Faefrost

TLG traditionally likes at least one unlicensed action line. So I can easily see some sort of Heroes of Mythology type line. I am not sure what else is left that they have not delved into? Maybe some sort oh high tech scientist line? Think Fantastic Four or Challengers of the Unknown? So long as it didn't get to overtly political / environmental there could be something new there? Or we could always lobby them excessively for an Agents 3.0 line

The Grandma Visitor / Red Riding Hood minifig is a great little medieval civilian fig. And one that adds a nice splash of color to your scenes.

Thanks for the review. I just got this set tonight and have been sitting here playing with it. I'm actually kind of impressed with Gandalf's little cart. There is much m ore to it, and a much more involved build than a typical Castle / Kingdoms /etc small horse cart. It's by no means a major piece. But it is a pleasant little surprise when you put it together. I'm still undecided on the new horses. Yeah they can rear up. But then you end up spending a minute on a hard surface getting their front and rears aligned again so they stand straight. It's a cool feature, but one I could have lived without. It's just a cute little set. A nice break from the onslaught of orcs vs hobbits/elves/wizard/dwarves/themselves/etc that is all the other sets. Just a nice simple scene before all of the swords get pulled out.

Similar. I just found those three at TRU near Atlanta, GA I love the little Gandalf Arrives set. 2 nice figs and the cart is actually a much more substantial build than iwas expecting. Good Stuff! I just hope these new "pinkies" don't clash to badly with the local villages "lemon heads", they are ever so distrustful of strangers

It looks like this next wave is starting to hit store shelves in the states. TRU had a few of the mining themed sets sitting alongside the new LotR and Monster Hunters sets today.

There have been rumors swirling that one of the yet unnamed movies in some stage of production is a modern (abnett and Lansing) version of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Among other things that would probably put Drax the Destroyer on the board. If that is the case we may see an escalating story arch with Thanos building over several properties and movies that finally climaxes in the next Avengers one. I really hope this is the case. I so want Starlord, Rocket Racoon and Groot minifigs.

I much prefer expressive minifigures. Ones that convey something and add to the scene or story. I think the current releases of figures have been superb at that. The Alien Conquest expressions or even ehe Collectables Minifigs are probably the best they have ever done. I don't care as much for the classic blank look. I don't mind it, but it's not my preference. I really dislike those overblown expressions they used in some of the early 2000's sets such as the Alpha Team stuff. Way too much.

You would be surprised. I noticed threads and links to the BTTF set, the Eve set, The Firefly set and the Sean of the Dead set on a host of non Lego blogs and forums. And obviously as soon as these popped up support for those projects surged. But in that same short period he number of votes for the Western Town also doubled. I know for a fact it received a good amount of support from non Lego hobbiest sites such as Starshipmodeler.com. The people came in to vote for their spaceship or DeLorean, saw that it was something worthwhile and supported it. ( the fact hat it also would go nicely with either a BTTF set or a Firefly setting certainly did not hurt it.) All I am saying is don't sell the more dedicated fanboys short. Yeah they tend to rabidly support their given subject. But they are for the most part still broad members of the nerd community. They like nerd type hings like really cool Lego sets. They as a group if not as individuals, are quite capable of recognizing quality and supporting it. While they would not have actively sought out something like CuuSoo or the Western Town on their own. Once their special interest brought them here and put their eyeballs on it, they liked it. The whole secret to CuuSoo working is that drive to get eyeballs looking at the projects. If it takes some obviously fan based licensed dreams to do that. So be it. I think we all come out ahead. Remember CuuSoo is not. Zero sum game. The projects don't compete. Supporting one does not take from the other. One of our skilled MOC'ers can create the most amazing Castle project. Something really desirable. But to really generate some interest in it, it sure helps to have all those LotR fans looking at it. So yeah the rabid specific subject fanboys actually benefit us, the AFOL, far more than we realize. Plus, show of hands here... How many of us were brought back out of our " dark Ages" by licensed Lego properties? Star Wars? PotC? Harry Potter? Why fuss about something that has the strong potential to do the same for others?

It sounds like a fantastic group moc build for a club or something similar. Maybe even a public display at a new mall Lego store. ( build the mall in the mall). I can't see it as a line of sets however. To many licensing issues. No way to interact with vehicles so limited play value, etc. there are better more traditional themes they could do to target that more AFOL niche group.

I am not sure if anyone has noticed some interesting and unexpected effects happening on CuuSoo lately? While the OP's original premise may still hold true, that CuuSoo does seem overly driven by pop culture fandom of specific things, something weird and unexpected seems to have happened. Yes, the rabid property fans discovered CuuSoo and came out of the woodwork to support their special interests like the Firefly set, the Sean of the Dead set and the Eve Online ship. All of these, and the Zelda and Back to the Future projects the rocketed up to 10k votes almost overnight. OK we sort of expected that... But then the western town shot up riding that same surge of eyeballs. As have the generic space marines. So the rabid fan base is attracting people to look at the site for the first time. ( and really it is, in the past 2 weeks I have seen it mentioned and linked in all sorts of non Lego forums. Sci if, modeling, etc) but once these rabid single purpose fans get there, they take the time to look around, and they also take the time to vote for or support the good stuff, regardless of license. And many of these viewers are quite good at least in aggregate, at recognizing good works, and ignoring the cheese. I'm not sure that this is the bad thing that everyone feared it would be?

