fred67

Agreed, a very nice job on the arches. I also wonder about the gray in the statue... I seem to have a hell of a time trying to find gray pieces to make a nice complete statue. Is that a SW helmet? I even like the grassy-ness of the outside.

Agreed... and two years is a good run for any LEGO set; with the Maersk train coming out, I'm sure EN is on it's way out.

Umm... no. Sure... here's my daughter's comments on the subject:

Well... you're pointing out that there's two different techniques, I don't see why it's a wonder they produce different results. The bars are a bit thicker than your average piece, too. I've rarely seen them without bubbles, but I'd have to go look at home to count. I've bought numerous bars, both trans and otherwise, separately, too. The trans all seem to have bubbles - I'd say the opaque ones probably do, too, you just can't see them.

Disagreement leads to discussion... if people are just always going to agree so as to not go against the grain, the discussion is not productive. It's not "negative."

It's not the mold it's the plastic mixture. From what I understand all mixed colors start with clear and then have colors added. They didn't add enough of the correct colors to make it opaque. It more common with the Chinese parts, but it happens with others too, from time to time. I've gotten marbled pieces and even at the PAB section in the LEGO Store, I put together a bunch of 1x4s to pack them better into the cup and showed the manager distinct color variations for the brown bricks.

$9.99US. Wasn't it $50 when it came out? They're showing an MSRP of $19.99, but I'm sure it was more than that. Must not be doing so well to cut it down to essentially a clearance price within months of going live.

Well... you never can tell what TLG has up their sleeves, but if they release a "standard" Black Pearl first, I will buy it. If they release a UCS quality Black Pearl first, I will buy it. But I will not buy both, and I will not take the chance of waiting for a UCS version and missing out completely.

Look - I clearly stated I think credit should be given where due, but even if someone posts some pictures of an interesting technique (let alone post an article about how to do it) that doesn't mean he was the only one to ever come up with it (or didn't copy it or build up from someone else's idea). Like Christoph says... some things lead to other things which then lead to other things... we all build on what we learn. I didn't "invent" microscale, and I didn't invent "castle," and I didn't invent "modular," but I put them all together. Who am I supposed to credit? If you substantially copy someone else's MOC, you should definitely give credit... but what is "substantially?" One house looks much like another house; one train car can look substantially like another train car - often there's only one or two obvious ways to build them. Few can claim the entirety of their inspiration came from out of the blue. Even these cool little bots by zenn... we've seen bots like that in movies and television and comics; he did them in LEGO and that's really cool, IMO - but if someone else said "I'm going to make those little bots I saw on... <some show>" and comes up with something similar without ever having seen zenn's, what're you going to do? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say. People shouldn't get mad or upset over these things. I hereby declare that if anyone wants to use some technique I've done in LEGO, like this, they can do it without giving credit.

This is the first chance I've had to look at these new pictures, and I haven't read through all the responses (yet), but my first reaction is that the mill is a bit disappointing, not on par with the MMV. The mill is way too small. I like the barn and pretty much everything, just the mill itself is not particularly good, IMO. Escape from Dragon's Prison looks terrible... a facade? Really? I like the smith's little mill... except it's too little. The carriage ambush is the only one I think really lives up to my expectations, I really like the trees. Ultimately I will likely get them all anyway.

I will get some of the sets because I like some of the sets... while I read the Pirates board (because I love the ships), I have not collected many of the sets. I wish I had more, but the greatest so far is the Imperial Flagship, which is destined for display.... just like the POTC sets I get. They do not have to match.

Welcome to EB and the Train forums. I generally agree with what was already said; having a large collection of older trains it's a process to think about switching to the newer systems, but if I were starting out today I'd forget about the older stuff and just concentrate on the new. However, if you really want one of those really expensive older sets, you should try to build it yourself with bricklink. It will probably be just as expensive (or more) for the first train (mostly because you'll have to order from many different stores and pay each one shipping and handling), but if you order extras of the useful pieces, when possible, it can cut down on the cost significantly to make a second or third older train. I got a Sante Fe Super Chief at auction (when bricklink still had auctions), but had no cars and refused to pay the premium people were asking. If I were to build one, it would not have been worth it, but I got enough pieces to build 4 and then some. Over time on my other orders for other things, I've added a few train bits and pieces. The only differences are that I use the newer couplers; for the roofs of the cars I chose the black curved piece because they are abundantly available at LEGO S@H PAB. What people are asking for the gray ones on bricklink is highway robbery. I had an alternative in gray that didn't cost any more than the black, and it was OK, but it was one plate higher and I chose to use the black. In other words, if you can accept minor variations, it's definitely possible to build the trains for what is ultimately a lot more reasonable prices. Yes, it took a lot of time and patience (padding orders with extra pieces so that, over time, I had the pieces I needed), but I've ended up with three Santa Fe cars so far (and, like I said, enough pieces to build a fourth and probably fifth), a few of mine own cargo cars, and I did the Holiday Train before Christmas and only had to order a minimum of parts to add to what I had already collected over the years. Still... if I were starting right now, knowing what I know, I would consider it pretty much masochistic to do all that starting now. You have to remember I started out with a handful (too small) of 9V engines and track and years of collecting pieces - wheels here, buffers and couplers there... I just don't know if it'd be worth it now.

