Clone OPatra

Honestly it just sounds like you're doing a disservice by being unwilling to feel the packs for what you want. Nearly every time I've bought CMF in the last couple years, wherever it might be, packs have already been felt by someone. It's just a commonsense thing to do, even from the perspective of an employee in a store - it's a blind pack, and the customer is trying to figure out which one it is.That said, I don't like the creeping price either, and I'm probably still going to buy some of these. It's just starting to seem like a lot of money for just a single figure. LEGO would still be raking in the cash if these were priced at $3 (heck, even $2). It's starting to feel not so worth it, or at least making me be a lot more choosy about which figures to buy. I was never a completionist to begin with, but the days of getting even as much as half the series will be over since I'll have to really like a fig now to get it.

The only figure with actual side-of-head printing I can think of is the Star Wars fleshie Lobot that came with the Bespin planet. Flash looks amazing to me in person, though, and I really hope Cap gets that treatment. It wouldn't make any sense for Spider-Man, whose mask is really skin tight, but Cap's costume in the films has a thick helmet that looks like a real-life version of LEGO's Flash mask, size-wise.

It says 'Released January 2014.' Seeing how there is also one for 'LEGO Ice Age,' I don't think this is an advertisement that really ever ran anywhere. It might be some sort of proof of concept to LEGO, but I don't know.

Aladdin!!! Amazing news. If that set includes a new Raja mold around the size of the lotr wargs, instant buy. I theorized that the hair on Vitruvius would be perfect for Jasmine, so I wonder if that will come true.

Initially this set didn't interest me much, but Flash was just too much of a draw. Luckily, the Batmobile turned out to be fantastic! I don't care that it isn't wholly accurate to anything; it's simply a great LEGO car/model all around. I feel a similar way as I do to the car to the Riddler, which everybody seems to bash. Yes, he doesn't 'make sense,' but he's still an excellently designed minifigure. Of course a Baddie we hadn't seen before would have been better, but for what it is this Riddler looks excellent and delivers a better color of Riddler bowler plus another head design with purple mask, useful for making comics characters with purple masks (or just Riddler variations). I'm quite pleased with him, racing jacket and all. The dragster too isn't really exciting, but it's not bad besides for the spoiler. It's a fine dragster. It's much better just as a toy/model than some of the other vehicles LEGO has produced for this line, like Batman's plane in the Steam Roller set or odd bike in the Batcave set. The bomb feature actually works pretty well if you just tip back the whole car in any way other than pressing on the spoiler. Comparing this set to the Aquaman one, this one comes out a much better set to me overall. The Aquaman set was ALL about the minifigs; the Ice Bat thing was just kind of dumb. Though I bought this set mostly for Flash, it's actually a great SET too.

The animation looks pretty crappy, but how could it be fake? Although the Ezra fig is yellow, or the colors are way off. But the rest of the colors don't look off. This is a real head-scratcher of an image.

Can you really count minifigs as spoilers though? Sets for these types of films can give away situations, plot points. THOSE are spoilers. We all know who the characters are. Marvel even releases promotional images of them.

The movement of the camera seems to simply be an autofocus issue - using autofocus, the camera focuses on the background and not always on what you want. You'll need to use manual focus to keep the focus consistent and eradicate the unwanted effect. Otherwise, you're working with a good frame rate for some smooth motion. The story is also nice and clear, which can sometimes be hard to achieve. It's a great start.

The preliminary catalogs have in the past shown rendered drawings of the minifigs in separate little boxes, drawings that are usually accurate to the final products. These appear in the same catalogs where the set pictures themselves are extremely preliminary. While the poster may be concocting the whole thing, it's not impossible.

So then Thor would die, just to go to hell or something and reappear in the next Thor film? What HUGE stakes At the same time, a good writer/director like Whedon can make things emotionally impacting even without real stakes behind them. It is even possible for him to kill off one of the twins and have the audience care, despite them being introduced in this film. Coulson wasn't really much of a character before Avengers, and his 'death' was done well. Nobody has mentioned Maria Hill. Maybe she's not in this movie? But if she is, I could easily see her dying.

