Clone OPatra

I'm going to guess it's this wheel with a bar through it: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=55889#T=C&C=11 https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=67810

Pretty sure the answer is: never.

Thanks for the lovely review. This set is a wonderful example of very contemporary LEGO set design, eschewing blockiness and simple squares and rectangles. The base shape at first seems so odd, but turns out great, and I love the rounded corners of the roof. Jay at Jay's Brick Blog has some pictures of it with the old cottage, and it clearly stands apart besides for the colours: https://jaysbrickblog.com/reviews/review-lego-10293-santas-visit-2021/ I've noticed the deliberate splitting of booklets in some sets recently, but while it's a wonderful idea in recent Harry Potter sets like Hogsmeade and the big Harry & Hermione, where the two builds are roughly equal in size, it feels a bit less useful here. Yes it's great that you can give someone else some builds to do at the same time, but I don't think it'd take even a child as long to build those side builds as it would an adult to build the main cottage. You'd have to just be aware of the time difference and factor that in.

Oh, I thought you meant you could still see it listed online if you searched for the part now. I've had one part cancelled before very randomly, one that many other people had gotten, but I didn't doubt you'd get this part that's been delisted since I've seen other people getting it too.

Which do you mean still listed online? The brown 24072 is still available, but previously there was a third colour with no picture showing, and that one doesn't show up for me on B&P at all anymore.

My goodness that real life Mickey mascot is the stuff of nightmares. The Minifigure version is so much better proportioned!

The dark orange mullet and brown Phoebe hair appear to have been taken off entirely, though presumably they'll be back (and with pictures) when whatever set they appear in (Queer Eye?) is released. They were just there a day ago when I was feeling out an order, but today when I went to place it, they were gone. I'm looking forward to the hairpiece recolours in the Stuntz line. October is going to be good for hairpieces!

True, but nostalgia is a funny thing. That question block is a very recognisable Mario icon. Anybody who has ever played Mario or seen Mario memorabilia would look at that and say, hey it's Mario! And then if they have nostalgia for Mario 64 (the target of this set), they'd see the micro worlds and say, hey, just like in Mario 64! Now for me personally, I have absolutely no nostalgia for Mario 64. I like the 2D Mario games and always thought 64 looked like utter garbage, an idea for which graphics at the time were not ready. I think the question block looks pretty neat though.

Personally I really liked the theme of "recognisable Hogwarts section plus specific other scene", perhaps in part because I never thought in my wildest dreams that we'd get Yule Ball and Slug Club Party minifigures. It was fun and new to get something really specific rather than the "smattering of everything" that had been typical of Hogwarts sets, and to not get more student uniforms. That said, there certainly was dissonance between the castle portion and the included scenes and I get why that was odd. I also always expected Pomfrey in a CMF so that we'd be guaranteed to get the purpose-made hat-hair that she needs. Here's hoping LEGO has dedicated the budget to her in the set.

Those examples don't strike me as weird. Both of those sets were deliberately based around particular scenes, with no extraneous minifigures. Pomfrey doesn't belong at the Yule Ball and Sinistra doesn't belong at the Slug Club Christmas Party (and Ron+Lavender are adjacent to the party, though Malfoy in robes is a bit huh?). In the films we never see Sinistra teaching a class at all as far as I remember. The Flying Lesson set was based around the Flying Lesson, and the point of this new set seems to be the Hospital Wing, so it makes sense that they have the accompanying adults.

Just like with the first D2C, the NES, LEGO is using the fact that they have a Nintendo/Mario license to (smartly IMO) get into the market for Mario nostalgia-fuelled memorabilia/display pieces. They're not making these sets for the LEGO die hards that might like Mario/Nintendo, but the Mario/Nintendo enthusiasts who might like to buy a nostalgic display piece they build out of LEGO. As a buildable display piece for someone who is nostalgic about Mario 64 and LEGO, a big smooth question block that nods to all of Mario 64 with micro level scenes is pretty cool I'd think. But to people who are traditional LEGO fans first, it's not what we're after, which is minifigure-compatible building sets.

Marcos said at one point that if they do well, LEGO will consider making more. That's pretty much all. While I agree, ever since LEGO really exploded with the amount of hairpieces they do, I've found it unsettling to have two characters in the same lineup having the exact same hair.

No, we have to keep quiet about things.

