Faefrost

If you changed the color to red and put a University of Georgia Bulldog on the side you would hit 10k in about 5 hours... sadly.

And yet "Kardashian'esque" about the hips and lower quarters. Kind of an interesting oddity in the Minifig world. Thankfully they got a little better at printing on curves. Sadly (or joyfully depending in POV) I fear that the point of intersection between girls and Castle will go through the Friends line and the Disney license. Picture 9468 Vampyres Castle in white with a blue roof and a pumpkin carriage parked out front.

How well have these been selling? I noticed they were about the only Lego products left at my local Target after Christmas. The Lego aisle looked like it had been looted, except for shelves of these and Supebr Hero and Hero Factory action figures. All deeply discounted (the Series 1 planets were under $3, series 2 under $5)

I don't think LotR or Hobbit are considered quite the 1 to 1 relationship to Castle the way Western and Pirates are to their respective themes. There is a lot more wiggle room there. LotR really occupies that same sort of niche as Harry Potter more than it does Castle. Also WB's licensing department seems to be a little lighter about such things these days than Disneys. I still suspect that the LotR Corsairs ship is in part a way for Lego to still give Pirates fans at least 1 new ship this year, even if it is something very different.

That sort of clause is EXTREMELY common in a licensing agreement. The licensor does not want the licensee to be creating a directly competing product line that is being fed and marketed by their licensed materials, but not offering them any financial return. It is highly likely that Legos in house Pirates line is on hold until the PotC contract is finished. The MWT was not killed because it might confuse consumers. It was far more likely killed simply because its subject matter was in direct conflict with the newly signed LR license. The expectation of the IP owning Licencor's is that the Licensee (Lego in this case) will do everything in their power to support and promote their license, and not use it as a springboard or marketing tool to push their own or somebody else's. Now not all licenses demand absolute exclusivity. Disney is somewhat notorious for how tightly they write this stuff. WB less so. It has long been reliably rumored that the Star Wars Lego license expressly forbids any competing licenses such as Star Trek or BSG. Amazingly Lego looks to be one of the first companies to actually manage to avoid the exclusivity clauses for Comic Book Superheroes. At least since the days of Mego. For 20 or 30 years if you did anything for one you could not do anything for the other. (I think this is less a Lego thing and more someone at WB or Disney marketing finally wising up and putting a stop to it.) Once again, this is quite common. In the case of Pirates, chances are TLG cannot make any in house Pirates sets at a minimum while PotC sets would be on the shelves, or within certain defined marketing periods for any PotC movies. If there won't be a new PotC movie until 2014, then the contract may allow them to do a short theme in 2013 so long as it is gone by movie time. But in all liklihood TLG wouldn't bother. They would be better off waiting for the marketing push from the next movie. The only exceptions would be for D2C exclusive type sets.

I honestly think AFOLs are the only ones who care about fleshies vs yellows. The kids just play with the Minifigs regardless of coloring.

I'm guessing that we will not see a substantially new Orc helmet until hey make a set of Frodo and Sam sneaking across Mordor. (Sing it with me "Where there's a Whip there's a way...") which probably means quite awhile. How long was it before we started some of the really cool and distinctive head pieces over in Star Wars?

I think we have hope to see a new rifle piece next year. From the leaked lists we have a few CMF's that would benefit from an updated long gun. And they more often seem to be starting or incorporating new designs for minifig accessories over with the CMF's. if we are starting to see some more 17th and 18th century soldiers like the American one, than we should see some sort of newer weapon mold.

Weaponized Produce. The healthier alternative to modern warfare. "Always remember to eat your vegetables... OR ELSE!"

I think there is a way to send them a picture associated with the request.

That evil knight helm looks like it works really well on orcs. I wonder if some of the other CMF helms would do well if re colored? The Spartan, Roman or gladiator?

I'm guessing that this is still more or less geared towards replacement parts. The fact that it is easier to buy specific parts from then pick a brick is probably an unintended consequence, and that's where you are seeing fractions. Customer service is not intending to be your bulk brick ordering point. As far as the butlers head. That makes sense. Lego CS has always had issues with the Chinese made soft minifig parts that come in their individual bags. CS does not have those in their warehouse.

