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Faefrost

Eurobricks Grand Dukes
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Everything posted by Faefrost

  1. Faefrost
    It depends on your definition of "least Lego Like". I suspect in many many ways the Jack Stone stuff was the greatest anathema to the core imaginative play philosophies underpinning Lego products. Yeah Galidor and Cickits were about as far from "system" as you could get. But at the end of the day they still leveraged a certain degree of creativity. But Jack Stone seemed to be Lego declaring that "kids don't want to build or think, they just want cheap plastic toys". More than anything else the line represented Lego losing its way.
  2. Faefrost
    Oh wow that is simply perfect. Just gorgeous how you got the shaping. It looks easier to drive than the game one as well.
  3. Faefrost
    It's probably more a matter of part inventory control mixed with the designers hesitancy to use precious set change requests on theme wide color changes when the existing in stock canopy colors are sufficient to the immediate products. I do think with the success of the Benny's ssS and the Lego Movie we will see a push to get some of the classic colors back in play. At least the yellow. Some of it may also come from the simple color design aesthetics of the older vs more modern Space sets. In the older sets the actual ship colors tended to be muted or basic, with the pop coming from the more neon canopy colors. We similarly saw that with the Mars Mission and SP3 sets. With AC the pop was more the overall vehicle colors and the windscreens were just a dark accent. That deep smoke. Which looked really good for them. At least the human ships. For GS they were limited in what they could use for human canopy colors as the ship colors varied. So the windscreens needed to be very neutral to avoid clashing with Orange, Green Blue etc. So the aliens got the interesting trans color in red. The only other lines that would really offer the opportunity for new colors like them are the action lines Ninjago and Maybe Chima, and possibly the Superhero stuff. In both cases it is probably more efficient to simply use what is already available from SW lines to suit the need unless a specific on screen example is required. Although Ninjago did give us your second styled canopy in Purple and Batman gave us the first in orange. We also have a ton of stuff in neon green from Atlantis and Agents 2.0.
  4. Faefrost
    While drifting slightly off topic. Character Builder lost the Dr. Who license. That was when we were allowed to post Dr. Who Ideas projects again. Similarly when Hasbro's Jurrasic Park license fell through or ended quietly we could suddenly put up JP ideas again. Now as I have said before LotR faces some real challenges in review. - it is for a pre-existing license. This means an internal Lego licensing and development group already has primary ownership of it. The licensor is already expecting all subjects without third party royalties, etc. it's just much much more complex. - the pre-existing license may not have much time left in its contract. So to release a set would probably require extending the contract. Another level of cost and compLexity not apparent to us. - the internal business group has already looked at the business case for the entire line and opted against more. Now granted the business case is not the same for a full retail wave as it is for a D2C limited run exclusive, but it is still a strike against it that other review sets will not have. - it is a very large set, in an area that what sales data they have might not work in our favor. Be honest with ourselves, how well does Orthanc seem to sell vs other D2C sets? Show of hands how many waited until Helms Deep was on deep clearance before pulling the trigger? See the problem? I really hope this one gets made. I hope they have enough time on the license and they think this would be a nice unexpected finale. Granted it's probably just a fools hope.
  5. Faefrost
    Nah the issues is as always new tooling. They don't typically put unique new tooling such as that needed for an exclusive character in D2C sets as the volume is normally to low to reasonably amortize the costs. I think the only true new pieces we have seen are the X Wing and Slave One canopies. (And they reused the X- Wing one for Benny). 4Lom and Zuckass each need unique heads. If they had put either in Slave One we would have also gotten them in another lower cost retail set. Whereas unique prints can easily be restricted to a UCS set.
  6. Faefrost
    The Sugarloaf store in Georgia was pleasant and well organized. Seemed to have a decent turnout and move a lot of higher priced stock. I grabbed a Sandcrawler. It wasn't really the event like atmosphere it has been in the past. Just come in, grab what you want pay and depart.
