Blondie-Wan

I think it might be Warner Bros. that's actually responsible for acquiring a lot of these licenses for the game (many of which they own or control anyway).

So much amazing stuff in this thread. I'm insanely envious of all of you who have these nifty treasures. Hey, congratulations!

Indy's not among their ranks, though he has occasionally pretended to be. Aside from the four custom SS, I count 82 "stock" soldiers there in your troops, redtrooper27, including 12 with the biker / pilot helmets (six apiece in brown and black). I'm not seeing the barechested giant German mechanic played by Pat Roach and found in 7683 Fight on the Flying Wing; do you not have him, or are you just not including him alongside everyone else in full uniform? Also, did you Bricklink those, or get them the old-fashioned way, in sets? My own Indyverse German forces, aside from whatever customs I might throw together, currently have 21 soldiers in kepi hats, and eight drivers / pilots (four apiece in black and brown helmets), for a total of 29 fully-uniformed soldiers, plus two copies of the ill-fated mechanic; since he's a specific, unique character, I'll ultimately part one out for other uses and keep the other as originally intended, thus giving me a nice round 30 troops. All of them come from sets: 7x 7622 Race for the Stolen Treasure (7 x 3 = 21 kepis) 2x 7683 Fight on the Flying Wing (2 brown pilot helmets + 1 mechanic, + 1 extra mechanic) 4x 7620 Indiana Jones Motorcycle Chase (4 black biker helmets) 2x 7198 Fighter Plane Attack (2 brown pilot helmets) Most of these sets are yet to be opened and assembled; I've been waiting for that ideal time to build all my duplicates and whatnot. I'll post them eventually, though.

Oh, my. I'm duly impressed and envious. I have a pretty good number of German soldiers from having multiples of all sets in which they appear, but nowhere near that many. I should have posted them earlier. Alas, not all my Indy sets are open yet (most aren't, in fact), so many of them are still sealed up.

Oops, you're right - none of the sets retailed for $11. And yes, the prices for the Middle-Earth sets were disproportionately higher in Europe, so higher for you, but not so much for me. Pirate Ship Ambush may have a lower piece count than King's Castle, but aren't the sets comparable in overall size? I believe the former does have some larger and/or more specialized parts than the latter, which is bound to affect things. Piece count is an important metric, but not all parts are created equal - a $10, 10-piece set is a terrible deal if the parts are all 1x1 round plates, but pretty darn fantastic if they're all Mindstorms controller bricks. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings was / were (an) expensive theme, to be sure, but I do think it had more to do with the size, complexity (including the need for new and exclusive molds), and number of sets than the fact they were licensed - at least in the U.S., anyway. But yes, YMMV for Europe and elsewhere.

Well, they've long offered sets from time to time that are designed to work with non-LEGO elements, whether they're pencil holders filled with non-LEGO pencils, Power Functions stuff powered by non-LEGO batteries and wall outlets, or boats that really float in non-LEGO water.

After seeing Pennas2000's amazing Doctor Who armies thread rise to the top of the forum again I decided to revisit this thread with my own ultra-impressive ranks of Whovian menaces: Okay, so granted, they are just the Daleks and Weeping Angel included with a single copy of the Ideas set, which presently comprises the entirety of my LEGO Doctor Who collection, alas. Still, though, as I'm the first to put a Dalek or Weeping Angel army here, I can legitimately say I have the largest such armies in the thread, at least for the first several seconds or so after this posting. Meanwhile, since the last time I posted here, I've opened and put together one of my two remaining copies of Toy Story set 7595, so I can post a pic of my Army Men with four more troops than before, if I can overcome my innate laziness long enough to retrieve them all from the container they're presently in. Of course, I've also added a Pizza Planet Alien thanks to the Disney Minifigures series, but I'm weighing whether I want to count it alongside the others, since it doesn't share a uniform print with them for the, er... uniform. Part of me wants to get two more, though, so I can use the three from the Disney Minifigures line to represent my "hero" aliens (i.e., Andy's - when they're not filthy from the daycare and the garbage plant, anyway), while the others (the other "clean" ones, anyway) would all be "background" ones from Pizza Planet and elsewhere. I'm still mulling it over, though. I do still have five Armey Men and seven Pizza Planet Aliens still sealed in unopened sets, though, of course. Certainly, whenever I do get around to finally opening them all, I'll come back and post my "complete" Toy Story armies at that time.

