Aanchir

Cute set, even though I don't think it's as stylish as this year's Speedboat set. The red-headed dude's torso is actually from Space Police III. Specifically, it was the torso of criminal Squidtron in last year's Smash 'n' Grab set. You can still see the white half-oval on the lower part of the torso, which is actually the top of the skull-shaped belt buckle most of the Space Police III criminals have printed on their torsos and legs. The torso was also used for wetsuits in this year's Marina. I asked Mark Stafford (nabii) about the red logo on the front and back, since I expected it to be from an old LEGO theme (an easter egg like so many references to past Space themes in Space Police III). It turns out that the logo was not designed as a reference to anything, so perhaps this was a deliberate decision so that it could be used more easily in City and other themes without standing out as a space-related reference. It certainly works for this year's City minifigures!

I think the reason TLG's numbering doesn't make sense is because keeping four digit numbers is (for now) the best option, and TLG has a lot of four-digit numbers they still haven't used. Frankly, why should TLG's numbering make "sense" beyond that? The important thing about TLG's numbers is that they make it easier to look up sets, and making five digits the standard would make the numbers harder to remember. Meanwhile, numbers for a specific theme during a specific year will usually be clumped together at least somewhat, so the numbers still make as much sense as they need to within the range of sets currently available in most stores. Beyond that, numbering rules aren't extremely important. There's absolutely no reason a Technic set today should follow the same numbering rules as a Technic set 20 years ago, or even 5 years ago. So I think it's perfectly reasonable to continue using up four-digit numbers, even if it means deviating from decades-old numbering schemes and inevitably adopting a five-digit numbering scheme when four-digit numbers cease to be an option.

Sometimes a TV series is only officially picked up for part of a season before being approved for a full season. Of course, I'm pretty sure the rest of the season has to be approved before the first part of the season has aired. As an example, Avatar: The Last Airbender was only picked up for 13 episodes initially-- shortly after production on those 13 episodes was completed, the creators were given the green light for another seven episodes to round out the first season. At least, if I'm remembering things correctly. Additionally, it should be noted that as with A:TLA, the LEGO.com press release about the series only mentioned 13 episodes. The fact that there are 16 listed (not including those which had already aired when the announcement was made) suggests that the series has been approved for a full season, and for whatever reason IMDB simply doesn't have information on any episodes later than the 16th.

I saw that in the Potomac Mills LEGO store. The new categories were toys and sports. Here's a photo on Flickr (found via Google search; obviously not mine).

Something I would like to point out: The fish you call "Pearl Dark Grey" is actually 315 Silver Metallic, a new color which Bricklink has taken to calling Flat Silver. It technically replaces 131 Silver, Bricklink's most recent Pearl Light Grey color, but it is darker than 131 Silver was so the confusion is understandable. The current version of Pearl Dark Grey, 316 Titanium Metallic, is darker even than past Pearl Dark Grey parts. It's mostly been seen in Kingdoms and Hero Factory. Anyway, are the minifigure parka and snow jacket in this set Bright Green (as opposed to regular green, a.k.a. 28 Dark Green)? If so, then the parka is almost certainly the same one as in the Winter Post Office, and is in fact much more desirable in this advent calendar set since it comes with a matching torso (rather than an unprinted grey one). Overall, while I much prefer the "family" theme of last year's Advent Calendar (with all the brickbuilt toys) to the much-more-specific "Police" theme of this year's, I have to say I love how cohesive this is, especially with the fold-out display area! The snowball catapult is a great sort of mischief for the criminals to be up to without being too distant from the Spirit of the Season, the police station is very nice and rustic, and there is plenty for all of the minifigures to do.

Presumably there will be a Design byME, Hero Recon Team, and Pick-A-Brick update in September. The individual parts will probably be available through DbM and PAB, while the combined elements themselves will probably be Hero Recon Team's way of incorporating them while keeping the build process simple. As for why the build process is kept so simple, my guess is to allow the instruction booklets to be produced more easily, and thus at a lower cost. Also, the simpler design process probably keeps them from having to incorporate more complicated rules deciding how many of each part you can use. Pick-A-Brick has a price for each individual element, and Design byME uses these prices, plus 25%, plus a flat $10 rate for the package as a whole. In contrast, Hero Recon Team has a flat rate of $12.99 for all purchases, and thus there are limitations on the build process to keep things within a certain price range.

