Faefrost

And yet... Bag End is the top seller for both Middle Earth lines, and made the top 5 most desired list for Christmas last year? While I agree that Mount Doom would make for a rather dull set. We need to be a little more cautious as to how we categorize play features. Not all play is battles or Gimli tossing levers. Sometimes a simple setting with a lot of little details works very very well. And sometimes a set doesn't need play features because it IS a play feature itself.(Bag End, LR Stagecoach, Trains, etc)

It will depend on how you define "value". But honestly the LR stagecoach is superb no matter how you slice it. 5 Minifigs, 3 of the new style horses. Lots of new or useful detail parts like Red's hair and hat, the guns, etc. and a surprisingly good build in the stagecoach itself. If you are looking for something more Middle Earth, then probably the Mirkwood Elf Army. The build is sort of plain. But 6 Minifigs and a Warg make up for that.

That is a popular set that TLG has promised not to remake once it retires. And it should be retiring by the summer wave release at the latest. So you will probably get more than your money back if you are patient.

So let me see if I got this straight. 1. Summer Camp based theme, girls off in the woods? check! 2. Girls need less clothes? Check! 3. Recurring male character? Check! 4. Way around the boys only having one set of clothes issue? Check! I think we have you covered, and it's just perfect for Lego Fiends Aw, cmon you know you all were thinking it

There's always the question of what can they reasonably do with a viable retail set and still keep it within a marketable size and effective scale? Would anyone be content with a gates or Erebor set that is about the same shape as, and maybe half again the size of the LR Silver Mine set? That is probably what we would be looking at for that structure. (and personally I would be happy with it as a playset.) The same thing with Smaug. I think its safe to assume that even if it were to be the largest Dragon Lego has made to date, it would still be well reduced in scale from what is seen on screen. Probably something around the size of HF's Dragonbolt, just more filled in. Anything much bigger than that and you start to run into play issues (kinda like trying to "swoosh" the UCS Super Star Destroyer). And Smaug would probably need to be a retail set. I think we all suspect that to do Smaug they would need some new tooling. The head at a minimum. Unless they do one hell of a Ninjago/Chima style organic build. And the super huge super expensive D2C sets can't support new tooling. Which leads down the path that any Smaug we get would probably have to sit somewhere around a $130 price point max.

They are trickling out through the supply chain. TRU is the dedicated toy store and works hard to get the products out day of release if not sooner. The other vendors tend to just figure it into their weekly stock rotations. I saw some of the sets show up at my local Walmart today. And Target just put out the CMF's. I figure by the end of next week they will all be fully stocked.

There is a world of difference between customizers and bootleggers. Customizers are mostly selling their own handmade art. There is some flexibility for an artist to transfer ownership of a particular piece of art. Especially a custom request or commission. IP rules really are meant to deal with commercial production, not unique pieces. You could sculpt a really great unique Darth Vader statue. That in no way violates anyone IP. Once you grow bored with it you can sell that statue. No problem there, it is a personal work of art. It isn't until you start copying and producing it that it becomes an issue, or if it is being used to publicly display a licensed subject in an inappropriate, obscene or damaging manner that could be construed as damaging to the actual IP. (So a 17 foot tall bronze statue of Darth Vader pooping on George Lucas displayed a t a major intersection might draw some legal ire.)

How does one tell the difference between a never used part and one that was used once on a model that was cleaned, polished and maintained by Lego professionals? Even the best new parts have spent time tumbling around in storage bins with millions of other bricks.

Some of the larger Subject UCS stuff actually is set at minifig scale, such as the Imperial Shuttle. I suspect that the UCS Sandcrawler would be a closer to true minifig scale and come with a few Jawa's and Droids. We may even get lucky and get an Uncle Owen fig.

They have every right. This is well established law. A good example of which is "garage kit" manufacturers of resin cast plastic model kits. They will often make their own design of an IP subject, such as a Star Wars kit. The owner of that IP ( ie Lucas) can step in and demand that they not sell the kits. But that does not give anyone else the right to steal the designs or recast the kits. The IP prevents you from selling your version of the design for commercial purposes. But! And here's the important bit. Even if your art infringes on an IP, it is still your art and it remains protected as such. The fact that the subject of your art is that of an unlicensed IP does not in any way strip away your creators rights to your own unique designs. And someone cannot simply step in and use them for their own commercial purposes.

They exist. As an example the Life size Bag End and X Wing fighter that made the news last year were built by Lego's US model shops. The theme parks still have their own model shops, but they are not directly owned by TLG any longer. They do still have a close relationship, but it is unknown if they can still request any part in any color at will the way they used to be able to do. Sometimes a large display model gets broken down and the parts sold off, which can see some odd lots hitting the aftermarket. I think one of the parks decommissioned a huge airplane last year that resulted in a lot of locals obtaining bags of unusual colored parts.

