Aanchir

That'd be pretty cool, just on account of the fact that there's never been a promotion like that for a non-licensed theme to my knowledge. No telling how likely it is, though.

This discussion probably belongs in the LEGO Events subforum. Perhaps a moderator could move it there, or even merge it with the ongoing Brickfair 2014 topic. Anyway, Brickfair Virginia is an annual event for me, the main time of year that I get to hang out with my pals from BZPower. I attend mainly for the camaraderie, so while I agree that the undue burden the event has placed on Paul B. at recent events is totally unfair, it thankfully hasn't affected me the same way (yet). The one thing that has frustrated me about Brickfair Virginia these past two years is that it conflicts with Bronycon, the biggest brony convention in the United States, which would be really convenient for me to attend if it didn't happen to be the same weekend. I'd love if I could make it to Bronycon for at least one day, but since I don't drive that would be overly complicated to coordinate. This year, in the very least, my dad and siblings are going to be getting a hotel room for the weekend, so that means I should finally be able to better take advantage of some of the evening events (in the past, we've driven to and from the convention each day since we live in central Virginia, but that often means missing out on the chance to hang out with our fellow AFOLs in the evenings).

Ehhh... not really. NASA is not a privately owned company and none of the Discovery Kids NASA sets nor the LEGO City Space sets were technically NASA-licensed sets. With LEGO City Space the LEGO Group did enter into a partnership, but that's not the same thing really since it was mainly a cross-promotion type deal rather than the sets carrying any kind of NASA branding. I agree, this stands a better chance than any other LEGO Star Wars project to date just because it doesn't seem to conflict with anything that we can expect the LEGO Group to already have in teh pipeline. I have a feeling that if the LEGO Group couldn't do Star Wars sets at all through LEGO Cuusoo, they'd just reject them automatically like they would with a My Little Pony project, a Halo project, or any other project that runs into an insurmountable licensing conflict. So it stands to reason that there ARE LEGO Star Wars projects that the LEGO Group and Disney would at least be willing to take into consideration.

I have it. The car is a decent size. About 17 centimeters long by 12.5 centimeters wide. The cockpit only fits a single minifigure, as with most Ninjago vehicles. Beautiful shaping. The flick missile function is brilliant — it sometimes misfires, but this happens less often after "wearing it in" a bit and getting used to how it fires (kind of the same way the function of 9442 Jay's Storm Fighter works more smoothly after wearing down the friction in the hinges).

I wouldn't know, because I only ever really drink alcohol in social situations where I'm unlikely to be building with LEGO, and I am a light drinker so I usually don't notice any considerable difference in the way I think anyhow.

So, uhhh... I might be late noticing this, but the Chima site has updated with bios of many of the new animals. Lots of cool insights. Apparently Mottrot and Mungus are Maula's sons. Also, Sir Fangar is terrifying — he wants to freeze a member of each tribe in Chima to keep as trophies, and wants Li'ella to be his queen when he conquers Chima. Characters like Frax and Sykor don't get bios just yet, but Sykor is mentioned, and apparently he's particularly beastly — to the point that Strainor has to keep him on a leash to keep him in check. I'm a little bit disappointed that the Chi page has been updated with a picture of the new Fire Chi but no explanation of where it comes from or anything like that.

