Faefrost

The Bird project has hit 10k. Congrats to Detomaso on his simply delightful little creations. And the best of luck in review. Although honestly so long as the scope is limited to just 1,2 or 3 birds (which I think he did when the rules changed) I think this one has a very very high chance of being made. It's different. It shows Lego in a different way. It's something your Mom would like and display in the public spaces of the house. And Lego designers tend to adore organics done well in Lego. Well done, I hope to see this one on the shelves next year.

There was actually a huge teaser for Winter Soldier in this episode with Skye reading off Bucky Barne's name on the plaque. She wasn't reading a random name. She was reading the first name on the plaque. Captain America's special operations group from the second half of Captain America, First Avenger is the beginning of SHIELD. Cap, Bucky, Dum Dum and the Comando's were the first Operations group. Howard Stark and company were Research and Science and Peggy Carter was part of Inteligence. Bucky Barnes was SHIELDs first field casualty. In one brief seemingly cheesy bit of dialogue they just tied together CA1, IM2, Avengers, AoS and set the stage for Winter Soldier and upped the stakes a bit. Especially for movie fans who don't know the Winter Soldier comic story going in.

So we'll be getting the Sandcrawler over in the Architecture theme?

Makes sense. Rebels is supposedly referencing Ralph McQuaries original concept art. And his original Stormtrooper paintings had them carrying some sort of energy swords. It wasn't till later in the design stages that those got limited to Jedi and Darth Vader. Hmmm? Lucasfilms do tend to be masters at teasing certain things. We tend to forget why Boba Fett and Darth Maul are so popular, despite their brief appearances and somewhat premature ends on screen. It's because they were both the first bits we got that there would be more. Boba Fett was the secret teaser fig you got for sending in all your proofs of purchase. Your first tantalizing glimpse that there really would be more Star Wars. The first little piece of ESB to be real. The same with Darth Maul. He was the first teaser glimpse of the PT. Now we all already know Luke appears in Ep VII. Might they do some early teasing and give us an older more aged Jedi Master Luke fig?

I think it was more an age or release order sort of thing. Most of the newer buildings are on 32x32 bases, the older on 2 16x32's. The old buildings had some weird part use requirements of the designers. So it may simply be what was in the warehouse in surplus amounts at that time.

I'm suspecting it's more "buy it now before several differing teams of lawyers shut us down".

You underestimate the cost of the tooling Lego uses by about a decimal place. The high cost is in the extreme precision and extremely small tolerances.

Weren't they both Mark Stafford designs? So they still pretty well reflect a lot of the current design philosophy and approach. Agents always struck me as one of the beginning points for the modern design era's. You see a lot of similarities in things like Chima and especially Ninjago set designs today.

Seems fairly solid on mine. There is a little bit of flex as it is that softer more rubbery plastic. But no noticable rocking side to side beyond expected flex?

It's within the same basic size range and overall foot print as the Pet Shop. The only area that loses a little space is the top most floor. But that seems to be more a styling and shaping thing that an attempt to reduce size. I like that they made a portion of it open air. With some extra minifigs seated around it looks more alive than the others.

Forget Police. I still want my Kurt Russel minifig... but hey! We're getting a new dog. So we're halfway there.

My impression of the "Great Vehicles" lines requirements 1. Wheels 2. $19.99 USD price point 3. DONE!

I think Groot would work well using the Toy Story Woody type body with a headpiece not unlike the LotR's Mouth of Sauron.

It's confirmed that they are one and the same. Kretschmann will be playing Strucker.

The horns have been around for years. I think it first showed up in either Kingdoms or Atlantis. Unikitty was the first time seeing it in that color. Prior to that it only came in silver or gold I think?

Actually I would not be surprised to see them return in some form, simply on the basis of global economics. Video Game writer "Yahtzee" Crenshaw had an interesting article up this week on the escapist that touched a little bit on how our perceptions of what is evil vs heroic can fluctuate based on the then current economic climate. http://www.escapistm...s-Ruined-Cities Most of the article is specifics regarding current and past video games, and he is more talking about the perceptions of Dragons in games and pop culture. But a similar take can be had when looking at the Robin Hood stuff. Anywhere here's the salient bit. "For example, for a while now I've had the theory that the moral depiction of dragons in popular fantasy gives a decent rough indicator of the global financial situation. In a boom, you see, the hoarding of gold is more likely to be considered to be a harmless eccentricity, even something desirable, and dragons are noble and nice. But in a recession, when everyone hates the people with all the money, then dragons are villains. Examples: Smaug is the archetypal megablock dragon, and The Hobbit was written in the Great Depression. The dragon on the far other end of the spectrum is Puff the Magic Dragon, and the best-known version of that by Peter Paul & Mary came out in the 60's. This was also the point when the global economy was at its strongest in the entire twentieth century because of post-war redevelopment." ​A similar take can be had with Robin Hood and the "Rob from the Rich to Give to the Poor" stories. They tend to see a sharp uptick during times of economic recession. And become less popular during times of strength. They were at their peak during the 70's and early 80's. With a minor uptick around the tail end of the Bush I Presidency. So given the current Western economic climate, you never know. (assuming of course that Ridley Scott and Russel Crowe did not do the one thing Kevin Costner could not, and kill off Robin Hood?)

