MAB

I guess part of the problem is that they need to be somewhat generic without being country or era specific and have 'action' (such as implied warfare). Castle is fairly generic in that it is sort of European but not more specific to a place or time. I also don't think it is meant to be historic (as in realistic / accurate). The more specific the subject, the less freedom they have.

Variation in Star Wars is higher than that in City. Count the number of police cars vs X-Wings, or the number of fire trucks vs Millennium Falcons. But yes, it is the same argument, new buyers expect to be able to buy the exciting sets when they enter the store whether that is a police car or X-Wing. As above, it is about churn of the fanbase. However, if they remove the exciting sets and replaced them with boring ones in the correct ratios, the theme would probably die. If they only did houses in City until they get the civilian to emergency services ratio to a realistic level, new fans would not join in the same way as if they did Vader, Luke and Han then only made sets containing stormtroopers and anonymous rebels for 20 years to get the ratios the same as those in the movies. They pick the exciting bits of the stories and are not aiming to be realistic reproductions of life or movies. Indeed. Yes, there are. LEGO has changed. They have learnt that adults will buy a few expensive sets for themselves if they build into objects they will display. So there is not one audience forbthose sets. The people buying the shoe will be different to those buying the flowers or the camera or the consoles. Those are sales they would not have made if they didn't produce that type of set. Their financial reports suggest otherwise. LEGO might well be fading into oblivion for those fans that want their output to remain similar to what it was in the 80s or 90s, but those days are gone. LEGO wants to maximise their sales by having some individual sets that appeal to small groups but overall appeal to many more people rather than just a very small demographic. LEGO making an adult aimed shoe or a theme of flowers sets does not stop today's children enjoying the 100s of unlicensed playsets they still release every year.

Not me, for unlicensed series. To me, series 14 was a CMF series more than something to go with Monster Fighters or any other theme, Series 18 was a CMF series more than a celebration of 40 years of minifigures and series 26 was a CMF series rather than something to go with the Space theme. I no longer display CMFs as a complete collection, but if I did those themed series would be with the other CMFs and not displayed separately with MF or Space. Whereas Ninjago Movie, Batman Movie, LEGO Movie, they were true themes and the CMFs are part of those themes. Similarly Harry Potter CMFs are not really CMFs but part of the HP theme, and so on with Marvel and DC. If anything, the skin colour distinguishes the licenses CMF as different to the unlicensed CMFs. To me, Seires 26 is a numbered theme and not part of Space, even though there was a link to Space. Same with series 14. So for Witches, I'd count series 2 and 14, but not DND or the Scarlet Witch and for Wizards, I'd count both series 12 and 13. So I'd say there have been 2 classic witches and 2 wizards. I also wouldn't count BAM, as they are not CMF, and nso ot part of any series so would not display with the CMF series if you display them that way.

I agree. And it wouldn't surprise me if a Castle series was not really any more useful to a Classic Castle type collector than a normal CMF series because of the variety in such tangential figures. .

BL is getting better with things like this. At least they are now recognizing the difference between molded and printed "boots" patterns and using molded as a keyword in titles.

To me, LEGO CITY equates to the more exciting bits of semi-realistic life in LEGO form, without meaning to represent a realistic city. It would be incredibly boring if it was, as we'd get endless similar but slightly different houses, apartment blocks and cars, with the occasional bus and store. But not much else. Even when they don't do volcanoes, space, farms, etc, CITY is not exactly representative of a real city or even just a city centre / CBD / downtown, and once you have a couple of police cars and a firetruck, you don't really need many more and so it is understandable that they portray other exciting bits of semi-realistic life in CITY. But I don't think I'd want them to rebrand CITY as LEGO LIFE.

It is fairly standard for selling used items like books, CDs, DVDs, etc. There are lots of companies that use this model for other items. I imagine they are legitimate. But I don't think the prices offered are that great (just like media buyer sites). But then they cover postage so no wonder their offers are a bit low.

Alternatively, one is removing as many of the minifigures as they can from the community and hoarding them, the other is temporarily removing them but making them more easily available albeit at a profit. If the community want reselling to stop, then the community shouldn't buy from resellers and the business model is broken. I don't think this is true. Some collectors and army builders will also hit the stores from day 1 and clear out as many as they can to build their collection or army. I don't believe army builders are so altruistic, waiting for others to get what they want before they buy more than one of a figure.

