Blondie-Wan

... such as the fact Series 3 didn't have a Spartan in it. No wonder that guy was so unlucky...

Indeed. Moreover, in addition to all that, it should be reiterated that we don't really know how the votes broke down, and TLG may not even have had to choose many (or even any!) alternatives - these could actually have been popular vote-getters. Remember, we aren't LEGO's core customers - kids are, and kids would likely choose very different figures from AFOLs.

And I'll go a step further and say I don't even think it's ridiculously overpriced. Seriously - it's a set with three human minifigures, all of whom are "rare" and extensively printed, along with animals (all single-piece, but one pretty uncommon and another in blended colors), and two printed surfboards. All that stuff would normally make a set at least $10 nowadays, perhaps more (the piece count is also higher than that of many / most other $10-$11 sets with three or more minifigures). If the minifigures hadn't all previously appeared in the Minifigures line, people would be dying for this, I think.

In the first place, they're still collectible - they lend themselves to collecting. That's not the same thing as rarity. They're not sold as investments. They're just meant to be collected and traded and so on. Making them more widely available means more people can collect them more easily, hence they're more collectible. If you think that somehow "cheapens" the concept, it suggests you didn't have the same concept of what the figures are about in the first place. Also, "collectable" isn't even part of the product name - they're just plain "Minifigures." We're the ones who put the "C" in "CMF." Moreover, this package doesn't duplicate the full contents of the "CMF" packets, anyway - you don't get the 3x4 bases or the little leaflets with this package, just the figure components and the other bricks.

Indeed, it appears to me this set is worth getting purely as a parts pack (I haven't ever played Minecraft, so the model doesn't really mean much to me, though I do think it's neat-looking), for both the piece count and parts selection, as well as the printed elements unique to this set. I think I'll have to get it. Nice review! (But doesn't it technically belong in the Licensed forum?)

Well, construction-wise, are they really all that different from the Tiny Turbos Racers sets? And if the cars themselves use lots of parts, that's still valid LEGO construction. As long as there's a certain amount of building in any given set, I don't think it matters whether it's concentrated in the vehicles/characters themselves or in the buildings and structures of their world. Perhaps, although I could easily see them doing more sets from across the franchise (including the first movie) (a la Star Wars, etc.), if they were to continue the theme at all.

Minifigure parts often were, and a few much older train sets came with whole train cars assembled, as seen here and here. Of course those are unusual cases, but do show there's some precedent for such things. Anyway, I guess we'll know soon enough whether these parts are glued. I'm guessing not, but I await confirmation.

Oh? That's news to me. I actually did look up the box office before making my earlier post, but must have misread or overlooked something. I do now see that according to IMDB, its "estimated" budget was $200,000,000. That's awfully high, though with a total global gross over half a billion dollars, it still probably made money (and unquestionably sold lots of tickets). Given that, though, I shouldn't have said "big."

I'm not sure what you mean by "wasn't too successful" commercially (emphasis added - too successful for what? ), but the movie was in fact a big box office success, albeit not Pixar's biggest. Anyway... is it known the theme is in fact done? Certainly it hasn't been that long since the most recent wave was released, and Cars sets remain fairly abundant in plenty of stores (a good thing, too - I haven't gotten all the ones I want yet). Certainly, given TLG's approach to licensed themes (and themes in general, for that matter), I can see them not wanting to continue beyond that "hot" period in which they're sure to sell a great many sets, but Cars is something of a perennial in merchandising, not unlike Star Wars - Cars toys have sold continuously since the first movie's release, across the entire five-year span to the second. I don't know why LEGO can't do as well with a theme that's so successful for diecast cars and playsets, apparel, r/c vehicles, etc.

Where are you getting the info that it's preassembled - do you just mean the portion of it we see through the package window? If that's it, I suspect it's just that small portion of the set that comes pre-assembled, and the rest of it is in the usual bags of bricks floating around in the box. It reminds me of some old-style packages, when certain elements in a set would be showcased by showing them in little form-fitted depressions in a clear plastic tray over the rest of the contents. Sometimes those would include preassembled minifigures and perhaps other submodels, but the parts weren't glued. I'd guess this is like those.

which means that we are getting at least 3 more series if not more so they aren't stopping at 5 series Looking back at this, I can't help but consider that if they've kept working on these at the same rate, it suggests they're right now already planning Series 11 and actively working on Series 10, or thereabouts (!). TLG really wants me to take a second job, I think...

Hey, for some of us the Classic Spacemen are awesome, even with the newer helmets. I'd definitely like one more shot at getting a few blue spacers, so for me this is great.

