Bobsy

I would expect that the licences for the two companies would have a clause demanding equal representation of their IPs, though I couldn't say for sure. It may be that this works on something other than the number of sets though - DC has the huge Arkham Asylum set while most new Marvel sets are reasonably small. Perhaps it's calculated on total value of each line being roughly the same? Or total weight/piece count? We'll never know for sure, but it's worth a think.

It's just the colloquialisation of the name 'cavalry' from years of westerns when the cavalry would ride in at the end. The word became more associated with the blue uniforms than the horse. Oddly enough outside the 'wild west' setting no-one would make the same error - anyone with a passing knowledge of American history would just call them Union soldiers. It's a silly thing to call them 'cavalry' but I don't think I'm going to get worked up over it. It's just a toy after all.

Review of Lair of Grievous is finally up, delayed from Wednesday due to Posterous going on the fritz and work piling up during the week. Anyway, it's here now. Okay, how does it make more sense? Ambush's plot is based around the contest between a lone jedi and an army of battledroids in order to impress a neutral third party. The setting is immaterial for the story to work - Yoda could be on Christophsis, Felucia, Ryloth, Kashyyyk or anywhere for all the difference it makes. The setting does not have any real bearing on the story. While Supply Lines has chronological ties to both Ambush and the Ryloth trilogy, its story doesn't really provide much insight to either. And frankly, there isn't really any sense to be made out of Ambush - it remains a squalid little story with little to recommend it apart from the one stand-out scene in the cave.

Oh man, that looks fantastic. Huge props for making it out of real bricks. Question though: is the cockpit easy to open and get the minifig out?

Yeah, that wasn't the reason though. The reason the ship was made is that it is practically the ONLY vehicle in all the films (Gandalf's cart, check. Uruk-Hai balista, check. Grey Havens ship...). There simply wasn't anything else to fit that niche. Ponies would require a new mould, and would probably show up the scale issues with humans and dwarves/hobbits a bit too much. Too expensive, not enough benefit.

Disagree with this actually. One of the strengths of the way TCW does arcs is that they're usually not dependent on each other for story, instead only really linked by the circumstance or setting. I don't need to know why Christophsis matters to enjoy Hidden Enemy, and I don't need to have seen all the things happening in Cat and Mouse to 'get' the opening of the movie. In fact, one of the (few) things in the movie's favour is that it opens in medias res, right in the middle of a random conflict we've never really seen before. It subtly suggests the scale of the conflict being huge, that an average day in the life is being knee-deep in battledroid bits on a world you barely remember the name of. I'd actually argue that putting that opening into context by watching the chronological 'first' episodes would make it weaker.

Bear in mind that the majority of new sets are to tie in with current films or tv shows - we got lots of Clone Wars when it was the newest latest newest thing, and the upcoming wave of AOTC sets was supposed to be to coincide with the now-cancelled 3D re-release of that film. The reasoning should be obvious - kids like toys based on the film they've just seen in the cinema, and toys based on a current film will help boost ticket sales. EU sets are always great for people like us who have a familiarity with it, but your average 9 year-old won't have heard of Admiral Thrawn or Mara Jade, unless they appear in Episode VII (unlikely).

I would've started with the film, but I've only got it on my iPad at the moment, which makes doing screengrabs more difficult. Also, it's a lot longer, which makes the review process take longer still. I might go back to it after season 1 is done. It might be fun to split it back into its original three episodes to see if they still stand up. As for chronology, it's a bit difficult for a couple of reasons. First, it would take a while trying to consolidate them into a proper chronology, and leaves room for error if new episodes are made that fit in between the existing ones (I can only go up to season 4 at the moment anyway). Second, I think for the most part that the episodes tell their story better in the order they are in, especially for the development of characters and the universe. For example, The Hidden Enemy (clone traitor) is very early chronologically, but the idea that a clone can betray their brothers wouldn't hold nearly as much weight if it's only the second episode you've watched. That said, it's still weird watching Clone Cadets and Arc Troopers from the beginning of season 3 without Rookies to go in between.

I have, yes. In fact, in lieu of there being a new video this weekend, I rewatched those two instead. Other than the song (honestly, I love Chuck's work, but the singing is always bad news) I'd say that it's one of his stronger reviews. He's slightly meaner than me about Ambush though.

Now that's an idea. It might work, or I might be trying to appeal to a whole bunch of people deep in their dark ages. Worth some thought though.

Oh, shameless plug time. On my blog I've started writing reviews of The Clone Wars series. I'm not exactly a massive fan of the show, especially not in its first season, but I find myself drawn to critiquing it, for good and for bad. There's certainly a lot of both to be found. I am on the other hand a fan of Chuck Sonnenburg's SFDebris reviews, which were a big influence on me starting this project. Unlike many other internet 'review' shows Chuck doesn't shy away from praising something just so he can make a cheap mocking joke against it. Good episodes get praise, bad episodes get panned, jokes are made about everything. So yeah, I decided to take every episode of The Clone Wars in turn, and write a review. As of today I'm nine episodes in (updates are normally on Sundays and Wednesdays), and am definately going to push through to the end of the first season, probably beyond. Below are direct links to each of the episode reviews. Ambush Rising Malevolence Shadow of Malevolence Destroy Malevolence Rookies Downfall of a Droid Duel of the Droids Bombad Jedi Cloak of Darkness And now, just like that nice lady in the supermarket with the bite-size pretzel bits, I bring you the greatest thing known to man! FREE SAMPLES! Omnomnomnnom.

