Blondie-Wan

Indeed, that's the sort of thing I was thinking. That said, IIRC someone did officially confirm that some would be more or less common than others, but my memory's hardly infallible; can anyone confirm this with evidence? I do think this is the case as well, but we should also remember that different people will not only want different minifigs, but will want them in different quantities, which should also impact demand. Whether it has the effect of evening demand out or making the differential demand levels even more lopsided is hard to say without polling data or something like that, though. For example, from all I've read on the forums here, the diver is one of the less exciting ones for most people - there are already a lot of diver minifigures, after all, even if the specific diver here has a distinctive look with a unique print and slightly different molds for the accessories and so on. Let's imagine, then, that the number of people specifically seeking the diver is fairly low - one out of every five people, say (I have no idea what the actual figure might be; I'm just making stuff up. I want at least one of each minifig, myself, and I know many others do as well, but anyway...). However, the diver is something that, for those who do want it, many will want more than one, to make a team out of them - so if those who do want it each want around five of them on average, then for every five buyers / collectors there's a demand for a total of twenty-five divers. On the other hand, we might say that three or four people out of every five want the clown, but most of them will be satisfied with just one or two clowns, so that for every five collectors there might typically be a total demand for just five or six clowns. In this hypothetical scenario, there would therefore be a lot more overall demand for divers than clowns, even though more individual people would want clowns than divers.

Indeed, but all the official word I've seen indicates these really will have an MSRP of $1.99 each. Of course, the retailers will have the last word on how much they actually cost - I don't particularly expect Toys 'R' Us to carry them for that much, for example. ;) But apparently LEGO itself, at least, will indeed sell them for $1.99 in its own stores and through Shop at Home. Oh, goodness, tell me about it.

Perhaps I've just been lucky when it comes to quality, but I haven't really had a lot of troublesome issues with stuff I've gotten recently. Nice to see evidence whatever issues are there are being addressed, though. Regarding this specific minifig, I absolutely love a) the fact that even this unique design still incorporates the Classic Space insignia putting him in the same LEGO Space universe as the rest of the Space line, and b) that oh-so-retro-classic style raygun, looking straight out of old Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers strips or serials. I foresee lots of vintage-style space opera MOCs putting it to good use. Regarding the overall line in general, what I'm most curious about now is the odds of getting any one particular character. IIRC, we've heard that there will be varying quantities of different figures, but we have no idea yet which ones will be the rarest or most common, or exactly how rare or common each will be. I think it might be a good idea to start a special thread here to track this info, where people post what minifigs they get out of how many packages they open, so we can get an idea of the general odds for each character. What does everyone think?

They're from the TV series. I know some people would consider the show to be "EA," but it's clearly closer to the movies in "canon level" than it is to the comics, novels, etc. - it's an official Lucasfilm live-action screen production created, cowritten and executive produced by Indy creator George Lucas himself, with the involvement of many others who worked on the movie series, and specific events from it are even specifically discussed in dialogue in the most recent movie. As I understand it, Lucasfilm ranks the show below the movies but above the comics, novels, games, etc. in canon level for licensing purposes; I'd imagine Lucas himself personally considers the show to have the same standing as the movies, though granted I haven't personally asked him about it. But given that Lucas was directly involved (to the same extent or even greater than he was with the later movies, and to a much greater extent than he is on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, for example), and that events from the show are actually mentioned in one of the movies, I see no real reason why it should be treated as any less canon than the movies.

