Aanchir

I had thought the Nickelodeon website had it in good resolution. I remember being surprised when I found that out. But maybe I was mistaken about the resolution, since I didn't end up watching it at that time. In any case it's at least better than the resolution on the LEGO site.

My local brony group is getting together at a library to watch the season premiere via livestream. I'm very excited! The Legend of Korra Book 2 is also coming to a close soon. I know the last two episodes have been released online. I may watch them before the broadcast premiere and may not — it all depends if I get an opportunity to watch them together with my mom before that time, as she's been enjoying the series as well and it's been fun watching the new episodes together.

In my opinion, there is no LEGO canon. Each LEGO theme has its own storyline that it can play as loosely or strictly as it wants to be, and there is also room for crossovers that aren't constrained by any canon. Time Cruisers played with the idea that LEGO themes were largely on the same planet at different points in time, Clutch Powers set Castle, Space, and City on different planets, and the LEGO Movie is now appearing to take an entirely different approach. Prior to BIONICLE, LEGO did not have any fully-organized "intellectual properties" with a thorough story bible explaining the rules of each particular theme. Rather, the producers of the themes' marketing materials could basically take products and premise handed to them by LEGO HQ and present them in their own marketing materials however they liked. And even after BIONICLE, plenty of LEGO themes have played fast and loose with the concept of "canon", as evidenced by Clutch Powers, which took the established themes and once again interpreted them however the creators liked. I think trying to even ESTABLISH a unified "canon" for LEGO themes ruins the spirit of open-ended playfulness that defines the LEGO brand. Certainly there is room to say certain story-driven themes relate to each other in specific ways, but it is not a mandate. The Mars in LEGO Mars Mission doesn't have to be the same Mars in LEGO Life on Mars, nor does the Governor Broadside from the 2009 LEGO Pirates reboot have to be the same as the original one from 1989. This essay written over a decade ago shows just how stupid it is to try and impose a unified canon across TV shows that happen to cross over — it's just as silly to try and do the same thing for LEGO themes instead of just letting them intermingle according to whatever rules particular stories demand, and letting fans draw their own connections between non-continuity-driven themes however they please.

No, not at all, really. Town Square is still in the LEGO City theme, Palace Cinema (and the other modular buildings) are not. They have consistently been categorized as either themeless "exclusives" or as LEGO Creator. Brickset doesn't even list 60026 as a retailer exclusive or limited release of any kind.

The LEGO Harry Potter theme has always been aimed towards both boys and girls, much more than some other licensed themes like Star Wars. Even in the 2010 reboot, the theme retained a lot of "dollhouse-style play" in addition to its numerous action scenes. And that balance of slice-of-life play and adventure play is built right into the source material. It has this in common with the LEGO Spongebob Squarepants theme to a certain extent, and both of those themes have appeared in the "Girls" category on the LEGO Shop website. I figure the target audience of these particular sets skewed female. I don't believe they were aimed at ONLY a female audience by any means, but even in what many regard as a dark age of LEGO design, the designers were not idiots and would surely recognize that these sorts of pastel colors would be off-putting to many boys and enticing to many girls. These are rarer colors for LEGO sets and they would certainly not have been used without this understanding. It should also note that the page for these sets was grouped with the pages for Belville and Scala in some LEGO catalogs, NOT with the pages for the other Harry Potter sets. So there's that indication as well. In any case, it certainly didn't stop me from picking up those sets when they were new.

Well, they do have blades, even if they're weird energy blades.

Voltix has the power to create energy projections like that. I guess the creators used a projection of Von Nebula for symbolism's sake (if they just wanted to reuse an existing character model they could have used Voltix himself), but it ended up creating more confusion than anything else. I haven't seen the Brain Attack TV episode yet. I really need to get on that. I've heard it's somewhat lacking in terms of story, but the fight scenes I've seen in trailers look quite cool... much more melee combat and less Stormtrooper-esque firefights than the BIONICLE movies and earlier HF episodes had a reputation for. I'm very excited for next year's episode since it's being handled by Advance (the Danish ad agency that has played a lead role in story development for BIONICLE and Hero Factory) and Ghost (the VFX agency that made the old BIONICLE commercials and recently did VFX work for Pacific Rim).