It could be a theme of the Cap movies that we get to see a lot more of the characters who will never get their own movies. Hawkeye is currently the least represented member of the Avengers. It feels weird that he even is an Avenger given that he's been in literally just one film (I don't count his tiny cameo in Thor). It'd be great to see more of him. I really hope they don't kill off Pepper, but they wrote her character horribly in Iron Man 3 already anyway. She and Tony had more character development in their single scene in Avengers than they did in all of Iron Man 3… It would be great to see that remedied in a new actually good Iron Man film, if that's ever going to happen.

I'll never understand LEGO's decision when it comes to minifig designs, and what warrants different ones. Sometimes they'll do a host of different torsos for characters that don't really matters, like the goblins in the Goblin King Battle, and sometimes they'll make minifigures identical, like the elves here. It would be nice if there were actually some differences between the stock elves besides just different hairpieces. Like different faces, torsos, etc. I guess they are just background characters so it doesn't matter too much, but I think it detracts from the minifig selection that they are all exactly the same.

Benny in a small set? Awesome! This small wave sounds like it's shaping up fantastically. Cool Batman, new Kitties, cheap Benny and cheap Couch. I can't wait.

Very odd polybag, just because there's so little to it. I actually like the look of that weapon a lot, though by using the 'surveillance camera' piece it does have a different and more sci-fi type look than most other Chima weapons. I will point out that you actually built the weapon incorrectly, though, WhiteFang. The green stud goes on the other side of the eye-piece as shown in the instructions and bag image. I think it looks better the 'correct' way as well.

