Aanchir

I don't think it's that they had no intention of getting it so much as that they've already looked into and ruled out the possibility. The exclusive Star Wars action figure license that Hasbro obtained when they acquired Kenner has been extremely profitable for both them and LucasArts, so there's not much likelihood of them giving it up. They have multiple times challenged the LEGO Group's right to sell individual Star Wars minifigures, whether in packs like this or in "gear" like magnet packs (which is the reason those changed from loose figs on magnetic bricks to figs glued together and to the magnetic base, and most recently to figs glued together and screwed onto a magnetic base). Hasbro and the LEGO Group are fierce competitors, and with good reason — Hasbro is the only toy company with stronger sales than the LEGO Group now that the LEGO Group has surpassed major toy manufacturer Mattel. So Hasbro doesn't want the LEGO Group encroaching on what they perceive as THEIR business.

Brickset and Bricklink put a dash one after every set name in case another set shows up using the same number. It doesn't happen too often nowadays, and probably won't happen again for a long time now that TLG has switched to five-digit set numbers, which there's no need to repeat. But it used to happen semi-frequently. Brickset is generally quite reliable when it comes to confirming rumors, in that they don't tend to post set names unless they got them from a reliable source. It's not a PRIMARY source, but it's one of the better secondary sources in that they don't create pages for mere rumors and use brackets around names that aren't 100% confirmed.

I think the Parisian Restaurant is gorgeous, inside and out. Lots of fantastic detail on all sides and lots of brilliant new ideas, such as the outdoor staircases — something no previous modular buildings have incorporated. I'm glad the modular buildings aren't all the same shape and size, to be honest. I think that would make things rather boring. The narrower width of the upper floors breaks up the modulars nicely, much as the alley/open-air market in Market Street did way back when. Having all the buildings sit perfectly edge-to-edge starts to look kind of repetitive, I think. In any case, there have only been two sets since the Town Hall. It's ridiculous to think that two buildings are enough to interpret a trend towards smaller modulars — not without the designers saying anything to suggest that intent. If the models had been getting smaller for four or five installments then there would be more of an argument for a trend. I find it odd that you consider Green Grocer to be appropriate "middle ground" as far as height is concerned. Before Town Hall, Green Grocer was the set that was often criticized for being an absolute behemoth relative to the other modular buildings, particularly the Fire Brigade and Pet Shop.

No, it doesn't work both ways. Saying it WAS a problem because you (and others) experienced it to a great degree isn't trivializing anyone else's issues. It just means that people who didn't encounter the issues were careful and/or fortunate, which is inches away being an actual compliment. Saying it WASN'T a problem because you didn't experience it to a great degree, and that any concerns were just hype, treats people who actually experienced a considerable loss as whiners or outliers and subtly suggests that if their parts broke, it means they were unlucky or even careless. It sends an entirely different and far less forgiving message. In general, it's much more respectful to give people who have been harmed in some way the benefit of the doubt unless there has been some kind of large-scale analysis that overrules their anecdotal evidence.

I have had lots of mine and my brother's break, even though I take extra special care with them. Even my Glatorian head from Stormer XL ended up breaking — since then, I haven't even attempted to remove a Glatorian head or other pre-2011 joint piece from any of my Hero Factory or BIONICLE figures. It wasn't as big a problem as lime green 2007 joints, but it's incredibly rude and presumptuous to suggest that it wasn't a real problem because you personally didn't experience it to the same degree as other people. Among pre-2007 parts, the only BIONICLE parts of mine that tended to break were Bohrok feet and 7M double ball cups (which I learned early on were somewhat fragile compared to their 5M counterparts). But Y-joints, Glatorian heads, double ball cups of both sizes, and Matoran/Agori/Stars limbs gave me a lot of grief throughout 2008—2010.

Rarity's casual generosity makes a bit more sense when you remember just how easily she accumulates gems. Of course, that doesn't make her actions seem cheap, either, since I imagine gems are probably more valuable in Manehattan than in the Ponyville countryside where a few ponies (or baby dragons) working together can dig them right out of the ground. I like to imagine that Equestrian society uses gems and bits alike as currency, with bits being a more modern and standardized currency and gems (which are bound to vary in value and quality) being a holdover from an older but not entirely obsolete barter system. I think Applejack's attitude towards Manehattan can probably be summed up with the old saying, "Nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there." I feel like her experience in Manehattan before was unpleasant, but not so traumatic that she would be uneasy about visiting the place years later. If she had run into her Aunt and Uncle Orange, that would be more of the sort of thing to stir up and force her to confront those unpleasant memories, but just being there shouldn't be too much of an ordeal for her. I loved the new episode. It had a great lesson, great songs, and a great look at a setting that we haven't ever gotten to see in a whole lot of depth. And it was a Rarity episode, so it had some rather high standards to live up to. I look forward to watching it again!

