Aanchir

The treads actually are available on LDD, it would seem. They're part 43903. However, they can't be properly flexed into position, so if you add them they'll have to be left to the side. That's the only error I can find. The reason those parts cannot attach is that they're not supposed to attach. If you look at the picture of the model in the instruction booklet's "Table of Contents", you can see that this small probe is floating out of the front independently. Thus, it simply needs to rest inside the sub without any connection. Again, the treads are available as part 43903. The assembly of parts 32054, 32062, and 2819 is not supposed to be mirrored. There should only be one of these constructions, on the left side of the submarine. The parts you were forced to leave off can be placed just fine if you hinge the 2x2x2 round Technic bricks (30361) upwards three degrees each. In real life this would happen naturally, but in LDD it's harder to tell that this is necessary (since it's such a small angle that it doesn't show up well in the instructions). No errors in the build, but the first error you have listed is phrased backwards. 30283 is the one that's missing and 60219 is the one that you replaced it with. One last comment I'd like to make: the actual set's instructions list, at the end of certain models, which other models can be built with the leftover pieces. I think it'd be great if you could create additional LXFs for each full "set" of models that can be built at any given time: Set 1 - Models 1, 2, 6, and 10 Set 2 - Models 5 and 11 Great work on this set!

Well, there are plenty of teams mentioned on the Hero Factory website's Past Missions section, including Delta 9 Team, Epsilon 4 Team, Mu 19 Team, Rho 3 Team, and Rho 14 Team. There are lots of other Greek letters to choose from, including gamma, kappa, eta, sigma, etc (Here's the Wikipedia page for the Greek alphabet, and here's the list of known teams on HS01). And there are other teams that have been mentioned that don't even follow that naming convention, like Sierra team (probably from the NATO phonetic alphabet) and Zed 4 Team (from the last letter of the Latin alphabet, according to the British pronunciation).

Regarding the beds, people need to keep in mind that the Griffindor common room and the boys' and girls' dormitories are separate rooms. A common room is more of a sort of lounge where people can hang out or study, not a place where people sleep. So the room with the beds could very easily be the Griffindor boys' dormitory (the boys' dormitory makes the most sense to me seeing as both Harry and Neville are included in the set as minifigures, while no female students are included). Of course, it could also be the Room of Requirement. No real confirmation either way. On a random side note, I actually learned what a common room was from the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone video game for the Game Boy Color, which I must say is one incredible game.

Which one? If you're talking about the color of Finn McMissile, I'm pretty sure he's just Medium Blue (the official name is the same as the Bricklink name). The bluish-green color used for Professor Z is 323 Aqua, which Bricklink calls Light Aqua.

Umm... "girls who are really girly" are basically Belville's target audience. So it's really backwards to say that Belville is unsuccessful because it appealed mainly to that market. And assuming that being minifig-scale is a requirement for something to sell well is silly. BIONICLE was immensely successful, lasting nine years, but its minifig-scale sets lasted only three years. Fabuland wasn't minifig scale, and yet it's incredibly popular among certain pockets of AFOLs and lasted for about eleven years. Personally, I have hardly any way to gauge Belville's success since I basically ignored it my whole life. I definitely prefer the prospect of a minifig-scale girls' theme to larger doll-based themes like Belville or Scala. And yet at the same time, I do have one piece of evidence that suggests Belville was very successful, that being its lifespan. Based on that, it had the longest-lasting success of any girls' theme, so it shouldn't just be dismissed as a failure on the basis that "I didn't like it" or "AFOLs in general didn't like it".

I definitely like Raw-Jaw. He's simple, chunky, and has an expressive design. Basically some of the main reasons I like Hero Factory. He's not an advanced design by any means, but he has a lot of personality. If I could list one thing I dislike about him, it'd be his back plate. It doesn't make his body look very solid underneath, and the silver is kind of grating on the eyes. I'd have preferred a red or black back plate. His tail is also a little ridiculous. However, I'm really fond of his funny face, those tiny back legs, and those massive hands. Fangz my least favorite other than Scorpio and Witch Doctor. He has that same weird posture as Spinax, which (at least in the Toy Fair pictures) really doesn't seem to work for him. Maybe he'd look better if his legs were bent properly instead of stretched out straight so stupidly (please ignore the unintentional alliteration). His back plates don't really make him look very solidly-built. One thing that continues to bother me is that Fangz and Waspix alike use the old-style joints for their feet. In Fangz's case, it's logical, because his front and back feet match stylistically. In Waspix's case, though, why didn't they just use the clawed Ben 10 feet? Then again, I guess those ones wouldn't have really worked with the way his legs bend. Needless to say, though, I'm kind of disappointed that TLG got rid of the Glatorian head in favor of weird cladding-based heads without getting rid of the old-style joints entirely. It makes it seem like their priorities are a bit backwards.

