MAB

In the late 80s / early 90s, megabloks used to do boxes of plain bricks and small sets in larger versions of these, I guess about 2.5 inch x 2.5 inch x 5 inch. They were great as they stack, you can build off them (so can use them as light weight filler to achieve height under a structure such as a hill or mountain) and good for travelling with a small kit.

I don't think it matters if a part was created for a licensed them, so long as it is generic and not tied to that theme. So, for example, http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=92746&in=M this hair was created for Luke but later appeared, even in the same colour, in city sets. So long as there is nothing about the part that is not tied to the license, it seems OK. Even the lightsaber hilt (which has a strong link to SW) gets used in many other sets.

Maybe, maybe not. They may have found some more interesting scenes in the extended editions of FOTR and TT to recreate. :-)

Another +1 for the capes. I wish there were official capes like that.

Although for LOTR (and the Hobbit) the films did not map onto the waves. I make it that we got 6 Fellowship, 3 Two Towers, 3 ROTK sets. Or 5:4:3 - it depends how you count some of the sets that could be either. Of the 6 Fellowship ones, 3 are small - Gandalf Arrives, Wizard Battle, Council of Elrond. So there is roughly even distribution over the films, possibly slightly less for ROTK. But it was clearly not Wave 1 - Fellowship, Wave 2 - TT, Wave 3 (missing) - ROTK. Of course for the Hobbit, it made more sense to release them in film order as it is a current series, just that some of them had to be preview sets after the change in movie structure.

This is not too far out of date http://www.wallofbricks.com/pab-display.php?country=UK&pab_store_id=105

MB have also just announced they are picking up the TMNT license, so will be making in-roads into what has been lego's territory again. If lego get seen as a company that makes not great sets or expensive series where you have to buy many sets or them all to get the main characters, then MB gets the license and put many key characters into cheaper sets, then this could also harm lego longer term. Why buy lego, when you can wait for MB to get the license when lego are done producing their expensive versions. It's probably not valid for short term popular themes that will gradually die as their popularity wanes (eg Frozen).

I assume he means multiple films in the franchise, which means multiple waves of sets that LEGO can produce. LOTR/Hobbit has provided lego with that - there have been five waves of sets. It doesn't mean they will go on forever in people's minds, and hence in LEGO sales.

No. If you can get them cheap enough. No.

It is fantasy. LOTR should clearly go in with the new Elves theme. :-)

Yes, I know that was how they did them in the past. The company now is quite different to the company when they were producing multiple styles of baseplates in multiple colours and / or prints. I don't think they'll do them in the future. However, if they did them in the future for castles, then it wouldn't surprise me if they picked one standard raised base and then had stickers to decorate them. That would allow mass production of a single raised base, yet also have them decorated.

Which set do you think it should have appeared in? The chicken has been used as a weather vane (in silver) and in white in a couple of sets, but I don't think the goat would really have fit into those ones. Maybe if they do a proper farm set again, it will re-appear.

That is the reason why they are hard to find now.

I doubt it will come in here, since there is already the Zombie cheerleader.

If they made them again, they'd probably go down the route of one generic shape. And then have a lot of stickers to make it fit for the setting.

I wasn't replying to you. I replied to TheLegoDr who said "They also split the order into different amounts, but it totals the same as the original invoice they emailed me". The split is usually down to base price, then tax.

Yes. I wonder if my father asked the same (I was a 70s-80s kid). When I was a kid, home computers were just coming in, possibly dramatically changing what kids played with. 30-40 years on, kids still play with plastic. People naturally want to create, whether engineering or art or both. Kids can do lots of lovely pictures on a PC, yet the ones that mean something or are worth keeping are usually the ones drawn with pencil and paper that they can put on the fridge. People can design huge minecraft cities or something in LDD, but an actual creation nearly always looks better than something virtual.

Especially when they've (i) already reached the review stage and (ii) the other sets in that review are relatively weak compared to other reviews - in that the other submissions (possibly) rule themselves out due to size, overlap with existing models, etc. Possibly of course, as lego can change direction as and when they like.

This is one of the rules ... You MAY NOT SELL ANYTHING related to your project. You may share photos and building instructions free of charge on your own website and online profiles. However you may not sell building instructions, custom kits, or anything related to your project. We will remove projects without notice if we learn you are commercializing content submitted to LEGO Ideas. Submitting it to get it produced (for a fee) by a different company is commercializing content, at least to me. Is changing the colour of something really changing the model? Again, to me, I'd say no. The design is the same.

They will often charge the base price and tax separately - I notice this on every order. Also if the order comes in two parcels (if you buy anything else that is not replacement parts), they will split it and make two charges.

What is the white head from that you have used in Moon Knight? Is it Voldemort with removed print?

The sets are based off movies. Not becuase they are marketted to children and children haven't read the books, but becuase the contract is between Lego and Warner Brothers/MGM. Take a look at the boxes. The logos are clearly shown. Of course the ratio of main characters to generic characters is going to be low in LEGO's own generic themes such as pirates, city and castle. These themes have essentially no main characters, so there will always be a high proportion of generics. Licensed themes are completely different - it is mainly the named licensed characters that sell these themes. That is your opinion only. My opinion is that The Hobbit and LOTR is supposed to relate primarily to LOTR / Hobbit fans, and fans want to have the named characters before generic characters. I would gladly have lost the generic Rohan soldier for a Witch King (although I'd still want Eomer). Mainly because being generic with little distguishing marks, they are easy to construct from generic parts from other themes. I would have even preferred a non-named Gondor soldier than a Rohan, since they are not so generic in that being from a more well defined army they have highly specific headgear and shield. Of course, Castle fans might be interested in the sets due to the parts, but not the characters. If they were interested in the characters, then they would be LOTR/Hobbit fans. If you want generic soldiers, then you can buy sets from the Castle line. The point of LOTR and Hobbit sets (for me) is not to provide more generic soldiers for people that are not interested in LOTR and the Hobbit. Sure, it would have been nice to get Gondor soldiers for LOTR and elves and dwarves for the Hobbit, but not at the expense of the main characters. Sure, they could have done battle packs. But I doubt sales would have really been any different. I noted earlier that Uruk-Hai army seemed to have sold no better than other sets in the series, they needed heavy discount to shift just as the main character sets did. Adding in a generic army builder does not make a set instantly more appealing. Of course, others may have seen Uruk-Hai army fly off the shelves and never be available at RRP as everyone was buying them up for army building. That is not what I remember seeing though. I doubt if a similar set for the Hobbit would have sold any better than most other Hobbit sets. A kid or parent would pick it up and not even know who the un-named characters are, and tend towards the ones with the main characters in.

It probably happened during transport. But for the price of a piece of cart and cellophane wrap around the manual and stickers, they have an unhappy customer that needs to complain.

I cannot see the piano making it past the review panel. The creator of that project has also submitted it to cuusoo-brick, where he is the creator. A number of his designs are already in BL's MOC-shop. https://cuusoo.com/b...tor-picks-today So either he knows that he did not pass review and he has put the piano (plus a few other bits added to it) on cuusoo-brick, or LEGO will not pass the set when they find out he is commercialising it through another (rival) ideas site. Or a third possibility is that LEGO do not find out about it, pass the set, and then look fools when the same design is for sale by another company.

So not done Black Gate at all, and done a different scene? Because if the Witch King turned up at Black Gate, there would be complaints.