Blondie-Wan

What, and virtually all other LEGO elements don't?? I mean, they are toys, and pretty stylized, cartoony ones at that...

I know this isn't the first time someone here has said this, but it always strikes me as peculiar, given that the The LEGO Movie Minifigures really aren't actually all that different from one of the regular numbered series of Minifigures; in many ways it's very close to one. The three robots, scribble-faced Bad Cop / Good Cop and Wild West Wyldstyle are really the only five who wouldn't make sense in and of themselves without the movie, and even the last two would be fine with just a single part swapped (or in Bad Cop's case, his head just turned around to show the 'bad cop' face - Wyldstyle's hair could be replaced with another element and turn her into essentially a classic, traditional Western figure). Granted, that still leaves the group with a heavier-than-usual focus on Town / City people, but that's always been the most-represented theme in the Minifigures line (heck, even The Simpsons minifigures are nearly all the same way, if one simply swaps the heads for more traditional ones).

Indeed, although those aren't specific to this theme. They can (and, indeed, already have) use(d) them for "regular," non-Simpsons LEGO, and will surely use them more over time. Most of the molds introduced for this theme, though, will surely be forever tied to this theme and this theme alone (as they'll mostly be character heads and the like). More than that, actually, since there are two versions of those new sleeve-molded arms - left and right, so that's 21. Quite a few, especially since just over three quarters of them can't be used in any theme other than this one.

Goodness, how did I not see these before? These are great!

Aww, I always like the little equipment racks like the one in Day 5 here. It always surprises me a little to see that others don't, but I gather I'm actually in the minority on this. Ah, well. Part of me thinks I shouldn't even check out the reviews for the calendars if I'm going to open them myself, but realistically I know I'll forget most of the details of specific days by the time I start on mine, so I shouldn't spoil myself too badly. Thanks for the review!

I just realized my last post in this thread was back in May, and while I haven't gotten nearly as much as I'd like since then, I have added a few things to the collection. I've gotten a few more copies of the Snowtrooper Battle Pack since I last mentioned getting some, and at Dragon*Con a few months ago, of all places, I was lucky enough to be given (another) copy of 20019, the Brickmaster mini Slave I. More recently I ordered and just yesterday received 75056, this year's LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar.

Well, them and their (and Marge's) mom. But I think you're right about everything else. Santa's Little Helper will almost certainly come with a new version of an existing family member (Santa Homer, perhaps? Granted he wasn't dressed as Santa when he got SLH, but still...).

Agreed. Looking at that Leia / Forest Maiden hair, it seems abundantly clear to me it was designed specifically for Leia, even if the Forest Maiden actually appeared with it first. This new cap with ears fairly screams "The Green Goblin" to me. (Actually, do we know that it's being used in the Minifigures line at all, and isn't meant just for a Spidey set in the Superheroes line?)

