Aanchir

I find that the determining factor for whether the jumpers land on their feet or not is whether the plastic outer shell or the rubber legs is the first thing to hit the ground. If the rubber legs hit the ground at any angle, they tend to bounce back up slightly, flip around, and then land on their feet. If the plastic shell hits the ground first, they don't bounce high enough to flip over and they land right back on their backs. Still, I find they work a lot better than the old mini-Visorak because their legs are thicker, so there's more "bounce" when you first launch them. They're also a nice size and weight, which helps them seem reasonably formidable compared to a mini-hero. The mini-heroes themselves are fantastic. Great proportions, great articulation, and great molding. Aesthetically, compared to BIONICLE minifigures from any playset series, these figs win handily. The angle of the shoulders is more natural and the stance isn't as bowlegged. The heads and torsos are more appropriately proportioned and detailed (not awkwardly tall like the 2006 minifigure heads, nor lacking in detail like all the BIONICLE minifigure torsos or some of the 2007 minifigure heads). The legs and arms are the main place that the mini-heroes don't look accurate to the typical full-size heroes, but arguably they look better than if typical hero legs were just scaled down and reduced in detail. That's one of the advantages of single-piece legs and arms compared to legs and arms with working knee and elbow articulation — the knee and elbow joints can be a lot more decorative, resulting in a more mechanical look. The same was true of the classic Toa Mata legs compared to, say, Toa Metru legs. The Toa Metru legs still had pistons, but they were meaningless decoration, since they didn't actually connect to the knee joints in any useful way. Contrast the Toa Mata legs, where it was very easy to see how the pistons would theoretically move in tandem with the rotation of the joint. It's true that they have one point of articulation fewer than the 2006 and 2007 BIONICLE minifigs because they don't have articulated wrists. Swapping the arms with Exo-Force robot arms works reasonably well, but it increases the overall length of the arm, makes the forearm seem a bit awkwardly beefy compared to the legs/feet, and removes the ability to clip equipment to the wrists. The ability to clip things to the wrists and ankles is a great feature, by the way. At one point my brother set Furno up so he was dragging Evo by the wrist. Neither of us knew exactly what was going on in that situation, but it was quite funny! There are a few nice details I didn't anticipate. In particular, the circular shape of the knee and elbow joints has about the same size and appearance as the clips for the hip and shoulder joints, resulting in some nice stylistic consistency. The fact that the helmet and armor fit perfectly on classic minifigures is just the icing on the cake. I've had a lot of fun putting Evo and Furno's armor and helmets on my sigfig, and then occasionally putting my sigfig in the cockpit of one of their machines And I'm sure sci-fi MOCists will love getting such versatile new minifig body armor. I'm very glad my brother and I chose Evo XL Machine and Furno Jet Machine as our first purchases, as they're definitely my favorite sets of the first wave. Evo XL Machine is remarkably beefy with lots of mechanical flair, and Furno Jet Machine has a brilliant torso construction that helps keep it from looking too humanoid (its shoulders, for instance, are a beefy twelve modules wide, and set back from the torso beam). Of the summer sets, the ones that I can count on being must-buys are Breez Flea Machine and Bulk Drill Machine. I'm a bit uncertain what my family's other purchases for the year will be. Of the machines, I'm cautiously optimistic about Surge and Rocka Combat Machine, but I'll want to see reviews before I settle on it. And I'm not in love with either of Rocka's other machines, even though they're both rather nice designs. Stormer Freeze Machine is probably the only machine besides Evo Walker that I really, truly dislike, but it's also the only set with a Transparent Light Blue storage cylinder, and I'd really love to complete the trifecta. It also has some decent parts, including two Titanium Metallic feet and two Titanium Metallic paws. I'm not a huge fan of revamps, but maybe I could get Stormer Freeze Machine and use some of its parts to beef up Surge and Rocka Combat Machine. I want to get a few of the beasts for their parts' MOCing potential, but the only one I really definitely love is Tunneler Beast, which has a great, creative design and great parts. In contrast, Queen Beast includes duplicate Furno and Evo mini-heroes, a creative but somewhat bare-bones beast, and a second machine for Evo which I don't know that we really need (although it does have some good parts and a beautiful design). And Crystal Beast, Flyer Beast, Jaw Beast, and Splitter Beast are fairly mundane humanoids (though Splitter Beast, at least, would be a fantastic parts pack, and Jaw Beast would be the only way to get Stormer if I skip Stormer Freeze Machine and Queen Beast). Overall, the cheapest way to fill out my hero roster in tandem with my current list of must-haves would be to add Tunneler Beast, Rocka Crawler, and Jaw Beast. But the cheapest solution is not necessarily the best. It'll definitely take some thinking...

