Faefrost

Just because they made anew mold doesn't necesarily mean they have gone through their stock of old parts yet. For something like the sword part we may be seeing old ones show up for awhile. It just depends what bin a set is being assembled from.

Wow! There are some truly gorgeous sets in this theme. Far above what I think were any of our expectations. Speed Racer this theme is not! It looks Amazing. Now I hope the movie is good enough to warrant it getting some real shelf space.

I suspect that the new sword was more to replace an old mold that was wearing out, than a specifically newly designed part. The only thing that we can glean from that new sword is that the old sword mold was felt to be worth the costs of replacing. Which is a clear sign that they do plan to be keeping Castle as an active and ongoing theme. They probably would not have replaced the mold just for the Chess set.

The Battle of Dul Guldar is never described in any detail in Tolkiens works. It's like Radagast. You know its there. You know what it is more or less, and you know where it belongs, based on references to it in various writings. But he never goes out and gives great details of it.

Regarding the CMF's. the only thing about them that may "foreshadow" a new theme is new molds. If they make something cool, such as the new space helmets or Space Marine armor, etc. they will often find a use for it in main themes. It's not so much foreshadowing as simply making efficient use of molds. Molds cost tens of thousands of dollars so reuse is key. Whereas printing is a few days work for the graphic designers and testers. So the difference between a crown knight, a dragon knight or the evil knight are pretty negligible in terms of what effect they will have on any future themes. Most noteworthy is that the heroic knight does not use any new molded pieces. So really it offers no hints of what is to come. The same with the Kings Castle set. Chances are it isn't a re-release. They have new parts to play with. The set must have the new horses at a minimum. So it can't be completely the same. And once they start changing why stop? They learned a lot of neat things with Joust and Helms Deep etc. Kings Castle is also a name they have used several times in the past. So it will most likely be a new set with that old name.

A series of mini movies is a likely possibility. They did do that between s1 and 2. But the long lead time seems to hint against that, doesn't it? They would use mini movies as filler to keep interest between major releases. Such as that time between the first Ninjago TV movie and the series production. (What we think of as season 1 to season 2). Plus why would they do mini movies or teasers for a sunseting project? No, the only ways that I can see 2014 making sense is either CN, after seeing the recent ratings for Ninjago, has just requested another season (this makes sense when looking at Cartoon Network/Adult Swims rather strange way of ordering shows that often puts long periods between seasons), or the demand for more Ninjago has been so great that they tacked on another wave. Or possibly both? My money is on CN pulling the trigger and wanting more. TLG already has another Ninjago wave heading for shelves. They probably would not make a call on more internally until they gauged sales of that, and or sales and such on Chima. The more I think on it, if the post is legit, then we are probably looking at another season of the show for sure.

Of those, the absolute best that I have seen and built is Helms Deep. It is gorgeous and a spectacularly fun and detailed build. Although it looks like Arkham may give it a good run it that regard. If you find a good sale on Helms Deep grab it. You should be able to get it for half Arkham's cost. The Batcave is a good truly fun play set. Especially it you have the Batmobile from the Two Face Chase set that fits in it. Looks wise your mileage may vary. I always think it looks like an old Nintendo video game screen. The build is nothing spectacular and its shelf display value is more limited. (And the funhouse does that better) Goblin King Battle is in my opinion a mixed bag. The King and the central build of his throne are fantastic, and that part makes a great display piece. Happily at home on desk or bookshelf. Just wonderful. The bridge section is decent and a fun build with some good play. The other little brown lumps are worthless filler, and none of the set actually connects. It does have a ton of useful MOC parts however.

Notice that most of the stuff that Lego has released, that required custom molds, have been of subjects that were released in promo information quite awhile ago. We knew what the Goblin King would look like, We knew what the Wargs would look like. We knew what Yazneg would look like. The Trolls were fairly secret until the last trailer, Azog's look was secret until the movie released, and while we have seen some set pics of Beorn's house, we have not had any actual looks at Beorn himself yet. From the set we know he is quite large, so probably somewhere in the size range of Hagrid from HP.

