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Yep. Bright Reddish Violet corresponds to Bricklink's "Magenta", so it's not a new color by any means. But it's still a fairly rare one, and probably new to a lot of people (I for one don't have a single piece in this color). Incidentally, Bright Reddish Violet is one shade darker than 22 Medium Reddish Violet (the pre-2004 Dark Pink) and two shades darker than 9 Light Reddish Violet (the pre-2004 pink). Considering both of those colors, as well as one of the next closest colors, 104 Bright Violet, have disappeared, I consider it pretty impressive that 124 is still with us today. I hope someday it might end up appearing in a Hero Factory set.

The 1x1 cone piece should be part 6188 rather than 4589, since it's transparent. I have no idea what the physical differences between the two are, but I'm betting it's a small one to accommodate for one being ABS and one being PC. All metallic silver parts should be 298 Cool Silver Drum Lacquered rather than 309 Metalized Silver. No other errors I could find! Great work on these-- I loved X-Pods when I was a kid, even though I never got into the cool little game you were supposedly able to play with them.

Based on the Toy Fair pictures and my own time spent counting the heights of the two sets (from visual appraisal-- I may be wrong about either one's height since I don't have either set on hand for hands-on measurement), Witch Doctor is 44 modules high (counting his spikes) and Toa Mata Nui is 46 modules tall (with or without his shoulder spikes). So Toa Mata Nui is still taller. Of course, in relative terms, Witch Doctor is possibly taller, since he towers over the hero sets that can be considered the "standard" height of HF characters, whereas Toa Mata Nui is not as tall relative to the considerably larger Glatorian and Glatorian Legends sets. Also, I wonder if when the sets actually come out some of us might be surprised at the actual sizes of some of the new pieces. I was certainly surprised by the small size of some of the second-wave pieces when I first got Stormer 2.0.

Great review! I am not too excited for this set, but at the same time I feel it's a definite improvement over the last one. Of course, I didn't get that one either... the Knight Bus was neither my favorite vehicle nor my favorite scene, while Prisoner of Azkaban was neither my favorite book nor my favorite movie. And of course I was a little bothered that the new PoA figs were not compatible with my previous collection, nor were the Hogwarts locations in that series (I had become a big fan of building my Hogwarts ever larger after the first two waves of sets). I agree that the face of Stan Shunpike here doesn't work for the character at all, which is a shame because comparatively the old head looks terribly out-of-date. The new jacket is better than the old one in my book, though. The figs fail to convince me to buy this set primarily because they're either repeats or minor characters, not because I don't like their design quality.

Yeah, Guido has the new color 323 Aqua (BL's Light Aqua). In the earliest pictures I thought it would be the rarer but older color 212 Light Royal Blue, but it turns out that isn't the case. Great review! I agree that the Japanese text being sideways is a pain, especially since one would assume that this would match the actual environment in the relevant scenes of the movie, and I'm positive Pixar wouldn't mess up on something like that. Personally, with most of the decorations in this set, I prefer them as stickers since they're fairly specialized in design. The exceptions are the flags, which could very easily be printed without being license-specific or theme-specific, but which I don't mind that much, and the "Powered by Allinol" fuel tank, which as you mention is hard to apply. Plus, my stickered 2x2 round bricks don't have a good track record of staying together (they're one of just a few parts where I think stickers should be out-of-the-question unless TLG improves on this somehow, but at least there isn't a sticker across several pieces like with Plankton in the Build-A-Bob set). Overall, this set looks great! I'm a big fan of the Cars theme though I'm not too keen on collecting it myself. Great work on this review!

The blue color of the ADU uniforms will be making its first appearance in regular parts in the Spongebob Squarepants set 3815, unless another set with this color surprises us by appearing sooner. Anyway, great (and humorous) review! Great detail as well! I agree that using 124 Bright Reddish Violet (Magenta) instead of 268 Medium Lilac (Dark Purple) for the ships could have been cool, although I'm happy with the color scheme as it is. On some of the sets, Bright Reddish Violet might have been somewhat garish anyway. I'm kind of surprised that you didn't mention the new windscreen in this review, since it's notably different than either the 6x6 one in the tripod or the 8x8 one in LEGO Agents (which had a taller, egg-shaped curve rather than a spherical curve like this one). In fact, an image showing off new and interesting parts could have benefited this review greatly, since that seems to be the one thing it's missing. Still, always happy to get such a detailed look at the new sets!

If you want a smaller, more boxy television, there's this lovely one from the Spongebob Squarepants set 3827, or this old classic. In flatscreens, there's this 2x2 tile and this 2x4 tile, of which I prefer the second over the first, as well as stickered tile (mentioned and pictured in an earlier post) from set 7288 which is still on most stores' shelves.

