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craiggrannell

Eurobricks Vassals
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Everything posted by craiggrannell

  1. craiggrannell
    Or if anyone's desperate for one of these, get a European or Aussie friend to ship one over, given that it's still on sale in those locations.
  2. craiggrannell
    Proper pinball tables as we'd understand them today are post-WW2, when flippers were introduced.Before then, such games were more like pachinko machines. A bit of a stretch in the modular line, and I'm not sure how someone would make an interesting brick-built minifig-scale pinball table. (Still, I'd be interested to see it!)
  3. craiggrannell
    The funny thing is, looking at that photo, the GE just looks like a box. The PR looks small but visually interesting, which by extension would make me assume it'd be interesting to build.
  4. craiggrannell
    I never saw the PR as childish compared to the other modulars. Sure, it had a story, but the building itself is detailed and architectural. There's no overt compromise. The DO's the first one that from the box art does appear a bit more toy-like, and a bit weirder and more abstracted from an architectural standpoint. (The two buildings visually look separate, but are very much intertwined internally. It's hard to imagine how someone might have designed and built that structure. Still, buildings get chopped and changed all the time…)
  5. craiggrannell
    Well, obviously at least another half-dozen palaeontologists, each with their own dinosaur fossils, because dinosaurs! \o/ Still, I liked the geologist and robotics engineer from the original designs, and maybe a crazed scientist or a zoologist would be another.
  6. craiggrannell
    Curious also that in the EU stores at least, the limit appears to be 5. I'm pretty sure it was 2 or even 1 last time round. (And I know that in UK stores, people were restricted to a single set, even if they had more than one child, which was a huge pity.)
  7. craiggrannell
    UK also. http://shop.lego.com/en-NL/Research-Institute-21110?_requestid=8266473
  8. craiggrannell
    I, er, 'accidentally' brought back the Ghostbusters set from Argos when I was sent out to get some bedding. I was informed the set looked cool. Mind you, Mrs G's main Christmas gift last year was #21050, which she'd been eyeing up when we were last in the US. (She's a furniture designer.) Now she also just needs somewhere to use it!
  9. craiggrannell
    Mrs G actually encourages me to buy the stuff. She likes the look of the modulars, and was especially taken by the Parisian Restaurant. But, yeah, I'm not going to leave the things all over our dining room table or something, and there's currently naff-all room anywhere else.
  10. craiggrannell
    I have several unopened too (FB/GE/PS), bought because they were going out of stock at the time and I didn't want to miss out. I've had no time to build them, and I have nowhere to put them. But I'm also not going to sell them, even though I imagine FB at least would probably pay for itself and more already. Maybe I'll just hang on until mini-G's old enough for Lego and build them with the nipper.
  11. craiggrannell
    Women wearing trousers were a rarity until WW1, whereupon it became more common, not least when working in jobs that had previously been done by men. After that point, trousers gained in popularity throughout life — at work and for leisure. Still, #10246 is a mish-mash of ages anyway, not a historical document, and I'd say trousers make for more versatile/posable/playable figures.
  12. craiggrannell
    Quite, but that showcases that it's clearly an abstraction from reality. Frankly, I'd be perfectly happy if they flipped a coin for every non-licensed mini-fig to define its gender. The Cult of Lego book reckoned at the time of writing the ratio male:female was 18:1. One might argue that is teaching kids what to think regarding the visibility of genders in society. Of course, it isn't. It's just what happened over time, not least with the sets increasingly being marketed directly at boys. Addressing the balance in a tiny way doesn't bother me in the slightest; and given that this set uses classic 'generic' faces, anyone who does have some kind of problem with what they consider political correctness can just switch two hair/hat pieces. I'd say Thetford hit the nail on the head, with the modulars being a mix and match of ideas and times. They evoke an old-world feel to some extent, but they're clearly not trying to be accurate to any great degree. The curse of the new. You can bet in 2018, people will be raging against that year's new modular, and looking back fondly on the then-classic Detective's Office, until they get their hands on the new model!
  13. craiggrannell
    Maybe it's an age thing, but I don't see that at all, perhaps because I grew up in an era where all mini-figs looked like that. My mini-figs were 'male' or 'female' based on whatever whoever was playing with them wanted. The current response to Lego is a bit unfortunate, in that the default is seen as male, and the expectation is female figs will be decorated somehow, which was odd in the scientist set, given that scientists generally avoid make-up. On another 'nostalgia' moment, looking back the absolute high-end of intricate design from my old sets was the #6382 fire station. It's amazing to see what kids get today with the likes of #10246 — it's like a little slice of the theme parks inside your own house. Some of the interior design going on here is really very clever.
