Aanchir

This is the way the whole Ninjago theme tends to work, at least this wave: the good guys (ninjas) get dragons, whereas the bad guys (skeletons) get rugged-looking modern vehicles with a skull motif. It establishes a nature-versus-technology (or perhaps tradition versus technology) motif to differentiate the two factions. I do think a skeleton dragon would have been an awesome set, maybe as a retailer exclusive. Building one that's sturdy yet visibly skeletal-looking would be difficult, though, especially given how skeletal some aspects of the existing dragons (like the wings, claws, and feet) are already. My siblings and I just built the Lightning Dragon Battle yesterday, and I have to say I love it. The skeleton helicopter (or as I affectionately call it, the skelecopter) is magnificently designed, even though the lower jaw's click-hinge makes it a little bit awkward IMO. It's the first skeleton vehicle I've built, and I'm very impressed with the evil-looking design. The dragon itself is magnificent. He is by far the largest of the dragons, and seems to be a huge improvement on the dragon from the Fire Temple. I haven't gotten to compare his size with the other dragons, because we had to pack those up in their boxes due to the recent earthquake. But I think the fact that his wings still feel proportionate is a good sign. The claws on his wings in addition to his four legs really don't stand out as a problem in the actual set, even if they seemed a bit egregious in some pictures. Jay DX is a cool minifigure, like all of the DX ninjas. My family already had General Kruncha and black-robes Sensei Wu from the Fire Temple set, but the extras don't hurt, and mean that we have an additional rice hat if we want to give Frakjaw the hat he's typically advertised with. Kruncha's spinner is cool-looking and very colorful. Being my family's second spinner, I'd rather if it were a design as simple-looking and universal as Sensei Wu's in the Spinjitzu Dojo. But it's still a tasteful design that really suits Kruncha.

I think I might have read somewhere that 1x2 bricks are some of the most produced bricks, at least in recent years. But as for the most well-known, definitely the 2x4 brick.

That doesn't have to be a bad thing, necessarily. If it's good, we will probably miss it after it's gone, but that won't stop the sets that do come out from having good quality. If it does turn out to be a follow-up to Pharaoh's Quest, then it would probably make more sense as a one-off theme than it would as a continuing theme. That would leave 2013 open to new and unique adventures.

Very good! The designs really closely resemble the official ones! Something kind of bothers me about the first-wave diving suit decorations, but I don't have the fig in front of me to compare and determine whether there are problems with your decoration or with my memory!

My twin brother noticed a rather glaring oversight in the 2011 Ninjago line a few days ago-- Jay DX has no character card! In my opinion this is an even bigger issue than Samukai not getting a spinner. After all, Jay DX actually comes with a spinner in one set (Skeleton Bowling), and all the other DX ninjas ended up getting character cards. I suppose one of the reasons that Jay DX got the short end of the stick is that the only set that has his spinner is only available in a retailer exclusive set. But I consider this just another problem on top of the already-mentioned problem, not an excuse for it. On a side note, my brother checked out the "Spinjitzu Smash" game on the Ninjago website the other day, and I was surprised to see that it's basically a clone of the MegaMan Battle Network video games. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it's kind of weird to see TLG so blatantly copying an existing video game's game mechanics. On the other hand, I'm thrilled at this prospect since I enjoyed the MegaMan Battle Network games a great deal growing up, and getting to play a LEGO game with such similar gameplay is a magnificent opportunity.