True, but this isn't the most transparent ones LEGO's had on the palette. That would probably go to a year like 2006, when many of the special colors for Clikits and Belville were still on the palette. Bricklink doesn't recognize all of these (many are conflated with more common or more relevant colors). There were over twenty different transparent colors on the palette at that time. See a palette from that time here (some colors are listed twice to show how they appear in different materials). Today's transparent colors are modest by comparison: no more than three variations on any one color.

Well, despite my name being mentioned frequently, it seems like most of people's questions have been answered without needing my feedback. =) I'm pretty sure 321 Dark Azur is in fact the new color being used for the uniforms in the Alien Conquest theme (of course, you could also be correct in thinking it's Medium Azur-- impossible to really tell since we have only seen one of the two colors). It will also be appearing in more basic bricks in the Spongebob Squarepants theme this year. As for the difference in this year's Maersk Blue, I imagine the reason for this is that all previous sets with that color (11 Pastel Blue) have used pre-colored plastic granulate, whereas this year's Maersk Train presumably uses colorless granulate with dye added during production as is standard in today's sets. So a slight inconsistency is to be expected. And as has been mentioned, I don't expect a major change in Dark Red parts. Note that New Dark Red has been the name listed for Dark Red on LEGO Digital Designer and Pick-A-Brick for over a year, with no major changes observed. Incidentally, if there were to be a major change in appearance, the color would probably be given a brand-new ID number, but since it kept the same one it's probably just a slight reformulation in hopes of achieving more consistency. 221 Bright Purple probably isn't on Peeron because most online databases treat it as the same color as 22 Medium Reddish Violet (BL's Dark Pink). Bright Purple is a newer version that replaced Medium Reddish Violet in 2004. You also have a 2x2 slope in what looks like Bricklink's Metallic Silver where 315 Silver Metallic is on LEGO's color chart. However, BL's Metallic Silver is in fact TLG's 298 Cool Silver Drum Lacquered. 315 Silver Metallic is a color that debuted last year, which Bricklink tends to identify as Flat Silver (although there's a great deal of inconsistency in how they label this color). Titanium Metallic is the name for the Pearl Dark Gray color used in this year's sets and some of last year's (specifically the Kingdoms theme). I'm having trouble identifying the color of the robot arm at the bottom of your chart, but if it's a Flat Silver part from this year's sets then it's 315 Silver Metallic, and if it's a Pearl Dark Gray part from this year's sets then it's 316 Titanium Metallic (if it's an older Flat Silver, Pearl Dark Gray, or Pearl Light Gray part then it's probably not a current color).

But you see, this difficulty applies to some people, not all people. LEGO certainly has a reliable fanbase among fans who could build those sorts of older sets without difficulty, but the sets shouldn't be designed to be exclusive to people with those sorts of thinking patterns. And in truth I tend to prefer the simpler building instructions because I tend to build with my siblings, alternating steps. Even when I don't, I am very comfortable taking things slowly and step-by-step rather than rushing through several steps at once. What I'm talking about is how many people seem to be terrified over the removal of baseplates from the Creator theme in favor of regular plates, and worrying that baseplates in general will disappear completely. You see the same sorts of complaints about the Marina set-- people think that the use of regular plates rather than baseplates is a cop-out, and that there should have been a large blue baseplate under the whole structure. This is a set that explicitly uses traditional baseplates, and yet it demonstrates that those baseplates are not a solution to all of life's problems, and that thicker plates would in fact be preferable for this sort of structure.