I think whether or not LEGO themes are connected depends on the situation. Dwayne McDuffie, a writer for superhero comics and cartoons, had a pretty good attitude about crossovers — it's just silly to assume that two series share the same universe and continuity just because they occasionally cross over with one another. He highlighted the absurdity in his Grand Unification Theory of Television, which looked at what would happen if you applied that rule to live-action television. I don't think anybody writing the silly crossover comics for the LEGO Magazines intends for the ways they connect the universes to be thought of as canon. There was a crossover comic in the July–August 2007 LEGO Brickmaster magazine that placed characters from various themes togeter in a cafeteria, including BIONICLE characters (who naturally towered over everyone else, since it was all in LEGO scale). Officially, however, BIONICLE does not share a universe or even a multiverse with any other LEGO themes. The comic was merely a one-page, stand-alone joke about "what your favorite LEGO Characters do on their time off". Now, some crossovers perhaps deserve a bit more merit than others. LEGO Batman and others DEFINITELY exist in The LEGO Movie's universe, though this does not necessarily mean that the LEGO Movie's own original characters exist in LEGO Batman's universe, or that the LEGO Batman in The LEGO Movie is the same character as the LEGO Batman in other media related to that theme. Likewise, Dr. Brains from the Power Miners appears in a LEGO Atlantis set, which strongly suggests that the connection between the themes extends beyond individual stories and they do, in fact, share a universe. And Vladek from Knights' Kingdom was confirmed to be an ancient ancestor of Ogel from Alpha Team. But you can only take this line of thinking so far. A skeleton wearing an Aqua Raiders helmet appears in the Portal to Atlantis set, but this is basically just a cheeky reference, not an indication that LEGO Atlantis represents the "future" of LEGO Aqua Raiders. In-universe, the helmet might not have the same significance it has to us LEGO fans, and might just happen to resemble the helmet from another, unrelated story, the same way various wetsuits from LEGO City happen to resemble Squidtron's torso from Space Police III.

Cool beans. The CHI Cragger and CHI Panthar combi models are perhaps my favorites from these pics, though obviously unless I built them IRL I wouldn't know what they look like from all angles. Speaking of which, I found out yesterday that I won CHI Panthar in BZPower's giveaway event on YouTube! Awesome! I would have preferred Laval or Cragger, who remain my favorites of the new sets, but beggars can't be choosers, and at least this will give me some cool new parts to fiddle around with.

Actually the dark-skinned figs in Friends and The LEGO Movie are Medium Nougat (Bricklink's Medium Dark Flesh), not Brown (Bricklink's Dark Flesh, introduced in 2004 and discontinued in 2006), and rather than representing a specific race, it approximates a mid-range skin tone from various races. Captain Panaka, a black character from the LEGO Star Wars theme, also uses this skin tone, so it CAN represent actors and characters of African descent — just ones with a lighter complexion than, say, Billy Dee Williams/Lando Calrissian. Some South American natives from the Indiana Jones theme used the slightly darker Dark Orange (the same color as the middle one in that Duplo set) and middle-eastern figs from that theme used the slightly lighter Nougat (Bricklink's Flesh, the same color as the lightest skin tone in that Duplo set). Light-skinned white and asian figs in System generally use Light Nougat (Bricklink's Light Flesh). No telling whether those figs from the Indiana Jones and Duplo themes would still use the same skin color today, however, because Medium Nougat did not exist prior to 2010. But in any case, no standard female minifigures have used an of these skin tones, so the two Reddish Brown minifigures in this year's licensed sets are the only two true "women of color" in minifigure-based themes. I hope for more skin tones in LEGO Friends as well, but I think they started with Medium Nougat since it can represent a wider range of races, and have avoided darker-skinned characters so far to ensure maximum compatibility between both light-skinned and dark-skinned heads and torsos.

I don't understand why people find printed breast curves on figures like Eris so problematic. She's not just a bird; she's an anthropomorphized bird. Nobody seems to take issue with the fact that she and all the eagles, vultures, phoenixes, and ravens have arms, but that's a trait that is biologically inaccurate for real-life birds of either gender. Now, if she were overly sexualized, with wildly exaggerated proportions and much more revealing clothes than her male counterparts, then there would be legitimate reason to worry about what message this sends to kids. But this is true no matter what species she was supposed to be analagous to. And in general, the female animals of Chima have clothing as modest as that of their male counterparts.

The ball cup on parts 15976 and 15367 cannot fit on a ball with guides (like the center ball on parts 90626 and 90605).

