Faefrost

I've picked up a ton of dark bley 2x2s at the Atlanta Sugarloaf store lately. I wish they had light bley.

Actually OT sets typically have a shelf life twice as long as PT or CW sets. And OT subjects are much more likely to be remade. That Millenium Falcon is a 2011 set that's still on the shelves. I can't think of an OT set that has had less than a 2 year lifespan besides the one rare Hoth set. What you are seeing is a side effect of two issues. The first is that you came out of your dark ages at the precise moment when there was a more PT focused wave of SW sets. Winter 2014 was very heavy PT. Whereas Summer will be a big OT wave. This is compounded by the simple fact that certain Mass Merchants, namely Target and Walmart have tended to reduce the amount of re ordering they do once products sell out. And the OT stuff will often sell out faster. TRU will typically have a fairly broad stock.

This is not necessarily true. We know that they cannot do this with Star Wars because Hasbro has challenged them on it. But each license is unique in what it does and does not allow. (Case in point the Middle Earth licenses do not allow SW style Battlepacks.) remember Megobloks had Marvel blind bags. And it is long rumored that the SDCC exclusives used minifig art that was originally proposed for a Superheroes CMF type blind bag line.

I would go with Guilermo del Toro if I had the choice. But Burton would not be bad.

I strongly think if they are waiting for any parts to become available it would be the new small ball joints. We know that the designer was unable to initially use them for this. With the delay it may have changed that and allowed them to further develop the design. That would be the logical new piece, given that it would seem to solve a lot of problems with the fragility of the original design while still preserving the scale and room for details. We will most likely not be seeing a "new classic space helmet" anytime soon outside of something character specific like Benny. The original was retired for a pretty well known reason. Heck it's part of the gag with Benny. The newer helmets allow for much greater variety of use and play with the support for various clip on visors. The only people yearning for a return of the original are a small subset of aging AFOLs. Most of Legos actual customer base likely could not tell the difference. There is pretty much no business case behind remaking the old helmets. Monorail track has a better justification. I would suspect that there is a much greater variance in how long it takes to turn an Ideas project into a set, than there is to simply making a regular new set. In the case of a new set, everyone in the chain is well familiar with the process, the capabilities, and what can and can not be done in a retail set based on requested parameters. It's their job. So they can plan it out very very well in advance. Whereas the Ideas sets involve adapting someone else's designs. And those can vary wildly. Some might be very very close to viable designs, like the Ecto 1, some not so much and may have design hurdles to overcome, like the Exo suit. The Research Institute is probably one of the easiest to adapt, with the most effort going to graphics and packaging. It is not a set focused around complex builds or designs. Plus there are factors that we often fail to think about. The logistics of production can be baffling. How a set works into the schedule and where can be highly dependent on its needs. Do all the parts already exist in stock? If so in what factories? Do we need any parts in new colors? If so where are the molds now? Where and when will we have factory time to run them off? What needs to be where when? Which factories are available? Do the figs need double sided printing? Leg printing? How many parts? How many bags? Which packaging line do we need? How many hours of runtime will the set need where? Just going by those questions it is likely that the Research Institute could easily be the fastest set to see final production. It proposed no new graphics. All of the Minifigs used pre existing art. They were all pretty current. And there is likely nothing in the set design that cannot be pulled off with parts already in stock in the warehouse. Just using minor substitutions as required. So looking at the three most recent sets Ecto Suit - a fragile complex project requiring a great deal of design time and adaption, and needing part production time and minifig graphics. (Given it's mostly single color I'm betting some new colors on parts will be needed.) Ghostbusters - a well designed project requiring very little design time and adaption, but needing part production part printing and minifig graphics. Research Institute - a very basic project requiring minimal design and adaption time, and needing no part production. Can likely be done using parts in stock in the warehouses. You can kind of see where the shifting of the order might originate. If you throw in a desire to launch the GB set alongside the Anniversary you can easily see how things might shake out.

That I am sure is a part of it. But it's also telling that no real hints at a prototype for the Exosuit have been seen yet. They have had fan groups helping them with backstory and graphics but really not much info on the set itself.

Sandman connects smoothly to Constantine. I can see those working somewhat in tandem. But the JL stuff, not so much.

