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Awesome! Am I mistaken in thinking the box seems to imply a mechanism to launch that plane from the center section? I can't wait to learn more about what secrets this set might be hiding!

I dunno, some people are still pretty cheesed off by the fact that they're boxes at all rather than canisters. I don't think there's anything that would change their minds about that.

I had noticed that they sort of cut off around where the header was but I never realized that they pierced right through! Clever packaging design, and a creative way to tackle the problem of how to keep the set image close to "actual size" without cutting out those details. Quake Beast actually looks a lot better in the box art than it did in the pics from Toy Fair. I guess the better pose helps. I still kind of worry it doesn't pull off the asymmetric look and function quite as well as Bruizer did back in 2013. And it's a bit peculiar that the crystals on the chest pattern are more pink/magenta than purple.

Nin-JAH-go is the official pronunciation for the theme and its setting, but the characters also say "Ninja Go" as a slogan/battle cry, and "Ninja Go" also appears in the lyrics of some of the promotional songs. Dan Castady of The Fold (the band that performs the theme's promotional songs) did a humorous video on the subject this March, shortly before the release of this year's songs.

Maybe they couldn't come up with enough special abilities for Dorothy to justify her inclusion? I mean, at least not compared to the Wicked Witch, who can fly and hurl fireballs.

I'm referring to the figures from the LEGO Games sets, which henrysunset called nanofigs in the first post. That's why I felt the need to clarify that I've never called them nanofigs myself. The tiny figures used as trophies in the LEGO Minifigures theme are obviously much smaller.

According to a teaser pic I saw shared on the Brickset forums, It's a mini version of Kai's dragon.

My favorites are Furno Jet Machine, Evo XL Machine, Tunneler Beast, and Breez Flea Machine. All of these sets have fairly creative builds. Breez Flea Machine is noteworthy for being the first (and so far, only) constraction set with a winch function! However, its aftermarket price has been driven up and its availability driven down by people using it as a source for the toe pieces (six of which are used in the limited-release Bat-Pod set). Many people who didn't win the Bat-Pod attempted to build it themselves from scratch, which made the aftermarket value of that one part skyrocket.

I think it's a mistake to calculate minifigure scale strictly based on height, due to how disproportionately wide a minifigure is compared to an adult human. A minifigure (with hair) is about 1.625 inches/4.16 centimeters. Let's suppose an average adult human is about 67 inches/170 centimeters. By height alone, minifigure scale would be around 1:41. But wait! If you multiply the width of a minifigure with arms at their sides(around 1 inch/2.56cm) by 41, that would make a minifigure nearly three and a half feet or a little over a meter wide! A person that size might not even fit through a lot of doors without turning sideways! Side note: this height/width discrepancy is part of why I roll my eyes when people complain about the mini-doll looking "skinny" or "anorexic". Realistically, scaling the figures by height, it's more like the mini-doll has a healthy thirty-some inch waistline, while the classic minifigure has a seventy to eighty inch waistline! On the other hand, let's imagine a typical person with their arms at a slight angle from their body is 25 inches/63.5 centimeters wide. This would mean a scale of around 1:25. But at that scale, a scaled-up minifigure would only be as tall as they were wide in the last exercise — a little under three and a half feet or a little over a meter! Vehicles or doors at that scale would tower over them! Clearly, to get a reasonable scale you need some kind of middle ground — something bigger than it would be scaled by height, but smaller than it would be scaled by width. If we take the average of the scales we previously arrived at, we get 1:33, which would make a minifigure scaled to human height 53.625 inches (nearly 4.5 feet)/137.28 centimeters tall and 33 inches/84.48 centimeters wide. Now, personally, I have generally favored 1:36 scale, which would make a minifigure around 58.5 inches/149.76 centimeters tall and 36 inches/92.16 centimeters wide. As a bonus, a door for a 4x6 frame at this scale would represent a door 74.25 inches tall and 40.5 inches wide: just slightly wider and slightly shorter than the standard 80x36 inch size for an American exterior door. 1:35 works about as well — I prefer 1:36 because it works better with imperial measurements (which are in increments of 12), while 1:35 would probably work better with metric measurements (which are in increments of 10). As for nanofigs (I've always just called them microfigs), I tend to just consider them 1/2 minifigure scale. That's about how things work out in terms of height and footprint, if you're comparing them to a minifigure with hair/headgear.

