Lord Rahl of Clannad

There is a seemingly endless amount of movies that I could recommend, but one that hasn't been mentioned yet is Tangled. I honestly expected nothing good from this film before I watched this, and I only ever watched it because it was the only interesting thing on TV on Christmas Day in 2012. It turned out to be great though. Unlike most Disney films, the songs weren't overly cheesy and didn't seem very forced (I've thought some Disney films have had cheesy and forced songs that weren't really needed). The plot itself was good, and the characters are as well constructed as we would expect from a Disney film.

I can't think of 5 sets in particular, but I would have loved to have seen the Grail Temple. It's understandable why LEGO didn't make one though, what with all the religious imagery related to the temple.

I don't suppose that's too surprising, considering that none of these new TMNT sets are even out yet. I'm amazed it was on there so early at all.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if a redesigned Killer Croc is in the pipeline. Whether it would be like Leatherhead from TMNT or a different approach is hard to say. I guess it depends where LEGO get the character design from how he would turn out. *EDIT* I find it weird how I'm not overly concerned about DC yet find myself posting more about it in here than I do about Marvel. Strange...

Well it has been a while since I last watched the Brick Show, but I do remember the goofy style well enough. I'm fine with such a style though. After all, their videos involve adults reviewing LEGO sets, which are intended to be children's toys; a goofy style makes perfect sense for such a show. The only gripe I ever truly had with Brick Show videos was that they seemed to have a habit of assembling minifigures incorrectly. That aside, I was always fine with their videos.

Oh I see. I never got LEGO Lord of the Rings in the end, so I had no idea. It makes sense for a franchise like this I suppose.

Well I've finished the first series of Clannad. It was a great series, with a great range of characters who all had their own quirks to keep things amusing. It was really sad, really touching and really happy all at different times. The range of emotions this made me feel was massive. I thought Angel Beats was really sad (and in places it was) but this often took sadness to a whole new level. On a different note, I really enjoyed how this series established character relationships and how the plot and characters were developed as the series went on. However, the OVA episode totally confused me. After I had watched it I searched it up to try and clarify it, and it turns out the OVA was set in an alternative timeline. It was a good episode, but it confused me in as much as I no longer know which girl I prefer the main character with. Nevertheless, this was a great series, and I'm sure Clannad: After Story will maintain this high standard. I also forgot to mention in my last post one gripe I had with Code Geass: the amount of fake deaths, particularly in R2 of the series. It was fun at first, but by the end it was just ridiculous. Some of the characters who were brought back after "dying" made no sense at all. But I digress.

Well this is disappointing to an extent. This probably means yet more screen time for Wolverine, especially as they're having him go to the past and everything instead, so he'll end up in almost every scene of this film. I'm still holding out hoe that this film will be good, and I'll be sure to watch it when it comes out. I can't wait to see the Future Sentinel(s) in action.

I'm not liking either of those two sets very much, but I'm loving the new minifigures, particularly the yellow figure (leopard?) in the Vulture set. Hopefully we get hi-res pictures of the rest of the sets soon.

A famous personality eh? Well, that's certainly more interesting than a cameraman could ever be. But I'll reserve full judgement of the character until the film and save full judgement of the minifigure until we get a good image of it.

I love it how the DLCs for LEGO games of late have always provided interesting bonuses, and clearly this game's DLCs are no exception. I'm confused about the 3rd one though. It seems to contain weapons and items of clothing. Does that mean weapons and clothing will be interchangeable to some extent outside of character customiser?

As I have said before, Green Arrow is by far the best DC character (that I know of) to incorporate into a Batman set. Both heroes fight in similar environments, so putting them in a set together fighting Deathstroke or someone like that wouldn't be overly unrealistic. We are meant to get Green Lantern in a set next year. Why not Green Arrow too?

Well, these are coming out in April aren't they? Based on that, I'm sure it's only a matter of time until pictures finally emerge. I bet if we wait a week or so pictures will have emerged. Well, I certainly hope we get pictures soon; I want to know whether these will be worth buying or not.

You are right in saying that Batman and Superman are guaranteed sales. However, if DC and WB collaborated to try and make a really good film for one of their other superheroes (and not make it extremely terrible like Green Lantern) then maybe that would make money. And I don't see how it matters that Marvel aren't using characters who are typically considered A-Listers. After all, at least they're taking the risk in giving characters such as Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy their own movies. As it is, all these movies have successfully transformed these characters from B-Listers and C-Listers into A-Listers. That's what is so impressive about how Marvel are doing things. That's all I'll say on this. After all, we don't want this thread to degrade into a Marvel vs DC debate. On a different note, have we seen any footage of Crossbones for Captain America: The Winter Soldier yet?

That's the best explanation I've heard for it. On the other hand, perhaps Marvel had initially intended the Mandarin to be the villain and gave TLG some ideas from the early stages of production and let them work from that and then not inform them of any plot updates. That seems to end up being the case for a lot of TLG's licensed themes, especially the one-offs like The Lone Ranger (e.g. the Stagecoach never got any action in the film but was made into a set which suggested that it did).

