Aanchir

Leaks do happen for a lot of toy lines, at least those with adult fanbases (My Little Pony and Transformers are two that come to mind). For the most part, though, they are unintended. The idea that LEGO intentionally leaks future products is a popular conspiracy theory in some circles but most of the time the way leaks get out is more of an inevitable consequence of LEGO having to keep retailers and other business partners "in the loop" about upcoming products, without any guarantee that those companies will be sufficiently careful to keep confidential pics and info under wraps.

Just paraphrasing… I'm already a little bothered by how long it takes me to get my thoughts out sometimes; if I had to go digging up quotes from 6+ different topics I'd never get any sleep! Plus if I intended to present them as real quotes I'd usually try to link to my sources so people could verify I wasn't making them up. I didn't even cite all the examples, either, just the ones I remember seeing as the discussions were happening. I've seen in discussions from before I was old enough to join Eurobricks that Agents (2008) was pretty contentious in its own right, in part simply due to categorization — the Agents rumors topic was originally placed in the Eurobricks Town and Trains subforum, and many Town fans were INCENSED when it was discovered that the theme included stuff like cyborgs, oversized vehicles, and loads of weapons (opinions were not helped at all by the shoddy quality of those earliest leaked pics). I wouldn't be surprised if these sorts of AFOL reactions to early leaks vs. official reveals have been going on even longer than that. It's not the drama of unrestrained speculation/wishful thinking or the surprise of the actual reveal that bothers me so much as the lasting effect those first impressions can have on how the theme continues to be perceived in AFOL circles. If a theme is announced that people recognize in the first place isn't going to interest them (or at least, recognize for which of their interests it's most likely to cater to) then even if they don't like it, they stand a better chance of appreciating what it brings to the table. But getting your hopes up for something a theme was never intended to be can result in people feeling like LEGO held their "dream theme" out in front of them only to snatch it away and replace it with an inferior substitute, even when that isn't really what happened. And that can leave some lingering soreness. A lot of AFOLs who might have appreciated the idea of Friends paving the way for a girl-targeted theme with more advanced builds and an epic, high fantasy quest narrative. Elves might be perceived more as more exciting upgrade of a controversial theme (Friends) than an off-target downgrade of already widely respected ones (Castle/The Lord of the Rings/Fantasy Era). Likewise if AFOLs' first exposure to Nexo Knights was the idea that it was the first official LEGO theme based around future/space knights like the sort of "Spastle" or Warhammer 40K inspired MOCs that AFOLs have been making for decades, they might have been able to respect the novelty that brings to LEGO more than they did by getting hyped up for Fantasy Era 2.0 — or, after later rumors, a more steampunkish type of mashup theme — and getting something that scarcely resembled either of those things.

In general I feel like the cyberpunk aesthetic tends to be more associated with dystopian future and neo-noir stories than post-apocalyptic or space travel ones. Beyond the aesthetic characteristics people associate with cyberpunk like neon/LED lights, counterculture fashions, body modifications, towering cityscapes, and extrapolation from today's most cutting-edge concept vehicles, cyberpunk as a genre tends to deal with questions of how things like AI, virtual reality, cloning, and the power of megacorporations over individuals' privacy and access to technology completely reshape the social order and threaten or challenge traditional ideas of what it means to be free or human. I don't see much pointing towards either cyberpunk aesthetics or cyberpunk narrative themes in what we've seen or heard about this movie or its sets. In fact, I'd say The LEGO Movie had vastly more cyberpunk themes with the idea of a megacorporation using mass media and obedient robot enforcers to strip away people's freedom and individuality, exploiting people as a technological resource in the Think Tank without their consent, etc. That's not to say we won't see futuristic re-imaginings of classic LEGO themes in this movie, but maybe not cyberpunk specifically.

I don't know how many of y'all were following the themes where there was more discussion about this but a little while back there was a Korean site that somehow found some way to access part info and thumbnails for future sets (I think maybe via the database LEGO Customer Service uses for replacement parts?). Ninjago fans were discussing this a lot due to some of the new molds, prints, and recolors that could be linked with rumored sets for that theme. LEGO caught wind of those future listings and they have now been taken down, but it was a fun sneak peek for those who knew about them before that. Anyhow, I didn't see too much City stuff that was particularly enlightening, but one thing I noticed that I am excited about is that it looks like next year we'll be getting firefighter suits in Sand Yellow (dark tan) with high-visibility stripes! I'm really excited about this because it's the type of firefighter suit I'm used to seeing in real life when local firefighters would do presentations about their jobs for kids, and so I've been wanting LEGO to make firefighter suits in this color for a long time. There also will be a new firefighter's axe that's less bulky than the one from the Lumberjack, but more detailed than the classic LEGO Town hand axe. Random side note: does anybody else think it's kind of weird that there's never been a firefighter as a Minifigures blind-bag character? Like, there's been seven police-related figs and four construction-related figs (albeit with some of those representing specific characters from licensed themes), so it's not as though the Minifigures design team has been outright avoiding figs that overlap with subjects frequently covered by LEGO City. If we did get one at some point it would be a good opportunity for LEGO to introduce a more detailed fire helmet mold like they did with the hats that City police officers are now wearing.

