Faefrost

Woohoo! I officially have the coolest Gamestop manager on the planet in my local store I was in there tonight chatting with him, discussing how the only interesting upcoming video games all seem to have Lego in the title, and lamenting that I had not known to preorder the Batman game for the Lex Luther fig, when he pulled one out from behind the counter for me! (he adores my wife and I. we're his old married couple gamers). /e goes off to do a happy dance and design an evil lair of doom for it!

Kitty Pryde is actually an almost perfect X Men character for Lego to do in a set, and I will not be surprised when she shows up. For X Men Lego is limited to the comics, and maybe some of the cartoons. They can't use the movies. This means that Lego will probably use mainly "classic" Clairemont era characters in more classic costuming. So many of the mainline "new" X Men. Storm in classic outfit. Colosus, night crawler in classic red and white, etc. Kitty was one of the reader POV characters from that time period, and probably more well known and liked hen we think. Plus she is a cheap minifig to make. They can easily use existing head hair and use a fairly generic X Men uniform print for her. Whereas Storm as an example would need a new costum hairpiece. Plus the pretense of Kitty in a set screams "not from the movie don't sue us!!!"

The first wave of Marvel has given us (or will be) Deadpool and Iron Fist. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that neither is particularly well known to the general public. Even with Iron Fist being in the new animated show.

I like the effect. But as an old school model railroader, and having lit a few model kits, there's way too much wire going on in that kit, with much too thick wire and way too many clunky connectors.

I'm guessing that the change is simply because the sets have entered the formal review period, and are not taking any more support votes. It's way too soon for us to hear anything?

The only things from this movie that might spark my interest would be a good set of that flying "Bat" or a new "under $300" version of the Tumbler. I can't see any good minifigs out of the movie. (well maybe a Jim Gordon. I could live with that).

I think we're all being punked. It will be a new Friends set. "Meredith's Rock and Roll Funeral Home" or somesuch. Yes I am evil

I love the colors in that one. That darker red with the medium blue tricks the eye into thinking that they are colors or shades you have not seen in Lego before. Very well done.

That is amazing. I love it. If you get the chance I would love to see some clearer shots of the cockpit. That lower bottom canopy is just awesome. Now all you need is a nice little light APC or jeep rolling out of the ramp

Stud code? I am really almost afraid to ask what that is... for fear that it might actually involve the first thing that comes to mind. (/goes off to scrub those pics of the new Superman movie from brain with tequila)

Because it is basically the Castle/Kingdoms replacement. Yeah it's licensed, but it fits into that Castle niche the same way that PotC fit into the classic Pirates niche and is covered on the Pirates board instead of the licensed one.

Why is the ghost chained to his bowling ball? Is he afraid he will lose it before the big tournament?

That is fantastic. It would definitely get my vote. Why on earth would CuuSoo reject Portal for the IP? It's not a mature or even teen rated game? Did someone there get confused and think it was a first person shooter or something?

They're going to surprise us and reveal that it will be a life size JarJar Binks head sculpture!

I'm still hoping for a classic fronted movie theater. With a nice complex front, snack bar, some seating, a balcony etc. and an interchangeable selection of movie posters and marquee. This way you can establish a time for your town. Although a restaurant would be nice. I don't think we will see a bank soon. They have done three banks in the past year. The city one, the small batman one, and Gringotts.

Lego can do FF sets. Just not sets based on the recent FF movies. They can pull from the comics and do some traditional sets. Like classic uniforms, fighting a gigantic Bionacle/Hero Factoryesque Galactus Or a classic flying bathtub. of all the Marvel Properties the FF is probably the one that most lends itself to Lego. They are the Marvel Superheroes that have all the really cool vehicles and toys. Fantasticars, Pogo Plane, various rockets, subs and shrinking ships. A very clearly defined and mapped out headquarters. Even a named and recognizable mailman. (speaking of which am I alone in really really really wanting a real Jarvis minifig? The stuffy british butler in the pinstripe pants type Jarvis. Not the voice in Tony Stark's helmet Jarvis?) Rumor also has it that Marvel is seeking to use some of their gazillion$ of Avengers money to buyback some of the outstanding rights to their big properties. While it may be hard to shake X Men loose from Fox, and no Sony exec wants to be the one that signs Spiderman back over, the FF is viewed as a ripe candidate for Marvel to buy back and make themselves. A remake without Marvels direct participation is viewed as iffy at best. I suspect that if they did that they would probably go more with the Ultimate version of the team. The younger teen and college age geniuses. In "Rescue" armor?

