Aanchir

Do you know what sets they came in? It's hard to judge just from one picture without any bricks in "known" colors to compare them to. Especially when dealing with BrickLink color names, which with metallic colors tend to be… inconsistent, to say the least. If it's any help, Pearl Dark Gray (148 Dark Grey Metallic or 316 Titanium Metallic) should be conspicuously darker than Dark Gray or Dark Bluish Gray (199 Dark Stone Grey) bricks. If the sword on the left is not conspicuously darker than those colors, it's probably Flat Silver (131 Silver or 315 Silver Metallic). In which case the other two would both be Pearl Light Gray (131 Silver). If the sword on the right IS conspicuously darker than Dark Gray or Dark Bluish Gray bricks, then I imagine your guesses are all correct. One nice thing about this sword is that it didn't appear in any sets from 2005 or 2006, so we can probably rule out any of these being 296 Cool Silver (which is generally lighter than 131 Silver but still considered Pearl Light Gray on BrickLink).

Great MOC! It looks very sturdy and makes great use of the pieces to create something very different than the original set.

Yeah, I guess there's Angry Birds, but I never expected it to be anything but a one-and-done theme, like Jurassic World was the year before. If they replaced it with anything I'd have expected them to replace it with another one-and-done movie license, though I guess the chances of that may be slim since LEGO has two of their own movies out next year. Jurassic World and Scooby-Doo didn't really get anything this year besides polybags/DVDs, so I wasn't even thinking of those as current themes. While Nexo Knights is the current incarnation of LEGO Castle, I'd consider it as much the successor to Chima and Ultra Agents as it is to Castle. After all, it takes over the TV/multimedia angle from Legends of Chima as well as the app integration from Ultra Agents.

Nexo Knights will presumably get a two and a half to three year run, like Exo-Force, Chima, or the original plans for Ninjago. I've seen no indication that it's been as monumental a hit as Ninjago was, but conversely, I've seen no indication that it's been a flop. A lot of AFOLs were ready to dismiss Chima as a flop from day one but it still got a solid three years of sets. That said, of current themes that are "on their way out", aren't the main ones Bionicle and Mixels? I can't exactly see either of their absences opening up a market for more traditional themes. And otherwise I don't see any of the current non-licensed themes on the brink of disappearing.

That's partly because most of the LEGO Group's competitors in the building toys department are many orders of magnitude smaller than them. So they often have more to gain from products (like retired LEGO sets or themes based on certain genres) that might have an extremely niche audience by LEGO standards. When the LEGO Group is influenced by competitors, it's more likely to be by much larger companies such as Hasbro and Mattel which do a lot of their business outside the building toys sector. With the military thing there are also company values and PR considerations that probably outweigh any perceived advantage to the LEGO Group having a modern military theme of their own. And likewise with 9V trains, there are many safety considerations that have changed since those first came out and influenced the switch to Power Functions trains. Even if the LEGO Group were to take inspiration from a smaller competitor like Enlighten, it would still be subject to the same scrutiny during the development process as any other theme, and that might lead to them taking on a different form by the time of release. Brands like Enlighten and Oxford primarily serve the East and Southeast Asian markets, while most LEGO products are designed for a global market, and thus have to cater to a much wider pool of prospective buyers. Also, while LEGO has a lot of insights into how their OWN product lines sell, they can't get anywhere near as clear a read on the sales performance of other companies' brands — the fact that another company HAS products based on a certain theme doesn't necessarily mean those products are successful enough to be worth the LEGO Group's time.

Presumably Aquazone sets, since that's where the other octagonal parts of that sort were used most extensively.

These are very interesting questions. Unfortunately, I feel like the answers may be hard to come by, since LEGO often doesn't disclose the specific terms of their agreements with other companies. It's worth noting that the original Spider-Man license ended around when LEGO was attempting to get back on their feet after nearly going bankrupt in 2003. It could be that during this period of self-analysis and self-correction they found that the Spider-Man license was not making them enough money to be worth renewing it. Their possible reasons for giving up the Batman license are a little harder to pin down. But since both licenses were held for three years, it's not hard to imagine that it might've just been a case of the license agreements expiring and the LEGO Group, for whatever reason, choosing not to renew them at that time. It might've even been that LEGO simply didn't want to exhaust the novelty of those characters, something that's less of a concern with the Super Heroes brand since they don't have to focus specifically on one character or movie franchise. Even though the DC Super Heroes sets still focus extensively on Batman, they still ultimately have a wider range of characters and media to draw from.

