Lion King Posted February 20, 2024 Posted February 20, 2024 3 minutes ago, Murdoch17 said: You are correct. Yup, I had that one. So it’s 23 years ago!
Murdoch17 Posted February 20, 2024 Posted February 20, 2024 50 minutes ago, Lion King said: Yup, I had that one. So it’s 23 years ago! Unless I'm mistaken, I think there has been a miscommunication / translation error somewhere: I said the newest one was our first enclosed one SINCE 2010. 2001 was the first ever (as you stated), 2004 came in the middle between the two. It has been 23 years since 2001, but 14 years since the last enclosed Hagrid's hut. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't being misunderstood.
MaxHeadroom Posted February 20, 2024 Posted February 20, 2024 9 hours ago, Clone OPatra said: The placement of the clips to attach the Forbidden Forest set is pretty strange though. They make sense for the included side builds, but not the Forest, when they really should be at the back. The designer could've just included attachment spots at both the front and back for maximum options. Also I’ve only just realized that the clips are seemingly not only the same for Hagrid’s Hut + the forbidden forest but also the Hogwarts sets. Cool that everything can be connected.
BrickBob Studpants Posted February 22, 2024 Posted February 22, 2024 Just saw Cheesey Studios‘ video on the March sets and turns out the Flying Ford Anglia is a bit more interesting than I thought! Not only are Harry‘s and Ron‘s torsos new, the car itself has been recoloured from medium blue to bright light blue! Never noticed it before he pointed it out
AusMinifig Posted February 22, 2024 Posted February 22, 2024 Have any other Australians on here seen the AUD retail price for the new March release sets? 25aud for the car and 50aud for the Forest creatures set 😬 I’m actually shocked how expensive they are. It worries me about it he summer release too.
Murdoch17 Posted February 22, 2024 Posted February 22, 2024 2 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said: Just saw Cheesey Studios‘ video on the March sets and turns out the Flying Ford Anglia is a bit more interesting than I thought! Not only are Harry‘s and Ron‘s torsos new, the car itself has been recoloured from medium blue to bright light blue! Never noticed it before he pointed it out ...and there goes my interest in the set. I had all sorts of modifications planned, but I can't do them now.
BrickBob Studpants Posted February 22, 2024 Posted February 22, 2024 6 minutes ago, Murdoch17 said: ...and there goes my interest in the set. I had all sorts of modifications planned, but I can't do them now. Why not? Do the parts not exist in bright light blue?
BacktoBricks Posted February 22, 2024 Posted February 22, 2024 3 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said: Just saw Cheesey Studios‘ video on the March sets and turns out the Flying Ford Anglia is a bit more interesting than I thought! Not only are Harry‘s and Ron‘s torsos new, the car itself has been recoloured from medium blue to bright light blue! Never noticed it before he pointed it out I watched that one myself last night too and found that point interesting. I think either colour can work depending on the reference material, but I do think the official box art and digital renders are misleading with the colour making it look medium blue, hence why we all didn't seem to realise. Also of note to me was the fact that not only is Ron's torso new, but Harry's is too; they've got rid of the pocket outlines on his check shirt and moved the creases a bit. I tried watching the scenes from the movie last night to see if this is actually a downgrade but honestly couldn't make out if he has pockets in his shirt or not, so I guess it doesn't really matter! If this hadn't of been pointed out though I certainly wouldn't have noticed unless I had both figures side by side, which makes me wonder why Lego would spend budget on reprinting these figs. I can only think it's to encourage collectors to buy a set they otherwise might not so as to get every minifigure as otherwise I see absolutely no reason for them to have changed. I like the cream printing and softer lines on Ron's torso for instance, but I think the old darker colour torso was actually more accurate. Speaking of minifigures, another change I wouldn't have realised without seeing the minifigures side by side is the fact that McGonagall actually has entirely new printing; she not only has the new arm printing, but the dress pattern is slightly different and the swirls on her dress are more silvery. Overall, I think this is a great wave and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the summer wave brings in terms of minifigure quality. There's definitely some downgrades in this March wave (looking firmly at you, plain legged Filch), but McGonagall really is superb and I would love to see that quality in say a PS Dumbledore in the Great Hall set for instance.
Clone OPatra Posted February 22, 2024 Author Posted February 22, 2024 9 hours ago, AusMinifig said: Have any other Australians on here seen the AUD retail price for the new March release sets? 25aud for the car and 50aud for the Forest creatures set 😬 I’m actually shocked how expensive they are. It worries me about it he summer release too. Ah, they've finally added them to the Australian site. To be honest these are roughly in line with their conversions at the moment. For instance the current $30 USD Star Wars battle pack is RRP $50 AUD, just like Forest Creatures. They play around a bit more with the conversions of higher priced sets (weird the two Hogwarts sets in the March wave are the same price in Aus for instance), and the Hagrid's Hut feels rough at $130 RRP. But that's just why I never buy anything directly from LEGO! All the other retailers here run good sales on a frequent basis, and if you wait long enough and check frequently, good deals on regular retail sets can pretty much always be found.