Eurobricks received a review copy as well

I agree with your overall point but it's only one connecting Hogwarts set in early 2022: the Hospital Wing. The two class sets are rumoured to be opening-book Moments sets, like the four last January. The Hospital Wing is the only one of these that piques my interest, and I don't even expect to like it as a set. But, I want Pomfrey and mid-legs are still enough of a rarity that I'd be happy to get three more pairs with a PoA-themed trio. However there are lots of scenes in the Infirmary across the series and I would've rathered gotten a later-series Quidditch outfit, for one of the characters. I'm hard pressed to imagine how three 8x8 sections plus roofs could look good as the clocktower, but then again, 2021's Hogwarts sets didn't look good, so I've probably answered my own question: it won't look good. The previous Moments sets had just slightly too little going for them for me to want them. If any one of them had included two desirable Minifigures I probably would have sprung for it, but they didn't. The transfiguration one had a great McGonagall, but I was content to get her hat on B&P. Charms had a good concept with the OG Flitwick, but he didn't look enough like OG Flitwick for me to care. The other two had zero that I wanted. Sounds like these two will be the same: a lesser version of Trelawney (just like there was a lesser version of Sprout), and Mad-Eye who was already done perfectly in the CMF as well. Including Padma/Parvati is nice though. As for the largest set, will have to wait and see, but probably not up my alley.

Oky has reviewed the new Gift With Purchase set that accompanies 10284 Camp Nou - 40485 FC Barcelona Celebration. Click through to check out all the details of this little set and leave your opinion in a comment.

Alright, let's take the discussion back to the actual set we haven't even seen yet. Thanks.

I'm confused by your post here. What set are you talking about, the classic Wonder Woman vs Cheetah set? In my opinion that's the best possible kind of con-exclusive, like the Superman green car one: no exclusive figures, actually related to comics, a nice novelty that's nothing amazing. Variants of existing figures or somewhat niche ones like the CW series figures also seem ok to me, since they don't create a gaping hole in any regular person's DC minifigure lineup. It's when they do broadly desirable figures that only ever appear at cons that's really the worst, though I can think of more Marvel examples than DC: The Collector, Phoenix, Spider-Woman. Also I doubt the "only so many boxes in the warehouse" thing applies to tiny run figures. They can make all of these in one go and cart them off to another place to go in their blister packs, not put them in one of the regular boxes in the warehouse.

Now THIS is Podracing! Excellent review Oky. I'm also 0% into sports, but this strikes me as a fitting Gift with Purchase for Camp Nou that captures something about the team/fandom. Given LEGO's production timeline, I'm not sure they could've known about Barcelona's troubles and Messi leaving, but then again it wouldn't be the first time LEGO was late to a bandwagon. Complaining about the black packaging is becoming the new complaining about BURPs / juniorization / insert any other AFOL complaint trope at this point. They suck in a lot of cases, but also must be cheap for LEGO to design so they'll keep them!

Both sets are looking nice. The original UCS Tumbler was already built to a good standard, and this is a nice way for people to be able to access it again. The small one is a really nicely done play-scale Tumbler, with IMO a well-chosen price point to capture enough detail (unlike the Bane version). However LEGO is really stingy with the minifigures, especially in a year where they've made so little DC stuff. The 66 Batmobile had no excuse to leave out Robin, and they could put more than just two figures in both of these Tumbler sets, especially the more-accessible smaller one. It's not like Dark Knight Trilogy sets come out often, so they should make more of the characters at each opportunity. I am glad that they didn't make any completely new characters for the big one I suppose, though the new variants are desirable. The small one could definitely have Ras Al Ghul included though, keeping with the BB theme. Then it would be great to follow it up with a TDK Batcycle with Two-Face and Gordon and/or another Joker, and a TDKR The Bat with Catwoman and a new Bane. That would cover pretty much all the important character designs from the trilogy. I'm sure they won't do that though.

Pirates, Castle, Classic Space, and Bionicle say hello. What does "evergreen status" truly mean? I think it just means "we don't plan an end-date for the theme", which also just means "we'll keep making the theme indefinitely as long as sales stay solid". I'd argue this even applies to the other evergreen themes such as Star Wars and Ninjago, it's just that sales have always stayed strong, but also they've found ways to keep changing up lines. Star Wars has staples to keep remaking but also new material. Superheroes has new material. City now has a new, non-city-like subtheme every other year; Ninjago is going to all sorts of locations and styles that historically would have been in separate action themes. Harry Potter is going to be one that will get harder and harder to diversify over time, but if sales stay strong then we'll see more and more remakes and more non-traditional stuff. Personally, the theme "going evergreen" does mean that they have no incentive to fill in the gaps sooner rather than later. With no planned end in sight, there's no reason to rush to give us the missing characters, locations and scenes, since they can say they'll "get there eventually". Star Wars still hasn't given us all the characters people want after 22 years, like Beru and Shmi. Rebooted Harry Potter started off extremely strong in the character department in the first three years, and did stay strong this year, but it could slow down. We'll just have to see. Not sure how you can authoritatively say the darkness had nothing to do with it, when you also only have assumptions to go on. Your argument doesn't totally make sense though: they all but took a break in 2003 with only two sets, and came back with a huge wave for Prisoner of Azkaban in 2004. So, unless the PoA sets didn't sell, or they were already uneasy about the theme and had decided to cool it down but released a big PoA line anyway, I don't see your argument.

