Faefrost

Just so long as they don't rework the models into lime green neon orange and call them "Ninja's in Space".

I know they used the buildings as a retro homage in the "Kingdom Come" miniseries, but that does not make them part of the licensed materials per se. I forget exactly why, but this subject did come up at some point regarding licensing recently. The take away was that Super Friends had some sort of licensing wall between it and the regular WB / DC Comics stuff, because of the specific stuff created for the show. ( it was to avoid similar issues that Marvel quickly created She Hulk, SpiderWoman and Ms Marvel in 1979-80, in order to prevent then in production tv shows from gaining separate licenses to related costumed characters).

The computer element is what reduces that time from weeks to days. But it is still not as simple as creating a new design and sending it to the production run. You can easily do what you describe once a design has been tested and validated. So once it is already on the server and has been tested and approved, they can generate it with a few mouse clicks. However even though modern technology makes the process faster, there is still a lot of testing and validation that has to go on. Otherwise we would see a lot more cases like the Batman poly bag, where the face and cowl don't line up right. Someone made a change to the figure for that low end poly bag set without full or proper validation. In theory whenever they create a new face it will require test runs, it will require approval from several sources ( including the licensing people or third party for licensed stuff). All of this no longer takes weeks and weeks like it used to. But 7 to 14 days is probably about right. As far as local or small scale testing. Sure they do it. They use that to minimize any test time on production facilities. But they still need a small run on the production systems to validate. That test run then needs to be put through QA validation. Any company that goes straight from computer screen to a full load of production plastic is inviting a bad end. Plus Lego is an ISO9001 certified company. This means they have rigid production and quality control standards, with sign off at each stage whenever a change is made. Whereas for already approved and validated print designs that they have sitting on the server? They just click go and they are in production. It is always more involved to do something new, or for the first time. Business and production process is not the same thing as technological capabilities.

It will depend on what you are thinking of as those two buildings? The problem is the two most well know "classic" versions of them. The justice league with the bluish white arched building with sculpture fountain thingy, and the LoD's black creepy dome on a pedestal in a swamp look may not be part of the license. They were actually created by Hanna Barbera for the Super Friends cartoon series. I don't believe that the Hanna Barbera stuff is typically included in the licenses, or it caries its own? TLG could create interior sets of the bases. Just so long as they don't look like the classic 70's HB cartoons. ( the Halls of Justice one is really the only one it would be an issue for, as it was a very recognizable room / reused animation cell in the show. The LoD was just a round table, so no real problem.)

I still predict we will not see Bag End until next year when they can release it as part of The Hobbit's line. That's just the better place / scene to build it around.

Thats a neat little mini build. I will however curse you silently for getting the theme song to Giligans Island stuck in my head all night!

That came out fantastic. I especially love that cockpit. Does that ejector seat actually come out? So it stays with the pilot? That is way to amazing. The color contrasts and the brick built designs are stunning. The only thing I am not 100% sold on is thoses two 1x2 trans green tiles on the engines. I am not sure why, but they just don't feel as organic as the rest of the build?

This! The problem with the transparent plastic is its brittleness. In order for a typical minifig to move the jointed points need to be softer or dissimilar plastics. So the arms hands and hips are a different plastic then the torso legs and heads (ok the head doesn't really matter, which is why we get trans heads and soft heads). The big problem is the hands which would split it they attempted to hold anything if cast in a trans plastic. The hips and arms would bind, plus the whole thing would not wear as well and would quickly fog or show cracks. The best example of this is those horrid trans clear Megabloks Halo figs. It would not surprise me to see a rare and limited clear insible Frodo as a trade show poly bag special release. Kind of like the special chrome figs. But I don't think we will ever see it in a retail set. At least not unless they have some new types of plastic to work with.

It's a little more complicated than "to save money" but that is the short quick and understandable answer. The long answer is it both reduces production time and tooling costs by using an already existing asset, while at the same time further amortizing the creation costs of that asset over more sets. Think about the production chain just for a minifig head. A new face probably takes about 2 days minimum of total art time. ( more if licensed because of approval processes). Then you need prototype testing, even for heads. To see how the designs will look on actual plastic. Do color shifts occur. How much work to get it to match or line up with other elements? Then production tooling needs to be set up and once again tested and reviewed. This has gotten much easier now that they can print directly on the plastic, rather than old school coloring tech that required tooling masks. But it still takes time and resources. So it can take some time to ramp up production on a new fig face. Granted it has probably gone down from months to weeks in the past few years. Compare that with simply using a head they either already have a bin full of in the warehouse, or you can make more of by running an already established and validated batch job. For every art element they can reuse, hey probably shave at least two weeks off of the overall production schedule. This may not seem like a lot to us, but it can be huge in a production environment with a lot of jobs queued up. Some creative recycling or reuse can often greatly aid in insuring that every set in a series hits it's targeted street dates. And can reflect the differences in set costs. ( note sets like Jabba's Palace or the Dino sets. Very Expensive because of the custom art and fig work they require.)

The Cosmic Cube escape set has the Mark VI Iron Man fig. The armor is from the end of IM2 and the first 2/3 of Avengers. It has the Triangle on the front. A small amount of gold on the ribs and a good amount of gold on the legs. The Quinjet has the Mark VII armor from the end of Avengers. It has a circular arc reactor, more gold along the ribs and less on the legs. There is also a third IM minifig which was a toy fair exclusive and is very rare and pricey. I am not sure if it is supposed to be a Mark IV or V or is simply a representation of a more recent armor from the comics. It has a round center chest arc reactor surrounded by 4 smaller repulsed disks. Very minimal gold trim, and a printed head ala Captain America instead of the helm with visor. I am thinking that it is the main new "hero suit" fron "the Invincible Iron Man" comic.