I agree that this set is amazing. I wouldn't have gotten any Ninjago sets from the first wave if I couldn't have gotten this set, methinks. One great aspect of this set is the diversity of content. You get some very authentic-looking Japanese architecture, a brick-built dragon, four hero figures, and three villain figures. It's definitely a great "first step" towards a Ninjago collection. One thing conspicuously absent from this theme is any sort of skeleton vehicle. I wonder if there was a conscious decision on the part of the designers to keep the vehicle and structure sets separate, or if having both in a set would have just been too expensive. I haven't yet built any sets with the skeleton vehicles, and to be honest they weren't a priority for me-- my family has gotten the Lightning Dragon Battle (or at least, will soon be receiving it by mail) and the Skull Motorbike, but they're both really just a part of my twin brother's master plan to get all the dragons and all the minifigures in as few sets as possible. Also absent from this set is a spinner. However, it's noteworthy that most playsets containing spinners are designed to function as arenas for Spinjitzu when multiple sets are joined. And this set really lacks any sort of functions or features where a spinner would be particularly relevant. Anyway, a spinner would have driven up the price. While I enjoy the spinners a great deal after getting my first in the Spinjitzu Dojo, they are still a gimmick and sets like this do fine without them. The play functions of this set work very well. I have had no problems with the set being fragile, and it's held up surprisingly well. Even more to my surprise, my twin brother and I were able to disassemble it into sections and get it packed up into the box without much difficulty-- surprising considering that the building itself is not very modular in design. Overall I encourage anyone to save up for this set, which consolidates some of the most widely-appealing aspects of the Ninjago theme into one package.

We got confirmation from TLG at Brickfair that the Super Heroes constraction sets will coexist with Hero Factory. Of course, that doesn't stop some people from wanting Hero Factory to end in place of these. I've seen some very desperate comments by BIONICLE fans on Facebook and other sites that "The Hero Factory line is being discontinued for this Super Heroes theme; this means BIONICLE could come back!" The logical gap in that sort of comment is glaringly obvious. Meanwhile, what would be ideal for anyone who likes some of the parts in this series but doesn't like the sets themselves would be if the online Pick-A-Brick included some of these Super Heroes parts in its Spring update. I think the presence of Hero Factory parts in DesignByMe and Pick-A-Brick isn't going to end anytime soon, especially not with the success of Hero Recon Team, so it's always a possibility. But that's pretty far in the future to concern ourselves with at the present.

I don't think I buy minifigures obsessively. If I see the minifigures in a store at MSRP and have the time to feel them, I won't turn down the opportunity. And between my siblings and myself we've completed or nearly-completed most series. However, I at least like to imagine I'm actively choosing to buy the figs I particularly want, and am still in control of my own actions.

It's not really a matter of "unlocking". Inside the LXFML (the file you get when you unzip an LXF) it has a list of bricks, and any that have decoration surfaces have a field called "Decoration ID". In that field, you enter the five-digit ID number for the decoration number. I'm not sure where you'd find a list of the numbers themselves, though.

I just thought it was a gradient to make the computer screen look more modern. But anyway, it's not a misprint. LDD actually has two versions of this screen decoration, a newer one with the gradient and an older one without. Bricklink doesn't distinguish between the two styles last I checked, but they are two separate versions.

Very cute! I love Furno especially, even though his hips would probably have a wider range of motion if you rotated the leg bones 90 degrees. Can't discuss this much else because we just had a huge earthquake here in VA.

Why all the hatred towards cavemen in a theme? Of course it's not realistic. Any dinosaur theme with people in it is unrealistic. Realistically, there could have been prehistoric people on the Adventurers' Dino Island many years before the theme took place, and they would have been living alongside the dinosaurs just by virtue of the dinos' survival. Naturally, I don't expect cavemen to be involved. Cavemen in any form probably would remind people too much of the Flintstones and make it difficult for people to take the theme seriously (as has already been shown here). But the idea of cavemen living alongside dinosaurs is just as valid a foundation for a good story as any 20th-century adventure theme involving surviving dinosaurs would be-- possibly slightly less in that cavemen are harder to relate to as protagonists than modern man, but it could be done. Meanwhile, I find the "creationist set" comment insulting. So anything with people and dinosaurs living at the same time is promoting a religious agenda? That's the same sort of logic used by the people who think the Harry Potter series, because it contains magic, is an occultist tool for corrupting children. It's also probably insulting to religious folks here who don't support young-Earth creationism. That's as far as I'll go with that because I don't want to spark a religious or political debate, I just think that a comment like that is really unfair even in jest.