Well, there are some other subtle differences between the 2013 Ninja (specifically, the shape of their buckles, the shape of the gold emblems and borders on their backs, and the characters on the gold badges they wear on the trim of their robes). But you're right, they're not all that different (I was a bit disappointed that unlike the 2011 Ninja minifigures, their belts are all tied identically). Disappointed that this set doesn't include Nya, but nevertheless, it's good to get pics. And I'm glad to see that we WILL get a Zane minifigure without his robes torn open, as he appears in this teaser image. The set, its functions, and its minifigures are pretty cool. I like the chariot-like cockpit/cab. I feel like the arms could be a little more symmetrical (it's a little weird that the "wrist" of one arm is more like the "elbow" of the other), but I like the variety of weapons in the model. The tile-launching function is always cool, and it looks like those blades in the front go up and down when it rolls. Overall, I think what I like best about this set is what it represents: that Ninjago is once again a big enough deal to get store-exclusive sets with reasonably exclusive minifigures. What makes you think it's supposed to be a finale wave? It certainly COULD be, but nothing we've seen has really suggested that. Well, the short Nindroid is actually pretty different from ANY other Nindroid minifigure, in that not only are his legs shorter than other Nindroids, but so far that body hasn't gone to a Nindroid with a hood in any set. So while there are no new, exclusive prints on this Nindroid, I'd characterize it as a unique character since it's a decidedly unique combination of parts, much like the 2013 Garmadon figure (whose parts were likewise all available in other figs) In contrast, I'd consider Sensei Wu minifigure from Destiny's Bounty the same as the ones from Epic Dragon Battle and Temple of Light. The only difference between those minifigures is the color of their hat (Brick Yellow in Destiny's Bounty, Warm Gold in the other two sets). Similarly, I don't differentiate between variants of the Skeleton Warriors from 2011, ZX Ninja from 2012, or next year's Lloyd based on whether they have armor, headgear, or both, or based on what style of arms the skeletons have. Of course, in those cases, I'd consider the most complete variant of the minifigure character to be one with armor AND headgear, as they appear on the trading cards — for some, like Krazi, this requires combining multiple figs from multiple sets, since he never has both armor and a jester's cap in any set. By my count, this brings us up to 14 unique minifigure characters in the 2014 sets: six Ninja (I don't differentiate between Lloyd with and without armor, but I do differentiate between the two Zanes), Sensei Garmadon, Evil Wu, Pixal, three types of generic Nindroid, General Cryptor, and Cyrus Borg. If there's a summer wave, it shouldn't be hard at all for this year's minifigure count to match the original minifigure count from 2011 (20 unique minifigure characters)! And if so, hopefully those additional six will include the new Nya minifigure we're all waiting for. YES! This does look awesome. And Nya has a new costume (not just a variant of an existing minifigure costume like so many alternate costumes in the show)! Hopefully this DOES foreshadow a new Nya minifigure!

I dunno. The web content DOES imply that planets with organic life (including some weird planet called Earth) exist in the HF universe, but at the same time, most of the promotional material describes Makuhero City, at least, as a city of living robots.

No, I don't think so. Those are fairly old colors (pre-2000s), whereas Flamingo Pink is very recent (I've never found evidence that it was used in any theme other than Clikits). The original chart was mine, by the way. Cool beans. I only included colors on mine that were already in the database in some form or another (whether it be names, RGBA values, etc.) Thank you for sharing this version of the chart; it will be useful for keeping track of any added colors in future updates.

It was. I personally like the skeletal look of Flyer Beast's wings. It's nice and spooky-looking. Not terribly aerodynamic, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for the sake of aesthetics in this case just as I was with Dragon Bolt. I am glad that the wings have more joints than Batman's though. That helps their look considerably. Batman's looked just like long struts with spikes coming off of them, whereas these look a bit more like proper wing bones. I can't wait for the first set to have wings that can properly spread out or fold back... to me, greater articulation would be a far more significant improvement than making them look more solid.

One Russian site gives a Russian name for 70726 that translates to "vehicle for samurai", so I'd guess that's where Nya will be showing up. So perhaps she was only cut out of the MechDragon set in order to put her in a different set. *shrug* I agree that TLG is getting better about this, but you're right, Ninjago needs to improve its gender ratios — especially considering how many girls there are who already love the Ninjago TV series.

What do you mean about that? From what I've seen the scenery and props in the show are still slightly stylized, as they've always been.

I'm baffled at all the complaints about the Legend Beasts, considering that normally a lot of AFOLs dislike large "prefab" parts or LEGO animals that are too streamlined. Personally, I think the Legend Beasts are remarkable designs that really showcase the sculptural artistry that the current panoply of curved slopes (and the amazing new ball joint elements from the Mixels) allows for. They aren't as naturalistic-looking as they are in the Legends of Chima TV series for certain, but they have definitely raised the bar for brick-built animal models. Plus, the fact that they are brick-built means we don't have to wait on the LEGO Group to make other Legend Beasts: we will be fully capable of MOCing them ourselves without failing to capture their aesthetic.