As much as I also love to be able to plan purchases in advance, I don't know whether LEGO benefits so much from that. Loads of discussion in threads for 2019 sets can mean spending less time following threads about 2018 sets that I might not have gotten yet. Being able to get excited for those future sets and save up money for them can make me less likely to spend as much as I planned on this year's sets because I'm holding out for the new stuff. And for a lot of people, that initial hype from seeing or hearing about an exciting new thing can fade quickly — especially if the meantime, other exciting news and announcements start popping up to compete for both your attention and your savings. How do you maintain the same excitement for those LEGO Movie 2 sets you've had names and pictures of for a month (and that aren't coming out for another two and a half months) when all your friends have run out of things to say about them and are now all abuzz about that huge, carefully orchestrated, widely publicized announcement Brand X made just hours ago? As a result, leaks three to four months in advance can potentially result in fewer purchases of both this year's LEGO sets AND next year's. Not to mention take a lot of the oomph out of the publicity campaigns LEGO has spent a lot of money getting ready to release closer to the end of the year, because they no longer have nearly as many new details for people to discuss. Furthermore, think about how many times the AFOL community's impression of a new set or theme has been tarnished by getting incomplete or not yet finalized details about it, letting their imaginations fill in the blanks, and then finding that the actual product was vastly different from what had been imagined: "New theme 'LEGO Atlantis' coming in 2010!" "Oh wow, it's that ancient Greek theme we've always wanted! Can't wait for all those Greek soldiers, gods, and monsters! Not to mention all that classical architecture!" "It's a fantasy deep-sea diving theme with futuristic submarines, giant brick-built sea monsters, and creepy mutant fish people!" "Blech! All those bright colors are awful, and these don't even look like real submarines! It's just as bad as Power Miners was! Maybe worse!" "New ninja theme with new ninja colors coming in 2011!" "Whoa! It's been over a decade since the last one! Colors sound weird but I can't wait to build some awesome Japanese castles!" "It's a Saturday morning cartoon show with color-coded teenage superheroes using magic tornado powers to fight skeletons in giant battle vehicles!" "What the hey is this nonsense? Skeletons in army helmets on motorcycles? This is the worst thing since Galidor! Guaranteed to flop hard!" "New LEGO trademarks leaked: 'Speedorz' and 'Legends of Chima'!" "Huh… 'Speedorz' sounds like some futuristic racing theme? Neat! And oh, there was an Indian tribe with a name that sounds vaguely similar to Chima! Historic theme maybe? "And here's a mysterious catalog image of a crystalline sphere on a blue backdrop marked '2013'!" "Whoa, maybe it's that 'Polar Expedition' theme we've been hearing rumors about? Or even an Ice Planet reboot! A third theme to look forward to!" "It's a wacky science-fantasy theme with talking animals driving animal-shaped vehicles and fighting over magic power crystals!" "What's this nonsense LEGO? You cancelled Ninjago for this? You aren't meeting any of our expectations!" "Elves sets coming in 2015!" "Ooh, I bet it's a new Castle theme! I can't wait to get more yellow-skinned warrior Elves to go with the one from Minifigures Series 3!" "It's pretty and sparkly and magical and has mini-dolls and cute colorful animals!" "Ugh, girl stuff is gross! And what are these weird colors all about? LEGO, you ruined everything!" "New Castle/Knights theme with fantasy monsters and stuff coming in 2016!" "Oh my gosh it's the spiritual successor of Fantasy Era! Can't wait to get me some orcs and dwarves and maybe even those elves we were hoping for this time? "BOOM! It's a medieval-inspired world full of space-age techology!" "Booo! LEGO, why do you hate your fans so much?" "New theme with the placeholder name 'AL' is showing up in the database Target uses to check their store inventories!" "Oh man, quick, think of all the things that start with A! Adventurers? Atlantis? Aliens? Agents? Astronauts? Alpacas?" (You can probably predict how this one might end…) So yeah. Do I want to know more about what to expect for The LEGO Movie 2? Sure! Would it help me plan my budget for next year? Absolutely! Would I gleefully absorb every detail I can see as soon as I became aware of new pics? Almost certainly! But do I think that LEGO's concerns over leaks are a bunch of overblown nonsense? Not remotely. The very real concerns about knock-offs beating them to market are just ONE of the issues that can arise from carefully planned announcements and marketing campaigns being spoiled by far less polished and coordinated leaks

