vexorian

Somehow I think that there will be at least two waves. The first wave will be DC and the second wave will be Marvel. Mostly because it appears that DC are the better-finished ones. I also wouldn't think DC and Marvel would like competing for shelf space too much.

Hulk is obviously missing a ton of new molds, so I think it is pointless to complain about it. Iron Man is actually incredibly gosu cool compared to most of bionicle and the crap Megabloks have been releasing as well. It probably helps that he is supposed to look mechanical, unlike the other characters. Batsy and Green lantern are ok. Of course, I don't think I would buy them. Perhaps Iron Man, specially if the designs improve. Nobody is forcing us AFOLs to buy these, but I think that for kids who want buildable action figures this product is superior to its precedents. I've seen what megabloks have been doing with their Marvel license and they were very successful making figures that were much worse than these. (I had close exposure to the spider man ones, they blow). The Hero factory build system is great and it is unfair to compare it to Ben 10 : The heroes are obviously built without taking shortcuts except for the torsos, but they will have the usual skeleton used in Hero Factory. They actually look like the characters they are portraying , and beyond the face and torso they are not using any new molds, I think this is great actually. More so, the hero factory build system to me seems anecdotally a lot more popular with kids than construct-a-buzz. At my local stores there are still Buzz at the shelves since last year, but the HF 2.0 heroes that just arrived last months are actually disappearing.

Hulk is not so unlego-ish, it is what LEGO has been doing for large scale figures ever since the rock monster in the rock raiders. Plus I don't think the designers had many choices. If they went the minifig route, he would be way small. My biggest concern about Iron Man is actually if they use gold rather than yellow. Every attempt to reproduce the movie Iron Man (using golden colors) looks really bad in plastic. And even the custom linked in a post way above looks less good because of it. The shape of the head is so blatantly preliminary that I am fairy sure it will change, but the color ... It seems they will insist on it.

I think I am going to dedicate myself to LEGO superheroes next year. Holy monopoly LEGO! But not that I am complaining. Regarding the Avengers, I hope they expand on to "Earth's mightiest heroes" (The current TV show) territory as well. They could do M.O.D.O.K and some hydra tanks and I would actually like antman... I doubt it would happen. They literally win nothing from doing that as it would allow some people (who just wanted the specific characters) to buy less sets . I also think they would have to pay double license for that set and thus the set would have to get more expensive for less bricks and it would be harder to sell. Plus perhaps DC and/or Marvel wouldn't like TLG to combine their licenses like that, for example, the DC contest site explicitly bans characters not owned by Warner. @images: Hulk and Iron Man are obviously preliminary. Hulk's face and Tony's helmet are preliminary and I doubt they are even plastic in that pic. Hope they do something about the helmet (I see no reason it to be soo large except for being preliminary). My main complaint right now is that Hulk will seemingly not be able to move his legs. And that Cap's uniform is dark blue, though I guess that's for movie accuracy. Wolverine looks great. I hope the line lasts for more than one wave and they get time to remake the more classic costumes, specially for Marvel. The DC guys seem to be closer to the classic look.

That's a problem only for the scalpers :)

Made me notice I am a marvel fan, cause Batman is the only DC character that really seems interesting to me for sets. So sad for the reduced chances of an Avengers license. Though I guess if they make some brainiac sets there's quite a good chance for sci-fi stuff. And I like I'll finally be able to buy some Batman sets. Although I did swear against licensed sets this year.

Bionicle had more poseability than minifigs. Less poseability really impairs this new theme, so much that I have doubts it is not caused by the stuff being still prototypes. More so, to compare it with an action figure brand, we would then be talking about buildable dolls, which I think is very far from what the theme is talking about. This theme is about construction sets so, minifigs were a more natural choice. And TLG's success with alternate minifigs is not similar at all to Bionicle's. In fact, since those themes tend to die and warm shelves, historically they have been failures.

hmnn, it really seems not worth it for 24.99, I wouldn't get it for 16.99 even. It just looks a little messy. If less expensive at least it would have been a good piece pack. Great review though.

I will go and guess that the pics that we are speculating about are more preliminary than retailer catalog level. It could as well be that the apparent inmobility of the figs is due to the figs in the pics still being prototype placeholders. I think that as long as they don't keep pursuing making a different scale for the figs ( and we are still not sure if they will) it will be fine. Else I hope it fails. TLG should really stop making the 4+ mistake over and over again.

I think that it is a safe bet that there will be more creator houses in the future. The temple though is something we won't see for a while. Parts-wise the temple is more interesting if you were looking forward to make Greek constructions (tons of pilars). Poseidon is a very exclusive fig. The piece counts are way too close, which is disappointing for a Creator house (they were supposed to do much better than system sets in this aspect). Knowing how set sales work, Creator sets are more likely to be found 20% off later in the year whilst the temple will get sold sooner, I think. I'd say, unless you have a City layout, get the temple.