Keep in mind that if the piece does come back, it doesn't have to be constrained to constraction sets. There are plenty of non-constraction sets that could use such a piece, including the summer Ninjago and Chima sets or the new Agents sets.

Yes, but having genders helps a human audience to identify with them, and to imagine the character with a particular human voice. It also allows the series to deal with issues or morals related to gender. For instance, in Hero Factory FM, it is established that the typical civilian perception of Hero Factory heroes is one of powerful, macho crime-fighters and that this perception does female heroes like Breez a disservice. A later installment of the podcast dealt with another gender-related issue, as Breez was asked to comment on Tibor Terrell's execrable "Hero Factory: The Musical", which set Breez up as a fawning romantic interest for Furno. The idea that robot characters shouldn't have genders is silly, because you could use the same argument to state that robot characters shouldn't have emotions or personalities. It's true, autonomous robots don't NEED genders, and they can have personalities without having genders, but they will not be as relatable to a human audience. Gender identity is a big part of human identity, even when not constrained to stereotypical gender roles. Genders also perform one other obvious task — in English and many other languages, most pronouns have gender. Non-gendered pronouns like "it" are generally used to describe things, not people. It sounds unnatural and even insulting to identify a person as "it", whether or not that person has a known gender. And while the characters in Hero Factory are not humans, they are unquestionably people.

I interpreted it as an intestine or something, but it's also possible that his last defeat came in the form of being put through a sausage grinder.

I always interpreted the Ringmaster's face as a ridiculously wide-open grin, myself. Kind of like Flex, except maybe not QUITE so ridiculous.

His torso is not new, and his hat and legs are not printed so obviously not new. But his face is a new expression, so if you ever want a scared fig with a curly mustache this set might be your ticket. On a side note, this might be one of the first figs I've ever seen whose "scared" expression is his ONLY expression.

I don't think anything's wrong with the cups in terms of value. Honestly, I probably have more use for fancy cups than I do for cheap molded toys, which would just grow old in a box or on a shelf. At the same time, it seems like a baffling marketing decision. Wouldn't kids (i.e. the primary audience for Happy Meal prizes) prefer something they can play with to something purely functional or decorative? The page calls them "Action Cups", so unless that's just over-enthusiastic marketing lingo there might be something we're missing out of. Maybe there's a toy that comes inside the cup? But I might be reaching there.

Parts can be put back into production if the mold is still intact and there is perceived to be a need. The Pet Shop in 2011 reintroduced 2x4x2 vertical windscreens after a twelve-year disappearance, for instance. But I don't think the Mantax claw is going to be coming back for just one set, so unless other summer sets use it I don't think it's especially likely.

I still have no idea what you're talking about; I need a page number for the moment the explosion is mentioned. Stringer is still alive and functioning in the epilogue, well after Project Sunstorm has been dismantled. Check page 134 (Scholastic paperback edition) if you need a page reference. As for Nex, he is not a character in the book at all. If the book mentions Alpha 1 members dying in the explosion, then it just means Greg Farshtey is not aware of exactly what Alpha 1 Team consists of. But re-reading the book, I can't find anything even close to suggesting that.

Well, there are other female heroes mentioned (not shown) in the old Hero Factory testimonials, Hero Factory FM podcasts, and mission logs. Some of them are even team leaders. So it's really just one female hero in Alpha 1 Team. At the same time, I agree with you — one female character on a team of nine is dismal. It's also a shame that there has not yet been a single female villain (except, arguably, Dragon Bolt and the new Queen Beast... which still isn't saying much since neither of those are characters with relatable human-like personalities). I know BIONICLE only had four female villains in the sets, but it's still a pretty pitiful record for both themes.

This is probably true since it's the variant that shows up in the LEGO Movie and on the marketing materials. However, I have to wonder if it will use Lloyd's new face from the 2014 sets. After all, since the expressions of figs in the LEGO Movie do change, it's not like the new expression would be inaccurate. And it would save TLG the trouble of pulling a decoration out of retirement.

Not yet, but the price in Euros is 3.99, so I'd expect the US price to be four or five dollars.