I think there's another factor as well, which is that not everybody is creative in the same way. Some kids might be extremely good visual-spatial thinkers and learners, and so building might come quite naturally to them. But other kids might have more of an inclination towards storytelling, which is itself a kind of creativity. Many people who think LEGO kills creativity think that because they believe it's too "prescriptive", telling kids what to build and how to build it. But really, it's these adults who are being prescriptive by treating original creations as the only worthwhile outcome of LEGO play. So yes, there are still plenty of kids who can and do create their own original LEGO designs. I see parents share their kids' creations on Facebook and other sites almost every day. But there are also kids who are more likely to want to play with the official models and figures — to tell stories with them, or to display them in imaginative ways. There have always been kids like this, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I actually really liked Protector of Ice a lot more than I originally expected to. The bulky shoulder armor really achieves the same sort of bundled-up look Kopaka had, and the lack of forearms didn't really bother me like it did on Protector of Fire since the arms are a more reasonable length relative to the torso.

I think the energy dragons looking more unique in the sets than in the show (and Zane and Wu's energy dragons looking more authentic than the others) can be chalked up to the fact that unlike the original dragons, which were first designed as sets, most of the energy dragons WERE designed for the show first and only later adapted to the sets. The show's character designers had to design a whole bunch of energy dragons to debut in the same episode, so as such they probably didn't have time to put as much individual care into each one as the set designers do for each dragon which appears as a set. Other than Zane's and Wu's, each of which had a set in the works to serve as a template, the others ended up being fairly repetitive designs, just with different colors and textures to distinguish them.

It's 685 bricks, and some of those are fairly large ones like an 8x16 tile, two 8x3x7 mountain bricks, etc. Compare with 70604 Tiger Widow Island, which is $50 for a mere 450 bricks (though in fairness, that set has an exclusive bigfig, which tend to be a bit costly). What's more, 70737 Titan Mech Battle may have an uncharacteristically high piece count for a $60 set, but according to BrickLink, 70134 Lavertus' Outland Base is actually a larger set by weight. 70737 weighs 988 grams, 70134 weighs 1086 grams. I didn't think the creatures of the same species having the same heads was any weirder in Chima than in, say, Fabuland. New molds are fairly expensive, so no point introducing a different mold for each lion when LEGO could instead use the same mold for all of one species and spend their new mold budget on other types of animals. I also doubt Chima would have had nearly as many different characters per species if it meant needing as many different head sculpts per species.

Well, that depends. In many cases that's true — however, there have been also been cases lately of the sets taking inspiration from the show, most obvious being the new Samurai X Cave Chaos set. The Samurai X Cave was introduced two whole years ago, so it's unlikely that it was based on this set. Likewise Chen's chair in the Ultra Stealth Raider set is based on its appearance in Season Four of the show, even though it's not a perfect likeness. And the Elemental Dragons that we've been seeing in sets this year are also based loosely on the ones the ninja discovered in Season Four. With that said, the sets are still free to take creative liberties where they see fit. I don't see anything "lazy" about the choice to give smaller dragons to Kai and Cole. Rather than a lack of effort, it seems like it was a conscious decision to help diversify price points. There are a lot of things in LEGO set designs that might disappoint us fans but they shouldn't be confused with LEGO not putting in an effort or not caring. Don't get me wrong, I certainly hope for larger dragons for those two in the future as well. But now was apparently not the time for that. If Cole had gotten a dragon the same size as Jay's this year, that might've meant not getting the Raid Zeppelin. If Kai had gotten a dragon the size of Lloyd's, that might've meant not getting Tiger Widow Island. And so forth. LEGO has a certain number of price points to meet each year, and while there's some flexibility they can't just introduce a third $30 set in place of a $10 set, or a third $50 set in place of a polybag.

http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=2609#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=3626c#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=2920#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=41679&idColor=10#T=C&C=10 (The chrome piece is probably non-LEGO) http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=41681#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=51711pb02#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=4860c04#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=4781#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=30535#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=51377#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=30322#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=989#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=32060#T=C http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=75535#T=C

Master Wu Dragon is packed with interesting and unusual parts, and very deliberately at that. The designer, Nicholas Vas, is an AFOL and MOCist whose creations tend to be quite greebly and packed with NPU (and most of them lean towards sci-fi). So he tried to include a lot of the sorts of parts that he would like to get in a set. Some of Master Wu Dragon's parts, like the brick yellow/tan Unikitty tail and elephant tail pieces or the white croissants, are very organic shapes that might be better suited to more organic creations rather than mecha. But others like the black paint rollers, reddish brown and white 2x2 circular jumpers, and the various Warm Gold parts could feel right at home on a sci-fi creation. There are also some great joint parts in that set. Titan Mech Battle is another recent Ninjago set with lots of great greebles, joints, and connectors. As a bonus, both Master Wu Dragon and Titan Mech Battle have an amazing price per piece, and soon enough they might start going on clearance since they are mid-2015 sets rather than 2016 sets. So you'll be likely to get a very good parts value from either of those sets. We might be past the peak time for Legends of Chima clearances, since some of the places with the best deals might've already cleared out their stock. But my brother was recently able to pick up Maula's Ice Mammoth Stomper and King Crominus's Rescue for 50% off at Barnes and Noble, and I've heard some places might have even deeper discounts on the Mammoth Stomper at least. Both of those sets have lots of cool sci-fi parts including some in rare colors like Dark Brown and Olive Green.

