Faefrost

There were a ton of big name big screen Pirate movies between 1981 and 1991. 2 versions of Pirates of Penzance, 3 of Treasure Island, a couple of major and minor ones including a Roman Polanski one. And not to mention Hook in 1991. Granted none of them hit the general consciousness quite as well as PotC and Johnny Depps Jack Sparrow. So there was some inspiration floating around to trigger the theme.

The color or exclusivity of the part doesn't matter. Only if the parts design or printing depicts and is unique to a licensed object or person. Lucas doesn't hold a license for Kepi style hats, So for Lego they are an unlicensed part, regardless of where they use what color. Lucas does hold a license on Darth Vader helms. Hence they are licensed parts and will never be used in a BAM station. A good example is Witches/Wizard hats and Harry Potter. The basic Wizarding Hat is an unlicensed part, and may be found in BAM bins, even in colors that were only used in Harry Potter,.. EXCEPT... certain versions of the hat had unique character specific printing on them. The Sorting Hat or Madam Sprouts hat with leaves on it, etc. These are licensed and will never be found in a BAM bin except by error.

I may be misremembering this, but I seem to recall that the catalyst for the US ban on toys that fire spring loaded missiles etc was the Battlestar Galactica toys. They fired these 1" red cone shaped missile, and there were a few reports of very young kids damaging their eyes. Suddenly there was a vast wave of "THINK OF THE CHILDREN" and all the fun toys started having their ability to fire anything crippled.

It depends on how you look at it. Lego did very nearly have a semi Napoleanic theme known as "Europa". There are pictures out there of the prototypes. Just in playtesting Lego found that the kids much preferred Pirates, so the theme evolved into Pirates. Many of the Pirate parts were actually designed for the Napoleanic theme, such as the Shako's. As far as a Spanish Galleon, Lego does have a clear path for making one. If the PotC license is still active, then three Galleons appeared in On Stranger Tides. While a minor appearance, it certainly isn't much less than the Corsair Ships appearance in Return of the King. Otherwise yeah, they would probably make it under their Bluecoat Armada markings. (Although technically isn't the Lego Queen Anne's Revenge and the Black Pearl both considered Galleon's?)

It will depend on the part. Recolors of standard parts, such as the Kepi's, Turbans and Pirate hats are not an issue. They are simply standard non licensed parts that were used as components of licensed figs. The problem is recognize able licensed parts. Things like pink heads of recognize able characters or things like Darth Vader or Stormtrooper helmets. The distinction is, "does the part depict something distinct and specific to the licensed IP?" So stuff like Super Hero torsos, character heads such as Spider-Man, unique headpieces such as molded SW heads, or unusual unique hair, such as Jack Sparrows. Generic things such as common hats or hair pieces may be used, just so long as they don't have any license specific markings.

Am I the only one who took one look at that and immediately thought LOCUST! Well done.

Pirates probably falls into that same category as Harry Potter. It makes a good profit in the years a movie is released. I don't think Lego has released or retired the license yet (note no new in house Pirate sets). Rather it is waiting for the next movie. And Lego backed off on retiring Ninjago because it was so outperforming expectations.

The report made very little mention of any specific product lines. In one or two sentences it confirmed that once again Star Wars and City were the top products, that Ninjago was an unexpectedly successful third and that he new Friends line sold so well it outstripped the production resources assigned to it. No other properties are specifically named. No mention of the new Superheroes lines. No mention of Dino, Spongebob, or Technics, etc. the only real takeaway in the report regarding LotR and the Hobbit is hat Star Wars, City and Ninjago all sold better. Nothing surprising or unexpected in that. I don't think anyone in planning expected LotR to come close to SW or City. I'm pretty sure there is a thread dedicated to speculation on upcoming sets? With some good thoughts in it. Right now there isn't a lot of open speculation because quite frankly we don't know exactly what is covered in the movie. TLG will keep a tight clampdown on what the sets are because their contracts with WB and NewLine demand this. Here is one thing that we can probably guess. The DoS wave will probably be a small wave. We already got two of the planned sets. Remember Lego plans and designs sets a year or more out. They did not find out about Jackson splitting two movies into three until the absolute last minute. So two sets that would have been tied to this movie got released a year early, and their planned DoS release would have included a bunch of sets designed for what will now be the third film. Given lead times and long production schedules they may not be able to push some of those back and fill in with new set designs on the fly. At least not within the planned budget for the license. So a safe bet is this wave will be smaller, and will be missing some things that we the fans will cry about.

A silver chrome Mk II would really work well as a promo.

This! The problem is trans clear cannot be connected to or touching trans clear in order to form a moving joint. There are also some stress related problems that make some parts more prone to develop cracks in trans clear. The big one is the minifig bodies will develop spiderweb stress cracks under the arms.

