MAB

Yes, some parts are better value on PAB, some on B+P. There doesn't seem to be any pattern as to which or why!

I wouldn't really know how to measure nostalgic appeal or to convert the number or spread of memes into LEGO sales. We don't know why Mary Poppins did not get approve, it may have nothing to do with projected sales.

You can order more if you use Pic-a-brick rather than B+P, but they are still quite expensive. You are probably better off at BL for round plates.

The important point here really is that even though customers may see "space" as a theme (and similarly "sitcoms", "movies" and "stuff"), LEGO do not. So they do not disallow further space / sitcoms / movies / stuff. The Mars Rover blocked further Mars Rovers, but not the Apollo Program. Big Bang Theory blocked further BBT ideas, but not Friends. Similarly Barracuda Bay has blocked "Pirate Bay and Pirate Ship/galleon style ship concepts" but not other pirate ideas. And the Blacksmith has blocked "Medieval Blacksmith concepts" but not other castle ideas. So I think there is scope for future castles, as long as they concentrate on a different aspect.

There may be a market but how big is that market? I imagine it is not too dissimilar to The Wizard of Oz, which LEGO shoe-horned into other themes rather than going for a standalone product.

I like the black background instructions, they make the colours pop more than on a wishy-washy blue. And it makes the adult feel progress throughout the set, from box to booklet.

I agree. Especially if the part is small but rare in the colour you want, the BL price might be very high and the B+P price might be low.

Of course, it depends on how you define theme. As well as "space", there is a "sitcoms" genre, and a "stuff on the shelf" genre (ship in a bottle, maze, typewriter, now globe), and a "movies" genre that they happily revisit time and time again.

Two easy passes for me. I don't see the point of having all these everyday objects built from LEGO that aren't as good as the everyday object and more expensive. Piano, typewriter, now globe and guitar.

There have been numerous ways of doing it in the past. A BL user atxdad wrote a matlab script to do a minimisation, and it was improved on here: I haven't a clue how they would fare now. I tend to do a manual approach - find out what the most expensive parts are and find out which shops I can buy those in. Then check what parts they have using a wants list, but only add them if the total price of the lot is less than a rough average price for that lot*0.75 plus typical shipping charges. That is, if I can buy the whole lot of the cheaper part and pay shipping from another store and it is still cheaper than the first store with the expensive part, I'll split that part of the order. The *0.75 is because normally many stores will sell below average. Of course it can be amended if necessary. For example, if the average price of a part is 10p, I want 100 and the seller has them for 20p, I won't buy them even though I might be buying a more expensive part already. I might as well buy that lot of 100 from another store and pay shipping. If you know rough prices and likely quantities that other stores will have it can be reasonably quick to do these calculations. Another way is to do a completely separate wants list for only the cheap parts, so searches are not biased by the expensive parts.

Yeah some of them are really nice. If LEGO did fleshie versions or even just torsos without skin printed on, I'd buy a load of the toga ones. Playmobil also do a lot of Roman and Egyptian army and life sets.

That's a good tip. I have built casing before from 1xX bricks, but these tend to make the whole motor unit quite bulky. They can be made slightly smaller using panels or brackets, but again still quite bulky.

I've never bought or tested the fake LEGO motors, but have bought fake servos for other projects. They are fine, so long as you don't expect absolute precision and so I'd imagine fake LEGO ones are similar to regular LEGO ones in quality of the motor. Although if anyone is willing to use fake motors due to costs, they might as well go for fake parts too. That said, even the fake motors are relatively expensive compared to plain / uncased motors of the same size/power. So you could just buy some uncased ones and glue lego attachments onto them if you don't mind a little soldering or wire twisting for connections.

Yes, I see it now, I hadn't noticed those gaps as obvious connection points.

I cannot see any connection points. Are you just standing the separate modules together without any connection between them? Using some technic bricks plus pins in standardised places might make it even more modular like.

I doubt the exact same goat will appear, but I can see a goat coming back in some form if LEGO ever does a farm or a similar medieval set again. I'd prefer to see some cows and sheep though. There are half a dozen or so sheep done recently in Minecraft style, shame they haven't done any in regular LEGO style.

I hope they don't do detailed hilts. I don't think they are necessary. At the scale and detail of minifigs jolts are pretty similar - given thing like the lack of height differences for figures and lack of detail at the cm scale (in real life) when scaled down to minifigs. Curved ones like Dooku's OK, but not small details.

I used one here https://egyptianeye.net/egyptian-hieroglyphs/ or just Google for hieroglyphics alphabet. Note many don't have the variants for some letters like A. That is what threw me for a while on Anubis.

Fantastic post!

Why? Genuine ones are not that much more expensive.

Yes they are non-LEGO products made by other companies with the LEGO branding on, aside from the bricks set that is sold by IKEA as that one is actually LEGO. The big difference this year is the publicity that LEGO are giving the items, not that they are licensing their name/logo to other companies. The Levis are not even the first time they have done sweaters with snap on items. In the late 80s/90s LEGO did sweatshirts with clip on minifigures, although that was through a clip glued to the back rather than a true Lego connection. Plus they were for kids, not adults.

They aren't though - as already made clear on this thread. The other companies are. LEGO isn't selling the Adidas or the IKEA boxes. They are giving some of the Adidas shoes away as VIP rewards, but otherwise it is an Adidas product. The Ikea boxes are not for sale by Lego, just Ikea. The Levi products are only sold so far by Levi but some select styles will be available on lego.com. Lego don't make the jeans, Levi does. LEGO is partnering here. And as already said, nothing new to anyone that has been into LEGO for a while. There are loads of other products produced every year with the LEGO logo on that are not manufactured or sold by LEGO.

And no-one really had an issue with Mars Rover or Ecto-1 and so on. So probably just a couple of people new to the hobby with the Elf Clubhouse that cannot handle it.

They have already shipped 10,000s of them, so probably no reason to cancel yours.

Indeed, nothing new in black backgrounds.