Faefrost

You can also see one of the trees from the same Lothlorien set that shows up in the LotR video game right above it.

Actually Luke's weapons are right for once. At this stage of the movie he has his Lightsaber having been given it by Kenobi at Kenobi's house, he just doesn't know how to use it yet. but he doesn't have a blaster until the Death Star when they disarm the pair of Stormtroopers. In theory he should still have his old long gun tucked in the speeder somewhere.

Yes they reissued a few classic sets such as the Black Seas Baracuda, Black Falcon Fortress, Fort Legorado, Breezeway Cafe, Express Deluxe Trains, Pizza to Go, Police Command Post Central. The Legends Line, which reproduced what were then viewed as some of the best Lego sets ever. (excepting Space for some reason?). These were sets fans had been clamoring for. The great stuff from the 80's that they grew up with. Redone for 2002. And the line went down in flames. Sales were embarrassingly low. Far worse than anyone expected or predicted. The sets felt a little too retro being worse in some ways for lacking modern techniques and parts, while at the same time they were savaged for minor set updates to work around retired parts. While it is a shame that they did not pump some lower cost more modern versions of the Galaxy Explorer into the market in 2002 or 3 its easy to see why. Hence since then they do not re-release. They remake or update. This is why instead of another Black Seas Baracuda we got Brickbeards Bounty (and soon to get a newer version in 2015.). Same general type or class of ship. Similar subject. But its own current design. Looking at it through that lens the 929 ssS is the apex of the evolution of sets from the 928 GE. It is the classic Space aesthetic applied to everything they learned making post classic space large ships. Through everything from the Blacktron Renegade to the Galactic Mediator to what seems its closest structural cousin the Galaxy Enforcer as we finally come to Benny's sweet sweet ride. It's Classic Space filtered through modern design. So the ships flow better and feel a bit less trapezoidal. It's a good mix between classic studs up combined with some SNOT tricks. Technik Techniques are used to strengthen the whole thing. And its blending of old aesthetic in a modern complex sturdy set sings. Anyway I have been building this beast tonight. So far I am loving it. It has sturdy technic structure without it taking up half the model or uglifying it. lots of detailed interior space. Lots of surprises. I know I will be flawed for this, but the stickers aren't too bad. They go on well and they really pop. I often skip stickers, but these I'm glad I didn't since they add so much to the model. It could use a few small MODS. Maybe landing gear? Also it would be interesting to see how this set would look with the Red 5 X Wing Canopy Stickers, cut down to just the frames and applied to the yellow canopy. Needless to say, "I like It! " And I don't seem to be alone. They are selling well. The only other small thing I think it could use is a few more figs. Maybe 2 more updated Classic or Semi Classic Space Men or Women. Just enough figs so you can man all flight stations the engineering and the wingtip fighters.

Minifigures Ice Skates.

It's a business decision. If rumors are true the worst of it actually stems from Fox's end. While Marvel would love to get X Men and FF back in house they really are not that worried about it. The Fox and Sony movies do make them money. But last year Fox's contracts for Daredevil, Electra Punisher and I believe Ghost Rider came due. The properties were reverting to Marvel. Fox would not be able to get the Daredevil movie made in time. Marvel offered to extend the contracts, what they wanted was for some of the FF sub properties to be returned. The Cosmic villains. Galactus, Silver Surfer and Annihilus being the main ones. The movie vs merchandise split may also have been part of it, but the big thing is they wanted to have all of the pieces on the table. They were looking at the Annihilation or Annihilation Conquest story lines. (This was after Avengers so the Skrulls weren't on the table at all.) what Marvel asked for was pretty reasonable all things considered. "You can keep that stuff you have, just give us back this stuff to make our movie with please?" The Fox CEO rather rudely told Marvel to go fluq themselves, in no uncertain terms. Ever since then the two have treated each other with complete unconcealed contempt. And Disney has nothing to do with it. The point of conflict is between the Fox CEO and the Marvel CEO who now loathe each other. Disney has not gotten involved. From Marvel's point of view it makes perfect sense. They are withdrawing their take on the FF from public view so as not to have it either conflict with or reinforce Fox's new take on the characters. What Marvel wants strategically is for the only thing movie goers to be remembering or thinking of when they see ads for the new FF movie is the prior two Fox abominations. Marvel certainly doesn't need the Marketing money. They now have two additional properties that are hitting the A list merchandising levels of Spider-Man Batman and the Hulk. Iron Man and Captain America. They no longer need a direct tie in movie to sell. Especially Iron Man. The FF were never very merchandisable and the 30k monthly readers can be shifted to other books for a year or two. But it leaves Fox with nothing to sell the movie on but the posters and the memories of the old ones. And it gouges a huge chunk out of Foxes accounting and budget for the movie. Marvel just exercised an absolute veto on merchandise. So no toys, no Burger King meals, etc. which may even cut into the otherwise lucrative product placement deals. And all of this is not business as usual for Marvel or Disney. While they would love to get Spider-Man back they certainly have not been uncooperative with Sony. Other than the whole Quicksilver tit for tat there have been no real issues over the X Men movies. Marvel had been doing their normal highlight the characters from the movies in comics. And the reason DC does not seem to have this issue is because they have been owned outright by Warner Brothers far far longer than Marvel has been connected to Disney. WB is way more heavy handed than Disney. They meddle openly and daily in DC editorial decisions. The volume of MoS sets and Batman all comes from DC. I'm sure Lego would love to broaden the things a bit. It is WB that keeps things focused on their core pop culture properties. Batman, Superman, Batman V Superman! (Seemingly having forgotten an "s").

