Phillip Thorne

Excellent work at both the large and small scales (I'm intrigued by the SNOTwork for the dark-blue lockers). However, the fire marshall in charge of codes enforcement will be unhappy that there's only one egress, viz., the front entrance. (The number of LEGO City fire department sets attests to the flammable nature of the world, and official modulars usually have fire escapes.) The obvious places for additional doorways would be the back of the entry hall (which could lead to a hypothetical outdoor sports field), and the ends of the two wings.

Versions of the show have aired in the U.K. (on Channel 4), Australia (for Nine), and Germany (for RTL). According to the poster, press release, and FAQ (which hasn't changed since I last checked, in late July) for the U.S. version, contestant requirements include: 12 teams Teams of two persons (family, friends, etc.). At least one of the two must be age 18 or older. Must be legal U.S. residents. Teams need to be available for potentially seven weeks. Filming occurs between October and December of 2019. Now, speaking as an American, my first objection is: What kind of American adult has seven free weeks to spare? We're lucky to get three weeks of paid vacation. It's not during the summer, so teachers are occupied. A college student on a break semester, maybe? Somebody employed by an overstaffed company that can spare their contribution for a prolonged period? An outright unemployed person? Now, there have been plenty of other successive-elimination reality competition shows on U.S. TV (cooking, special effects makeup, physical feats), so there must be some people who qualify, but I wonder how much of a demographic filter this imposes -- OTOH, it reduces the number of applicants the producers need to evaluate. None of the material I've seen answers questions like: Do they provide hotel and airfare? What's the minimum time you'll be there, if you're eliminated? How many challenges are there? How many hours a day can your team expect to be building? What kind of portfolio should you present when applying? (I presume anyone serious would track down episodes of previous versions and familiarize themselves with the format.) Here's some other information: Press release for U.S. version (pdf) Official FAQ for the U.S. version Official page at EndemolShine Official page at Tuesday's Child Announcement at Deadline, 9 January 2019 Announcement at Hollywood Reporter, 9 January 2019 Press release republished at Brick Fan, 9 January 2019 Interview at SDCC of Rob May (LEGO) by Beyond the Brick, 20 July 2019 (I'm not free to do this, so my objections are only slightly sour grapes. Rather, I'm legitimately curious about the logistics of the show.)

This is not the first time this point has been raised. Literature search time! Feb 2011: "New Smaller Reduced LEGO Box Size?" at Toys N Bricks, re: Star Wars 8093 Plo Koon's Starfighter. Feb 2011: The above, cited at Brickset, with 159 comments. May 2013: Why are Lego sets put in such big boxes? at Stack Exchange. I find the answer by "Josh" plausible: Because retailers want the big boxes. There's an element to consumer psychology such that, if you see a large box for $100, and a slightly smaller (but still large) box for $10, you'll immediately consider the smaller box to be a great deal. Buy it now! This trick doesn't work on us AFOLs, of course, because mentally computing price-per-part is second nature; but most buyers aren't AFOLs. When AFOL-run conventions get guests, they're usually community managers or set designers. Somebody from the manufacturing end might be an interesting change.

(Hooray for discussion that's more detailed than a typical LUG meeting can support!) I'm sure everyone's already resigned to it, but however entertaining this exercise, there's no reason to assume a single consistent timeline can be created; Agatha Christie isn't dropping carefully-crafted clues that a sufficiently clever reader can assemble. Perhaps you thought untangling Star Trek or Doctor Who was a headache? TLG has been spinning fragmentary stories for almost as long, without (I assume) any sort of chief story editor, and with a strong preference for "if it looks whimsical, do it." (Basically the same philosophy as in any AFOL collaborative display.) But here are two thoughts that could add some flexibility when stacking the clues: 1. The Space themes need not be sequential. They can be parallel if we posit they represent: Different jurisdictions (Colony World 1 vs. Colony World 2, with local choices of livery) Different areas of responsibility (civilian law enforcement vs. power crystal trafficking) Public (government [1]) vs. private (corporate) security forces 2. When they are sequential, they need not be monotonic. That is, technology [2] (or its appearance) can run backwards: A civilization falls and must rebuild. A colony world doesn't have the natural resources or manufacturing capability of its parent [3]. "Retro style" becomes popular. [1] Assuming modern minifigs have a government: it's not like the City theme includes Parliament and Judiciary sets -- unless 10224 Town Hall counts? The heroic organization (i.e., the LEGO Company) in Clutch Powers (2010) appears to be a corporate do-gooder. (Not minifig, but thematically similar is Hero Factory in the eponymous episodes (2010 to present).) [2][3] Not to put too fine a point on it, but the usual signifiers of "technology" and "parent" gets a bit confusing when the characters and their constructs are all made of (as usually depicted) rebuildable plastic bricks (as opposed to humans depicted with a particularly squarish artistic style). How exactly does a population of minifigures increase? We've seen short-legged minifigures identified as children (most unambiguously, in the recent Ninjago TV show -- but on the flip side, it didn't have the harmless-combat reattach-your-limbs of the Star Wars minisodes or LEGO Universe) but are they born [4]? Molded in a factory? Delivered by storks? (The same questions might be asked of Pixar's Cars. In Blue Sky's Robots (2005), familial groups explicity assemble their progeny from factory-made and -delivered parts.) [4] So, who wants to build a maternity ward extension to a City hospital set? Wait, I see that somebody created just that in July 2012.