Today there's a new video on the Ninjago website-- a mini-movie in the style of the TV episodes we've seen. Notably, this is the only one to include Wyplash, who was conspicuously absent from the other episodes. Additionally, we get to see some Jay/Nya ship tease, and we finally see Nya kicking some major butt. The video is marked "#1", so I'm guessing there's more of these videos in the weeks to come. It certainly boosts my enthusiasm for the full TV series, since this video maintains the storytelling and animation quality of the miniseries/movie that had aired previously. You know, I recognize the limitations of minifigure printing, but at the same time I think the Ninjago torsos would be awesome if as many of them had side printing, back printing, and top printing as do in the TV series. The DX ninjas look great with the dragon patterns continuing onto their sides, and Nya looks great with back printing. But at the same time, I guess these areas wouldn't be very visible on real figs anyway, given the enhanced posability of CGI minifigures.

Just wanted to point out that IMDB has a bit of info on the upcoming Ninjago TV series, including some of the voice actors and an episode list. See here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1871731/

Well, I believe the bios on the Hero Factory website said that Waspix could talk, so we knew that already. The rest is a surprise to me, though.

The prices have risen multiple times in multiple countries. I imagine part of the reason for this could be that prices for the first couple series were kept artificially low to test the actual demand for the figures. Once TLG recognized that there was a demand for these sets, they gradually increased prices until they reached the optimum profit-- high enough to make up the costs of production and distribution, but not too high to drive off the majority of consumers. I don't think it has anything to do with the Super Heroes project. I've absolutely never heard of prices being raised on one line to support another, completely unrelated line, and that sort of thing would be an extremely foolish business decision. If you're counting on a line being popular enough to be worth huge licensing costs, then you raise the prices on that line since you know it has the popularity to sustain it. And if it can't stay popular at the costs it takes to make a profit, then it's probably not worth the licensing costs to begin with. For reference, Series 1 and 2 minifigures were $1.99 in the US. Series 3 minifigures rose by a full dollar to $2.99 per minifigure.

Personally, I like the more lighthearted nature of some of today's Space themes. Older Space themes had some aspects that are hilarious in retrospect-- for instance, one M-Tron vehicle was a space helicopter (a Blacktron II vehicle also had some helicopter-like qualities that were lampshaded in some countries' names for the set), and the bubble-cockpits of Blacktron II feels so trite for invading spacemen, part of why I love those aspects of those themes. The spacecraft versions of regular modern vehicles in SPIII and the B-movie saucers with bubble-domes from Alien Conquest strike me as a continuation of this tradition. I grew up in the 90s, and the first space theme I collected considerably was probably Spyrius. Now, arguably, Spyrius took itself somewhat seriously, but consider that Spyrius had a bit of B-movie inspiration as well-- their fleet was mostly comprised of flying saucers and giant robots, they had a droid servant, and a lead villain who could have been plucked from Flash Gordon or Plan 9 from Outer Space. In some countries, there were amusing names for the sets and characters that seemed to be plucked straight from Cold War-era films that considered Russia the greatest evil possible. The minifigure pack of that era, containing Spyrius, Ice Planet 2002, and Unitron minifigures, was called Commander Bear and the Spyrians-- something I think would make a great B-movie title. Fast-forward to the UFO theme, a theme which was humorous in magazine features (the commander was terrified of his own hideous face) but which took itself way too seriously in terms of set design. The minifigures had a downright excessive level of detail, compared to the simpler cartoony aliens of recent themes who feel far more consistent with human minifigure designs. In fact, this overblown detail was common to almost all of the theme's printed parts. The droids had none of the adorable qualities of droids in Spyrius and Exploriens. Insectoids suffered in similar ways, though not as bad. I think that the lighthearted nature of LEGO's marketing is one thing that gives it its charm, and thus by incorporating that into set design they're merely reinforcing some of their core appeal. So Alien Conquest and Space Police III both appeal to me much more than the "darker and edgier" Mars Mission or UFO themes. And even my appreciation of past themes is more based on their quirkier aspects and recurring motifs than based on any elaborate stories I imagined for them. In that sense, Space Police III's cute references appealed to me much more than some of the sets themselves had when they were current.