I wouldn't say LEGO has given up on traditional knights. Remember, Nexo Knights concept development started in 2009 or so. So it's an idea LEGO has been polishing for a while, waiting for just the right time to launch it. And it's hard to think of a better time for a theme like Nexo Knights than 2016. A TV-driven Big Bang theme (Legends of Chima) and an app-driven sci-fi theme (Ultra Agents) had both just retired, creating a conspicuous vacancy for a new theme fitting both of those categories. It had also been three years since the launch of the previous LEGO Castle theme, meaning the time for a new one had rolled back around. And of course, the previous two iterations of LEGO Castle had both been very traditional in their scope, so LEGO probably felt like a wackier take on the Castle concept would stand out from their other recent offerings and really give kids the sense of something fresh and new that nobody had experienced before. When Nexo Knights ends I imagine LEGO will adopt a very different strategy for the next iteration of Castle, just like how Fantasy Era was very different than Knights Kingdom II or Kingdoms was very different than Fantasy Era. I don't totally agree that collecting has superseded building, since there are still highly successful themes like City and Friends that don't have anywhere near as much of a collecting component as Bionicle or Ninjago or Nexo Knights. When the next take on Castle comes around, it probably won't be sticking to the "big bang" playbook, meaning that it might be able to take a much less character-driven, collecting-oriented approach. They wouldn't want it to feel like the same exact theme all over again, after all. Your comparisons with Playmobil are interesting, but I don't feel like Playmobil's products play a big role in what products the LEGO Group releases. In the United States, Playmobil is not nearly as much of a fixture in the toy landscape as you describe from your experience in Germany. I am not aware of Playmobil being a major fixture in Asia, either, and that's a major region where the LEGO Group hopes to expand their business. Also, Nexo Knights has been in development for too long for LEGO to have fully anticipated what other toy companies might have out by the time it launched.

Wouldn't fixing the looseness be as simple as replacing the tan pins with blue friction pins? I mean, that would impede the function somewhat, but if you'd rather just have a posable model it seems to me that seems like the simplest solution. Anyhow, I think it does make one considerable improvement on Skull Basher, which is that the button doesn't stick so far off the back.

Personally I think the new wave looks quite nice. The Dragon Blacksmith is a nice-looking building, and the fusion dragon it comes with feels very faithful to the Ninjago style without feeling like a direct rehash of existing Ninjago dragons. Jay's bike feels much nicer than Kai's and Nya's in this year's Ninja Bike Chase, IMO, and I'm curious to see what functions it has. The "Disastrous Dusk" is extraordinarily unique, and the other enemy vehicles are unorthodox yet unique. The ninja boat I'll call "Destiny's Bounty, Jr." has some amazingly creative part use to create a whole different sort of boat that nevertheless still feels faithful to its predecessor's design language. The main set I'm nonplussed by is the Samurai Turbomobile, which does feel a bit generic at first glance (but may be hiding some cool functions). I don't get why people don't find the baddies unique, either. They feel very different from either the Fangpyre or the Stone Army, as do their vehicles. Overall, I feel like people will be much more receptive to these sets once we have clearer, more finalized pictures that better show off what sets them apart from previous Ninjago sets. But then, what else is new? Preliminary pics never show sets in the best light. Lots of things could potentially change by the time the sets are released.

That's one meaning of Sensei. It also has other meanings besides that. At least one of those is a meaning that the LEGO Group has chosen to avoid. It's really just after four or four and a half years — all of last year's sets and some of last year's media was already calling him "Master Wu". And why then? I guess that's just how long it took for LEGO to decide/realize that a change might be in their best interest. It may be that the realization came about during the movie-making process, since a lot of thought goes into what aspects of big-budget movies might be received or interpreted differently in different parts of the world.

It was from Tommy Andreasen's twitter. It has nothing to do with the word being too hard to learn or with people not knowing the meaning. Rather, he mentioned that "sensei" had other more specific meanings besides "master" or "teacher" that didn't correctly describe Wu. It's possible that it might have been the term's use in Buddhism that the LEGO Group wanted to steer clear of to avoid any unintentional religious connotations, like the sort that create controversy in the first year of Bionicle when they used the Maori word "Tohunga" (which can mean "expert" or "craftsman", but also "priest"). In any case, it doesn't really affect the story in any way, because the ninja have variously referred to him as "master" or "sensei" at many points throughout the story, so calling him "master" now isn't suddenly coming out of nowhere.

