Aanchir

The art style is OK-ish, and that's really the best I can say for it. There are a lot of parts that look sloppy and inconsistent, and not in a purposeful or expressive way. The Mask of Time literally looks like a bit of G1 stock art 'shopped into a panel with an entirely different style of lineart and shading. Even if the artist had so much as traced over it in pen using the same lineweight they used for the characters it would probably have looked better. As it is, it just looks like a conspicuous placeholder. From a logistical standpoint it would probably have been better to do as the animations did and simply keep it out-of-frame. Also, Korgot inexplicably turns into a skeleton on page 8 (she looks fine on page 7). And Narmoto is colored in Vizuna's colors in the last panel of page 7. Pages 2, 4, and 6 are probably the most consistently decent-looking pages from this sample. I know Bionicle characters are generally more work to draw than minifigures, but these pages are not up to the level of quality I've come to expect in LEGO comics, whether from Bionicle or other themes. And it's definitely nowhere near as good as the fantastic cover art led me to expect. I can only hope the artist gets better at this with experience, and that it shows in the later pages of the book.

Hey Just2Good, I feel like you missed a significant detail in the Ultimate Robin review, which sort of explains why the blasters on his back are so bulky. I was just reading the product description of the set on barnesandnoble.com and it mentioned a feature that hadn't occurred to me: "Change his impressive spring-loaded shooter into robot legs to grow tall.... Whizz-kid Ultimate Robin loves dreaming up futuristic weapons—now watch him rise above his enemies on robot legs." I guess this just means you can angle the shooters down to work as legs, but that sort of casts them (and his "Mech Master" Nexo Power) in a new light!

I don't think LEGO goes out of their way to ensure their licenses all fall into particular genres, or that they fulfill some type of "quota". What licensed themes they have tends to depend more on what movies/TV shows they are willing to bet on than on what genres those movies/TV shows fall into. The only way I can see them caring a lot about genre is if they're worried about a licensed theme conflicting with an ongoing non-licensed theme, and that doesn't appear to be the case this year. Are there any particular 2016 "historical" movie licenses you think the LEGO Group could/should have pursued? Looking at https://en.wikipedia...ki/2016_in_film I don't see a lot for the first half of the year that jump out at me. There is Moana coming out in November 2016, which I could see LEGO potentially releasing sets for. Depends what Disney's marketing strategy for that movie will be like, I suppose.

Kids generally DO understand the difference between fantasy and reality, but that's precisely why guns in LEGO City are more of a problem than guns in historical, sci-fi, or fantasy themes. LEGO City and LEGO Friends are supposed to represent the world kids actually live in, not fictional worlds or our world from another point in time. Dangers in LEGO City are more immediate and real than dangers in LEGO Ninjago or LEGO Star Wars or LEGO Castle. Most kids never have to worry about being attacked with a katana or a laser cannon or a battle axe, but deaths from guns, both intentional and accidental, are incredibly common in many countries in the present day. LEGO City tends to omit many types of scary situations, not just guns. Fires for LEGO City firefighters to put out are usually trash fires, warehouse fires, or fires at abandoned buildings, not (populated) house fires, plane crashes, or car accidents. Ambulance and hospital patients or people rescued at sea never have conspicuous wounds. The scariest things you'll find in LEGO City are dangerous animals like crocodiles, sharks, or bears, and those are clearly deemed kid-appropriate even for preschoolers, since they appear even in the LEGO Duplo theme!

Ha, I got a giggle out of this. Truth be told these sets are really cute. I absolutely LOVE that little slime alien! Yes, I agree. Up until recently there was a serious dearth of space-related Duplo sets (as opposed to, say, Castle or Pirate or Town Duplo), but between this theme and the "My First Rocket" set it looks like we're finally starting to see more sci-fi even at the preschool level.

Nope. The type of piece doesn't matter, what matters is the pattern. Specifically, the geometric bit around the edges. The piece from the Batmobile doesn't have that type of border, it's just got the bat-symbol in the center.

There's a whole family commonly called boxfishes due to being box-shaped. Not that Akida's based on one of those (the overall look is more shark-like, I think), but box-shaped fish do exist in nature.

