Aanchir

I also think Cory probably works a bit better as the elemental creature of water since a sea serpent would probably have to be quite a bit larger than Liska, Rowan, or Cyclo to be particularly effective.

So cute and creative! The colors really pop!

The tail of https://brickset.com/sets/4094-1/Motor-Movers is a Duplo part.

I think Ninjago does an OK job keeping the team dynamic from becoming monotonous by letting different characters be the "star" for each story arc since season 3. For instance, Jay was the star of Season 6, Kai and Nya were the co-stars of season 7, Cole was the star of Day of the Departed, etc. That said, as far as set designs go, it doesn't always make a huge difference whether a theme has a singular star or splits the focus among the team. Even in Adventurers' debut year, Johnny Thunder was not in that many more sets than his teammates despite being the theme's star, and unlike themes like Ninjago or Alpha Team or Nexo Knights, the Adventurers vehicles usually weren't conspicuously coded to specific characters.

As much as I’m with you on interior detail being important, I’m not sure Classic Space is all that exceptional in that regard. Many of the vehicle sets had little more than a cockpit and sometimes a cramped cargo space, stuff you can just as easily find in several Star Wars vehicles like the Millennium Falcon, AT-TE, U-Wing, Imperial Landing Craft, or Clone Turbo Tank. What I’d like to see is something with an interior to rival sets like the Fortrex, Sunshine Catamaran, Agents Mobile Command Center, or Destiny’s Bounty, with spaces set up for various lifestyle tasks like eating, sleeping, training, mission planning, research, or what-have-you.

I wouldn't say LEGO 'learned from their mistake' with Nexo Knights because they knew it wasn't guaranteed to be a lasting hit, and they still managed to get a good two and a half years out of it. The fact that it disappointed a lot of classic castle fans is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things — do you think LEGO ever expects wacky new themes to be welcomed with open arms by traditional-minded fans after our community's persistent habit of whining about basically every new action/adventure theme in the past ten years? I think all we can do is speculate about what sort of theme LEGO might bring out next. It's a little premature to assume the next big action/adventure property would be based on ANY of the classic evergreen themes, though — not when there are so many other categories to choose from, from underwater to underground to globetrotting adventure to mecha to stuff we've never even seen before. And themes aren't necessarily released in a "one-in, one-out" pattern anyhow. For all we know we might see another castle theme next year (continuing the pattern of a new take on castle every three years) AND a new media-driven action-adventure property. In any case, I don't think the specific desires of AFOLs are going to be a major factor in whatever new theme decisions the LEGO Group makes.

Another thought that occurred to me after seeing a MOC shared on Brickset… what about a renaissance fair/medieval fair? I know those are primarily a North American phenomenon, but so are summer camps to a great extent, and LEGO still managed to make three Adventure Camp sets. It could have sets like a joust, a market with a few shops and stalls, and a stage for theatrical performances. Some other cool sets (as stand-alones rather than a subtheme) could be other types of restaurants, like a Chinese restaurant or Indian restaurant.

I think you're grasping at straws here. First of all, Nexo Knights seems to have done reasonably well and I'm sure there will be other wacky themes like it in the future — if a theme ending meant LEGO rejected everything it stood for then theme categories like pirates, secret agents, underwater, underground, and space would have left the picture well over a decade ago. Furthermore, movie themes are still all over the place and there's no sign they're going away. And anyway, these themes you don't like never got in the way of cool City or Creator Expert sets before, so I don't see why two more cool City or Creator Expert sets would be seen as any sort of change in the status quo. Believe it or not, the big gap between the previous City hospital and this one was not even out of the ordinary, because LEGO hospitals have always been infrequent, even in the Classic Town era. It's quite possible that after this one there'll be another six-year gap before the next City hospital, and if so that'd be perfectly normal. It's possible that City sets might return to using traditional baseplates one day, though I'd prefer if they didn't, since standard thickness plates are vastly superior to traditional baseplates in most applications. To be honest, I'd be delighted if LEGO would go so far as to expand the use of traditional plates and introduce a new road system that is more tile-based.

It's a tight race between LEGO Elves, LEGO Ninjago, and LEGO Bionicle, but these days Elves usually winds up on top.

Just saw this MOC and was hit by a major wave of nostalgia. Gender diversity isn't something that's been brought up a lot in this topic I don't think, and I hesitate a bit to bring it up because I know bringing up gender issues on the internet often descends into shouting matches with slow-witted trolls (and not the Tolkien kind), but it's kind of a bummer that Macy and Queen Halbert from Nexo Knights have been the only female knights since Princess Storm 18 years ago, and that Macy fills more or less the same "action girl/reluctant princess" archetype. Nowadays I think LEGO — or any storyteller, really — should be able to do so much better at delivering more varied female characters. It'd be awesome if the next Castle theme included some awesome ladies like Carey, Killian, and Lup from the D&D podcast The Adventure Zone, or for that matter like so many of the awesome characters LEGO Elves has managed to deliver.

