Faefrost

It makes perfect sense. The Tie Advanced was a fast seller when that wave released. Such that they went back and did additional production runs/restocks on it. The Wookie Gunship and AT-DP were slower sellers. So had no extra production time and will likely retire as warehouse stock depletes.

That only makes sense if they have more product to sell. But Lego batch produces. So the question becomes is there enough remaining demand for that particular set to justify dedicating another production run for it in the schedule? Will the costs of that factory time be borne out in further sales? Does this require extending the products EOL. And in both cases what would another run of Horizon Express be supplanting for its factory time and extended shelf space? What are the economics of those products? The Zero Sum items are factory time and shelf space. They are finite and carefully budgeted. They are the point of the decisions regarding retirement.

The problem for Lego was and isChrome parts require different tooling than regular parts. The design specs and tolerances are so tight that they have to account for the extra thickness from the layer of chrome when they mold the plastic. This makes chrome parts extremely expensive for limited utility and a rather short term playability.

I suspect that it is more Lego has gotten leery and distrustful of early production CGI character designs, especially coming from WB. They can evolve up until the day of movie release while Lego's designs get locked in 18 months prior. Look at all the issues with The Hobbit figures because of that. Lego works from early production art. I think at this stage they have learned if they don't trust the art, don't make the character.

Are they trying to one up their Iron Man Flane Throwing Golf Cart of Doom villainy?

It could be. They have that flaming head piece now from Agents. Just put it on top of a skull head and Bang! Ghost Rider. So an easy to do distinct figure that could even eat up some leftover parts stock.

They must sell well. Plus I think you are undercounting them. Did you include the little one in the Rebels BP?

I may be wrong on this, but wasn't the new shield tile piece also spotted in the new Modular Bank? So there should be unprinted versions out there. I think the Space MOC'ers will be in heaven with all the trans neon Orange canopy pieces. Ice Planet fans must be thrilled.

The longest produced model kit of the Saturn V, has been over a meter tall for 40+ years now. It is one of the most popular plastic model kits ever produced being bought and built by generations of young boys and their fathers and grandfathers. So there is some pretty good data on potential market for the scale.

There are several ways a product can be discontinued. The one we think of is it hits it's expected EOL ( End Of Life) and is retired. But it isn't that cut and dry. Here are a few things to keep in mind; -Lego, like most producers of this type, batch produces. They will make say a million pieces of a Star Wars kit, then warehouse them for distribution over the products expected lifecycle. - The two most valuable and expensive resources are Factory time and retail shelf space. So Lego makes a big batch and plans for it to last a set amount of time. If this batch sells out it puts them into a decision cycle; - If it sells out very fast and demand still seems solid they will make another batch right away. Maybe even schedule several subsequent production runs or extend the EOL in rare cases. - if the product is a core anchor product to a line they may do another run. This is not always the same as the "big set". Things like the Fire Truck or Police Station are good examples. Things that are expected to be found on the shelves. - If sales have been steady and EOL is not yet reached, but is closer than the products start they will debate between another run and extending EOL (the Fire Brigade is a great example of this) or simply letting it retire by selling out with no restock. - if there is already another product deep in development that will fill that products retail shelf slot, then it will be allowed to retire early and be replaced with the new. This is what is going on with the Star Wars Rebels sets. They were likely designed to be shorter run placeholders. Designed to keep the branding on shelves and prominent until the juggernaut that is The Force Awakens hits. As they sell out they will be replaced by TFA sets. In fact the shelf space is more valuable and better served with TFA sets sitting there as we ramp up to both the Holidays and the Movie release, retailers and Lego have been endeavor ing to clear out the Rebels stuff via sales and discounts. In the end this is simply the result of two very positive things for Lego SW fans. The Rebels sets sold better than initial estimates. And they are clearing the shelves to make room for a bonanza of new SW stuff.