Sandman is one of DC's all time greatest properties. It was the centerpiece of their more adult Vertigo line for over a decade. It was created and written by (now) best selling author Neil Gaiman. The collected trade paperbacks of the seventy some issues have been in continuous print since 1988. I think Watchmen and the Dark Knight returns are the only other collections to do that. (And Watchmen only does it as a screw you to Alan Moore.) Sandman does technically exist in the regular DCU, but they do try to minimize this connection. Aside from John Constantine there are few connections. A brief Justice League tie in very early in the series and an Infinity inc. link near the end. It also ties directly in with a lot of old classic DC horror comics. House of Mysteries, House of Secrets, etc. It will be unbelievably hard to bring Sandman to the screen. I'm actually surprised Gaiman would even be involved. More than any other book Sandman was trying to stretch what could be done with the comic medium itself. Not just in the stories it told, but how they were told. Framing sand structures and such. Much of it will be impossible to translate to live action without seeming stupid. It's something that might actually have worked much better as an animated feature. And I just can't seem to wrap my head around JGL as Morpheus. He's a great actor. But not really the role for him. Of current actors who might be able to pull off the strange cold aloof arrogance of Dream of the Endless, mixed with the underlying fascination with and slowly learned compassion for humanity? I'm not sure? Maybe Benedict Cumberbach? I could see him as the purveyor of dreams and nightmares. The final issue of the movie is the fact that it is a movie. It would take multiple movies to even begin to do it right. The story has a very set and definitive arc and a clear and unequivocal ending. It would be better in a longer form such as Game of Thrones or Walking Dead. Add to this that it is the polar opposite of everything that Nolan and Hoyer bring to their comic movies. We already saw their take on Dreams in Inception. That could not be in any way further from Morpheus and the Endless if they had actually tried. I don't think either man is wired for something like this. So yeah, any movie they make of it will probably suck.

I almost get the impression that both the GB Ecto 1 and the research institute may have bumped ahead of it in release order. Just due to ease of converting them to a retail set. The Exosuit was really a fairly fragile and mostly static MOC that they are trying to convert to a sturdier more playable Mecha while still keeping the look and feel. They probably ran into design complications that are slowing things down. My suspicion would be that part of the delay was waiting for the new small ball joints to become more widely available for use in set design. But I thought I saw somewhere that it had been designed without them? As far as how many they will make? Hard to guess, but if I had to speculate I would say at the lower end of the spectrum. Maybe somewhere around the Curiousity Rovers numbers. Definitely not in numbers like the DeLorean or Ecto 1. So buy it fast when you see it.

This is true. But every set so far that reached review based on a current license has fallen into those categories of things that Lego had already done before and planned on doing again. The Sandcrawler and the Tumbler were already in their production plans (remember licensed sets get scheduled 2+ years out.) and they had already produced fairly large definitive versions of each prior. And technically the Curiosity Rover was a pre existing license. Lego has a license contract with NASA.

They recently changed the setup. There are some types of parts that they now mandate will always be in the walls. Wheels topping the list. Remember the PAB walls are mainly for kids seeking to be able to compliment what they have. So the walls will carry parts applicable to building small vehicles such as cars or spaceships, etc. they also are making an effort to stock parts that are complimentary to certain lines mainly City, Star Wars and a Friends. This leaves less room for rarer or more exotic stuff that interests us. Of course the more wall space a store has the better the selection remains.

The Star Wars Lightsaber project has achieved 10k. https://ideas.lego.com/projects/11147 I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this looks like the most likely winner of its review period. At least from what we have seen so far. Unless I am mistaken every set in this review so far is from a pre existing license. This, Wayne Manner, X Mansion, Invisible Hand. So ultimately they are all at the mercy of those licensors and how the pre existing license is interpreted. This project seems the best fit for size. It is outside the box if you will for normal licensed sets. And it will hit at a perfect moment when Disney / Lucas would love the positive publicity of a special limited edition fan designed set of Luke and Vaders Lightsabers, just at the moment when they will be ramping up OT nostalgia in prep for Ep VII. As long as there are no hidden gotchas in the contracts I would say this one has an amazingly high chance of getting made. (To contrast with fellow review subjects; the Invisible Hand project was dead on arrival. It promised too much. It's a set on par with the Death Star. But similar the the recently colossal failure that was the Malevolence. "He's dead Jim!" The X-Mansion is Dead on arrival the moment Marvel / Disney is queried. Marvel is not happy with Fox and is doing nothing that can be seen as supporting their movies. While X Men will not take as big a hit as Fantastic Four, this project will probably fall victim to the purge. Wayne Manor, could go either way. The main thing against it is size and cost. I would not be surprised if that one "needs more review time".