Love this set. I was watching the four-part Ninjago TV special online recently (Episode 1 ), and afterwards mentioned what a shame it was that the gliders shown in Episodes 2 and 3 didn't ever appear in sets, since they were so much more compact than any previous ones. My brother quickly reminded me of this set, and I have to admit this definitely feels a lot more dynamic than any previous Ninja gliders!While the white Ninja Zane is a bit of a rare minifigure, that isn't really a factor in my liking this set, considering that the most desirable Ninjago set by far (the Fire Temple) has him already. If I hadn't planned on getting that set then I probably wouldn't have invested in any Ninjago sets at all. I suppose historic theme builders who want to accumulate an army of ninjas might find this set desirable as an inexpensive way to get Zane, not that an army of white ninjas makes any more sense than the rest of the theme would outside of a fantasy setting... My liking of this set has more to do with the innovative build that gives it such a distinctive and streamlined design in so few pieces.

Great review. This is an amazing set and really makes me feel nostalgic for Episode I (I suppose not everyone here is young enough for that to elicit nostalgia, but after watching my twin brother play Star Wars Episode I: Racer for hours and hours it'd be hard not to get a special feeling from a podracer set. The minifigures are amazing IMO. Obi-Wan really resembles the actor pretty closely, aside from the orange eyebrows. The reason he has a hood in so many sets is probably to sidestep the problem of his Padawan braid. I believe the one set that did have him with hair had the braid printed specially onto the torso, which probably wasn't done here so that he and Qui-Gon could share a torso print. Anakin also is a great likeness of the actor, or at least the character. While his facial expression is cartoony compared to the rather stoic expression the actor wore in Episode I, his main face captures this about as well as can be done while still giving it a childlike cuteness, and I can practically hear the reverse expression with the goggles yelling "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, WORK!" (a line drilled into my head, again, by too many hours of Star Wars Episode I: Racer). The darker minifigure skin tone printing on the torsos bothers me, and it's not just in this theme that it occurs. Technically, this darker skin tone (18 Nougat) existed long before Indiana Jones-- it was for many years the default skin tone of Duplo figures, and was also the lightest skin tone for NBA figures (283 Light Nougat, Bricklink's Light Flesh, didn't appear in sets until 2004). I'm not sure why printed skin tones on torsos tend to use this color rather than Light Nougat, but it's something I'd like TLG to work on improving. I kind of agree about the stickers on Anakin's podracer. There are a few things I'd like to note, though. For starters, I hate clear-backed stickers. It's hard to apply them without getting a fingerprint on the sticky part, and if you do, then it will show up on the piece forever. In my opinion, there are only a few ways in which a clear-backed sticker would be necessary, and none show up in this set (for the record, those are when a sticker has to be applied to a transparent or metallic part and you want the background to match the part it's applied to). The reason for the dark grey stickers on light grey parts is that sticker sheets, like printed parts, often try to work with as few colors as possible. This could be observed in Space Police Central-- because some of the stickers had to match the orange "bad guy" speeder in the set, this meant that orange details appeared all over the sticker sheet, including on striped stickers that really would have been better in yellow to match the sliding black-and-yellow garage door. Now with that said, I don't think the stickers detract from the appearance of that set much more than they detract from the appearance of this set. But I feel that Anakin's pod in general could have been done better, including the stickers. The old version felt very streamlined, even if it didn't match the official vehicle too closely, whereas this one's broken contours, not helped by the many tiny stickers, keep it from feeling as artistically-designed as the classic version. Overall, I'm surprised I haven't seen more MOCs of podracers since this set came out. It really shows how much set design has progressed in the past decade.

I got my first solid-studded minifigure heads in some Ninjago sets this year, and I can name at least one asset of this new style of head: the solidness allows for the word "LEGO" to be printed on the top, and for the Design ID and copyright info to be printed on the bottom. Can't comment much on this set since I don't know much about CW, but I like the minifigure designs.