Well, other than now using mainly HF parts and building techniques, I don't know how much my MOCing style has actually changed. It's always been a bit all over the place. Sometimes I'd MOC large figures, sometimes smaller, more set-like ones. I've always had a fondness for the challenge of creating female MOCs, and I still do, though naturally I'm a lot better at it than I used to be. I guess one of the biggest changes is that I don't spend a lot of time thinking about who I'm building when I sit down to MOC. I just sit down with my pieces and sometimes set a goal for myself (i.e. "today I want to build a simple 7" figure", "today I want to build a titan", "today I want to build some kind of wild creature", or "today I want to try using that technique I discovered the other day") and then get to work. If the MOC starts to look like a particular character I may make it a version of that character, or I may take steps to make it look unique. Then again, even some of the earliest MOCs I posted online (like this, this, or this) did not have any real identity, and were more about concept than anything else. Ever since Hero Factory's new building system came out, I've been doing a lot of digital building and even integrating it into my physical building. This would not have been possible in the days of BIONICLE, since BIONICLE parts were never as widely represented on LEGO Digital Designer or any digital building tool as Hero Factory parts are now. Both physical and digital building have advantages, and using them in sync can be quite advantageous. I never would have figured out all the details of Christoffer Raundahl's elaborate MOC from LEGO World CPH 2013 if I hadn't been using physical and digital building in tandem. Physical building freed me from the constraints of the hinge tool when trying to figure out how some of the more fiddly connections worked, while digital building freed me from a limited quantity of parts as well as from the frustrations of hinges moving out of alignment when I didn't want them to. I never could have created Caitlyn Gauss XL if I hadn't first uncovered the details of that model's skeleton. I also frequently use digital building to experiment with color schemes, since it is much easier to color things with the paint bucket tool than to painstakingly swap out all the interior beams or exterior shells of a model with differently-colored ones (and it is also easy to keep Bricklink or Brickset open in one window to keep track of what parts exist in what colors). I try to put a bit more effort into naming my MOCs than I used to, but I don't know if that could really be considered a part of a person's MOCing style. I still don't tend to come up with elaborate backstories for them. At best I'll come up with a few snippets of personality details. I still put a lot of emphasis on color scheme organization, stylistic consistency, and other sorts of visual language in my building. I still tend to appreciate the challenge of keeping things reasonably simple and set-like as much as the challenge of making things super-custom and elaborate. I still think a lot about aspects of set design a lot in my MOCs — a typical Hero Factory hero, for me, will always be between 7 and 8 inches, just like a typical Glatorian would have been around eight to eight and a half inches. I still spend a lot of time thinking about how proportions can be kept realistic, as well, but of course I'm better at this than I used to be, and the variety inherent to the CCBS has helped with that considerably. After all, keeping proportions reasonably realistic and keeping proportions accurate to typical set design no longer have such a tendency to work at cross-purposes like they did in the Toa Mahri or Glatorian days. And... that's all that I can think of. So there are probably a lot more ways that my building style has stayed the same than ways that it has changed. I've just continued to build my knowledge of human proportions and of the building techniques at my disposal. The building system I used changed, but then, I've always embraced new parts and building techniques if I felt that they offered more opportunities than what I had before. I can't remember the last time I used a Rahkshi chest/shoulder piece in a MOC, but Rahkshi and Toa Metru legs became a major part of my creative framework shortly after they were introduced. It's just a matter of adopting whatever parts and building styles I feel are most useful to me.