BacktoBricks Posted February 23, 2024 Posted February 23, 2024 (edited) 14 hours ago, Clone OPatra said: But that's just why I never buy anything directly from LEGO! All the other retailers here run good sales on a frequent basis, and if you wait long enough and check frequently, good deals on regular retail sets can pretty much always be found. Have any other retailers ever had Diagon Alley and Gringotts in Australia? In the UK, DA has never been available in any other shop which is extremely rare and it seems Gringotts might be going the same way. Wondering if it's the same in other countries. Edited February 23, 2024 by BacktoBricks
krimimimi Posted February 23, 2024 Posted February 23, 2024 (edited) @BacktoBricks There's a price tracking tool for Germany that allows you to also see what stores have offered a set at what prices for its entire run. DA was occasionally offered at other stores here, all told not a few, generally for more than lego charged, occasionally you'd see a "sale", the best of which I believe was 30 20 EUR below the S@H price, so generally nowhere even close to the discount you'd see from purchasing during a 2x VIP point sale or with a GWP. I assume Gringotts will be the same. eta: correction, the best discounts have only ever been 20 EUR, and very briefly at that. https://www.brickmerge.de/75978-1_lego-harry-potter-winkelgasse click "Preisentwicklung anzeigen" and then "alles anzeigen". I really like being able to look at what prices tend to do over time. It's definitely helped me decide more than once when to pull the trigger. Edited February 23, 2024 by krimimimi
Clone OPatra Posted February 24, 2024 Author Posted February 24, 2024 21 hours ago, BacktoBricks said: Have any other retailers ever had Diagon Alley and Gringotts in Australia? In the UK, DA has never been available in any other shop which is extremely rare and it seems Gringotts might be going the same way. Wondering if it's the same in other countries. I did say regular retail sets, by which I meant not LEGO exclusives or semi exclusives. Certain sets that are LEGO exclusive (D2C) in other countries do come to mass retailers here, but many do not. I don't really pay attention though because I don't buy any sets that have an RRP over about $150 or max $200 AUD.
BacktoBricks Posted February 24, 2024 Posted February 24, 2024 Thank you @krimimimi. That's interesting. Looks like a good site for German buyers. I tried to find a similar UK equivalent (found a reddit thread discussing it actually in relation to HP sets 😆) and we don't seem to have a good one. There was a recommended website, but on looking it definitely did not have all the data. It just kept recommending Lego.com when I know the set is offered elsewhere. 😆 @Clone OPatra Yes we have some stores in the UK (Argos, Smyths and John Lewis) that get exclusives and they have all had the castle and Smyths has the train. Amazon will also get exclusives like Rivendell for example. The big Star Wars UCS sets can be found in one of all of them too depending on the set. Smyths and John Lewis are nowhere near me, but I have a local Argos and when it comes to sale time I would much rather pick up a large set from a store than order online. DA has never gone further than Lego though so I was just wondering if this was a consistent decision. I try to not go for too many large sets as well. I have given in to DA and Gringotts, and did get both the castle and train because I wanted to experience the builds but have since moved those on. I just don't have the space and the budget to keep everything. When I got back into the hobby about a decade ago big sets were few and far between. The Death Star and old UCS Falcon spring to mind, but I know when the Lego Movie Joker Manor set was announced that was considered something larger and more of a 'special' set. The Lego landscape has definitely changed since then! It must be getting harder for you to stay under that threshold. 🙂
Black Falcon Posted February 24, 2024 Posted February 24, 2024 56 minutes ago, Clone OPatra said: I did say regular retail sets, by which I meant not LEGO exclusives or semi exclusives. Certain sets that are LEGO exclusive (D2C) in other countries do come to mass retailers here, but many do not. Interesting, which ones would that be for instance? I´ve heard that it would be like this a few times, but never actually specific Sets were mentioned, so would be interesting to know which Sets that actually are, especially since I would say that NA, Australia and Europe are quite similar markets. 4 minutes ago, BacktoBricks said: I try to not go for too many large sets as well. I have given in to DA and Gringotts, and did get both the castle and train because I wanted to experience the builds but have since moved those on. I just don't have the space and the budget to keep everything. When I got back into the hobby about a decade ago big sets were few and far between. The Death Star and old UCS Falcon spring to mind, but I know when the Lego Movie Joker Manor set was announced that was considered something larger and more of a 'special' set. The Lego landscape has definitely changed since then! It must be getting harder for you to stay under that threshold. 🙂 In the end budget and space are things that will always limit us and personally I don´t have a maximum I am willing to spend, though of course the more expensive it gets the more you will have to think about buying it - though it doesn´t really make a difference for me whether I buy 10 Sets for 400 in total or the Lion Knights Castle for the same price - but yeah in the end it is a though decision to make, on which Sets I am going to pass.
