Faefrost

My 2c after seeing them all. It looks like a very good wave, which will hopefully only get better once we get the Ep VII sets. Flash Speeder - kinda u excited not a big Ep I fan. This is really just a background ship at best, barely noticed on screen. I never understood the fascination with it. It's great to get a Captain Tarpels and a few other nice figs. But not a real high priority for me. Naboo Starfighter - it looks like a nice updated version of this one. I skipped the last two. I may finally relent for this one. Not a favorite ship, but better than most other TPM designs. Tyderium - probably the best set of the wave for me. Good figs. Good representation of the ship. Final Duel - while I am not a fan of the stage style playsets, this one is kinda sexy. I like the figs. Love the windows. Yeah gonna need to find a home for this one. Imperial Assault Carrier - I must be strange. I like this one. It has kinda acSWTOR vibe or EU vibe to it. I love those nice chunky capital ships. This one is nicely unusual. The figs look fantastic. Not crazy about the mini ties (now there's a mechanic that just cries out for the old M Tron magnets) UCS Tie Fighter - honestly way mor meh about this one they I ever thought I would be. Yeah it's a big huge Tie. But other than size it doesn't seem to bring anything new to the table that wasn't already done in 9492. Maybe once we get a better look at build and detailing? But right now it seems like a great big cube of display space that could be better utilized.

I'm just gonna leave leave this here without comment http://brickset.com/sets/8779-1/The-Grand-Tournament

It's a nice looking Tie... But yeah not really wow'ing me. I actually think I like the 9492 better. I mean it's a huge model, but that's pretty much it. Amped up size.

I just finished this one last night. What a great set. Easily the best of the wave for Ninjago. It comes up to and even in many ways surpasses the wonderful Fire Dragon Temple. This one is a must have not simply for Ninjago fans. It can easily find a home in a Castle or City based display. The stylized Asian building is gorgeous. Elevating the temple up onto the rock base is brilliant. It really makes the structure stand out. The only negatives I have are Zane's glider which seems rather plain and pointless and the Overlord mech, which while a nice design feels woefully out of place with the Asian Temple. Like parking a classic Space ship in the middle of a Castle or Pirates set. I also wish they would give Nya an alternate hair piece. She doesn't wear the helmet all the time.

It sounds like it could be a 2016 Winter theme. Which would put actual retail release anywhere from Black Friday to February. That would make sense as I doubt the Lego store people know anything about 2016 Summer sets yet, and we would know if it was a 2015 Summer line by now.

I think it has actually done substantially better than expected, so much that they went back for a few re stocks. It's most likely that Ideas sets have for the most part limited production slots and windows at the factories. They exist on a shorter cycle than retail product. They have I believe 4 ideas sets in the production queue right now? So it is likely they will not eat up a slot doing another Exo Suit rerun. Because of the pop culture tie ins with GB and BttF they each most likely got larger production runs and are carrying larger reserve stock in the warehouses. I doubt if we will see another run of research institute or Birds.

We did recently get a welder CMF with helmet and welding torch. I would think it likely they get some more use out of those molds? There seems to be very little "diving" going on in the Divers sets? Lots of flying and sailing, but not so much the diving?

I don't think it was a matter of good or bad. Remember when they signed the license and planned out how many waves over its life span there were only supposed to be 5 movies total. Lego didn't discover the sixth movie until they had wave 1 Hobbit sets on shelves who's corresponding scenes and characters had been pushed back to movie 2. Without reworking the contract they likely simply flipped the LotR wave three to a Hobbit wave three in Oder to capitalize on the current in theaters movie. A valid choice as sets with a concurrent movie always sell better.

I would imagine they will time the release to the next season premier? So we may not see it for awhile?