I doubt if the predictable cycle is real. Whatever pattern there is beyond "corner -straight-straight -corner" is I'm sure purely coincidence. I am sure the actual approach is to simply design something new and interesting each time, and to tell whatever little story they have in their head. That's part of what makes the rumor of a Detective Office so believable. So many of them seem to have an almost vintage movie feel about them. And you can easily see either of our two previous Modular designers, Jamie or Astrid just falling in love with a Film Noir story like that. Maltese Falcon, Phillip Marlowe, Chinatown and even a touch of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (This is Lego after all.) once you think of them the set practically designs itself. Upstairs two room detective office over a small hot smelly business. Next door to a cheap motel with one of those vertical signs with a broken letter. The hard boiled detective. The spunky gal Friday. The femme fatal. Peter Lorre. a black bird. Possible architecture styles Art Deco, New Orleans or Savanna style French Quarter iron trappings or a dense Chinatown feel. Just thinking about it you can practically smell it.

That's what I am hoping, if this is true? After all the pet shop was just 1 half of the ground floor. And we need another pair of 16x32's

Ok glad I'm not the only one that found something deeply unsettling about Win Girl. Win Kid looked like he would annoy me. Win Girl looks like she has already worked out where to hide the body and how much cleanup will be involved.

I think the metallic silver that they used is a better choice. But that's probably the old model railroader in me. One of the tricks of that kind of modeling is as you scale stuff down you have to reduce the shine, otherwise it won't fool the eye. So chrome or very shiny metals are only used for very very specific effect.

Given the 30's to 50's vibe they normally seem to go for with Modulars I would think less Sherlock Holmes and more Sam Spade. Something along the lines of an Art Deco office building? A second floor walk up office over something like a Laundry or similar small shop? Maybe a period sedan to go with it? Something with a bit of a Noir'ish feel to it.

We have had it skipped from catalogs before. They can't reveal the sets until much later in the summer for what will probably be the last wave. I don't see anything that has changed regarding our expectations with this. Of course LotR would not be in there if there is no 2014 LotR product. Their planned summer Hobbit release got pushed back because of the movie getting pushed back, so the hard date keeps them from putting it in this catalog. The DOS sets are going towards a year now so they are nearing EOL and their marketing push will be reduced unless they are tied in with the new stuff. They aren't going to waste a full catalog page giving us Dol Guldur Battle again. The product ties to the movies.

Even though the Police Dropship has a nice minifig selection, it still feels expensive for what it is. There are so many other great sets in that same price range that I see people grabbing instead. Stuff like the Arctic Base Camp The Ultra Agents larger sets, etc. It just doesn't have the "must get now!" Vibe that the Spaceship has.

I got mine as they were putting them out at my Lego store, it had to be 2 weeks ago. Benny's Helmet isn't actually cracked. It is just molded to look cracked. So it will look whole when viewed from some angles. It's a fake crack and is actually much stronger than the real classic Space Helmets.

Just finished building mine. It took longer than I expected, but in a good way. Building it was a great learning experience. It definitely was not a "City Great Vehicle" set. Every square inch of it was using tricks and techniques that I had never seen and (not being much of a car builder) never would have even begun to think of. It's getting pride of place in my display. I'm sitting it next to the haunted house. (Lord Vampyre isn't worried. The first thing he did when he saw them moving in was go down to town hall and get a court order barring them from 100' of his property. He's been a loyal local taxpayer for over 350 years now. He does not need these youngsters tearing the place up.)