Regarding the Green Lantern (Hal Jordan, presumably) minifig and design choices: * It appears that TLG followed the 2011 movie's "energy suit emphasizes the musculature" look ... * ...but oddly, the muscle fibers are printed in black, instead of a light color as though lit from within (except at the perimeter of the chest-logo). * Also from the movie: green gloves, instead of comic-traditional white. * They've economized by printing only heads and torsos, not the legs (as with many Kingdom minifigs) or the arms (as with a few Star Wars characters). * Dark green instead of black. For an alternative take: I created custom decals for a Green Lantern Corps vignette in the DelVaLUG display at the Wizard World Philadelphia comic book expo (June 2011). I picked white for the background of the chest-symbol (unlike TLG's lime-green), and light green for the muscle fibers. In the one photo I have easily to hand, you unfortunately can't see those details -- everyone's crowded together. (John Stewart, in the lower left, is an earlier custom design, per the "Justice League" cartoon.) And my brick-built alien Lanterns aren't too clear, either. (Yes, the Corps has recruited Space Police III and Alien Conquest figures for their respective Space Sectors. Also one of the "claw" squeaky-aliens from "Toy Story," which very much amused our young visitors.) (Click photo for the image on Flickr; entire convention set) (Yes, this means I already have all the structures I need to enter the EB raffle and legosuperheroes.com contest. What am I waiting for?)

Hmm. The availability of licensed official LEGO superhero figs will certainly change the dynamics whenever LUGs exhibit at comic book shows. When wide-eyed visitors ask "Can I buy that?" we'll be able to say "Yes" instead of "If you acted five years ago," or "Yes, but it's not a LEGO product," or "I can post the plans for you to build your own." I'm speaking from my own experience as part of DelVaLUG and PennLUG -- we've done collaborative layouts at the Wizard World Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, USA) expo on three occasions. There existed official Batman and Spider-Man figs and sets we could include (and/or modify), of course, but we also created original MOCs (Hall of Justice, Baxter Building, Wayne Manor, etc.) and minifig customs (inkjet torso decals, mostly). This summer I architected most of the display, with individual tableaux (bigger than vignettes) inspired by the 2011 X-Men, Thor, and Green Lantern movies (also Harry Potter, but not Captain America or Cowboys and Aliens). FWIW: Photos from 2011, 2008, and 2007. It's interesting to see TLG's interpretation of Hal Jordan-2011 vs. mine (sorry, no closeups among any of the photos I've got handy). Also, one of my specializations is what I call "metafigs" -- brick-built minifig-scale figures for when a minifig doesn't have the right size, shape, or color blocking (Green Lantern Corps aliens, the Hulk, the Thing, Cyborg from the animated Teen Titans, etc.). BrickJournal might regularly carry plans for Miniland-scale figs, but TLG avoids marketing such things to kids (I presume) because they can't withstand rough play. On a different point, I'm growing a bit dismayed by the amount of effort TLG is devoting to licensed properties. How many are currently active? Cars 2, Harry Potter, Pirates, SpongeBob, Star Wars. I work with kids at conventions, so I know they love minifigs; but they often focus on them to the exclusion of building with the bricks. You're not gaining manual dexterity and developing your engineering sensibilities, guys! I'm invested in thinking of LEGO bricks as a product thta encourages imagination, so I'd be upset if it devolved into just another action figure line.

