Faefrost

I would think that any Hobbit bonus fig would be January at best. The Hobbit movie comes out just before Christmas, so a week or so after that. I still don't think we would see Bolg in that role. Given how rarely we see middle Earth bonuses I would think a heroic character would be more likely should they do it. (So far we have Elrond, 2 or 3 Bilbo's and a retread Legolas polybag.)

Your missing the point. A cracked skull is a bad thing on every level. A skinned knee from falling down while running is a life lesson and a natural boundary of behavior. We should be actively preventing one, and while not encouraging the other should not be particularly shielding them from it. To bring it back to Lego terms, we have too many experts seeking to shield our children from one type of play or another, or hyper analyzing things. Just stear them away from truly dangerous stuff, and otherwise let the kids play. Don't give the kid a real handgun. But don't worry about whether or not his or her Lego is imaginative enough. The kid is more than capable of working out the deep imaginative possibilities of even the smallest Lego Polybag all on their own without adult interference. Kids learn by doing things. Running into things. Falling down. Building a Lego set via the instructions. Building something different without the instructions. Carefully leaving the pieces randomly scattered outside the bathroom door so a parent steps on them at three am. They don't need experts studying this stuff and telling them how to do it.

You would first have to explain to Legos modern customer base "what is a phone booth?" Start with "like a TArdis only it doesn't go anyplace and it isn't bigger on the inside" and go from there.

A small model type paintbrush works well (natural fiber only, no plastic brushes). They also make special applicator tools that are essentially a needle in a tube, that work as you describe via capillary action. But they are more costly than you would need for Lego.

I think it was less focus testing with Minas Tirith than simply early design limitations. Early on they probably realized they could do a better representation of Helms Deep within the desired Price point. It was just a better setting for a set. The tighter focus and more limited scale. While still offering the appeal of a big LotR castle battle. But that's where it probably became an issue. TLG likes to keep some separation on the shelves. They don't typically want things that are too much alike out there at the same time or directly back to back. You don't release another "good guy castle" butting up against the first. You split them apart by at least 24 months and stick a bad guy creepy evil castle between them. The same way Lego does not have 2 different Tie ships out in SW, or why we will rarely see something like an Imperial Star Destroyer and republic Venator out adjacent to each other. They would not seem distinct enough on the shelf.

I think the Modulars are as close to an AFOL Evergreen as we will get at this point. They will keep coming its just a matter or question of how frequently.

You summed up the problem with LotR nicely. It's not a kid friendly line. But as a licensed Lego line it has to be. AFOLs are a nice high margin group. But the shear volume of them is not sufficient to support a licensed line alone. They need the retail big box stores. And Walmart is not stocking Lego to cater to you or me. We are at best happy accidents that fall outside their planning and calculations. The product focus for mainstream retail is kids. So the included figs, subjects and elements are ideally kid friendly. Multiple set purchases by a single customer are not something that is factored into their planning. The basic reason being the number of people that generally do that is small. Even if some individuals buy a lot, it is still not as good as hooking that single purchase regular retail kid market. A full retail production run is in excess of 1 million. There are at most maybe up to 100,000 niche multi set buyers or army builders. (I'm probably grossly overestimating this. We here are one of the larger worldwide AFOL communities with 5k members. I think Brickset has 20k registered users. ) those that would buy more than 2 or 3 are a small fraction of even that. Those that buy like you? Probably less than 1000 worldwide. When they have a product that clicks with these groups it is a wonderful bonus. But they still need to focus on their core, as the niche is a notoriously unpredictable group. Sometimes they throw us something like Uruk Hai army. But they don't design the wave or theme around that. And we are not alone in niche groups that they will try and experiment with, or throw something desirable too. UHA was clearly targeted at Army Builders. Council of Elrond was meant for a different niche. Remember LotR was the replacement for HP. A theme that did well cross gender lines. The Elrond set was an attempt at a more girl friendly Middle Earth set. Softer yet more vibrant colors with those gorgeous arches. The lines lone "Princess" type character. No open adversaries like Orcs. Was it a success? No. That does not mean they should not have tried and should have catered to your or my tastes instead. Actually believe it or not but from my rough observations Council of Elrond kind of proves some of the above points. I think it was bought far more by multiple set buyers than it was by regular retail "play" focused customers. (Those wonderful arches and colors.) which is why it's overall sales were poor. Not enough niche customers to make up for the retail ones disinterest. And in all of this lets not lose sight of the most basic truth. Lego only opted for the LotR license mainly as padding for and an extension of The Hobbit. That is the priority both for Lego, New Line and Warner Brothers. The plan was always to create some sets that a broad range of fans and customers would like. Not to perfectly recreate the movies in Lego form. I wish we got more. I wish the theme had 5 years to fully flesh out everything. But that does not mean that Lego had a responsibility to make everything. They make what they feel they have a broad market for. Not what the niche fan thinks. Hence we get Pirate Ships and elven princesses.