The fact that the evil Megabluck got their grubby paws on the Spongebob license brings a true solitary tear to my eye. Just as LEGO started making actually good Spongebob sets too! Darn. Anyways, let's look not that far back at… Set Name: Bikini Bottom Undersea Party Set #:3818 Theme: Spongebob Squarepants Pieces: 471 Minifigures: 4 (ish) Year of Release: 2012 Price at Release: USD 50, GBP 50 Buy it? Inventory? Bricklink Just browse the pictures? Flickr set INTRODUCTION The now sadly defunct Spongebob theme was probably one of the oddest LEGO ever made. It lasted for six years but only ever had fourteen sets, with no wave consisting of more than 3 (and one of the first wave sets was the weird big buildable Spongebob thing). I can't say I ever greatly cared for Spongebob the show or Spongebob the LEGO line. I got the original Krusty Krab, but I can't say why, other than just to get a LEGO Spongebob minifig most likely. For years, none of the Spongebob sets trickling out appealed to me, since they seemed to be pretty basic and uninteresting designs. That is, until 2011, when the sets finally started being cool. Somebody actually had the bright idea to bring the line up to modern design standards, with cool new variants of the minifigs to boot (not just another slightly different Spongebob face). I only picked up this set of the lot, though I wish I'd nabbed a few others on sale as well (as I did with this one). It's the third time LEGO released the good old iconic pineapple under the sea, so let's see how LEGO did with it on the third go-round. INSTRUCTIONS No box, sorry. Suffice it to say, it was yellow, largeish, looked fun. Yeah. Here's the same image as the front of the box, though with elements moved around to fit the square space (the box was rectangular). I honestly have no idea if there was an episode where somebody threw a party at Spongebob and Squidward's houses with giant leis, but I wouldn't put it past LEGO to have made the whole thing up. Sure looks like fun though. The inside has an appropriate under-the-sea blue color with bubble pattern. Color differentiation in clearly quite good. Why oh why did I not buy the Flying Dutchman set. I thought about it so many times, and it wasn't even expensive. Oh well, one lives with regret. MINIFIGURES My favorite thing already, woohoo! Actually the parts in this set are amazing too. But here are our funky fresh minifigs. Like every version of Spongebob's house, the set contains Patrick, Spongebob, and Squidward (and buildable Gary). This time they are decked out in exclusive lei prints, with Patrick having an insanely awesome face print as well. I don't know how you could look at that and not smile. This was only the second set to contain the lovely Squidward head mold, and not the horrid 'Squidwards general face smashed on to a minifig head' design. I guess LEGO figured it was high time to squeeze a little more use out of the Mrs. Puff mold they'd made back in 2007, though it doesn't make much sense why she'd be here. Pearl Krabs would've been amazing!! But oh well, these are already cool. Even in the age of backprints, none of these figures have one. They're not really too necessary, though. One interesting and unsettling thing that I discovered is that you can fit Gary inside of Mrs. Puff. I left her open to illustrate her, but she does fully close with Gary inside. Play scenario kids! Mrs. Puff gets hungry and eats Gary! While I'm here in the minifig section anyway, I thought I'd weigh in on the Megabloks take. I've watched the Brickshow's reviews, and honestly, the Megabloks characters look excellent. Excellent mini action figures, that is. The charm to me of minifigs is that they never deviate too much from one, simple design. Sure, all of the minifigs in this set have special heads (and Mrs. Puff isn't compatible with anything), but they're all still unmistakably minifigures. The charm of when LEGO does a license, in my mind, is that they modify characters to work as standard minifigs, not make new figures to represent characters. The Megabloks figures look great and have a ton of awesome detail, but they're just completely a different item from minifigs. The Spongebob characters seem about as far as LEGO can stretch with minifigs and be successful to me. Toy Story had to go even further outside of minifig zone to have characters like Ham and Rex, and it just didn't really work because it lost its LEGO-ness. Don't get me wrong, I have Ham and Rex and they're both super-cute, but like Mrs. Puff it's really hard to see them as a LEGO product (Ham has a whopping zero points of connectivity). Ok, just had to weigh in on that. Back to the regular program. PARTS This set, unquestionably, undeniably, makes one heck of an amazing parts-pack. So many of the parts in these colors are super-rare. I tried to pick out some of the rarest and most interesting, but I missed a few. For anybody who just builds in natural colors, this set might not be for you, but for people looking to brighten up their life there's just so much on offer here. I love bright colors personally. Somehow I never noticed until rebuilding this set for the review that LEGO changed the pillar mould to have a solid stud. Looking at Bricklink, it seems LEGO made the switch in 2012. Cool, though now you can't put rods in the top of pillars to make cool guns on mechs or stuff like that. Note also - excessive amounts of light blue cheese. SET Interestingly, the instructions don't have you build things in an order that make sense. You'd think the playground equipment and DJ equipment would be grouped together respectively, but no, they go back and forth. Obviously it doesn't matter at all. Just thought it was interesting to note. I'll show the stuff in the order I want. Food Stand I guess one of the characters rented this from somewhere, since it's not usually chilling on their lawns. It's a nice little island-themed build. The colors work together quite nicely. The brickbuilt cake is also fun, as are the balloons. Nothing unexpected from the back, besides for the fact that it's decorated with four cheese! Woo! Playground Equipment Somebody also must have brought in some playground equipment. What party would be complete without a playground? Umm… idk. This stuff seems a bit random and feels like it was thrown in just to fill out the set to the $50 price point, but it supplies great parts in great colors so who can truly argue with that. There's really no reason these things need more than one picture now collectively. They go quite well together, and the merry-go-round goes round merrily. DJ Equipment More logical for a party is sound equipment. These I will show separately to note a few things. The LPs for scratching are stickers, but they're great stickers so why not sacrifice two black round 2x2s to make funky LPs. They're even put on turntables to you can literally turn them. The speakers have a truly ingenious design, using the bottom part of treasure chests. Along with the fire in sticks in the ground, these truly have an island or tiki vibe. Altogether these components look fantastic, and would make a nice little display just like this. Such a cute little setup. Squidward's House (Note that I did not apply exterior stickers to either