krimimimi Posted February 24, 2024 Posted February 24, 2024 @Black Falcon, if you look on the lego S@H page and filter for either exclusiv or rare sets, or both, those are the sets you're less likely to find elsewhere, or if you do, they very likely will never be on sale. https://www.lego.com/de-de/themes/harry-potter?filters.i0.key=variants.attributes.flags.key&filters.i0.values.i0=exclusive&filters.i0.values.i1=hardToFind ("Filter", submenu "Empfohlen", "Exklusive Sets" & "Seltene Sets"). As you're in DE, Brickmerge also allows for you to filter for the rare sets. (https://www.brickmerge.de/LEGO-Harry Potter, Auswahl: selten / exclusiv). Here Müller seems to get some of the semi-exclusives. It used to be Toys-R-Us (which is now Smyths) who'd get them, but they don't seem to have the same arrangement anymore. @BacktoBricks, I'm not sure how good it is in the UK, but the shopping tab of a google search usually does alright as a price tracker goes (currently it's calling itself "products" for me, that might be a translation thing, though, because I know it used to be "shopping". Or they've rebranded, who knows.). It's pretty strictly geo-locked, however, so you can't check other countries.
Black Falcon Posted February 24, 2024 Posted February 24, 2024 11 minutes ago, krimimimi said: @Black Falcon, if you look on the lego S@H page and filter for either exclusiv or rare sets, or both, those are the sets you're less likely to find elsewhere, or if you do, they very likely will never be on sale. https://www.lego.com/de-de/themes/harry-potter?filters.i0.key=variants.attributes.flags.key&filters.i0.values.i0=exclusive&filters.i0.values.i1=hardToFind ("Filter", submenu "Empfohlen", "Exklusive Sets" & "Seltene Sets"). As you're in DE, Brickmerge also allows for you to filter for the rare sets. (https://www.brickmerge.de/LEGO-Harry Potter, Auswahl: selten / exclusiv). Here Müller seems to get some of the semi-exclusives. It used to be Toys-R-Us (which is now Smyths) who'd get them, but they don't seem to have the same arrangement anymore. It was more about which sets that are exclusive to Lego are not exclusive in Australia, not which are exclusive at all. As for Legos exclusive partners, there are quite a lot here. Müller is, as you mentioned, one of them (they have Viking Village and Eldorado for instance) and Smyths took over the agreement from Toys-R-Us (they had the Galaxy Explorer and Grimmauld Place), then we have Amazon (Rivendell), Galeria (they usually have the Modulars and also had the Medieval Blacksmith), Alternate (Venator, Boush Helmet), and mytoys which was closed last year but Otto might have taken over this one.
Accio Lego Posted February 24, 2024 Posted February 24, 2024 Just saw news that the WB CEO says the new Harry Potter series is ‘aiming for’ a 2026 release date. So we’ve got a whole year more of movie sets before we could possibly see any show based merchandise. 2026 will also be the 25th anniversary of both the first movie and Harry Potter lego as a whole, so I think there’s a good chance that even when the show comes out it won’t completely take over the Lego line up right away.
Black Falcon Posted February 24, 2024 Posted February 24, 2024 11 minutes ago, Accio Lego said: Just saw news that the WB CEO says the new Harry Potter series is ‘aiming for’ a 2026 release date. So we’ve got a whole year more of movie sets before we could possibly see any show based merchandise. 2026 will also be the 25th anniversary of both the first movie and Harry Potter lego as a whole, so I think there’s a good chance that even when the show comes out it won’t completely take over the Lego line up right away. Well since we have a new wave this year we would kinda expect that one to be three years anyways so I would guess if they do Sets for the new Series it will come 2027 at the earliest. The anniversary you mentioned is another reason that makes it unlikely they will go with sets for the series right away - though of course Warner will have a say in this too, so we will see.
