Faefrost

Seeing internal art before the cover of a comic or graphic novel is normal. The internal is normally traditional line art with modern computer variations on the old 4 color art process. The cover is often a more detailed painted image, and is often the last piece of completed artwork. The silhouettes of the villains look interesting. Now I'm almost wondering if the new Galaxy Squad villains started out their design life as Ninjago foes and got shifted over to the more Heinlein'esque Scifi theme?

Thanks for the insight into how and why the heads are designed that way Nabii. Personally I much prefer the two plus part heads that build around the classic heads. Like you used here, or in Atlantis and AQ. I'm not as fond of the single custom mold heads. They just never seem to have as much expression or depth of character around the eyes. Plus the animal head helms open up soon many fascinating MOC possibilities. Have you taken a close look at the MF hero figures? They have all had so many parts and bits yanked off by monsters that I think they only have about 2 1/2 heroes spread thinly over 5 figs...

That approach seems to work for Lego for the Nolan Batman movies. But a lot of that depends on exactly how similar it looks, and would they still need a license. They can get away with the "close but kid friendly" Batman related stuff because they have the underlying Batman license. They just don't ever mention "the Dark Knight Rises". But I can't imagine they would ever specifically go out of their way to acquire a license to then not explicitly exploit it.

It doesn't matter if it was in the set. It was the more adult nature of the source material. They were quite clear about that. Yes there was a (what later turned out to be) an incestuous yet innocent kiss in SW. But there's a difference between that and an hour long gunfight in a fully populated whorehouse over the providence and fate of an illegitimate baby. It's a great episode. One of my favorites. But it's absolutely not in the 6-12 appropriate age range. But picky specifics aside. Look, we all do really know what thy mean when they turn down something over the more adult content of the source material. This isn't "Internet rules lawyers 101". This is what are age appropriate subjects to attach the name of a worldwide respected children's toy brand to? This is protecting the strength of the children's toy brand, not in simply giving we AFOL's and aging nerd types what we want. They are going to act very conservatively in this regard. While we may not always agree, I like to think that as lifelong fans of the product we can at least respect and understand where they are coming from.

OK the Santa Yoda one wins. Brilliant.

I'm thinking either Chembaca or someone in a cowl. Maybe an obscure hooded jedi?

It looks like they got Christopher Nolan to do a dark moody and violent reboot of Fabuland.

Lots. Wasn't the Rancor in the Lego SW games brick built? There are often subtle differences between game and actual production sets. See Gandalf's staff as an example. So the games while often well designed using Lego principles do not always get translated into plastic. Whereas the existing plastic will typically be carried back into the game. (does that make sense?) As an asside, has anyone been able to get a good screenshot of the Armorred form of Sauron from the begining of the game. I would love to try and work out if he is buildable? Although I suspect that they were cheating with the digital sizing, and any actual brick built dark lord would be the size of one of those Super Hero Action Figures.

I was more thinking that 'End of Theme" exclusives tend to be D2C rather than store exclusives. Things like The Imperial Flagship, Diagon Alley, the MMV and the Joust sets. Plus when it is a store exclusive we often see a hole in the numbering patern. But a D2C lego exclusive is more often in the 10k number range and harder to spot in advance.

CuuSoo is not designed to support multi set or multiple release projects. They have been very upfront about that. They are looking for single release stand alone sets. There has been some minor discussion about whether to split something such as the Western town, but the general rule seems to be they are looking for single sets only. Not themes. Not multiples. So obscure niche is pretty much the way it goes. Actually Lego is pretty easily adaptable to more obscure niche subjects. Their actual product is extremely flexible. They don't have to make new molds for each new subject. Just some printing. So smaller run sets are viable. (See some of the odd licensed stuff like the European sets you can buy on planes or at airports.) It's just a matter of whether they can be gotten at a reasonable license cost appropriate to the small run. Firefly was killed for a very straightforward and non convoluted reason. The source material was too adult content for the Lego branding. It all comes down to two words. "Space Hooker". While a great show Firefly would not be considered appropriate for any point in the 6-12'ish age range. Too much near real world sex and violence. There is no "real reason" why that project was rejected. It never made it anywhere close to a business case analysis of whether or not it would be marketable or profitable. It failed on the "appropriate subject matter" analysis that occurs first. That kind of deep "PG-13 / MA video game" content is the point where we older fans and AFOLs come into the sharpest conflicts with some of Lego's policies. But if we take a deep breath and actually look at what we want, it is fairly easy to predict where the pitfalls will occur.

