Blondie-Wan

If by basketball hoops you mean the one with the Apple Tree House, that's not a "real" LEGO basketball hoop element but a repurposed life preserver (as opposed to the dedicated basketball hoop and net from the NBA sets from several years ago). The life preserver is more in keeping with the Creator aesthetic, I think (so it's probably the more apt choice for the set), but still a definite move toward (sparing) usage of minifigure accessory-type, semi-specialized elements in the otherwise highly generalized Creator sets, just as you say. I think the apparent move from baseplates to regular plates isn't a Creator-specific thing, but part of a more general move across multiple LEGO themes. Note that some of the latest LEGO Games include the new 16x16 plate as bases, while some of the earlier ones have 16x16 baseplates of the traditional baseplate style. Yeah, I think they've found a fantastic "balancing point" with the Creator buildings now. My girlfriend and I both love them, and I think between the two of us we're probably going to wind up getting at least one of each of them from the Log Cabin on out.

I was just about to post such a poll myself, but it's limited to 40 choices per question.

This is also being discussed over in General Discussion and News. I'm fine with anything that lets me get more of certain figures from the first couple series. I'm still trying to pick That One Special Figure for my vote, but it's definitely going to be one from Series 1 - I really want more robots, spacemen, cowboys, tribal hunters, demolition dummies and cavemen (and divers, though I'm assuming that's too far out of the running to bother voting for, and I'd rather have any of the others I mentioned). If this is to be a set of five figures in the fashion of the Vintage Minifigure Collections, I assume the Spartan Warrior is a shoo-in for at least one of the five slots, but we'll see...

I just got this one myself - wow! I wonder what size / price range we're talking about for the set, and whether it might include any additional minifigures. For the moment I'm at a loss as to which to vote for. There are too many I'd like to see in this!

I believe you're right. I do know I personally voted for the Public Transport Center in that poll, specifically because that artwork led me to think the set might have a monorail. That said... Possibly; I don't know that any of us outside TLG can really know. They certainly do make sets for the AFOL market now that they never did in the old days, and while part of this is surely them understanding their fanbase better (i.e., just knowing now that they do have a lot of adult fans), I think they may also actually have more adult fans than they used to. But even if so, would that be enough to warrant investing in a lot of expensive molds for a whole system of elements they haven't made in a while? I'd love to think so, but I also think Aanchir's reasoning here is sound, though I certainly hope he's wrong. I will note that if / when monorails become more prevalent in real-world, everyday life, it'll surely help motivated TLG to bring them back (albeit not necessarily in a form compatible with the old system)...

Perhaps, but look how long it took. All those sets have been out a full year or more, and only just went up on the Sales & Deals page quite recently.

I don't know that it'd be any kind of sign at all, as far as LEGO is concerned. Minimates may superficially somewhat resemble LEGO minifigures, but they're really not the same thing at all, right? Aren't Minimates more like highly-stylized action figures than construction toys? If Mega Blocks got - er, renewed - the license, that'd be different, but I don't think the continued existence of Marvel Minimates any more bearing on whether LEGO can make its own, construction-oriented Marvel toys.

That had occurred to me, but it seems a little too... well, subtle, given LEGO's target audience. But perhaps not - kids can be awfully smart, after all (especially the ones who play with LEGO ). Anyway, I could see them revisiting some of the basic subtheme ideas from Adventurers with Quest. I wouldn't mind that at all (I'd particularly love to get another shot at some of the dinosaur figures from the Dino Island line). But there are additional areas they could go that Adventurers didn't hit, as well.

Wow. "Only" two simple printed parts or not, that still makes it pretty comparable to 8200 Radiator Springs Lightning McQueen and 8201 Classic Mater, and those sets cost $6.99 each (and that's here in the ever-spoiled US! ). This is pretty darn swanky for a polybag promo.

Wow! That is a really nice polybag promo. I'm hopeful it'll make it to the US, though I have to assume it won't be just given away freely (though if it's a TRU exclusive, I can see it being one of those sets they give away for a week with every purchase of $35 or $40 or so worth of other LEGO sets).

These look great as they are, but thematically, as long as they're using the "actual" buttons of the Buzz Lightyear design for the clock functions, and including other details like the lights and all that recall the character, I think they've missed an opportunity with the Woody clock - wouldn't it have been great if he'd been an analog clock, and you wound him up by pulling the string in his back?

