Blondie-Wan

Erm... wouldn't it be both? The modulars are minifigure scale. Are you thinking of the Architecture sets? I'd imagine this would not only have Peter, Ray, Egon, Winston, Janine, Dana, and Louis, but Slimer as well (we do now know there will be a specially-molded figure of him, after all). Dare we hope for Walter Peck? (j2g, would you know anything about the character complement yet? Your mention of how it opens up makes it sound like you've actually seen it...) I just hope that between this set and the LEGO Dimensions Level Pack, we get a full set of updated team torsos with arm printing. I could see them opting to put some of the team members in their civvies or lab coats or whatever, rather than the uniforms (unless they opt to give us multiple versions of those characters, à la the Death Star). I also wonder about the Ectomobile. I could see it being left out, as it's already gotten a set of its own, but if this monster will really have 4600+ pieces, it could easily just include the entire unaltered ECTO-1 build from the Ideas set and still have over 4000 pieces left over for the building and stuff.

Well, as it happens, we do in fact already know about three other Ghostbusters sets besides this one - one Level Pack and two Fun Packs for LEGO Dimensions. They've all been officially announced, and they're all due next year. Surely three known, confirmed releases plus info about a fourth from one of EB's most reliable "advance notice" sources suffice to warrant establishing such a thread now? After all, we have a similar thread for The Wizard of Oz, and that's on the basis of a single set. Why didn't we make one for Ghostbusters as soon as we found out about even one of the Ghostbusters packs, never mind three of them, to say nothing of this D2C? I'm guessing you haven't been to DragonCon anytime recently. Each of the last three times I've gone (2011, 2014, 2015), there were large numbers of Ghostbusters cosplayers, usually with screen-accurate gear, and even multiple Ectomobiles in the Saturday parade (last year there were I think six of them, one of them a fully decked-out accurate replica of the original, the other five various other makes of car representing different local Ghostbusters franchisees, one presumes). The overall franchise appears to have a significant fandom, and of course there's a reboot movie due next year.

I'd love it if Mega Bloks' rights to Star Trek were completely limited to the new movies, so that rights to everything else were available to LEGO.

There's actually a lot of precedent, though, even (especially?) with licensed themes. Harry Potter had a hiatus in new releases of about 2 1/2 or 3 years during the timeframe the movies were being released, getting a single set in 2007 and then returning with a whole bunch of stuff in 2010 / 2011. The Jurassic Park franchise first appeared in LEGO with Jurassic Park III in the LEGO Studios line in the early 2000s, and then reappeared with Jurassic World this year. Similarly, they did Spider-Man sets (originally as more Studios sets, then as their own theme) for the first couple Raimi / Maguire movies from 2002 to 2004, then brought back Spidey along with the rest of the Marvel Universe for the Super Heroes line that began in 2012 and is continuing into the foreseeable future. They've even visited and, years later, revisited various Classic Disney characters (Mickey Mouse & friends, Winnie the Pooh) more than once. They've also gone back to classic original LEGO themes a number of times, sometimes with new spins and such. Pharaoh's Quest is pretty much an extension of Adventurers. They've had multiple Space Police lines. And so on. I think there's an excellent chance LEGO will do more Indiana Jones sets (and Pirates of the Caribbean, and perhaps Toy Story) when those franchises' next big-screen installments come. No guarantee, but considering how extensive and agreeable TLG's partnerships with Disney in general and Lucasfilm in particular seem to be, it just looks very likely. I just hope that the classic Indy is continued a little more before the inevitable reboot (both in the franchise itself and in the LEGO theme).

Well, since you specifically asked us to, I'll go ahead and correct you; you're wrong. The airship in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is not the Hindenburg. Among other things, the Hindenburg disaster took place more than a year before the movie did (except for the prologue, of course). The Zeppelin in the movie is designated simply D-138. That said, I think you're still otherwise right about TLG not doing it, at least in minifigure scale.

While it's not exactly what this conversation is about, I will say there are a few more sorting options and such they could really use. For example, it seems like the Discovery page should have an option to not display any projects for which one has already voted. That just seems like it'd be really useful.

No, Planet of the Apes is Fox. But so is The Simpsons, and nobody else is doing anything with Planet of the Apes in either construction toys or toys-to-life videogames as far as I'm aware, so I think it might be a possibility. If there's a major obstacle for that franchise, it might be the dark, cynical tone of so much of the franchise, but that didn't keep the original movie from being rated "G", so perhaps LEGO would be cool with it...