house. While those huge lei stickers are nice, I wanted to keep the models clean for making standard Bikini Bottom scenes, not specific party ones.) Squidward's house was one Spongebob element never done justice before this set. It was excluded entirely from the second Pineapple set, but it might as well have been left out from the original Pineapple set as well since it was mainly composed of this horrid 4+ Pirates abomination of a piece and had no interior, being completely devoted to having a stupid target feature in its eyes. Anyways, though Patrick's rock didn't make the cut for a redesign to something other than two LURPs as it was in its only appearance in the whole line, Squidward's Easter Island head house thankfully did. This version fully uses contemporary building techniques with plenty of bricks and even some SNOT. Comparing it to pictures of the show, it's actually not great; the show version is rounded and tapers back and upward, as well as being far darker. The shape of the 'real' house really can't be duplicable in LEGO at this scale by my estimation, so though this model is way too light, skinny, flat, and blocky, it's still pretty much undeniably Squidward's house, especially when put next to the Pineapple. It's also worlds better than that 2005 piece of crap model. I don't mind the mixture of greys, since LEGO does not abide by monochrome models, and the effect here doesn't look sloppy. The model is extremely flat though, with just enough depth to not completely be a facade. The upper half does not even go all the way back, which is a bit weird, but make for more room to play on the 'interior.' Overall the shaping and look of this house is not super-fantastic, but it does the job and it's nice to have Squidward's crib. PLAY FEATURE ALERT!!!!!! ……… The door opens. Why can't LEGO make the hinge pieces light grey, though. Seriously. From the back this set sort of reminds me of the most recent Hogwarts Castle sets and their towers, which had next to no space but had details crammed in them anyway. Particularly reminiscent is the top floor, which just has a little build representing a present and no space for minifigs. The ground floor contains a little potted plant, and a music stand and clarinet for Squidward to use. The clarinet is a nice detail from the show, since it actually factors into a number of episodes. The sticker is again, like the LPs, a nice simple, versatile one. The second floor simply contains a little table and chair for Squidward to sit at in solitude, being mopey. More nice stickers here. Usually I'm not a fan of stickers having a back color that does not match the color of part to which they are applied, but here the white on brown actually works for to create a 'framed picture' effect. Spongebob's House Though I don't own them, I've looked at pictures and reviews of the first two Pineapples and found that they were very largely the same from the exterior, which just a few minor differences. This set gave the house a complete revamp, with a couple of the most noticeable differences being the front section shortened to just six studs wide instead of eight, and the addition of some SNOT orange rooftop pieces to give it some pineapple-y bumpiness. Like Squidward's house, the model can't really get the shape right, but again I think that would be impossible. It's still unmistakably Spongebob's house. It's got quite a visually appealing design LEGO-wise as well. It seems somebody decided on the first version that it should have some red stripes, which hasn't been done away with here. It looks nice even if the 'real' thing doesn't have such stripes. Note that the windows are printed, and appeared in all three pineapples as well as the Bikini Bottom Express. The other side features some good asymmetry, with the window being placed on the upper part rather than the lower (and of course the absence of the chimney). There's not too much going on on the inside. This version contains no more detail than the previous one, and actually a little less since that one had a separate armchair that could be put inside. However, the few details are pleasing. I especially like Patrick's portrait over the door. True friends have pictures of their true friends in their houses. Let's go through the features/details. Of course the door opens, as expected. I just love opening doors (and then taking pictures of it). This side of the interior is fairly simple, with just a bowl for Gary and a picture to let you know that its his section. I have no idea what that other sticker in the background represents. Some giant harpoon? The other side contains Spongebob's all-important bed. This must be a go-to component of the house, since all three have feature a different version of it. It makes sense, given that it's featured in the opening sequence of the show and it's an easy play feature to pull off. Again, nice sticker on the wall. The original bed had an elaborate rubber-band mechanism, but the next to have been simple lever-style. Push down, wake up already-smiling Spongebob. Just in case you were wondering, the set looks like this when folded out castle-wall style. Why you'd want to do this, I don't know, but YOU CAN. And here's the inside that way. You could make pineapple fortifications for a fruit castle or something. The interior would be a big apple. I don't know I'm just brainstorming. WHOLE SET and CONCLUSION I forgot previously to show this picture of just the disconnected bits, so I thought I'd do that here. This almost makes some strange, small Winter Village Market style scene. Now here's really everything. This set is a lot of fun, and if the theme had to end, this isn't a horrid way to do it. From a Spongebob fan perspective, we finally got an updated Squidward house and redesign of Spongebob's house as well. The whole set might be yet another rehash, but it's a rehash of the best kind. The original versions were just ugly. The minifigs in this set are really not a huge draw, besides Patrick, who is awesome. I'm happy to get the nicely molded Squidward, but if you're not at all a Spongebob person you probably wouldn't care much for him. His sand-green skin tone on the torso wouldn't look too great with a yellow head, either. Parts-wise, this set really shines. There are so many parts in rare colors here, it's amazing. Few sets have such a nice, rare selection. I got the set on sale for USD 35, which was a truly great price that convinced me to buy it. I'd already been eyeing it at $50 though, and if I was a Spongebob fan I probably would have done it for full price. For USD 50 it certainly wasn't bad at all. This set was a good send-off for the theme, but it also shows how good things could have been if the theme had been continued. The last four sets were all pretty great (though the superhero boat was a bit weird), and if the theme could have stuck around in its minor way I'm sure we would've seen a nice, updated Krusty Krab. I guess it's good to go out on a high note, though, and in that last wave LEGO provided once again almost everything you really need for acting out most Spongebob scenes. Heck, if Lord of the Rings has really gone to the dogs, this is a way better conclusion for a Licensed theme. We didn't even get Faramir.

