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Somehow that doesn't agree with how I look at Lego at all. How should a kid build a Lego city? By taking apart all those sets and then build something themselves! I have always seen sets as 'examples', nice to build once and then take down - the actual Lego building is not putting sets together, it's making your own stuff. At whatever scale you please! Apart from that, kids who like to play with the official sets won't be bothered by the scale difference. They all look like a minifig can roughly fit in so that's fine enough. And there have been some slightly bigger scale problems in the past... How 'bout this one? As for AFOLs who make a Lego city out of just sets - it really puzzles me why they'd wanna do that (in Holland there's even a family that brings their 'Lego city' to expositions - without a single MOC! Most visitors will think they designed it all themselves...) And actually, I think it's pretty good that not all Lego sets are the same scale. I find many of those 1980 town sets, esp. vehicles, quite boring because they all look the same - the recent ones have a bit more variety in them.

I love your ice cathredral! I've seen that building myself on the trip on the Hurtigruten... As to your movie theater, I'd like to see the real building but the 'original' folder is not accessible yet. Yours looks great thus far.

I love that miniature train that falls off the roof.

The first one I actually remember is when I was three or four. I wanted to make a forest, but I only had one tree (a granulate one). So I put it on a baseplate and proudly presented it to my parents: 'Look, I made a one tree forest!' - We kept calling isolated trees 'one tree forests' after that. In case you mean as an adult, it's probably the car from the Gaston Lagaffe (Guust Flater) comics, which I did after getting some 2nd hand Lego and browsing the web and finding out about Ldraw.

That must be the ugliest baseplate ever, it's worse than the classic space moon crater plates. (but maybe not as bad as the raised castle ones...?) Actually it's a turnoff, I lose interest in a set with such a monstrous baseplate... Of course you can make island MOCs with it but all islands will be much too similar. Good review, though, but I'm going to give a bad grade in the poll.

It would really surprise me if old brown came back all of a sudden, and that in a shop at home exclusive. Now I can hardly tell old and new brown apart unless I put them together, but where do you see old brown? I would not be surprised if there were a few bits and pieces in the new dark brown color in this set.

Me too, I don't want to win, or lose, being one out of two entries!

VBBN, that's been taken care of already. There's a line on the front page saying that now all members can join the snowbox derby. I didn't know that that line was not referring to the derby itself, so that got me confused. But I moved the entry. Teachers? I've seen dozens of ranks on this site already but I haven't heard that one before.

It was, until there was this stupid curve...

(edit: never mind, whilst I typed a question I received a PM with the reply)

I didn't know how to make a snowbox but then I remembered I still had this old washing machine lying round, so why not go downhill with that? This picture shows why, in retrospect, it was not such a brilliant idea after all. Thanks, guys, for putting up that warning sign. Great. But when I saw it I only had a split second left to realize I had no frickin' idea how to steer my washing machine in any direction at all - so it sent me flying in the air, with the tiny houses of the village VERY deep down below. (click picture for Flickr photo page & enlargement)

Disney. But I don't necessarily mean all their modern movies - what I would love to see is classic Disney. Carl Barks, mostly. Uncle Scrooge and the Beagle Boys who try to steal his money in many creative ways. Magica de Spell who tries to steal his number one dime in order to melt it in a volcano. Donald and his nephews who go adventuring, hunting for square eggs (Lego square chickens would be cool). Gyro Gearloose and his whacky inventions. And of course Daisy Duck and Donald's big rival Gladstone Gander. The good thing about this is that everybody knows it - we all read those comics when we were little and our kids are still reading them. And, why not, the whole Micky Mouse crew, maybe in sets for younger kids (like their was in 2000 but the figs could be less chunky and more practical), with Minnie, Goofy, Donald and Daisy, and Pluto. And Zeke Wolf wis his gentle nephew and the three pigs would make some cute sets too. Oh, and I second Hello Kitty. I love pink bricks and I'm sure the market share in Japan will go through the roof once they have Hello Kitty sets.

Nice review. It's a 'fire hydrant' by the way. Do those exist only in the US? You always see them on TV but I've never seen one in reality... I'm not sure what they want with this set. As a traffic sign set it's a bit incomplete, as a people set I don't know what the traffic signs are doing there, and if it's a citizens set a policeman isn't really necessary - why not a child? Little girl with a toy car, for example? And I love stickers when there's stuff on them I don't want. (power miners, for example) But on a traffic sign I want the picture to be on it, so I'll keep using the old 1970s ones. Because I hate stickers when I have to apply them.

