JeanGreyForever

I feel like that would have been a better plan overall, to rotate the famous Disney castles. The first WDW Disney Cinderella castle sold so well, and was available at retail for so many years, that I think Lego thought this could be another Death Star which they could keep reproducing over and over. The problem is that the new castle had minimal changes, a very tacky color scheme which is already obsolete, and a really bad batch of minifigs. I can't imagine people who had the first castle would "upgrade" to this one, like I know I didn't. I just picked up Snow White, Cinderella, and their princes on BL. It shows how blindly Lego assumed the BATB castle would not have the same appeal so they purposefully downgraded it to not hurt a Disney castle which they couldn't justify keeping on sale for much longer. Ironically, if we had gotten a full-size BATB castle, it would have been a day 1 purchase for me. As it is, I've seen some gorgeous MOCs online which use 2 or more BATB sets to build a much larger, full-scale castle but it's such an investment that I haven't been able to convince myself to get into that yet. Especially with the hope that Disney might announce a larger BATB castle in the future to replace this current one. If you mean the Snow White cottage, I was under the impression that sales were good at the beginning, because I remember lots of posts here about it being on backorder like you said. I personally was surprised it retired as soon as it did but I remember voicing that here, and some people said it actually lasted the average length of a D2C set so maybe it didn't undersell after all. I had a few minor issues with that set (mainly the Snow White minifig not being movie accurate and instead themed to the Disney Princess line, plus the tight space in the cottage and lack of stairs), but other than that, it's probably one of the best ones they ever made. Especially including the wishing well and glass coffin. I think Disney's best sets so far have been the original Disney Castle, the original Steamboat Willie set, the Disney train station, the Winnie the Pooh house, the Snow White cottage, and that 90s VHS nostalgia set. Based on how they clearly expected their flagship castle set would last longer than it did, and how that backfired in terms of its impact on the BATB set, I'm guessing Lego feels more assurance over their buildable figures rather than their minifig sets. They don't seem to have the same grasp on their minifig sets based on the failure of the flagship castle set. And I feel like all the negative reactions online to the Main Street set will just further validate that and make Disney double down on buildable figures, since those are more affordable and clearly have a target audience which Main Street could not cater to.

I've always found it interesting how the helmet thing was popularized by the movies. In the classic (pre-movie) comics, he had telepathic immunity because of his own force of will and strong mind. Strong enough that he could astral project and converse with Xavier on the astral plane in the first few issues of the X-Men from the 60s. The helmet was just purely sartorial, it had no telepathic immunity. Juggernaut had a helmet with telepathic immunity, but that wasn't true for Magneto. The movies decided to invent this idea since it was more streamlined and it became so popularized that it became the norm and set the standard for the comics and all other multimedia. Even rewatching X-Men '97, a show based on the pre-movies 90s TV show and comics, where Magneto's immunity was based on his own natural abilities rather than helmet, I noticed that '97 claimed his helmet was capable of blocking out Xavier's telepathy. It really goes to show how that's taken over. Mystique still has scales on her face so they would probably pop up there on her head, even if her body is mostly covered. For Nightcrawler, I've always felt Lego should just throw a comic accurate minifigure of him into a Spider-Man set. When Nightcrawler debuted, he had a lot of similar characteristics to Spider-Man since they both could wall-crawl and Nightcrawler also used the "amazing" adjective to be described as. Plus a few years back, Nightcrawler briefly took on the Spider-Man mantle and costume. After Wolverine and Iceman (purely for the Amazing Friends show rather than anything in the comics), Nightcrawler would be the easiest X-Man to shoehorn into a Spider-Man set. Although it's funny because it looks like a certain spoiler character will follow Wolverine in probably being included in a Spider-Man set before any other X-Man.

Isn't it supposed to retire before the end of the year? I still haven't gotten it but it's on my list to pick up for sure. But it wasn't a day one purchase considering how scaled down it was, ironically enough so that it didn't eclipse the flagship set which ended up getting retired early anyway.

