Faefrost

I'll just crop your responses down mainly for brevity. I think it would be spectacular if they did this. I am hoping that they do. But I still stand by my suspicions that if they do do it it will be a massive and expensive system. Something like how the newly announced Haunted House fits into the Monster Fighters line. They cannot make it open. They would not take this years top end showpiece set and just mount it on stilts like a classic 80's space set. Which means they will need at a minimum at least around 60% wrap around of the back wall and gate. It will need to look good from both inside and out because the Jabba's Palace set is made to look good from both the external view and the internal open side. TLG is well aware who it is buying the SW line, and especially the OT portions of it. It is the AFOL's with money. We tend to be a very picky audience. In order for Jabba's Palace to sit on top of something it will have to match and look reasonably good. Yeah it is possible for them to do an open design with 4 columns. But they won't. This isn't 1999. They will do it right or not do it at all. And that is why I am reasonably skeptical on this. If they were going to make a massive interjoined set project like this, I just don't see where they would test it out first with sets that stack vertically like we are thinking. A couple of horizontal sets to see how well they connect and sell. Maybe our long asked for Ewok Village with 3 sets that have interconnecting bridges? But to take the years biggest set, a large building, and perch it onto some lego pillars and maybe walls? It's possible. They sure do like to surprise us. But it just seems a strange place to start. Hopefully we do get lucky and get it. With all of that said. Has anybody seen any sign of the new SW sets in the US or Canada yet?

Based on that picture? I think he just opted to forgo it altogether

I'm sure they are 100% pure knock off. THey have a Lego logo because the molds they use we're cast from real Lego parts. As with any recasting counterfeit the quality rapidly deteriorates when you don't make the molds from. Purpose built master and instead copy a production product.

Some of it is it's an oddly worded poll. When the negative answer is "there is no such thing as space standards" it really doesn't convey like or support of the theme or dislike. I so want more AC, but even I will admit that it really at times felt like 2 different themes. You had the ADU sets, which felt very much like classic space, especially the EDFHQ (best set ever!!!) And you had the Aliens sets, which are a kinda retro 50's campy Scifi thing. They have a certain campy coolness to them, especially if you grew up with old black and white cold war era scifi movies, but they just don't have the same flare.

Oh dear. I just watched the video. He used the D word (Dracula) and even worse he named the butler as "Lurch". I'm betting the LegoLegal team is building themselves a MOC about now.

I think that one of the core inspirations both for the MOC'er(s) and the Lego design team were the fairly common HO scale "Haunted House" models produced by Polar Lights, Faller and I believe Aurora back in the day. All were mainly based on the "Psycho House / Bates Motel" building on Universal Studios back lot. I believe even the painting instructions for the Polar Lights kit specify a gray green color for the building. On a side note, how on earth has Lego managed to dodge Universal Studios normally rabid lawyers on the whole Monster Fighters line? Is it that they havey danced close to the line, but never stepped over it by using the F word, the D word or any other specific names? I think Universal having a fit over the Bates Motel is a much more worrying thought than anything involving a moc.

While I agree that it is truly impressive that the MF and the OT continues to be such a huge profit point, taking a closer look at the data you linked to shows some interesting trends. While the MF was the #2 grossing set for 2011, that was based in part on profit margin of the sets sold, and not raw # sold. The #3, #4 and #6 spots on that list were all either PT or CW subjects. Clone Troopers, Battle of Naboo and Mandolorians. The MF was the only major OT ship out in 2011 as well, while PT and CW were a bit more diluted. Also assuming that the sales of Battle Packs vs Large $100+ sets probably needs to be about 10:1 to equate out in terms of gross revenues, apparently the buyers really really like Clones. Not necesarily CW or PT subjects. But they loves them some clones. It would be interesting to see the numbers from early 2012. How well did the X Wing, Y Wing and Tie Fighter do? Also in 2011 the Ewok set and the Hoth Echo Base did not make the top 10, but nor did any of the CW/PT ships? Where did they all lay out in sales?

I understand what you are saying, and it does seem weird that these were left in. But I am just not willing to get my hopes up regarding a type of set modularity that Lego has never ever attempted before, and that would seem to have a great deal of technical hurdles. Just think about the degree of engineering that would need to be done for this theoretical Jabba's Dungeon / Rancor Pit. It has to be tall enough to fully enclose the Rancor pit, yet still leave a broad access for play. So three side walls. It probably has to be at least tall enough to support the height of a large Rancor. Ideally about the size of the T-rex, but worst case the size of the current Hulk. So probably somewhere between 9 and 12" in height. Now it has to support the entire weight of the fairly large Jabba's Palace playset, and still look good from the outside, so some terrain sculpting ala the Agents Volcano Base set. Toss a Rancor and a few minifigs into this, plus the shear amount of pieces needed to make it structurally sound while not looking like a girder bridge, and you are getting to a horribly expensive set at a minimum. Easily $200+ USD. (Which when combined with Jabba's Palace would put it in line with the Death Star set, which would be an interesting business and marketing model). I just think that if they were doing something that elaborate, it would be showing up in the Marketing Materials. It would be heralded on the back of the box. "HEY! Combines with set XXX to form this scene!!!!! " I hope that all the speculation is right. I would love a Rancor Pit and have thought it should have been an obvious choice years ago. This just seems like it would be a weird choice to quietly and secretly slip in such a feature. The trap door to nowhere in the Palace set, + the connection points definitely imply that they were thinking of a Racor Pit underneath. I am just not yet hopeful that they have pulled the trigger and are putting such a set out.

