Faefrost

So looking at the SW TFA Lego sets. Talk about some highs and lows. The highs look to be the three re-imagined classic ships. The Millennium Falcon looks great. The X-Wing looks like a great build in spite of the colors (I bet Lego is really regreting that Stealth E-Wing now) and it looks like they nailed the new Tie nicely. The Imperial ships... Ugh! Am I the only one having First Wave Clone Wars Flashbacks? The Twilight ring any bells? JJ Abrams is once again practicing his "Secret Box" style of marketing. The box this time is grey and covered with studs and may or may not carry some sort of Stormtrooper. The box is virtually indistinguishable from the box that the box is packaged in.

Great review as always WhiteFang. I can't look at that Bigfoot figure and not see "Grandpa Lumpy" from the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. Damit! Now I need to build a Wookie Tree House. Does anybody know where to find a Bea Arthur minifig?

I'm not sure if "Camp" is the term you are looking for. I think Jamie's take on the buildings is more Nostalgic. That pre/post war period where the Downtown area was still the center of life. There is certainly nothing specifically "girly" about his designs? He gave us a Hotel, Grocer, Fire House, Department Store, Restaurant, Pet Shop and the Detective Office, which is essentially a Speakeasy. So he has worked his way through a typical small town of the late Steam Era. I think a safer assumption is Jamie is or was a Model Railroaders with a fondness for that period. And actually the buildings with the more complex character stories, other than the Detective Office, weren't designed by Jamie. Town Hall and Palace Cinema were Astrid's. They do feel a bit more like they were designed from a "girly" perspective because they were in fact designed by a girl. Keep in mind that things often shift in translations. Deli could be a restaurant. It could be a more classical Butcher or Meat Market. It could be a Supermarket or Bodega. And of course we will see food related buildings. They are a primary component of town centers going back milenia. Food distribution and eating is sort of the ancient driving force of civilization. Current Lego Store Policy is they can shelf stock the new sets as they come in, rather than wait unless their is a license hard street date. So if a store receives their August release shipment on July 29 they can put it right out.

My speculation is the other "Nostalgia" D2C will be a large Classic Space type set. Remember the delay in getting thing to market, but there was and remains a huge interest in CS since the Lego Movie and Benny. Castle and Pirates have had moderately recent D2C's Space never. It could also be a Western Town to burn off some LR parts.

The problem there is those 10's of Thousands of Classic Castle Fans who still buy Lego remain a drop in the bucket compared to the target aged kids who form Lego's primary consumer group. A "Castle Type" new internal IP is getting the full blown mass media Ninjago/Chima treatment. That's pretty much almost a guaranteed Rockstar status for sales. To put it in perspective I would not be surprised if Ninjago has exceeded the combined sales of all classic Castle sets. That's how much of a boost the cartoons and books and tie ins and games etc give the line. And Castle fans are complaining about this? ARE YOU ALL INSANE? This sort of thing is why Lego legitimately should always do the opposite of what AFOLs whine about.

The CMF parts are likely not a homogenous "can't be reused". Some of them have shown up in unusual places such as D2C sets and Ideas sets. Don't forget the little statues in the BBT set are CMF molds. I think the re usability of the CMF parts will depend heavily on the nature of the parts. Were they designed for longer term use using ABS? Or were they meant as short run PVC character specific parts?

Oh hells yes. That would be perfect. Give the driver a classic minifig smiley face visor.

It's eating up my office real estate pretty quick

I'm pretty sure Ideas "staff picks" are exactly the same as the "staff recommendations" you see at a Barnes and Noble. In other words just stuff that the Ideas community managers like. What they pick has no bearing on review success or viability.

I can't believe anyone would think this would be a valid and succesful business model? "Hey let's use the Netflix borrowing model that Netflix has largely abandoned in favor of better safer profits. But we'll use it for loaning toys! Expensive toys with lots of little nondescript parts that are infamous for being lost!" Where on this planet did they find anyone stupid enough to give them investment capital? Had these investors never laid eyes on a Lego set?

Interesting chart. Although I think that any correlation between licensing costs and profits is pure conjecture without more actual data.