In discussion about the leaked character I think we're getting a full reboot of the X-Men cast, although there are some alleged leaks that Hugh Jackman will be the only one sticking around as Wolverine and won't be recast. I don't see Fassbender and McAvoy coming back because while they were the two most popular parts of the rebooted cast, they never stuck around into the public consciousness the way Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart did. Plus Feige had no involvement with the First Class reboot so I don't see him having any interest in bringing anything from those movies back. The Evan Peters appearance in WandaVision was likely it and even that turned out to be a red herring. Your views on the 4 reboot movies are pretty close to what general audiences think, outside of you liking Dark Phoenix. If out of those 4 movies, the only one you really enjoyed was DOFP, then I do think you'd like the original X-Men trilogy if you ever watched them. DOFP is closest in tone to those movies (particularly X2: X-Men United). Since it seems like you liked Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, he's the lead in all those trilogy movies just like he's the lead of DOFP. I don't think it's a coincidence that the rest of the X-Men reboot movies struggled without him. Also for Doomsday, it would be worth watching the trilogy just to get to know those characters beforehand. The ending of DOFP will also hit harder when you've spent more time with the original cast and get to see them get their happy ending (before Doomsday probably destroys that lol). I don't know if you've heard of the Rogue cut, but it's a DOFP extended edition featuring scenes with Rogue from the original trilogy. She's a major character there, particularly in her connection to Wolverine, so if you ever watch the original trilogy, I'd recommend following it up with The Wolverine (2013) as it's a direct sequel to the trilogy (features Wolverine's grief over Jean Grey's death and then sets up the return of Magneto and Professor X to deal with the Sentinel threat in DOFP), and then watching DOFP: The Rogue Cut. All those extended scenes are set in the future timeline with the original cast so you'd find them of more interest once you became familiar with the original cast. For the Sentinel set, there are leaks that show what it looks like in Doomsday. The MCU generally uses a more muted color palette like you said, so that's also my guess that it won't directly match the Sentinel we got in the X-Mansion set. The leaks corroborate this but the footage was also somewhat grainy so it's hard to tell. But it wasn't the bright color palette from the comics/X-Mansion set. Nightcrawler seems to have in Doomsday, for whatever reason. So for the people wondering if he'll be able to match up with the X-Mansion set minifigs, he's going to look completely different. His suit might be more comic accurate in comparison to his X2 look, but it's still very far off from the aesthetics of the comics. In the movies, Nightcrawler also had carvings in his face and body whereas he's got no such facial marks in the comics and he's supposed to furry there. Mystique, similarly, does not have scales in the comics.

Shrek looks really off because of his proportions. The actual Shrek set will have an advantage with the different body.

Finally, although like you said, they won't fit in with the X-Men '97 designs. Is that rumor supposed to be for the opening of Doomsday or for Secret Wars? this seems to further confirm to me that Lego is holding back on the Fantastic Four for a reason. To not even get a single set with their ship really indicates that Lego doesn't feel they're profitable enough to carry their own set. Wonder if this means the Galactus set undersold. All good choices. I still think Oscorp would be the best bet for ASM2. We're due a new Spider-Man modular after the Daily Bugle, and an Oscorp Tower would be the next best choice as TASM films are the ones with the most iconic rendition of Oscorp. And like you said, Harry's Green Goblin and Gwen haven't had any minifig representation yet so any set that could feature them would be a likely choice. Electro seems the most likely to redo since he got a lot more popularity after NWH. I don't think First Class has any iconic setpieces or locations. DOFP was Sentinel-themed so it wouldn't really add anything that we aren't already getting from Doomsday with Sentinels. Maybe the future Sentinels in the Himalayas, since their design is at least different? Or the Quicksilver scene since that's rather iconic.

I think the fact that there's nostalgia for the previous Spider-Man characters and the FoX-Men shows that there is demand for these characters. NWH and Doomsday both heavily marketed themselves on bringing back these original characters. That same nostalgia doesn't exist for the 2005 FF (even though I far prefer them to the MCU FF), Ben Affleck's Daredevil, Jennifer Garner's Elektra, Nicholas Cage's Ghost Rider, Thomas Jane's Punisher, etc. Which is why some of these characters have had cameos, like the Chris Evans Torch or Elektra, but they weren't used to shoulder a whole movie the way the Raimi/ASM or FoX-Men movies were. I personally never liked First Class. It didn't feel like an X-Men movie at all and it wasn't supposed to since it was meant to be a soft reboot after the Wolverine Origins movie failed and killed plans for more sequels and spinoffs. However, the film underperformed because audiences rejected the lack of the original cast. This is why Fox went straight to DOFP, bringing back the original cast, since they knew that was the hook. Suddenly, the soft reboot became a merging of the two universes and it worked because DOFP became the X-Men's highest-grossing movie. And I'm guessing a lot of Feige's decision-making in having the FoX-Men back in Doomsday is because he saw that DOFP was promoted as a last hurrah for the original cast and that helped the film succeed unlike the other installments which flopped with the new cast. Notice too that Doomsday isn't bringing back any of the rebooted characters from First Class. The X-Men's primary existence in pop culture has always been from two main sources: the 90s TV show and the FoX-Men movies, particularly the original trilogy, which succeeded in a time when superhero movies were still in their infancy and there was no MCU. Movies like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Avengers, GOTG, Black Panther, etc. would not exist without the FoX-Men trilogy paving the way. There's a reason that for Doomsday, we're seeing that original movie cast but in the 90s outfits because they're essentially merging the two most well-known X-Men iterations. If the X-Men '97 sets aren't selling, I think it has more to do with the fact that the comic versions of the X-Men haven't been relevant in ages (literally since the 90s) and the new show doesn't have that large an audience. The Fox movies might still have a larger reach, at least after Doomsday. I think Lego is going to wait and see, the way they did with Raimi sets only after NWH was a success. Most of the merchandise I'm seeing for Doomsday has been X-Men centered. I think in part because Marvel has seen that Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four are not capable of carrying a movie and their merch isn't selling. Hence why Lego skipped Thunderbolts completely and only gave us one FF set. This is also why from day 1, I was saying that I don't think we're going to get a Baxter Building D2C set anytime soon. The FF are not a proven property and Lego is going to wait to see if they can became more popular with films like Doomsday/Secret Wars. Which is even what Marvel said, that despite FF not being the success they expected, they hope audiences will warm up to them after Doomsday/Secret Wars. Even the Sanctum Sanctorum D2C set only released after MoM. Lego didn't make it immediately after the first Doctor Strange. They must have seen that the character increased in popularity due to Infinity War and then NWH and that he was capable of headlining a modular set.

