Faefrost

During the great rethinking of things and simplifying things after the near financial disaster of '03, TLG took steps to place limits on the overall color palett in order, among other factors, to prevent the sorts of things that you mention. I believe TLG currently places hard limits on the number of active colors. And in order for something new to be added, something must be retired. So internal business practices now make it much harder to simply add a color for a handful of sets or parts. A new color is a much bigger deal and has the expectation that it will be broadly used.

I think they will pick up math more as a secondary (counting studs, pieces etc), it will more help to develop an interest in engineering and design. Thinking in 3 space. Things of that sort. Which in turn leads to later interests in more math and science based fields.

No in fact part of the reason for the long time before we got the results prior to this one was one or two review periods produced no sets that passed review. And yes they have taken steps to speed the process.

The red wizard hats are probably test shots. Lego typically uses red to test new molds and tooling and look for flaws and problems. The test shots will then sometimes trickle out.

Seeing all of the Chima stuff makes me think that something like Classic Flash Gordon would be really doable in Lego. Retro style rocket ships. All the animal races of Mongo. Ming the Merciless. Forrestmen! Lots of colors.

Yeah... but the dudes still gonna need to show ID to buy a drink or a pack of cigarettes until the day he's 65

This blows my mind. I can't escape the feeling that they just replaced DC's most menacing and manipulative villain with VECTOR! (err Victor) from the first Despicable Me movie.)

Lego has probably done the best selling toy merchandise from the Hobbit. Most of the rest of the Hobbit toys tanked. This is the same reason that we have seen almost no Thor 2 toys. The THor 1 toys sold very badly. whereas the Iron Man 1,2 and 3 toys have earned an almost perpetual spot on toy shelves alongside Batman and Spiderman. and this is the huge hurdle we face when hoping for more Middle Earth Lego sets. Without the movies to tie into the only merchandise Middle Earth sells well are mainly books, calenders and D&D type roleplaying games. Heck I think Games Workshop took a pounding on their Hobbit gaming miniatures.

This is really the only "official" statement they have made regarding size. http://blog.lego.cuusoo.com/2012/05/29/cheat-sheet-how-to-pass-the-lego-review-with/ Item 3 Consider your model size and potential cost. While we’re known for building large models, not every large model is practical for us to produce from a business perspective. We will not rule out a large model initially, but it might run into trouble when we build a business case. I think the safe bet is for most project types, $99 is probably the limit. The best guideline for anything larger would be what if anything do they produce at larger price points, regularly or repeatedly, in their D2C market, that they would have good similar sales data. The less directly applicable data they have (and no not wild megablocks guess manipulation of the data, I mean a product that pretty well lines up with the proposal. ) the less rick they will be willing to take on, and the smaller a set must be to pass review. As I have said before, my guess is that most likely the only things that they would go above that price point for, at this stage of CuuSoo would be a really nice Modular Building, a nice Train, or a larger Technik set. While I suspect that they have more than enough data to support a large Star Wars set, chances are the license holder would veto it, as whatever it is would already be covered under the existing license and production plans. I suspect that we have had 2 projects that would have been dancing right around the $99-$150 price point just barely fail review after much internal debate. The Winchester and the MWT. Both of those would have fallen into the existing data sets from the Modular Buildings, Haunted House and Now the Simpsons House.

Wow! Unexpected and truly joyous! I luv me some Martian Manhunter. I wonder if he comes with a printed Oreo cookie piece?

There is a US made movie series starring Robert Downey Jr, which is more of a classic 19th century Holmes in London, with maybe a touch of Steampunk. And there is the BBC modern era "Sherlock " which is made by the same people as Dr. Who, and stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. There may have been a very brief US cable TV series that I don't think went anywhere?

We still don't have enough data on A. With the exception of the Oz set it is fairly easy to discern the decision path that led to Lego opting not to make them. In most cases a limited built in fan base. (Sorry fans, but I think the Poptropica project introduced more people to the game than had previously known of it. The same with FTL.) with the Oz set there could be numerous reasons for it to be turned down, that would be outside of our ability to ever know. Just as an example, Disney. Given Lego's ongoing relationship with Disney, they may have had some discussions or debate regarding sets based on Oz the Great and Powerful? Or a future sequel? Those discussions alone, even if they have not yet resulted in a production theme, could be enough to veto the Wizard of Oz set. Lego might not have been able to enter into a deal with MGM with Disney still on the table. That sort of thing. Or it could simply be they did not see a way to do it without a new part? My point is there is a danger of a hidden or unknown conflict in any licensed CuuSoo project proposal. And they will not always seem fair or seem to make sense to us, the casual outside observers. This does not make said conflicts any less legit or problematic. (As an example of a hidden conflict. Chances are TLG's undertaking of this movie Ghostbusters license would cause an automatic block of a CuuSoo project featuring Filmation's older live action or animated TV shows of the same name. You know the one with Spencer, Tracey and Kong in the antique car?) licensing can be annoyingly complex. Plus they technically did not simply choose one. The decision on the female minifig set is still outstanding. So that leaves open the probability that they are willing to do two. C. As for the other Ghostbusters project. I think they came to the only reasonable way to split the baby as it were. The core of both projects were the car and 4 figs. Both offered an option for the fire station. I don't think TLG would have the flexibility to morph them into 2 distinctly different things. Nor would there be a business case reason for doing so. Plus any other decision would become a license for idea poaching and copycat ride the bandwagon projects. The last thing they want to do is incentivize bad behavior via CuuSoo. D. If anything the female minifig line may be felt to conflict with the CMF line. But it is very small, and quite a good set on its own merit. Save for the social political baggage it carries.

