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Really nothing's been revealed besides what we can tell from the sets: Cole seems to be the main protagonist. The ghost of Sensei Yang seems to be the main antagonist. Sensei Yang's lantern seems to be a significant plot element, though its significance is not yet clear. Villains from previous years including the Skulkins, Pythor, General Kozu, General Cryptor, and Master Chen are returning and teaming up to take down the ninja. The villains carry ghostly green versions of earlier weapons/artifacts, but like the lantern their significance is unknown. It seems like Cole will begin to regain his humanity, after being turned into a ghost in Season 5. Also, just to clarify, sets 70591, 70593, and 70594 tie in with Season 6 (Skybound), same as the sets from the first half of the year. The rest of the summer sets tie in with Season 7.

Heh, a Walgreens near me when I was at college three years ago still had some 2010 Hero Factory villain sets. I guess maybe pharmacies/drug stores aren't as worried about clearing out old toys to make room for new ones as toy stores or department stores.

Since it's built from the same sets as the actual combi model we got instructions for, it could have been just a concept sketch/placeholder for that model that was accidentally used in the final catalog.

Ninjago's already been pushed back once (it was originally slated for September 2016), plus WB has been sharing teasers of it at private film industry trade events like (most recently) the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. I wouldn't be surprised if a teaser trailer were publicly released during one of this year's Comic Con events.

They're special areas of the Adventure Worlds where you can play four-player competitive games like Tag, Capture the Flag, etc. Sort of like Battle Mode in Mario Kart. Any character with a gold toy tag unlocks a Battle Arena for their corresponding Adventure World. Since there are only 16 new brands joining LEGO Dimensions but 21 new Battle Arenas, that means there will be new packs with gold toy tags for five of the year one brands. We already know one of these year one brands that will be getting a battle arena, DC Comics Super Heroes, since the new Supergirl and Green Arrow figures come with gold toy tags. But what the other four returning brands will be is still a mystery.

Conceivably they could do like Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra did and get Greg Baldwin to voice him. Greg Baldwin was a long-time understudy and voice student of Mako Iwamatsu, and so learned to closely match his voice performances. He's already voiced Aku in Cartoon Network FusionFall, back when that was a thing.

It's the latest one posted here: http://www.lego.com/en-us/elves/videos

The parts here aren't any larger than the hull pieces on any previous LEGO pirate ship, even the AFOL-oriented ones like Imperial Flagship and Metalbeard's Sea Cow. In fact, they're considerably smaller. So I don't entirely get that concern in regard to this particular set.

The "Updates" section includes interior pics. So if it's not viable as a product it probably won't be for that reason. But the piece count and the number of fiddly connections might present a challenge. The designer says it's sturdy and playable, but TLG's standards for sturdiness can sometimes be a lot stricter than fan standards.

The Ferrari F40 did have three uniquely printed parts (the windscreen and the two different curved slopes on the back), with stickers for all the other decorations. The VW Beetle set has the same number of unique printed parts (the logo tiles, windscreen, and towel), with stickers for the license plates, roof supports, cooler, and back window decals. As for why LEGO printed the VW logo and not the Ferrari logo, the most likely reason is that the Ferrari logos on the F40 go on surfaces LEGO has never printed before (the top of a 2x4 curved slope and the narrow end of a 1x2 brick). This means LEGO can use equipment they already have to print the VW logos, but they'd have to fit their printing machines with entirely new equipment to print the Ferrari logos. Needless to say, the former is a lot cheaper than the latter.

When I went last year one of the newest (and most fun) attractions was definitely the Haunted House. Since then they've also opened their new LEGO Ninjago World which is apparently loads of fun! Also, next to the pizza and pasta buffet in the Polar Land they have an enclosure with live penguins! You can see the penguins either from outside or inside the restaurant, but from inside you stand a better chance of seeing the baby penguins, who the parents keep towards the back of the enclosure. As with any LEGOLAND park, the discount shop is probably worth checking out. The Big Shop has the widest selection of sets, including early releases of certain sets (though with many of the summer sets already out in Europe I don't know how much there will be that isn't already widely available). The food at the LEGOLAND Hotel is really good, from my experience, though some other people with more discerning tastes might disagree. The Grill House is also a good place for dinner but that might be my American palate talking, who knows? The Polar Pizza and Pasta Buffet is nothing exceptional, fairly generic sorts of options there, but for me it was worth it both for the sake of being able to fill my stomach and also seeing the penguins. :) I didn't really go on any of the roller coasters or other really fast/exciting rides because I was saving those for my last day in Billund, and then I ended up feeling sick that day. But the Dragon is a fun ride at all the other LEGOLAND parks I've been to. Might want to bring a swimsuit if you plan to go on any of the water rides. Of those, the Viking ride looked like one that'd be fun for all ages.

