Faefrost

New AoS tonight. Of interest is Agent John Garrett entering the picture. Which leaves open the possibility for another more well known character associated with him to maybe put in a Marvel Cinematic Universe appearance. Garrett's Nemesis (beyond Hydra and Strucker) is the international assassin Electra. who Marvel just got the rights to back from Fox recently.

It's a shame. But sadly I think the combination of widespread localization and being more than a little high for the ideal price point is what has ended this one. Really these needed to be priced and designed to be good gifts. Something from an Aunt or a Grandmother. Something that felt educational. For that to work they need to really hit a price point a bit lower than these were at MSRP.

They tape the lid shut with a piece or two of packing tape. It keeps it from accidentally bursting Lego everywhere.

Not to spoil anything, but try and find a copy of the Marvel one shot that came on the Thor the Dark World BluRay. "Hail to the King". It deals with some of Iron Mans jailed foes, and it is a blast!

Just speculating, but my guess is 8 or 9 Minifigs and a few brick built droids 3 Jawa's (shown in picture, and in Lego's mind 3 is the representation for a group of) Owen Lars (shown in picture) C3PO (core to scene) R2D2 (core to scene) R5D4 (core to scene) 3B6-RA-7 (we know they have a new mold for him. An alt color is also in the Jedi Scout Fighter) Tatooine Luke Skywalker (core to scene)

Frozen also joined the billion $ club today. So figure some big announcements will be coming re princesses.

OMG! They cut some dudes arms off and nailed them up over the door! And they seem to be baking people into pies! We have canibal serial killers in the neighborhood! Quick! Call Lego PD! Call the Monster Fighters! Call Chef Gordon Zola! Wait? Scratch that last bit. Looks brilliant.

I think much of GS was built on the plans for AC wave 2. Didn't someone say AC wave 2 was the humans taking the fight out to the Aliens? Some of the concept art had a similar feel to some of the GS sets with drop ships and tanks and mechs. Honestly I think we would see SPIV before we see a new AC.

MWT was a victim of bad timing. we knew that subjects that touch on licensed themes rightfully face risks of license conflicts. and where they are known to exist CuuSoo is pretty good at announcing them and disallowing the conflicting projects. There are some that are unpredictable as they will require input from the licensor as part of the review. Things like the Sandcrawler which would require not only Lego's review teams approval but that from Lucasfilms and Disney. (figure any already existing license will face some extra unknowns because of this sort of thing. just because Lego has a license does not mean the license holder will agree to extend it to a CuuSoo project. They have their own plans and desires.) In the case of MWT no one out here realized that Western was a theme that was facing a license acquisition. And Lego as the one seeking the license could not publicly reveal it until it was finalized and the license holder agreed. And neither party would have any desire to disrupt their legal and business schedules to work around or accommodate a fan sourced CuuSoo project. The MWT hit review in a period where TLG's internal business dealings were in effect but not yet publicly known. Hence it hit an unknown conflict. It is probably a one in a million chance (for an unlicensed project at least. Substantially less so for a licensed one.) and honestly there is no real problem to solve there or work around. TLG is not going to make CuuSoo privy to their business dealings. They certainly will not be telegraphing their business actions via CuuSoo. and they certainly aren't going to second guess their actions or revisit such things for an experimental fan/hobbiest mechanism such as CuuSoo. What little problem they had has already been fixed. They are no longer telling us why projects fail review so we can't do all this hand waving second guessing internet rules lawyering. The best solution for fans of the MWT. Submit a nice western project. Put a Saloon up there. Not a whole town like the MWT. Just a single building. A classic Saloon. Don't simply copy the MWT. Just put forth and push a project. Chances are by the time it hits 10k the LR license will be inactive long enough that it will have either expired, or Lego and Disney will have no desire to enforce it.