My first choice for the future of Adventurers-style LEGO sets, themes and subthemes would be that they resume the Indiana Jones theme. There are so many additional sets that could be done, and so many important characters who are completely unrepresented in the 17 extant sets (18 with the SDCC exclusive). In fact, continuing the Indy theme is not only my #1 choice for future Adventurers sets, but my #1 hope for future LEGO sets/themes of any kind. That said, if they don't go that way, I'd certainly like some more Adventurers / Pharaohs Quest-type sets. The idea of continuing Pharaohs Quest with a bunch of related themes/subthemes, but set in different locales, like Adventurers, makes me think they should have given the current line a sort of umbrella title and then made "Pharaohs Quest" the subtheme name. Perhaps they'll retroactively assign one. I'd love it if they did an AFOL-oriented LEGO Direct set à la the recent contest here, and gave the site of exploration itself a really detailed design with lots of cool features.

You mean like the first xxxx copies of the Millennium Falcon, with the numbered certificate?

I really want this, and the Imperial Shuttle, but it's very, very difficult for me to justify buying either of them when I didn't get the UCS Millennium Falcon. That's the ship that really should be the "star" of my collection, and it feels a bit wrong to spend all this money on these ships that are less central to the story and less prominent in the movies (each appearing just two of the three movies), affiliated with the antagonists, less visually interesting and lacking the personality / soul of the Falcon. But I'll be getting the new, non-UCS Falcon, at least... The idea that people complain about the inclusion of a command center interior and minifigures in this set makes me agog, though. Honestly...

You mean the hair element for Han in the "Why do they run away???" pic? I feel the same way (well, except for the color, of course, but that's the type of hair I prefer to use for Han).

HERETIC! Seriously! Perhaps, but the Millennium Falcon is a large ship that gets represented as large sets, and not everyone has been able to get them. Also, the Falcon is really one of the most iconic vessels in not just the Star Wars universe, but the entirety of fantasy and science fiction. Really, as long as there's such a thing as an official Star Wars LEGO theme at all, the Millennium Falcon is one of those core, essential things that should be available fairly regularly (if not indeed at all times). LEGO Star Wars without a Millennium Falcon set is like LEGO Star Wars without Artoo-Detoo, See-Threepio or Darth Vader minifigures. As long as they've already tied two previous Millennium Falcon sets to A New Hope and one to The Empire Strikes Back via their minifigures, I can see doing a Return of the Jedi one with Lando Calrissian, Nien Nunb and the rebel gunners from the Battle of Endor, but given how large and expensive any set of the Falcon is going to be, it's probably best to give it a "classic" complement of figures, meaning always with Han Solo and Chewbacca, ideally in their ANH garb. That tends to limit the other figures that might be included with it, though I can see doing others that would work that have never been included with it before (stormtroopers / sandtroopers? Garindan? Jabba the Hutt?).

The new mold is terrific. I do have one long-running quibble about Luke's hair, though, that runs from the very first LEGO Star Wars sets from way back in 1999 all the way to the present day - Luke is not as blond as licensees think he is! TLG has been using tan for Luke's hair since forever, and while it is an improvement over the canary-yellow blond hair he was depicted as having for Kenner's earliest Luke action figures (from around 1978 to 1982 or so) and in a lot of early Marvel Star Wars comics, it's still not really his hair color. I guess many people probably perceive it as being close enough to work, but as it happens TLG currently has a color in its palette that's much, much better suited for the character - dark tan (I forget TLG's official name for it, though I'm sure you can refresh my memory, Aanchir ). But that said... tan is still workable, I think, and the new mold does work marvelously for the character, while still being general enough to be broadly applicable across a variety of themes. But as soon as this new element appears in dark tan, I'll swap it out on all my Luke minifigures to which it would apply. I do think Han would benefit from using a different hair element than the one TLG has always given him, though. Actually, the new-ish parted male hair introduced in 2008 isn't too bad - ironically, it's used for Mutt Williams, but I think it's actually much better-suited for that character's father (and his counterpart in a longago, faraway galaxy) than it does for Mutt, while both of those Harrison Ford characters, Indy and Han, get to use the same old standard male hair. I really wish the carbon-frozen Han element from the new Slave I weren't modeled upon Han with that hair; when I finally pick up that set I'll rationalize the hair sculpt as representing the way the flow of the carbonite moved his hair around, or something. I don't understand why TLG felt the need to do a whole new version of Leia's ANH double bun hairdo. The previous piece is entirely fine.

