Faefrost

Not really feeling the love for the movie turtles. Actually feeling more the exact opposite. It's not the eyes. It's the whole face. The printed cheeks plus nostrils make the entire face look like some sort of creepy green ape. The full head "dew rag" just adds to the wrongness.

I figure it's about this point that the Lego license team and similar teams from a few other vendors have joined forces and hired a mafia hitman to patiently explain things to Peter Jackson.

To be fair the regular comics costumed Blackout really is or was a fairly lame D list sub level villain and not all that interesting. His best use was as some sort of Zombie Puppet in Thunderbolts. Also don't read too much into Ghost Rider or Marvel's Horror based characters having different but similarly named villains. The horror stuff tended to be one shot or of limited use and interest. If the writers liked the name they would often sketch a character and costume around it and reuse it as a regular Supervillain. There are tons of holes like this in Marvel continuity. (See all the different "Ghost Riders" that they eventually retconned into some semblance of connectivity.)

If you are thinking the Simpsons House, also consider the Haunted House. It is on its way out, is one of the best sets Lego ever released, and is much closer in scale and style to the Modulars than the Simpsons House.

Be sure to let us know how that works out. As others have said, they had to change the title to bring it in house. CuuSoo is an independent entity. I don't think it is meant to get rid of anything Japanese, beyond a desire to move the title in synch with the English language requirement that has been in place since they went international. With that said, "Ideas" is just bland. It just reeks of some lame @zzed marketing group focus testing, and has no pop, no zing, no interest. It's bland and boring. It's the sort of name you get when you do focus testing on a group of Ritalin doped kids. The 1 year cutoff should be fine if they do a bigger publicity push behind the site and improve how ideas are pushed and presented. And with luck it should light a fire under voters. GlenBricker has a ton of data on how fast projects have or will hit 10k on his web site. I think the fastest 10k project was around 6 days. The longest was 2 1/2 years (I want to say Japanese Architecture). And the Japanese Architecture set is the perfect example of why they are putting in the 1 year limit. Basically it is an all but creator abandoned project. Did CuuSoo ever get a response when they asked the creator to choose or limit the project to one building? Past a year the chances that the creators have walked away or become difficult to reach magnify. 1 year probably guarantees a certain level of engagement.

I'm gonna go with the Wing Commander games...

Part of the reason it can take years to get to 10k is because of the massive amount of effectively dead projects. Trimming out the backlog and having a targeted termination point means each project has a reasonable chance of being found by someone who might like it. It's not lost in the sea of "little Billy's first LDD Batman" creations. Right now you really only effectively have a week or two to gain attention before your project scrolls a few pages in and is never heard from again unless it can make the sidebar or top 15 or so.

I honestly don't think the flood of sub par child projects could get much worse than what it already is? There isn't any real mechanism for determining the actual age of the submitter. (Although submitting an LDD project of "a car" consisting of a few blocks and some wheels is probably a fairly decent predictor.)

The leaked descriptions describe it as more of an "eggbeater" type carnival ride. So probably something more along the lines of a nested spinning contraption to induce violent illness.

Weirdly Carnage is one of those villains that would probably work far better on screen then he works in the comics. In the comics Carnage is actually kind of boring. A one note character. He's powerful violent and an evil sociopath. He worked well for his intro story but everything past that got old. He's kinda like the Chucky doll from the Child's Play movies, with an amped up visual appeal. But to use him a single time as a one shot movie villain he could be great. Although it really does need to be after a full Venom story to properly allow for contrasts.

Remember a lot of licenses carry certain very specific non compete clauses. It has long been suspected and rumored that Lego's Star Wars license specifically says or at least originally said no to certain competing subjects. Star Wars would probably be the key one. (Although I would not rule out Battlestar Galactica from the list as well. Lucasfilms was honked off about that one for a long time... even as they made money off of it from the initial ILM work.) As far as non lego brands that spark my interest. Some of the Halo stuff, such as the really really big vehicles catches my eye. I would probably buy the whole line if Megabloks just used ABS instead of cheap styrene. I had my hopes up with Kreo's Dungeons and Dragons line until I actually saw the stuff. Ugh! There are a few weird off brands that are experimenting with some basic LED lighting effects, which I wish Lego would start to do. I have most of the MB World of Warcraft line (all at horrifically deep discounts). The sets should have been good. They would have been great if better materials were used. Oh and if MB ever figured out that there are two sexes.