The Toa Nuva were indeed fun designs. As you mention, of course, playability was limited, but it was still somewhat expanded compared to the Toa Mata. I notice your review doesn't mention much at all regarding the sets' action features, particularly the trait that made the Toa Nuva sets unique compared to the Toa Mata before them. Their left arms could be attached by either a Technic axle and gear (allowing the back gear to swivel both arms) or by a Technic pin (allowing the back axle to only control the right arm, and allowing the extra gear to be attached to the back as a "locking" mechanism for the gear function). This was one of my personal favorite attributes of the Toa Nuva: while the original Toa only had dual-arm control for characters with two weapons, the Toa Nuva allowed you to choose between dual-arm control and single-arm control. Additionally, the locking function was great for action poses. The review also doesn't mention the combination model, Akamai Nuva, which could be built from this set, Onua Nuva, and Pohatu Nuva. Naturally, I'm not totally certain you have the parts to create this model, but a picture of one of the instruction pages for the combination model would make the review feel more complete. While I appreciate the nostalgic look back at such a classic BIONICLE set (which sits on the shelf above my desk as we speak), these sorts of omissions would be considered glaring oversights in a review of a a modern set. Anyway, here's the part where I ramble nostalgically about what I liked and disliked about the Toa Nuva. They were great sets in some ways and awkward sets in others. Their masks had stylish organic shapes, but in some cases the similarities to the previous versions of the masks were tenuous-- in my opinion, they better matched the Phantoka versions than the masks they were meant to replicate in some ways. The organic look was also largely inconsistent with any earlier or later masks, although their uniqueness as a special "class" of Kanohi and their magical origin made this somewhat permissible. The Toa Nuva tools were more ornate than the Toa Mata tools, but this came at the expense of some of the functional attributes they had previously. Gone, for instance, were the tubes from Tahu's original firesword which seemingly fed the flames, as were the pistons that gave Gali's hooks and Onua's claws their wonderfully functional appearance. Only Kopaka's and Onua's tools kept the same mechanical look, and in their cases the pistons were just "greebling", not components that served a practical mechanical function. Of course, the dual functions of the Toa Nuva tools also made them extremely awesome from a play perspective. Toa Nuva armor pieces, including the shoulder, chest, and leg armor, also lacked any sort of mechanical detailing, but this was largely permissible in that most just went on top of the Toa Mata's previous parts. In BIONICLE: Mask of Light, even the leg armor was just rendered as armor "shells" over regular Toa Mata legs, which foreshadowed the way leg pieces would be armored for years to come. The Toa Nuva shared the tasteful (with Onua's exception) fluorescent eye colors of the Toa Mata. Tahu's eye color (Transparent Fluorescent Red) and Gali's eye color (Transparent Fluorescent Yellow) have since been discontinued, probably because they were almost indistinguishable from the more widely used Transparent Medium Reddish Violet (Bricklink's Trans-Dark Pink) and Transparent Yellow. Later BIONICLE series tended to reduce the eye colors to just Lewa's (Transparent Fluorescent Green), representing good characters, and Pohatu's (Transparent Fluorescent Reddish-Orange) representing evil characters. I actually liked this in many cases, although it was a shame that there were no longer as many options. 2009 brought back Transparent Fluorescent Blue, Kopaka's eye color, as an option for sets, and it's interesting to observe that Hero Factory has now returned to having unique eye colors for each character, as an integral part of those sets' color schemes. Apparently the good-and-evil color coding was really most relevant in years where the hero and villain sets shared extremely similar structures and parts, such as 2006, 2008, and 2010. The Toa Nuva also had well-balanced and well-organized color schemes: a primary color for hands, feet, bodies, and masks, a secondary color for limbs, silver armor, and black hips and shoulders. The black hips and shoulders are in my opinion as critical a part of the color scheme as the Dark Stone Grey joints of the Toa Metru, and it's a shame that so many Toa Mata and Toa Nuva revamps ignore their importance to the color scheme. Even the 2010 Tahu set left out this color, leading to a horrendously-imbalanced color scheme of searingly bright colors. Overall, I'm not very critical about many sets. I try my best to appreciate them for their design advantages without ignoring their flaws. And while oftentimes my many rants in favor of more modern set designs made it seem like I didn't have a nostalgic bone in my body, this applies as much for the Toa Nuva as for any other sets. Even today I can consider them good sets, even if we've come so far since then in terms of posability and versatile part design. I really appreciate this review.

