Faefrost

Brutal and Militaristic? Have you looked at just how many Mobile ICBM launchers Benny and his friends were toting around back in the day before they finally openly started arming the ships with lasers circa 1985? And the Galaxy Commander was about as much a peaceful exploration ship as a Soviet Fishing trawler circa 1984.

We can kind of guess at some reasonable size limits for sets, just by looking at what is on the shelves. Ideally you can guess that they want sets in that $30-$70 sweet range of price point. Probably the absolute maximum size they would ever even begin to consider would be $200 or around 2000 pieces. But I would not hold my breath on that one. They are not going to take a gamble on the largest Lego set ever made being an Ideas set. At $50 there is virtually no risk to Lego for a limited release ideas set. At that price point they will sell out almost anything at the production scale the series operates. At $500 however... Not so much. Lego absorbs a lot more risk in larger more expensive sets of these types. (That 22,000 piece Helicarrier that's getting a ton of votes this week. Yeah that is not gonna happen. I think we can all see why?) As far as the Japanese Architecture set. I will be surprised if it passes. And if or when it fails it will really tell us very very little. That was an extremely old project that took years to hit 10k. So long that it's creator had pretty much wandered off and never responded to CuuSoo when they asked him to select one of the three buildings in order to reduce it from a theme to a single project. If the project had not hit 10k before the deadline it probably would have been purged as a theme. We don't know if the creator ever did respond. I'm not sure how much I would read into that quiet change of rules. I think that is more to give them an out to use their own discretion without having to deal with rules lawyers. But chances are a tie or even closely similar projects will most likely go to the first in.

Did they actually fix that for later production runs? For some reason I thought it is just considered a charming screw up or glitch? I didn't realize they were offering replacement parts for it?

It's vacuform not injected molded.

The Arctic Base Camp.

We have had female Jesters before. Above and beyond the obvious Harley Quinn, I know there have been classic red and white Jesters with a female face print. I have one or two. Maybe from the Dacta fairy tale set?

Failed is probably much to strong a term to use regarding Chima. It's probably best characterized as "succesful, but not wildly over the top succesful the way Ninjago was". I think Chima hit the target demographic Ninjago was originally aiming for, but just didn't spread much beyond there. Whereas Ninjago caught fire in a few unexpected out of Demographic groups, like college age males, and just took off. And it's that Unexpected demo that's driving interest in a Ninjago movie. And of course the movie will most likely involve a re telling of the first story arc. They can't assume theater goers know 4 seasons worth of story. To do a continuation it would need to be a TV movie or straight to video release. A Big Budget Theatrical release will requiring re telling the beginning or starting over for the new audience.

Ah, the wonderful lens of nostalgia... Look folks, yes Lego never laid out any adversarial relationships in Classic Space until Blacktron showed up, but let's uncloud our minds and think back to the dawn of Minifigs in space, back to where it all began...in 1978! Does that year seem significant to anyone else? What could possibly have kicked Lego in the head to get them interested in space themes? I mean Astronaut toy lines were pretty much over and done with by the early 70's with the end of Apollo. Besides one brief surge with Apollo Soyuz. It would be the better part of a decade before the Shuttles flew. Star Trek had been at a lower point of fan and merchandise attention until something jump started it around then as well... What could it have been? What could have possibly happened in 1977 such that by early 78 every toy maker was making space toys as fast as they could, and went on doing so for years? Yeah Lego knew exactly what they were capitalizing on, and they fully realized that the child was making "pewpewpew!" Sounds whenever they picked up their peaceful space explorer sets. The folks at Lego have never been fools about this sort of thing.

I'm watching it now. So many little details that you just couldn't pause and look at in the theater... I WANT A PRINTED WAFFLE PIECE!!!!

It probably looks a lot better in motion. The outfit is actually surprisingly close to the typical comic rendition of the character. Just swapping out the bright green for much darker or black colors.

On a semi unrelated note, it's always fascinating to discover these unexpected cultural oddities on these boards. I think we just discovered the one Job where American workers still wear a uniform and more traditionally straight laced Europeans do not. Amazing. (To put this in perspective my disturbingly typical American mailman sauntered by this morning dressed in his traditional attire of golf visor, neon pink tank top, floral print board shorts, headphones and Birkenstocks with black socks. I suspect the US Postal service investigates mail theft by watching for a sudden upswing in fashion and taste among the mail carriers.)

That could well be. The 2012 winter Village Cottage sold out much faster than I think they expected. Normally they do enough with the plan for it to last through 2 Christmas seasons, and should just be clearing out by the second. WVC did not quite make that. So they may have increased the numbers. In theory the Winter Village Carnival should sell out by December if all goes as planned I think.

It does. It just feels a little small. Like the fuselage needs to be wider.

Given how quickly they disappear or sell out and the fact that they do not seem to go back and do multiple extra production runs on them, I'm going to speculate that the total run for each is moderately small. Maybe 200,000 pieces total? Remember these are seasonal and are D2C Lego exclusives. They are not going to see a ton of demand for Santa sets come February.

