Aanchir

I'm guessing the feature on Nya's bike is because the pipes on the front are meant to be cannons, so lifting up the front lets her take aim at Sqiffy's flier. Plus, gold tends to be a unifying color for the ninja, appearing on all their vehicles and often their weapons, dragons, and costumes as well.

I look forward to picking up Rey. Not just because she has great parts (Light Nougat hands, lots of great Brick Yellow and Sand Yellow parts, etc) but also because she looks amazing. A shame she has headgear, though, because her face looks great and would surely be more useful to me in MOCs without headgear. Finn's got a nice head sculpt and some good recolors too, so I might want to pick him up as well. Phasma and the First Order Stormtrooper both have great parts in useful, neutral colors, but a number of them are ones I've already got from picking up the Obi-Wan and Jango Fett constraction sets. And while they look alright, they're so... monochrome. Can't make up my mind about Kylo. A lot of his more interesting armor pieces are also available in other sets, but he does have those shoulderpads in black and some nice textile elements. The $25 price is the main thing bugging me about this one. I was willing to pay that for Obi-Wan but I generally really liked his design. By comparison, Kylo has a really boring color scheme and a head piece I'll probably have a much harder time using in MOCs.

Well, that's kind of the point of LEGO Ideas.... to narrow down all the ideas from the LEGO community and find those few that are viable to produce as sets. It wasn't created with the expectation that the majority of things posted there would become products.

In fairness, Tahu's only got just three Bright Red pieces, while Lewa's got five or so Bright Green ones. Conversely, Tahu has much more transparent orange than Lewa has transparent green. Tahu also has some Dark Azur accents that I quite like. My issues with Tahu have more to do with his shapes and textures than his colors. His upper legs feel really bony, and his shoulders, forearms, thighs, and shins all have totally different textures. Whereas Lewa's shapes and textures feel much more consistent throughout his design, in part from repetition of the same parts (Vorox/Skrall shells, Bohrok eyes, and 4M shells).

That... actually doesn't sound so bad to me? It's both helping you visualize Lewa and know his abilities, which might be important later on. I mean, if a situation emerges where he has to fly and you weren't told previously that he can fly, it'd kind of seem out of nowhere....

I absolutely love Lewa's design! It's so coherent and uses some really creative techniques for the upper arms and lower legs. I do think that he could use more yellow (which makes for a great accent color on Uxar), because his color scheme doesn't "pop" quite as much as Gali's or even the 2015 Lewa's, but other than that he's a stellar design, probably my favorite of the new 2016 Toa.

Not sure what you mean about the legs? Umarak's upper legs are exactly seven modules long from the center of the hip to the center of the knee, and his lower legs are a little over six modules long from the center of the knee to the center of the ankle. That's hardly any difference at all...

The graphic novel and the next chapter book come out the same day — December 29.

I think a lot of the people commenting on the Piece of Unity being too detailed might not realize how much of that detail is necessary for structural reasons. Granted, the pistons on the sides (which it shares with many of this year's and last year's add-ons) are purely decorative. But the rectangular cavities to each side of the pin holes are not. If that part of the piece were molded solid, then it would not cool properly, and if the "ridges" between those cavities were carved out, it would be too fragile. It's the same reason why this piece has similar cavities on its sides. Aside from the use on Tahu and Kopaka's legs, the part is more structural than decorative in nature. If regular shells had been used, then when you tried to separate the two sets the shells might have been more likely to stay attached to each other than to the sets they belong to. That's what those side connections are for — to keep it wrapped around the set it belongs to. Umarak looks pretty nice in general! His color scheme works very nicely, and he does a good job establishing the 'ruthless forest-dweller' feel. I do think his proportions might be improved if his shoulder joints were one module higher. His leg construction also suits him nicely. I really love the Mask of Control's design! It truly feels like it and the Mask of Creation are alike, yet different. His regular mask is also quite cool and I can't help wondering if it'll have a name. The fact that his shoulder armor can become a shadow trap is a pleasant surprise (well, of course we knew it was the same pieces, but I didn't expect the shoulders coming off and becoming a shadow trap to be an intentional feature). Parts-wise, it's cool to get the Piece of Unity in Titanium Metallic, but what excites me most is that the segmented leg/tusk pieces are finally available in the same color! They really look great together, and this color gives them a nice horn/bone look. Overall, this guy is a really solid set, even though he didn't "wow" me as much at first as the new Toa and creatures. Thanks for the review!