Interesting? I wonder if this means CN has asked for another season of the show? Just from that poster, and assuming it is more episodes, the story will probably shift towards Zane. I remember noticing when they found Zane's father, that there were a bunch of Nindroid plans in his tower. There might be a second one ala Data vs Lore?

You can show the manager a source. But chances are he is not going to deal with anything outside his normal distributors. Stocking merchandise for ay retail business is a little more involved than simply buying something from somewhere. What would a merchant do after he special orders a case of an old series from an online merchant, you come in and buy two, and the rest just sit there? What is his return path? What are credit or channel arrangements? How will his primary supplier react if he is getting product from another source? A small single owner toy shop may do that sort of ordering for you. A larger merchant never will. They will politely tell you they have to go through the distributor. Basically what you are asking is all risk to the merchant at no profit. Those third party sellers are not distributors. So they are at best buying at distribution prices and selling at retail. Your store would be buying at retail pricing. At which point hey are either trying to sell last years product at greatly inflated markup (would you pay $5 a cmf bag used?) or they make no money out of this and loose money for every fig not sold. Unless the store is. Specialty store in the collectables toys market, they would have no reason to ever go near a third party like that.

That would make sense. Really the only "new" minifgs You could get out of a LotR council would be Elrond, an Old Bilbo and an Old Gloin. Although I do kind of wonder what if any playability a Hobbit type White Council would offer? ("Look kids it's Sauruman... sitting in a chair. Nono your eyes are deceiving you, his lips actually are moving when he is speaking. Honest! we swear! We're not filming a "Weekend at Elrond" movie with Christopher Lee.")

Helm's Deep is a hair over 11" Goblin King is 9" Attack of the Worg's is 9" maybe a hair more if you stand a fig on top. (Call it 11" for margin of error) Not sure on the other two as I haven't built them yet.

No. That first Alien wasn't an Alien Conquest one. It was a leftover design from Space Police III. One of Squidman's race. He is just often thought of as part of AC because he has some similar coloring. (Green Head, Purple markings). AC used the new Helmets first seen in the Series 1 spaceman, but other themes also used those, such as World Racers. As far as factions... Shush. No really tread very very carefully when asking for new different and greater variety in Castle factions. Two words... Galaxy Squad. Given their success with multi colored Sentai team type themes. With specific colored named main characters, we do not want to inadvertently make Lego think we want a return of Knights Kingdom II and the Jellybean Knights. Kingdoms Lions vs Dragoons much much > Jellybeans.

This might be better off in the what should I buy thread? Honestly it will depend on what you like? I have a bunch of both and love them. I think in general, the Batman sets typically have a bit more play value, while the LotR and Hobbit sets have a better display value.

I really have no idea what you are even asking here? You can give a store manager whatever cards you wish. Chances are they will simply toss them. However any store will kick you out for attempting to distribute marketing materials for a competing business. An official Lego store certainly will not permit any third party advertising. (Beyond complimentary stuff such as a local club or lug group.) Now if you are seeking to be a secondary source of product for a store itself, that is different. A Lego store obviously will never have anything to do with you. Nor will a large chain. A small specialty toy shop might, but chances are slim. You will not be able to offer any of the product services they require for retail, such as merchandise return guarantees and sufficient proof of channel sourcing that they know the product is legit. If you want to start some sort of business centered around your hobby, just walk away from the retail stores. Don't give them advertising, don't attempt to sell to the. Don't attempt to film them. Just walk away. Otherwise you will end up on your local Lego store and your local Mall's crazy person list. Not a good place to be this week. Instead create a Bricklink store and learn to use E-bay. With a bit of work you might even develop that into a hybrid online and brick and mortar specialty toy and collectables business.

