Aanchir

The biggest issue there is that it would leave no spare connection points on the lower body at all.

Huh, you're right. I was away from my computer this weekend so it was hard for me to make a real side-by-side comparison. A battle pack is the last place I would have expected to see two brand-new ghost variants! Strangely, the out-of-package picture is different from the packaging shot, in that the figures in the packaging appear to have Earth Blue or Black arms rather than Medium Lilac ones. Oh, and the Product Page on the Ninjago website now has animations of the sets. Even for the US site, interestingly, despite the sets not yet being out over here.

Honestly I don't know if that upper torso beam piece would even be possible to mold. Certainly it'd be a lot harder to mold than any of the current ball cup pieces, since it has pin holes all around the ball cup (most parts, by comparison, don't have ANY pin holes or axle holes directly adjacent to a ball cup). I don't know how you'd be able to produce the hollow cavity for the ball cup when you can't slide a rod through horizontally. I've come up with my own concepts for how a CCBS torso with waist articulation could be designed, but I've eventually come to the conclusion that it may not be practical to do this at all at the size of a typical Toa (G1 or G2). Most solutions that seem practical from a molding standpoint end up needing several new molds, reduces compatibility with current shell pieces, and greatly reduces the number of available connection points.

This seems a bit contradictory, don't you think? A big reason there haven't been many video-game-based themes until recently is that it wasn't clear whether they'd be a reliable investment. Now LEGO has dared to introduce just a couple new video game licenses based on two games that are no longer at their peak popularity, after succeeding with just one previous video game license — Minecraft. I struggle to see how the way they've been carefully dipping their toes into video game licenses any more "cashgrabby" than all the action movie licenses they've done over the years. Though arguably, depending on how these sets end up designed, it might make more sense to treat them as a movie license rather than a video game license, just like the Prince of Persia sets.

I really love this dragon's catlike look. It makes it feel very unique, not to mention pretty cute. I didn't have any issues with it not seeming dragon-like, although that might just be because I've seen so many vastly different portrayals of dragons over the years. The dragon's body is definitely very unusual in terms of how thin it is, but at the same time it uses some extremely creative building techniques for the saddle, and I really love its wide range of potential poses. The wing articulation is limited compared to some other Ninjago dragons of the past, but I don't think this detracts from it severely since the wings are also smaller and less obtrusive than on some of those dragons whose wings could fan out. Overall, it's a set that might very easily have been on my Ninjago wish list even if it hadn't included any exclusive minifigures.

I disagree about Takanuva's post-transformation personality being void. Although he became more purposeful as a Toa, he never let go of his eagerness, his loyalty to his friends, or his love of adventure. Anyway, I welcome the idea of a female Seventh Toa. I had an idea for a fanfic back in the day where PEWKU ended up becoming the actual Seventh Toa. A silly idea, naturally, but one that amused me.

I like the pearl gold (Warm Gold) better than "chrome" gold in most situations specifically because it's less shiny. In real life, most gold-colored things aren't so shiny you can see your face in them, and that intensely reflective shine also just feels out-of-place to me alongside the more "plasticky" colors of other LEGO bricks. I can't help but think that sets like the Heartlake Grand Hotel or Kopaka: Master of Ice from this year's LEGO Bionicle sets would look utterly garish in chrome gold. I feel the same about other chrome colors. As stand-alone treasures, sure, they're fine. But as an integral part of a set's entire color scheme, I'd rather have a more subdued pearl color (or in some cases, even a non-metallic color) that doesn't look like it's been polished daily. And I say this as somebody who grew up during a proliferation of chrome parts.

Not sure what you mean? If you're talking about designs, you're a bit off. Here's my post from earlier: Of the two new ghosts, Howla appears to share the basic Ghost Ninja design, but Wooo has face and torso decorations unlike any of the ghost minions we've seen, as well as headgear like Wrayth and Soul Archer.

Perhaps you could write something where that would work, but in G1 and G2 alike I think Onua coming to Lewa's aid makes more sense. Lewa has always been flighty and reckless, which naturally gets him into trouble, while Onua is almost the exact opposite — grounded and thoughtful. Onua's strengths are the antithesis of Lewa's weaknesses.

Another thing to remember is that Garmadon had darker hair than Wu to begin with (Wu's hair as a child was blond, and Garmadon's was brown), so Garmadon's hair and eyebrows being grey while Wu's are white isn't that unusual. I've been trying to comprehend the ages of Wu and Garmadon for quite a long time, but never come up with anything conclusive. Misako complicates things a bit, since that rules out the possibility that their extraordinarily long lifespans compared to other characters is not just a quirk of the First Spinjitzu Master's bloodline. Another theory I've considered is that perhaps characters who have Spinjitzu age more slowly than those who do not, though this does not explain why the original Elemental Masters didn't live as long as Wu and Garmadon (didn't some of them have Spinjitzu?), nor does it answer the other big question of why Lloyd is just eight or so at the beginning of the series when Garmadon had presumably been banished to the Underworld for much longer than that (after all, he didn't have Spinjitzu until "Pirates vs. Ninja", and if the POTENTIAL for Spinjitzu were sufficient for slower aging, then the question of why the Elemental Masters didn't live longer becomes even greater.

