Aanchir

Wow! When I saw the Black Pearl from the video game on the LEGO website, I wasn't sure it would be possible to build from actual bricks. And while I don't own the video game myself for cross-referencing purposes, it seems I shouldn't have been so skeptical-- that is an excellent rendition, and with a reasonable piece count as well! Incidentally, how many of the parts for it exist in real life, and how many do not? I know the crate pieces (which make great detail) don't at this time exist in Dark Orange, but I'm sure another color could be a decent substitute for that if it's the only issue. Not having the game myself, I'm in no fit state to do a full color correction, and even if I had the game colors would probably have to rely on guesswork. However, I can spot a few things you might prefer to change if you want the minifigures to match those in the sets. Specifically, Jack Sparrow's pants in the sets are Reddish Brown and his coat is Dark Brown. Then again, you use yellow faces for all the figs, so perhaps these changes were just stylistic decisions. Because of my limited knowledge of the game, as far as I'm concerned, this model is flawless. I look forward to somebody attempting to build it in real life! On a side note, its size makes me feel the need to ask: does the video game also have a larger version of the QAR, since those two are supposed to be about the same size? If you made that on LDD I'd probably be equally impressed.

I doubt it. Now that they know there was an issue, they'll probably be very understanding-- even more so than early on when the issue was occurring, since at that point some customer service representatives didn't even seem to know the parts had been produced in colors other than Warm Gold. It's not like customer service would be foolish enough to assume that all sets on store shelves will be from the most recent production run of those sets. In other words, you should be perfectly OK asking for replacement parts if it turns out you got the wrong ones.

But the difference is that kids at that age, at least in the U.S, all tend to learn what the jobs of emergency personnel consist of (with the possible exception of EMTs, since medical stuff is a lot more complicated to understand at that age). Whereas a kid whose parents aren't teachers, shopkeepers, and factory workers might not know much about what makes those jobs interesting-- many would probably find them boring. I agree a little diversity might be great, and to an extent with the vehicle sets next year we get some of that diversity. In the past few years there has also been a decent amount of variety in buildings. But it's not totally clear whether some of those more mundane jobs could sell well enough to support an entire subtheme, let alone a set within a high price range.

Just asking, what do you mean by "the flow in Ordeal of Fire"? Most of the criticisms I've seen (and some of my own criticisms) involve the pacing in that episode being too bad for it to even have a flow. I'm a bit less critical of it now that I've seen Savage Planet, which I consider far, far worse in terms of pacing (instead of cramming things together too close it drags out the banter-filled action scenes until they become painful to watch). But as far as Breez's character not fitting with the flow, that's probably because like most things in that episode, all of her scenes were super-duper-concentrated into short snippets. I loved Wall-E...

Well, Police is a long-standing staple of LEGO City. Personally, I like the recent trend of having crooks in most police sets so they have crimes to fight. Looking at older LEGO Town sets, sometimes there weren't any crooks except in the jail of the police station sets. All in all, I get the opposite impression from the number of Police sets-- that LEGO City is a safe place to be, where crime happens but is taken care of swiftly. And besides, kids want exciting things to act out. Firefighters and police officers are extremely exciting at that age-- much more than a "Starbucks" or "Corporate Office Building" set would be. Real-world cities can be quite mundane to a kid who doesn't understand their economic, social, and cultural significance.

True that. Looking at it from a sales perspective, perhaps Breez's feminism makes some degree of sense. After all, boys within the target age range are going to have a bias against girl characters. For kids who don't follow the story, it's not made totally obvious by the set design that Breez is a girl. By giving her this sort of personality in the story, she maintains sales with people who don't mind girl characters, while still making an effort to remind less open-minded boys that this is a cool, capable character who can stand up for herself. It's not just an effort to break free of in-universe stereotypes, but also an effort to break free of the stereotypes the theme's audience tends to have about female characters. Not to say I think her feminism is over the top. Really most of her lines seem more like she's trying to stand up for herself than to stand up for her gender as a whole. And her expectation of others to stereotype her based on her gender seems pretty justified based on Hero Factory FM, which establishes that in-universe stereotyping of female heroes is frequent (not to mention gives us the particularly awful example of gender stereotyping by Tibor Terrell).