I haven't heard any problems with the Chinese-made minifigures cracking more than ones made elsewhere. The most widespread issues with the Chinese-made minifigures since they first started showing up tend to involve color quality and more visible seams/molding marks. I do seem to remember complaints about the early CMFs' leg and arm hinges becoming loose quicker than those made elsewhere if they were swapped around. I generally try to avoid swapping individual minifigure legs and arms around most of the time anyhow because the connection points are not really designed to sustain that in the long term, so I have no idea if this problem still exists with any kind of regularity.

Beautiful MOC! It has just the right amount of detail — not so much that it distracts from the scene, but enough that the arena itself is a beautiful creation even without taking the minifigures and vehicles into account. It adheres really well to the color scheme and motifs of the Tournament of Elements sets, while also adding elements from the TV series like Chen's special chair. If I could change one thing, it would be to add some small vehicles like these, or maybe some custom vehicles, to make the impending fight scene more exciting than just minifigures vs. minifigures.

Don't worry, I did send the answers in via e–mail as soon as I finished. I just copied and pasted them here as well.

My main disappointment with the book is that since it covers only one year of sets and characters, it doesn't have a whole lot to cover. The first DK Ninjago and Chima guidebooks were the character encyclopedias, which came out in those themes' second years, giving them plenty of material to cover. The Book of Knights, by comparison, has far less substance. That much is apparent just by comparing the number of pages: 176 pages for each of those two themes' character encyclopedias, versus just 80 in The Book of Knights. Mind you, Nexo Knights does have far more characters in its first year than either Chima or Ninjago had in theirs. Still, I can't help but feel like a book like this would've had more to offer it it had came out later. One thing I think is clever about this book is the "cutout" pages letting Merlok be visible no matter what page the book is turned to, and the word bubbles on the various pages so he can comment on their contents! It adds an almost interactive feeling to the book and is quite ingenious. However, even though Merlok sticks forward through this cutout, more than half of the book's thickness is a cardboard case similar to those that contain the minifigures in other DK LEGO guide books. This feels wasteful, to me, and just makes it that much more obvious how little this book offers in actual pages. Generally I feel the Character Encyclopedias tend to offer a much better value, and hopefully we might get one of those next year or the year after. If I were to recommend a guidebook for Nexo Knights fans, I'd sooner recommend The Book of Monsters, which offers 96 pages of brilliant writing and illustrations, or The Knight's Code: A Training Guide, which promises 176 pages of a similarly deluxe experience.

I think the discussion was more about about "LEGO portrayals of history" rather than "the history of LEGO". But even then, I'd say there have been changes over the years. Fantasy Era, for instance, was a considerable departure from the human-vs-human Castle themes that had come before it. There are certain elements of how kids perceive medieval history that are iconic and unlikely to change radically over the years, but even so, trending pop culture portrayals of medieval history CAN influence how modern kids perceive it. But it's true that how kids perceive the distant past tends to be a lot more stable than how they perceive the future, which is why we see LEGO Castle and LEGO Pirates revisiting their roots much more often than, say, LEGO Space.

Your link doesn't work but through a little Google-fu I figured you were talking about this set. Looking at its inventory, there are at least 16 molds in that set that are discontinued and have no direct current equivalent: 1x4x5 glass door 1x4x5 wooden door 1x4 hinge plate sunroof plate sunroof glass tail rotor holder tail rotor top rotor holder top rotor 2x2 wheel assembly tire 1x4x5 window frame 1x4x5 window glass baseplate 4x4 wedge with left cutout 4x4 wedge with right cutout For reference's sake, that means re-releasing this set would require introducing more molds than this year's entire first wave of Ninjago sets. "Specialty parts unique to a set" are not remotely the only cost associated with re-releasing a set. LEGO keeps their number of specific elements closely in check due to limited production space. That means any part, even if it's just a recolor of a common, basic part, has to be able to justify its existence, because even putting a common part in a once-common color back into production effectively means taking a part from more recent sets OUT of production. "The existing inventory", as you put it, isn't just parts being pumped into warehouses with no particular purpose in mind, They are parts being produced specifically for use in current sets. And what makes you think there'd be a market for bringing back a set like that? In the early naughts LEGO created a line called "LEGO Legends" focusing on re-releases of beloved discontinued sets. Like many lines from the early naughts, it was a flop. And some of those were sets that are still revered by AFOLs to this day, like the Black Seas Barracuda and Metroliner. Not sets that have zero meaningful advantages over their modern counterparts. Right now demand for that Police Command Base set on BrickLink is negligible — the 24 used copies on BrickLink are selling for an average of just under $45. That's less than what it cost new ($27.99, the equivalent of $62.82 in today's money)! And this isn't just a question of "can this make money?" It's "can this make MORE money than a new set?" Because bringing back any old set means diverting space and resources on the production line that would normally go towards new sets. A modern LEGO police station suited to the tastes of today's kids will ALWAYS make more money than a small, ugly police station that's 30 years obsolete. And a modern police station is generally cheaper to make, too, since you don't have to create over a dozen "new" molds just to put it on shelves. The handful of people who would appreciate obsolete parts being re-introduced are nowhere near as significant as the thousands of kids and adults who will appreciate new molds that create meaningful, genuinely new building and play opportunities.

