Graysmith

I think it's fine that the interior walls are panels. From a realism standpoint those walls wouldn't be built as solid as the exterior wall, so in a way it makes logical sense for them to be "weaker". I can also imagine that having a brick-built wall for the throne room would've made the room itself seem a lot smaller and cramped than it does with the panels. I think LEGO made a good choice here. Besides, LEGO castles have been using panels for going on 30 years now so it's not like it isn't true to their castle-building style.

Found a higher resolution image of the Monster Realm map. Click the image for full size!

I'd love to see that. The main character (Merida I think) would look pretty awesome as a minifig, with that red hair, teal dress and bow. I definitely hope to see people doing some MOCs of it after the movie comes out.. Definitely looks like it has LEGO potential.

Here's a direct link to the hi-res image on the TRU site. Cute little set, though it seems odd that this is (supposedly?) a polybag set when it looks more or less equivalent to the 4427 Fire ATV.

Seems like LEGO are starting to put brick separators in all the bigger sets now, which I think is excellent (even if you'll eventually have a ton of them). I'm guessing for this theme it'll be included in the Ghost Train and Vampyre Castle sets, maybe the Crazy Scientist set too.

I hope they will announce this before Monster Fighters come out in my country.. Though I'm likely to still get the Vampyre Castle regardless of how awesome/expensive this one is.. But it'd be nice to know the details on this before I spend all my money on that castle.

I think it's strange because they could've so very easily made one (or more) of the male figures in this series into a female one(s). The tennis player, swimmer, relay runner and/or archer could've just as well been female. That's a pretty big difference from the regular Collectable Minifigures series where many characters are typically/traditionally male (bagpiper, knight, mechanic).

After putting together The Dynamic Duo Funhouse Escape set yesterday I couldn't help but feel that the whole set is rather light on weapons. Harley Quinn with her rollercoaster cart in particular seemed more like a damsel in distress than a villain. Anyway, long story short, after a bit of playing around LDD I ended up with this rather nice-looking mallet that's pretty sturdy too. Whack someone with it and it won't fall apart. The only downside is that it's so heavy that she needs to stand on something to not fall over (except when it's positioned right above her head, like in these photos). If you want to make one yourself, these are the pieces: 1 x 30374 1 x 32039 1 x 3705 2 x 3941 2 x 2654

If you want 100% movie-accurate hair/armor/shields/etc. there are always alternatives.

Strange that only 3 of 9 figures are female. Surely they could've made at least one more of them a female, just to even things out a bit. Anyway, nice looking figures, though the British branding of them lessens the appeal for me (which I suppose is good). Do wish LEGO had taken this a step further and done a whole CMF series of generic athletes and released them everywhere. Just because the Olympics are in London doesn't mean we're all not just as excited about it.

Apologies if this idea has already been mentioned, but I would love to see a City Zoo subtheme. It would include several different-sized sets that you could kind of put together in a modular way.. Not modular as in they would snap together, but you could pick and choose what sets you'd want and build your zoo as big or small as you'd like. The biggest set would be an entrance/visitors center along with maybe 2-3 smaller animal enclosures and a handful of minifigures such as park employees and visitors (adults and children). Then you could buy other animal sets of varying sizes that would also come with (human) minifigures and perhaps some other detailing (like a park bench by a tree, or an ice cream cart vendor). I do realize that most of these sets wouldn't make too much sense on their own (you'd kind of want to own all of them, or most of them including the biggest set), which is probably why this isn't too likely to ever become a reality, but on the other hand LEGO has released quite a few Duplo zoo sets (a handful of them just this year) so I don't see why that couldn't be translated into a LEGO City subtheme. Even conflict-crazy boys could have a lot of fun pretending the animals at the zoo are running loose and having the massive army of police officers chase down lions and giraffes.

There seems to be a misalignment issue with the printing on the Swamp Creature's head in the new Monster Fighters theme. Discussion starts at the third post on this page where you can see that the printing is a few millimeters below where it ought to be. The Swamp Creature also appeared correctly (with the eyes perfectly aligned with the headpiece) when it was displayed at earlier toy shows so it should definitely not look like this.

Here's Brick Queen's review of the castle! Looks even better than I imagined! All those rooms, a bed for the bride.. So, so awesome.

Well it certainly won't happen if LEGO doesn't know about the problem.. So the first step should be to get in touch with LEGO (through EB's ambassadors maybe) and make them aware that the Swamp Creature's head is misprinted and that they need to take care of that for later sets if they haven't realized it themselves.

I don't think it's a HUGE deal either, but I do hope that it's just a bad batch and that it will be corrected in future runs of the set. Even with an acceptable margin of error it shouldn't normally be that much difference. It's also worth pointing out that it didn't appear misaligned when it was shown at toy fairs or in official photos.

Yeah, I didn't have any raised white background when I took those so I couldn't get more leveled with the minifigures without getting a dark background... But for my avatar pic that I took yesterday I taped some white paper onto a box so in the future they'll definitely look better.

Yeah, but how often (if ever) do any LEGO minifigure heads appear misprinted/misaligned with their headpieces? I can't think of any that I own where the head printing didn't match up perfectly or so close that you can't see any difference with the naked eye. That goes for the Made in China Collectable Minifigures too. So LEGOs margin of error of what's acceptable would seem to be far more strict than the 1-2 mm displacement on this Swamp Creature's head.. If it's not a true misprint, then someone screwed up the head printing template pretty badly.

Well in that case it's definitely misprinted.

I made a brickbuilt wall in LDD comparable to the plastic one that this comes with and it came to about 240 pieces. So those complaining about that plastic wall piece (which doesn't seem to be needed to keep the chess board together, i.e. you can throw it away if you so wish) should keep that in mind. If this set had come with a brickbuilt wall it probably would've cost at least $25-30 more.

I'm thinking the little green showing above the eye is meant to illustrate Nicitating Membranes. Especially considering the mouth looks perfectly placed (i.e. it doesn't look like a printing error).

I think prozac meant that he should buy another Moria set from the LEGO store and then take that unopened box to TRU to get his money back. I'm with you guys. No sign of any LOTR (or Monster Fighters) sets in Sweden. No idea when they'll be released here either, but hopefully by the end of June at least..

Thanks! I'm hoping to revisit it if I get the Werewolf from the Monster Fighters set.. Have her standing over a decapitated (were)wolf with axe in hand. Anyway, since I swapped her head with the female viking, I also ended up making this: It's Take Your Daughter To Work Day and Erik the Viking isn't too thrilled about it.

I'm definitely thinking that this polybag is meant as a tie-in with the Haunted House, rather than the Monster Fighters. A ghost by itself, yes, but when it comes with that clock it feels like something you'd be able to put in the Haunted House, and you'd get an extra ghost for the house (assuming the set already comes with ghosts). But yeah, even if you can't get ahold of it, it wouldn't be too difficult to make it yourself. The only uncommon part in it will be the new glow in the dark ghost piece.

I'm guessing they made it stick out that far so the clock piece aligns with the pendulum below it. Wouldn't have minded if the round plate had been brown or white though, but then again that's an easy fix.

Little Red Riding Hood isn't playing nice anymore.