Aanchir

We know Clouse is alive because he's the main villain in the (canon) stage show at LEGOLAND Malaysia, which takes place after Season 5 ("Possession").I'm not sure why so many people here want more serious villains. Ninjago is an action/comedy series, and in my eyes many of the villains are at their best when they're not being serious. Chen in particular was a really engaging character because he was such a goofball, and Nuckal and Kruncha remain some of the most memorable enemy generals. Others were cool in their own right, but few had nearly as much personality.

Yeah, the new torso pieces seem to be specific to the characters who have lightsabers, so as to accommodate their gearboxes. Poe, Phasma, and the Stormtrooper just seem to use a standard 9x11 torso beam.

Kind of makes me wonder if there are any other medieval or sci-fi armor pieces with insignias that the hole in the armor would line up with. For more historical figs, Ultimate Robin has the armor in plain Silver Metallic (without the Tr. Flu. Reddish Orange on the shoulderpads). The shape might not be 100% historically authentic, but at the same time, neither are a lot of the armor pieces from Lord of the Rings and Fantasy-Era Castle, and that doesn't stop people using them on medieval fantasy figs.

LEGO didn't "edit" the images of those figures at all. The images of the Series 2 Lifeguard, Series 3 Fisherman, and Series 13 Classic King were all renders, so instances of the darker plastic color showing through the lighter, contrasting ink color would not have existed for them unless LEGO edited the pictures to reflect that phenomenon. Whereas the images of Helicopter Rescue and Ice Cream Machine were photos, and the color mismatch was just as evident in the official images as in the production version of the sets. This is an entirely different issue — the rendered image of the Farmer has a mis-match between the blue color printed on his torso and the blue color of his pants, which creates the impression that they are not intended to match in the first place (or that the colors were put into the computer wrong). The torso appears to be printed in Dark Azur, while the legs appear to be Medium Blue. It's not an issue where the plastic color is showing through the ink color, because there is no plastic and there is no ink — the entire image is digital. Now, it's not unheard of for renders to have their own issues, but the plastic color showing through the ink color is not one of them. The more stylized render of the Farmer that appears on the box pic seems to have the colors match as they should, so we'll see which turns out to be more accurate. It's entirely possible the color mismatch in the pic of the unpackaged minifigures was just an error — maybe a preliminary version of the set used Dark Azur for both parts, and the person putting together that image remembered to change the leg color but forgot to change the decoration color on the torso.

I've even seen people mix up bones of different lengths — I remember seeing a photo of Brain Attack Stormer that used the 6M "B" beams on his lower arms and 5M "A" beams on his upper legs. Even in G1 Bionicle, color decisions were often made as much for ease of building as for aesthetics. For instance, alternating colors between adjacent parts to make the building instructions more legible, as in the Toa Metru sets — colored hips, grey thighs, colored shins, grey ankles, colored feet. And when it could be avoided, G1 Bionicle sets wouldn't use near-identical parts in the same color. Just look at the beams on the back of the 2008 Takanuva set — the longer 13M beam is Dark Stone Grey, the shorter 11M beams are White. G1 canister sets ran into this issue less because so many of their parts had highly specialized shapes and textures, so there was less risk of confusing, say, a Toa Metru shin with a Vahki shin of the same color. The same goes for more specialized CCBS parts like shell add-ons, which is why the new Tahu can use the Skull Villain add-on, 2015 piston add-on, and Piece of Unification in the same color. But basic CCBS beams, like basic Technic beams, are aesthetically similar parts in modular sizes, so with those there are more issues where certain parts are near-identical and have to be included in sets in different colors for ease of building.

To me it feels like a cross between the 2015 Mask of Earth and both the 2002 and 2008 versions of the Pakari Nuva. Like the 2002 Pakari Nuva, it's now much wider, and like the 2008 one it has angular contours and narrow triangular "fins" in the lower left and right corners (which are very visible here). I'm not sure where people are seeing similarities to the Great Ruru. That mask's most iconic traits in my eyes were the large triangular cavities in the cheeks and the stipple texture on the forehead. The latter isn't really present on the new mask at all, and the closest thing to the former are the cavities way up near the eyes, which are just larger versions of the ones from the 2015 version of the mask. I guess you could say there's slightly similar detail in the mouth area, but again, that's more similar to the 2015 Mask of Earth than to the Great Ruru.

