Faefrost

I think that's just a horrible angle on the set. There are leaked prelim box pictures floating around out there and it looks much much better.

This. There was a very very brief gap in Space when Lego first started Star Wars so they could get a lay of the land. There was a similar gap in Castle at the start of Harry Potter and LotR. But unlike themes such as Pirates of the Caribean and Lone Ranger, there are no direct blanket non compete clauses on Space and Castle. They will use those themes, but they just need to differentiate them a bit from the licensed lines. We also get hung up on our definitions of themes. But that really isn't how Lego looks at it. AFOL's complain because it's been years since we saw Space or Castle... but in Lego's eyes they are just finishing up a 3 year Space/Castle Hybrid. How we label stuff is not really how they look at things. We make that mistake a lot. Perhaps the most common is "number of pieces and price per part" evaluations of sets. We fail to realize that Lego doesn't design sets around parts count. They go by gross plastic weight and a far more complicated "parts budget". Nexo Knights was an interesting Hybrid. A SciFi Castle series with some Fantasy elements. Excepting some really exceptionally poor color pallet choices it really was a brilliant concept. Yeah I know Chima had a longer run, but I think Nexo Knights came closest to hitting that Ninjago sweet spot. It seems like they almost overcompensated for some of the design choice failings of Galaxy Squad and suffered a bit for it though. Galaxy Squad failed because the hero side was confusing. You had the 4 color coded teams, but not really any well defined characters backing them. Each team carried its own color scheme with no coherency backing them. So the hero's felt disjointed. If they had gone with 5 distinct unique heroes ie Ninjago it might have worked better. Or better integrated a common scheme throughout the vehicles. Whereas Nexo Knights went the other way. The heroes were nice distinct Sentai like... But their vehicles and sets all kinda looked the same with that Blue, Grey and Orange scheme. The colored knights needed matching colored vehicles showing their heraldry, much the way Ninjago does. That and the neon felt a hair overdone. Clay's ship or mecha needed to look different from Aaron's different from Axyl's etc. Final thing was the game needed something a bit more tactile. We forget what absolute kiddy crack that initial Ninjago spinner/card game was.

Yeah, on top of the stunning visuals, the clever, deliberate and carefully crafted use of music in this episode was quite frankly astonishing. There is a musical moment near the beginning that will just leave long time fans shattered. This might actually be a reasonable contender for overall series best episode to date, just for how tightly woven and flawlessly executed it is. Just as the characters have grown up, aged and matured, particularly Lloyd, this is the show itself maturing to match them. The tone, the color pallets, the animation, the action. For the kids who started watching this at 9, this episode proves it can still engage them at 16. Or 35. Or 50.

The Arrowhead has nothing to do with Classic Space. Most of the ships used for the sets in the Lego Star Wars cartoon lines such as Freemaker Adventures or Yoda Chrinicles etc, come from the old Star Wars EU/Legacy Materials. Primarily the “Essential Guide to Ships and Vehicles”. For example the Lego “Stealth Fighter” is an EU New Republic E-Wing. The Arrowhead similarly is based on art found in those books.

At the top of the page click on the “forums” link, then scroll down to the “Minifig Customization” forum under Special Interests.

There have been some blurry pics leaked. They look pretty good. Hard to make out any real details beyond a few really nice dragons. The largest set has a kind of badlands or cave feel to it. A lot of light tan. Hard to judge minifigs in anything since most were placeholders. There did seem to be a small-mid sized set that featured Skylar and Samurai X in a small temple of some sort. Edit, oh and instead of the ground spinners it looks like there are a new flying Dragon spinner. It was hard to tell in pics, but they look like the Airjitsu ones, but with wings that deploy.

So just saw episode 79. Ummm? Wow! Just Wow! Without getting into spoilers it might be the most well crafted, well paced, action packed and cinematic episode of the show to date. No major things revealed beyond one that we all knew the answer to already. I don’t think I saw a single negative or even slow moment in the episode. An amazing emotional roller coaster. When you see it the biggest question you will still have is “why the holy hell didn’t they let these people make the movie!?!?”

Let’s not forget the ever present number of off road quads. I think I have a huge bin just stuffed with those. Bonus when we get a set of a helicopter carrying a quad bike!

Kristel one of the contributors here did a really nice Hotel that seemed to solve most issues you mention. https://modularsbykristel.com/lion-heart-hotel/

There are 6 gorgeous copper colored LOTR Orc swords in the Ninjago City set. Used as architectural greebling. Crazy idea for those seeking to revitalize Castle a bit. Go through Ideas. Propose a set. A real legit set. Not one of the over the top super detailed impress everybody MOC's that seem to be the only Medieval sets ever listed there. Put forth something like Mill Village Raid or Medieval Market Village. Something smaller in scale, that tells a story and works as a playset. Maybe a Knight Fighting a Dragon in a small village with a Barn and a House or Shop? Push something through that could prime the pump if you will.

