Aanchir

Ummmm... no. The only reason TLG is going to be releasing a Western theme is that Disney is releasing a high-profile western film that they have a great amount of confidence in, and they offered TLG a licensing agreement for sets based on that film. It's no different than the Prince of Persia theme in that regard. I have a feeling that the future of Western-themed LEGO products will probably depend greatly on the success of The Lone Ranger (both the film itself and the product line), since as others have pointed out, it's been decades since westerns have captivated kids' imaginations the way other genres like swashbucklers or swords and sorcery have. I imagine The Lone Ranger is aiming to revitalize the genre the same way that PotC did with pirate films. Granted, westerns haven't been as dead as pirate films were for many years, but those that have been prominent have rarely been intended as good family films. The Lone Ranger could change that if it proves successful. I doubt it because frankly it's preposterous to assume that the Cuusoo team has that kind of sway over TLG's decisions to produce sets than the fans do. For the record, Cuusoo is not an arm of TLG; it is a separate company that TLG turned to for crowdsourcing. Meanwhile, I'm struggling to find out when in the process this supposed corruption would have taken place. Are you suggesting that the votes for the BttF project were fabricated? If so, I reckon it's hopeless arguing with you since you're obviously in denial of how iconic and popular the BttF franchise is. On the other hand, are you suggesting that TLG went to extraordinary lengths to create a set that they would have otherwise dismissed as a poor business decision, just to butter up a single employee of their crowdsourcing service? Again, that seems utterly ludicrous considering TLG's business-minded approach to the Cuusoo platform. Even if there were bribes going on under the table, there's no way they could ever be big enough to justify creating a product that couldn't stand on its own two legs as a business case, especially since Cuusoo System will see no benefit from the passing of this particular project that they wouldn't have seen from passing any other project. Overall, I replied on the first page suggesting that the idea that TLG stole the idea of the Modular Western Town was the silliest response to the review results I had seen. It seems I spoke too soon. This crackpot conspiracy theory is definitely the most preposterous thing I've heard about these results... though I pray that someone doesn't turn up to one-up this theory by drawing even more deranged conclusions.

Really? Huh. I had thought I remembered reading something about the code in that set being comparable to the one in the LEGO City High-Speed Chase set and unlocking in-game content. Never mind, then; I must have been jumping to conclusions.

I loved Korra and found it extremely engaging. It was nice to see plot lines not explored in Avatar: The Last Airbender. And the series has the same compelling characterization, great music, and balanced humor (neither corny nor understated) as I enjoyed in A:TLA. Overall, I also think it's incredibly successful at establishing a sense of familiarity for fans of A:TLA without bogging itself down with continuity references like some similar franchise revivals. I greatly look forward to book two.

The PWR Armor rumor was probably created with bulky suits in mind, since it was almost certainly inspired by the LEGO Universe Ninjago armor concepts that never wound up getting released digitally, much less in sets. With that said, the name "PWR Armor" came from bogus episode descriptions for the most recent season of Ninjago on IMDB, so it's a bad idea to put any stock in that kind of rumor regardless of where the creator of the hoax got their ideas.

I don't see what's wrong with the price of Lennox's Lion Attack. It's 230 pieces for $25. Given the largish wheels and tires I'd say that seems more or less fair. I've never been a real believer in the magic 10¢ per piece ratio, especially since price-per-piece is a poor measure of value in many cases to begin with. But this is still less than 11 cents per piece/more than 9 pieces per dollar.

Well, only the 2007 lime sockets were extremely brittle, but the 2x7 double-sockets were brittle in several colors even as early as the Toa Inika. My twin brother's Toa Inika Hewkii and Toa Inika Kongu both suffered fracturing in these pieces.

Laval (the lion character) probably will look better if his legs are posed correctly... as it is, they're bent straight, which looks patently ridiculous. He's still got flaws, such as how that style of foot really fails to work well on digitigrade legs, since it seems to add an extra "heel", but I'd chalk most of his other problems up to bad posing.