Yes, the $11 Lord of the Rings sets were much more expensive than $11 Castle sets - wait, what?

Thanks for the opinion! I think I'll go ahead and jump right in with the new show, then seek out the older stuff if I like it.

The license rule currently applies only to projects from licenses that have already gotten CUUSOO/ Ideas sets (e.g., Back to the Future, Doctor Who, Minecraft, etc.), and even that rule wasn't around until a few weeks ago. It doesn't say anything about licenses that LEGO already has if they haven't had an Ideas set yet (e.g., Star Wars, Marvel, DC, The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings, etc.). They do note in the guidelines that projects based on existing themes are less likely to be approved, but that's not the same thing as saying they flat-out can't happen. As far as we know, it is still possible to get a Star Wars or Marvel or whatever set through Ideas (it's also possible that one or more existing licenses can't be done through Ideas, but they're not in a position to let us know). The Perry the Platypus / Phineas & Ferb example would be a particularly unfortunate thing to bar, since they never actually released anything from it (and the fact they were planning that one set in the Games line, while obviously known to us here, isn't really common public knowledge). The "no bringing back old parts" thing is similarly nebulous - they can't expect everyone to know what constitutes an old discontinued part, since they actually do bring back old parts from time to time. There are some parts that we can be reasonably sure are permanently gone (monorail stuff, old magnetic couplings, 9v train motors, etc.), but even then, a project that uses them in its build isn't necessarily a problem, since all approved projects get redesigned for the final sets anyway, and it may be possible to execute the same concept with other parts.

If the mods will forgive a brief off-topic digression (emphasis on "brief", I promise!), is the new Netflix Voltron really best appreciated by having first watched the older material, or can a newbie just jump right into the new series?

Omigosh, that cloche hat w/hair element is full of win. I hope we get it in different colors - I'm going to want some for 1920s Indiana Jones MOCs.

Edit: apologies for the back-to-back posts; I made them close enough together that I thought they'd be automatically joined, but I was wrong. Yes, though it also reflects the narrowed focus of the final version compared to the original proposal, which just had a bunch of women in a wide array of professions, most of which had nothing to do with each other. The Ideas team commented on the project saying that work as a cohesive set, it should be pared down to perhaps three or so vignettes that have at least a little in common other than just being women at work. Alatariel, being a scientist herself, decided to focus on the three scientists, and that let the three be tied together as a multidisciplinary Research Institute. The rule applies to IPs; they won't accept further projects for specific licensed things like Back to the Future, Doctor Who, WALL•E, etc., or further models of specific, real-world named things like Hayabusa and Curiosity. The Research Institute wasn't licensed from any previously-existing institute, or a fictional work portraying one. And even if it were, it wouldn't preclude this Women of NASA project unless it covered the same specific subject matter - a set covering NASA's general history. After all, the Back to the Future set didn't prevent the Ghostbusters one from happening, even though they're both licensed cars from mid-'80s sci-fi/fantasy movies, or the Doctor Who one, even though they're both licensed time machines from sci-fi franchises. Why would the fictional, original, imaginary Research Institute preclude a set based on the work of women from throughout the history of NASA, which is very much a real thing?

I don't find it anti-feminist, and I confess I don't understand your thinking on it. Moreover, this project, while undeniably conceptually related to the Female Minifigure Set / Research Institute, isn't really the same thing; more like a spin or variation on the idea. That earlier project and set portrayed women in vastly different sciences (astronomy, chemistry, paleontology), while this one is more unified (they all have different jobs pertaining to space exploration). The build concept (a series of vignettes) is similar, but the actual builds are totally different. This one also includes an additional build (the frame / case) completely absent from the Female Minifigure Set / Research Institute. And most crucially, this one portrays actual, real-life individuals, rather than "generic", unnamed scientists. This last feature is a pretty significant departure from the earlier set, and gives this project a distinct character of its own; note also that it means that if produced, the resulting set would be populated entirely with fleshtoned minifigures rather than yellow ones, which would mean that in addition to the set's worth as a design in and of itself, it would also be immeasurably valuable as a parts pack (in adding five female heads and torsos in fleshtones, making it highly desirable for MOCers who build in licensed themes). All this makes it sufficiently distinct from the earlier project and resultant set to give it its own identity. And the tremendous success it's having - over a quarter of the way in less than a week - clearly indicates there's an audience for this project that finds it really, really desirable.