  7. Faefrost
    I am much much more leery of an expended 13 doctors DW series. Much like Scooby Doo, I don't see Lego being that anxious to jump into a license with a competitors product still warming the shelves. At least not with something that doesn't have a huge movie tie in. Scooby Doo and Dr. Who are not PotC and Iron Man. I just don't see them jumping that way. Scooby Doo I can kinda almost see as a political thing. Also remember the rumor might simply mean they investigated it, did a little test work and moved on. Let's not forget that Chima began life as research into a Thundercats theme. So everything we are talking about here might be true. They may have worked on a Scooby Doo theme, opted against it, then taken the non licensed portion of their work and rolled it into a Chima replacement. We will not know until it hits.
  8. Faefrost
    Yes but Chima is a big in house multimedia IP that Lego outright owns. They would not replace it with somebody else's license. They have literally printed money with The Lego Movie, Bionacle, Ninjago and (to a lesser extent) Chima. Heck Hasbro's recent explorations into buying Dreamworks reflect a desire to own the full lifecycle of their own IP, much the way Lego has been doing in recent years, or Marvel. If Scooby Doo is in the mix it will be a small experimental thing, more to satisfy politics Cartoon Network than to be a major planned Chima replacement. If Lego is going to do anything monster related it will be in house. Heck I am more worried that it will be minidoll based than Scooby Doo. Has anyone noticed what Mega Bloks huge new line is for 2015? Monster High. If anything could trip up the Friends Juggernaut that would be it. I'm betting if it is a Chima replacement it will be some sort of Monster battle game tied to a show.
  9. Faefrost
    There are 5 Netflix Marvel series coming. Daredevil, Jessica jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and all 4 then combined as The Defenders. I figure we have a reasonable chance of seeing a comic version DD and "Heroes for Hire" Luke Cage + Iron Fist set.
  10. Faefrost
    I'm like you. I think this one overall comes in middle of the pack. I like the exterior and particularly the front with all the signage and the changes to the profile. I love that it isn't simply a flat up and down front and has some depths. It feels like a real city business. I like the base prohibition detective story, but could do without the cookies. The interior upper floors feel a bit too little to me. They made too many compromises to get the neat shape of the building to leave room to do much at the top, so it feels strange. Not enough to prevent me from buying it. But enough to keep it off the top of the list. I still find all the love for the PR as the best evah! Kind of hilarious considering how savaged it got on reveal. Everyone complaining too small etc. I think it just proves we are a fickle lot until we get the set in hand. And today on Sesame Street we are brought to you by the letter H for Helicarrier Nose! Hmmm? Do you mean a 2x2 round with a single stud in the center? If so that is very new and very welcome.
  11. Faefrost
    It means Hasbro's ST. license is still in effect and has not expired yet. Even if they are not currently exercising it with a release of product. Remember most licenses are written and put in effect such that they typically have about a full year at each end of the planned product release schedule.,so the license will be in effect for almost a year before we see any product (this is what caused the failure of the Modular Western town) and the licensee wants a full year to sell their product and keep it exclusively on retail shelves after they do their last production run.
  12. Faefrost
    It probably means Unikitty's tail. Which it 1x1x2 and is in dark bley for the first time.
  13. Faefrost
    I think you are reading too much into the great cookie caper. It's a clever wink and nudge way of getting around certain policies that would otherwise prevent them from doing a U.S. prohibition era scene and building, in a mix of film noir and the untouchables. If it makes you feel better mentally reverse the flow through that hatch in the barber shop. Instead of cookies coming down from the kitchen, bodies go up and pies come down, through the pool hall and into the fancy restaurant. Remember Lego is all about your imagination. No matter how disturbing. Besides it would let you put one of your excess Johnny Depp Minifigs to use.
  14. Faefrost
    Yes, but the points do not scale with currency exchange, so some transactions will work out better than others.
  15. Faefrost
    In my experience about 50% of the product price to distribution (what the toy stores pay) will be direct materials and production costs. The other 50% will be those back end costs including manpower. Given Lego's success I would guess they probably have what averages out to somewhere around a 12 point margin tacked on as well. The price to retail will then double as the distributor takes the producer cost and then adds their transport, back end, retail costs etc. so the actual materials cost of the physical product is probably around 25% of the typical retail pricing. Now this is not unique for Lego. This is just a common rule of thumb, and you will see wide variances in this. Also keep in mind that this will depend on how you define some of those back end costs? How is manpower spilt up, etc? But as a general rule, for something like Lego the back end costs probably for the most part scale with the size of the set. A larger set has more packaging, requires more handling in assembly, more designer hours, etc. the only exceptions will be the obvious outliers the smallest and largest type sets where you bump into some fixed minimum and maximum costs. Also please understand this is not saying that the cost of x amount of plastic = 25% of the cost of a set. The plastic pellets are pennies on the dollar. It is the cost of running x amount of plastic through y amount of tooling and machinery, plus a portion of the costs of said machinery, plus the man hours to run it most likely = 25% of the sets retail price. And all of that is what would be bundled into the part cost for each specific element.