I'm not sure that they will bounce this one for that. They did make Wall-e. The Disney stuff kind of gets into a really grey area I suspect. It's a broad license with a lot of sub licences that may or may not be in force. While they don't want people submitting more projects from ongoing licences, I don't think it will be an auto fail for a grandfathered in project such as this. It has always been so tempting to take an Ewok Village set. Change the tree and leave colors, swap out the minifigs and submit it as "Robin Hood Prince of Thieves" to see if anybody gets the joke?

As a Lego and a Ninjago fan, it's worth watching once for the art designs. The voices are horrible compared to what you are used to. Best think of these fools as the Mirror Universe Ninja.

I think PR really pairs best with Pet Shop. Heck for a near perfect effect split the Pet Shop and put its to buildings on either side of PR. The Blue building then makes a great transition to DO, with in turn transitions perfectly to the Brick Bank.

My theory is look at some of the toylines most prone to be banned from grade schools. The ones driving the teachers mad. The real toys, not the fidget spinner type stuff. But the stuff the kids bring to school to share with their friends. That’s the stuff that sticks and holds that nostalgia draw.

I still remain astonished that we have not seen a story based Space Pirates theme. The closest we came was Space Police III. I think we are overdue for an Underwater Adventure Theme as well. Also given that Nexo Knights is ending a wave early, I would not rule out a quick one and done placeholder like we got with Monster Fighters to fill the space. Maybe something like a “Kailua Fighters” Theme? Brick built/construction giant monsters and a team of heroes using tech vehicles and mecha to capture or combat them? That would seem to find a good sweet spot in the pop culture kiddy zeitgeist given the string of Godzilla, Kong, Pacific Rim And Now Rampage movies.

Sure they will. Just as the kids from way back still fondly talk about their Mego action figures and playsets. All the Super Heroes, Star Trek etc. or the group after them raves about those original Kenner Star Wars toys. G1 Transformers anyone? While I don’t think the Lego Movie or Lego Batman Movie will be some future nostalgic nerds Holy Grail, the Ninjago stuff certainly will.

This one really caught my eye yesterday. Working Dogs https://ideas.lego.com/projects/1ab741a9-eaae-44f9-ba1a-b8870f34f334 A trio of nice adorable organic builds.

Like most things in life, it’s a little more com0licated than that. You cannot propose a project that requires new parts or molds, or parts that are no longer in production. But this restriction is on the Ideas participant. The in house design team that is generating the final product will know what new and upcoming parts are being designed or discussed and depending on circumstance may have input and access to the new parts. They will not create new molds for an Ideas set, but an Ideas set may on rare occasion get to use a new general purpose mold first. Such as with Venkman’s hair. You can see where Tron could easily benefit from this sort of thing. There might be a few parts intended for the Last now cancelled Nexo Knight sets that show up in the Tron set. Didn’t we also see a few parts originally intended for Alien Conquest wave 2, quickly show up in CMF’s? Like the Space Marine Armor? Short answer, the civilian that proposes the set can’t ask for new parts. The Lego designer can’t ask for new parts just for an Ideas set, but may be able to use upcoming as yet unrevealed parts, and may also be able to use the Ideas set as extra justification for a new part already being considered for something else. Does that make sense?

Set wise you didn’t really miss that much. The Ultradragon was more of a statue. Not a lot of movement to it.

The Lego Movie was a fun absurd comedy romp through the toybox. And that through the toybox was key to it. It was part of the joke. The Lego Batman Movie was a well engineered parody of a 75 year old pop culture property that everyone understands. It was like Spaceballs to Star Wars. Everyone had the required knowledge to enjoy the joke and satire. But Ninjago is meant to be played straight. It is more like a Star Wars. It only works when it and all of the characters in it 100% buy into the world they inhabit. No satire. No fourth wall breaking parody. Just straight up this is an adventure story about these Ninja. The humor and charm comes from the resulting character interactions. Not the characters performing for or speaking at the audience. The movie got this entirely wrong. Instead of setting it in Ninjago, with all of it’s mysticism and wonder, they set it in the Toybox. It’s the wrong tone for the property. It’s like trying to open a Star Wars Movie with cheesy fourth wall breaking telephone gags. No sane or competent director would do that because it would just be tonally wrong for the property and Universe.

I meant the Street Race Of Snake Jaguar set,

That's been something of a pattern for all of Ninjago. It's not so much a cheap cheat now rather part of its structure and charm. Even going back to the Serpentine and the Skeletons each General was unique and the underlings had certain commonalities as you got down to the grunts. With the new stuff it makes some story sense as the torso's are the Biker Gang Jackets and Colors.

And that follows some classic eastern myths pretty closely. Often in such myths the "First Emperor" is similarly the son of the Oni and the Dragon or similar. Just caught episode 77. The Set makes a lot more sense now. Very good episode, with lots of development for Zane and Cole.

Don't get me wrong. The art and Lego design of the movie was incredible. But after watching it I went back and watched the TV series start to finish and was honestly surprised at how insipid the movie was when compared to the TV show. At times the tv show brought me to tears. The movie honestly bored me to tears. It had a few okay jokes, mixed in with constant dialogue that sounded like it was written by a committee of middle aged marketing guys, trying to sound like teenagers. It wasn't that bad a movie, but lets pray the tv series never ever mentions it again.