Faefrost

I caught a damaged box deal at my local Lego store. 10240 Red Five X Wing for $170 + $20 in VIP points put it right at my sweet spot for sets that big. I don't care about the box. I can't store them.

I think I will get the ship and the Wizard battle when they release, then slowly build up to the others.

Wow! That is amazing.

How did the first wave of Ninjago do, when all that was out there was the pilot movie with the skellies? Just from eyeballing the stores around here, Chima seems to have tried to go too broad. The overall theme seems like a shelf warmer. But some specific sets and some specific characters and speeders seem to do well. As an example around me Eris's fighter seems to sell well and sell out often. the Lion trucks, not so much. Ninjago succeeded in part because of how tight and intuitive the story and characters were to the kids. Very basic, a Sentai team of 5 colored Ninjas vs a single distinct series of foes for each chapter. It was very easy for the kids to become vested in the theme. Chima I fear suffers from too many factions. While it may seem great for the AFOL love of new figures, it's too much and too overwhelming for the target audience. And if a kid does just pick a faction to follow, well there are only 2 regular construction sets per year/ wave, yet there are way too many overall sets for a kid to ever hope to have them all. (As opposed to a 40 year old AFOL). Previous multimedia driven themes like Ninjago, Bionacle and Exo Force kept thing tighter and did well for it. Chima would have thrived more with fewer factions or fewer characters and overall fewer main sets. I think Galaxy Squad may suffer a bit similarly with it's 4 teams of good guys in clashing colored vehicles. It seems to be trying to combine the concept of the Sentai type teams, with separate factions or squads. And I think it gets a little lost in the process. That theme would have benefited from either a bit more color coherency or a much more limited cast of characters.

Why would they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on new tooling for a solid unjointed minifig that just stands there?

Poggle seems to be the main key draw to this set. At least to me. The other figs I can take or leave, (and I know I am being a crotchety old timer, but to me this always was the second worse scene in the prequels, surpassing even "Mitochlorians" and "NOOOO", and only being surpassed in awe fullness by the Romantic Soliloquoy on Sand. "Wars do not make one great!" As I said I'm just a crotchety old timer.) I will probably pick this one up. Just for the figs. But I think it will be at the bottom of my Summer SW list.

In the US? It's already on the schedule. It will be 8 pm EST on Tuesday nights, starting this fall. ABC has already placed a full season order. They've been drooling over the reaction to the trailer. I don't think Lego was originally planning to do a set, as they tend not to do live action TV shows. But this show may hit too hard to resist. At least a Phil Coulson, Luke Cage, Shield Agent and Lola set.

I think it is because the hold one had too steep of a slope on the bow, when compared to the shooting model. But I still don't like the change. The old ones boat hull was a little too steep. But it was smooth and curved and looked right to the eye. The bow of the new one looks like an 8 bit video game.

Nicely done. You know, I had never realized it before, but the size, shape and utility of that little ship is astonishingly similar to Battlestar Galactica's Colonial Raptor. Especially when you see the old LL-924's being used as Ambulances. Just too cool.

/Sigh! /Sob! /Sigh! It comes out today that Brad Bird, the uber director supreme of The Iron Giant and The Incredbles fame, turned down Star Wars VII when Lucas and Kennedy approached him about it last year. AIIIIGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!

There really aren't that many distinctive female characters associated with SHIELD in the comics. And most of those are already tied to Captain America or the Avengers. Maria Hill - already seen in Avengers Black Widow - Already seen, IM2, Avengers, Cap 2 Sharon Carter / Agent 13.- Will be seen in Cap 2 Contessa - Nick Furies GF of sorts. Has not been seen yet, but conspiracy Chicky is not her. If she is a previously seen character from the comics, I would bet one of these; (still a long shot) Jessica Drew / Spider Woman - probably the most likely. Well known character visually. Long history with shield. Carmella Black / Thasanee Rappaccini / Scorpion - fairly obscure character. And the lack of green hair probably rules her out. Jessica Jones - Brian Bendis's main character from Marvel's Alias comic. If hoodie boy is Luke Cage then this is a strong possibility. I figure we will see the Wasp in 2015 when Ant Man hits theaters.