Anyway, great review of this awesome set! It comes with many excellent characters. The only thing I really greatly regret about this set is that two of its characters are packaged separately in almost exactly the same form-- however, this is the ideal set to get for picking up those characters. Are you sure you have Flo built correctly? It looks as though the 1x2 cheese wedges and the 1x2 flat tiles should be switched to make her "shark fins" look correct. Oh, come now. You know it's not polite to take photographs of a lady's rear. Shame on you! XD Just wanted to clarify about the drink machine-- the whole point of it is a joke. The sticker for it reads "Texas Tea", which in this context sounds like a brand of beverage but is actually a slang term for petroleum. Love the design of the cafe itself, even if it's not a very dense or intricate structure. The 4x4 plates with 2x2 cutouts in the center, by the way, aren't new. I believe they've been around since at least 2009. Again, loved this review. Thanks for taking the time to write it!

Great review! Is the mirror sticker reflective? My favorite Mirror of Erised was the one in the Belville-esque set that had Harry's reflection with somewhat ghostly images of his parents behind him. I was far less fond of the holographic revolving wall version. This version is definitely the most ornately brick-built of any of the versions, but at the same time I wish it were larger. It really does look lovely together with the other one, and I look forward to getting this new one!

What makes you think Paradisa sold better than Belville? Paradisa lasted for six years, while Belville lasted for fifteen. And in some of those years the two themes coexisted, so there's absolutely no reason to think that the more successful one would have ended first.

"Rose-colored glasses" means seeing the past as better than it was, not seeing the past as better than the present. Those years weren't as bad with color inconsistencies as today, but they weren't perfect either, and that's what I was trying to establish in that sentence. I had no intention of trying to claim everything has always been just as bad as it is today. Rather, I was trying to make it clear that things weren't necessarily as good as they are often remembered. Flukes in the quality of mass-produced items are a perennial issue, even if they can be brought down to far more reasonable levels. Good information. I'll try not to go throwing it around, because I'll probably end up forgetting details and distorting the story like I did with what you were replying to below. I thought I had heard that it was a 2004 change, but I must be confusing dates in my head. My mistake. In any event, I don't really have any confidence in TLG being perfectly honest about old shames. After all, TLG-endorsed media almost never mentions Kiddicraft bricks and the role they had in paving the way to LEGO bricks. "Rolling in dough?" That seems to me like an exaggeration. The toy industry is still a struggling market, and just because TLG can still turn a profit doesn't mean they aren't at any risk. Furthermore, going backwards doesn't seem to me to be the solution-- it would just be putting them at risk again if they hit another slump. I'd be more happy if TLG worked to improve on their current process so that it doesn't have as many problems as it currently does. And the reason China can't use the same plastic would apply whether TLG was using pre-colored granulate or not. The Chinese plastic issue arose because Chinese manufacturing law requires a certain amount of the materials for manufacturing to be domestic. So even if they were using pre-colored granulate there, they'd still have to be getting it from a totally different supplier. I do want to point out that some of my worst color inconsistencies in a set were from a set I got in 2005 (specifically, this one, originally released in 2004). This set uses mostly basic colors, and yet color inconsistencies were extremely obvious. This is part of the reason why I tend to think of 2004 as the start of serious color inconsistencies, although if that wasn't the time the coloring process changed then perhaps there's some other change that we don't know about-- perhaps one involving the supplier of the pre-colored granulate. I happen to have an unopened copy of this set back home, so someday I may tear it open and get some solid evidence of whether this was a widespread issue or just a one-off occurrence. That's part of what I'm suggesting, yes. A full production run will be far larger than a test run. Test runs are not perfect indicators of the eventual product's quality, but they're basically the best indicators available. However, I'm not suggesting that test runs didn't show any quality problems. Rather, I'm suggesting that they might have had misleading results suggesting the quality problems would be on a smaller scale. To be honest, I'm not too familiar with that set. What type of "metallic" color is it? If it's not a "pearl" color, then it's probably lacquered and doesn't even play into this conversation. Sorry if I was confusing-- "metallic" tends to be LEGO's term for what Bricklink calls "Pearl", which means there's no limit to the amount of confusion that comes up when discussing the various types of metallic colors. They could be considered extraneous, yes. My point, though, was not that adding colors willy-nilly is a good thing, but that it isn't a new thing. TLG had much worse problems with this back in the 90s and early 2000s, and I think their current efforts at keeping the palette smaller and more manageable are admirable. Glad to see something we agree on. Fair enough. Just a matter of different attitudes, and now we've each shared our own. Perhaps I just haven't been around long enough to become jaded by the whole thing. I was a KFOL back when the color palette was at its largest, so I didn't accumulate a huge collection of the more obscure colors. Those which I had I pretty much never used anyway because they were so obscure and I had so few of them. I've also never been much of a MOCist, so that also might play into it. And of course, seeing as new colors being introduced and old colors being discontinued was something I grew up with, the trend might never affect me quite the same way it does for veteran AFOLs. My collection of parts in rarer colors has always been limited-- never did I have enough Sand Red to really care when TLG stopped making that, because I didn't expect to have a big collection of that color anyway. Nowadays, of course, TLG uses their newest colors a lot more widely than they did with so many "one-off" colors, so if a color like Medium Nougat or Dark Brown ends up discontinued I could genuinely have reason to be upset. But in case you hadn't gathered, I'm terminally optimistic. So until a big disappointment comes around, I'm probably going to remain fairly happy with TLG for taking their color palette seriously and actually using the new colors they introduce.

