craiggrannell

Some investors managed to use loopholes of various kinds. Lego online's limits were higher at one point. Others found they could put huge orders through Toys R Us. Personally, I'm certainly not keen on the notion of restricting purchases to one per household (absurd if you've two kids, say) nor specific genders, but some limitations work. That said, a bigger production run (or a second run) would make more sense. Just make the set readily available, not something you'd hear about, go "that sounds great" and then be disappointed to discover you can't own one because you weren't there to click 'Buy' on day one. Won't happen. These people are savvy and recognise this could be a short-run bubble. They're burning through stock as fast as they can.

Quite. The contrast yesterday between seeing someone boasting on a Lego investor thread that they had another 30 RIs on the way and were selling them all so far at "at least 200% profit" versus the upset women in STEM/parents/daughters I saw on Twitter was stark. Here's hoping it gets at least another run, because lots of people were excited about this set, but the vast majority had no idea it might sell out for good in just a few days.

Sold out in the UK online store now, it seems, as is the Exo Suit. You'd think with all the support and press, Lego'd be clamouring to do at least another run of 21110. Instead, it's now a 'collectors' piece, commanding insane prices on eBay. Bizarre.

There's also the usual scalping going on. A quick trip to eBay sees the set going for anything from 1.5x to 4x its original box price. Curious, though, that there's the discrepancy between the US store (sold out) and UK store (September 4). That seems a pretty great attitude to me.

If this really is the case, it seems to be a strategic blunder. Everywhere I look, this set has made an audience not these days often associated with Lego excited about Lego. Women in my Twitter feed love the set, and people said their young daughters were excited by it. Plenty were planning to buy one; how awful it would be if after mere days they couldn't actually secure a set. Still, the UK online store is still stating a ship date, (September 4), which could suggest another production run is happening, similar to the Exo Suit (September 11 restock). (The US store states 'sold out' for the RI and temporarily out of stock for the ES.)

OOS in the UK already. Shipping 19 Aug. I wonder if this too has gone to a second run, like the exo-suit?

Out of curiosity, what's the issue with the cinema? I see a lot of people down about it here, but I thought the building looked quite nice in photos. The interior looks a bit sparse (but can be upgraded, and the GE's was also a bit barren) and the car looks odd, but otherwise the set looks nice to me. Town Hall's the only one that hasn't piqued my interest, although my few modulars (Fire/GE/PS) are all still boxed anyway, due to lack of space. :/

I was looking at a Lego investor forum recently, and they appear to be snapping up the GE en masse, whenever any become available, in order to resell them in a year on eBay. I guess if anyone wants one to actually build, now's the time to snare one.

That sounds about right. I guess if you grew up in a certain age, the huge difference between Town and City is stark, but now Lego has so many themes that it has to streamline around the most popular sub-themes for the city, and fill in the gaps as best it can. (And as much as I'd like to argue things were 'different back then', I recall my own small Lego town was dominated by 588-1 and 6382-1, frequently saving a block of flats from surprisingly aggressive laser attacks by 885.)

First, it's arguable Lego itself has been perpetuating this in its toy line; secondly, I thought it was a nice little set from day one, not least because of the fossil. I'm sure some people are wound up by what the set was up against, but it's worth noting most of those wouldn't have been made. Sherlock is ultimately about murder and so doesn't fit Lego; BTTF has already had an Ideas set; Zelda would require a Nintendo license (good luck with that), and so on. According to its creator, the intro is in part about the set being inspired by her being a scientist, and it's good that the set in itself is branded in the sense that it doesn't draw attention to the gender. The figures just are. Judging by the response I've seen elsewhere, especially from women and parents with young daughters, I imagine the opposite. The question, though, will be whether Lego makes the set available or does something similar to the Curiosity Rover and winks it out of existence in double-quick time.

Looks like Lego did a good job with this (DINOSAUR!), even if as the creator says, make-up in the lab's not a smart idea (but Lego was hardly going to shift from its 'male default' and 'female must have make-up' stance—small steps and all that) and I'll grab a box when it comes out, having stupidly left it too late to get the Mars Curiosity Rover. (There was me thinking "oh, it'll be available for AGES yet…)

Two things have become apparent on Lego faces: first, you have the inevitable shift away from a fairly neutral expression towards ones more rooted in anger and violence. Secondly, Lego's kind of meandered into a kind of scenario. In the former case, I recall some unsavoury things happening in my childhood Lego town (lots of fires/explosions/crimes), but those weren't 'led' by any expressions; on the latter, it's a pity Lego's stumbled into that setting where the 'default' is male and 'decorated' is female. The modulars are kind of an antidote to all of this. Perhaps that's all just terribly old-git sounding, but, hey, it's Lego! If you want different faces, that's easy enough to change!