  16. Faefrost
    I would not worry about it. I think the peak number of registered users here is 5000. And this is one of the larger AFOL communities. I'm thinking Lego's mail services really would not notice us. Heck we wouldn't even trigger the spam filters. Even if we all mailed at once.
  17. Faefrost
    That is easy to see. Look at the posts above for Australian and Kiwi pricing. Compare with US and European pricing. The difference from high to low primarily reflects the differences in those back end costs, with a bit of economies of scale mixed in. The US has the lowest effective transport and real estate costs per unit of merchandise. New Zealand has among the highest.
  18. Faefrost
    We still get way way to hung up on piece count with these larger sets. Remember Lego does not design a set around "piece count". They design based on "parts budget". Each distinct Lego element has a unique cost associated with it. And the size of the part budget determines the ultimate design and piece count. At the end of the day gross product weight is probably a more accurate predictor of price than part count. Even if the new DO has fewer parts than the PR I bet if you were to consult the shipping weight you would find them very very close, hence the similar pricing.
  19. Faefrost
    This, it is mostly us trying to find pattern where there is probably none. With that said what clues or cues there are, are probably spaced every other set, given how the production cycle works. So any clues to DO would have been in PC, etc. Which would make sense, remember before PC Jamie gave a hint that seemed to imply a restaurant?
  20. Faefrost
    Yes, well new for this year and in that color. It has shown up in white and LBG in a handful or larger sets. http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=14719&in=S Most notably the Fairground Mixer. the Simpsons House and Benny's ssS.
  21. Faefrost
    I'm sure they will be replacing it with something different. Probably some form of monthly marketing that does not have quite as large of a surge impact on the stores, or something with improved flow.
  22. Faefrost
    That is fantastic. I love the lighting effects. And thank you so much for the kind words, and especially thank you for putting out the directions. It was a fun build and they were very straightforward to follow.
  23. Faefrost
    He looks more like he did when Frodo put on the ring on Weathertop in LotR. In most of LotR the a Witch King is a huge black robed, cowled and armored figure eventually donning a distinctive spiky full face obscuring helm, of the classic evil bad guy variety. In The Hobbit films we have seen the Witch King in his more ghost like form. A misty translucent glowing figure of a tormented dead King wearing a four pointed crown with his face and hair visible. The Lego figure is of this version of the Witch King.
  24. Faefrost
    "Pool Hall" or "Pool Room" is an American term for it. I believe you would think of it as a "Billiards Room" or "Snooker Hall"? (Yeah yeah probably completely dated terms). The Pool Hall would almost always be on the ground floor or in many cases below ground in a caller. The pool tables in real life are heavy slate and require leveling, so they tend not to put them on wooden upper floors. The reason for doing a "Pool Hall" is easy. It's basically a Pub, but the booze is only implied, and isn't the core business. Pool Halls tend to also have a bit of a seedy reputation and fit in well with the Detective Genre. For a feel for what we are talking about pull up the classic Paul Newman movie The Hustler and it's sequel the Tom Cruise movie The Color of Money.
  25. Faefrost
    Actually they rejected the Sandcrawler Ideas/CuuSoo project because of a conflict with a pre existing license. They already had the current Sandcrawler in the design process (it takes about 2 years from design to release), plus the current one is a new version of one they did a few years ago. Pre - existing licenses are very complex and can actually make an Ideas project much more difficult, not actually easier. A LotR project faces even more complications as it would likely not only involve a pre-existing license, but also require extending or re-establishing an expiring license as it comes to an end. I hate to say it, but I can't see them jumping through so many hoops for an Ideas project. Especially when it is likely that they already examined the business case for further Middle Earth subjects, and already elected to not continue the line. At this point, irregardless of how good a set, model or project it is, any LotR Ideas project will face a very very tough review situation.
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