They have talked about it in a few places. Mostly interviews, such as the tv documentary that shows how the factory works. I think it has also been mentioned in some of the magazine articles? Possibly either Brickjournal or Hispabrick? I know I have read about it in more than one place, and not simply as forum posts. Although it does show up occasionally in posts from Lego designers when they talk about part use and availability. I think they have occasionally explained that sometimes the mold for the part they had wanted had been moved to another factory, so they were forced to find another solution. (As you might notice I tend to pay more attention to the business and production processes of TLG than the average fan). The molds go where they are needed and where there is available factory and machine run time. Also some parts are so common that they will overlap new and old tooling and run them concurrently in different factories. Such as with minifig arms and hands. Right now we can tell that there are at least two sets of tooling in use. One with the numbers and one without. The safe bet is the newer tooling is the set with numbers that appears to currently be in China. As the older tooling ages the newer molds may move as needed and yet another set brought online. These are parts that are used in almost every single Lego set and will not be discontinued anytime soon, so the tooling would have a very constant cycle. Plus these parts are also very high margin so making an extra set of tooling is more easily justifiable and amortizable (is that a word?) The slight differences in minifig leg and arm tension may be the result of minor variations between the tooling sets, ie the newer tooling may have actually been engineered to have a little less friction and stress at these joints. Or it might be caused by the slight differences in the plastic. But it is not necessarily an indication of a change in quality, nor is it a definition of poor quality. Every new variation on tooling makes some minor adjustments to friction and clutch power trying to find that perfect balance between strength of joint and minimizing of stress.

Hmmm? A Villain Group called "Tornado" with a kind of weather theme going on would follow well from "Inferno". It would not surprise me if the really big truck is the new Ultra Agents HQ. The original Mobile HQ is still one of the 10 best Lego sets ever made.

Lego moves molds around. They aren't tied to any specific factory and different molds are constantly in transition. They match up molds with production capability with production needs. So tooling that is in China this year may be in Mexico next. And even though the parts are being made in a Chinese factory they still use 100% Lego owned molds and tooling. The only actual difference between the Chinese factory and the others is Chinese import laws do not allow them to bring the same raw plastic in. They have to source it locally, which probably accounts for the slightly different texture. That is less an issue of "quality" as it is one of "difference" which we often mistakenly perceive as a change in quality. Because Lego can not single source their plastic like they have done for all of their other factories, we notice a difference. But their really is no concrete evidence of a difference in plastic quality. The Chinese stuff appears to wear and handle the same. And behave the same under the same stresses. We can just notice that it does have a marginally different texture than the more traditionally sourced plastic. And once again different does not = CS actionable defect.

Don't count Wasp out yet. We nearly had her in Avengers 1. Joss Wheedon loves the character and already has stuff written for her. She was his option if Scarlett Johansen didn't want to do Black Widow again. And JW never let's go of a character once he gets it into his mind. She will show up somewhere. She just may not have as direct a tie to Pym as is traditional. I wonder what the odds of seeing Scott Lang show up over in the Jessica Jones TV series will be?

You obviously have not watched very many Zach Snyder movies? I think Lois Lane is just about the only female he has put on screen that doesn't in some way match your description. He seems to have a bit of a fetish.

This last episode of aoS was one of the best. They actually started to open the door to a few real potential Marvel characters. I'm guessing the one dude is Blizzard? (And having him end up in the same place as Graviton is interesting). And then there's the potential in the other big reveal... Mantis maybe? (Original pre GoG Avengers Mantis?)

Not to say that we are being trolled... But regardless of the fate of LotR or The Hobbit lines, TLG would NEVER EVER discuss that status or continuation of a product line while there is still announced product in the pipeline, and the contract is still in full effect. Doing so would have a decidedly negative impact on both the upcoming Hobbit release wave, and any LotR or Hobbit product still remaining on retailer shelves. Customer Service would never answer in that manner because quite frankly they would never ever know. We tend to find out about this sort of stuff well before any Lego support rep does. So I am starting to really doubt any of these mysterious "first time posters" (amazing how they all offer up screen shots of e-mail as proof?)

In looking at those e-mails the term "context sensitive automated response system" comes to mind. Those look suspiciously like response bots. Untouched by human hands. On the positive side those sorts of systems are likely tied in to generate data for marketing, so it will report interest. And apparently the AI likes to read the Hobbit, so bonus! (Sadly Lego appears to have bought the "nerd" AI personality and not the more expensive "Scarlett Johansen" upgrade.)

Second biggest plot point? I'm not saying it's a bad set, or a bad subject for a wave flagship set. But they did have a fairly broad selection of good subjects for the top end. - expanded Lake Town set that includes elves and orcs and Dwarves. - Erebor, main entrance and secret passage. - the Dwarf Forge - Thranduil's Realm, (granted they already did a smaller variant of this) Dol Guldur doesn't make for a bad conflict driven set. But great, well known or even recognizable battle it's not.