I'm actually quite astonished we got the Goblin King in that first wave. You have to figure there is a much longer development time on a custom molded figure like him, which means they were at best just working off of production and concept art. It is doubtful that any of the FX work would have been completed by the time they had to begin making him. Most of the stuff they made sets of were of things that they could predict with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Costumes were pretty much fixed long ago (although individual weapons and such possibly not. Notice some minor weapons discrepancies such as Bombur, plus the lack of Thorin's "Oaken Shield" which was a movie element that more or less came from Richard Armitage.) Certain types of sets could be easily predicted. Bag End was already a set they knew and could work off of. Goblin Town the obviously worked off the concept art and came reasonably close. Giant Spiders are Giant Spiders, no real risk there. But for the most part they opted for a lot of scenes that while iconic, did not require a lot of on screen specifics to be recognizeable, or had some very obvious elements that all knew would be there. (Golem's little punt, The mark on Bilbo's door, Web wrapped Dwarves and Burning Pine Cones, etc). There is just no way they would make a set based on three massive CGI Trolls requiring custom molds, sight unseen.

I think they have the Mohawk hair on the wrong fig? It should be on the Native American not the biker.

Radagast and his bunny sled would make for a cool little low priced set, along the lines of Gandalf Arrives. The only downsides would be the possible need for 2 new molds. A hat/beard for Radagast (although you could probably get by with Bofur's hat in brown and Dwalin's beard in grey with some printing) and the Rabbits. I am not sure that the cutesy cuddly Friends Bunnies would do the trick. A simple sled of bars and skellies arms, and maybe an undead wraith to run away from? The huge problem with the three trolls is the three large custom molded figs. They each eat up so much of a sets budget that there would be nothing left for actual Lego bricks. Maybe if they figure out a way to use the current cave troll mold, just with custom detailed printing for each? There is enough stuff in the scene to make some neat play set builds out of. The spit, rescuing the ponies, the treasure horde, etc But it just seems like it would be a huge and expensive set for a smaller scene?

Catapults are just one of those things Lego designers like to bolt on to add play features. They show up everywhere regardless of accuracy to the movies the scenes come from. To toss figures, rocks, snowballs, spells, whatever. In this case they are just a play feature by which the Orcs can play attack the Dwarves, while the Dwarves can drop the burning trans clear pine cones. Don't read too much into it. As far as the scene the Lego designer described. Remember they did not get to see the actual movie any sooner than the rest of us. They had some probably very limited movie production materials to work with. The scene he plays out (minus the catapult) is pretty much the book version of the scene.

Lets not forget, Lego now has a cute and adorable hedgehog mold. Ripe for Wizzardly molesting. Granted its over in the friends line, so it might be a touch too cute, but what can you do?

The Wargs are great, and I actually kind of like the tree. It make a good fairly low real estate Verticle display for the Dwarves. Just keep sticking them on branches. BTW, while not perfect, using oneof the extra "Sting"s from any of the sets with Bilbo or Frodo looks a little better on Thorin for Orcrist. Not perfect by any means, but at least it was some curves and looks a bit more elvish.

My prediction, they just keep those two sets available a little longer, with no change to the packaging. Increase the production run enough to insure stock for the next movie, and move on. Also the overall effect on them with those sets is probably minimal. Just as with Harry Potter, the primary buyers know quite a bit from the books. So the change in the movie doesn't mean they don't know about the scenes. Besides, these are the two sets with the ever popular elves. They could have printed "elf poop with Legolas minifig" on the box and they would sell. It depends on what you mean? Changes to movies, or long lead time leading to differences between sets and actual movies? Sure, all the time. Just look at the Avengers sets. Notice how generic they were? Comprised only of stuff they were certain would be in the movies. And even then many details such as characters in scenes being off. Iron Man in the Loki Cube set? The big set was the Quinjet. Probably because Marvel didn't want the Helicarrier reveal spoiled too soon. Lego like any retail product production company just rolls with it. By the time they even find out about the discrepancy they have long since moved on to the next two or three waves. There were originally only supposed to be two movies. So the first movie was planned to end after Mirkwood, right after the Barrel escape. All of the footage for the entire story was filmed. At the last minute Peter Jackson decided he had enough footage and scenes for three movies instead of two. They only decided this two or three months ago. So now the first movie will end after the Misty Mountains instead. Which leaves Lego's two Mirkwood sets sort of orphaned until next December.