My opinion is that sometimes asking for credit is a bit ridiculous. Those little bots are awesome, and I don't think I would have thought of them on my own, but they are only a few pieces each and not particularly complex. So the guy gives you credit (and it was due), but sometimes I think people are asking far too much to be credited with very simply designs. I run into the same thing sometimes in computer programming - an obvious solution to a problem that many people come up with on their own. I'd done sorting algorithms and shortest path algorithms before I ever stepped foot in a classroom and read about them and discovered they already had been named by their 'inventors,' they were well known because they were the simplest solution that probably 90% of decent computer programmers would have come up with on their own given a task and no other input. It can be worse with this attitude: Inspiration? So... you build a house and someone says "that's a cool house, I'm going to build a house." That's inspiration. You'll have to be a lot more narrow than that for your "demands." Now, never in a million years would I look at someone else's work, recreated it (substantially or wholly), post it online and take complete credit for it. Of course not - I'm not suggesting that we should always let it go. But there two things: 1. "Merely" inspiring? I'm sorry, if I'm inspired to make an Emerald Night coach after seeing some of the great ones done here, if I do it on my own (of course I want to keep the basic EN coach look), I'm not going to give anybody any credit. If I build their coach wholly, I would give credit - but of course it's going to be substantially similar, just as theirs was substantially similar to TLG's version. In this case similarity is not copying from another member of the community, it's building it in the style of the original set. 2. Some designs are so SIMPLE that claiming/demanding credit for them is ridiculous... again, there are building techniques in LEGO (like studs not on top) that have been obvious to many people without having to read anything on the subject; the mere existence of brackets to change the directions of building are all anyone needs.

+1 CorneliusMurdock - thanks for a great trade.

Actually, I don't believe I said that. I believe you read it, and thought about it over and over again until you were convinced I was insulting you personally. I didn't; the idea of manipulating your children one way or another to suit some social agenda (rather than, say, teaching them to speak) is ridiculous. I was replying to your own words. Perhaps I took them the wrong way, since in your first response you said you were responding to someone else, but I thought the suggestion was terrible. I don't recall accusing you of anything. Yeah, I believe a lot of us suggested something like this already. And yet, forcing more females into the historical themes, even if they're not particularly accurate, doesn't seem like it would satisfy the people complaining since, as I said already, even with females it's still more male biased. I know the discussion is to expand the core audience, and I never said they shouldn't do women, but I will suggest that for every 1 woman in some historical action theme there are hundreds if not thousands of men. Even if you want to change it to suit some modern social agenda, it's still going to be male biased.... 100 to 1? 10 to 1? People will still complain. Wouldn't bother me, but I suggest millions of upset mothers thinking that "Amazons" would be worse than nothing, although I have no problem with a fairy tale/folklore themes... In fact, I'm not suggestion LEGO not have more female centric sets - I'm not arguing against it at all, and I never was, I'm suggesting two things, however: 1. It's not the responsibility of the LEGO company to participate in social engineering. Yes, I know they get involved in education (completely gender neutral), and I know they participate in things like energy and environmental policy - but the latter is definitely the responsibility of a company like LEGO (whose products, with very few exceptions, are entirely plastic). That doesn't mean they can't, that means they're not exactly obligated to do anything except make decisions that can expand their business. 2. You don't pick sets in order to effect social change. You pick sets based on what will sell, and then if you want to make them more gender balanced, then that's great. Sure... I haven't said anything to the contrary; the queen is almost always there along with the king - and I even suggested figures like Joan of Arc; but as you agree - there is still significant male bias. For 1 Joan of Arc there's thousands of male soldiers. It makes a lot more sense to try to balance things out in modern sets than historical ones. Female police officers: yes; female doctors: yes; female shop owners: yes; female athletes: yes.

That's not bad, but the problem I have with a display like that is for characters with capes, and characters like the skier (who, in my display, is actually wearing the skis). I would prefer a small shelf with the display case on it (or, until my cases come, a homemade rack... here's my series 3). DSCF0299 by FredJH, on Flickr Series 1 and 2 are at work - same sort of deal, but one big display instead of a smaller one like this. The Skier is held on much like yours (by the back of the legs)... two headlight bricks on either side with a 1x4 plate facing forward between them, and the legs attached to the plate.