Are pictures of any other TABA toys showing up from Nurenberg? Don't forget there is a movie comming. New Line may be keeping the stuff out of the toy fairs to avoid accidental spoilers and reveals.

One rather interesting rumor kicking around lately. It seems that Warner Brothers has decided to simply use "Arrow" and it's corresponding version of Green Arrow in their cinematic universe and Justice League movie. Quite frankly I am stunned by this. Arrow is probably the best on screen interpretation of The DC universe since the Bruce Timm animated series. They already have everything they need in place in that show to build and expand the DC universe. Major heroes, major villains, etc. all presented fairly accurately to thei comic forms. I never would have credited Warner Brothers with having the ability to do anything smart regarding their DC properties.

I think Lego has a few multi part molds. Typically for very specialized things. The tool wheels for example. Or the Friends accessories. Not to mention the flower heads. They don't do this with building parts any longer as it requires manual labor to separate.

Actually Lego is unusual in that their molds typically are just for a single part. Many plastic manufacturers produce parts on trees or sprues. If you have ever built a plastic model kit, typically each sprue of parts is a single mold. Some manufacturers such as Bandai of Japan are actually able to do multiple colored plastic on a single sprue using a single mold. It's kind of wild.

The movie itself is still copyrighted. So thing sthat are unique and specific to the movie are covered. (The Ruby Slippers come to mind) The Wizard of Oz IP comes from the books, which are now public domain. That's how you get things like Wicked, and Oz the Great and Powerful and Return to Oz. And that's why they never quite absolutely match up with the old MGM movie world of Oz, and why MGM doesn't make a dime off of any of them.

He's probably just a side villain. Like who Cap is taking down in the opening scenes or somesuch. Not so much a major plot element.

The problem is its a financial matter. So it really isn't limited to just one site. Even if those with the problem are just there. If there is something real behind this it can lead to the court taking financial oversight steps. Which could very easily spell doom for development projects. Hopefully they are just going after the ex CEO and not the company itself. Insider trading is an officer of the corporation, someone connected to them, or someone with explicit internal only business knowledge acting on that knowledge to buy or sell stocks to their own betterment and to the detriment of those investors with only public knowledge. As an example. Say a game company is about to release a highly anticipated game, that the public is slathering for, but has not yet seen. The CEO has however seen it and knows it is a buggy piece of garbage that will tank at retail. So a few days before release he and his friends and family all cash out their stock while the price is at a high point, knowing it will drop shortly thereafter. They do their stock trades based on secret knowledge that in turn screw the normal investors.

It might simply be for VFX. The shield is probably almost fully painted over with CGI to keep it consistent when it is thrown, and to add that colored stainless steel metal look to it.

Sadly my prediction is the Sherlock set probably will not pass review, at least not as proposed. It runs into a few difficulties. The actual show skews rather harshly older and much more adult oriented than is typical for Lego brand fit. It's a bit dark and violent, and probably sitting in that same sort of place as Sean of the Dead and the Serenity. Beyond that the IP is problematic. Why would Lego pay for this specific Sherlock TV show IP, when the actual source IP is in the public domain and may be freely used? I think the LR failed more on shear size and complexity. I don't think they would have had any issues with the brand license. They typically don't for that sort of thing. Automakers tend to be very supportive and cooperative.

What exactly are you talking about? Of the 7 approved for production CuuSoo sets 3 were real world/ real space / science subjects, 2 were from classic movies, 1 was from a popular video game and 1 is based on a classic Lego theme? Where exactly is this "licensed focus"? The projects currently looming in the top 10-12 votes seem to reflect a similar spread of real world, pop culture and licenses? Even in review waves where there are a lot of "licenses" it seems the nature of them and specific subjects are quite broad. Ranging from truly classic things like the Wizard of Oz, to newer interpretations of classic literature like Sherlock, to modern video games like FTL or television like Adventure Time. All licensing means is the set is based on something, and typically something familiar and liked by a large enough block of people. The birds project is based on something. The polish bus is based on something. The Japanese buildings are based on something. So where exactly is this oft repeated focus?

Congrats to BrentWaller (sp?), I love that Excto 1. For the rest of it, it's not really surprising for the most part. The only one that did make me wonder was the Road to Oz? That should be a public domain pop culture property with no obvious failure points? (Maybe the woodsman's hat?) The only reasons I can think of for it to fail would be the hat? Our longstanding thought that they do only choose 1 per review period, and Ecto 1 won? Or finally they have some sort of Oz thing in the works. Possibly they are trickling Oz type minifigs into the CMF's, as with the Scarecrow? Kind of sad on the Landrover Defender. That would have been an absolute monster of a set.

Uh Oh! This can't be good http://www.gamepolitics.com/2014/01/29/report-funcom-under-investigation-insider-trading#.Uuml1_RDt8E "Norwegian MMO developer and publisher Funcom is under investigation for insider trading, according to this Eurogamer report. According to the report, staff were sent home today as Norwegian authorities collected documents related to an investigation into insider trading, though specific details about the investigation remain unknown as of this writing. Funcom's stock has also been temporarily frozen on the Oslo stock market." This seems to revolve around some shadiness involving the last CEO and the launch of the Secret World. So who knows what the impact on the Lego game will be. Although right about now I am betting that Lego is probably having some deep second thoughts about the whole deal.

I think we get spares of small parts because of how they are packaged. The parts bags are packed via an automated mechanism. The machines don't count parts, they measure weight. So they add x many grams of part A to the bag, y many grams of part B, etc. I suspect that some of the smallest parts, such as studs, cheese slopes, bandanas, technic pins, etc, are individually below the margin of error for the weighing mechanism. Hence they add two of such pieces or an extra or two when setting up the machine, to insure that the parts go in the bag.