Faefrost

I just noticed Amazon.com has the 10197 Fire Brigade on sale for $119

Ummm What? did you post this in the wrong thread? This set isn't meant to compete with Chima, nor is it meant to go on retail store shelves. Chima is targeted at 6-12 year old boys. This, like all of the "Creator Expert" and "Modular Buildings" is targeted at 16+ year old adult fans. It will not be on the store shelves at Toys R Us or Walmart. It is a D2C exclusive set, and is sold through the online store and Lego stores. Chima and this set will in no way touch or conflict. The number of people weighing whether to buy this or Chima probably is less than 1000. They are entirely differing fanbases (except for the small dedicated populations of places like this board.) As far as Chima, it probably will be a success. But just eyeballing it at the moment, the last wave of Ninjago and TMNT's are substantially outselling it right now.

Are you sure? I'm looking at the dark bley starting halfway up he bow, which seems to correspond to the front of the Dutchman, where the doors open and the triple guns come out?

Giving eggs? Heck in the show Eris lobs her spinning bola/morning star weapon at people screaming "How do you like These Eggs". It's yet another of those oddly creepy and disturbing moments in he show, that hit you if you take a moment to think on them.

Probably just different formulations of ABS. If anything I think you have it backwards. Axels and beams are more ABS. If anything the pins are a slightly harder, more styrene like plastic. This allows them to form a non binding rotating joint when attached to the ABS bricks and beams. The pins are a similar plastic to that used in minifig bodies. Overall I think there are at least 8 or 9 differing types and grades of plastic being used in current Lego production depending on the nature of a given part. (The vast majority of the differences from the standard ABS can be found in Minifigs. Especially the CMF packets.)

It's the single most distinguishing fact for an ADULT male. The children who play with this stuff distinguish via style of dress and hair.

No that is a unused prototype for the Flying Dutchman from PotC. The LotR Corsair ship is sleeker with a narrower beam and as 3 ribbed triangular sails.

In the past Lego was sort of leery of showing the bar area.This seems to have loosened a bit in recent years (See The Hobbit, Barrel Escape, Drunken Elf fest) So I have hope we may see a bar full or weirdo's complete with band. Bioware did a wonderful job on many of the ships in that game. Shame about the lack of end game.

Unanswered question of the weekend... Why do Bird and Lizard Princesses have belly buttons? Think about it.

This. And it's not just the voices. Some of it is the core characterization s and story elements. They so locked themselves in in those first to episodes that you really can't see any way that they will be able to write around it in future ones.

Lego and Disney have a very long and very successful pre existing relationship. It seems to bridge multiple movies and franchises ( ie the Bruckheimer films PotC, PoP, LR, Disney Princesses, Pixar related subjects such as Cars and Toy Story, Now Jake and the Pirates, and even some classic Mickey.) Just like MGM and others, Lucasfilms will continue to operate with some degree of autonomy. I would not expect any major changes in any of their toy contracts at this time. Both Lego and Hasbro (previously Kenner) have served Lucas well. The only potential gotcha will be if Disney is in fact looking to buy Hasbro. (Which never made a ton of sense to me). If that happens then Disney owns Kree-O. Even then it would be 9 or 10 years before any of the contracts change. Lucas renewed the Lego contract for 10 years just a few months before news of the purchase broke. If Disney had any long term issues with the deal thy would have stopped or shortened it then.

I'm a little more pleased with this set after watching he designer video. I actually kind of fell in love with the whole multi leveled meta story they managed to build into the thing with the Minifigs and the limo. The child star traveling with her chauffeur just screams Shirley Temple. Once you spot what's going on there so much of the set design coalesces into place. It's a movie theater that's in a movie about a movie star, showing her movie. It's quite charming. Still not crazy about the auditorium, but the rest of it is growing on me.

