Faefrost

Ugh! The one remaining hope I had regarding any continuation of this line was that I haven't been able to think of anything out there within the general niche that TLG might replace it with? TLG has done quite well over the past decade with sets sitting in that sort of junction of literary fantasy and movies. Middle Earth slid right into that same place occupied by Harry Potter. But there just isn't anything else waiting in the wings? Is there? I mean assuming the main requirements, a succesful broad audience family friendly fantasy movie franchise that appeals to both kids and AFOLs and ties in well with things that work in Lego? Having some sort of book tie in is a bonus. What else could be out there for them to take a stab at? And then I saw Inconspicuous's delightful little MOC. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=90516 Oh dear. If TLG somehow landed that license then yeah, that would do the trick business model wise. My only consolation is I think we would have heard leaks about it if they had. (And their deep dealings with Disney may discourage them from getting involved with Dreamworks.)

Wonderful little MOC. It's also making me think what an amazing license that would be for TLG. They have those new mini ball and sockets and seem to be getting better and better at organic critters. Plus Vikings, Dragons, Ships, Viking buildings, and tie ins to two movies and 2 TV shows. That might be interesting.

Have we ever gotten an official statement that a line is ending? None for PotC, none for PoP, LR, Avatar, Speed Racer. The only time we might have gotten any sort of official statement was regarding Harry Potter, and that was simply due to the unexpected extra movie meaning Lego still had product out on the shelves when the end/renewal date of the license arrived.

I think Erebor would work something along the lines of the LR Silver Mine or the good old Agents Volcano Lair. The landscaped mountain side with huge doors in the middle. Just maybe in a larger scale than those two sets given a $130 price tag.

Hmmm? I notice the Apollo 11 project disappeared? I wonder if it ran afoul of one of the new rules? I also wonder if they have or are considering some below board mechanism for detecting or determining creator abandoned projects? That Apollo 11 had the distinction of being one of the oldest projects on CuuSoo. Going back at least 5 years. What happens to a project if the owner can no longer be found or contacted?

The monorail is even more complex because among those lost, damaged, destroyed or unusable molds are the ones involving the drive system. In that thread I posted a few pages back Mark Stafford touched on what is involved in certifying any electrical related parts, and it is insane. It cleared up why we do not see a lot of new lighted parts or high tech parts. Any new monorail proposal would pretty much have to be based on existing Power Functions parts and motors.

We often fail to appreciate just how much engineering and research Lego and their suppliers and partners do with regard to the plastic itself. Color = chemistry. And every color can subtly change the plastic. For the low end Chinese plastic shops they are basically just using haphazardly colored plastics. So the red may get brittle, the green may not cure properly and warp etc. I suspect that one of the reasons we do not see Lego produce as broad a variety of parts in different colors, as quickly as we would like, is the shear amount of testing involved. They need to validate the color of plastic with the part or mold to insure that it behaves as desired.

There would appear to be something new in the retailer catalog showing some previously unseen Castle subjects. A Red Dragon catapult with older style large 1 piece catapult in red and big chunky wheels. Some sort of similar chunky wheeled horse drawn thing holding a crown night, a grey or silver crowned king and a gold nugget, etc. From the blurry and badly cropped picture online it's hard to tell if it is from a game, a new iPad app, something like a Brickmaster book or actual sets?

That high visibility orange has long been associated with Antarctic Expeditions. Going back to the 19th century. Plus aren't a lot of the US Antarctic missions operated by NOAA? Which at least used to be a civilian and scientific offshoot of the US Coast Guard? And often used a similar or reversed color scheme? Oh and looking at the catalog pages that have snuck out online, The bike shop looks pretty close to what we expected. A small building that seems to fall between the Creator and Modular style of detail. A 16 wide Modular type building. Mainly Yellow, white and blue trim. The two train sets look amazing. The freight looks suspiciously like a North American EMD GP unit or some sort. The Arctic stuff looks great with the high points by far being the dog sled and new polar bear.

Oh wow! The scary thing is that the Sw stuff is some of the least interesting on that page. And not because the SW stuff is boring... It's just that there is so much amazing stuff there. :wub:

The third company still cannot use the first infringers art. The customizer may not be able to sue to get any money or compensation, but he can most certainly block the use of any art specific to himself. if Marvel finds a kid making or selling Iron Man pictures. They can make the kid stop. They cannot then take his work and publish it. Nor can any third party. Stealing someones art is still stealing someones art, regardless of whether or not the artist had permission to make the art in the first place. The original copyright holder can get the art removed from any public view, and in many cases destroyed. But it cannot be reused or distributed without the permission of both the original copyright holder and the actual artist.

