Aanchir

There are about an hour's worth of tracks in MP3 format at http://jayvincentmusic.com/. How you go about downloading them probably depends on what browser you use; on Firefox you just have to go to the page for any of the tracks and click Tools>Page Info, then go to the "Media" tab and scroll down until you see the MP3 file, then click "Save As". It's a bit tedious getting all the tracks (the 5-minute suite can be skipped since it's just a compilation of the other 2011 music available there), but it makes for great listening.

Hard to say. Again, there are factors other than population density involved in whether a store location is optimal. Tax breaks and other incentives on the local law books are a factor, as is distribution cost (probably easier to place a store someplace that's already along a distribution route for other LEGO stores so Pick-A-Brick and other LEGO store items are less costly to keep in stock), the costs of land/retail space, the available locations (most LEGO stores I've encountered here in the U.S. are in indoor shopping malls), etc. Also, sometimes where a store gets placed has to do with what TLG knows about the location. If TLG already has a store somewhere in Massachusetts, they'll be better-equipped to judge whether the state can handle another LEGO store than in some place where they don't have another location. Even small chain stores and restaurants tend to spread out in this way-- once they have one location, they'll have more insight into what parts of the surrounding area will offer the highest demand. In contrast, building a store someplace far away from anywhere you've done business before is a BIG risk. Even with LEGO, there's the possibility that people will just continue to buy products at toy retail chains they are more familiar with, and thus a LEGO brand store will have difficulty competing. I'd love to see LEGO stores spread out more outside the United States. Not because I'd benefit from it directly, but because it would help TLG increase its global influence. However, I can understand why LEGO stores are slow to spread into areas they haven't been before.

We have no reason to think Spongebob Squarepants is going away any time soon. There are two sets just released this year, and Spongebob continues to be a merchandising behemoth just like Star Wars and other successful LEGO licenses. Really, the concept of your model is OK, but the design of it is lacking. While I appreciate the interior details, the model is inferior to official sets of the Krusty Krab in many ways, most notably in that it lacks the curved roof. Also, while its scale is accurate in some respects, it would dwarf any minifigure and is way larger than I would actually pay to own. These are among the reasons why TLG likely condensed the size of their official Krusty Krab sets so much compared to yours. A good set design balances accuracy with conciseness, while yours skews towards accuracy and thus becomes unnecessarily large. Just thought some constructive feedback could help you out in perhaps revising your proposal, but I can't guarantee I'd support it anyway. I love the Spongebob Squarepants line in concept, but it's not one I collect these days, and my family already has the original Krusty Krab set from 2006 which is all I'd really ask for in an official set.

Were there? I had forgotten. It still looks kind of out-of-place to me, but I guess that justifies their inclusion in the Frozen Wastelands section. That section of the Miniland is very stylistically different than the other more temperate/arid locations anyway, so I guess making the stuff match stylistically would have been a losing battle anyhow.

I dislike the "two pins" solution because it makes the MTIS stick up much higher than other solutions. It would work OK for some Heroes who you want to look bulky, but for female heroes like Breez or nimble-looking heroes like Surge, it doesn't really work IMO.

At this point, the sets would likely already be manufactured, so I doubt getting our input before the release would do them much good.

Perhaps they just felt it didn't fit in any of the "locations" they had selected. Or perhaps they wanted to stick to things people who hadn't seen the full season would be likely to recognize. Kind of does disappoint me that the icy region has "eskimo"-type inhabitants who have never been so much as hinted out in the Ninjago story. I understand that the Frozen Wasteland is... well... a wasteland, but the people and igloo there just don't feel like they fit in, which makes sense if they were just chosen as "filler". A section based on the Underworld might have been cooler in that corner of the Miniland.

Well, in the TV show they don't have an additional 2.0 torso on their back, it's just the one on their front wraps around, so it's as though they have one attached to their center ball joint from the front and the back at the same time. In real life this is not possible, and IMO adding one to the back using Stormer's new thingy makes them too massive. since it adds another module of thickness. Might work for some Heroes but it certainly wouldn't be my go-to standard for back armor. In the Breakout episode their torso armor is the Breakout torso shell wrapped around, again as though they have one attached to the front and back of the torso beam's center ball joint. They all have either a MTIS or some other part that obscures this, but it's quite visible on Speeda Demon in some scenes (even though he doesn't use the Breakout torso at all in his set). Stick the 33299 on the front of the torso beam, with the pin attached right above the center ball joint. Then stick the 6553 into the back of the torso beam, in the hole immediately above the one used for the pin. Finally attach the MTIS to the hole in the 6553. This leaves a small gap between the torso beam and the MTIS, but it looks better than no back armor at all. Here's some pics on LDD of my concept (above) and Gata's (below). They're both good-looking solutions, but Gata's is much bulkier.