Wow, this is nifty. I do of course understand about the different helmet; they simply don't make the old design any longer (as I understand it, it was determined to be a bit too fragile, breaking at the chin strap too easily - we AFOLs may have enormous affection for it, but by TLG's standards it's apparently now considered to not meet their quality standards). It does seem a bit odd (the construction, that is), but I guess the idea is that one would buy as many of these as one wants to be able to build a modular display unit for one's minifigures, sizable to whatever number of minifigures one wishes to display. I wonder whether anyone will actually buy huge numbers of this set and build huge display units.

Holy cats, really? Everywhere? I'm going to have to jump on that, if so...

My local TRU also has Series 5, 6 and 7, but each one is priced differently - $2.99, $3.99 and $3.49, respectively. Most or all of my local Walmarts also have Series 5 in abundance, but have been strangely lacking in Series 6 for perhaps a couple months. Over in the last couple pages of this Series 6 thread, some others and I have been discussing what appears to be the odd under-distribution of this particular series - not only do stores (not just Walmart, but Target as well) seem to have gotten in fewer of them, but it appears a lot of the stores aren't even putting some of their stock out on the floor but are instead holding it back in the stockrooms, for whatever reason. Meanwhile, getting back to Series 7, I don't think I've seen it at Walmart at all yet. The Targets near me both have it, though. There, I've seen it intermingled with similar randomly-packed figures from other companies, just as you've described.

Mmm, that's quite nice! I could easily see this being one of the alternative models LEGO itself might show on the back of the box, if they still did that sort of thing.

Well, if I may respond to my own query, I've found out the answer is yes. One of my own local Targets had a whole display unit full of them (one of the vertical cardboard boxes full of little shelves for the figures; it comes loaded with 120) in the stockroom rather than out on the floor. According to someone I spoke with, it just doesn't have a place in their current planogram, so it stayed in the back, but they graciously brought it out and let me have enough time with it to feel every packet and pick out all the ones I wanted. I've encountered indications some of the Walmarts here may also have some in their stockrooms that they just aren't putting out for whatever reason, but it's hard to verify. At any rate it does seem that even with some of the stock "held back" off the floors in some stores, this series still seems to have gotten a little less distribution than the previous three series (at least locally; YMMV). Oh, and I did indeed check out the LEGO Store in Orlando a couple weekends ago during a Walt Disney World visit, and they didn't have any S6, either. Army builders, you'd better grab those Roman soldiers while and if you can!

Indeed, the licensing arrangement is actually with Warner Bros., as opposed to the books' publishers or the Tolkien estate. Nothing outside the film series will be overtly represented in official sets... but of course, I'm sure we'll see plenty of EBers' MOCs based on the excised material, and perhaps the other books. That torso print is great, but of course the hands don't match. It won't work for a purist version (i.e., one built without removing hands or arms from torsos).

OooooOOOOooooh! Thanks!

Sure, but it'd be harder to get it onto legitimate toy / licensing industry news sites like this and this, don't you think?

Ok, but I don't even know what sort of hypothetical thing we're talking about. Is this supposed thing just an alternate name for the Monster Fighters theme or one of the sets, or a rumored Creator house, or a rumored seasonal special item like the Winter Village sets, a rumored DUPLO set, or what?

About time to drop in on this thread again! I am really digging this theme, and hope to get all the sets. I do have a question concerning one recent post here: Er, wait - Haunted House? "Rather than" Monster Fighters? Is this Haunted House something outside the Monster Fighters theme, then? I must have missed something...

I certainly wouldn't mind that. I tend to have a hard time getting all the copies I want of all the figures from any given series before the series disappears from store shelves, or before it has to compete with the series after it. Heck, I'm still working on getting all the figures I want from Series 5, 6 and 7! Back to the main topic, it's really bizarre that we don't yet have any idea about Series 8 yet. Not so long ago we knew about the figures two to three series in advance, and now we don't know about the next one at all (unless we count the Team GB minifigures, which might in fact be the reason why).

I could be wrong, but I just don't see TLG ever doing any kind of official James Bond sets. I think the closest we'll ever get will be the Agents line from '08-'09, and perhaps a Bond-ish "Super Spy" in some upcoming series of the collectible Minifigures.

Based upon the unavailability of LEGO Games' Star Wars: Battle of Hoth in the US, presumably because of licensing issues, I'd hazard a guess that TLG indeed isn't currently planning a Star Wars chess set because of licensing issues - though probably because of Fantasy Flight Games, which recently picked up a bunch of gaming rights for Star Wars board, card and roleplaying games, rather than Hasbro.