Blondie-Wan

I understand where you're coming from, I really do, but FWIW I don't think they're going to make a set, predetermined number of copies. Rather, I suspect the early sales of the set will determine how many copies they produce in a run, and how long they'll keep the set active. In other words, the more copies they sell now, the more copies there will eventually be by the time they discontinue it. Perhaps it'll be different near the end of the run, but for now, I think additional purchases sold to folks like KlodsBrik won't keep anyone else from getting one. Moreover, this set and the LEGO Dimensions packs are just the beginning. The better they sell, the likelier it is they'll turn Doctor Who into a full-blown theme with lots more sets.

It would still limit voting to people with enough money lying around to just tie some of it up on things that might not reach fruition. They surely don't want to do that. It would also force TLG to implement the financial infrastructure for taking payments on non-products, hanging onto them for months or years, and then refunding them 99%+ of the time. They surely don't want to do that, either. Honestly, the idea would create vastly more trouble than it would eliminate. It's just not worth it.

(n/m)

Their evaluation consists of a lot more than merely looking at something. They have to try to recreate it or do alternate builds for it, to see if they can deliver a set with a satisfying building experience. They have to evaluate all the possible parts assortments for it to see how they might line up with their overall production capacity, their plans for other sets they're going to produce at the same time, that build experience they want to deliver, etc. If it uses a licensed property, they have to see if the rights are even available, and if so, they have to negotiate terms with the rightsholders to see if they can reach an agreement that will be mutually beneficial. They also have to evaluate the property itself to decide whether it's a good brand fit for LEGO. They have to evaluate the sales potential of the product (and do so for each of the various price ranges that voters indicated they thought it would sell for). They have to consult with other LEGO departments to see whether the project will duplicate their efforts, or mesh well with them, or neither. They have to make a whole bunch of other decisions like this. All of these things take time. I see it's sold out at the U.S. Shop at Home as well, but it's still available in stores here. I'm seeing a variation of it, along with the words "We're looking for creative and original ideas ... ones that start from scratch like Exo-Suit, Birds, and Maze." That sounds to me like they're trying to subtly, gently but firmly encourage users to submit more projects that aren't based on entertainment property licenses, and/or fewer ones that are. That's perhaps unsurprising, given that such a huge number of the projects that have made it into each of the last several review batches are based on movies, TV shows and whatnot.

All of the thousands of projects? It takes them a good while to evaluate each of the handful of projects that do make it to 10k votes each period. There's no way they could fully evaluate each and every single thing that gets submitted. They'd have to have a dedicated team of hundreds of people just for LEGO Ideas.

It's still in development, one presumes, though I'd guess that's mostly done by now. I expect the final version to be revealed soon. I don't pretend to know what its sales will be like, but I'm sure LEGO has a good idea, and they've obviously decided it will likely sell at least well enough to warrant doing it. There are five currently readily available, actually - Ghostbusters, Birds, The Big Bang Theory, WALL•E, and Doctor Who.

Indeed. Remember, the first few years of this program we'd get a couple years between sets. Next to that, getting "only" a couple sets a year is still a step up from those humble beginnings. We're just a bit spoiled by having had two years back-to-back with four sets apiece (something that happened in part because they had multiple review periods in which multiple projects were approved). I think that would have a devastating, even catastrophic effect on the whole enterprise. Hardly anybody would vote for anything. Even the most popular ideas would take years to reach 10,000 votes. It would slow support activity to a crawl.

I began curtailing my visits to this forum some months ago, though I did continue to post in things like the Recent Purchases thread. Now that I've seen the movie, I plan to be more active here.

I'm just looking forward to finally being able to pay attention to the sets, now that I've seen the movie. I haven't actually gotten any of them yet, aside from C-3PO.

I'd like to add an option to the poll for having fewer "upgraded", extra-realistic figures, since to me the less realistic versions may actually be more desirable. Mostly, I just want them to stop constantly updating minifigures for "army builder" types when they already have perfectly fine minifigures for those characters.