Those are presumably all summer/2HY sets.

No, her torso print is from LEGO City.

Despite being comically undersized compared to most modern LEGO cars, this sports car polybag actually looks really cute!

There's literally one result in the first page of results for "skull grinder" that is apparently a grinder being sold for use with marijuana, but it's downright irrational to suggest the word "grinder" should be off-limits because one of the many things people "grind" is a recreational drug. People sometimes "cut" liquor or drugs (i.e. reduce their potency), does that mean the name of Toa Mahri Matoro's Twin Cutter weapon was a "terrible choice for a children's toy"? People refer to smoking weed as "blazing it", does that mean the name of Toa Hordika Vakama's Blazer Claws was a "terrible choice for a children's toy"? It's a downright irrational argument.

I don't see how they're any less LEGO-like than ordinary road plates. In fact I think it'd be really cool if road plates were replaced with tiles like this with road stripe printing, which would allow for much more customization.

A Saturday marathon would have probably brought in a lot of viewers, but Cartoon Network might not have been willing to give up that many timeslots on a Saturday.

According to the instruction manual (which is a good read even if you haven't bought the set), Jesper is a landscaper who's been hired to help turn the Temple of Airjitzu into a tourist attraction, but his fear of ghosts holds him back. Claire, Jesper's daughter, loves ghost stories and finds the temple's reputation thrilling, so she's spent a lot of time exploring its secrets. But realistically, they are just "filler characters" with no significance to the show, mainly included so the set has some generic, non-ninja figures to manage the shops. Their bios in the instruction manual are mere "story starters" to give buyers some ideas for ways to play with the set.

Zing! Seriously, I don't see Nexo Knights getting in the way of other Sci-Fi themes any more than Ninjago or Legends of Chima did. Judging from how many "action-adventure" themes and licensed themes include sci-fi elements, it seems like kids' love of sci-fi runs pretty deep. I'm generally quite satisfied with the current range of themes (Bionicle, Ninjago, and Elves keep me pretty happy, and Nexo Knights seems like it might be a nice treat in its own right), but it'd be cool to see a girl-oriented constraction range, possibly as a spin-off of LEGO Elves. LEGO doesn't really have any products that can compete toe-to-toe with fashion doll lines like Monster High or Equestria Girls, and considering how they basically created the market for boy-oriented buildable action figures, it'd be interesting to see what it takes to create a girl-oriented buildable doll.

The marathon will start with "The Quest for the Lost Mixamajig", continue with the latest 17 episodes of LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu ("Ninja Roll" through "Curseworld, Part II"), then the LEGO Scooby-Doo TV special and three LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes TV specials. It then concludes with the two-part Nexo Knights series premiere. Here are the listings on Zap2It. I for one am excited. Wasn't sure if the U.S. would be getting the Nexo Knights premiere so soon. Not sure if it's been mentioned in this thread yet but the U.K. premiere is on the 18th and the Polish premiere is on the 26th. Not sure about other countries.

Phenomenal design. Love her proportions, articulation, and waist function. Not as much of a fan of the weapon function, which is a little bit bulky for my tastes, but it's a cool concept. The biggest fault with this design is that the back of the model is so unadorned, and has little continuity with the colors and textures of the rest of the model. But I can see how this custom torso would make it difficult to armor the back without it becoming much bulkier.

Really, that's more or less the same age range as most Legends of Chima and Ninjago sets. The only Chima sets that dipped below that age range were the polybags and buildable figures, and the only Ninjago sets that dip below that age range are "battle packs" and sets priced at $10 or lower (spinners, fliers, booster packs, polybags, and impulse sets). Though next year is introducing the first Ninjago-themed Juniors sets, aimed at ages 4–7. Likewise, the Legends of Chima and Ninjago TV series both had a US TV rating of "Y7-FV" for fantasy violence; we can probably safely assume the rating for the Nexo Knights TV series will be the same. It's also worth noting that a lot of kids' TV series start out really silly and become more serious later on. Examples: Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Adventure Time, etc. And teasers and commercials for kids' movies and TV series frequently focus on the silliest or cheesiest parts of them.