The project was basically a squad of red color matched Space Marines in the CMF Space Armor pieces with a boxy tank and a few aliens. It was a nice project, but yeah it was rather obviously going after a look and feel not unlike Games Workshops signature property. The original name for the project was Space Marines... until GW sent a Cease and Desist letter claiming the name "Space Marines" as their trademark. So the project name was changed to Space Troopers. Part of what made it popular was it was originally proposed as a theme and the creator was working on gaming rule sets and such. it was gorgeously presented (the projects creator is a top notch 3d artist). There was definitely something there. But I am sure not enough to overcome the potential of GW coming back for legal threats round 2 while TLG was gearing up for their own Galaxy Squad release. Sadly it does not seem to be archived over at the new Ideas site. The project is worth looking at if just for its beautifully done presentation. It is a great lesson in how to present a project.

I'm probably weird, but Dr. Strange always struck me as one of those characters that would work extremely well by adding a dose of ethnic diversity to. His story never made a lot of sense as a New York white guy. But as a second generation New Yorker of Indian or Bangladesh or such his story would seem to click a little better. It leaves room for why he took the journey he did after his accident. It provides a certain contrast between the rebellious or arrogant American Surgeon vs his more traditional heritage. Things like that. I wish they would find somebody new for the role. A top Bollywood talent would be something different for American audiences while still driving International box offices. Oh well I can dream can't I.

The Silver Samurai would have been a great Wolverine villain. If they actually used him. But the CGI generic robot we got instead felt like a truly bad script decision. Like the result of trying to merge two badly disjointed screenplays.

The core message of the set itself is fine and noble. Many of those however who jumped on the bandwagon were grievance industry shakedown types on a crusade, with a bone to pick with Lego (yeah go watch Anita Sarkeesian's video's on Lego. ) what would have happened if Lego had simply failed the set in review? Said this conflicts with the CMF's or Friends? Imagine the PC poop storm that would have raised. I think Lego handled it perfectly. They kept in all that was good and positive about the set, while at the same time cutting the Feminist Brigade out of the picture.

My take was Bryan Singer basically reclaimed his X-Men. DOFP left First Class largely intact! but trimmed out any "unnecessary"Mutants that Singer had not brought to the table in a kind of quick callous way. My takeaway was the events of X1 and X2 stand, not so much do to clear defining moment as kind of obvious directorial intent. With the exception of Jean Greys apparent death at the end. X3 has been vaporized and consigned to histories trash heap never to be seen again. No one really counted Wolverine Origins in the first place beyond some vague broad strokes such as Wolverines age. And The Wolverine falls into a strange place. It happened because it happened to Wolverine and he remembers it all. But the trigger of it was the end of X3, so the events of the movie might not be fully cannon anymore. We could probably mentally strip out all of the early hobo stuff with Wolverine and the bear, and everything else can more or less stand intact. Trying to think through these movies too much makes your brain hurt as they all mostly predate the era of studio control and continuity was left mostly to the directors whims. Much like the 90's comics.

Not entirely true. They never use new unique molds. They will however sometimes get a new mold that is designated for use elsewhere first. Lex Luthors armor and Azog the Orc being the two good examples. I can't remember did the SDCC Arrow fig have the new Hawkeye bow?

Given the pattern we sometimes see of alt uniform movie characters I would not be surprised to see a comic style blue with red trim uniform Rocket Raccoon or Star Lord. Maybe a heartbreaking yet obscure DOFP X Men character. Such as Bishop, blink or Kitty Pride (although I suspect Marvel will veto anything that even implies DOFP). Black movie outfit Falcon? Or god forbid the worst possible fan snub, the Winter Soldier. Over at DC, maybe a TV (Arrow) version of Black Canary or Huntress, or worse Deathstroke. I would expect the printing if they do Adam West. They have no issue printing on headpieces, it's just his and the 70's cartoon versions are really the only ones that would use it. I can't think of any other bat cowls that have any markings of color changes?