Presumably the mini-Fortrex is first because the photos are already up on Flickr.

If it's a polybag set it could have just been released early someplace. The release schedules for polybag sets can be fairly unpredictable, and it wouldn't surprise me if some careless employee put them out near the checkout without realizing that the street date for this theme hadn't yet arrived. If this were a set Brickset had gotten direct from LEGO, I would expect it to be bigger than a mere polybag.

The first ones are these and the third one is this. No clue about the propellor in the middle.

Perhaps more importantly, the Samurai Jack revival is going to be on Adult Swim, so not marketed towards kids.

I wouldn't have expected you to care about the shields with the Nexo Powers anyway, since those are all transparent — not very useful in medieval MOCs unless you want to lean heavy on the fantasy side of the equation. Some of the other shields that are used merely as decoration might still be stickered. The black one on Jestro's Evil Mobile definitely is in the box pic, as are the blue one on the box of Merlok's Library and the black one on the box of Infernox Captures the Queen. That's not 100% confirmation they won't be stickered in the final set, but it's possible.

I kind of preferred the golden weapons. The elemental blades were cool, but there's something cool about each ninja having a different signature weapon, rather than signature weapons that are identical aside from their color and hilt shape. It bothers me to this day that Lloyd and Nya so rarely get a signature weapon of any kind in the sets besides just generic katana. Just look at the characters' LEGO Dimensions packs. The four original ninja get their Golden Weapons and Sensei Wu gets his trusty staff, but Lloyd just gets gold swords and Nya just gets black ones.

Yep, definitely. This is part of why back in the day, LEGO Space and Castle could have so many factions at any one time. Each time they introduced a faction, they could also count on the previous two years' factions being available at the same time. These days they can't count on that as reliably. I feel like a lot of the reason for the shorter availability times today, though, have less to do with the number of themes and more with pressure from retailers. Generally, retailers prefer to stock new products whenever possible. When you stock older products the audience for those products gets smaller and smaller as more and more people obtain those sets. Whereas when new products are introduced every six months, you can completely refresh your inventory every year by carrying just the latest two waves of sets at any one time. Also, back in the day, LEGO wasn't able to bring out new products as frequently because the development time for new products was longer. So being able to cycle through brand-new product ranges so quickly was not an option. Unfortunately this also meant that the LEGO Group was less equipped to respond to changes in the market. Bionicle is one of the themes that helped prove to Jorgen Vig Knudstorp when he took over the company that LEGO could reliably introduce a new wave of sets every six months, which is now the release schedule for most LEGO themes. (Chapter six of Brick by Brick talks about this in a little bit more depth).

I wonder if the colors of the Nexo Power shields have any significance in the app/story. They remind me a lot of the "battle chips" from MegaMan Battle Network (a series I loved growing up... hmmm... might be part of why Nexo Knights is seeming increasingly irresistable). In addition to "normal" battle chips that affected all enemies equally, there were also Fire, Water, Electric, and Wood elemental battle chips that certain enemies would be weak or resistant to. Maybe the Nexo Power shield colors might also represent "types" of this sort?