G.I. Joe is another brand wholly owned by Hasbro, like Transformers or My Little Pony — unless the toy industry landscape gets completely upended I can't imagine them licensing it out to a rival toy company. Little Witch Academia is one I'd love to see, though perhaps not that likely since there's no indications as to whether it will continue as a series.

Sure, I suppose. But science fiction and fantasy aren't mutually exclusive, even if Eurobricks tries in vain to treat them like they are.

Wait, wait, hold up a second. So creatures from tens of millions of years before the medieval era are A-OK for Castle layouts, but mechs, flying machines, and motorcycles in Castle sets are a travesty?

I’m pretty sure during LEGO Fan Media Days designers and execs are still beholden to the prohibition on discussing unannounced products in development. And no designer is qualified to answer whether there will be a LEGO Castle theme EVER again, because LEGO can’t plan or anticipate what they’re going to be doing from now until the end of time. At best you could ask why we haven’t had a new Castle theme YET, but I think that’s pretty well understood by now (Nexo Knights WAS the Castle theme for the 2016–2018 cycle, whether or not it was considered one by all Castle fans). I feel like you could get much, much more interesting answers to questions like “what sorts of features would your ultimate LEGO castle include?” or “how does designing a LEGO castle for girls differ from designing one for boys?” or “what classic LEGO sets inspire you?” or “what classic LEGO castle faction would you like to bring back?” than by asking sorts of questions designers are contractually barred from answering in hopes they accidentally slip up and spill something.

I have some misgivings about the idea that “aggressive marketing” will result in better outcomes for constraction. First and foremost, we’ve seen numerous themes like Exo-Force, Power Miners, Atlantis, Legends of Chima, and Nexo Knights that were marketed pretty aggressively and yet didn’t last longer than three years. Some of those didn’t even last longer than two. That’s not to say that they weren’t successes in their own right, but even with Bionicle G2 we’ve been assured that its cancellation was “not sales related”, whatever that might mean (if I had to guess, it may have had more to do with the theme using up resources that LEGO needed to satisfy existing demand on their bigger and more popular themes like Star Wars, City, and Friends). Not every theme has what it takes to become a long-running success like Bionicle G1 or Ninjago, no matter how heavily it’s marketed. And even if Bionicle G2 had gotten a solid 3-year run, I find it hard to imagine we wouldn’t be having this same conversation about what “went wrong”.

One of the builds for this set is a fun throwback… https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/classic/products/bricks-bricks-bricks-10717 Noticing it even uses Bright Reddish Violet to represent the classic flags. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of this color in historic sets, even just for heraldry or accents in a throne room. It makes a good Tyrian purple.

We didn’t have confirmation of the price before, but every credible hint about the price (including the known Danish, German, and Dutch prices) suggested it should cost around 25% less than Ninjago City. It was so annoying how sites kept repeating the $300 rumor like it was plausible even after having so much evidence against it.

A video review (not mine, not in English) is up for Firstbourne, and I was curious if anybody here was interested in her! As I've mentioned above, she's pretty much a western-style dragon (i.e. four clawed legs, two wings, non-serpentine body design), and quite a big and imposing one too! Also we now have confirmation that her wings have both a flapping function and the ability to fold open and closed. I feel like she'd fit in beautifully with a Castle layout! https://youtu.be/eqoBjjYaq7E?t=8m29s Also Zusammengebaut has pictures of new Bricktober minifigure packs (yes, there actually seem to be new ones this year), including Harry Potter, Ninjago, and Marvel figures. Some of their parts could definitely have historic applications… but of course, might not be worth the trouble of getting your hands on the full pack in the UK or US, unless LEGO announces some other way they're distributing in countries where Toys 'R' Us is going out of business. The new Harry Potter sets look great! Most historic among them are definitely the two Hogwarts sets we've seen (Hogwarts and the Whomping Willow and Hogwarts Great Hall). Hogwarts looks even more warm, inviting, and livable than usual. Whomping Willow is great for tree parts. Many of the stickers like portraits and tapestries seem versatile enough to be used outside of a Harry Potter context. Dementors also get a new, more minifigure-based (rather than skeleton-based) build, including a recolor of the ghost trail piece from Ninjago/Ghostbusters/Nexo Knights. There are still at least a couple sets that haven't been announced yet so I'm curious what those might be.

The Ultra Dragon from 9450 Epic Dragon Battle had a wing flapping function! But it didn't have wings that could fold open and closed, posable hips, a brick-built head, or a removable saddle. Even with all the dragons I've accumulated over the years, Firstbourne is one of the summer sets I'm most excited for (after Ninjago City Docks). "Mother of all dragons" indeed!