I picked the Wolf as my first Legend Beast both for parts and the quality of the finished model. It and the lion each have 18 of the new joint pieces. The wolf also is primarily in neutral colors like white and grey, which might be useful for a wider variety of MOCs than some of the other, more colorful beasts. Of course, the Crocodile Legend Beast has the highest overall piece count (the Lion Legend Beast has the second-most), and the Eagle Legend Beast might have the most useful printed eye pieces. EDIT: My count on the Wolf and Lion Legend Beasts was off. Each of them has 18 of the new joints, not 14. Meaning that they're a better source of the new joints dollar-for-dollar than any of the Mixels sets currently available.

I'd definitely want it to return as a series of toys. Not only is there really no other realistic solution (the LEGO Group would not continue the theme on their own or give up the rights to a third party if they couldn't tie it in to their core business), but a lot of BIONICLE's greatness came from its foundations as a building toy for kids (not, as some people would posit, in spite of those foundations). I would obviously want it to have supporting story media, but without a quality toy line as a backbone, we might easily see the same sort of aimlessness as the later BIONICLE serials. Those toys would ideally be designed in Hero Factory's character and creature building system or an evolution thereof, but may use either the existing family of shells or a newer and more detailed system of shells, depending on whether you wanted to maintain the high-detail BIONICLE aesthetic or re-imagine the theme with a more streamlined appearance. I'm not sure which I would favor — I find the streamlined look of Hero Factory parts much better for building in general, but the high-detail BIONICLE aesthetic was one of its defining features. Story-wise, I think the best bet would be something like what the Legend of Zelda franchise does as a general rule — a brand-new story, largely detached from previous stories, but which exists in the same overarching timeline and maintains the same core story elements that tied the original theme together. The main conflict between the forces of Makuta and the forces of Mata Nui was at the core of pretty much every BIONICLE story arc, and so it should remain with a new theme. Perhaps a cult of evil-doers could attempt to either revive Makuta or follow in his footsteps, and in order to prevent worldwide calamity, a new team of elemental heroes might have to take up the mantle of Toa in order to seek out the Mask of Life in hopes that Mata Nui's dormant spirit might be able to help avert this dangerous threat. There you go, you've got not only Toa in service of Mata Nui fighting the followers of Makuta, but even a mask quest! Classic. Of course, the other constant within the BIONICLE story was the Matoran Universe as a biological analogue. While kept secret for many years, this would have to be maintained. So perhaps the goal of reclaiming the Mask of Life would be to use its power and Mata Nui's dormant spirit to bring life to a brand-new Matoran Universe, and getting it fully operational so it can take to space to avert a new cosmic disaster could be the overarching story for the first few years. Some things from the classic BIONICLE storyline would have to be eliminated for simplicity's sake. Having the Matoran/Toa/Turaga species coexist with the Agori, Skrall, and Glatorian species (the third of which never even got an official name) would complicate things, since you'd have a number of races which are, for all intents and purposes, identical except for their in-story biology. There is no way to eliminate this issue which would please everyone. Having some of the races simply die off for various reasons would be tragic and would throw the original story's resolution (having the races coexist) into question. The best solution, in my opinion, would be for the races to adopt one shared culture and to physically evolve to the point of being interchangeable. The new "Matoran" people in this story framework I'm thinking up on the fly would have no innate elemental powers, like the Agori, Glatorian, or Skrall, but they would have innate elemental affiliations, like the Matoran. They would simply be called Matoran, meaning the people of Mata Nui. They would have the capacity for romance (the Matoran's inability to enter romantic relationships probably spared Greg Farshtey a lot of shipping drama, but it was never explicitly stated in the actual story material and was actively contradicted for the sake of creative storytelling on numerous occasions). Through certain mysterious energies, the Matoran would have the capacity to become Toa — heroes with elemental powers and the ability to use magical Kanohi masks. But ideally, this story would begin much the same way as the 2001 BIONICLE story — there have not been Toa on Spherus Magna for a very long time, so for many they are thought of as a mere legend. But if we really wanted to appeal to nostalgia, we could say that the names of past heroes have been passed down for generations, so like in the Legend of Zelda, our new heroes could bear the same names as the heroes of the past. Toa, when their duties as Toa are done and their destinies as Toa fulfilled, could become Turaga elders, but this might not be essential mythology for the very beginning — if there have not been Toa for a long time, then it's possible that there have not been true Turaga for a long time either. Save that for when the first chapter of the overall story is finished. Now, this is all hypothetical. I do not particularly want to see BIONICLE again. It had a good run, and told a beautiful story, but there is no particular reason why I would want BIONICLE back when instead we could have a brand-new story theme with the same level of heart and magic and energy to it. Ideas in general, and good ideas in particular, are an inexhaustible resource. This has always been my belief. And as long as there continue to be people with the same amount of creative energy, then there will be the potential for new and powerful stories to be created. Trying to take an old story and change it to suit a new audience is of course possible, but is it really worth the effort if with just as much imagination you could create something brand new? Now, of course, there are franchises that have gotten better via revival. I wouldn't be a brony if there weren't something special present in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that wasn't in the My Little Pony toys and cartoons that existed throughout my childhood. But unlike those situations, I was happy with BIONICLE as it was. It wasn't schlocky or shallow. It set ambitious goals for itself and, for the most part, it met them. I think it makes more sense to try and create a new kind of magic. I won't say "a new BIONICLE" because that means something different to everybody, and BIONICLE to its credit was never created with the goal of filling the shoes some other theme had left behind. It broke entirely new ground, and I think any new theme that hopes to be as powerful should strive to do the same.

