BlueberryWaffles

I found it packed in with the Lego Shazam Magic and Monsters animated movie on DVD in a Walmart bin last year. If that Amazon listing is to be believed, it still comes packed in if you order it now. I don't think the polybag was released in any other form.

I hope so. Still surprised that the first movie didn't get any sets (outside of that polybag that seemed loosely inspired), so hopefully this time will be different.

I hope that will be a wide release. I was ready to pay full price for Baby Groot anyway, so that makes the new armory much more palatable.

Interesting choices for a first wave. The plane chase from Last Crusade definitely seems like an odd choice. I'm a little surprised at Temple of Doom as well, given how much criticism that film has drawn over the years for religious/cultural stereotyping. Still, any new sets are great news to me. These will all be day one purchases, I've waited over a decade for the theme to finally return. As for longevity, it really does come down to where the franchise goes after this. In its current state, it's obviously nowhere near as popular as Lego's other licenses (SW, HP, Marvel, etc.) but we don't know what is in the works outside of the fifth movie and the Bethesda game. Maybe Disney wants this to be a "Force Awakens" style revamp of the brand, or maybe this is just a last hurrah for Ford's sake. Time will tell.

Thankfully the $130 threshold allowed me to do the $129.99 Chamber of Secrets from last year. Got the polybag and staircase in my order. I had thought about doing the Burrow since it's retiring at the end of the year, but it was sold out. Figured CoS was a good second pick since it's rising to $150 with the price increases soon.

End of an era. I knew this was always a possibility, but it's still disappointing to see it happen. Guess it's Bricklink only for me from now on.

Love that Stark suit Spidey. Even though the original version was great, this is just miles above and looks so much better. Still a little disappointed that it's not an updated MCU Iron Spider (which is desperately needed), but maybe that will come at a later date. Zombie Strange is okay. I feel like the skin tone should have been a shade of tan, something like the taxi driver ghost from the GB Firehouse. Has there been any word on whether he will have the black demon arms? If not, I'll have to make some myself. Honestly I'm a little disappointed that there's no Ancient One. The 2016 minifig never seemed quite right to me, and the Sanctum is really the only place that would make sense to redo her.

I wish that would happen at the stores near me. Ours have full shelves of Eternals sets that never seem to sell, yet they're still marked at full price. I like the sets myself but I'm holding out for a discount.

Unless you get really lucky they've been gone for a while, with the arrival of the Muppets series that means Marvel was two series ago. Best recommendation is buying them individually on Bricklink, that's what I had to resort to a few months ago. If possible, find a seller who has most of who you're looking for to save on shipping costs.

Of course the only set made for a Flash solo movie is a Batmobile. Honestly, I am still very excited for it if it's the 1989 Batmobile as assumed. Even if it's modified, I'll modify it right back to the original look. Guessing if they do Keaton's Batman as a minifig in the set, he'll go back to the standard cowl, something like this but maybe with a new torso. I still can't believe that we've never gotten a Batman minifig with normal eyes for the movie versions after this long. Finally got my hands on the Battinson minifig and it just doesn't look great between the white eyes and the lack of dual-molded legs.

Guess I'm in the minority with the Armory. This feels like a slap in the face to everyone who's been keeping up with the theme, especially the helmet. I've been collecting the armors for a decade now across so many different sets, and now they're just changing the mold for no real reason? As mentioned above, the "Tony changes his armors all the time" argument doesn't hold water with most of the MCU armors. The build being completely different from the past style is strange too. They don't totally clash, but this definitely feels like a replacement rather than an expansion of the previous sets. Really the only thing that appeals to me is Whiplash, and even then they chose the less iconic armored variant from the film's climax. Absolutely not spending $90 on this.

Mixed feelings about Groot, I'm sure he'll grow on me over time though. My favorite part is probably the display plaque.

