Aanchir

Something to keep in mind is that when you account for currency inflation, sometimes the aftermarket prices on old sets aren’t as outrageous as they seem at a glance. For instance, BrickLink has a complete used copy of https://brickset.com/sets/6081-1/King-s-Mountain-Fortress (sans instructions and box) for $120. While that seems like a lot compared to the original sticker price of $58, $1 USD in 1990 was worth over 91% more than $1 USD today, so $58 back then is equivalent to $111.20 in today’s money. A $9 surcharge on a 28-year-old set doesn’t seem nearly so bad! On a side note, this is part of why a lot of the conventional wisdom about LEGO accruing in value doesn’t hold as true for older sets like these as for newer ones.

Really cool and creative alternate build! Love the creative part use for the wheels, exhaust, and hood ornament!

Well, they’ve used the large 1x6x5 wall panels in transparent colors as window glass, so I could certainly imagine them using them again in a solid color — but only if they needed the texture and/or the open space on the inside of the panel for some reason, not simply as a substitute for smaller standard bricks.

There’s been at least one 2019 Ninjago book description on Amazon that says the ninja will be rebuilding the monastery, and so it can probably be assumed that some of the other classic stuff relates to the new story — but how it relates remains to be seen. Bear in mind though that sometimes the story relevance of the sets has been rather minimal… for example, in Day of the Departed, most of the new vehicles didn’t play any meaningful role in the core conflict.

The campaign ended today, which could have something to do with it, though if the page itself is down I'm not sure if it's intentional or a technical glitch. It could be that completed campaigns have a different web address?

Lots of great fantasy parts in the next Ninjago wave. New versions of the Serpentine minifigures Pythor, Spitta, and Lasha, a new version of the Overlord minifigure with a VERY spooky face the "ectoplasm trail" legs in a blend of black and Tr. Bright Bluish Violet (Trans-Dark Purple), new versions of some of the Skulkins (skeleton warriors) including a version of the "giant skull" piece from the first year that's more headgear-friendly. There are also supposed to be new Stone Army figures (compare with the ones from 2013 Ninjago), but we haven't had a lot of leaked pics of those. My understanding is that at least one of the new parts they'll offer is the new, curvier type of coolie hat from the LEGO Ninjago Movie in red, as well as some different colors/patterns of the Stone Army painted faces (which could be great for army building). There are also a new style of spinners that are much more authentically tornado-shaped and have more connection points for customization and/or MOCs (besides use as magic effects, Nya's water tornado might be useful as a whirlpool effect, hard to know till we see them from more angles). A lot of the new ninja costumes could also have a lot of versatility, since their main defining motif is some fairly generic gold dragon patterns rather than any highly distinctive logos. As sets go a lot of them are re-releases of previous vehicle sets, typically the more sci-fi leaning ones, so outside of parts value they won't be too valuable for historic MOCs and layouts. But there is a gorgeous new version of Master Wu's monastery which like a lot of previous temple and dojo sets should offer lots of great parts and techniques for historical Japanese MOCs. There's going to be a new version of the Golden Dragon as well, but smaller than many other Ninjago dragons and seemingly with a new, smaller molded head piece. The pics that have leaked of it are really preliminary and shoddy quality so hard to judge what sort of historic builders might be most likely to appreciate it. As other upcoming sets/themes go, there's also the two recently announced Chinese New Year sets, which will likewise have great parts and figures for layouts depicting historical or modern China. But those will apparently only be available in Asia. Also, in Super Heroes, there are going to be new versions of Sandman and Carnage which include some cool new elements like the Chima small tribal flame piece in Bright Red, the Nexo Knights spiral rock pillar legs in a combination of Brick Yellow (Tan) and Sand Yellow (Dark Tan). Of course there's also the new Spider Man accessory pack that comes in a bunch of the new Spider Man sets and includes all kinds of new spider web shapes that might be great for decorating spooky castles or giant spider nests. I haven't paid quite as much attention to non-Ninjago leaks though so there could also be other potentially useful parts for historic and fantasy MOCs that I'm forgetting.