Most waves of sets have an eighteen-month lead time. Some of the first Pacific Rim teaser materials were posted online in November 2012, which would have been during (not prior to) the design process. They could potentially have been tapped for inspiration, since the design process would not have concluded by that time, though it's not definite. There was a Comic-Con panel in July 2012 that featured some actual footage and helped build a lot of hype for the movie. Here's some press coverage of the panel. So that could DEFINITELY have played a role in inspiring this series, or at least the concept of it. When you see a lot of hype for a giant monster movie, it's easy to predict that the genre will soon be fashionable once again. Keep in mind that whether or not the sets themselves are obvious references to recent popular culture, the LEGO Group does keep a close eye on trends in popular culture in order to predict what kids will be hyped about in any given year. LEGO Adventurers came out shortly before The Mummy, for instance. And LEGO Legends of Chima arrived at around the same time that a lot of "animal warrior" franchises like TMNT, Thundercats, and Kung Fu Panda were coming into vogue (I imagine James Cameron's Avatar also provided some inspiration for the series' tribal science-fantasy flavor). I've actually read an interview about the conception of LEGO Ninjago which stated outright that it was inspired by a resurgence in ninja-related media (though of course, new themes have a much longer, often multi-year development time, unlike new waves of existing themes). I wouldn't be surprised if something similar might have factored into the design of some BIONICLE series, such as the Barraki, who were releases shortly after the much-anticipated Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which featured a crew of similar sea-creature-inspired mutants. But this is less certain since the story team decided prior to 2006 that the next three years would take place on the land, sea, and sky, which means the idea of sea-creature-inspired baddies could have just as easily come to the designers more organically. In any case, the designers aren't pulling ALL of their inspiration from Pacific Rim by a longshot. The battle machines in "Invasion from Below" do not resemble the humanoid, Gundam-esque ones in Pacific Rim, and the Queen Beast and cocoons definitely draw a considerable amount of inspiration from the Alien film franchise. The jumpers could be inspired not only by the Visorak baddies in the minifigure-scale BIONICLE sets, but also by the parasites in the 2008 film Cloverfield.

