Blondie-Wan

Even three months really isn't a terribly long time, but here in the U.S. it had nothing close to that; it was barely available at all here. In the U.S., it had a few days of availability, totaling perhaps a week or two at most, distributed between two narrow windows of availability a few months apart, and even that was online-only - the brick-and-mortar LEGO Stores never carried it as a regular item (though I do understand that my own closest store, one of four authorized to offer damaged box items at a discount or for VIP bonuses, and which therefore periodically receives shipments of extraneous sale-priced merchandise, on one occasion received a single copy of the Curiosity set for placement in their sale section; it didn't last long). I no longer recall for sure, but it's possible the greater availability outside the U.S. contributed to my mistaken impression the set would be a little easier to get here than it was. I do remember that when the initial run swiftly sold out, I just naturally assumed another run would follow soon after, and it would become easier to get and remain available for a good while, as that had been the case with each of the three CUUSOO sets immediately preceding it. It wasn't carried in stores, and I didn't even know that until several months after it came out, since I lived far from any LEGO Stores at that time and was able to visit them only on rare occasions, and I never saw it specifically announced anywhere or discussed here on EB or anything like that (not until much later, anyway). I learned only by finally going to one of the stores long after its release and asking about it, being told they'd never carried it, and then when I got back home I began calling all the U.S. stores listed on LEGO's site and being told by each that they didn't have it and never did, with a few of them mentioning that they thought it was an online exclusive but weren't sure. I'd had no idea of any of this until several months after I could have used the info. Oh, well. I've therefore never even seen a copy of the set in person. Perhaps in Europe, for all I know there are forty-seven thousand copies of the LEGO CUUSOO NASA MSL Curiosity Rover for every man, woman, child, dog, cat, and wildflower, and on your way to the bathroom each morning you regularly trip over three or four that have freshly materialized in your home during the night, and government officials convene in emergency sessions to discuss strategies for dealing with the horrible blights of trillions of LEGO Curiosity Rovers clogging the thoroughfares and byways of the land, but over here they're less abundant than unicorns, and I'm hardly more optimistic about ever even so much as seeing one than I am about acquiring an SDCC-exclusive minifigure. It is, of course, very much a first-world problem, and hardly the most important concern, but it is disappointing. I was really looking forward to getting that set, but I can't justify aftermarket prices for it.

Nearly every licensed theme duplicates characters between sets; it's not remotely a Ghostbusters-specific issue. Someone who collects one of every item released for The Simpsons, for example, is going to have five minifigures of Homer Simpson, four of which are extremely similar to one another, and the same again for Bart. And that's nothing compared to the numbers of Harry Potters, Gandalfs and Luke Skywalkers collectors of those other themes will have, especially if they get multiples of sets. Even with characters appearing in different versions (different outfits, ages, etc.), some duplication is practically inevitable. Heck, I have over fifty minifigures of Indiana Jones. __________________________ Now that TLG is getting a bit more adventurous with transparent minifigure elements, as seen extensively throughout the latest Ninjago sets, I wonder whether the library ghost might use a lot of trans parts to capture her ethereal nature.

No need - we already know there's a special, dedicated Slimer figure coming in a LEGO Dimensions Fun Pack. They'll surely use the same molds for the character in this set as in that one (though they might conceivably tweak the print for his facial expression).

The project used one for background for the main image, but the description indicated that the project proposal was just for the Ectomobile (and the team, of course), not for the building.

Should we have a dedicated general Ghostbusters 2016 thread? Between this and LEGO Dimensions, there are at least four sets coming out...

Or just keep it around - it's still available now, after all, having not been discontinued yet.

The ear-size-to-head-size ratio is way off for that. I don't think it would look right.

Excellent! Twelve figures in total, nice. Presumably the zombie driver is the cabbie seen in the montage of otherworldly escapees from the containment unit shutdown. If so, does that mean it also includes a cab? I assume it's not just including the Monster Fighters zombie driver, but you never know...

Well, how did Forestmen sell?