If you can get a second Gatehouse Raid set cheap on clearance it makes a huge difference. You but the gates on each Castle side wall and use the other 4 pieces to expand the front and back or the sides.

That is quite a deal. In spite of the negativity from the more hardcore Tolkien fans, the Pirate Ship really is a fantastic set, especially at that price. And is a great starting point for all sorts of nautical themed MOCs. It's just disappointing that it isn't a more iconic LotE scene. But it still remains one of Lego's better ships, and by far their best "fantasy" ship easily besting the Viking ship and the Fantasy Era Troll and Skeleton ships. (Yeah I do loves me that Troll ship. But the detailing on the LotR one is marvelous.) $41 is a decent price for the black gate. I confess to not being as fond of that set, as to me it is essentially a minifig set that comes with a bunch of black bricks. Mouth of Sauron and horse, Gondor livery Aragorn, Gandalf the White and the Eagle are why you get that set. (And I'm not overly fond of those Eagles, preferring to use the creator ones in my displays.) the gate itself is truly a boring black slab.

I'm sure we will see some form of a new Falcon to go along with Episode VII. Given that they have built a full size MOC up of it inside and out, it's a safe guess that it will feature prominently in the movie. I just sort of suspect that it will be a minifig scale play set in the $130 range.

E-mail him links to model railroading sites, in the hopes that he gets distracted with a new hobby.

If it's what I think it is, it's not a planet. It's Knowhere. The severed head of a Celestial. An ancient space god. http://marvel.wikia.com/Knowhere Kind of a Mos Eisley/Babylon 5 out on the very edge of the universe. Here's hoping a Russian speaking Dog shows up.

Assuming the usual bad translation through several languages, here are my takes on them. Space Miner, - I think we are getting a new Mtrons minifig. space fans rejoice. Battle Goddess, - gotta be a Valkyrie. Hopefully a winged helmet. Wizard, - a lot of ways this can go. I'm kind of hoping less Gandalf floppy hat and More Merlin in skullcap ala Excaliber Dino Tracker, - probably an unused design from Dino, much like the Alien Queen was to AC. Swashbuckler, - Yay! A new Pirate fig maybe. An Erol Flynn type. Failing that maybe something along the lines of Zorro or the Scarlet Pimpernell? Jester, - basic, obvious, classic. Overdue for an update. Piggy Guy, - I have no idea? Pig suit guy? How exactly did that get past marketing legal and common sense? Hun Warrior, - Woot! An Asian theme historic fig! I'm hoping for a new funny hat. Fairytale Princess, - we've long needed a good Princess. Probably a pointy hat. Pizza Delivery Man, - not exactly inspired, but why not. They obviously have the pieces for it. Besides Lego city needs a clear victim for all these crooks running around. Video Game Guy, - some sort of nerd, but hopefully with a video game controller. Spooky Girl, - I'm guessing Wednesday Addams type. A nice add on for the MF haunted house. Prospector, - making good use of Lego Movie fig parts. Genie Girl, - Barbara Eden in minifig form. Probably with a bottle. I could live with it. Rock Star - another? Can we at least hope its Elvis? Lifeguard - probably a dude this time. Hopefully no Speedo involved. I'm gonna stick him in my Arctic display.

Looking at that silhouette it's not so much a hood or cloak as it looks to be a helmet and Armor with an open face. It would be too cool if this was the return of Ogel'?

My cat pretty much ignores all things Lego, except for the empty part bags. Something about the way they Krinkle drives him wild. He can't leave them alone and knocks over the garbage to get them.

Oft repeated wishful thinking. Most of the UCS rumors seem to be focused more on a UCS Slave 1. Also given that the last 2 UCS type sets have been higher price point sets (Ewoks and Sandcrawler) we probably will not see another really big high priced set for awhile. I'm thinking sub $200 for the next one or two sets as R2 and the X Wing cycle out.

They have made plenty of statements regarding this. Not the least of which are the rules and guidelines for CuuSoo/Ideas. Plus numerous statements from designers etc. these have nothing to do with any specific part such as a reindeer. No new parts for Exclusive, D2C, Ideas, or limited release sets. (Unless the new part is already designed and being made for regular retail sets. Such as the LotR Eagle and the PR scooter). If they have a clearly quantifiable specific need for a Reindeer in retail product we will get a reindeer. But they will not make one just for a Winter Village set. If ever they have a full retail theme that benefits from the mold we will see one, until then brick built it is. Probably the best hope would be some sort of Nordic theme that is not a license. The opposite end of the problem when dealing with animals and characters is you can finally get the mold you want, say Sven from Frozen, and find it locked to the specific theme as a specific named identifiable character.

You have no idea what you are missing Tanma. You should watch them. They make every other movie seem brilliant by comparison. The world becomes a brighter cheerier and substantially less stupid place when you stand up from the viewing. Because real human beings are nowhere near as stupid as those presented in the first three Transformers films. The one positive I take from th etrailer for the new one is the humans for the most part don't seem quite as stupid. Which is hopeful. I mean yeah we have the daughter, but she seems to be a "Jack Bauers daughter vs the cougar" level of stupid, which is a great improvement from any character in T1 through T3.