Blondie-Wan

The topic title is self-explanatory, but here it is again: is anyone else having trouble getting to Shop at Home? I've tried to check out TLG's online store multiple times from both work and home today, and I can get the main site, but not the shop - every attempt to get to S@H sends me back to the front page of LEGO.com, even if I click the "Shop" link on that page. I'd think it was my computer, but I get this from both my own computer at home plus the one I use at work.

Ah, Ok. Somehow I'd overlooked the mention of it in the book, and I haven't looked very extensively at the online stuff yet, though I plan to. It does make more sense, though. I also noticed the box is a fair bit deeper than it needs to be to accommodate the tray and the manual; perhaps this bodes well for the future manuals (in that the space is needed for all six of them on top of each other, with the tray underneath). Oh, I do have one slight quibble with the tray. I think it would have been better to form it in white or yellow rather than black, as it can make black elements hard to spot in the wells. But that's probably not a huge issue, if one at least has an organizational system that lets one remember which sorts of elements would be in which compartment. (Should this topic be in Sci-Fi? I know it makes sense for the initial, spaceship-themed release, but once we start getting microscale airports and whatnot in the theme...)

I just received this set myself a couple days ago, and I've enjoyed it so far, despite having built only one of the three models (the rocket, which was the one that appealed to me most - I concur with the instruction book's observations about the classic appeal of such elegant retro designs). First of all, despite having built just one of the models I do think all three look great, and I'm looking forward to building the others. Design-wise, both the ships (particularly the rocket) and the minifigure seem almost designed to complement the LEGO Universe promotional sets. There aren't as many parts as I would like (like others, I'd say the set's biggest shortcoming is the price for the number of elements), but what's here is good, particularly the multitude of hinges and the swooping, half-arch curved bricks. The physical quality of the presentation is absolutely wonderful, and in particular the tray in the box evokes the more lavish packaging of sets from decades ago. The manual is even better than any of those, though, or anything I've ever seen in any theme outside of perhaps Mindstorms and Architecture. The building tips and strategies contained therein are probably not going to be really novel or revelatory to most of the people in this forum, but I could see them being really good for a kid just starting out with LEGO. It's hard for me to judge whether they'd be really useful for a kid with a little more experience; presumably we'll get an idea of this as the program goes on and the parents among us offer their observations of their own kids playing with this set. Like Aanchir, I'm also curious about the manuals for the future sets. Getting back to the box and the parts, it does seem there's a lot more space here than is really needed, but looking at the images on TLG's site of the later sets, it appears they're going to be in polybags. Perhaps the intent is for this initial box to be used to store the full year's complement of all six sets? If the others are in polybags, I don't know that the later manuals will be nearly as nice as this one, but we'll see how it goes.

I have that one, and I can verify that it is a little thicker, though I'm away from my LEGO at the moment and can't say exactly how thick it is. It is indeed possible that it's as thick as a regular plate, but I'm not sure.

I do see people swap arms and hands and such for their creations all the time, and I've frequently been half-tempted to myself. I just get skittish about it, though - TLG obviously considers a full torso assembly to be a piece, and treats it as such; I was under the impression they weren't really designed to be disassembled and reassembled like any other bricks (even though they can be), and that doing it stresses and damages those pieces. Is this the case? Or can I safely mix and match hands and arms as easily as I do heads, hair/hats, torsos and hips/legs? Also, has any official TLG design ever called for removal of arms or hands from torsos, or legs from hips?

Ah, Ok. Not entirely unexpected given the usual pricing at theme parks, but I'd hoped for price parity with LEGO stores, given the close association between the parks and LEGO, but of course it's not as close as if TLG itself were actually operating them (Merlin Entertainment, I know). At least it sounds as though the 10% discount for Plus Passholders will still save me money compared to paying MSRP, at least on larger sets. Thanks for the info! I'm looking forward to going to LEGOLAND Florida when it opens October 15.

Well... except as part of the purchase of a minifigure, of course.

Yeah, I know the knife has been chromed before. According to Peeron, it actually appears that way in far more sets than it does without chroming, though the last time it was chromed was in 2005. Alas, I have only non-chromed ones, but I do have several of those. I'd simply been idly wondering about it because they actually did use a chromed one in the photography for the set packaging for Peril in Peru, but the actual production set doesn't come with it.

Neat, except... this is a purist custom? I wouldn't have considered removing arms from torsos to be purist...

Oh, one more thing I should have asked earlier - what are the prices like to begin with? Are LEGO sets priced at their standard MSRP within the parks? Typically higher? Typically lower?

I actually had the same thought about the utility of the Werewolf for Star Wars a while ago. Hrm - this topic got moved while I was digging through my old posts to make this one. I typically don't hang out in Minifig Customization Workshop, as I was under the impression it was specifically meant for part modders, custom third-party stuff from Brickforge, etc. and I'm quite the purist myself. For those of us who just want to swap heads and hairpieces and whatnot to create our own variations, this is still the place to talk about it, then?

