Khaled Yousef

JODAWILL: I agree with all the “good” points you say, this line is awesome and it looks more like the 90’s sets than the 2009 ones, which is a very good thing to old timers like me. But of all the “cons” you said only the tree and the lack of gold bothers me. I didn’t notice the lack of gold however before you mentioned it; the gold was one of the best things that ever came with the 90’s sets, and now I feel upset that the new sets don’t have it. It can’t be that impossible to include some chrome gold coins in LEGO sets, is it? They did it with the previous Castle line, so why not the more deserving Pirates line?

Itaria: I understand your point completely, and back when fleshies came out I used to replace them with yellow heads for my Star Wars minifigs because I wanted a complete yellow collection, they looked more LEGO to me back then. You also make a very good point saying that LOTR and Hobbit seemed to parents like a more expensive and intimidating castle theme, and I think we all agree that LEGO missed many good opportunities designing or choosing scenes for those expensive sets which made the line a lot less interesting to kids. BrickJagger: I don’t think Helms Deep is the best thing ever, it just looks a lot more realistic as a castle and it has much better “finishing” it almost looks like an AFOL’s MOC compared to other castles we got with weird blue and red stuff, and I’m trying so hard to factor out nostalgia’s influence or else I’d choose 6085 as the best castle ever. 10193 is definitely miles ahead of Helms Deep in terms of creativity, and to me it’s also one of the best sets made by LEGO regardless of the theme. MAB: I wasn’t making fun of your observation my friend; I was admiring it, and pointing out than others might not have the same keen eye, and therefore cannot be relied on as store reporters. You seem to be spending more time in your store than most of us, heck, some of us don’t even visit stores and buy most of their LEGO online. The internet will always be the internet: more talk and personal opinions and less facts. The bold claims that LEGO cancelled the so called third LOTR wave because the line didn’t sell good sounds meaningless when it comes from casual observers… they claim to know not just a total view of the international market just by observing some local stores, but they go as far as to think they know how LEGO runs its business… which is funny to say the least. Faefrost: your observation about Target and Wall-Mart is valid, and saying that the line didn’t look like it was very popular is a fairly logical statement that doesn’t require a professional marketer to declare, so I understand what most of you guys say, and I don’t think it’s wrong at all.

To be fair, Castle is an “Ever-green” theme for LEGO, we’ll always get more and more Castle waves released every two or three years, which is not very bad for Castle fans. LOTR however was a once in a life time chance, and although it was short it made LOTR and fleshie fans very happy. Castle fans shouldn’t be so irritated by it, it happened so fast and ended so fast and you’ll get your Castle sets again sooner than later. I’m a fan of both, so I’m happy either way. And while fantasy minifigs from normal Castle lines were an OK attempt to resemble LOTR universe, they weren’t nearly as good as the ones that came with LOTR and Hobbit sets, I’d pay more for better and more accurate minifigs. And the Helms Deep design is far superior to anything that ever came in normal Castle waves; I’d also pay more for better designed fortresses that doesn’t look weird with all the blue and red thingies on the walls like normal Castle sets do.

Flieger: I totally agree with you on the point that something must have happened that caused a cancellation of a third LOTR wave, or at least some more Gondor sets in wave 2, because it doesn’t make sense that in an action oriented theme LEGO would make sets about a round table with some foliage and not make a set about the most important action scene in the trilogy. I think BrickJagger’s first suggestion is the most plausible: PJ caught everyone with their pants down when he decided to make a third movie, so another Hobbit wave had to replace third LOTR wave or something like that. You know, LEGO don’t have infinite production lines in their factories, and priorities had to be taken into consideration: a current movie is more relevant than an older classic one, even if it meant an incomplete LOTR collection. Poor sales and stuff like that aren’t convincing enough compared to this suggestion.

Sir von Lego, you got too many requests, you should charge each one a dollar and you could get the set when it comes out for free. The minifig lineup sucks, it makes sense but it sucks. We’ve had Darth Maul and Watto recently, new little Annie in another set this year, Qui-gon last year, and I bet the astromech is just another R2… boring.