In the case you linked, that isn't Amazon selling that. That is a private seller darin1471 offering it at that price. There can be any number of reasons he may be seeking to sell it below list, some legit, such as he got it as a gift, or profited in some way from a currency conversion or import, to the less legit such as he may be doing a drop ship scam. It also looks like the regular Amazon price is 139.00 but it is on sale today or this week for 20% off. So 120. Amazon will routinely run short one or two day sales on an item to churn stock.

Amazon just had the Fire Brigade on sale for around $130 about two weeks ago. They had Town Hall on sale for $160 over the Black Friday weekend.

I don't think they would be that expensive after market. The Comic con Super Hero exclusives didn't hit anywhere near those numbers at half the distribution run of the gold CMF's. so unless the gold ones come with a really special code(" Lego mailing the owners their very own OompaLoompa ") I con't sit them hitting truly grotesque prices. They will more likely be hovering somewhere around "obscene".

It was probably weighted in some way, with the greatest weight going to VIP accounts active for at least a year and active within each of the previous 4 quarters. And then with a degree of randomness.

I think that they will try to slip in at least one large exclusive set to hold us over until the next movie. It could be either Classic Pirates or PotC. Either way chances are it would be a ship. If classic then a large compliment to the Imperial Flagship. Something a little leaner and faster like a Pirate vessel. Like that unreleased ship we can see in the design room pics. If a PotC set, than either the long desired Flying Dutchman, or one of the Royal Navy ships. Most likely the Interceptor for its interesting coloring. Or maybe something unexpected like a Shipwreck Cove set of a size like Diagonal Alley. Lots of figs, play features, a smaller pirate ship and the brethren court.

That works for me. I've had Robin driving the (ugh!) Spider cycle for months now. At least Robin is supposed to have a motorcycle. Whereas Spiderman's lack of a drivers license has been a wonderful running gag for 40 years now. Heck I think in Marvel comics Daredevil is a better driver, and has more road time.

I like the changes. It gives it much more flow. It makes it feel more like a traveling home or a "ship of the roadways" rather than simply a boxy commercial hauler. It has a little bit of a gypsy feel to it as well, which works well for it. Have you considered sending a notice of the project to some College and University drama departments?

A great look at a mold. There were a couple of good looks at them undergoing maintenance in the National Geographic Megafactories episode, but this shows one nice and up close. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2wah736BAc Does this help explain why these molds cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars? And what they expect the output of such a mold to be?

Grandpa locked them up in the refrigerator?

I like that one. Great designs, really cool train and very well presented. I think presentation is what drives me the most crazy in looking through CuuSoo. So many people just use it as a "hey everybody look at my MOC!" Site, that there is no real presentation. There is no attempt to sell a project. Heck in most cases there is no project to actually sell. (Beyond the unspoken plea for a better LDD tutorial system.)

The rules governing licensed Battlepacks are specific to the license or licencor. We already know that Disney is looser regarding this or is specifically allowed in their contract with Lego. They put out a PotC Battlepack and now a LR one. Whereas WB keeps the "Action Figure" piece of their license's much more isolated and protected. The Lego License and the GW one are from entirely different sources. The GW license is from the Tolkien estate. The Lego one is from WB and New Line. Lego is limited to the movies only. But GW's licenses have no impact on Lego's.

I swallowed my pride and asked my mother for suggestions on this one. While she looks down on me playing with toys at my age, she simply cannot resist answering a laundry question. (Believe it or not, the woman actually did her college thesis on Laundry. Gotta love Hunter College). Her suggestion was hand wash gently with Woolite, dry flat like you would a sweater, or between absorbent material like paper towels, and iron on low heat putting a layer of cloth between the iron and the sails so you don't singe them. Her big thing wa sto stress using Woolite, but she says that for almost anything related to cloth, so that may just be the old person crazy talking. Matte Medium would be interesting to use for that, but will probably need some tricks to thin or soften it for application. Incredibly thinned white glue might work as well. Although you might want to try it on some sort of scrap material first.

I think Lego has been branching out quite a bit in what they look for in designers in recent years and it is showing. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Astrid an Architect? Which would seem to be precisely what you are looking for? A blend between Industrial Design, Art skills,a nd town planning. I've also been really really impressed with this years city sets. While we have seen some truly superb city sets in the past, they were typically individual sets. But this year there seems to be a change in design phillosophy. We are not simply getting a vehicle or a thing. We are in almost all cases getting something for the thing to do. Form and Function to build play. The Fire department has things on fire! Boats to rescue! Kitty's in trees. The police have not simply shady characters, but actual crime scenes and crimes in progress. This city center, while a bit disjointed in its crane/bus/streetsweeper motif forms an actual living street. And this is across the line in almost every new city set. It's marvelous!

The best answer to that I've seen is the article linked to in this thread over on the general forum. The Cost of a Brick. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=78404 Short answer, no there is no cost difference between licensed and unlicensed.

It works out even so long as you always do your transactions in the same currency. You get 5% back regardless of Euro, Dollar, etc. The only time it gets weird is if you cross currencies. Buy stuff in Euros then use the points in dollars or vice vs.