Regarding the term "Buildable Animals Series", I'm not so fond of it, not because I think that the term "Collectible Minifigure" applies better but because if LEGO were to make a series including brick-built figures that WEREN'T animals (like, say, a Unikitty series 2 including Master Frown variants), or for that matter, a series that included both minifigures AND brick built figures (like a LEGO Movie 2 blind bag series with a Unikitty in it, or a Minecraft blind bag series that contained both human and animal mobs), it would feel weird to keep coming up with totally new terms on a series-by-series basis. At that point you might as well just refer to them as "Unikitty blind bags", "Minifigures blind bags", etc. Not to mention, if we're going to make a name for series of brick-built figures like the Unikitties, it's weird not to include the term "collectible" that people here and elsewhere are so insistent on when referring to blind bags from the Minifigures theme. Isn't the point of that to more clearly differentiate talking about the capital-M Minifigures blind bag series versus talking about lowercase-m minifigures in general? If so, why is it any less important to differentiate the term/acronym for a series like this from a term that just as easily describes animals from such varied themes as Unikitty, Minecraft, Creator, Atlantis, Aqua Raiders, Legends of Chima, BrickHeadz, and Elves? That aside, it's a good review of a fun series. It's neat how extensive and expressive the printing on these is and how many recolors it brings to the table. The cloud plates are also a fun new mold that I've already seen some quite clever uses for. It's kind of a bummer that Dinosaur Unikitty couldn't take advantage of the Unikitty tail with molded spikes from The LEGO Movie 2. The spikes printed on the sides of the tail don't look awful, but they still feel like a bit of a compromise. It'd be interesting to see how varied brick-built character blind bags could be. It seems to me that the two main limiting factors are shared with the Advent Calendars — small packages, and too little space for building steps of even medium complexity. A character like Hawkodile would probably be both too big and too elaborate, and even Master Frown is iffy due to employing SNOT techniques on four sides for his face, arms, and back. But I think characters with builds like Dr. Fox whose parts are mostly just stacked vertically would be about as viable as Unikitty and her brother Thanks for the review!

I had a lot of the same uncertainties when I was getting ready to start college. The way I responded to them — though there were some specific factors for me that may not be relevant to you like wanting a school with experience teaching students with ASD/ADHD/NVLD — was that I studied at a two-year school to get an A.A. in Liberal Arts/Liberal Studies. Programs like that usually expect you to take a certain number of general education classes in categories like English/Math/Science that may wind up being a part of many schools' art and design degree programs anyhow, as well as opportunities to take classes in a field you're more interested in (like drawing, sculpture, etc) as electives. Once you have an Associate degree, then you can decide whether you want to continue studying for a higher-level degree like a Bachelor's or Master's Degree, whether you want to remain at the same school or change schools, what field you want your next degree in, etc. The drawback to this approach, of course, is that some of the credits you earn towards your A.A. may not count towards your next degree since different degree programs have different requirements. So if, say, the Liberal Arts degree you get requires more science credits than the B.A. or B.F.A. you decide to go for next, the "extra" credits you earned will only count towards your B.F.A. as elective credits (and even then, only up until you've met the elective credit requirements). So starting with an A.A. in Liberal Arts and moving on to a B.A. or B.F.A. in a more specific field might take longer overall than picking a degree program more specific to your goals from the start. Also, don't forget that your love of LEGO can be channeled into other art forms! Like, drawing or painting LEGO sets, bricks, or figures can be great practice with skills like perspective, shading, and color theory. Drawing scenes involving LEGO characters or re-imagining events from LEGO media (like The LEGO Movie, etc) can be good illustration practice. BrickFilms can be great for building animation skills. A lot of schools actually even use LEGO in drafting or 3D modeling classes as an exercise in re-creating real objects as a schematic or a digital render. Honestly, one of my biggest frustration with "AFOL" fan groups — as opposed to, say, the broader Ninjago fan community that operates more independently of the LUGs, forums, conventions, Facebook groups, and so forth that so much of the AFOL identity tends to be structured around — is that AFOL groups tend to prioritize MOCs and other works where the brick is the medium over other types of LEGO-inspired creative expression like drawings, paintings, music, animation, creative writing, voice acting, cosplay, and non-brick-built sculpture. But that doesn't mean you can't explore ways to engage with the brand that DO use and reinforce the types of creative skills you're hoping to use in your professional life. And if it's any help — it has been for me — read up on or ask questions about the backgrounds of people who already have jobs in the field/company you want to work for. The job listings for LEGO design positions can sometimes sound very strict and specific but the truth is that often the skill set LEGO wants to see can be a lot more flexible. For instance, an oft-cited recommendation/candidate profile is somebody with a degree in industrial design or toy design, but some of LEGO's current set designers have education and professional backgrounds in fields ranging from architecture to fashion design to interior design to illustration (and probably even more wide-ranging fields than that)! What they really want to see on a more general level is evidence of the degree to which you've honed your creative skills, put them to the test in professional or academic settings, and can apply those skills using LEGO bricks as a medium. I was able to get invited to a recruitment workshop in Billund a few years ago for a design job working on girls' play themes, despite my most relevant qualifications being: A.A. in Liberal Studies one year of classes in an Industrial Design program at another school (it didn't work out for me and I wound up dropping out) a few months unpaid experience creating social media content for a small toy company in my hometown (like, with fewer than 5 employees) a few years unpaid experience writing for LEGO fansites a portfolio of some of my best/most recent LEGO and non-LEGO creative works a strong initial Skype interview While I didn't wind up getting the job and was probably the person in the room with the least impressive academic and professional credentials, I think being invited alone says a lot for how wide a net LEGO is casting and how profoundly having lifelong experience, familiarity, and engagement with the LEGO products and brand can work in your favor. Even outside of LEGO, I think you'll find that there are a lot of different paths you can take to any number of creative jobs. So try your best to keep your OWN expectations of yourself and the paths available to you flexible as well!