Color scheme is different. Boba is the classic Red and Green and worn colors. Jango's is Blue and Silver. Plus there are some detail changes such as weapons placements. The 2nd and 3rd Boba S1's are fairly similar in construction and quality. The 2nd one has better color use with redish browns and sand greens. The 3rd one uses dark reds instead. I think the 3rd one has the slightly better build, features and figs.

If you know what sets you have, go to www.brickset.com. You can create a personal profile and easily create a list of your collection. One of the features (often unwanted, never ever let the wife see this) is it will give you a total estimated retail cost/value of your sets based on the original MSRP. That should be sufficient for what you are looking for.

They get used pretty quickly as the themes allow. Alien Conquest had a lot. Lone Ranger had quite a few. LotR and the Hobbit had some. The surfboards have shown up in the summer season polybag. Some pieces seem very commonly used (alien ray gun has shown up everywhere.) some seem more specific. A lot of the non weaponry city type stuff also gets used in friends sets.

Or lit from above or below via lightbrick

Oh dear, I just had a thought that might get rocks thrown at my head. We've been thinking on what might be in the Endor Village, and a lot of people are debating how or if they would do the three force ghosts. I've been a little skeptical if they would commit three figs out of the sets minifig budget to do the ghosts that appear on screen for 3 seconds and don't actually move or do anything. But then it dawned on me how they might do it. (Oh gods they are going to light me on fire for even suggesting this). Look at the Iron Man Malibu Mansion set (bleach I cannot even type that name without thinking Barbie dolls) look at how they pulled off the wall of armor in that set. Stickers on clear panels. Or look at the old school Han in Carbonite piece. The printed brick. Might they not simply print the ghosts onto a clear brick or stickers to some effect? (Heading to grab some fire proof underwear). As much as I want a force ghost, I think we will be far more likely to see it in a Dagobah set where they only need the one, Obi Wan. And he gets to move around a bit.

One suggestion on your CuuSoo presentation. "Say less, Show more". Right now it is a wall of text with one kinda dim fuzzy and unexciting picture. Nothing about the presentation pops. If I hadn't read your ideas here, I never would have made it through them on the CuuSoo page. It really needs more graphics, and a much more eye catching lead picture. LDD paired with LDD2POV can be your friend in this. You just need to generate a handful of good looking pics to draw people into the idea. (But really don't just post LDD shots with those cheesy backgrounds. They look awful and are an instant disqualified for a lot of AFOLs. Take a few hours to run the design through the rendering program so you get something that looks almost real.)

I really suspect that in order for a CuuSoo project from an existing and active license to ever pass review it will have to be very very unusual. Something that just would not come up any other way. As an example, for the Batman / DC Superheroes license, this Tumbler is a nice little build, but it's still just another Tumbler. Nothing That would not come up in the normal execution of the license. Whereas a project like Bobskinks Custom Duplo Dynamic Duo set with matching Barris Batmobile http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/38917 is so far off the beaten path, that it would never show up as a retail set, no matter how long the license went on. yet it is so well executed and perfect for the license that it would probably make a rather good CuuSoo project. CuuSoo is the only place it would ever see the light if day.

I think the main thing is the Torso mold. TLG has experiemented with doing clear figs, but the existing mold does not work well with the trans clear plastics. You get a lot of cracking under the arms very quickly. The figs look acceptable as display pieces, but can't really stand up to play. (A flaw that some of the early Halo figs also suffered from). But that minifig torso tooling is probably among the more complicated and expensive that they have. To re engineer and replace it is a massive and expensive undertaking. It is probably not economically worthwhile to do just to permit slightly foggy clear minifigs.

Isn't ALL Lego designed to shatter into multiple fragments? Granted it's not something that they list as a "play feature"...

I believe color perceptions develop and evolve through up to around 10 or 11. Color coordinating can be taught and learned before that, but if left to their own devices younger kids will just go hog wild. This isn't limited to Lego. Watch what happens when you let a 5 year old dress themselves.

