Aanchir

I don't think it'll have quite the same versatility as HF, from what I can tell. But it's imaginative, which is more than can be said for the majority of Kre-O parts. Interesting, the building system seems a lot different than HF's, which makes sense, since the HF building system is protected by at least two patents. Most of the joints on these figures are clip-based rather than ball-joint-based, which is an interesting decision but which makes sense for many of the joints and probably gives no less posability in the knees and elbows than actual Transformers figures would have. I wouldn't call this a rip-off of any LEGO products since all in all it seems to be based on a more or less unique building system. Kind of disappointing that it's not being marketed under Kre-O branding or being made compatible with that brand. Then again, perhaps that's a part of some agreement with Oxford, the Korean building toy company that manufactures the Kre-O parts, to not include any non-Oxford products under that branding. Or alternatively, perhaps it's a marketing decision, with Hasbro feeling they'd get more of a reputation for quality by marketing it separately from their building toy brand, just as BIONICLE was initially marketed with little emphasis on its role as a LEGO product (the LEGO logo was even shoved to the bottom of the packaging rather than placed next to the theme logo as was typical among LEGO themes). This probably belongs in the Community subforum, since it's about a non-LEGO brand, but I guess that's up to the mods' discretion since this has the most applicability to the action figures community.

Personally, I have only bought one Friends set, for the hair piece. I swapped it out with the hair piece that came on the wedding table topper for a cousin's wedding. But overall my impression of LEGO Friends is overwhelmingly positive. The idea of a girl-oriented theme has never really been a disappointment to me, since I've never had a problem with that idea. As a kid, I played with Paradisa sets along with my City sets, and even if I was always SUPPOSEDLY buying them for my mom, they inevitably ended up with the rest of the sets and parts in my collection. Plus, I was well-aware of how imbalanced the gender ratios of the LEGO fan community were, and perfectly understood that it would take more than more balanced gender ratios in the sets and advertising to balance that out. There are a lot of parents and gift-givers who immediately assume building toys are "for boys" and who won't shop for girls outside the "pink aisle". Even one of my friends from school who thought the idea of girls needing their own theme was silly admitted that she hadn't played with much LEGO growing up because her parents wouldn't buy it for her. The idea that toys had to be "gender-neutral" was laughable to me as a member of the BIONICLE fan community. BIONICLE was always a heavily boy-oriented theme, like the majority of LEGO offerings, and yet there were plenty of girls who found a lot to enjoy in it. I'm still good friends with some of them. So I wasn't under the illusion that a product had to be marketed towards boys and girls equally to have redeeming value both genders could appreciate. I was, however, fully aware of the advantages gender-oriented marketing could have. In elementary school, I was well-aware that gender roles were quite rigid for many kids. A typical recess activity was for the boys to chase the girls around the yard, and despite that I'd rather have been on the girls' team than on the side of those nasty aggressors, all that did was make me a social outcast during these activities. For a boy, being "girly" was a crime, for a girl, you weren't necessarily shunned for being a "tomboy" but there was still a sort of a stigma evident in the word itself, as though you were going against your station. Thus I understood the articles I read about the development of LEGO Friends, in which LEGO employees discussed the way boys and girls sought out gendered interests about when they grew out of the Duplo age range, and that kids didn't care whether nature or nurture was pushing them towards particular play patterns-- they simply embraced gendered play at around the same time as their peers. I was also aware that past girl-oriented themes had been woefully ineffective. Building Paradisa sets on LDD revealed to me how drab their color schemes were, and how bare-bones the building tended to be. Belville had never had much appeal to me, nor had any "dollhouse theme", and I was aware that the sets were not hugely successful-- no toy store I had ever been in had a strong selection of Belville sets. Clikits was an innovative concept, extending the idea of building further towards craft, but was no substitute for the creative opportunity of classic LEGO bricks. LEGO Friends arriving at around the same time as I became aware of the gender-defying "brony" phenomenon (and inevitably "joined the herd" myself) gave me another sort of insight into the theme. Reading interviews with the creator of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Lauren Faust, I couldn't help connecting LEGO Friends with her insistence that "for girls" shouldn't be taken as an insult. Clearly, something in a visually-pleasing pastel color scheme could be just as valid as a LEGO City set or superhero comic book full of bold primary colors, and a story focused on traditionally feminine values like beauty and friendship could be just as engaging as one focused on conflict or even friendship's more "manly" moniker, teamwork. Now, my predictions when LEGO Friends emerged have thankfully mostly been met, or at least there have been signs that the theme is moving in that direction. This year's sets don't limit themselves to traditionally girl-oriented interests, with sets based on sports and martial arts. We haven't yet seen any more male characters, but some of Astrid Graabaek and Fenella Holden's comments at Brickfair lead be to believe we won't be waiting in vain. What we still haven't seen is the expansion of the LEGO product spectrum to include more diverse subject matter for girls. I'd love to see sci-fi or fantasy themes that target girls in particular, or target girls and boys equally. I'd definitely like to see the "constraction" (buildable action figure) lineup introduce girl-oriented offerings. But this is a slow progress and I'm just going to enjoy LEGO Friends's runaway success and hope it leads to even greater innovation. Incidentally, at BrickFair, Astrid and Fenella showed off some Friends figure design concepts in a slide show, one of which had swivelling hands. The reason it wasn't maintained was that it made the arms seem bulky, as if all the figures were wearing thick sleeves. Kind of a shame that the posability is weaker in this regard, but as you say it's understandable. What disappointed me more about the figs, personally, was that despite their reduced leg posability, they didn't do what could have made up for this most effectively: a swivelling waist.

