Clone OPatra

This is not a theory. This was you purposefully writing as many spoilers as you could for Far From Home with no spoiler tag for no reason other than to... actually I'm not sure why. Was it just to be cheeky or show how clever you are that you've seen the films and others may not? This can be a warning for you and anyone else pulling this sort of stunt that next time we'll be having this chat in private. We didn't impose as much of a lockdown for Far From Home spoilers as we did for Endgame because the stakes and anticipation aren't quite as high, but if people really can't go a couple of weeks without being immature and blasting this thread with all the spoilers they can, we'll have to continue locking it for a week every time a new film comes out.

Well we don't know yet for an absolute fact that they're reusing parts, but if they are then LEGO would be making me sad when it should be making me happy.

Here's sincerely hoping that those leaked figures aren't complete, because if they seriously did not design new faces for any of the female characters then it kills any desirability of the set for me. For all of the regular licensed themes using the same faces, I sort of get it since they have a whole-theme budget to contend with and a lot of material to do, but for a one-off Ideas set based on a show that is literally all about the characters to do so would be not just a let down but a slap in the face.

Please refrain from mentioning anything even verging on a Spider-Man Far From Home spoiler. Some people don't even watch trailers so that they can enjoy the film with as fresh eyes as possible. Endgame spoilers are completely acceptable. Thank you!

Wow, this is fantastic! I could not tell at all what the floor was made of and had to zoom in. Such a cool texture! A limited parts "palette" can sometimes lend itself to stunning results.

I think this right here perfectly encapsulates how many of the vocally negative people here and on other LEGO sites feel. There have been plenty of discussions on Eurobricks and probably elsewhere on the question of - is LEGO putting out too many very large sets? Personally I don't have a problem with the number of large sets, as long as they make sense to be so large. Cloud City - makes sense to be large. Ninjago City sets - beautifully large. Etc. Etc. This set on the other hand feels like it has no business being as large as it is because, like some others have said, it has two builds that pretty much don't go together besides sort of being "icons" from a particular franchise. Both builds are very well done, but to me and it seems to a fair percentage of the AFOLs who post their opinions online, only one of the two large builds is of interest: the gates. Those gates are fantastic, and I even like the very AFOL-y touch of the vignettes inside, but when only 50% of a big set interests me, there's unfortunately no way I'm going to even consider buying it. It does seem therefore that this set could alienate a potential market by not being just the gates, plus an iconic JP-coloured vehicle.

Well I've only gotten my hands on the Clocktower so far, and it is quite lovely and a nice substantial addition to the Great Hall. Building it gave me some nostalgia for the play features of older sets - while the new Hogwarts sets are so much better aesthetically, the original ones with their random trap doors and spinning walls and hidden items actually captured the spirit of Hogwarts from the books. The minifigures are quite good overall. I love Madame Maxime. Dumbledore suffers from those quality issues that we've unfortunately come to expect with the printing being misaligned between his dress piece and his torso, and the white printing on the dress piece not opaque enough. Krum's head piece is really so bad - I don't know how they couldn't have the budget to make one more new face print (Krum doesn't even need a reverse one since he always looks the same). Hermione looks good from the front but there's something unsettling about her legs being a 1x2 brick when viewed from the side. Dumbledore's office is a massive pain in the butt with stickers (like 80% of the sticker sheet!), and they've set it up so that it's not even playable despite there being extra unused space in the back. Very easy to MOD yes, but I don't get why it wasn't designed that way in the first place. The interior of the Clock Tower section is just ok. The infirmary has good builds but I think I would've preferred a Divination classroom. The one classroom also is a little bit lackluster and has some odd details like a glass dome with nothing underneath it. A proper setup with desks would've been more multi-purpose I feel. I love the dance floor section using the new gears. It's super fun. The one thing I wish it had though was a knob for remote, continuous spinning of the dance floor, kind of like there is in the new Jurassic World egg spinner set. It's hard to get the full experience out of the dance floor when you have to manually push it around, though it still is fun regardless.

No, leaks are not allowed here, in compliance with the wishes of The Company.

Lockhart was pretty essential to Chamber of Secrets and we haven't seen him anywhere. While this line is great, it's by no means covering everything there is to be covered. It's not even covering everything that HP fans would consider essential. Personally I hope that a second CMF series will rectify this with some of the characters they've already missed like Lockhart and Moaning Myrtle at least. For now I'm just looking forward to getting a few of these just-released sets in my hands as soon as I can find them on slight discount and not worrying about what's missing.

It's fun to theorise, but I see no way in heck we'll get such an array of Quidditch players. We'd be lucky if we ever got Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw Quidditch outfits at all!

I could've written this exact post I've never seen the show, nor do I care to watch it, but the set is so good on so many levels... if only LEGO hadn't revived Harry Potter and had such a great second wave coming. It's true that a set like this isn't going to happen again, and it is simply mind-blowing in design concept and execution, not to mention the fantastic parts and recolours and amazing minifigures. And yet, and yet... budget for me is far from unlimited, and I have to think about what I'd regret missing more in five or ten years time: this or some of the new HP content. Ultimately, HP wins out. Thank you so much for this beautiful review @makoy!

Makoy's very detailed review is live here:

Our member Makoy has produced a stunning review of the equally stunning new Stranger Things set, 75810 The Upside Down. Click here or on the image to see all of the details and read Makoy's thoughts on this unique set!

An awesome review right here on Eurobricks will be published soon as well!

Ah, good point. I forgot about that. That being the case, it's just a bad choice.