Looks kind of like Cool Yellow, yeah, or maybe Light Yellow. Of course, that's assuming the makers of the mini-movies and TV episodes choose to use or are obligated to use existing LEGO colors.

Not sure how much I like that SNOT. Why not use this? Then again, the wings would probably interfere with the hinges being able to open to remove or insert an astromech. So I guess it wouldn't be too practical in the real thing. I agree there are probably ways that an astromech could be put in facing forward, although I don't consider it a huge issue. And there are probably factors involving ease of building or stability during the building process that led designers to take the "easy way out".

She was kind of like that even before OoF; she was just such a terribly minor character in RotR that it wasn't evident. I consider the poor characterization of minor characters in RotR (read: anyone but Stormer, Furno, and the villains) one of the biggest flaws in those episodes, besides of course the incomplete-feeling explanation for Von Ness's desire for revenge. In one of the Hero Factory FM episodes (sorry; haven't gotten that far in transcribing them) she makes it abundantly clear that she just considers herself a hero like any other and is insulted when other people don't do the same. Just a few episodes later she outright objects to her portrayal in Tibor Terrell's "Hero Factory: The Musical", where she is depicted as a love interest to Furno. She emphasizes she has no interest in romance, particularly not with her teammates, and she is just concerned with doing her job as a hero. Anything else comes second. So her portrayal in OoF wasn't the least bit out-of-the-blue, and I think her lines in that were extremely memorable. In OoF, there weren't even any really obvious shades of the "not interested in romance" aspect you mention. She objects to Drilldozer calling her and Furno "lovebirds," but Furno objects just as loudly. The precedent for her not being interested in romance at all is from Hero Factory FM, where the issue came up in a similar way-- a character trying to "ship" her with Furno.

Me, I like Breez's personality. But if a villain character had the same personality I agree it would be tiresome. At the same time, I would want a female villain to be at least a bit progressive-- not some alluring seductress-type like Roodaka or a dedicated and obedient pawn like Gorast. In other words, I'd want her to have a sort of role (mad scientist, cat burglar, crime lord, or whatever) that could just as easily be given to a male character. The implication that female villains can only wield power by manipulating or serving the men around them is more than a bit outdated, and I don't think it would suit the Hero Factory universe at all. This isn't to say I didn't like BIONICLE's female villains, of course. But it would be nice if female villains in Hero Factory could become a circumstance rather than a novelty. A few more female heroes to create a wider range of personalities wouldn't hurt, either.

Nope, it's RefriedBeans's post, three posts above yours. But I guess the walls of text in the posts immediately before and after it kind of run together and overwhelm that announcement. Curse that guy who keeps posting big walls of text!

1. Don't understand your question. Do you mean the LEGO brand has less variety overall? I guess in some ways it does-- after all, 2004 had the "Baby", "Quatro", and "Clikits" brands targeting certain demographics. None of these themes really has a modern-day analogue, even though as of next year we will have a theme taking the place of Belville as a girl-oriented role-play theme with figures. Other than these themes, most of today's sets have the same Technic-System balance as in 2004. 2. Simplified in brick and build amount? Hardly. There might be some sets that are simpler, but there hasn't been a consistent trend. As an example, this year's Knight Bus set from the Harry Potter theme has 257 pieces, compared to the previous one's 243. Price per piece has probably gone up as a result of inflation and rising steel prices, but the change has been pretty small from what I've seen. 3. According to Brickset, 2004 had 348 sets across 29 themes. 2011 has 493 sets across 33 themes. While arguably some of Brickset's "themes" and "sets" are more like promotional items (for instance, the Monthly Mini Model Build items), and the amount of "gear" has nearly doubled since 2004. But I still think it's jumping to conclusions in thinking there's a smaller range of themes or sets. 4. Less "cool"? I, for one, would disagree. Granted, 2004 had some excellent sets. But I definitely think Ninjago and Atlantis are cooler than Knights' Kingdom II (a theme I loved, by the way) and the third iteration of Alpha Team. Some licensed themes in 2004 were very cool, like the Harry Potter sets, but others like the Spider Man sets pale in comparison to this year's Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean themes. 2011 City sets aren't outright "cooler" than 2004 World City sets, but I'd argue that they're better-designed. 5. Less interesting pieces is another one where I can flat-out disagree. Many of the parts current in 2004 are still current today. BIONICLE parts in 2004 didn't tend to be as interesting as this year's Hero Factory building system, at least from my perspective. Same with today's Technic panels versus the more limited-use ones current in 2004. Overall most of these aren't just nostalgia, but rather just instances of differing perspectives. I personally feel TLG has improved in many of these respects since 2004. Others might disagree, and argue that pre-2004 sets or parts are "cooler" than the ones we have today. Quality is often subjective like that.