Yes. It's supposed to be out today, Friday 11/16.

Bilgo?

The Galactica, the Tos Colonial Viper, the Tos Cylon Raider and I believe the colonial shuttle were all designed by the same model and fx people as the first SW movie. Most notably Joe Johnston. One of ILM's first post SW jobs was the pilot movie and first few episodes of BSG. So yeah the designers probably played around with similar and unused designs from SW. Remember this was before the whole SW franchise went nuclear. iLM was a spinoff startup trying to sell what they were good at, which was SW type space effects. The similarities are probably more apparent with the Viper. What we think of as the Colonial Viper was a late production replacement, so they probably made use of some pre existing design ideas. The original Viper design that was replaced at the last minute, was later used as the Buck Rogers Earth "Thunderfighter". (Sigh! I so want one of those in Lego.)

In the US the Handheld version released 2 weeks ago. The console (ps3 and xbox360) version came out today. Oddly mid week on a Wednesday. The pc version will be out Friday. The Wii was supposed to be today, not sure what happened. My local GameStop manager seemed to think the delays were caused by licensing and rights finikiness involving the use of the voice acting from the movie. I have it on PS3. It looks and sounds gorgeous. My only very minor complaint is the gameplay and movement doesn't feel quite as tight as Batman2. The heavy earth tones inhibit finding things like the edge of a cliff, and at least in the beginning the initial characters are harder to differentiate (the hobbits in particular) making swapping between them sort of a crap shoot. Batmans brighter more cartoony color pallet and brightly clad superheroes made some things a little sharper and easier to distinguish.

My GS Manager said PS3 and XBox on Wednesday, PC on Friday. and a lot of the stores did save enough minifigs for their local preorders.

I love the theater. Beautiful work. For some reason the play being staged is giving me World of Warcraft flashbacks. "Run Away Little Girl!"

Perhaps the best current example re new figures in exclusive D2C sets. http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=10228-1 The Butler and the Chef are new figs for that set. So they do do it. (I think the Death Star set has a few exclusive figs as well.)

Might they not simply release the Western Town in the same way they did for the MF Haunted House? As a D2C add on? In this case for the Lone Ranger line? I think we can safely assume that any LR movie will include a typical Western town and Saloon. Pink skin the Minifigs, change the signage and presto. Ready made exclusive.

They look great, and are integral to the original story. In that they should be rose vines, and I believe the Aurora character is more classically known as Briar Rose?

Besides Lego has a number of deal with Disney as well as Lucas (or one overall deal). As far as we can tell the prices for the Lego Disney licensed sets are within the same general ballpark to the consumer as the SW sets. So Disney is probably content with their Lego deals for now. If anything the licensing costs to Lego may go down slightly. Lucas was known for taking a high cut out of licensee's. Disney might not be as steep.

I'm hoping that is a bad test shot of the Ashoka fig in that auction. The face looks kinda cross eyed? Otherwise the figure looks much better than the old.

That is gorgeous

The LotR Corsair ship would be a rather impressive change of pace. Just think of the possibilities from those ribbed triangular sails? Looking at that picture from the movie, and knowing how good Lego is at making great ship sets, I can't see any way it comes out bad. (Well OK just so long as they steal clear of the Ninjago and Spongebob design aesthetics /shudder)

How about a modified CMF Olympic Medal piece, so you could hang the ring around Frodo's neck?

Did you watch the designers video for the Worg set? After seeing it I am much more impressed. It's that designers first official set. And the tree is actually more interesting than anything we have seen before. That element where the main trunk is designed in rotating sections, so you can change how it looks is brilliant.