Isn't there another PotC movie in production? Just speculation on my part, but there is a chance that the PotC license might still be active and in force, just not on the production schedule until the new movie comes out. (Didn't HP have a few breaks?) it's also reasonable to peculate that Disney tends to favor exclusivity in their license contracts. See the recent failure of the Modular Western Town on CuuSoo, because it was in conflict with the Lone Ranger. Assuming that the contract between Disney and Lego is good for several years, it probably remains in force until or unless production on the next movie is cancelled or misses the planned schedule by a wide margin. Lego probably would not balk at that because a licensed Pirate set with an accompanying movie will do an order of magnitude more sales than an unlicensed Pirate line with no outside tie in. (Yeah I know it sucks. But that is one of the hard realities of the toy business.) And really it's a no risk deal for Lego. As a worst case they delay an unlicensed Pirates line by a few release cycles. But almost everything they develop for PotC can be recycled into unlicensed resources should the films stop being made. Other than a handful of custom hairpieces pretty much everything can be shifted to new theme projects with naught but a color change and some new box art.

I like the fortune tellers torso and skirt, but am I alone in wishing the head piece didn't have the cold disks painted on it? That would be such a wonderfully useful piece without those.

Sigh! The really sad hing is if they had split this set we could have gotten something like a Catwoman on Batpod vs Tumbler and a Bat vs Bane on motorcycle for reasonable prices and still much better primary builds.

If nothing else Black Bricks are gonna be cheap and plentiful on Bricklink this year.

Don't view City or Winter Village sets in the same model as Minecraft. Minecraft was a CuuSoo set. Those are normally more limited runs. The fact that they went back and did a second factory run of them was highly unusual. Lego does now have a "retiring soon" page on S@H, which will give you a warning on some but not all discontinuation s. I would assume that most of the sold out tags you are seeing we're because of heavy Christmas demand. The Winter Village Cottage will almost definitely be re popped. They are probably just waiting on more to arrive at the warehouses. The mining ones will depend more on sales and demand. Is it worth going back and making another run of a set hey sold out of? For most hey probably will. But some may quietly not be re supplied, if production time cannot be found before their expected replacements take over. One good tip off at S@H is whether there is an expected date near the sold out.

The price per piece doesn't bother me quite as much with these battle packs. I think of it less as price per brick and more as $3.25 per incredibly cool and detailed minifig. Which is better than the CMF pricing. The speeder is just a bonus to get around the action figure clause of their licensing.

I think whatever plans they might have had for a limited number of seasons have just been tossed out the window with the Disney acquisition.

Well we do know now that it is a D2C set. Grogal confirmed that the set number is 10237. Anything in the 10,000 range is a D2C set. The question is more is it a "playset" like the Death Star or Diagon Alley, or is it more of an advanced model like the UCS series?

P.S., for those buying into the whole 'Chima ripped off Thundercats" meme. Just something to think on. The basic story of Lion people fighting and at odds with lizard/croc people and winged eagle people, etc etc, on a far off world with deep jungles and flying mountains and such was one that was visualy explored in the 1930's and for decades beyond. We know the place as The Planet Mongo. Famous inhabitants, Ming the Merciless and Flash Gordon. Pretty much every visual element that Norton complains about can also be found in Alex Raymonds color Sunday strips dating back to 1934. Just to keep things in perspective. (PS oh and that "Holding the sword above the head in artwork thing? Ummm While that goes back to at a minimum Frazetta's work and the Conan the Barbarian movie posters, it also featured prominantly in many many Saturday morning cartoons of the 70's that well predate the original Thundercats. "Thundar the Barbarian" ring a bell with anyone?)

The original Thundercats and Silverhawks were made by the same company and the same production team, at almost the same time. So yeah there are legitimately clear similarities between them. Filmation, the people who made HeMan had an equally similar show called Bravestar, about a SciFi Native American sheriff and his cyborg horse partner. And really none of this was very original to begin with. Heck Silverhawks was a rather direct "borrowing" of the central idea behind the classic anime Gatchaman ("Battle of the Planets" or "G Force" for some audiences.)

If it is a D2C set it may not be a play set of a specific scene. It may simply be a more advanced model of Orthanc. Like some of the SW UCS sets.

I quite like the building. Although I will be very tempted to try my hand at modding it heavily. Some ideas in that regard. 1. Changing it to a full frontal building, with a ticket box out front. A narrower area for concessions in the lobby, and ground floor theater seating running side to side. Stairs up to a balcony seating area and a projection booth. 2. Even if not the full change above. Modifying the second floor theater to change the wall color, give some texturing to the interior walls, much like such places had, and blocking the interior of those windows. 3. Add a third row os seating. Even if it means simplifying the seats.

I think Bofur's hat mold with some new printing would do well for Radagast? We just need a matching printed head, beard and torso.