Knowing the store that Jason goes to I would say it depends really heavily on specifically which employees they spoke with. There are a few there that are extremely knowledgeable re back end and inner workings things, more so then you will typically find in a store, and I would view as extremely reliable sources. Others however are standard retail types. No idea on anything until it comes off the truck. From watching the video it strikes me that it isn't so much that this is a list of "officially retiring" sets as it is sets that they either do not anticipate getting many or any more pieces of, or that have been disappearing from store order lists. Some sets will have a hard End of Life date to clear shelf space, or they will be moved to discount pricing. These seem more like depletion of stock with no expected restock. A soft retirement if you will. And I can see a good Lego Store clerk being familiar with what sets are trending towards depletion at the distribution level.

It seems late in the marketing cycle to change the title? Granted when it was two movies it was supposed to be "an Unexpected Journey" and "There and Back Again". With the split to three they may not fully work. I mean think about it. Given where the second movie ended what would "there and back again" even mean? TABA implies the journey there. But by the start of film 3 the journey is over. They are already "There"

The DOFP thing in the credits was some sort of one shot deal between fox and Sony. The director was still under contract to Fox. In order to get him Sony made a deal to do the in film marketing push for DOFP. Basically to attach a teaser trailer to their movie. They have no plans to cross universes or characters. The major difference is Roman Polanski and Woody Allen don't really make big summer blockbuster movies targeted at more general audiences and in particular teenagers. They tend to be more art house films. Plus mores and morals have been evolving. While in some ways society has accepted a much more permissive attitude about some things, such as homosexuality. Other things have become much more reviled. Exploitive stuff like casting couches and adults using 15 year olds for throwaway pleasure have become deeply frowned upon. And Singer is accused of essentially Casting Couching 15 year old boys. Considering that a studio and film already got in major trouble in the past when he forced a group of 14 to 16 year old actors to do a graphic nude shower scene for Apt Pupil. I suspect that his big budget blockbuster career is over.

It won't sell as well as Minecraft, BttF or Ghostbusters. It will probably sell substantially better than the Hayabusa, and will probably beat the Curiosity set in total sales. (I don't count the Shinkai as that was a local Japanese market only set) They tend to do fairly well with their SF and Action themed mechs. It probably wont be a theme generating breakout hit. But it will bring back more than enough to be a worthwhile and profitable product. While at the same time expanding the overall niche and allure of the CuuSoo crowd sourcing project. It also has some creative and marketing synergy going on with it. It is landing at the point where the Lego movie and Benny have generated some new fan interest in classic space, backed by the "Lego Space" book which the CuuSoo project is featured in. (Someone had asked above how the book didn't violate the CuuSoo rules regarding outside profit from a project. Simple. The book isn't about the set. The set, as a MOC is simply featured as an image in the book. TLG would view that more as a synergistic type of thing and free marketing. Not a separate profit stream. If the book had been about the Exo Suit and included instructions for it, that would be another matter.) As far as why they swapped places in the expected release schedule between Ghostbusters and the Exo Suit. That isn't exactly hard to figure out. The Ecto 1 is basically a fairly common car, and the CuuSoo project model did not require a huge amount of design and engineering. What design challenges there were were not that unexpected or unusual. Plus things like Logo's and graphics were already extant as it is a licensed property. So turn around time for it was probably pretty short. whereas the Exo Suit was more designed as a display MOC, and needed a lot more design work to convert it to a viable toy product. And as a re omagining of a classic Lego subject it would need a bit more work on art, back story, and similar minor production details. Flipping the sets let them give the Exo Suit the time it needed without bogging down or backlogging the production schedule.

There is one flaw in CuuSoo's presentation. The CuuSoo blog does not yet reflect sets that have hit the review threshold during this still open review period. So until the end of the deadline for the Spring, some sets that hit 10k will seem to sort of disappear. Some may show on the banner, but not all.

I thought it was pretty clear that the "something that made them squee" was an image of Mark Stafford's "not yet finalized" Exo Suit design. The writer said that they were not able to get "hands on" with the finalized design, but they did see a picture. Everything in that article is 100% about the CuuSoo Exo Suit and has no information at all regarding internal Space themes. Even that marketing concept art sketch is described as seeking a "modern riff on classic 70's and 80's space themes". So they are going for an update. The concept sketch actually shows a more modern helmet with a visor. The one definite thing we do now know. If you read the comments in the article, Mark Stafford commented that the new mini ball and socket joints were still limited to the Chima legend beasts and Mixels when he made the Exo Suit design, so it does not use them.

They won't accept projects based on existing licenses held by competitors. But they hold Star Wars. The problem is existing licenses within Lego adds all sorts of complications. The chances of it making it through review are pretty much a narrow strip between slim and none. Lucas and Disney has an unquestionable veto. A similar subject just did very poorly on shelves. its very very big for a CuuSoo set. Too many minifigs. And it is something Lucasfilms might already consider to be under the existing license contract with no expectation of third party involvement.

