Faefrost

They have outright said that the Exosuit is getting another run. Chances are so is the RI.

It depends. I got the impression from some of Filoni's interviews that there are 2 TCW story arcs that he might be looking to finish up in Rebels. One would be to complete the growing up of Boba Fett and get him into the classic armor. The other was what happened to Rex? And if they go into Rex I could see Geonosis coming up. Also I don't think the merchandising machine will be quite as binary as we can be, drawing shard distinctions between PT, OT,TCW, Rebels and New Trilogy? While we may not see any full blown TCW ships, Jedi, etc. the colorful distinctive and often oddly individualized Clones are still wildly popular. I can see a set with them, just not another Twilight etc. just as we saw classic OT sets all through the PT and TCW push, I think we may see certain popular elements of TCW persist going forward, just be de emphasized.

Maybe not the Arkham version exactly. But that version is rather close to the Arrow version. Which we most likely do have a good chance of seeing.

Captain America the First Avenger is set in 1943-44. Beyond that it is pretty much left to your impression. It helps them age better and feel less dated. My take is there is probably almost 2 years from the beginning of IM1 to the end of Avengers. With a good chunk of that being Tony Stark in a cave. I get the feeling that most of the heroes started popping up within a year or so. What time cues there are are subtle at best. How long does it take Stark to build a building? How long would it take Shield to convert the Destroyer from the end of Thor, Into a gun, used by Coulson in Avengers and later AoS? The Phase 2 films seem to start 6 months to a year after Avengers.

He might be teasing a few things. Marvel has been kicking around an Inhumans film for ages. If they make one it would make perfect sense for it to bridge with GotG. The whole modern era War of Kings is basically an Inhumans GotG story. Heck they may actually give Groot the backstory of being an Inhuman. That would make some sense. As far as Vin Diesel not realizing he was trolling fans. Doubtful. In spite of his buffed up appearance and action hero career Vin is actually one of us. Old school nerdling raised on comics and D&D. (He still famously runs D&D campaigns on his movie sets with other members of the production.)

The stud receiver side of the arms clutches a little too loose. You can also see the same issue, just not as bad, with the small robots in Benny's ssS. The mold problem apparently got worse in the exo suit. After the Exosuit they had to retire the mold and had a new one made. This was apparently the original 30+ year old classic space robot arm mold that finally wore out. somehow it seems rather fitting for its last run to be the ExoSuit.

It depends on what you consider their priorities list. As I said above the PR releasing in January right after Christmas struck me as strange. The Modulars (and heck MOST of the D2C sets) more typically release at off cycle points. Lego does something like 80% of their tot al sales in 4Q between October and leading into Christmas. The Modulars always seemed to capitalize on that lul after the seasonal rush. So you are correct, they are not a Holiday Season priority. They are an off peak product line. But a steady most likely profitable one that seems to steadily bring in their new older generation of adult fans. I don't think they will give Modulars priority over getting Ninjago or Chima or Star Wars onto the shelves for Santa to deliver. But that does not mean they are by any means a low priority in the full calender.

Has anyone figured out what the dragons wings are made of? It seems to shiny to be the normal sail cloth.

Tough call. X-Men V Sentinel has the far better main build. The nice swooshable X plane that seats 4 figs. Plus some truly awesome figs. Knowhere has some fantastic figs, particularly Rocket Racoon, Groot and Nebula. Rockets mining pod is a great little ship. The rest of it is typical playset scaffolding. The Daily Bugle is a cute set. A nice classic City style building with neat bits of detail inside. J Jonah Jameson, Nova and Dr. Doom highlight the set even if they are a bit cartoony. The Doomcopter is meh. Best to be said it beats the Spider copter.

2 months? It was sold out in roughly 3 days. For some reason they elected not to go back and do another production run of that set. Probably because they anticipated sales or long term demand on par with the Hatabusa and Shinkai, and can't see the need for a minimum production run of another 10-20k pieces. I'm sad. I didn't get one and don't want to pay scalpers prices for it.