I kind of suspected that this was coming after Spingebob and other Nik properties. While not the perfect cuteness that are Lego's minifig take on the Turtles, it will be interesting to see if MB uses their newer CoD style super articulated figures for them. MB's quality has been improving by leaps and bounds in some, if not all lines. Their AssCreed line is pretty much the same old MB we expect. But the newer CoD line is like it was made by another company entirely. I will miss the Lego TV turtles. (Never could stand the movie sets and figs.)

Megabloks just announced they have the Terminator license last week, so it probably just got officially entered into the list of verboten licenses. The Ideas reviewers may have known it was coming, but could not officially leak news about MEgabloks licensing.

To be fair while there are forums here called Town and Sci Fi, neither is limited to just the designated theme of City or Space. Town encompasses City, Friends, Modulars, minifig scale car themes and some creator sets. SciFi encompasses Space and related themes as well as general SciFi MOC's which are very common. About the only single theme forums to get their own heading is Star Wars. And it's not hard to understand that one.

I could have sworn that they added that policy awhile back? Oh well if it hasn't been official before better that they do so now.

It's an overall problem of subject. Not simply Lego's Middle Earth designs. Star Wars and more recently Super Heroes hit a special Merchadising nerve where all things just go clang in a child's mind. They have colorful characters, cool Swooshable vehicles, etc. this is not unique to Lego. It has plagued every incarnation of any Middle Earth based toys. The lack of vehicles is huge. Lego attempted to overcome this a little with the Bo5A set and the Pirate Ship. But the truth is no toy vendor has succeeded. Heck I still remember my sad lonely Ralph Bakshi based Frodo and Aragorn action figures. Which had maybe a weeks retail time. You are making one incorrect assumption. Neither the LotR line nor the Hobbit line really have much if anything to do with Castle, beyond how it is categorized on this one, non Lego controlled, forum. The Middle Earth properties were replacements for Harry Potter. They come from the same licensee. Unlike PotC and Lone Ranger the Tolkien stuff clearly never had a direct non compete clause regarding Lego's Castle line. This is evident because we got a Castle wave concurrent with them. Yes LotR had a castle style set. Helm's Deep. So did Monster Fighters. So did Ninjago. At least 4 or 5. Same with Chima. Harry Potter had 5 or 6 large and small castles. It did not make it part of or a replacement for Castle. Nor were there any generic army builder characters that I can think of. Maybe the Dementors? It seems more that WB is rotating in properties that it wishes to merchandise and give exposure to. They did well with HP and have striven to keep that partnership up with Lego. Besides the obvious DC Comics this year we have Scooby Doo from them, plus they are partners in TLM. LotR and Hobbit is less "Castle shelf slot" then it is "WB shelf slot". And WB's priorities will change year to year. They are not like Lucasfilms that was built on the single merchandising property.

Actually MB is probably the biggest long term threat to Lego in the North American market at least. They actually have a very good design team, but have long been hampered by materials, quality and distribution issues. But their sale to Mattel solves much of that. It gives the Mattels awesome sales and logistics chain. It gives them actual product managers in stores supporting the product the way TLG does. Couple this with the 2014-15 change over to mostly using ABS instead of their heavy use of styrene and they are well positioned going forward. They have been eroding Lego on the edges. The Halo and CoD lines are targeted more at the "post Lego age" kids opening up a new niche. While at the same time their often not really noticed non licensed stuff is growing. Particularly into Duplo's territory. 2015 should see them making a real run at Friends with Monster High sets. They will not replace Lego any time soon, but they are building a solid base that they had previously lacked. Hasbro Kre-O seems to be going in the opposite direction and is steadily vanishing from store shelves. Ionix not far behind it. The real threat to both Lego and MB is the unrestricted IP theft coming out of China and flooding the world market with cheap knock off crap.

While similar the projects are distinctly differing. They are both not yet commercialized and are still in crowdsourcing mode. I don't see that any conflict has yet occured.

I would argue that they do in all ways behave more as the licensed lines, with the notable exception that it is Lego that outright owns the IP. TLM is a particularly stunning example of this. They leverage the media and movie tie ins. The way they are displayed shelf wise and the size and scope of the waves vs the more traditional stuff. Etc.

