Aanchir

I’ve heard the Ultra Dragon is a Target exclusive which is probably why we haven’t seen pics of it yet.

It's true that leaks generate early attention that usually wouldn't otherwise occur before an official announcement, but that tends to come at the cost of the later, nearer-to-release official announcements not getting nearly as much attention from either LEGO fansites, the press, or social media because a lot of what there is to say about them has already been said about the earlier leaks. And if there IS more info to report on with the official announcement, sites often don't pay attention to it. I mean, obviously, whether or not they report on preliminary pics of a set, most sites tend to report on the first finalized, non-watermarked pictures that emerge, as well as when those sites actually become available in stores and online. But other stuff, like when LEGO.com launches a microsite for a theme with product and character descriptions? Or promotional/designer videos for anything other than Ideas or D2C sets, even when they accompany an official announcement of a new product line? Those sorts of things barely even tend to register with the sites that communicate this stuff to a wider audience, because the fansites and press have already reported on the finalized pictures (whether or not they were comprehensive or part of an official announcement accompanied by further info), and usually the only thing that compels them to report again on the same products is when they actually become available for purchase. Besides pulling the major news reporting about new sets away from more comprehensive and coordinated releases of information, lighting the fire of new set hype that early means that the wick burns down more by the time the sets are actually available for purchase. If that weren't the case and LEGO could count on early hype remaining stable up until release (without changing people's purchasing plans for already released products), they'd be able in at least some cases to just reschedule their planned new product announcements for closer to when leaks normally happen. But they and their IP partners have witnessed firsthand the drawbacks of letting new product/media excitement reach peak hype too far ahead of the actual release of said product/media. After all, the marketing world is intensely competitive, and LEGO can't count on their products always being at the forefront of every buyer's attention. If the most exciting news about future LEGO releases comes too early? That just means that much more time between then and the product launch for other non-LEGO-related news and announcements to completely distract people from the fact that there was a LEGO thing coming out that they were excited for. Same as how news about new LEGO sets (which often ARE at the forefront of my attention) can sometimes distract me to the point that I completely forget about books, movies, and Netflix series I was looking forward to until days or weeks after they've been released. In fact, look at a lot of posts or news stories about a new LEGO Ideas product reveal or release, and you often find many comments even from other AFOLs who had almost entirely forgotten it was going to be a thing since the review results about that project were posted. I think that has way more to do with LEGO fans' attention shifting away from forums in general and towards social media less specifically structured around LEGO than us not having enough stuff to discuss. It's not a Eurobricks-specific problem by any stretch of the imagination, and even if it were I don't think you could chalk it up to LEGO's leak policy stifling discussion, considering LEGO fighting back against leaks isn't remotely a recent thing. If you think there's no hype for next year's sets you are not paying attention to the right places. Also, leak discussion, in some cases, can also really reduce the quality of discussion, since it is much easier to fake a leak than an official announcement, and communities that are entirely laissez-faire about leaks tend to see an explosion of supposed "leaks" in the form of either images or info that generate weeks of worthless discussion of products that later turn out to be entirely fake, and then continue to be brought up by people who hadn't heard yet about those leaks being discredited. More discussion, it turns out, does not always mean better discussion. When Bionicle was on the verge of being re-released, the forum for The Three Virtues (TTV), a Bionicle-themed podcast was able to generate lots and lots of user activity by allowing and reporting news on leaks at a time when other major Bionicle fan community hubs like BZPower were enforcing strict policies against sharing or discussing leaked pictures and info. Over the next 15 months or so, they were inundated with leaked pics and info (real and fake alike). But the activity generated by a reputation as a place to share, find, or discuss leaked info was not good for the health of the community and the discussions within it. It was for this reason (not due to any sort of pressure from LEGO or desire to benefit from being in their good favor) that they made the controversial decision to stop reporting on leaks and adopt a more Eurobricks-esque leak policy where discussion of leaked pics/info was allowed but posting or linking to leaked pics was not. Even if treating leaks like any other kind of Bionicle-related news made the site's userbase and audience happy and dramatically increased their numbers, it degraded the wellness of the community. And if openly embracing leaks is bad even for communities of fans that like them and seek them out, I'm not sure how it can be credibly argued that it is good for LEGO. After all, it's not as though an atmosphere where people can't distinguish truths from falsehoods about future products does them any favors — they already waste enough time fighting misconceptions that emerge more organically, like controversial competing products being mistaken by inattentive consumers for official LEGO ones. And even if they didn't actively work to get leaked info removed and those who leaked it penalized for breaking an NDA, it's not as though they would be able to open themselves up to answering any fan questions about any and every future product no matter how far it is from release to contest the countless misconceptions that would emerge from a free-for-all of low-quality images and incomplete, poorly translated, or placeholder info. If it weren't for leaks and their notoriously unreliable ability to clearly and correctly inform people about the nature of a product, we wouldn't have to deal with garbage like Atlantis, Pharaoh's Quest, Ninjago, Monster Fighters, Legends of Chima, Elves, Nexo Knights, and more being assumed by fans on Eurobricks to be MUCH different types of products than they actually turned out to be. Because it's not as though LEGO's attempts to prevent this info from getting out are the sole reason that when info does make it to fans, it so often arrives in the form of easily misunderstood, next to useless bits and pieces.