This is a subject in which I've had a particular interest myself. I, too, want a huge variety of characters represented, including all the important ones, but I'm too much a purist to want to use custom decals and the like. I'm hopeful that if / when the line returns, we'll eventually get official minifigs for at least some of the above characters, particularly Marcus and Sallah, though I'm not wildly optimistic about others, including some you didn't mention but which I really want; I think the most likely opportunities for Oxley and Mac already came with the KotCS release wave of sets in '08, for example. Some characters I think the line needs to be truly "complete" (in lieu of official minifigs for the time being): Anna Mary Jones Helen Seymour Remy Baudouin Marcus Brody Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir Harold Oxley George "Mac" McHale Simon Katanga Wu Han Walter Donovan Toht Chattar Lal ... and if we dip our toes into the "EA," how about Sophia Hapgood? I think a passable Sophia (as seen in much of Fate of Atlantis) can easily be made with one of Indy's own jacketed torsos (particularly easy, since any LEGO Indy fan is likely to have scads of extras of that anyway), blue or dark blue hips / legs, a head in light flesh with a suitable female face, and red, dark red or reddish brown hair, perhaps borrowed from Hermione or Mary Jane...

Hi! Welcome (back) to the brick. :) For your main question, I don't have a more specific answer than "buy what you like" - the other replies pretty well cover everything else. That said, I do have an eensy bit of advice pertaining to something else you mention, since you're soliciting advice anyway... I'd sort them by type before sorting them by color; sorting by color isn't going to do much to help make it easier to find the piece you need in a drawer full of parts. Good luck!

I'm not particularly worried about that; to me, LEGO is LEGO, and if I buy or trade for a used set from someone, it's pretty much as if I got a bunch of loose parts anyway. Once they go into my collection, all my red 1x2 bricks (for example) are red 1x2 bricks, and I'll treat them accordingly, even if I can tell what era they're from; they're all fair game for my MOCs. For the purposes of inventorying my collection on Peeron, if I acquire a used set and it's clear to me that the elements aren't all the exact same ones that would have come in the original set box but instead are equivalent pieces from other eras, I'll list it in my collection as individual loose bricks rather than as the set. What I'm worried about is people making counterfeit copies of parts and passing them off as actual LEGO. If a set or part is particularly rare and valuable, how can I be sure it's the genuine article? Surely, old sets and parts like cypress trees and monorail elements must be valuable enough that someone with access to the same sort of equipment as BrickForge or BrickArms might be able to turn a profit turning out exact replicas on the sly, and passing them off into the market as real cypress trees and monorail track. Perhaps someone can even print out copies of vintage boxes and seal baggies and whatnot and recreate entire sets of, say, '70s vintage. If I decide to go after something commanding a high price (not likely in the near future, given my finances, but someday), how can I know I'm getting the genuine article and not a high-quality knockoff?

Since this thread seems largely devoted to sightings, I suppose I should report that I began seeing all of these (both Star Wars, both City and all five Duplo Farm) at the Target here (Tallahassee, FL, USA) last week, all priced at the same pricing reported everywhere ($3.49 for each of the two SW sets, $2.99 for each of the others). Quantities seemed reasonable as of Friday, Feb. 26th, when I last looked. I've picked up a single X-Wing Fighter thus far.

To be honest, I'm surprised this was even a question; the very idea of a licensed western theme wouldn't have occurred to me (except as a small part of some much larger license that's mostly not western). As already noted, there hardly are any westerns these days that would make suitable LEGO themes, anyway, and of course I'm sure LEGO would rather go with something in-house anyway. I'd be happy just to see some more "Legends"-style reissues of older sets, but a whole new iteration of Wild West would be great.

Almost all of my set boxes from Shop at Home have arrived without stickers. I live in the US, and I've gotten through Shop at Home a couple copies each of the City sets Police Motorcycle, set 7235, and Public Works, set 5611, that arrived in what I believe is the standard packaging in many non-US countries, which has a little less text than the US versions of the packaging does (no set name or piece count). My copies of both of these packages came with wide, thin white stickers across the bottom of the box fronts with choking hazard warnings. Though the boxes do mention the small parts and the sets' unsuitability for children under 3 in the small text on the sides of the box, these warning stickers are quite a bit larger. I assume they were added to comply with US product safety labeling regulations, though I don't know why the US Shop at Home was selling the sets in the non-US-style boxes to begin with. Otherwise, I don't get them with price stickers or anything like that, no. The brick-and-mortar LEGO Stores do have prices on the boxes, of course, but there's no reason for them to put them on mail-order sets. Personally, it's a point of interest but not really an issue for me, as I simply can't keep all the boxes; I barely have enough room for the actual products in my tiny apartment as it is, and I'm forced to get rid of most of the boxes, though I do keep a few of the ones that interest me most.