Neat little polybag. Reminds me a bit of the drones from "The Enemy Within" and "Ordeal of Fire", though it's hard to tell if this is meant as an autonomous robot or just a weapon for your heroes. I wish there were more small Hero Factory sets, preferably even a few that use the ball-and-socket building system to make tiny little critters. Easy. A little bit of humor deliberately breaks up the terrifying moment so kids aren't as likely to have nightmares. Truly these transformation sequences are some of the most terrifying things I've ever seen TLG do in any of their promotional media. While the BIONICLE story had a lot of creepy details, rarely were they presented visually in a way that was so unnerving. The pre-mutation creatures are quite neat-looking. Again, I wish Hero Factory had more non-hostile critters like BIONICLE did in the early years, but alas, I can perfectly understand why those wouldn't be as popular as heroes and villains. Still, they do once again show how much cooler Scarox could have been if he weren't humanoid.

I'm not going to make any assumptions, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the buildable figures in that video were preliminary. First of all, that video is filled with preliminary content-- the transition into the buildable figures section of the video even shows like a dozen preliminary minifigures. Second, the quality of the models and parts doesn't look quite as finished as in the catalog scan we've seen. Of course, it's possible than these are finalized, and if so I'm a bit disappointed. Laval's sword has mismatched colors, which reduces an individual set's versatility IMO, and his feet are just boring Hero Factory feet. Even if his feet in the other pic we've seen (and truly, in an even more preliminary model from earlier in the video) were unrefined, they were at least original.

Issue 2 of MLP:FiM was good. I loved Jim the cave troll and all the spiders. The numerous David Bowie references were nice as well-- subtle enough that they could be easily overlooked, but not so subtle that they weren't recognizable for what they are. Of course, this issue involved the Mane Six getting in a fight, which is never all that pleasant (who wants to see a bunch of characters they love not getting along?), but hopefully their spat will be resolved in the next issue.

The latest episode of MLP:FiM was entertaining for me, but I agree it could have been better.