Wouldn't Rocka and Nex be better phrased as "awesome feline-ness" "not-so-awesome feline-ness"? Anyway, I agree with most of these ratings, except I'd give Furno and Waspix higher ratings and Witch Doctor and Fangz lower ratings. Fangz just doesn't strike my fancy, and there are oh-so-many things I dislike about Witch Doctor's design. Compared to some of the better BIONICLE titan designs (Brutaka's a personal favorite) or even to Fire Lord, Witch Doctor is a blocky mess. Fire Lord basically showed us the foundation of a good, strong Hero Factory "titan" set, albeit underdeveloped. Rocka XL seems to develop that design further, enhancing it to remove some of the awkwardness Fire Lord suffered from. But as far as I'm concerned, Witch Doctor took the design considerations in completely the wrong direction, creating a model that's heavily dependent on Technic and not remotely streamlined. I imagine that people's opinions of Witch Doctor as anything but a parts pack may change once reviews start to appear, since from some of the pics I've seen it seems as though his torso structure is extremely lacking and his posability is awkward. Of course, that also means that we'll start seeing plenty of completely-missing-the-point "revamps" that try filling out the flaws in the Technic-based torso with a denser Technic structure.

I wouldn't say getting 100% on the shooting game is impossible, but you'd have to be both fast and extremely lucky. I think all you need is 90% to get all three stars. The way to get that many is to try and make sure whenever possible you hit two saucers at once-- even if it means letting a saucer make it nearly to the edge of the screen before shooting it. It took me many tries to get all three stars.

Great review! I was very interested to see the Technic turntable piece which is used-- I had thought that version had been discontinued in favor of the studless version, but it seems that isn't the case. Doesn't bother me one bit-- that's one part where the studless version is incredibly frustrating to incorporate into System. I was kind of unsure about how I liked the claw, but seeing this review it seems amazing. This won't be the first set I get if I end up collecting this theme, but it's certainly nicely-designed.

Has anyone taken the Alien IQ test on LEGO.com? Some of the questions are kinda tricky, but in general it's pretty humorous. Whack-An-Alien is hard, though. Haven't tried the other game yet. EDIT: Tried all three games and finally got three stars in each. Whack-An-Alien was easy compared to the shooting game.

No, I don't recall any pictures where he had the Hydraxon mask, even though he did have one of his own mask in black on his staff in some preliminary box art. Fangz is cool, but he doesn't really excite me. I do like Rocka XL, though.

The 1x2 jumper plate (3794) should be colored 26 Black rather than 194 Medium Stone Grey. The 1x1 bricks with side studs (47905) should be colored 26 Black rather than 28 Dark Green. Again, the 1x1 bricks with side studs (47905) should be colored 26 Black rather than 28 Dark Green. No other errors with this one. No errors with any of these ones! Nice going!