Already mentioned like ten days ago. But still, thanks for the link. Just a hint for people frustrated with the weird defects in the video-- you can see higher quality versions at JoinTheWu's YouTube channel. As far as I can tell, this is the official LEGO Ninjago YouTube channel, at least for the US. On a side note (and I might be even more late to the party with this one) the Papercutz Ninjago site is up. Papercutz is the company that publishes the BIONICLE and Ninjago graphic novels. The site is pretty boring, but there's a five-page preview of the first Ninjago graphic novel. I still have yet to see these in stores, but I'm interested to see how they turn out in terms of storytelling. Working hard on my review of those three Ninjago books. It's been a long time since I've written a review, and I'm kind of having to wing it since I couldn't find any other book reviews here on Eurobricks.

Nope, not at all. The reason the sets so far have been Japan-exclusive is because the site itself was, at the time of the voting, Japan-exclusive. Open beta for other countries just recently began, so presumably anything that gets through the new Cuusoo site will be designed for worldwide release.

Could you change those "img" tags to "url" tags? Eurobricks doesn't allow embedding of images with a "Confidential" watermark on them. Anyway, this image was mentioned a while back (there was a larger version on Flickr very briefly) and is our main source of info for many of the Series 6 figs. Some figs that "escaped" the LEGO production facility in China have been seen in actual photos even before this image emerged, but as of yet I believe this image and variations on it are the only places the flamenco dancer, pajama guy, nurse, toy robot, and Roman soldier have been seen.

For buying bulk parts, sometimes the online Pick-A-Brick is useful. In this case, there are a number of Bricklink sellers offering large quantities 1x1 plates in white or red for cheaper than the online PAB price (5 cents apiece as opposed to 9 cents apiece). But if you ever need rarer and more specialized parts in bulk, the online PAB can often offer better overall prices than you would find on Bricklink. For this reason it's a good place to check if physical PAB walls don't offer the parts you need but Bricklink prices are too expensive. For example, 64727 in green (a useful piece for plants or grass at various scales) is available on the online Pick-A-Brick at 13 cents apiece, cheaper than any of the Bricklink lots currently for sale. Seeing as the part has appeared only in two sets in quantities of one or two, I imagine many of the Bricklink sellers got theirs on Pick-A-Brick and are charging higher prices hoping to score a profit with unwary customers! I understand this probably doesn't help with your current project, but perhaps it will prove useful to you in the future. I hope you can acquire the plates you need without too much difficulty! By the way, on a subject related to PAB walls, at what stores have Hero Factory parts been seen? I've been to the Potomac Mills store in Virginia and the King of Prussia Mall store in Pennsylvania without any success. I can't remember if we checked the Tyson's Corner store. I don't have any particular projects I'm working on that need those parts, but I had heard some PAB walls would be stocking Hero Factory parts starting this year and have been disappointed not to see any.

