Faefrost

Sadly I think the Lego TOR sets are the only place the Old Republic is seeing any profit.

I think they pretty much would have to create sketch models of anything that passes that initial "brand appropriate" test. If for no other reason that the sketch model helps them estimate the costs of a project.

In what way? I'm honestly curious, I missed the KK and KKII eras so I an not quite sure what about these brings that to mind? To me these look like a fairly good modern interpretation of a classic style Castle line, targeted at the younger audience? I'm not quite grasping all of the hate? Is it simply we worked ourselves into a froth expecting Black Falcons, or Forrestmen or some similar return from our youths? I know we here all want more civilian stuff, but I don't think that did great on the retail shelves vs the knight conflict sets. While we loved Mill Village Raid it was often found on discount clearance. I think those type sets do better as exclusives. So what is it we are asking for? What do we want? Because reading this thread makes me very confused?

Ooo. Now you are making me thirst for an Art Deco style building. Maybe a train station?

I am probably not quite right in using "rust belt". The FB is pretty typical of US Firehouses stretching from roughly NYC and stretching westward through the large industrial centers of the first half of the 20th century. Pretty much that northern arc from NYC to Cincinnati. It's actually a bit wide for a typical NYC Firehouse. Most of them from the time period would be narrower by a third (just 1 side of the vehicle bay) because of the narrow NYC plots and high land costs. Plus most had been built for horses. The GB makes an acceptable Macy's. But there is a bit more "architecture" going on there than you might find in the NYC counterparts. The roof line and some of the details always make me think of some of the older more classic London establishments. But really its all in the eye of the beholder. These were designed such that people feel comfortable identifying them as something they know. Of them all the new Palace Theater is probably the least generic. It's coloring and styling just screams California.

That might not be so bad for them. I seem to recall that BD also had the Action Figure license for the last PotC movie. But that did not preclude Lego from releasing a PotC battle pack. It seems to vary by license however. SW was a particularly sensative issue because the Action figure license is held by a direct competitor to Lego, and the SW action figures are a HUGE core part of their business. (Let's be honest, SW Action figures led the financing mechanism for the last 5 movies).

PoP and LR are both Disney. Lego seems to have a fairly broad Disney license, which also probably gives Disney a little more leverage in pushing for exclusivity. Whereas WB / New Line may not have had those requirements.

I think they made it more for the Mirkwood Elves section of The Hobbit, which got pushed back to the second movie.

Exactly. A better description would be "California Faux Chinese". Pretty much all of the Modulars have a very distinct feel of where they come from style wise. Grand Emporium kind of leaves one thinking of London, Fire Brigade has a "Rust Belt" America feel to it, Pet Shop has a very Continental Europe look. Cafe Corner has kind of an Amsterdam feel to it. Green Grocer has kind of a French styling. Town Hall is probably the most generic, but more resembles an Eastern US/Canada style. And this one just screams Los Angeles. They always use a baseplate under the Modulars as part of the "Modular Standard". Typically 1 32 x 32 or 2 16 x 32's

I love it! Between the somewhat Spanish Colonial coloring and the semi Chinese stylings it perfectly captures the feel of a Los Angeles building in the heyday of Hollywood. The car and lights plus the slightly lower than expected price make me suspect that the interior is not as dense as some of the newer Modulars. And is probably not unlike the Fire Brigade. Which would make sense for a theater.

Because the target audience is small male children. They don't necessarily want "historical" themes. They want a bit of Fantasy in their play. They want the knight vs dragon paradigm if you will. This does not mean we have returned to Fantasy Era. No orcs trolls evil skeletons or similar. It's just a very classic knights vs dragon encounter. Something from the old castle tapestries. I am not sure where all the sudden hate is coming from? This looks like exactly what we have been asking for? Kings Castle looks like an updated classic castle. I can't tell through the fuzzy pics, but it almost looks like it might be substantially brick built. As far as comparisons to Kingdoms? These look quite a bit like most of the Kingdoms sets. The only thing missing, and I will concede disappointment over this, is the more civilianized sets like Mill Village Raid and Joust. But you never know, there may be a more civilianized exclusive in the pipes somewhere. As far as factions, it looks like we are getting some new heraldry. It's too fuzzy to tell what. Maybe a new interpretation of Crown vs something in red? This isn't bad. New heraldry is almost always good. (Ok excepting the KKII stuff, but this looks much better than that.) I really think we are getting worked up over nothing? This looks like a decent branch of the classic Castle line. It has a good fullcastle. Some interesting little scenario sets, and lots of cool new barding. I don't understand the outrage?