I think so. It's very similar to some classic Castle themes, and the main difference is that it is a two-faction theme (rather than a single-faction theme like many classic Castle sets), that the factions are clearly defined as "good guys" or "bad guys", and that of course the set designs are modernized. All in all, it's a lot closer to the classics than really any Castle theme in the past decade, in that there are no obvious fantasy elements. The sole exception is the baby dragon in the wizard impulse, but since the same dragons are used merely as architectural details in Kingdoms and even Ninjago (a theme where real dragons do exist), it's easy enough to assume that this baby dragon is a taxidermied fake, a sculpture, or even an ornate paperweight. A good charlatan wizard would settle for no less! While obviously there are large panels just like in all the Castle themes within my lifetime, the design of the castles is fairly substantial, with walkways of a decent width and besides the occasional colorful accents the castles and other buildings are very realistic. Functional elements also maintain a good deal of realism, besides set 7188 with a tree-mounted "flaming arrow" flick fire and a giant hammer, neither of which would have likely been seen in a classic theme. Additionally, from a story perspective, Kingdoms is much more traditional than most LEGO themes. There are no named characters-- any descriptions just give a generic identification of their role. The title "Kingdoms" allows for civilian locations like this year's Mill Village Raid, Overall, I want to see LEGO Kingdoms continue just because of how it reduces LEGO Castle to its raw essence. It gets me nostalgic for the classic days of Castle sets, which makes no sense considering that my first Castle theme was Dragon Masters. Perhaps it's just that I can't shake the feeling of how much has yet to appear in sets-- there is no joust set yet, for instance, and there can never be too many castles! I haven't bought many sets, but I think the theme has demonstrated how designers today can still create modern sets that appeal to classic-minded sensibilities and values.

Some people speculated that the snake tails could be for "elite" snakemen, just like the "elite" skeletons got unique head pieces in this wave of Ninjago. But I agree, reports from one person don't necessarily give us well-rounded expectations, because one person's first impressions of preliminary images might be different than somebody else's. Remember that the first reports of Ninjago led us to expect vividly-colored ninjas in colors like orange and purple, whereas the actual theme's ninja colors had about the same level of normality as the 1998 Ninja theme. I wouldn't mind a "cavemen-and-dinosaurs" theme. The duplo one was pretty cool, although admittedly a System one would be designed for older kids and thus might have more sophisticated story situations rather than innocent open-ended play where the dinosaurs can be friends, foes, or just bystanders. Not saying there's anything wrong with that.

It's true, there are some major parallels. Of course, regarding torso decorations, the parallels end there. Exo-Force just had one torso design per character per year, whereas Ninjago had two for each main character in just the first year. Also, the torso designs in Exo-Force's first year were sometimes shared between characters, whereas each ninja has a unique torso design. It's also interesting to note similar parallels between Exo-Force and Knights' Kingdom before it. It seems that a cast of four hero minifigures is a popular choice for TLG's System storylines, just as a cast of six hero characters per story cycle is the norm in constraction themes like Hero Factory and BIONICLE. I always find myself wondering if the characterization in LEGO endeavors like The Adventures of Clutch Powers and the Ninjago sets is better than in the Hero Factory episodes because of the smaller cast of main characters. The writing could also be a factor, though. Thanks for the info! I wonder what new headgear is involved... any chance of their regular hair pieces? That'd be really cool in an official set.

