Aanchir

I wouldn't say "nobody" hated The Amazing Spider-Man or Power Rangers. I've known quite a few people who do dislike those things. But with that said, yeah, I don't think this is the end of the world for Ninjago. So the creators of the movie want to do things differently? That could go badly, but it could also go well. There's no reason a movie needs complete adherence to the story it's based on to be worth watching. And there's no reason a high school movie is inherently bad. It'll be interesting to see how the LEGO Group handles two separate canons, though. Will they tie up the TV series canon with a bow and move on to this new one? Or will they continue the TV series with its own separate canon from the movies, like TMNT tends to do? The logo looks cool!

It's possible that with the licensed themes they had to be extra careful with accuracy to the source material since they're dealing with other companies' properties, and under the license agreement they are expected to handle them somewhat delicately. Whereas LEGO Ninjago may have a "canon", but outside of the TV series and some books, LEGO (who owns the property) is not too picky about adherence to that canon. There are also things that just make more sense to change just to streamline the story and gameplay. It would have been both confusing for the player and a lot of extra work to move to a different Tournament of Elements arena for every individual fight. Staying in the same "level" and having you build, use, and destroy different objects as you move from one fight to another is arguably more in the spirit of a LEGO game. And having the whole Tournament of Elements sequence be all boss battles without any generic opponents would have both been strange level design and meant fewer opportunities to regain hearts. Since we're dealing with a hypothetical alternate-universe Tournament of Elements that included such characters as Gandalf, Wyldstyle, and Batman, it's not outrageous to have things transpire differently than in the show. Though I believe that Anacondrai cultists DID participate in one match in the show: the one between Jay and Cole which Chen thought needed "less talking, more fighting". They would have been piloting the Anacondrai Crushers.

This guy looks fantastic! He has so much personality, a creative concept, and a very coherent design! Great work!

Other than those three colors, there are six Warm Gold ones in 70734 Master Wu Dragon. And there are two in a blend of Transparent Fluorescent Green (Trans-Neon Green) and Transparent in 70779 Protector of Stone. The ice ones are also in these sets, the fire ones in these sets, and the lightning ones in these sets.

He's referencing his member title. Member titles are assigned by Eurobricks staff, sometimes as pranks. There's a whole topic of past member titles in the Community subforum. Those army builder packs are pretty cool!

Beautiful! I especially love the teahouse. Really creative roof construction there.

Weird that the vet trailer set is still using the old book piece. I'd have expected Friends to have transitioned over to the new one from Nexo Knights by summer. I can't imagine LEGO planning to keep both styles of book around in perpetuity.

Awesome! I love the elemental blades over the bed — are they actually lit up, or is that just a trick of the light? The dragon-patterned doors are great! And Zane's falcon in the corner is a nice touch! Thanks so much for sharing!

Stormer Freeze Machine! Though they've also been in a lot of System sets since then. Speaking of Kopaka, I built the Gali+Kopaka "TWOTOA" combo (from here) after finally finding where I'd misplaced Kopaka's right leg. It's an insanely creative build. The bulkiness of the weapon on the right hand is a bit awkward, and I imagine there might've been a more efficient way to build it if it hadn't been a combi model working with limited pieces. But the scissor function makes up for it. The way the shoulders are mounted is really creative, although his midsection could use some filling out in the back. It's also really cool how well the unity pieces on his legs fit together with Melum's creature foot pieces. I have to say, I love a combi model that teaches you things when you build it!

It used to be that I would go through the new sets there one by one and list corrections that needed to be made, but correcting the same errors over and over and over again started to eat away at my life, so I had to quit that and just leave builders to their own devices.

The Pirate Whip has been released! Also, I haven't seen it brought up here yet, but the U.S. premiere of Ninjago season six will be next Thursday (March 24) at 7:30pm Eastern time, after the two-part Nexo Knights season one finale. :)