As we keep saying licenses and IP is complicated. Sometimes in ways that are not readily apparent. Also what seems like great ideas to a niche of fans don't always hold up under scrutiny. Here are a few examples (and oh boy another of my wall o text business lectures. I hope someone learns something from these?) Space Marines (later Space Troopers) - this is a great example of "things that look great sometimes have deep seated problems. In the case of this project it was the IP. "What IP you say? This was an unlicensed project!" Yes and no. While presented as unlicensed it danced dangerously close to a third parties IP. Now whether or not it was legitimate fair use or dancing within Games Workshops territory is moot. The moment TLG got a Cease and desist letter over the projects name from Games Workshop it was done. The legal department would have killed it at review. A company will step into the legal lions den to defend their products to the hilt. But Lego would have no reason to risk a costly fight with Games Workshop, even if they were in the right, over a single limited run crowd sourced fan set. The potential exposure far outweighed the rewards or benefits. Think of it this way, assuming a typical CuuSoo production run of 20,000 pieces a $50 price point and an extremely high 50 point margin on the product Lego's return on the set would be $500,000. The costs of Answering a legal challenge from Games Workshop probably start around there. If they have the slightest inkling that a challenge may be out there, they will not make the set. It is the only way they do not lose. "It would have sold better than a sub a rover and a girls set" - Really? You're sure of this? Niche fan enthusiasm does not replace nor predict real world data. And TLG actually has lots of real world data. Here are to good examples. This would have been a one off fan created set in the Space Theme. Lego has done two such sets in the past. 10191 Star Justice and 10192 Space Skulls. Both have a certain similarity to the Space Troopers proposal. Both were extremely good sets. Both sold poorly and are currently available on the aftermarket at below original MSRP. Lego also has quite a lot of data on Girls. Lego Friends has been one of their runaway successes. Not only blowing out their ability to keep up production capacity, but also having an insane percentage of the purchasers being new Lego fans. Last year I believe it outsold everything but City, Star Wars, Superheroes and Ninjago. But it brought it did so well by tapping into pure new customers. What this says is A. Girls are not niche, and B. Girls really want Lego. The actual data runs counter to fan perceptions. And this is a fairly common misperception. Which brings us to the other elephant in the room. Toys based on Video Games - there is a reason Lego does not typically dip into IP based on video games. They are extremely high risk with very limited return. There have been very very few successes with them, and most bargain bins are filled to overflowing with examples of the breed. Lego is the big dog in the room. They have no need to play in the high risk low reward world. They can command the low risk high reward stuff like established movie franchises. Here is the big secret that video game fans never realize. Outside of a very very small number of mega hits the actual user base for a video game, those who have purchased it and will pay for related products, is fairly small. A typical A list video game is a great success if it sell 2 million copies. The only things that do better than that are franchises like Halo, Mario, CoD, madden, FIFA and World of Warcraft. And that 2 million is a bad number for toy makers. See the goal for them in any licensed IP property is conversion how many or rather what percentage of the IP's existing fan base can I convert to be my customers? Now for properties with deep deep penetration such as movie franchises it is easy. For the billions of Star Wars fans out there you only need to convert a fraction of a percent to have high sales numbers and success. For a video game you might need to convert 5%. It is much much easier to convert 0.3% of a group into paying customers than it us to convert 5%. And even when the fan pool is deep enough you still have to deal with tight scheduling, short shelf life and a 6 month lifespan on the source of the IP. By the time your product is to market the IP's window is gone. Even when everything seems to line up video game properties rarely do well. Of those that I mentioned only Halo has turned a substantial profit in the construction toy market. World of Warcraft and CoD were shelf warmers and clearance bait. Mario might be K'nex's best product line, but that's not exactly saying much. To paraphrase from Professor Robertson, the companies that are pushing into Video game properties are seeking to find "blue water" niches where they can operate in untapped space with minimal competition. They are gambling on finding the next big thing. Lego owns the "red water" space. They are the shark. They do not need to gamble. (And before anyone brings them up, games like Minecraft and Grumpy Sparrows are something entirely different. They have deep penetration due to their low costs or free to play nature and operation in the mobile space. As a result they can be somewhat competitive as a toy license. Different rules apply. Still a risk, but not as risky as A list high $$$ games.) For orders of precedence for what makes a good IP toy license think of it this way 1. Movie Franchises. Multiple movies that fans will go see almost automatically. Billions of fans worldwide. 2. Long running or multi generational TV Franchises with International penetration. Star Trek, Sesame Street and the Simpsons are great examples of these. 3. Multi generational pop culture icons. Batman, Spider-Man, etc Those are the big big ones. 4. Mobile games that hit a certain pop culture critical mass (very rare and unpredictable. By the time you recognize it, it may be too late.) 5. Multi season TV shows (figure the same rules as syndication apply. Must have at least 4 seasons) 6. New movies from established franchise providers (New IP from Disney, Pixar, etc) And then we get the stuff that rarely pays off well. You are looking for lightning in a bottle. 7. New unknown movie IP 8. New or less established TV show 9. World Famous Cannibals and Serial Killers 10. video games See where this is going?

I'm sorry but I don't see any shiftiness. We have seen three sets kicked into an extended review that lasted two periods. In each case we can see that they had something about them that required deeper thought or examination. The Portals set had new structural pieces which themselves had to be reviewed. The Landrover involved some extremely complex engineering and design, more so than would be considered normal, and the Female Minifigs set was a PR nightmare. It had been turned into a PC trap by those pushing an identity politics agenda. As I said above, that would have required a bit of discussion at a point above the Ideas team to diffuse. There is good reason why they do not go into details about failures any longer. They can't. Once again licensing is complex. But part of that is the licensee cannot bring the mob down apron the licensor. Businesses can't talk about contracts or dealings with other businesses publicly. It increases problems and solves nothing, and all to often poisons relationships. Our curiosity is not more important than their ability to work with the licensor on the next project. And honestly in most cases we really can tell why things fail review just by looking at it and thinking it through. Zelda in particular. For this one they have told us what the problem is here. They finally codified it in the rules, twice now. Tightening it up each time. "No really, we do actually mean it No New Parts!". Yet every Zelda set presented requires a new Link head piece. Just because "they have to do it this time. " the reason they don't blanket ban Zelda projects is some don't have the issue. There is a sword and shield project that looks like it would avoid it. But people want Zelda Minifigs. But you can't hit Nintendo's extremely tight visual guidelines for Link without using a new mold. The Female minifig set or "Research Institute" (I still giggle madly at what a brilliant move that was.) may not seem sexy or complex. But it has a far far deeper target audience and fan base than anything else in that review cycle. Just look at the numbers. Quantifiable Zelda fans ~ 8 million (yeah really that's it. That's peak game sales +20%, which is quite high for a video game.) Sherlock ~ 10-12 million fans. About normal for a TV show that hasn't been in syndication or reruns for generations. Research Institute - people who are daughters and people who have daughters. Minimal guess to accommodate age ranges etc, ~1 billion? So yeah while it isn't some wildly popular bit of pop culture with a rabid fan base, if you look past that you can see where the set might actually have some staggeringly good numbers backing it up. The business case for it looks to be by far the best of the review period. It is being made because at the end of the day it has the greatest chance of being a better product. As far as the 1 set per review. They say no. Personally I say it's not that simple. But if anything it works in favor of weaker sets than it does knock off stronger sets. Is there a rule 1 per review? No. We can have 2 I am sure. But it will be rare. They only have 3 production slots so they will hoard these carefully to not backlog them. They will only assign what they feel is the best. But! As a PR issue they prefer to not have a null review period with no winners. So in a field of weak candidates the least weak may sometimes get the nod. (I kind of suspect that's how we got the Exosuit, and it relates to why it is delayed. It was a great MOC, but the delays are obviously from turning a frail finicky static MOC into a playable toy. The others jumped ahead because they were much more readily developed into production models. The Exosuits frailty might have counted more against it in other review periods if they were not looking for a positive.) and honestly this review cycle was a field of weak or problematic candidates. Great MOCs but not as great product candidates if you will. (See: Japanese Architecture)

Lego has never specified that a Dr. Who set would work. The only commentary they have offered was that previously the license was in an unavailable state, much like Star Trek and Transformers. A competitor held the license. At that time CuuSoo and later Ideas would not accept projects from impossible or unavailable licenses. When Character Builders Dr. Who license expired the license became available. Hence they could accept Dr. Who Ideas proposals. There is no endorsement beyond simply letting us know that Dr. Who is no longer on the list of impossible licenses. (Which of course set off a feeding frenzy.) They have said nothing about whether it would be viable as a product or would work. In fact the chances are moderately good that it would not, simply because a competitor just did poorly with it.

After what to all appearances was a great deal of exhaustive debate over the Winchester and Serenity projects the Standard Lego set was the Adult themes or nature of the source material, not just the set. And I know the fans keep trying to rationalize but Sherlock is a very adult show. It isn't that bad for gore, at least no more so than CSI, but it is a rather dark psychological drama. Not to mention the drug use. (Granted that is accurate to the original.) the season 2 finale is a great example of "not really a kids show". The Female Minifig set did not get reviewed twice. It like the Portals set and the Landrover before it was still in review, required a more extensive review or simply could not be completed with the previous cycle. Honestly my gut suspicion is the issue there was less the set itself, and more that any decisions regarding the set had to be kicked higher up the food chain than normal due to the somewhat political nature that the set had attracted about it. It was a good idea that carried the catch 22 of identity politics bundled into it. So it probably required a bit more careful thought. (Which worked they found someone in the company with true Solomon like wisdom to split the baby and give everybody what they wanted, produce a truly inspiring set, while keeping their hands clear of political and social advocacy.)