Second that, location based sets, which contains vehicles of some sort, are usually better than just a vehicle or starship. 4502 X-wing with Yoda’s hut is a good example on how to make a starship set more interesting, it was much better than 6212 which had the ship alone. I wish all Episode VII vehicles and starships would come with some sort of new location.

Thanks BrickJagger. The only reason why I still follow this thread is that there is still one LOTR set being officially reviewed by LEGO to become a real set, that’s Nuju’s awesome Minas Tirith, and that makes the LOTR theme still officially relevant. And while there is little chance it might be picked to become a set, we can still hope. Now what I don’t understand is why we can’t keep discussing this little hope remaining in a nice way, without jumping at each other’s throats and making too many fanboy assumptions!

I fail to see where exactly did you read in my words that I said those two lines were best sellers, so please read my posts again and you’ll see that the point I was making is that NONE of us has sales figures, not me and certainly not him or you or anybody here who doesn’t work for the sales department in LEGO, so no one can claim those themes were a success or fail in terms of sales, and that observing one store or the opinions of angry fans on internet forums is hardly a professional way of doing that. And I also explained why there will be no more waves of licensed themes in general in the absence of more movies or TV shows to keep them relevant to kids and justify the price markup compared to normal themes to parents, regardless of the success of the theme. Am I not being clear, or is it the bitterness that drives most of us angry at LEGO for not making the best out of this license, and then makes us endlessly argues about what’s common sense? Bobbtom: I don’t appreciate the insult, so please take it back, for the sake of playing nice, alright?

I understand your enthusiasm, and I believe you can actually monitor what happens in your neighborhood store with such keen observation, but again, this only represents what happens in one store. Exactly how many persons with whom you discuss the actual sales volume has the same level of enthusiasm and dedication to monitor their neighborhood stores as you do? How many of them use a ruler like you do to measure the gaps between stacked boxes on shelves? Are they properly distributed across all countries that sell LEGO? How old and aware of the concepts of professional market study are they? Do you see where I’m going with this?

Cool vig. The shark was an unexpected and very funny surprise . The water splash technique is just terrific.

Well Sir Gareth, to be fair you didn’t mention you got that information from starwars.com in your previous post; so I guess we assumed it was your own opinion on the matter.

Interesting point of view, although I think the violence in this show, or any other cartoon with killing, will not necessarily create people who think killing is cool, yet the embedded psychological message in this particular show, which is far more destructive than mere violence, is aimed at creating a vandalizing anarchist government-hating generation to spread chaos around the globe… I wonder why parents don’t worry about that… but that’s another story that doesn’t belong here.

With all due respect to you, your theory only proves that the store you visit never gets cleaned since the staff never touches the shelves for weeks; I suggest for health reasons to not visit it again, who knows, cockroaches might be nesting behind the boxes by now. Seriously man, are you convinced that the activities of one store, with obviously lazy staff, can be taken as an indication to anything concerning an international market study of one of the most powerful merchandise in the world?

Guys, I think it’s a very incorrect way to assess the volume of sales of a certain product by mere random observations of the amount of sets displayed in a couple of stores. You don’t know how many sets the store you observe sells, you don’t know how many they ordered from LEGO, you don’t know if the fact that many sets exist on the shelves can be considered a good or bad sign, maybe no one is buying them so there is too many of them, maybe people are buying too many so there are none left on shelves… who knows. Furthermore, you don’t know how many sets move through online market, thousands of stores around the world, aftermarket and re-sellers… etc. It’s safe however to say that LOTR and Hobbit will end because there are no more movies or series being produced, therefore the kids of today, whom are the primary demographic of this toy, will not recognize the brand, which makes the markup of the license an unnecessary burden on the price of sets… that’s it. Star Wars continues to be a success not because the original movies were great, but because Lucas made the prequels, and the Clone Wars, and the Disney deal, and there is a current popular cartoon being aired on a kid’s channel, and upcoming movies and spinoffs every year… you see.

