rodiziorobs

Bummer that Jor-El's torso has the Not-an-S logo printed on it. I would have bought 6 or more of those if not for that, but it makes them pretty limited-use. I'll still get one, plus a Doc Phosphorus. The others don't really do anything for me. Thanks for the review as always, WhiteFang!

Allen ( @tormentalous ) over at The Brick Fan has posted some official pics. That Duplo T-Rex is absolutely adorable.

It's more likely they will eventually release him with a cardstock display box and the word "iconic".

See, I do like a bunch of these, and I think some of the new molds are great. However I also totally get where you are coming from about the specific nature of some of these, the balloon in particular. It seems like the ones I am most likely to get are those I can see other uses for. For example, I love the horse costume on its own, but I also fully hope to pull off some microscale castle magic by pairing them with some heroica figures. The flowerpot, cake, cactus, and dragon all have obvious alternate uses, and a few others could find their way into MOCs without much worry. But many like the balloon, or balloon animals, are so specific that it's hard to tell myself I really need them. Now, if the balloon had some other unknown feature--say, if the bulbous end could be used in a large cup socket, for example--that would instantly make it awesome to me and I would need one. I'm pretty sure it doesnt, though, and that's how I feel about a bunch of the other parts here.

Once again, @Peppermint_M, your comment perfectly mirrors my own thoughts on the subject. How do you do that?

The better news about the hat is that it doesnt have a sheriff star printed on it. I think half my western minifig population is sheriffs, and half of what's left is deputies...

Well, @MasterBuilder477 you're not the first one to be fooled by that.. Welcome to Eurobricks, by the way!

Woah, I did not expect that! I will need multiples of these, and I hope they become available in other colors soon. Even though it's not the same, his face reminds me a lot of this guy:

(Double post) This idea has been burning in my brain so I had to build a proof of concept. My initial idea of using plates with bars created some odd geometry where the ship was concerned, so I went with a different clip setup: I just cobbled together parts on hand (hence the random parts) but the dimensions are the same as the official set, turned on its side. The black 2x1 on the bottom just fits into the curvature of the rounded panel, and there is about 3 plates' worth extra space at the top above the lance. I tried to put the gray 1x1 with clip at about where the top of the deck would be. That could of course change depending on how much you wanted to submerge/raise the ship, but my objective of having space for taller masts was met. Of course, with the change, there are some drawbacks. The gray T-bars are a little unsightly, and there would be a visible 1x1 snot brick in the bottle sidewall. I used light gray here as I figured it was the most unintrusive, but you could always use trans-clear headlight bricks, and use the anti-stud on the back to attach the bottle to the base. The only other issue is replacing the larger panels with smaller pieces, which does destroy the glass effect. However, it would mean you would have more large panels to replace the brown that is currently the floor of the bottle in the unmodified set. I haven't worked out specifically how to secure the bottle to the base, but it would be similar to the setup inside the bottle where the ship attaches. I know I said in this very thread that I would never pay full price for this set, but given the thought I have put into it it's almost like I have to. Plus, Jacob Sadovich, the original project designer is coming to my local (Murray, UT, USA) store to sign the sets before official release. Its simply getting harder to pass up, as much as my wallet is trying to tell me to forget about it.

Audiences know that far future movies are kind of a spoiler for the ones closer to release--i.e. when you hear about Iron Man 5 you know that Iron Man will live through at least the next couple movies. It deflates the tension going into a movie when you know that everyone will still be standing at the end of it. Marvel knows this and so has actively worked to keep most. things beyond Avengers 3 under wraps, so that we don't--even can't--assume survival for any character. They want us to believe it's all on the table and everything could change. We also know Marvel likes to film things or cut trailers in a way that is a deliberate misdirection, so that no one, not even the actors sometimes, knows exactly what will happen. Some things we know, like that Ant-Man, Wasp, Black Widow, and probably Dr. Strange will show up In future movies. It's reasonable that at least some of the Guardians of the Galaxy would survive. But everyone else is a mystery. We know contracts are ending for a lot of the major players, and some are going to get let go. Maybe the Fox deal had something to do with it, but I think Marvel's tight lips on Phase four have less to do with that contingency and more to do with not letting their future stories get in the way of this one.

My two bits on Cinema Sins:

None of the Walmarts in my area have had them, and I'm in the US. So, even though they have showed up in some places here already, it's not 100%.

I recently bought the first season and am loving it all over again. I really wish we could have had a season 3 of this; it is probably one of the best animated comic series ever, if not the best. At the same time, it ended about as well as it could have--toward the end of season 2, they knew it was getting canceled in favor of the other (lesser) Avengers series, so they crammed in all the good ideas they hadn't used yet whereever they could. A show I loved as a kid was Mighty Max--it had a cool concept, crazy adventures, and a great voice cast. I haven't revisited it as an adult (I'm afraid maybe it hasn't aged well, or was never as good as 8-year-old me believed), but if a remake series came out, I would definitely seek it out to watch it.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Jumanji (1995).

I would love to see this, honestly. And you're right--themes like Ninjago coming out with sets obviously meant to engage an older audience could be evidence that a traditional castle theme could work with bigger, more complex sets in the future.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and you're right, TLG does issue sets that shoot for that corner of the populace. However, those tend to be more expensive limited run, one-off, or D2C sets. What I am saying is while the theme/genre has a certain popularity, it isn't (or at least doesn't seem to be) popular enough with TLG's usual audience (kids) to create a whole theme behind it without mashing up genres, at least for now. But that's what this thread is all about, right--hope for some future thing that is like those things from the past?

I won't dispute that, but I don't think it universally applies to all demographics. Who is buying these video games? Parents for their 7-12 year old kids? Perhaps, but most of those purchases are by teenagers, college students, and adults trying to recapture the nostalgia of playing 8-bit Zelda. While medieval/fantasy settings may be relevant, they are less relevant to kids than to other ages. I think this is borne out across other media as well--Game of Thrones is decidedly adult, and probably wouldn't enjoy the same success if it were toned down to a PG or PG-13. There have been fantasy/historic cinematic examples that have shied away from explicit content and nearly all have landed with a thud at the box office. LOTR was an exception, and is now 15 years old--and many feel that the violence as the series wore on very nearly earned a stronger rating. Family-friendly How to Train Your Dragon as a franchise has had diminishing returns since its debut over a decade ago, and never had spectacular toy sales figures. As @MAB pointed out, the very games you mention are rated for more mature than even the high end of LEGO's target audience. The setting is popular nowadays, but success without mature content such as sex or violence is fleeting. There may be evidence that a medieval Lego theme would sell well, and I'm sure TLG is paying big bucks to find it. Wait a second, they already did; it seems that TLG has found a way to make a fantasy theme work. From all appearances, the Elves theme is doing well, as it continues growing into its 4th year. The theme has come to incorporate more direct conflict, darker themes and colors, and yet stay remarkably light on violence. Nexo Knights has more violence to be sure, but it is all comic-booky so parents' feathers aren't ruffled. It turns out the way to sell medieval fantasy toys to kids is to draw a line down the traditional girls/boys divide: give the girls majestic but adorable animals to defend and boys a video game with cool weapons and powers where they can just punch stuff really hard.

I did also like the Queen Dragon Rescue, but I didn't appreciate the selection of characters; the minidolls and the animal weren't enough to edge out Ragana, Jynx, and the hoods and capes for the familiar characters in that set. I know, its a picky thing. I also wished they could have included knees for the dragon

Got it. Yeah, it would have been nice if the official set had kept the size of the Ideas submission, but I can see why they didn't--since it's kind of a niche appeal, going more expensive wouldn't have done them any favors. I was just suggesting a ship closer in proportion to the original, which TLG could have come closer to if they had rotated the bottle, without increasing the size or piece count much, if at all. As is, I think they missed the boat here (pun fully intended).

Yes, the original bottle was much bigger. The new bottle though, has bigger dimensions than TLG is using. I rechecked my work with this sloppy worksheet:

I agree with @GregoryBrick, the price per part ratio isn't so bad. What still gets me is the proportions. Specifically, the height of the ship has been bugging me, so I did some math to figure out what could be done for a potential mod. The original submission had the bottle rotated to rest on a corner rather than flat, which raises the overall height since the bottle isn't a circle. If the official set had done the same (without changing the dimensions at all) this alone would have allowed for more vertical space by about four plates. Additionally, the ship is perched two plates higher than the actual floor of the bottle (the difference between the interior of a panel and the thickness of a brick). Finally, it looks like you could rebuild the hull of the ship to shave off part of the bottom, so it looks more submerged. That could save you as much as two more plates. All added up, if you were to rotate the bottle, rebuild the hull, and take advantage of the extra space in the panel interiors, you could build more than 2 bricks higher than TLG's design, which would be sufficient IMO to correct the proportions, allowing for taller masts and rigging like in the original submission. It would require some reworking of the base where it meets the bottle in order to hold it rotated 45° and secure the ship inside, but that could be done with clips rather than stud connections. Some additional parts would be needed to rebuild the masts taller, and you would also want to replace the brown "floor" of the bottle (in its current configuration) with clear panels or bricks once the whole thing was rotated. It wouldn't require more big curvy (pricey) clear panels, though, just some basic 3x4s or even regular 1x2 bricks. If I end up getting this set--which is no guarantee--then I am definitely going to try it out.

Best I'd go for the Starlight Inn. It's a little small but charming, Sira has one of the best character designs, and it has the second best baby dragon. (Also, it brought my wife around to appreciating having more bricks around the house, which can't be understated.) It stays up all year; in winter I replace the roof and leaves with white pieces. In close second place is Ragana's castle. Worst I'd say is the Crystal mine. Disclaimer: I never got it (I'm not a completionist that way) but it has never appealed to me, even when I found one for 40% off. I would, like @FortNerd, put the Dragon school near the bottom, save for having Tidus. New characters are enough of a rarity that having him makes up for it.

Thanks @Rikus for the side-by-side comparison pics. I don't really follow ideas anymore until the sets are on the shelves, so hadn't noticed what a let down the actual ship is compared to the proposal. Obviously it had to be scaled down to fit the new bottle, and the bottle and the stand are really well done--despite the small panels it looks a lot cleaner than I anticipated. It's just too bad they couldn't keep the bottle a little bigger in order to keep the ship size closer to the Ideas submission. I might look for a way to get this, but more for a parts pack than anything. The compass dish is very nice, and those big curved clear pieces just scream to be built into a space fleet, but there's no way I'd pay full price. I look forward to seeing it in person at my local brand store. Edit: is this the first time an official set has used the loose-studs technique for water? Maybe it's just a pet peeve of mine, but that always seems like kind of a lazy approach, and seeing it in a set is disappointing.

42. It was great except Harrison Ford, who seemed to think the movie was all about him. Moana. Never had seen it although my kids have repeatedly watched it--and sing the songs all the time (not that I mind--it beats Let it Go).

For me, Zimmer's best score is King Fu Panda. I mean, most of his stuff is good-to-great, but that one stands out to me. Recently I've been listening a lot of Ramin Djawadi's scores--some are generic (Iron Man) but others like Pacific Rim and Warcraft are capital-E Epic. Speaking of Iron Man, Bryan Tyler's IM3 theme is great, and wonderfully memorable. I haven't seen the movie since opening weekend in 2013, but I still get that catchy tune in my head all the time. It's a shame he and Marvel had a falling out. Other than that, I'll put a vote in for Michael Kamen's theme from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I don't care for the movie at all, but the score is hauntingly good. Honorable mentions would be John Powell's HTTYD score, as @Umbra-Manis pointed out, James Horner gets a nod for both the Rocketeer and Willow (but nothing else, really), and of course Danny Elfman, for the Simpsons and for defining Batman musically (seriously, his score is Batman) and for his background tracks on Mission: Impossible (1996). Dang, that's a longer post than I meant it to be.