Aanchir

A problem with Rome is that it's never had the same exotic appeal as many African, American, and Asian locations. Egypt, for instance, is in the middle of a desert. It's easy for an author to stick a fictional landmark somewhere in that vicinity without breaking willing suspension of disbelief. On the other hand, Rome is in a highly-populated area where most of the historic landmarks are in the middle of a civilization that's been active for centuries. Chances are a theme to follow up Pharaoh's Quest would be set some other tried-and-tested adventure story location, like China or South America.

So far, there have been very few "fantasy" elements in Kingdoms. IMO, adding actual dragons would disrupt the whole idea of Kingdoms as an only-slightly-fictionalized medieval theme. Personally, I'm not sure a D2C Kingdoms set would really allow for a castle that satisfies everyone's demands. Keep in mind that, although the MMV was a lot more detailed than the typical Castle set, it wasn't actually too much bigger than a typical large set. I'd love to see someone MOC a castle along these lines that still seemed marketable as a Kingdoms set, but I have difficulty visualizing a medieval castle set that really resembles an actual medieval castle structurally.

Nice review! I agree, this is definitely an improvement over the 2004 version in a lot of ways. About the extra pieces, I feel obligated to point out that extra pieces are decided not by usefulness, but by weight. 1M Technic pins with studs, for instance, are extremely light, and if one were missing the quality control weight check could easily miss it. By including extras in each bag, TLG helps ensure that the set will have at least enough to build the model (since if a bag were missing more than one Technic pin, the weight check would be more likely to catch it before it made it to store shelves). I agree that the multiple faces for Luke and Leia are a nice feature. In Leia's case, the two expressions add personality, whereas the training helmet for Luke is something I always wanted to see done in LEGO. I also like the new face designs for Han, Leia, Luke, and Obi-Wan. The old ones were beginning to feel very outdated. These, on the other hand, have a similar level of simplicity but with a more authentic likeness of the characters and actors. Incidentally, I'd like to see some comparison pictures between the new hair piece for Leia and the classic one. While the dark brown color is nice, I'm not sure how necessary the new mold is (I believe it's a new mold, anyway-- it seems different from the original, even though a comparison pic would help me identify the differences). On a related note, what are your opinions on Luke's new hair piece? In my opinion, it's a definite improvement on the previous two styles (the standard male hair, which didn't really match his hair in "A New Hope" very well at all, and the standard female hair, which worked better but still didn't quite resemble his hairstyle. This new one is very nice, and thankfully one thing I worried about-- that Han's standard hair piece would seem too simple compared to the realistic textures on Luke's hair and Leia's-- doesn't seem to be a factor after all. Anyway, I can assure you I won't be buying this set. I stopped collecting Star Wars sets a long time ago, and if I ever want to get back to collecting them I probably wouldn't cash in on this Millennium Falcon, since it's good but not outstanding enough to justify the price tag (unlike the UCS version, which is more expensive but easier to justify). There are some obvious flaws, like the frequently-observed boringness of the bottom of the vehicle-- while adding more detail would have driven up the price significantly, I still feel the flat, gappy design detracts from the model significantly. If I ever do get back into Star Wars, I'll probably just try to find the UCS version online for a good price, and hopefully this version's minifigures will appear in other, smaller sets. Still, great review, and you definitely convinced me that TLG's design team still has what it takes to make a Millennium Falcon set that can hold its own in comparison to previous incarnations.

Cheap, or smart? It's a matter of perspective. Baseplates are large, specialized pieces that don't necessarily add much to a model-- often, regular plates will work just as well or better. For more detailed landscapes one can easily customize something with paint and paper or cardboard. Yes, baseplates have their advantages. And TLG still makes them for many sets, like the modular buildings, several City sets, and individual plate packs like these. At the same time, we can't act as though baseplates are always a good thing for sets, or as though there aren't any advantages to using regular plates instead in many sets.

