Faefrost

They've been doing ok so far with a not unlike formula for Marvel. As long as they keep them as good popcorn type action movies they will do well. Movie critics want new different and unusual. The paying public want the more familiar in regular doses.

I think the cannon from the OT and the PT is pretty much written in stone and will be carried forward. Disney is noted for milking existing properties, not rebooting them. It's why Lucas went with them. The PT will be downplayed a bit to lead up to post OT stuff, but isn't going to be gone. (Although do not expect to ever hear the word Mitochlorians mentioned ever again). Disney is hopefully not going to risk letting J J Abrams pull a ST style reboot. The reason is the merchandising empire. Something people do not realize about what happened with the JJA ST. Paramount was utterly thrilled with how the movie did in box office sales, and DVD sales etc. it blew them away. But it almost fatally killed their licensed merchandising lines. While nowhere near as big as SW, the ST license had been selling toys and junk for over 20 years. With JJ's new film, it all died suddenly. Projects were cancelled. A lot of the movie merchandise was dumped at discount or by some reports land filled. And it had a deep impact on the sales of the older franchise subjects. Paramount is trying to fix this with new licenses to Hasbro now, but they were a little spooked by it. Given that the SW merchandise juggernaut is several orders of magnitude above ST's, and tends to bring in more revenue than the films, they aren't going to mess with things too much. TCW is in a more interesting position. I don't think we will see much reference to it in the new movies (unless JJ happens to have watched it and is a fan, you never know). But I don't think it is gone either. Dave Filoni is reported to be involved in the new animated TV series. If that is the case expect to see some TCW references and carry overs. However I doubt we will be seeing much more licensed TCW toys. The published EU, novel and comics is mostly doomed. We may get lucky and see some references to high points carried over. Maybe Thrawn in some way (although not the same story). But otherwise it is all gone. The problem is Mara Jade. While one of the cooler characters in the EU, and in Star Wars, she is very incompatable with what had always been Lucas's vision for Luke. The stuff from between Empire and RotJ, namely Shadows of the Empire might stand as it was mainly created in house as a multimedia project, but the straight up novels? Heck no. Weirdly I think some stuff from the various games has a greater chance of being used.

Shouldn't the Peter Jackson minifig be using the short legs? I mean have you ever seen the dude. I think he really is a Hobbit? A very hairy hobbit...

That makes some sense. There may be some base ratio of construction parts per minifig in the license with WB. (Probably much the same with TMNT). This is obviously not quite the same with the Disney licenses. We have seen a straight up PotC pure figure Battlepack, and the LR Cavalry builder. So they don't ave the same restrictions with those properties.

I can think of a few interesting uses for white hull pieces. Someone remind me please, I can't remember if the Lady Washington had her hull white or black when she was used as the HMS Interceptor in PotC. Regardless you could use those white hull pieces to easily make a distinctive ship for his Majesty's forces to stand next to the BP or QAR. Or to make a nice sized MOC update of the classic Armada Flagship. Plus they might make an interesting starting point for a "White Ship" LotR MOC (although I think these may be the wrong hull pieces for that.)

I suspect that it is because LotR and especially The Hobbit have a much longer list of named main characters. And the named, identifiable "collectables" characters generally sell better and more dependably drive set sales. So they want to cover them as best they can. It's a shame as LoTR would be crazy good line for some smaller Army builders. The Uruk Hai Army set isn't bad, but maybe a little less wall and price?

Bleach! That will be ugly and annoying to remove.

The Bakery and the post office are a few years old. If the Post Office is officially retired, then the bakery probably is as well, as it is older by a year. We should see more of the Winter Cottage, plus a new set as we get closer to Christmas.

Kryptonians aren't super powered on Krypton. The Superman type abilities come from exposure/absorption of the solar energies of earths sun. Their local sun doesn't supercharge them. So on Krypton they use advanced armor, weaponry etc, to make war, At least that's how it has always been portrayed in the past.

This is a common myth. Disney has little to do with this. Lucasfilms and George Lucas himself have always kept the "movies" completely separate from the printed media EU. The publishing arm has worked hard to keep the books consistent, but he movies have never called back to the books, nor were they ever planned to. This was made clear when they first announced the new published novels, and that Lucas was letting other writers play with Star Wars, back in the 80's. George Lucas has never read any of the EU books. ( the comics actually have long had a better chance of getting referenced, because GL will look at the art, and sometimes pick out what he likes. That's how we got Ayala Secura in the PT.) From the moment the first book hit bookstores ( Truce at Bakura?) we have always known that should Lucasfilms ever choose to do the sequel trilogy the books would not be held to. This was especially reinforced when the Thrawn trilogy came out a few weeks later. They further proved this when the PT and TCW came out.