More importantly, Bionicle characters are designed for human audiences to relate to them. That alone justifies giving them human-like traits even if they're not biologically necessary. What makes sense in-universe is secondary to what fans and buyers think of their appearance.

Probably. It's not a new part in that color.

The yellow axles appear in a number of Technic sets (and Wall-E). They seem to mostly be a new option for odd-numbered axles besides just grey. I think they look good on Lewa, but he'd look even better if he had MORE yellow, like Uxar does. As it is, his color scheme isn't nearly as eye-popping as, say, Gali's. The new mask is a great evolution of Lewa's previous mask, and it actually looks even more Miru-like (I think it's the longer eyeholes, personally). Really does a good job expressing his personality, and the crystal texture suits it nicely. Lewa's arm and leg construction is incredibly creative, despite both being based primarily on existing parts. It also works really well, giving him maybe the most unified, streamlined appearance of any of the new Toa. His arms are a bit short, though, which could maybe be improved by swapping the lower arm beams with 6M ones. Realistically, I'd prefer if the torso itself were a module or two shorter, but that's not something that can really be changed without sacrificing the waist function. I'd also change the orientation of the lower arm bones, regardless of what the instructions say — they would work much better rotated 90 degrees at the elbow. Lewa's combination with Uxar is maybe the best of the Toa–Creature combinations. It looks just as elegant and unified as Lewa looks on his own, plus adds some more of that lovely yellow to spice things up. Thanks for the review!

The show is based on the sets, not the other way around. Jestro presumably wouldn't have had any "new hat" until the creators of the show decided remove the pom-poms on the ends and make it flexible to reflect his mood. Even after his transformation, the points only point upwards when he's "being evil". When he says anything NOT particularly evil, they bend back down.

Hey, I enjoyed Knights' Kingdom II and even I like the term Jellybean Knights. It's a cute and silly nickname. People who use it pejoratively could probably stand to be a little less serious about their own LEGO hobby. After all, when you get right down to it, we're all collecting toy building blocks and brightly-colored plastic smiley-face men!

Omigosh, the King's mech has a winding key in the back! Adorable! Ultimate Macy looks awesome! Love the colors! Her blaster is really cool, though it is pretty bulky. I like how Macy's weapons tend to be characterized by brute force rather than finesse, since often female characters in fiction (even ones who are really tough personality-wise) will be given lighter or more graceful-looking weapons. Good one! You could probably use the shield tiles as shields without the more technological-looking back plate if you used a piece like this or this as a handle.

Yep, same in the U.S. Rey and the First Order Stormtrooper are $19.99, the other four are $24.99. In Phasma's case, it's hard to tell if the price is justified. She's got close to the same piece count as the First Order Stormtrooper (82 pieces instead of 81), just with a cape and longer and thicker shins instead of a pistol. However, her cape is unique to her and is printed. Finn, on the other hand, has 98 pieces, including both a gearbox AND a working shooter, something no other character has. Poe has 102 pieces. Kylo has just 86 pieces, but that includes at least two textile elements. Having seen the movie now, Finn and Rey are still easily the most desirable Episode 7 buildable figures in my book. I already liked them best in terms of both looks and pieces, but now I also find them some of the most interesting and relatable characters. Poe is also a really good parts pack (orange being as rare a CCBS color as it is), and has what looks like the most interesting build of any of the characters who don't have gearboxes. He was a fun character in the movie although he didn't speak to me as much as Finn or Rey. I'm still pretty indifferent to Phasma, the First Order Stormtrooper, and Kylo Ren. Their heads are extremely specific to Star Wars, limiting their usefulness, and they have rather bland monochrome color schemes and repetitive armor. They have a lot of useful parts in nice neutral colors, but since my brother and I already got Jango and Obi-Wan, a number of them are parts we already have (or can easily get from other sets). They are maybe the most authentic-looking characters in the entire buildable figures lineup due to how well the building system suits their armor, and Kylo's got some nice textile elements, but they don't have a whole lot else going for them in my book.

Ultimate Clay looks rad. I get a bit of a MegaMan Battle Network/MegaMan NT Warrior vibe from Nexo Knights, and the glow effects on the "Ultimate" knights' armor and visors builds on that even further. It's good to see the color matching between those transparent sword blades and the transparent visor and armor is pretty on-point. It'd be nice if there were a little gear or something to make the "propellors" spin, but that might have made them too bulky. The force field add-on is also a little underwhelming. Thanks for the review!