I should comment on a few things. First, not sure what you mean by "add carpeting", since the first floor is already carpeted. That's the whole reason for the red baseplate. You could add floor mats like the Green Grocer's upper stories, but that would seem awfully redundant unless you switched out the baseplate. And carpeting the whole floor in tiles would make it seem like... well, tile. As for the staircase to the roof, while it seems a bit unnecessary and can be modded out by individual buyers, it is nevertheless VERY important to the set from a design perspective. Every modular building is designed so you can "duplicate" the second floor if you have the parts to do so. This means that the second floor must always have a stairwell leading up to either the roof or additional floors, depending on the builder's preference. This set is a prime candidate for this sort of expansion, since buyers may want their cinema to have more screens, just as many wanted their Grand Emporium to have more departments. On a side note, wouldn't it be great if this set's sticker sheet featured alternative movie screens, just as some Star Wars ships have had stickers for alternative nose art? It's not likely given how the movie screen was described in the designer video, but it would be yet another way to take advantage of this set's use of stickers.

Well, in the very least, the Season Two DVD and Blu-Ray sets have been announced for a US release on March 5. Some people might still want to wait for a "complete series" package since the first season and pilot aren't currently available on Blu-Ray, though you're right that the possible (I'd even go so far as to say probable) continuation of the series means that either a complete series DVD won't be happening this year or it will be marketed under a different name (like, say, "The Green Ninja Saga") rather than being marketed as the complete series.

Wow, this had already been one of my favorite sets from the new wave, but this review makes it appear even more appealing. I had expected the sword to be attached to the palm of the hand somehow, like the weapons of most Exo-Force battle machines. Instead, it's actually being held by that brilliant hand. Quite a pleasant surprise. One way I think this set could have been improved would have been to place either a turntable or a 2x2 jumper plate behind the 2x2 round plate on the blaster, so that it could rotate. I'm very fond of this set's use of Hero Factory elements. IMO, Hero Factory elements are way better-suited to System building than most BIONICLE parts were, since they share the smooth surfaces and uninterrupted fields of color typical of System parts and models. It's a shame they're not being used in System more often, but sets like this are a step in the right direction IMO.

I disagree. IMO, it's a quite fun gimmick that doesn't really harm his looks much at all. In exchange for a few gaps you get an arm with a quite sturdy, intuitive function. My main criticism of the function is the Technic construction on his back. It's a little more obtrusive than BIONICLE gear functions, since those were typically stowed securely within the build instead of simply affixec to the back. Of course, the brain slug's tail helps keep the Technic construction from being too distracting, and it helps that it's mostly in colors like dark stone grey and bright red which are already parts of his color scheme.

Scarox is probably my least favorite set this wave. His face is interesting (he's the only one of the villains to vary from just using the brain slug's eyes as his eyes, in that it splits the two red eyes into four), but I can't say I'm totally fond of it. And his short arms disappoint me. While I can see how they may have been meant to make him appear less humanoid, when coupled with his overly-humanoid torso and legs the end result just feels like a way of cutting corners on a typical humanoid build. His function, from what I've heard, is underwhelming, and while I can imagine how fearsome it would be to have him grab a Hero with two of his limbs and stab at them with the other two, it doesn't seem like it would be all that visually impressive. Overall, one of the main reasons I'm disappointed in this fellow is that he's the only villain in the lowest price point. In 2012, the $8.99 sets tended to be amazingly innovative-- for instance, Jawblade and Thornraxx broke from traditional humanoid build, Toxic Reapa had impressive custom torso armor, cool weapons, and a nice, top-heavy design, and XT4 showed that even in a world of robotic characters you could create an industrial robot with fearsome, unnatural-looking proportions. This year, this $9.99 set mostly ends up feeling like a boring, poorly-armored humanoid, and with so many well-armored humanoid villains to compete with in the middle price point, he's on a poor footing to begin with.

I dunno, I think these thighs are awfully Technic-looking, in that they feel like a bunch of beams and not like a solid upper leg. They're gappy from various angles, much like those of Fire Lord or Black Phantom, and not particularly streamlined. This isn't to say these thighs aren't good for this model, or that the thighs on typical Hero Factory titan sets are any better, but there are better solutions that I'm certain TLG can arrive at eventually.

