MAB

But then I find it inconceivable that you find this inconceivable. People want different things out of the LEGO they buy. Some people buy it for the build experience, some people buy it as they collect minifigures, some people buy it as they collect unopened sets, some people buy it as they want the parts. None of those are doing anything wrong. If a person is a fan of a particular theme (licensed or not) and then a set comes along with their favourite or a unique character in it, there is a good chance that they will buy it. They probably don't care what the actual set is, they want it for that character. They get the rest of the set too, which they might build and keep anyway or use the parts for something else or they might sell. It is perfectly conceivable to me that people do this. Alternatively, they might buy just the minifigure from someone that wants the bricks but not the minifigures. There are also people that buy sets because they want specific a part or parts. Should these people be demonised because they are overrating some bricks or underrating the minifigures? They don't necessarily care about the set, they care about what else they can do with the parts in the set. For example, I once bought 20+ sets of "The Wizard Battle". I had absolutely no interest in building all the sets as shown in the instructions. But they were brilliant parts packs for black pieces, and at the price I paid per set and by selling the minifigures, the trans yellow parts and the technic gear boxes and gears, I got them for nothing. I cared more about the parts than the figures there. Or just a sign that some people buy LEGO for the minifigures. But why does that mean minifigure collecting has gone too far? It just shows that minifigures tend to be worth more than most other parts. It may also be that the seller has enough bricks to keep them busy and does not need the bricks. It may also be that the person does not have enough display / storage space for complete sets but likes to keep up to date with minifigures. If people could not sell the bricks or even give them away as nobody wanted them, then I think that would be a sign that collecting minifigures had gone too far. Again, what is the problem with that? Some people will want to have a complete set of CMF. Some people will want multiples of one or more specific characters to 'army build'. Some people will want just a few random characters to add on to their collection. Some people enjoy trading them - like trading cards. Different people want different things from the CMF range. If you don't want to buy blind bagged figures, there are plenty of other sets you can buy where you know exactly what you are getting.

Actually, far from it. I like building more than minifigures, but like the minifigures to go with the sets too. If there is a set that interests me, I will typically buy three of them. One set of minifigures is mine, the other two sets will be sold. For many sets, the minifigures can be sold for at least 50% of the cost of the set. If I manage to get a 33% or so discount when buying three sets, that means for the RRP of one set, I get a complete set plus the bricks for two others. So one extended build, plus a complete set of figues. I had already built a MOC of Orthanc before that one was announced, hence me wanting Grima. I did eventually buy the official Orthanc too though. Also, I don't think they are overpriced on the secondary market, simply because most sellers price them so that they sell. Sometimes they may seem high for just a minifigure, but if someone is willing to pay that price, then it was priced correctly. If a seller prices too high, they get to keep their stock until they either lower the price, or a buyer caves in and pays the asking price. It is supply and demand. It will usually take a while for the market value to adjust too. When a set first comes out, prices will be high, they will typically then drop, then rise again if the figure is still in demand but no longer produced. Which are the ones that usually stay in demand? Licensed ones that are not redone or in-house ones that are fairly unique. Plain torso and City ones, forget it. However, even licensed ones can be worth very little if there are multiple variations of that character. Back in the LOTR days, I bought a batch of 25 Eomers on BL for about $4 a piece. That was his value when the set had been out for a long time and was on discount to clear and there was loads of stock on BL. Resellers wanting high cashflow sold them at that price to get rid of them, which now seems cheap, but they were making money at that price. I was happy to sit on them for five years and resell them at $20. Values change with time. $20 would have been overpriced in 2013. It wasn't in 2018.

What further follow-up sets could they have really done with Lone Ranger or Prince of Persia? I doubt these were even going to be long running themes. SW, HP, Indy, LOTR/Hobbit, Jurassic Park/World, etc are all multiple film franchises with loads of source material. Even if Lone Ranger and Prince of Persia had been box office smashes, they would only have been at the forefront of people's minds for six months or so. And of course, who released the movies - Disney. LEGO has a good relationship with Disney, I cannot see them turning down Disney movies without affecting that relationship. Even if one movie is a stinker, the sets they make still sell eventually, even if at a discount. It is funny to think that most of the sets of both PoP and LR are actually pretty good, even as parts packs they contain sought after pieces.

That hanging one at 1:25 is amazing. I don't know whether you are a brave visionary or just plain crazy!

That is highly subjective. I don't mind paying $10+ for a minifigure if I think it is worth that to me. I remember paying about $16 for Grima from LOTR. I didn't have the Orthanc set at the time and wanted the figure, as he was the only LOTR figure I didn't have at the time. While I could have bought lot of cheaper figures instead, they were not the ones I wanted. Was it worth it? Yes. I preferred to have that one than ten generic City figures. Alternatively, I could have bought this for the same price: What had the better value? For me, Grima did. For a kid, I imagine most would go with the set above. Plus this is not only limited to licensed minifigures. For example, for an Anubis guard from PQ, you are looking at $30 or so for a new one. Lobster from Atlantis, probably closer to $40.

Possibly. Looking on their website, they don't do many toys. They do a realistic scale model of the F9 and also an Estes style one. It could mean they don't want toys aimed at kids, but then again it could just be that they haven't struck any deals to produce toys.

They are Baturion legs, see his other thread for a better look at the soldiers.