Hrm. I hadn't realized they were actually changing the physical design of the coin now... though I also have to say I don't think I'd consider it a bad thing if they sent me the old sprues with 4 shiny gold coins on them instead of the newer coins that apparently come with the sets (especially if they're sending a whole, old-style, four-coin sprue in lieu of one individual coin of the new style - honestly, that's four times as many gold coins!). This isn't the first time I've seen LEGO box art show a chromed part that wasn't chromed in the set, incidentally; Mutt's knife shows up as chrome in the package photography on the Indiana Jones set Peril in Peru, but is Dark Stone in the set. I'm half-tempted to ask about a replacement for that...

It is expensive, but it's also still a good way to get figures - or rather, figure parts - that aren't that common (and are becoming less so, given that some of them come from sets that have recently been discontinued. One or two of them aren't common at all, actually - in what other current or even recent set can one get a plain yellow or sand blue torso? No, but given that the head is clearly not really suited for that hat anyway (because the alternate face is clearly visible all the way up to the eyes at the back of the head, if such a hat is used), I think it's really better viewed as a few additional minifigure parts rather than a minifigure, per se, even if TLG does show it put together this way on the box. It is unfortunate there are so many of the same two heads - particularly the very specific, double-sided female head - but again, I still think it's overall a fairly valuable source of minifigure components, particularly for the fantastic / historic themes. I plan to get this.

I'd agree this set doesn't quite work as a "set" with the minifigures kept as they are on their own, but in fairness I do think it offers excellent potential when combined with other elements in one's collection. Though none of the parts here are unique, their abundance in other sets is arguable; many of these parts aren't being offered in any other current sets, and many people will naturally have missed getting the other recent sets in which these components can be found, so I think this is still a (potentially) really useful parts pack for minifigures and accessories, along with a tiny smattering of desirable semi-basic bricks. I think the set is particularly desirable for the pirate elements (or soon will be, anyway), as the 2009 Pirates line continues its fade away from retail availability. I also particularly like it for the dark tan turban (otherwise available in this color only in a single Prince of Persia set, and how long can we expect that to hang around?), the tan fedora (otherwise available only in the "Community" counterpart to this set and two discontinued farm sets), and the critters, some of which are plentiful elsewhere but a couple of which aren't, really. And if you'll forgive one more eensy quibble with the quibbles, there are actually three different head / face designs in the set, not just two... though it's also true skulls are hardly rare or difficult to come by.

lets not get carried away, SW is a whole galaxy of mainly vehicle-based sets and iconic characters and ships. Whereas Avengers would be a couple of buildings and "fight" sets and maybe a vehicle of two, Avengers would have to rely on minifigures, and not a lot of inspiration for sets will give this license a maximum of maybe three waves. Yes, but if TLG were to get the rights to the comics as well... the fanbase for comics is huge, and there is probably a hell of a lot more stuff to make from the comics than the films. But, lets hope it doesn't come to that. I wouldn't want to see SW end because of Marvel, but see Marvel come in and fill the space that SW had once SW is (eventually) ended. But that may never happen, so whatever. All I was saying was that the comics had the potential to become as big as SW. Yeah, but few kids today read comics (they don't know what they're missing) Sadly true, perhaps, but I think Fives has a point; consider how TLG handled Batman - they still based the theme upon the comics... and the movies, and the TV shows, and most of the rest of the overall Batman mythos in general, with its various incarnations and permutations. If TLG approached an Avengers (Marvel?) license the same way, then... yow, there's no end to the possible sets they could do. I don't know that the theme would ever surpass Star Wars if only for the sheer popularity of the latter, but if there's anything that comes anywhere close to the sort of broad, multigenerational appeal of the Star Wars saga, and has a comparably huge body of source material to draw upon (substantially more, actually), it'd be Marvel (or DC).

I don't think a new flame mold would be needed - they could use the existing flame element and combine it with one of the hollow-stud 1x1 round plates introduced in the LEGO Games, and it should make a perfect flame w/stud to let it attach to a minifigure foot.