So do you also dislike lightsaber blades? Minifigure accessories? These don't tend to fit together in the same "method" as regular bricks-- which is to say, studs. Really, the only point of having a standard is to have variations on that standard. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't be happy with any set but a bucket of basic bricks. Clips, handles, click hinges, Technic axle holes... all of these things add diversity to basic LEGO pieces. Minifig skeletons, minifig droids, giant trolls... they similarly add diversity to minifigures. It's perfectly acceptable to dislike certain pieces or figures based on preference. But frankly, intercompatibility is as important to TLG as it is to most fans, and thus they have ensured that Technic, System, BIONICLE, and even BIONICLE parts can easily be as compatible with one another as System parts are with one another (for instance, attaching a lightsaber blade to a 1x6 brick will always be impossible, but that doesn't make them separate systems). Some parts will be more specialized than others, but they are all still very intercompatible-- and there are pieces designed specifically to make sure that's possible. Suggesting that these easily intercompatible systems should be kept completely separate is asking TLG to put a handicap on their own creativity. I would love to see Hero Factory joints, for example, show up in System set. I've seen MOCists do brilliant things by mixing the two systems, and it would be no less brilliant if the same appeared in an official set.

It should probably be considered that whatever Alien Conquest is, LEGO Customer Service considers it a Space theme in their instructions database, so it was probably designed as a part of LEGO Space whether or not it actually has an outer-space setting. With that said, "Space" and "Action Themes" are not really terms that can be compared, since "Space" is a LEGO category and "Action Themes" is a Eurobricks category. And Alien Conquest is unquestionably a Sci-Fi theme, since unlike Atlantis there are no supernatural-seeming elements. Power Miners and Rock Raiders, while both very sci-fi oriented, are probably considered Action Themes due to the dubiously-natural nature of the Rock Monsters. A better question would be whether Aquazone should be considered a Sci-Fi theme, since it began as a subtheme of LEGO Space, was decidedly futuristic, and had no supernatural elements. I disagree a bit with Eurobricks's terms for defining Sci-Fi, since it out-and-out declares any underwater or underground theme an Action Theme, making any futuristic submarine or drilling machine an automatic Action Themes MOC. Also, some versions of the Insectoids story had an underground component. But that's a discussion for elsewhere.

Those walls are great pieces to have in such great quantities-- they make for easy building at a large scale! I wish there was a more unique assortment of parts at the Potomac Mills Pick-A-Brick. We went there recently and got a bunch of Transparent Fluorescent Reddish-Orange flames (new style without pins), Transparent Brown 1x2 bricks without pins, Bright Yellow 1x2x2 bricks, Medium Stone Grey 6087s, and Bright Red and Bright Yellow 60212s.

Now, I have to say that in 2004 when I was 13 years old I really enjoyed Knights' Kingdom II. In fact, my family managed to get a complete collection of all the "constraction" sets between 2004-2006. Regrettably, I didn't buy any of the playsets after 2004, and in retrospect the 2004 playsets were probably the weakest ones in the theme. But looking back, this is the last castle theme I truly "collected", and considering how much I later enjoyed Ninjago and Exo-Force I'd probably be happy to collect a similarly character-driven castle theme in the future. I really loved the color-coded characters in Knight's Kingdom II-- I didn't buy the sets for realism. The knights had well-designed faces, colorful heraldry, and great personalities. It was basically the LEGO System's answer to BIONICLE, and obviously it pulled me out of And that was what appealed to me back then, in the closest thing I had to a "dark age". So while AFOLs might have hated the "jellybean knights", for me they (along with the probably-more-important BIONICLE sets at the time) were most likely what kept me from having a proper "dark age", at a time when video games and cartoons occupied so much of my attention span. Right now my two favorite themes are Hero Factory and Ninjago, so maybe I haven't changed much since then. Set design, of course, has improved, and perhaps my own design sensibilities have matured as well, but would I turn down another "jellybean knights" theme if it were to replace Kingdoms? That remains to be seen...

