Faefrost

This thread has a good discussion on the subject, from the Embassy forum. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=59285 remember it's not simply a matter of currency conversion. The price reflects the cost to get the goods to market in the given country. As an example fuel in Germany is almost double what it is in the US. That effectively doubles the distribution and shipping costs. Retail space in Europe is also much more of a premium than in the US. (price per sq foot or meter is much cheaper in the US).

I vote we start a campaign to demand that they make the Watto bust the next big UCS release.

We will never get a "Halle Berry" version of Storm. Lego does not have the license for the X Men movies. Just the comics and animated shows. So any X Men we get will be traditional comic versions. I am fearful Thanos at least will be one of those larger figs like the Helicarrier set Hulk.

I don't think it is any less mainstream then Minecraft? And is it me, or was this the fastest project ever to shoot to 10k? Going from a rejected project to review status in Under a month. Well done!

It's an obvious addition to the Space Alien Conquest subtheme. I think it is sort of a play more on Futurama. This is the Alien Invader's henpecking wife.

I think our only hope for an Uncle Sam fig will be over in the CMF's. Clock King also seems a little obscure? Gentleman Ghost would also be a really obscure villain, but such a cool minifig that I would love to see it. (white tuxedo, white top hat and gloves, trans clear head with monocle printed on it. Brilliant!

Not only is the game not out yet... the gaming console that the game will run on isn't out yet. The games for the forthcoming (no release date yet) Nintendo Wii U. The new console with the iPad like tablet controller thingy.

The Amazing Spiderman movie was 100% Sony's formula output in order to prevent Marvel from getting Spiderman back. So we will not be seeing any sets from that movie. Which is a shame in every way possible. We would really be much better off with Sony out of the picture.

Some of them do look a lot better in the actual pictures. The Cheerleader doesn't look underage. She actually has breasts. Look at the female Alien's head, particularly the jaw. It almost looks like it is more open than the standard headpiece from the AC Alien Commander and Cyborg. Which doesn't make any sense. (and no I don't just mean from the lipstick. It looks like her mouth is more open.) The Faerie isn't bad. It may take a little dressing up to make it the way that I want though. I'm thinking shorter legs and a flight base. Bavarian dude really needs a beer in his other hand. Football Player and Cowgirl look surprisingly disappointing. The Trader, while kind of dull, looks like it will have a ton of MOC potential. Just a nice generic storytelling fig if you will. (Dr. Watson to Sherlock, Edwin Jarvis, the Avengers Butler, The Minister of Silly Walks, whatever you want.) Army of Manbats! I like him, he seems a little more horrifying then the MF ones. You can use a few of them to do a decent horror themed MOC.

Wasn't one of the rumors for 2013 that one of the sets would involve a lot of droids? What could that be? 1. A new Sandcrawler? (We're due for one.) 2. A new MTT? (less likely, it hasn't been as long and is not as iconic a vehicle) 3. A Droid torture chamber to go under the small tower of Jabba's Palace next to the Rancor pit? (possible but is so I would have expected to see at a minimum an attachment point on the Rancor Pit) 4. A Droid Factory on Geonosis playset? (It would go with the expected Ep 2 theme.) 5. A Droid Spa from the most annoying C3PO episode of TCW ever?

Batman vs Mr Freeze - agreed with some of the above speculation. It will include an Alpha Team style freeze block. I am thinking we may see the Bat Boat in this one. After all it involves Aquaman? Probably the $29 or $19 set. 3 figs, 1 smaller vehicle in the same pattern as the Wolverine set and the Cosmic Cube one. TDKR set - Bane, DK batman, Comissioner Gordon, SWAT guy, probably a SWAT truck. Maybe either the Tumbler or a bat vehicle? (or Tumbler vs Batpod?). Will be at least a $49 set. Probably more if it has a Tumbler. Spidey vs Venom - Another lower cost set. Venom, Spiderman, Nick Fury. A single vehicle. Maybe we finally get a Shield flying car? Spidey vs Doom - TV studio set on the same basic scale as the Helicarrier. That same center with two angled wings we keep seeing in recent years. Spidey, Doom, Beetle, Jameson, Nova. $49 set. Arkham Asylum - The waves bigger $99 set. As someone above said, something on about the scale as the Vampires Castle. So large open backed building or towers, plus a vehicle. Vehicle will probably be Robin centric as Batman will have the flight wings.

I like the design. Well done. Sadly I am not sure that Lego would ever actually do a Lobo set? Has he had any exposure in the past 15 years or so? I mean he was a heavily touted 80's-90's character, but sort of faded from view for the most part except for occasional fringe comic appearances. Other than a few appearances in the (now old) Bruce Timm Superman Animated series I don't think he has ever seen much mainstream attention? Might not be enough to attract Lego's interest for a regular store shelf set?