This is exactly what I was thinking while I read your original post. The theory is basically the inverse of a popular thought going around the LotR threads back in 2013-2014. In that case, the thought was that the second LotR wave was much smaller and jumped all over the price range. People on here theorized that there was a larger second wave planned that was cut in half when the Hobbit films moved from two to three. Then, after poor reception of the Hobbit sets, the unproduced LotR sets were just canned instead. This also brings me back to the days of endless thread pages debating whether or not Minas Tirith was coming. Hard to believe that was almost a decade ago. I think your theory has a lot of weight, and it might be the best explanation I've heard so far for the abrupt redesigns in the 2021 sets. Sets like the Hogwarts Moments and the new chest set also line up with TLG rethinking the theme. It does make me wonder how much they would push Gringotts back though. The other thing that complicates it is that the rest of the franchise seems shaky. Articles like this from Variety make it seem like the Wizarding World franchise is under a bit of turmoil behind the scenes at WB.

I feel like the most logical timeframe for a Sanctum reveal would be the Multiverse of Madness release weekend?

Speak for yourself, I still don't think the Icons set was anything special, especially so soon after we already got a different buildable Hedwig statue.

Almost $500 for yet another Hogwarts Express is an instant pass for me. Between the recent DeLorean and the rumors of a D2C Sanctum Sanctorum for Marvel, there's plenty else for me to focus on this year.

Something about the way the heads are done is making me worried that misaligned prints will be more common than usual. Guess we'll see when more people start getting their hands on them.

Completely forgot about that build until you mentioned it. That was dreadful. Mine never stood up right, I remember Shelob from the LotR theme blowing it away only a couple of years later. Also from the same set was gold windows for Hagrid's Hut! Truly some...interesting decisions in those waves. Still love them, I remember seeing the Toyfair pictures in early 2010. Even though it was more fragile due to the material of the piece, I still prefer the look of Dobby's head from the 2010 version. It nails that wide-eyed, droopy-eared expression much better than the current one in my opinion.

Looking back, I feel that it was Lego's way of keeping the theme alive alongside the popularity of the later movies without necessarily being based on them since they were darker. It was also the first time anything from the theme had really been "remade". Compared to Star Wars which got new versions of the same ships every few years alongside tie-ins to new releases, the HP theme up until that point had been just going alongside the movies as they came out. Being able to look back on the movies for the first time was probably what resulted in the jumble of references we got in those waves.

Yeah, I have the 2016 version too but I agree with what's posted above, it's too thin and I would much rather have one like in the original Batman theme. I think the only reason I have that set was because it was clearanced. Now Katana is really the only good thing that came out of the set considering that we got much better versions (in my opinion) of Killer Croc and Captain Boomerang in the TLBM sets.

Wow, what a wave! I'm amazed! Obviously for me the highlights are the Ministry and 12 Grimmauld Place since they've never been done before, but the last Shrieking Shack was so long ago it almost falls into that category as well. And that baby thestral is adorable! I do agree with the comments saying that it's weird how focused the wave is on higher-priced sets. Combined with the focus on the latter years, this definitely feels like it's skewing at an older audience than usual waves. This also seems to merge the two styles of the rebooted theme: the Hogwarts sets have the green roofs and modular components of last year, but the non-Hogwarts locations feel more like the 2018-2019 sets. I think this is a decent enough compromise, though it does make me a little less incentivized to go back and buy the older Hogwarts sets (Clock Tower, Astronomy Tower, etc.) when this wave fits in better both with last year's sets and my 2010-11 castle.

Then again, if we do end up getting another set, a Bat-tank is likely enough given this theme's track record... (then again, I wouldn't complain if it was the Dark Knight Returns tank.)

It's also limited to one set, but putting a different head (and maybe hands) on the 2013 Nick Fury could work well.

Please don't tell me a rumor dropped on April 1st about Hulk's tacos being a set was being taken seriously...

I like the general look of the diorama sets but those prices are insane. Really curious to see how well these sell.