The Falcon would make sense. There has long been speculation that he would be appearing prominently in the second Captain America movie. He is the modern Cap's best friend, sort of the modern replacement for Bucky, and for the film makers that contrast between the whitest white boy on the planet timelost from 1944 and the modern urban black best friend has got to be too good to pass up. Just so long as no Wayans brothers are involved it should be great. And I would sooo love a Falcon minifig. (Classic red and white with the open chest suit please. The newer one looks a little lame, and the original suit is horrible. ) I'm just not sure how they would do the hair/headband.

Lucasfilms planned for a minimum of 100 episodes of Clone Wars. So they expected 5 seasons from the word go, so long as ratings would allow. (That may have been part of the deal with Cartoon Network). The show has had strong ratings, so so long as those don't drop off, or production costs don't radically escalate it probably is not going away. Or if it does it will be replaced by another SW Universe series. Some of the reports and interviews I have seen seem to indicate that George Lucas and Lucasfilms have both been extremely pleased with the Clone Wars, largely because it's CGI nature allows for much more fixed and predictable production costs. Once they design a model or a planet or a setting or a set they can reuse it infinitely at very little costs. And voice acting costs are a fraction of live (no makeup costs, no wardrobe costs, set design is a bunch of nerds hunched over computers, and you only need the actors for a few hours per week instead of days on end). They can bring us to a good looking version of any world they want for a bare fraction of what live action traditionally runs them. Which happily means we will hopefully be seeing new SW Lego subjects for at least a decade more. Now, some of the expanded universe stuff, especially the SWTOR stuff? I am not so hopeful on. The new Sith Fury looks fantastic. It will probably be a great seller for Lego. Unfortunately it may outlive the game that it is based upon, the way things are going. SWTOR after seeing a strong initial release is starting to bleed subscribers, plus while by all normal measures it would be a very good success... it stands as the most expensive video game ever producted (somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 a billion dollars US$), so it just isn't making back its costs.

I like the ship design. I think I understand the cargo module look you were going for with the color scheme, but the harshly divided Black/Orange keeps making me look for "Two Face in Space". Maybe darken the orange to a red would give it a more Blacktron feel while still being a sharp evolution? Just my 2c.