Neither of these arguments ring true to me. Mixels disproves the 'sets must have mini figures argument.' Mixels actually are the current impulse sets I suppose, and they're probably doing well.As for the second argument, I'm not sure how people would feel ripped off paying a very low price for a minifig and tiny build. The Castle line had that excellent Impulse set with just a knight and weapons rack; Pirates had similar sets. It's a perfect small package - a generic fig to fill out the ranks, and a little build that makes sense for the figure. Maybe it was unprofitable for LEGO in some way, but nobody should ripped off paying 3.50 for a nice little fig and a few parts.

Back when LEGO still made really weird decisions about things on the regular came this supremely odd, almost confusingly cool set. It's… Set Title: Graveyard Duel Set #: 4766 Theme: Harry Potter Subtheme: Goblet of Fire Pieces: 548 Minifigures: 8 (including skeletons) Year of Release: 2005 Price at Release: USD 30, GBP 30 Buy it? Inventory? Bricklink Just browse the pictures? Flickr set INTRODUCTION Back in the rocky mid-'00s, LEGO did some dumb things. Maybe they will already over their very lowest point by the time this set rolled around in 2005, but they clearly still didn't have it all together. Just as things were getting cooler and cooler in Harry Potter, LEGO started stepping it up with even more Harry Potter sets than ever, covering everything you could ever want in the films. Right? WRONG. Four measly sets for Goblet of Fire, just another single Hogwarts for Order of the Phoenix, and big fat ZERO for Half-Blood Prince. WHY LEGO WHY WHY WHY. At least they righted some of their wrongs with the amazing 2010 sets. (Check out reviews of most of those on my profile.) But back to this set. I've already reviewed the other Goblet of Fire set I have, the underwater one, which has some awesome minifigs, cool parts, and is still a really weird set. This one is weirder. Way weirder. Come with me and find out why. PACKAGING I don't have the box anymore, but I can tell you that it was weird. Harry and Peter Pettigrew both had the wrong heads on the box. Yes. On the box. Packaging does not reflect contents. Weird. The other thing that you would've noticed if you were in the part of the world where piece count is on the box: 548 pieces. MSRP 30 bucks. What? How? Why? 548 pieces for 30 bucks? Is that wrong? In this case, packaging does reflect contents. It's too good to be true. INSTRUCTIONS Here's that front of box picture, where you will see that Harry still has his fleshie years 1-3 face, and Peter Pettigrew aka Wormtail has his Prison of Azkaban face. It also clearly shows Wormtail with one grey hand and one flesh hand, though in my copy of the set he had two grey hands (which I quickly remedied). The set also just looks weird - it's like somebody had a leftover Halloween set, though 'Hey there's a graveyard in the new Harry Potter movie!' and just threw in some HP figs to make it an HP set. Harry still has the wrong face on the minifigs page, though Wormtail is now correct. LEGO also apparently had the worst possible computer technology at this point in time. Luckily color differentiation was just fine, as you can see the vast difference between black and dark grey. The instructions also have a pleasing, Harry Potter-y parchment background. I don't want to bore you with five thousand pictures of instructions, but check out this alternate model. It's so cool OMG WOW! As an aside, I recall that Barnes & Noble's website showed this image (on a white background) as the main set image. Wormtail once again has the wrong face in this image that is clearly of physical LEGO. The back actually has the right head on Harry! A LEGO catalog that came at that time also featured the right head, so I guess by the time LEGO did promotional materials, they had the actual finished product. Also don't you remember that scene where the Hungarian Horntail attacks the Durmstrang Ship? If Peter Jackson had directed the movie, that scene probably would have existed. MINIFIGURES Let's move on to the actually interesting stuff. Minifigures! The minifig selection in this set honestly could be better. There's not that many of them, and they're not that great. A couple more Death Eaters would have been nice, and of course - where's Cedric? Remember, that random character nobody really cared about? Honestly, just more Death Eaters would've been fine with me. Here's what we DO get, though. Harry looks great, with a fitting torso, and my favorite smiling Harry face of all. Why he's simply smiling without an alternate face - now that's a good question. LEGO did alternate faces for Ron, Hermione, Lucius (in this set), and underwater Harry in this wave, so they could've stepped up here. It's just silly. Voldemort is awful. It's basically the same print that was on the Quirrel figure, but now glowing in the dark. Massive facepalm. Lucius Malfoy has a boss Death Eater mask that can luckily be used to made generic Death Eaters, so that's great. And Wormtail. The hair is all wrong and the torso is a bit simple, but I guess the face works. Something feels a little off with it, though. Valiant effort, but not mah fave. Harry has a fitting back print, while Lucius Malfoy has a torso that's nearly identical to his original version, just not with shininess. His face is similar to the original, but it's printed with just one color (black) so he has flesh-colored pupils that just look bad. Thankfully, the 2010 version of Mr. Malfoy's head was decent, so if you have this head you can just use the other side for a generic Death Eater and forget it's Malfoy. In sum, Harry emerges as the only actually-good figure of these four (minus his lack of serious face), with Lucius coming out as ok due to his mask, Wormtail being tolerable, and Voldemort being crap. LEGO thankfully made an A+ 100% amazing Voldemort in the 2010 line, but back in 2005 you would've been better off… I don't know, not even having Voldemort? Not really, but this sucked. Remember all of the skeletons in the graveyard scene in the movie? No? Too bad, you get them anyway! LEGO even went out of it's way to make an exclusive all-black skeleton for all of your medieval burned-at-the-stake MOCing needs. They also decided to throw in sand green skelly parts already in existence from the Dementors, but didn't make any more sand green parts than they'd already done, so you're left with a 1/3 rotting-infest and 2/3 burned skelly. Fantastic. I personally always hated this 'new' skelly face since it's just more freaky than it needs to be. It still gives me shivers. (Note the exclusive black Hippogryph wings, though - awesome!) ACCESSORIES I already showed the wands with the wands and knife with the minifigs, so there are those. In addition, you get a black shovel, full light bley trash can with lid, and broom. The black shovel has been in a fair number of sets, but it's still comparatively rare so cool to get. The trash bin in light bley has only been in five sets, so it's even more rare. This photo proves that one can, with care, pose skellies. But it's very annoying. ANIMALS It wouldn't be a Harry Potter set without copious and unnecessary amounts of animals. Both the green snake and dark bley frog appeared in those colors here for the first time. It also appears Norbert cloned herself and and took a bath in tar. Also new and still exclusive to this day in black. The designer using his or her parts budget well - amiright? (Based on the fact that there are 548 parts in this set anyway, I'll assume the designing budget was set at 'whatever.') SET The set, such as it is, is just a combination of a bunch of different little things. I wish I could take you through it in build order, but I don't have the instructions in front of me anymore and I don't completely recall it. It doesn't matter that much anyway. Let's get into it! Cauldron Here's something that actually makes sense given the scene, which did in fact feature a cauldron. Now that I'm looking at the instructions front picture, it seems the cauldron isn't even there, but it is indeed in the set. You're instructed to put a bunch of studs and a knife inside. Red for blood of an enemy, knife for flesh of a servant, white for baby Voldemort ghost, and yellow for pee of a goat perhaps? IDK. Gate Here's example number 1 of LEGO being totally excessive with this big gate section that wasn't even in the film. Recolored Norbert as already mentioned, tons of fence pieces - just tons of pieces. Let me be clear - I'm not complaining about this stuff, it's just totally weird. The effect looks very nice. If you wish, you can even close the whole gate thing. Magic! This would actually work for a privately enclosed grave in a larger graveyard. Cart Thingy Since Harry Potter is set before the time of cars and more specifically hearses, this wooden-looking olden-day coffin cart is included. I'm not sure how the designer even came up with this, but once again, it's designed very nicely. It makes use of parts that were still relatively new and rare at the time, like the 1x2 brown plate with bar at the back and the cheese slopes. The reddish brown plate with bar is still really rare, actually, appearing in just three sets. Cheese slopes of course are now so common that LEGO would probably ship you a box of five thousand free of charge. The coffin easily separates and looks quite good on its own, though it's kind of weird because it doesn't reflect the size of minifigures. Still looks great though. Very very creepily, the instructions instruct you to put some black skelly parts in there. So yeah. Somebody was burned at the stake and then chopped up. That's what LEGO is telling the children receiving this set. It's also NOT OK. I know the movie was kind of scary already, but you didn't have to go and make it worse in a freaking toy. Creepy cut-off burnt limbs aside, your child can have plenty of fun with this cart acting out what happened in the graveyard after Harry grabbed the portkey and returned to Hogwarts. Little Graves Bouncing back into 'kind of makes sense' territory, we get two little graves. Like (almost) all of the builds in this set, they're designed quite well. Plus, they work for the scene since there actually were graves around in the movie! They were even large enough for Harry to hide behind. The funky design on the Fabuland piece on the left one is a sticker, fyi. That piece only appeared in light bley in this set, so cool. But wait, there's a play feature! Both graves open up to reveal ground above the ground, and a pair of very neat buried-skelly prints. Yes, prints! Together the printed buried-skelly looks quite cool. Just another example of the awesome parts in this set. Also note the big skeleton piece found elsewhere in white in those horrid 4+ Pirates sets. Abominable