Blondie-Wan

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who sometimes discovers movies / shows / games / whatever because of their LEGO themes... The box designs are pretty interesting. It looks almost like the backs are alternative fronts, with all the same info (piece count, age range, etc.).

Honestly, I’d love to see a 50/50 balance (for the blind-bagged Minifigures line in general, not just Disney). I don’t know how likely that is (probably not very), but I wish it were. Oh, goodness, yes. Him too. Yep! And other characters from that would be very welcome as well.

I think we all agree Goofy is a given. Given how central Mickey is to all things Disney, I have to imagine there’d be another version of him, and his famed Sorceror’s Apprentice role is surely the most classic, iconic variant imaginable. An alternate possibility would be Steamboat Willie. That version might also come in an Ideas set, depending upon how the current review goes, but could it be in Minifigures, too? Being part of the series would make it much likelier it could get a proper new hat mold to finish the look. Maybe a color Steamboat Willie Mickey for Minifigures, and a black-and-white one for Ideas? Would there be a Donald variant to complete that core trio? Donald has appeared in tons of outfits, but unlike Mickey, only one of them is truly iconic. But maybe they’d go for a deep cut, just to spice things up... It’s pretty remarkable that with a then-record 18 characters the first time around they included only one Disney Princess. I could see them addressing that by devoting half the line to princesses this time, perhaps even including Ariel again in the manner proposed by @Robert8. Others could include lowercase-p Disney princesses who aren’t official capital-P Disney Princesses (specifically, now-queen Elsa, Anna, and Vanellope von Schweetz). I expect the line to continue to focus exclusively on characters from animation, but I’d love to see a few live-action characters included, particularly Mary Poppins, Kevin Flynn, TRON, SARK, and Condorman. Yes, I know that last one will never happen, of course, but I’d love it if it did.

There were four waves of Indiana Jones, only one of which was smaller than the previous wave. Two of them were actually larger.

Considering how mismatched real buildings in real cities can be, I think there’s room for a lot of flexibility in how well-matched can be or not be in a LEGO city. :)

It sounds to me like you need to check out @LEGO Historian‘s DVD.

I’m equally curious about the longer minifigure limbs (legs and arms both) created for Woody, Jessie, and (arms-only) Zurg in the 2010 Toy Story line and not used since. I’d guess these shorter legs are likelier to pop up, both because people below average adult height are more common (encompassing both short adults and children) than people substantially above average adult height (to the point of needing those much longer limbs to be truly well-represented), and also because most LEGO buildings, vehicles, etc. are already designed with an assumption of minifigures of the current “standard” height (and those can already accommodate shorter minifigures), but accommodating taller ones requires roomier vehicles and buildings (which in turn requires more larger, more expensive sets). Still, it seems strange that they’ve never been used again even once, when they’re not really theme-specific or anything like that. If nothing else, it would be cool to see an official Chewbacca figure use them in a set sometime (perhaps for the next UCS Millennium Falcon, in 2027?)... That said, while we might wait a long time before seeing the long legs and arms outside Toy Story (forever, even), I do think we’ll eventually see these “medium short” legs show up elsewhere, most likely in City and/or Creator.

I just posted this over in the thread for this specific set over in Special Themes, but since it’s relevant here, I’ll say it again here: It looks fantastic! Well done! Apparently, from the TBB review, the Wolf minifigure has the dark grey hands one would expect, but the teaser video shows it with yellow. They must have shot the teaser using a preliminary minifigure. The final set looks like an absolute winner, and as with many recent Ideas sets a great one for parts monkeys even if one doesn’t particularly want a LEGO pop-up book. Certainly the figures look excellent for builders in historic and fantasy themes, and more printed trophy microfigures are always welcome. And the amazing wealth of SNOT bricks should be welcome to builders of all subject matter. I believe this is the third Ideas set with microfigures (after The Big Bang Theory and the NASA Apollo Saturn V), the second to mix both minifigures and microfigures (after The Big Bang Theory), the second to have printed microfigures (after the NASA Apollo Saturn V), and the second to use them as actual “people” (as opposed to toy figures, statuary, etc.) populating a set (again after the NASA Apollo Saturn V). Between this, Voltron, TRON Legacy, and the Ship in a Bottle, LEGO Ideas seems to be having a great tenth anniversary year. You should be very proud!