It's not a matter of "getting rid of". It is a matter of retail shelf space and making new stuff. Every product they make has a definite life span. It will eventually have to go away to make room for something new on the store shelves. It's just how the toy market works. Most Lego sets have a substantially longer shelf life than other childrens toys. And Lego these days typically has almost 4x the average retail shelf space of most other toy lines outside of Barbie dolls. We want Lego to stay around and to keep making new sets. In order to do both they need to retire the older sets on a certain cycle. They discovered what happens years ago when you have too many products on the shelf at once. You end up competing with yourself and cannibalizing your own sales. It costs more to keep the broad inventory stocked on store shelves than they are getting back in sales. This is a large part of what nearly drove them to bankruptcy awhile back. As far as the new series from that list. Overall I am happy with it. I don't understand all of the grumbling? Of course we will see re[eats of themes. Lego has certain basic themes in their core product lines. Things like Pirates, Medieval, Divers, Sports, etc. We will be seeing multiple yet varied figs in these sorts of themes. Here's my take on these offerings; Ancient Thespis - We have been begging for these sorts of historic figures for ages. Romans, Greeks, etc. It's a toga party! bring it on! Pirate Captain - A good all around useful fig. Works in all sorts of Pirate, Fantasy, Faerietale stuff. Not my absolute favorite, but looks cool from the one pic we have. A winner. Conquistador - Another one we have been literally begging for. Go back through the wish lists here. This one comes up a lot. Major win for us. Enemy Robot - The previous robots have been fantastic. A darkly twisted evil robot would be great. I like more robots. Evil Female Alien - My favorite figs in all the CMS packs have been the space figs. I am hopeful that this one will play nicely with the others. Diver - As I said above. Divers are a regular recurring theme. There could be a lot to love here. A classic style hard hat helmeted diver maybe, or a female scube diver for once? Should go nicely with the existing Divers, the Aquanauts or Atlants stuff or even Agents or Coast Guard or similar. I know it sounds like a retread, but it has a lot of potential. Vampire - As long as it isn't simply a recolor of those we have been getting lately this could be cool. Although this is probably the one I am least hopeful for. The perfect synergy with the Monster Fighters line would be to give us a small boy Vampire (ala Eddy Munster, and yeah I know he was a wolfboy, but you know what I mean) Fairy - another one of our most begged for minifigs. No way this one could be bad. Football Player - can go many diferent ways. Another European style "soccer" type football player would be kinda meh. We have tons of those. An American style Football player would have some neat army building potential. Trader - no idea what this is. I keep thinking an Arabic Market Trader like in PoP, which would go well for Castle/Medeival themes. But it could be anything. I don't think it will be another business suit dude. Skier - Another one that doesn't particularly excite me, but the original was popular and they like to team things up a bit. Red Cheerleader - Yeah I know it is a recolor/redo. But it is such an awesome fig that a color/hair variantion would be great. Lots of cool old school horror potential too. Santa Claus - I'll have to wait to see it. we have however been asking for a real Santa. I just wasn't expecting it in these sets. With this can we officially call the Bunny Suit Guy the Easter Bunny? Boy in Bavarian costume - No way this will be anything but good. Such a great basic idea. Bring on der Lederhosen, Ya? DJ - Follows along with the assorted music/dance/disco theme they have had going on. Disco Guy, Rapper guy, Trashy pop star singer girl, etc Cowgirl - Yet another much asked for figure. No way this one will be anything but fantastic. And lots of uses in MOC's etc. So looking at the list we have been given, I actually see a much better ratio of what look to be great figs over clunkers than we have seen in previous sets. Nothing like the overwelming hordes of female swimmers or aerobic instructors that seemed to overly populate recent releases. I think I like this list.

I'm kinda wondering on some of the vagaries of translation on that one? I wonder if it will be more of an evil counterpart to Galaxy Girl. Sort of a female Blacktron sort of thing.

Mocking Santa Yoda you are. Getting coal you will be!

The non licensed stuff sort of falls into a weird area unfortunately. It either has to be a theme that sparks a lot of attention from the more traditional lego audience (hence a Castle, Pirates or old west theme doing well) or it needs to be over the top spectacular to get noticed. And the problem with the over the top spectacular ones is they tend to be excessively large, expensive or are so elaborate that they are not a good fit for CuuSoo to produce. CuuSoo ideally needs small to medium sized kits of fairly basic subjects. The Japanese deep sea sub and the Hayabusa space probe were almost perfect in that regard. They are something recognizable that someone can design a good mid sized set around. The licensed stuff has similar benefits as there is a clearly identifiable source that can be narrowed down to a simple set. (ie the deLorean). Whereas if you just tell we the general public to come up with something original, chances are we will end up creating a suggestion for a theme, and not a set. We don't really appreciate how difficult it is to narrow down the idea for a theme or a setting or a story into a produceable, marketable set.

Sadly most of the sets with the dark blue "separatist" colors are long out of production, and extremely expensive. The only new Star Wars set with Those colors will be the Malevolence.

The main color themes for at least the "hero" side of the AGENTS theme is Dark Blue, Grey, Metalic Silver and a little yellow. Unfortunately they can be a bit expensive. The blue Ninjago fighter is mainly medium blue, but it has a good amount of Dark Blue and works well with both Alien Conquest and the Galaxy Patrol, provided you strip off all of the gold Ninja junk. The Avengers Quinjet is a great color match for the Galaxy Patrol. It is a darker grey with Dark Blue.