You call that a long time? The set hasn't even been out a long time - it's still new, and the issue was acknowledged virtually immediately.

What initial reluctance?

Unfortunately, that's true of a lot of journalism in general.

Isn't it fixed now, anyway? It certainly seemed so to me, when I made my last post, and still does now. Are others still having issues?

Mmmm... I respectfully disagree. I think getting the security certificate fixed soon would be (is) good, but the great sets we've gotten and are getting are even better. :D It's a little embarrassing, but it's hardly the first time I've seen this happen with a major company. I suspect it having expired on a weekend had something to do with the delay in fixing it, and it does seem to be fixed now. And I think there's virtually zero chance the Ideas site will be shut down (at least for anything other than maintenance or updates) by the end of the year (now just over two weeks away). It's an essential part of the whole Ideas program, and I don't see that just going away anytime soon.

It would be, but I think they bent the rules for Frozen only because Anna and Elsa are indeed going to be the next two official DPs anyway, and because the movie is so popular and successful that they don't want to wait around for the formal coronation(s) to begin making money on it in the DP line, lest they leave money on the table. I don't think either of those considerations is in play for Alice in Wonderland.

Edit: never mind.

Wouldn't it make more sense to do them while the movie is fresh than in several years, though? If they're all going to be in "CMF" form at all, it actually would make sense to me to do the lot of them all at once, since it's just five key characters (granted, there are other like Bing Bong, but I think the emotions would be the main / only ones they'd do in a Minifigures series).

That's going to be true of virtually any possible combination of characters, though - at least, unless the whole series were devoted to one or two movies being released next year, in which case they'd hardly market it as a general "Disney" series anyway and would instead call it by the name of whatever the new movies are. Having five Inside Out characters is probably as close as they'll get to that. As for "why Tarzan?", it may be just to capitalize on an anticipated resurgence of interest in Tarzan in general, thanks to the new film from another studio. And one or two individual LEGO minifigures in a series with well over a dozen other characters hardly equals a major merchandising push for Tarzan. It's just part of a general Disney thing. A series of inexpensive blind-bagged toys like this is exactly the sort of place where they have reason to offer new merchandise from an otherwise dormant property from the back catalog. If not Tarzan, then maybe there'd be "Wart" Arthur. Or Madame Medusa. Or Condorman. Or TRON. And then we'd just be having the same conversation about that other character instead of this one. Or perhaps they could instead stack this whole series with just the most iconic, enduringly popular characters - but then what would they do for subsequent series?

More awesome stuff, as always. Once again I plan to collect the whole series, but I'd like multiples of... well, nearly all of them, but especially the astronaut (CS flag - hooray!), the animal control officer, the satyr, the janitor and the knight.

Strong sales for these first Doctor Who sets (both the LEGO Dimensions packs and most especially the LEGO Ideas set) are our clear best bet for getting more LEGO Doctor Who. I intend to do my part!

I'm not so sure about Toy Story or Pirates of the Caribbean, given their popularity. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The Lone Ranger are surely out, though.

Well... the Elf was there. And he was/is very popular Also, there were a couple parts that had substitutes used for the originals, which certainly doesn't sound like they were just getting rid of leftover pieces. It's possible they "chose figures nobody wanted because they had a load of leftover pieces", but we have no way of knowing that, and the evidence doesn't support that idea. IIRC, the figures were chosen based on poll results. Lots of AFOLs were pretty unhappy with the selection, but many didn't take into account that the overwhelming majority of LEGO's customers are kids, who wouldn't necessarily choose the things we would, or even choose things we could predict or understand.

Ooh, that's a fantastic idea. I doubt that's what's happening, but it would be awesome. The obvious thing would be Cinderella's castle. After that... Andy's room? Gusteau's restaurant? The Prince / Beast's castle? The Monsters, Inc. factory floor?

This magnificent set represents the last of the petty cash.