Well, treating a difficult personal decision as equivalent to dying doesn’t seem to encourage an attitude of hopefulness either…

Whatever the next modular building is, one thing I'd love is for it to be wheelchair-accessible. A couple years ago I was working on a combination bowling alley/arcade/pizza restaurant modular building, and I took specific care to include a ramp (rather than stairs) out front and an elevator to get to the second level inside — and this was before there was even an official wheelchair piece; I was using a brick-built chair I designed myself! Now that there IS a wheelchair piece, making the next modular building compatible with it seems like a no-brainer. Plus, we haven't seen an elevator in a modular building since the Town Hall or a building with a ramp in the front in any modular building. I still think that a bowling alley would be a good fit for the modular buildings series and vice-versa, partly because you really do need about that big a footprint to make a bowling alley with more than one lane in an enclosed space. That said, I'm not sure what era or design movement would be ideal for that. Bowling alleys do go back well over a century, but a lot of the bowling alleys and associated imagery I'm used to seeing in real life and in media are firmly rooted in the 80s or 90s. If 50s design styles and imagery were jarring for many AFOLs, then something that recent may very well be out of the question. I would like to see bright colors, though, not drab brown walls like in some really old-timey bowling alleys.

What confuses me about that particular perspective is that these days, most sets (besides Technic and constraction) are primarily generic, non-theme-specific bricks. Oftentimes they're even in generic colors — like, I don't know if everyone here has seen this blog post, but that person did an analysis of the inventories of different themes and found the most common colors even in colorful themes like LEGO Elves, LEGO Friends, and LEGO Ninjago were ones like black, white, brown, tan, and grey. Any of those is a perfectly viable Castle color, and while some of those might be specific stuff like tires or headgear, most of them are inevitably going to be standard building elements. Thus for a lot of people the difference between an set that stands out as useful to one's interests and one that doesn't actually DOES seem to come down to a few particular parts (specifically, minifig/character parts and accessories). 90% of the bricks in an Elves or Ninjago set might be equally well suited to Castle MOCs, but because they don't have new or existing heraldry for Castle figs they're considered "not good enough" for Castle fans to bother with. Never mind the whole question of "does it go with my existing collection", because by that logic a person whose only set was the original yellow castle would hardly be able to find anything visually compatible even by the early 90s! That mode of thinking quickly locks you into repetition and out of new ways of thinking. It's also a standard people rarely follow through on consistently. I guarantee you that many people who scoff at the bright roof and foliage colors in Elves sets were perfectly willing to introduce new colors like Sand Green, Sand Blue, Dark Red, Earth Blue, and Earth Green to their repertoire in the early 2000s, they just can't get over thinking that "masculine" colors are serious business while "feminine" colors are frivolous and not worth their time. None of this is meant as an indictment of you, SirBlake. You've contributed well to this site, and if the current LEGO lineup isn't holding your interest there's no shame in moving on to other things. Honestly, as AFOLs I think there has to come a time for all of us when we realize that LEGO stopped being beholden to our individual tastes a long time ago. Certainly I like a lot of current LEGO themes, but that's largely serendipitous — those themes have always been driven more by kids' tastes than by mine, those tastes just happen to more or less align in certain circumstances. Maybe when I'm your age kids will have moved on from stuff I like and I'll have to make some tough decisions of my own about my place in the LEGO community and the LEGO community's place in my life. I'm sure you've given this plenty of thought and you don't owe any of us your presence here if it doesn't make you happy. I just hope you find plenty else to occupy your time in a way that better fulfills your needs and desires.

I was about to say we're also still missing pics of 41350 Spinning Brushes Car Wash, but then I found some! Not very big but still a welcome surprise.

They made three different figures for her for the movie, so I highly doubt that they're firmly opposed to making a new version of her for the show. With secondary characters it's usually more a matter of when there's an opportunity to introduce new minifigures for them. After all, the non-movie, non-D2C sets tend to focus on big battle scenes involving the ninja and their enemies, not on calmer scenes involving the ninja's friends and families. Like, it took until the movie for characters like Ed and Edna to get ANY representation in the sets, and we still haven't gotten figs of Lou or Dr. Julien.

I wouldn't call any negative outcomes for constraction a "turning point" at this stage, considering the category's popularity has been declining for a long time now. I agree Darth Maul's price seems somewhat high, though not unusually so for this line. Obi-Wan, TLJ Rey, Kylo Ren, Captain Phasma all had a worse price per piece than that, and Chirrut's was not much lower. I have to admit, if I cared as much about Star Wars as I do about Bionicle or Ninjago or Elves, I would probably be more willing to pay these prices. The price per piece is high by LEGO standards (as is usually the case with constraction), but the overall RRP is not. I think one thing that has held this line back is the sheer amount of other products (including other LEGO products) out there for people who are passionate about these movies and characters. As more of a constraction fan than a Star Wars fan, these are reliably among the most interesting and desirable Star Wars products for me. But I don't know that I'd say the same if I were more of a Star Wars fan than a constraction fan.