I feel like the Raimi sets are popular enough that we could definitely get more than just one per movie. The Doc Ock hideout set is a great example. Also wondering if, when the Daily Bugle retires, if Marvel might consider remaking it in another D2C set but one based on the Raimi movie. It has a very different exterior which would make it stand out and they could basically include the entire trilogy's lineup of characters. Would also be a perfect companion set to a D2C Oscorp set based on TASM movies. They could shoehorn in Raimi Harry or his New Goblin incarnation in either one of these sets. TASM is also probably the most likely to get Lego set adaptations, besides the FoX-Men movies. Even though TASM isn't as popular as the Raimi movies, there was a new wave of nostalgia for TASM after NWH, particularly since Andrew Garfield's portrayal was considered the highlight of that movie. And to this day, we've never gotten a civilian Gwen Stacy minifigure (the Daily Bugle version is literally just a random minifigure they named Gwen Stacy at the last minute), so I think any set from TASM could easily feature her. People loved the Peter/Gwen dynamic in those movies thanks to Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. I think people forget that the characters weren't in black leather all the time. Wolverine is just as iconic in his wifebeater with dog tags or in a leather jacket from those movies. We've never gotten a civilian Wolverine minifig surprisingly so he'd be very easy to implement. Jean has her red Dark Phoenix outfit from The Last Stand, which isn't far off from Wanda's Scarlet Witch outfit. Mystique has the iconic nude look since we know in Doomsday she's wearing an actual costume. Angel would be very easy to do since he's just shirtless with wings. I see plenty of MOC FoX-Men minifigures online so there must be some demand. The black leather looks are also identical enough from character to character that they could be easily reused. Something like Lady Deathstrike in her black outfit would be much easier to adapt than her classic comic outfit. The show doesn't get enough traction in terms of views. It's a very niche show which is why I don't think Lego is going forward with more sets. The ratings were good for an animated show on Disney+ but even the highest-watched animated shows don't come close to the lowest-watched live-action shows. I think X-Men '97 matched What If? and it's not like we have set after set of the What If? series. Or sets on the low-watched live-action shows like Secret Invasion or Echo or Ms. Marvel, which all still have been seen way more than X-Men '97. Even with the newly released season 2 of X-Men '97, it's been notable that there hasn't been much media attention. I'm seeing a lot less discussions online, whether on Twitter or Reddit or any social media, compared to the first season. Even here, I remember when the first season came out, there were weekly discussions about the show with every new episode. But S2's 3-episode premiere hasn't gotten any discussion in this thread so I think there's definitely been a noticeable viewer drop. Which is a pity, because Lego's X-Men lineup really feels incomplete without Nightcrawler, Jubilee, Angel/Archangel, Colossus, and Psylocke. Not to mention the lack of any villains outside of Magneto.