Meanwhile, as far as the main topic goes... Really, I'd like to see more sets in the existing themes (or reissues of some of the classic ones as Legends or something, if TLC is still interested in doing those). The areas already covered do include an awful lot of the "classic" adventure environs; perhaps extending one of the themes would be a good idea. For example, if Orient Expedition returned (as "Orient Expedition II" or something), we could see a lot of additional territory covered that would fall under that theme but that wasn't represented with specific sets in the previous subtheme - sets set in Java, say. I also wonder whether it might be fun to have a subtheme involving an epic voyage around the world, and thus including sets from a wide variety of environments. The major obstacle I see to this would be that it would probably call for a much broader color palette, range of specialty / accessory elements, and so on than TLC would want to produce all at once, but I think it could be done. If nothing else, things like the first Agents wave make me think they're not incapable of handling a theme set in a wide variety of environments all at once like that...

It appears I misunderstood you indeed, though not in the way you appear to think I did; I thought you meant the series wasn't popular enough to have an "expanded universe" at all, not simply one represented in LEGO sets (i.e., I thought you meant there weren't any novels, comics, etc.). It appears we misunderstood one another. As I noted in a previous post, I certainly don't think sets based on the novels, comics and so on (or even the TV series, as much as I might wish for them) are particularly likely, either. I do continue to hope and wish for them, though. FWIW, I do think that if such sets were done, they could sell quite well. Even people unfamiliar with the stories the sets were drawn from might buy the sets anyway, if the sets were appealing enough. At any rate, even putting all that aside, there's still plenty of room for sets drawn purely from the movies; TLC hasn't come anywhere close to exhausting the possibilities of the four films. I constantly see people wanting the tank from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (and there are lots of other vehicles and plenty of action and characters in the scene it's in - ample fodder for multiple sets from that one scene, actually). The "Lao Che's Air Freight" Ford Trimotor would also make a terrific set - indeed, it would complete a pattern LEGO began with Peril in Peru (they've done one medium/large, $50 set based around an airplane or airplanes for each of the other three movies; the same size/price-point would be a good one for the Trimotor, and give us a quartet of these sets, one per movie). The Dunn & Duffy Circus train from the "Utah, 1912" Last Crusade prologue is yet another obvious candidate, with the added benefit it would appeal immensely to Trains fans as well as Indy ones. And there are still many important characters from the movies who remain completely unrepresented so far, including Marcus, Sallah, Oxley, Mac, Donovan, Toht and others, as well as characters like Belloq who appear in multiple outfits but have only one minifig. Heh. I'm very definitely pro-Indy sets, but that's not to say I'm anti-Adventurers. Frankly, I'd love to see both themes get extensive continued representation. As I noted earlier, I'm even open to sets combining the two, with Indy and Johnny and their respective sets of companions setting off on quests and adventures together. FWIW, I've also seen at least one Adventurers fan site that effectively treats Indiana Jones as simply a specialized Adventurers subtheme (one rooted in an established fictional narrative series originating in movies). One might present a reasonable argument that it is. I do very much love Adventurers as its own theme, too, and not just for its resemblance to Indy. The theme began while I was in my dark ages, alas, and I don't have most of the sets, but I do have a few Dino Island and almost all the Orient Expedition sets. I hope to get more someday.

Oh, I certaily agree it's not likely, for just the reasons you mention; I was merely commenting on what could be done (as in, what there was some sort of basis for in the existing body of Indy lore). I certainly realize the commercial potential of sets based on the TV series (to say nothing of the books, comics, games, theme park attractions, etc.) is not nearly as great as that of sets based on just the movies, and I therefore agree it's less likely we'll see any actual sets done from those sources as it is we'll see any more from the movies (and even the latter is quite uncertain at the moment). I'm just pointing out there are a lot more stories about Indiana Jones in existence than most people realize, and they cover an awful lot of ground.