Not to mention that if they were released at the same time as the summer BIONICLE sets, they'd be more likely to cannibalize each pther's sales.

These six sets are due for release in September, though I'm not sure of the specific day. As for other characters I'd like to see, I think Chewbacca, Leia, a B1 Battle Droid, a B2 Super Battle Droid, a generic Imperial Stormtrooper, Boba Fett, Ahsoka Tano, and Mace Windu would all be interesting sets.

Zane's powers are already established to come from his mysterious power source, which is presumably in some way linked to the original Elemental Master of Ice (how, we don't know, because it's never been explained how his power source was created). It is extremely implausible that the characters in the Tournament of Elements are the same as the Ultra Agents characters from Astor City — they even have different names.

Do we know that the original Elemental Master of Fire in the flashback is Kai's father? That seems to be what everybody's been assuming since that flashback first aired, but for all we know it could be Kai's grandfather. After all, we know the original Elemental Master of Earth isn't Cole's father, which seems to confirm that there's room for another generation in between the original elemental masters and the four Ninja. Kai's father did have black hair in the old AMEET handbook from 2011 but I don't know whether the TV show will adhere to the depictions of Kai's parents as seen in that guidebook. Probably depends on whether the person illustrating that guidebook was referencing any official, behind-the-scenes story material or just making up the non-set characters' appearances on their own.

I didn't notice this at first, but the LEGO Elves website has been updated! The "Explore Elvendale" feature on the front page now has pics and descriptions for the High Hills and Sky Castle, and the British version of the site has product pages for the new sets. But perhaps most importantly of all... NEW WEBISODE! It's three minutes long, and pretty darn shippy... which is OK by me! I wonder how many of these webisodes there will be. I hope there will be a lot... it's great to see some more slice-of-life stories in Elvendale before next year's quest gets started. I'm a bit sad there's nothing new on the Activities page, though. From the beginning, the top banner for that page has shown images of posters/wallpapers, including the five character wallpapers already available plus a group shot. But the group picture still isn't available anywhere for download, which upsets me since it's my favorite of all!

Not quite. The summer Friends and Elves sets aren't yet out in the U.S., and Scooby-Doo isn't yet out anywhere (it's an August release, same as the summer BIONICLE sets). I don't think summer Technic is out yet in any countries, either. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the U.S. and Europe just swapped the summer Elves and Ultra Agents release dates for some reason.

It's definitely possible for a mid-size model with small feet to support its own weight, but sometimes it can make them easier to knock over or limit how many poses they can support their own weight in. And that can be perceived as a quality issue. Also, sometimes it's worth it to use larger feet just to make a model LOOK more stable and rooted — this is why you might choose to use bigger feet for a "powerhouse" character like Onua or Skull Basher than for a lighter and more agile character like Skull Slicer or Skull Warrior. I think now that sets are so much more unique than they used to be, what size feet a model needs has to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

I guess I'll see when the episode airs in English (I'm not interested in seeking out spoilers before I can enjoy the episodes in full), but the way you're describing it that could lead credence to the possibility that the set wasn't even finalized when those episodes of the show were animated, and thus the creators of the show did not have a finalized set design to base it off of. But for what it's worth, I've been reasonably satisfied with the design of the other dragons and vehicles in the show (some of which HAVE clearly been based on preliminary models when you examine them closely, like Cole's Tread Assault).

I think you hit the nail on the head when you identified her as a token female. That's probably why the LEGO Group felt like they had to make her so attractive. Boys watching Ninjago have plenty of male characters they can relate to, so it's okay for not every male character to have a face they'd like to identify with. Girls, on the other hand, have far fewer characters to relate to on a personal level (not to mention that the LEGO Group's anthropomorphic research from during the LEGO Friends development process found that girls are more likely than boys to want to relate to toy characters in the first person in general). So as long as the Ninjago theme's gender ratios are so out-of-whack, it's hard to make room for more grotesque female characters. Things have been slowly improving, though, with both more female characters being introduced and recurring character Nya appearing in more sets more prominently. If we're lucky, we might one day get to a point where the gender ratios in the sets better reflect the gender ratios of the show's audience. And then it will be safer to make some of those female characters as horrific as many of the theme's male villain designs.