Now, now. It's not like anyone who hasn't been intently following the discussion of these sets would know that Nixels are included in some of them. After all, there has been no advertisement of that fact anywhere on the LEGO site. The only way any of us could have known that prior to reviews popping up would have been to check the online building instructions.

Very cool. There are not enough Technic-intensive vehicle MOCs in the constraction community, I think. At the same time, there are some things that bother me about it. For starters, it has a real mish-mash of textures and motifs, rather than spreading a few defining motifs throughout the design. There are a lot of parts that share a beastly or monstrous look, but for each of those there are parts like the Toa Metru shoulder shells, the Toa Inika thigh shells, the Toa Mahri Jaller chest plates, and many of the Titanium Metallic parts that seem like they were added to fill particular spaces, without a whole lot of consideration for whether they meshed with the other motifs. This is a part of why I like the more smooth, consistent look of many HF parts and some BIONICLE parts to the high-detail look of a lot of BIONICLE armor and some HF and BIONICLE masks and weapons. A model does not tend to have as much cohesiveness when a lot of disparate textures are being used. It starts to look a little bit cluttered. What you definitely did right, though, is the Technic frame. It is clear that this is a model where the emphasis is on the overall shape, not the individual details. And to a certain extent, if you get the shape right, the details are not as big a deal. A model where these details were thrown on haphazardly just to use up connection points would surely be hideous, but here there is a certain deliberateness in how parts are placed. The Pyrox faceplate gives the front of the vehicle a focal point. The Antroz wings flow with the shape of the vehicle. The Piraka claws hug the front wheel. This is part of why I really feel the bestial sorts of textures and motifs are the ones that work the most for this model — they tend to maintain a sort of visual language that helps tie it together, in contrast with the more mechanical textures and motifs that seem to slightly interfere with that order.

I love that LEGO City nowadays includes both four-stud and six-stud vehicles (or I guess five-stud and seven-stud if you count the mudguards). 3177 Small Car is really the set that proved the advantages of the varied sizes for me. Back in the 90s, this would have been a pretty normal-sized car, perhaps even a bit big compared to some convertibles and sports cars. Nowadays, though, it's the perfect size to serve as a compact car, while six-wide vehicles perform a separate function as muscle cars, trucks, buses, and SUVs. Now, what I'd really love is if we could see six-wide vehicle designs (particularly SUVs) that include seating for four minifigures. Since both my mom's old Crown Victoria and my dad's Ford Excursion are fairly large vehicles, this has been a goal of mine as a MOCist for many years. This piece from the Adventurers theme, while somewhat specialized, did a great thing by proving the ability to have both a driver's seat and a passenger's seat in a six-stud-wide vehicle, provided you offset each seat by a half a stud. However, to date, few sets have bothered with trying to achieve this, which is a darn shame considering how many useful building elements there are nowadays. The car in the Simpsons House is one that DOES include separate driver's and passenger's seats, though it only really features one back seat. I am also fond of some of the oversized vehicles in themes like LEGO Ninjago and LEGO Agents, usually due to the amount of detail and play features they can incorporate, but it should be obvious to anyone that road vehicles ten to twelve studs wide have no place among LEGO City vehicles. These sorts of vehicles really don't make much sense outside their respective theme, and I've never bothered trying to build any kind of layout with roads sized to accommodate them.

I'd love to try building a long-necked beast of some kind, as well as some aquatic beasts, and maybe a centipede-like beast. There are all kinds of directions you could go with this series's aesthetics.