This might also be a factor in why Disney Series 2 hasn't been announced for 2017. Could be that LEGO is afraid of oversaturating the market or exhausting the license's novelty by releasing two series based on the same license just a year apart.

I think a lot of recent sets do suggest that prices have stayed at least somewhat consistent with the amount of substance you get. Many people thought Metalbeard's Sea Cow was surprisingly expensive at $250, but it was 47% bigger than IFS by weight and 67% bigger by piece count despite less than a 40% increase in sticker price. A lot of people think LEGO "cheats" piece counts by using smaller pieces, but it's hard to argue that the weight increase doesn't amount to increased substance. And the Disney Castle, at 5700 grams and 4080 pieces, is 49% bigger than the Sea Cow by both weight AND piece count — despite likewise having just a 40% higher price. So even with the Disney license, its increase in price is buoyed by an even greater increase in substance. A lot of people see the price hike on the Death Star as all the proof they need that LEGO is cheating buyers by charging more than the substance of a set justifies. But the original 10188 Death Star, like the Green Grocer, Taj Mahal, and Castle Giant Chess Set released the same year, was extraordinarily cheap for its weight in bricks. The Death Star weighed 8060 grams — that's 3.11 times the weight of the Cafe Corner or Imperial Flagship. Why were so many huge sets released for such low prices in 2008? Hard to say, but it could have been the LEGO Group trying to hastily adapt to the ongoing financial crisis that had first become apparent in 2007, thinking that demand for LEGO would crash unless they offered more bricks for less money. Presumably, once it was clear that demand for LEGO was stable, they went back to prices more on par with what they had been in 2007, giving Fire Brigade the same sticker price as Green Grocer but with the substantially higher price per gram of Cafe Corner. Consequently, if the Death Star were released in 2007 or 2009, then it might've cost as much as $450, and a $500 price tag in 2016 wouldn't seem so bad.

Besides that hat mold, don't forget the "3649 40 TOOTH GEAR" Wyldstyle uses to build the Super Cycle, which on closer examination is actually a never-released 60 tooth Technic gear.

The ones released at Comic Con included both DC and Marvel Super Heroes. However, it's likely that the full range will include other themes besides Super Heroes, because the boxes are labeled with "BrickHeadz" as the theme name, rather than with "Super Heroes" as the theme name like it is for series specific to that theme like the Mighty Micros. I think some of the most likely brands for future BrickHeadz will include Star Wars, Marvel, DC Comics, The LEGO Movie, The LEGO Batman Movie, and The LEGO Ninjago Movie (though this last one would not be a part of the first wave). I would also like to see other brands like Ninjago, Nexo Knights, and Elves, but I don't know how likely that is and I may end up having to make my own.

Finished the survey and sent it in! It took me a few days to put all my thoughts together. It got pretty long, so I think I will put my responses in spoiler tags so that people who don't want to read a long, rambling post don't have to scroll through all of it. Category 2: Miscellaneous 2 Category 3: Home Category 4: Promotional and Other Category 5: LEGOLAND

And also because LEGO isn't (currently) able to print those window-pane pieces front-and-back. Really, there are quite a few times when the distinction between printing and stickers comes down to "do we have the proper machine fittings to print this surface or not?" Every printed part in the Caterham set is one that has been printed before. By comparison, the Big Bang Theory set has two stickers for parts that haven't been printed in the past, while all the other decorations are printed. That isn't the ONLY reason why stickers are used in place of printing, but it is a common reason in themes where printed pieces are otherwise the norm.

I would probably not consider the Nexo Knights Action sets a replacement for the Mixels. If anything I'd consider them more analogous with the Chima Legend Beasts, which coexisted with the Mixels in their first year and were likewise a low-priced item for a "big bang" theme moving into its second year.