I wouldn't be so sure that a company other than LEGO could have made Galidor a success.... after all, a big part of its failure had to do with the failure of the TV show, not necessarily the products being poor by action figure standards. Though arguably, a company like Hasbro or Mattel that had more experience with merchandise-driven TV shows might have managed the media side of things better than LEGO did. While it was unfortunate that it didn't adhere to the overall LEGO design philosophy, I don't think this is what killed it, because for the most part, it was not being marketed strictly as a LEGO product. Somewhat like Bionicle G1, the theme name took top billing on all the packages, with the LEGO logo shrunk down and pushed to the bottom right corner. Clearly, not only did the theme not appeal to LEGO fans, it did not appeal to action figure fans. But maybe if the show had been successful things might have been different. I'm sure it would never have been a hit on the same level as Bionicle, but it might have at least been able to last two or three years instead of burning out almost immediately. The book Brick by Brick has some neat insights into the development of Galidor. Apparently the building system was originally created with more free-form building in mind, kind of like Bonz kits. The working title was "LEGO Beings". However, it was adapted into a more character-driven action figure series to capitalize on the surging popularity of action figures in the United States. Despite how some sites like Brickset classify it, Galidor is not a licensed theme. The world and characters were developed in-house by LEGO designers, and the show was co-developed with CineGroupe and the Tom Lynch Company. One of the Galidor designers, Niels Milan Pedersen (who's been working for LEGO for 35 years, and designed many classic molds like the original LEGO skeleton, crocodile, horse, and octopus), still believes Galidor might have been successful if it weren't so poorly managed, and he might be at least partially right. Brick by Brick attributes Galidor's failure to the fact that it was rushed to market without adequate refinement or testing of its core concepts as soon as LEGO realized that Bionicle had the makings of a hit, instead of LEGO taking the time to analyze what it was about Bionicle that made it resonate so strongly with audiences.

Not quite all — there are a handful of them in the "Bionicle" and "Large Figure Parts" categories, depending on what theme they came out in. I guess you're referring to this image (click the magnifying glass icon to see it in full size). Since the 2015 lineup is a reboot, catching up on its storyline is pretty easy so far. I recommend watching the story videos here. That should get you mostly caught up. And as for that sixth question, I feel like it's good for a review to address the character's context (like previous versions of the character that helped inspire their design). But reviews that are just tearing down the new set for being "different" from past ones instead of judging it on its own merits can be a real bummer. I don't watch a lot of video reviews, but JANGBRICKS has done some good ones, and while the TTV Product Showcase videos aren't full reviews, they do a great job showing off the sets' designs and features. When it comes to text/photo reviews, I tend to enjoy reading the ones on BZPower and here on Eurobricks. The reviewers on these sites tend to know their stuff. My brother and I have also written some Bionicle reviews of our own for New Elementary.

LEGO Ideas sets are generally produced in limited batches, so it's not surprising when those sell out quickly (especially ones that are released right in the thick of the holiday shopping season). How fast they sell out helps give LEGO an idea of how many more batches they need to produce. I believe this might have also been an issue with some of the Star Wars sets released on "Force Friday" (as heavily hyped as that was), but those were back on store shelves before very long, at least in my area. The 1500-piece Classic box that WalMart sold on Black Friday also sold out very quickly, but Black Friday tends to do that. In general I haven't experienced this with the specific themes that I collect, like LEGO Ninjago, LEGO Bionicle, and LEGO Elves. Bionicle and Elves probably don't signify much, but Ninjago is one of the LEGO Group's biggest themes, so with that theme I think they must be doing a good job managing supply. Either that or the people buying Ninjago simply don't obsess over getting them the day they launch like the people buying licensed themes.

Here are some photos that show one of next year's Ninjago sky pirates, Sqiffy: Front / Back. With the orange metal plating on his left shoulder and leg he's definitely more steampunk-ish than a typical LEGO Pirates fig. But the face definitely seems like it could work fine in any LEGO Pirates display that uses figs from the past decade or so (with eye sparkle and detailed exp<b></b>ressions). EDIT: Just realized his face is just the same face from some of this year's Pirates figs. My bad. So I guess the torso, legs, and bandanna are all there is to discuss about these particular pics.

It could be that some of the official photos are not finalized and use stickers as placeholders for parts that will be printed in the final sets. While we have no shortage of official, non-leaked, non-watermarked images, there have been times in the past when even those don't fully reflect the final set. For instance, this image of the Fortrex is missing the decorations from the shields on the tower (as seen in the box pic), so we know that first pic at least was preliminary.