Yep, I've tried this technique before as well (it was one of several techniques I considered when I tried to give Caitlyn Gauss XL weapons, but I ended up attaching them to her wrists in the end). The big problem with this technique, for me, is that while it works for lightweight weapons like swords, it can be slightly wobbly, and it's not a sturdy enough connection for heavier weapons like launchers. This is also when I came up with the attachment style I mentioned above, and I came up with at least one potential weapon that uses that attachment style, though I decided against it for that particular MOC. Using a ball joint offers more friction and a more secure connection than using a flick missile, though on a figure like CHI Laval here, it would not allow independent wrist movement — one of the chief advantages your technique has, since the weapon connects directly to the paw and not to an attached beam.

Well, part of it is probably that the fire-themed sets (excluding Panthar) are all symmetrical. The ice-themed sets, on the other hand, tend to have at least one Tr. Light Blue leg to match the asymmetrical "ice zombie" look of the minifigures. And as a result a Tr. Light Blue shell takes the place of what would have otherwise been a second printed shell. I think it makes sense for Vardy to have a second joint. Vulture necks are weird like that, and tend to have a bit of an S-shaped curve just like on the box art. example. It's true that using ball joints for this results in a sharper angle than the organic curve of a real vulture neck, but if anything, that calls for more joints, and perhaps smaller ones — not fewer.

I built 44028 Surge & Rocka Combat Machine on LDD today to see how it looks from different angles. I figured I might as well share the LXF here in case anyone else wanted to see. The sections are grouped so that you can pull them apart and see them individually. Obviously I used placeholder parts for Surge's helmet and the cocoon petals. But otherwise it's as accurate as I could manage. LXF file The set looks much better than I expected it to. I honestly had low expectations after seeing how bad it looked at Toy Fair, but it seems a lot of its ugliness in Toy Fair photos is a result of shoddy posing. The rear section is rather bony but I don't think it hurts the overall appearance. Of course, I still need to see a review to know how well it holds its shape — lots of pivot points in that front section. And there are a lot of gaps, which don't bother me really since it's just a machine rather than a character, but might bother some people who expect something sturdier-looking. On the whole, though, I'm MUCH more enthusiastic about this set than I was when I woke up this morning.

No, I didn't mean to have an axle going through the beam. I'm fully aware that wouldn't work. I meant to have the beam perpendicular to how it is on these sets, so that you can just snap a ball joint into the ball cup. It'd require a different upper arm (an "A" beam rather than a "B" beam), but that's no big sacrifice. See here. Your technique is interesting too though!

Publishing a copy of a recorded program without the permission of the owner or broadcaster of that program is a violation of copyright. It is illegal in the United States, and I believe in most other countries. Obviously, some companies don't take it very seriously at all, for the reason you stated: especially with merchandise-driven cartoons, republishing the media equates to free advertising for the company that created them. But obviously others feel differently, such as TV networks. They have to pay money to be allowed to broadcast the show in the first place, and thus obviously don't want other people republishing the same material for free. And also, every viewer who watches a show online instead of on the television is a viewer that is not being reflected by the TV network's viewership ratings. On a grand scale, this can make it more difficult for them to get big-name advertisers to invest in their network. Home media publishers also feel cheated when they pay money for the distribution rights to a TV show, but then discover that most people are watching it online for free. Sometimes they won't even agree to publish a show in DVD form if they feel like people are going to watch it illegally online instead, because it cuts into their market share. Some people are of the opinion that all media should be free for anyone to distribute, but from the point of view of media publishers, "bootleg" media publishing is no better than the production of "bootleg" LEGO sets and minifigures. It's a breach of copyright either way, and it has the potential to cut into the profits of the companies that publish the same media legally. Finally, the idea that most people would eventually watch the actual TV channel is a little bit optimistic, especially with cable TV channels which people have to pay for to even get connected to their homes. More and more people are choosing online services like Netflix or Hulu over expensive cable plans which get them lots of shows they don't care for and are chock full of advertising.

Yeah, I've looked to discover if there's any better way to attach weapons to these paws. If you use a Beam C 5M instead of a Beam A 5M then attaching a weapon can be as simple as building a ball with through hole into the handle of the weapon, depending on how you build and attach the fingers. The weapon can then snap in and out of the ball cup. But it can be sort of awkward with certain weapons. You're right that this paw was definitely not designed with the task of holding weapons in mind, but I still think it's a fantastic part that benefits the Chima constraction sets greatly.