I'd say it's fine to ease up on the LEGO hobby for a while or even sell off some of what you have if you feel like you need money/space. But I will also add that from my college experience, it can sometimes be good to have occasional distractions so you don't get overwhelmed spending all your time on work of greater importance. During some of my most stressful years at college, being able to reward myself by building a LEGO set or spending some time on a MOC at the end of the week can be really therapeutic. While studying art or working as an artist can definitely eat up a lot of the creative energy you might ordinarily use for building, it can also be a source of inspiration, creative skills, and creative vocabulary that can improve your building or allow you to better understand and appreciate other people's set and MOC designs. I also suggest that if you are comfortable using LDD or any other digital building software it can be a great way to enjoy some low-stakes creative LEGO playtime and brainstorm ideas without having to worry so much about spending money, taking up space, or making messes you have to clean up later. It's also great for if when going to/from school during a break or long weekend you don't bring much of your physical collection with you, or for being able to experiment with parts you don't have before buying them, so you don't wind up realizing they don't actually work for what you had in mind. Another thing to think about is whether there's any way to combine your passion for LEGO with your career aspirations. Obviously a lot of jobs with The LEGO Group can be pretty competitive, and to be honest even though being a LEGO designer has been pretty much a lifelong goal for me I don't know if it'll ever happen. But like, a little over a year ago I did a 3-month internship at the Hasbro photo studio, and a lot of what qualified me for that opportunity was that it allowed me to take advantage of not only the photography skills I'd learned at school, but also my experience photographing LEGO MOCs/sets and my general passion for and insights into toy design. I've also done quite a few art projects inspired by LEGO, from photography to sculpture to drawing to digital photo editing. Even if you'd rather not make LEGO the subject of your work, you can often find ways that the types of things you enjoy doing with LEGO or the things about LEGO models that excite you or even just the things you've learned as a LEGO fan intersect with the creative fields you want to explore professionally. And connections you've made as a LEGO fan with other creative-minded people (many of whom have studied art or are current art students) can be a great network for support as well as academic or professional advice. I won't lie to you, being an art student is TOUGH. How tough can vary depending on the rigor and level of accommodations at the school you choose to go to. There are many times it can be easy to lose sleep, fall out of touch with your family or social circle, or even realize you no longer get as much enjoyment out of things that you were once passionate about. It may also take a lot longer than you expect. Right now drawing and digital art might be your focus but you may at some point wind up feeling less certain of that goal or drawn towards a different form of art. But no matter how things go down you will want to have some kind of low-stakes emotional outlet to retreat to if burnout or exhaustion starts to set in. Could be LEGO, could be video games, could be books/comics, could be something else entirely. Just don't start thinking that a serious pursuit of your goals necessarily requires cutting out things that might be a source of relief when things start to feel overwhelming.