Well, I guess that seals it. TLG really does want to make the high-demand army builders the rarest to create artificial rarity. That's the only explanation why that fitness trainer everybody loves would be one of the rarest figs. Personally, though, it does bother me that there are three figs that are only two-to-a-box. Generally before it was a lot more balanced-- there were only a couple instances of figs being two-to-a-box, and at least once this was later amended to balance out the distribution better. This time it seems like TLG honestly didn't even try to go for a balanced distribution, and that disappoints me. His gun, of course. That's the reason he has a violin case at all! It was a sneaky way American gangsters used to carry firearms covertly.

Do you plan on reviewing Raw-Jaw for BZPower? I've seen plenty of pics of him, and so far most of them look pretty good (but not all-- the Gizmodo preliminary pic shows off some of the flaws you mentioned). It's easy to tell he has design flaws, but he's still one of my favorite bad guy sets and I'd like to see a review before I've made a firm decision about whether I'm actually buying him. Meanwhile, as far as "weirdly put together" is concerned, that's one of the reasons I prefer Raw-Jaw over Waspix. Waspix isn't weirdly put together-- his build is incredibly simple, and the only really innovative design principle (the extra arms) owes itself to a new (albeit useful) part specialized for the task rather than using existing parts in creative ways. Raw-Jaw may not be the most refined-looking design, but like Fire Lord he pushes the boundaries of the new building system by aiming for an unconventional design using parts as economically as possible.

You've got the most comprehensive errors lists I think I've ever seen! That should make correcting the model a lot easier for you if the errors become possible to correct in a future update! There are a few errors you missed, but they're generally minor. The ADU Scientist is missing one Sand Yellow hair piece (88283). Your model is missing one Bright Blue 2x2 tile (3068) from the undercarriage of the HQ (page 8 of book 2) Your model is missing two Bright Blue 1x4 plates (3710) from the undercarriage of the HQ (pages 4 and 6 of book 2) Your model is missing one Dark Stone Grey ADU pistol (Bricklink's bb516, which you have replaced with 60849 in its two other instances). The instructions place it in the hand of the ADU scientist. The two 1x1 cones (59900) on the front of the HQ (beneath the windscreen) should be colored 41 Transparent Red rather than 47 Transparent Fluorescent Reddish Orange. The 1x1 round brick (3062) in the cockpit of the plane should be colored 26 Black rather than 199 Dark Stone Grey. The ADU Scientist's legs should be colored 1 White rather than 199 Dark Stone Grey and 321 Dark Azur. The tires on the small vehicle should use part 87414 rather than 3641. The two 1x3x2 arch pieces should use part 92903 rather than 6005. The 1x1 plates with clips should use part 60897 rather than 4085. The two 4x3 wedge plates should use part 90194 rather than 48183. The four 1x4x3 panels should use part 87543 rather than 60581. I don't actually know any difference in shape between these parts. However, according to the names they have on LDD, 60581 is ABS and should not be used for transparent parts made from polycarbonate. The 1x4 hinge plate should use part 95120 rather than 44822. The tires should use part 87697 rather than 6015. No other errors on this one. The 1x4 hinge plate should use part 95120 rather than 44822. No other errors with this model. No errors you missed, and I wouldn't expect them when you managed so many larger models with so few errors. You should note in your post that the four 2M corrugated pipes (72504) and the 2M friction pin holding two of them together (2780) are replacement parts for two 3M corrugated pipes and a 4M corrugated pipe. In the front of the vehicle, your model uses two Medium Stone Grey 3M pins (32556) where it should use two Black friction pins (6558). The outer shell of the shock absorber (76537) should be colored 194 Medium Stone Grey rather than 208 Light Stone Grey. The #3 angle connectors (32016) should be colored 194 Medium Stone Grey rather than 199 Dark Stone Grey. The 1x2 plate with grille (2412) should be colored 298 Cool Silver Drum Lacquered rather than 1 White. Most of these errors seem to be the fault of the poor-quality instruction scans on LEGO.com. Many of the colors are extremely ambiguous, and I ended up verifying most of them by jointly using the online instruction booklet, the Bricklink inventory, and actual photos of the set (in places where I wasn't sure I should trust Bricklink). Great work on this set in spite of the missing pieces and confusing instructions! The 1x1 cone should use part 59900 rather than 4589; Bricklink's inventory is incorrect about this. The 1x4 hinge plate should use part 95120 rather than 44822. No other errors I could find. Great work on all of these Alien Conquest sets!