They did make some good ones like the Winnie the Pooh set and the Snow White cottage. I don't know how those sold though. The Pooh set especially since designers talked about wanting to make more sets for other characters' houses, but we never got any. The Up house I remember was very popular. The BATB castle set was decent but way too small and a missed opportunity to make it the new flagship set. Tbh, I still haven't bought it. I'll have to get it soon since I think it retires by the end of the year. The Lilo & Stitch house I did skip, even as a big fan of the movie. I was completely disappointed with the build and the minifigs. The less said about TLM clamshell set, the better. For me, I've noticed that the quality of the sets has definitely downgraded, but also the minifigs themselves. Like they gave minidoll Wendy a bow in her hair, but not the minifigure version. Geppetto they just gave plain black legs instead of his usual lederhosen. Lilo and Nani they seemed completely confused on when it comes to hairpieces and coloring choices, like Nani wearing pink instead of orange. And they were willing to give Nani dual molded arms but not Lilo. Genie Jafar was missing the molded headpiece that the previous Genie minifigure did get. A lot of this skimping has made me unwilling to purchase certain sets. I think the issue is that while there have been minifigure sets still, most of them are just reusing the already popular characters so they're not offering anything new minifigure-wise. Such as Cruella's car or the new Lilo & Stitch set or the Pooh buildables with minifigures like you said. With Lilo, I think it's funny how we went years without any sets featuring her but once they made one minifigure for her, they've been reusing her or at least offering variations of her over and over. I did get Cruella's car, both for the car and for the Penny dalmatian. I think what people are upset about is that there's still hundreds of Disney/Pixar characters we don't have in Lego form. Like we should be able to get Christopher Robin or Owl or Roo in these Pooh sets. Jumbaa and Pleakley have been much requested. Still missing Prince Eric even though he pops up in so many minidoll sets. Same with the Fairy Godmother or Lady Tremaine or even Vanessa who finally got a minidoll. There's so many variations on existing characters we could get as well: Lilo in her hula dress, Aladdin as Prince Ali, Ariel as a human, Aurora in blue, etc. The Toy Story celebration train set I did pick up specifically because it gave us Bo Peep in her classic dress with the sheep. But that's been more the exception than the norm. And there's something ludicrous about the Toy Story tie-in sets not featuring Buzz at all. Particularly when (spoilers for the fifth movie)

if that was the case, Kevin wouldn't be capitalizing on bringing back the original FoX-Men cast for Doomsday and using that as a marketing hook for one last chance to see them. The original trilogy is still well-regarded. Hugh Jackman's Wolverine is still one of the most popular superhero portrayals of all time and Wolverine has always historically been Marvel's 2nd most popular character after Spider-Man. There are several bad movies in the FoX-Men universe, namely the ones with the new rebooted cast (DOFP aside, which was the most successful at the box office specifically for bringing back the original cast), but even the MCU has plenty of horrible films to sift through. Particularly most of their filmography since Endgame. That's true and I don't think FoX-Men sets are necessarily likely but outside of the Raimi Spider-Man movies, they were the most popular non-MCU movies. Hence why Marvel was so quick to bring them into the fold with Wolverine and Deadpool, as they did with Tobey and Andrew's Spider-Man characters for NWH. So I don't think it would be impossible to see sets for them either, especially if there's positive reception to the FoX-Men in Doomsday. And while there is plenty of MCU material left to mine, most of it doesn't seem marketable from the new/upcoming movies. There hasn't been any merch demand for Thunderbolts and Marvel's been holding back on the FF, hoping that they get a popularity boost after Doomsday/Secret Wars, the way Doctor Strange got a boost post-Endgame. I don't think even an X-Men reboot is guaranteed to work. Marvel has historically not done well with their rebooted X-Men casts and the MCU has clearly lost their magic touch. I think it's just as likely the rebooted X-Men will end up faring as the FF movie did. Lego might feel it's a dying brand especially since they didn't feel the need to make more sets for the animated show/comics.

With S2 of X-Men '97 out, it is a pity we aren't getting more sets. But considering how we didn't even get the complete character roster for S1, I don't think any potential S2 sets would have done much better considering the influx of new characters. Especially since it's looking likely that are joining the official team roster. Honestly, this trio of sets would be perfect, especially since you've managed to include all the core heroes and villains. If anything, the fact that it's so perfect is probably why we wouldn't ever get it lol. I just can't imagine getting 9-10 figures in a playline X-Men set, particularly since unlike the X-Mansion or regular MCU sets, they wouldn't be able to recycle any existing minifigs here (besides Xavier). If we ever did get your proposed set for the first movie, I think we'd only get 4-5 characters tops: Wolverine, Sabretooth, Magneto, Rogue, and possibly one other character. I don't know if we ever will get any FoX-Men sets but I think after the Raimi Spider-Man movies, they'd be the most likely candidates for non-MCU Marvel movies. Hopefully whatever X-Men inclusion in the Doomsday sets sell well enough to show there's demand for the FoX-Men in Lego. Like how we didn't start getting more Raimi sets until after the NWH set came out.

