Faefrost

It may not be a great year for sets. But there are some amazing new parts for MOC'ers. Some of the trim and detail parts from Elves are fantastic.

Battle of Five Armies is available digitally this week. So from vendors like iTunes, Amazon etc. I just watched it. Now I concede it's been many many years since I last read the Hobbit. And as you age books may blur together. But... Sand worms? I don't seem to remember Sandworms in the Hobbit? I could almost swear they were from some other book... What was it? Doom? Duin? Dome? Done? Something like that.

But in this case we are not talking about a Star Wars sets. We are talking about the DK Children's books. Which are absolutely not aimed at the older collector market. The particular book we were discussing has since been revealed to include a new White "concept art" Boba Fett (or "concept elite Stormtrooper" if you prefer.) Agreed. I think we are due. Plus it would not surprise me to see it show up again in Ep VII.

Which is a shame. The Pirate Ship Ambush is a superbly designed set. One of the absolute best Lego ships ever. Lots of details, greeblings, things to get into. All with a less cartoony feel than classic Pirates. It's a truly wonderful Lego set. It just isn't the Minas Tirith set the Tolkien fans wanted. The Spiders set isn't a bad set. The worst thing about it were Legolas and Tauriel. Two characters that were not yet seen in the movie due to the 2 into 3 last minute editing, and once again the Tolkien fans were pissed because the characters were not in the book. I'll even decent his tree. Yeah, like Weathertop its a pointless set besides the figs. But it does pretty well capture the scene in question. Plus it makes a nice small based display stand to legitimately show off the full company hanging in its branches.,not a lot of play value, but hardly horrible. The $50 price point was largely because of the new Warg molds.

But that's the problem. Production line time is the most carefully budgeted and valuable resource for a company like Lego. There is no time when the lines are not in use. Ideas has a production budget per time period. The sets they approve get made within that budget or they get queued up until an ideas production slot is available. This is the effective cap or limiter on the number of sets they approve. "Is this set worth my valuable production budget and time?"

While he has never to my knowledge revealed much of his background or non Lego / Toy related life, just from the few things we see I suspect that he has some degree of background in producing video or film content. His very steady warm engaging "presenters" voice is something people often work very hard at achieving professionally. He has mentioned that he is West Coast US, and the rooms we have seen lead one to suspect LA just on the styling. All of his stuff is made with very high production values. Not necesarily high budget, but he obviously knows what tools to use to good effect and where to spend a bit. He has at times commented on things like the licensed music he uses etc. So he seems very skilled and experienced at this sort of presentation. If I had to guess I would say prior to him finding an awesome niche making films about his hobbies he was likely involved in making documentary, marketing or education and training films. I can just hear his sweet steady dulcet tones overlaying a police training video on bomb disposal "now whatever you do don't cut the red wire. always only cut the blue..." To contrast this, most of the other Lego or Brick presenters are either from unrelated careers who are learning as they go (and yeah I know some don't care for the Brick Show Guys, but they really have vastly improved their production values and grown with their offerings.) or are younger students who are once again learning a craft as they share their hobby with us.

My apologies if I put this in the wrong forum. I just thought it was worth mentioning. Apparently YouTube reviewer JangBricks has achieved the milestone of 300,000 regular subscribers. So Congratulations are in order. Well done Jang! It's also fascinating from our point of view. 300,000 Lego enthusiasts regular going on YouTube to view his content. That is a lot of AFOL's and families. Maybe there are more of our type people out there then we tend to think. In praise of Jang, he puts on a good show. He has that smooth flawless announcers voice. He just quickly and efficiently shows off the sets with high production values and lets you form your own opinions. So well done Jang and team!

That's gorgeous. The rest of the coloring really makes me wish that the plane windscreen and those trans side panels came in trans neon orange. Because that looks like a wonderful Ice Planet design.

You can actually tell a great deal about how a line is doing or how it is faring just by observing a few stores. If you know what you are looking at. Just from observations we can reasonably tell a few things about the Hobbit and LotR lines. 1. The First Hobbit wave was likely the best seller of all 5 waves. Largely on the basis of The Unexpected Gathering (Bag End), which was one of the years "must have" Christmas toys. 2. Neither the second LotR wave nor the second Hobbit wave attracted an overwhelming amount of consumer interest. Of particular concern to the retailers was the common "clearanced" items seemed to be the lower and low mid cost sets. Council of Rivendale being a prime example. (For all of our complaining about the Pirate ship, my instinct and observations still tell me that it sold far better than Rivendale or The Black Gate). 3. Target had absolutely no interest in the higher priced wave 3 sets. I have yet to see any reports of Lonely Mountain on shelves at Target. This follows with Target seeming leery of any $100+ sets that are not Star Wars or City. It also appears that Walmart at best minimally stocked Hobbit Wave 3, or completely ignored the line. What that tells us is there was no building interest in Hobbit/LotR toys as they progressed from movie to movie. There was an initial consumer surge with the first film, which then saw a steady drop off for the second and third. This is not an unusual pattern for most licensed toy lines with movie tie ins. Even some Marvel films suffer from this. (This is why we did not see Thor the Dark World sets). At heart the one thing that is clear is that the third party retailers largely felt that the bulk of the shelf space dedicated to the Middle Earth lines could be better used. The subject matter really is more geared to the collector rather than the chains target customer of the child looking for a toy. Adults bought them largely for themselves. While there is profit to be had from this market, it is not one that Target or Walmart seeks to capitalize on. In short when the product was selling it was the wrong demographic buying it.

You missed the PBS "Electric Company".

The Helena Skvalding head from Pharoahs Quest is great for a distressed female as well. It has a lot of character and emotion.