line, but some cool parts. Bigger Grave Still rooted in the 'makes enough sense' category is this larger grave or tomb-like thing. The frog is used nicely as a decorative touch on top. The design on the panel is once again a sticker, but a nice one. Excellent design and parts all around. Due to the SNOT for the panel for the front, the back looks a little yucky, but not horrid. You wouldn't really display this from the back anyway. You might have noticed that awkward black stick running through the grave. Play feature alert guys!!! Twist the stick in your fingers, and… Skelly surprise! Hey, this thought just dawned on me, but maybe it's an inferi! Reference to later Harry Potter lore for the hardcore fans, right? So clever on LEGO's part! Actually it makes no sense and plays into my theory that this set was originally a Halloween set that got scrapped. But PLAY FEATUREZZ!!1!11 Tom Riddle's Grave This big grave is obviously supposed to resemble the one in the film, but didn't quite work out. We could cut LEGO some slack and say that the designer only saw concept art and kind of mucked it up. The thing has some of the features of the movie one, like a robed skeleton with wings, though it's placed wrong. Another aside - but who the hell makes a grave with a big grim reaper statue anyway? That makes absolutely no sense in the movie. Though it sadly doesn't get the movie grave right, this thing does look neat and has great parts. So many 1x4 tan tiles, those big dark bley tile pieces, rounded parts in black, dark bley slopes, black chains - good stuff. It all comes together quite well. Again note that the designs on tiles you see here are stickers. The back has the same affliction as the previous grave shown due to the SNOT piece spacing. But see that handle? We've got another play feature on our hands! You can open up the grave to reveal… snakes?? Shouldn't Tom Riddle actually be in there, given that they get a bone from him? Or at least one of the skeletons? Ok whatever, I give up. Logic was thrown out the window long ago. Tree There actually were trees in the background in this scene, so this could make sense. But take a look at the extravagant nature of this tree. For one - it's huge. Literally so many pieces here. Second - so many animals. Did we need bats on every single branch? No, but we got them. The reddish brown 1x4 plate with arm down only appeared in this and the rereleased King Leo's Castle of 2006, by the way. More cool parts. Then we're back in maximum creepy zone with the guy who was NAILED TO THE TREE AND LEFT TO ROT. More grotesque stuff for no reason. Little House (on the prairie) Thing We shall conclude this look at the disparate parts with perhaps the most perplexing thing of all - this little building. Once again, the overall look of it is bang-on fantastic. Great color blocking, great shape. Not actually a perfect design, as we'll see, but just as a thing it looks great. So many good parts too - I'll let you look at the picture to spot them for yourself. Not much to see from the back, but it's just a nice little build all around. The key word is 'little,' though. A minifigure can just barely stand in there, and the windows aren't at the right level. So this is actually like a mini build. Forced perspective in a LEGO set? Maybe? A revolutionary idea never to be found in a set again because children couldn't handle it? We'll never know. There's more to it, though. First, the roof comes off (more delicious tiles allowing for easy removal). I wish that was it, but it's not. The floor comes out too (though you kind of have to remove the whole stair build to get the floor out). The floor is great because of tiles, but yep - more creepy skeletons missing limbs. And you're supposed to put some of their missing limbs in the trash can. I can't make this stuff up; it's in the instructions. Gross. WHOLE SET and CONCLUSION Quite a lot, altogether. It makes a very nice, spooky graveyard scene, though some bits are a bit too spooky and wrong like the random skeleton bits. This set is a real headscratcher. In a way, it's great - so many parts, including in rare and exclusive colors, and really great designs all around. From a design perspective, this set could be released now and fit right in with today's builds. It couldn't be released today, though, at least as it was. Or, if you got this exact set, it would cost USD 60 minimum. It's completely insane that this was actually supposed to cost USD 30. As an HP set, it's really not great. There was a graveyard in the movie, and a duel, so, yes, you can sort of re-enact that stuff with this set. It doesn't come with that many minifigures, though, and the ones you do get are not all stellar. Particularly Voldemort - or Crappyglowinthedarkmort. Harry really screams for a more concerned exp<b></b>ression. I get that the climax of the movie should be a set, but LEGO still made very odd decisions with this one. It looks like this set goes for a ton of money on Bricklink today, and honestly, it's not one anyone would need to go back and pick up. LEGO really did Harry Potter right in 2010/2011, and this set can't even have the nostalgia factor of the ones from 2001 because it's so bizarre. It's well designed, it's fun, and it's packed with goodies in the parts department, so if you lucked into it at the time, you made a great decision. At this point, I wouldn't say it's a must have for anybody.