6x2x1 is remarkably compact if it turns out that the light element, sound element, and battery are all integrated in the piece rather than having a separate battery box like the classic 80s "Light and Sound System". Especially considering that the previous independent light bricks and sound bricks were 2x3x1.33 and 2x4x2. That said, I agree that between the size and having all those electrical components packed together in one brick, it will be probably be less versatile for non-City MOCs than the 9V system's 1x2/1x4 light bricks and 2x2 sound bricks, since it will presumably only be particularly suited to uses as emergency lights and siren/klaxon rather than being able to mix and match lights and sounds from different sets. Light colors and sounds suitable for other uses would depend on LEGO releasing separate versions of the brick with different color/sound/light sequence combinations.

If ALL of those are leaked figures, then it's a real surprise, considering that LEGO had previously stopped making yellow minifig hips pieces on the grounds that they didn't want to make figures that looked nude. Mind you, I haven't seen the pictures. It's also possible that actual classic figures might have been photographed alongside the pink one as a point of comparison, or that one or all of the figures are customs rather than actual leaks. Hard to say.

Lena Raine - Celeste Original Soundtrack - Reach for the Mountain

These are the same sort of randomly generated names you get to choose from when you sign up for the LEGO Life app. The purpose of the randomized format is to make sure that names don't include any kind of identifying information that could threaten younger users' privacy. Perhaps LEGO.com accounts that aren't linked to LEGO Life get assigned placeholder names arbitrarily until/unless they sign up and pick one for themselves? When I check my wish list it shows my name I picked out when I first started using the LEGO Life app (SirFascinatingOctopus). Took a lot of tries to get that one too! EDIT: Just learned by going to your "edit profile" menu from the account drop down menu, you can change your nickname. Gonna see if I can find anything as good as SirFascinatingOctopus but more gender-affirming… EDIT2: There we go! I'm now Ms.InspiringOctopus!

The leaks I've seen haven't been great quality, but the impression I got from the "jetpacks" is that they seemed more like wingpacks or wingsuits. Considering that Dubai has been experimenting stuff as wild as flying police motorbikes and firefighting jetpacks, I wouldn't be too surprised if wingpacks or wingsuits haven't been explored for policing. It's also worth noting that some LEGO City police and coast guard sets in the past have included types of aviation technology originally developed for armed forces use, and militaries have been experimenting with wingsuits and the like for a looooong time. Besides the imaginative appeal of these sorts of experimental technologies appearing in LEGO City, some of it could also be motivated by the fairly long (one and a half to two year) lead time for most LEGO set designs. After all, a lot of these sorts of technologies are marketed to police forces almost immediately after being unveiled, and designers can't know for sure which of them will "take off" (no pun intended) in those applications and which are just pipe dreams.

I suspect it's more likely an all-in-one light and sound element like the ones that have been used in Duplo. Though if so it seems like it's considerably more compact than that, or than the current light bricks and sound bricks.

It would make sense. "Great Vehicles" is the name that's been used since 2012 for LEGO City theme's miscellaneous $10/$20/$30 vehicle sets that aren't tired to one of the year's other major subthemes (like this year's sets 60177 to 60183). And I've also seen many LEGO Star Wars set listings using placeholder names featuring the term "Great Playset" for sets ike 75200 and 75208. So it stands to reason that LEGO Star Wars might have a similar way of categorizing "miscellaneous" vehicle sets internally.