Ok now that is hopeful. It doesn't necessarily mean a modular though. Is Jamie the lead for Creator Expert and creator sets, plus some other specialized stuff? Granted I am not sure what Else Creator Expert might have in the pipeline? (Has the Winter Village set been publicly shown?) also if that new Pirate ship is a D2C it might fall under his domain. But I am still really really hopeful it's a new Modular.

I love all of those. Most especially the Mega Core Magnetizer. Just some wonderful work.

After seeing the movie three things will happen. 1. You will buy the Milano set 2. You will buy "Awesome Mix Tape Vol 1" 3. You will sit there swooshing the Milano while blissfully listening to the album, until friends or family members haul you away.

Yes but there is a balance to it. We have gotten so good at shielding kids from serious injury, that we more and more have started to shield them from pain or discomfort. And that is very very bad. Pain and discomfort can be key lessons for a child, teaching them boundaries and consequences. Evolving and improving safety standards leading to requirements for bicycle helmets are good and important. That is a major vector for debilitating or life changing injuries. But letting them learn to play and explore exclusively in foam padded rounded edged inflatable special safe environments leads to young adults with a grossly distorted sense of invulnerability and a poor ability to access risk. Immunizing and encapsulating a person from a perceived danger can and does in the long term lead to much greater danger. (Just ask any Firefighter of a certain age.)

This would make more sense if what we were talking about here was in fact actual product, which it isn't. In fact a reasonable case can be made that the existence of the con Minifigs is damaging to Legos brand and their product. The fact that you are railing about their distribution methods as being "possibly illegal" shows that you have no idea what the items in question actually are, where or how they come about, or what Legos obligations regarding them are (here's a hint, none whatsoever). These are Marketing fluff, not product. The fact that you are willing to even think that there is something illegal about how Lego distributes trade show tchotchkes is a sure sign that the marketing scheme is far more damaging to the brand then it is beneficial.

Harry Potter all but skipped the last 4 movies. They did skip #6 completely.

The Goblin King Throne piece is not bad for display. All the rest, the unattached bridges and rocks is pretty worthless for any sort of display and is just MOC fodder. Dul Guldor can make a decent backdrop for a display, but is basically yet another grey wall with minifigs. Some really great minifigs.

The key there is the (IMO) part of the phrase. Lego makes decisions based on a much broader amount of information and research. Things that seem obvious and sure wins to us could have been debated and decided against for any number of reasons. Let's dissect one of your speculations. An Oliphant set. How could Lego decide to make the Pirate ship over an Oliphant? Easy, because Lego is a business and they take the entire business into perspective. You just look at it as a very narrow fan. What benefit does an Oliphant set give them? A large pricey set based on an organic figure that they don't have a lot of ability to predict LotR fan interest in. Whereas simultaneously they have Chima reaching year three and planning a Mammoth or elephant tribe. The large organic Elephant type set is a better fit for Chima where it can be better decked out with play features and is much more highly marketable to kids. Whereas the Pirate ship lets Lego leverage some of their other classic fan bases. It gives the ship fans a ship for the year and something different. It gives LotR fans a broad usage set that accounts for both the Army of the Dead and the arrival at Gondor, and it lets them sneak in a Peter Jackson minifig. You might not believe this but it would not surprise me to find that the Pirate Ship sold substantially better than Helms Deep (which as I think we pretty well covered, almost everyone here bought at deep discount). We, or at least you are predicting sales based on your driving passions. Lego basis their predictions on a complex web of data, research and product synergy. We know they explored a Balrog set. Pure speculation on why they did not proceed with it can lead us down a few paths. The most likely being they did not like the results. It may have been felt that it was too much of a Bionacle/Constraction build with not enough traditional bricks. They may have felt that new deeply expensive wings would be required. They may have felt that it was too scary or demonic looking for a kids toy. They've been getting a lot of weird protests lately and may have simply decided this was a war not worth fighting for yet another Gandalf fig. A Witch King and Fel Beast set probably came down to new molds for the Fel Beast. If they were doing Smaug for Hobbit it would be jarring to do the Fel Beast as brick built. And if given the choice between the two WB would have gone for or insisted on Smaug as it is the current marketing drive. And as for Minas Tirith, it may have simply been a matter of scale and size vs viable price points? It may have been a reflection of how Helms Deep sold? As far as characters? Eowyn was the only real loss to the main story characters. Faramir is and always was a pipe dream. The best hope for him was always a S@H bonus fig. Gondor soldiers? It is a toss up. Generic figs really don't drive set sales outside of a very narrow market niche. Nice to accommodate, but other things might take priority.

