Clone OPatra

In my opinion the general leak / spoiler culture has gotten completely out of control from all sides. The fact that these movie companies bank so much on people being "surprised" in the theatre, and that that surprise is just what characters are included or a plot twist, is itself problematic. Make a good film with big emotional beats and it'll be good even if people saw what characters are in the movie through some merchandise. (I'm not saying NWH wasn't good, I haven't seen it - just speaking generally). For instance, the trash compactor scene in Toy Story 3 wasn't less impactful because we saw the characters in a trash compactor in a LEGO set. Disney could've 100% let out that Tobey and Andrew were in the movie, and allowed products on the shelves showing as such, and people would've though "cool, I'd like to see what they do with those characters". Plus then you could go out and buy merch to recreate the scenes right away. Instead, it's like the "secrets" are the motivating factor to make the movie and get the audience, rather than just making an entertaining movie.

I totally get what you mean and I also felt blindsided by their decision to abruptly stop after 6 and circle back to 1&2, but then again, they left a fair amount of gaps during the two-movie-per-year cycle, and I'm cool with those getting filled. I'd also like to see DH done justice, and there are certainly one or two DH-specific characters that it'd feel crummy not to get ever, and yet I still feel more hopeful that we'll get the likes of Xenophilius Lovegood before we get a Shmi Skywalker. But personally if we never get Mundungus Fletcher or the Carrows, I won't lose sleep, though other might not feel the same way.

Ok I don't know what's going on here really, but stop now. And Angelica!

Have they really diverted it in another direction, though? Ok, so they're doing more Hogwarts stuff (which they were always going to do somehow, be it 18-20 style or a different style), and they're doing more non-playsets, but they're still covering new ground and there's no reason to think they won't keep filling in some of the other missing locations like Gringotts, the Ministry, Shrieking Shack and Grimmauld Place in some form. It's actually way more frustrating to me with Star Wars. In HP we already have nearly every consequential character with lines, and not only that but inconsequential characters with no lines and blink-and-you'll-miss amounts of screen time (Sinestra, Florian Fortescue, the owners of Honeydukes, Daily Prophet guy). Plus, at least the HP line has done sets based on some of the missing locations at one point (two Gringotts sets and one Shrieking Shack). For the Star Wars OT and PT, which LEGO has been doing continuously for over 20 years, we're still missing consequential characters with lines and screen time including Aunt Beru and Shmi Skywalker, Boss Nass, and Kaminoans - and all the locations where those characters have scenes. I have more faith in HP finishing things out than Star Wars at this point.

First hat/hair ever? PotC had hat-hairs before Lone Ranger. I'm excited for more Indiana Jones LEGO (if it comes), whether or not the film is any good. Plenty of ho-hum films have gotten fantastic sets and minifigures from the LEGO perspective.

Yes, I have been meaning to add it. Will be done soon!

I'm sad that polybag is a GwP and not for regular purchase. The minifigure and parts are so good, but I'm not interested enough in any Ninjago or MK sets to meet the threshold - which here is Aus is $109, even though it's only $40 in the US!!

They've definitely fixed the losing cart issue in the middle of assembling a cart, but the issue of losing it when going forward to check out might remain.

B&P and Pick a Brick will be merging, with a bit of Build a Minifigure sprinkled in. There is lots more information to it though, which can be read on various sites like Brickset and Hoth Bricks. Here are links: https://brickset.com/article/68955/pick-a-brick-merging-with-bricks-pieces https://en.hothbricks.com/launch-of-the-pick-and-build-on-the-lego-shop-the-bricks-pieces-service-will-definitively-disappear-in-february/ Hoth Bricks shows some screenshots of a test interface, which shows the two search fields from B&P (set and element or design ID), as well as drop down menus for different categories.

Yeah, I think LEGO sends B&P orders in batches to the US, and then USPS once they have landed, so if you get lucky and place an order right before they send off a batch then you might receive it in a week, but I too have had B&P orders not arrive for up to 1.5 months. A couple of my US orders last year got there rather quickly, and even my last Australia order took only a few weeks, but other ones before that have taken much much longer. Overall I'm not sure what to make of this news. I almost feel as though it won't affect me personally much, or any of us who use B&P just to order the cool new parts, since those surely won't be "bestsellers" and hence still dispatch from Billund just like they always did. The news seems to say that those parts might not become available as immediately as in the past, but if they become available eventually, that's fine with me. I don't need stuff right away. It's great that orders will now qualify for GWPs, though does that mean if you place an order that comes from Billund, wherever you are in the world, that they'll throw in the GWP in Billund? I hear what people are saying about LEGO always messing things up, which is true. However, B&P is such a broken service as it is (extremely difficult to simply browse, requires a lot of work to place an order, might lose cart unexpectedly, etc etc), that as long as they don't eviscerate the part availability or raise the prices through the roof, it can only get better. Surely?