I never got the sense that the Winter Village was meant to be tourism-oriented… if anything it seems like it's just supposed to be evocative of a nostalgic, small-town setting celebrating the holidays. I don't see any reason to think such a setting wouldn't have or need a fire station, particularly with Christmas and Christmas Eve being some of the days when the most accidental house fires take place in a lot of countries! Not to mention how many places use ladder trucks in their Christmas parades! Note also that the idea of lighted Christmas villages as premium collectibles was first commercialized as Department 56's ceramic snow village series, which has introduced new fire stations in 1983, 1987, 1998, 2005, and 2011. So the idea of a fire station being suitable for a collectible Christmas village is nearly as old as the LEGO minifigure, and 26 years older than the LEGO Winter Village series! The real surprise for me isn't that there's a tree (because that really is one of the main things reinforcing the holiday theme here), but that a slightly smaller but similarly constructed and MUCH more attractive tree was shown just last year in a Creator 3-in-1 "How to Build a Holiday Tree" video: The differences from the tree in this set are not too extreme… shorter size, some spots of snow (probably just as appropriate for this set, considering how many appear on the station itself), sparkly transparent rather than solid-colored ornaments, a smaller star, and more consistent layering in terms of the color of each layer of plates and how far they stick out from the trunk of the tree. As far as size goes, I understand the reasoning behind that… it was almost certainly to create a play opportunity for the firefighters to use their ladder truck to attach the star, as shown on the box. Not as much need for that with a shorter tree like the one in this video. But the other changes like the less consistent layering, solid-colored ornaments, and lack of snow seem to detract from the tree's appearance more than they enhance it. Besides the tree, my other disappointment is the snowman. Granted, LEGO has never had a great track record with snowmen, but I much prefer the ones from 40263, 40124, 41102, 60099, etc. Even if LEGO decided the carrot nose was essential to set this one apart from the one in the Winter Toy Shop, they could have at least used the same unicorn horn element used for Olaf's carrot nose in the Frozen sets, which is both more carrot shaped and less out of proportion with the headlight brick they chose as the head. Never mind the question of "why those arms?" But overall, I love the unique, ornate architectural style of the building, not to mention the addition of hanging snow/ice on the edges (though that staircase looks like something of a safety hazard in such icy weather, what with its lack of railings). I also always appreciate a believable living space in any theme, and although this one may be small, that seems appropriate for a village (rather than big city) fire station. And even then, including places to both eat AND sleep puts it head and shoulders above not only most City/Town fire stations but even the Fire Brigade from the Modular Buildings series!

Some of the parts from these figures definitely showed up on the BrickInside parts database back when they had some kind of access to official renders and part information for unreleased parts (many of which were later confirmed as authentic in other leaks). Now that LEGO has caught on to that security issue, though, the BrickInside database no longer shows those future parts, but I can verify that some of these parts were among those that had shown up there. The idea that there ever was a consistent "original style" has been disproven time and time again anyway. The series has included buildings that were variously Amsterdam-inspired, San Francisco-inspired, New York-inspired, London-inspired, Los Angeles-inspired, Paris-inspired, Chicago-inspired, Miami-inspired, etc. Even the attempt to define pre-Downtown Diner buildings as "pre-1940s" implies more consistency than was actually present. The cornerstone on Fire Brigade implies it was built in 1932, while the one on Town Hall implies it was built in 1891, a difference of over 40 years. For that matter, one of Grand Emporium's most likely inspirations, Harrod's Department Store in London, specifically the design it's had since being rebuilt after a fire in 1883! So even the "time period" that supposedly unified those earlier buildings represents architectural styles varying by around 50 years, if not longer! Any idea that the modular buildings were all meant to reflect a uniform real-world place and time is just AFOLs trying to impose order on a line that has ALWAYS thrived on variation and defying expectations. The same can be said of other theories that try to predict/make sense of the modular buildings like the idea that "every modular building set contains a clue to the next one". With Downtown Diner being groundbreaking in some of the biggest ways to date, I hardly think that we can expect the buildings to begin showing greater consistency in their designs/inspirations than they ever had to begin with. And anyhow, I don't know that I'm comfortable with the idea that a Western pastiche of Chinese architecture (Grauman's Chinese Theater) is somehow a more valid source of inspiration for a modular building than ACTUAL Chinese architecture… Hmmm, interesting. If that's true then I wonder what it could be… let alone what those figures could actually be for… Back to the drawing board, then!

Teahouse is definitely an option. Some other examples that wouldn't be strange to see in various parts of the globe would be a Chinese embassy or Chinese market (both of which you might find in any country with any substantial Chinese immigrant population, and maybe even some without). But there are also plenty of possibilities for those figures that aren't "stereotypically associated as Chinese", like a hotel (whether Chinese-based or just with a family of Chinese guests), tailor shop, antique shop, spa, or even just a townhouse/apartment in a different style than we've seen in previous modulars. After all, buyers in plenty of countries can relate to the idea of a neighborhood with multicultural homes and businesses, and an early to mid 20th century time period like we've seen for other modulars would only further justify the family's more traditional style of dress than Asian people that buyers from any part of the world might encounter in their day-to-day lives.