The more I think on it, the less I think this will have much impact on ?Lego, at least in the short to medium term. Megablok's traditional issue isn't really one of getting shelf space from the retailers, as much as it has been filling it and keeping it filled in a timely and predictable manner with the elements of their product line that do sell well. Megabloks has faced more production and logistics issues than simply ones of merchant relations. Mattel can use their clout to force shelf space all they want, but they will have a fairly large overhaul and ramp up before MB can produce and deliver sufficient product to keep that shelf space filled and flowing. Now there are a few benefits for MB that Mattel will bring to the table. Lego's greatest strength, and much of the source of its phenomenal growth in a down market, is not simply its product or product quality. It's the back end. Production, infrastructure, logistics and constant feedback loops and evaluation tools. We often wonder why Lego does not have more of a presence in certain countries or regions. Such as Asia. It's because they are going slow and building out this back end. Which is slower but in the end much better, than simply shipping product in. (Do not create a strong interest or demand in a developing market until you are ready to be the best source of fulfilling that demand.) anyway Mattel is certainly far better at this sort of thing than Megabrands ever was. Just the ability of Mattel to bring their feedback tools into play will do a world of good for MB. Currently a store will get a large shiny shipment of new MB products in for the season. Fully stock the shelves, and the good high desire items will zip out overnight. Then the other stuff just sits there. And festers. Sometimes for years. There is no feedback loop from MB to pull that back and replace it with what is selling. There are no loops to tell them where that festering product needs to go to sell. Honestly? I think Mattel just took on a huge challenge with this one. It will take them at least 18-24 months to even begin to get a handle on MB's distinctively French Canadian corporate culture, and start to bend it to Mattel's will and processes. I'm betting it will not be a pleasant transition for any involved. It will probably be 3-5 years before any real results are seen on store shelves or market share. (Assuming Mattel doesn't just fire the lot of them and ship the machinery to China, simply keeping the marketable brand. Which would still probably need 12-18 months to pull off.)

What they use will depend on the needs of the entire sticker sheet and the set. Clear and Opaque stickers have different uses. They will most often use opaque if they have to put something noticeable over a dark color or something that would wash out a clear. Or they will use clear if they need any transparency. The inks used for either are translucent, so they will be effected by the background color. They use opaque backgrounds where this will cause a problem. (Basically the translucent ink is applied over a default white background and surrounded with color matching where needed.) The sets sticker sheet can typically service one need or the other. So whichever need is stronger is mainly what determines whether it is clear or opaque. So if you need a sticker on a canopy shoying a HUD, then all the stickers are clear. If you need printing on certain bright colors that wash out the translucency, opaque is used for all.

The past two years they have released a new UCS set on May 4th. Summer sets normally come much later in the US. June or July. Last year we got the X Wing. The year before R2D2.

Megabloks will be hard to "bring up to Lego quality". The problem with Megabloks isn't the design. It's the plastic. They use Polystyrene instead of ABS. It's a common Injection Molded plastic. Most plastic models are made from it. But it is nowhere near as durable or precise as ABS. It's great for plastic models. styrene can be chemically melted so it glues well. Plus styrene tooling is designed for lower temperature lower pressure injection. (So it doesn't cost as much as ABS to make new molds). The downsides is styrene is more brittle, is more prone to environmental factors like temperature, and is prone to warp. Plus it is softer plastic and does not hold its edge or clutch power over time. It's a bad choice for a construction toy. But here's the thing. The capital in Megabloks (or Lego) the value is ultimately in the tooling. It's the molds and machinery. In order for Mattel to brink Megabloks up to Lego quality they would need to retool everything. Pretty much toss the bulk of what they just bought and start with all new tooling and machinery. Now they might be able to do some sort of rolling transition over time, where they slowly spin up some lines in ABS. But even then things can get weird. The companies two primary profit drivers are Halo and COD. And those lines are pretty much fixed in the Styrene design world now. It's the only material that really allows for the rapid new single use parts that the lines require. I suspect that Mattel is not really seeking to displace Lego in the construction toy world. Sometimes better returns can be achieved by sitting in the #2 slot and drafting behind the leader. You make good profits with less effort and expense if you do it right. (Just ask Burger King. They work hard to stay right at #2). Mattel is looking to jump on Lego's growth train. Not necessarily challenge Lego head to head.

Nordic long boats vs the pickled herring?

I think you are confusing Hasbro and Mattel a bit there. Hasbro will probably see a bit of a boost in 2015 as we get a new Star Wars. That has always been one of their big cash cows. (Of course Lego will get the same lift). One interesting if unintended potential consequence of Mattel buying Megabloks. Our Canadian friends may see cheaper Lego prices. maybe on par with US pricing. Canadian Lego is so expensive because of a screwy Canadian tariff. An importer gets hit with a high Tariff if they are directly competing with a similar or equivalent product Canadian manufacturer. because Megabloks is in Montreal and is a directly competing product with Lego, Lego gets hit with the tariff. But when Megabloks gets bought by Mattel it may no longer qualify for the tariff protection.

I think the Marvel Super Heroes line may beat you to the Space Dog. Meet Cosmo

Honestly, some yes... and some... well lets just say an enthusiastic cub scout and 15 minutes with LDD and leave it at that.

That doesn't always mean what you might think it means. The reason the LotR and Hobbit sets are sold out and disapearing from stores is probably the stores are really only doing a single order of them and not restocking. Eyeballing store shelves can be deceptive if you don't take the backside flow of goods into account.