See, I disagree that the back side of a shell looks incomplete. At least, with the smaller shells. With 90650 or 90652 you might want to do something to cover up the reverse side, since it leaves such a considerable gap. But the back of a Hero Factory beam covered with one of the narrower Hero Factory shells looks no less complete to me than the back of a BIONICLE beam covered with a BIONICLE shell (like the Piraka, Inika, or Metru thigh shells). And I never had any sense that an exposed beam looked "incomplete" in BIONICLE, either — in fact, I find many attempts to fill in the back of a BIONICLE beam to be terribly inelegant, since they just add unnecessary bulk. Also, if you're using those larger Hero Factory shells, chances are you're also using a larger beam, which means it will have additional Technic pin holes, so filling in the back is not an impossible task. So, what am I getting from this? A good building toy should place high demands on a builder? I don't agree with that idea whatsoever. The LEGO System has been so successful in part due to being simple and user-friendly. More complex building systems like Erector/Meccano are still with us, of course... but they have not been nearly successful enough to be the foundation of the second-largest toy company in the world. In my eyes, Hero Factory has brought things more on par with LEGO System in this regard. It is more design-oriented and less engineering-oriented. It takes less time and effort to figure out how to make things work, so you can focus that effort on figuring out how to make things work best. And it's not just a matter of simplifying things for kids' sake — what's good for kids is often good for adults as well. And for the record, I'm not much of a gamer anymore, but back when I was, "easy mode" was my territory. Once I'm investing more into an experience than what I'm getting out of it, that's when I begin to lose both patience and interest. Part of the reason I stopped playing video game was because I realized my time and energy was much better spent on self-expression, whether that was in the form of creative activity or online discussion. And nowadays, if I do play any games, I am what some people would call a "filthy casual". New Super Mario Bros. and Professor Layton are more my speed than any RPG, MMOG, or FPS. I understand that some people get a thrill out of games and hobbies that demand a lot from them, but that's not me. I admire the elegance of a difficult, thought– and reflex-intensive game just as much as I admire the elegance of an incredibly large and elaborate LEGO MOC or a detailed painting, but it's not the sort of thing I want to be investing my time and energy into when I can get just as much enjoyment out of simpler, less ambitious challenges.

Good review so far! My two brothers and I bought this set on Saturday after my fourth trip to see The LEGO Movie. We built it over the course of the next day, and it really is a beauty to behold. Lots of delicious steampunk details, not to mention an imposing overall shape. I think traditional Pirates fans could very easily use this as a parts pack for building a more conventional pirate ship that is just as splendorous. The only parts that would be entirely out-of-place on a regular pirate ship are the turbines, figurehead, minifigures, and sails — everything else could be repurposed without great difficulty. One correction I should make — the grey gadget that pops out of the larger Micro-Manager is a radar dish, not a laser or Kragle sprayer. You can see Micro-Managers like this one scanning the ocean in one scene of the movie, though they never interact directly with the Sea Cow itself. Naturally, this ship is scaled down from the one in the movie, but it's still an incredibly stylish movie collectible. The set would easily have to be three to five times the price to render its subject in its full majesty, but this still does wonderfully when reduced to a scale more typical of LEGO pirate vessels. One warning I'll give to people buying this set — you might want to take extra special care to provide a suitable display space! This set is HUGE, especially considering the full height of the masts. It actually seems bigger now that I've built it than it did in the LEGO Store window display!

A Ninjago movie probably wouldn't see the same record-breaking numbers the LEGO Movie is seeing. Even as a Ninjago fan, I'll agree to that. With that said, it still has the potential to be wildly successful, because LEGO Ninjago has experienced incredible popularity and should thus have a great deal of brand-name appeal. Let's not forget that in 2011 it was the most successful launch for a new product line in LEGO history, and in 2012 it remained close behind LEGO Star Wars and LEGO City in sales. Also, for those worrying about whether Lord and Miller will be able to work on the LEGO Movie sequel, keep in mind that they weren't attached to either The LEGO Movie OR the LEGO Ninjago movie when those projects were first greenlit. The Hageman brothers were the LEGO Movie's original screenwriters, and Dan Lin took a lot of care as producer to ensure that the movie would be faithful to the values and experience that make LEGO so appealing to such a wide audience. It's not clear how many changes the story underwent when Lord and Miller became co-writers and directors (certainly a lot of the movie's humor and satire, including the song "Everything is Awesome", came from them). But at least the basic story of the movie would have probably been in place before they became involved. The Hageman brothers share "Story by" credit with Lord and Miller in the credits to The LEGO Movie.