I guess there are many reasons. I started as a guy that just wanted a space man and a robot in series 1, but of course I ended up getting other figs because of the random packaging and not being always able to use bar codes. So, I had a caveman and a wrestler and an indian and they make good stuff to display together. Nowadays , specially because of series 4 being widely available I have plenty of CM to display and they look nice in quantity as they are very varied. Things like the mime and the geisha are so impressive that you can really show them off. There are also some figs like the hazmat I try to army build because of their sci-fi value. Other figs are just way cool, like the Geisha as it is very detailed so I have a couple of them. The parts are also useful sometimes, specially the fact that the CM usually come with very nice detail in yellow print. Certain figs like the hockey player, the hazmat guy, the artist and the gnome have just greatly awesome face prints. The blind packaging is seriously getting old though. I really wanted the artist ever since the first CGI shots, but out of luck I already have five of them and that's three more than I needed. It is not a big deal to me, because I have plenty of artist accessories, but I imagine there are three kids out there that would have liked the artist and couldn't get it because of the lack of a see-through bag. It gives us AFOL a couple of unfair advantages as we have more money and access to information such as the dot patterns and how the parts look. I used that stuff to amass me three hazmat guys so far, I guess kids won't have such luck.

I love it when trailers are 'leaked' and the publishers pretends to be against it.

* If global warming was a hoax, we would still need to avoid the ocean not becoming plastic and we would still need to cut down that paper creation issue. Creating paper requires cutting down forests and recycling them consumes water. So, it would be cool for TLG to try to reduce the unnecessary amounts of plastic and paper used on packaging. * Companies feel this need because it improves company image and in many ways it translates into savings in the long term. Less plastic and paper produced means less costs. The only companies that would actually get hurt by becoming green would be those that are inherently non-green, like the oil ones. * A minor issue with your post: global warming has not been found to be a hoax. In fact, scientist consensus on that matter has grown in the last years.

I don't know if this is a rumor. But anyway. Do you really think they put a big weight to this? I would seriously doubt. Also, if these LEGO employees are the ambassadors and people with relation to the community then it really has nothing to do with the change of colors. Why? A vocal minority of the fandumb is not really a big deal. You know. At the end of the day, "fan happiness" is not "adult fan happiness". AFOLs are still an incredibly minor part of the market. Of them, there is really no consensus about the change being a total failure or even bad. So, for a "failure", we are talking about 1% of the fans who think that the thing was an utter failure but don't seem to stop buying sets. How do you measure brand image again? That's with sales. The fan uproar, and some few Germans swearing not to buy the brand again can only be measured if it had an effect on sales. And it didn't. The only true negative effect with this is people not being able to combine their old colors with the new ones. So, making the change earlier would have reduced the amount of people affected by it. Again, how is the change unpopular? Uproar in obscure LUG groups? Do you think that is the only feedback TLG got? I'd bet you that they do other things like asking kids and parents in focus groups if they like how the newer SW sets with the blueish tones or prefer the old ones. How is it too late? Hey, if TLG actually decided that the change was so negative, then they would have once again tried to mimic the old colors and start re-introducing them. What happened here is that they measured the true impact of the color change, rather than just seeing the internet posts and they figured that keeping the new colors was for the best and that a "public apology" would be enough to fix the very minor reduction in brand image. Fans have a tendency toward the status quo, so this shouldn't be a surprise. This is not about AFOLs not being an important market. This is about AFOL roar not having an effect in sales. Because AFOLs are great at saying Ruined Forever swearing that they will not buy LEGO and etc. But then, the next wave of sets is announced and they know in their inside that they will return to buy stuff. The AFOL surveys come and they still answer that they would recommend LEGO to other people. They are also a group of people that react negatively to anything. I think that TLG considering the reactions of the AFOL people in the internet before making any decision is going to be suicidal.

What Alien Conquest is currently lacking is a couple of Mechs, and also a static ADU base. Another thing they could do is make each new wave about a different alien race. They could get giant monsters in one next one.

I can think of many tweens that have parents that are able to buy a whole box for them. But I can't think of any tween parent that would actually do it. Unless the kid is very spoiled, but even then, they'd probably prefer to buy them a 60.0 USD set unless the parents are closet AFOLs. Tweens don't have to buy boxes though. You only need each of them to buy 3 CMs and it should beat AFOLs' market by thousands. The other half of the population still makes a small percentage much lower than the half in TLG's market. I don't know what makes a smaller slice of the market, AFOLs or girls. I'll agree that the CMs are somewhere in which both markets grow. But CM have the huge drawback of being random and that's pretty bad when a CM series brings only 2 or 3 minifigs that would be interesting to the other half . A little girl is going to have big issues getting the dancers and singers. AFOLs can just boy boxes or tons of figs and know the tricks to find out which fig is which.

There's probably a need for some empty space in the boxes, else there would be quite a risk for damage of the bricks. Also, with too small a box, instructions would have to become smaller or would arrive bended. To be honest. Instructions/boxes don't make me too worried environmentally because they are easily recyclable. Boxes should be smaller because that will reduce shipping and handling costs. Instructions I think are fine being as large as they are now. I compare them with old sets, and the old sets' can get vague at times. I mean, green is great but it shouldn't go in detriment of quality.