It looks fantastic! Well done! Apparently, from the TBB review, the Wolf minifigure has the dark grey hands one would expect, but the teaser video shows it with yellow. They must have shot the teaser using a preliminary minifigure. The final set looks like an absolute winner, and as with many recent Ideas sets a great one for parts monkeys even if one doesn’t particularly want a LEGO pop-up book. Certainly the figures look excellent for builders in historic and fantasy themes, and more printed trophy microfigures are always welcome. And the amazing wealth of SNOT bricks should be welcome to builders of all subject matter. I believe this is the third Ideas set with microfigures (after The Big Bang Theory and the NASA Apollo Saturn V), the second to mix both minifigures and microfigures (after The Big Bang Theory), the second to have printed microfigures (after the NASA Apollo Saturn V), and the second to use them as actual “people” (as opposed to toy figures, statuary, etc.) populating a set (again after the NASA Apollo Saturn V). Between this, Voltron, TRON Legacy, and the Ship in a Bottle, LEGO Ideas seems to be having a great tenth anniversary year.

It’s totally up to the individual. Some folks are fine mixing their stuff from any and all eras, while others divvy them up... and for those who do, I’m sure there are lots of different dividing lines - one builder might put the line between the 1990s and the 2000s, another between the 1980s and ‘90s, another back at the dawn of the minifigure era in 1978. All are fine.

It’s taken a while, but I finally got a response (as an aside, I think the Ideas team is just wading through a ton of questions). Here’s what I wrote them back in September: And here, finally, is the response:

Awesome! I haven’t gotten anything quite like that, but yesterday I just picked up a MISB 8037 Anakin’s Y-Wing Starfighter for $50. I’m happy. :)

Congrats! It looks great, and I’m sure it’ll be an awesome set - it already looks it from what we can see there.

I suspect the same. I don’t recall ever seeing anyone’s logo or trademarks ever split across pieces that way (unless the logo is literally built). It's still unfortunate, of course. Oh, I know; that’s why I find the presence of so many printed elements so surprising. I was thinking a separate die cost (that adds a fixed minimum to the cost of the overall production of a set, no matter how many or few copies are produced) might account for it. Ah, okay. I hadn’t known how the stickers were cut; that certainly makes a difference. Well, I figured all that, but it doesn’t quite explain why a set like Doctor Who gets away with no stickers, when it’s exactly the sort of set that might normally be considered to call for them. Perhaps it has to do with the fact so many of the set-specific decorations are repeated. That said, Ideas sets still strike me as pretty noteworthy for their numbers of printed elements. I’m speaking not of the number of unique prints (i.e., the total number of print designs in a set), nor of printed elements unique to the sets, but total number of printed parts, including multiple instances of a print in a set - the Apollo Saturn V has about 30, Doctor Who has about 50, and the Old Fishing Store has over 60. Some of that is of course attributable to minifigures, which are virtually always printed, but much is not - exactly half of the 22 sets released so far don’t even have minifigures. Two of the sets have no element decoration at all, and of the other 20, only five have stickers (one of them simply to provide optional decoration on what is otherwise the same build, facilitating a Japanese or US version of Voltron that either lacks or has the lions numbered; moreover, all but one of the sticker-having sets also have printed elements, sometimes quite a few of them). I think having three-quarters of the sets (with any decorated elements) in a line reliant entirely upon printed bricks for decoration is pretty remarkable (and all the more impressive and appreciated if it’s not a cost-saving measure for low production runs). Don’t get me wrong; I’m certainly not complaining about the wealth of printed elements in these. I’m very glad about it. I just find it curious, and wondered whether costs of dies for cutting stickers might account for it. As I’ve indicated many times in the thread (usually with regards to what projects they will or won’t approve), I certainly don’t know how they make a lot of their decisions. I just just wondering if this might be it. But I will defer to your greater expertise.