Coercing kids into gender roles is the problem, and your solution is to... wait for it... coerce them into doing what you think they should do... (this is not eating vegetables, after all). Sorry, boys and girls are different. No, I'm not denying "nurture" has played a significant role, but the debate should never have been about nature vs. nurture, it's how much is it our nature, and how much is it our nurture, because it's ALWAYS a mix of the two, and our nature is what determines how much nurture will affect us. My anecdotal story is that my daughter is 2.5 years younger than her older brother, who she really looked up to. She played all sorts of his "card" games (like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh) only because that's what he was into; she played the same games, wanted to do the same things... they both did Gymboree and Little Gym when they were little - then my son started taking martial arts. However, when my daughter was old enough, she said she didn't want to (never mind the fact that the class my son was in was half girls - so it's not like she saw it as a "boy" thing). She wanted to take ballet... which grew into tap and jazz and now hip-hop. She wanted to take gymnastics. Now she's on the competitive team for both. It's what she wanted and worked for, neither of us "pushed" her in that direction, we asked her what she wanted to do and then helped her do it. Sometimes she plays with LEGO, sometimes she doesn't - it's up to her. She probably plays with LEGO more than my son, and she's very creative with it - but nobody coerced her into it, and that's all I'm arguing; if kids want to play with LEGO, let them play with LEGO. If they don't, they don't. Why do you think it's up to you to manipulate them? You don't want to force gender typing, but you want to force your own agenda. I can't disagree with that more. Now I'm not arguing most LEGO sets aren't gender biased, but you're not going to change things overnight... compare gender stereotypes now to how they were 20 years ago; then 50, then 100 - and tell me things haven't gotten better and still are. And I will argue, like I did in the other thread (with ka.lego) that sometimes (often) the things we want are male biased. Tell me an industry (that LEGO would reasonably produce a set for) that is female biased? If we want to build an army then, with few exceptions, it's biased male. If we want history, then it's biased male (the females are usually relegated to being queens or other non-primary roles). And then you need to use your head... is the LEGO company going to make more money making Queen Elizabeth sets, or Attila the Hun and Viking sets? Oh, sure... how about Joan of Arc? That'd be interesting, right? Except you still have hundreds of male figures to the ONE female figure that would be part of that story. Cleopatra? One female.. with how many males? Sorry - history is just that way. Not interested in Susan B. Anthony LEGO sets, and it's not because she's not a great historic figure, it's because it would be BORING, for both boys AND girls. I disagree. I mean, while most of us can easily do this - in fact, I gave out martial arts figures to some kids and a female instructor at our academy and just gave them the closed pouch along with a female head and hair - it's not something most people can do. Here's a bright idea (and don't tell me it would cost too much - TLG raised CMF prices here 50% from series 2 to 3, you cannot tell me it's not PURE profit), why not just include both female and male heads in what otherwise would be gender neutral figures?

"Sorry, item is not available in this country: United States."

I already had it on my "wanted" list! I guess they don't want to release two ships at the same time. Edit: Thanks, SuperBagel... looks like very reasonable prices. Seems to me that Disney values the cross promotion more than other license-ers (*cough* Lucas *cough*). Like POP, the sets seem very reasonably priced for what you're getting. I'm up for QAR and Captain's Cabin; I knew QAR would be expensive (over $100), but the cheapness of The Captain's Cabin is great.

Penelope Cruz looks good even in LEGO (another plus for QAR). I like the little pirate mummy statue thingy. That life-size statue is actually larger than life, Johnny Depp is not that tall.

Well, this is the coincidence today... I'm working at home because we were expecting a delivery of a treadmill this morning (expected and received). I've also argued that the shake weight theory is sound, even if you don't get the range on the muscle that I'd normally want.

Very nice... I will need to make one for my wife. Is that a shake-weight!!! The clear bricks make it look like it could be vibrating. Now it just needs to incline.

I think licensed themes can seem more exciting; I know I'm more excited to get HP and, while I'm not planning on getting fully invested in POTC, Queen Anne's Revenge along with Captain's Cabin look really great and I'm a lot more excited about them than the new Kingdoms sets (even though I'm planning on getting ALL of them). If you look at sets that you can really compare: Whitecap Bay, London Escape, and the Mill... they are definitely more detailed for the size sets they are. I may end up getting more POTC than I was expecting. I love the carriage from London Escape, although it's a much later vintage (it seems to me) than other castle sets. But... yeah... they probably do a bit more for licensed themes (makes up for the extra cost). And I agree... right now, castle is my main theme (although I collect a wide variety of LEGO themes) and, while I will get them all, I'm just not nearly as excited about them.

It is... and it's pretty awesome... but I swear it wasn't there a minute ago!

What happened to the globe in the captain's cabin? And the Aqua de Vida set... is that really just a big sticker? The fountain is nice, what looks like a waterfall curtain looks terrible. I will likely stick to just getting QAR.