Actually I quite like this paw construction. It's one of the reasons CHI Worriz was my favorite of last year's Chima constraction sets. It can make it difficult to attach weapons sometimes, but it looks cool and really drives home the animal motifs. The thumbs can be improved on some models by using one of these in between the paw and the claw piece to add an additional joint, so that the claws rotate up and down rather than side to side (if that makes sense). It works great on CHI Worriz, though it can be a bit fragile sometimes. It seems to me like the back armor should be one module lower, but according to the instructions you built it correctly. If I got this set I'd probably lower it so that it provides more coverage.

I'm less bothered by that than by the lack of connection points. After all, the gap affects official sets more than MOCs, where you'd have plenty of options for ways to fill that space. But the lack of any useful connection points on the new torso shell disappoints me greatly. Feels like a step backward. Even the Ben 10 torso shell had some holes in the chest that could be used to connect things. This has the specialized chest cavity, the ball snap, and absolutely nothing else.

Hmmm, I guess it was probably a cost-saving venture. I agree the new voices are nowhere near the caliber of what we see in the TV show, but it probably wouldn't ruin the game for me.

Probably not. I imagine a goal of this promotion is to clear out overstock preorder figs. GameStop has no reason to have overstock DJ Robots or Pajama Emmets because they were not giving those figs away with preorders in the first place.

Personally, I have nothing against the idea of an "open-air temple", even as the subject of a flagship set. Frankly, in themes like Ninjago or Legends of Chima it's nice to get enclosed structures of any kind, since the emphasis tends to be on fantasy vehicles. This one may be an open-air temple but it at least has a very clearly-demarcated perimeter in the form of a stone wall, unlike the Eagle's Castle last year. Good review. I love this set's function, design, and minifigures. The Sabertooth vehicle is nice enough that it could easily be a stand-alone set. My favorite minifigures in this set are Li'ella (hooray for gender diversity!) and Flinx (sooo adorable)! I think the reason for including vultures as one of the "ice age" creatures is simply for variety's sake: the designers wanted the evil faction to include at least one flying species. Even if vultures aren't thought of as ice age creatures (since, as you say, they still exist today), they did exist back then in some form, and they're creepy enough to be a prime candidate for an evil faction.

Just watched the episode. It's all right, but I feel like the voices are not very well synced to the animation, which makes things feel a bit awkward. In fact, the animation in general is a bit disjointed, veering back and forth between more cartoony physics and movement and more naturalistic animation. Perhaps it will overcome that hurdle in later episodes. I like the overall visual design though — decent balance between realism and accuracy to the toys. The pacing feels a bit awkward, but the story is compelling enough to keep you interested. I am not too thrilled with the musical score. It feels a bit generic compared to the music from other shows I like (LEGO Ninjago, The Legend of Korra, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic). But more importantly, it doesn't really complement the animation too well. At times it almost feels as if the music is being queued up by somebody just off-screen, rather than being a part of what's going on on-camera. I was a little disappointed not to see Olivia's parents. But overall, it was a fun story and I look forward to watching the next episode!

If there is a Titanium Ninja, I think Zane is still the most likely candidate, since he's the only character who has an otherwise unexplained costume change in the sets. The new Lloyd in Battle for Ninjago City probably signifies the Overlord's removal of his golden power, but the significance of Zane's new costume has not yet been hinted at in the show or product descriptions for the sets. Of course, there's also the possibility that the "Titanium Ninja" is whatever character we're getting in the Character Encyclopedia, but I still find Zane the more likely candidate since he's essentially the poster child of this arc.

It's not the first time something like this has happened, either. In the 90s, there were sets and even entire product lines that were exclusive to North America. The Aquaraiders subtheme of Aquazone was only released over here, as were most Unitron sets (only the monorail transport base was released globally).