Hmmm, never realized this topic existed. How come it's in the Licensed forum? I'd think Special Themes or General LEGO Discussion would make more sense since it encompasses more than just licenses. I'm glad we're getting a new mohawk mold with B.A. Baracus since it'll be great for Axl from Nexo Knights. It's also nice that the new Harry and Voldemort figs use the shorter (3M) bars for their wands. I'm excited to see the alt builds for the packs that have been revealed on Amazon. The actual new brand I'm most interested in, which we haven't seen pics of yet, is LEGO City Undercover. I hope we get a Rex Fury minifigure and mini-models of some of Chase and Rex's iconic vehicles.

Also, it's something kids who play instruments will probably recognize and be able to play (since it's one of the first songs they teach in a lot of music classes). And it's in the public domain, which can't be said for a lot of pop songs.

Some of the past in-house constraction themes like Slizer and Hero Factory may have been reasonably popular, but I don't know if any besides Bionicle were phenomenal enough to really justify a reboot. I could easily imagine constraction "spin-offs" of popular in-house IPs like Ninjago and Nexo Knights, as well as giving licensed Super Heroes constraction sets another shot. I'd love to see constraction sets of a girl-oriented line like Elves, possibly with some more "fashion doll" design cues, but I'm not sure how feasible that'd be or how you'd pull it off. It's hard for me to gauge the doll market — it seemed to be experiencing a boost around when Monster High debuted, but last I've heard it's kind of stagnated a bit since then. And seamlessly integrating that kind of dress-up play with conventional LEGO building play might be difficult. Overall I'm not sure how realistic it is to see a whole lot of growth in the constraction category in general, even though I know the future of the CCBS is definitely something the LEGO Group is looking intently at as they move forward. The constraction category's sales have been largely decreasing for over a decade, and while secondary lines like the new Star Wars figures might help justify its continued existence, I don't know if they'll be enough to reverse the category's decline in the long run. I'm also wondering whether at some point the LEGO Group might see more value in exploring action figure type models constructed from System elements, instead of keeping a separate parallel building system around strictly for the purpose of action figure building. There are a lot more parts suited to that purpose now than there used to be. Buildable figures like Groot and the Sentinel from LEGO Super Heroes and Sparkks and Burnzie from LEGO Nexo Knights somewhat illustrate the possibilities of this, and I expect to see further evolutions of this concept in the future.

That then raises the question of where we'll be getting a second Jillian fig. When the pictures of the new Ecto-1 set were revealed on social media, one of the pictures showed a Jillian Holtzmann figure that is different than the one that comes with that set (with a second torso design and a third face design). A lot of people had been speculating that the "extra" Jillian minifigure might be included in a LEGO Dimensions pack. For reference's sake: Ecto-1 Jillian with utility belt and expression 1 (no glasses or goggles), Ecto-1 Jillian with utility belt and expression 2 (goggles), different Jillian with no utility belt and expression 3 (glasses).

In the video for the latest review, didn't they mention that one of the two latest approved sets would be out in late 2016 and the other in 2017?

It's a Bionicle shell. Design ID 62286, Element ID 4521597. http://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=57560&idColor=66#T=C&C=66 http://brickset.com/parts/4521597

All the LEGO video games have been developed by WB, though, including the Disney licensed games like LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, and LEGO Marvel's Avengers. Overall, the main obstacle up to this point was that LEGO Dimensions was a direct competitor of Disney Infinity. With Disney Infinity no longer in the picture, I think Disney will definitely be on board to have at least SOME of its brands join LEGO Dimensions, particularly those which have already had LEGO video games of their own.