It's true in the US, as well. Well... not "swamped" with merchandise, exactly, but I can still go into a toy store, a comics shop or a bookstore here and easily find a lot more Doctor Who merchandise than I can for The Simpsons - or for that matter, The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings, (an)other franchise(s) for which LEGO has had a theme that wasn't as large as people would like but which was actually pretty substantial. If the amount of merchandise currently available from other companies for The Simpsons and Middle-Earth is any kind of indication of how well they sell, I think there's room for cautious hope Doctor Who could get at least as much stuff from LEGO as The Simpsons and Middle-Earth have, and that wouldn't be bad at all (granted that all three combined are dwarfed by Star Wars, of course, but still). (It's true there was a period in the early 1990s when there was a ridiculous amount of The Simpsons merchandise around, but of course I'm speaking of the merchandising landscape of today.)

I make a point of voting for practically all the projects of those sorts that I come across. I do hope we'll get more. I really wish the NASA MSL Curiosity Rover had been available for more than a few days in total. That was the first CUUSOO / Ideas set to be available for such a brief period (at least apart from perhaps the Shinkai 6500, which was limited to Japan anyway), and I had no idea it would be gone so quickly. There was not only no warning, but also no reason to think it would go so quickly - I naturally assumed its availability period would be similar to that of the preceding sets (the Hayabusa, Minecraft Micro World, and Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine), each of which was kept available a good while, so it was quite a shock to realize the two exceedingly brief sales windows a few months apart were apparently going to be it. :/

The TIE Fighter in particular could very easily be given an alternate TIE Interceptor build along those same lines as the Santa Fe Super Chief train cars.

Huh, that's funny. I was just at my local LEGO Store today, and they had several copies of this set out on the shelf.

I'll chime in here to add that the advice I've quoted here, while true for many stores, does vary from store to store. In my experience, some individual managers / associates at individual stores can be bigger sticklers than others about adhering to the prescribed minifigure formula. Some might insist that you only make complete figures with an accessory apiece, while others might let you throw in any crazy mix of parts into the blister pack as long as they add up to fifteen pieces. I would expect most who do the latter would construe it as an abuse of the system if you filled the container with fifteen torsos and nothing else, as I assume those are the costliest minifigure parts to produce, but I've never tried. Also, policies might vary for headgear or accessories that are themselves two pieces - for example, a helmet with a visor. At least once I outfitted a couple minifigures with helmets but no visors, as I just assumed the piece rules were tightly applied to each individual piece and I wanted accessories for my minifigures so I opted to omit the visors. The sales associate who helped me out noted I didn't have any visors on the helmets and suggested I get some to complete them, and wound up walking me back over to the BAM kiosk and not only depositing into the package enough visors for the helmets I had, but also a couple extra in case of loss or breakage, since those parts always have extras in regular sets anyway. But I don't know that all associates would be so accommodating, and I'm sure few would actually throw in extra visors themselves with even being asked as this one did.

The next modular building isn't a big announcement?

Possibly, but Wicked is dependent upon The (Wonderful) Wizard of Oz for its existence, not the other way around. The original book and its 1939 movie adaptation are long-established classics; Wicked is a relative newcomer by comparison. And it's sort of a meta textual comment upon the original work, and is thus most fully appreciated when one's familiar with its inspiration, but the reverse isn't true. Moreover, as regards this material's inclusion in LEGO, of course it's going to be based on The Wizard of Oz, since the game is published by Warner Bros., which also currently holds the rights to the movie. They don't own Wicked, but they do own The Wizard of Oz. Finally, The Wizard of Oz is a lot more kid-friendly / family-friendly than Wicked, so even putting aside all issues of corporate ownership, LEGO is much more naturally going to want to connect itself to The Wizard of Oz than Wicked.

Oh, also the poll lists Patrick Troughton a second time instead of Jon Pertwee. Can that be fixed?

I see we could vote for multiples, so I saw no reason not to just vote for all of them, since I would indeed like all incarnations of the Doctor. Am I the only one who realized we could vote for as many as we like? If I were forced to narrow it down to just a few, I think I'd go with: • Four (Tom Baker), as he was my first Doctor and also had the longest run • Five (Peter Davison), as he's my wife's personal favorite and another "classic" Doctor • The War Doctor (John Hurt), as this would also naturally provide the ideal head for a purist custom Dr. Harold Oxley, from Indiana Jones - the character was never included in any of the sets, and I'm a huge Indy fan • and Ten (David Tennant), as he's another favorite of mine and probably the one I'm most familiar with at this point, as well as being able to give us an uninterrupted three-incarnation string since we already are getting both Eleven and Twelve.