I’m more or less indifferent because I’ve never cared much about or assigned much value to whether a character is/isn’t a minifigure. Like, I wouldn’t treat R2-D2 and C-3PO figures any differently just because one uses standard minifigure parts and one does not. Nor would I arbitrarily assign a higher value to Ant-Man than Giant-Man in the grounds that the latter is too big, too poseable, or made of too many pieces. I mean, they’re all characters, and WHO they are matters to me more than how they’re built. And sure, the Unikitty blind bags aren’t a part of the Minifigures theme, so from LEGO’s perspective they’re a separate category from the other series of blind-bag figures. Again, though, that’s not really a big deal for my collection. I currently keep my LEGO Movie, LEGO Batman Movie, and LEGO Ninjago Movie figures together whether they came in blind bags or not. If/when I finally break down and start collecting the Unikitty theme I expect I’ll do the same with its characters — no matter what sort of set they came in or how they’re built. The way I see it, strictly defining categories is typically a thing completionists worry about, and one they decide less according to any objective system or official definitions than according to whatever lets them exclude the sets/figures of a certain type that they don’t like/don’t want/can’t get and still insist on having a complete collection. I’ve seen about as many people who consider Haunted House and Old Fishing Store modular buildings as who don’t consider Market Street a modular building. Likewise when people debate about whether “near Earth” themes like Life on Mars, Mars Mission, and Alien Conquest are “real” Space themes, whether G2 (2015-2016) Bionicle pieces are real Bionicle pieces, or whether bigfigs are real minifigs, what side they take depends heavily on their opinions on and access to the items in dispute.

This is part of why even today I tend to prefer themes like Ninjago and Elves over most licensed themes. That said, I think the generalization "non-licensed is more creative than licensed" can be overstated. In the themes for The LEGO Movie and its spin-offs, or Super Heroes sets not based on particular movies or shows, LEGO tends to get a lot more creative liberty than they do in sets that directly recreate something from an existing work of fiction. Not to mention, in non-licensed themes that are based on real life/history/mythology like City, Castle, and Pirates, LEGO is often still beholden to the general consensus on how a particular subject is supposed to look. For example, LEGO is pretty much just as obligated to make their LEGO City fire trucks red as they are to make their Batmobiles black. Too many creative liberties or even true-to-life characteristics that buyers consider "atypical" and kids stop recognizing it as a fire truck (one of the big reasons the Jack Stone theme failed even with its 4+ target audience — the heavily stylized vehicle designs alienated kids at an age when they still preferred a greater sense of familiarity). And finally, I think a lot of AFOLs have a bit of a confusing double-standard when it comes to the originality of licenses. Like, I've hardly ever seen AFOLs complain about Benny's Spaceship (or other Classic Space inspired creations) being unoriginal. And yet, ultimately there's nothing more original about it than, say, the Bat-vehicles from The LEGO Batman Movie. Even though each one of those examples was a new and unique design overall, in each case the color scheme, general shape, key motifs, graphics, and so on were heavily informed by pre-existing designs going back decades. The only difference is that the Classic Space design language was created by past LEGO designers, and the Batman design language was created by DC Comics.

Just started watching “The Dragon Prince” on Netflix and really enjoying it so far. Good fun medieval fantasy, good character design, and well-written too (Aaron Ehasz and Giancarlo Volpe, who both worked on Avatar: The Last Airbender, are working on this show, as is Villads Spangsberg, who worked extensively on LEGO Elves). I kind of doubt LEGO would make sets of it unless somebody managed to create a good enough and popular enough Ideas project (they’ve never made sets based on a Netflix series, and it took Ideas to even convince them video game based sets were a viable option — the higher-ups at LEGO can be pretty resistant to change). But I encourage y’all to give it a look in case it turns out to be a good source of inspiration for MOCs!

Drifting Diner has only 345 parts, including a lot of less eatery-related stuff like a go-kart and launcher, drive-in theater/phone stand, and the sorts of decorative flair like flowers that are common in Friends sets but much less so in City. Heartlake Pizzeria also managed to include a delivery truck, balcony seating, and a kitchen that far exceeds typical City standards of detail with only 289 parts. I suspect that there will be some sort of firefighting vehicle in this new set, but we have no idea what type or size, and I don't suspect a cooking fire at what's probably a single-story restaurant would necessarily require anything as big as a ladder truck. So overall I don't think the piece count is too much reason for worry.

Even for an adult-targeted series I think Wild West may be a bit risky. The Old West is not nearly as mainstream a subject as it once was, and it has never seemed to have the kind of lasting popularity as a LEGO theme that Town/City, Castle, Space, Pirates, Bionicle, and Ninjago have. An expert-level medieval series could maybe be worth exploring at some point, though, if the demand for these types of exclusives keeps growing enough to add more categories than the current ongoing ones (like vehicles, modular buildings, winter village, fairground, and landmarks).