So the Ninjago Miniland at LEGOLAND Deutschland is open! It's very neat. They captured a lot of great locations from the show, as well as vehicles and characters familiar from the sets, at a highly-detailed Miniland scale. Here's a I found of the Miniland. I can't wait until we start seeing photos of it on Flickr and other sites. But many details like the Destiny's Bounty are simply stunning.

Stormer already has back armor, in the form of a 2.0 torso shell. I haven't seen him from behind so can't say exactly how much coverage it offers, but it's better than nothing.

I dunno, the MTIS looked pretty great on Evo when I tried it out earlier. Also the two spikes it creates on the shoulders seem to continue the motif established with the spikes on the new torso shell's shoulders. I don't swear by the MTIS by any means-- the use of a 1.0 or 2.0 Hero foot like on Rocka or Breez is good enough back armor for me in many cases-- but I was suggesting it as an option for those who want the back covered up more but don't want to make the torso too thick or majorly change its silhouette from the front or back. A 2.0 torso shell would also be nice if attached by that piece Stormer XL uses, but it makes the back much thicker than an MTIS does.

I'd say some of the best music in the series made its debut in Episode 7 "Tick Tock". First we had the Falcon's brilliant theme music in full for the first time (a lighter, less epic version of it had played in Episode 2 "Home" when it first appeared). This is followed by Iron Man, a piece I don't have any special fondness for, but as Zane discovers his past we get the somber piece A Memoryu Switch (made all the more heartfelt by the visuals and voice acting during this scene) and finally the mind-blowingly epic Zane's True Potential. Very few main characters in the show have gotten really obvious theme music of their own. Pythor and the Serpentine have a sort of a theme music that tends to play during their scenes, Ed & Edna have their perky jingle (a slower, more tender version of which plays towards the end of the finale in the track Garmadon Bites Back), and Nya (as Samurai X) has a powerful theme which is perhaps at its most epic in Episode 6 "The Snake King" as part of the track The Main Event. Even the Falcon has a nice theme, as mentioned above. But I've had a hard time identifying any specific theme music for the four main characters, as the music in their scenes tends to be chosen based on the mood of the scene rather than based on what character it focuses on. Not sure if this is the question you were asking. If you wanted to know non-Ninjago songs that I felt suited the characters, I can't really think of any off the top of my head.

Honestly, while I'd have loved it if all this year's heroes had their backs filled in, it shouldn't be that hard to buy a few HF parts on Pick-A-Brick or Bricklink to fill in the back. For some of this year's heroes, a standard 2.0 hero foot like Rocka and Splitface use should do the trick. For others, a 1.0 foot can look even more stylish (even though this won't be available on Pick-A-Brick in most colors). And if you want something more complex, I've found it's extremely easy to make back armor using three pieces (92202, 6553, and 33299).

It could potentially be ABS, but it's sure not the formulation of it that LEGO uses.

You seem to be a total sucker for a lot of things. Have you considered the possibility that you might be a total sucker in general? j/k. I definitely am loving a lot of these sets, especially XT4, Stringer, and Nex. Voltix doesn't look bad in the official images, but I'm concerned that like at Toy Fair the blue color blended into his lightning pieces will make them match the other yellow parts on the set poorly. So mostly these images just re-affirm the opinions I had on the sets after seeing them at Toy Fair.

I think if TLG tries to introduce too many new Ninja characters, then a) they'll stop being special and will just begin to feel repetitive and b) they'll start having less and less space in the story to focus on either the new characters or the characters they already have. I'm very grateful that it seems Lloyd will continue to have a role in the story, rather than just being a one-and-done character like some of my friends were worried he'd be.

It's interesting to think about whether that could be done with the Star Wars Bucket proposal at this stage. Certainly the rules allow for project creators to modify their project, but how much can you change a proposal that's gotten a lot of support without risking that people's reasons for supporting the project would no longer be valid? I imagine if this ever becomes an issue we will see a rule change to make up for it, such as perhaps requiring Cuusoo staff approval before major changes can be made to a project.