I think the Rexplorer’s absurd boxiness is very deliberate, to accentuate Rex’s ludicrously rugged masculinity, compared to the more elegant, curvy streamlined style of the Sistar System ships. As best I can tell from the trailers one of the big parts of Emmet’s emotional journey in this movie will be having to choose whether to stay true to his sensitive, idealistic, lovable goofball self (even at the cost of feeling and looking manly or heroic) or try to become more like Rex — the kind of macho, edgy, thrill-seeking, risk-taking action hero that he thinks his Master Builder friends would prefer him to be.

I don’t remember you citing anything about Playmobil actually doing better than LEGO in Germany, just subjective and anecdotal accounts of people preferring Playmobil or buying more Playmobil and less LEGO than they used to. I don’t have any ill will towards Playmobil and if people are enjoying it that’s their prerogative, but that’s hardly an indication that LEGO’s outright domination of the German toy market is in any short-term or long-term jeopardy. Frankly, I think LEGO faces tougher competition here in the States, particularly since more of the world’s major toy companies are headquartered here and market heavily to domestic buyers. Also, the Danish values that inform LEGO design and quality standards are also fairly highly valued in Germany, whereas American parents aren’t as invested in whether toys are sturdy, high quality, hold their value, hold kids’ interest in the long term, promote creative thinking and practical modeling skills, or give kids alternative forms of entertainment to TV and video games.

If I had to guess, it’s to celebrate the next four episodes (which have also now been editors together into a made-for-TV movie) bringing the total number of Ninjago episodes to 100. A hundred episodes is a pretty major milestone for any show, particularly a merchandise driven children’s animated show. As a bonus, this also enables people who didn’t begin watching the show to obtain some of the most iconic vehicles of the first couple seasons, and allows the designers to depict some of those sets in a way that’s both more show-accurate and more in line with modern set design standards. As great as some of these sets were in the first place, they often don’t quite measure up to the elegance and intricacy seen in more recent waves.

Arguably also some of the Disney Princess IPs, but again I don’t get the sense that those would rule out in-house Castle properties considering they were able to coexist for four years with Elves, which had a much more similar target demographic and design language. Highly doubtful. Play themes like The LEGO Movie derive most of their success from kid appeal, not from banking on nostalgic 25+ year old AFOLs. The nostalgic references and Easter eggs we do see in kid-targeted themes like The LEGO Movie, Ninjago, Friends, City, Space Police 3, and Nexo Knights are usually a mix of self-indulgence on the part of the designers and treats/shout-outs on our behalf, not a critical staple of those sets’ success strategy. If anything, that set being less popular than Benny’s Spaceship probably stems from its lack of highly recognizable LEGO Movie characters and its blink-and-you-miss-it appearance in the movie itself (compared to Benny’s Spaceship, which contained four of the movie’s main characters and was an iconic part of one of the movie’s most iconic scenes and the resolution of a memorable running gag). Additionally, Castle Cavalry has a lot more sets to compete with at the same price point, whereas Benny’s Spaceship was the entire LEGO Movie theme’s flagship set and as such very specifically positioned as the ultimate set on many kids’ and adults’ LEGO Movie wish lists. On that note, don’t forget that we have yet to see any of the summer sets for The LEGO Movie 2, which based on precedent will probably include some of the theme’s biggest sets. Nor have we seen the collectible minifigures series, which is likely to include a lot more civilian/supporting characters who don’t relate as closely to the central characters and conflict, and who haven’t been as heavily promoted in trailers. Overall, though, I think it’s important to keep in mind that the LEGO Movie sets are driven primarily by what the movie’s story and core concept calls for, not just AFOL fanservice. So that encourages more focus on sets like the Party Bus and Sistar Starship which tie in with some of the movie’s implied messages about gender roles or the post-apoc stuff that relates to possible messages about Finn getting older and feeling alienated from that sense of youthful innocence he had at eight and a half years old than sets like we saw in The LEGO Movie which were more tailored to a different set of messages about creativity vs. conformity.