Now, when you bring up the 1x3 slope, I have to point out something regarding stickers that people often overlook. Stickers can be applied to a wider range of surfaces than printed parts. In particular, the stickers on the sides of the 1x3 slope on the tail of Ani's pod are necessary to give the tail those side details. To my knowledge, the sides of slope bricks have never been printed, something extremely noticeable in Technic sets. Now it could be argued that in this day and age, TLG could easily get machinery that could print the side surfaces of slope bricks, especially considering the advanced printing we've seen on much more complicated surfaces. However, would this be worth the cost? Probably not. Printing on these surfaces is often extremely specialized, and stickers have been used for this purpose for decades without problems. Now, the specialization issue is one reason that I think using printing instead of stickers for many of this set's parts would be atrocious. I respect how strategic TLG is these days about printing parts that they anticipate using again, or alternatively parts where stickers are impractical for various reasons. For this set, I think the only alternatives to the stickers included are "fewer stickers" or "no stickers". But considering all the absolutely useless printed parts I have from early Star Wars sets, I would hate it if this set repeated that mistake. It's the four side stickers on Anakin's pod that bother me in particular. The other stickers, like those on the tail and nose, are all rather tasteful. But the sides of the pod are built pretty terribly anyway-- if they were the least bit streamlined, then the stickers probably wouldn't bother me at all. As it is, the stickers contribute to an already broken-looking design. Looking at this picture, I can't see any justification for the use of 1x2 cheese slopes and 1x2 tiles when a 1x4 tile would have worked just as well. And if it were stickered? So be it-- in this case, it would have been far better than printing, which would have required two symmetrical designs, neither having much use outside of this set. In my opinion, Anakin's pod is the weakest-looking part of this set (everything else is phenomenal IMO). I'd have preferred Medium Stone Grey on most areas rather than the Dark Stone Grey which was chosen, and which has an unsettling lack of contrast with the blue stickers and parts. The overall pod ends up looking boxy rather than sleek like it should be. On that note, I've just been inspired to try and put together a better design on LDD, so I suppose I'll go give that a shot so that I can judge for myself whether a better pod design was within the power of the designers. Also, stickers probably save TLG not only money but production capacity. To print directly on a piece requires a specialized machine to print on the correct surface. In contrast, printing on a flat sticker sheet and then just cutting the stickers along the edges is much simpler and requires less specialized machines. Additionally, I'm sure the machines can be easily reconfigured to create sticker sheets for a different set, whereas a printing machine would still be limited to a particular piece. The way TLG does printing these days, it's reserved mostly for parts that need it: small curved parts like 1x1 round bricks which stickers would adhere poorly to, parts with 3-D curves that lack flat surfaces for stickers to adhere to, and a few parts like minifigure torsos and so forth that TLG wants to be ready for play right from the box. And I personally think that's the intelligent way of doing things.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't think of UCS as a "scale". The UCS Naboo Starfighter and UCS Millennium Falcon make that clear, both being extremely close to what we'd call minifig scale. For that matter, other UCS sets not at minifig scale can vary enormously: the UCS X-Wing, TIE Interceptor, Snowspeeder, and TIE Advanced are all very obviously at a larger scale than minifigure-based sets, whereas no type of UCS Star Destroyer could possibly be done at anything but a smaller scale. For me, UCS is not a scale but rather a level of detail. While UCS sets are usually large, presumably to make them more desirable as collectors' items and to make greater detail possible, the thing they all tend to share is an impressively authentic level of detail, with complex greebles where necessary and realistic shaping wherever possible.