So "low-tier theme" to you means: Devoting their entire NYCC presence in 2014 to Bionicle 27 new molds in the theme's first year and 23 in its second, not counting general Technic elements (for comparison's sake, Ninjago has only about nine new molds this year, some of which easily qualify as general System elements) A special insert in the January 2015 LEGO Club Magazine A dedicated Facebook page which routinely releases exclusive content Sending a Bionicle designer to a U.S. LEGO convention to discuss Bionicle Inviting representatives of Bionicle fansites to Billund to discuss Bionicle Ten designer videos (G1 Bionicle had none) Three heavily advertised contests with highly desirable prizes A graphic novel series, chapter book series, magazine, 18-part web series, and 4-part Netflix series I'll admit LEGO hasn't invested as much in Bionicle as they have in, let's say, Nexo Knights. But the investments they've made in Bionicle are hardly insignificant. And when other new themes last year like Elves, Jurassic World, and Scooby-Doo got less promotion, fewer sets, fewer new molds, and less original animation, yet still managed to rake in lots of money, is investing more heavily in Bionicle really justifiable? There's no doubt the constraction category has been declining steadily since 2002. You seem to think this is because LEGO is "not interested" in making it powerful again. But I say that's hogwash. LEGO isn't solely responsible for the popularity of any given theme. The buyers share that responsibility. Look at LEGO Legends of Chima, which easily had every bit as much invested in it per year as LEGO Ninjago, maybe more so, but didn't last as long. It's wrong to say it "failed" — it sold respectably and lasted a good three years — but it didn't succeed as strongly as LEGO Ninjago did, and you can't blame that on LEGO not caring. The concept just didn't resonate with kids the way Ninjago did, and throwing more money at it wouldn't change that. Something I got curious about and looked into today: is the decline of constraction an isolated phenomenon? In the context of LEGO, it surely seems to be, with other LEGO themes rising higher and higher in popularity. But what about in the context of action figures? Well, hang on, would you look at that — it turns out that action figure sales have been steadily declining since at least 2007. If you recall, the reason constraction themes came about in the first place was in response to an explosion in the popularity of action figures in the late 90s. It's no surprise that a buildable action figure brand could find an audience back then. But as this article shows, that explosion in popularity has ended. Even just looking at Transformers, the movies have brought in increasingly more box office revenue, but less and less of that has translated into increased toy sales. If kids today just don't care for action figures like they used to, all the marketing and media support in the world isn't going to reverse that trend. LEGO could do everything right with Bionicle and it still wouldn't make it the powerhouse it was in 2002. So no, I'm not going to fault you for a doom-and-gloom outlook. I don't think the prospects for constraction look all that bright. It is niche, and unless action figures explode in popularity again, it might very easily remain niche. However, it makes no sense to blame LEGO for not investing more in Bionicle when they've already invested a lot in it and are still not seeing really impressive returns on that investment.

Ekimu was only able to save the day in 2015 with the Toa's help. The Toa bought him enough time to finish constructing the Hammer of Power. It was decidedly a team effort. It might very well be the same this year, considering that the Mask of Control Game's mini comics are an extremely condensed and simplified version of the story. Honestly, I feel like two G2 complaints I keep on hearing from different people are "The G2 Toa never struggle with anything" and "The G2 Toa are too weak and keep losing battles". They can't BOTH be true. If Ekimu DID deliver the final blow to Makuta, though, it wouldn't really be much different from G1, in which Mata Nui was the one to ultimately defeat Makuta, and the Toa were merely ground support.

Huh, interesting! I hardly remember this version of the site since I could never get the archived versions of the 2004 Bionicle website to work for me. Even now none of the links are taking me anywhere. If anybody can ever get a version of the site working where all the links work then I'd love to explore a bit and refresh my memory. Some of them. Like the Lifestyle page, they were inconsistent about it. I think they stopped doing that in 2006, though. And again, that's not just something that changed for Bionicle. LEGO no longer really features ANY books in their catalogs on the online LEGO shop, or in LEGO brand stores. Maybe they just didn't sell enough through those channels to really justify stocking them.

Did the official Bionicle website EVER really acknowledge the books and graphic novels? I don't remember it doing so. What's more, the Ninjago and Nexo Knights websites have never really acknowledged their books and graphic novels either, and it doesn't seem to be hurting them one bit. LEGO does acknowledge SOME (not all) of their books, including Bionicle books, on their Lifestyle page. They're pretty inconsistent about it and bad at updating it, though. Take note that the first Bionicle graphic novel is the ONLY graphic novel listed there — none of the Ninjago or Friends graphic novels are even mentioned. The second Bionicle chapter book is listed, but not the first. You get the picture.