I don't think it even would kill off the chances of more Batman. Aren't there a slew of companies already that make both Marvel and DC merchandise? Perhaps most of them aren't major toy lines, but still... Anyway, LEGO already has ongoing licensing partnerships with both Disney (Marvel's new owner, as of not long ago) and Warner Bros. (DC's parent company, as of quite some time ago) - not only Batman, but Harry Potter and Speed Racer have come through Warner as well (in close association with J K Rowling, in the case of HP). Speed Racer is gone, but Harry Potter goes on as TLG's second-biggest licensed theme ever after Star Wars, and TLG has to have an ongoing relationship with Warner Bros. as long as they want to keep doing HP. At the same time, they appear to be interested in doing regular Disney themes from this point on, what with Toy Story, Cars, Prince of Persia, Pirates of the Caribbean and Winnie the Pooh all already out, and who knows what coming up in the future (we can't know how long or far it'll go, but I can easily imagine them keeping Pirates of the Caribbean as an ongoing regular theme filling the void left by their homegrown pirate themes' absence for as long as people keep buying PotC, and it also seems reasonably likely they might do at least one wave of releases for each new Pixar movie from this point out, while possibly also keeping Cars going for a while beyond the Cars 2 release). If they're already doing other properties from both Warner and Disney anyway, I don't think that would present too many obstacles to doing both Marvel and DC sets at about the same time. I think the question instead simply hangs upon whether TLG and Marvel/Disney decide a LEGO Marvel license/theme is in both companies' interests (let's hope they do!). Meanwhile, whatever factors currently keeping LEGO Batman on ice have to be dealt with before that theme returns, regardless of whether they also wind up doing any Marvel stuff (beyond the Sony-administered Spider-Man license they ran with a while back). Hopefully they'll at least resume Batman for a little while when the next movie comes out.

You say "you cant tell the diffrence between new and old figs" as though it were a bad thing. I don't understand why one wouldn't want one's uniformed troops to look, well, uniform.

I wouldn't say it's never worth the price, though obviously it depends upon various factors. For putting together ordinary things like cops and firefighters it certainly isn't, but as I noted one can also get other things there, sometimes figure elements no longer being offered in sets or offered only in sets costing substantially more than the $9.99 it takes to BAM, and in such cases it certainly can be, depending upon what one's priorities are as well as exactly what parts are available. But I do think you've hit the nail on the head in idenftifying the BAM experience as part of what you pay for.

I like this a lot. I particularly like how the color selection avoids what I consider a weak point of many Tatooine MOCs, where the buildings and ground are almost entirely tan everywhere - in the "real" Tatooine it looks fine since the different textures, etc. still "break up" the monotony, but in LEGO, where it's all bricks, it tends to blend everything together. Here, though, the different colors used for so many buildings and details avoid this sort of visual mess, while still maintaining a Tatooine-y look. I'm personally planning on skewing mine a bit lighter (more white than grey, etc.), simply because "brighter" works more nicely for me (and feels more "LEGO-y"), but that's just a personal preference. This is great!

I got anywhere from two to four of each Series 1 minifigure (and then my girlfriend gave me a fifth cheerleader for Christmas; I'll also be getting a few more sealed Series 1 figures from her, though I don't know yet which ones they'll be), and I have to say there's not one Series 1 figure I wouldn't like to have at least one more of, including the skateboarder. That said, I'd personally rather have one or more additional robots, spacemen, tribal hunters, cowboys, forestmen, demolition dummies or even deep sea divers than either skateboarders or cheerleaders. I, too, wonder whether future calendars (or other "home" items) might include additional minifigures from Minifigures Series 1 (or other series!)...

Whoa, that's neat! And I'm stunned to see any new set that includes whole minifigures from the Minifigures line. That might rankle a few people, actually, since the Minifigures were presented as these limited-edition things that wouldn't be available any other way, but perhaps they're making an exception for the Series 1 ones since they were in such short supply. Anyway, I think this would be worth getting just for the printed date bricks; the minifigures are just a really nice bonus (and bring the total number of printed elements in this up to 57 ). I hope this is available at LEGOLAND Florida when it opens...

Oops. Finally getting to that now (and I should be able to add others soon; I do have all the figures from all four series, but it can sometimes take me a while to check out the part numbers, as you've undoubtedly surmised). Shall do!

It varies, not only from store to store, but at the same store from day to day. As it happens, I was just at the LEGO Store at Downtown Disney Marketplace at Orlando, Florida a couple times in the past few days, and they had several Build-A-Minifigure elements I found interesting, though I wasn't able to get as many things as I'd like. They had a few mermaid torsos and tails, some Minifigures Series 1 parts (Forestman torsos, heads and hats, Cheerleader heads and hair, Nurse hair and I think some heads, Clown legs, torsos, heads and hair, Magician torsos and faces), some Pirates elements (mermaid torsos and tails, various heads, "striped shirt" pirate torsos, lots of cutlasses and a single flintlock pistol), a couple of the newer Space Police criminal torsos with the Blacktron homage, a kepi hat in black, a surprising number of Naboo Fighter Pilot torsos, some pointed witch/wizard-style hats, and so on. Usually I don't see such interesting pieces in BAM sections, but as noted, it always varies. The things I notice most often are "semi-generic" heads (heads commonly used in various themes), torsos for the more common City folk (cops, firefighters, etc.), and certain regularly recurring accessory items (visors for helmets, pickaxes, binoculars, etc.), but I've also found black fedoras, Pirates redcoats elements (torsos, shakos, etc.), and more.

Um... sure? I mean, FOR SCIENCE! But I imagine we'll find out soon enough, I suppose.