I don't think store or Lego exclusives show up in the catalog these pics come from. So the fact that it is there generally means its not exclusive to anyone. After 12 years they are still missing a lot of iconic Star Wars related scenes. And let's not forget the stuff that got left out of Harry Potter.

The starter set is a small fire truck, small ambulance and police motorcycle with some figs. Looks to be targeted very young.

Any doubts or concerns about the line may have evaporated with the Hobbit wave. When the Wall Street Journal identified the Unexpected Gathering as one of the most popular toys of the holiday season I wept with joy.

Am I wrong in thinking this might be a whole new faction? I couldn't make out any real details, but the shield didn't really look like anything we have seen before?

I must be alone, but that Corsair ship looks great. I also love the council of Elrond set.

It probably failed right at the early business calculations, long before anyone dropped a dime to call Nintendo. Call low estimates of $100,000 per mold. So $400,000 for the project, just in new costs. So assuming a planned typical CuuSoo run of 10,000... We are looking at $40 per set just for mold costs. For a tiny set of a handful of Minifigs an no real brick build. This means that the end cost of the set would probably need to be $60+. It's not hard to understand exactly why the project was rejected once you look at the basic math. An actual full blown Zelda licensed theme might be viable (debate able, how has Megabloks done withWoW?) but as a one shot CuuSoo there is no way the math worked out.

Are there very many sets with STAMPs anymore? I think the only one I can remember seeing in modern times is the Maersk train? What else resorts to using them?

You are thinking of set choices with an eye towards being a LotR fan. We need to view them through the filter of being Lego fans. Not just what are iconic scenes, but also what can be reasonably done as Lego sets? What do they excel at? What sorts of things work well in Lego? Viewed in that way the Corsair ship set makes a ton of sense. (It blends both traditional Castle fans with Pirate fans all built on the core Literary themes. And it has a broad minifig choice built in.) the only puzzling thing with their choices is how they seem to be dancing around Minas Tirith. I assume the Black Gate set may be based more on minifig options and distinctive set colors.

I'm not sure if we can tell yet. Yes we were left with an impression that these projects ended up going head to head, which is not how we understood it would be. But that may just be observer error. The reasons for rejection, while we may not agree with, do stand up as individual cases. Zelda was rejected because it needed new unique molds with no real reuse. MWT was rejected because they have a new licensed western theme kicking off, that it conflicts with. The Eve ship was the vaguest of the rejections, but I think we can see where that more obscure subject might not have passed the business case once they started examining the numbers. Figure a licensed subject needs a strong fan base of at least several million to convert to reasonable Lego sales. Eve like most MMO's was probably a little shy of that numbers wise. So I am not sure if we can draw any real conclusions yet.

So the takeaway from that chart is Western fans all switched to Porn? (I'm thinking TLG is not gonna go for the Modular Porn Palace CuuSoo project.)

That looks fantastic. It just creates the perfect scene. It kinda makes us wish TLG would create a more modernized and miniaturized lighting system for some of their more adult targeted projects.

Thank you. This is precisely what I keep trying to say. The only exception to above was the MWT, which just ran into an unfortunate timing incident. Lego signed a contract to produce a licensed Western Theme, that had not yet been revealed. But they have been upfront in other postings that given the long development process of themes and sets, some CuuSoo projects may have an issue with planned upcoming themes. There really wasn't much either TLG or the project designer could have done in that case.

I can kinda understand the stores point if they do decide to put in place a "no fondling the merchandise" rule. Not all bag feelers are neat, discrete, or leave the stock and display in a good presentable and saleable state for the next customers.

(Note this is an assumption as well) A safe guess is that Lego will probably only consider new molds for CuuSoo projects if and only if they are something that could also easily be used in regular retail sets. So a new building element of some sort. Or something generic?