I imagine the brain slugs are probably quite expensive to produce, given that they are extremely large (service.LEGO.com says 5x16x3) pieces co-injected from non-ABS materials (Didn't Front once mention that rubber parts are more expensive?). I wouldn't be surprised if those are partly to blame for the bare-bones designs of Pyrox and Scarox (although I'd say Pyrox got the better end of the deal out of those two). I don't expect Bruizer to have back armor either, though on the whole he's got a very sturdy-looking design so it shouldn't be as problematic in his case. Same goes for Ogrum, although his design cuts corners elsewhere (no fingers on his left hand).

At least some people have gotten outraged at Cuusoo over these latest review results and deleted their accounts. Perhaps supporters whose accounts have been deleted are no longer part of the support total? As for why TLG sticks to the "We're a kids' toy" angle, it's about brand image. Even connecting their brand with something parents and "moral guardians" will distrust will reflect badly on the company, regardless of who those products are aimed at. Just look at the controversy that erupted over LEGO Friends. Sure, girl-oriented toys are nothing new, but in the public eye they have a certain amount of prestige, and a controversial product can tarnish that no matter who it's aimed at. In other words, LEGO is perceived as a wholesome, constructive kids' toy, which is a big part of why they are so successful. And it's expecting too much of the general public to think that they can release something not aimed at kids and the public will understand. Just like violent video games are blamed for "corrupting" youth even though they're typically aimed at adults, controversial LEGO sets aimed at adults will be still be thought of as kids' toys. And that could be very bad for the company's brand image.

I've got a question: does anyone know the meanings of the characters on the "badges" the Ninja wear in their 2013 costumes? Kai Jay Cole Zane While we're on the subject, how about the characters on Sensei Wu's black kimono from the 2011 sets? Sensei Wu And finally, even though they're partially obscured by the gong and mallet, how about the ones here on the right side of the Temple of Light, or the red signature/seal on each dragon-patterned window pane?

It is. Likewise, there's hardly a single exhibit in a history museum showcasing something that was designed for being displayed in a history museum. Can we please stop using the "LEGO is for playing with" argument? The real issue with this is the artificial value these grading services try to attach to these products. Otherwise, it's really nobody's business to tell people what to do with their rare or collectible LEGO sets-- after all, I'm sure plenty of AFOLs have LEGO sets collecting dust on a shelf, which isn't the average set's intended purpose any more than than keeping the set MISB in any condition, regardless of whether the displayed set has been built/played with once.

No, that's by far the silliest reaction to this news I've heard. There is a western town in the Lone Ranger sets, yes. That has zilch to do with the Modular Western Town project; it just means that there's a western town in the Lone Ranger movie. (Gasp, what a surprise!) It is a shame that the Modular Western Town isn't going forward, but I can't say it doesn't make sense. Even if there's not a clause in the license agreement that prohibits conflicting products in the western genre (and we can't say for sure that there isn't), the fact is that the Lone Ranger theme is a significant gamble already given how long it's been since there's been a western theme, or for that matter, since westerns as a genre have been in their prime. TLG has every reason not to do something that will divide the theme's potential profits further, particularly when the Modular Western Town would inversely also see its profits suffer (which, since it would already have its audience limited significantly by its enormous size, could be incredibly costly). Looking forward to seeing how the DeLorean time machine set ends up looking, and also how the Cuusoo staff works to prevent long delays like this for future review periods.

Furno XL's not out yet; don't jinx us! Already he's got his empty crotch area, and there's no telling how incomplete other parts of his build might look from certain angles. Overall I like his design, but I can't say for sure whether it's better than Stormer XL.

We already know what the cards look like. See here. They're nice, though I've personally always had a preference for simple table-based cards like the Ninjago cards versus these kinds of graphically-intensive cards. In the very least this card layout means more space for character layout, rather than the Ninjago cards' unnecessary stat bars.

