Blondie-Wan

What was the worry for? Unless you're just a speculator and you bought your case as an investment, greater availability of the minifigures is a good thing. Oh, one detail I did forget... Series 1 minifigure elements have been made available in the Build-a-Minifigure kiosks in US LEGO Stores. I don't know for sure, but I believe they did an additional production run on those parts specifically in order to alleviate some of the tremendous, unmet demand for Series 1 in the North American market. It's not quite the same as outright reissuing Series 1, since the whole overall "set" wasn't made available (i.e., one still can no longer buy a complete, pre-packaged Series 1 minifigure complete with accessories, display base and mini-poster/"instructions" sheet, but rather can now buy mixed-and-matched components to make those same minifigures that were offered in Series 1), so for those people who do insist upon having the limited edition "collectible" releases sold as such, this shouldn't be a problem, but at the same time it should mean people who just want those minifigures now have another crack at putting them together. I have no idea how many of the S1 CMF elements have been released into the channel this way, though (or which ones, if not all of them are), or how long they'll remain available this way.

I don't know, but I do know that Series 1 and 2 are by far the least plentiful. Series 2 had already finished its production run by the time Series 1 hit shelves, so TLG didn't know how successful this line was going to be until after they'd finished production of both of the first two series. After Series 1 sold like the proverbial hotcakes and TLG knew it had a smash hit, it ramped up production, so from Series 3 onwards they've made / are making a lot more than they did of the first two series, and will presumably continue to do so as long as the minifigures sell so well. From what I understand, the distribution of the first series was pretty skewed in favor of people in Europe, so that people there had a much easier time getting them than people in Canada and the US. By the time it was time to release Series 2, it was apparently too late to actually make a lot more figures to meet the overall demand, but they were able to tweak the distribution a bit so that North America got more than it had the first time, equalizing the overall demand among their different markets, but there was still more demand everywhere than they could meet. After that point, though, there seems to be an adequate supply of each series.

My poster and minifigure were included in the same box as my initial shipment (my order included a preorder item that's supposed to go out on June 1). I ordered early in the morning of May 3rd (I think it must have been around 3am EST), so it might be that I had no trouble getting the promotional items because I beat the rush and got my order in before they were dealing with a crushing number of orders from people trying to get those very same promotional items. That said, the other year I placed an order pretty late during the promotion and didn't get the poster until weeks later, by itself - but I did eventually get it, so there's still reason for hope for those of you who haven't gotten it yet. Solscud007, the Millennium Falcon sets they gave away the other year and the one they're giving away now should be copies they set aside from the original production run; they specifically noted these were from the first edition of the set, with the numbered certificate. Apparently they put aside a small number specifically for promotions like this one; they may have a few more, waiting for May the Fourth 2012, or other future Star Wars events.

It's good to hear it'll be more generally available, and for a decent price. That said, I'm glad I was able to get three of them for practically nothing. They should be more than enough for me... though if I can actually get any more for the same price I might not be able to restrain myself!

This is the case for me, too. In the mid-to-late '90s I began to notice LEGO sets in stores again and feel stirrings of my old passion, and then in the early 2000s, not long after the Star Wars theme began in 1999, its pull became irresistible to me, and I got sucked back into LEGO - and not just for Star Wars, I quickly found, but for all kinds of things. I eventually began basing purchasing decisions mainly just on what I was able to get, since I wanted everything anyway. In the last ten years or so I've gotten sets from World City, City, Adventurers, Pharaohs Quest, Aqua Raiders, Atlantis, Power Miners, Agents, Space Police (III), Arctic, Sports, Wild West, Castle, Knights Kingdom (II), Kingdoms, Pirates, NinjaGo, Games, Studios, Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Batman, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Toy Story, Cars, Spongebob Squarepants, Speed Racer, Prince of Persia, Pirates of the Caribbean, Belville, Creator, Designer, Duplo, Technic, Mindstorms... you name it! I have at least one or two sets from lots of different things, but sadly, few complete themes (Indiana Jones, Prince of Persia and Toy Story are the themes I've been most successful at completing, while Star Wars is the one I have the most of).

Nice catch! That does look like the same piece, though I'm not able to compare them directly (aside from being away from all my LEGO at the moment I'm writing this, I don't have any of those hockey sets, and didn't know about those pieces until now). I'll provisionally add an asterisk to the collectible minifigure part's listing to indicate it's a new mold of an extant piece.

Many thanks, Rufus! I'll try to add a few more parts shortly.

They had a few of the polybags out in the racks with some other polybag sets today, and this one scanned at the price scanner as being just $0.01. That's the same price it was listed at when I checked it out a few days ago at the videogame section, but they weren't offering it on its own at that time; the set was meant to be a free promotional item for preorders of the LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean videogame, and I believe the one-penny price was in the system as sort of a "placeholder" price, just so the item could be included in their computer system at all. Today, though, they had them out with the other LEGO sets, and let me just buy them on their own (well, I did actually buy two other small sets, but not the videogame, and the other two sets combined cost less than one copy of the game, much less three, and weren't required to get these anyway).