I have no qualms about letting people know I love LEGO. I sometimes wear LEGO t-shirts out and about (I've been wearing one all day today, in fact; I have it on as I write this), so even strangers passing by and getting only a glimpse of me may still get some idea about my enthusiasm.

Ah, but you're wrong, there - there's a ton of "expanded universe" material for Indy (actually, the preferred term for this franchise seems to be "expanded adventures," or EA to its sister franchise's EU). There's a slew of novels, comics and games - and what's more, there's a whole television show, which enjoys higher-level canon status. And one of the most prolific and talented Indy MOCers here has already done a number of scenes from the show, many of which could easily work as sets. I'd say quite the opposite, actually - Indiana Jones (and other themes based on licensed narratives, such as Star Wars) can conceivably fit multiple thematic milieus, while LEGO's own themes are devoted specifically to those ideas (general classic adventure, the Wild West, undersea adventure, etc.). The Indiana Jones series contains material that, if it weren't all tied to the exploits of a particular character but were still done as LEGO sets, would fit into a whole bunch of themes besides Adventurers - there'd be City, Trains, Architecture, Wild West, Castle... even Atlantis and Studios (!). (There's also a whole bunch of Indy lore that LEGO presumably just wouldn't do because of their other policies over the kinds of material they simply stay away from, such as 20th century warfare, though of course the Indy theme has pushed the edges of that already anyway.) The only obstacle to all this would be the likelihood that TLC would mostly want to stick with the movies, which I do agree is probably the case. That said, they could do an awfully broad, diverse range of things within the Indy theme if they wanted to, which is all I'm saying. They wouldn't even have to make stuff up - just basing sets on existing things in the various Indy movies and shows, books, comics, games, etc., they could do numerous trains, western scenes, adventures on every continent in all sorts of environments, crimefighting, Atlantean ruins, military engagements, countless trap-laden temples and "lost civilizations" and such, beautiful CC-style modular buildings from the world's great cities, action-packed vignettes and tranquil vistas, world-changing moments from 20th-century history, vampires, even dinosaurs.

Oh, I must take strong exception to the first half of your statement! As much potential as Adventurers indisputably has, I can't agree at all that it has more (let alone so much more) than Indiana Jones - in fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of any subthemes or set concepts for Adventurers that couldn't also fit into Indy, but I can think of quite a few Indy ideas that wouldn't fit Adventurers at all. That said, I do also hope Adventurers will return some day, even though I also want Indy to go on and I know it's profoundly unlikely both would be done at the same time. Adventurers is a great, classic theme, and there's tons of unexplored territory (so to speak) left for it.

Noooooo! Oh, it certainly could be ending, but I really hope not. I do think there's a very real chance it'll return - no guarantee, certainly, but it's got a decent chance, I think. As I understand it, it's going on hiatus simply to make room for Prince of Persia, and I doubt that's a theme they'd keep around for very long even if it's somewhat successful (and certainly I doubt it'll actually be more successful than Indiana Jones already has been). And 2011 will be the 30th anniversary (!!!) of Indy... Now, this is vexing. On the one hand I love and adore Indiana Jones, and want it kept as a LEGO theme for years and years to come, but on the other I also love LEGO's original Adventurers theme, and I certainly wouldn't expect it to come back with Indy around (especially if it's true they're putting Indy on hiatus to make room for the far less similar Prince of Persia). What to do? One possible solution I've wondered about would be simply combining the two - how about Indy / Adventurers crossover sets? Just imagine - official sets with both Indiana Jones and Johnny Thunder as comrades (or friendly rivals?), teaming up or competing for fortune and glory, while thwarting the nefarious schemes of Lord Sinister and René Belloq. Perhaps they could revisit classic sets from one theme with the characters from the other, or produce all-new sets combining characters from both. I think it would be delightful! That idea aside... I do imagine TLC will probably never stray too far from some sort of adventure-based theme for too long. If Indy is indeed gone for any significant length of time, I imagine Johnny will return, in one form or another, at least for a little while (and perhaps eventually replaced again with some other adventure theme)...