But how much is there to wrap up, really? It's not like BIONICLE where everything that happened for the whole lifespan of the theme was building towards a final confrontation, and also there were a bunch of side-stories that left major characters in mortal peril. Rather, the only loose ends/cliffhangers are setting up possible future stories. They may very well have been included just to leave the door open for future storytelling opportunities, including non-canon play opportunities for fans. (Brain Attack 2: Electric Boogaloo!) Nor is it like Exo-Force where the resolution of an entire story year is being left open-ended. Each story year to date has had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Even if the ending doesn't wrap everything up neatly, the story for that year has still been told. The main cliffhanger that was very definitely preparing for a story yet to be told was the whole galactic conspiracy thing in the chapter books, and since those were side-stories, that was never meant to be something that continued outside the book series. It was simply unfortunate that Scholastic wasn't interested in a sixth Hero Factory chapter book.

I disagree. I put pure HF builds together all the time and don't feel like they look incomplete. There's a simple seven-inch figure sitting on my desk right now that I've never photographed because it's not terribly unique in design. Nevertheless, it has very appealing proportions, and no part of it looks particularly gappy. There are even plenty of sets based on this building system that look remarkably complete. One I'm quite fond of is CHI Worriz. In the meantime, there are plenty of BIONICLE sets that also look somewhat incomplete. Take Mistika Toa Tahu, for instance. Now, there are parts of this set I'm, to be honest, like the blades on the shins and the jets mounted on the torso. It definitely has a unique look. But its upper arms and legs are ridiculously thin compared to its lower arms and legs, and its chest is perfectly flat (and in some places, hollow or empty). In fact, a lot of BIONICLE parts were designed with conspicuous gaps as part of the aesthetic — these were decorative and would sometimes include pistons or other details. The Piraka torso is just one example — others include the Piraka upper leg shell and the Rahkshi lower leg beam. This problem was not limited to canister sets or small sets, either — some BIONICLE titan sets also had a somewhat gappy and incomplete look, such as Krekka or Maxilos (not to mention Ultimate Dume). My point isn't that this is a fault of the building system. Creating a more solid, cohesive design with BIONICLE parts and building styles is not particularly difficult. But this is just as true of Hero Factory. Just because not every design looks complete doesn't mean that the building system is inherently flawed when it comes to creating complete-looking designs. And of course, there's a certain amount of subjectivity involved in what looks complete and what does not. Since both Hero Factory and BIONICLE are based on robotic-looking characters, a certain amount of gappiness can be forgiven if it is built into a model's design aesthetic. One of my favorite Hero Factory sets is XT4. Many of XT4's arm and leg beams are not armored at all, but I like this look as it makes the model look like an industrial robot rather than an android with lots of naturalistic shaping and aesthetic polish. Krekka's gappiness can be somewhat forgiven in this regard as well — after all, even though he is not a drone-like character the way XT4 is, his overall aesthetic is still crude and asymmetrical, so it merits a less elegant, shapely design than the same year's Nidhiki or Nivawk.

I'm pretty sure Shakar was talking about a non-LEGO toy.

It's rare nowadays, but not entirely unheard of. Back in the 90s there were a number of themes/subthemes that were exclusive to North America, like Aquaraiders, Unitron (well, the infamous monorail was released globally, but the other sets were only in North America), and Dark Forest.

The Sea Cow does fit into a theme of its own — It fits into the LEGO Movie theme. That was what GregoryBrick was talking about. With how wildly successful The LEGO Movie has been, it shouldn't be any surprise that there's going to be a significant segment of the general LEGO-buying population buying it specifically for its role in the movie and not because they intend to integrate it into a more "traditional" theme. Some of the LEGO Movie sets, particularly the 2-in-1 sets, can be integrated into other themes with very little difficulty, but there's no reason to think that they all have to. One of the sets that seems to have sold like hotcakes, Cloud Cuckoo Palace, doesn't really fit into ANY other LEGO theme past or present. There's never been a theme with those kinds of "candy-land" visuals.