I don't cross themes all that often, but occasionally certain themes inspire me to do so. For instance, a lot of the "bad guy" vehicles in Space Police III feel like real-world vehicles adapted into spacecraft, and its "future city" setting showed signs of similar inspiration. As such, my twin brother and I have created a few MOCs in real life and on LDD re-imagining civilian vehicles and settings from themes like LEGO City into space vehicles and settings.

I think the reason the Great Devourer is posed so he's rearing up like should be obvious: he's packaged with the Ultra Dragon, which is a flying adversary. Thus having him reared up like that makes the "battle" feel more evenly-matched than if he had to slither along the floor and/or nearby furniture. On a side note, there is another time when he was reared up: back when he was just a little snake and bit young Garmadon. One reason I like how he's reared up is that he looks roughly like a massive version of the "vipers" that come in various Ninjago sets this year. The shape of his face also helps with this. I'm not all that impressed with the Great Devourer myself, but it's less because of how he's reared up and more because the way his body is constructed he doesn't feel all that solid (especially around his "joints"-- if he's not going to be posable in those areas then there's no reason those parts of the body should look so hollow). As it is, the model's kind of cool, but nowhere near as cohesive or breathtaking as the five dragon models we've had between last year and this year. Once the set is out (or perhaps sooner?) I hope somebody creates a suitable revamp of the model that looks a bit more lifelike. I might even attempt one of my own. After all, I still intend to get Epic Dragon Battle even if the Great Devourer isn't as amazing as he perhaps could have been. The dragon is more than awesome enough to make up for that, and the little prison tower isn't too shabby either.

I think this year's Batcave set is more intended to capture a generic "comic book/cartoon" look than to resemble any specific media depiction of the Batcave.

They only do that when they have a good reason. Usually that reason comes in the form of "the theme is no longer making us as much money as we could be making on new product lines". We have seen nothing to suggest that the Minifigures theme has been anything but an outstanding success.

We don't know that the MLP project couldn't happen, since there's no known precedent for TLG attempting a partnership with Hasbro (as far as I know). It's possible that with some type of cross-licensing arrangement, an agreement could be reached. Meanwhile I think it's working out perfectly fine the way they're doing it now, only accepting or rejecting projects when they reach 10,000 supporters. Sure, it leads to disappointment, but I think it's better that the disappointment comes in the form of an official statement created after the project reaches its goal than in the form of projects disappearing from the "Discover" page without warning, so people might not realize until after-the-fact that the projects got denied. If TLG did decide that they would start denying projects before they reached the threshold, then I'd want them to make a consistent rule about it (i.e. we enter licensing discussions after ___ supporters and announce the results of those discussions, positive or negative, as soon as we get them). But in reality, it's possible TLG avoids licensing discussions until the threshold has been reached. They would have an understandable reason for it-- waiting gives them the largest possible cross-section of supporters so that during the discussions they could present the information about who supported the project and how much they would pay for the product.

I personally liked that figure's expressions. Sure, the actor portraying Anakin never made that expression, but minifigures are inherently somewhat cartoony, so it doesn't hurt to exaggerate their expressions beyond how the actors portray them. You could have a figure with a focused expression with just a stiff upper lip, but on a minifigure that wouldn't stand out too much from his default expression. Instead, we have him clenching his teeth in frustration. I can practically hear the frustration as he tries to get his podracer to start. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, WORK!"

The LEGO pens are definitely of far worse quality than any other LEGO parts, but yes, they are compatible.

I'm fine with most minifigure expressions as long as they're in line with the modern standards of black dot eyes with white sparkles. I even tolerate the existence of faces adhering to different standards, like Exo-Force faces or the faces of certain licensed themes (A:TLA and Star Wars: The Clone Wars), even if I don't tend to use those faces often. Needless to say I feel most of the collectible minifigures are very well-designed to fit the modern standard, and their range of expressions is excellent. What I don't like are minifigure faces that fail to adhere to any kind of standard at all. Certain Racers faces from the early 2000s fit the bill for this, as do the horrendous Indian faces (and some others) from the Western theme. There was simply no excuse for faces like this or this that look more like grotesque racial caricatures than like LEGO figures. Especially when we're expected to believe these kinds of faces coexist with traditional faces like this one.