There's a part two of the comic which can be downloaded here. But I don't know where you might find scans of Part 1.

My brother (Lyichir) is in the midst of building Evo XL Machine on LDD, and it's quite impressive how it's constructed. For one thing, it has a gear function (pretty similar in function to the Makuta set from 2003, but obviously constructed differently). It's also remarkably beefy-looking, despite the gaps in the arms and legs. It definitely feels like an industrial machine rather than a hero or other sort of robot inspired by a living, sentient creature. And that's one of the things I love about this wave. We haven't gotten much of that in any previous wave except in vehicle sets: even the industrial robot XT4 had enough inspiration from living creatures to look somewhat "alien" rather than purely mechanical. Is it any wonder this wave allows for such unique builds when it's already dealing with fairly unique subject matter?

Witch Doctor's the only character who ever fought for Quaza or used it in a remotely drug-like way. And that story arc wasn't nearly as much of a drug abuse allegory as Ordeal of Fire, in which the villains were literally addicted to power. In Witch Doctor's story arc he's basically just a madman who wants to stockpile Quaza for... reasons.

Have y'all seen the character bios on club.LEGO.com? President Business, Bad Cop, and Benny bios Emmet, Wyldstyle, and Vitruvius bios Benny's bio is easily the most hilarious!

Which sets do you see them facing off against bad guys in? The only obvious "bad guy vehicles" I see are in 70808 and 70802, which lack the cube robots. The ice cream truck in 70804, garbage truck in 70805, and food truck in 70812 all have Octan branding if I'm not mistaken, but that doesn't mean they're evil. It just means that the operators of these vehicles are part of the revolution and are rebuilding Octan-branded vehicles to use for their own purposes. I can guarantee President Business does not endorse what has been done with those vehicles.

I'd build it in LDD, but those hinges are giving me a lot of grief. Let me try and break the skeleton down for you: 9x9 torso beam with a Waspix-style 3x3x5 connector block attached to the back. A 5M A-beam attached to the center ball joint of each shoulder, facing up and back (the lights/jets are attached to the ends of these) A 5M A-beam attached to the center ball joint of each of the previous beams, facing down and to the sides (the arms are connected to the ends of these) A 5M C-beam attached to the center ball joint of each of the previous beams on one end and to one side of the Waspix-style connector block on the other. A 3M A-beam attached to the crotch joint, facing forward (the 5M crotch shell is attached to this) So all in all, the parts count for the torso skeleton is nine pieces: a 9x9 torso beam (90625), a 3x3x5 connector block (90634), a 3M A-beam (90612), four 5M A-beams (90609), and two 5M C-beams (90622). I'll have an LDD image (not fully connected) momentarily. EDIT: Here's an LDD image, with some of the parts color-coded to make the image clearer. All you gotta do is snap the lower end of the 5M C-beams onto the 3x3x5 connector block and you've basically got the torso construction.

Pretty sure that's the OverBorg's walking chair from 70722, but with some glowing eyes added.

Interesting article. I can't say I feel a whole lot better after reading it, since I'm currently having a hard enough time searching for a part-time retail job and it hurts a bit to get another reminder that I'm probably never going to be cut out for what had been my dream job for many years. The thing about getting a design job with LEGO, as with any job, is that it's not enough to be a good candidate. There's no shortage of those, and I'm sure you don't even get to this stage of applying unless you're a good candidate. To get a job you have to be the best candidate, or one of the best. While I've done all right with LEGO building competitions in the past, I'm sure I'd have a more difficult time with this kind of competition, if only because there'd be so much more riding on my success. In the meantime, I hope the eight new designers that this article mentions go on to design some amazing sets.

That video was pretty cool, although it definitely had some accuracy issues (it called Ninjago an island when if anything it's more of a continent, and the Skeleton Army and Serpentine aren't technically the Overlord's forces even if he had a hand in the Serpentine's creation). That music towards the end was interesting; I wonder if it'll be part of the musical score for the upcoming season of the show.

In America (and I think several other countries) they could do all those things when they're as young as 16.

I haven't seen a lot of hints to this effect, honestly. Even the most ancient characters in the story are still robots themselves, and there aren't any hints I recall of non-robot forerunners. So really, the most we can assume is that for all of recorded history in the HF universe, any new robots have been created by other robots. Before that, all bets are off.