It’s different than classic salmon (Medium Red). It’s a new color called Vibrant Coral.

Ah, so your argument for leaks being harmless is based on the same unsubstantiated assumptions that because of a few anecdotal observations, the popularity of LEGO is sharply declining in your country and/or around the globe. Suddenly everything makes sense. I’ve already shared in those other topics extensive evidence of the strength of LEGO sales in Germany and around the world, which you dismissed offhand as PR talk/spin (as though LEGO or independent industry analysts presenting data that frames LEGO in a positive light somehow makes it less factual). I’ve also brought up how toy sales at brick-and-mortar stores have been challenged all over the world by online mega-retailers like Amazon encroaching further and further into that market and undercutting their competitors’ prices in a way that toy stores, especially independent ones, can rarely afford to match. I can’t even remember why you dismissed that being a possible factor in your observations, probably just because it weakened your already weak argument. ShaydDeGray even just wrote an extensive explanation of how this issue is well understood to affect commercial products in general, not even just LEGO or even just toys, but again you just sort of disregarded the possibility that these universal factors pertain to LEGO because it doesn’t fit with your self-centered idea that LEGO is doing everything wrong and putting their own future in jeopardy because they’re not doing things the way you want them to personally. Even when LEGO’s supposed mistakes or oversights that you bring up could just as easily describe the long-established business practices of most major toy companies, and in most cases are no different now than they were in the most successful years of LEGO’s history. In the end it doesn’t really matter if AFOLs make up dumb excuses for why “leaks are good, actually”, because those kinds of self-serving, willfully ignorant mental gymnastics are inevitable in basically all major toy and entertainment fan communities, and no more affect the realities of why LEGO fights and discourages leaks than they do for other companies. So it’s really just AFOLs who hurt their own credibility and understanding of toy industry standards by creating crackpot theories largely divorced from reality.

Oh weird! Don't know how I made that mistake, must have misread the set number on the box or something. Wonder if there are real fire engines with a design like 60214, though.

Just saw the character names and they're AMAZING. The pink, white, and yellow spacemen respectively are named Lenny, Jenny, and Kenny.