Thanks for the excellent info!

I still desperately "need" the UCS version, but I'll also be glad to get this. While I intend to ultimately make my own Millennium Falcon rather than relying upon any of the official TLG models (even the UCS), this one appears to be a clear improvement over both the 7190 and the 4504 both inside and out, while also being both more detailed on the inside than on the 10179 and substantially more affordable than it. The biggest disappointment is the entire underside, but for overall playability and such this still looks like a fine set. I've missed out on entirely too many LEGO Millennium Falcon sets; I'm not going to miss this one, too! I plan to add this to my collection. Thanks for the review!

Of course the Gladiator and Dwarf are the rarest. Along with the fitness trainer, according to that list. The list also totals just 49 figures, so it's surely not a full box, which should have 60 unless they've changed it. For all we know, even assuming all the figures cited came out of a single, regularly-packed box (which might not be the case), there could actually be 13 Gladiators per box - granted, that's highly unlikely, but still. I suspect the final assortment will be more or less in line with the previous four series, and that there will be somewhere from three to five of each figure per box, and that if there are any for which there are just two per box at first, they'll tweak the distribution so that later boxes get more. There are always going to be certain figures that have more demand than others, but I don't think TLG is really trying to make any individual figure particularly rare. Of course, we should know for sure in the very near future...

That's what I meant by flat; I should probably have said "flush" or some such thing - all I meant was that if you look at the pie from the side, you don't see something sticking out of the bottom, and if you set it down it lies flat, instead of sticking up at an angle like a top. I did mention having (a) tube(s) in the bottom, like a regular brick; I was just referring to it not having a handle. In one of the photos there appeared to be a tiny seam between the "cream filling" and the "pie crust," which is what made me think it was assembled from two molded pieces.

Something just occurred to me. It seems unlikely to me they would do put sets in huge polybags big enough to contain manuals the size and thickness of the one included in this first set, but the manual's attractive presentation definitely contributes to the appeal of this line. Perhaps the manuals for sets 2 through 5 won't even be contained inside the polybags, as they would with other polybagged sets; perhaps each bimonthly mailing will consist of a package containing a manual and a separate polybag.

A part of me is a little disappointed the boxer's gloves are permanently attached (taking the place of regular minifigure hands), as opposed to being done in the style of the cheerleader's pom-poms, but it's a minor quibble; it's not as though I wouldn't have the gloves on the hands most of the time anyway. There are plenty of other revelations there that make me very happy, I must say, including the aforementioned double face. I'm also glad to see it looks as though the clown's cream pie apparently does indeed have a flat bottom; I was afraid it might have a small sticking out to be gripped in the hand, but I guess it instead has a "standard" element underside (tubes / holes). It also appears to be made of two discrete molded elements preassembled together, like minifigure torsos or the Woody and Jessie Toy Story minifigure heads, rather than simply a single piece with paint. And just look at that rich coppery finish on the murmillion's helmet! It actually looks as shiny as the renderings. Man, this theme is just making mincemeat of my wallet.

Right. Unfortunately, LegoCityMann's still-fine review doesn't mention it or include a really clear view, but if you look carefully at his frontal shot of our lime-suited hero, you can just see enough of the contemporary smiley beyond his goggles to make a positive ID: While I can't say I prefer the new one, as you do, I'm still quite fond of it already, and I'm fine with its inclusion here. But I do think it warrants mentioning, just in case anyone buys this set hoping for a vintage-style face on the astronaut.

Oh, I should also note that while the packaging, manual, etc. depict the minifigure head as bearing the classic smiley that's been around since '78 (but is increasingly rare these days), the one actually included is the "neo-classic smiley" equivalent. It's still a charming, appealing face, and I personally am fine with the substitution (?) since I have quite a few of the old classic smiley faces anyway, but for some others it might be a bit of a disappointment.