Legostein, nice work!

Blasphemy! The Outrider doesn't hold a candle to the Millennium Falcon. That said... as replicas of the Outrider go, this is certainly a nice one.

Indeed, though of course it's a minifig of Prof. Henry Walton Jones, Sr., not Sir Thomas Sean Connery. But a nice review all the same! I particularly like how you cited the different piece counts cited by BrickLink and the other sources (66 pieces? What's up with that - are they not counting the minifigs, or something?). This is indeed a great set, too, and heralded many great sets to come in this theme. I do wish the bike fairings had been more period-looking, but presumably at the time the set was designed TLC wanted to be sure it had bike molds it would be able to use frequently in other themes. Oh, and one could always wish for more bike soldiers (this scene in the movie has four), but as it is the set probably hits a sweet spot for playability and value. What a great little set this is!

My top dream licensed theme would be not from one single licensed property, but from a series of them under one umbrella theme, a sort of "classic cinema" theme. I don't know what it would be called, but the unifying idea would be that all of the sets would be taken from vintage classic black-and-white films - and the sets would be in monochrome, with all the bricks being only white, black, and various shades of grey, with occasional silver and/or chrome elements, reflecting the photography of the movies. Some set ideas: Frankenstein's castle / laboratory from Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein Rick's Café Américain from Casablanca Xanadu from Citizen Kane Klaatu's saucer landing site from The Day the Earth Stood Still ... and so on.

As I understand it, LEGO currently has a policy against printing other companies' names, logos, etc. on their bricks for corporate branding reasons, so anything with Ferrari, Shell, etc. logos has to be a sticker rather than a print, even if it's a minifig torso. I know this is a change from the past, as they've done prints on minifig torsos and other bricks with logos for real-world companies like Shell, but I believe that's the current stance, which is why all those Ferrari sets are so stickerrific - the cars, crew jackets, etc. are covered with company logos everywhere. Note that 8375 does actually have a couple printed elements, just not ones with company logos on them.

If by "too many" you mean "one of each," then yes. I love them all and want them now. I'm really surprised LEGO actually referred to the disco dancer as disco stu (sic), even in a preliminary document. It seems like it'd just be asking for trouble, unless they actually licensed the name from Fox, which I doubt. I'm sure they won't be calling it that anytime closer to the release, though.

Do remember that according to the Grail knight, the Great Seal in the Grail temple is "the boundary, and the price, of immortality" - that means that one can drink from the Grail and live forever, but only if one stays in the temple, behind the seal. Once one crosses back over the seal one begins aging normally again. However, what you say may make sense, in that drinking from the Grail may put one in the best possible physical state for one's age at the time one drinks, healing any wounds or sickness, so that one leaves the temple in the best possible health (though presumably it doesn't do anything about old scars, obviously ;) ). As I noted before, it's already been established in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles that Indy does indeed live at least into his early 90s. The framing segments featuring Old Indy in contemporary (1990s) times were excised from the show when it was reconfigured into The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, though, so the canon status of those scenes is no longer absolutely clear, but no new continuity elements have been introduced yet which supercede those scenes, and I believe they're still officially considered part of the canon... meaning Indy lives to quite a ripe old age, indeed.

I don't know for sure, but I believe the Imperial Star Destroyer is the only one that came in two color palettes like that. As I understand it, when the color shift occurred LEGO stated they intended not to switch over from one set of grays (and brown) to the other in any specific sets during their production run, but instead do it between different waves of releases (across all LEGO's lines, of course, not just Star Wars), and the ISD threw a monkey wrench into that plan - the set was so long-lived (it was around for a good five years!) that they would have had to have kept producing the old grey just for that one set, which wasn't feasible. As far as I know, no other sets straddled the break between the two eras of grey like that (unless one counts ongoing things like the 628 X-Large Gray Baseplate), but I'm sure there are many others here who can offer much more authoritative words on the subject than I can.