Other factors in different costs in the US and Europe could include how much American and European retailers and consumers are willing to pay for LEGO, how expensive it is to distribute the products in different countries, and factors involving the different countries' economies. This article is one of the most straightforward ones on the topic I've seen, even though it probably doesn't address all the factors involved in the pricing discrepancy. One correction I'd make to your post: There is no "US factory". The only factory in North America is in Mexico, so "cheap Mexican labor" is a given. At one time there was a factory in Enfield, Connecticut, but that is now just offices for TLG (as well as their base of operations in the US). Anyway, I'm enjoying all these articles, especially the one that discusses LEGO's financial recovery in the mid-2000s. A lot of fansites' reports on LEGO's economic suffering in the late 90s and early 2000s try to trace the failures and recovery to just a few decisions that the fans find most important. LEGO Star Wars fans tend to attribute a lot of TLG's recovery to LEGO Star Wars (the theme in 1999 and the video games starting in 2005). BIONICLE fans tend to attribute the recovery to that theme's introduction, with an emphasis on BIONICLE being one of the top-selling product ranges in 2002. (Some BIONICLE fans are also hesitant to accept that BIONICLE did not stay the company's most successful product range.) Particularly cynical AFOLs attribute TLG's recovery to sacrifices made in product quality or quality control, such as the restructuring of the color palette or the change from buying pre-colored granulate to mixing colorless granulate and dye during production. As for the failures, AFOLs tend to focus on some specific factors they tended to dislike-- for instance, "juniorization" in the late 90s, the move towards heavily story-based themes, and the introduction of non-traditional themes like Belville, BIONICLE, and Galidor. It's true, most fans aren't too far off the mark when they look at all these factors' positive and negative impacts on the company's financial situation. But looking just at the product is thinking far too narrowly. The "Rebuilding LEGO Brick-By-Brick looks at the company's situation much more broadly. Some of my favorite quotes: "Sparkling amber eyes" brings to mind the color Transparent Fluorescent Yellow (Bricklink's Trans-Neon Yellow), a color used almost exclusively in BIONICLE. Many fans don't even recognize a difference between this and regular Transparent Yellow, probably part of the reason it was discontinued. Transparent Fluorescent Red, Tahu's eye color, was likewise discontinued, probably because it was too similar to Transparent Medium Reddish Violet (Bricklink's Trans-Dark Pink). This is a design value I'm sure a lot of AFOLs sympathize with. Yes, designing new parts is often valuable, and I love some of TLG's most recent part designs. I also like some of LEGO's recent colors, and almost never MOC with colors not on the current palette. But at the same time, designing with constraints is in my opinion a challenge that leads to a better-designed end product.

Ah, but if I have my facts correct, the trademark they were trying to protect in this most recent legal battle was the image of the 2x4 red brick, not the product itself. Legal battles in the past have been decided by the reason you describe, though-- for instance, this is why the court case between LEGO and Mega Brands was decided in the latter's favor.

I think Dorek (General Manager of HS01) is planning on making one. There's a lot of steps to making one, though. You need to get the chest piece from HRT, but there are some parts of him that can't be ordered on HRT (like the engine cap pieces from the Fire Villains, which he has on each shoulder). Most of these can be gotten as Pick-A-Brick parts, but it still requires multiple orders to get all the necessary pieces. Additionally, Merrick Fortis is often built and colored differently in different images.