A fine question, and an important one. The torso prints have the potential to make this set appealing even to LEGO fans who don't care for the actual show. I think a "LEGO-y" shirt like the one you describe would be perfectly in keeping with Sheldon's character and wardrobe choices, even if we don't actually see him wear one in the show. I think there are fans of the show, though, who'd be disappointed if the Sheldon minifigure is wearing anything other than one of his classic shirts he wears a lot (The Flash, Green Lantern, test pattern, etc.). I don't think they'll do anything about it at all, just as they ignore height differences for most other characters in most other licensed sets and themes. In most of their source material, there's a wide range of height differences - consider the differences in height between, say, Marion Ravenwood, Indiana Jones and anyone played by Pat Roach, say, or between Princess Leia Organa, C-3PO, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Darth Vader and Chewbacca. Those differences are huge, but those characters are all routinely depicted with minifigures of essentially the same height. They usually only bother with height differentials with characters with extreme differences (R2-D2, Yoda, Short Round, etc. - and even then the differences in the minifigure heights aren't nearly so drastic as those of the "real" characters), or when the source material is animated, and they go to unusual lengths to retain the particular design styles of the characters (as with the characters from Spongebob Squarepants or Toy Story). For The Big Bang Theory, a live-action sitcom featuring actors portraying regular human beings of heights in a varied but common range, I think they'll just use standard-height minifigures for everybody. The closest thing to a deviation from "regular" minifigures that I could see them doing for this project is using the new two-color molded limbs introduced with The Simpsons for different sleeve and pants leg lengths, but that won't affect the figure heights. Penny has been seen with different hairstyles on the show, so they could use just about anything, but I think the Elizabeth Swan hair or the Series 10 Trendsetter hair might be a good choice. I think Amy will get the Series 10 Librarian hair, which seems perfect to me, and Bernadette could possibly have the Olivia hair, the "princess" / Marion Ravenwood hair, or the Mary Jane / Hermione hair. That's assuming they do have these characters, of course, which leads us to... I could see this having anywhere from three to seven, and which characters are included depends on how many they have. For given numbers of figures, I think these are the characters they'll use: 3 - Leonard, Sheldon, Penny 4 - Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, Raj 5 - Leonard, Sheldon, Penny, Howard, Raj 6 - Leonard, Sheldon, Penny, Howard, Raj, and Amy or Bernadette 7 - Leonard, Sheldon, Penny, Howard, Raj, Amy, Bernadette I think six minifigures is unlikely, because I don't think they'd do either just Amy or just Bernadette without the other, but it's possible. I similarly don't think they'd do either Howard or Raj without doing the other, and Penny is likelier than either, so if it's just three minifigures Penny is one of them, but if it's four, then Howard and Raj are both there but not Penny. Leonard and Sheldon I'm confident will be there no matter who else is, of course. I actually think it's fairly likely we'll get all seven, though, since that's part of the core concept for the Ideas project. The proposal features all seven characters, and that's the project people voted for, and while an Ideas project is subject to revision in terms of the build, the core idea is what they try to keep if it becomes a set. If a project is critically dependent upon a number of minifigures greater than what TLG is willing to put in a set, they'll more likely reject it altogether rather than produce a set which is fundamentally different in concept from what people voted for. With this project, I think it's likely people were voting for a set with as many of the important TBBT characters as possible, and since that's the concept they approved it I think LEGO's goal will be to try to get as many of those seven characters in as they can. Three is the absolute bare minimum number of characters I can see them including, but I'm almost certain they'll have more than that, and I think it's actually fairly likely they'll have all seven. The rest of the set will be as big as it needs to be to accommodate all the included minifigures and to carry enough detail to be recognizeable as the living room set. That should make it a nicely furnished little area, suitable for dropping into an empty LEGO house for insta-decorating, but it won't be a particularly complex build, I think - simpler than that of, say, the Ectomobile, which is what I think should allow this set to come in at hopefully no more than $50, even though it might have up to three more minifigures than the Ghostbusters set. $50 (well, $49.99) is the maximum price (in the US, of course) of any CUUSOO / Ideas set so far, with the three most expensive sets all coming in at that point (including the first, the Shinkai 6500, which never actually had a release outside Japan and for which the only price ever used was therefore in yen, but even that they do show with a $50 US price); the other five sets released to date include three at $34.99 and one apiece at $29.99 and $19.99. It may well be that for the moment, $50 or so is about as pricey as they're willing to go with a set in this line - maybe a few dollars more, like $54.99, but not $60 or $70. We'll know soon enough, of course. That episode with the robot arm is the kind of thing I was thinking would get the whole project declined on brand fit grounds, but it didn't happen, so anything's possible. Since the robot arm is very much the kind of thing that would be at home in the living space of these characters anyway, I could now even see something like it being included, just without any reference to what specifically happens with it in the episode. That said, it's just as likely to not make it because it would use a lot of parts for something not constantly seen in every episode. If they do include five, six or seven minifigures in a $50 set, they'll surely want to conserve parts elsewhere, meaning they'll want to use most of the parts on things that will represent as much of the show as possible (like pieces of furniture seen all the time), and I'd imagine episode-specific things will mostly be a single piece here, a simple two- or three-piece build there. But then again, I was sure the project wouldn't pass at all to begin with, so what do I know... I think the short sleeves (over long sleeves, specifically) are possible, but not a given. We know they don't like to tie up too much of their production capacity on Ideas sets, and in particular they tend to avoid using the limited capacity for their most advanced techniques on them. Note how the Ghostbusters didn't get the Ghostbusters emblem printed on their uniform sleeves, even though TLG can print on arms and that emblem is arguably the most distinctive part of the Ghostbusters uniform jumpsuit. Arm printing is still something of a limited-capacity luxury for TLG, and they opted to reserve it for mass-market stuff rather than the limited-run Ghostbusters set, even though the latter would have really benefitted from it. The short-sleeves molding is a much more recent innovation than arm printing, and I suspect one for which they currently have much more limited capacity, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if it didn't get used for this set, even though I agree the set would really benefit from it. But you never know... Double-sided heads are apparently fairly trivial to do, though, judging from how common they are. Moreover, nearly every minifigure in nearly every Ideas set has had a double-sided head, whether it was an existing head or a new one - the green Classic Spacefolk in the Exo-suit set are the only Ideas minifigures without double-sided heads (and they utilize existing head prints which just happened to be single-sided). Every new head designed specifically for a CUUSOO / Ideas set has been double-sided, as have several pre-existing heads reused in CUUSOO / ideas sets. Given this, I think double-sided heads in this set are extremely likely. I don't know (and we might not get either), but a mix of both to represent different scales and whatnot would be great.