Well, personally, I think his arm looks good from plenty of angles-- not just the side. Then again I'm not the sort of person who has ever been unable to tolerate hollow spaces on a build, whether in BIONICLE or Hero Factory. Meanwhile, I think you are incorrect that building his arm out of traditional beams would have prevented him from having that function. I'm fairly sure the function and a more posable arm could be reconciled-- however, it would probably push up the price point (he's already cutting some corners as it is to allow for the bulky arm in the first place), and furthermore hitting anything with his function would make the arm bend, so repeated strikes might not look as convincing. From a MOCist's perspective, though, it shouldn't be any difficulty-- just remove the liftarm and attach a ball joint element, then attach the arm beams to the ball joint. I seem to recall that this was a popular way of reconciling posability and gear functions in the BIONICLE fan community. I don't really see how his arm would look much less hollow if built with Hero Factory beams, though. There might be slightly fewer gaps (for instance, around the elbow), but those gaps really don't strike me as especially problematic. Overall, it's a bit of a tradeoff-- you can either have the appearance of sturdiness from HF beams, or actual sturdiness the Technic beam offers. Or, I suppose if you want to get really devious, you could use some friction joints to get the best of both worlds-- again, probably not something that could have been managed at this set's price point, but not impossible for MOCists to achieve.

You may be right about Speed Racer, but I highly doubt Prince of Persia was banking on being a one-wave theme, because I don't believe the movie was dead-set on being a stand-alone movie. I guarantee a big factor in licensing discussions with TLG is whether a movie is intended to promote an ongoing franchise or become a part of a new ongoing franchise. And Prince of Persia, from what I saw, seemed like the kind of thing that might have been intended as the start of a bigger series, if it had been successful in the box office. The same, I think, applies for The Lone Ranger. And that's why I doubt the theme is being presented as a one-wave theme right off the bat. If there are more movies, TLG will surely be keen on releasing more sets, unless of course the movie is successful but the sets flop.

Galidor was not a licensed theme, really. The franchise as a whole was created with the direct involvement of the LEGO Group-- the Danish cultural references, like the robot character Jens, the villain Gorm, or the main character's last name Bluetooth, attest to this.

This guy looks pretty nice in your review. He definitely has a lot of personality, and I love his head, claw, and weapon. The only thing I dislike is that the Super Heroes chest piece adds a lot of bulk to his shoulders which abruptly disappears at the joint. Another criticism I could name is that his lack of Dark Red parts makes the ones he has less useful for MOCing, but that could be remedied with more dark red parts in future sets, and it doesn't really hurt Pyrox's appearance. So I hesitate to call it a fault in this particular set, but rather in the palette of parts currently available.

Personally, I love Bruizer's function. Perhaps it would have been better if it had been attached to Hero Factory beams rather than a Technic beam, but I wouldn't call it ugly from any angle (and a HF-based arm might not have worked as well within his price point) Meanwhile, it gives him a delightful sort of asymmetry, with his right arm and shoulder looking tremendously heavy with a smaller left arm. The irregularity helps make him feel that much more "hewn from the rock". And I like the little dagger-- simple, but just sharp enough and cohesive enough to be convincing as a weapon. Overall, I feel like your revamp ruins some of this asymmetry with its bulky left shoulder and long left arm. But I do like how you enlarged some of the rocky texture from his right shoulder to give it an even more muscular look.

Personally, I wish you could have kept Bruizer's function while still giving him greater flexibility (for instance, having the construction on his back intact but having the arm mounted to it by a ball joint rather than a beam/liftarm. Bruizer's function is quite nice in my opinion and would be ideal if he could keep that while gaining greater articulation. I don't see how your changes to Scarox are much of an improvement at all. His proportions are still lacking, with short, spindly arms attached to a solid-looking body. The bizarre function is gone, but that does his appearance very little good from the front. Your modification to Pyrox is good. Nice, simple, and unobtrusive, adding to the set without taking away from it. It also feels fairly solid, unlike the constructions you've put on Scarox and Bruizer's backs which end up feeling like a blocky Technic construction despite mostly using Hero Factory elements.