Looking at the next 10 projects climbing the ladders, what are the thoughts? 1. Android bug droid thingy. Honestly I can't even begin to speculate on this one. It will all come own to the business case of can they sell enough of them. There is nothing that would cause an outright rejection. 2. Zelda (again). While this project has far fewer problems than the first, the fact remains that the first was shot down, and that was before anyone considered the licensing. It might happen, but it will have a high hurdle. 3. Technics Landrover Discovery. So long as the set can be released at a reasonable price, this looks like a good possibility. Nothing to work against it. Minor license. Tech and design within technics bounds. It has a good chance of seeing production. Probably the best if all of them. 4. Batmobile Tumbler. No chance in hell. None whatsoever. It is a currently active license and they just released one. See my above posts regarding the problems the Sandcrawler faces. This one is much the same but worse. 5. Macross VF-1 Valkyrie. Ugh! It pains me to say this, because this looks like it would be perfect in every way, and I so want one. But the property has its own internal licensing issues and court fights. They are so bad that they prevent the current model makers such as Bandai and Hasegawa from releasing localized products directly into the North American market. The licensing fights between Studio Nue and Harmony Gold are legendary and still ongoing to this day. Without being able to license or sell it into Canada or te US Lego will not touch it. 6. Mini Shops. Ugh! Cute little seemingly simple project, that involves tons of different licenses. Each store is a separate license and headache. They can easily do a Lego store. Less so a Starbucks or McD's. 7. Birds. This one is such an eye catching and distinctive project, that if it does make it, they will probably produce a set of one or two birds. It's creator on steroids. 8. Modular Apple Store. The business case will fail when someone asks the basic question of "why are we paying to create an advertisement for someone else's brand?". 9. Japanese Castle thingy. At best a maybe. Nice looking sets that may find a market. It will all depend on the business case of whether it is too niche. 10. Remote control technic DeLorean. Probably no. They already have a BttF set in the production queue.

There are some suggested single sets there. I think Lego would do phenomenally just making a small army builder type set of these. 4 troopers and a small vehicle. The end result would be people buying multiples of the CuuSoo set. Unlike Zelda I don't think any new molds are critical elements of the project. The aliens are nice to have, but not the core of it all.

The safe bet is that set revealed will be the new Modular Building, the Palace Theater. The leaked pics from that were very obviously the primed and ready to go Lego.com web pages, and not preliminary boxes or catalogues. So I suspect that it is closest to public reveal. Plus the timing lines up with when they normally show the years new modular.

That would be the most likely combination. The Tomahawk was created as a more Native American design, and the spear seems to go better with the Greek/mythological feel to the Xena'ish fig.

But that's the problem. If they say that then they have just tied Marshall's project to a regular release set in the licensed SW line. Which quite honestly would come up at some point again in the rotation regardless. There is no way the marketing types and lawyers will go for that. We might get a new Sandcrawler in a similar size to 10144. But it wouldn't have anything to do with this project. The only way i see that they could answer this would be to reject it with the MWT mantra of it conflicts with a current project or license. At which point we might see a system scale Sandcrawler at some point within the next 3 release cycles.

I gotta wonder how many of he people voting for that thing would ever actually want one, or would really and truly buy it? It's not like you're gonna display that thing on a shelf in your office. Can't you just hear the mighty shopping cry of "WooHoo a CuuSoo parts pack!"

I think the rejection of the Sandcrawler is both a given, and will trigger yet another wave of AFOL gnashing of teeth regarding CuuSoo. The Sandcrawler is perhaps the most spectacular MOC ever to be featured on CuuSoo. But it has so much working gainst it on the back end. it's too big, to complex and too spectacular. Don't forget that this is he project hat prompted the warning "your MOC may actually be too good for CuuSoo" in the ways to pass review post. We know they would have to reduce it. But at what point in doing that does it cease being this project and start being just a regular Staw Wars release? That's part of the danger when proposing a project that Lego already has an active license for. While Marshall presented a wonderful MOC or project, he can never be said to be presenting the idea. Star Wars Sandcrawler is something that has been made in the past and will be made in the future. It's one of the core iconic vehicles. So if you are not making Marshal's version of the thing, then where exactly is the project? To further add to that. Once again Star Wars is an active licensed theme. The production schedule is set well in advance. For all we know there may already be a Sandcrawler on the schedule for 2014. And yet we would still see outrage over CuuSoo, because all they will be able to say is license conflict. Further we forget that for this sort of License the licensor, Lucas, has a huge hand in what gets made. If they already have one planned, or simply do not want one at this time, it's dead. And once again all we would know was licensing issue, and TLG would have no choice. Fans of all the Batman Tumbler projects take note, the same issues apply. And here's the kicker. The Sandcrawler project has got to be in every way a nightmare for the Lego CuuSoo people. They don't want it to pass or fail, they probably just want it to go away. There is no good outcome for them. It's too big to make as is, without breaking the walled garden nature of CuuSoo and handing it off to UCS. Changing it once again bumps up against that wall, this time with the SW license group, may conflict with their plans, and at best would need to be wholly handed over. If they reject the project outright it becomes yet another beacon of fan outrage, few of whom will ever take 2 seconds to even begin to understand the complexities of the licensing involved. (Literally Legos Star Wars license would be fighting with itself). And it's a fan group that literally has registered itself as a religion in several countries. Nobody wants a Jedi Jihad. The only available out is to convince someone to make the new largest Lego set ever under the CuuSoo label. (Which would then open up the taps of fan expectations demanding ever larger and more spectacular MOCs as sets. Full scale Mina's Tirith anyone?) it's literally looking to me that the best of the lousy choices for TLG might simply be to reject it and ride out the wave of negativity.