As they said early on, "Licenses are complicated. Pre-existing licenses that were written without Ideas in mind especially so. They don't discount it, because it is not impossible for a pre-existing license to get an Ideas set. It just has far more built in failure points and is wholly at the whims of a third party above and beyond normal business case reviews. Think of Star Wars. There are likely some sets that might be made. But they would have to exist in a very narrow band of subjects. Say EU ships that have never actually appeared on screen or been designed or rendered by ILM. But no made up fan fiction ships. The License holder will not let the fan create a new official design for these purposes. See complicated. Lego and the Lego designers statements are very carefully worded in this case, and do dance specifically around a few facts. We know that Lego did preliminary design and proposal work for a Thundercats theme. We know this because the Thundercats show runner who was in the meetings went on an unprofessional social media tirade when Chima was announced. He felt that his show was cancelled by WB to make room for Chima. Which he felt was leveraging Lego's Thundercats work. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle. Pre license deal Lego developed some preliminary design work and proposals for Thundercats. When they decided to not go forward, any work that was not IP specific, such as character designs, remained Lego's to develop as they saw fit. So the organic cat designed buildings and vehicles likely evolved into the basis for Chima in some ways. This is common. It is all proper. You get to keep what you bring to the table if the deal falls through. And most will recycle what design work they can. "Hey Jimmy we got a filing cabinet full of kitty tank designs. What can we do with em?" "How about we create a post apocalyptic Fabuland fighting a war over narcotics?" "Brilliant!" See above regarding Thundercats. The info came from the show runner. It was on his social media. I forget where. I think we are discounting the Adventure Time too soon. Lego has a good partnership with WB. I would think WB would love to see Adventure Time. The big question will be whether they want it in Ideas? I suspect Adventure Time is almost guaranteed a Lego Dimensions presense. It's an actual well know building in NYC. Most designers work off a picture of the building, not movie stills. The Traffic Light is a clear detail when looking at the building, and is just the sort of detail that no MOC'er nor Lego Designer could ever bring themselves to not include. Plus it adds a subtle play element to the Ecto-1

There are a couple of concepts to take into account when looking at Ideas sets or designing one. They are some hidden gotchas. For the most part these are things that Lego cannot create rule around. They simply are what they are. They revolve around the concept of what we call "pre-existing licences." Which can be a bit more complex than we typically grasp. - Pre-Existing License. What this means is Lego has a signed licensing contract for the IP in question. WooHoo we shout that means Lego can make our super sweet Star Wars design! No actually it doesn't in fact it will largely preclude them from doing so. See the license grants Lego the right to make sets based on the IP's designs. It also comes with the assumption that Lego may or will make those designs in Lego form. So for Star Wars every ship seen on screen is already assumed to be somewhere on Lego's to do list. This is a problem for Ideas. As the contracts may preclude any third party involvement. Further the license holder will have absolute veto power. Do they wish to extend the license or grant exceptions to the rules to cover an Ideas project? While it may happen, it is not likely. Part of the problem is that CuuSoo/Ideas "royalties" deal. That will cause some huge issues in the case of a pre-existing license. Once again think Star Wars. Lucasfilms has entered agreement with Lego to make ship sets. Why would they approve royalties to some third party for what they view to be ab ILM design and IP? They contracted with Lego to make this stuff in house with no outsiders and no legal complications. Also as we saw with the MWT, the GB HQ and a few others Pre-Existing licences are not always known or apparent to us. We only see a small piece of the license, when product is on the shelf. The license actually runs for some time in either direction. - Pre Existing Business Arrangements or Negotiations - if Lego is in discussions regarding an IP, has recently had said discussions etc, that will likely function much like a pre-existing license as far as Ideas is concerned. The arrangement is in place direct with Lego. At that point any Ideas stuff is wholly in the hands of the IP owner. A good example of this is the Ghostbusters HQ. Lego inadvertently revealed when and why that project failed review. They said when they were discussing the Brent Waller Ecto-1 with Collumbia, the subject came up "by the way we have this big anniversary looming. It would be really nice to..." At that point the GB HQ in fact the entire GB line became a pre-existing arrangement and precluded Ideas. - Prior Art - if Lego has designed it in any licensed form, such that they have had discussions regarding it with the licensor, it will not be made by Ideas. Remember that picture of the design room, with all the nice un produced Star Wars subjects? Yeah those are prior art. The IP holder expects those to be made in house. A good guideline is if Lego has made it or sold it at any scale it is prior art. The big example of this is the Batman Tumbler. It was never going to pass as an Ideas set. (Remember class pre-existing licenses are complicated). Another example would be a Thundercats set. Seems like a great Idea. But we know it's not possible because Lego did a bunch of preliminary design work for a Thundercats line that fell through. Lego eventually morphed their work into Chima, but they still have otherwise unknown prior Thundercats art. And the only reason we know this is a Thundercats producer pitched a fit in public. Otherwise Lego will never say what they have worked on. - Non Compete Agreements - as an added gotcha sometimes pre-existing licenses may include non compete agreements. Lego can't make certain types of sets or enter into certain competing licences while a license is running. The classic Ideas example of this is the MWT where the Lone Ranger license blocked any unlicensed western theme sets. Similarly the PotC license blocks Lego Pirates when it is active. Plus some licences may block a competitor. It was long rumored that the Star Wars licensing for many years precluded the holder from also doing Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica toys or similar. Those have mostly gone away, as licensors have discovered they make more money when the licensed products have synergy and cross play, but still may pop up occasionally. - Prior Research Still Counts and Prior Failures will increase chances of further review failures - in a nutshell the first review will typically remain the authoritative one. No matter how many times you send them a Zelda project. They already had discussions with Nintendo from that first one. You are now in pre-existing agreement territory. If the first Golden Girls project failed the second will too. The business case remains the same, regardless of subtle project differences. Look at the parade of failed Zelda sets. The problem is not the build, the specific subject or needed new parts. The problem is business case or licensing, and thats not gonna get better with a new build. I believe GlenBricker broadly characterizes all of this as "Inevitable Discovery" the idea that once Lego enters into an agreement with an IP holder that specific subject will eventually be made regardless of Ideas input.