Okay... normally, I don't give very thorough feedback on reviews, but this one is so loaded down with inaccuracies and uncertainties (almost all minor ones) that I feel I might as well go the extra mile here. This is an accusation I often heard leveled against BIONICLE sets back when I was extremely active in that community. However, something that's often ignored is that not everyone has the sort of thinking patterns that make LEGO building so easy. Back when I was nine or ten years old, I had a LEGO-themed birthday party, and my dad bought several of the then-current ThrowBots/Slizers sets for people to build for a disc-throwing competition. It surprised me how many kids at the party had difficulty following the simple pictorial instructions-- many would put pieces in the wrong places or at the wrong angle. Yes, it was a Technic build and thus arguably more advanced than a City set, but these were kids well within the Technic age range. Clearly for some people the visual-spatial qualities of LEGO building can be a challenge. I have had a number of similar experiences when building a set with someone who's less adept at the process, and witnessed even more when watching friends build independently. So we can't always assume that everyone understands the simplicity inherent to the building process in LEGO City sets. The cardboard backing has so far been seen mainly in D2C sets and other sets of comparable size. I imagine it will be a while before the transition is made to doing this in all sets (if that happens at all). In any event, it doesn't really bother me as I've never had any real disasters with sticker sheets or instruction booklets. Like the one you have pictured, they have often been bent when I open a set but almost never creased, and once applied they don't make any real difference. ...And yet you know that AFOLs would be whining to no end if regular plates like the new 8x16 or 16x16 ones were used instead. To be honest, I'd have preferred those I think-- that way the end product would have been more sturdy, and there'd be no awkward unevenness between the bottom of the main dock and the supports for the small pier that the fisherman fishes from. The 2x2 corner panels actually made their first appearance last year in the LEGO Games set 3862 Harry Potter Hogwarts. But it was also in tan there, so this is indeed its first appearance in white as far as I know. During my childhood, I had a custom sticker with my name on it, made from a label-maker. It was applied to the boat piece from 4011 Cabin Cruiser. The adhesive never came off from it being in the bathtub or swimming pool, and despite the stickers in today's sets being paper-based rather than plastic-based I don't think they'd have any problems with coming off in the water unless you were really rough with the set. The bolded text is the big error that made me feel I ought to respond to this review more thorougly. You see, the motor that attaches at that point actually is waterproof and was specially-designed for LEGO boats (hence why most boat bases these days have that attachment point on the underside). It debuted in this 4 Juniors set and has since appeared in several City sets. I'm very grateful for this feature. I've had several bath toys that couldn't open this way get quite grody inside. Plus, being the curious child I was, I managed to get pieces lost inside the base of the aforementioned Cabin Cruiser boat piece-- including, if I recall, at least one chrome Aquazone harpoon (don't ask how I did this). One reason for this that I've read (specifically in this case referring to BIONICLE sets, but also applying here) is that when too many parts of the same color are attached to each other, it makes it difficult for kids to follow the instructions. For this reason the instructions often like to alternate between colors whenever possible, and use vivid contrasting colors in areas that aren't likely to be seen in the finished model. It is very jarring here where it's so plainly visible from underneath, but I'm not the sort of person who feels cheated when mismatched colors are used for interior structure or other hidden parts of a model. While I agree this is a design flaw, I'm actually becoming quite grateful for its appearance in this set since it helps demonstrate something I've been trying to tell fellow AFOLS for a long time: baseplates are not the solution to all of life's problems. They're large pieces, so needless to say they drive up most sets' prices, all for a part that in general is one of the least versatile imaginable. AFOLs, unaware of the irony, suggest that an improvement on this set would be to have blue "water plates"-- something I generally disapprove of in any set containing boats since it constrains your "play area" with the boat to the tiny space the baseplate allows, instead of letting you imagine your own more spacious waterways. With that said, the use of baseplates here doesn't strain my own suspension of disbelief too much, unlike in the case of this set where, instead of ground level and sea level being the same all across it, the baseplate has sea level at an incline. Anyway, that's all I really have to comment on-- anything else, you can assume I agree with. Yes, the 2007 harbor is superior in a number of ways, which is quite ironic since it defies so many conventions AFOLs insist upon. It had no baseplates, a lot of large, "<insert that tiresome argument>" pieces, and an oversized vehicle-- and yet it ends up being generally recognized by AFOLs as the superior set. This is part of the reason that I personally consider the impact of these things on a set's quality on a case-by-case basis. Not being a City collector myself, it doesn't really impact my buying habits which harbor is superior, but I do pay close attention to City as the theme sets the "standard" for most modern, real-life subject matter, and that impacts all of my MOCing habits (even for MOCs in themes like Agents that defy the City theme's conventions).

No errors in this model, but just wanted to point out that you use 4019 as a substitute for the unavailable 94925. This isn't an error, but it may help to make note of it in your post to remind you in case it gets added in a future update. All the orange lights (6141) should be 182 Transparent Bright Orange rather than 47 Transparent Fluorescent Reddish-Orange. You have two in the back of the vehicle that are colored incorrectly; the rest are fine. This is the only error with your model besides the missing pieces you already listed. Great work on two very complex Technic models!