Just to those who might be crazy enough to try this themselves, in order to avoid catastrophic injury, someone above mentioned Model Railroaders. A good source for infor. And what most will tell you is "you don't need power tools for everything". In this case a simple set of Jewelers Files (one of the most useful small tools to have in the house) will do the job quickly, precisely and with pretty much no risk of blood or mayhem. http://www.micromark.com/12-piece-micro-size-file-set-with-handle,8382.html It would take 2-3 minutes per piece to smoothly cut and shape that grove in ABS

It could probably be appealed and explained that Buffy is viewed as a PG (or whatever the local designation is) young teen appropriate horror/comedy/adventure. As some said some of their decisions can be arbitrary and can be based on quick glances at what the source material is. Case in point the above mentioned Portal project which was twice pulled and only got reinstated because the Lego fans politely and persistantly explained to the CuuSoo staff that no it is not in fact an FPS, it only looks vaguely like one. I think someone ended up sending them the game to try.

And not meaning to quote myself, I just placed the last part orders for the Corner Drugstore from the No Starch Press "the Lego Neighborhood Book". I will post pics when I get it all in and assembled.

Well yes. They originally disallowed the Fun with Portals Project because it was at first glance a FPS. Tomb Raider is viewed as more of a jumping puzzler so it might be ok, assuming how whoever is making the call at Ideas views it. But the point is Mass Effect would be disallowed long before they consider brand fit for adult storylines. It looks like a shooter to them, so it gets banned with the shooters.

ideas has a blanket ban on FPS, TPS and MOBA Video Game projects and properties.,(First Person Shooters, Third Person "over the shoulder" shooters and Massive Online Battle Arenas). Mass Effect is a TPS.

It's direct REAL WORLD violence. So Modern era violence is what is prohibited. Not conflict. lego does not want violent play that can resemble what the unfortunate child might see outside their window. As a result source and context matters a great deal. It isn't just does it have violence or horror, but what is the context. Live action modern portrayals of such are far far different than a cartoon fantasy. Indiana Jones gets away with it because it is principally an action adventure. Jaws does not because it is first and foremost a horror with the added caveat of harm to real world animals. This is all why Stormtroopers can carry Lego Blasters,must City Police just get handcuffs and a radio. Lego recognizes the need and benefit of conflict driven play. They just don't want the conflict to be too real or recognizable.

The problem in the US is not a lowering of production. Lego is actually increasing their product releases. The problem is Lego uses a fairly efficient "just in time" logistics model that largely seeks to minimize excessive warehousing and stockpiling of product. The product should be entering the stores at about the same rate as it is leaving. With frequent small sized re stocks. But right now product is leaving faster than it is coming in. The Lego Movie created not just demand for TLM sets, but a broader increase accross the boards. The as needed or just in time logistics can be at least temporarily overwhelmed by a smaller unexpected demand. A 5%. - 10% increase will look like a 20% jump in the old days. Couple this with some current logistics problems on the US West Coast ports delaying some sets and components and you might see an unintended temporary reduction in some visible store stocks. The first part of this is what is known as a good problem to have, as sales are exceeding expected growth rates. The second part is totally out of their control and hits up and down the North American economy.

I suspect that they will likely shy away from anything sourced from live action horror, that is getting much past the era of the Universal Monsters.

It doesn't Transform? The Robot or Mech is one of the three possible builds. The Lego plane is a swing wing craft similar to a British Tornado while the Transformer is clearly a US F-15 Eagle. The only similarity is they both use some blue, but different shades. The Transformer toy is 30 years old (OK I'll give you the 2008 MP series high $$$ collectors piece, which I am guessing did not play into many toymakers plans and had nothing to do with Hasbro). Aside from a TRU exclusive Japanese version import from the same time as this set was released I don't think Thundercracker has been seen from Hasbro in his original colors since 1991 or so? And heck in the 90's his Euro releases were all mainly green and purples.

I'm with you. I kind of like the tribal look and styling to Aquaman. It's kind of an updated Peter David version of the character, which I have no issues with. But the picture makes me fear that the movie will be another Zach Snyder over processed crap fest visually. What does the man have against natural light and colors? Just look at how good The Winter Soldier and the Wolverine looked. They showed that using an actual full color palett is not only possible. It really really improves things.

Actually the rush towards "technology in play" has pulled back a bit. Video games and purely electronic devices are leveling off and the drive seems to be more towards a blended hybrid. Traditional toys with a technology component, such as Skylanders. Lego's new Agents stuff seems well positioned there. Lego does use 3d printing quite extensively, and we have greatly benefited from it. Rapid less expensive prototyping and element development etc. 3d printing is just nowhere near there on a consumer or full scale industrial production level yet. It will eat into cuto users and small garage kit type shops long before it has any impact on the large toy makers. Right now it is a hobbiest novelty. It has a number of stages to go through before it hits consumer levels. And some of them will involve lengthy court battles over design rights and rights of reproduction. You are probably right on Saturation level. At least as far as the adult collectors market goes. The aftermarket is sitting on a bubble. That set is nothing new. The Creator line has had similar sets every year for Years now. Last year it was a green one.

I think they have pretty well established that Star Wars and Lego Space themes don't really cross paths in terms of target market and canibalizing each other. At a worse case they would do something like Space Police or Power Miners to further differentiate the properties if there was any question. I think the City Space stuff out this year is the more direct conflict.

Yeah like a lot of other properties the sets didn't quite take off until the show started to air and gain traction. Weirdly the same thing happened a few years ago with the first wave of Avengers sets. They released and just sat there for two or three weeks. Then the movie opened and they were cleaned out by noon Saturday.