I'm actually in love with this lineup. I know some hate it. But there is just so much cool stuff for a demented weirdo like me to work with. 1. werewolf - probably the figure I'm least excited about. I have so many different ones now, and yet they're all the same. 2. Zombie Pirate Captain - undead pirates are always cool. I have plenty of places for him. 3. Mad Scientist - while I always have room for more mad scientists, I kinda hate this ones head a bit. But love the torso and legs. 4. Witch - too cute and too fun not to like. 5. The Fly - nicely twisted. I suspect he will quickly become a Moc'ers favorite for bad visual puns and horror. 6. Plant Guy - definitely weird. Very weird. 7. Phantom - has a nice fun feel to him. I can see lots of odd genre and SuperHero things to do with this guy. (This will become a running theme.) 8. Zombie Cheerleader - my main display has a Winchester sitting in the middle of it. I'm never gonna say no to Zombies. 9. Cat Lady - I can't look at this figure and not see a potential stand in for Tigra from the Avengers. Beyond that just an awesome figure. And the whip! Lego Fetish Furies for the win. 10. Gargoyle - wow! What a great and yet oddly useful figure. I want a dozen. Actual Gargoyles. Demons. Gargoyle from the Defenders. Potential for Etrigan from DC. I'm working on a modular Dr. strange house. He will be perfect. 11. Skeleton Guy - too adorable not to get one. But a little goes a long way. 12. Rockin Frankenstein - seems very 90's? Kind of cool. Definitely different. As above a little goes a long way. 13. Zombie Businessman - I can always use more Zombies. But he seems a bit bland. 14. Banshee - totally cool fig. No idea what to use it for, but I want one. 15. Bigfoot - really cute. Neat touch with the Camera. At least in this color you can hide extras as short Wookies or something. 16. spider Lady - totally awesome figure. Witch/Goth Chick /whatever an easy to use creepy figure.

Technically Atlantis was more the prototype of the newer Big Bang themes. They didn't quite have all the pieces in place yet. But they were going for the multi tiered media push. The collectable nature etc.

A great and in all likelihood highly accurate summary of what the real likely outcomes will be. I still suspect that there is room for a 1000-2000 piece CuuSoo set. But probably not a lot of such room. If or when we get it it will only be a set that they have rock solid pre existing sales data for. I hold out the examples of Modular Buildings and Technic as both are very much adult collector lines and both have had highly successful sold out fan designed sets released in the past within that size bracket. As I have said in the past they know not only how many actual customers they have for those two type products. They know exactly who they are and where they live. I have one other correlate to Shady's point #2. Use common parts. Call it 2a, Use Modern Parts. Don't use parts from pre 2006, when they did their great mold purge. Ressurecting an old or retired or mothballed mold is an extensive undertaking. After the issues they had with the one old mold with the Exo-Suit they will probably seek to avoid doing so again for short run Ideas sets.

This! This this this. Lego actually had one of the most successful lines of Middle Earth related merchandising. Outside of tabletop gaming products nobody has ever really been able to quite strike gold with Middle Earth as a toy line. Lego did better than anybody else. It's a property that for whatever reason does not historically lend itself well to that sort of merchandising. As much as we wish it otherwise. If you think that looks good, you should see the "proof of concept" Castle Greyskull demo that Megabloks showed off at SDCC. The economics of the Simpsons and the Simpsons licensing are very very different. From Lego's standpoint the Simpsons and Scooby Doo are good examples of ideal properties. They are multi generational cartoons that have each been in near continuous production for almost 30 years. They have very widespread international penetration and appeal and at least three generations of consumers are familiar and friendly with the properties. Do you know what the easiest toy to sell is? The one that Mom and Dad already know what it is and already feel comfortable with. Simpsons is also a well seasoned property well outside its pop culture peak, but deeply entrenched. It was an ideal candidate for Lego's D2C + CMF experiment. The license was probably affordable, and not requiring deep retail distribution. Whereas LoTR's license was with WB, with a series of related movies in theaters during the course of the license. It was sold for major retail release. That is what WB would have wanted and insisted upon. Why sell the license to Lego to make 50,000 D2C pieces when the movies could sell a million?