Both Lego and the licensor each have an ultimate Veto over what does and does not get made. They have been fairly up front about this with the SW lines. Basically for SW Lucasfilms traditionally asks for a few specific sets or subjects to support their current marketing pushes, typically 20-30% max of the overall themes release. The rest are at Lego's discretion pending licensor approval. Although the Lucas may stear the more discretionary stuff by requesting a certain emphasis. For example sets like the Sith Fury, or the Rogue Shadow or the Ghost are very clearly sets specified by Lucasfilms to match their specific marketing needs. Whereas the more general mix of a wave may reflect just a more generalized tone, so this wave is heavy OT leading into Rebels and Ep VII, last wave was heavy PT, next wave will be heavy Rebels, etc. But no Lego does not HAVE to give us anything. It just means that the subjects and designs are already covered and expected under the license. They have already been discussed and are considered pre existing internal subjects. Regardless of whether or not they ever see production or retail shelves. We go by what makes it to store shelves. But Lego also has to take into account internal things that we would never know about. Prototypes, design discussions, concept art. Sometimes even things that do not result in final formal licenses. As another example if someone put up a very nice Thundercats Ideas Project and it made it to 10k, it would likely be treated as a pre existing license and would fail as a result. The reason? Lego had engaged in extensive preliminary negotiations and explorations of such a license 2 years ago, making it as far as developing prototypes and tooling, before dropping the idea. We only know this because of a disgruntled Thundercats employee, but much of the initial Chima stuff evolved from the Thundercats development work. But that is enough to likely squash it as an Ideas project. Do you think it is likely that Lego never discussed the possibility of a Minas Tirith set? Or didn't do some preliminary calculations of what would be needed for one, as part of their normal license development, before electing not to include it in one of the released waves? Because that is all it would take to make it pre-existing art under the license. To use a similar example from Star Wars, my estimation is that it is safe to assume that anything that appears on screen in either the 6 movies or The Clone Wars and Rebels would not pass an Ideas review, at least not at a standard minifig scale. Anything directly designed and put on screen by ILM or Lucasfilms animation will be covered as expected possible subjects. You would almost need to dip into the EU to find a viable Ideas project. (The Lightsabers might make it just for being so far outside the expected.)

Actually Star Wars, and now Super Heroes are the two licensed lines that Lego internally considers "Evergreen". or at least "Evergreen until the license is gone". Evergreen means it will either always be on the shelves, or be a constantly returning or recurring theme. Star Wars has obviously been there for a long time. Super Heroes was just named as such in their last stockholders report. I'm not sure 'Collectable" is the right word. I think "Investible" Lego might be a better description of what we are talking about. There will remain Lego Collectors regardless of the bubble. Most of them, as others have said, collecting for the joy of the product, and seeking older classic sets, or a full run of Star Wars figures, etc. These types don't really drive the secondary market as strongly as we think (and a bubble burst benefits them.). It's the speculative behavior that drives the bubble. Not so much the collector behavior beyond the basic "if there is a market for something, someone will be selling it and making a profit.".

I think it can be reasonably argued that the modern proliferation of "child experts" and "university studies into child play and behavior" have probably had the greatest role in the destruction of creative play. Far more so than the evolution or presentation of any one toy. Back in the day when we just had "parents" rather than child play experts the only real restriction on play and imagination was "nobody better be bleeding!" Outside of that the kids were free to explore. These days kids are restricted by a battery of PC restrictions on violence, ethnicity, gender roles, who oppressed who centuries ago, social justice, etc. all the poor kid wants is to play with his Lego bricks and be left alone. And maybe give his brother a right good smack when no one is looking.