  14. craiggrannell
    Isn't it more that Lego's trying to evoke a certain old-time feel? It's not trying to be historically accurate, unless people really did think cookie smuggling was once a big problem in the US and elsewhere. As for the female police officer, I was quite happy to see that. Why not mix it up a little? I rather like that too—it harks back to classic Lego days; also, I guess you can easily enough put whatever emotion you want into such 'generic' expressions during play as a kid, rather than being clearly guided towards "this one's really angry" or something. As for the set, I think it looks great from a play angle for kids, but less exciting from a display standpoint. On the whole, though, it's good to see Lego trying something different, and there are some interesting ideas in the set.
  15. craiggrannell
    Given that the Exo Suit was front-page on the GB store this week, despite being a 'limited run Ideas set', I suspect factory capacity is the only obvious block to more sets. But really it'd be a horrible shame if this set wasn't on more general release (or at least wider availability) before the holidays.
  16. craiggrannell
    Huh. That page definitely wasn't there for me earlier. *glares at web connection hamster* Weirdly, it is omitted from the global list ("all construction"), but that's likely a technical screw-up rather than a stock issue.
  17. craiggrannell
    Curiously, the JL website no longer lists Town Hall either, yet our local (Reading) definitely had that in stock when we were there a few weeks back.
  18. craiggrannell
    Well, scurvy can make your skin yellow, and so minifigs are already well prepared for that. In my social feeds alone, I've seen two people whose daughters were lucky enough to get this set say they are now far more excited about STEM and Lego. The normalisation of play figures in such fields is more important than many realise, hence my ongoing disappointment with how limited this set was and Lego's seeming lack of interest in doing another run. (Interesting also that the other 'real world' science set sold out rapidly — although not this rapidly — and didn't get another run; the fantasy and licensed stuff, though, carries on.)
  19. craiggrannell
    It seems to be Lego-only, bar the odd US Toys R Us. The set sold out in the UK insanely quickly — something in the region of 24 hours. Then a limited number showed up a day or two later, which is when I grabbed mine. (Maybe a half hour after I bought a set, it was gone again.) It's curious that the RI hasn't come back into stock but the Exo Suit has. I guess it won't matter much for Lego's bottom line, but the whole RI thing has left a rather bitter taste for quite a few people I know with daughters and who like Lego in general. EDIT: I just checked out the sole Brickset review — someone made a nice 'Tricerablocks'. *mulls turning Grand Emporium into a little museum*
  20. craiggrannell
    Given the lack of loos in modulars, I'm wondering if the next one will just be a massive public toilet. Poor minifigs.
  21. craiggrannell
    UK store now saying similar (Oct 30) for the previously sold-out Haunted House. If only I 150 quid to blow on Lego…
  22. craiggrannell
    The museum and Ghostbusters building are both great, but I wonder if Ideas wants cheaper sets. The Apple building isn't terribly Apple and I imagine has no chance whatsoever of going ahead, because it would need Apple to agree to that.
  23. craiggrannell
    I agree, Gomek. The RI set is a perfect example of a corporation taking some almost unanimously positive press and flushing it down the toilet. I really don't get the company's approach in this case. Why not just do another run of a set that loads of people wanted to buy? Why essentially turn your one set directed at girls *and* STEM into a ludicrously limited edition that relatively few people managed to get their hands on? It's truly bizarre. Then again, as much as I love Lego as a concept, that Fusion advert *really* rubbed me up the wrong way (quite literally showing siloing and gender division) and made me wonder what's going on at management level, which those articles also talk about. The number of new parents I now see boycotting Lego is starting to become non-trivial, too.
  24. craiggrannell
    Ha—I thought the exact same. Must be an age thing!
  25. craiggrannell
    "I certainly expect sets with male minifigures to be played with by my daughter so don't see the inclusion of female minifigures as a reason the set must be played with by girls alone." +1. That's been a key part of 'activism' regarding children's toys for some time now. It's not about female figures for girls and male figures for boys, but a bigger range for everyone and normalising diversity where possible (in general—that's not a pop specifically at Lego). And the only way that'll happen regarding the RI is if there are enough to go round, which clearly isn't the case right now.
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