I would describe her as less of a cop-out and more of a sort of mascot for the versatility of "LEGO Classic" style basic bricks, much like Unikitty was before her but to an even greater extent since she's a shapeshifter even beyond being able to exaggerate her original size/shape/pose using different bricks. Queen Watevra's Build Whatever Box! reinforces this even further with a whole bunch of different builds (and it's nice to see that her facial expressions are printed on individual bricks along with occasional implied "brick" patterns rather than stretching across several bricks as implied at some points in the trailer). With that main horse form of hers, I'm still wondering whether she might have an actual familial connection to Unikitty, especially since Puppycorn's cameo in the trailer suggests that unlike The LEGO Movie, Unikitty's family might be more likely to come up as a subject in this sequel. The Duplo Emmet and Lucy are ADORABLE, but right now I think it'd be a surprise (albeit not an unpleasant one) to see them in the movie itself, except perhaps in a dream sequence/imagine spot. Seems mostly like just a compromise to include a few major LEGO Movie characters in a Duplo set without compromising the toddler-level safety and simplicity that is practically the whole point of Duplo. It's also great to see some of the Duplo monsters actually built with real Duplo! Ice Cream Cone and Chocolate Bar are ADORABLE new characters, and they introduce some nice new molds and recolors. It's also good to see that in at least a few of these sets Unikitty is a little less angry/intense… perhaps hinting that getting out of that apocalyptic wasteland will do some good things for her emotionally. Emmet's Thricycle is a wonderfully goofy design of the sort I would never expect to see in a more traditional play theme. The classic looking Octan gas pump is a nice bonus, as is the Duplo monster… although with how similar it is to the one in the Ultrakatty set I'm beginning to think those are sort of meant to have "army building" potential analogous to the Micro-Managers in the original LEGO Movie sets. Rex's Rex-treme Offroader is a fun 3-in-1 set with some wonderful "crazy awesome" vibes much like we've seen in other LEGO movies as well as themes like Nexo Knights. It's nice to see it playing around with the dinos not only as characters but also for all the "master builder" potential that their interchangeable parts lend them (unlike other big LEGO animals like cows and horses which have less versatility). The Party Bus is a delightful example of something the Sistar System sets excel at, which is being girly while exuding cool, creative, and action-packed vibes rather than "doll/teddy bear tea party" stereotypes of the forms of play that little girls are drawn to. There's obviously nothing wrong with serene slice-of-life play, and the Unikitty's Sweetest Friends EVER! set exemplifies that sort of potential in its own way. But I feel like this coolness really helps both with these sets' crossover appeal for boys, and with parents' sense that the more feminine- or masculine-coded LEGO Movie 2 sets are neither shoehorning male and female builders into different styles of building or subject matter, nor making any sort of statement about feminine-coded subject matter needing to be subverted with more masculine-coded imagery to make it authentically cool. As a big fan of themes like Friends and Elves, it's tiresome seeing so many of the most highly praised Friends and Elves MOCs being "ironic" mashups of feminine-coded colors and figures with less feminine-coded subject matter, as opposed to things that really embrace the authentic strengths of their respective themes' subject matter. So it's nice to see something this cool in a theme that isn't heavily skewed towards girls, but that doesn't shy away from its Polly Pocket playset vibes and feels like it could credibly exist in the "girl aisle" even if it were part of a more specifically girl-targeted theme. It and the Sistar Spaceship also further raise my hopes that a girl-targeted sci-fi theme could be just as exceptional as Elves was as a girl-targeted fantasy theme. On a side note, that set also features the debut of the new color Vibrant Coral (the reddish-pinkish-orange color on some of its exterior stripes and the gears on the dance floor), and wow, is it ever a delight to see! We were overdue for a really beautiful color that helps to fill that gap between the red/pink and orange/nougat parts of the color palette. Already thinking about potential uses… The 2-in-1 house/rocket set was one of the easiest potential future sets to anticipate from the first trailer, and it's neat to see how well it translates to a playable product (at least, as far as I can tell… hard to really scope out all the interior details from just these pics). My heart melted when I saw the sleeping Ultrakatty! Metalbeard's Motor Trike is also a remarkable delight, like Metalbeard's Duel and Metalbeard's Sea Cow were before it. Like those, it has some delightfully absurd steampunk nautical vibes including a SHARK CANNON (!!!). I also think it's been just enough time since the Ninjago Sky Pirate sets that things like ship's wheels and anchors as gratuitous pirate tech motifs still feels fresh. I'll be curious, though, if we will see any sets with the version of Metalbeard from the latest trailer, who had such hilarious details as a piano leg. Side note, it's amusing to see the once modernity-averse Benny upgraded with such decidedly non-classic LEGO Space attributes as a robot arm and visor. It'll be neat to see how that plays out in the story. Battle-Ready Batman and Metalbeard is another amusing set with similar vibes. It's nice to see some more Bat-tech than we got in The LEGO Movie sets (which usually had Batman as a stand-alone character), since that helps create a sense of continuity with Batman as we saw him in his own spin-off. And yet another form of Metalbeard! It's fun to see his brick-built design really exploited by having his anatomy vary more like it did in the first LEGO movie (but not so much in the sets). As a cyborg and a Master Builder I get the sense they'll exploit this in the story by having him experience injuries/battle damage that for a human character would be deadly or debilitating, but for a cyborg pirate are just embarrassing or inconvenient (compare with Metalbeard's whole goofy backstory, or with some of Mr. Potato Head's hijinks in the Toy Story films). One bummer about the set is seeing the "You're Welcome" sign sans any trailers or teasers to offer context, which has the underwhelming sense of seeing a punch line before hearing the setup. No matter how the setup goes down, it seems to put a damper on its potential for surprise. Rex's Rex-plorer is a great design on the outside but is also probably still hiding some interior play features we haven't seen yet, so that's something to look forward to once the sets are released. Definitely some LEGO Agents vibes with Rex's whole aesthetic, but with a considerably more chunky and masculine style which seems appropriate considering that Rex is seemingly being set up to represent the stereotypical "male action hero" that the soft-hearted, bright-spirited, and error-prone Emmet is so insecure about not being. Benny's Space Squad is a delightful battle pack style set. New classic space helmets without a crack are a pleasant surprise, as are getting new colors of classic space figure and seeing a yellow classic space figure (the classic space astronaut color that was least likely to return). The "Classic Space" vibes might have been even stronger if the wheels of the rover were red rather than grey, but the overall aesthetic of this and the spaceship in the Juniors set both feel very authentically Classic Space, rather than just like modern sci-fi with Classic Space figures/logos like the Exo-Suit.