Don't read too much into that. It means the allotment that is currently placed or in progress in the production chain has already been committed to orders. It does not necessarily mean that no more will be made, just that another production order for the factory has not yet been placed. We have seen this with other things in the past. CS and sales cannot commit to product that has not yet been ordered made in the system. It is also possible and even likely that they can't put another order in until this one is clear. Systems can be funny that way. Granted it can also mean that they don't have the resources or factory time to do another cycle of them or product management may not see enough demand for another run. But the point is don't give up hope. Check back periodically chances are more will become available. They got way too much unanticipated free publicity and mainstream press attention on this one.

Benny's Spaceship is among the best sets Lego has ever made. It stands head and shoulders above the others. Ultra Agents HQ is a great set. Lots of play. Cool design. No negatives Pheonix Temple is... Strange. It's a building that turns into... A flying building of some sort? If you are really into Chima, maybe. Otherwise wait for it to go on clearance.

I think it varies wildly by specific building. I think FB was by far the most profitable of the line, and a resounding success, followed by GE. The mileage on some of the others may vary.

Don't forget PR actually hit a few months early. We normally used to see the annual Modular just before Easter. So PC and PR only had around 8 months between them.

To be honest, and from having way too much experience dealing with corporate Marketing groups, I will tell you that there are 2 core tasks that they perform that we are talking about here. One they do extraordinarily well, and one let's just say not so much at times. The first is actual product development research. For the stuff you will be putting on the shelves Marketing groups will go all out. They pull in the experts, they get deep research data. They know what will sell, how much it will sell, and what will be needed. They are unheralded genius's in this regard. But Then there are the one off Marketing schemes. The non product stuff. The "special" things. These are often at best somebodies bright idea churned out over lunch on Margarita Tuesday. These are the infamous "it seemed like a good idea" marketing schemes. Just attention getters. They operate off blind assumptions, things that a group of C student communications majors know with absolute certainty, and gin. Most often they are harmless. Sometimes they are even effective. And then you get the real disasters "Hey lets sell Grand Theft Auto Games by hiring Hookers" sort of thing. The SDCC Minifigs feel like one of those type projects. They have researched nothing beyond "can we do this? There is some sort of matching money from a vendor involved"? Typically it does not take much push back to get them to rethink these schemes (or just let them sober up a bit). But that will be influenced by exactly how much money is involved. (And remember its not that Lego ie TLG is getting paid off. It's that the vendor such as SDCC is providing Marketing Budget Money. Which is free money for the Marketing department. Trying to separate a Marketing Group from that tends to require a chain saw.) In case you haven't figured it out yet corporate and multi vendor marketing pretty much runs on a series of oddly legal bribes, kickbacks, and similar. Oh and booze.

It would probably work within the license. But who outside of a few of us more fanatical fans would want micro buildings with 1 fig at a $9 price point. I don't think this has been a shining success for the SW group. And the kiddies like them.

There is a core problem with a Chess set. Pretty much an insurmountable one. "Games" or more specifically "board games" are a separate license. Lego was able to get a small piece of it with the "Constructable Games" which are viewed as enough of their own thing to not bounce against others. But I think at least one other company holds the specific LotR chess license. (I want to say Franklin Mint or something similar). The CMF idea has major issues as well. First, They have given us a pretty clear impression that the Middle Earth licenses have if anything a higher part per minifig requirement than many other licenses. This si why we can't have SW style Battlepacks and instead we get the $30 Army Builders. It is safe to assume that single figures are right out. (Figure both the action figure licensee and Games Workshop with the gaming figs would have a stroke). Second problem, this really isn't a license that would work with CMF's. Look at the characters. Mainly earth tones. Weird complicated hard to differentiate names. Just not enough single fig differentiation to work as a collectable line for the average consumer. Now if they could add 2 or 3 LotR figures into a broader line that included other licenses? That would work. But by itself? It would tank hard.