The Death Star is iconic more as a place and a thing than as a ship. So much so that it has entered the international pop culture. Yeah the Falcon and X Wing are more iconic ships. But the Death Star is the big bad. It is the Empire. Add to this that the Death Star set is one of the top contenders for all time greatest Lego sets ever made, and you have a product worth considering.

I rather suspect that any hope of a Mumakil was long ago vetoed by the Chima team. See while the giant Mamoth might sell better than the Pirate Ship, the Chima Giant Mamouth with the full cross media tie ins will sale much better than the LotR's Mamoth without any concurrent media.

Ok that sounds interesting. Maybe I hope. Sigh. Classic Fantasy Era will be hard to beat. On an unrelated note. Did all you Castle types get a look at that new Ninjago D2C set? Hanly carp that thing has "secondary target Castle fans" written all over it. It's like the second coming of MMV.

I'm kind of sad. I think this set just knocked one of the others off the list of all time top 10 Lego Sets. This is just amazing. In so many ways. (Hey City and Modular fans. They just handed you a spectacular inside corner that you have been begging for for years). Practically every character I have ever wanted from the show. Stunning architecture in a nice timeless setting. I'm speechless looking at it.

The Pirate Ship was likely chosen because it was felt to have broad appeal not just for LoTR fans but more traditional Lego fans. Lego ships always sell well. Everyone here complains about it, but I suspect that if we were to see the actual accounting we would find that the ship was one of the better selling Middle Earth sets. Remember the stuff that we like isn't always the best consumer draw items. Case in point Helms Deep, which we all probably agree was the crown jewel of the LoTR line, by all appearences sold horribly in the big box retailers, at the $130 price point, and was likely a big reason we never saw Gondor. The Black Gate feels like a set where a lot of compromises were made to hit the price point. Under traditional Lego philosophy with Wave 2 they wanted an "evil Castle" at an affordable price point. They had Orthanc in the pipeline at an extremely high price. The set probably had a long list of to do's. So much that it limit the "want to do's" and a Gondor Soldier was probably more of a want. We got the Mouth of Sauron in order to use up the Black Rider horses from Weathertop. Basically Black Gate was a dumping ground to further use molds and parts already in the warehouse.

If they are doing Disney as CMF's I wonder what the chances of a Marvel offering?

You all do realize that they ended the theme with a gorgeous massive D2C set, right? Orthanc was the finale. Just as Siagon Alley closed out HP. But nobody wanted to admit that to themselves.

It was the basic 2x4 brick that could not be trademarked because it was a patented functional design. The minifigures are a number of individual patents combined to form a single visual and recognizable trademarked icon seperate from the individual patents.

Kingdoms Joust is phenomenal. Mill Village Raid is also a great set. If you are looking for stuff to incorporate into a Fantasy theme here are a few other gems. From LoTR/Hobbit, pretty much any of the structure sets work. The two Lake Town sets make a nice fishing village or small harbor. Helms Deep is really the must have. Also as a generic Fantasy item I really love the LoTR Pirate Ship. It's everything the old Fantasy Era Troll Ship should have been. Also don't be afraid to look outside the obvious lines if you are delving into Fantasy. Especially if you want some interesting colors or stylings. Look at Ninjago. Specifically the Fire Dragon Temple and the Battle for Ninjago City sets, which both have gorgeous Asian theme temples. Also glance through Chima. Once you get past the Wacky Races vehicles there is some interesting stuff to convert to Fantasy Castle. The Lion Temple is the best example. But some of the critters and characters work real well. I think the Spider Lair could go well. Plus the whole Beast Men minifigs can make for some different fantasy armies.

Lego is one of the industry leaders. This means it is normal for them to be doing R&D to pioneer new technologies and materials. Forget the bricks. Just imagine the potential windfall for holding the patents on a new ABS like plastic replacement? This is research that Lego has been doing in one way or another for pretty much the length of their existence. Find and develop new better cheaper materials. It isn't some astonishing new thing.