Ah, okay, I get it now. So the Y-joint would attach from in front of its final position instead of from behind like in the case of most BIONICLE feet. That took me far longer than it should have to figure out. I certainly see how a part like that could certainly be useful, and the hole left in place of the middle pin hole would not be a huge problem since you'd be able to use the other two pin holes to attach something that fills that space. It would also be even simpler from a molding standpoint than the 2.0 foot piece, since you'd need only a two-section mold (assuming that the foot piece being hard plastic rather than soft plastic like the Rahkshi, Inika, and Metru feet doesn't create any kinds of problems). And in terms of it being ugly, as long as you're introducing a new mold, you could do whatever you like to it aesthetically. But overall, this gets back to my original point, which is that if we were going to have a different foot piece, I'd rather have something genuinely new than a retired foot piece that brings its own set of flaws with it. The soft plastic is something that not a lot of people have mentioned, but this is a good place to bring it up — have you noticed how few soft plastic parts the new BIONICLE sets use? This isn't entirely a new thing. Looking back, I guess we've been seeing fewer and fewer soft plastic parts since the CCBS was introduced. But it is something I hadn't given a whole lot of thought until this year, when we finally returned to hard plastic masks. It's not an across-the-board change, of course — things like the talon pieces used on Lewa's torso or the tail pieces used for Skull Basher's horns are still soft plastics as well. But it's hard to look at this shift and not think it was for a reason. I can definitely see how the softer plastics are more prone to scratching or bending out of shape. Perhaps soft plastic pieces that didn't need to be soft from a structural standpoint (like the masks and armor shells of the Toa Metru) are something that the LEGO Group decided was tarnishing the BIONICLE brand's perceived quality. If so, that might also be something to bear in mind when thinking about what retired BIONICLE parts could be brought back into production. Things like Rahkshi back plates or Toa Nuva shoulder pads, useful as they are, might no longer meet the LEGO Group's expectations of quality.

Wrayth and Soul Archer also. It's only the minion characters who share head designs. What I find more unusual is that Ghoultar (the most common of the five major ghosts) is the only one who lacks a variant with actual legs. Wrayth, Bansha, and Soul Archer all come in both legs and slime variants, but Ghoultar always has a slime trail. I disagree. I actually really like that the show's design language uses so few obvious LEGO pieces, because I feel like this allows for more creative license with how the non-set creatures, vehicles, and props can be represented in LEGO. If everything looked like actual LEGO, then it would seem like there is a "right way" and a "wrong way" to build them, and if only the things in sets looked like actual LEGO they'd stick out like a sore thumb. But when everything is stylized (even the things that DO exist as sets), that means that there is no official LEGO design for the the creatures, vehicles, and props that don't come as sets, which means they can be built however you choose. There's also a secondary advantage of stylizing everything, which is that this way it won't be obvious if the sets weren't finalized when the TV episodes were being created.

LEGO has uploaded pictures of the Sky Castle to their cache! Main Pic Alt1 (Box) Alt2 (Gate) Alt3 (Waterfall chamber) Alt4 (Portal) Alt5 (Lava chamber) Alt6 (Study) Alt7 (Emily and Goldenglow) Alt8 (Dining area) Also, the German LEGO shop has listings for the Pegasus Sleigh and Sky Castle, and it wouldn't surprise me if we see listings added to other countries' shops as we enter the month of June. Both sets are listed as "Available Now"!

Just was making some changes to my minifigure checklist for this year and I realized that technically speaking, there seem to be a lot fewer unique minifigures than their names would imply. Other than the four ghost masters (Bansha, Wrayth, Soul Archer, and Ghoultar) there are basically only three ghost minion designs: Hood, red eyebrows, and torso with no sash. All four Ghost Ninja use this design, as does Ghost Warrior Yokai (who also has a sword holder). Straw hat, black balaclava, and torso with no sash. Ghost Warriors Wail and Pitch both use this design. Pitch also has a pannier. Straw hat, red eyebrows, and torso with sash. Ghost Warriors Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Ghurka, and Cowler all use this design. Ghurka also has a quiver. Cowler also has a sword holder in 70736, but not in his other appearances. Knowing this might make deciding what sets to get easier for some people.

Are you suggesting pushing the ball cup forward so it can attach in between the pin holes? Because that's effectively not much different than pushing the heel back, which is what I'd like to avoid. Basically, the Toa Mata foot and the 2.0 foot both have just one module of heel behind the ball cup (or to put it somewhat differently, one and a half modules horizontally from the very back of the heel to the very center of the ankle joint). Parts like the Toa Metru foot have two and a half modules horizontally from the back of the heel to the center of the ankle joint. The non-clawed Toa Inika foot is even worse, with three and a half modules horizontally from the back of the heel to the center of the ankle joint. In other words, if the ankle joint were just half a module further forward, the heel would be exactly long as the toe! I can't be the only person who finds that a bit ridiculous. I never said they did. But you could say the same thing to all the people who are complaining about the toe of the 2.0 foot being too long. People's aesthetic pet peeves don't have to have any kind of in-universe justification to be significant. And for characters who are otherwise fairly humanoid and not deliberately designed to look bestial, I'd generally rather have feet with toes slightly longer than human toes than feet with heels more than twice the length of a human heel.

Wow, that Zane wallpaper looks epic! I don't really like how it looks on my desktop, though. Bit of a shame.