Well, see, that's part of what I take issue with, since generally out-of-production colors were taken out of production for a reason. True, some, like the Clikits colors, were probably just removed for being superfluous. However, others, like 131 Silver, had problems that TLG tried for years to deal with to no avail. There's an annoying country song that plays on the radio occasionally over here It's first verse is "We were born to mothers who smoked and drank/Our cribs were covered with led based paint/No childproof lids, no seatbelts in cars/Rode bikes with no helmets and still here we are". I brought up to my mom how obnoxious this song's message was, and she summed the problem up fairly well: "The people who aren't here to tell about it aren't here to tell about it." In general, just because you don't observe problems doesn't mean they don't exist. Frankly, imperfections are an inherent part of mass production. And I merely said imperfections existed before-- I'm not trying to claim that they were as bad or as frequent as those that occurred in 2004 and later after the switch in how colored parts were produced (and in fact, as I said, it becomes more difficult to ensure product quality the more TLG expands their production). I have indeed seen color inconsistencies in parts from the 70s and 80s-- it's not clear whether these are just because the colors didn't age well or because the colors were originally inconsistent, but either situation is a quality problem. You're referring to the 2000s time frame? I don't quite remember these issues, but then again I was not a part of the AFOL community until fairly recently, and the only issues I knew of for a long time were those that spilled over into the BIONICLE community like the whole bley controversy, a serious issue with breaking joints in 2007, and the switching of many Technic parts to more vibrant colors like red and blue rather than black and grey. And aside from the breaking joints issue, none of these were quality issues. I would speculate that this might be because many BIONICLE parts were mechanically-complex to mold and were thus molded in Billund, which is the most established place of production for LEGO parts and probably has the most well-established quality control to match. But that's just speculation. This is something I think needs to be considered more seriously by some people. Why is it more expensive to get more color consistency? The way I see it, the most likely reason is that it's cheaper to put slightly-inconsistent part in boxes than to throw them out (after all, in issues regarding color you can't exactly recast the plastic and expect to come out with a better-colored part). An additional factor is of course the switch in 2004 to adding colored dye during the production process rather than using pre-colored plastic granulate. This served a number of purposes, like keeping more of the production process in-house, but one of its main functions was as a streamlining and cost-cutting measure, and most of the biggest color issues seem to have been consequences of this process. LEGO could potentially return to pre-2004 levels of quality by reversing this change, but frankly all of their machines are now geared to work with this newer process, so it would be extremely expensive and there's no guarantee that it would even solve the problem. So what would the alternative be? Discontinue inconsistent colors without replacing them at all? Continuing to use colors that are known to be inconsistent while you continue to test potential replacements (noting, of course, that experimental test runs will not be a completely reliable predictor of full-scale mass production)? These "intermediary" colors (I'm assuming you're talking about 296 Cool Silver) aren't anticipated to have similar or worse problems than the originals. I'm not agreeing with that poster at all about this. I'm glad that many colors from 2001, as well as earlier and later years, have been discontinued. Consider the color 157 Transparent Fluorescent Yellow-- Bricklink's Trans-Neon Yellow. It was only used in BIONICLE sets to my knowledge, and is basically just the same as 44 Transparent Yellow except that it fluoresces under a blacklight. I'm sure many LEGO fans and BIONICLE fans don't even recognize that there's a difference between the two colors. Likewise, there's 158 Transparent Fluorescent Red. Used in BIONICLE sets between 2001 and 2002, it's similar to Transparent Fluorescent Yellow except the color it visually resembles is 113 Transparent Medium Reddish Violet (Trans-Dark Pink)-- so much that Bricklink doesn't recognize them as different colors. Then there's the various pearl colors I've mentioned: specifically, 149 Metallic Black, 183 Metallic White, 184 Metallic Bright Red, 185 Metallic Bright Blue, 186 Metallic Dark Green, 187 Metallic Earth Orange. These are pearl versions of Bricklink's Black, White, Red, Blue, Green, and Brown, respectively, and were hardly used in any sets besides the 2003 Rahkshi sets. Bricklink recognizes only one of these colors; the others are conflated with the non-pearl versions. And there are other colors that even I don't know what they were used for-- 108 Earth Yellow (similar to 25 Earth Orange, BL's Brown), 123 Bright Reddish Orange (notable for being the only reddish-orange color I know of), 4 Brick Red, and others I don't even know the names of. Should all of these still be on the color palette? I won't claim that these colors weren't interesting. I'm certainly a fan of many of them. But were they necessary? That's a trickier question. And there's many colors just like them that were scarcely ever produced, and which I'm sure nobody ever shed a tear for. Few people even knew they existed. In comparison, today's colors are in general produced in multiple themes, for multiple purposes (excluding the newest six, which haven't shown up in much yet at all). And I haven't even brought up how much I prefer the "bley" and reddish-brown colors to their duller predecessors. Think of it this way: if red LEGO bricks had originally looked like red Mega Bloks bricks from the early 90s, would you have preferred purer, more vibrant colors? On that note, that's how some of the bricks I've seen from before the switch to ABS did look-- so was this change a bad thing? That's basically how I feel about the original greys and brown-- they may have their merits, but compared to other LEGO colors they were fairly ugly and by 2004 it was more than time for a change. In general, a lot of things about the color palette are very subjective, but I don't feel that we can look at today's color palette and complain that "it used to be so much better". Perhaps some AFOLs do prefer the old palette with just a few colors (ignoring, of course, that there were generally far more colors even in the 70s and 80s and they simply weren't used most of the time in System-- does Fabuland Brown ring any bells?) This "constant revision of the palette", as far as removing old colors is concerned, began in 2004 when TLG realized there were just too many colors. But adding new colors is a process that's been taking place for decades, and I don't see the logic in complaining about TLG continuing doing what they've pretty much always done.