I've gone back to messing around a bit in SWTOR, just to take screenshots and get a better look at some of the wonderful vehicle subjects from that game. It's a good source of inspiration for new stuff that blends rather well with the traditional ships even if the fictional time period is rather different (see; Sith Fury), Currently working on designs for one of the smaller Sith Fighters and an Imperial ship similar to the Republic Attack Shuttle. There are a few undone Clone Wars ships I would love to take a stab at as well. My biggest problem is I don't have a large stock of parts for free building. I rarely take stuff apart, at least not the major pieces. So anything new I design in LDD, and then start the long process of assembling the parts needed.

Best trailer yet. Like you said I'm still not sold, although I did like what we saw of Costner, and Russel Crowe as Jor El seemed... interesting. Not what I ever pictured for the role, but he might not be bad. Still not sold on this dude as Supe's though.

If he did, that's a great paint job. He matched the sheen perfectly to bare plastic.

Thank you! This question was nagging at me but I didn't want to seem strange by asking it.

I'm weird. I prefer the Clone Wars version, just for the existence of the cool nose art. Even if it was dreaded stickers.

Given your projects nature, I would also suggest telling some comic book type sites about it.

The PoP Hassasim make good starting points for cobbling together Corsairs and Haradrim. And they are fairly cheap to get.

I think the license is somewhat broader and encompasses the Disney Bruckheimer type action movies. So the PotC, PoP, LR etc. there was also some preliminary work and scketch models made for John Carter before everyone saw the writing on that wall. My point is his is basically one big license, Disney Action, with each sub theme bumping the other for the summer movie slot sets. PotC is not cancelled. It's on hiatus until the next movie. We may get this and a small follow up from LR, and then wait until the next one. The new gun molds I don't have an issue with. Lego has long shown deep thought and reasonable compromise when they make these changes. Context is everything. You will not see a gun in a city theme police officers hand or a city crooks. No direct modern weapons. But updating that revolver piece doesn't come close. Plus they needed a mold that could handle pearl silver. As an added bonus, in bright glob or reddish brown the new six shooters work much better for some Star Wars weapons, such as cad bane or amid alas pistols.

I love the new tools that come with the racing truck set. The cordless drill is kinda different.

Yeah. I know his age was an issue when they started filming the Hobbit. There was some question as to whether he would be able to make the trip to NZ. In the end I'm not sure that he did. If you look carefully (heck even casually) at the Rivendale scene he is in, it almost looks like he is never in the same room as the other actors. They filmed him elsewhere and edited him in. Kinda like Raymond Burr in Godzilla. I think the ship remains my favorite of this wave. It just has everything I like. A new ship! Army of the Dead! Peter Jackson chained to the mast! OK another trio of Legolas Gimli and Aragorn I don't need. But the rest is great. With the Wizard Battle set out there, I would have gladly traded the Gandalf in the Black Gate for another Orc or an armored Hobbit. I do think the set looks much better doubled up, but the amount of unique character minifigs in it kinda discourage that. A few more orcs would have made it more palatable. I know we all complain about another Gimli in the Rivedale set. But honestly, he is the one figure that had to be there if you were to have any "play features". He is the only thing that actually moves in that scene. Without him it looks like a Jedi Council scene from The Phantom Menace. Funny looking people sitting on sofas.

I think I much prefer that hair piece for Amy Adams. The one she comes with seems a bit over used as well. And am I alone in not being fond of the new Superman look? It's just... bleah! It actually seems worse than the Shumacher Batnipple suits. Or the last superman suit. Lego did a decent job in converting it to minifig form. But it still looks horrible.

I like it, very effective. Really sets the scene.

I think they do something automatically when a project hits 10k. I suspect it just locks the page and any further vote count until a CuuSoo admin goes in and manually switches it to a 'Congratulations! Under Review" mode. We've seen pages lock like this before when they hit 10k, but they normally seem to come back on the next business day. They probably do it to prevent a rush of after the fact voting and comment spam while the page is still linked to the progress measuring systems. (As an example comments for 10k projects that are under review don't show up in the "recent activities pane). I vaguely seem to remember them saying something about putting something in place when the Winchester or Serenity hit 10k. It's just weird that this one has been locked or not directly linked to for so many days. Maybe a bug in the site? (It is still Beta)

We can always compromise. Put the Lemonheads on one side, the Pinkies on the other and stage an ABS Race War between the licensed and unlicensed characters? It might be an almost fair fight. The Fleshies get Jedi but the Yellows get Super Ninja's. . Although in a strictly Medieval setting you probably just end up with a bunch of short hairy fleshies fighting a pack of vacant eyed possible stoned smiling lemonheads. Which is kinda creepy.

I think that is one of those little continuity errors that crop up from time to time because of the long lead times in Lego set design and production. Lego was probably working off concept art and already established 3d models when they designed the set. At that time he rendered model of Maul being used was with the clunky robot legs Mother Talsin game him. By the time he episode aired he seems to have gained some more humanoid looking droid legs, but no one has said why? I believe the Obi Wan Maul duel on Tatooine comes from a Dark Horse comic book, so it isn't exactly firm cannon. Am I missing something, or do those seem to not have the glued on magnet base? As in you can pretty much buy just a single fig?