I suspect that might just be a translation quirk — "parkour" comes from the French word "parcours" meaning route/course, and Hoth Bricks is a French website. Interested to see what style of architecture Mia's house has! I don't really know what to expect.

It's an interesting question — I can't think of many non-seasonal store exclusives that weren't branded with any particular theme. While obviously the setting of a scene like this is in the same modern day family of themes that Town and City sets fall under, the branding is closer to the style that LEGO uses for a lot of the seasonal, promotional, or miscellaneous products that they usually sell through their own store and website. While there's no reason LEGO can't sell a cute, fairly generic little vignette like this for a particular retailer at whatever time of year they want, it's definitely something I'm not used to seeing them do.

Not just a chance, a near-certainty. Licensing is rarely done on a company-wide basis — each IP tends to be a separate license. Even in the case of things like the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies which you might think would all fall under the same licensing agreement, a license to produce sets based on Avengers: Infinity War would be separate from a license to produce sets based on Black Panther or Ant Man & the Wasp. I learned this from a friend who makes comics for the LEGO Club Magazines and has had to get ones with licensed characters approved by the various license-holders. K'nex's Nintendo licenses so far seem to include the Super Mario and Mario Kart IPs specifically (and even then, there's no telling whether they cover the entire franchise or just specific games — notably, they haven't released any sets with Super Mario Odyssey branding, which would be a no-brainer if they wanted to maximize the hype for their products, so I suspect it's on a game-by-game basis. Even in the case of game series that share characters, like Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Country, and Super Smash Bros, K'nex can only use those characters in the context of whichever game licenses they've acquired. And of course, almost all licensing agreements have an expiration date, so if one or both of the parties chooses not to renew, then that license can be granted to another company — much like how Mega Construx picked up the TMNT license after LEGO's TMNT license expire. Now as for the LEGO The Legend of Zelda rumor… the original source is a list of supposed future Nintendo Switch game titles posted to 4chan, a site notorious for all the trolling that goes on there. And some of the games on the list are obvious falsehoods, while others (like LEGO The Legend of Zelda) could easily be taking advantage of how much people WANT them to be real. It's true that ONE of the game titles on the list, Yoshi's Crafted World, was not confirmed prior to the list being posted, but has since been confirmed in the Nintendo Direct. So the person making that list had gotten access to at least that much info before it was public knowledge. But on the other hand, NONE of the other game titles on the list were confirmed in the Nintendo Direct (new Animal Crossing and Luigi's Mansion games were announced, but without titles attached, which makes it unlikely that the titles have even been settled on). Also, numerous titles were announced in the Nintendo Direct that WEREN'T on this list. So it seems likely to me that Yoshi's Crafted World is the only real upcoming title the person posting that list actually knew about, and the rest were fabricated.

To be honest, I'm kind of impressed with the new playmat design. Sure, they're aimed at kids, but at the same time they seem to be a lot more versatile than traditional road plates in a lot of ways (i.e. easier to make hills/terrain, more freedom in how you arrange models on the base), and certainly much more versatile than the sorts of non-interchangeable playmats LEGO has been making for decades now. As far as the polybags go, they definitely do a great job filling a niche that's been unfilled for some time. While I wouldn't mind seeing more I'm wondering whether it would really be better to make the other ones as City/Town/Friends oriented or whether it might be good to have some more geared towards fantasy type themes — for instance, one geared towards themes like Castle, Elves, Adventurers, or Pirates could include plenty of stuff that's not too heavily theme- or faction-specific like a treasure chest with treasure, swords, unprinted shields, torches, spider webs, etc.

