Faefrost

Wow that is great. I especially love those window shutters. That just looks fantastic. Am I correct in thinking that these are 2 32x32 foot print modulars, held together via that interesting bit of detailing in the center front? PS Am I the only one that saw the subject line and expected to find Superman, Batman, Aquaman and the Wonder Twins?

Not crazy about the "dew rag" look on Raph. Granted I think the Minifigs will be more simply recolors of what we have with these prints. But I'm just not feeling the love of these new designs. They lack a certain element of charm or charisma that the turtles have always had. Oh well hopefully it looks better in the flesh and the brick.

I'm kind of sad that we probably will not see any more Clone Wars ships. There were a few decent designs in that series. I would have loved a Crucible set. A sort of halfway point between the Jedi Defender and the Republic Cruisers and Tantive IV. Also a Luxury Yacht ala the Lady Luck. Not to mention all the cool characters they skipped in fig form. Ah well I hop Rebels gives us some cool new stuff to hold us over until the new movies. I'm just not getting excited over yet another Snowspeeder or Battlepack of clones.

Probably not too much. In the video you get a brief glimpse of the back. It's pretty much a hollow open square. The safe assumption is the Phantom's wings fold up and it sockets in there, looking like part of the Ghosts engines. But not leaving any room for an interior play set. I think we will really need both sets together in order for the Ghost to be a decent display piece.

I'm thinking a minimum of 8 months between announcement and release.

While some of their lack of research on related topics or proper pronunciation can be a little off putting, for the most part I like the Brick Show. They seem to have established a pretty good structure and timing for how to deliver a decent look at a set within a watchable period of time. They use good quality video and production values and don't drone on and on. They show you the figs, show you the set, tell you their opinion, and strive (often unsuccessfully) to split the difference between the toy products core kid audience, and AFOL sensibilities. I don't see anything worth hating there.

Yeah. Marvel is hopping mad about it. The deal was supposed to be Fox had all of the mutants except Quicksilver and Scarlett Witch.

I think its one of the few ways that have worked out how to show a modern "science" sub theme in City, rather than making it science vs monsters etc. and still let it have typica City play mechanisms. Vehicles, helicopters, bases, ships, etc.

The similarities kind of follow. It's a late 19th century NYC municipal service building. Chances are it shared the same basic architecture if not the same architect as many if the fire houses TLG used for inspiration for the Fire Brigade. They don't have to make that building per se. Although it does have some interesting elements that I think would work well for the purpose. Particularly the fact that it isn't an imposing grey fortress like structure. It has some contrasts and some colors. And that square windowed roof office or light well is kind of interesting and would break up a modular towns roofline in a way that isn't another bell tower. I don't think they should make that building, so much as I think it might be an interesting starting point. And really the only readily identifiable alternative for a recognizable police building would be something along the lines of 4 Whitehall, the original Scotland Yard. And that sort of looks like a merging of this building and the Town Hall, all with Green Grocers roofline. Just stumbling on that one made me think that something like that could easily fill that "family bait" role recently vacated by the Fire Brigade. It even has a color palette not too removed from the Forrest Police Station.

Given you dislike of compression, I think what you want would be bigger than you realize. The actual filming miniature seen on screen was 1/72 scale. At that scale it filled almost half a soundstage and rose 4 or 5 meters into the air. Minifig scale is roughly 1/48, so almost twice the size. That upper plaza alone would be about the size of a car. It's no longer a play set. It is at best a play house, and quickly nearing something that requires an actual building permit. If we are exceedingly lucky, and TLG renews or extends the license to a long term, we might someday see such a thing at a Lego theme park. But as a released set? Hells no.

If you want to get really technical, they have not used the designation UCS in about 10 years. So what it means has kind of gotten fluid and open to interpretation. These days they just put out large expert build level D2C sets. Which the Sandcrawler looks to be. It is also probably a massive system scale play set, ala Death Star and Ewok village. So some people's interpretation of its UCS pedigree may differ? Chances are this will be the large May D2C release.

I think the big reason why we are getting the new Snowspeeder is to create a play synergy with the new AT-AT. While they could have just left the current Battle of Hoth Snowspeeder set out there, this way it lets them add the new spring missiles so the two sets can be shooting it out. Which would have been an awesome feature to have back when I was in my preteen years. They didn't add much in the way of opposing force in the Snowspeeder this time because the set is meant to be a low priced companion set to the high price one. It's a common and effective marketing scheme. "Don't just by this. By this plus the upgrade add on." You see a similar vibe over with the Ghost and the Phantom. The low cost set is meant as an add on or compliment to the larger one in addition to working as a stand alone. They did this same thing with the LotR and Hobbit sets. The High priced set (Helms Deep or Dol Goldur Battle) had a lower priced set to expend the scene or play (Uruk Hai Army and Dol Goldur Ambush respectively).