Nah, that's not completely fair to Astrid, who does create some wonderful buildings. The TH in particular is a great building if you have room for it. It has some wonderful details throughout. It's actually a better build than the GE, as the upper floors are more varied. Yeah in some ways it can be viewed as a big box. But that's pretty much any public building. It's biggest negative us that it's overall look and lines has a certain similarity to FB. The Palace Cinema is not without its flaws. Mainly being the theater itself inside. The exterior is gorgeous and an incredibly complex and fun build. The stickers for the movie posters are understandable. Those for the marquee less so. Not perfect. Certainly not as good as say PR or FB, but an A list Lego set nonetheless.

Actually it makes perfect sense if you think about it from a distribution and production standpoint and not simply an age of product / EOL view. We are just coming off a long stretch of double VIP points. Which tend to be the moments when AFOLs will buy the most big AFOL targeted D2C sets like the Modulars. So buy extension these are the moments when the existing stocks of those type sets get quickly depleted. Both Pet Shop and Town Hall are mostly likely nearing the 2 year mark on their last production run and restock. Grand Emporium recently was restocked. And Palace Cinema and Parisian Restaurant are much newer and thus have a larger more recent pool of stock in the channel. So chances are the double VIP is depleting the remaining stock of PS and TH. It's just that PS is now depleting faster. At this point it is doubtful that either will get another production run, so as they run out they retire. (Which as I said above might be a sign of a new one in the pipeline.) PS's retiring first is being driven more by its better price point.

This set typically shows up very very high on the lists of "Best ever Lego sets". Apparently the Brick Show broke a story today that it will be retiring by Halloween, and whatever stock is out there is it. So if you have been wavering this might be a good moment to think about grabbing one quick.

The only real surprise there is the Pet Shop. I think everyone was expecting Grand Emporium or Town Hall to pass before it. Although I suspect that all three are on the stock from their last production runs, so as they run out they will retire. Pet Shop probably just has the lowest stock at the moment. It makes me think there is a new Modular in the pipeline for late summer or fall release.

I'm kind of doubting that they will go back and generate new tooling for a classic space helmet. The current molds and style goes back almost 30 years to Blacktron and Futuron. The first differentiated Space sub themes. Benny as the Classic space guy with broken helmet is a neat gag. We might see it reused in white, red and yellow in any sequels. But I suspect for any actual sets they will just use the regular current helmet with the visor mount points. The simple reason? The kids who are the primary consumers would not know that detail, having mainly never seen the classic 70's style helmet, or had the chance to study it up close. Concept art is just that. Concept art. Compromises get made as anything reaches production product. The helmet, as a high cost change for minimal recognizable character impact would be the first compromise. We are getting a few Classic Space themed gifts for AFOLs in the next few months. Benny's ship, the XO suit. Good stuff. And nicely tailored to and AFOL market. We may see an occasional set or sub theme to further appease us. But don't expect any grand return of Classic Space as a full retail offering. The original CuuSoo project design featured a true classic spaceman. But he has one of the best known collections of pristine classic space figures (seriously he has a book out. "Lego Space". ) using the classic guy is nice for presentation, but it will end up using modern parts for production.

I suspect it is not so much a question of formally retiring a set, as in its planned and Calender'd EOL date, as it is a question of whether or not to do one more production run of a given set, thus restocking it in warehouses for an extended time. We saw that with FB the first time we thought it was retiring. It got scarce aftermarket orices rose, and suddenly and unexpectedly another full production run arrived, which carried it through until recently. The same with the Death Star. GE just got a similar bonus production run beyond its original plans just a few months ago. So it is well stocked in the supply chain. TH is simply most likely not going to get that extra run. It's sold well. But not well enough to extend its life and go back to production. Plus if the rumors are true and we will be getting 2 Modulars this year, then they most likely not restock whichever of the old is expected to be the next to sell out. They typically will not do a new or extra factory run of something, if a product that is viewed as a direct replacement is already in the production channel. This is why things like Ninjago a Spinners and Chima Speedorz only get one run, even when they sell out overnight. So it's not so much a question of "when do we retire it, and which one do we retire?" As "are we going to make more of X? Or do we have Y almost ready to replace it?" From the brief, leaked and badly translated description, it almost sounded like there isn't a baseplate. I think it is a fully done modern mobile fair ride that folds up into a truck. So it probably sits on a tractor trailers wheels or jack stands.

He has reappeared in one of the Marvel one shots. Hail to the King. So he may be in the queue to show up again. In the Marvel Universe Hammer is the weapon smith that creates or equips many of the high tech costumed super villains. Plus Sam Rockwell is such a trip in the role. He's kind of fun to watch. Figure he has potential to show up in Avengers 2 (Ultron is rumored to be a militarization of Jarvis, no? Would Stark do that?) potential to show up in a Cap movie or an Agents of Shield story arc. Also Minifigs of the rest of his Family would be cool.