Beginning to think all the Asian-inspired minifig leaks lately that aren't recognizable from the Ninjago movie might be from the next modular building. It's too soon for another Ninjago City expansion (plus, there's not a whole lot of unique civilian designs in those that haven't shown up in either the movie or TV show) and they don't seem to correspond to any of the upcoming Ninjago Legacy sets. My first thought when those started leaking was that maybe they might be tied to promotional items for one of the flagship stores in China, like Lester is for the flagship store in London. But the Shanghai exclusive grand opening keychain had a different outfit than any of them, and by now there have been too many unique figure leaks for me to believe it's from a single promo set. So at this point I'm thinking Creator Expert, and realistically the next modular building is probably the most likely to be coming out soon enough that we'd be seeing leaks for it right now. Wouldn't be surprised if next year's Bright Bluish Green (Dark Turquoise/Teal) brick separator recently shown off at the LEGO House also makes its debut in next year's modular building.

Ooh, I love the roof texture as well as the colors! Is the interior furnished? I'd love to see pics! In general this MOC manages to really reflect that balance between complexity and efficiency that I love to see in actual sets, which is refreshing since so many Castle MOCs of this caliber feel like things that would feel way out-of-place in a layout with actual LEGO Castle sets.

Sometimes the LEGO shorts are most fun when they're just poking good-hearted fun at whatever media they're based on/referencing (like the old LEGO City Undercover Nintendo Direct segment with "LEGO Iwata"… RIP Satoru Iwata ).

These sorts of “factory leaks” we’ve been seeing (as opposed to, say, catalog leaks) are assembled by whoever snuck the pieces out of the factory and/or took the pictures, so there’s never any guarantee of builds being accurate to the sets or having all of their pieces.

With regard to themes specifically involving space travel and aliens, I agree, some non-compete clause in various contracts for the Star Wars license is probably responsible for that decline. Granted, it's worth noting that we did get a new space theme about every two years between the end of the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the beginning of the sequel trilogy, so I suspect at that time LEGO was able to negotiate for a less restrictive contract. There is also some ambiguity in what exactly is perceived as competition under the current licensing contract for Star Wars sets — clearly even non-Disney IPs like NASA, Doctor Who, E.T, and Voltron have still been fair game since the start of the sequel trilogy, despite space travel being a major theme within all those IPs. With Pirates of the Caribbean it's hard to tell if it was a matter of a non-compete clause or simply LEGO not wanting to oversaturate the market, since in general pirate-related themes tend to be a lot smaller and less frequent than castle- or space-related ones, and I'm not sure if the demand for Pirates sets has ever been as reliably strong as with the Castle or Space categories. Even on a broader pop culture level, pirate-related movies and TV shows have been far scarcer in the past 30 years than medieval fantasy or sci-fi movies and TV shows. But with Castle I think you are certainly overstating things. I don't get the sense that licensed themes have ever stood in the way of non-licensed castle themes except perhaps in the Harry Potter theme's first few years, on the grounds that every new incarnation of LEGO Castle since 2004 has overlapped with a castle-related license, and most even launched the same year as a wave of sets tied to a new Harry Potter or The Hobbit movie! Knights' Kingdom II and Prisoner of Azkaban sets both launched in 2004, Fantasy Era and Order of the Phoenix sets both launched in 2007, Kingdoms and Deathly Hallows sets both launched in 2010, and the yellow banner Castle reboot and The Desolation of Smaug sets both launched in 2013. What's more, in all but that final example, the non-iicensed Castle themes demonstrated as much or more staying power than their licensed brethren. Never mind the considerable overlap in subject matter between the more recent Elves and Disney Princess themes, which managed to coexist for a good four years. As far as Nexo Knights goes, I've heard the LEGO Group had been floating the idea of a sci-fi castle theme since 2009 or so, and to be honest i think their choice to launch it when they did probably had less to do with diminishing faith in more traditional incarnations of the Castle theme and more to do with it being a great way to introduce a sci-fi theme with extensive LEGO Space design cues like brightly colored windscreens, vehicles with huge all-terrain wheels, and lots of robots and lasers, but with an unmistakably non-space setting with no extraterrestrial characters, so as not to conflict with the annual release of new Star Wars movies and corresponding sets beginning in 2015. (the launch of Ultra Agents in 2014 with its "post-space" setting and space-inspired vehicles may have been similarly motivated by the impending arrival of new Star Wars movies). With Nexo Knights ending I expect that in 2019 or 2020 we'll see another more traditional castle theme take its place, and probably also another heavily space-influenced sci-fi/action-adventure theme in some other category, like underwater or underground or something new entirely.

