Faefrost

The biggest problem is that we are looking at these sets through the eyes of Jaded AFOL's. if you were a child, and these were the first Castle sets you ever got, how would you view them then? Honestly I think they stack up rather well for introducing a younger generation to the themes that we all enjoy, and setting their little feet well on the path to strange fantasy obsessed nerds. We are arguing minutae about the build or details or parts. But the truth is here is some great little details in these. There are some wonderful sub builds. Yet the use of some larger parts make it much more viable as a play set. Something that can easily be taken apart, put back together, and subjected to play. Not as many critical 1x1 cheese slopes to be lost in the carpet etc. looking at these from a child's view these are great starter sets. Are they as good as the ones when we were kids? In some ways yes, in some ways no. But it doesn't matter. These are not designed to be compared to those. These are designed to be the next generation of AFOLs first Castles. And for that they are pretty good. You have clearly defined sides. Distinct if predictable color choices. Horses, siege engines. Nice little stories. Even a dog! The castle is a substantial build without the need of a raised baseplate. (I know there are two schools of thought on those. Lets agree to disagree there.) the most valid complaint is the amount of Minifigs has declined since the old days. The counterpoint is the detail and quality of the ones you do get has increased. But regardless, if these were my first Castle sets at age 7 I would be enthralled.

Happy Day! I asked nicely and got the last B Wing from the storeroom of my local Lego store. That price was just too good to pass up. If you don't see any out, ask. Sometimes they still have some squirreled away. I think my store manager was trying to trickle them out throughout the day so they didn't all get grabbed within minutes. I really hope that the speed and ferocity with which the long shelf warming B Wing sold out at this price gets TLG to take a closer look at there UCS set pricing to maybe find. Slightly lower sweet spot.

Right now I'm betting it's at best a 50/50 craps shoot whether or not Funcom survives to their late 1st half 2014 launch estimate. Their financials have been declining rapidly. They have just about lost everything in the debacle of the poor sales of The Secret World. I think their best profit point last year was from their 12 year old subscription game AO. Right now a huge amount of their funding revolves around this Lego game. If it slips release they have a huge issue. And that is never a good position for an MMO company to be in, as it invariably leads to a shoddy incomplete product being raced out the door to poor player retention. The truly sad thing of it all is they do make great MMOs. The Secret Workd is a very good game. But it is such a weird niche that they were never able to well market it or find a large enough client base. They spent too much money making it for the niche "MMO horror" audience to adequately support. I'm hoping they aren't doing the same with this one. What's worrying is that's the same thing that killed Lego Universe.

New target market? Disturbed creepy kids who like fire?

This does not seem to be unusual for Lego (or any toy company) when making sets for a not yet released movie. Given the long production lead times both in the movie, and needed by Lego, the Lego designers are often just working off bits and pieces of the movie. Rough outlines or scene descriptions, concept art, preliminary stories. The Lego designers don't actually get to see the movie or read the script before the general public does. So you get these little continuity mistakes for the first wave or two. Actually these seem fairly minor compared to some others they have had. (See The Hobbit, )

Congrats on 1k. That seems to be the hardest milestone to hit.

In the trailor? Look at the wheels of he Juggernaut. Also that is clone cold weather gear they look to be wearing. Finally look at the scenes of Plo Koon in the crashed shuttle. You can see the swirling snow in the foreground in front of him, kinda like a snow globe. Now it might not be true snow. It might be some exotic environment, but everything implies that it appears cold.

Just a few suggestions. It's obviously an LDD design. But LDD shots often look very static and unappealing. Here are a few things to juice it up a bit. - Never ever use the cheesy LDD backgrounds. The starfields or yellow desserts etc. They just look awful and take away from the project presentation. - Take a few hours of computer time and run your LDD file through LDD2POV (see links and instructions over in the Lego Digital Designer forums at EB. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=71654 This will let you get a true decent looking rendered picture of your design that will look almost real. That will look a lot better as the presentation picture for your project. - If possible (and yeah it can be a pain digitally) try and pose the robot a little more to show some motion. I hope these help.

That would make sense. I was in my local Lego store yesterday and they had two B Wings on the damaged box table for $149, which seemed a deeper than normal price cut for box damage. (And 50% off or $50 off?)

It's a new part so it may not yet have been available for use while these sets were being designed. Plus they do need some ramp up time to build a stock of the part in varying colors. These will probably be much more commonly used starting in the first 2014 waves.

I think it's still Warwick Davis Griphook (and generic Goblins) Harry Potter Movies Professor Flitwick, Harry Potter Movies Wald, The Phantom Menace Wicket, Return of the Jedi

Great Review of what will probably be a classic set.The only point I might argue is the "Playability" Yeah the set doesn't have a lot of gimicky built in play features, but the set itself is a true playset in every sense of the word. 3 horses. Stagecoach. 2 Bandits. A Damsel in Distress. The LR and Tonto. Loot to be stolen and weapons to hold em off. What more do we need? Heck the story tells itself. You don't need to have seen the movie in order to know what you have here. (Compare that to the Superman Black Zero set). Thank you for the review

ooo one figure I forgot to add. Best Star Wars Universe character ever, we need an HK-47

Lets not forget the incest and child killin'. Cause nothing says Lego like tossing a prime example of their target market out a high window

Hmmm? It looks like Lego isn't the only toy company that bases some toy designs on preliminary scripts and designs. I noticed a Hasbro "Plo Koon with Winter gear" action figure in Target the other day. Now it makes sense.