Oh dear Gods! Now the Lemonheads are getting those horrible drawn on cheekbones? NoooOOOOOooooOOOOOOoooo!!!!!!! Are you sure the source is not getting the City theme crossed with a more city themed Batman The Dark Knight Rises set? Doesn't some part of TDKR take place in or around a museum? So it may be similar to the Two Face set. small "Museum" front with some sort of blow out wall. Batman, Bane, Comissioner Gordon in SWAT gear, SWAT officer and SWAT Van or something similar? As cool as it would be, I really don't think they will give us a SWAT team in City. What would it be? A "Special Handcuffs and Flashlights Team"? Highly trained to shine the flashlight with great precision exactly at the spot that needs handcuffing? ("and we promise this time not to put him in the cell with the crowbar?")

That same 8 years was also Bionacles downfall. The line was so profitable, that TLG failed to notice or plan for when it wasn't. They didn't recognize the evolving nature of their fan base. Whereas 3 years sounds about right for Ninjago. The target market and audience is young boys. Figure your initial fans have about a three year span before they will grow and move on to something else. In some ways it becomes easier to hook the next audience with a whole new story that can be "theirs" rather than trying to pull new viewers into the already developed 3+ years of story and characters (and toys they cannot find on shelves anymore, etc). Basically don't keep milking the cash cow until its dead. Cultivate the product lines and plan for your current fans to grow up.

I'm just thrilled that we finally have a few real Marvel villains besides 3 or 4 sets all with Loki.

I can't wait to see how lego manages to pull oss a 15' talking tree, a 3' talking anthropomorphic Racoon who favors rocket launchers and a telepathic Russian dog.

The little kiddies loves them some Dino's.

This picture from what I believe is the Lego "brainstorming" room has been getting heavily analyzed in a couple of other threads. Mainly over in Star Wars and Sci Fi as it seems to show some unreleased prototypes or sets. http://ow.ly/i/HJQX/original Owly was kind enough to post a blown up version of it. (once again many many thanks) My question to our good (err bad?) Pirate folks... In the upper left quadrant is a fully seen display case with Aliens Conquest and Atlantis sets. (just to the right of the big curving silver pipe). To the right of, and behind that case is a rolling drawer cabinet with two rather large and detailed ships sitting on it. does anyone recognize them? (just curious)

Many thanks to Owly for posting this much clearer blown up copy of the pic in another thread. http://ow.ly/i/HJQX/original of particular interest. I think we can see one or two OTHER unreleased AC sets in it. Look in the upper left quadrant. Just to the right of the silver pipe/slide. There is a clearly seen display case with Atlantis and Alien Conquest sets. The boxes in that case from top to bottom are EDF HQ, Mothership, Jetcopter, Tripod, Defender and Striker. But next to the Tripod is a narrower box? Is that just an obscurred Abduction? Or is that something else? It seems sort of skinny? Almost like a box from those HF type action figures? And right above it is some sort of smaller 4 bladed helicopter? and right in front of it is some sort of gray saucer ship that I can't place? Maybe a small alien fighter, bigger than the ones from EDF HQ and jetcopter but smaller than Abduction? of course I may be imaging all of this May also have to point out the two pirate ships just to the right of that cabinet to the Pirate folks. I don't recognize those?

Wow thanks for the nice blown up pic. I see a few other things that I missed. There is the Separatist "crusher" ship, that was used in the first CW Malevolence episode to crush clone escape pods. There is a very large CW Walking Artillery Piece, And some thing interesting using a bunch of white wheels in behind it.

really the only things they have done that are specifically "American" subjects are this American Style Football player and the Old West themed ones (Which is one of their Evergreen themes, so it has gotten about the same attention as Medieval and Space) and maybe the Cheerleaders (which are probably more of a "recognizable pop culture" thing than a specifically American thing.) They have spread pretty broadly over common, North American and European themes and subjects. They probably could use a bit more Eastern world subjects. Or at least ones that aren't Martial Artists. (alright I'll give you Hippie and Hula Dancer may sort of track back to American subjects, but only in the broadest sense.) OK The Statue of Liberty one is American... but technically it was built by the French And keep in mind the main driving force behind a figure choice is not where it comes from, but rather the ability to distill something down into a easily recognizable caricature in a small plastic figure, be its subject historical, fantasy, cultural, whatever. There are some American subjects that work extremely well for that , Old West being the most obvious. The narrower historical time period, mixed with the vast degree of pop culture exposure ala Hollywood over the years make it a perfect candidate. People know what Cowboys are supposed to look like. The same is true for many European subjects. "Romans", "Vikings" and "Knights" being the big ones. But the subtle variations of region and time spread over centuries can cause some problems with other less pop culture inundated ones. The "Daredevil" was less an American thing as it is inspired by a specific individual. The 1970's Daredevil Evil Kenivel. Who was famous for his red white and blue outfits. Really they do pull a very broad base. Where they choose any subject from is more based on it's level of overall worldwide recognize ability. In this case Cowboys are much the same as Samurai and Ninja's. (Which is why John Ford and Akira Kurosawa made very similar movies using them in the same roles). Cheerleaders because they have broad pop culture exposure (granted mainly in slasher films). It's really no more or less nor any better or worse than the "Detective" minifig in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes hat.