Here's the thing — it's not going to get more attention unless it earns it. Throwing money at a theme's marketing team doesn't magically make it more successful. If a theme is selling well, then it and any of its successors will get a larger budget the next time around. But if not, then it's going to get a smaller budget the next time around. LEGO didn't start making full TV shows like Ninjago or Nexo Knights or Chima without any kind of precedent. Nexo Knights got a TV show because Chima had been successful with one. Chima got one because Ninjago had been successful with one. Ninjago didn't even start off with a TV show — it started with a 44-minute special, which it only got because Atlantis had gotten a 22-minute special, which it only got because Power Miners had a series of mini-movies! All these ad campaigns were successful, so each subsequent theme was gradually expanded. Bionicle hasn't been like that, though. Even in G1 its direct-to-DVD movies weren't successful enough to justify more than three consecutive years of them. The 2009 movie likewise underperformed. When Bionicle ended, its successor, Hero Factory, started with a four-part miniseries. But since it wasn't all that successful, it was followed by just three episodes the next year, then two, then one, and then finally one that was released exclusively on the web. So when Bionicle came back, it would have been a reckless and irrational gamble to give it a full TV series or movie! Instead, LEGO re-evaluated what had made it successful in the first place and decided to go with eighteen 90-second web videos and six 30-second character videos. Which is still more animated content than the last year of Hero Factory had gotten. In fact, it's more animated content than Bionicle had gotten in 2002, the theme's most successful year! And now, it's getting a four-part Netflix series (five-part if you count the prologue). So it's growing — but it had to start small. The Mask of Time hasn't really been a considerable part of the main story yet, though. It's involved in the backstory, which we saw in the second graphic novel, and the Protectors use it at the very start of the 2015 story as a part of their ritual, but it isn't essential to know that to follow what's going on. It certainly hasn't played any role in the 2016 story. Chances are it will appear more prominently when it becomes relevant to the Toa's journey, which I'm sure it will. Until then, it's more of an "expanded universe" detail. To make a Star Wars comparison, Jabba the Hutt didn't actually appear in the original edition of Star Wars: A New Hope, even though as the guy who put a hit out for Han Solo he was kind of significant. But once he finally overlapped with Luke Skywalker's journey in the third movie, THEN we got to see him in the movies proper. Actually, even in Bionicle G1, we learned about the Mask of Time through blurbs long before it became relevant to the Toa's journey. However, as in G2, it was an important part of the backstory, as we found out later.

It makes a lot more sense than your sorry argument did. Let me make this clear: I LIKE stickers. I enjoy putting them on sets. I even ask to put on stickers for sets other people in my family get, because lining them up feels satisfying and rewarding, and a lot of sets look nicer with stickers than without. But I don't want them for everything. I feel like they're better than printing for some things, like decorations on large, smooth surfaces with well-defined edges, than they are for others, like minifigures, minifigure accessories, faces on brick-built characters, non-planar surfaces, or patterns that are likely to be repeated a lot of times throughout a product or product range. Those things I prefer to see as prints. Additionally, I hate STAMPs (Stickers Across Multiple Pieces), but that often depends less on stickers vs. printing (since printing the same pattern across multiple pieces is limiting in its own right) and more on whether you use one big piece for a pattern or lots of smaller pieces. STAMPs were common in my childhood — thankfully, today, they're exceedingly rare, and the only ones I'm aware of in recent years are the two most recent Maersk sets. Seems simple enough to understand, right? But you've locked yourself in an irrational "all or nothing" mode of thinking, where stickers have to be superior to printing for EVERYTHING or else they suck. I don't subscribe to that. LEGO clearly doesn't either. Never in the past 45 years have they used only stickers or only printing, nor shown any inclination to do so. Both because there are economic advantages to both, and because, believe it or not, some people genuinely enjoy both types of decoration.

Part of it is just a matter of relevance, I think. Bionicle: Mask of Light was a good movie in its own right, but it came out in 2003, is not connected to the current iteration of Bionicle, and is not NEARLY as timeless as, say, E.T. or Back to the Future. It's the difference between properties which are widely beloved among many generations of people, and properties that are only really popular with a specific subset of current and former LEGO fans. And let's not forget that LEGO Dimensions development involves more than just making a couple figures and brick-built vehicles. LEGO would have to create a whole adventure world, a battle arena, and possibly other game levels for any new IP they introduce. All the original LEGO IPs in LEGO Dimensions are ones that have previously been released as video games. I have a feeling that's for a reason: it makes it easier to generate the assets for levels and Adventure Worlds if they have a previous game's assets to draw from. But none of the Bionicle video games were all that successful, and none of their assets were scaled to minifigure characters anyway. So LEGO would basically creating the levels and Adventure World entirely from scratch. And if they're going to go to all that effort, they probably want it to be for a brand that will draw in as many NEW fans as possible.