With the way that stock is being split between different warehouses giving different availability for different regions, it might be that we will need separate threads in future depending on where the stock is coming from.

It is out of stock for UK/Europe so they might have spotted it.

It's even worse when they are just widely available PAB parts. The build really needs to stand out when the minifigs are nothing special.

What difference does it make, whether they are a collector or reseller? The result is the same, they have cleared out the stock of specific figures.

There is also the issue of time. Previous Hobbit sets were plasets aimed a kids issued when there was typically one minifigure for every approx 80 parts in mid range sets. That ratio still is about right for smaller playsets although for mid range I think it is more like one figure per 120 parts. But for adult display sets with minifigures, the focus seems to be more on the build than minifigures and the ratio jumps to about 1 in 200 or 250. I cannot see them putting lots of minifigures into a mid range set (which is equivalent to a top end set of a decade ago), especially where new single-use parts are necessary.

That looks better than window / wall panels!

They have done play features in adult sets, the fairground collection especially Haunted House is probably the best example. But that sort of fits with the theme. For LOTR I imagine they will continue to do display sets with hidden Easter Eggs if you move something rather than proper play features.

There were reports of brittle brown parts breaking in contemporary newly opened sets back in 2012. More in the US than in Europe. I don't know if it was down to where they were made or temperature / storage conditions. I've found some parts have broken since, 2x4 plates, bigger plates and horses are especially bad, but still relatively uncommon for it to happen. Fortunately none of my LOTR or Hobbit figures have broken, although they don't really get heavy play, just display.

Why are you doing it? If it is to make something that can be built with modern parts, then it might be worth doing some MOC work and designing a replacement base from modern parts a bit like LEGO have done on the reimagined new versions of vintage sets.

Same here, I used to spend ages cleaning track joiners and contacts on train track and other tracks like Scalextric. Whereas my son had a PF/RC train set which is now 15 years old. Still works perfectly, and no need for apps as the included IR remote does the job just fine.

It's not a new technique. I tried it years ago and the results are no better than waterslide decals or stickers. The transfer is still quite thick and needs to be cut neatly, so has the same downsides as the other techniques. On large objects, this and similar techniques work fine. But as parts become small, then the flaws are much more noticeable as you tend to look more closely.

They wouldn't though. If they thought the old Hobbit sets sold so badly because of the realistic skin colour and that they'd need to change the skin colours to be less realistic to get more sales, then they will have to prepare for a bigger financial failure. Anyone buying licensed sets in the past two decades is used to realistic skin tones, not yellow. If they are going to do yellow dwarves then they should do it as part of Castle with no licensing necessary, more freedom for designs and no need for specific single use moulds.

It's been about 20 years since they switched from yellow to fleshie tones in licensed sets aside from where the characters are yellow. Why would they go back now, especially when they already did The Hobbit in flesh tones in the past.

City is very unrealistic but for tghe most part tends to have roots in real life. City trains and buses are completely unrealistic, they'd never make money with so few passengers, the way cops and robbers go at it with dynamite is not very realistic either. I imagine 2024's space sets were there because it was "space year" just like next year is "racing car year" and they try to make these special sets a little wackier than normal. I thought I read in a set description that the City space sets were supposedly set in the future.

I'm not surprised at all. LEGO's unlicensed offering for kids now splits into essentially two to four themes depending on how you want to count. There are City and Friends for real life play (and i dont think these need too much advertising as it is obvious to kids and parents what these are), and the choice depends on whether the kid likes minifigs or dolls, and Ninjago for pretty much everything else based on story telling, mainly fantasy based and covering history to futuristic tech. Then there is Creator for kids that prefer bricks to figures. The shorter-lived Dreamzzz, Hidden Side, NK, Chima, will come and go but near enough anything they offer looks a bit like Ninjago with different characters and colours because Ninjago covers everything.

And adverts for specific themes broadcast during ad breaks in kids' TV shows. I agree, apps, games and TV series are really there to replace the advertising now kids tend to consume old style advertising less than in the past.

And is probably only available worldwide because if it wasn't, some people would be complaining about regional based exclusives.