Another classic set from my childhood! Even though I'm well aware you've been making some color changes for the sake of realism and other factors, I do somewhat miss the original set's Bright Yellow bits… though I suppose that's mainly just nostalgia speaking. Lovely techniques for the rocks, palm tree, and cannon! I also love the stone texture you added to the foundation/pier.

I've been surprised a lot lately to see Australian prices of many sets no longer up there with Scandinavian prices as some of the world's most expensive. Even at RRP, the Australian price of Brick Bank ($250 AUD) is only about $6.50 USD or $9.20 AUD higher than the RRP in the United States. The standard prices for that set in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and even Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands are WAY higher. Has anybody been keeping track of whether this shift is because of Australian prices actually getting lower or just exchange rates and the relative value of the Australian dollar changing?

In general I feel like a lot of the themes LEGO focuses more on anniversaries for are the ones that are adult-focused or otherwise have a nostalgia-heavy marketing strategy by default (e.g. Classic, Creator Expert, Technic, and licenses like Ghostbusters, Super Heroes, or Star Wars). While themes like City, Space, Castle, and Pirates obviously have a lot of nostalgic value for Generation X and Generation Y/millennials simply based on how old they are, that doesn't tend to be a major focus in their marketing, since they're very focused on appealing to kids. And even when the subject matter is old-fashioned, it's often not advantageous for kids to think of it that way. What's more, a lot of the stuff that LEGO has done anniversary celebrations for is stuff that's had a fairly continuous presence over that time (like the LEGO brick, the minifigure, or the Technic building system), not stuff like Pirates that's had more than one lengthy hiatus. There's a lot more power and prestige in being able to advertise "30 years of X" versus "X is 30 years old, but has only really been around for around 2/3 of that time". That's not to say there won't be Pirates stuff next year (it's certainly possible), but I have doubts that it would be specifically marketed as an anniversary celebration the way the Technic, LEGO brick, and LEGO minifigure anniversaries have been. I had never heard LEGO Pirates movie rumors but I doubt those ever had credibility, since if it were a theatrical film we'd have heard about them long before now, and if it were a direct-to-DVD/Blu-Ray/digital film or TV special then it's doubtful that we'd even hear about it before a new wave of sets was even confirmed.

I suspect that right now, like legs and arms with side printing, they're something that currently most LEGO factories don't have the molds/machines to produce (though I hear LEGO is in the process of adding more of those). As such it may take some time before they become widespread in more mainstream sets and themes. Also, I do expect that for a while, MOST of the uses will be for younger teens in themes where they need to be distinguishable from child or older teen/adult characters. For clarity, best i can tell, the current standard for the Harry Potter theme based on the latest sets and minifigures is using short legs to represent the main characters in first/second/third year students (around ages 11/12/13/14), medium legs for fourth and fifth year students (around age 14/15/16), and full size legs for sixth and seventh year students (around ages 16/17/18). I think on those grounds it's probably fine for the Ninjago main cast to continue using the full length legs, since with at least the main four ninja it's probably safe to assume at this point that they're 16 or older. Needless to say, the same goes for Anakin Skywalker in Episode II/The Clone Wars (18) continuing to use the full length legs and in The Phantom Menace (12) continuing to use the short legs. But the medium-sized legs might be appropriate for many "teen superhero/sidekick" characters such as the current Ms. Marvel or many incarnations of Robin. As far as non-age-related height differences, I think both the short and medium legs should be reserved for characters who are conspicuously short in a way that might normally be associated with a character being far younger than their actual age… and not, for instance, to show the roughly 5-inch difference between an average-sized adult man and average-sized adult woman, or even more exaggerated height differences like those between characters like Tracer and Soldier 76 in the new Overwatch theme. As a general rule, I think the short legs should probably remain specific to contexts where the character is meant to be both conspicuously taller than an average (pre-teen) human child and conspicuously shorter than an average human adult. If height differences between characters at least as tall as we might ordinarily expect from adults MUST be shown, I think it would be better to err in favor of making the tall characters taller (as with Woody vs. Buzz from LEGO Toy Story or Axl vs. Clay in LEGO Nexo Knights) rather than making the short characters shorter. And if the height difference is subtle enough, it can probably be represented as simply as using a neck accessory that slightly increases the taller character's height, provided it's one that makes sense for that character.