I think it's HILARIOUS that the same crowd who was complaining about how long these LEGO Cuusoo projects were in review is now suggesting TLG didn't go to enough lengths to make these projects happen. TLG is serious about Cuusoo projects, but not to the extent that because a project is popular, they're going to bend over backwards to make it happen. There are probably quite a lot of things "popular" among AFOLS that TLG has rejected time and time again without needing a platform like Cuusoo to bring it to their attention, because those things are simply infeasible. If LEGO fans are demoralized when only one in four Cuusoo projects to reach review passes, then that's their own fault for thinking of this as some sort of miracle engine and not as a filter through which AFOL ideas can potentially become products if they meet all the qualifications. I think Disney would be a bit peeved if TLG were to casually mention having acquired a license for a major western theme, since that would essentially be a sneaky way of getting around that clause in their contract. (What other major Western franchises are on the horizon?) The message I got from the Rifter's rejection was "Licensing Issue". Perhaps the creators of EVE Online were charging an inordinate amount for such a license. Whatever the case, what I got from their phrasing was "we and the rightsholders for the property couldn't come to a business agreement." It should not be ignored that the Zelda proposal was made by a customizer whose Zelda parts are perhaps their most popular items. Accepting the project without the parts that really made it so popular would run counter to the reason the project had such appeal in the first place. Also, "three minifigures" worth of specially-painted parts that will probably never be used again is a heavy burden. If there were licensing issues with the Zelda project, then the Cuusoo team would be rejecting all other Zelda projects currently up, just as they have done with past license-based rejections. So I see no reason to think that TLG isn't being earnest about rejecting a project more or less centered around new molds. That's your decision. Personally, I see Cuusoo as a mess as well, but it's a mess that has great potential if it can ever get sorted out. It's still in beta for obvious reasons, and the coordination behind the company behind the Cuusoo platform and TLG is probably a huge roadblock to overcome. If it's any consolation, I NEVER checked Cuusoo regularly (except when the My Little Pony project was up and the subject of great controversy), so perhaps that's part of why I'm not as let down by these results as others. Cuusoo, to me, is still an experiment in crowdsourcing, not something that I've ever been heavily invested in. In other words, I'm not watching because I want to see certain things happen-- I'm watching because I'm interested in simply seeing what happens and how the platform adapts to the many complications that turn up along the way. If it ends up collapsing like BIONICLE, LEGO Universe, and LEGO Design byME before it, then that's a shame, but in the very least the experiment will have been seen through to its end and will have hopefully provided TLG with insights they can later apply in other undertakings.

I would argue that there is something special about this set's skeleton-- it's perhaps the first example of a skeleton in a set being constructed with the Fantasy Era skeleton body and Ninjago skeleton arms. I wholeheartedly approve of this decision-- I'm a huge fan of this combination of parts, since it offers all the stability and classic appeal of the Fantasy Era skeleton torso, yet with the proportions of the Ninjago skeleton arms which end up more "minifigure-like" than the awful battle droid arms used with this torso in Fantasy-Era Castle and more proportionate to boot! This isn't to say I dislike the old wobbly-armed skeletons, but if we're going to use a skeleton with a more stable arm connection then this is by far the one to use. Great photos and review. Love the lighting you used and the scenes you created. They really demonstrate what a great set this is in terms of atmosphere.

Personally, I have no problem with the size of the brain slugs, other than that their size may be a factor in Scarox being such an awful, bare-bones set otherwise. I like the fact that rather than simply being "collectibles" connected with the villains/monsters of this year's sets, the brain slugs can seem like fearsome monsters in their own right. This isn't to say that the brain slugs couldn't have worked, but they wouldn't have been quite as scary IMO.

Agreed. Not sure whether Hollywood or TLG is to blame for the lack of dark-skinned female figs in licensed themes, but either way it's an omission that screams to be corrected.

Good question. I think part of it might be a matter of AFOLs appreciating more diverse detail in general than kids of either gender, though. Kids will look at a set for something that grabs their interest and decide immediately that it's a good set. AFOLs, on the other hand, have more discerning tastes, and want their sets to be well-rounded. AFOLs don't tend to be too happy about the somewhat bare-bones sets of LEGO City, but likewise I've seen AFOLs express criticism of many of the smaller LEGO Friends sets, which have enough furniture to fill a space but no walls or floor to define that space. And AFOLs go even further a lot of the time by preferring that spaces be fully enclosed, so that they look complete both inside and out from all angles. While obviously Belville did hold true to some of the findings of the market research, I think that's merely a measure of how conventional wisdom regarding girls' toys had gotten some things right simply through decades of trial and error. Belville, like the Homemaker sets of decades past, was a "dollhouse" theme, because it didn't take any kind of research to tell that dollhouses were popular among young girls. As such, some things like the emphasis on creating harmonious, well-furnished spaces and on creating figures girls could identify with on a personal level came naturally. I think what the market research for LEGO Friends sought to find was what it was about these taken-for-granted tenets that really made girls like this type of play, and how this could be applied to LEGO without diluting the building experience or brand image. In other words it was trying to find a way to create a toy that kids and gift-givers would recognize as "for girls" while still being unrepentantly a building toy in line with the LEGO brand image. LEGO's research that began four years in advance didn't consist of "market research experiments" like Vexorian suggested above. It was anthropological (i.e. non-experimental) research, observing how girls played when left to their own devices. And what it showed was that whether by nature or nurture, girls began to express distinctive play patterns in early childhood. As such, LEGO Friends was based on these play patterns. This isn't to say focus group testing and other traditional market research techniques weren't used, but those came later, and it's probably those that inspired some of the more "stereotypical" aspects of the Friends theme (such as the color palette, which reassured girls and parents of girls that the toy was "for them").

I think people are overestimating the certainty of Modular Western Town's appeal... there hasn't been a Western theme in over a decade, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a good reason for that. I haven't known kids to be extremely excited about cowboys and other hallmarks of the western genre in years, and I'm sure that's even more the case in countries other than America where those gritty American values that westerns typically promote might not be seen through the same rose-colored glasses. When was the last film in the western genre that was heavily marketed toward kids? Not in a long time, right? Toy Story 2 even made the declining appeal of the western genre a plot point. The Lone Ranger seems like it might be aiming to revitalize that genre, just as Pirates of the Caribbean did for the long-suffering swashbuckling pirate genre. But until it proves successful at that, any western-themed LEGO product is a gamble. And without knowledge of how well the Lone Ranger will perform, TLG rightly won't want to divide its sales any further than the number of sets they've decided the license can support. "If so, they could at least tell us..." No, they couldn't. They already got in trouble with Disney for accidentally revealing the teaser site ahead of time. The fact is, Disney presumably hasn't given TLG permission to disclose the very existence of a Lone Ranger theme yet. When they have, we'll see a press release. People keep assuming the Lone Ranger theme is planned for the short term. While its chances of a long lifespan are completely up in the air, there's no reason to think that TLG won't have any incentive to keep re-stocking sets if it turns out that the film and product line are successful. In the meantime, the Modular Western Town project was never quite in line with the Cuusoo platform in the first place, since it was proposing a product line rather than focusing on one central product. There's nothing stopping the project creator from creating a proposal for an individual building in the future, especially if The Lone Ranger sets prove successful and show that yes, there's a market for western sets worldwide. There's also no reason to think the LEGO Cuusoo team is delaying the process deliberately. If they could make it go faster, I'm sure they would. But frankly, there's a lot of coordination that probably has to go into this. Hopefully they are working on a means of streamlining the review process at this very moment, but in the meantime there are a lot of factors the LEGO Cuusoo team has to deal with in the review process and even eliminating a few of them would still leave a convoluted process for things to get through. Overall, I'm more or less satisfied with these review results. They may not be pretty, but TLG has been able to offer a clear and sensible justification for their decisions, and none of the rejected proposals besides the EVE Online proposal (which I haven't seen any tears shed for yet) were rejected for reasons that will require blanket rejection of future projects. The future of Cuusoo is probably going to be messy for at least a while longer, but as far as I'm concerned the promise and integrity of the platform are still intact.

That's more or less a fan-term. The actual boxes for the sets just identify them as Kai, Zane, Jay, and Cole. I suppose there's no longer a need for special designations now that the figures are no longer packaged individually as spinner sets or booster packs. It's complicated by the character encyclopedia, which calls Lloyd's new costume "Green Ninja ZX" and his ZX costume just "Green Ninja". I suppose all things considered, "Kimono" is as good a designation as any in lieu of a more official term. Better than PWR at any rate...

