Legoist

This is a fantastic idea! I voted shamaness Uhla, and the chinese Zhu Que and Huang. BTW, how did you create the arabic-styled dome? Is that an official LEGO part?

Your review is outstanding! Here I'd like to make my comments & criticism on the theme (not on the review itself). The Centurion seems indeed quite a good set. The octagonal shape is unusual for LEGO spaceships, which makes it standout in a very distinctive way. I agree that the double seat and the "splitting" feature are very nice, although the rover vehicle itself is not very special. Perhaps it would have been better if the windshield remained attached to the vehicle when deploying it (however the rover's driver is the droid, so perhaps he doesn't need the windshield at all). My score is 9/10. The concept is quite ok, but personally I find the end result too blunt, bordering the hideous. It keeps feeling to me like it was built by a young kid for some reason. My score is 4/10. About as bad as the other robot, perhaps a slightly better overall look but less functions. My score is 4/10. It seems that the base is but a bunch of mega-pieces, not very much building value here. The tower itself is mediocre (not terrible, but neither nice) and very empty inside. The land vehicle is quite poor, while the small saucer is not bad. +1 point because of the cool idea of the splitting rock to disguise the missile launch site. My score: 5/10. This is actually quite cool for me! It's certainly different and innovative. The fact is, I see this saucer operating in two ways: one would be hovering horizontally like on the cover, with the minifigure lying and watching through the camera (would be better if the camera could rotate 360 degrees); the second is in a vertical stand, with the minifig watching directly through the glass and the saucer propel forward by a backburner underneath. In any case the four motors on the sides don't obviously work all at the same time: the two above and below the minifig are for horizonal thrust, while the two on the sides are for going forward/backwards (while in horizontal position) or upwards/downwards (while in vertical position). I see the combination of these 4 (+1 eventually one burner on the back/bottom) engines giving this little saucer extraordinary control flexibility. My score: 9/10. Yes we have hundreds of tiny spacecrafts, but this is not a reason for downgrading the score, it's certainly not a fault of the set... Among those hundreds, this is neither special nor below average IMHO. My score: 7/10. I agree on all accounts for this one. It looks flimsy, and not very sensible. My score: 5/10. As for general comments on the theme: as by my grades, there's a large gap for my tastes between those 3 spaceships (the 9s and the 7) and the rest. My average appreciation is pretty low, a little over 6 (a low grade IMO) but with only 3 sets on the positive range it means quite a bad theme (I'd score the whole theme a 5 as in "pick a couple and forget the rest"). For me the problem here is not in the concept but in the execution. Also for some reason I really do not dig the colour scheme...

Those panels would be great in steampunks MOCs. Or a brewery...

This is an excellent build? And 30 hours only... c'mon it can't be your FIRST! You should publish the instructions for this one.

Kudos to Mariann! And best wishes for continuing your career...

Let him know that he clearly mounted the green side panels of the locomotive upside down

It's great! But why didn't you use skeletal horses?

It's good but not my favourite. I think the dynamics are ok but could have been better... Most of it looks like two armies running towards each other, except a couple of spots where the action is different (the chained dragon for instance).

I don't want to sound bad here, but I wonder if the outcome would have been the same if LEGO had been a US company and MB the Danish one. However after a quick search on the web, it seems that it's legal because they are just copying the patent which has expired, but they aren't copying the trademarks.

Wasn't there a legal war a few years ago? Did it end in favour of the copiers?

Hey that's I meant! It's free for the customers, so it means that Interspar (the company) is paying them and giving them for free for marketing reasons i.e. to attract customers to their shop or strengthen their loyalty.

Practically all the historical/ethnical suggestions I've read in this thread are stuff I'd really like to see produced by TLG! One suggestion from me about another historical theme would be Victorian Age, practically 19th century Europe, but instead of focusing it on the British empire I would focus it on the technology and culture of the time. It could for instance include sets like the following: tiny/impulse (<10$/e): - chimney sweeper - penny-farthing bicycle - steam-powered car small (10-25$/e): - man-propelled airplane - flying balloon - early steam locomotive - baker - Lumiere cinema studios - bohemienne painter's room - barber shop medium (25-60$/e): - victorian house - victorian theatre / opera - victorian cafe' house* - dirigible (zeppelin) large (>60$/e): - victorian mansion - world wonders' fair exibition - circus - red-brick factory *means brothel, but marketed as cafe' house for the kids Or a much more modest request.... I'd like to see accessory sets like these: - trees, bushes and flowers - roadsigns and semaphores - street lamps, park benches and fountain - fences Or at least sell trees (old types: pines, fruit and cedar trees) and roadsigns (printed or stickers I wouldn't mind, but a large assortment anyway) on pick-a-brick.