Delightful! It's a pleasant surprise to see a non-broken version of the classic helmets, and both new and old colors of classic space figures (including Yellow, which seemed the unlikeliest of the classic space astronaut colors to return). As a sort of silly bonus, the pink torso also means that classic space torsos are now available in all the classic Power Rangers colors. :P Also, in the Metalbeard's Motor Trike set (70834), Benny has not just a robot arm but also a visor. Getting them upgrades left and right! Naturally, other sets also feature various less traditional sorts of aliens and spaceships. Definitely check them all out when you get the chance! Right now I'm still looking through them on The Brothers Brick's article, which not only has lots of pictures but also descriptions that might reveal features that's aren't so obvious in the pics.

I don't really mind City fire stations too much as far as aesthetics go. They typically fit the "City Fire" design language and have some nice architectural flourishes even if they're fundamentally more play-oriented than display-oriented. The new one does strike me as a bit of a letdown since one of my favorite aspects of LEGO fire stations is their tendency to feel at least somewhat more livable than other City buildings. Most of the time that means either a bedroom or a kitchen, although rarely both. This one, a bit frustratingly, has neither, instead opting for a TV lounge. But of course, some of that (like the lack of a second garage or the presence of a smaller drone rather than a helicopter) is an understandable consequence of this set seemingly having a lower price point than the previous fire station set due to the Downtown Fire Brigade taking the station's usual place as the flagship set of the Fire subtheme. On that level, I think LEGO did a pretty good job finding ways for this one to stand out from its predecessors even while having to cut down on some of their features. One thing that surprised me is that the new function element with the air pump is seemingly not a launcher — some of the pics of the burger bar show a transparent light blue bar that extends outward from it sort of like a toy lightsaber. But to be honest I kind of like this, as compared to the various shooter-based water cannons we've seen in City fire sets, this feels a bit more believable as spraying a powerful stream of water, rather than just little splashes. It also helps to justify it being a separate piece from the new multi-shot tile shooter in some of the other sets… particularly since the latter seems to have more cross-theme versatility as stuff like laser cannons or energy blasters in sci-fi and action-adventure sets. Google "Hook and ladder truck". They're a pretty common style of fire engine, particularly in the United States.

I can definitely understand why people are bummed about this set… new variants of already common characters, only three figures, and a baby dinosaur in colors we've already seen (granted, in your photos it KIND OF looks like its eyes are not open as wide as in other sets with this color variant, but the fact that I can't tell for sure and nobody else has brought this up means that even that possibility wouldn't really add much to its sense of uniqueness/novelty). I can sort of understand the reasoning behind including a baby dino rather than a fourth figure, though. It would be pretty weird to have a Jurassic World promo that didn't include any prehistoric animals, and the baby raptor is the only current dino mold that's minifigure size or smaller. And while Claire and Owen have appeared before as minifigures, it's nice that these ones have such unique outfits and facial expressions, especially since they are ones that could be versatile even for other types of modern-day themes or characters. Ian Malcolm, the star of this set, is nicely designed, and I appreciate the boldness of giving him a darker skin tone to better reflect his tanned appearance in the original Jurassic Park — particularly considering how many other tanned characters and even non-white characters in past themes (Indiana Jones, Katara, Sokka, Jango Fett, etc) have been practically "whitewashed" in past sets by giving them a Light Nougat/Light Flesh faces instead of a Nougat or Medium Nougat skin tone that might appear more authentic. His outfit is good, though printed legs might have improved its sense of being a "premium" figure like we have seen in some other Bricktober packs. Overall, my feelings on Jurassic World vary from ambivalence to outright aversion/disappointment, and I was pretty ambivalent to the original Jurassic Park movies as well, so this pack probably wouldn't have been on my wish list one way or the other. Even among themes I don't collect I might have preferred to see a pack for another non-licensed theme like City. But hopefully kids who love Jurassic World don't feel too let down by this selection. Their opinion probably has a lot more weight than mine does.

I mean, a lot of traditional spinning tops have an upside down cone shape like this. What’s really important is that the weight be concentrated near the perimeter rather than the center so that the centrifugal force keeps it upright.