Perhaps it’s an artistic choice to show how dumb the Imperial personnel are. Anyway, I see now that the crewman’s cap is grey not black… hope is gone again, guess I’ll have to use black paint on the existing cap, until we get a proper black uniform officer.

Thanks fred67, that’s it, and I believe any LEGO room should have those UV blocking sheets on the windows; this might be the best solution to protect displayed items from indirect UV, and protect bricks during building too. And if the room is protected you won't need expensive UV-proof cases for individual items.

Flieger: so the black cap has made an appearance in Rebels? That’s awesome, thanks for giving me back hope. Maybe we’ll see them crewmen in the next wave, that would be great… unless LEGO decides to make them reddish brown or something.

Have anyone considered glass display containers with some sort of UV protection? Is there such thing? It might be the best option for long-term display in a moderately lit room.

No, it won’t be OK; indirect UV is harmful to LEGO as well, not as well as direct sunlight of course, but it will affect your displayed items eventually, especially white parts, a couple of months on display will have its toll. I also find that newer bricks are more durable than older ones, more scratch-resistant and shiny; I bet they resist discoloring better as well, but I won’t test them, when not being used for a MOC, I keep them in Ziploc baggies inside plastic containers inside wooden cabinets protected from direct or indirect sunlight or even florescent lighting. I also keep the bins with white and clear parts in the back, hidden in an area I call “zero-exposure” and I only bring them out when I need them to build, photograph what I’ve built and take them apart as fast as possible and return them to their hideout… this hobby is tough.

Me too, I was hoping one black uniform officer would make appearance in Rebels so we might get those new caps in black, and that’s another reason to make me angry at the dark-tan ones since we’re getting the awesome new cap in a useless color while we’re missing the other essential one.

That’s correct, but the next best thing to old grey is the current grey, so why did they drift so far away with dark-tan?

I think I understand why some people really hate this S-14; CMF series was all about diversity, where you can get some never before released minifig concepts, like Greek mythology figs or Roman soldiers and such, each series had many chances you might get at least one minifig you really wanted which belongs to a theme or world LEGO might not produce as regular sets, and we only get two or three chances per year for that to happen. Now this series is all about only one theme, so anyone who’s not that into Halloween stuff was let down, for instead of the diversity that satisfies most tastes, we got an entire release that basically caters to only one taste. It becomes even worse when the second chance is also dedicated to one theme, which makes it an entire year of no diversity. So if you’re not too crazy about Halloween, or you’re also not too crazy about The Simpsons, you got yourself another year of waiting ahead of you till they decide to make another diverse series… if they decide to continue with CMF at all… and that’s understandably frustrating.

Yeah, an updated Tarkin with pupils would be great; I just hope he doesn’t come in a dark-tan uniform. I really don’t understand why LEGO decided to go with this color for the Imperial Officers in Rebels, it looks wrong by all measures.

Now that you mentioned it, I too recommend the SX40 over the SX520, only if he could find a new one now, it’s hard to find now since it’s a much older model, and it’s also a little bit more expensive than the newer one, but it’s still within his range. SX40 has viewfinder, tilting screen and hot-shoe among other things the SX520 lacks, and I bet the SX40’s bigger pixels perform better in low-light. I think the SX40’s upgrade would be the SX50 and SX60 not 520, the SXxx models seem to be on a higher level than the SXxxx ones, yet I didn’t recommend the 50 or 60 because they’re very expensive for cameras in this category. The 40 is a better option. (Ninja’d while editing by Breakdown) And ISO 800! It looks very clean for a camera with such a small sensor. This one seems to be an awesome camera after all. General Magma: can you tell us which camera do you own now so we can assess which one would be considered an adequate upgrade?

Nice shot Breakdown. You mentioned you used the Canon SX40, which is very similar to the one I suggested: the SX520, both are awesome cameras and he can get for very cheap now and enjoy their versatility and slightly improved image quality over smaller P&S cameras, as it seems, the noise in this low-light photo is very well under control (which ISO setting were you on?), and the color aberration is not bad either (no purple fringing in the 1*1 trans-clear plates on the runway), so it seems that the Canon SX line’s inner software does a good job fixing its shortcomings.