I've read before (I think either in a New Elementary post or in the comments on one from someone in the know) that CMF pieces aren't just readily available. Since until recently they were all made in a Chinese factory, LEGO has to opt to reproduce the mould in one of their other factories that handles main parts supply for sets. To do so does in some way factor into the cost behind the set and the decisions the design team has to make to meet the allotted budget. I could be getting some of this partially wrong because it's very third hand, but that's the gist of it.

Or is it because the piece makes a decent representation of wrapped lembas bread, and LEGO is taking advantage of how starved LEGO Lord of the Rings fans are for anything new and useful?

LEGO has an odd obsession with making people ginger, like young Obi-Wan Kenobi. Warner Brothers / JK Rowling licensers have to approve all of these choices, but I doubt they're as picky and detail obsessed as us AFOLs. I'd like to know a case when they disproved of one of LEGO's minifgure design choices, and it was changed because of that.

I've read every single one with interest!

What the heck, I'll join in. It's interesting to see how many of us are aligned when it comes to the top 2, but then start to split as we get into the cheaper sets. It's very hard for me to rank ALL the sets because I'm torn between ranking them based on what I see as an objective design standpoint rather than on what is actually most desirable for me to buy. With the Knight Bus for instance - objectively it looks like a great set and design, but I just don't want it, just like the Hogwarts Express from last year. Ultimately I'll try to fuse what I actually want to buy with objective design thoughts. 1. Clock Tower 2. Hagrid's Hut 3. Beauxbaton Carriage (just such an attractive set with great exclusive figures) 4. Graveyard (the design is crap but the figures are great) 5. Patronus (though objectively better than the Graveyard, the only thing I truly want is the Sirius since I don't care for the static Stag, still like the old Dementors better, and will have the Harry from the HH) 6. Knight Bus (good set, just don't want) 7. Advent Calendar (a few exclusive torsos and that's probably it) 8. Horntail (everything about this one's desogn sucks IMO, and the figures are only interesting if you're a completionist or happen to love GoF)

Wow, the Carriage is quite a surprise for many reasons, not the least of which is that it's a Harry Potter set with zero main characters! I love the look of it, the magical openable feature, and all of the minifigures. The Graveyard set was expected from the rumours, and still pretty good. I like the grave builds including Tom Riddle Sr's, but the whole flat area looks a bit bland and uninspiring. The minifigures are all well done apart from Wormtail's very incorrect hair. I recall someone on here speculating that LEGO would never do the KKK-looking Death Eater costume, but here we go, they did! Is it the CMF Series 12 wizard hat recoloured in black? I'm going to have some tough decisions ahead about which sets to buy and which to skip and instead Bricklink the figures that I want. I just don't have the budget to buy them all, unfortunately. From the first wave I only got the Great Hall and Quidditch (at a discount), plus a bunch of CMF and bricklinking Lupin from the Hogwarts Express. From this wave I'll definitely buy the Clock Tower, and Hagrid's Hut is a definite maybe. The Horntail and Knightbus sets are definite skips for me. The only thing I really want from Expecto Patronum is Sirius, but it's a cheap enough set that it might not feel worth bricklinking him instead of buying the whole thing, though I don't care for the builds and can honestly pass on the rest of the figures especially if I get Hagrid's Hut. The Graveyard set similarly has a build that I could give a miss, but it does have more desirable figures. Does anyone else plan out how to get most of what they want without buying all the sets?

I know people sometimes use the word "literally" to mean "figuratively" these days, but I ordered a copy at 9:45am on May 1st, 5-6 hours after the comment here on Eurobricks saying it was available, so I reckon it was being sold for at least 7 or 8 hours before going into "Temporarily Out of Stock" status. The fact that LEGO sold it directly in AUS and NZ means that they did make some adjustments to try and keep it from being as much of a fiasco as last time, but I agree with others here that they should have capped it at 5 or so per order. It's also quite interesting that the box for the Boat Race is smaller than the box for the Dragon Dance, though they're both the same price in AUD and similar piece counts. I wonder if LEGO had time to adjust between releases and make a smaller box so that they could fit more per case, or if they always intended a smaller box for this one for the usual mysterious "reasons"

Unless the press packet that was sent to Brothers-Brick and Brickset is wrong, it's USD $60 (59.99) and AUD $100

Ron is pictured along the top of the box. If you zoom in you can see he's in his R sweater Great to see these in high quality with confirmed prices across many markets. I'm very happy with the price of the Clock Tower both in the US and in Australia. Hagrid's Hut feels proportionally a tad too expensive in all markets. It's exceptionally detailed, but that comes at the cost of having a larger amount of small parts packed into a model that doesn't feel worth the money size-wize. Based on size it still looks pretty much like a USD $40 set, not a $60 one. But it is so darn pretty and packs enough that I'll probably get it as soon as I find it at a slight discount here in Aus.

Though this was pretty much already evident from the sets alone, seeing the film has really hit home how lackluster and uninspiring the majority of the sets are in all respects when compared to the film (a couple of them have redeeming features though they have nothing to do with the movie). It's truly a shame that more budget wasn't allocated to the minifgures for whatever reason, and that we're not given a minifigure collection befitting the epic scale of Endgame. I'd think that given the excitement around the movie, LEGO would pull out all the stops on what matters to people most - the characters. Unless Marvel literally only supplied artwork of the characters in their QR suits, LEGO should've done better. I hate to be a negative nancy, and I have voted with my wallet too and not bought any of the sets (never cared about collecting Iron Men). I'd love some accurate sets even if LEGO started designing now and they came out in two years, but I know that's not going to happen.