Personally, I've warmed up to Bulk's new face. It would have more classic appeal if it had the mouth guard, but unfortunately that's probably not possible. And it still evokes his personality pretty well for me. I also like Breez's face-- it's nice to see a feminine helmet that doesn't eliminate the mouth. To be fair, though, I also liked the personality added by the mouths of the Toa Inika masks. "Got dark all of a sudden"? No, I don't think that would be sweet. I think that would be emotional discontinuity. If it's going to get dark, then it should do so gradually (not that "not being dark" is its problem). Thresher being a secret villain would be a terrible and implausible plot twist, and I'll explain why in a moment. That's still a very different case because both of those characters were villains when we met them-- the plot twist wasn't that they were now villains, but that they were once heroes. Here's where emotional discontinuity again comes into play. Everything we've ever seen of Thresher establishes him as a character with a strong moral code; a reliable leader; a character you can trust. Abruptly re-imagining him as a secret villain isn't character development so much as character derailment. Now, it's possible that he and the classified research firm where he works will have a role in the Brain Attack books. And if so, it will almost certainly be as a protagonist of some variety. He has been on a planet where they're researching psychic powers of some sort, which could be related to the brain invasion, but keep in mind that from what we've heard he's working security there-- not leading the research. LEGO Universe mode no longer exists, so that shouldn't be a factor at all. It was replaced with LDD Extended mode, which is unlocked on the newest version by default. The basic LDD mode is missing some more recent parts, including the Breakout torso shell, but LDD Extended mode does not have this problem. Hilarious! Nice to see some continuity-based humor in the show.

Just unpacked my Stormer XL from storage the other day, and yeah, it wasn't a problem. Haven't unpacked Breez yet, but I don't anticipate any issues with hers either.

Probably not; however, most other people who dislike it probably don't make many contributions to this discussion topic. I like the characters, though like any sets they're not flawless.

Well, true, but I don't think the trade-offs were totally a waste. The torso is very skeletal, but the flapping wings function and well-designed neck really stand out to me as good design decisions. If they had taken off the wings and tail, then sure, he could have been made less skeletal, but then he'd be little more than a fairly boring quadruped. On a side note, I think flexing the neck more realistically (the straight angle it's at in the test render causes the "neck joint" of the two torso elements to occupy the same space) would close up some of the gappiness. I agree that it would have been nice if at least some of Dragon Bolt's feet had been Toxic Reapa's remolded two-toed foot piece. Granted, I greatly prefer the Piraka foot in many applications (more versatile shape and connection points), but I couldn't help but notice that those big feet on that small torso have to be spread out a bit to look good (in the "test render", the inner toes of his rear feet are even occupying the same space). And besides, as you mentioned, it would be good to have a way of getting more of those remolded two-toed feet besides gambling on whether a Toxic Reapa set is from an earlier or later production run.

I don't see how it could cause a problem. Furno XL's bag is fairly large, after all, and I can imagine another large bagged set this year would use that same size. Now, what we don't know is how detailed he will be. After all, the show's animators already have a tendency to stick armor pieces where they really aren't in the sets (like on heroes' backs, etc). So his tail might be in fewer, longer segments, or might not have armor shells on every segment. Overall, though, he doesn't seem like he'd be extraordinarily big-- his torso is visibly quite small, after all. He may be a higher piece count and price point than Furno XL but I don't imagine he'd need larger packaging. On a side note, Dragon Bolt apparently has a function where you press down on part of his back to flap his wings. Quite nice.

I imagine that they go to Makuhero City in the same rocket ships that took the brains to the various worlds in the first place. I agree I will not be that impressed if all of these bizarre creatures are from the same planetoid as Makuhero City, though on the plus side maybe the Pyrox species could in a rather bizarre way help explain Stringer's egregious "cattle wrangling" comment from Savage Planet.

Well, we don't entirely know that they aren't, since they were created long before any of the events we've seen in the story except through flashbacks... but yeah, I imagine it's a matter of the people writing the description deciding to add a bit of flourish to the fact that the Stone Army came from underground, forgetting that there was a place properly called the Underworld in an earlier story year.