The competition was to design a Gift With Purchase set. So I imagine you are correct and that it will be released as a Gift With Purchase. https://ideas.lego.com/challenges/1b817aba-3990-4e6d-a17f-7a59a948d02f?query=&sort=top We’re looking for the next exclusive LEGO Gift with Purchase set, for our LEGO Stores, LEGOLAND, LEGOLAND Discovery Centers as well as Shop.LEGO.com. We need your help. Show us your best small and mid-sized space designs in this contest and your entry has the opportunity to be adapted into a Gift with Purchase set in 2019! We invite you to show us your LEGO moment in space! Use your imagination to create the ultimate space model – make it as sci-fi or realistic as you wish, just stay within a base of 16 x 16 studs. One lucky winner has the chance to have their entry transformed into a new Gift with Purchase set, and will win a collection of past exclusive Gift with Purchase sets!

What is wrong with the brick built dog? It shows kids how to build animals at a small scale from a few parts. Surely the point of the 3-in-1 sets is building. There are plenty of molded animals in other themes, so why not keep the theme where the key aspects are building and multiple builds, focussed on building and multiple uses for parts. What happens in the alternative builds? The dog disappears and the parts get used elsewhere. In that set, another one appears: Similarly in 31065, there is this one: The parts get reused in the alternate builds to make something else. Can you do that with a molded dog?

Brick separators. I have literally 100s of them. I get two out and start using them to dismantle a MOC, but can I find them again. So another two come out ...

Name one film where most of the audience had interest in buying LEGO sets. I don't believe the LR sets or the PoP sets sold any worse than sets like Indiana Jones or the HP sets that were released around 2010 or LOTR. So did you go to see Crimes of Grindelwald, or do you base your opinions on what you have read elsewhere? You have made your anti-licensed stance very clear in this and all the other threads you have started. Licensed sets are here to stay. LEGO makes a lot of money off the back of them.

No. Plus I disagree with your $10 statement. There are plenty of licensed minifigures that appear in one set only (so are not very common in production) that cost under $10.

They also do not seem to be using long legs for Woody in the new TS4 sets.

Do you have any links to the company? If so, Witch King of Angmar! Then Sauron. I'd buy the figures just to use the custom helmet.

If you are not comfortable with it, then you can put one out there where there is a diverse ethnic mix. Or go further with all reddish brown, or all dark flesh, or whatever race you want to depict. No. Although there are more CMF parts now, it used to be a lot of generic stuff in there. When these first started it was uncommon to get CMF parts.

They can already do 8 colours on heads (including orientations) - see Sally above. Unfortunately, they have fallen behind cloners / fakers in terms of printing. A number of the Chinese cloners assemble the torso and legs then print, which means that the print is consistent across the whole figure. There are no unsightly breaks in the print by the waist of the torso where it joins the legs. There are no discontinuities where the alignment wasn't quite right and the legs print is shifted slightly compared to the torso. I guess the problem for AFOLS wanting quality is that for most kids, this type of thing is not that big a deal so there is no reason for LEGO to care about improving it.

For me, the buildings aren't modulars, so not really that interesting. Some of the minifig scale vehicles are OK if you want that particular vehicle but I tend to stick with the City ones. They are good sets for kids, as there is a lot of build value in them. The forest animals set was a lot of fun, as is the pooping parrot . With a bit of head and beak modification, this one is useful for LOTR. If they did a (classic) space 3-in-1, then even though it is not licensed, it is somewhat dictating the builds you can do with the set. But then, that is already fairly common across the range anyway. For example, if a kid has this set: it would not surprise me if they made the three sea creature builds and not much else and possibly play with the fish swimming them around. Is that any better / worse than a kid having a Star Wars set and using their imagination to act out a storyline? For the creator set, there is more build experience but I think less play and display possibility, whereas for a 1-build licensed set, there is less build experience but more play and display value. So I guess it depends what you want out of a set.

Brick Yellow or Tan on bricklink.

This isn't true. Licensed parts do show up occasionally in the minifigure stands. However, even if they never appeared, it makes sense that the majority of heads / torsos are yellow skinned ones as that is the majority of LEGO's output. It doesn't bother me. Similarly, it wouldn't bother me if someone made a MOC where all the minifigures had reddish brown heads. The reddish brown ones are quite uncommon, especially if you want fairly generic heads, and so tend to be more expensive. Cyborg, Winston (from Ghostbusters) and Finn have been sources for fairly plain reddish brown heads.

People said the same in the 1980s - that the new home video games would kill off traditional toys.

Then just do single sided heads. Often the alternative expression doesn't add much anyway, and means the head cannot be used with some headgear. And if you look at the Sally a few posts above, the head has dual-sided printing in what appears to be a grey, black, red and white.

It is not just skin, it happens on many light on dark prints. For example, take this Luke Skywalker: The print of his robes on his legs is dreadful. It is not dense enough so appears cream rather than white giving an abrupt colour change from the top to the bottom of what is meant to be the same piece of material. The print also doesn't extend to the edges of the part, so there are tan lines showing through. They'd need to do a second pass of white to get the colour density up but presumably this costs them a colour slot on the print run.

Yes, compare that to these official 'location' type sets: $40 Malibu Mansion $240 Batcave It looks more like the Batcave than the Malibu Mansion, and probably even more parts intensive when you consider the simplicity of the elevated chute part compared to the rockwork in that Ideas idea. It is also not clear to me, is it display or play? Would one location have worked better than all of them (I'm not familiar with the source material)? Would having one small but reasonable build (like Malibu Mansion) work, while keeping the price down.

^^ They are in the new Spike Prime robotics sets. They are also available to purchase at B+P already.

You can actually do that in a purist way, if you don't mind using the rather large sound recorder from this Duplo set. Although is recording a non-LEGO sound still purist ...?