Weirdly enough from LotR and the Hobbit it is the short figs that mostly work well for Pirates. The Hobbit torso's, Frodo, Merry Pippin, Sam and Bilbo make great civilians or merchantmen. Frodo and Bilbo also each have 1 casual torso with just shirt and suspenders that are great. The Dwarves have a lot of broad belts and leather work and make decent Pirates. If you are going to match some of the QAR crew, then the Gundabad Orc's have similar flesh tones to the Zombie figures that come in the sets. The PoP figs and parts can add a bit of a more exotic middle eastern flair to a crew that looks good in a mixed pack of pirates.

is charging for parts replacement something specific to the constraction lines? I have had them replace broken system parts (mainly stuff broken or defective out of the box) and they never charge or even ask a question. I think once they asked for a picture of a part that was extremely damaged out of the box. But from the conversation with them it was more so they could show engineering the damage, and not that I had to prove that it was damaged.

If you are opting to go for a more "earth tones" realistic PotC type crew, as opposed to the classic striped shirt look, then there are tons of great flesh torsos to choose from. Obviously start with the PotC Minifigs, which offer a broad range of figs. Prince of Persia has some great parts. Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit have great torso's. Especially the ones that aren't wearing any obvious mail armor. I particularly like some of the Dwarf outfits from the Hobbit. They have a nice assortment of colors and you rarely recognize the torso prints as they are covered by beards on most. Harry Potter, a small number of HP torso's work well. Mainly the folk in more classical Wizarding World dress like Fenrir Greybeard or Sirius Black.

That a repaint of the new green goblin big fig. Looks like he did a decent job

When you say it was never produced or part of any set, I assume that the specific issue is it was never produced or released in the specific color you are talking about? If that's the case then chances are the parts that the merchant has originated in a Lego Model Shop. These are the places that make the display pieces, such as at the stores and parks. Before they sold off the theme parks the park shops could request parts in pretty much any color for the attractions.

The seller may simply be very practiced at buying large lots off of eBay and splitting them up to resell. As such they may have amassed some stock in specific parts. Some factory seconds and leftovers do occasionally find their way out and onto the Internet. Lego has been known to let employees purchase chunks of these sorts of things over the years. So someone may have had a box or sack of these things sitting in the basement, and they are only now being rediscovered and offered up. These sorts of things, much like the early or prerelease Minifigs on eBay, tend to show up in areas near the factory's. The Lego Model Shops will occasionally dump blocks of older, obscolete weathered or unused parts out for sale. While rare, these offerings will often account for some strange clusters of parts, or parts in strange and unexpected colors.

It isn't so much that the Minifigs changed how kids play, as it broadened the scope of how kids play with Lego products, and thereby broadened their desirability and market share. The reported minifig focused play styles have always been present with the kids. Do any of our nostalgic 80's space fans remember Fisher Prices classic Little People? It used the same play patern being observed with Lego, just the Lego allows greater flexibility in the scene and setting.

They have every right. Their work is still their work. Even if it is personal art of a licensed IP subject. And even if the customizes were selling their own art or were in violation of an IP, their work is still supposed to be protected from a third party coming in and stealing it for their profit.

They did it for Lone Ranger when that date changed late in the process. It also looks like the TMNT sets are scheduled for April, with that movie pushed back to late summer. So they do often choose to hold the original planned studio hard date. Sometimes it works to their benefit (I think most LR sets sold before folks saw the movie.) sometimes not (IM Mandarin sets tanked after they saw the movie.) It leaves TLG caught in the middle. They have delivery date contracts with retailers. They have street date contracts with the licensee. It puts them in a weird situation. And unless I am forgetting something strange in the past, New Line has possibly been the worst license partner experience for TLG to date. Adding extra movies. Splitting up already finalized scenes and impacting corresponding merchandise, logistical hassles at each stage. Not a pleasant environment for the toy makers. I'm sure they are doing a costs benefits analysis regarding recent licensing issues.

I don't know about Walmart, but my local Target put them out on Wednesday.

They probably cannot make Batman specific sets or put any of the licensed characters in the Movie toys due to the various license complexities. Or it's just not worth the effort and cost when they have their own sets using the same figs sitting right next to them on the shelf.

That's the Ghost. The main Hero ship from Rebels. It should not be a smaller ship and should come in somewhere in size between the 7965 Millenium Falcom and the 75025 Jedi Defender. A larger, but not completely huge playset ship. That should be interesting in Lego form, with the yellow, red and olive green details. Does the ship remind anyone else of the Narcissus from Alien? Oh and I stand corrected. Apparently the fighter in the back is called the Wolf. So it's anyones guess what that small priced Phantom set is?

Interesting. I could swear that the DK book indicated that it was character specific in that color. But then again it's not like DK never gets things wrong.

I always thought that "drone" approach would work well for a creepy classic Arnim Zola type fig.