So we want one of those Mars Mission jellies? Only cast in trans red with gold glitter? (The sad thing is that might not look half bad?) I think we got the 4 or 5 that we are getting for a reason. They reflect the ones that the change of appearance and armor is critical. Balin and Dwalin are nobles who originally lived in Erebor. Fili and Kili are of the house of Durin, and Thorin's heirs. Thorin is the King Under the Mountain. They are the 5 that you expect and rather need in full Dwarven fighting armor. The rest of the company are low born, an assortment of merchants, tinkerers and thieves. Less at home in full war gear, and probably not really showcased in it as much. Probably not as drastic or as noticeable a change as with the nobles. I know we have a ton of Bilbo's. But I will be disappointed if we don't get a Mithril shirted Bilbo in one of these.

One other subtle thing to note in this particular case, and one that may drive customizes nuts regardless of negative space usage to generate a waist and hips. Look carefully at that scientist. Trying to use that torso as generic will not work. The eye will always perceive it as female. Because of the shirt collar. It is a subtle detail that our eyes pick up even if we don't realize it. Men's and Women's shirts button the opposite way, going back centuries. Go back and look at that Female Forrest Police figure compared to the male. There is more going on there than just boobs and hips. And there are more details that differentiate men and women than can adequately be covered in generic torsos. Attempting to do so just means we once again get no real women represented.

There is some heavily modified stuff there. The Helmet is a Stormtrooper Helmet that has seen quite a bit of putty and sanding work to remove the brow ridge and attach the rebreather. The rebreather itself looks like just some plastic scrap, apparently cut off of a larger piece. with the hoses from a Scuba tank. (Actually looking at it, the rebreather looks like the cut off top of the scuba tank) The chest looks like one of these http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=47577 cut down, with shoulder extensions added. (Possibly halves 1x1 cones?) The gun started out as either a revolver or a cut down musket. Maybe a LR revolver? It has a bunch of greebly scrap glued on including among other things a hammer, a Star Wars clone rangefinder

The best official post apocalyptic minifig parts will come from the 2010 Dino Hunters line. Second best probably the Monster Fighters. Other good torsos and heads and headgear can be found in Pharoahs Quest and the Western figs from The Lego Movie. Star Wars Jedi and Bounty Hunters can yield some useful parts. Also the civilian figs from Castle Kingdoms and Fantasy Era.

I think the trigger between Sold Out and Out of Stock is how far into the future they can predict stock. The US store is sold out because it has far more back orders than NZ or EU. It may be once the anticipated back orders cross 45 or 90 days the system automatically goes to sold out. Or that past a certain number they can no longer guarantee product.

They confirmed Harry Potter was ending because the license was running out while they still had product on store shelves. It was in their interest to say "buy it now, it goes away forever in 60 days", in that rare set of circumstances. For most licenses they will expect the product to naturally EOL long before the end date of the license, and they will stop making new at a minimum 12 months before. But because of the unexpected 8th HP movie they had to cut their 10 year HP license closer to the wire than they would like. They also confirmed that Sponge Bob was done, once the license ended and Megabloks announced they had it. I do believe they sort of unofficially said "hell no" to the question of more Speed Racer and Last Airbender, but I don't think that was ever a real major question in anyone's mind.) Everything else just quietly fades naturally. Of course he is in the minority. Everyone reading this thread is in the minority. We are the far end of the niche customer. There are only a few thousand of us. We in no way reflect the consumer habits of the regular retail customers.

Nice polite responses. Basically what they said is what I suspected. They have forwarded the letter to Marketing and events, and are probably dumping any inquiries there way as well (while lending moral support to the inquirer. Most CS departments I've encountered tend to get very ornery when problems from Marketing schemes or events land in their laps and increase their already very high volume. Especially for wholly internal stuff that they have no buy in, no feedback, no briefings and no recourse. They will forward every report, every complaint, every comment, every possible negative over to those that they hold as responsible.

They've tried it. But the AFOL's Whine, Scream, Cry and Throw tantrums far worse than the kids. Plus they never ever want to share or let others play with them.