No real way of finding that out from LEGOshop.com. I really wish that there were some online database (whether Brickset, Bricklink, or another site entirely) that gave the sorts of details from the box that sites these days tend to ignore (such as recommended age and places of production for each set). In general, almost all current sets include parts produced in Denmark, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. This includes recent BIONICLE/Hero Factory sets which are produced only in these locations. Other LEGO sets (such as those from the Atlantis theme) usually include parts produced in Mexico and China. The Chinese plant is the only one that is extremely different from the others because as far as I know TLG doesn't own the production facility themselves (many of the other production facilities were previously owned by other companies but were "insourced" in the past several years to give TLG complete control of production). The Collectible Minifigures (8683, 8684, 8803, 8804, and 8805) are produced in China and China alone. Other parts that are known (or at least, widely assumed) to be produced in China are specially-painted parts or parts with complex printing. These parts are usually individually packed in tiny plastic bags inside a set. Examples include the Rock Monsters from the Power Miners theme, the specialized head pieces from the Toy Story theme, and the treasure rings from the Atlantis theme. Note also that problems with "Chinese plastic" tend only to apply to ABS parts. I have never heard of any quality issues involving Chinese-made polycarbonate parts, which includes anything glassy and transparent, or Chinese-made polypropylene parts, which includes the "softer" plastic used for BIONICLE weapons (this may of course be because BIONICLE sets have never been produced in China). And on another related note, keep in mind that the Chinese plant does not use a different plastic to save on production costs. The reason Chinese production began was to open up more capacity for producing parts (with lower labor costs possibly being another unstated reason). The use of different materials was an unfortunate consequence of Chinese manufacturing laws which require a certain amount of the materials for production to come from domestic sources. Despite being a separate plastic, most Chinese parts are still made from ABS in as close a formulation as is possible to that used in LEGO's other production facilities around the globe.

Paradisa did OK with using only a limited amount of pink. Unfortunately, this meant that you could never amass enough pink parts to be useful, and that all the buildings were primarily a boring white and light gray. Note also that not all Belville sets were primarily pink. Consider 2005's Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale collection, which used pink but also a wide range of blue, purple, and green parts where appropriate. Belville did have a tendency to use more obscure colors than regular themes, and many of these were indeed pink, purple, and "pastel" colors. But this isn't something companies do just because they're blindly guessing it's a good idea. Rather, girls are more likely to buy products in these colors, as has been shown time and time again, probably because it's so deeply ingrained in our culture that anything pink, pastel, or fluffy is especially for girls. Say what you will about LEGO's responsibility to create a positive change in how girls are brought up, but frankly I don't think there's any easy way they can do this. And they certainly can't do this by creating unpopular, unsuccessful products just to avoid reinforcing gender stereotypes. If that were the case, then you could claim LEGO is working towards gender equality just by sticking with their regular product lines, despite the fact that those product lines are bought by an overwhelmingly male audience. The truth is that these products, although primarily bought by boys, have always been available to girls and will continue to be available to them even if TLG does have a girl-oriented theme with lots of pink and other feminine stereotypes. But this way TLG is actually able to impact a larger female audience than just the occasional girls who continue playing with LEGO beyond the Duplo years. And that influence isn't necessarily any more restrictive or subjugating than the commercial influence that LEGO products already have on their male and female buyers.

Just collecting all the ones you don't have listed yet, including those I've mentioned in previous posts: 93227 War Bonnet (Tribal Chief) 93553 Fan (Kimono Girl) 93557 Cap (Sailor) 93563 Mohawk (Punk Rocker) 93564 Electric Guitar (Punk Rocker) 93666 Floppy Hat (Garden Gnome) Additionally, Bricklink lists the hair from the Ice Skater as 93552 rather than 93562. Care to check the real thing and find out which is correct?

Well, the problem is that Harry Potter is based on an existing franchise, and it would be difficult for TLG to match its appeal in their own new intellectual property. Using others' intellectual properties can be a good strategy, but it comes with a huge number of drawbacks in the licensing restrictions (being forced to produce products from that franchise) and the royalty costs. TLG had the same problem in the early 2000s with Star Wars-- BIONICLE was their answer to that problem, and given its nine-year lifespan I'd say it did fairly well despite being a different scale. Keep in mind that scale doesn't always have to do with dexterity. Often it's also a matter of playability. Since TLG's market research seems to suggest that girls prefer more conventional role-play (not saying this is true, but not being a girl myself TLG's research is all I have to judge by), it makes sense that they'd expect a range of figures with a more human-like range of motion to catch on. BIONICLE seemed to be based on a similar principle, except based more around combat role-play with its frequent use of projectiles or "action features" to make the sets fight. Hard to say whether Belville really did catch on the way BIONICLE did, since it, too, lasted several years, but like BIONICLE or the 4+ range it obviously lost its edge after a while. It's possible that the new (supposedly minifigure-based) girls' theme will be more successful. Of course, the most reliable way for it to be successful would be for TLG to put as much of an initial investment into it as they did with BIONICLE or, more recently, Ninjago. I can't say whether TLG would in fact do this, since unlike those themes which appealed to the core demographic a girls' theme would appeal to what is currently a marginal part of LEGO's audience. But I am sincerely hoping that TLG takes this next girls' theme seriously, especially since its predecessor, Belville, was never marketed very strongly here in the US.