I think you're right. It may also help that by the time they announce the results from this batch, they'll still be working through the current backlog (with both the Apollo 11 Saturn V and Beatles Yellow Submarine sets yet to come), plus whatever they approve of the nine sets currently in review. I can't help but wonder whether it'll push the production slot for this far enough down the line that they might have a little more leeway than usual for Ideas to make a larger set.

____________________ Looking again now, I think I'm probably wrong about these six being likely to be the only six in this batch. I think the Lamborghini Veneno Roadster and the Modular Construction Site both have a shot at making it into the same batch, though I'm not super optimistic about how they'll fare in review (though you never know)! I think Lovelace & Babbage might have a decent shot in review, though I'm as unsure of that as I am about just which review batch it'll make it into (but I do think it'll definitely make it to review, as will the Star Wars UCS X34 Landspeeder, which I think unlikely to pass review).

I doubt it. I think the Gingerbread House is extremely likely, and the Fossil Museum and Johnny Five both have decent chances. And from the batch coming together now, I think the LHC and Voltron both have good chances.

Possibly. There are several castle-y projects in more traditional colors here and there around Ideas, though, and many of them (even good ones) struggle a bit to attract votes. LEGO Ideas does hold considerable promise as a means for fans of traditional (non-Nexo) castles and knights to get their new set fix, but for it to work, those fans are going to have to step up and actually support stuff. I don't know whether castle folk just tend to be more picky about what they'll support, whether there just really aren't as many fans of castle as of other themes, or what, but medieval historical / fantasy projects just don't seem to make it to review very often, unless they're from Middle-Earth.

It's lovely indeed, and probably my own favorite (though I like all of them). I think the LHC and Voltron projects are the two likeliest, though. With less than a month and a half left in the period, and the next few top vote-getters that are still gathering support all being a few hundred supports away and not moving so quickly, it's possible these this batch will have only these six projects, which would make it the smallest review batch we've had in a couple years. The last batch with only six projects wound up giving us three of them as sets, though. I can't quite see that happening here, unless a few more projects make it in, but I do think it's not completely unlikely we could get as many as two sets out of just these six projects. Then again, we could have more. Aside from there currently being four projects gathering support that each have over 9k votes, we could always see another new project appear and start just racking up support like there's no tomorrow, all the way to 10,000 - that happened with the Voltron project, which blasted its way to the goal in a mere three weeks. A possible inheritor of that mantle is this Women of NASA project, which already has over 1700 supports after being posted a few days ago - that project is a rocket, so to speak. For a while it looked like this Mystery Science Theater 3000 project was going to do the same, but it seems to have stalled a bit after getting to the 3000 mark, funnily enough. Meanwhile, of course, we're still waiting on four projects that have already been announced from the last two reviews, and we still have the current review going, so we should still have a steady stream of Ideas sets for a while, even if all these projects wind up being declined.

And now the LEGO Observatory - Mountain View has reached 10,000 supports as well! Huzzah!

Different strokes for different folks. It's a pretty nice model for what it is. The colors help.

I saw that and supported it as well. I hope the Castle fans here actually turn out and vote for it in decent numbers, so that it actually has a chance! Re: the changes both of you mentioned, we can of course be sure there would be some changes for the final version if it were to become a set. Hopefully they'd be changes that would meet with your approval, but at any rate, I have to assume any/all AFOLs into more traditional Castle themes than that offered by Nexo Knights would be glad to get this alternative, even if there were a few quibbles with it here and there...

The Large Hadron Collider has 10,000 supports! It becomes the fifth project in the review batch currently coming together. CM4Sci, the LHC's departure from the top of the "Most Supported" listing of the "Gathering Support" page means your ROBLOX project is once again in the top 21 projects (the ones that show up without clicking on "See more projects...").

It's been in and out of the top spot a few times, as it's been temporarily overtaken by super-popular vote-getters like the Voltron and Addams Family projects, then moved back ahead when those projects hit their 10k goals and move off the "Gathering Support" list. Right now the LHC is in a bit of a race with another sweet science-based project, that wonderful Observatory - Mountain View, which was posted later but has also gotten its votes faster. For the past several days, the Observatory has had roughly twice as many supports left to go as the LHC, but has also been getting them roughly twice as quickly. Thus it's appeared for a few days as though they'll hit their goals at about the same time, and either one could do it first. Exciting!

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