I'm mixed on this. As an old school model maker scratch builder I often find myself tempted to modify or custom create elements to do what I want. But then I stop myself, because that is very counter to the actual Lego hobby. Part of the challenge here is to use the available pieces to accomplish your goal. It is part of the puzzle and part of the fun. ( although I remain tempted to custom paint or slice up a few of those darned green base plates in order to make affordable and reasonable display bases) Minifigs are an entirely different matter. I fully recognize minifigs customization as a hobby unto itself, and appreciate he aftermarket stuff to assist in that. So long as a fig is presented and identified as a custom one, it's not only ok, it's an admirable skill.

To be fair to them, I think there probably were a lot of discussions in TLG regarding the Winchester. I think a good portion of the people there truly loved the MOC, and here was probably some serious debate about how far they wanted to extend the Adult category for their upper end AFOL lines, like the modular buildings. In the end, after much debate they came to the conclusion that they should maintain a certain degree of 6 to 12 friendliness in subject matter across anything carrying the Lego brand label. It's a business decision we can all understand. But I think it was debate regarding that wonderful moc that got them to argue it out and quantify it. So there really was no way to know ahead of time which way they would go with the Winchester, and I think we all greatly benefited because of that. However once they made that decision, the Serenity one was pretty much a given. I do wish here was a more middle ground area. Some sort of "forbidden Lego" line where we could more easily see things like the Winchester. Although I know that if there was it would probably rapidly degenerate it to some something oddly reminiscent of the Second Life MMO. Intelligent adult subjects rapidly giving way to ever increasing deviancy and and weirdness.

I don't see anything wrong with feeling the packets. At least if you are looking for one or two specific figs. So long as it is done with what is essentially a personal use purpose. Trying to get the one fig you need for your set is perfectly acceptable. Trying to get a reasonable number of a specicpfic fig for an army / moc / diorama is also reasonable in moderation. Looting every one of the specific high value figs from every box in a store so you can ebay or Bricklink them however is really rude. Find and get what you need, but leave some for others. As for the derogatory comments on Army building? Really? How is it any different from the literally hundreds of similar hobbies that have gone before it, for hundreds of years? Toy soldiers? Model railroading, and the large dioramas they entail? Dollhouses? Adults have regularly taken part in all of those since, in some cases, the 17 th or 18th centuries. This is just another outlet of the same.

It would not surprise me if Lego has not been keeping an eye on this one, especially when it became clear that it was approaching the 10k mark. This might be an example of the opposite effect of them pre evaluating the Serenity project. They may have known or decided for awhile now that this is a very good candidate to produce, with little to no downside. The fact that it received such a huge degree of support with no underlying pop culture license has got to be something that they were paying attention to. Regardless congrats to mb_bricks! I think this was my absolute favorite project on CuuSoo and I am so looking forward to it getting made. :wub: Nono! HISTORICAL Drunken debauchery is OK! It's modern drunk and disorderly conduct that is banned. So Dwarves and Vikings can quaff away! But they aren't going to release a sports bar set or a modern brewery (which is sort of a shame as a brewery would be cool). I suspect that the alcohol ban has more to do with putting it in the modern "vehicle and automobile" themed setting. The cutoff seems to be circa WW I. So an old west saloon should be ok. I'm sure that there has got to be a way to slip a western cat house past them? Maybe set it up as a musical stage number with a Dolly Parton and a Burt Reynolds minifig?

Looks great, and yeah I wish they would release a nice new version of that set. Something bigger with a ton of figs. One weird detail from the actual scene that is somewhat easy to sort of re create in Lego. In ep IV, behind the bar is this sort of complicated looking "expresso machine" type thing. A tall tapered cylander with details. This part would be re used in ep V to become the head of IG88. So the head of an assassin droid works well as a bar detail.

Sadly I think a reasonably obscure UK company already has the Dr Who construction set license. Their stuff has been shown off at Toy Fairs etc. Personally I don't like it and would much prefer Lego.