You do have a good point about the princess-- I had forgotten about her. So this does have far more new printed parts than the Imperial Flagship-- at least, if you don't count the sails. It's also slightly more than have been seen in many other D2C sets like Diagon Alley or the MMV. Signs that some of these prints might not be exclusive, or perhaps just signs that D2C sets are beginning to have more exclusive printed parts? I think more likely the situation is just that TLG didn't want to release too many new prints just for a D2C set and so used as many non-faction-specific prints from the Dragon Knights as possible on the falcon knight. Even if Kingdoms were going to introduce a new Falcon faction, it wouldn't make sense to introduce an unusually large number of new prints in this set and not save any for the summer wave. Something I've noticed a lot of mention of is how a D2C set like this tends to be a "swan song" for a theme. I think it's a bit unrealistic to call this sort of thing a trend. Imperial Flagship came out after the rest of the Pirates theme, but it's the only example I can think of right at the moment. Otherwise, MMV was a January 2009 set, before the three-set summer wave that introduced the Trolls' Mountain Fortress. Diagon Alley also was a January set that preceded a summer wave in the Harry Potter theme. D2C sets in the Star Wars theme have never indicated the end of that theme, for obvious reasons. So overall I think it's foolish to think themed D2C sets are "swan songs" for their theme-- all examples but one suggest otherwise. Now, this doesn't mean the set couldn't be the last set in the Kingdoms line. After all, the Imperial Flagship is still precedent for that sort of thing. But frankly, there's no reason to think that at this stage of the game. It's just leaping to conclusions based on one major disappointment.

Ehhhhh... I don't like when that word "failure" is thrown around. LEGO Batman lasted three years, which is a strong lifespan for a theme IMO. As I see it, this theme is starting out by following the same formula that LEGO Batman followed so successfully. Keep in mind that LEGO Spider-Man had more of a "scenes/story" emphasis over vehicles, and it only lasted two years. They were released at such different times that you can't really say one style of sets was inherently more successful, but that cuts both ways-- you could just as easily argue that TLG is avoiding the "failure" of LEGO Spider-Man (I use that word facetiously; I don't think that theme was a true failure, either). Personally, one of the things I liked about the LEGO Batman theme compared to many other licenses is somewhat tied with its emphasis on vehicle vs. vehicle combat. LEGO Batman was unusual among licensed themes at the time in that it didn't focus on depicting scenes or content from any one medium. Instead, it drew from various Batman media-- for instance, focusing more on evoking the spirit of a Batmobile than on replicating any particular version. The vehicle vs. vehicle pattern in sets isn't a necessary component of this, and in truth the only two Batman sets I personally got were the Batcave and Arkham Asylum (and I consider some of the Batcave's vehicles a bit superfluous). But at the same time, this largely prevented specific story-driven scenes from being depicted effectively. Fans of the whole Batman franchise can understand the characters and even the vehicles to some extent, but if the LEGO Batman theme had focused strictly on depicting scenes from the Christopher Nolan films, from Batman TV series of the time, or from the Batman comics, I would argue that the theme would have been a lot less successful and would have appealed to a much smaller audience. I do want to see more locations in the Super Heroes sets. But frankly, I couldn't name many extremely distinctive locations in any of the super hero franchises currently being promoted in these sets. In Batman specifically, vehicles and characters tend to be a lot more distinctive than locations. Even in Superman I can't say I'd find a Daily Planet set extremely exciting. So I think TLG's decision to use vehicles as the primary building components of the sets is actually quite intelligent, rather than a sign of them "running out of ideas".

I've tried looking for one myself, and haven't found anything. It's possible someone might have quoted it on BZPower, so when that gets back up we can check that out. On another note, has anyone purchased the Savage Planet/RotR co-pack from Wal-Mart? If so, what is the comic it says is included? Does it have unique cover art like the BIONICLE comic included with BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn?