Be a little careful of what is taken as "copying from each other", and what is more based on a specific prototype or series of prototypes. some of the stuff that we read into all of these as being similar is because they come from the same basic roots. The house is for all intents and purposes the Bates Motel from Psycho, with a little Addams Family and 1313 Mockingbird Lane thrown in. As far as the color similarities, that is the actual color that all three of these famous creepy haunted house buildings were. That grey green color was used because it achieved that specific grey tone that they wanted for the run down creepy houses on black and white film. Very similar to how actors in old B&W movies wore green makeup. I think only the Munster's house was seen on screen in its true greenish color. But if you were to take the studio tours they were all originally a color that we would interpret in Lego as sand green. Now building techniques and details. There may or may not be some argument to be had there. But actual similarities in the general design all trace back to those three old studio buildings (and primarily the Hitchcock one). Also don't rule out that they may know the developer from that show. They may have made arrangements to produce his fine MOC or something similar, just as they do with CuuSoo and used to do with Factory. Just because we don't understand what happens in the back end of the process does not mean that there is anything wrong or out of sorts there.

printed front and back torso, printed legs, including printing on the waist and crotch portion of the hingepiece, head printed front and back, although the back is just some scales and is covered up by his helmet/headpiece.

Luke, Lando and Boba Fett show up in the companion set the Dessert Skiff this year. C3PO and R2D2 show up in the Droid escape which will still be on the shelves, so I am not sure that their absence in the palace set is indicative of anything? I'm just afraid that we are getting our hopes all worked up over what might simply be left over design elements from when they initially created this thing and were still debating how big to make it, and how to reduce it for pricing? Aren't the protoypes of the sets normally much bigger or more involved, and then they go in and start cutting back elements to hit the desired price points? When they first designed it, it might have had the pit underneath. They may have removed it in production for cost, or because it simply didn't look right with the palace sitting on top of it, or whatever. But they never reworked the design to remove the vestigial connection points. We have seen this sort of thing plenty of times before. some weird little almost feature that wasn't in the docs or marketing materials, like a pair on missiles in the trucks engine compartment, that really dont pivot out well and are never mentioned as a feature, etc. With that said, I am actually surprised that the only time they seem to have made sets that were really designed to be both stand alone, and directly interconnect to form a larger interrelated scene is principally the AFOL targeted Modular town buildings like the Pet Shop and Town Hall. You would think that something like that would work well for Star Wars or the Superhero's? Build yourself a Death Star on the installment plan.

I thought there was a metalic non chrome gold used at some point? I have an Agents set that has a pallet of gold bars made from these matte metalic gold tiles that I have never seen before or since? Not as shiny as the gold chromed stuff, but much better looking that the plasticky warm gold? What are they? are they some sort of paint or treatment?

I don't know if this has ever been suggested, but a trans clear flight stand. A sturdy long curved clear piece with studs on each end so you could use it to create an in flight display effect, similar to the very simple stands that come with model airplanes.

Has Lego ever made play sets that are designed to interconnect and make one big set? I know the Orc sets can be used to expand Helms Deeps wall, but I mean real fully independent sets that are designed to lock together to make a bigger scene?

I agree the Alien Abduction saucer was a great little set, if for no other reason the the farmer abductee minifig. The Mothership had some neat and unusual pieces, but it was too big to shelf display, while at the same time not actually having anything interesting in the way of mothers hippiness, such as carrying capacity. It had 2 minifigs and a clinger. Definite minus. The Jet Copter set is decent, with some nice play with the 2 into 1 alien fighter. As I type this I am thinking you could probably MOC up a really nice "real" Alien Mothership using the newer release of the Milenium Falcon. Just complete the saucer shape all the way around, replace the quads with domed cockpits, greebly heavily in green and purple, stick a tripod type landing gear on the bottom, and do the interior as cow abduction central. ( now if only I had the budget or shelf space for another MF to do this with, /sigh)

Batman is always going to be the best subject for this sort of thing, just because of the nature of his character and source material. Unlike most of the other heroes from either DC or Marvel, Batman has a much more closed and refined environment of settings, and a huge array of recognizable vehicles. With that particularly neat fact that while they do not always look exactly the same, they are always very easily recognize able. The Batcave is the Batcave. The Batmobile is the Batmobile no matter which version (excepting some late 80's early 90's comic sribblings that were just awful and have been thankfully ignored.) Gotham has a distinct flavor that is easy to wrap your head around. All of this is very unique to Batman. Most of the other Superheroes are more character driven and less setting or vehicle.