I am tired of canisters. Their shapes makes them useless for piece storage (to me). And even if they were horizontal, the variety of sizes and the fact they are not see-through would make them very ineffective. I have kept all of them ever since toa mata era. So now I have a bunch of space that is in use by around 60 canisters which have no use to me. If they were boxes, I would flat them and add them to my box collection, but no, they have to be solid plastic stuff that take one liter of space each! ARrrgg. So, I made the decision to throw them out. But I would like them not to add to the pollution problem. I have heard claims that they are recyclable, but when I found a place that accepts PET plastic for recycling, they didn't want most of my canisters because they weren't see through. Has anyone succeeded at recycling these things? If so, how?

I'll believe it when canisters are erased from existence.

1996 where the yellowing problem was apparent and widespread. How do we know this? They just stopped using the old colors. And to be honest, I can't think of any LEGO set made after the color change that would look better with the old colors. Nor it would make sense to add them in Creator bucks. They didn't delete dark gray from reality, you can still use your dark gray bricks and they probably still look as bad as they did when combined with the other colors, like black, red, blue and yellow which didn't have an apparent change. I think the apology was about not talking through with the AFOLs before making the change. But I think that the specific change makes so much sense that if TLG talked it through and AFOLs opposed they would have done it anyway. Mostly because AFOL opposition is not very rational this time. Their biggest market is Germany. But AFOLs everywhere are not in any way TLG's biggest market. So, even in Germany most of their sales are to kids and their parents. They don't think really care about this. Perhaps if the color change had an actual impact on sales, then it would be a 'failure'. But I think that ever since 2004 sales have been better and better (most likely not because of the color change, but definitely the color change didn't stop them). I can bet you, while the AFOLs in Germany were revolting about this the kids were still buying as usual and it never translated in an actual drop in sales. A huge fan backlash does not really matter when it does not affect the company beyond people in the internet saying they no longer trust the company but still buying the new sets. So, management failed to predict a very minor issue.

I think the failure was in not doing this change earlier, actually. ABS colors that have more blue base than yellow base are less prone to yellowing, and the new colors look better. There are some color combinations that look very bad, that does not mean the individual colors of those combinations shouldn't exist just because "all elements should be usable together".

Either way, you can get the same exact figs sans the civilian for the same exact price by getting the two least expensive sets (and you'll get bricks as well).

I usually find megabloks in the bulks I buy. That's probably one of the reasons I had a break on the purchase of those things. To be honest, megabloks are the least of my concerns about finding creepy stuff in "LEGO" bulks. My worst concern are filth then I have serious issues with scratched bricks, specially those bricks which have micro scratches which make them look old and used. For some reason megabloks and other clone bricks tend to be in better condition. What I do is group the clones together, discard the worst-quality ones and keep the good ones in a bag. Eventually, annoying little cousin comes and as usual wants to charge you a tax for owning so much LEGO, so I give those clone bricks to them. I also have reached so many amounts of clone bricks that I have donated rather large bags in two occasions. I do not like the idea of trashing useful bricks, even the clones. They may end in the ocean and there are many kids out there who would be just fine with any brand of construction bricks. I do not find amusing to harm the environment AND neglect kids free toys at the same time. Edit : I do save stuff that is interesting, so far I have been unimpressed with most things that come from clone brands. But I did keep a couple of sci-fi-ish guns which BTW may be brick forge because I can't find the megabloks set they come from and they seem to follow the design guidelines. o_O , I also keep nanobloks, in so far I have only found about 15 nanobloks bricks, maybe one day I'll be able to MoC with them. Hope to see modulex one day too.

Since we are going with theories: I think we could have a Mayincatec warrior in the next series. The circus sub-theme seems a bit exhausted so far but perhaps they will add a trapeze artist. I also see some sandwich or other kind of food costume guy in the future to keep on the costume trend. And a greek philosopher / roman emperor could happen. I think we'll be seeing more remakes of series 1, a new robot may be coming soon. I agree it is also time that there is a basketball player. It would be hillarious if they used long legs on him, to make him different from the many NBA players that already abound. I would say a generic referee fig that could work in many different settings (sports) is also coming.

Well, as long as they sell like pancakes, TLG will be happy to raise the price, regardless of the reason they are selling so well. "may actually" we don't know really what's going on. What I can tell you is that in my own place I think I was the main factor for series 4 running out because I was able to buy a lot of them. Hehe. I would say it is unlikely AFOLs are buying all or most of the collectable figs. But I do think their impact on CM sales is large and is much larger than in comparison to other sets. For example, kids don't seem so interested in getting a complete series, because honestly, most kids wouldn't really like the Geishas and the Cheerleaders that much. I on the other hand, made sure to get three Geishas, because I can appreciate good detail and a good minifig idea. Unlike tween kids.