(deleted to respond more directly to specific points)

I’ve tried using the edit function to see if I can figure it out, but I still don’t know what happened, or whether it was a mistake of mine or a forum glitch or what. I was thinking about just reposting it (or perhaps having someone else do it) and starting over. _________________________________ At least we can still comment with what we think is likeliest from the batch. I said earlier that I think Steamboat Willie and the ISS are likeliest. I’ll add that I think the Fiat 500 F is also likely. That said, though, upon thinking about it a little more, I’m less optimistic about Steamboat Willie than I was earlier, since it’s ultimately a Mickey Mouse set, and “Mickey Mouse & Friends” is a currently active license. What might save it is that this set is so clearly tied to a very specific individual cartoon, one not really represented in anything else LEGO is currently making, but they do have a number of recent and current Mickey-related sets. If they’d made Mickey stuff before (so that the Mickey minifigure head mold existed) but weren’t currently offering anything, then Steamboat Willie would have a much stronger chance, but with Mickey well-represented in LEGO’s current offerings (as a Brickheadz, as a Duplo figure in current DUPLO sets, and even still as a minifigure in the still-available Disney Castle), its chances are more uncertain. In fact, licensing seems to be more of a potential sticking point for this whole batch, as every single project seems to involve a license, with the possible exception of the Mexico City one (surely if the NASA sets are considered licensed, then the ISS would be as well). But I know the Architecture sets of individual buildings involve licensing from the buildings’ owners; if the same is true of the “skyline”-style sets with multiple buildings, then Mexico City + LEGO requires licensing as much as any other project here (indeed, perhaps more than them), meaning the whole batch is full of licensed projects. Lots of the review batches have been dominated by licensed projects, but I don’t think there’s been an entire batch that was nothing but licenses since the CUUSOO days, when there might be only one or two or three projects considered at a time.

Thanks for the response and the info. That’s an interesting observation. I’m trying to think of some myself now, and I can’t; you might well be right about there not being any since 2010, aside from Maersk sets (though I do wish they didn’t have them, either; I’m feeling ambivalent about applying the stickers in my Maersk trains). ____________________________ Speaking of stickers, I was thinking recently about how Ideas sets tend to have more limited production runs than other sets, and have never introduced new parts (so far), yet so frequently include unique printed elements for decoration instead of stickers, when stickers are commonly seen as a cost-cutting move. I think we’ve all been assuming that they favor printed bricks over stickers for Ideas sets because the line caters to dedicated, mostly adult fans, who tend to dislike stickers far more than the kids who make up most of LEGO’s primary customer base. But while I imagine that’s true, I think the real principal reason might be another cost-saving measure. I’m guessing that for large production runs of the sort needed to fill shelves in every Walmart and Target and so on with huge numbers of the latest Star Wars, Ninjago, and City sets, it frequently makes sense to print a set-specific sticker sheet for lots of the decorated elements in a set. But for smaller runs, like the sort most Ideas sets are thought to have, it might actually be more economical to print the bricks, because there might be a fixed baseline cost for a sticker sheet - specifically, the cost of the die that cuts the sticker outlines. If a set design uses, say, seven decorated elements - three 1x4 bricks and four 2x2 tiles, let's say - then they can either print on the bricks directly, or they can print - and cut - a sticker sheet with seven stickers. There’s a certain cost per brick associated with printing directly on the bricks, and presumably a much smaller cost per brick for actually printing on the sticker sheet, but there’s also a cost to create the die that will stamp out those seven stickers on a sheet, unless they already have a die they made for some previous set(s) that cuts stickers for 3 1x4s and 4 2x2 tiles. If they don’t, then they have to create that die if they want stickers, and the cost of producing all those decorated elements for the set’s run has to include the cost of the die. If the production run is anticipated as being fairly small, it might make more sense to just print directly on the bricks if they already have print pads for those brick types, rather than creating a new die that cuts stickers for all the decorated elements in the set. Does this make sense? Am I correct, or is there a bunch of stuff of which I’m ignorant, and the real reason has nothing to do with that? If I’m right, could it be that the small number of Ideas sets that use stickers all feature clever reuses of sticker sheet dies originally created for other sets?