The finish is almost purely a mold consideration I think. In one of the Cars 2 designer videos, a person modeling a new part design demonstrates how different surface finishes can be applied digitally before sending the final order to the 3-D printer they use for rapid-prototyped parts. Since this 3-D printer only uses one type of plastic (to my knowledge), we can probably assume that the surface finish is largely independent of the type of plastic used. Also, I think one of the assets of Chinese production that lead to it being used for all sorts of complex parts and prints is just that it's the newest facility and thus stocked with some of the newest and most efficient machines. There was recently an interesting blog article linked from the General Discussion subforum about the Mexican plant, which mentioned that it's statistically the most reliable and efficient factory LEGO has at its disposal, which could be for similar reasons. Sometimes even a newer mold for an already-existing piece can churn the pieces out faster and more efficiently. Cost, of course, is also an asset, as it's probably cheaper to staff the Chinese facility due to a lower average wage there (and again, newer, more efficient machines and molds can often produce more parts than older machines and molds for the same cost). Anyway, this is a much more thorough assessment of the differences between collectible and traditional minifigures than I could have put together! It's very informative. Thanks so much!

I mean whites as in the actual sclerae around the black dot eyes, not as in the white "sparkle" in the center of the eyes. Indeed, I almost invariably prefer figs with the white sparkle in their eyes. Basically all modern figs have white sparkles, but it's figs like Flatfoot Thomsen and most of the NBA figs that really bother me (although I suppose it could be argued that the NBA figs were going for a different cartoon style much like Exo-Force).

To be fair, this is what most of the promotional material for the 1997 UFO theme was like. There were some catalog images and so forth that showed the "alien homeworld" of the UFO faction, but most comics and so forth tended to show an invasion scenario, and the UFO faction was never seen interacting with other Space factions as far as I remember. I miss SPIII too, and am not bothering to collect Alien Conquest sets (unless the spending bug bites me, which I plan to avoid). But I think Alien Conquest is a well-designed theme given its concept, and I really like the idea of B-movie aliens versus against the modern and militaristic ADU. The set designs also strike me as superb, much better than the awkward designs of 1997 UFO. Overall, for me, the issue comes to a question I often find myself visiting regarding the collectible minifigures: would we be better off if TLG never explored this idea? If yes, of course, then that means we should never, ever have an alien invasion theme. But if not, then now is as good a time as any, and there's no way we'd ever get an alien invasion theme if not as a Space theme. So does Alien Conquest fit in with other Space themes? Not in the slightest. But is it up to LEGO Space standards? Most definitely yes.

I have to say I rather enjoyed this set, although it has some problems I'd like to point out. First of all, the interior is very empty. That's all well and good; to an extent it has to have that open space for the buggy to park (and for role-play purposes). The problem with the emptiness, though, is that when the buggy's not inside and the doors are closed, the view through the windows is downright boring. The buggy is pretty boring itself compared to some of the other wheeled vehicles in Exploriens. One thing that helps the interior tremendously is the giant viewscreen with the hologram of an astronaut head in it. That's right, a 3-D hologram on a stickered piece! This is still, as I see it, one of the coolest things TLG has ever done with stickers. What made it better was that pretty much every large Exploriens set had one of these viewscreens, so I have a nice collection of them downstairs in my basement. Now if only there were anything for me to do with them outside the Exploriens theme... alas, that's one of the disadvantages of any parts with minifigure graphics. It'd make a good TV set maybe, although the mirrored hologram effect feels a bit too futuristic for that IMO. Overall, I have fond memories of the Exploriens theme, but today it feels quite boring to me in many respects. Its setting on the frontiers of outer space makes it somewhat incompatible with other space factions in MOCs. And many of its sets were somewhat bare-bones in design, which is realistic and still fun for play but not all that attractive visually. Still, I can't shake the memories of how much fun I had with this set back in the day, so I guess the theme did its job.

The wrestler's torso, head, and legs were at the Build-A-Mini at Potomac Mills in Virginia. I don't think they had capes, though. And I don't remember any skateboarder parts besides possibly his head or hair.

Sure, I'll do it. I have the set in real life and really enjoy it. It'll be a fun adventure making it with LDD!