I'll be quite happy to get Santa's Little Helper. His absence in the line up to now has been pretty glaring, when we have the five core human Simpson family members, plus Grandpa Abe Simpson and the house itself. Hopefully we'll also get Snowball II with somebody. I wonder about Patty and Selma, given that their primary characteristic is incessant smoking. I could see TLG doing them anyway, though, and just omitting the cigarettes (which would be tough to represent at minifigure scale anyway, even if TLG were willing to depict tobacco - probably the closest they could get would be 1x1 or 1x2 tiles printed to look like cigarette packs. But it's moot anyway, as there's no way that particular habit will be represented in an official LEGO product, and personally I'm more than fine with that).

Which project is that? Note that one project's passage doesn't necessarily have any bearing on whether another one passes or fails. Remember, The Big Bang Theory isn't even the only project from this batch to pass - the Birds project was also approved at the same time, and the Doctor Who projects are still under consideration. It's true there's a limited number of production slots available each year for Ideas sets, but given the number of times a set has been held for continued review when a review batch's results are announced, I'm not sure they ever decline a project solely because they approve some other project. As far as I can tell, every declined project has been rejected for some other reason(s). If The Big Bang Theory had been declined, whatever other project you wanted probably still wouldn't have made it; it would just be the case that the Birds set would be the only one that got announced, most likely.

They're still in the realm of family entertainment, though, while The Big Bang Theory isn't really. The violence and sexual content of Star Wars, Indiana Jones and so on isn't really the focus of those series in the same way that the adult content of The Big Bang Theory is the focus of much of that show. Mind you, I don't view it as a betrayal or anything like that that TLG is doing the set; I'm just (really) surprised, that's all (especially after the Firefly / Serenity project was declined over brand fit considerations). But I do also get the point others have made over the ways in which The Big Bang Theory actually does complement the brand, what with the interests of the characters as portrayed on the show. Presumably that was indeed a factor.

I was caught completely off-guard by this announcement, I must admit. I was sure this project wouldn't pass review, and said so. Obviously I was wrong. I have kind of an odd relationship with the show. I don't really care for the writing in general, or for the rather cliched way it portrays geeks, but I do like the basic characters, and the performers who play them. Of course, any LEGO set is something in which I might be interested regardless of how I feel about the source inspiration, so I can't wait to see the final set. (I will just add that as long as LEGO is open to doing sets based on non-fantasy/sci-fi sitcoms aimed at adults, I'd dearly love ones based on Cheers and especially its spinoff Frasier, which is not to say I'd ever expect one in a million years, of course...) Perhaps. The Ghostbusters set cost that much, of course. It also has "only" four minifigures, but then it also has a car that's probably a much more complex build than we might expect from the apartment living room that will probably constitute the meat of the build in this set. Note also that while the torso prints for this set will undoubtedly be new ones for the most part, they should mostly have at least some potential for being reused later on, in City sets and the like (assuming they don't put the characters in the licensed shirts and such that they frequently wear on the show). I could see TLG making a relatively simple build with up to seven minifigures and listing it for $50 US (well... $49.99).

