Faefrost

Well yeah! Everything is cooler when it's a giant transforming robot. Unless it's a giant fire breathing lizard. Ok a giant transforming robot punching out a giant fire breathing lizard would still be cooler. The truck is a great set. Not quite to the levels of some other classic Tom Stafford Mobile HQ's like the original or the amazing Alien Conquest one. But still a fantastic set. I think the Infearno set is the best of the line. Great villain and that strange Blade Runner/Tron car is far more entertaining then I would have thought.

Think of what they are doing as more akin to what Stan Winston did for Iron Man. Practical Effects wherever possible that are then cleaned up with CG.

The Wolverine is pretty much a stand alone movie. The only things in it that interconnect with the others is Wolverines guilt for Jean Grey in X3 ( or just his guilt for appearing in X3 at all, it's hard to tell) and a post trailer teaser scene with Magneto and Professor X, that in hindsight makes absolutely no sense at all as it has no apparent connection or possible timeline to DOFP. It's like something based on an early draft. As a general rule Wolverine Origins has never really been considered cannon with the other movies. Just too many wild liberties taken and completely different characters and histories. Everything about it was pretty much instantly discarded.

I'm not a big Chima fan or collector. I tend to just grab an occasional set for parts and colors. But damn that Ice Mammoth as my attention.

I'm going to guess that the Sherlock series isn't that widely available in Taiwan yet? There's murder on TV, and then there is MURDER! Sherlock is a wonderful show. One of the best you will ever encounter. But it is absolutely in the upper edge of 13+ age ranges. Kind of like Lego might make a MacBeth minifig, but they will never do a Jack the Ripper sort of thing.

It's a Feminist set because the major driving force behind the voting for it were Jezebel magazine and the community of online radical feminists seeking Justice etc etc etc. people who specialize in perceptions of bias and trigger words and "Herstory" instead of "history". I suspect that the delayed review on this set was less the set itself as it was Lego seeking a way to avoid getting dragged into agenda politics. Their solution appears to be quite clever. Because they really could not separate the mini shops proposal from the branding. The branding is what people voted on. What drove the project. Without it it would just be a few vintage style city shops.

I think there is a weird licensing issue with the Daleks. Not insurmountable, just strange. I seem to recall that like the Barris Batmobile the actual license somehow was held by the people that made the Daleks, not the television company.

We knew that they have built a full sized Mock up interior and exterior on the London sound stage. So speculation is it will have an extensive presence in the movie. It's also suspected that they may have finally attempted to match the inside to the outside. (Granted that does seem unlikely. This is JJ Abrams. Adherence to scale is not one of his passions. Note the full sized commercial brewery where the Enterprises Engine room should be.) I'm thinking a new Falcon in some form is the safe bet for late 2015 or early 2016.

As I think I mentioned above, licenses are complicated. Given that AT is a popular and ongoing show the license is probably expensive, or the owners are looking to sell a much broader license than Lego would ever need for Ideas. At this stage the AT people want toy lines not small run exclusives. Also something we don't often think on since most Ideas license requests are older or inactive properties. If Lego has even just begun talks with AT about a full license, unrelated to a CuuSoo or Ideas project, than that would pretty much guarantee that any Ideas projects would have to fail.

There was never any chance of Sherlock passing the brand fit review. It is a modern era show following the adventures of a "high function Sociopath" and a stressed out PTSD suffering combat vet as they track down serial killers and other purveyors of "murder most foul". It's delightfully dark. Wonderfully adult. And most certainly not something particularly age appropriate for the 6-12 crowd. Remember they failed Firefly over age and brand appropriateness, so Sherlock? That was not going to happen. Besides, why exactly would they pay to license the modern pop culture version for something that is already in the public domain?

I agree with the Research Lab set. A bit dull. Yet still inspirational. And with a clever rename they manage to deliver the "girls asking for a set about girls doing science" while at the same time not overtly supporting some of the groups that pushed for it, or opening themselves up to further activism via their crowd sourcing platform. I think everything else in that review period did not have a great chance of passing review. Even Adventure Time is not something that would work as a one shot limited release license. It is a current thriving popular property. Those who own it would probably want to hold out for a full product theme such as TMNT or Spongebob. The Japanese Architecture project was gorgeous and might have been a better fit if the creator had trimmed it down when asked. Besides taking years to reach 10k, if it had not hit 10k when it did it would have been deleted as a theme. The rest as you say license, production and brand fit issues. I don't think there are any surprises or debates about why things did not pass this time. The weirdest thing is there seems to be a chance of GlenBricker ending up with back to back sets in two review periods.