Yes, but the reason Porsche has much higher step numbers is that this year LEGO stopped numbering sub-assembly steps separately. It used to be that when you started a sub-assembly it would revert to step 1, and then after the sub-assembly steps were finished it would pick up where the "main build" steps left off. Now, when a sub-assembly begins, it continues with the same step numbers from the main build, and then when the sub-assembly steps are finished the numbers continue uninterrupted. So instead of the numbering going like 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, the numbering would now be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. This means much higher step numbers by the very end, but also means much less room for confusion since there now aren't going to be as many steps and sub-steps with the same number, and the step numbers now better reflect how much building you've done (in an earlier 200-step set, step 100 could be anywhere, but now in a 200-step set step 100 is going to more reliably mean you're halfway done building).

So excited for new Steven Universe episodes to resume in just one week!

"Dragons to Save, Time to be Brave" parts 1 and 2 have been added to LEGO.com now, though interestingly, they got the titles and captions wrong. Part 1 is labeled as Part 2, and Part 2 is labeled as the new, not-yet-aired-in-English episode "Down a Dark Path". It got me excited for a second thinking that the new episode was online already, but nope, just its title and description attached to an already released video.

None of those are really pitching modifications or re-releases of past sets, they just happen to depict the same subjects as past sets. If you were to disqualify any project that happened to depict the same subject as a past set, that would mean no space shuttles, no submarines, no fire engines, no police cars, etc, because all of those things have been in LEGO Town or LEGO City in some form. Granted, I doubt any of those projects are going to succeed in review, because many of them ARE probably too similar to existing sets, or are already a part of an existing license agreement, or just don't offer enough unique features that the previous set of the subject did not. But they don't even come close to breaking any rules. And an "if it's ever been a set it can't be an Ideas project" rule would be excessively limiting, because there's no way to know where to draw the line. Should a 600-piece LEGO Technic Formula 1 project be disqualified because LEGO had a Formula 1 set back in 1975? Should a minifigure-scale double-decker bus project be disqualified because there was a London Bus set in 1966? Should a brick sculpture of William Shakespeare be disqualified because there was a William Shakespeare minifigure? It's just plain impractical, especially since some people might pitch a project without even realizing there's been a set of the same subject in the past.

It's possible that LEGO wouldn't even do another round of "ultimate" sets in 2017. After all, lately some $10 items like the Legends of Chima tribe packs and Ninjago Airjitzu spinners have been constrained to one wave. Maybe the lackluster performance of the 2014 Speedorz sets has convinced LEGO that these kinds of gimmick/impulse series should be kept brief so they don't wear out their novelty. That said, I'd love Ultimate versions of Ava, King Halbert, and Queen Halbert!

The Star Wars battle packs are a different type of product than the battle packs from most other themes. Star Wars battle packs are regular retail sets (with four or five digit set numbers), much like the 2015 Chima "tribe packs". Other battle packs/army building packs from themes like Ninjago, Chima, City, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Nexo Knights are extended-line products (with six or seven digit set numbers) that include minifigures pre-assembled in plastic blister packaging. I imagine the packaging plays a part in the pricing differences, since a blister pack has to be fitted to the individual characters, while a box can be assembled the same way for lots of different sets and themes. Economies of scale might also be a factor, since I'm sure LEGO produces a lot more of the sets for general retail than these army builder packs, which mostly just show up at LEGO Brand Retail and LEGO.com.

I saw this at the LEGO Store last month but didn't think to flip through and see all the little illustrations! It's very tempting... but at the same time, I already have so many sketchbooks and notebooks that I don't use. Still a really great product for kids though!

I think there's still a good chance that a Ninjago series would have figures and parts that builders of other themes could appreciate. I don't know what sort of characters will be in the movie, but the Ninjago TV series has a VERY diverse world. Ninja, samurai, and monsters, sure, but also all kinds of civilians. Just as some examples of diverse characters from Ninjago sets released so far, consider Flintlocke (sky pirate aviator), Nadakhan (evil djinn), or Misako (archaeologist). The TV series has even more that haven't ever found a place in the sets, like Mother Doomsday (comic book shop owner), Fritz Donnegan (astronaut), and the Ninjago City police commissioner. A collectible minifigure series would offer even more opportunities for diverse figures like these than the regular sets, which are often constrained to more straightforward good vs. evil character matchups.

Also, in terms of other non-vehicle sets, don't forget the amazing Legend Beasts!