It's a good thing for the two most populous states at the moment at least. In New South Wales none of the stores are even open for shopping (besides when the CMF pop up in Woolies, but stopping to feel them would be frowned upon), so there's pretty much no way to go and get the figures you want if you only want a few. Same in Melbourne for now. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like Sydney stores will be open in October either, but there's more of a chance than now. Also this year we (and the rest of the world) got a ton of stuff before the US. Waiting an extra month for the CMF isn't so bad.

Because the film series was over and they weren't in the habit of making Licensed sets unless they were supported by a currently active property? A more interesting question would be IMO why they tanked the HP line so hard after PoA, unless the answer is simply that it was getting too dark and they weren't sure if there'd be a market for it, since they didn't yet have real confidence in the teen/adult market. (Though it was LEGO themselves that made the Graveyard Duel more gruesome than it needed to be with all the rotting skeletons.) Until one-off licenses through Ideas came along, I actually can't think of a single licensed film theme starting all the way back with Star Wars that didn't follow the same pattern: new film in franchise coming out, so LEGO covers older films (if any) within the same wave or consecutive waves. No more films in theatres, the line quickly ends either immediately or shortly thereafter: LotR, PotC, Indiana Jones, and all the single-wave single-film franchises of course. Star Wars stuck around because of its obvious popularity, but it also had new media not too long after RotS. Heck even the original Batman theme didn't come out of the blue, but came after the release of Batman Begins, and took a break between the releases of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises when it was relaunched as DC Comics Superheroes.

I hear what you're saying about the set choices, but I can't agree that the 2010-11 line condensed the story "better" because one can't even enact a large part of the overall story given everything that's missing. For instance an incredibly important part of the first six instalments is the DADA teacher, or in 6 the fact that there's a different potions teacher. They're not some minor side characters but always central to the plot. How many were included in 2010-11? Snape and a badly designed Lupin. 2018-20? All of them (albeit one only in a massive set). For your examples of important things 2010-11 did cover that 18-20 did not, there are also counterexamples of the opposite. 2010-11 had Gringotts but no Dursleys or Privet Drive for instance, which appear in far more scenes than Gringotts and play a larger role in Harry's story. Yes the Battle of Hogwarts is the end of the series and very important, but 2010-11 pretty much entirely skipped Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix. So is kind of having the beginning and end parts (though there aren't really any clear Philosopher's Stone scenes in 10-11 either) of the story but skipping a lot of the middle your preference? Within the 2018-20 lineup there are some questionable choices for sure and I by no means think it's perfect. The Beauxbatons Carriage, Room of Requirement and even really Grawp could have been swapped for more important scenes, though the latter has good stuff that needed to be included somewhere. But I don't get the logic that just because the 18-20 line could have been better and perhaps squandered some of its sets, that means that the 10-11 line which only barely represents material from some parts of the story is more definitive. As for the Battle of Hogwarts stuff that the 10-11 line had which hasn't yet been remade, besides Narcissa Malfoy anyone can make their own comparable/better Battle of Hogwarts with the 18-20 sets. You don't need a bare-bones "exploding" bridge. Give the kids longer legs, set them up against the bad guys and Dementors, add some fire parts and you're good to go. Agreed. It was the overall look of the Great Hall and the inclusion of a Hufflepuff student that told me they were really getting serious about properly covering the world of Hogwarts and Harry Potter with a level of care and attention that had never been given before.

Not sure about that. The Tobey & Andrew thing has been talked about on the internet for months and months, not just Eurobricks. At this stage it's still a rumour given no official material has confirmed their inclusion, but there has been strong buzz about the possibility of them appearing that's hard to miss. It's fair to hypothesize about them being in further sets without needing to use spoiler tags. Now that the trailer has pulled the lid off the multiverse aspect, it's even more fair. Any actual confirmation or details about their appearances however is off limits.