The US vs EU pricing difference is certainly affected by different production costs. I don't know where are LEGO factory nowadays, since they changed/opened/closed some in the recent past, but it's quite likely that the LEGO sets sold in US contains more parts manufactured in the US and those sold in EU parts crafted in EU. That can already make some difference, since manufacturing is presumably cheaper in US than EU. Differences in pricing in EU countries with different currency is complicated to explain. Differences in pricing between Euro-zone countries retail shops can also come from different VAT but most importantly the retail shops themselves have some freedom in the pricing policy. What I really don't understand instead is the difference in the BASE prices (before applying VAT and shipping) between different Euro country in Shop@Home. Unless there are LARGE differences in the local consumers' financial health, the same set sold via Shop@Home should be identical for all Euro countries. Then shipping and VAT may change it of course, but more or less the consumer's habits (and wallet sizes) are not that different between those countries. It's a known fact that Germany traditionally provides LEGO many more customers (in proportion to its total population) than other countries, but then German LEGO S@H prices are basically the same as the Italian, Spanish, etc... The big anomalies are France and Finland, and here is where really I don't get it. For example the Emerald Night costs ~90e all around the Euro countries, except France (~100e) and Finland (~110e).

I liked your comics and particularly I think you have very good character-naming skills. It seems quite evident you've played RPGs...

So true. I live in Finland too and with the current £/e rate it's painful to see the difference in things like the Emerald Night... which has no way around to get it beside S@H.

Why have all the pictures been removed?

With so many "only's", I wonder how much is Interspar paying LEGO to produce such a promotional set... clearly the production must be limited to few sets only, and that makes them much more costly than they would be if mass-produced for every market.

This would be really nice, and it would also allow to create multiple-lanes highways. But then it would be quite hard for the curves, and it would require also a new road piece to connect straights together and create X and T intersections.

Interesting pick! I don't want to divert the thread, but I just wanted to say that IMHO the theme stands alone and shouldn't be too much thought as a city subtheme, because it's mildly anachronistic in the sense that it's probably technologically possible, but doesn't exist in the current era. This is very similar to classic space. So IMHO aquazone and classic space could be coexistent with City/Town in a very "optimistic" setting, or alternatively could be set in a not-so-far future.

I said "near-banned". They are here, but since there's no crime in our utopian legoland, their only job is to help traffic and investigate accidents. But the real reason is just that when I was a kid I had too many police and firemen sets, and the result is that today for me they feel utterly boring and unattractive. The above explanation is more a consequence of this.

Yep... when I open a recent catalog, most of its pages contain stuff I really don't want unless it was free (and maybe even in that case I'll just resell it). But those themes which I like, I really do like. City has never been as good as it is today, except for an excess focus on emergency sets.

Perfectly put! Personally I think #1 makes not sense. Collecting things just for the sake of it is something I really don't understand. I guess the collecting process itself is the fun part... but then why collecting something expensive when you can just have the same "fun" by collecting cheaper stuff? I believe that if you really like LEGO you should either go #3 which is the real purpose, or otherwise you may choose #2 if you decide that making a profit to buy more LEGO is worth losing this particular set. But don't be too attached to the "collecting value" of the old set! If you treat it like an investment, you should early or late convert into money to spend on something you actually use. Otherwise it's a bit like being like Uncle Scrooge, who collects collects collects the money and never turns them into something that concretely improves his life (except that of course, collecting itself might bring more happiness than anything else to some individuals). And remember that when you die, all that you didn't enjoy is wasted. Ok... the last one was a bit of an off-road sentence... Well the special value is of course that the pieces inside are still new and clean. If a MISB set costed only a reasonable extra compared to a complete used set, I'd probably prefer the MISB. It is indeed silly. How can the trade circle end? a. the box ends up in a museum, no one ever played with it, could have just been an empty box b. the box is lost and destroyed, the trade chain turns into a "last one with the flaming matchstick" game c. someone finally opens it and the LEGO meets the reason why it was created in the first place

I haven't thought about that... Yes it does seem that the idea of making all aliens the evil guys is not so good from an educational point of view. Probably they just didn't put too much thought to it. They went with the easiest possible choice: good vs bad, and made the two sides very recognizable. Personally I'm not keen at all in the fact that so many LEGO themes are based on "battle" between two sides: space = humans vs alien pirates = pirates vs imperials castle = humans & dwarves vs trolls & skeletons power miners = humans vs rock monsters agents = agents vs crazies Indiana Jones and Star Wars have the same, but at least in case of licensed theme you should be faithful to the original story, so they are fully justified. But otherwise it's the same basic idea applied to almost every theme. Even City has had clearly-identifiable thieves for police to fight against since a few years. I am sure that they're doing this because kids love that, and themes & sets are designed first of all for kids (male underage kids, who almost only want fighting toys). But personally (because I'm an AFOL but also because I have a daughter!) I definitely wish there were more "peaceful" themes: we still have City (excluding the police, which is in fact near-banned from our collection), Trains, and Farm. I'd love to see more exploration-themed Space (like classic space), less action-oriented Castle, and some new historical themes.

Among the current themes: my best 1. City 2. Creator 3. Star Wars my worst 1. Bionicle 2. Racers 3. Spongebob (what the hell?) other likes: Pirates, Castle, Modular Houses undecided: Mars Mission, Indiana Jones, Technic, Exo-Force other dislikes: Speed Racer, Power Miners, Agents, Ferrari, Batman, Bellville, Duplo General themes of all times: my best 1. Trains 2. Classic castle 3. Classic space my worst ...the vast majority of stuff of the late '90 and early 2000's

Great news indeed! But that's also thanks to the LEGO fans around the world, who in times of recession would rather cut their food budget than slowing down their LEGO purchasing habits