I love it. Now you need the Funeral Home next door. So you can start rumors about Bob's ingredients. That should fit in with your genuinely "wrong side of the tracks" city layout perfectly.

Medieval Market - How far could they scale that back before it is no longer the project being voted on? Some proposals sort of allow for that. Such as Ghostbusters, the MWT etc, and everyone was on the same page about doing a partial project as the final set. Other changes are to improve engineering and meet build standards. But there was just no chance of that with this one. It was clearly designed as a huge display MOC. It is wonderful as that. But it was not and likely never would be viable as a set. At least not until they scaled it down to be pretty precisely the MMV. Zelda - a reminder, we do not know why sets fail review. Just that they do. So many Zelda sets have been cycled through review that it is likely there is a core failure somewhere in the business case. Be it Nintendo, be it insufficient installed fan base to support a set release when they do the actual math (and yes I have in the past looked at the Zelda sales numbers accross all versions and done enough rough calculations to come to an easy conclusion that it would need a much higher conversion ratio of game purchaser to Lego set purchaser in order to be succesful. Normally you have a high chance of success if you can be profitable or sell out with a less than 1% conversion of fans from the original media. Zelda would require about 3% just to hit Ideas sales minimums. Zelda is well known, but is niche. It doesn't do Call of Duty numbers.) Daft Punk - Minifigure set. Very narrow target audience, one that hits neither the older classic AFOLS nor the younger primary Lego consumers. High license cost. Far more likely failure points than actual positives.

This entire argument always astonishes me. Lego is from Denmark. They are one of the largest and most succesful businesses in Denmark. A huge exporter that helps drive Denmarks Social Welfare State. You know what the other big Denmark business is? The other big export? The one that actually does pay for the beloved Danish Social Services such as cradle to grave healthcare? It's the Danish Energy industry. It's oil. Why oh why would Lego, arguably one of the worlds largest plastics manufacturers, knuckle under to or side with Greenpeace, a group often categorized as Eco terrorists, in order to send their economy and society crashing towards bankruptcy?

They do have a stated loose but effective limit in their published guides for how to pass review. To paraphrase "Look at what Lego sells. Look at what is on store shelves. Be reasonable and scale your projects to match those." In short your Ideas proposal will not ever be the largest set Lego ever made. Beyond that they don't set a piece count limit for 2 reasons. First they don't design or develop based on piece count. That is utterly meaningless marketing fluff that only has any meaning to the customer. Lego develops based on Parts Budget, which is a wholly different calculation, and factors in actual weight, not simply parts count. Secondly they don't put a limit because ultimately the decision on how big varies depending on subject, theme, and how much prior sales data they have on similar subjects.i like to use these as examples. Both Technic and the Modular Buildings have seen succesful high parts count sets based on crowd sourced fan designs. This means Lego has good existing Data on this type of set and who the customers would be. This means they might be prone to release a set along those lines at a higher piece count than they would for something like the Exo Suit or Birds. The higher the piece count/parts budget for a set the higher the risk. But the more pre existing data they have the more that risk is reduced. So set size is very much an Apples V's Oranges thing. With that said, there are pricing sweet spots. That $19 - $49 range will greatly increase a sets sales. As a result if your project can hit that price range you increase your chances at review. If you exceed that price range your review chances start decreasing. But it's not a binary. It's not a hard rule. It's a soft cutoff. More parts = more cost = more risk = less chance at review.