Wow! How did this thread get so far afield to all of this nonsense. I would encourage everyone to step back, and put down the kimono minifigs. Just back away from them. Somehow an argument is being made that Lego is hypocritical in their standards or production decisions in some way? I'm not buying into that. I think they have been applying reasonable and fairly common community standards regarding age appropriate materials, and we, like the finest of Internet message board dwellers are doing our truly epic best to pull out an ever escalating list of minutiae, rules, wiki articles etc, in our valiant attempt to once again fail to see the Forrest for the trees. The core of Lego's decision making process is this. Their core customer is a child between 6 at the lower age range and 12 at the upper. The key question when evaluating CuuSoo projects is, regardless of the actual intended audience of the project, would it be appropriate for some or all of that broad age range of customers. So, Star Wars is targeted straight at 10 to 12 year olds. Straight into their brain. No confusion, no truly reported damage even after 30+ years of exposure ( beyond a tendency to grow up and continue playing with toys), Pirates of the Caribean, same thing. Source material targeted at around 11. Harry Potter was designed to lead a child through 11 to 17. We all understand this. Just as we all understand that we would probably choose to refrain from taking our 8 or 10 year old sibling to a showing of Sean of the Dead. We will probably leave the 6year old home for Promethius, and we would expect to be having a lot of talks with them over firefly. Lego has made it clear they essentially use a parents judgement for such decisions. And the vast majority of us really do understand this. We simply choose to play stupid to stir an argument on the Internet. Are there exceptions to these Lego rules? Sure, there are sometimes things that happen, especially with licensed materials, that can cause unexpected problems.christpher Nolan's Dark Knight is the best example. Lego had the DEC batman theme, which had always been comfortably on the 10 to 11 range comfortably and often was appropriate for lower, depending on which source was used. And then the Nolan Dark Knight gets dropped on them. They responded the best way they could. Kept he license look and feel as it traditionally was, just pulled in some basic things from the new movie, like the Tumbler. Kept everything else as if it was from the earlier media, and quickly moved past it. It's a little schizophrenic but it isn't hypocritical. It is just the application of common sense for problem solving in a specific instance. Looking at projects put forth on CuuSoo most of us can predict what will go through and what will encounter these issues. It isn't morality policies, it is the application of good old fashioned common sense. Something the modern world seems to strive to teach less and less.

I' having the same issue. Both from my pc and iPad. Any index search just returns a blank blue page.

I love the more period feel to the modular sets. But there is a subtle problem with looking to do a more specifically targeted "semi modern" historical time period. It is the more European and International nature of Lego itself. Remember that parts of even the modern industrialized world were radically different at different time periods as a result of WW I and WW II. There is that certain idealic view that we have of the late 1940's and into the 1950's. That time before the advent of shopping malls and interstates when Main Street was still Main Street, and yet we were seeing the modern aspects of cars and transportation etc. Even if we broaden this period out to include most of the 30's, we forget that what we are actually thinking of is the North America, the US and Canada during that time period. Europe had some very differing development patterns. That 1940's to 50's period was the post war period of rebuilding for them. That more smaller town feel would have occurred earlier, before the Wars. This isn't to say that their aren't plenty of good modeling subjects from the entire early 20th century across the boards. Just that it is a little harder to do as a global theme then you might think. Turn of the Century or Victorian stuff is much easier in part because it is far enough back that the lines can get blurred a bit. The reasons why Lego shy's away from things between WW I and what could reasonably be considered "modern or current" are subtler than we might think, but they are there. About the best they can really do is that generally accepted nondescript "Christmas Village" type time period that seems to be hard coded into everyone's heads these days, that exists somewhere between Dickens and It's a Wonderful Life, with shades of Ralphie and a Christmas Story. It exists somewhere mid 20th century, but exactly when is dependent on the observer. It exists somewhere outside of the actual horrors and changes that the world underwent during that time.

That looks fantastic. I love the detailed interior and the way it separates. I especially love the lines of the ship. Is it based on anything in particular? It reminds me of something, I just can't place what?

I think the Ghostbusters have been called to deal with that demonically possessed talking tow truck that seems to be roaming the streets. And I am laughing, I just bought that heavy lift helicopter expressly for this same purpose. Refitting it as an ADU transport. Or maybe to swoop the Legoland President in in an attempt to negotiate with them? ( why oh why do I keep picturing Steven Colberts animated President from Monsters vs Aliens?)

For giant man they just toss one of those huge minifigs with the led flashlight in the feet in the box

This was possibly the best set of 2011, and will probably remain as an all time classic of the space line. A must have if you can still find one at a reasonable price.

Oh man there is so much good stuff in that huge MOC. But I think my absolute favorite is the line of aliens waiting to get into Hooters.

I think a Lego Sesame Street would be one of the most brilliant things they could do. I still remember the classic Fisher Price Little People Sesame Street set as one of my most favorite toys ever. OK bear with me on this one... This is more of an idea than it is a desire... and it dips dangerously into "Friends" teritory, which always seems to stir up a certain portion of the viewing audience. Given Lego's already extensive licensing with Disney, and given the success of their 6-12 targeted girls line, Friends, why not merge the two or rather spin off from both, and do a full blown Disney Pricesses line? Something other than the current Duplo. Full Blown real Lego treatment of the subjects. Snow Whites cottage with the Dwarves, Rapunzels Tower, etc, and just imagine a full blown top end set of Cinderella's Castle?