I just took the survey. I'm a bit disappointed that it has some problems with it, though. For instance, the question that asks you to rate various aspects of LEGO's products and fan involvement from 1-10 has it so you have to mark just one space in each row, but also just one space in each column. Thus, you can't rate more than one category with a 10, leading to results that in my case skew negative (I do not think this was intentional). Additionally, the question asking about your level of satisfaction phrases the answers as how likely you are to recommend the brand, which seems to be a logical disconnect. I hope that they don't draw any incorrect conclusions from the results of this survey.

Well, they couldn't really have called it "Forbidden Tree" and expected anyone to buy it! What sort of names did you have in mind? I guess something cliche like "Final Showdown" could have worked if not for the fact that this isn't quite the "final" showdown. "Penultimate Showdown" would be a bit unwieldy.

I wonder if that might have something to do with the "insourcing" of a lot of LEGO's production in the past several years. Note this press release from 2005, which mentions about Greiner Packaging that it "has supplied can packaging and building plates to the LEGO Group for many years." Since LEGO has reclaimed control of much of the production that had been outsourced to Flextronics over the years, the same could possibly apply to their partnership with Greiner Packaging. This could possibly also explain why the price of baseplates has increased so dramatically over the years. Since outsourcing is often a cost-cutting or streamlining measure, it's possible that trying to assume control of packaging that was previously outsourced could produce the opposite effect, with production costs increasing and production becoming less streamlined and harder to keep efficient.

Nope. This hair is just printed, the same as this and this from the Agents theme and this from the Batman theme (and this and this from the Collectible Minifigures, but I don't think that counts since these patterns represent accessories in the hair rather than a separate hair color like you were asking about).

This was a set I had during my childhood. That poster was on my wall for many years... Anyway, the reason it is called Dragon Masters instead of Dragon Knights is that Dragon Masters was the North American name for the theme, which appeared in all catalogs and media. Dragon Knights was the name favored in European countries. This was a theme I collected a fair amount of sets from, probably in part inspired by the poster. In retrospect, this set was pretty weak. A bunch of large and specialized pieces limit its intricacy, and the overall result is neither impressive nor foreboding. Back then, I don't remember if I liked this set that much, either. It's been in pieces for years, and I seem to have more memories of MOCing with the pieces than I have of actually playing with the set.

First of all, I don't have the foggiest idea why you feel this needs its own topic. There's a perfectly good Hero Factory 2011 topic where this could be discussed. Anyway, I personally like Furno 3.0's legs. They are thin, which makes him look agile and birdlike. As for his weapon, I'm very fond of that and don't see the point of making a specialized mold for that purpose when existing molds do so well (and have never before been used for that purpose). The main thing I would have changed, personally, would have been the color of his weapon. ideally, I feel it should have been 315 Silver Metallic to match his wings rather than 316 Titanium Metallic as it's been colored in previous sets. Then again, it looks like his torso armor is also Silver Metallic, so perhaps it's his wings that should have been colored differently...

We don't need a new Knight Bus, but then again, we were around seven years ago when the first one was released as a set. That doesn't apply for LEGO's primary audience. Also, while the new one is nothing outstanding, it is in many ways an improvement over the first one, which had cartoony-looking wheels, a chunky body, and minifigures that would look old-fashioned in many ways compared to those we have today. In general, the Knight Bus is basically this year's Hogwarts Express-- fairly useless for those who have the old one (or alternatively never cared for it), but pretty breathtaking for those who missed the old one and would love a Knight Bus set of some sort. The only regret is that the Knight Bus doesn't have the same advantages as the Hogwarts Express did in terms of minifigures: there are two exclusive minifigures of extremely minor characters and one extremely common minifigure of a more well-known character, whereas the Hogwarts Express had many minifigures that could be considered more desirable.

I think most of those parts you just mentioned (besides the tap) haven't been seen in sets for a long time, especially the chrome ones. For all we know, they've been discontinued. Personally, I applaud TLG for their creative part use, and think the binocular pieces work just as well as the traditional tap pieces might have (and at a less exaggerated scale relative to the boat).

It's this guy. Different face from the Max minifigure, but so far this guy's the only other fig to have that hair piece in Reddish Brown.