cases in point see below But we have no way of knowing the duration or terms of the license involved. You say waiting 2 years would be fine? But what if there s a second movie? What renews the license? What are the terms to end it? How long could they keep a project like MWT in a filing cabinet? 2 years? 10 years? And what if another conflict occurs within that time frame? What if TLG wishes to put forth a full blown Western Theme? Should they have some sort of liability or requirement based on a fan proposal severeal years old? They review based on the here and now. It's the only way something like CuuSoo can work. Also remember that license contracts have a broader period than the simple time that you see something on a store shelf. They will come into effect long before we see any outward sign of them. And they may last longer than is apparent. (As an example there is a good chance that the PotC license may still be in effect and blocking any unlicensed Pirates theme, because a 5th movie is in production. Because TLG sees such a magnitude of sales jump in a theme with a movie tie in, it can be more profitable for them to maintain the license and simply wait for the next movie.) /sigh! Ok let's take these one at a time. Point 1. No the issue is not the costs to be paid to the creator. Really they aren't. Thoses costs are calculated and evaluated as part of the business case review. If the set is too expensive to be profitable, it will fail the business case. It's that simple. CuuSoo is not "get 10k votes get made at the price the voters want". All the 10k does is get you a proposal and business review. If the set cannot sell 10,000 to 20,000 units at the price needed it will not be made. The creators commission is typically much less than $10,000, a very small piece of the entire project. (Packaging probably costs more). Regarding the second point? They can bring what out in 2 years? A Western based set? Or Marshall's design? They can bring out a Western set today without owing Marshall anything. In fact they just did. Whereas to use Marshall's specific designs or a clear derivative if Marshall's designs then they will need to pay. As I said above, they base the pass / fail for CuuSoo on he immediate time frame, and not future speculation in part to avoid this sort of trap.

As has been said over and over. lotR's really does have practically nothing to do with the Castle theme in Lego's rotation and resources. Unlike PotC which directly replaced the non licensed Pirates theme. LotR/Hobbit did not replace Castle. It replaced Harry Potter, and took those overall resources. Helms Deep is the equivalent of Hogwarts.

The sticker sheet is just 2 blue and white crown banners that go on the flag pieces that hang next to the gate. http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=70402stk01

They don't actually have to re-release them. Neither set has been retired. They will just keep them available at the same time as the second Hobbit wave is released. Just as many of the first wave LotR sets are still available. The barrel set may sell out at the exclusive retailers, and not be restocked. But it will probably remain available from Lego stores and S@H until at least the spring. That way they do synch those sets up with the second movie. (Plus hey probably do have a bit more remaining stock of those 2 sets since they weren't featured in the first film.) I took her response as a likely sign that there are 5 main boxed sets. And then on second thought she was not sure about things like polybag sets or maybe an exclusive. So a reasonable guess is probably either 5 or 6 boxed sets (if 6 one being a retailer exclusive) and probably 2 Polybags. Which matches up pretty well with other release waves.

Learned something interesting from my local Lego Store manager today. Apparently they were told that they didn't have to worry about the hard release dates this week and could just put out the stuff like the new SW sets as they came in. Very cool. All of the new sets were out on the shelves.

Wonderful little MOC that perfectly captures that first introduction to Jack as he sails into Port Royal, or if you prefer the end of the third movie. Oh and if it helps, I believe the boat he is sailing in the first movie does have an official name, although it is never said on screen. It is the "Jolly Mon".

The colors are harsh enough on screen, but I think his normal mask / headgear would just look ridiculous. He would not be alone in this problem. Notice how the Thor movie conveniently neglected his classic winged hat.

That was a special promotional set sent to journalists in the spring. It is a set of half of the Jedi Holocron room with Yoda and 2 Padawans. (Basically reused torsos and heads) . I do not believe it is intended to ever be released as a regular retail set. A few can be found on eBay and Bricklink, and the instructions and parts lists are available online to make it yourself. It's reasonable to guess that a good amount of 2014 sets will be OT focused leading up to 2015s episode VII. I think we can expect some Endor love, especially in Battle packs, just to flesh out the Ewok village a bit more.

Very impressive MOC. A great story and powerful underlying message presented in a classy tasteful manner. I would almost say it should be named "Detroit", although in that case the dog should probably be replaced with a rabid Worg from LotR's.

The counter point to that is "vote for and support the projects you like and would pay for, but also except when a project fails review for reasons that are not completely apparent." No nerdraging. Lego is not evil because their license doesn't allow them to make the most awesomest set ever. They are simply limited by business case.