It sometimes pops up in its entirety on YouTube and lasts a bit before take down. The main point is the bulk of the special takes place in Chewbacca's house on Kashyyck. So it is indispensable for modeling. (Not good mind you). Make sure you don't forget Grandpa and his pg pretty daisy machine. (I so wish I was making this up).

Lego never ever talks about the contracts. But any speculation of one movie per year is simply that pure speculation. It is us here trying to see a pattern where none exists. The truth is Lego does not make sets from every movie. Movie based sets tend to be risky. They can bring an order of magnitude more sales for the right property (GotG, Avengers) or they can be an anchor around the lines neck for a poorly received one (LR, PoP, Last Airbender, Speed Racer). They make a careful estimate early on over just how "toyetic" a movie will be, and tend to err on the side of caution if they don't know for certain (or the licensor isn't pushing it tied with other products.) We got no Thor or Thor 2 sets because Thor tends to not be a big toy seller. Winter Soldier was probably felt to be targeting a little old for their desired demo. Whereas once a property hits a certain marketing threshold they will jump in. This is often why you see Lego making sets at later movies. IM3, Toy Story 2, etc. the patern will not always make sense to us. Why take a risk on an almost unknown GotG and skip Cap 2? Because GotG is where Marvel wanted the big marketing push, and GotG has a touch of SW to it, while Winter Soldier is a darker more adult spy thriller, without a lot of swoosh ability, and it's subjects could well be covered by leveraging the cartoons. And the equally weird thing, they almost do better without the direct movie tie ins in Super Heroes. Look at the movie sets we have gotten from marvel and DC. The movie ones seem bland and lifeless compared to the more general classic comic or cartoon ones. IM3? Avengers? Man of Steel? The only sets that scream take me home while sitting on the shelves are the GotG ones and the Quinjet. Otherwise it's Superman with a Subarru and IM vs the flame throwing Hobo golf cart of doom.

It's a little more complicated than the sometimes seemingly straightforward way we tend to look at things. Ongoing licenses are a problem for a number of reasons. The biggest is pre existing art and designs. The license holder has already licensed these specific designs to Lego with the expectation that they will be used or made with no outside party involvement, and certainly no royalty mechanisms. Plus any and every component of every set in an existing licensed theme gets extensively reviewed and approved by the licencor. It has to fit into their product marketing plans. No ifs ands or buts. If Lucasfilms says this year its all about Rebels, then that great PT or TCW set is not going to get made. If DC wants New 52 only than no Batman TAS set, etc. There is prioritization within the internal groups at TLG. Once something is in the domain of the License group chances are it will not be released or handed off to the Ideas group which is a much lower priority. They will not do something that they can and expect to be doing as a regular widespread retail release as an exclusive ideas set. Like the licensor the internal group will have some measure of veto power over a project. The current license expiring does NOT leave an opening for a fan designed Ideas set. If anything it vastly increases the chances of a projects failure. Remember these sets go through a business case analysis. If the line is ending than a much broader business analysis has been done and TLG has already decided not to continue it. Further it is unlikely that TLG would seek to extend a full blown retail license just for an exclusive project set. There may be some room for play here, depending on the relationships between the parties. But really chances are once Lego lets it go, they will not immediately turn around and seek to regain it or relicense any part of it. Granted Lego does have a long history of supporting smaller niche fan markets. Trains and Technic are two prime examples. But we have never observed this where an outside license is concerned. I would not be pouring much emotional weight into the hope for an Ideas set out of Middle Earth in the near future. Even if it makes it to 10k the math and nature of business work heavily against it.

Yes, but these were stolen from TRU, so don't forget to account for the obscene TRU markup. I really have to wonder exactly What the Brick was going on with TRU's security? 3 Truckloads full of high value merchandise walked off from a cluster of local stores, one piece at a time via the front door? Smuggled out through gift bags and disabled anti theft tags? That strike anyone else as just a bit outside the realms of probability?

They are restricted to the hard street date by the licensor. And the licensor wants to very very carefully limit reveals and spoilers until a particular point before the movies Dec 17 release. Lego has no choice in this.

Hopefully it's not the same as Pentatonix's TMNT "We are Ninja" song.

Best Buys? Scrounge up a bootleg copy of the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. No proper SW MOC is complete without knowledge of it.