Really? Because I could swear that this is an AFOL forum? One were we discuss our Lego hobbies as adults, and largely refrain from overblown false hope, hype and fairy dust. I am not a Lego employee. I am a professional business consultant with some experience with licensed product lines and the logistics of manufacture. It's not like any of this is some great state secret. It's fairly easy to see most of how TLG does things and get a feel for their patterns if you know what you are reading or listening to. Heck there are numerous documentaries showing how they do it. All it takes is a little bit of experience to work out the whys and when's. And honestly I am not here to give you "hope". I would like another wave as much as anyone else. But I can clearly see the realities of the situation. As toy lines go Middle Earth has always been a mediocre to disappointing license. TLG is probably the most succesful toy company with it outside of maybe the war gamers. Middle Earth has always skewed older. It sells books. It sells art products like calendars. It sells replica swords. It does ok with video games. But it has never found a good foothold in the sub 14 toy market, that they keep trying for. This is not Lego's fault. It is simply the nature of the property. You can have grossly unrealistic expectations about what will or will not be produced for our hobby, and shake your angry little nerd fist in the air when they decide to stick with their original decision and end the line naturally at it's expected 5 year license (1 year production, 3 years release, 1 year final shelf life) against all of your fantasy's, or you can stare it in the face deal with it, and should some miracle happen where both the TLG and WB teams so fall in love with MN's Minas Tirith set that they must have it let it be a joyously happy unexpected surprise. The chances of it are so remote that we probably have better chances of winning this weeks Powerball. (It's a US multi state lottery, the prize this week is $450 million, for our Euro friends)

They don't start production until they get the license. The license then has to cover the full anticipated shelf life of the product. Once you make it you need to account for enough time to sell out what you made. Sometimes you get lucky and sell out instantly, but typically the minimal expected or planned for retail cycle for any product like Lego is a year. So 6 months to develop and produce a year to sell. Most licenses go year by year so it's probably typically a 2 year license minimum.

Isn't one of the first rules of a tyrannical dictatorship to get rid of the competent people? Keep the brutal loyal people, but damn you don't want anybody competent or intelligent sitting below you on the promotion ladder.

More like an Alistair Smythe Spider Slayer I thought.

Lizardman minifig? I'm not sure which fig you are talking about? There are a few it could be, and none have any design or systemic issues that I am aware of?

It was silver, looking mainly like the CMF knight. No tabard. I did not notice the breastplate markings. Visored helm. The more chevron shaped shield with the half black half white bird logo. I think the plume was white, but am not sure on that.

Lego has said in interviews and lectures that while Army Builders will buy an impressive amount for a single consumer they are at best unpredictable and hard to plan and design for. TLG views them as more of a happy bonus when a set hits a synergistic point with the army guys, but they don't really design sets with them in mind. There really are only a few thousand heavy Army Builders out there. And given their oft fickle nature largely caused by concentrating multiple purchases down onto fewer consumers, they are not really a core target. Lego sees much more predictable returns from the much much broader range of minifig and character collectors. Hence that is where their design focus goes. Further there are strong indications that the WB license put some strong restrictions on what sorts of Army Builder or Battlepack sets Lego could do. (I still speculate that was to maintain a clear division with Games Workshops Army Building Miniatures Games license.)

Mostly right, but you are missing a key point. It isn't a matter of somebody else stepping in. It is whether or not WB perceives better value in freeing up the license so they can offer it to another licensor. If they give Lego a limited license just for the one Minas Tirith set it likely locks down the license for at a minimum 2 years. So the question is is there more value with this license for WB in doing that then rolling the dice and shopping it around and keeping their options open? And that will be based on the perceived current market valuation of the IP merchandising. Honestly I would not be surprised if the next review period ends with the Minas Tirith set held over still in review.