This is awesome! Thank you for all your coverage of the new Ninjago area at LEGOLAND! I am looking forward to the Ninjago areas opening at LEGOLAND California this May and LEGOLAND Florida next year, since those will have many of the same attractions. Ninjago is one of my favorite LEGO themes and it's great to see it being recognized in this way. The ride looks like a lot of fun! It's got to be even more fun in 3D (and when you're not holding a camera ). It's interesting that it says to use lightning against the ghosts, since in the show their weakness is water, but I guess when the ride only has four elements it has to make do with those. I love all the Ninjago merchandise (T-shirts, hats, etc) that appears in the shop. I wonder if there will be any Ninjago clothing or hats in adult sizes. Probably not, but I can always dream. The brick-built decor throughout the area is fantastic. I especially love the statues of the Ninja using their elemental powers. One thing Billund has gotten this park season that hasn't yet been announced for the other parks is LEGO Ninjago themed rooms at the LEGOLAND Hotel. I imagine those would be a lot of fun. Last year I got to participate in a recruitment workshop for a design position at LEGO and got to stay in a pirate-themed room, which was quite charming! I wish that some of the parks other than LEGOLAND Malaysia would have the live puppet show "LEGO Ninjago: The Realm of Shadows". From the clips I've seen it looks like a LOT of fun, plus the writers of the TV series confirmed that it is canon to the LEGO Ninjago storyline. Apparently for a while at least it was the most popular attraction at LEGOLAND Malaysia, surpassing even all the rides! One final note — it's cool that the ninja throughout the attraction are in their new "throwback" costumes from this summer's sets. :) These costumes are styled after the original Ninjago costumes from 2011 but also take cues from the ZX costumes from 2012 and, in Nya's case, her 2015 ninja costume. Thanks so much for your thorough coverage of this new opening!

The Fold actually put up The Pirate Whip on YouTube in high quality by accident a couple days ago. But they quickly took it down. Judging from this tweet, all three songs were supposed to go up on iTunes tomorrow, so maybe that's when The Pirate Whip will be released for reals.

I don't think a lot of people really consider "fake vents" a bad thing. Whether "real" or "fake", the vents are just decoration, and Bionicle masks have had "fake" ones since the original Kanohi Kakama in 2001 and Kaukau Nuva in 2002. You could arguably even count pretty much all the mouth holes of the classic masks as "fake vents". And frankly, you're the first person I've seen complain about them in all my time as a Bionicle fan. Saying the designers should have gotten the design feature "right the first time" implies there's something inherently wrong with cavities that don't actually go all the way through the piece. But I don't believe that, and I doubt the designers do either. It's entirely possible that the "fake vents" were how they meant the design to look in the first place.

One thing that bothers me a bit about this set is that it doesn't have any real medieval motifs to speak of. Other Nexo Knights hero vehicles generally feel very medieval-inspired... flying crossbow, flying sword, horse mech, knight mech, rolling fortress, etc. But this one just feels like generic sci-fi. It doesn't even have any medieval weapon pieces as decoration. Aside from the minifigure and his sword, it could pass for a Space set or even a Star Wars set. With that said, it's not a bad design. It's got a cool color scheme and a nice range of motion.

The thin U-shaped version was an intermediate version that came between the thick U-shaped version and the thick O-shaped version.

I remember them showing up in a number of sets I got back in 2010 and 2011. My copy of the Portal of Atlantis had both the weird thin version and the previous version (thicker but still with squared ends).

A simple MOC, but not an awful one. The biggest fault I see right now is that the feet are oddly proportioned, especially for a figure this size. The overall length of the foot might not be so bad if it were all toe length, but as it is her heels are as long as her toes. If you give her some feet with longer toes, like Toa Mata or Toa Metru feet, then she would probably look a lot better. There are also some other proportional oddities, like the lower legs being much longer than the upper legs, but they're mostly due to the Toa Metru build the model is based on. So, not really bad for what this model sets out to be. It'd be nice if the model did a bit more to stand out, like maybe a custom hilt or handle for the sword, some additional armor or equipment, or maybe some sort of creature companion to go with her. But there's nothing wrong with building Toamods like this every now and then, especially when you're working with limited pieces.

I dunno, I really liked a lot of the Tournament of Elements songs. YouTube links for the new songs if anybody's interested: "Bring On The Pirates": We Are Ninjago:

Awesomesauce! I figured that Jay and Mike were probably asked to stop sharing them on YouTube and SoundCloud, but I wasn't sure if we were likely to get more albums (since I hadn't heard much about how the first one sold). It's good to hear that they're in talks to make that happen! There's been a lot of amazing music in the series since the first season!