Yesterday I made a trip out to Toys 'R' Us and picked up three Ninjago books: "Zane: Ninja of Ice", "Kai: Ninja of Fire", and "LEOG Ninjago Official Guide", all written by Greg Farshtey (author of the BIONICLE comics and most of the BIONICLE books) and published by Scholastic. Toys 'R' Us currently has a Buy One, Get One 50% off deal on all LEGO books, so now's a great time to check these out if you're interested. The Official Guide is exclusive to Toys 'R' Us, at least here in the US. It is written from Sensei Wu's perspective and has info on all the year one characters, dragons, and vehicles. There's a lot of info in it I haven't seen elsewhere. I plan to write a full review of these books, so I'll be sure to share some of the info it has. Notably, it suggests that the story has far more depth than the TV special revealed. In this book, Jay retrieved the Nunchuks of Lightning from a full city in the sky rather than just a tall floating pillar of stone, and each of the Ninjas tamed their dragon in a particular way that suited their personalities. There's a short story at the end that tells a longer version of how the Shurikens of Ice were retrieved, including a confrontation with the skeletons. It also has lots of great art, mostly from the trading card illustrations. It's not without errors, of course. For instance, Nuckal and Kruncha's information is almost completely reversed, with Kruncha described as comically inept and Nuckal described as a fierce fighter. This is probably a result of the book being written before the character names and roles were fully established-- a similar role-reversal occurred in various Hero Factory story materials this year, with the personalities of Nex and Evo switched in a lot of bios. The other two books are chapter books starting with a bio of the ninjas, followed by a short story, and finally leading into a multi-chapter adventure. None of the stories in the books are ones that already appeared in TV specials or mini-movies. Fans of BIONICLE will recognize hallmarks of Greg Farshtey's writing style including lots of trickery on the part of the villains. As I mentioned about the official guide, there's a lot of character depth here that hasn't been seen on the website or in the TV episodes, such as a mysterious backstory for Zane and a bit of a clearer perspective on Samukai's relationship with Garmadon. Hope to write a full review as soon as I get back to college and can get some photographs/scans of the covers and other parts of the books that I consider noteworthy (no big spoilers of course). It should also be noted that these are not the same books published in Polish by AMEET, although those books contain some of the same stories. I wonder if we can expect to see similar chapter books for Jay and Cole. I hope so; these books seemed childish at first but overall gave me a much deeper and intriguing perspective on the world of Ninjago.

You have failed to acknowledge one thing: the "Ultrabuild" figures that use the Hero Factory building system. These are also considered part of the Super Heroes theme, and I believe the Polish retailer's catalog leaked earlier said those were due out in January. So it's entirely possible for the Super Heroes theme to begin in January without either the DC or Marvel playsets appearing at that time. At the same time, another thing to consider is that themes can release at different times in different countries. The LEGO City Space sets mostly didn't show up in the U.S. until summer 2011, when they had already appeared in many other countries. Additionally, sets in the last wave of an "action theme" have been stretched across multiple waves here in the U.S. multiple times, even if they were all a part of the same wave elsewhere (examples include Atlantis and Power Miners). So a May release date in France does not confirm a May release date worldwide.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way! Personally, I love the dragon knights' role as a sort of a "barbarian faction". They're more established than the Bulls of KKI, but they give the impression of a much less established kingdom than the Lion Knights. At the same time, I agree, a larger Dragon Knight castle would be more than welcome.

I wouldn't get so excited about the Falcon Knight being evidence for Kingdoms returning. The Imperial Flagship has the exclusive Governor's Daughter fig, who similarly had two new decorations: a skirt and a blouse which together made a full gown. However, neither of these parts has been seen since that set in any theme. The only thing the Falcon Knight has that the governor's daughter didn't is one piece in a new color-- his black helmet. Not saying I believe Kingdoms is over for certain. But it's too early to say it's continuing for certain, either.

That's interesting. What is the PNG thumbnail ever even used for, then? Perhaps for if you upload an LXF to the DesignByMe gallery?

The only place Lloyd's hood has looked grey at all to me is the 3-D render of the minifigure on the booster pack, and that has the torso seemingly in grey too. It could just be a matter of black parts looking grey in the render-- it's a problem that definitely occurs in the 3-D renders on Service.LEGO.com, as dark stone grey printing on black parts in those renders is almost invisible. I don't see what you mean in saying that the hood looks grey in the illustration-- it looks black to me, although I agree with you that the illustration is probably the most reliably-finalized image at this point. If it were any less ambiguous in color than the other pics have been then we could easily have a consensus one way or the other. I'd say a black hood would be a more realistic expectation for the final sets because he's evil, and because his torso and hood pieces already exist in black. At this point, though, it could just be a matter of perception, and every image we've seen has been preliminary, so I'd argue it's futile to even discuss what color his hood will be. I'm sure sooner or later we'll see more finalized images that give us a more reliable idea what to expect. Personally, I'm more comfortable assuming the hood will be black, because that way I will either be correct or pleasantly surprised. I wouldn't want to begin anticipating a grey hood and then be let down if it turns out I was wrong.