Every single CUUSOO / Ideas final set has been revised from the original submission, most of them quite substantially (a major exception being the Curiosity rover, for which the final set is very, very close to the original project), and I expect that to be true of future sets in the line. In particular, for something specifically designed with customizability in mind like the Pop-up Book, I’d be really surprised if the final set design exactly matched the original project. Did the Shinkai 6500 have STAMPs? I don’t have that one...

I’m a little surprised at the Juniors sets - not that they’re coming, but that they took this long. It’ll be interesting to see those - they should at least have all printed decoration and no stickers.

In fairness, there are a lot of City fans (it is one of the biggest LEGO themes, after all). There are definitely people who’d be interested (indeed, there’d have to be, for the idea to accrue 10,000 supports in less than a year). And while it absolutely doesn’t guarantee anything about whether they’d actually make it a set or not (as they take pains to point out), the Ideas staff made it a Staff Pick a while back, which surely indicates they don’t disapprove of it, at least. Some time ago I might have thought LEGO would find the subject matter offputting in the way MAB suggests, but after some of the recent approvals which have surprised me many times, I wouldn’t want to rule it out. I mean, I don’t consider it particularly likely, but it’s far from impossible.

Well, unless someone else got a second chemical plant project into the same batch...

Indeed you are! There are five main sections - LEGO Ideas First 2018 Review Results, Contest Closing Soon - Create an Amazing Family Moment, Contest - Build the Construction Machines of the Future, LEGO Ideas in the Wild, and Editor’s Top 5 Projects Under 100 Supporters. You’re in the fourth section (LEGO Ideas in the Wild): ... and then some photos of you, your project, and its media coverage.

The email? Mine came about two hours ago. Could you have gotten unsubscribed by accident? ______________________________ Chemical Plant is the latest product idea to garner 10,000 supports, joining Dinosaurs Fossils Skeletons - Natural History Collection in the Third 2018 Review Batch.

Never mind those “Discovery Channel” sets from the 2000s; they’ve done NASA stuff more than once just in the CUUSOO / Ideas line - the NASA / JPL Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, the NASA Apollo Saturn V, Women of NASA. However, they focus on different areas - Curiosity and Apollo are totally different missions, and Women of NASA (while it actually does overlap with Apollo) is really more about the people involved than missions themselves. Each NASA mission is apparently treated as its own distinct “license” for LEGO purposes, just as Pixar (for example) isn’t one single license, but a rightsholder for a bunch of properties - WALL•E, Toy Story, Brave, The Incredibles, Cars, etc., and the fact they’ve done a LEGO Ideas WALL•E set doesn’t prevent people from submitting a Monsters, Inc. product idea. Similarly, the fact Star Wars is a currently-active licensed theme doesn’t prevent folks from submitting Indiana Jones or Willow ideas, as the current active theme is just Star Wars, not Lucasfilm in general. Same for Disney overall (itself the owner of both Pixar and Lucasfilm, as well as Marvel and a bunch of other individual Disney properties) - so, the fact LEGO Ideas has already done a WALL•E set didn’t keep them from doing a TRON set, as those were separate licenses, even though they’re both Disney properties. And the same for any other big entertainment licensing behemoth - indeed, they’ve done (or are doing) multiple sets from Warner Bros., for example (The Big Bang Theory, Adventure Time, The Flintstones).

Cool! At least you’re getting plenty of exposure. I do hope you pick up more supports from it; your product idea is good, and deserves its shot in review.