Thanks for the review, Sammy (darn, you beat me to it!). I hope no one minds if I add some details? (Edit: Ten hours after first posting, I have seen the film.) Actually, the dark bley element (Peeron ID 87616, inventory ID 4569417) used for the boat's prow and stern aren't new. The date "2009" is molded, and as listed on Peeron, it's "Aircraft Fuselage Curved Aft Section 6 x 10 Bottom", also available in blue and red (although the sets in which those colors were used don't seem to have been inventoried). A handy color if you're building a military transport aircraft, I suppose. The ship is a very poor likeness of Professor Z's hench(man? bot? boat?). But for that matter, all of the models in this line are screen-inaccurate, even more so than you'd expect given the limits of System pieces. There were a lot of compromises made, but from working with kids, I know they'll be happy with anything even vaguely recognizable. On the flip side, that gives AFOLs many MOC opportunities -- I've already given Mater better Gatling guns and jet pods. ("Professor Z" is short for "Zündaap," and the ship doesn't get a name. There are at least two in the movie, and the voice credit is simply "Combat Ship.") Combat Ship doesn't appear on the official "Cars 2" character page), but is modeled after the USN's new Littoral Combat Ship. Here's a closeup from the tryptych movie poster, and a toy version. Colors: * Finn McMissile is built with ordinary 102 Medium Blue. * Professor Z uses 151 Sand Green and one of the new hues, (what is probably) 323 Aqua (upper half). * Holley (with an "e") Shiftwell (from set 8424 "Mater's Spy Zone") is another long-established color, either 221 Bright Purple or 124 Bright Reddish Violet. (Given the imprecision of a computer monitor, it's hard to match bricks against the official color palette posted here to Eurobricks.) Element commonality: Finn's eight-spoke chromed tire hubs (element ID 4616843) might be new; they're different from the five-spoke hubs that appeared in many of the sub-minifig Racer sets. They're different from the non-chromed eight-spoke five-lugnut on Holley (4621178, 208 Light Stone Grey) and Lightning (set 8200, 4613159, 21 Bright Red). Finn uses the same roof element (4x6L) as Holley and Lightning (4622713, 4621177, 4620107, respectively) but with a different color and printing. His hood (4x3L) is also used as Holley's trunk/boot (4622712, 4621184). The same 4x2L element is used for Finn's trunk, Lightning's trunk, Mater's hood, and Z at both ends (4622708, 4613132, 4613134, and 4613348 respectively).

Upon submitting the form (either of the two), is anyone else receiving this error? "Empty Community/Country/Membername! Please try again." I've filled out all five text fields at the bottom of the form, so either (a) I've filled them out *wrong* (so far as the validation script is concerned) or (b) the page script is malfing. Because of "nickname/memberid," I assume the middle field "community and home country" is looking for the website of your home LUG. Or a generic website, like LUGNET. Since the poll was advertised here on Eurobricks, is it specifically looking for a Eurobricks ID? (Personally, I didn't consider any of the minifig parts, because I'm perfectly happy to custom-paint *those*. I'd rather direct my votes to something where paint is uncouth and verboten.)

Okay, I've been tallying the suggestions in a spreadsheet -- not my job, but I'm entirely too enamoured of spreadsheets and tallying. Our Ambassador might already be doing this, but in case anyone else is interested... As of this point in the thread, I count significant (>=3 votes) interest in: Wish-list extensions of existing themes: City/animals (3), City/civilian vehicles (3). Games (more "Heroscape" build-a-landscape than chess): (5). Revived themes: Pirates (6), Clasic Space (3), Fabuland (3), Wild West (3). Speculative fiction themes: Steampunk (4), fantasy air/space pirates (3). Additional historical themes: Mesoamerican (4), multi-era like the game "Age of Empires III" (3). Additional licenses: Nintendo games (5), Doctor Who (3). Note that certain suggestions can appear under multiple topics (I just haven't figured how to tabulate that yet). E.g., "Western with train station" would go under both "Revival/Western" and "Trains." Does the EB website support a poll/questionnaire system, by any chance? Possibly just by the mods? I can create one on my LiveJournal account, if anyone's interested in more organized voting during this brainstorming process.

Hi there, Eurobrickers from around the globe. I'm Phil Thorne, AFOL from southeast Pennsylvania, east coast U.S.A., member of DelVaLUG, and organizer of the Kids/LEGO track at the annual Philcon science fiction convention. You may see me around Usenet, Classic-Space, and LUGNET. I've been lurking on EB for over a year, because of the early scoops on new themes and sets, and the interesting contests. LEGO themes and techniques of personal interest: Space, Bionicle, micro, mecha, architecture. Most of my building involves microscale replicas of spacecraft from movies, TV and books, but I'm versatile, and will build anything from landscaping to townhouses to minifig urban sculpture if there's a need for it, or the challenge sounds engaging. My professional background includes computer programming, illustration, writing, and a wide range of industries from pharmaceuticals to econometrics -- so if I make some big topical jump or cross-connection, don't be surprised. (I will try to keep my proofreading instincts under control in the forums -- there are few things worse than an overbearing copyeditor with delusions of grammar, right? -- but I reserve the right to chop logic. ) You'll notice that I'm posting under my real name. In 15 years of Internet activity, I've never felt the need for an anonymizing online handle -- certainly not in an innocuous topic like Star Trek or LEGO bricks, and not if I'm planning to be courteous and non-controversial. (If any potential employer does a background check and rejects me because of this hobby, I don't want to work there.) It also helps at fests when people are scanning badges.