The two extra sets make more sense when you realize that almost until the end of summer they were going to be two movies, and this first one would go all the way to the end of Mirkwood. With the barrel escape being the finale. The second movie would then be the Lonely Mountain, Smaug and the Battle of 5 Armies. (Sorry for spoiling this for anyone, but we're talking an 80 year old book here). Chances are a lot of those great scenes from this movie, such as most of the Erabor scenes would have been cut from the theatrical release, and instead reserved for the extended DVD's, like they did with LotR. So the Lego design people certainly would not have included those scenes in their planning and set design. They probably did not even know about them. The same with the discrepancy in the Attack of the Worgs set between Yazneg and Azok (sp?). We don't know what the original plans were for that scene, since the lead Orc is not named in the book per se. It may be that much of the whole Azok backstory was originally planned for the second movie, or was planned as extended edition material until they had to spread everything across three movies. Not only was some stuff such as the spiders and barrels pushed back. Some other pieces may have been pushed forward as well. At this stage it's probably best to judge the sets more on quality, minifigs and coolness factor, rather than by "oh but that would have been a much better scene to do." If it helps, they have released it in 4 versions in theaters. 3d, normal traditional 2d, high frame rate (48fps) 3d and high frame rate 2d. You should be able to find a theater that is not showing it in 3d. I took my wife to a 2d showing last night (3d makes her badly ill), and then snuck back to see the HFR 3d this afternoon. 2 words of warning for those who have not seen it yet; - eat a light lunch and drink very very little. This is a long movie. The last battle sucks to watch if you are having a much more serious battle with your bladder. Not kidding about this one. restrict fluids and stop to pee beforehand. - The 3d HFR is spectacular. But if anyone in your movie going party suffers from motion sickness, consider the 2d alternative. It brings to mind the "Soaring" Ride at Disneyworld or the Harry Potter Broomstick ride at universal. The HFR is amazing, but will take some getting used to.

I could see this working so long as the sets were each an individual building designed to fit into a town. Something along the lines of the Ceramic "Unseen University" buildings that were marketed to Terry Pratchett fans a number of years ago. Each was a stand alone, but each could slide together to make the full University.

Technically we already have a Dul Guldur set released. 30213 is "gandalf at Dul Guldur". Granted it is a figure polybag that says nothing about the place... but it hasn't been ignored. The Corsairs ship may seem an odd choice if you are simply thinking of it from the view point of a lotR fan. But from Lego's viewpoint it is actually a very good set idea from them. It is one of the few "vehicle" scenes in LotR. Something other than the bley half walls and trees. It sits at a perfect spot in the movie to allow them to combine figs from the Fellowship, the Army of the Dead, Corsairs or Orc's, at their pleasing. It can easily be done using the many ship mold pieces they have. And it broadens the Lego LotR customer base by attracting the Pirate fans. It may seem like an off movie choice. But it would make a really good play set. Which is more how they gauge things. As far as mixed Hobbit and LotR. it isn't so much "mixed" as they release smaller blocks of each at the same time. Just like they do with DC Super Heroes vs Marvel Super Heroes. Keep in mind for the first wave... The Lego designers didn't get to see the movie any earlier than we did. They probably got to see maybe 10-15 minutes of rough early footage involving some specific sets to give an idea of what they should sort of look like. They most likely got to see it once, in a small room, while they took some notes, and were allowed to work off some concept art. As far as Elrond. We will never see that particular battle armor clad Elrond figure again. But we will probably see an Elrond minifig as he appeared in Rivendale.