A set that size would probably be around $20 whether it had a one- or two-piece floating hull like the one it does, or a hull made of 100 or more "regular" pieces that didn't float. I think the price is pretty fair. That said, I'm curious as to how well it floats. It seems like it would be top-heavy with all the bricks built into the top of it, and easily capsize without a weighted element on the bottom like the weighted keel bricks that came with some of the older boat sets like the one I mentioned earlier. I'd love it if the original poster or someone else who has the set would try actually floating it in a bathtub or something to let us know how it looks (pics would be great!).

"Too expensive" is partly a matter of personal opinion, but I should note I almost never see anyone say any LEGO set is underpriced, while I routinely see the opposite said of sets from pretty much every theme except Creator. I will note I just got three copies of the promotional set 30132, the (zombie? dummy?) Jack Sparrow minifigure, for US $0.01 each - yes, that's one penny apiece (and from Toys 'R Us, no less!), so in my initial LEGO PotC experience I certainly can't complain that they're too expensive!

... So I missed the preorder window for the videogame, and went to Toys 'R' Us later to see if I could still get the figure somehow, perhaps by just purchasing the game, assuming they still had any copies of the minifigure left. It turns out they did - my local TRU didn't get any preorders for the game (!), and they were left not knowing what to do with all these minifigures, and told me at the time they'd probably just continue to offer them free with purchases of the game, though they weren't really sure what they were going to do. They did scan them to see if a reasonable price would come up, and if so they might just sell them, but they came up at a "placeholder" price of $0.01. I was back again today, and this time I noticed that along with all the new sets they'd just gotten and put out (Alien Conquest, Cars, City marina / harbor, City spaceport, etc. ), they'd put out five of these in the racks containing other polybags (Toy Story Pizza Planet alien ships, Star Wars mini Republic Attack Shuttles, leftover Creator Christmas trees, etc.). I scanned one and it still came up for a penny. I asked about it along with some other pricing aberrations and they said I could just buy it at that price. Woohoo! My girlfriend and I picked up all five they had out (two for her, three for me). Yeah, I feel I lucked out. ________________________ As noted already in the review, the figure is quite nice, particularly for a promotional item. I must add, while I think I understand the reasoning, I do still find it amusing that the packaging lists five different countries of origin for the components of a four-piece set.

Keychains (LEGO and non-LEGO alike) tend to take lots of abuse just being kept in pockets, purses, etc. for hours at a time, and going into and out of said pockets. I haven't actually used any of my LEGO keychains as keychains for this very reason; pretty much all the many keychains I've ever had wind up losing attachments and so on over time, losing paint / finishes, etc. I'd think it would be very hard for LEGO to make a keychain that could retain its printing (and even its parts) with regular usage as a keychain for more than a relatively short period (for one thing, unless you put some sort of small bag or something over the brick or minifigure that keeps it from touching the chain, the ring and the keys, it's going to be constantly rubbing and impacting against all those pieces of metal, which can't be good for printed plastic).

There's a guy in the Power Miners set Boulder Blaster with a knit cap... which is a problem when you remember that all Power Miners minifigures have double-sided head printing. That's the biggest example of "What were they thinking?" that I've ever seen with double-sided faces. Generally, though, in themes like Exo-Force and Agents, as well as this theme, the second face print isn't quite that obvious from behind. It's usually easy enough to ignore IMO, but you make a good point about photographs. I don't do a lot of LEGO photography so that aspect of the issue never affects me. There's also a particularly egregious example in one of the World Racers polybagged promo sets, a small jetski-like boat for the X-treme Daredevils (the lime green team), in which the racer has a biker/skateboarder helmet. It shows a huge part of the face on the back of the head regardless of which of the two expressions is showing. This set, on the other hand, shows just the reporter's lower lip, which really amounts to just a red line - easily ignored or overlooked. Someone unfamiliar with LEGO's double-sided minifigure heads could easily look at that photo and not notice the little bit of red there at all. For me, I think the extra playability afforded by having two expressions easily outweighs the (IMO) very minor bit of the "back" face showing at the bottom of the hair (though that said, the most ideal solution would be to have a whole extra head for the second expression, allowing either to be used with other hair / headgear elements that reveal a lot more of the back of the head). But that's just my opinion, of course.