While there's some merit to that type of storytelling, I don't think it would do credit to his character. The lesson from Tick Tock (well, one of them) was that he was equal to the others regardless of his true nature and his origins. I feel like turning him human would undermine part of that message, at least if it were presented as a positive change. If it were presented as some kind of sacrifice I suppose it could be all right, but it'd have to be handled delicately and I honestly don't feel like that's a direction the story needs to take him.

The sticker isn't attached to the Overlord — it's attached to a curved slope thing on the front of his vehicle. That's part of the reason there's been so much confusion. You can't actually see all of his lower body while he's in his vehicle. Unless, of course, the entire vehicle IS his lower body. That's also possible.

That's not the way it's seen in most countries. I guarantee you all the "August" LEGO Movie sets will be available for purchase in June or July, just like "August" sets are every single year. The release dates given at Toy Fair are not the same as when the sets actually start showing up for sale, which tend to be one or two months before the dates given at Toy Fair. I was actually at Toy Fair two years ago. My coverage is all linked from this topic. Hero Factory, Ninjago, City, Monster Fighters, Friends, Creator, Star Wars, and Heroica summer sets all had the same exact phrase at the bottom of their info cards: "Coming in August". The only exceptions were things with more frequent release schedules, like Ninjago spinners and CMFs (which had new series scheduled for January, April, June, and September instead), and licensed themes tied to new movies, which were scheduled according to the movie's release date (Avengers in May, The Hobbit in December). Every set actually ended up showing up for sale a month or two prior to its "scheduled" release date. This year is presumably going to be no different. It started out different, of course, since a lot of sets that would have ordinarily been scheduled for December/January (Hero Factory, Legends of Chima, Star Wars, and Friends animal packs) got delayed to February/March so the LEGO Group could focus their marketing on The LEGO Movie. But now that those sets are starting to show up, everything should continue as it does any other year. I'm quite confident LEGO Movie summer sets will start showing up for sale in June or July, the way summer sets always do.

There are LOADS of new parts in these sets. The small claws on the feet of that sabertooth vehicle, the claw weapon in the hands of the sabertooth in the eagle set (and on the back of the sabertooth vehicle), the flame piece used for the weapons in both sets, and the icy foundation to trap minifigures in both sets. I'm assuming you're referring to some of those? Or did you notice another one entirely?

Which summer sets are you thinking of which are coming out prior to August? It can't be a lot. August is the "official" release date of almost every summer set for the past several years, excluding sets like the CMFs, Friends animal packs, Ninjago spinners and booster packs, and Speedorz that are released with greater frequency. The sets might show up a month or a month and a half prior to that, but August is almost always the release date that's given for those sets at events like Toy Fair. Also, "August" sets tend to be very successful because a summer release date ensures that they will be widely available in time for the fall–winter Christmas shopping season, the most profitable time of the year for toy sales in general. So it's not unusual at all for a small handful of the LEGO Movie sets to be coming out at that time.

Personally, I am loving the X1 Ninja Charger. I don't know why a lot of people don't find it impressive. It uses some clever building techniques, and presents a very different subject than any previous Ninjago set. I personally would take it over the Kai Fighter any day — while that set is cool, I don't think it will ever measure up to Jay's Storm Fighter in my opinion, whereas this model captures the subject (a fantasy muscle car with pop-out bike) brilliantly on the very first attempt.

These little notes are present at every Toy Fair. People often get hyped about the prospect of TV series for their favorite series, like Monster Fighers. But if we're thinking about the same notes, they refer to TV commercials, not TV series, movies, or specials. It is a bit odd to start airing commercials for some of these mid-year releases in the fall, but I guess it's to get people thinking about them before Christmas.

These little notes are present at every Toy Fair. People often get hyped about the prospect of TV series for their favorite series, like Monster Fighers. But if we're thinking about the same notes, they refer to TV commercials, not TV series, movies, or specials.