When you get right down to it, ALL themes "only account for a fraction of LEGO's overall revenue" — it's just that some of those fractions are bigger than others. There's no doubt that LEGO Friends has made up a bigger fraction of LEGO sales in recent years than the many themes that haven't been listed among the top sellers in any of the past several years, like Disney, Nexo Knights, DC Super Heroes, Marvel Super Heroes, Elves, Juniors, etc. And while LEGO may not speak at length about exactly how successful individual themes are for them, bear in mind the old saying "actions speak louder than words". Typically, ongoing themes that have been more popular/successful tend to get higher numbers of sets while themes that have been less popular/successful tend to get lower numbers of sets. This year's biggest themes in terms of number of sets are Star Wars, City, Friends, Ninjago, BrickHeadz, and Duplo. That should give you a pretty good sense of which themes LEGO expects customers to buy a lot of based on previous sales trends. You're right that no matter HOW well or poorly LEGO does in any given year, it can rarely be attributed to any one theme over- or underperforming. But I don't really see anyone trying to claim decisions made in the Friends theme are the overall reason for how LEGO is doing right now, just speculating about why it's not among the four best sellers in this year's interim results like it was in last year's. And for all we know it might not even be a case of Friends performing any worse than usual — it may just be that Creator and Classic, which weren't on the best seller list in last year's interim results, are performing better than usual, particularly with several LEGO Classic products and marketing campaigns that launched this year to tie in with the LEGO Brick's 60th anniversary. Truth be told Classic is not the sort of theme that I normally think of as having best seller potential. While basic brick sets will surely always be in demand and are many parents' ideal of what a LEGO set should be, they don't have as much of an incentive for year-after-year collecting as play themes often do, because they tend to offer a pretty similar inventory of parts — so once you have a few basic brick buckets, buying more will increase the quantity of bricks you have, but not so much the variety. That said, I'm also sure the Classic theme tends to sell way better than its smallish number of new sets per year would suggest, for more or less the same reason. If the idea of a basic brick set is to offer wider creative options than you'd get from a more specific kit of the same size, then it doesn't take nearly as many different sets to reach builders with wide-ranging interests (whereas in, say, City you would need different models for the kids who like cars, trucks, motorcycles, planes, boats, helicopters, buses, trains, police stations, fire stations, construction vehicles, etc).

Umm, have you ever actually looked at the instructions to these sets? Because the 3-in-1 modular buildings are modular in waaaaaaaay more ways than just being able to combine them. On the most basic level, a single set can let you rearrange a single set in whole 8x8 or 8x16 blocks (rooms, roofs, attics, swimming pools, porches, etc). This includes both the position of those blocks and the direction they face, sort of like the modular Hogwarts Castle sections from the first few years of the LEGO Harry Potter theme. But these Creator sets go even further, as even these blocks themselves are designed in such a way that you can easily re-arrange features like windows, doors, staircases, and garages. With multiples of the same set, you can also mix-and-match modules from the A, B, and C models. And naturally, as with pretty much any kind of modular format, from TLG-created ones like the Creator Expert modular buildings to fan-created ones like the Great Ball Contraption and Moonbase collabs that are seen at various LEGO fan conventions, this system is a foundation that you can enhance even further by creating your OWN custom modules. Page 106 of the Modular Family Villa instruction manual shows 5 different ways that you can re-arrange just the 15 modules from the A model. And certainly, the way some those designs put features like the basketball hoops or doghouse on the upper levels is a little ridiculous. But the point of this page isn't to show you the best or most straightforward ways you can arrange the modules — it's to illustrate just how unlimited the customization possibilities actually are. Although these sets are still marketed as "3-in-1" like the old Creator houses, the actual number of different models you can create even just with the modules shown in the instructions is far, far greater. This makes them a heck of a lot more modular than the Creator Expert modular buildings. With the Creator Expert sets, "modular" pretty much just means "you can rearrange the order of the buildings on the street or change the number/order of the upper floors". Market Street came closest to offering a more genuinely customizable experience due to letting you rotate the floors or swap the floors and roofs between the left and right bases, but it still wasn't even close to this versatile. So it baffles me that so many people seem to think the 3-in-1 modular buildings are somehow the ones being deceptively marketed, when really a stronger case could be made for saying the Creator Expert modular buildings are barely even modular.

For those who (like me) don’t care for the tree in this set, be sure to check out the video link I posted on the previous page. The tree design in that building guide uses a lot of the same sorts of parts but I like the overall design a lot better.

I figured, hence the tongue smiley to show I was joking. On a more serious note, I kind of doubt it would be either of those suggestions (at least, not in a form you'd particularly care for if Elves hasn't already been satisfying your need for a Castle theme) due to the set numbers. Since the switch to five-digit set numbers as the default in 2013, numbers in the 41### range have been used almost exclusively for themes that skew more towards girls (e.g. Friends, Elves, Disney, DC Super Hero Girls, The Powerpuff Girls, and Unikitty) and themes that are handled more like collectibles than playsets (like BrickHeadz and Mixels). Most System play themes that skew more towards boys or adult collectors have numbers that fall somewhere in the 7#### range.

For what it's worth, this uses Dark Red, not Sand Red (i know that's probably just a typo). And to be honest, I don't think LEGO even makes very many parts anymore that are so specialized I'd consider them "throwaway" parts. Even if all you build is modular buildings, just look at how Assembly Square used the big Technic scoops. Parts like those tend to be so specialized that if I have to sort them into storage I usually throw them in the same "miscellaneous" tub I use for a lot of other big oddball parts like the chrome drill from Rock Raiders or the giant turbines from Exo-Force. And a lot of the parts I've built with and collected over the years are Bionicle, so my standards for what is big and specific enough to be categorized as "miscellaneous" are fairly high. Yet Jamie took parts like that and managed to make them feel like a natural fit for that building.