Fair. Just checking. If there really becomes no shipping fee (I don't understand this "handling" thing because there's never been something called a handling fee with B&P), then there's nothing stopping you placing two or more orders of 200 unique pieces. Also for those in the US (or I think Europe?) where the shipping price is very low ($2.50 USD), it's not much to bear. Here in Australia where the shipping price has been $15, it's tougher to swallow placing multiple orders when you only want to place one. That's why I personally sometimes make smaller orders to relatives in the US, and one or two larger orders a year direct to me in Aus, so I don't miss out on things but also am not paying an arm and a leg for shipping. Are you sure you don't have this backwards? B&P notoriously takes ages to come most of the time.

It's not a max of 200 parts, it's a max of 200 unique parts IDs. Was that 75 unique pieces?

Ah, fair enough. If you're building something it's understandable that it'd be so many pieces. I just mostly order one each of new or interesting Minifigure/animal-related things - this order was about 85 unique parts, 100 parts in total. Unless you're @Megbricks, who would order 500 of the new stuff

You just know they'll lock Fang and a new Norbert into the next Hagrid's Hut.

500 !! My goodness. I'd like to see pictures of that when it arrives.

Sorry for the double post, but here's something weird I haven't experienced before: I was looking at my order status and saw that I had a discount of 74 cents in the bottom total section. I thought surely a 74 cent part had been excluded from the order, but if that was the case it would usually say so at the top. Ultimately I found it was part 6296353, which shows as $3.36 AUD right now on B&P, is listed as having a price of $3.48 AUD on my order, but with a total of $2.74, so there's my 74 cent discount.

For me, I've never been a completionist and I'm very happy with the display I can make with my 2018-20 Hogwarts sets, but as long as they keep putting out new stuff to add to the Harry Potter world, I'll try to get my hands on it. Most of the time going forward that will probably be through Bricklink, but if a set has enough new stuff in it or I like the set itself, then I'll buy it. For instance the only thing I wanted in the Flying Lesson set was Hooch, so I bought her on BL, but all the Minifigures in the new Hospital Wing have something new about them, plus skelegrow, plus time turner print, new owl and trunk, and the exterior looks ok so I'll probably pick up the whole set.

No, we can keep using this one for now. If/when this information is more solidly confirmed by the people who know, we can make a new thread. The StoneWars article drew a conclusion because coconuts appear in the Indy video game. Bit of a stretch....

The animals will be back. Now that B&P is catching on more than ever (what with the proliferation of LEGO Instagramers and YouTubers I'd say), there's always going to be a rush at the beginning, but LEGO won't make a shortage of them.

Grindlewald Escape had 132 pieces for $20. The piece count of 121 at that price point is really pretty standard for LEGO these days, it's just that HP has tended to spoil us.

Doubt this because it's an angular, city-style animal, as opposed to the Friends more rounded style.

When I was assembling my order, it intermittently gave me an error message when I looked up certain parts. I'd type or copy paste the same ID several times, and it'd error message each time. I then had to go look up the set again instead to find the part I wanted and add it. Luckily refreshing the page didn't lose my cart each time I got the error. I think they all were to begin with. When I got to it it was just black and grey left. Like the sheep and other desirable parts, they'll probably all be back with time.

But remember, with Euro prices supposedly being standardised, they are quite possibly going to be worse across the board. The USD prices might not have the same numerical value across the board (i.e. in some cases a set might be $80 USD but 90 EUR etc).

Placed a sizable order (by my standards) too! I'm sure it'll still come in a tiny envelope and I will say, Anakin voice, "what have I done". Oddly, the parts I had held off getting from Encanto were all out of stock. The two new hairpieces, fork and watering can, and extra odd since the fork and watering can come in other 2022 sets. Also the new female nougat face from Star Wars. Oh well. Where I grew up we only had grey and black squirrels anyhow, so I don't mind missing dark orange ones for now. Capes don't usually become available.

There is no true "should" in the new setup, besides the segments released in 2021 that interact with each other - bathroom above CoS slide, and trap door above Devil's Snare.