Dunjohn

They mean how many of each fig. Series 1 seemed to have a set distribution, with every box containing five ninjas, three clowns, etc. If it's too late for you to count, don't sweat it, we'll find out eventually.

Unfortunately, Johnny Depp uses his eyes for a huge percentage of Captain Jack's most memorable expressions - squinty interrogative looks, creepy expressionless wide-eyed looks, deep puppy-dog stares... none of these can be captured by Lego's simple black dots. If his head is double-printed, it'll probably just be the usual determined frown look. That said, Prince Dastan only ever had one facial expression, and he's one of the few licensed male characters with the hair to hide a double print.

Dunno. I'm not involved in that kind of business so I couldn't begin to speculate how it operates. I did hear that Lego's marketing data indicated that these wouldn't be as popular in the States so they had directed most of the Series 1 stock to other regions. Series 1 is still very easy to come by over here. Edit: Woohoo, I've been knighted!

There's a fourth one out in May '11. That's about right for the launch of these.

Occasionally I come accross mentions of some big watershed moment in TLG's history that occured around 2000, mainly buried in some Brothers Brick article or places like that. I gather it had something to do with a rethink of the direction of the product, as well as a massive cull of the number of bricks in production (I notice a lot of 90's sets contain loads of bizarre and extremely narrow-use elements), and that the whole thing was controversial and split the fanbase into for and against. I can't find anything that details exactly what happened, though. This was deep in my dark age and the Wikipedia article on TLG rather inconveniently only charts the company up to a point right before all of this went down. Can somebody point me towards something that'll fill me in?

Nah, TLG have promised to sort out the distribution imbalance between Europe and the States that resulted in that unpleasantness.

Ever so slightly jealous. Can you guys confirm what extras, if any, the minifigs have?

I know Jack's hat is quite iconic, but so is his look wearing just the bandana around his head - that's how I always picture him, anyhow. Sort-of like how Rastan had multiple torso prints, I think they could go one better and give Sparrow two different hairpieces in different sets. One with the hat, one without.

A Black Pearl has to be the centrepiece of any POTC line. It just wouldn't be PotC without it, and LEGO would never be that daft. I am struggling to think of a decent entry-level set, like the Desert Attack set from Prince of Persia (I don't want to compare to existing Pirates sets for price reasons; we all know POTC sets will be more expensive). Jack's rum island is a possibility, but that would only provide two minifigs and a bonfire (unless they include one of Norrington's sailors in a boat, coming to save them).

I doubt it's anything other than a Native American indian, if I'd seen am image of a Maya chief, I'd have called it that rather than "indian." Besides, if they'd wanted to start doing Mayans, they'd begin with a Warrior. I'm cool with it being a regular Indian chief. Series 2 already expands a running Series 1 theme - horror - so I'd like to see the Western figs built on, too. I don't own any actual Western sets. I like the sound of all four of them so far. I hope the gorilla doesn't have a zipper or any other costume tell-tale sign. A zippered gorilla's only good as a costume, while a non-zippered one can be costumed or real. I do expect that it'll be a mask rather than a moulded headpiece.

Pretty nice. The only gripe I have is that I hate when torso printing continues directly onto the legs, a it prevents customisation, but that's minor compared to the good points.

The top hat is Series 1. These are pretty cool, keep them coming!

Argos will have a new catalogue out in August, and I was able to sneak one off a pallet as they were being delivered today. No minifigs (S1 or S2) in it. I wouldn't worry about S2 because they'll probably insert a page when it releases, but the lack of S1 means they're probably trying to clear out their stock. If you're near an Argos and had been putting off getting any, better hurry up....

I just watched the Star Wars Holiday Special. Now I know why even die-hard Star Wars fans tell you not to bother watching the Star Wars Holiday Special. First time I've ever seen a Wikipedia article with a Reception subsection titled "Regrets."

Thanks! I just had a game with my brother, him playing as Griffindor and Hufflepuff and me as Slytherin and Ravenclaw. It was a lot of fun, though we fudged a couple of the movement rules and didn't realise until it was too late to stop. I think that only sped the game up, it lasted about twenty minutes as we played it. It was quite strategic playing as two houses, because we could use spare shifts from one of our houses to set up the other.

I keep them in a box. It's almost full but I already have a replacement lined up: A bigger box. I don't think I have enough to require a filing system yet but given my OCD for filing stuff, that's inevitable.

Sounds like exactly the kind of place everybody hopes to stumble upon abroad. Very nice find, snap up everything you can afford or you'll regret it!

Apologies for dredging up an old review, but I just got this today (on clearance at half price in Tesco = cheap remote stuff for Dunjohn) and I always check out the review of stuff I get. I just wanted to say I had no dark marks on my yellow bonnet. All of the yellow elements are quite clean. Maybe the tyres marked the elements in the reviewed set?

That's correct, here it is from below: Hmm, now that I look at it, the central 6x6 flat tile isn't really connected by much, but it's still solid.

I was wondering which dudes would have extra bits in them earlier. I figured an extra mic in the Pop Star, an extra maraca in the Mexican and an extra set of binoculars in the Explorer. I't have thought the trophy would be too big to qualify, but here's hoping!

Scotland will probably have them, even with the presumed rebalanced distribution. I was in a toy shop yesterday that had no fewer than fifteen open boxes of minifigs Series 1, there's no shortage.

Yeah, a Tron series would have an epic colour scheme. However, it's probably too close to the movie's release for us not to have heard anything yet.

I didn't know there'd be purple cheese slopes in it, yay! I was quite happy when those rolled out of my polybag. The ship itself is alright, I kinda prefer the little green alien's ship from Tesco. Also, Buzz's rocket feels like it should face the other way, and Buzz himself doesn't fit well into his seat (the purple slopes push him forward). I prefer Woody's set for the accessories, but this is still neat.

I may be completely wrong, but as I was building the set, I noticed that the dark red made Dumbledore look an awful lot like Santa Claus. Perhaps TLG just want to make him more versatile? I've noticed other microfigs that could have multiple identities. One of the pirates in Pirate Plank looks more like a castaway, while one of the explorers in Magma Monster wears a Sam Fisher-style multi-lens eyepiece, so he could double as a high-tech spy. Legomilk: I don't know what you mean by "buildingbook number," 3862 is the only number that appears on the instructions?

Wow, "world-first," really? Thanks, Svelte!