For Marvel, it has to be Iron Man vs Hobo in fire-breathing shopping trolley, which is more or less the only way this set can be described. The only intended draw of this set is the Heartbreaker Iron Man, and even that is disappointingly inaccurate to the film. I honestly cannot begin to fathom what TLG were thinking when they decided to put this set on shelves. For DC, it has to be the Black Zero Escape. Lois Lane just looks like a civilian Black Widow, and the set itself is pathetic. A little platform and a poorly-designed escape pod? Come on TLG, you can do way, way better than that. You know, if you had actually TRIED to do any better.

The guy played by Will Arnett is someone called Vernon Fenwick, who is supposedly a cameraman in the film. If that is indeed the case, I find this to be a very odd minifigure choice. After all, who is going to be interested in a cameraman in a film full of ninjas and mutants?

Well, I'm not sure how it would work or how they would make it actually look good, but I think it would be nice and would add some more dimension to the minifigures. This problem was also present with the Sumo Wrestler; it made no sense to have him be the same scale as all the other minifigures. The same can be applied to numerous characters from The Simpsons, though it probably wouldn't look very good (if it was a neck piece it would make the minifigures even taller, which is really not necessary).

A wonderful song by The Fray. Such an underrated band they are. They have so many brilliant songs, and this is undoubtedly one of the best.

Well I'm not concerned with the faces (I'm sure they would have been fine either way) but I'm disappointed with the lack of a belly piece for Homer to make him look fat (similar to what Bombur from The Hobbit had, but as a neck piece rather than attached to the hairpiece). It's unfortunate but there are numerous characters who, if made by LEGO for this theme, will suffer from the same issue as well.

That's a nice set. It definitely fits how The End is in the game, and the model itself will work well with the other Microworlds we have so far. Hopefully it remains at a similar price to the ones we have had so far; anything more expensive would be entirely unreasonable.

Those custom Iron Mans are awesome. It really highlights how much of a shame it is that LEGO has only given us 4 of the many Iron Man variants we have seen in the films so far. Also, where does that suitcase piece in the first picture come from? It doesn't look like LEGO to me.

Well, since my last post in this topic I have watched a lot more animes (sometimes I think I have way too much free time on my hands, but oh well). After I had watched Rozen Maiden I went on anime hiatus for a few days, But I was able to start watching Code Geass at last when I got a day off school. Code Geass was brilliant, with engaging plot, memorable characters and battle mechs. Lots and lots of battle mechs. The plot was extremely interesting, and the use of plot twists kept me engaged with it, even if some of the plot twists weren't exactly easy to follow. I also liked the similarities to Death Note, even if they were only with the ideals of the main character. In both Code Geass and Death Note, the main character (Lelouch Vi Brittania in Code Geass and Light Yagami in Death Note) gains some supernatural power/weapon that can be used to kill people (among other things for Lelouch). They both decide to use their power to try and change the world, though both do so for different purposes. Also, both Light and Lelouch are absolute geniuses, though Lelouch is far, far smarter than Light. Actually, Lelouch may now be my favourite anime character. After Code Geass I moved onto a slice-of-life anime called Watamote. It was my first time watching an entire anime with only English subtitles to go by, but it was simple enough to understand. There wasn't much in the ways of plot or character development in this, but it was an amusing show, mainly because the main character made a fool of herself multiple times every episode. After that was Blue Exorcist. I wasn't sure if I would like this when my friend told me about it, but I gave it a look anyway. The religious undertones of the show helped maintain a constant context to build on, though having the son of Satan want to be an exorcist is highly unusual, if not extremely ironic. It was enjoyable enough, though only a few of the characters were particularly memorable. Plot twists were used to help things along, but they weren't as frequent or mind blowing as they have been in other animes I have had the pleasure of watching. I also watched the Blue Exorcist movie, which I discussed in slight detail in the "What was the last movie you watched?" topic. Now I've moved onto Clannad. So far this is evidently a slice-of-life anime as well, but this one seems to have substantial plot and character development already, even though I've only watched the first 7 episodes of season 1 (there's a second season called Clannad: After Story). I can also tell that this is going to be a very sad anime. In fact, it has already been quite sad, though I assume the currently established sadness is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. I've also got numerous animes on my watch list for after Clannad, but the one I'm most excited for is Attack on Titan. The English dub of this is finally arriving, and will do so between the 21st and 23rd of March. I can't wait.

Well it's good to have some confirmation about more of Phase 3 now. I do wonder what storyline a 3rd Captain America film would follow, but I'm sure Marvel will be able to make it work very well. I'm still holding out hope that Dr Strange gets his movie announced sooner rather than later as well. I do find it funny and also pathetic that DC have moved Batman vs Superman up a week. I thought they wanted that date to be able to compete with Marvel?

We're discussing the Turtle Van from the upcoming TMNT movie. Speaking of it, what minifigures actually come with this set?