Fair enough. I agree that the Hogwarts Castles have generally been really good designs, even the old ones that came out during a time when LEGO designs in general tended to be rather weak. The Hogwarts Castle sets are also great examples of the kind of "livability" I want to see in LEGO castles. Banquet halls are such an iconic snapshot of medieval life, so it's a bit bewildering that LEGO Castle sets with an actual medieval setting have never really had one! Instead, you have to turn to licensed themes or action/adventure themes for that kind of thing. Of course, there's a bit of a give-and-take, as you mention — castles that are fully enclosed on all sides and have a lot of depth often have to cut down on their height in turn. Likewise, castles that are tall and imposing often have to do away with a back wall and make heavy use of archways in place of solid walls. Neither style of castle is going to please everybody. The Sky Castle from LEGO Elves might be one of the closest recent sets to those Hogwarts Castle design sensibilities. Like the various Hogwarts sets, it's got lots of archways and openings, and is mostly a facade rather than a fully enclosed castle. It shares some aspects of its color palette with Hogwarts, what with its tan walls and pastel roofs, and it's even got that Harry Potter folding staircase! So, LEGO definitely is still capable of making castles with that sort of design. So it's mostly just a question of whether that's really what LEGO Castle fans (kids and adults alike) want. I can't tell you how many sets and MOCs I've seen criticized for being "just facades" instead of fully enclosed structures. Yes, that even includes stunning TFOL/AFOL-oriented designs like the Temple of Airjitzu or Kingdoms Joust! To some people, a building that doesn't wrap all the way around is not a finished design, no matter how beautiful its architecture or how advanced its building level might be. Something else that will have to be acknowledged by both Castle and Pirates fans (who have both expressed dissatisfaction with the size of recent sets) is that due to inflation, castles and pirate ships are likely to continue shrinking unless the price cap on standard retail sets is lifted. Aside from D2C sets like Kingdom's Joust or Imperial Flagship, the max U.S. retail price for both of these themes has been stagnant at $100. In the case of Castle, it's been that way for over 10 years, even though a price tag of $100 back in 2005 would equal a price tag of $125 today. This is part of why licensed themes and action-adventure themes have been able to deliver larger and more impressive builds — their maximum prices HAVE risen with inflation. The 2001, 2004, and 2007 versions of Hogwarts were all $90, but the 2010 version was $130. By contrast, flagship Castle sets from 2000 and 2004 cost $90 and ones from 2007, 2010, and 2013 all cost $100. In thirteen years, the base price of a flagship LEGO Castle only rose once, by $10, in 2005. Of course, I don't know if AFOLs are the real roadblock here. Parents are just as likely or more so to complain about the rising cost of LEGO, and a $99.99 price tag still seems a lot more palatable to many people than a price tag of $119.99 or $129.99. Perhaps the younger target audience of Castle and Pirates than their licensed or action-adventure counterparts might be a factor in why LEGO is hesitant to boost these themes' price points. But even so, I don't think LEGO will be able to keep the max price point of these themes stable forever.

Awesome set! I can't help but notice that you put the curved slope for the horse's neck on backwards. The wider end is supposed to go towards the top. I think this does a lot to make the head design feel more continuous. You've also got the slopes for its chest on upside-down. It's kind of a shame that Queen Halbert is depicted as a damsel in distress in this set, even though in the show she's quite a capable fighter. It's not that the possibility of her getting captured isn't realistic, but to have her appear unarmed and at the mercy of a monster in her only set appearance doesn't really do the character justice. It is good that both of her expressions are fearless, though. — the alternate expression is more indignant than panicked. Infernox is a great giant monster design. His upper legs are a bit clunky-looking, but otherwise it's generally a very imposing build. It's kind of a shame he has to lose his tail to hitch up to the Evil Mobile, though. Thanks for the review!

I think Miku is probably just a different "breed" of dragon. Remember, these other baby dragons are all the children of Elandra the dragon queen. Miku, presumably, is not.

I don't mind the knights having the same outfits in the summer wave, to be honest. It's hard enough collecting all the characters as it is! I mean, if the knights had new outfits in the summer wave, there'd be only one set with each version of Axl! Given how many characters LEGO Nexo Knights has, I think that the regular and "Ultimate" versions of the knights are plenty for one year.

Ehhh... I don't really see what's so impressive about that Mega Bloks castle. I mean, it's tall (giant panel construction tends to do that), and it's pretty evil-looking in terms of its color palette and number of traps. But other than size, it doesn't offer a lot that 8877 and 7094 didn't. Though to its credit, it came out two years before 8877 and four years before 7094. That's not to say there's nothing to be learned from Mega Bloks sets. In spite of their often pitiful building level compared to LEGO sets, some of them do have some nice contents. I would love a LEGO castle that felt as livable as the Mega Bloks Lion's Kingdom. Of course, that set's entire exterior structure was a prefab shell/carry-case and a lot of its details were stickers. A LEGO set has to commit more of its piece count to actual building. Still, look at that interior! A smithy, an armory, a bedroom, a library, a throne room, a banquet hall, a stable, AND a dungeon! Fortunately, we're now finally getting some LEGO castles that feel more "livable" than usual. Namely, (dungeon, throne, foyer, bedroom, bathroom) and (dungeon, throne, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, armory). Now if only the Castle theme proper could take a cue from these themes and realize that livable details and action play don't have to be an either/or!