It's not a plastic-saving attempt, its a molding consideration. If the leg were solid on all sides, it'd be impossible to make it hollow in the center, meaning the walls would be too thick for it to cool properly. At least one side of any leg piece HAS to be hollow. On regular minifigure legs, it's the bottom, but on the peg leg and the new satyr legs, it's impossible to make a hole in the bottom run all the way through to the "joint".

Elves obviously has a bunch of great Castle-type stuff. New (presumably printed) windowpanes in The Starlight Inn, new dragon heads and wings in a bunch of different colors, new printed map, a book (the new style from Nexo Knights) with an awesome dragon pattern on it, dragon-patterned flags/banners, a new hourglass piece, and generally a lot of nice building elements. Marvel Super Heroes has a cool build for a "Giant Man" figure. The bricks are nothing super-useful for Castle but it could be a good template to follow for building your own fairy-tale giants. Ninjago has a new sword with a skull-shaped hilt guard and a new sword hilt with skull molding. The Ninjago sets use them for sky pirates but they might fit a skeleton/orc/troll faction. Additionally, one of the Ninjago-themed Juniors sets introduces a new arched double-door that fits in the Juniors door frames. There aren't yet any other LEGO door frames that it will fit as far as I'm aware, but I have very fond memories of the many sizes of arched double-doors from the Castle sets I grew up with back in the 90s, and it's been a long time since there's been a door in this style. And Nexo Knights obviously has a bunch of new shields, monsters, and magic books, as well as the new 1x1 pyramid slopes. I hadn't noticed the longer skeleton legs from Minecraft, so thanks for pointing those out!

If anyone's interested, the English edition of that catalog just went online. Elves starts on page 46. :)

Same. Her head sculpt looks excellent and suits the set nicely, but it would be more useful in MOCs without Star Wars–specific headgear. I do appreciate that they didn't opt to have the mask completely conceal her face, since I half expected them to do so. Sometimes it feels like the LEGO Group is so afraid of female action figure sets not selling well that they'll go out of their way to avoid expressly identifying their gender, and hiding her face would have been an easy way of avoiding that. Of course the characters don't look 100% organic, because its LEGO. Even the Galidor sets, which were 100% built from specialized, theme-specific parts, had fairly awkward-looking joints. And I much prefer a set of action figures that makes the angles and contours of the CCBS part of its design language to one that goes out of its way to make things look super-authentic at the expense of building value and versatility.

Could be that Ronin was once one of the pirates, or it could just be that he once pilfered some old, disused pirate armor same as how he pilfers so many other things. It's definitely a bit early to draw conclusions, but you're right that the similarity between Ronin's armor and the pirates' armor (including the sword holders on his back and the orange metal plating on his arm) might not be a total coincidence.

Rey looks fantastic! Finn a little bit less so — his knees are a bit more knobbly since the shell doesn't cover them. His head sculpt is very good though, and will be versatile in MOCs. It's kind of a shame that Rey doesn't have any curved System slopes to fill out the back of her lower legs, but that's a minor complaint.

The online LEGO Shop now has high-resolution images of all the new Ninjago sets besides Cole's Dragon (which still isn't listed, for whatever reason). See them all here!

This dragon looks very good, but not as good as Master Wu Dragon. Its chief drawback is how very flat the underbelly is. The legs are also kind of blocky, but I think it's nice when LEGO animals are at least a bit blocky. Suits the visual language of the brand. The colors are excellent and I love the uniqueness of the head construction. Cyren's flier is nice, and Monkey Wretch is a clever figure, although I wish he had printed eyes. Thanks so much for this review!

Fortrex looks fantastic! I love how neatly everything folds up inside! The drawbridge mechanism is nice and smooth, and there are so many great features such as the kitchen and training area — things that traditional LEGO castles often lack. There's also a good selection of figures. Merlok in particular looks WAY better in this video than he did in the previous pictures we'd seen of him.

Nice! Here's the story description: Apply a little Google Translate and we get... The castle in the distance is probably where the mother dragon is being kept. There's a similarly sinister-looking well or cauldron in the Fire Dragon's Lava Cave set.