If AFOLs didn't like Nexo Knights being Space/Castle they absolutely aren't going to like a theme that's Space/Western/Castle!

The subjects of the sets (Ultra Dragon, Samurai Mech, Earth Driller, etc) are from past story arcs but all of the minifigures that I've seen are new designs that don't closely resemble previous ones. It's hard to tell at this point whether there might be any new story arc tying in with some or all of them. Time travel's been done a couple times already so I don't think the writers would go that route, but there are also other ways stuff that's already happened in the story or been written out of the story can be revisited but in a more flexible way than a straight-up flashback: A story that involves a character having to enter another character's dreams/mind/memories to solve a problem. A story where a reality-warping villain goes on a rampage and reality has to be restored to normal (the Cloud Kingdom introduced in Season 5 is one potential avenue for this) A story where characters are forced to enter some kind of virtual world or video game based on their past adventures ("Enter the Digiverse" dabbled in the first aspect of this story framing but not the second) A story with one or more characters sharing stories about things that happened before, but the way things happen in the stories is full of inaccuracies (either out of forgetfulness, or exaggerating things based on how things felt to them or how they prefer to imagine things happened rather than how they actually happened, or because they actually only know small parts of the story and everything else is filled in by hearsay and guesswork). Often these types of stories have the people who actually lived them provide either ongoing or after-the-fact commentary on how much the people/person telling the story got wrong. This can also come in the form of characters watching an inaccurate movie or heavily staged documentary about themselves. And probably a lot more formats I can't even think of right now.

I actually like the grey color scheme with blue accents on Nya for several reasons. For one, it generally feels more suitable for a water character. Gray is not the first color one normally associates with water, but seeing it with blue accents at least calls to mind stormy seas or big dark rain clouds, whereas red has almost nothing to do with water. It's obvious as what it is — a holdover from the early waves where the Ninjago trading cards, website, spinners, and even her phoenix insignia strongly implied she was a fire-aligned character like her brother Kai. Even when her red costume does include blue, like her costumes from Possession and Day of the Departed, they wind up competing for dominance, with the red often overpowering the blue. (a somewhat confusing line in Possession where she says her suit is her "favorite color" makes me wonder if when the season was being written there were thoughts of blue, which had been clearly identified as her favorite color numerous times before, making up a bigger part of its color scheme). Additionally, when her main colors are red and blue, they overlap a lot with Kai's and Jay's. Before Nya became a ninja, it was easy and common for written works to refer to the others as The Red Ninja, the Blue Ninja, the White Ninja, etc. But with red being the ONLY color constant to her Season 5, 6, and Day of the Departed costumes, during those seasons she could only be referred to as the Water Ninja, and even continuing to call Kai and Jay the Red Ninja and Blue Ninja became a potentially confusing prospect. "Look everybody! It's the Red Ninja!" "Which one?" And none of this is to say I don't like all those other ninja designs she's had before adopting the gray. In particular, her Airjitzu form was gorgeous, but it also laid bare the problem with thinking of her as "the Other Red Ninja" or "the Maroon Ninja" — the Airjitzu suits, like NRG suits before them, were supposed to make the ninja look like their bodies had become a fountain of pure elemental energy. She ended up having to break the "black suit with colorful face, arms, and patterns" rule the other Airjitzu ninja had followed, because no shade of red could possibly make it look like she had been transfigured into water. Beautiful as it was, that design epitomized the way her less straightforward color alignment kept her out-of-place among the group. I think my favorite costume of hers was definitely her Hands of Time one, which introduced Titanium Metallic to her color scheme (though it could arguably be seen as a callback to her original Samurai X armor) and returned to her distinctive motifs from her past designs the shape of her shirt collar. She still had some Dark Red in that costume, but only for subtle accents that didn't in any way compete for attention with the Dark Azur. And later, it made me quite happy when material for the LEGO Ninjago Movie called her the Silver Ninja (even if it was a bit ironic that this name corresponded to a suit in the LEGO color named Titanium Metallic, considering previously Zane had worn a suit using a lot of the LEGO color Silver Metallic and been called the Titanium Ninja). I wonder if the gray was unpopular and it's being ditched for good, if the red's being brought back due to the whole wave being a sort of throwback to before she became the Water Ninja, or if the red's being brought back so people don't get confused about her colors as Samurai X not matching her colors as a ninja. I guess it'll be some time before we know for sure.