Blondie-Wan

So... What do people think about the chances for Simpsons characters, locations, etc. showing up in LEGO Dimensions? I think the odds are actually pretty good, bug I'm curious whether it might actually give us some whole new characters not available in other sets.

Not at all!

I did notice that! I believe I read elsewhere that it is indeed the same voice actor for Batman that plays him in the LEGO Batman games, though I don't recall the source at the moment. Personally, I'd love it if Will Arnett were doing him again, but this will be great, too. Ghostbusters would be perfect for a Team pack, with a mini-Ectomobile. Perhaps Stantz and Zeddemore? Licensed themes I consider good or likely candidates for inclusion: Ghostbusters The Simpsons Scooby Doo Harry Potter Jurassic Park ... and some wild cards: Minecraft Doctor Who Homegrown LEGO themes I think are plausible or likely: City Castle Minifigures Friends Elves Bionicle

The review batch cutoff is at the end of this month (or the beginning of May - whichever way you'd like to say it), right? With three weeks left in April, there's still plenty of time for a few more projects to make it. Interestingly, the Great Ideas Purge comes just a couple days earlier; the two deadlines are pretty close together, making for a kind of Super-Deadline. There are currently five projects gathering votes that have over 8000 already; two of them have over 9000. Still other projects have fewer, but are gathering votes quickly, and with the Great Purge looming over everything I could see a general burst in voting coming. I don't think it's at all out of the question that we could have upwards of a dozen projects make it into this one batch.

I definitely want at least some of these packs myself even if I don't get the game (which I don't even have a system for, at the moment), but the game does look fun, and I'd like to play it (especially if the packs are so expensive that one will want to make sure one maximizes the value one gets from them). Right now, I think I'd like to get all the LEGO Movie, Back to the Future and, perhaps, Lord of the Rings packs, as well as all the female characters from the other themes. Marty having a guitar is a nice touch. Is that the first time it's come in that color? I think once an Ideas project is rejected, that's it for it, even if a similar set is made later; I don't think there'll be a Wizard of Oz set that carries Ideas branding (or generates income for that project creator), but it's quite possible there'll be a Wizard of Oz set (aside from this one). I don't think there's any real connection between that project and this license, and it was probably rejected then because LEGO just wasn't interested at that time (or possibly didn't want to do it without doing new molds for some of the characters, something they avoid for CUUSOO / Ideas stuff), but later on (now), with them already doing this game in partnership with WB anyway, and perhaps looking for additional family-friendly licenses from the WB catalog to fill out the game's offerings, they decided to go for it. At any rate, now that the license is open for this one little thing I think they'll probably do at least one other thing, since I find it too bizarre that they'd get the license just for a single minifigure, a small brick-built second figure and some game data. True... although in turn, at least it beats the heck out them showing up solely as SDCC exclusives or some such thing, no? If only they could do Disney characters (including Lucasfilm, Pixar and Marvel). I'd dearly love that. Indeed, especially since it's the second-biggest licensed theme LEGO's ever done, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Harry show up - I fully expect it, actually. Since they not only pointedly include an actual LEGO guitar in the pack, but also show him playing it in the fleeting bit of footage we've seen, I have to assume it does have some sort of actual game function, and sonically subduing adversaries actually seems as likely a use as any.

That proposed piece is printed. What, did you think he was suggesting LEGO ask us to put a sticker on a small piece of folded cloth? :p

When even the guy named "Tolkien" forgets The Lord of the Rings, I guess we understand the reportedly low sales of the Middle-Earth sets. How does that even happen?! :p Aside from the six confirmed themes, I'd guess City might be a super-easy addition, and signs do seem to point to Ghostbusters and perhaps The Simpsons going in here. Then again, if they can throw in The Wizard of Oz, which has never had a LEGO set before now, I guess the possibilities are endless, as they need not be constrained by previously existing licenses - probably the only things to rule out are things held by competitors, whether they're competing toy brands (e.g., Hasbro, Mattel, etc.), or competing collectible toy video game worlds (e.g., Disney Infinity, Skylanders, Amiibo, etc.). If they're opening this to anything (reasonably family-friendly, of course) in the Warner library, well, wow... What else could we get? Official LEGO Dimensions Casablanca Team Pack, with minifigures of Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund? The 2001: A Space Odyssey Fun Pack, with minifigure Dave Bowman? Minifigure Willy Wonka?