When the first LotR movie came out it was known that the "prequel" movies were looming. That is a much different retail environment than "no further materials forthcoming in book or film". Just look at how quickly Harry Potter disappeared. Lego chooses what to make based in part on a fairly heavy feedback system from their retailers. It is all part of the overall analysis and focus studies that goes into creating themes. They gauge what is selling to the street, the gauge what the retail chains are buying, they talk to the retailers regarding shelf space and allocation. Retailers do not simply take what Lego gives them. They have a great deal of control over quantities, shelf allocation, etc. and it is doubtful that Lego's direct consumer operations, S@H and branded Lego stores account for much more than maybe 15% of total sales. So yes the retailers opinions on these things count. Note the text in some of the retailer catalogs we have seen, how TLG is trying to sell the marketability of a given product line. As you say they base whether or not to continue things based on sales data. So do the retailers. And they are quite good at gauging the expected life cycle of a product. And honestly LotR could very easily go either way here. You say Star Wars is a valid comparison... Well yes, but not in the way we want. Star Wars has managed to keep a steady and succesful product line on toy store shelves since 1978. The toy sales funded the second and third movies. Star Wars shows what it looks like when a toy line jumps out if that "licensed tie in grove" and becomes an independent self supporting merchandise property. As I said above similar examples can be seen with Batman and Soiderman. I would add that a recent addition to that list is possibly Iron Man, who's toys have not left store shelves for about 6 or 7 years now, while other superheroes come and go with their movies, such as Thor, Superman, Green Lantern and the Hulk. And therein lies the problem. The Middle Earth stuff has traditionally sold in a pattern more akin to Thor or Superman. It spikes somewhat when the movie releases then ends up on the discount rack. The Lego stuff has been about the only exception outside the collectors market of high end action figures that never leave their plastic boxes. Notice how very little toy merchandise is out there for DoS? Without movies in production the suspicion is the only thing that Tolkien sells is books and the occasional wall calender. And this will be a hard impression to break.

The 10xxx designation is one that Lego has always used, not for large sets, but for "D2C" sets. Sets sold principle through Lego directly. The Sandcrawler, the Simpsons House and the Sea Cow may actually be very very large retail sets. So you may see them on the shelf at TRU and such.

Not so much Mixels so much as more Chima Legend beast I thought. That same kind of blocky organic feel that they are doing this year. The Sentinel in the X-Men set has the same feel to him. It might just be the aggressive use of the new small ball and socket bricks, and away from Constraction elements. I don't know how you all can read much of anything from that blurry overlord picture? All I can tell is the Overlords coloring seems to be Black with Gold Trim or highlight coloring?

I think the Stormtrooper helmets were a bit more complex than simply deciding if they were design items or sculpture. That was simply some of the reasoning the court used. In that case the UK man was in fact a small merchant who had constructed the original Stormtrooper Helmets that Lucas used in Star Wars. Lucas pretty much bought them on the spot, with no formal contracts involved. Just a cash purchase for the merchants work. When the merchant several years later began using his tooling to make replicas of the famous helmet Lucas sued claiming the Copyright was his. The court found that no, Lucas had never established that at time of purchase, and instead he had not purchased designs, he had purchased sculpture (the prop helmets for use in the movie) and as such the merchants copyright to his own work was valid. (Lucas still had copyright to the design as an element of his films, but it did not supersede the merchants, who could still freely reproduce his work.) The whole point of this is that customizes do still maintain a copyright to the unique artistic elements of their own work, even if that work has elements that are infringing on someone else's. A third party (or even the first party) cannot take that infringement as cause or free reign to violate that artists copyright.

They don't mean that all projects are limited to simply "bricks". You can use any official and produced Lego parts. Ideally those that are still in production. What they mean by "brick projects only" is they will no longer entertain non construction projects. Things like software, children's clothes, or similar third party ideas with a Lego logo slapped on. They also will not permit proposals or requests for new parts. Either as a stand alone part, such as a new building element, or a project required part such as a custom character hairpiece.

Heck I do that with my AGENTS stuff now. All the blue vehicles with the big A on them work surprisingly well for stuff connected to the Avengers. And the Agents outfits do work as an acceptable stand in for classic Shield type uniforms, at least until we get some real comic styled stuff.

Storms Tiara tends to come and go over the years in a very inconsistent manner. (Someone remind me were they using it in the classic 90s cartoon?) while a nice costume element really they key character feature is the flowing white hair.

The key question in all of this is would the big box retailers, TRU, Walmart, Target, etc, want a further LotR line without a clear movie tie in? Star Wars doesn't count for comparison. Star Wars has been selling merchandise stand alone since 1978. They have deep retailer history. The same with Superheroes. Batman and Spider-Man have sold well stand alone for decades. (Also why we get mostly Batman and Spider-man Superhero sets. ) remember Lego does not sell directly to the public for the most part. Their lines are heavily influenced by what the big retailers want.

In the US they also use just red and green to control traffic flow onto highway entrance ramps. You stop at the beginning of the ramp until it says go. They put a few seconds between each car to allow for safer highway merging. And they are often found attached to overhead lighting.

It may have some crossover hobbiest appeal. It may also be a regional thing. Doing better in areas that have more a more nautical tradition. I haven't specifically asked but just from eyeballing it I think the PR has done better at my local store. With that said I can kind of see the draw. The Modular buildings just lost their, for lack of a better term, "gateway drug". The Fire Brigade was that perfect intersection of AFOL cool detailed real model, and kid magnet, that the others just aren't. The modular line will need to add something with a more active play component or interest to really make up for it being retired. Maybe a mechanic shop or a post office? The PR is almost pure AFOL. It doesn't have that built in active draw that kids focus on. I could easily see older teenaged Lego fans gravitating towards the Maersk ship instead. (BTW, signs that you probably have a diseased mind. If on looking at the Maersk ship your first thought was to wonder when someone will post a CuuSoo project of a matching Somali Pirate ship? YoHo?)

I'm thinking they saved it as the special character defining item to package with her in the CMF. Let's be honest, while their are tons of neat items that you can attach to Bart, Homer or even Maggie, There are very few accessories that really scream Lisa beyond her sax.

Blasphemy! I don't care what you say, Bea Arthur will never be excised from cannon!

Typically when that happens its because of a conflict where another company holds a game license for that movie or subject. That's why we did not get the Battle for Hoth game as well.

But which Bea Arthur character? It would be so hard to choose. The singing Tatooine saloon keeper? The robot cooking show chef? (The fact that I even know some of the choices really really disturbs me... )