I don't think alienating Android users had anything to do with the Apple Store decision. I suspect Apple simply flat-out refused. Apple really retreated from allowing any sort of licensed third-party merchandise based on their brand in the late '90s, and probably just wouldn't let LEGO do a set of one of their stores even if LEGO came to them really wanting to do it. I'm disappointed in the rejection of the Back to the Future Jules Verne train as well, but it obviously would have been a much larger, more expensive set than any other Ideas set to date, and that probably was indeed a / the deciding factor in the decision. It's not even just a matter of the business case for the set on its own - it would have required a parts allotment that was both much larger and much more diverse than that of any other CUUSOO / Ideas set so far, meaning it would have tied up that much more production capacity than any other set in the line.

I'm one of the naysayers who was sure The Big Bang Theory would never pass (which shows how much I know, obviously), and it was never an issue of the show's popularity - it had entirely to do with the show's content, which is arguably less "kid-friendly" / "family-friendly" than any other licensed theme they've done (and a few they've declined to do for themselves being insufficiently "kid-friendly", such as Firefly / Serenity). LEGO has always opted against doing various themes they consider inappropriate for kids in their core demographic (even if the sets / themes would be clearly intended for adults, and even if they would likely be popular sellers). I just would never have expected The Big Bang Theory to pass the "brand fit" portion of the review criteria. That it made it through (combined with other recent, once-unlikely licenses such as The Simpsons) strongly suggests to me that they've recently amended and relaxed their brand fit guidelines by a much greater extent than I'd ever have foreseen. So... Wow. I'm amazed, and not just for that reason - this is also the first time they've approved multiple projects at once, as well as the first time they've approved a project by the submitter of a previous approved project, finally settling the questions of whether either of those events was a real possibility. All in all, I think this particular review result announcement really expands what's possible with the Ideas program, and that's a good thing. Congrats to the approved projects' creators. I can't wait to see the final sets (even if I'm not much of a fan of The Big Bang Theory), as well as the decision on the Doctor Who projects (which I hope will pass at least one of them).

Thanks for the comparison! I would really like to have 6211, and I wish I could have gotten it, but there's not much I can do about it now, barring paying an exorbitantly inflated amount on the secondary market, which I don't consider an option. This, 75055 it shall have to be, for me. Now if only I can scoop one up before it goes away, too...

I don't understand why the Empire would call a new TIE variant the "Emancipator," but that's a fine creation, as worthy a TIE design as any other that came out of the EU.

Which is as it should be, as Mr. Gold isn't in Series 8. He's in Series 10.

What?! That's a new one to me.

The 15th - today?! Or some other 15th?

After posting my earlier response, I noticed the LEGO Ideas site also wouldn't let me login, and it eventually gave a little message saying they're having login issues. It must be more than just (planned?) maintenance at the store.

Huh, that's bizarre. They haven't just kept it up; they've actually updated it (note the place to enter game codes, which only just debuted with Series 12, the series for which they created the new site), and yet they also have this new redesign at the same time. Speaking of which... If it were just Mr. Gold, I'd assume they eliminated him for something having to do with his not being a "regular" figure, but instead this ultra-rare character who doesn't fit into a classic character role / archetype, unlike all the others from all the numbered series. It's not just him, though - the Series 8 Conquistador is missing from the new site, as well.

Okay, I've finally bought and opened a full set, after finding them at Target - and yes, at my Target, too, they're just $2.99 each. Huzzah! I guess we know now where to shop for these first... Now that I've put together a full set, I see what you mean, though if mine are representative of all of them, I think the problem may be slightly overstated. As previously noted, the main offenders are the princess and jester. It doesn't actually seem to me to be anything to do with the plastic, though - more like an issue with the molds, in which the inside of the headgear is slightly wider than it needs to be to accommodate the head. For me, the clutch power of the "anti-stud" hole inside the headgear is still strong enough to fasten it to the head, and I can even pick up either figure by the headgear, letting the figure hang out of it; it's just that it's held in place *only* by the stud connection, without any other part of the hat fitting snugly on the head, so that it can be wiggled around a bit. It's a bit disappointing, though not a deal-killer for me. I personally wouldn't write LEGO solely about it, but as it happens I'm getting ready to write about some other concerns anyway, so I'm going to go ahead and mention these as well.

I don't know what you three are seeing, but for me http://shop.lego.com is showing a page specifically saying the store is down for maintenance, and should be back up later today:

Wow, what memories. For the life of me I can't recall which was the very first, but I believe it was one of these three, in the early-to-mid '70s: