rodiziorobs

That trailer was kind of meh to me. I don't need to see a lot of new footage or spoilery stuff in my trailers, but tonally it was like a twin to the first teaser. Or rather, it was or more like a Peter Jackson extended version of the first teaser: not better, just longer. The novelty of the "got no strings" soundtrack has grown a bit stale for me as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for the movie, but if the forthcoming trailers are all like this, my enthusiasm might start to wane.

"Dark Ages" just sounds like an opportunity to see more "Darkness" ...blacked out windows...in the basement...middle of the night! Other places that are dark. You get it, that's just the first verse.

Unbelievable, and I am awestruck by your clever usage of unusual parts. Bravo!

I think that's actually exactly why they need to undersell it a little. Just having Marvel's name on it will guarantee people will see it, yet if it performs better than expected (as did GOTG), it will give it longer legs at the box office. If fanboys like it more than they thought they would, it will go a long way in ensuring good word of mouth to non-Marvelites.

Over on the 2015 set rumor thread I have seen the word "underwhelming" used a lot to describe the Ant-Man trailer. I personally thought it was pretty good, but perhaps not great. It worked as a teaser, though, because I definitely want to see a real trailer now. The characters all looked good, particularly Hank (although the normally slightly gravelly-voiced Michael Douglas seemed to be doing a Christian Bale impersonation at times). It just wasn't as epic or explosive or impressive as other CBM trailers. My guess for that is that Marvel is wisely trying to undersell Ant-Man a bit. Since it is their most plagued production, with the Edgar Wright fall-out and such--and that without Wright they might never have slated Ant-Man for his own film at all--they may be trying to be a little more modest about it, rather than hyping it up to the extreme. Frankly, I think the understated nature of the trailer suits the character better anyway.

I have a few: 10193 Medieval Market Village. I rarely get big sets, and this one feels even bigger despite being made only of tiny pieces. Two gorgeous buildings and all the little side vignettes, and a very generous price-per-part ratio made this very fun to see take shape. Although my new favorite might be 31019 Forest Animals, simply because of the ridiculous amount of expressiveness in the monkey's face and gestures. IMO LEGO knocked it out of the park with his design. I bought it at a discount primarily as a nice tan-and-brown parts pack, but it might become the first set I leave together for longer than a week or two (maybe even indefinitely!). I will try to get some pictures put together to show what I mean and post them.

Yeah, I was expecting to find the seasonal polybags marked down to below a buck as in other years (but $2 was still too high for me for the Friends one this year), but finding Forest Animals for less than $10 was a great find.

Stopped at Target and got 31019 Forest Animals clearance priced at 50% off ($9.98). I got it just for a great tan and brown parts pack really, but having built the monkey I find him really charming with a lot of expressiveness. I might not part him out after all--something I have never done, as I part out everthing, even most minifigs. But that's not my best; a couple years back I found a "misc. Lego castle lot" on ebay for $100 including shipping. Looking through the pictures I saw it had most of 10197 Medieval Market Village and a bunch of random castle greys. No one else bid on it, and when it arrived it was missing the minifigs and cows from the MMV with about 10 other generic pieces. The assorted castle bits was actually a nearly complete 7094, King's Castle Siege, missing minifigs and about 10 other pieces. There were some other random minfigs including some trolls with weapons, though. Seeing that each set was MSRP $100, but now go for up to nearly double that on ebay, I felt really lucky to get both nearly complete for the price of one. Still not my best, though. When a LEGO brand store finally opened locally, we went to the grand opening. Well it's a small store, there were huge crowds, and because of occupancy limits we weren't able to get inside--for over two hours. We thought about waiting, or coming back later and hoping the line would have died down, then noticed the build-a-giant Hulk station and thought the kids could have fun there. Just as we got there, they began cleaning it up for the day (go figure). We were about to just go when someone came out and announced they had a few new in damaged box sets to give away including a 10226 Sopwith Camel. Long story short, even though we didn't even get to go inside the store or build a Hulk, we left quite satisfied with our visit after I won the Sopwith Camel in a drawing. I thought of selling it, but I was salivating over the gorgeous dark green too much to actually part with it. Awesome set, absolutely free. I have had a handful of other great deals on ebay--25+ BURPS and LURPS for $6 including shipping, the whole 2012 Avengers lineup for about $90 (with at least one of each character), and a random lot of a few hundred parts including a bunch of rare/discontinued teal for about $20.

Just stopped by my local Target to see they had several sets on clearance: Lots of Chima down 15% or more including Legend Beasts and of course Speedorz--which seem to be on perpetual clearance All Hero factory IFB down as much as 30% Some Creator down 25-50% (including 31019 Forest animals at 50%) Some Lego Movie down 30% Storage boxes, clocks, watches down up to 30% Sadly, no clearance discounts on City, SW, or Super Heroes. Edit: some large (not arctic) City sets were marked down 15%, and Juniors as well. They also had some of the new Bionicle and Classic sets in stock ahead of the 1/1 date.