The people that thought that were looking at the projects and the problems from the wrong end. Something that most around here do when looking at Ideas Projects in review. They look at all the great points. All the positives. All the benefits. If you want to avoid disappointment and have a better idea of how reviews will likely turn out do this instead. Take each project in review with an as yet unknown outcome. And work through the likely failure points in a business case review. How many obvious hurdles or problems do you see right from the start? What about this project will cause a problem in review? Look for hidden licensing and prior art gotchas. This will help you spot the less obvious certain or built in points of failure. What won't make it past initial brand fit (Titanic) What is prior art (Frozen, ISS) etc. What will trigger a non compete or license partner veto (Lothlorien, Trex) etc. once you start doing that the issues start to stand out and the outcomes become more predictable. This isn't 100% by any means. Plenty of surprises have been approved and rejected. But it does let you get a better handle on the thought process behind it all. From these 13 I think the biggest unknown was the Corvette. To my eye it's only obvious negative or failure point was its size, but in hindsight there may also be an unknown conflict with an existing or under negotiations Chevy license for Speed Champions. The Star Citizen Hornet ship is an interesting case. I suspect the delay reflects more a question regarding the IP itself. Lego is looking for another Minecraft, and at first glance SC looks like a good candidate. But there have been some recent questions regarding Star Citizens developer Cloud Imperium Games. Granted it may simply be an Internet poop storm, but the questions are valid enough, the games ever increasing delays real enough, that a third party licensor might be reasonably hesitant to step into the minefield. (Personally I can't shake the sad suspicion that CIG has morphed to the extent that continuous ongoing crowdfunding is now the business model and revenue stream and the game itself is getting dangerously close to being vapor ware. Which if it's the case would result into all kinds of FTC fun shaking up crowdfunding.) regardless while the set seems a perfect fit for Lego and is well within budgets for size, theme, etc, right now there really is no game there to correspond to.

But there was absolutely nothing unexpected in this. You all complain about 0/13. But they are competing for 4 or 5 production slots a year and currently have some backlog. Just looking at the rejected sets you can see why for the most part. We all knew or realized most had no chance. Science Adventures, - let's be honest here, it's the same set from the same person. It is the leftover components from when the project was proposed as a theme. Before it morphed into Science Institute. There was nothing new original or interesting here. And likely would in no way have tapped the previous pools of consumer interest. Discworld - difficult licensing. Especially with the license holders death during the review. Disk world is a weird property. This project was likely not a good fit for it. Medieval Market - was a MOC not a set proposal. It was a big honking MOC that had no chance as a set ever. Frozen castle - Lego unveiled their own Frozen Castle days after this hit Ideas. No Ideas set of "what Lego already did but better!" Will ever get made. There is little chance of pre existing licenses getting made under ideas. DC-3 - how well did the Sopwith Camel do? Also would this be a viable or even the same project without the expensive and complicated chrome or silver plating? Chromed parts require special molds. T-Rex - was dead the moment they got the Jurrasic World license. While they cannot and will never publicly say, most of their licenses have pretty hard and fast no compete clauses. The JW one would impact Dinosaurs or give veto power to Universal. ISS - they have made and released ISS models in the past. It is likely not a subject they wish to return to at this time. Golden Girls - a decades old sitcom about over sexed old people? I'm not seeing the brand fit there. Plus it's doubtful this made it past day one of review. It was near identicle to the prior Ideas proposal. The same business case applied. It would be rejected for the same reasons. TBBT set at least is a current show with a clear Lego marketing tie in. They feature Lego on the show. The show is about a nerd who plays with Lego as an adult. Zelda - the definition of insanity is forever repeating the same failing action expecting a different outcome. Titanic - oh look everybody died! Above and beyond the whole size/scale thing is the question of brand fit. This was a horrific real life disaster. Daft Punk - was a minifigs set. That's a nope. Corvette - this one is the most mysterious for its failure. Maybe it's size? Maybe they already have one in the pipeline in some other form? Maybe they could not reach agreement with Chevy? There are some weird quirks to licensing that we out here in customer land don't always understand. If Lego had already begun licensing talks with Chevy regarding the Corvette for something like their Speed Champions line, then it is precludes this being made as an Ideas set. It is already pre-existing Art, even if we the public is unaware of it. If that is the case it would be the only new or unstated rule revealed by this review period. (Or at least what most unfamiliar with licensing would not be aware of.) Small Yellow - is ugly. Has none of the power or appeal of the full size original. Looks fragile and questionable as a build. Is a single color set which Lego does not do. (It's a major difference between Lego and Megabloks. And one they have discussed in the past. They require multiple colors to make parts differentiation easier for the instructions. They revealed this when the Exo Suit was unveiled. It was why it could not be solid bley.) By all appearances Ideas is working exactly as designed and is having great success. Not everything that hits 10k will be a great product.