I don't have much time to go over this silly comment in-depth, so let me just give you the short response: You're wrong. Astrid Graabaek and Fenella Holden, two designers for LEGO Friends, spoke about the theme at length during this year's BrickFair, and they described the years of research that went into the theme as invaluable. Perhaps it'd make you happy to imagine that the world is shaped around your personal beliefs, but that's not true. Whether by nature or nurture, boys and girls tend to have different ways of thinking, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. For the record, the market research that went into LEGO Friends NEVER suggested that girls didn't want construction at all-- however, it did make it clear that they wanted something different out of it than boys did. The Businessweek article perhaps exaggerates the findings, but more or less how Astrid and Fenella described it was that boys like to see a structure go together, girls like to see a scene go together. Thus, LEGO Friends construction focuses on creating harmonious spaces. Just as a point of reference, compare the typical heavily-furnished Friends set with the bare-bones buildings typical of LEGO City. For the boys LEGO City targets, the structure is the focus; for the girls LEGO Friends targets, it's the space and how it is furnished. Additionally, there was no part of the research that suggested that girls didn't like role-play, either. Girls just preferred to role-play in different ways. Rather than just role-playing as a way of telling stories with made-up characters, girls made their own personalities a big part of their role-play. This is why it was important for LEGO Friends figures to be characters girls could easily identify with, rather than heavily abstracted characters like the traditional minifigure. To be honest, it's sad how high a pedestal you tend to put yourself on compared to the great minds at TLG, who have real research backing up many of their decisions instead of just their own ramblings. It seems like any time you post something about TLG, it's about what bad moves they've been making... as if somehow, you feel "enlightened" enough to know the best path for them better than they do.

The heroic human faction of the Fantasy-Era (2007-2009) LEGO Castle sets.

The thing is, if LEGO were to do that, it wouldn't be revisiting an old idea at all-- it would be a brand-new idea, since the parts tubs in BIONICLE existed chiefly to get rid of overstock parts, which is exactly the opposite of what molding a bunch of new parts for such a tub would achieve. Granted, it could possibly be done, but it's extremely unlikely unless all the re-molded parts were released for earlier sets.

There's a difference between having a theme whose name resembles a real-world culture completely by coincidence and having a theme that stereotypes a wide range of cultures with names taken directly from those cultures' languages (or at least, from a root language from which those cultures' languages are derived). For the record, there are lots of meanings of "Chima" in the real world; it's a pretty common combination of letters. I don't think any culture whose language has a word spelled that way could claim that a toy line about talking animals is exploiting their language and culture. Not so with a toy line using Polynesian names and terms with relevant meanings in a clearly Polynesian-inspired setting. Nah, the Brain Attack sets are still pretty clearly science-fantasy, just as the theme has always been. Mind-controlling brain slugs are, after all, a plot device straight out of science-fiction B movies. Saying it's a different theme for shifting slightly in the fantasy direction is like saying BIONICLE became a different theme because it shifted gradually in the sci-fi direction. At fan conventions in the United States, wasn't DeeVee clear about that? No, it's not. Please try to pay attention. DeeVee is basing his statements on things TLG has actually publicly stated. Nobody ever claimed it was a game-changer. Something doesn't have to be exceptional to be successful. 1) The latest wave being mediocre is entirely a matter of opinion. IMO, it's not quite as good as the Breakout wave, but there's a huge difference between "not as good as my favorite wave" and "terrible". 2) The Hero Factory sets this year don't seem to use Chima's aesthetic at all, besides the ones that share parts with Chima. The others have a slightly more fantasy-inspired aesthetic than past waves, but they are more element-inspired than animal-inspired, unlike any of the Chima sets and characters. This is like arguing that the Breakout series was the last HF series because they shared parts and aesthetics with that year's Super Heroes constraction sets. 3) Part of the point of creating Hero Factory was to create something that wouldn't be crippled by a lengthy lifespan the way BIONICLE was. From the beginning the theme was touted as "more flexible", by which it was referring not to the building system (which was still BIONICLE-level at best) but rather to the fact that it wouldn't pile constraints onto itself year after year. 4) Apparently you made this post before seeing the teaser video which debuted this week, which shows scenes from this year's Hero Factory episode including some obvious future sets. I won't place any bets against you, because frankly I've seen nothing strongly suggesting that Hero Factory will be continuing in 2014. It would be silly to even expect any strong hints of that a full year in advance, except in cases like Ninjago where it's a matter of damage control. However, I don't think any of your "evidence" really amounts to much in the grand scheme of things.