The problem then becomes the molds and tooling. The current minifig tooling and engineering, especially the torso, is designed to use fairly specific types of plastics injected at specific temperature, pressure and consistency. The slightest variation will produce poor results. The types of plastic such as Megabloks uses for the transparent Halo figs would not work in those molds. (Although you might be able to get a classic skeleton or a BattleDroid made from it? Interesting thought.) but for standard Minifigs they would pretty much need to re engineer and retool the entire minifig.

You are forgetting some of the other critical costs of doing business. While transport distances are not as great, actual European Transport costs are 2 to 3x those of the US and Canada. As well retail shelf space and real estate for such is 3 to 4x US costs for the same. While the European pricing tell you the add on of the national VAT's, they do not clearly lay out the other embedded taxes which get added to the final price at every stage. Retail space in Europe is much more expensive than the US, Warehouse space is much more expensive. Employee work rules are much more expensive. Transportation costs and Energy costs and energy taxes are much more expensive. Little by little it adds up. Remember those base minimum costs I talked about above? Well they are not static or flat across the world. The Base costs for entry into European markets are much much higher than the same base costs in the US. (This is buffered somewhat by Europe having slightly lower escalating costs, at least until very deep penetration into the US is achieved, at which point the US costs will drop precipitously.) Further, one of the other causes of the higher European prices can be seen in your response to me. Look at Germany. On it's own it is TLG's best client. Deep penetration, higher sales than the US, Stable finances. A fairly predictable and easy to work with transport system. And fairly sane labor laws (for Europe). Other than the high costs of energy, transport, real estate and taxes, Germany should in theory have some of the lowest prices for Lego. But because of the Euro, German sales are subsidizing the costs and sales throughout the Euro zone. How much Lego is sold in Greece or Italy vs Germany? What are the costs for operating in Southern Europe vs Northern? And yes, there is a bit of psyschology and marketing going on in Europe. The Europeans get charged more for this specific product, because Europeans have been so accustomed to paying more for everything, that it is simply a reflex for them. Heck it's built into the politics and governance of most of Europe. 'We're willing to sacrifice and pay much more for the things we want". Isn't that the core of the European Social Welfare philosophy, and the justification for the high taxes? TLG, like every other merchant doing business in Europe, is simply following the herd in this regard. In one of the other threads I had used the term "People have mental thresholds for pricing, hard lines above which they are not willing to pay". Americans by nature and tradition tend to have much lower such thresholds than Europeans do. (Heck America was fought for and founded because one such threshold had been exceeded.). So yes Lego like every business will put forth the pricing that the market can bear in order to maximize their profits and therefore their growth. My entire point is that International pricing is a much more complex problem than what it might seem at a casual glance. It's a great case study of an industries microeconomics applied across the globe. It also clearly shows some of the problems of the rapidly developing information age. For the first time in history, the common consumer can see the relative pricing of a product not simply locally, but across the globe. This has a sharp effect on the consumers mental thresholds of what they are willing to pay. And modern person to person transport and shipping makes shopping outside of your borders possible. But the underlying large scale microeconomics have not changed. The same old forces are still driving the regional and local pricing. These forces will eventually start to flatten as companies expand more and more to be true global operations. But they still face a huge amount of hurdles, from political / national, to shipping and energy to a host of others.

The silver Ninjago Pauldrons might not be bad either if only his hair would allow them. I can't remember I's there a version of them that does not have the sword holder on the back? We've been through this many times. Transparent Polycarbonate does not work acceptably for the design of Lego Minifigs. You cannot do polycarbonate to polycarbonate joints. You can do a clear head (which they have done, although they are harder to take off.) they can do clear arms (as we are seeing with Jekk 14) and they could in theory maybe do clear legs. But hands hips and torso are right out. The brittleness of polycarbonate will not work with them.

More that I wasn't sure if anyone had seen the little Coulson on his way to Thor's Hammer special and didn't want to blindly spoil it for anyone. Plus I don't want anyone to blunder into the overwelming nerd speculation for fear we may be right.