You could make this exact same argument about any license. Why buy a Star Wars set when you could just watch Star Wars or play a Star Wars video game for much less money? I know Minecraft is a little different because it's a game where you build stuff, but still. These are completely different mediums - one is a thing on a computer, and one is a physical thing. It's fun for some people to play out what they see on a screen in physical LEGO.

I'm no lover of Minecraft - never played the game, and I don't even like the graphics style - but I think these two finished sets look pretty neat. They're really a different LEGO style, which is cool to me by itself, because we are used to seeing a certain type of style permeating nearly all themes at this point. They're not an exact replica of the game, but they emulate it in a cool way - blocky game, blocky LEGO. There also seem to be some nice recolors of parts, and the new head part will be interesting. Plus 2x2 jumpers in nice colors - always useful. I'll admit that I used to think the Micro World sets were pretty cool… until I saw a display of them in a LEGO store and felt the full force of just how tiny they are. Sure, a lot of pieces, but for $35 they look like you're getting nothing. I guess they're good as parts packs, but those actually look better in pictures where they're bigger than real size. These sets, on the other hand, do Minecraft in playset fashion. To my taste as someone who doesn't even like Minecraft graphics, they do it rather well.

As a picture reviewer myself, I definitely prefer well-done picture reviews even to the best of video reviews because picture reviews allow you to take a look at different aspects of the set at your leisure. If you want to stop and look at the minifigures for a while, or just get to a particular part of the review, it's a heck of a lot easier and cleaner to do that in a picture review. Picture reviews also don't have the problem of people fumbling about. However, I think the one great thing that video reviews have that picture reviews do not is a sense of scale. On the Brick Show, when they show you a set on a table in a room in front of a person, you really can tell how large it is. In a clean picture review with all-white backgrounds, you can never have the same effect. The reviewer can write that the set feels small or large, but the best way to get that sense of scale is to see it with a person.

You just listed off a whole bunch of things that do indeed make fans of the OT go 'squeee…' but that does not make a good show. It comes down to dialogue and story; everything else is secondary.

I did understand you, and was using 'regular stormies' also to refer to plain stormtroopers in Rebels sets. I just don't believe, and hadn't read anywhere, that the plain normal stromtroopers in Rebels are based on McQ art. To my knowledge they're just based on the films, but stylized as an artistic decision in the show (again, not based on concept art). That was all I was saying.I also do personally think the stormie in the Ghost matches stills from the show quite well, and looks cool, even if it won't match.

The regular stormies don't have the McQuarrie print. The Ghost one just has a different print to match the very stylized look of the stormies in the show, which have a funky look but are still modeled after the stormies in the films. It's Ezra's helmet that's modeled after McQuarrie concept snowtroopers.I guess any time LEGO does anything different with prints, it's pretty divisive (see: the Clone Wars styling). I personally loved the Clone Wars facial styles, and think the stylized stormie has a cool fresh look to him as well.

For Groot you just need to put a carrot-top piece in a pot, and put it in Rocket's hand.

Let's recall that there were a TON of awesome minifigs on the Marvel variant covers that aren't in sets and are unlikely to ever be. Maybe a few of these covers will have figs that turn out to be real, but for the most part these indicate nothing.