I guess the minifig sets really don't sell well enough to justify making more of them. All these buildable figures are being made for a reason and I guess for Disney fans, rather than Lego fans in general, the buildable figures are easier to display and show off in their collections rather than minifigs. Most of which are scattered in retired sets and CMF waves anyway.

I forgot about the rating. I think that's the big difference between Spider-Man and Wolverine here and why it's unlikely Lego would touch Wolverine since he's not as family friendly. For the same reason we shouldn't expect anything from Punisher, Deadpool, or Daredevil. There is an X-Men Insomniac sequel to the Wolverine game which could potentially get represented by Lego assuming this franchise does well. There are certain parallels to that game plus what we seem to be getting of the X-Men in the MCU which could be capitalized on for the synergy of it all. But I guess that'll also depend on how strong the X-Men brand is by the time that game and the movies come out. The animated show really hasn't done well on Disney+, not even coming close to the lowest-watched live-action shows like Echo, so clearly we shouldn't expect animation to revive the X-Men brand. I think that's also a big factor on why Lego hasn't touched the X-Men again after the few initial sets they made, since the show's ratings were not strong enough to justify more merch.

the black leather costumes are iconic enough that I think we could or should get at least one minifigure set out of it. Even if it was just Wolverine in his suit. I agree about the lack of setpieces. Alkali Lake was the major one but that doesn't really work as appropriate subject matter for any of the sets. Torture/brainwashing chambers, prison cells for children, the dark Cerebro meant to kill all mutants or humans, Lady Deathstrike's fight with Wolverine where she's pumped with liquid adamantium, etc. I think Liberty Island could be easily done since they just have to focus on the head of the Statue of Liberty, with the Wolverine vs Sabretooth duel and Magneto's machine. I don't think anyone would expect them to include the world leaders who Magneto was targeting. For example, the World Unity Festival from the first Raimi Spider-Man movie actually has Green Goblin kill some characters but we still got a Lego set from that when the first movie came out and that was much more explicit. Also the obvious choice would be a Blackbird set, maybe with a basketball court (although based on likely low sales for the current X-Jet set, maybe it's unlikely we'll get a movie version anytime soon). They could theme it to the first movie for a small roster of Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm. Or to the second movie for Wolverine, Jean Grey, Storm, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro. Jean's house from the third movie could also be a possible set piece since it featured the Wolverine vs Juggernaut fight and could have a lot of play functions like exploding mechanisms. I don't know if they'd include Xavier or not since he only has a physical death but doesn't really die. I think it depends on how well the public takes to this new iteration of X-Men. We've already seen the MCU fail with the Fantastic Four and Marvel hasn't been pushing them in merch as much as initially predicted. The other issue with the X-Men is that the public really only took a shine to the 90s animated series version and the original FoX-Men trilogy. There's basically been two reboots since then (the First Class series and the Apocalypse/Dark Phoenix generation) and neither took off. So it's equally as likely that yet another X-Men generation could be rejected and Marvel seems way more careful with who they make merchandise of after their consecutive MCU failures since Eternals. The Spider-Man Insomniac games were very impactful and had some Lego presence, mainly with minifigures, so I don't know it would be unheard of for Wolverine to get similar treatment if the game is popular. Especially since Wolverine has always been Marvel's 2nd most popular character after Spider-Man. If nothing else, it would be easy for Lego to make more Wolverine-themed sets (like set in the Savage Land, Japan or Madripoor) and feature some of his classic villains who we still don't have minifigures of like Mystique, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Omega Red, Silver Samurai, etc.

it's actually coming out in just a few days. The first three episodes premiere on July 1st. When the X-Mansion set came out and everyone was discussing what possible X-Men sets/minifigs we'd get next, there were some leaks posted about how Lego was waiting before making more sets, as they wanted to see how well the ones they already made would sell. The dearth of X-Men sets makes me wonder, especially since the X-Mansion is arguably the most criticized superhero modular set. I wonder if this also means we shouldn't expect a future X-Mansion set based on the FoX-Men movies when the current one retires. I think only Deadpool and Wolverine are still relevant but not the rest of the X-Men (although that might change based on the Insomniac game and the MCU movies). There's a reason we're getting Raimi Spider-Man sets but we haven't ever gotten a FoX-Men set on any of the original movies. Otherwise they could easily make a Liberty Island set from the first movie or something with the Golden Gate Bridge or Alcatraz from The Last Stand. I don't think that's likely. The showrunner for the first season confirmed that Marvel had a strict mandate that Deadpool could not appear in the show.