Slightly off topic, but seeing the eyes there reminds me of the bizarrely cartoony character designs in LEGO Island… and consequently, why I’m really glad that the more recent LEGO video games, movies, and TV shows have generally resisted that sort of pressure to change the entire minifigure design language to make the faces “more expressive” by conventional animation standards. The worst example I can think of in recent years was Sensei Wu in the earlier seasons of the Ninjago TV show having an actual 3D animated mouth rather than a printed pattern, but even that has been abandoned in favor of a more standardized mouth pattern as of Season 8.

Super cute and full of personality! I love seeing MOCs that deviate from the sort of skinny/muscular body type we see so often in constraction. Those eyes are excellent!

Having interned at Hasbro, I can assure y'all that confidentiality is a BIG deal. People entrusted with confidential info can and do get fired for carelessly disclosing stuff that they're instructed not to disclose — especially when it pertains to an external partner's IP like Star Wars or Marvel, where even internally there are all kinds of safeguards to ensure that people who don't need access to that confidential info can't get it. With Star Wars, even characters and ships from past movies that appear in new movie merchandise are assigned bizarre code names by Disney/Lucafilm so that things like folder names on companies' internal servers don't give away their identities to everyone who has that level of server access before products are announced — check out this cached version of an Amazon listing which was still using Han and Chewie's Solo: A Star Wars Story code names, "Zeus Brown" and "Hercules Brown", or the URL of this ToyWiz listing which uses the Millennium Falcon's Solo: A Star Wars Story code name, "Pegasus". In that greater toy industry context, the idea that LEGO alone is only pretending to value confidentiality while intentionally leaking low-quality images as a publicity stunt is preposterous. When info has to be shared with multiple people at multiple companies to get products ready for launch, there are hundreds if not thousands of opportunities for confidentiality to be breached against company policy, whether by accident or on purpose. There's no reason that the continued existence of leaks, even sometimes from sources within LEGO, hints at a secret official company policy to release small or blurry teasers and only "pretend" they're leaks. And with a lot of these themes, the typical buyer doesn't even engage with the online AFOL communities where these sorts of leaks tend to spring up. How many 4-year-olds do you think are checking leak-related tags on Instagram to find the latest LEGO Duplo or Juniors leaks? Even many of the 6 year olds who buy LEGO City sets probably aren't all that great at reading, let alone plugging foreign-langage sales listings and forum discussions into Google Translate to get the hottest scoop on what the next version of police is going to be. On a related note, if LEGO were really "leaking" this sort of stuff on purpose, why would it so often be in forms that lead to false impressions that result in disappointment about the final product? Do y'all really think that LEGO benefits from sneakily revealing details about new sets/themes, letting fans mistranslate and misinterpret them beyond recognition, and then playing coy about the details so that the fans of Castle or Space or whatever can experience maximum disappointment when the actual reveal shows them to be a new action/adventure theme or whatever? Even with preliminary info that HAS in the past been purposely and officially disclosed, like the preliminary sets displayed at some Toy Fair events back before LEGO got really secretive about those, the results for fan engagement were often less than great. Any "buzz" about these sets in the fan community would often peak long before the sets were actually available for those fans to buy. And in a lot of cases, fan sites that report on new set reveals with small or low-quality images, short or mistranslated descriptions, or incomplete pricing information don't wind up reporting on them in nearly as much detail when better or more finalized images or details about those sets become available. If anything, leaks tend to pull the rug out from under the much more painstakingly planned and executed product reveals that are often intended for closer to release. I'm not gonna get into the whole messy conversation about morals and ethics because let's be honest, those kinds of debates about personal freedom and responsibility are the kinds of conversations that even in academia never tend to reach any kind of meaningful consensus. But I hope that as a community we'll someday be done with the boneheaded conspiracy theory that leaks are really some deceptive form of stealth marketing… it's tedious hearing supposed adults parroting it as though it's even within the realm of plausibility, let alone as if it's the ONLY thing that makes sense. :/