This particular set is kind of confusing to me. The pastel color scheme is kind of bleh (not nearly as vibrant as more recent girl-oriented sets), but it's no different than the other Paradisa sets. What really confuses me is why on earth TLG figured a casino-like set would be particularly appealing to girls. Other Paradisa content like beaches, stables, and Poolside Paradise (the closest thing the theme had to a dollhouse) all resembled girl-oriented toys that were popular then and are still somewhat popular today. But a casino? Really? While a logical extension of the "vacation paradise" setting of the theme, it doesn't make much sense to me from a sales perspective. The set design of this one is also rather boring. The "wheel of fortune" is the only action feature, and while I know girls don't necessarily flock to action-feature-heavy sets the way boys do, there's also not much there in terms of role-play. There's tables, but no food besides ice cream. There's a merry-go-round, which is at odds with the otherwise seemingly adult-oriented "arcade" where actual gambling seems to be taking place. There's a baby carriage, but what responsible parent brings their newborn kid to a place like this? The parts disappoint me as well. White, grey, and pink are the only colors in any sort of quantity, and the pink parts are almost all specialized. The 1x2 tile in pink is nice, as are some of the printed parts, but overall there doesn't seem to be enough content-- let alone desirable pieces-- to make the 16x32 baseplate worthwhile. One thing I do like is the detail of the fences with arches over them. Those look especially nice. The arched entryway feels a little bit tacky to me, though. And despite the tolerable piece count, the overall structure is about as simplistic as a Duplo set. Now, from a certain perspective Paradisa was very realistic indeed-- I have seen many beachside "tourist traps" with gross pastel color schemes and tacky architecture in my lifetime. But that doesn't make too many of the sets appealing to me, particularly not this one. And while I'm not a girl, I have difficulty imagining girls having too much more fun with this set than I would. Poolside Paradise or one of the other sets with some substantial building and appealing role-play opportunities involved would be a much better value for anyone, I imagine.

It is interesting, but then again themes back then were often in development for years before hitting the market. Brickjournal Issue 6 had a bit of info on the history of LEGO Space, even though it didn't state how long Blacktron was in development before hitting store shelves.

Seeing as it's completely unsourced, I think that the author is just recounting one of the more popular wishes/rumors. People have been clamoring for a Tolkien theme for a long time, and next year's The Hobbit movie (as well as the dubious staying power of this year's licensed themes) has many people expecting next year to finally be the year it happens. Personally, I'm not going to believe the rumors until there's some source amounting to more than wishful thinking. While a Tolkien theme would be cool I wouldn't count on the films' marketing potential within the regular LEGO age range.

I agree that fantasy elements are acceptable every now and then. As I mentioned before, my first castle theme was Dragon Masters (with dragons and wizards), followed by Royal Knights (with skeletons and ghosts) and Fright Knights (with witches, airships, dragons, and possibly a vampire). While this site tends to categorize castle themes as "Historic Themes" in general, I don't think LEGO's in-house definition for the Castle theme would follow that designation. It's even a little dubious here on Eurobricks, as Pirates is to an extent a historic theme-- I suppose the main reason for the designation here is to have an explicit place for themes like Western, Ninja, and Vikings. With that said, some people have suggested that fantasy elements would help improve the Kingdoms theme, to which I have to respectfully disagree. I think once a theme is established as a fantasy theme or a realistic historic theme it should adhere to that from beginning to end. MOCists are perfectly free to have their "historic" castle and "fantasy" castle themes interact or coexist, but I think it would upset the established status quo in a theme like Kingdoms to involve fantasy elements in the actual sets so abruptly. To an extent, though, it should be remembered that even the way we think about medieval times from a historical perspective is heavily-influenced by fantasy. This is acknowledged in the novel Don Quixote, which describes a nobleman who adopts his entire worldview from medieval fantasy stories, and who ends up in all sorts of lunatic adventures as a consequence. Although today's history has begun to look at medieval times a bit more objectively, discarding the romanticized perceptions of previous centuries, the way a person visualizes medieval times today is more likely to come from fantasy movies and books than from historical documentaries. I'll admit I may be a bit biased, being an American. It's possible that countries in Europe with actual medieval history of their own might have a more grounded perception of that history. Still, it can't be denied that the stories of King Arthur and his knights are inextricably intertwined with our historical imagination about that time period. I appreciate Kingdoms for variety's sake, but I think that variety in TLG's castle themes owes itself to some of the more embellished portrayals of medieval adventure.

I suppose they came at the issue too late. By now, pretty much every clone brand has a part identical to the classic 2x4 brick, so trademarking an image of the product itself (rather than a stylized logo like Apple's) would basically be granting TLG special rights to show pictures of their own product in advertising, while prohibiting other companies from showing a similar image of their own identical brick products. At this point, it would be like Kellogg's trying to copyright the image of the Corn Flake when every competitor under the sun has an identical product on the market.