Town Hall is a very good set. But it is a slightly differing style from some of the others. It is huge, but since half of it is a three story atrium it can feel a little empty. It's a fairly straightforward build that doesn't have as many little complex mini builds as some of the others. It has some really great high points. The front a trance is wonderful. The trick used for the skylight is fantastic. And There is a nice little story going on with the Minifigs. Plus it is the best if not the only source of all those delicious Dark Orange bricks. It is not a set to be avoided. But there are a few I would get before it. For some of those Dark Orange parts All of them come from parted out Town Halls. Some, like the 1x2 profile bricks have only come in that color in that set.

Could be. Although it would not surprise me if they have more stock on it than on some of the other older Modulars. I think the next one to retire will be whichever of the GE, TH or PS sells out first. I don't think any of those will see another factory run, so whatever is in the chain now is it. I think the GE received an extra production cycle more than the other two, so it may still have more stock. TLG's calender probably plans for it retiring first, but reality may not precisely match their marketing schedule. I think PS will probably be the first to disapear. It seems to be the lowest stocked one at the two Lego stores near me. Unless they do a sale to clear one or two of the older ones out to free up shelf space.

Maybe with an International Book this time? Remember the earlier release was US and Canada only and the book was only in English.

My eyes! They bleed! Quick kill it with fire before it reaches the children!

Yeah, we agree on the submitters thing. Far far too many seem to use it as a MOC showcase and just throw up anything. Oh and did everyone catch Just2Goods post over in the Town forums? http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=96322 Brick fan or Brickpicker may have inadvertently spoiled or at least discovered the next Ideas set before it is announced.

ROFL! That is one of my all time favorite comic scenes.

Just to address some of your points, I think you like a lot of people are under a certain misconception of what Ideas or CuuSoo is, and what getting 10k votes means. Getting a project to 10k basically means you get to make a product pitch to Lego. You effectively get a guaranteed appointment to sell them on your idea. It is not 10k votes to get your set made. 10k votes is just to get your foot in the door to make your pitch. And honestly that is more than fair. It makes Lego one of the most open and fan sourced businesses on the planet, and it uses your fellow fans as a filter. Just to look at some of your points 1. Large scale models. You say they should just say no large scale models. They have posted perfectly valid guidelines and suggestions for what they are looking for. The most basic and instructive being "look at the actual Lego sets that we make. Look at what is on store shelves and use them as a guide for size". Exactly how large are you looking for them to go? Case in point that Helicarrier currently getting far too many votes. The presented model is larger than an adult male and would weigh more than a small car. It's estimated cost would start around $2000. It's Lego fault when project presenters don't use common sense? They don't get in the way with you presenting your dreams, but it's unreasonable to expect them to pay for them. Unless I am missing or forgetting something to our knowledge no large scale model has failed review on the basis of its size. I think the only monster to hit review was the Sandcrawler. And as much as we love that, there were a host of reasons for its failure. Aside from being the biggest set Lego would have ever made, even if they stripped out the motors, it still ran afoul of the existing license, which we will discuss more below. (Oh yes there was also the Landrover, which once again had issues besides just size. And once again was not simply a large set, but the largest technic set ever.) They don't put hard limits on size, but they do say enough that most with a lick of sense should be able to pretty clearly see the boundaries? Unfortunately common sense often seems in short supply around Lego fandom at times. 2. Current licenses. Sigh! They do say up front "projects based on pre existing licenses may often face additional complications at review". This is because licenses are contracts. And they are complicated. And each is unique. They do not blanket disallow them because each is completely unique. And each depends a great deal on the likes, whims, plans and desires of the individual licensors, how they interpret "pre existing art", whether they would allow a project suggestion from a third party, or a project royalty, whether something conflicts with Lego's internal license groups plans or work? Etc etc. a whole host of things. Things they can't predict until they put it in review. Let's look at that Sandcrawler again shall we? Here are the potential or probable failure points for it. - Lucasfilm's merchandising division simply did not want a Sandcrawler at this time. They veto'd it day one. - Lucasfilm's legal department might not permit a third party contractor to receive a royalty based on an on screen ILM design or visual IP. Some companies are extremely tight about that sort of thing. Lucasfilms and the people who made Babylon 5 are notorious for how tightly they control their IP. - Lego's internal Star Wars team veto's it because they have a similar subject planned or in production. - lego's internal legal team veto's it because they have already made one or more sets of this specific subject under the pre existing license and it is felt to be prior or existing art. ( one of the unwritten common sense rules of Ideas. Proposing "what Lego already made, but better!" Will ALWAYS fail review if it is licensed IP. ) That's 4 major potential review failures before anyone even looks at the model. We now know at least one of them was in effect for the Sandcrawler. Now here's the flip side. Sometimes the licensor might really really like the project. Sometimes they may go out of their way to make it work within the confines of the license or give special permission. The entire point is licenses are complicated. They add a lot of extra potential failure points to a review, but they are impossible to predict until the business and legal review team sits down, looks at each one, and makes some phone calls. The CuuSoo or now Ideas staff do not know the terms of each or even any of the pre existing licenses to make a predetermination. Heck Warner Brothers might fall in love with that Wayne Manor? Each case will be different. 3. More profit driven than they should be? And exactly how profit driven is acceptable? Do you know what the most expensive, most valuable, most carefully hoarded and managed thing in all of TLG is? It's production time. Factory runs. Ideas currently has 3 production slots per year for new sets. They want to maximize those runs for the best return in order to grow the program. You are also drawing the wrong conclusions from the BttF sets ranking on Amazon. The DeLorean is a CuuSoo set. It has been produced in multiple limited lot runs. I would be surprised if the total production of that set, one of the most produced CuuSoo sets, exceeds 200,000 pieces. A Ninjago set will have 1 million pieces made. CuuSoo runs at least used to start at 20,000 pieces for the initial run (I'm betting the GB Ecto 1 is the highest initial run ever for this sort of set. Maybe 100,000 pieces?) Here's the thing that ties your point 1 and 3 together. Risk. In electing to produce an Ideas set Lego is taking on risk. Just as every set they make takes on risk. But fan sourced risk has to be a little more carefully managed. They don't have a lot of underlying business data for these sets. Nor do they have 2 years worth of planning and research backing each up. So they will strive to keep the risk minimal. Figure each 100 pieces of a set increases the risk by a certain multiplier (equating to an extra $10 consumer cost per step). At what point does the risk start exceeding the returns? And here's the thing. We want Ideas to make a profit. A good profit. We want the Ideas team to be careful stewards and to grow the project carefully and with minimal risk. Because it is in our benefit for them to do so. As it grows its margin for risk increases, and therefore so do the size and numbers and types of sets we can see come out of it. Profit is not bad. Growth comes from profit. Variety comes from profit. The things we want to see come from profit. I want the Lego Ideas team to be careful and conscientious shepards of the platform. I want them to not just make the sets I want to see, but to make the best business choices while doing it. It's how we get more and better stuff.