OK after watching it twice last night (east coast and west coast CN feeds), here are a few deeper, if more random thoughts and impressions I had.

I think Space Marines will be ok with regards to theme conflict. What killed the MWT was the contract conflict with a licensed theme. TLG has a lot more flexibility with an internal IP such as their Space theme. The danger to "Space Troopers" I think comes from Games Workshop. They already rattled the cage once with the insistance that the name be changed. It's obvious GW is watching this project. If they threaten any sort of legal challenge than it is probably over. Lego will not go to all the trouble of fighting with GW over a CuuSoo project. I'm not sure if they could take a project presented as unlicensed and flip it around to a licensed project, should GW seek to challenge it? So if things get weird, TLG will simply say no. I get what he means about the Exo Suit. The build is very "non traditional". It uses non typical part connections. Things that the average "non advanced MOC'er" would probably never have seen or thought of. The build experience will be very different from what most fans would be expecting of a Lego set. For an advanced Lego fan this difference is part of the charm that drove the CuuSoo support. The desire for something new and challenging. But the question will be is it too challenging to be released as a typical retail set? I think the Exo Suit is going to have a very long evaluation and review period. Most of it in the design lab trying to come up with alternate designs and / or map out an actual build for the thing.

Light gray or bley might end up looking just a little too grim or bland. It looks like Atlantis and Prince of Persia sets might have exactly the type of designs and color pallets that would work well for what you are doing. Some blending of white with light tan and dark tan, with some bleys thrown in for accents to give it that Roman / Mediteranean structural feel.

At this point I see three semi major obstacles to the Space Troopers. 1. Purdue Pete... Bwahahahaha! Ok no seriously. If the reviews are competitive for the review period this really should be a non issue. A wildly and broadly popular project vs an extreme niche one that appeals only to graduates of a specific small university. 2. Conflict with an on going project. I think this one is less likely. The only potential conflict would be Galaxy Squad, which is a Lego in house IP. So they don't have the contract conflict that killed the MWT. TLG could easily release a project that is complimentary of an existing non licensed line. They have done it before. (The pre CuuSoo Star Justice set alongside SPIII.) 3. Games Workshop. This is the big one. Was the GW challenge over the name enough to spook the TLG legal group? Are there any other reasons that GW might challenge the project on? While GW probably has no actual legal ground and would lose in court, chances are TLG would choose not to invite such a challenge or wage a fight over a CuuSoo project. I still think that this project and the Curriousity Rover are the two most likely candidates to pass review, of the upcoming candidates.

The building itself is complete (baring a few minor details that I am still waiting on parts for. Some Ninjago pieces are sub'ing on the roof for now). All that remains is to finish the interiors. Thank you all for your support and encouragement. This was the first time I took something from a digital design all the way to completion in the brick, and is also the first time I have tried a real full scale large MOC. It's been one of the most rewarding things to see those cartoony LDD designs and the POVRay rendering manifest as this in the brick. It's been quite the learning experience. The end tally 2600+ bricks. Total cost ~ $250 ($50+ of which were the hard to find windows and a few other poorly thought out piece choices on my part).

Is it just me, or is anyone else getting a bit of a "Game of Thrones" vibe coming off of this one?