I think the confusion with these two came from a bad translation of the list we originally saw. Wasn't it translated from Yugoslavian or similar? So it bounced through a few languages and may have been a little too literally translated. Now that we see it, the "Ancient Thespis" should have been translated as "Thespian". Basically a classical actor. In this case a very obvious Shakespearean actor. Not what we expected, but a really neat fig. "Alas poor Yorick..." "Trader" obviously should have been simply translated as "Businessman" or maybe "Banker". I confess, other than the bowler hat, this looks to be the least interesting minifig or the series. Which means I will invariably end up with a dozen of them. Maybe I can combine it with the older Sumo fig to make an "Oddjob" to go work for Dr. Inferno? (I also think the only possible other use for the fig is to team it with the "detective" as Holmes and Watson.)

These might help. These are some of the other Aliens in the Alien Conquest series, which she is very clearly a member of. (Actually I take it as a hopeful sign that AC may be viewed as a more lasting Evergreen line. Either that or they are just clearing out produced but unused figs from when they last minute cancelled it for Summer.) (all pics from the Bricklink catalog for demonstrative purposes) In the females face that small triangle on her chin is her lower jaw. She just has her mouth closed. You can see it a little better in the Alien Leader fig that has the same head, but from a different angle. The Alien Pilot with the open mouth will give a better idea. Sooo we are getting an underaged Junior High School Chearleader? Now I feel creepy for wanting one Personally I wouldn't mind a new Fireman, so long as they did it appropriately different from what we currently have. Case in point. the Modular 10197 Fire Brigade. Beautiful American style mid century Fire House. Staffed with the finest British style Firemen you could possibly find. A more Americanized classic fire fighter would be nice, with long coat and distinctive leather "New Yorker" style helmet. (And yeah the newer Fire fighter figs are American types. Just the wrong coast and time. The yellow and red forest fire firemen are modern California types.)

I can't vouchsafe for Lego, but having worked support for quite a few trade shows such as E3 and CES over the years. Those type things are more often then not tied to the marketing department. if it is unreleased or prototype product, then yeah, that's not getting given out. EVER! The Marketing team owns and is responsible for it, and it will be used for various show displays (being tweaked and cleaned and repaired as needed.) If it turns up missing, someone is in some real big trouble. And in most cases Corporate Management looks on the Marketing Departments level of responsibility as somewhere between a small hyperactive child and a homeless wino. So they tend to really keep a close eye on that sort of thing. If it is already publicly available released product then what happens to it will depend heavily on its cost. IE "does it cost more to pack this thing up and ship it to the next event vs to just give it to the convention center union thugs as a bribe so we can get the heck out of here a day early, and just pull a fresh piece of product off the shelf for the next show?" So basically stuff that costs more to ship all over then place than it costs to use new will be disposed of on site. Either end of show giveaways, raffles, bribes, trades with other vendors, whatever. Stuff that has a certain degree of value stays with the marketing people, and they have to account for all of it. Stuff that requires a certain degree of specialized attention to make show presentable, (such as say those nice shiny show gleaming Lego sets in display cases) will often be re purposed to other marketing projects (say a static display in the HQ lobby, or sent as a store display for a retail outlet.) Regardless show product will never ever go back into sellable inventory. Current product is considered "sold internally to the marketing department" when it is transferred to them for the show. Prototype product is considered a "demonstration loan of prototypes" and as I said above someone will be killed if they go missing. The third type of product is stuff created specifically as marketing promotional materials. Ie Swag. Stuff like the Build a Bilbo, or the exclusive minifigs. That's marketing materials. Marketing owns that and may reasonably distribute it as they see fit. If the swag is exclusive to that show, they will just give it all out to avoid having to ship it home (minus substantial bribes to the behind the scenes technical people that often get dragged along with them because the marketing department typically can't reboot their own computers two out of three times even with written instructions. Sadly I know of what I speak. In Lego's case I assume this means a Master Builder or two and maybe a designer get shipped in along with the Marketing drones to make sure everything gets put together right. Technical staff loves Swag and otherwise hates Marketing drones. So Swag is a good thing for getting things done, if you know what I mean).

I wouldn't mind the fig. But I can't think of any PT scenes that he could be included in that wouldn't make us homicidally violent or physically ill. I mean just think about it? We have; The child massacre scene at the Jedi Temple. Including the brave unnamed pre pubescent Padawans Sacrificial last fight so that the over the hill tv actor can escape. Brilliant! The "hey look everyone, JarJar is responsible for the Empire" scene. Yeah, I can't see that one playing well in Peoria. And finally we have the classic climactic Padme "death for no reason beyond terminal overacting" scene. Complete with creepy OBGYM papsmear-o-bots. That should be a fan favorite. Now on the positive side, there are actually a few decent Clone Wars episodes that feature the character. So there is some hope. At the very least maybe a redone blockade runner in its PT blue livery?