I had a pink bucket of Tyco parts when I was a kid... can't quite remember why. The worst of the Tyco parts were the 1x1 round bricks. They had holes, but any actual LEGO pins could get stuck. I have memories of sorting through all my white 1x1 round bricks trying to identify which were LEGO and which were Tyco.

The problem with that is that argument is that it doesn't work in the toy business. Frankly, girls in the general System age range just aren't interested enough in the same sets as boys in that same age range. Otherwise, girls would have no problems buying City sets, which are about as unisex as you can get (despite having a lot of vehicles, something boys are more attracted to than girls for some reason). And the Paradisa theme would have been an incredible success-- after all, it was pretty unisex, and if TLG just ignores the influence of stereotypes then horses and the color pink should sell just fine to a male audience. Duplo sets are fairly unisex, as has been mentioned by TLG as getting about the same attention from boys and girls. But after that age range, girls and boys begin trying actively to differentiate themselves from one another. TLG has a hard enough time competing with other toy companies as it is-- if they were to just hope for girls and boys to buy the same things, then they'd basically be setting themselves up against peer pressure and every other cultural influence that feeds this arbitrary differentiation of gendered play. That's not a healthy competitive situation. And as I mentioned about City sets, the current range of LEGO products tends to include things like vehicles and conflict role-play that for whatever reason boys tend to flock towards and girls tend to ignore. Yes, it's true that girls and boys should be able to enjoy the same things, but as it is they don't, and I think it's wise of TLG to try balancing out their offerings to appeal to girls of diverse interests rather than just telling the girls who want to play with toys considered "girly" that they are the product of a hypocritical society, that their interests are stereotypical and demeaning, and that they should outright reject their friends who think Barbie dolls and Littlest Pet Shop are the coolest things on store shelves. Or, they could try to get girls and boys to play together and have a mutual respect during the "cooties" stage. In that case, my only suggestion to them would be that they might have better luck with their plans to use their toy-company influence to end world hunger, childhood obesity, and natural disasters, all while turning a significant profit from the endeavor. On a side note, when I was in elementary school, one of the biggest recess activities was for all the boys to chase after all the girls and the girls to run frantically. I thought it was a stupid, biased activity, and when I did participate I would try to team up with the girls (don't draw any sexual conclusions, please). Was I popular with both genders? Well, they did treat me fairly equally... as a social outcast and a weirdo. You're basically saying TLG should likewise try to fight against this alarming gender divide in preteens, so naturally I'm a bit cynical about this approach. I mean no insult towards girls, towards women, or towards those like yourself who honestly want to work towards gender equality in society, but I merely lack confidence in the strategy you feel TLG should take.