Ah, thanks; I had not realized that. That makes Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka much more likely, though still far from certain, of course.

Incidentally, there's a new behind-the-scenes video for LEGO Elves that shows a glimpse of the character design, video production, etc. for that theme, and as it happens, a brick-built sculpture of an Indiana Jones minifigure is present on the table (!) at one of the design / development / production / whatever meetings. LEGO Indy can first be seen at the 0:20 mark, then (blurry, in the background) at 0:40, and again some more at least once. I'm guessing he's just there because one of the designers felt like bringing him along, but still. It's nice to see Indy is still remembered within LEGO's hallowed halls... Thanks to Aanchir for pointing out the video over in the Elves 2015 thread in the Action and Adventure (!) forum.

Awesome! And I spy a LEGO Indiana Jones minifigure sculpture on the table! Nice to see my favorite non-droid Lucasfilm character is still remembered in LEGO's halls...

I first read a few weeks ago about Welker voicing Venkman in the Lego Dimensions entry on Brickipedia (which has since been updated with some of the newly-revealed casting info, but which still shows Welker for Venkman). The rest I got from this article just the other day. If they did use either version of Willy Wonka (but not both, as per the different Batmen), I strongly suspect they'd use the more recent, Johnny Depp version. Not only is that version more than three decades newer, but it's also a Warner Bros. production, whereas the first movie with Gene Wilder is a Paramount one. Given a choice between two different versions of the same property, I'm sure Warner would go with the one it doesn't have to pay royalties on. I suggested that weeks ago! And Willy Wonka even earlier!

I just read that Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson are voicing their Ghostbusters characters again, and that archival recordings of Harold Ramis will be used for Egon Spengler. I've also read that Frank Welker is doing Peter Venkman, though.

Wait, what? I thought we were talking about Poe's X-Wing. Is there an issue with the Advent Calendar as well?

Hey, thanks! Thank you, too! I know I need to edit myself more when I write, though. I'll try to be more concise...

... though as great as the video is, someone needs to tell whoever edited in the images of LEGO critters with Joel's words at the end that snakes are vertebrates. They should've used the LEGO octopus. Of course, like other LEGO vendor exclusives, I imagine they'll also be available from LEGO itself, which should give us a way around the TRU tax if they apply it to those (as well as letting us get VIP points for them).

I do that. I also tend to buy pretty much any LEGO set I see if I find it deeply discounted.

There is a category system; it's called "tagging". And there is also a removal system; it's called "expiration."

The thing Doctor Who has going for it is that it's a TV show, and one that's not especially likely to end anytime soon (or even at all). The most significant factor in how long a licensed theme runs (aside from basic sales success, of course) seems to be ongoing media support from the entertainment franchise that inspired it. Star Wars has lasted so long as a LEGO theme because it's massively popular, of course, but also surely because there's been a steady stream of new material - a new movie every three years from 1999 to 2008, ongoing television productions from then to 2013, more TV starting in 2014 and running into the foreseeable future, plus more movies every year beginning this year, and all of this accompanied by a steady stream of novels, comics, games, etc. Harry Potter had a slew of sets in its early years; these petered out for a while and the theme eventually took a 2 1/2 to 3-year break but eventually came back with a vengeance, and all while there were regular movies every year or two; it went on a more enduring hiatus when the film series did. The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings, taken together as sort of one big theme made up of two closely related smaller ones, seems to have petered out due to disappointing sales, but still got at least one fresh new wave for each year there was a new film (as well as two waves based on earlier movies). In contrast, Speed Racer, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The Lone Ranger were all single-wave, "one and done" themes based on single movies that had no predecessors (and no sequels, it turned out). In further contrast to both of those groups, Pirates of the Caribbean, Toy Story and Indiana Jones were all themes in between - themes capitalizing on new installments of series whose previous installments were years ago, before LEGO got to them, and which had no further installments for years afterwards (though the fifth Pirates and fourth Toy Story are in the works now, and another Indiana Jones can be expected eventually). All of these were relatively short-lived (two years or less), being released in conjunction with single new movie installments, yet had more than the "one and done" themes since they still had multiple movies they could draw upon, and each had at least a couple waves and/or waves with just a lot of sets. The most enduring lines are those that just have a steady, ongoing stream of material - the aforementioned Star Wars and Harry Potter (while the movies were running), plus SpongeBob Squarepants (which never got a huge number of sets all at once, but did have a fairly steady, sustained stream of releases that actually lasted quite a few years, until LEGO lost the license), and more recently, the Marvel and DC universes, which enjoy steady streams of sets based on a mixture of live-action movies and shows, animated series, and comics source material. As an ongoing TV series we can reasonably expect to run for years and years, Doctor Who, I suspect, can probably support a steady stream of LEGO releases for years - probably somewhere between what SpongeBob typically got and what Marvel and DC get now. It won't have as much stuff as Star Wars - nothing does except City - but it could very easily get a few sets each year for years to come, probably focused mostly on "new Who" but also including some "classic" material from time to time.

