LEGO Monkie Kid 2022

[Maple]

I hate being right but that's a cute polybag.

[Lyichir]

3 hours ago, Meadius said:

I did a quick check on Brickset, and it looks to me that the torso and hair are the same between this polybag, the Flower Fruit Mountain, and the Heavenly Realms. The face is different in each, and the legs from this polybag are new (or maybe taken from another minifigure). 

The legs are from the new Monkey King minifig in 80045! Might've been nice to get the full version of that fig instead of a mix-and-match one, but still nice to get a leg piece with detailed printing like that in a polybag.

The polybag also gives us a better look at a new Pigsy's Noodles carry-out box print on a 1x2 tile—this one looks like wood instead of clear plastic. It also shows up in the Team Hideout (which this polybag generally ought to complement well).

[Vindicare]

8 hours ago, a guy from somewhere said:

Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that the exclusive monkey king from the heavenly realms?

The head is also new, with the printing on the forehead. 

While I’m bummed Marketplace isn’t a full blown set, I love the polybag. It’s exactly what I pictured & hoped it would be. Too bad LEGO doesn’t have enough faith in this theme to put it in stores, I would love to find this in Target & but multiples. 

[a guy from somewhere]

52 minutes ago, Vindicare said:

The head is also new, with the printing on the forehead. 

While I’m bummed Marketplace isn’t a full blown set, I love the polybag. It’s exactly what I pictured & hoped it would be. Too bad LEGO doesn’t have enough faith in this theme to put it in stores, I would love to find this in Target & but multiples. 

I know, inaccessibility is the main thing stopping me from getting MK sets. Planning on an order jan first to get the hideout and the combi mech, maybe the jet as well if my budget allows. As I understand it’s now been confirmed that MK has been pulled from major Lego stores, although there may be some in flagship stores like the Leicester Square one in London. I hope it does go to Amazon UK at some point, it sucks big time that it’s exclusive to US. 

[Takanuinuva]

I'll probably get 2 of the sticker sheet of Mei's Jef for my Dragon Mech

[Vindicare]

33 minutes ago, a guy from somewhere said:

I know, inaccessibility is the main thing stopping me from getting MK sets. Planning on an order jan first to get the hideout and the combi mech, maybe the jet as well if my budget allows. As I understand it’s now been confirmed that MK has been pulled from major Lego stores, although there may be some in flagship stores like the Leicester Square one in London. I hope it does go to Amazon UK at some point, it sucks big time that it’s exclusive to US. 

It’s very frustrating. I remember the first wave being in stores because I was hoping to grab the Warrior Mech on one of the trips. Then after they disappeared I was surprised to see a few sets of wave 2 in one of the other stores I frequent. Seeing as it’s apparently evergreen theme now it’s seems even weirder that it’s not at least sold in LEGO stores. I suppose the sales outside of the Asian market don’t support the move.

[Killian]

5 hours ago, Vindicare said:

Too bad LEGO doesn’t have enough faith in this theme to put it in stores

It was in all Lego stores in this country for the first wave or 2. Now it's only in Lego stores here in cities that have a Chinatown neighbourhood and a sizeable Chinese population. I bought both my City of Lanterns sets in Manchester's Lego Store on separate occasions over the last 3-4 months.

[Killian]

The Ink Demons from the 2023 wave match the colour scheme of this. I'm totally speculating about if they come from the scroll or if MK and chums are magically going into the scroll somehow?

 

 

[Maple]

We talked about it in the past, but clearly the big figs have been retired. Has there been any official word or interviews with designers? It's a second year without any in any themes that I remember. I figured someone would have clarified why LEGO moved away from them.

[Killian]

21 hours ago, Maple said:

We talked about it in the past, but clearly the big figs have been retired. Has there been any official word or interviews with designers? It's a second year without any in any themes that I remember. I figured someone would have clarified why LEGO moved away from them.

I remember reading or maybe seeing something on youtube saying bigfigs were cancelled. Can't find anything official on an internet search though.

I assume it's part of Lego's cost cutting measures to give us less plastic for our money

[Takanuinuva]

Considering Big Figs likely inflated the price of a set. I'm fine with them being gone. Though I do hope that special big fig head for Thanos still gets use. Could be used as a head for brick built bigfigs.

[Maple]

I don't miss the big figs. I like Sandy as a minifigure better, but just weird there was no official talk about it.

[Vindicare]

On 12/4/2022 at 10:34 AM, Maple said:

We talked about it in the past, but clearly the big figs have been retired. Has there been any official word or interviews with designers? It's a second year without any in any themes that I remember. I figured someone would have clarified why LEGO moved away from them.

Thanos was in a set that was released second half of last year, Avengers Endgame Final Battle. As well as Sandy in his Power Loader that was also released in the second half of the year. 

[Maple]

7 hours ago, Vindicare said:

Thanos was in a set that was released second half of last year, Avengers Endgame Final Battle. As well as Sandy in his Power Loader that was also released in the second half of the year. 

And your point is.....?

[The_Fiery_Rooster]

22 hours ago, Killian said:

I remember reading or maybe seeing something on youtube saying bigfigs were cancelled. Can't find anything official on an internet search though.