How exactly are there too many colors? There's only 57 listed here, plus a handful that aren't (309 Metalized Silver, 310 Metalized Gold, 298 Cool Silver Drum Lacquered, 299 Lacquered Gold, etc). Would you care to take a peek at the 2003 color palette (which is also missing a wide assortment of colors used in 2003)? 86 colors on that bad boy. And many of them are from extremely obscure sets or themes. Color issues will never be fixed completely, because perfect quality control just isn't a possibility (and it wasn't in previous decades, either, so let's not put on the rose-colored glasses just yet). Fixing production issues is a continuous process, and the more TLG expands their production the harder it gets. But saying that TLG should stop making new colors until they have solved all of their quality problems is almost as laughable as saying they should stop making new sets until they've solved their quality problems. Note also that some of the most recent colors-- 315 Silver Metallic and 316 Titanium Metallic-- were introduced for the specific purpose of solving inconsistency problems. The previous versions of those colors, 131 Silver and 148 Dark Grey Metallic, were around for many years, and TLG tried to adjust them frequently to fix seemingly inescapable inconsistencies. In 2006, they even tried replacing 131 Silver with 296 Cool Silver, which apparently had even worse problems-- it was discontinued in 2007 and 131 Silver was brought back. Now, TLG has finally given us two metallic colors which so far have been extremely consistent, not to mention more attractive than the previous versions (at least, by my own reckoning and the reckoning I've seen from anyone to compare the old and new colors). Note also that many colors have been discontinued in the past decade to reduce the sprawling color palette. Several transparent colors from the Clikits theme and other girl-oriented sets have been discontinued, and today's color palette has a more conservative sampling of transparent colors. Likewise, in 2003 the number of metallic (pearl) colors was sprawling out of control. There were at least 16 of them. Many of these Bricklink doesn't even recognize, conflating them with more common non-metallic colors (Did you know there was a pearl red? You do now). Today, there are three "pearl" colors, hardly a sign of a cancerous growth in TLG's color palette. I personally think we should be thankful that the recent colors have mainly been to fill gaps left by previously-discontinued colors. 321, 322, and 323 can be considered replacements for the long-discontinued 107 Bright Bluish Green (BL's Dark Turquoise), 116 Medium Bluish Green (BL's Light Turquoise), and 118 Light Bluish Green (BL's Aqua). 326 can be considered a replacement for 120 Light Yellowish Green (BL's Light Lime). And 324 and 325 fill a role as lavender colors that has never been filled unless you count the short-lived 136 Sand Violet (BL's Sand Purple). Some might argue that in that case TLG should just bring back the old colors, ignoring the fact that they were probably discontinued for a reason. After all, in the event that quality control really was better in previous decades, who's to say that a bunch of parts molded in those colors didn't end up as unused "rejects" due to color inconsistencies? The main colors that have inconsistencies reported these days are the ones TLG has decided firmly on never discontinuing, like Bright Red or Reddish Brown, but that doesn't mean other colors weren't more expensive than the value of producing them. Take a look at a somewhat artistically-arranged map of the current color palette-- it forms a fairly fluid continuum, and the only possible complaints are that there aren't enough yellowish-orange colors, that there are no bluish-violet or reddish orange colors, or that there are too many earth tones. Of those three arguments, the first and second I've never heard before (bluish-violet colors have not previously been well-loved by LEGO fans, yellowish-orange colors are often ignored, and there have never been many reddish-orange colors to begin with), while the third would have plenty of Castle, Military, Pirates, and... actually, just AFOLs in general, outside your house with torches and pitchforks (although admittedly some of these earth tones are the "flesh" colors, which are not very well-loved). Note that this palette includes some metallic colors that are absent from the official one released by TLG, and yet the range of metallic colors is still sparse compared to 2003's palette. Eh, rambling done. I doubt I've convinced anyone, but I just figured I'd share my perspective.

Why don't you ask the three LEGO City audiobooks that have apparently already begun showing up in Germany? Or the similar Ninjago audiobook? LEGO audiobooks are about the same as any other LEGO books, I'd wager. They tell fun stories that amuse kids and reinforce their love of LEGO, while also inspiring them to build their own stories using their LEGO collections. They're product placement, but they're LEGO product placement, which I think we can all agree is the best kind! And there was a topic for this already: see here in the Community subforum. Also, I don't recognize that comic in the image. Is that a Jim Spaceborn comic or something? I wouldn't know, since my family only has the first of those, and I don't think any subsequent ones exist in English (although they might in other languages).