Woot! My local Walmart loves me, or must be cleaning out an old storeroom. I just found a new sealed 8097 Slave One on clearance for $39 USD At the same store I found a trio of the PQ sets for about 30% of list price. I am so happy my wife sent me out to get groceries today

Oooo! That would have bumped this set up to the top of my list.

Ah, but you miss something critical with the Monster Fighters line. Yes, it is technically not a licensed line. But that is only because it is skirting (very very carefully) the boundaries of the classic "universal studios" horror properties by utilizing public domain elements. (which to be fair every media and toy company has done for generations now, and even Universal may have been a bit lax originally as they don't own the IP sources). So while the sets are technically Lego in house unlicensed, they are in fact a collection of famous classic movie horror monsters and vignettes. So the buyers and collectors will treat them as they do the licensed properties. And nobody is buying these things for the chick with the arrow in her head minifig. It's the monsters pure and simple. Yeah, there is a more specialized group that collects minifigs as a hobby, and will react to any minifig, such as new City ones. It's a hobby or sub hobby. But the more driving force here is the semi licensed nature. ( the CMF's are an entirely different story.) The only other sort of exception is the Army Builders. Although outside of Star Wars they have normally only appeared in the Castle/historical themes. That did recently change some with the AQ sets and more importantly that Galaxy Patrol CMF fig.

Isn't the small plane from the Hulk Helicarrier set a sorta kinda F35?

I kind of do similar, but I was looking at the Vampires Hearse set with an eye towards back dating it to a creepy horse drawn hearse. Maybe by merging it with two Mummy's Chariots for the cool glowy skeletal horses. I'm really not finding the Baris/Munsters type hot rod hearse to be all that interesting.

I'm betting this. Plus I believe here is already at least one other company that holds a license for a higher end collectables SW chess set. One of those Franklin Mint type outfits.

Great review. Thank you for it. I'm going to have to think on this one a bit. Pro's; Nice new shape that is much closer to screen accurate for the JSF. Another new Jedi fig Cons; Price for what you get We have so many other variants of this fighter Does this fighter ever actually appear on screen? The ugliest three minifigs ever to appear in any set. Not poorly made, just ugly, but based on ugly subjects. As I said, I'm going to have to think on this one.

Well played.

Honestly, if Lego were to approach Hasbro about a MLP license, Hasbro would laugh themselves silly. Then the next call they would make would be to Kree-o ordering them to "make ponies now!!!" this is just a fact of business. All TLG seeking a licensing deal would do would be to essentially do market research for Hasbro. There is no situation short of an acquisition where this would result in a joint project. Hasbro would simply assume TLG was onto something, and make the product themselves. This is different from an IP license holder seeking an outside vendor to manufacture a product for them, either as a blind OEM or as a co branded partner. Hasbro could seek to partner with TLG, as unlikely as that may be, or they could request bids from various brick manufacturers seeking a partnership. For existing toy licenses TLG really does not have to wait to inquire. They know what the major licensed properties are. At least the ones in current or recent production. They are one of the worlds largest toy companies, big sharks in the pond. They have people paid to know who has what licenses on a regular basis. Yeah some small or obscure projects may slip through an initial review and not be found until a later review or inquiry, but the majors will be spotted pretty quick.

I think a reasonable review standard for CuuSoo would be that the offered projects cannot currently be under license and production to another manufacturer, at least for the period under which they are seeking CuuSoo votes. At the very least that would clean up the hundreds of similar Dr. Who sets listed. A very simple and polite "as much as we like your idea someone else currently holds the rights to that property so we cannot pursue. Fell free to resubmit should those rights expire" would suffice. It would also clear the MLP controversy instantly, because regardless of whether or not Hasbro or Kree-o are making MLP sets, they do very clearly hold the license to do so, being the IP's owners. Or is that just injecting common sense into the equation again?

I thought the city theme was their most profitable long term product line? It makes almost as much as Star Wars without the licensing costs, the sets tend to have the longest lifespan, and the theme has the broadest age range out of all their products with a solid fan base from 6 through AFOL's? As far as a new series? As much as we AFOL types love the building, it generally has to have some sort of movement or vehicle component for the younger fans. So here are my ideas. Spawn off the harbor and marina themes and do a full ocean beach theme. Life guards, advanced water rescue vehicles in those Baywatch type yellow colors. Boardwalk with restaurants etc. ice Cream truck. Just a very summery sort of theme. Go the other way ala the forest fire and police sets and do a ski setting with winter gear. Snowmobiles, skiers, snowcats, search and rescue helicopter with lift basket, and a nice ski lodge with a ski lift.

I love these! I've been trying to work through that same sort of idea for the APC, and yours came out way better than mine. Nicely done. I love what you did to the jet copter. I'm still trying to figure out a way to replace that alien pod area with a troop carrier of some sort.

Wow! I had never seen that set until I read this thread. Just how big is that thing? It looks large enough to fit a small dog in it?

The problem is the same one that TLG has with Star Wars. Their license is for construction sets. Just releasing battle packs or single minifigs like they do with Castles, City and Alien Conquest runs the danger of bumping up against those who hold the license for action figures. This is why the licensed property battle packs always have the semblance of a small scene ( at the xpense of minifigs). Things like a cannon or small vehicle. If you notice really the only time you see them releasing just a minifig from a licensed property it is as a special promotion, such as at toy shows or this months Hulk promo.

And she is eyeing the Iron Man figs in a disturbing way. Apparently if Hugh Jackman or Robert Downey jr ever show up I get kicked to the curb?