"Charm" (which, needless to say, is highly subjective) aside, I don't see how there's any dispute that 60212 (64 pieces, $10) has more building value, more play value, and a better price per piece even without adjusting for inflation than 3797 (10 pieces, $3.35). With 3797 the chassis and wheels, which were easily just as specialized as a Juniors chassis, even came pre-assembled. I'm not trying to say that your nostalgia isn't valid or that you weren't a good a builder at a young age as you say you were. But if there were enough less skilled builders back in the 1980s to justify intermediate sets for the post-Duplo, pre-Town age group, then I don't see why anyone would assume there's no longer enough of an audience at that building level to justify such sets today. Besides having System-sized bricks, plates, and studs, something that Juniors does that Fabuland doesn't do so much of is introduce things like basic SNOT building that today are used much more extensively in all System themes than they were in the 80s, but are still almost entirely absent from Duplo. Even if not every builder's individual timeline has a sharp line between Duplo and basic System building at exactly 4 years, it still doesn't hurt to try and diminish the abruptness of that jump from Duplo (about as basic as it gets) to the much more varied and complicated instructions and building techniques in standard City cars, trucks, and buildings. Nothing much… but at the same time, it's worth noting that aside from polybags, City cars today tend to be WAY more complex than that, and, again, a huge jump up in complexity from Duplo cars which tend to be only one to four pieces connected with simple vertical stacking. Even as impulse or polybag sets go, a set like 6506 is not far from the building level we see in Juniors/4+ polybags like 30338, 30339, and 30473… though I suppose it's fair to say that 6506 would be slightly more complex for a beginning builder than those polybags, because again, it's got some basic SNOT techniques. For starters, because having something to help transition Duplo builders into System building has evidently proven to be a worthwhile use of "slots". I also suspect many of the "huge specialized pieces" in Juniors have by now more than paid off the manufacturing costs of their molds, because even if they're "specialized" by normal System standards, most of them have been used across many different sets by now. Notably, of the 4+ sets we've seen so far for 2019, I don't think ANY have any obvious new molds (specialized or otherwise) that haven't appeared in other current or recent sets. Also, the old train windows, nice as they might be aesthetically, are basically cosmetic variations on existing window panes and frames, which can often take their place without great difficulty. Not to mention, a lot of the kinds of modern day passenger and freight trains that we see most frequently in sets have windows and doors that don't closely resemble the classic 1x4x3 train window or 1x4x5 train door — so in those cases, the decorative panache of the classic parts would be more of a weakness than a strength. By comparison, most Juniors parts' specialization serves a functionally discrete and important purpose (making stuff like cars, trucks, planes, buildings, and helicopters more accessible to builders who only just graduated from Duplo). So sure, LEGO can make all those things with less specialized pieces, and most of the time they DO — but those types of builds aren't adequate for easing the transition between Duplo-level and City-level building. In that context, more specific parts are not just preferable, but necessary.

You say that, and yet your avatar is a picture of a Fabuland set. Fabuland was designed and marketed as a "stepping stone" between Duplo and regular System play themes, the same as themes like Jack Stone or Juniors. In fact, Fabuland was actually aimed slightly younger (Fabuland was aimed at ages 3+ or 4+, whereas all Juniors sets to date have been marked for ages 4+) though that's probably more because of changes in choking hazard laws rather than changes in the product itself. See this catalog for reference: https://images.brickset.com/library/Catalogues/c81uk.pdf The complexity level of Fabuland sets was also not much different than Juniors sets of similar size, albeit with many more specialized parts, fewer smaller parts, and many more stickers. There's probably more point to a "stepping stone" theme today than there was back then, because today there are far more themes aimed at older builders… themes like Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Elves, and even many licensed themes start at 7+ and go up to 9+ or higher with the biggest sets, while other themes like Architecture, Mindstorms, Creator Expert, and Ideas typically target builders ages 10 and up. A lot has changed from the 80s when entire themes aimed at builders seven or older were the exception rather than the norm. Can you really not see why beginning System builders might enjoy opportunities to confidently build and play with the same types of figures, stories, and themes/worlds as the sets their older siblings enjoy, as opposed to a cutesy theme with oversized talking animals that their older or more experienced siblings and friends might perceive as babyish?

The LEGO Creator Advent Calendars from 2001 and 2002 each included a microscale church. On an even more secular note, the Throne of Ultron exclusive set from SDCC 2015 depicts a scene that takes place inside a fictional church. But overall, religious subject matter is kind of touchy territory. Even besides concerns of offending people with different religions than are being depicted, there's also the very real possibility of offending people with the SAME religion being depicted — after all, while most people might appreciate seeing their religion depicted, honored, or recognized, some might find it a bit sacrilegious to see their religion commercialized as a consumer product. Oftentimes, people who criticize LEGO for being overly sensitive by avoiding religious sets, modern military sets, sets associated with real world disasters/tragedies, etc. seem to think of those policies strictly as attempts to appease people who think those subjects are bad for kids, and don't consider the people who might think those subjects are important for kids but inappropriate for a secular company to exploit for profit.