Fair enough! Though, I think some (perhaps not all) of them might have seen even more use if their textures weren't so specific. This isn't just a Bionicle vs. CCBS thing, either, this is evident even within a particular building system. Just look at how many more sets and themes this sword has appeared in than all the color combinations of this sword put together. And the latter has actually been out longer! I don't know if there was a "downfall". Personally, I really liked the sets all the way to the end, though there were always particular sets and parts that bugged me due to a lack of stylistic consistency (which, yes, was a big deal for me even back then). The G1 parts were great for their time, and the versatility of the parts really did evolve over the years in many ways (the Toa Inika torso beam still stands out to me as the most versatile G1 torso piece). I just think constraction has now largely evolved beyond them. I believe the CCBS is better than what what came before it, and it's still evolving to this day. That doesn't mean I'm a blind optimist who believes every year's sets are better than the last. I like the 2015 Bionicle sets better than the 2016 ones. I liked the 2012 Hero Factory sets better than the 2013 ones. But I think the overall trends in LEGO set design over the past decade and a half have been fairly positive ones. The 2015 Toa are my favorite Toa sets to date, bringing together many of my favorite things about constraction from over the years. The pop-off masks and gear functions of the Toa Mata! The dual-function weapons of the Toa Nuva! The aesthetically pleasing proportions of the Toa Metru and Toa Hagah! The dynamic, energetic color schemes and 13-point articulation of the Toa Inika! The diverse builds of the Toa Mahri! The smooth, clean contours and versatile parts of the CCBS! These sets reinforce my belief that sets don't have to undo advances made in the past in order to stay true to their roots. As different as they are from the Toa Mata, the 2015 Toa are still quintessentially Bionicle.

CCBS, in turn, has been present in themes like Ninjago, Legends of Chima, Super Heroes, Ultra Agents, Creator, Galaxy Squad, and Nexo Knights. That's just off the top of my head, not counting weapon pieces that lack CCBS-specific connections or parts used in actual constraction sets like the Star Wars buildable figures. You could probably name more sets that have used Bionicle parts than CCBS parts, but I don't think that is any proof of Bionicle parts being inherently more versatile. Just that Bionicle parts have been around over a decade longer, and there were hundreds more of them. I don't think CCBS is flawless, but I do think it's the best constraction building system we've had. Certainly better than using an entirely different building system for every constraction theme. Using the same parts over and over again across several themes isn't cheap, it's smart. That design philosophy is part of what has made LEGO the biggest building toy company in the world.

Awesome new Macy wallpaper on the Nexo Knights website! The link for the landscape version doesn't work for some reason, though, and I can't find it via URL guessing. :/

That might happen, if something even more versatile that can last even longer should arise. But for right now, CCBS is by far the best at what it does. It has proven its effectiveness in several themes (from the robotic-looking Hero Factory and Bionicle sets to the more organic Legends of Chima and Star Wars figures) and revolutionized the constraction category. The way I see it, the constraction category is bound to keep marching forward, whether that means a new building system or just continued expansion of the current one. And if a new building system does replace CCBS it will surely be something unprecedented, not a reversion to an obsolete building system of years gone by.

In my opinion, Elves is better than anything City has had in years. Beautiful, imaginative, complex, and well-rounded. Granted, Elves is generally aimed at older kids than City, so it's bound to be at least a little bit more sophisticated in terms of builds and functions. And I tend to be drawn more to fantasy themes than realistic themes in general. Besides Elves, Ninjago continues to build on its incredible track record, Ultra Agents and Legends of Chima had a good showing this year in spite of dwindling sales, and even Friends has continued to impress even though i tends to be more realistic than the themes I'm most invested in. The Bionicle reboot has also brought a bunch of brilliant designs that exceeded my expectations even as a lifelong Bionicle fan. Obviously, personal taste is going to dictate which of these themes you like and which you don't. But from a financial standpoint, the LEGO Group's investments in non-licensed themes have paid off handsomely. In the UK, at least, this year's Ninjago launch actually surpassed The LEGO Movie product launch! That's certainly no indication of a theme that's on the decline.

No. A new wave in March, five months, then another. Summer sets (for Ninjago, at least) generally come in August, not June. The main exception is low-priced "gimmick" sets like Airjitzu fliers, which are released ahead of the main summer wave.