The Cavegirl's looking sexy with that Medium Nougat torso shading. I hardly have any actual pieces in that color, but nevertheless I'm so incredibly happy it was added to TLG's current color palette, just on account of how great it is for minifigures. Compared to the torsos on recent figs like the Sumo Wrestler, Hula Dancer, and Cave Girl, older scantily-clad minifigure torsos like the original Slave Leia, the Surfer, and the Pharaoh look terrible. On the other hand, I'd love it if TLG would find some excuse to make a muscly male torso like the Surfer's with newer Medium Nougat printing (and without any accessories like the Boxer's belt). We want our beach scenes to have consistency, after all! I'm a bit puzzled about the Dwarf's axe. In Comunidade 0937's photos, the axe, shield and helmet all looked to be Titanium Metallic (BL's Pearl Dark Gray in post-2010 sets), but the render makes the axe look like a more sparkly color. I hope the axe really does match, although even if it doesn't the dwarf will still probably be far better-designed than the Viking with his horribly mismatched metallic colors. Can anyone tell if the Lizard Suit Guy's body is colored 37 Bright Green (BL's Bright Green) or 28 Dark Green (BL's Green)? The pics Comunidade 0937 took make his body look Bright Green (compared to the clown's obvious Dark Green legs), but in the official renders it's very vague. On another note, I can't wait until the all the official names of these figs are released. Lizard Suit Guy's the one I'm least sure about, and I'm tired of alternating between names like Kaiju, Monster Suit Guy, and Lizard Suit Guy. The LEGO Facebook page calls him the Lizard Man, but it also has other names that I'm not very confident in-- for instance, Cleopatra and Sherlock seem awfully specific compared to past names, and Snowboarder is the same name that was used for the one in S3 (so far, none of the names on the Minifigures website have been recycled). I love how the snowboard is printed with "48mm". I love little references like that reminding us that these are LEGO people and not just scaled-down human beings!

Sony Pictures isn't owned by Coke according to Wikipedia. It was at one point, but that was when it was called Columbia Pictures and had no association with Sony. I think licensing issues like this would probably depend on how much independence a company gives its subsidiaries. Some companies might want all merchandising deals for their subsidiaries to go through them, while others might allow their subsidiaries to maintain control of their own merchandising. I could be wrong, but whatever the case Disney would still have influence in Marvel's marketing decisions, even if not assuming direct control of that branch of business.

When I first saw this head design showing up on Bricklink, my first assumption was that it might be the design used for minifigure keychains. However, since they are starting to show up in regular sets that seems not to be the case (or if it is, TLG seems to be transitioning towards using this style for regular minifigures as well). It doesn't seem like the new design has any extremely undesirable qualities, although I am a bit curious whether certain headgear would be hard to remove without the holes through the top-- I know I've had difficulty with the oldest style of minifigure head that had a solid stud. In any event, minifigure heads are rarely used as detail pieces in a context where the design of the top stud matters much, so I personally have no problem with the change.

That's kind of what I expected from the get-go, seeing as this is basically the replacement for Brickmaster (and in its most recent form, Brickmaster had the sets and magazines shipped together in a cardboard box). The polybag takes the place of the set and the manual takes the place of the magazine. And anyway, note that the image we have of the subscription's contents show the manuals and polybags separately. Granted, this image is a stylized graphical representation of the subscription contents rather than a photo (the Space Designer manual would not be one of the ones included, the sets and manuals will be made of physical materials rather than vector drawings, and you won't actually be getting a giant LEGO laptop with too few keys), but it definitely made me think that the polybags would not have the manuals inside. Incidentally, this also makes me think it will be very unlikely for the instructions for these sets to make their way online except possibly through the MBA website.

