Lyichir

In fairness apart from set numbers and prices and a handful of leaked parts, there's not much to discuss. I expect when set pictures actually show up it'll be easier for Pirates fans to evaluate how relevant the theme is or isn't to their particular interests.

Really neat build! I'm from Virginia but despite my dad being a big train fan I'd never heard of this historical oddity—you've done a great job recreating it, especially given the challenge of working with Lego track and its sharp turns!

Built Erlang's mech today! Really satisfying set. Yes, the legs and feet are mostly retreading the design of Mei's mech from last year, but in fairness, that was a very effective design as far as shaping, proportions, and articulation are concerned. And the head, wider torso and cockpit, staff, and ornamental dog-shaped shoulders make the whole thing look highly distinctive regardless. Great figs too. I know a lot of people wish we'd get a more classic-looking Tang since his main outfit only ever showed up in one set, but I really like his look in this set, which gives me the vibe of a dapper world traveler. Erlang and the Celestial General look great too, as does Sun Wukong. MK's outfit is repeated from last year (and I wish it included the gold shoulder pads from the mini-mech set, since I don't have enough of those for all the figs who used them last year), but I do love the little jet-bike sub build he gets. I ordered the Qilin too and it just arrived today, but I'll probably wait a bit before building it (not to get into politics but things have been really depressing in the U.S. recently and I want to save some fun sets for days when I really need an escape from it all). I hope they maybe drop a surprise set or two in the summer (despite rumors suggesting otherwise), but even if they don't, I'll be eager to see what Lego is cooking up for next year. What I've heard suggests that the small number of sets this year might be because Lego is taking extra time to develop next year's show and sets, so I'm hoping they're planning to bring the theme back in a big way. Six to seven years in feels like about when we could realistically expect a big theme refresh (sort of like Ninjago and Friends have gotten in the past)...

Same here. Probably best to send a replacement request to Lego—I've done that successfully in the past when I've had a mismolded part that reduced functionality like that.

Actually thinking about it the set might include Lobbo as well since he'd likely be brick-built and not a minifigure.

I just looked through all the minifigures from this year and last year and it looks like they aren't. It seems the current trend is to either use monochrome legs or use printing or dual molding to provide a less thong-like appearance.

I mean, certainly aesthetics are a subjective thing. But I think there are some objective ways Lego has made progress too, such as vastly increasing the number of girls and women playing with Lego compared to the "boys club" it was in the '90s. And it's hard to imagine that progress being made if Lego had said "this far and no further, what's good enough for our current audience is good enough for everyone ad infinitum". The reality is that if Lego had stuck to '90s colors and part variety for over 30 years, there's little doubt that it would stagnate and decline instead of expanding its audience the way it has.

See, I think temporary colors are a much worse scenario than widespread ones, because they're rare enough to be near-useless—very much the opposite of modern colors like azures, lavenders, or "light" and "dark" shades of colors. Having multiple shades all with a wide variety of parts available means you can much more easily make unique and harmonious color schemes—things like a monochrome color scheme with multiple shades of a single color, or a dark and moody color scheme with pops of bright color, or other sorts of things. Some of my favorite Lego themes (such as Friends or Elves) would look garish and ugly with a '90s-esque color palette, partly because that limited color palette was shaped during an era when the idea of what Lego could be was similarly limited. The broadening of Lego's color palette has accompanied a broadening of what kinds of themes Lego has, what kinds of audiences it caters to, and what kinds of people are designing sets. I don't think you could pare back the palette that much without similarly paring back all the progress and improvement Lego has made in all those decades since. Plus, throwback sets like the Blacktron Renegade prove that Lego can absolutely still pull off a retro, limited color scheme if they want to. It's just that that's no longer the ONLY thing Lego is good for.

I always feel like this kind of comparison is weird because generally you're not buying sets like the Ninjago City sets for the minifigures. Like the minifigures are nice, especially when there's a couple of exclusives, but to a large extent the build is the focus, and that's what the majority of the price is going toward.

True! Seems to be a redesign of the 1x1 round "bamboo leaf" brick, but would probably be a more solid plastic that would hopefully make it less fragile than its predecessor. By the way, the new Trevi Fountain set seems to use the "hobby horse" head from the CMFs in unprinted white, which could probably make for some interesting carved ornamentation on a ship.

Oh, this is a fun idea—a great homage to the start of it all, and a great way to bring just one actual "castle" into a minifigure series that understandably couldn't include a castle itself.

If they do a Castle series I fully expect it to opt for variety over "traditionalism" like the Space one did. I remember when the Space series was revealed there was a lot of complaining about it using slots for things like the Retro Space Heroine, Robot Butler, Alien Tourist, and Flying Saucer Costume instead of <insert classic faction XYZ>. I hope castle fans would be prepared for slots to be occupied not just by classic factions or historical subject matter but also more unusual subject matter that may be castle-related but not explicitly the same sorts of genres/subject matter that classic themes had—examples off the top of my head would be things like a sparkly fairytale character or a modern kid dressed in cardboard knight armor or other sorts of offbeat takes on the theme that push it in different directions and appeal to different sorts of audiences instead of all hewing to the narrow pre-established concepts of what "Lego castle" means.

I think the fig is cool. There's been very little variation in Blacktron I figs in the past (especially ones that fit in with the classic figs' minimalism), so this is a great option for a commander or similar high-ranking character. By the way, I finished building the Renegade the other day! Really fun set.

A part of it is that spacial reasoning doesn't come as naturally to everyone. As a kid (I think around 9 years old?) I had a birthday party where everyone got Throwbots sets as party favors (about as simple as Technic can get) and while I was used to that style of building, many of my peers had trouble with a set which had parts attached in all directions with no obvious "up" or "down". Another aspect of difficulty is "how punishing is it to make mistakes?" In a typical Lego set having a part misaligned by a unit or two isn't always a deal-breaker, and even when it does cause issues it doesn't always take a ton of disassembly to correct. By comparison making a mistake in a larger Technic set can cause major issues and mistakes can be hard to identify after the fact, let alone correct (in some cases requiring major disassembly to even access the area where the mistake was made).

I mean, saying he's the Jar-Jar of the Sonic franchise doesn't exactly rule him out, given the number of Jar-Jar figs Lego has made over the years. I doubt they'd opt for Big right away too (especially because he's not exactly the most practical character for the theme's typical "action play"), but I could see a fig of him working sort of similarly to Eggman, and the same qualities that make Big a bit of a laughingstock for some make him a sort of niche favorite for others, which is part of why he often gets cameos and shout-outs in games and comics.