In my opinion, Ninjago is absolutely worth getting into, even after four years. :) Not sure where you're from, but in Great Britain and North America, the pilot and the first three seasons are all on Netflix, which is a nice affordable way to start getting caught up on the series. When it comes to the sets, many of the most recent sets and minifigures are also some of the best, so unless you are really committed to the theme it's probably not necessary to try and get a whole lot of the older sets on the aftermarket. For an affordable, current set that gives you a good taste of what the theme has to offer, it's hard to beat Master Wu Dragon. $40/£35 for 575 pieces including five minifigures, a dragon with 20 points of articulation, a tea farm gate, and a haunted food kiosk. It was designed by an AFOL (you can read an interview with him about the set here) and includes lots of really creative parts and building techniques. In my opinion, it's the best dragon set the theme has had, and Ninjago has had many great dragon sets over the years! The only big disadvantage of the set is that unlike some of the vehicle sets, it doesn't offer a whole lot of "action features" — just a disk shooter on the kiosk and some flick missiles on the tea farm fence. But from my experience AFOLs are usually more interested in sets for their looks than for these kinds of action features. When it comes to display value and character selection, it's hard to beat the Temple of Airjitzu. It includes all seven of the theme's main characters (Kai, Zane, Cole, Jay, Nya, Lloyd, and Wu) plus supporting characters Misako, Dareth, and the postman. But of course, you can get the Master Wu Dragon and still save up for the Temple. The only duplicate figure you'll get between those two sets is Cole. Temple of Airjitzu will probably also be available for a while yet, since it's a direct-to-consumer set rather than a regular retail set.

Well, yes, that's my point. I can see people getting fed up if every villain character were goofy, but that's not the situation we're seeing, now or ever. And expecting an entire faction without ANY goofy characters seems a little outrageous, particularly when the theme's never given us any reason to expect an entirely 100% serious faction, whether good, bad, or neutral. Humor's been a big part of the theme (both in terms of sets and story) since it began.

Personally I think Gali's color scheme looks really coherent. Really, most of what it does is swap out most of the 2015 set's Titanium Metallic parts for Tr. Blue, and its yellow parts for Bright Orange. Otherwise it just redistributes those colors a bit to fit her new asymmetrical armor layout. I don't think the grey parts are obtrusive (in this particular photo it's hard to tell they're even a different shade from the set's many Silver Metallic parts), but your comment does make me wonder a bit why the set used those parts at all, instead of using black 5M "A" beams. Usually it's because they want the extra friction in the elbows, but that clearly wasn't a concern for Pohatu, Kopaka, Tahu, or Lewa, and Gali's weapon is hardly any different structurally than Pohatu's. So maybe they just wanted the elbows to be a little less bony.

Akida has a pretty incredible value, I've got to say. 120 pieces for $10? I can count the number of Bionicle sets with a better price per piece than that on two hands (all but two of them are bulk parts buckets, the other two are Vezon & Kardas and Voporak). Even if you deduct the ammo for the stud shooters, that's still 96 pieces for $10! Most G1 canister sets cost $8–10 for less than HALF that many! I was a bit unsure how much I liked Akida, but after reading/watching this review I definitely think it's a great set. Beautiful color scheme, creative build, and an authentically fishy look (though I think Jawblade had a better tail). I look forward to adding Akida and Gali to my collection!

Yes, they did! Weren't Chen's goons non-goofy enough? Even with the ghosts, only one of the five main ghosts (Ghoultar) was particularly goofy, and IMO he was maybe the best of the bunch. Before this year, the only one of the Nindroid characters who was really goofy was Min-Droid. If we'd been dealing with ONLY goofy villains for two or three years, I can understand people wanting change, but if one goofball villain per season is so unbearable, I'm not sure why you'd even be watching Ninjago.