What if we need to discuss both together? Do we make a post in one forum, then trail off with a link to the other forum where we make a short post with a few words about that aspect, then link back to another post in the thread in the first forum, and so on ad infinitum? That seems terribly cumbersome. Moreover, even putting aside the digital aspect entirely, it doesn't all fit in Licensed anyway, what with the known inclusion of NinjaGo and The LEGO Movie, and who knows what else. I'd respectfully recommend instead that we finally take this opportunity to shift all discussion of digital / virtual LEGO to someplace more appropriate - either to Technic, Mindstorms and Model Team, or to create a new forum entirely for this sort of thing; it could hold Dimensions, LDD, all the video games, and perhaps Mindstorms, as well as retroactive discussion of things like Design By Me. Any chance we could vote on it?

Yes, I think those are among the strongest candidates for inclusion in the game / theme, given how largely Warner-centric it is and how apparently unconcerned they are about including characters from themes that aren't otherwise currently active (with the Middle-Earth stuff apparently going away soon, the sole other Back to the Future set having already been discontinued and The Wizard of Oz having never appeared in any official LEGO thing at all before this).

Tangentially, this whole thing illustrates the need for a rethinking of the way EB officially categorizes topics. It was already bad enough that LEGO video games got lumped in here in Culture & Multimedia alongside discussion of things completely unrelated to LEGO, but now it's resulted in an actual LEGO theme using real, physical LEGO pieces dragged here as well. Who wants to have to go to the non-LEGO forum to discuss LEGO?! Ah, well. Anyway... I must say, I'm excited for this game; it'll probably have me cave and finally get one of the systems it's on. It's completely bizarre that a whole entire license is debuting with an add-on for this game, but hey, if that's what it takes to get official The Wizard of Oz LEGO, I won't complain.

Well... Wow. A game conceived of such awesomeness, they not only integrated multiple existing licenses but added at least one whole new one just for the game (!). Can more The Wizard of Oz packs be far behind?

Since they're the ones who made it their Staff Pick yesterday, and commented on it on Facebook when the LEGO Ideas FB account featured it (as it typically posts Staff Picks), and they also did post an Official LEGO Comment on this other Golden Girls project when it passed 1000 a while back, and both those comments indicate clear knowledge of the show, and this other Golden Girls project (yes, there are at least three different Golden Girls projects on Ideas) also got Staff Pick (four months ago, even), I highly doubt they're "probably looking up the term "Golden Girls" to figure out what this is". If anything, I think it's more likely one or more people on the Ideas staff are outright fans of the show themselves, given the combined interest they've shown in the three different projects, and knowledge of the show they've shown in those comments.

Well... Yeah. Look, I know it's not the usual sort of show that LEGO does, but it is a popular, beloved series with a lot of fans. There's probably not a huge overlap between GG and LEGO fandom, true... but that consideration might actually work in the project's favor, since TLG could see it as an opportunity to sell sets to people who don't normally buy LEGO. I know it's totally bizarre that a project based on a thirty-year-old sitcom about the friendship of four mature women who share a home in Miami just became the third-fastest project to amass 10,000 votes in CUUSOO / Ideas history (!), but that's what happens when a project gets the Staff Pick and coverage on NY local TV news, MSN, Time.com, Moviefone, E! Online, People, EW, The Mary Sue, Golden Girls Central, and who knows where else all on the same day, I guess (it was even on The Huffington Post a day or two before getting the Staff Pick and all the rest, it turns out). Once again, the lesson of our story: promotion is important! The key to getting mad numbers of votes for an Ideas project is getting it seen by lots and lots of people, including ones outside the LEGO fan community. And if one can self-promote it, that's great, but just plain freakishly good fortune helps, too.

I don't know. The Great Purge is still about three weeks away, and that Titanic is just one of three projects with over 9000 votes as of this writing, and a number of others have over 8000. And there's no telling what other project might get a flash of media attention and be showered with a ton of votes in a short time.

Looking around a bit more, I see the Golden Girls project was incredibly fortunate - after getting today's Staff Pick, it also got covered not only by local NY TV and The Mary Sue, but also MSN, E! Online, Time Magazine online, and who knows how many other sites. The creator got really lucky. There's also a much older Golden Girls project - one due to expire in the forthcoming Great Ideas Purge, three weeks from now - that is very similar to the one that found such wild success today. It's close enough that quite a few people seem to feel the creator of the later set ripped off the previous one, which could be awkward, but the two project creators are graciously communicating with one another in the comments, and the maker of the earlier project appears genuinely pleased simply to see a Golden Girls project do so well, regardless of who made it, so that seems good. The earlier project, plus a third one different from the other two (depicting the exterior of the house, rather than a living room / kitchen interior), both seem to be benefitting from the latecomer's success as well, so perhaps they'll all wind up hitting the 10,000 mark and entering review, which would be wild.

Which batch do you mean - the batch this Golden Girls project just went into (the one still coming together), or the one currently under review (with the Piano, Labyrinth Marble Maze, etc.)?