From the Earth's Mightiest Heroes! cartoon series that ran before the inferior AA show. It's not what they are basing the minifig off of (and if it is, we need a full line of figs from this show!), but its out there. Personally, I think the WS fig shown above looks good. I might put old Hawkeye's head (glasses side) with a new Ninjago mask to perfect it, but that arm printing is very nice.

Merry Christmas!

Thanks for this entertaining round-up of advent calendar builds! I would much rather have this than a standard review.

Best fig: Hun warrior. Fantastic cape, shield, print, helmet. Tied with Unikitty in all her incarnations. Worst: minidolls, but only because of the lack of articulation. They look fine, but the restictions of their design as far as poseability really makes it hard to get on board with thre friends sets. I know, not exclusive to 2014, but still. Best set: Santa's workshop. I have a lot of reasons for liking this, mostly because it was the biggest set I was able to get this year and created a lot of goodwill with my wife in connection with my hobby. Worst set: actually, most disappointing set. I really wanted to love Creative Ambush, but it was a really fiddly set that loved to fall apart. Not terrible, but I had such higher hopes for it. Best theme: Lego Movie. Creative Ambush aside, I loved the crazy set designs, mishmash of styles, and variety of parts. Honorable mention goes to Mixels. Worst theme: no opinion. I think they all have some good and bad sets, and I was tempted at various times to get at least one set from all of them.

Instead of a size restriction or a piece limit, maybe a piece target would be best. Say, we are aiming for 300 pieces including minifigs, but there is a large allowance--50 pieces, for example, at either end, so you could use anywhere from 250 to 350 pieces. It would allow the most flexibility in style and size while still being more or less accurate to the set design process that official sets follow in order to hit specific price points. Edit: ah, I see that gedren_y just posted practically the same thing.

Really? Who?

I have not seen Bof5A yet, but I agree wholeheartedly with your comments about the first two Hobbit films. I don't mind at all if a movie strays from it's original book version, so long as the movie itself is still good. For me that was not the case with AUJ or DoS. I do wish Jackson had at least kept with the tone of The Hobbit; I feel like LOTR (books) are an epic battle of good an evil, while Tolkien's prose in the Hobbit is much more lighthearted and playful. Jackson, however, transported the LOTR epicness directly to The Hobbit and tried to make it stick. The movie could still have had the darkness while being playful, which makes me sad because if Guillermo del Toro had stayed on the project, I think we would have gotten that and the movies would have been better because of it.

Correct! Looks like it's your turn now. When the road is collapsing, people panic and run everywhere, and one of them happens to be dressed as Spider-Man. It's a total throwaway, but my wife and I like to joke that it is our favorite Spider-Man movie, just because of that scene. The original to me is not even the same movie at all--the only similarities are the title, some of the characters' names (while the characters themselves are completely different) and the fact that each is a commercial for Mini Coopers. As for Michael Caine, when was the last time he didn't do a good job in a movie? Even his lousy movies have the redeeming quality of him being in them. While I liked the classic just fine, I will have to agree to disagree with you on this one.

Nope, sorry. That Spider-Man shot is actually completely irrelevant to the movie, but I couldn't help myself. Here are some hints with the two other photos I mentioned; the first shows one of the main characters, and the second is surprisingly helpful as well. All three shots are part of the same scene, which is pretty important to the plot (despite Spider-Man's random appearance). untitled by rodiziorobs, on Flickr untitled3 by rodiziorobs, on Flickr

I intend to! It looks quite interesting, I'll see if I can plan time this weekend. In the meantime, here is this: untitled2 by rodiziorobs, on Flickr There are two more images on my Flickr that you can follow the link to if you need a hint.

Hunter Prey? (Full disclosure: I have not actually seen it)

I didn't see any of the UCS/D2C models in the catalogue. I believe this catalogue only has sets that are generally available and not exclusives like that. Sone fantastic sets here. The Marvel ones are decent--as usual, the character designs are their strong point, although I am a fan of the redesigned Quinjet. However, its the Elves theme that continues to impress me the more I see of it. I'm not a minidoll kind of guy but this is shaping up to be my most anticipated theme this year.

That might actually work, if there was also a leg attachment similar to Pres. Business' that made it more proportional to the rest of the suit.

I'll second that. It could lead to any kind of minifig-sized brick-built characters, but I'm intrigued thinking what TLG might have had in mind with it. Ultron is definitely a possibility, but since it is a piece with such other possibilities, they had to be planning it for more than one purpose...

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I saw this today and simply had to share it--this seemed like the best place to do that. One of the innumerable Chinese knock-offs is now selling terrorist sets. Here is the set: Followed by another: I find it a little shocking yet slightly humorous as well.

My guess is it will run similar to Chima or Ninjago, slated for a two-to-three year run, but possibly more if successful enough (à la Ninjago). There is likely a tv series planned also, although I would not be surprised one bit if TLG holds off on that to see how successful this line ends up being before they go all-out on the media tie-ins.