Also Marvel has a new movie out in early April. Captain America Winter Soldier. I think they like to have a fresh block of sets out on shelves 2-4 weeks before that to maximize cross capitalization. Weren't the Avengers sets out about a month before the movie? The same with IM3 and the Doc Oc set with relation to ASM? The sets don't necessarily have to be specifically movie based so long as they are in the general ball park for recognizable characters.

The set had to be cancelled when the ship sailed south to measure melting ice, got stuck in the worst arctic ice in centuries and the crew was devoured by rabid carnivorous penguins. I keep hoping that the Arctic sub theme is a fakeout, and it's actually the secret continuation of Alien Conquest.

I know. And supposedly he was in talks to play some other phase 3 character. That's what had me thinking of him as the Thing.

That looks substantially better than Megablok's efforts. Nicely done.

Am I alone in thinking we really need to put the entirety of the LotR and Hobbit Lego fanbase around here on caffeine restrictions. You guys are getting way way way too highly strung out over the pickiest little things. These are playsets. They are not perfect scale reproductions of on screen specifics. Yes it would be nice to have an elven helm. But I can respect that that involves questions of "how much will they use it?", and "is it an identifiable license restricted part (like Stormtrooper helms) or something we can re use?" etc. At this point I will be happy for more sets. new helms would be a nice bonus, but not something worth stressing over. The breakdown according to the leaked TABA production materials seems to be these 5. Dwarves, Humans, Elves, Orcs and Eagles. At least those are the ones that show up in the marketing picture describing the 5 armies. Worgs are just mounts and not an Army unto themselves. I think the Eagles are probably only considered one because Gandalf is leading them.

It would still be neat if somebody sends TLG his picture and character info and kinda suggests that "gee wouldn't it be great to get some more diverse minifigs that aren't Billy D Williams or Samuel L Jackson?

Is anyone else thinking that the poor folks that have to pre screen the CuuSoo projects might be having to deal with a bit more than they bargained for in the next month or two?

Oh dear. I confess to being torn over even mentioning this one. I most certainly am not going to directly link to the story ( I really don't want to get banned). It's on Gizmodo and probably half the internet if you really want the ummm juicy details. But it's a Lego news story. Out there in the whole insane world of the internet. A big "Lego Contest". It would seem that there is a rather famous young lady, who stars in a variety of what we shall refer to as "specialty films of an adult nature". I mean real famous in that industry. In addition to her day job, it would seem that she really really likes Lego. So she is holding a contest and offering an "extra special" reward for whoever can make the best Lego Creation for her. It is a fairly safe assumption that this contest will be restricted to AFOL's only! (Dear Lord at least I hope so, otherwise little Billy will be gettin his self one hechuva edumacation) While it is actually kind of oddly reassuring to see our AFOL hobby hit the main stream. I am somehow thinking that this is not quite the sort of target marketing that Billund is really looking for. I'm thinking we may start seeing some really odd MOC's start popping up on the internet real soon.

I'm not sure we can attribute normal "curses my plans were foiled, my enemies united against me and my minions slaughtered!" Motivations to Thanos. At least not if he is being written well and proper. He will kill Loki for failing him, or worse betraying him. But in his eyes the loss of the Chitauri and the creation of the Avengers probably are a happy outcome long term. Yep. Supposedly Johnny Depp will be playing him. I'm not sure how I like that casting? I think he will do well, but I kind of wish they had broadened the cast of Marvel characters a bit. Given his backstory Strange would have been perfect for a charismatic Indian actor. (He never made much sense to me as a manhattan white guy?) In other wishful casting. I know he sometimes draws some criticism. But am I alone in thinking Vin Diesel would be the perfect voice for Ben Grimm? And wouldn't be too bad as him in human form?

We may be seeing some shortening in the release schedule of the Modulars. It seems to be a successful line for TLG. The time between Palace Cinema and Parisian Restaurant was more like 8 months, rather than the usual 12. We just didn't really notice that we got it a little early. But if the new release schedule is every 8 months or so than we might see another somewhere around August. Sort of a January -> August -> May -> repeat schedule going forward. That would be nice.

I think it is each set makes 2 versions of 2 buildings, so 4 total. Bike Shop, Cafe, garage and Florist. Now you may be able to take a third set and mix things up a little more on your own. If I am reading the blurry pics on the box right, it looks like both Classic City and Modular town fans will be thrilled. It looks like these are hinged, kind of like the haunted house or the Medieval Market Village. Open they form broad front open back buildings ala classic City. Closed they look to form two story narrow half profile Modular type buildings (maybe 12 or 16 wide?) Hmmm? Actually if you do Modulars as a shelf it might almost be worth doing 4 of these sets. 4 buildings that can each be displayed in 2 facings, the effective front and back being different.

Hmmm? If the part you are describing is what I think it is, then the Super Heroes fans will be thrilled to death. It sounds like you just described that would allow for figs of Ghost Rider, Dread Dormamu, Mysterio. Human Torch and all of those other "flaming head" types.

Hanging over the Desk and TV in my office