Nope. 62821 and 62520 are considerably different parts. They are, however, both newer versions of the parts the original poster was requesting.

I imagine just some sort of weird animal-like camoflage pattern, similar to those on Scorpio, Waspix, and Fangz. I think this pattern's supposed to resemble scales, however odd that is on what's ostensibly a gorilla-like creature.

Thanks so much for these pictures! These are some of the best pictures of the parts in collectible minifigures series 5 yet, not to mention the Unimog!

The wheel cover piece 58088 should be colored 315 Silver Metallic rather than 131 Silver. Your model has a Black 1x8 tile (4162) on the dashboard where it should have a Black 1x6 tile (6636). Your model has a Medium Stone Grey spool (61510) in the center of the model where it should have a Medium Stone Grey wheel (42610). All 1x4 axles (3705) should be colored 26 Black rather than 194 Medium Stone Grey. That's all the errors I could find. Great work! This really demonstrates how effective LDD manager's conversions from Bricklink inventories to LXF files are. All parts and colors are correct as far as I can tell. There will sometimes still be errors in a set's Bricklink inventory that can lead to inaccuracies in the LXF's parts inventory, but thankfully this set seems to be free of those. The Dark Stone Grey 1x2 plates with vertical shaft should use part 88072 rather than 4623-- the Bricklink inventory says otherwise, but the element ID given in the instructions (4611703) corresponds to part 88072, which Bricklink confirms. As a rule of thumb you can count on any 2011 sets using 88072 and any older sets using 4623. The Transparent Bright Orange cone should use part 59900 (BL's 4589b) rather than 4589 (BL's 4589a). The Bright Yellow 2M Technic connector should use part 59443 (BL's 6548c) rather than 6538 (BL's 6538b). The 3M axle with stud should be colored 138 Sand Yellow (BL's Dark Tan) rather than 312 Medium Nougat (BL's Medium Dark Flesh). The grey 1M Technic bushings (6590), 1x2x2 slopes (60481), 2x3 plate (3021), 5M Technic axle (32073), and flick-fire missiles (61184) should all be colored 194 Medium Stone Grey (BL's Light Bluish Gray) rather than 208 Light Stone Grey (BL's Very Light Bluish Gray). The tan 2x2 round brick with grille (92947), 4x6 plate (3032), and 2M Technic pins (6562) should be colored 5 Brick Yellow (BL's Tan) rather than 283 Light Nougat (BL's Light Flesh). The tan 1x2 plate (3023) should be colored 5 Brick Yellow rather than 297 Warm Gold-- this was probably just a careless mistake. The Atlantis body armor (89917) should be colored 26 Black. The speckled color that it's supposed to be does not actually have an ID number of its own; it's really just black with a gold surface treatment. If you prefer the model to resemble the set as much as currently possible, the outer surface of the body armor can be colored separately from the inside surface, so you can color the inside 26 Black and the outside the closest available match-- 147 Sand Yellow Metallic. The diver minifigure's waist is correctly colored, but his legs should be colored 199 Dark Stone Grey rather than 194 Medium Stone Grey. Most of these errors are perfectly normal mistakes for a beginner. To keep from confusing colors in the future, I recommend either the Peeron color list, which cross-references Bricklink and official LEGO color names, or better yet LDD Manager, a downloadable multipurpose tool created by Superkalle that includes a similar chart, plus allows you to auto-generate an LXF file with the pieces you need using a Bricklink inventory. Great catch on the drill, too! It turns out the drill is rendered to fit 25 rather than 24 teeth, so there is no gear that can fit appropriately into it! I encourage you to report this error in the LDD 4 Bugs and Brick Errors topic. I take it this one was also auto-generated with LDD manager, because like the "A" model it is error-free besides the placement error, which is quite inexplicable and should be brought up in the "Bugs and Brick Errors" topic. Normally such a placement error occurs because only certain types of System and Technic bricks are allowed Technic-system connectivity. However, in this case that does not explain the lack of connectivity. The wheel is more than a full module in thickness, and the 1x1 round brick is one of the few parts that is almost always allowed Technic-System connectivity. Regardless of this, well done on this model!