On the other hand, there are a lot of people who can't do anything but moan and complain about how Star Wars is a "zombie franchise" and how George Lucas "should have just stopped after the third film" (I think I've heard at least one person say that he should have stopped after the first). Frankly, I don't see Harry Potter disappearing from the public consciousness anytime soon. There will be some gambit or another to keep it popular, even if it's as simple as releasing "ULTIMATE GOLD DELUXE EDITIONS" of every film once the DVDs are all out. The question is, is this enough to keep the Harry Potter franchise afloat? After all, Harry Potter has very little in the way of "expanded universe" material-- just The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Quidditch Through the Ages. Yes, there have been video games, but only "tie-in" video games with the release of the films (okay, plus the Quidditch World Cup game, which I'll admit was one of my favorites on the Game Boy Advance). And I have no idea whether J.K. Rowling has any intention of writing brand-new story material-- she certainly doesn't seem like the type who'd allow other authors to publish works using her characters, unlike His Mighty Lucasness. If the Harry Potter franchise remains as well-known and active as the Star Wars franchise, then the LEGO theme could last just as long. But otherwise, I don't see the theme continuing for more than maybe a few years after the last film (and of course AFOLs would complain the whole time about "how many ______s do we need" or about Harry being in too many sets, caught in the same delusions that currently ensnare so many Star Wars fans). Yes, we want the Harry Potter theme to continue, but frankly we all know that TLG couldn't just release one Hogwarts Castle set and leave it at that for five years. That's completely unreasonable when you assume that most kids don't know or care what sets were on shelves years ago. It's the same reason why LEGO needs to release a Millenium Falcon every other year, and Hogwarts and the Hogwarts Express can both be expected to get the same treatment. In the meantime, this would stop TLG from releasing sets of other, less notable locations. Frankly, there will probably never be a set of Professor Slughorn's house no matter how many years the theme continues. As much as people would like it, we'd never get the full cast of characters or full panoply of locations. That's part of why MOCing exists-- because frankly, there are some potential sets that would simply never be worth LEGO's time. Me, I take things in stride. I don't care if TLG releases a set of something they just released a set of two years ago. If I got the one two years ago, I'll just ignore the new one, and if I missed the old one I might get the new one, but chances are I might not be interested in getting either, so no point making a fuss. It's true, TLG has put up a valiant effort to avoid direct repeats within this latest iteration of the theme, only repeating the best concepts from the previous iterations. They've even given us minifigures we would never have even anticipated previously, like Professor Sprout and Narcissa Malfoy. But to be honest, they're a business, and they're interested in making money. This will mean ideas many of us won't like if the theme continues, and it means that the theme can't continue unless Harry Potter merchandise in general continues flying off the shelves. It's hardly TLG's decision whether the theme lasts after the final movie has been released.