Indeed, it does... but then, given how much each main cast member of The Simpsons makes per episode now, it would probably be prohibitively expensive to get any of them to record new dialogue specifically for the game. And honestly, given how long the show has run and how many episodes there are and how much dialogue a lot of the characters have had over the years, there should be no shortage of material for the game makers to mine for them. One half suspects anything the game's writers would come up with for Bart or Homer has quite possibly already been used in the show anyway. I don't think they would have made a point of saying they had him and shown his name and all if they were just using archival clips of his.

I think I thought Clone already was a Licensed Mod, but... Well, congrats, anyway!

Hooray!

Except that in this case, we already know there will be, at the very least, two LEGO Dimensions packs as well as the Ideas set; they've even been revealed before it was. I strongly suspect the reason the announcement of the decision on whether to make a Doctor Who set was delayed is because they actually decided early that they wanted to do more than one set, and were working out a deal with the BBC and other parties for not just the Ideas set but the other stuff as well.

Ah, gotcha. Well, indeed Indy had one of the better runs of all the licensed themes built around the release of a single movie years after the originals - sixteen boxed retail sets (including a vendor exclusive) in four waves, plus a Brickmaster set, a couple rare convention exclusives, and several extended line items. I think the omissions of Dr. Marcus Brody and Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir are even greater omissions, not least because both characters appeared not only in Raiders of the Lost Ark but Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as well (granted, Marcus' scenes in Raiders were limited to non-action scenes, but still...). But yes, I'd really like to have gotten an official Toht in the line, and Dietrich, as well as a René Belloq aside from him in his jungle khakis. Ark ghosts would be great, but at least those can probably be adequately represented with existing LEGO ghosts and wraiths (it's also possible TLG wouldn't want to make a set of that particular scene). That would be great. Of course, for the larger, D2C-style set some envision for the temple, it would also have to give us Marcus and Sallah (and another Henry Sr., and perhaps some Hatay and German soldiers). It so happens there's actually a LEGO Ideas project of that very thing. It's been around nearly a year and is set to expire fifteen days, but it's also just 104 votes away from a thousand right now, and if it gets those votes it'll earn a six-month extension. Even if it's unlikely to ever get approved, it can help draw attention to the theme... That's another I've thought about. I'll probably MOC it sometime, but it would be nice to have an official minifigure of Willie Scott in her pajamas. That's actually been a LEGO Ideas project as well, though it never got very far. Then again, I think with decent promotion / campaigning, one could at least gamer more votes for a project of it than that one did (it would surely also help if it were in minifigure scale rather than miniland...). Speaking for myself, and fully acknowledging how unlikely it is to ever happen, I'd also dearly love sets based on the TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles / The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones. The show was fantastic - IMO even better than most of the movies, which I love and adore - and added immeasurably to the Indy body of lore. There were plenty of noteworthy scenes that would actually make great LEGO sets, too.

The rumors about Chris Pratt are just that - rumors, at least for now. That said, sooner or later there will be another Indiana Jones movie; Disney's not just going to ignore the property, after all. Whether it's a reboot or not, there will eventually be more Indy - and when it happens, LEGO will an obvious licensee candidate. They already have a close relationship with Disney in general and its new subsidiary Lucasfilm in particular, the latter predating even Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, and they had great success with the Indy line before. There is every reason to assume they'll do more for the franchise, whenever it returns to screens with a new production. (Incidentally, Star Wars never got "rebooted" as a LEGO theme; it has run continuously since the theme began in 1999.)

Maybe you should talk to mapco, the OP. (S)he appears to be in a position to help you out with the first one, at least. And hey, if your LEGO Store(s) are anything like mapco's, maybe you can pick up the others you've missed over the coming months. :p :/ Re: the Palace Cinema, I've wanted the same thing for a while. Actually, what I'd really like is an official LEGO poster pack that includes minifigure-scaled LEGO-ized movie posters for various properties, including these.