It has its ups and downs. The up points are without question the best Star Wars since Empire Strikes Back. The down points are things like episodes focused on the team of JarJar, C3PO and Padme. Thankfully there is normally only 1 or 2 such down points per season and the rest is superb. Also don't judge the series based on the pilot movie. It ok, but nowhere near as good as the deeper production series.

I was wondering the same thing. I always imagined him as looking somewhere between Branson and Dustin Hoffman's Captain Hook. Tall and big hair. But it's a character from a book, so you build him as your mind sees him. It's fascinating to see how others picture him.

I think we are more likely to see a Hobbit themed promotion closer to when the next movie hits. July will be more a Summer movie related thing I think. The lack of markings on that Jor El polybag seems to imply that it will be an in store promotion. Plus a LR promo over the summer would not surprise.

I've given up trying to wrap my head around how or why Lego chooses which licensed sets to make. It seems very counterintuitive to the fans at times. I suspect that vehicle color comes as much into play as does coolness or epic ness of the ship in question. They try hard to limit the amount of standard bley SW ships on he shelf at the same time. This one was probably selected for its interesting color scheme.

It depends on what you are really looking for in a set. What kind of stuff do you normally collect? The main part of he set is the massive 4 headed dragon. It's an impressive build with some decently articulated sections. It has some great figs including the Green Ninja who can be hard to get. It has a fairly unremarkable small temple type structure and a big yet short not so articulated snake. There are some great snot and curve techniques on it. Overall it's a good set. If you are looking for things that display well, the Ninjago Fire Temple or Temple of Light are probably better. But the Ultimate Dragon Battle lives up to its name in terms of play fun. Much more ultimate than Iron Mans or Supermans Ultimate fights. And no fire breathing golf carts. That will all come down to your preferences. For he SW set, it has 2 superb Minifigs, with amazing details and printing. And it will probably be disappearing soon as it was last years Battlepack. I am not the best to ask on the creator sets. It looks like a nice little car.

That would make sense. If you watch the episode where they find Zane's father, look carefully at the blueprints around his lab. (and remember Zane's blueprints were in the hut from when he discovered he was an android.)

Apparently he recycled the conspiracy theory over in the Castle thread that the new Castle theme is designed to fail in favor of LotR. I believe the technical term is "Troll". Which could explain why he likes Fantasy Era so much.

Third vote for "are you high?" No seriously, I'm not in any way grasping what few, tenuous or simply insane points you may have? You say you want more artistic or creative endeavors? Quality sets over licensed? Have you ever truly looked at or better yet built Helm's Deep? How about Bag End? Arkham Asylum? Hogwarts? How about any of the current or recent Star Wars ships? While an obscure and pricey subject the Sith Fury is one of the most unique, detailed and amazing designs to come out in the past decade. Do you know what Legos three highest profit lines have been? Star Wars, Harry Potter and City. Look at the vast improvements in the Lego owned IP and designs in the past few years. City sets with not just trucks, but purpose. Buildings on fire, robberies in progress, boaters needing rescue. The wonderful detail of some of the Chima sets. The stunning success of Ninjago. And some of the great designs of Galaxy Squad. (Like you I preferred AC, but my preferences are no reason to demand Lego drop a good line.) All of these great new advances came about because of he licensed sets, not in spite of them. Not in competition with them. The licenses funded better and better designs and designers. Whining about the licensed lines is really just being more than a bit if a narcissistic nitwit. This is a forum for AFOLs. Adults. In a word, grow up.

Sigh! Some of the strange theories people come up with. No Lego is not seeking to destroy Castle in favor of LotR's. the exact opposite in fact. These Castle sets are being released now to fill a niche that LotR does not well service, and in many ways act as a feeder for younger children into the whole epic play of knights and dragons etc. yes they seem childish and crude and hideously colored to us. We're not 7! We also probably could not eat three bowls of Super Sugar Pops anymore without needing an insulin shot. You remember those classic castles so fondly because you were 10 when you were playing with them. These sets are not for us. They are to help kids discover this type of play. These types of stories. These will lead into kids reading Tolkien and C S Lewis and Baum (no wouldn't THAT be a fun license!) and then they will buy LotR sets and keep growing and buying into their 40's. And once again LotR and The Hobbit lines do not directly compete with the classic Lego Castle lines. They never have. They are more if a "Literary Fantasy" theme, and were a replacement for Harry Potter. We tend to forget that because we talk about it as a Castle theme around here. This differs from the scenario between Classic Pirates and PotC. These do directly compete, as a result Lego can't do classic Pirates while he PotC license is in effect. It's part of the contract with Disney. And no Star Wars did not kill off space. At least not for more than a Year or so (which was probably a bad decision back in the dark days of the early 0 naughts). Space has been on the shelves every year since 2005.