Beautiful cars and awesome figs. I don't care for Indiana Jones (not familiar with the movies) but that doesn't matter. I buy sets mainly for the parts, and something tells me I want this set. But 35 euros... ouch. That's not 'cheap for a licensed set', really. That's 'expensive because it's licenced'. But I'm planning on doing some fairy tale MOCs and will need princesses at some point, so I will need that hairpiece... The only thing I don't care for is the paper (or plastic, what is it) roof. Reminds me of those ugly tents. Not good. Lego should do anything in Lego without resorting to this floppy stuff.

Great photography. Maybe I need to get a few in case I ever want to make an office - these would be good fluorescent lights on the ceiling, i think.

Eh well, but their main target group is, eh... children? To me, 'pirates' are just about as realistic as are dwarfs or trolls. Or cowboys and indians, for that matter. It's all part of the fairy tale world. The pirates that ones were really there were just agressive crooks on ships. The whole pirate topos from children's literature (recently revamped by Hollywood with those movies) is a big romantification of reality. So to me, it doesn't make a big difference whether they include sirens or sea monsters or if they don't - actually, I would love to see some more mermaids... I find it more important that Lego keeps is playable and modifiable. Monsters like dragons-in-one-piece (only the teeth and wings coming off) are boring. You can't build it, it's there. Same for the trolls. Big and chuncky, unpack them and make them hump around. Not much play value there. Real Lego figures should be put together, so you can actually change them and make new ones. The dwarves are excellent. Also, I don't really see why all play sets need good guys and bad guys. That is so predictable and boring. Especially with those sets where TLC already explains the whole story (Power miners) there's not much playing left to do - it's all pre-done. That doesn't stimulate the imagination much, I think. When I was little I never played with good and bad guys and didn't like fighting stuff at all. Actually I was unhappy that there was so much police stuff because the visitors of the themeparks I built always wore police and firemen suits for lack of neutral torsos....

It's not the kind of subject I really like to look at, but it's really awesome work. Look at that black smoke plume, it's impressive.

That's cool, thanks!

Hey, could you please consider putting that function back up? It's been a few weeks and I hardly post on Eurobricks anymore because I can't find topics - the 'active topics' function was the only way I ever accessed the forum because there are so many categories.

Same here, our almost 2½yr old twins love playing with the little Legos. Sometimes I will get a plastic bin full of unsorted bricks (that I didn't use on a MOC or on a MOC I am taking down again) with some regular 2x4 and doors and windows and car bases added to it. They don't specifically like basic pieces, and I see that the building sets designed for young children don't really fit their needs either. My son loves to put rows of 1x2 bricks or plates all next to each other, or make a tower of 2x2 bricks. If he hits on a 1x2 he will look for two 1x1 bricks to fill it up. And my daughter loves to change hair on minifigs... 'For junior' figures wouldn't really do the trick. Anyway, I'm not sure what I'll do when they get bigger. My Lego is all in the attic, sorted on plastic bins on (and under) tables and shelves, but it's way too much for a, say, four year old. They won't have much fun building if they have to hike and climb somewhere to get a 1x2 brick or a window... Maybe I'll give them bits and regularly change it. I am a MOC'er but I let them play with everything - Lego is there to be played with, and I'm not a collector anyway, so if anything goes I'll replace it or do without.

It depends on how much you normally spend on holiday gifts, but I don't think the Taj Mahal and Death Star are in normal gift price ranges. (Actually holiday gifts are mostly for children anyway, and those sets are not really directed at children...)

The space needle is the first one that's actually interesting. But not if it's 20 dollars again... it should remain below 10 dollars/euros.

Mimi and Bobo enjoy a very romantic holiday dinner in the caboose whilst the train passes through breathtaking landscapes. Jimmy the steward makes sure everything goes smoothly. I did make a complete train and I posted larger pictures, too, but those are not part of the contest entry, of course. But check out the Flickr photo page for more views, including Freddie the train driver.

LOL, I just built a nice Christmas house, I'll enter it as a wheel-less train with a street in front!

But you're in the US, aren't you? I got this set because it was so cheap... only 16 euros and free shipping from Schlecker. (But you guys have most other sets cheaper...)