Thanks very much for your kind words guys! But also, can anyone please offer comment on the proposed changes to the carriage shape? Is it too much / not enough? To curvy / to rigid? Not different enough? Someone criticise pleeeeeease!

In general, not really - as a franchise it's always seemed a little overly-emo to me, a little too self-important - and of course the rise of Wolverine as the most cynical of marketing tools to sell comics over the years makes my blood boil. With the films I got some enjoyment out of X2, but the first one fell flat for me and as for X3... it's honestly one of the least enjoyable cinema experiences I've ever had. A truly awful script and story, terrible characters, terrible dialogue - every scene with Phoenix and Wolverine in it was just painful, and the way Cyclops was just thrown out in the first act.... god, it actually makes me angry even to think about it. The Wolverine film was stupid through and through, although I'd by lying if I didn't take some pleasure from laughing at how absurd it all was - but I did the same with The Fantastic Four, and that was at least fun. First Class... I'll admit, I liked that one, mostly because it didn't carry around all the baggage from the previous films, and was free to actually explore and have fun with the concept and characters. And yes, I'm afraid I laughed out loud at the Wolverine cameo. Er, anyway. I do like Peter Dinklage. He was great in Prince Caspian.

Peter Dinklage makes everything awesomer. I might actually give a tinker's toss about this film now.

The whole damn film will be on Tatooine. It's probably a resort by now, so rich decadent Coruscantites can come and experience the squalor and misery of living in a back-end outer-rim nowhere world - WITH 5-STAR ACCOMMODATION!

Looking at the upcoming Lone Ranger Stagecoach set made me ponder the shape of my cart - it's very boxy and ungainly. So I decided to kill my darlings, slaughter my sacred cows and went back to the drawing board with the profile of the theatre. I began by trying to emulate the curved ship-like contours of the stagecoach, but that didn't work out, since the curtained area forces a minimum width at the base. So while I brought in more curves, it doesn't really resemble the stagecoach a whole lot. Probably for the best, but who knows. The results are here: Concept design by bobsy26, on Flickr Concept design by bobsy26, on Flickr I've not put it through to render yet because I'm still not 100% on this being final. It's a shame that the textured walls on either side of the curtains had to go, but at the same time they never matched, so they needed altering at the very least. One of the difficulties of using these curved half-arch pieces is that they sort of enforce a flat surface on the side, which is a shame. Anyway, thoughts? Improvement or not?

I should mention that Eurobricks is compatible with Gravatar, a handy site which allows you to set a generic avatar used on many blogs, forums and other places. I highly recommend it - I was surprised when I first joined that I already had an avatar without needing to lift a finger.

It's a very good-looking ship indeed, but it's sides are very, very low. Unsurprisingly, it looks every inch a vessel intended for navigating the shallows instead of heading out to sea. Put it next to the Imperial Flagship and it might look somewhat out of place. So the question is, what would be the best way to modify it? Does it look more Arabian or East-Asian? How high can you bring up the decks without it looking too tall? And where to get a crew for it? Ah well, at least we've got time to ponder.

I think the increase in competition has a lot to do with it. Not just with Megabloks, Kre-o and the like, but also with the MOCs that AFOLs are coming out with. There's a trickle-down effect from things like building techniques and styles, and most designers at LEGO are happy to admit that they're inspired by some of the models that AFOLS build. 20 years ago, when most of us were kids playing with Lego, this simply wasn't possible - not only were the clone brands pretty much entirely naff, the lack of the internet meant that people couldn't share ideas.

Well that's a good question - depends if they've been designed yet. We may still see some.

We can more or less forget about seeing any more Episode II sets any time soon - if ever again. The upcoming wave is so AOTC-skewed because the original plan was to have the film re-released in 3D this year. That's no longer happening, so there's no cause to be promoting it any more. Having so many AOTC sets in one wave means that the next year's-worth of sets will lean away from the film to compensate, and then after that there's Episode VII which will dominate the line for at least a year, maybe more. So in the time we have left until VII-ageddon, I think we can expect the OT to come to the fore again, since those films have been moved up for 3D re-releases. A small Luke/Sand People set from ANH would be really welcome though, especially since it's never been done before. I guess the sticking point over the years has been whether to brick-build the bantha or just mould one.

Okay now, it looks like you're misinterpreting what people mean when they're calling it an E-Wing. Remember that the Yoda Chronicles is low-rung canon, and the LEGO designers wanted to make a ship that would a) not be immediately recognisable to children and b) fit in with the general Star Wars aesthetic. To that end it's pretty understandable that they'd plunder the EU concept designs to find a shape for JEK-14's ship. The reason we're calling it an E-Wing is because - look at it - it's an E-Wing. What we're not saying is that this blows the whole Star Wars timeline right open, ZOMG there were E-Wings waaay back in 30 BBY what could this mean for Luke (Skywalker). There's no issues of canon here, no continuity snarls, just noticing that the new Yoda Chronicles ship happens also to be an E-Wing. Which is why the instructions for the model will arguably be more important to AFOLs than the ship itself. While I'm here, my real hangup is why the Yoda Chronicles ship doesn't actually come with Yoda himself.

More worryingly, the DC bit looks to be in reference to the copyright over the word LEGO. The Lone Ranger/Disney stuff is separate, below.

Yeah, the Yoda Chronicles (if we ever see it) will be in the lower orders of canon, so it's not worth getting too worked up over the characters and vehicle... ...that said, the ship is definately a black E-Wing, no doubt about it. I get the feeling that the most important thing about the set will be the instructions, as it'll mean we can build E-Wings in proper New Republic colours.

He says where, upthread. You should check before posting.