Are you talking about Microbloks? Those teeny tiny bricks? I think those are Japanese produced. They are made from a softer somewhat less precise ABS than what Lego uses, but they aren't bad for what they are. The sets are well designed and engineered. The parts typically do fit together. They're not Lego compatible and I find them so small as to be painful to assemble.

If you want to get down to "women of African decent and colors not found in nature" don't forget Oola in Jabba's Palace. I know my inner nerd is showing, but if you want to get technical about it, in every incarnation of the character Storm is actually African American. Her parents were Americans. She just ended up orphaned and raised in Africa in the comics, and that's where Professor X found her. Her skin tones would be along the darker end of African Americans, but not quite as dark as many native born Africans.

I think what he is saying is those aren't "villain" characters. For our purposes heroes and villains are the same distinct type of thing. Rather those are the games monsters. Trash mobs that you have to wade through. Those are unlikely to be used in CMF packs, as there are rumors that the series will come with codes to unlock each fig in game. Since it's an online multiplayer game, they normally don't let you unlock or appear as a normal trash monster as it gets confusing for your fellow players.

I can't say I would be displeased with the Thor news. Especially as it opens up a chance to see a bit more of another character that I like. I don't think the Chemistry between BW and Cap was ever meant to be anything more than fun flirty misdirection. They are good friends but Widow is really not Cap's type. Just a little too dangerous and dark for his more traditional tastes. She scares and intimidates him as anything other than a friend. Besides they set up Caps normal and traditional leading lady in Winter Soldier. Some of the other elements of that leak don't feel quite right.

You do realize it's from a movie right? It's a weird bizarre imaginary fantasy ship from the movie. It's supposed to look like a kid started with a Lego Pirate ship and then ran amuck using his imagination to build the awesomest thing ever. The Spaceman is there because the Spaceman is on the ship in the movie. The same with the puking cat thing. The Spaceman having a broken helmet is part of the gag. He is a 1980's classic space man. Their helmets always used to crack there. Love it or hate it, (honestly not my favorite set. Just too bizarre for my tastes. Especially at that price.) but at least take note of what it says on the box and where it comes from.

Whether you agree or disagree does not matter. Simply purchasing something does not give you the right to use it as a comercial endorsement or to imply an endorsement of another product or political cause. It's not a subject one can have an opinion on. While the lines may seem blurry to lay people this was truly an atrocious mistake on the part of whoever cooked up this ad campaign. You can buy a Wolverine Action Figure. You can pose him however you want. You can take pictures of him and even share them with others on the internet. Heck it's generally ok if it were to be used briefly in the background for your advertising. Say sitting on a desk or being played with by a child. But you can't use the doll as the mascot for your political or commercial campaign. You can't make someone else's product the focus or spokesperson of yours. You've bought the physical product. You have not bought the image of the product for commercial purposes.

Now that could be interesting. Donofrio is a great actor and would bring some impressive depth range and intelligence to the Kingpin.

Well yes. But I mean something more stand alone, without the movie tie in. I still can't believe how big this thing is. It's not that much smaller than the UCS X Wings. I almost wish they had designed one of those Star Wars hidden handles into it.

I don't see any metallic silver. I think it's just a trick of the light and they are all light bley, dark bley and black.

The Deathstar is kind of the crown jewel to one of their biggest ongoing themes, and it has sold well long past it's expected lifespan. The Haunted House was more attached to a short one and done theme. It was a happy surprise gift to us from the design team, and I don't think it was intended for much beyond an 18 to 24 month lifespan.

I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see some sort of "test the waters" set. Maybe something along the lines of the Pirates minifig set we got last year.

This summers Mos Eisley Cantina falls along those lines. I figure we are long past time for a Luke vs Vader duel set. Either Bespin or Endor. I still think there is a Yoda v Sidious Senate Chamber set somewhere in the pipeline. They have a picture of what looks an awful lot like it should be a set of that scene in the DK Yoda Chronicles book.

ROFL and thank you so much for this one Marcos. This one will certainly be a contender for best set of the year. (Right now I'm torn between this the Benny's Spaceship). It's absolutely the best Lego car I have ever laid hands on.