There wasn't a movie in play last year. Because of the upcoming movie Lucas/Disney and Lego will be much much more rabid about enforcing hard dates and plugging leaks. Without the movie the normal public reveals are in October. But with the December movie looming any reveals will be very very limited and controlled.

It could be that. But I think the Modular release dates normally follow from when the factories free up from the Christmas rush for normal big box retail product. The Creative Expert stuff is not viewed quite as holiday specific. So it gets made in the holes between the major surges. The surge may be a little larger this year with Star Wars releasing on top of the holiday season. So the CE stuff like Modulars may be pushed back a bit.

Some of the LotR Torso's will work perfectly with some hand swapping. Some of the Fantasy Era Blue Crownies would work well with new heads and hands. The Kingdoms Green Dragon Knight torso's have some mangy and unkempt armor.

If it is their big Multimedia line, similar to Chima and Ninjago, then TLG has true hard dates and solid NDA's out there, in part because of the partnerships with WB for the TV show. So little will leak until right near release.

Part of it is simply the nature of the types of paints they have to use this day. Painting white or light yellow over bright or dark red is almost always a problem. Particularly if they are using an acrylic based paint or ink, which is environmentally friendly. The older stuff likely used more of a lacquer paint or something that did cover better, but was more toxic in production. Plus they likely used a much different production method. The "different product method" is something we out here often fail to grasp when we compare modern products to classic. Things like brick colors or paint colors. some always cry that "Quality is dropping because it used to be...", when it isn't a decrease in Quality. It is instead a minor tradeoff that comes from a major technological innovation. The best example of this is brick color. People complain that the color is not as consistent as it once was. This is true, but does not come from a loss of Quality Control. Rather they created a new system where the raw plastic is a neutral color, and the plastic dye is injected as needed on the factory floor. This means that over time color consistency may not be as perfect. But it gives them, and as a result us a much broader color pallet to work with. Old sets would have at most 6 colors. Newer ones can have dozens. It's the same with the printed colors. The new machines let them do some fantastic things. Front, Back, Arms, Legs, etc. 6 color passes, tons of detail, in high volume with the ability to easily change designs almost on the fly. The old mechanisms were likely masks and used a thicker formulation of paint, but could not easily be changed or altered and were nowhere near as fast. Which benefits us more? Greater detail and variety with some loss of white quality when printed on red? Or old style limited designs? At the end of the day innovation often involves trade offs. That does not make the trade offs all that bad.

That is just gorgeous. Well done. I love the colors and tectures on it. The fire escape is both deliciously simple and perfectly executed. So many wonderful details.

I don't mind and rather like that they are re-releasing a core building in the Winter Village. I always rather hate the collectable side to Lego where the fight is over limited released sets. By all means re-release those sets needed to keep hooking in the new fans. But I am disappointed that the re-release is apparently taking the place of what would normally be a single annual special release. The re-release greatly benefits new fans to the line so they don't pay insane aftermarket prices. But a new release benefits all Lego fans equally.