Alright, none of your links work, so it was a bit hard getting to the files. However, I was able to get to them by correcting the URLs. The "/thumb" needs to be removed from each one. But here's the error-check: The two 1x2 hinge plates used on the arms (44302) need to be colored 26 Black rather than 106 Bright Orange. They are correct in your screenshot but not in the LXF, so I guess you just made a change and forgot to save it. That's the only error with this model. Remember that click hinges like 44302 and 44567 can only be hinged at increments of 22.5 degrees (some sets require the parts to be hinged by a different increment, which is technically an illegal connection, but in this set there should be no difficulties). Here, the arms are hinged by 15 degrees. Not sure why you had trouble getting Trans-Neon Orange with this one since you did just fine with it in the Black Robot Pod. The official name for the color is 47 Transparent Fluorescent Reddish-Orange. The technic pin/axle (6562) should be colored 5 Brick Yellow rather than 3 Light Yellow. Same error I mentioned above regarding click-hinges. Again, all of these ones are hinged by 15 degrees when they should be hinged by 22.5 degrees. Again, the click hinges should be hinged by increments of 22.5 degrees. One way to double-check this sort of thing is to zoom in real close to these hinges and see if the "teeth" are interlocking correctly, or if they're colliding. But with certain parts that's more trouble than it's worth. It's easier just to practice until you've memorized the number 22.5 for this style of hinge. All Dark Purple parts should be 268 Medium Lilac rather than 124 Bright Reddish Violet. This isn't the first time I've seen this mistake, which surprises me because Medium Lilac is a very dark color in real life and should look very different from Bright Reddish Violet. Perhaps the color renders differently on different people's computer monitors? All Trans-Neon Green parts should be colored 49 Transparent Fluorescent Green rather than 311 Transparent Bright Green. This one makes more sense to me since on LDD Transparent Fluorescent Green looks more yellow than green, and is almost indistinguishable from 44 Transparent Yellow. Just as with the Dragon Pod, all tan parts should be colored 5 Brick Yellow rather than 3 Light Yellow. This fellow's missing a 1x2 plate in Bright Yellowish Green on his right foot. The click hinge on his neck needs to be fixed as mentioned above. -67.5 degrees is probably the magic number in this case. All his other click hinges are at angles of 45 or 90, so they work out. Same color errors as in the A-model, and the angles of the click hinges for his feet and neck need to be fixed, but otherwise everything's OK. Immediately upon opening the file I was alerted that "two bricks were not placed correctly and have been removed from the model." One of these was a bright blue 1x4 plate (3710), which was removed because apparently this set uses an illegal connection (there is a workaround, thankfully). The other was a phosphorescent white 1x1 plate with tooth (49668), which was removed for the same reason. I find it interesting that these parts were removed from one side and not the other, which might mean either part 43711 or its counterpart 43710 has incorrect brick geometries. This is the only error with this model. The workaround I mentioned is to move the 1x1 Technic bricks (6541), 1M Technic pins with studs (4274), and all SNOT pieces to the side of the model and replace them temporarily with four 1x1 bricks with side studs (87087). Then, move the SNOT pieces back onto the model. Finally, delete the four placeholder pieces and put the Technic bricks and pins back where they belong. Best to move all the Technic bricks and pins at once using the Multiple Selection Tool for this to work best. If you have trouble using this method, just say the word and I can fix the model myself and give you a copy of the LXF to put on your Brickshelf in place of the current one. Errors involving illegal connections can be some of the most frustrating to fix, and I don't know if my instructions make much sense, so I'd be happy to fix this one for you if you can't decipher my instructions. You have two extra 1x2 45-degree slope bricks (3040). The two on his back need to be deleted, and the 2x4 wedge slope bricks (43710 and 43711) need to be scooted forward one stud each. That's the only error with this one. This is where I thought I was finished until I realized you had posted some more X-Pods while I was busy correcting the first batch! No errors here! Great work! Click-hinge angles need to be fixed. No other errors, though. Once again, no errors! Your levers (73587) have the colors inverted. Perhaps has LDD been updated since you built this model? This has happened to some of my old sets when I had to update them after a new version of LDD appeared. This is the only error here. No errors on this one. The Trans-Neon Orange 1x1 round plate (6141) should be colored 47 Transparent Fluorescent Reddish Orange rather than 182 Transparent Bright Orange. No other errors here. All Trans-Neon Orange parts should be colored 47 Transparent Fluorescent Reddish Orange rather than 182 Transparent Bright Orange All Trans-Neon Green parts should be colored 49 Transparent Fluorescent Green rather than 311 Transparent Bright Green. Click hinges need to be hinged in increments of 22.5 degrees. This has all the same errors as the A-model, but no additional errors. Great work on all these sets! It's nice to do an error check on a bunch of tiny sets in between enormous Technic models. And a lot of these sets are familiar to me from growing up. I hope to see even more sets from you in the future!

Don't worry, I imagine a number of people might be buying this set and parting it out on Bricklink. Those 2x4 bricks in rarer colors like Medium Lilac (Dark Purple) and Light Purple (Bright Pink) could be in high demand as well! On a side note, I wouldn't be surprised if LEGO Champion's pricing might have something to do with it having a "brick tray" similar to that in Creationary. And it might also have cards or some other sort of non-brick content? Who knows? In any event, I am hoping it will have the same level of all-ages fun as Creationary, because if the contents don't justify the price the gameplay still might (says the guy who still hasn't gotten Creationary ).

Interesting especially because I've never seen this before! I've seen "clone brand" ones at museum gift shops, and was perplexed as to why TLG never did anything of this sort. Now I no longer need to be perplexed! It looks very nice, even though I wouldn't want it because I don't use a calendar often besides the one on my computer. If I were to use a physical calendar, I'd probably want one that I could write on. Still, it's a lovely idea, and I'm sure people will find good uses for those numbered bricks!