AFOLguy1970

First thoughts are...... big and grey with no apparent cockpit or windows and 90% of the part count appears to be the wings. Is this a prison ship? Or is it Jar Jar's ship? On a positive note, my wallet is pleased with this.

Another possible reason to recommend the Raptor Escape over Raptor Rampage would be the truck. I bought this for my oldest son, and the wheels are really a problem. They use technic axles, wheels, and technic bushings to act as the hubcaps. You need to have the wheels attached just right. A millimeter in either direction creates a problem. If you push the hubcaps in, the wheels will lock. If you try to loosen them to allow the truck to roll, the wheels come off. There is a sweet spot, but with no wiggle room to move them further in or out. Obviously, as he plays with the truck, the wheels will naturally push in or out a little bit, so constant adjustment is necessary. It is no fun anymore for either of us with the need to constantly try and fix the wheels. Perhaps you might want to keep this in mind when choosing between the two sets.

I saw Shuttle Tyderium in the Frisco Lego Store yesterday. No sign of the Final Duel yet.

I sure hope not since I finished my first MOC this year---of a courthouse. I do not see how Lego could do it justice with the size and budget constraint (no pun intended). They could in theory give it the Town Hall treatment and make another $200+ building, but I can hear the outcry now. Also, it would not be the best candidate for a corner building. Most courthouses are given a prominent position on the Town Square, if not the center of the square itself, at least the ones here are like that. It seems like each new modular has very little in common with the previous one for the sake of variety in terms of architecture and theme. Therefore, I would expect that the new one will not be "crime" related.

So they did not have an alternate face with no glasses? Yeah, that was kind of a missed opportunity there---thought that would be a given.

A lot of people would like to have something like the Pet Shop with two detachable sections. Most are expecting a corner building for the next release as this would fit the pattern. Also, don't forget that the Parisian Restaurant is residential above the actual restaurant. I am not sure the next one will be residential given the typically commercial nature of corner buildings. They tend to be things like stores or banks in most of the towns around here.

Shelob was my first LOTR set and the second Lego set in general I purchased after coming out of the Dark Age. The articulation and design is incredible. To me, a minifigure collector series would be ideal if every character was a generic army builder. Have things like Moria Orc, Morder Orc, Gondorian soldier, Rohan soldier, Lothlorien archer, etc., and my wallet would be bleeding cash with ever visit to a store which sells them. If you had the fellowship taking 9 slots and only one or two in the whole series was an army builder type, those would be the ones where everyone would be feeling the bag at the Lego Store or Toys R Us.

Very nice, I would never have thought about keeping the sprues intact, but it works well!

I would have very much like to have taken my boys to NYC during the holiday season to see this store and Rockefeller Center among other things. The cost of a family trip there is somewhat prohibitive. It is a shame they have to close it, but I can understand about the high rent situation.

Bricks that crack despite the fact you took good care of them, especially those cheese slopes, 1x1's, and minifigure torsos Having new items promoted by Lego, making it available to early order for VIP members, and then going out of stock in a matter of hours. It almost makes me feel like Lego doubted the success of the item by not having enough on hand for the initial availability. Yes Ferris Wheel, I am looking at you. When the Lego website messes up at the most critical time, ie. the day the set you have been waiting for arrives, and you cannot place your order. In the spirit of Lord Business, when someone or something keeps messing with my stuff, whether it is the wife, the kids, the cat, or the next door neighbor. It is on a high shelf for a reason. Non-Lego peeves: slow people in the passing lane matching the speed of the car next to them and creating a wall no one can breach The "I am not going to let you in" mentality of drivers when you are obviously trying to enter the freeway from the on ramp Solicitors who can see you are eating dinner through your windows, and they ring your doorbell anyway People who believe they have a right to disagree with you, but become very defensive when you disagree with them

Well, I got an email stating that my order had shipped yesterday. The Ferris Wheel was the only item I ordered. It turns out it is still on backorder (now showing 30 day shipping on S&H), and what they really shipped was the voucher for the Legoland park admission So, if you ordered online when it was already in backorder and you got the email, you might want to check the order details.

I would be interested in building a news station in modular style, however the big challenge is how to construct a Doppler radar on the roof.

Showing out of stock with a ship date of May 29 in the US. I am hoping the Lego Store in Frisco will have it on the weekend of the 23rd when the Lego Americana exhibit is in the mall at that time. Guess I will not get my hopes up too high.

I am beginning to think the US has it better with sets due to the prices and exchange rate. However, if you are looking for individual parts, then Europe may very well have the advantage. When ordering on Bricklink, the more uncommon the part is, the more likely it is that European shops will have it in decent quantity and at a better price. This is my experience so far.

Interesting, so it was the Research Institute that gave Lego the save. In the current review, I do not think there are any holdovers from previous waves, so they would either have to reject all sets or pick a new one After studying the labyrinth again, it does seem to have a substantial size and number of parts, therefore it would not likely be as cheap as many might hope it would be if approved. Also, if it does come out at an inflated price, I could see people who might casually want one simply pull up the instructions once it goes online, and using PAB and Bricklink to build their own as most of the parts are quite common, which is also a possibility with the piano. Would Lego anticipate people trying to do this to avoid paying the higher price?