Very nice MOC, although the color scheme and the small size of the photos makes it difficult for me to make out details in the upper body. I can see that it uses an Av-Matoran torso, a Knights' Kingdom shoulder pad, and some teeth and horns, but beyond that it's hard to distinguish the details of the design. My least favorite aspect is the use of exposed wedge plates on the thighs. Their flat, boxy shape fails to "mesh" with the shape of the foot pieces they're attached to, undermining their usefulness in closing up the gaps those foot pieces are designed with. I do like the lower leg and knee designs, however simple the former is. The tentacle arms are also very nice. And the inner thighs do a great job where the outer thighs fail, using a creative piece choice that manages to fit the curve wonderfully. Overall, a very unusual MOC that's hard for me to judge. I can tell it's sort of going for a "cosmic horror" aesthetic, but at the same time the white parts of it resemble a more refined mecha design that has been perhaps "corrupted" by more organic black areas. While this is a wonderful concept, the end result doesn't seem as dark or terrifying as it should, instead having an almost humorous shape that (in terms of overall impression) reminds me of Dr. Stinky Head's alien form. At the same time, I'm not too knowledgeable about mecha, and thus my opinion isn't based too strongly in background knowledge. It's possible that I'm interpreting the MOC totally wrong, in which case my comments shouldn't be taken as representative of the MOC's quality.

Oh, well I guess that makes sense. They did that several times with 131 Silver, apparently. And since Reddish Brown (as mentioned) is fairly notorious for being inconsistent, changing the formulation could be helpful in the long run (although until they stop using the "old version" and "new version" together it's just an additional source of inconsistency). I'm a bit surprised that I didn't notice this or hear about it at the time, but I suppose I was probably too preoccupied with the BIONICLE theme (which has had only about three sets with Reddish Brown parts, two in 2006 and one in 2009).

I just got there without any difficulty, so either the problems have been solved or they only exist on certain people's computers.

Huh. I wonder why that is-- maybe the newer-style smiley was a last-minute change and so it didn't make it into the instruction booklets and marketing materials in time, but since the old smiley is still in production (it's the only face used in modular buildings), I wonder why TLG chose to substitute it. Maybe the newer smiley with the eye sparkles is just more popular with today's kids (I'm a child of the 90s and I certainly prefer it), while the older one is only included in modular buildings as a bonus for adult buyers. I take it the one in the set is the one with a classic smile, white eye sparkles, and brown eyebrows? Incidentally, the one listed in this set in the Customer Service website's replacement parts database is the classic smiley (listed with the unusually-short element ID "9336", demonstrating what a classic part it is-- modern element IDs tend to be at least seven digits).

No problem. I was a big fan of Knights' Kingdom and of BIONICLE, and the two themes share a lot of colors. I undertook a project a long time ago to identify the names and numbers of all the colors used in BIONICLE, and am glad to be able to put some of that information to good use. There are a couple glitter colors on LDD-- 114 Transparent Pink Glitter, 117 Transparent with Glitter, and 129 Transparent Bluish Violet Glitter, but I think that being transparent they are a different sort of glitter color than 304 and 306 (which are probably surface treatments rather than colored ABS plastic with glitter actually mixed in). And anyway, although these three colors do work on LDD, they do not render correctly-- none of them have any glitter visible, and 129 doesn't even render as transparent. Perhaps we'll be lucky and a future version of LDD will be able to render glitter colors correctly. Until then, there are plenty of colors that could make decent placeholders, as long as you're consistent in which ones you use for which colors.