I like Hero Factory more in some ways (a lot of which line up with what Mephek said) and BIONICLE more in others. They have both been a big part of my life. I definitely agree with Mephek about the room for creative expansion for fans. That seems to have been a big part of Hero Factory's initial design, what with the call center ticker that would show fans' own "emergencies", the Hero Recon Team service, the Hero Builder that was integral to one of the first online games, and the old mission logs and testimonials that demonstrated Alpha 1 Team was just one hero team among many. At least in the beginning, there was a strong emphasis on creating your own stories and characters. Some of this has fallen by the wayside due the failure of the Hero Recon Team service, but the universe itself still has plenty of room for creative expansion. BIONICLE had some of this, especially after 2004 and 2005 provided evidence of more than six Toa at any given time and a much larger Matoran Universe than just one island and one underground city. But it was also a lot like Ninjago in that all the big universe-changing events tended to revolve around the theme's central characters. Hero Factory doesn't have so many universe-changing events, which sidesteps that issue neatly. This does not reduce the importance of the heroes' missions — there are still worlds of civilians and wildlife that depend on them. But there are so many worlds and so many heroes for them to depend on, that there's plenty of room for additional characters and adventures. I only wish I actually had the creativity to write these kinds of stories. Most of my BIONICLE stories always involved a framework of established characters and situations — they were shoddy side-stories in which nothing much happened, taking place in between actual important events. And most of them were regrettable songfics. I have never been a huge fan of creating elaborate backstories for MOCs. I sometimes will come up with a name and a brief blurb about the personality, but otherwise I prefer to let the MOC itself do the talking. Perhaps part of that is because of my age, though. Back when I was an eight-year-old Throwbots fan I LOVED coming up with unique characters with unique color schemes and powers and personalities, and writing stories around them. I also had plenty of fun creating custom character and mask designs in the early days of BIONICLE (2001-2002). So I imagine younger Hero Factory fans, many of whom have not yet blossomed as MOCists, are fully prepared to take advantage of the storytelling opportunities within the Hero Factory universe. I think most people know how I feel about the Hero Factory sets, and if not, a glance at my Flickr should tell you what you need to know. I love this building system and the creative opportunities it offers. It feels like I was living in a box all that time I was making BIONICLE MOCs, and in 2011 the box was opened and I was let out.

The jumpers also offer a play feature. Though if there were a polybag with a recolored jumper AND a recolored hero, that'd be quite nice. Might be too much to hope for though. All in all, the switch to minifigs offers a whole lot of potential for polybag/promotional sets since they are no longer restricted to being a mere accessory for the larger figures.

I wasn't really expecting to see licensed characters in the LEGO Movie sets, because I can't see any reason the LEGO Group would add anything to a set based on one of their own IPs that would require them to pay royalties on that set, when they could just include the same figures or models in a theme they're already paying royalties for.

The important thing to remember is that a lot of the people who read reviews on Brickset are also people who might never give constraction sets a chance based on the official pictures and descriptions alone. It's too alien to them to grasp its appeal. So being shown high-quality photos and positive descriptions of a constraction set that gained the favor of a person with a similar perspective is likely to leave a positive impression with those kind of builders. I think that's valuable regardless of whether the reviewer has a lot of meaningful firsthand knowledge of constraction sets. Would a review from a committed constraction collector and MOCist offer a more accurate perspective of the category as a whole? Sure. But a review from a relative newcomer is more likely to communicate on a level that other System builders can relate to. And if it can communicate that via a channel that other non-constraction builders are likely to be exposed to, all the better. Reviews from sources outside our bubble of shared expertise can also give us a new perspective on how these kind of sets appear to people who haven't been watching them develop for years. And that's important. The new building system may have revolutionized constraction building, but to somebody who didn't already collect constraction themes and understand their assets and limitations, it had no impact whatsoever on the sets' shelf appeal. That's knowledge you wouldn't get by reading a review written by someone who could see what the new building system was offering at a glance. Understand also that this isn't a perspective exclusive to non-constraction builders. Many BIONICLE fans also fail to understand how the new building system improved the overall building experience. They grew up learning constraction building in the language of pins and axles, so sets where that aspect of the construction was so heavily reduced seemed to them to mean the construction was dumbed down and the complexity was reduced. There are still many BIONICLE fans convinced that the overall complexity of Hero Factory sets is less than that of BIONICLE sets. Furthermore, a lot of these old-school constraction fans feel like sets that use the same pieces are, in a nutshell, the same. The idea that these parts do not become obsolete after three years of use like the BIONICLE torso pieces of old does not immediately occur to them. Those fans, too, might need sets like this one, which are radically different from past sets not only in aesthetics but also in overall subject matter, to demonstrate that to them. And a review from someone who hasn't dabbled in constraction sets in recent years can help show that to them. Someone asked a similar question a couple pages ago. An exclusive hero is not likely unless they use an existing helmet — there certainly aren't going to be any new helmet molds designed for an exclusive polybag set. But that doesn't rule out the possibility of exclusive recolors, since we got one of those this year in the form of the black brain.