Of course it's a castle theme. It's also wildly different from previous castle themes. Both things can be true, and are. LEGO's themes and the divisions and relationships between them just don't match the Eurobricks organizational scheme as neatly as we might like, but oh well. In this case it means something can be a "castle" theme and yet still not really belong in the Historic forum, even though that's the home of all previous castle themes. I see nothing inherently wrong with Nexo Knights in and of itself; I think it has a bunch of creativity and charm and fun to it, and I'd like to get some of it for myself. That said, I do feel for all the fans of more traditional medieval historic / fantastic themes, regarding their fears they won't see any new castles of a more traditional sort for a while.

I've tried to limit my exposure to discussion and news of the latest sets as well as next year's stuff so as to avoid spoilers for a certain upcoming movie, but I couldn't help but notice a bunch of new images of TLG's early 2016 waves from various lines have arrived, and a whole bunch of the Star Wars ones have minifigures standing atop various dish elements, like figure stands. What's up with that (assuming it doesn't pertain to some peculiar screen development)? Are these just to make it easier for kids to stand them up and not have them fall over, or what?

Just because it hasn't been used again yet doesn't mean Disney owns it. It just means they haven't used it again. It's possible they just haven't used it again but can anytime they want. It's also possible they've discontinued it for reasons having nothing to do with Disney. Maybe they found a technical flaw with the part - maybe it doesn't work well in regular, play-based use, as opposed to the more display-based use practiced by most people here (is it easy for kids to remove and reinsert cutlasses into it?). Or perhaps the mold broke.

It actually would make sense for many of the Ideas sets, I agree, but I don't think it's necessary for the licensed ones nearly as much as the non-licensed ones, like the MSL Curiosity Rover or the Research Institute. I'm sure TLG is well aware Doctor Who has a substantial following and plans to keep the set around a while. That said, I do think anyone concerned not just about getting the set at all but specifically getting it in time for Christmas this year would do well to order it ASAP on December 1. I'm sure this set will stay in production and remain available for at least a year, if not longer (like the Minecraft, Back to the Future and Ghostbusters CUUSOO/ Ideas sets before it), but it's quite possible (not certain, but possible) the initial run will sell out quickly, and leave the set on backorder or something for most of December.

There should be over 40, actually - three for each of the four humanoid minifigures plus two for the Daleks (that's 14), eight for the four exterior Police Box signs, eight more for the windows, and two more for the door signs (that's another 18), one for the interior door, and upwards of a dozen for the controls and displays on the main console and off on the railings - all together, the set must have between forty and fifty printed parts, most of which are exclusive to this set or at least debuting in it, though a bunch of the control panel tiles are classic elements used in lots of sets. I think there was indeed one for the UCS Millennium Falcon, but then that was a special case as it was a $500 set. There was also one for LEGO Universe, but then videogames in general are treated a little differently from regular sets, and as with many LEGO videogames there was a preorder bonus. This was was just unusual in the bonus coming directly from LEGO itself rather than GameStop or Toys 'R' Us or whatever.

I agree. Also (I've said this before but here it is again), of the six licensed properties that have gotten official sets through CUUSOO / Ideas, had they come out all at once rather than over the last few years (so that I didn't already know Minecraft became a full theme), Doctor Who is the one I'd pick as the likeliest to become a theme, and/or the one for which it makes the most sense. It's (always) current and ongoing, while at the same time having a huge wealth of established material to draw upon. It has a multigenerational following that includes kids in TLG's core audience, as well as the older "geek" crowd that includes people like, well, me, who are fond of the many licensed sci-fi / fantasy-based themes they've done. Crossing fingers for an ongoing theme for at least a good few years, and at the very least eventually getting all incarnations of the Doctor...

I think this set and the LEGO Dimensions material make for the promising beginning of a beautiful LEGO Doctor Who theme.