Keep in mind, though, that Ninjago is being more heavily-promoted than Kingdoms. For Ninjago, two consecutive waves of sets (plus various promotional material like the TV special) were planned from the get-go, whereas in the case of Kingdoms there was a half-year gap between the first two waves of sets, and the line wasn't nearly as heavily promoted even when it was first beginning. With that said, yes, I'd say Ninjago is far more successful than Kingdoms was for LEGO. The TV special was extremely well-received, and a full cartoon series is planned for the end of this year. Ninjago's popularity among kids is extremely visible by browsing Flickr. I frequently just look at the most recent LEGO-related images, and something I've seen fairly often this year is "Here is a Ninjago-themed birthday cake I made for this kid who really loves the theme", or similarly with costumes or smaller confections. The only other themes I've seen with that kind of immediate popularity are BIONICLE and Star Wars. And LEGO planned for this same level of success, evidently-- according to the Borders.com blurb for the upcoming Ninjago Official Guide, "Ninjago is funny. Ninjago is action-packed. Ninjago is Lego's biggest new initiative since Bionicle!" And as with BIONICLE, the marketing for Ninjago was probably a very big investment on TLG's part. I'm very happy to see that it seems to have paid off. Finally, let me add that since Kingdoms isn't a fantasy-intensive theme and seemingly was never intended to be one, the fact that there are dragons for Ninjago and none for the Dragon Knights kind of goes without saying. The only dragons in the Kingdoms theme so far have seemingly all been inanimate ornamentation, besides arguably the dragon wizard's baby dragon (and even that could easily be a fancy paperweight). Rather than being a swords-and-sorcery theme like the previous iteration of Castle, where fantasy creatures were everywhere, Kingdoms seems like it may be more along the lines of actual medieval history. A lot of people, even the rich and powerful, believed in creatures like fairies or dragons, but at the same time they knew that such creatures, if they existed, tended to remain hidden, and that the average person would not be likely to encounter such creatures in their lifetime.

Saying there's no point in doing those themes again is like saying there's no point doing police and fire stations in the City theme. Or that there was no point in having BIONICLE climaxes take place underground after 2001. Ideas are rarely "touch once and avoid forever after" type things, especially ideas as vague as a general setting or conflict theme.

The problem is that Jack Stone also wasn't intended to be realistic. However, it wasn't going so much for a cutesy aesthetic as much as an adventurous Rescue Heroes-type cartoon feel. Even at age 11, I personally liked that (my little brother was within the age range for those sets at the time and I was very happy to see him building with what I considered a quality toy). The fact that it emphasized creative building to solve problems was pretty great as well (my family has a promotional Jack Stone videocassette which, while nowhere near as fun as today's LEGO movies, really demonstrated the message and image the theme was trying to go for). The problem is that people tend to ignore age range on most LEGO themes which are also intended for kids. Is there a cutoff point at which you stop having any sympathy for kids' capacities for building? A point at which kids are expected to either tolerate AFOL-level sets or quit building altogether? And also, themes like Jack Stone and 4+ are often berated harshly for the same type of juniorization. Great post. I guess it is true that reviews in general tend to be positive, since the reviewer generally has already decided they like the set before they make the choice of buying it. It was just the overall lack of any sort of negativity in the review that caught me off-guard. I don't have much else to say besides that "in the successful pursuit of a pony" has a nice ring to it. It would make a good album name, perhaps. Don't ask me what genre it'd be.

I'm fairly skeptical about the theme ending since I don't have any idea where a retailer might get that sort of information. A retailer's catalog could tell you some things, but at the same time it wouldn't reveal anything like that conclusively. Perhaps Hero Factory might just take a half-year hiatus the same way Kingdoms did. At the same time, it'd be a shame if it were to end just as I was beginning to really enjoy it.

They're not available in any of the default palettes, hence the reason this chart is so important. Many of them were available prior to LDD 4.0, and thus could easily be generated in LEGO Universe mode back then (for LDD 4.0, many colors were removed from the default palettes because they made it too easy for people to become confused about which color was which). Others had to be copied and pasted from an LXFML file(a file that can open either with LDD or a text editor) that had been coded for those colors. For instance, by creating an LXFML with a 1x1 red brick, opening that LXFML in Notepad, and changing the Material ID from 21 to 114, you can change that the 1x1 brick's color from 21 Bright Red to 114 Transparent Pink Glitter. This was how most of the colors depicted as bricks (those lacking information on LDD beyond their appearance) were generated.