There are a few decent fan projects out there. and there have been a few good ones in the past. That UCS tardis interior is interesting. Not something I would particularly want in my display mind you, just because it is a little strange to display. But still cool. I particularly like the project that Anachir pointed out. Most of it is just more of the same "copycat" approach that seems to permeate CuuSoo. As soon as a project starts doing well someone will post some form of a copy of it to attempt to ride the wave. (Yes on rare cases there are two similar completely unrelated projects, such as Ghostbusters, but the majority of these types of things do seem to be "me too" or "mine is better" type proposals.)

Mattel's chief concern is the only real growth subset of the toy market has been in construction toys. Their other core brands are flattening. When a specialty niche toymaker is suddenly overtaking them as #1 with only 1 principle product line they are going to want a piece of it just as a buffer. Lego's success is not unique to Lego. It has also been rising Megabloks value and Kre-O. Lego is doing it better. But those two subbrands are still growing better than the industry.

Yeah I just got the catalog today and it is still listed there. so it might have a bit more time left. At least until Winter as officially on the books. Haven't we had rumors of seeing a second new Modular this year somewhere around Oct-Nov? if so thats when I would expect GE's planned EOL to be. Now if it sells out before then, it's probably gone.

The appeal of Boba Fett is very very simple. Lucas viewed him as a throwaway character. Just background. One of the Bounty Hunters. But to the fans back in the dark days of 1978 Boba was something wildly different. he was the first little glimpse we got that there would be more! If you sent in all the UPC codes from the Kenner Star Wars action figures you would get a special new figure. A Bounty Hunter... from the NEXT movie!!!! For most of us this was the first inkling that there would even be another movie. That we would get to go back to that amazing universe. Remember back then sequels were all but unheard of. Franchises and Universe Building was rare unless it was James Bond. So we got this new figure. Boba Fett. He came in a plain box with very very little info. We knew his name, and that he was a Bounty Hunter. Everything else we had to make up ourselves until the movie came out. Oh and what stuff he had for our imaginations. He was visually stunning (George's special gift of character design.) he had cool armor, and a rocket pack and blasters. OMG he looked better than the Stormtroopers. The stories we made up involving him fueled our dreams for years, because he was quite frankly all we had to work with at that point. And then he was kind of poorly used in the movies and just tossed away. But it didn't matter to us, because he was there in all of his glory doing some stuff. Lucas never understood the fire he lit under his fanbase by putting that teaser character in their little 11 year old hands. He just thought of it as a bit of a marketing throwaway, and never understood our love for the character. And then he went and did it all over again 20 years later with Darth Maul. Once again the first glimpses we get of new Star Wars is Darth Maul AND HE IS FREAKING AWESOME!!!! The black the red the dual bladed lightsaber! The look the moves the music! The quick pointless throwaway death... ummm...whaaaa? Yep Boba Fett all over again.

That is a project that is still in review. Or that the review has not yet been fully completed on. Which is not really the same sort of "maybe". Something in the project caused a secondary or extended review. My best guess for the Thinking With Portals set was the new proposed structural elements, which would themselves need a separate review (and were probably the source of the later decision of "no way no how no new parts" rule change.) The Landrover was probably a factor of the shear complexity and tolerances of its design, which required a much deeper engineering review than normal. At this point the Female Minifigs is anybodies guess. It might be that there is a potential internal conflict that is not yet definite. Some Lego theme or project that is under development but has not yet been greenlit, or some ongoing but not yet complete license discussion. So they are holding a final decision on the Female Minifigs until they see that outcome. That would be somewhat in line with what they did with MWT and LR. They did not shut down the project while license discussions were under way with Disney. It did not become an insurmountable issue until there was an absolute conflict. But none of that is "not now, maybe later". Or "we may revisit this at a later time". It is simply "we have not yet completed this review". As I said it's not really a maybe. It's just not a yes or no yet. And there is a limited amount of time they can theoretically do that.

They did release the lead character in a City set. And also a different version in a polybag exclusive. I wish they had done a few more like the female police dispatcher. I still think you read way way too much into any continuity or character world building with Lego. Especially as regards the movie. You are trying to mentally organize it all as an adult. (Which is sort of what President Business was seeking to do, no?) Lego's actual take, both in the movie and in sets is a little more free form come as you are.

They almost never go back and redo production runs of small impulse buy things like Polybags, CMFs and Chima Speedorz. By the time a product is on store shelves and they can gauge how it is selling, they already have its next two replacements deep into production.