Only they're not realistic—they're still an abstraction on real-life property, just one that's more detailed than most other Lego models. I always liked the slightly vacant smile and plain nature of the old figures, because, as rollermonkey says, you could project whatever you wanted on to them (including even gender) without a mood being provided for you. But anyway, it's Lego, so you can always switch out the faces in a second.

65 quid in the UK (about €82 under current exchange rates, or $111). Pricing 101: charge what the market will take.

I imagine that's the point the creator and quite a few other people are making. This set really shouldn't be exceptional in that regard, and yet it is. Regardless of why Lego chose this set (and it's pretty clear most of the others would have been hamstrung by licensing), I'm happy it did. I'd say there's no big fanfare, but assuming the three figures do end up being women in the set, that is an outlier in and of itself, and the set will always have that baggage. The thing is, that baggage (such that it is) will result in news (a win), which in itself may result in extra sales (a win) or more girls buying City-based Lego (a win) or in making Lego generally feel a bit more inclusive (a win). And even if you're not of the opinion that those things are wins, for some reason, there's A. Dinosaur. Skeleton. in the set. Given that one of my clearest childhood memories is the Natural History Museum's main hall, said skeleton is all kinds of Lego win. Here's looking forward to August!

Oh really? Hmm.

That's great, although I really wanted one of the locker doors to be missing, to fit in with the general run-down feel!

Currently states: "Out of stock, expected ship date 23 May 2014".

That's one seriously fast train!

Looking at the video, two things spring to mind: first, the engineering is hugely impressive, given the way everything 'arrives' and is set up; secondly, there's a good gender balance in the minifigs. It's not a set I'd buy for myself, but I can certainly appreciate it as a really clever piece of toy design.

I also suspect many people just buy one of these things as an 'event' toy. Each one must therefore stand alone, rather than just being fill-in for an AFOL's set-up. Personally, I'd be happy to see another build similar to Pet Shop, but I imagine Lego's thinking is always to try for something new.

"Il y a un trou dans le sol à l'extérieur, madame!" A single 2x2 black tile should do it.

It's a goal, I'd say. What's the current ratio? 10:1? In popular media, it's about 5:1 for the most part. I wouldn't expect changes to happen overnight, but, let's face it, it'd hardly be the trickiest thing Lego ever had to do—just look at the upcoming range on each annual refresh and swap out a few minifigs (or, in some cases, just heads/hair) when needed. (And I do note changes are being made, along with the popularity of Friends; I'm just hoping—not demanding—TLG does more.) It'd be interesting to see an iteration on the design, so they had more articulation and were, in effect, more posable. It seems odd that minidolls have less scope in that sense than minifigs designed and created in the 1970s. I very much agree with that.

But you don't, because the majority of the sets don't include female minifigs, and that alone is enough to make girls feel excluded. As we get older, we normalise a lack of gender balance. In movies, it's been shown that men will look at a crowd scene was as few as 17 per cent women and think it 50/50. But kids don't see that—they just see 50/50 as being fair and normal. Lego should really be ramping up including women across all of its range, unless it's specifically restricted from doing so (for example, with some of the licensed fare). And while I know I was generalising somewhat about the nature of 'action', toys for kids are becoming increasingly problematic regarding gender. The pink thing is way beyond the pale now, and selections really are frequently split between 'boys' (action, sports, excitement) and 'girls' (pretty, quiet, thoughtful). I'd love to see Lego make a concerted effort to deal with this, given that the toy itself is relatively neutral, in the sense of bricks and pieces. I should point out, for the record, that a set containing no female minifig isn't necessarily a bad thing, but across the entire range there should really be close to a 50/50 split. Right now, clicking through City, Lego is a very long way from that. I hope this will be addressed over the coming years. I've always found Friends a bit suspect, although it's reportedly flying off the shelves. My problem with it is it feels too much like a silo, and the Friends minidolls are less versatile than minifigs, in terms of what they can do (no moving wrists; no separate legs), which is a pity. However, the real solution going forward would be to diversify both themes as much as possible. Ensure there's a good gender balance in Friends and other themes; ensure there's a decent selection of toys and scenarios across the range. Make it more inclusive for everyone.

"There should be more female characters in various themes." What's the ratio of minifigures now? Wasn't it only a couple of years back something absurd like 16:1? Given Lego's advertising, promo photography and often dreadful gender balance in sets, I'm hardly surprised people are making a fuss. As for Friends, I'm hardly surprised some girls are irked. It's all stereotypical 'safe' activities, versus the action-oriented stuff found elsewhere.