Well... wow. I certainly wouldn't mind some of my planned projects getting TV coverage. I should be so lucky! Anyway, it's now the ninth project to make it into the next review batch, and the fastest of those nine to get the required votes, so even though it's kind of an odd subject for a LEGO set, it probably actually has a good chance. Even without having closed yet, this batch is I believe already tied for the largest review batch to date. There are also a number of other projects that still have a good shot at getting 10k while this batch is still open, so it could easily become the first one with a two-digit number of projects. I think it goes to show how widely popular and embraced the Ideas program has become. It's cool to see it taking off like this.

It got featured on The Mary Sue, and seems to have really taken off since then. Has it been featured elsewhere? The Mary Sue's readership must be either much larger and/or much more interested in The Golden Girls than I'd have suspected. Their story, posted a couple hours ago, reports it having a little over 5000 votes (which is already great for a project posted just three weeks ago), but then (while I was writing this!) it hit the 10k mark, getting close to 5000 additional votes in just a few hours. Wow. Edit: I just remembered it was also today's Staff Pick, which certainly gave it additional exposure, but I don't remember the Staff Pick status ever giving a project that much of a boost before.

This is just fantastic. I love it so much. My wife is very much the opposite - she can't wait until I get the big LEGO room nicely organized, and she might well kill me if I don't get it done! This is the mess it's in now: I've got a long way to go, obviously. Fortunately I have a ton of room to play around in - it may not be obvious from the picture, but this is the largest room in the house (you can see only part of it here); it was originally built as a two-car garage, and then converted into a big den sometime before we rented the property. It's therefore huge, and even though it won't be devoted entirely to LEGO (we also use it for TV/movies, crafts, etc., and there's also a laundry / storage room at the back, just to the right of those wire rack shelves), there's still a vast space available, and I intend to fill much of it with a big play / display table where I can have huge city layouts (or whatever other theme I feel like), plus a dedicated building and storage area along the side wall you can see to the left (you can already see the beginnings of this with the long, narrow IKEA table that's already there, with a built Palace Cinema and several smaller sets already on it). Anyway, I really want to get this room into shape and turn it into an awesome LEGO space, and my wife wants that, too (she's even gotten into LEGO herself, albeit not to the same extent), and apart from wanting it to be a great LEGO space we both just want all the clutter taken care of. It'll take a while, though. Anyway, droomangroup, your room is fantastic. I love your Classic Space wall art! I have to say I wonder about your drawer system, since all the tops are open; is dust not much of an issue? They look great, though.

Well, I for one am very glad the topic did get bumped, since I would probably never have seen some of the later posts if it hadn't. I'm really amazed and intrigued by this particular bit of info from LEGO Historian: Wow! Just how "LEGO-ey" is that cross? I mean, I get that it was made by them after they began making bricks and can thus be considered a LEGO construction element, but does it actually fit into the LEGO System as we know it - that is, does it connect to other LEGO elements? It looks like it could be a tile, that connects on the bottom to studs like any other LEGO tile, and it's just different in being cross-shaped. Is that what it is, or is it just as purely cross-shaped piece of plastic with no traditional LEGO connectability, or what?

My guess would be printed on the torso as well. The original Ideas project actually does have a good suggestion for how the 4th Doctor's scarf could be effectively done using an existing fabric element, actually.

Lots of Friends sets work well in a City / Town layout, actually, so those should be useful for Super Heroes as well.

Well, the fez wasn't really a huge part of it, in terms of screen time; the Doctor wears it quite briefly. However, it's just one of those things that people picked up on, and has become one of the Doctor's more popular looks among the fans. It could really therefore go either way (i.e., LEGO might or might not incorporate it into a set or sets). It's not like, say, Indiana Jones's fedora or Darth Vader's helmet, where a piece of headgear is utterly essential to properly depicting a character. They could do a full-blown, very satisfying theme around Doctor Who that included all the most important stuff without ever including a fez anywhere. But that said, it would indeed be a nice additional detail to have in the line, and it actually is the kind of nice detail that they do like to put in sets, so... there's really no telling.

Huh? How so? All Pixar features are Disney ones, but the reverse isn't the case of course, and Wreck-It Ralph isn't a Pixar movie (while Brave is)...

Aww, I like the Indy fez. It was certainly extremely well-received by lots of LEGO fans when it came out in 2009. The only real issue with it is that it keeps one from using a hairpiece, and since it sits so high on the head it can make minifigures look bald, but I always thought this could be addressed with hair printed on the head. I agree it wouldn't work for the Doctor you're thinking of, though. It would probably be best addressed with a new element combining hair and hat in one piece, like a number of other elements in the last few years. I could see it happening if there does eventually come to be a Doctor Who theme, especially if it includes a Minifigures line, but there's really no telling.