Probably a new Architecture Studio?

Nothing wrong with Batman related. Although to avoid conflict with the existing license it helps to go outside the box or go old school. A good example is there are a number of 1960's Barris Batmobile on Ideas. They are almost perfect, because of a weird quirk Barris holds or until recently held the license to that car, not Warner Brothers. So it would not be covered under or conflict with the regular Batman license. Similarly the 1970's cartoon Batmobile is probably something that would not cause a conflict. (I always sort of pictured it as a 1969 Dodge Charger with the roof cut off and bat fins.)

That would be a strikingly brilliant solution on Lego's part to completely and utterly disarm a political correctness bomb while at the same time staying the heck out of the debate and controversy. Flip "Female Minifigures" to "Research Institute" and give them all three sets as one. Because SCIENCE! I am in awe of whatever spinmeister came up with that solution.

Transformers did it first. And they had 80's power ballads to accompany it. The original GotG comics from the 70's were a team set in the 31st century. They were a bunch of characters you have never heard of, best known for guest appearances in the Avengers and Marvel's Team Up type books. Star hawk, Yondo, Chalie 7, Martinex, Nikki, Vance Astro. They were in many ways strikingly similar to Marvel's Starjammers or DC's Omega Men. Nothing really memorable. The more recent incarnation of the team is entirely different. A modern / current era team centered around Star Lord and a talking Raccoon. And they are quite distinct and memorable.

Mini Cooper or UCS Tumbler

Some potential bad news for Fantastic Four fans. I know we have been hoping that Marvel would do a set, especially now with that perfect flaming head piece from Ultra Agents... But rumor has it that Marvel is so pissed at Fox right now that they are essentially burying the property until well after Fox's FF movie. No comics, no merchandising, nothing that will help the public remember the FF as anything other than the 2 awful Fox FF movies. Currently the FF is not slated to be part of marvel's 75th anniversary. So those horrid bootlegs may be all we ever see.

What super lawyers. There is no IP law or protection in China. None whatsoever. No law.