I wonder what the rules are for using or licensing something that is already in the public domain? I mean there is one suggested type theme that we sort of dance around. Steampunk, Victorian Explorers and Adventurers, SciFi... Why not strip the venear off of it and make the master? A theme outright inspired by the world of Jules Verne ( well and several of his public domain contemporaries.) Do a theme centered around Verne's "voyages extraordinaires" and see where it goes.

Does anyone know how the license works regarding the pre Avengers Marvel movies? Is it all part and parcel? I know Lego has the Avengers movie license and the comic related license as they are all directly controlled by and released by Disney under the Disney brand. Whereas Iron Man through Captain America were all still under Marvels in house movie studio. Are there any legacy issues there that would separate that license from the one Lego has?

Thoughts on the line? The large set, Earth Defense Force HQ 7066 will stand as one of the all time classic Lego Space sets, and just sets in general. It has everything and then some. The rest of the line was sort of hit or miss. The Alien stuff was neat but didn't really reach out and grab you, and the Mothership was a bit disappointing. The ADF troops were just fantastic. The Aliens cute but a little generic.

Hmmmm? I wonder what would make for a good "Something Wicked This Way Comes" MOC.

See, I don't have a problem with anyone proposing this, or anyone voting for it. For the proposer it's a "make a wish" thing. For the voters it's a "yes I would pay for that" thing. Neither of these parties can be reasonably expected to understand the intricacies of the various licenses. Yeah, it will fail, and those of us that have looked at the licensing know why from the word go. But that doesn't mean that anyone needs to take steps to prevent this sort of project from ever happening again. A little extra information about the hurdles faced by licensed projects on CuuSoo would go a long way towards cutting back on some of the more common ones, simply by making he creators aware of the long odds. In the end with a little more info it becomes self policing with few bruised feelings or waves of Internet outrage. And no need for rule changes or vote count changes or anything like that.

As a counterpoint to the more egregious and inappropriate placements of Flick Fire Missiles, what are some of the times or cases, where they actually seem to blend in well and work with the model or task at hand? Where do they seem most appropriate? Like most of you I mainly can't stand the things, but I do have a few sets where they do actually add to the feel and coolness factor of the set. - General Grievous's Starfighter. As others have said, this one is just perfect. The FFM's are so cleverly and completely hidden until you want them. They feel completely and utterly organic to the ship, rather than simply bolted on for a marketing play feature. - Agents 4 Wheel Pursuit and Agents Turbocar Chase. Just for 1 vehicle each from these sets. The super sports car and the souped up 4 wheeler. In both cases the missiles are hidden inside the trunk or rear deck, which raises up to expose them and shoot. They are mainly hidden and when they do appear it adds to the whole James Bond'ish super spy feel. A definate enhancement. - Alien Conquest Earth Defense HQ, the dual Quad missile batteries on the roof are a good effective and non ugly use of the things. Plus you don't have to flick them. While not the greatest play feature, visually they do enhance the look and feel of the set. So what do you all think?

The high end PoTC sets, Whitecap Bay, The Black Pearl and Queen Anne's Revenge are great. Many of the middle and lower tier sets just seem over priced and really really off. London Escape being one of the worst offenders. The minifigs are great, but the sets themselves are kinda blah. London Escape gives you a bare piece of an Inn, not even two walls, and two meh horse carriages. Isle de Muerte (sp?) and the Fountain of Youth sets are just a jumble of weird disjointed bits with no purpose or play value. The mill wheel one enshrines what is perhaps the worst scene in all the movies, and is a blah build while still being overpriced. I will concede the canibal escape one is sort of interesting for the price, and the Captains Cabin is a fantastic little MOC/Parts/Battlepack set. I shame the stuff in it does not actually fit within the cobins of either ship... or the London Inn at least in the Star Wars and Super Hero sets there is always some degree of a "Swoosh" or "Zoom" factor in any of the sets. They each have a ship or a truck or a speeder or something to kind of grab you, for the most part. The PoTC and PoP sets lacked that. Thankfully the LoTR sets do seem pretty good for that sort of thing, be it Gandalf's little horse and cart, or the big hairy spider on a string to torture your sister with or what have you. Something to clearly play with. I've also learned to not necessarily judge a licensed theme based on the initial wave of sets. It often takes a release cycle or two for them to fully ramp up and hit their stride. Look at the first releases for Star wars and Harry Potter, then compare it to some of the later more refined stuff. I think the Superheroes stuff, especially the Marvel will ramp up into some very good things long term.

I'm impressed. It looks like you even managed to work out a way for the engines to deploy and retract without reducing the crew cabin to substantially. Something that is next to impossible to do with the way the vehicle was designed.

It's a wonderful little MOC based on the pivotal scene from Ray Bradburies classic story " The Sound of Thunder". If you have ever heard the term "the butterfly effect" this is where it comes from. It really is a must read story if you never have encountered it. One of the truly defining time travel scifi tales ever written. And it's not hat long. Only a short story. The other great little MOC is from Bradbury's best known work Fahrenheit 451 ( the temperature at which paper burns).