I assume it's part of Lego's cost cutting measures to give us less plastic for our money

If you can't find it, then it probably didn't happen. It would be extremely silly for Lego to revamp bigfigs with last year's Thanos and then immediately abandon them 6 months later. As for Sandy, I suspect they changed him to a minifig so they could easily give him new outfits (This year's space suit, next year's outfit in the headquarters) but also so he could fit inside vehicles (The van). Where I don't see bigfigs going away is for licensed themes. You can't have Hulk and Thanos be the same size as everyone else, and characters of this size aren't going to disappear from these films anytime soon (https://brickset.com/sets/76237-1/Sanctuary-II-Endgame-Battle is an exception to have him fit the ship, https://brickset.com/sets/76192-1/Avengers-Endgame-Final-Battle came out around the same time so also not proof they abandoned the bigfig)

However, your statement isn't baseless. We haven't seen a bigfig this entire year, and so far no sets next year include one, so it does seem to be the case they got rid of them. Then again, it's also true that, other than Sandy, no characters that are usually bigfigs have been included in any sets, other than Hulk and Rhino in https://brickset.com/sets/10782-1/Hulk-vs-Rhino-Truck-Showdown, but the full size legs made them look larger compared to everyone else's mid size legs, so a bigfig wasn't necessary. I will admit, it is possible that Lego is reworking how they approach these kinds of characters, like how they how the 6 stud shooter was not used this year at all, but shows up in 2023 sets with a new redesign (take a look at the box of https://brickset.com/sets/80043-1/Yellow-Tusk-Elephant, the trigger is new and the base is slightly modified). Maybe this summer we'll see an Infinity saga set with a redesigned Hulk bigfig? But completely discarding these larger scale figures just doesn't seem feasible for these other licensed theme, even if it is possible for this theme.

Edited December 6, 2022 by The_Fiery_Rooster

[Killian]

21 hours ago, Takanuinuva said:

 Though I do hope that special big fig head for Thanos still gets use. Could be used as a head for brick built bigfigs.

It's been repurposed in set 80111 with new printing, so it's still in use at least for Lunar New Year 2023

[Vindicare]

5 hours ago, Maple said:

And your point is.....?

Well, you said we haven’t gotten any in any sets in two years that you remember. Just refreshing your memory. 

[Lyichir]

I've been trying to build some of the 2023 sets on Stud.io recently (as I often do, to try to get a feel for the build and figure them out in three dimensions better than I can from the pictures or turnaround alone). Not a lot of major "revelations" or anything, but it did help me to get a better feel for the Yellow Tusk Elephant set (since the size and bulk of it means a lot of views of it have various parts obscured). The seat for the mech (when stowed) sits nicely between the Chima spider leg pieces, making for a sort of throne. The shooters on top also rotate along with the head so that they're always aimed the way the head is facing.

[Killian]

10 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I've been trying to build some of the 2023 sets on Stud.io recently (as I often do, to try to get a feel for the build and figure them out in three dimensions better than I can from the pictures or turnaround alone). 

So what's this about? Does the wooden looking section have a purpose when off the heffalump or does it just lift off to access the ButtMech?

 

 

Edited December 8, 2022 by Killian
I wanted to write ButtMech

[Lyichir]

4 hours ago, Killian said:

So what's this about? Does the wooden looking section have a purpose when off the heffalump or does it just lift off to access the ButtMech?

 

 

 

Lifts off to allow the mech to be removed. I don't think it has a purpose beyond that.

[Killian]

I still think that the Ink theme the bad guys have in the 2023 sets has to tie them in with the ink on the scroll from the show that matches their colour scheme.

 

My favourite Monkie Kid / JTTW Deep Dive channel has an opinion on the significance of the new villains. It makes me wonder if there's an even bigger bad coming in the Summer wave who is in charge of the 3 Demon Kings and Ink Demons? Maybe there's a significance to the snake creature and the reptilian scales depicted on the stickers for set 80043?

 

 

Edited December 9, 2022 by Killian
reptilian scales

[Lyichir]

New Elementary has a review of the Monkey King Ultra Mech! https://www.newelementary.com/2022/12/lego-monkie-kid-review-80045-monkey.html?sc=1670945761630#c3057563553670252281

The new weapon pieces for the main characters are in fact a pre-pack, meaning that you could make them all with any of the three sets that include it so long as you could provide the missing hilt/handle parts for the weapons that use them.

 

[Killian]

That New Elementary review has some good images of the minifigs. I love Sun Wukong's alternate face where he's suffering under the band tightening spell like in the book.  The Golden Winged Eagle looks like it has the curvy body shape print that tends to appear on female minifig torsos. The set has some really good parts, I'll finally cave in and buy this mech; I passed on the original.

It made me LOL when I right click saved one of the mech images and NE had called the image "badass" 

[a guy from somewhere]

23 minutes ago, Killian said:

That New Elementary review has some good images of the minifigs. I love Sun Wukong's alternate face where he's suffering under the band tightening spell like in the book.  The Golden Winged Eagle looks like it has the curvy body shape print that tends to appear on female minifig torsos. The set has some really good parts, I'll finally cave in and buy this mech; I passed on the original.

It made me LOL when I right click saved one of the mech images and NE had called the image "badass" 

Yeah, seems todays the day on the embargo for the mech atleast. I love this set, but the price is just too high and I’m planning on getting the hideout and combi mech day one. No room in the budget. But I’m glad we are getting Tang (still no normal design god damn it!) and the rest of the figs look very good. Thanks for enlightening us on what the faceprint actually is, I just thought he was crying. Overall the mech is good, I love the futuristic industrial stickers but the size and weight of it is impressive but also off putting. I’ve seen in some video reviews it shakes around a lot, and if I’m being honest the staff is the worst part about this set. I really think Lego needs to develop a new system for mech weapons, maybe a special hilt that gives mechs a wide range of customisation and unity. Want the staff to go on a Ninjago mech? No problem. Want this massive brick built cross bow to go on a MK mech? You got it! Obviously there’s a lot of problems, structural integrity and repetition of different mechs are the obvious. Overall it’s a good set but for that price I can’t justify it. Everything else is amazing though.

[Lemerbrix]

Ok, so supposedly, according to bricks by mind, much like ninjago crystalized, you get all the unique weapon parts in a bag, and you can grab your parts and make all of the weapons, cool