I would like to see sand green bricks sold as PAB directly from Lego. The resellers and people who want sets such as GG for an investment will hate me for saying this, but it is frustrating to see a part be rare when it does not necessarily have to be. A sand green 1x8 is $3-4 for just one brick while a white one can be had for mere cents. What is wrong with this picture? ---end rant--

Soon we should be getting the results of the current review projects. My hope is that the History Museum bucks the trend and gets produced. Minas Tirith would be nice, but no one really expects it. My fear is the nod goes to labyrinth or the piano (nice projects, but I would rather have the other two), although the silver lining would be a resting period for the wallet. To my knowledge, there has not been a review where no set has been selected from the group. It would seem like Lego would want to avoid that situation as it would not look good to the public if they did not choose anything. My hope was the piano would roll over in the next review, because all of the other sets are fairly large in size and/or numerous in part count. It would be curious to see how Lego would respond to a review filled with only larger submissions. Now, I fear the piano in particular might be selected, because it is small and the "easy way out". Since we have yet to see Dr. Who, Wall-E, and BBT, there is already going to be a backlog of valuable shelf space to market these sets in addition to anything else that might get picked. They can only circulate so many sets at a time. Sure, there could be more than one selection in a round as we have seen, however the projects are competing against each other for that scarce space, and surely Lego is mindful of that. My guess is that only one from this round will be chosen. What would they do if they did not choose any? It would be comical to imagine the video where they open the envelope and it is blank. Again, I think Lego would like to avoid that kind of letdown to fans of Ideas. Hopefully we will hear something soon. If a big one does get approved, I need to start saving!

Some more: I actually do not mind the car in Palace Cinema In Lego Ideas, people who either, (a) submit something that beautiful, large, and really meant to be an exhibition piece. As much as we would all love to have a 100,000 piece Palace of Versailles, it is not happening for most of us, and (b) those who submit something dull, small, and striking similar to the pick-a-model, in other words, it looks like the designer is in first grade. Now I have to sift through all of that to find the viable projects hidden in the pile I still cannot stand the Rebels stormtrooper and lament the fact that there is no easy way to get the "real" one I think Lego is becoming more AFOL unfriendly. They insist on having play features in some of the big sets (Yes, DO, I am looking at you), are making it much more difficult and expensive to buy bricks individually, ala. Pick-a-model cannibalizing bin space (see other thread), and the ridiculous online PAB prices I am getting tired of seeing some Bricklink sellers trying to gather as much as they can of a particular type/color part in order to corner the market and charge an extortionist price to buy it. As someone stated before, ultrarare minifigs at conventions is just plain mean. The whole Mr. Gold thing also left a bad taste in my mouth. It reminded me of Willy Wonka and those golden tickets. Some brat probably got their dad to buy the minifigs by the caseload until they found one. And finally, I really wish a competitor could match (or exceed) the quality of Lego with compatible parts and give them some real competition. That might help with some of the high prices we are currently seeing.

Some people have built their modulars around a square city block with the buildings framing the outside of the square. The inside of the square could be a park or a fairground where you could place the Ferris Wheel. I do not think it would look good sandwiched between two buildings, but it would be fine in a "green" space adjacent to the buildings or in a public square.

When this thread first launched, I thought of posing the question: Do you win a prize if your opinion is so unpopular that someone challenges it here despite the premise of the thread? This is a great thread by the way, and I share quite a few of the unpopular opinions

This was a difficult choice. I gave the edge to Orthanc due to its size and overall design. I almost voted for Helms Deep with its great assortment of minifigs in addition to capturing a scene well without breaking the bank too much. It is also easy to understand the votes for Council of Elrond. Even though some people might think it was not necessary and perhaps took the place of something important, it had some great elements, and at the time, it was the only way to get Elrond without having to hunt down the Gamestop version. That Elrond remains one of my favorite minifigs as he is himself a favorite among Tolkien characters. Getting Arwen was also nice.

Modulars are getting smaller, more expensive, more geared to kids, and the need to have a storyline is just plain dumb.

Is it available for VIP members only on May 13, or is it available from May 13th and onward? The reason I ask is that June 1 is my birthday, and I would like to go pick it up at the Lego store. Only problem is that the 1st is a Monday, and I have to work all day. The mall at Frisco is going to have a traveling Lego exhibit that covers the weekend just prior to the first. I would hate to go out to see the displays and have to hold off buying anything at the Lego store because I missed the Ferris Wheel by one or two days.

Went to the Dallas store today, and it is definitely an eyesore. The store was full of people, but no one gave the wall any more than a glance in the half hour we were there. In the past, I would have to compete with others for space when filling up a cup. 12 slots were wiped out just for the cup display and the boxes for the PaM. About a dozen more bins were devoted to the silly little airplane. They had a few giraffe ones prefilled on the rack and no bins with giraffe parts. Of course, the bottom row with the primary colored 2x4 and 2x6 bricks is untouched, so it is the more desirable parts that have been scaled back. This left very little for regular PAB, and the selection was pitiful. Most kids were looking at the sets, and of course, the BAM section was jam packed. Strangely, the place where you originally got the PAB cups behind the counter still had PAB cups, so the placement on the wall was totally unnecesary, although I am sure the store manager had no choice. Had there been spaces for the giraffe model on the wall, I could easily say that the great majority of the wall would have been devoted to the PaM. Seriously, like others said, if you need instructions to build something and do not wish to design something on your own, isn't that what the other 90% of the store is devoted to? Needless to say, Little Timmy was not interested in the giraffe or airplane today, probably because he already built something like that with his own bricks, and it does look inferior next to Ninjago, Star Wars, and the race cars. My kids got some Ninjago and creator stuff, so I will complete the survey on the receipt and stress my dissatisfaction with this change. Normally, I give high marks on surveys, but this really hurts the Lego store experience. Have not been to the Discovery Center in a while. Last time we were there, the bins were mostly wiped out, and they were not numerous. We will have to check it out soon to see what they have.

Almost painful to post this, but I had in the 1980's an Alpha 1 Rocket Base, a Galaxy Explorer, an All Terrain Vehicle, and the Yellow Castle, all of which Mom sold at a garage sale.