I love the inclusion of the tracks here as well, and I actually like the fact it's black instead of "dark stone" or whatever TLG calls it; I think it'll look great for Indy mocs depicting the tracks in certain parts of the mines, especially for scenes where it's "underlit" by "lava" somewhere below. I also think the ramshackle appearance of the tracks might be well-served by using a handful of different track colors anyway (truth be told, I think the ideal color for that track would be something like reddish-brown or dark orange anyway). I obviously do hope to pick up "extras" of this set (or at least the track - wouldn't it be great if it turned up in PAB?) to expand a certain Indiana Jones creation I plan to do sometime... though I also want this set just as an Alien Conquest set. The fact that it contains so much of this track (twice as many segments as the set for which it was created!) is just a really, really nice bonus, for me. Because of the tiny bit of the mouth on her alternate expression visible at the bottom of her hair? It's there, but it's so minute a detail in this instance I'd consider it pretty trivial and easily ignored, to be honest - it doesn't really stand out. If anything, I would say this picture doesn't explain particularly well why one might find double-faced minifigures undesirable; there are several much better examples in various other sets. IMO, this one isn't really worth getting worked up about... again, IMO, of course. I somehow doubt the aliens were signatories to the Geneva Convention. That said, it's interesting to see in an official TLG product description; it's really skirting the edges of what's traditionally been acceptable for them, I think.

I think the OP meant "why did MB get the Spider-Man 3 license when TLG had done the first two movies," which I think is a fine question (apologies to the OP if that's not what was meant, and I don't wish to pretend to speak for others). I imagine Sony / Columbia issued licenses for the movie franchise (as I understand it, the studio rather than Marvel handled the movie series licensing) on a movie-by-movie basis (I believe Paramount used to do something similar for Star Trek for a number of years, so that merchandise of a given type might be produced by an array of different companies for the original series, the movies, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, etc.). It'd be interesting to know why the construction toy license switched licensees between the second and third movies.

Ah, Ok, of course. I knew it was one of those...

Wow, really? I'd like it; I wish I had access to your stores. How much is it going for now, in those stores that still have it?

They also show the minifigure shot for the Earth Defense HQ in the gallery for the Alien Mothership. They have a few kinks to iron out of the listings, apparently. It's still great to see them up at last, though. I can't wait to see them in person!

I don't think Transformers ever stood a chance, since it's first and foremost another toy company's toy to begin with, not just a movie/TV license that other companies happen to have made toys from. TLG apparently (and if so, understandably) has absolutely zero interest in licensing IP from other toy companies, judging from the absence of Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, Slinky Dog, Barbie & Ken, etc. from the Toy Story sets.

Whoa! I somehow totally failed to realize it has those elements. I already wanted this set a lot, short list of play features be damned - the handful it does have are full of win, for me - but now, I want multiples of this set. I'm totally jonesing for it!

I actually kind of like Belville, for whatever reason. I half-want to use the figures as giant princesses and fashionistas rampaging through my LEGO City, or possibly teaming up with Exo-Force-style mechs against the Alien Conquerors. Leg Godt Gud, the Belville theme does indeed use larger, more traditionally "doll"-like figures, and the sets tended to be LEGO versions of the sorts of playsets and accessories one would typically associate with girls' dolls (houses, castles, stables, etc.). It was actually around for quite a while, since at least the mid-'90s until just last year, but as far as I could tell it didn't make it into stores very often. Here's LEGO's product page for the last wave of sets, some of which are still available. LEGO's taken criticism for the theme at times, as some have perceived them to be channelling girls into stereotypical play patterns, as though saying that only dollhouse-style play is appropriate for or interesting to girls, but I've long had the impression it was the other way around - that LEGO was trying to reach out to girls who are already accustomed to that kind of toy and play, and offer them LEGO sets that build upon that (literally) as sort of an "in" to building toys, which they might not otherwise pick up. From what I can tell, the theme wasn't really successful at that larger goal, though it may have succeeded as simply another LEGO theme - it certainly must have sold some sets, for it to have run fifteen years or more. Anyway, I'm glad to see LEGO's trying something new. I hope the new theme is something I can use in my own City creations (actually, another version of Paradisa would be just fine by me - my minifigures would love a tropical island getaway, I'm sure!).

I half-wonder whether there isn't enough interest in the Minifigures theme to give it its own forum here...

I'd think using the same head as one used elsewhere (instead of a brand-new head) would've been going the cheap way. _________________________ Great-looking set. I must have this, and all the other Alien Conquest sets!

I haven't voted in the poll, since I can't choose a favorite, but I'd like to be able to answer the other questions (how many series have I fully collected, etc.). WhiteFang, would you be willing to change the poll again to allow certain questions left blank? But a) not everyone was able to get all those other sets (I have just one Vikings set, for example, and none of the "fantasy era" Castle sets that have dwarves, even though I wanted to get several), and b) variety is always good and useful, certainly for figures not in some sort of uniform. I was glad to get the skater in Series 1, even if there are already plenty of blue skateboards; the skater's outfit is still new, and adds welcome variety to the range of torsos and faces available to builders. The Series 4 skater is even better, since he not only has a totally different outfit, but also a skateboard in new colors and with unique printing. I hope there are even more skaters and surfers and snowboarders produced in later waves - and additional cavepeople, zombies, Native Americans, etc., for that matter. I also don't think the figures you cite are actually the most common in the series.

I'd actually seen that thread before, but had overlooked or forgotten the info Aanchir cited. Thanks!