If anyone's interested, Huw from Brickset posted a review of 44018 Furno Jet Machine! It's generally rather positive, even though he made some slight mistakes in the build. He does say some disparaging things about previous Hero Factory sets, but in general I think it's worth the read just to get a different perspective on things. I know from experience that it's easy to dismiss a set as crude and simplistic if you aren't interested enough to buy it and see how it's built — I ignored 3829 Fire Nation Ship at first due to its blocky exterior, but eventually got around to building it on LDD and realized just what a treasure I had missed out on. The fact that this set succeeded in piqueing a dedicated system builder's interest enough to buy it where previous sets failed is a testament to how much potential the switch to minifigure-based sets has to expand Hero Factory's audience.

Glad you found the answer to the question on your own, but for the record some of the oldest classic space helmets did not have dimples. Bricklink lists these two variants, which came in various colors. The Bricklink inventories for many sets from this era they use these two item numbers, since there were versions of those sets that included dimples on the helmets and versions of those sets that did not.

No, I don't think so. If anything, the LEGO Group's emphasis on minifigures is a response to the way kids play. Kids like unique minifigures, therefore, the LEGO Group puts a lot of time into designing creative minifigures for sets, especially the largest and most expensive sets. This is also part of the reason many sets are designed with lots of separate models divided into different bags — even before you're finished building the entire set, you'll have the minifigures and some parts of the set to play with. The Ninjago cartoon is character-driven and includes very little building because to a casual, non-FOL viewer, it makes it feel more like a story and less like a cheesy toy commercial (therefore, non-FOL parents are less likely to discourage their kids from watching it than if everything in it were an exact replica of the toys). And the commercials for the toys still emphasize the construction of the models and the play features of the finished models over the minifigure characters — at most, they might mention one or two of the characters by name, but the camera is generally focused on the models. You might be pleased to know, though, that this year's 70725 Nindroid MechDragon has no more than one minifigure for each section of the build. Therefore, following the instructions, you won't have all the minifigures until you have completed at least the first four sections of the model in other words, pretty much everything but the wings). Perhaps the LEGO Group realized that building ALL of the figures at once at the very beginning was too distracting for younger builders. Therefore, you get them gradually as the model comes together. You will always have at least one minifigure from the very beginning, so for instance you will be able to play with Sensei Garmadon in the buggy as soon as Bag 1 is complete, but it's not so incredibly distracting. Personally, I am a bit surprised that your son even has so much fun with the minifigures without the sets to support them. I'm a serious Ninjago minifigure collector, but without any kind of model to put the figures in, I don't have much to do with them except line them up on a baseplate for ease of comparison. They don't have enough articulation for a whole lot of "action play". Perhaps there's another issue that you're not considering. The biggest Ninjago sets are designed with a minimum recommended age range of eight. Even if your son loves LEGO and is proficient at building, perhaps he feels intimidated or frustrated by the amount of building it takes to complete a set of that size. I have known a lot of kids (including not just kids I know today but also my peers from childhood) who have had this problem. My younger brother is 16 now (yikes!), but I can still notice a certain amount of frustration when he builds large models himself — he certainly doesn't have the patience to go back and check if he missed a part, and by a certain point I feel like he only keeps building in order to get it over with. I know your child is certainly old enough to build the sets on his own if he chooses to, but have you considered offering to build the sets with him? This might help keep him engaged and add a dynamic social component to the building experience as you alternate steps (occasionally trade or give up steps if you end up with a step that he wants to do himself). Part of the reason I have always been able to remain engaged when building a large set is that I have always had a twin brother to share the experience with. Building a large set on my own, without anyone to share it with, is not nearly as exciting or memorable. This way you also get a better idea of your son's building habits. If he still gets bored and wants to take frequent breaks, even with another person to build with, then it may very well be the size of the model that is frustrating him. But you will be there to encourage him to keep going and perhaps come up with ways to make the experience more fun for him. For instance, the two of you can pretend that the minifigures are helping to build the model, thus integrating the minifigure play with the building experience!

I'm normally a pro-sticker guy, but you have to be kidding here. Applying a sticker to a surface thinner than a plate would be ridiculously difficult, and there probably wouldn't be enough surface area to keep it attached even during normal use.