While to us as adults it's great to think of Juniors as an opportunity for LEGO to offer categories we don't see as often in normal themes, I can understand why it's shifted towards the same themes as for older builders. Not only does it allow parts to be shared more easily between sets for older and younger builders, but I imagine a lot of younger LEGO builders might have older siblings who are into the more typical 5+/6+/7+ play themes, and often younger siblings want to enjoy the same sorts of stuff as their older peers do. This gives them an opportunity to do so, and helps keep them from feeling like those themes their older friends and relatives enjoy are off limits to them or that they don't have what it takes to build sets with those sorts of subject matter. What's more, even with a different age range, the glut of Star Wars sequel trilogy/anthology movie sets might still be just as much of an obstacle to Space-themed Juniors sets as to Space-themed sets for older builders. It's unknown what constraints the Star Wars license has on other types of space-oriented sets. it's obvious that broadly speaking, LEGO is still allowed to make sets with spaceships and aliens and robots and whatnot, judging from all the space-related sets we've seen in the past 4 years from non-Disney licenses like E.T., Doctor Who, Voltron, Justice League, NASA, Overwatch, etc… not to mention non-licensed stuff like the City Space subtheme, Creator 3-in-1 Robo Explorer and Space Shuttle Explorer, or the Minifigures Series 13 Galaxy Trooper, Series 15 Astronaut, and Series 17 Retro Spaceman. But if there ARE constraints on what types of space stuff would run afoul of the Star Wars licensing agreement (and I suspect there are), they might just as easily pertain to Juniors as to any other System theme.

It's not that unusual. It probably just means that some of the sets were probably meant for a December release in the United States and some stores jumped the gun. Particularly in themes like City with a minimal story component, it's rare to see much in the way of official teasers before each year's sets are officially released.

Great interview with Jamie Berard in the latest Hispabrick issue: https://www.hispabrickmagazine.com/content/download/6578/ It's about the Creator Expert line as a whole, but goes into a lot of details that pertain to the design considerations for the modular buildings: The reason behind the Creator Expert name is that previously, sites were using various colloquial names for the non-branded exclusives that made it harder for fans and buyers to find info or listings for them online (if any of y'all have forgotten, even here on Brickset, the modular buildings were long considered a part of the otherwise defunct Town theme, and separate from other types of AFOL-targeted exclusives that had the same branding). Internally, the Creator design team was the one with the most overlap with people working on those exclusives. One challenge for the designers of the modular buildings is to always bring something new and surprising — even if they go with an obvious and highly anticipated subject (town hall, bank, restaurant, etc), they have to make sure it has enough unique features and strengths that people won't just negatively compare it to fan-created buildings of the same subject. The designers definitely feel inspired by the fan community but try to avoid using techniques they've seen in MOCs unless they can bring some unique spin on it so that it still feels like their own creation and not just a combination of ideas pilfered from other builders. Early on, the next three to five buildings in the series were mapped out pretty strictly, though the order was sometimes re-arranged. But more recently they've moved towards planning 3 buildings simultaneously, picking the best of them to go forward with, and sometimes integrating ideas from the other building ideas or from "building boosts" where the designers try to generate as many ideas as they can without the same strict concerns as if they were working on bringing one particular set to completion (I believe LEGO brought designers from different teams together for similar brainstorm sessions when working on series like the BrickHeadz and Mixels). Jamie has learned to try and filter through criticism to understand what parts are just knee-jerk reactions when stuff defies expectations and what parts are going to be real lasting concerns for the series as a whole. He specifically brings up the Fire Brigade, which AFOL communities lambasted for breaking from patterns they'd identified or imagined in previous modular buildings, yet became the set that brought the most new fans into the modular buildings series after tempers cooled off. To Jamie, negative feedback is still a good thing, because it means people are attentive to and emotionally invested in the new product, whereas the absence of feedback is much worse because it means people just don't care or aren't paying attention one way or the other.

Really cool MOC! Even if the inspiration was One Punch Man, the shape actually reminded me a lot of the Watcher Knights from the game Hollow Knight. I love the beefy body, though I think that the legs could benefit from a more insect-like look somehow, perhaps something as simple as adding some spikes to the knees. Right now the area between the torso and feet feels unusually standard/humanoid compared to the more imaginative shapes and proportions of the rest of the model.