krimimimi Posted February 24, 2024 Posted February 24, 2024 1 hour ago, Black Falcon said: It was more about which sets that are exclusive to Lego are not exclusive in Australia, not which are exclusive at all. It's the same nine sets between DE and AU / Oz. https://www.lego.com/en-au/themes/harry-potter?filters.i0.key=variants.attributes.flags.key&filters.i0.values.i0=exclusive&filters.i0.values.i1=hardToFind
Clone OPatra Posted February 24, 2024 Author Posted February 24, 2024 10 hours ago, BacktoBricks said: DA has never gone further than Lego though so I was just wondering if this was a consistent decision. ... I try to not go for too many large sets The Lego landscape has definitely changed since then! It must be getting harder for you to stay under that threshold. 🙂 I think it's wildly inconsistent. When it comes to our regular retailers (of which there are about five) with physical stores, it seems like they don't stock many of the largest sets, but I don't know if that's because LEGO doesn't make those sets available or because the stores choose not to for economic reasons (shelf space relative to the amount of volume they'll move, etc). I think I've also seen that LEGO will have a period of exclusivity for some big sets (like Diagon Alley etc) before opening it up to other retailers besides LEGO themselves. Here we have lots of mostly online-only direct LEGO partner stores though too, and they all have access to selling pretty much everything. When it comes to passing things by, I suppose it's harder with more great big sets, but that's just the way I shop. Sure I'm partially tempted by something like Rivendell, but I have no space for such a thing and have no appetite to spend so much money on LEGO all at once. The most expensive set I've bought in recent times is Grimmauld Place (which my wife bought me as a gift at full RRP - I would've waited for a sale ) 10 hours ago, Black Falcon said: Interesting, which ones would that be for instance? I´ve heard that it would be like this a few times, but never actually specific Sets were mentioned, so would be interesting to know which Sets that actually are, especially since I would say that NA, Australia and Europe are quite similar markets. I'm pretty sure Lion Knights Castle hasn't been available anywhere but from LEGO, for instance. But I guess it seems like many sets that are D2C in NA do come to retailers here.
BrickBob Studpants Posted February 24, 2024 Posted February 24, 2024 2 hours ago, Accio Lego said: […] so I think there’s a good chance that even when the show comes out it won’t completely take over the Lego line up right away. I sure hope so, because I will only buy sets based on the movies. Also, who’s to say they will even do sets based on the show? The only streaming shows to even get sets are a small handful of Netflix ones plus some of the D+ shows, and even then Mando is the only show to be treated equally to the movies. And that happened only after proving itself to be a smash hit! I’d say focusing on the movies is a much smarter business move, and not because of my barely-disguised personal bias against the show The movies have stood the test of time, whereas the show may just crash and burn and get cancelled after one season, Netflix-style I‘m certainly not rooting for it to succeed, that‘s for sure.
PsychoBuilder Posted February 24, 2024 Posted February 24, 2024 14 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said: I‘m certainly not rooting for it to succeed, that‘s for sure. Why?
Black Falcon Posted February 25, 2024 Posted February 25, 2024 Well I have to say while I certainly don´t need a series, I don´t mind them doing it. The real question is just how good it will be done. And if it isn´t made good we just can not watch it. As for Sets, there are certainly pros and cons. On the pro side we would be able to get sets for scenes and locations that are not displayed in the films. But that is also where the big con starts, since all the minifigures would look different from the films and while it certainly would be an issue to get an different looking Harry Ron and Hermione with other Figures it would be an issue if we plan to include them in Filmdisplays. 1 hour ago, Clone OPatra said: I'm pretty sure Lion Knights Castle hasn't been available anywhere but from LEGO, for instance. But I guess it seems like many sets that are D2C in NA do come to retailers here. I actually meant those Sets that are D2C in NA but not in Australia. As far as I could see in this forum all the Sets we can only get from Lego here are also exclusive from Lego in NA at least. Which aren´t actually that many I think. Lion Knights Castle, Diagon Alley and Gringotts come to mind, but there are also some smaller Sets that are just sold by Lego exclusively. 2 hours ago, krimimimi said: It's the same nine sets between DE and AU / Oz. https://www.lego.com/en-au/themes/harry-potter?filters.i0.key=variants.attributes.flags.key&filters.i0.values.i0=exclusive&filters.i0.values.i1=hardToFind Yeah, just that not all of them are excluvie to Lego only, some are just semi exclusive, like the Hogwarts Express, the Icons or the Castle.
BrickBob Studpants Posted February 25, 2024 Posted February 25, 2024 (edited) 51 minutes ago, Brickroll said: Why? I see it as a cynical cashgrab. I‘m not a fan of remakes/readaptations in general, since they‘re usually vastly inferior. The only exceptions I can think of are LOTR and Dune, and that‘s partially due to the first versions being mediocre at best Haven‘t seen the Percy Jackson show, but it can only be an improvement over the two movies. In these cases, it‘s justified as the first adaptations aren‘t exactly beloved. I already dislike movies being remade, and now the current trend of movies being remade into streaming shows annoys me even more. What’s the point of stretching a 2 hour movie into an 8-10 hour season? Having more is not always better. I‘m not saying it‘s gonna suck, but it will not live up to the movies. Good luck finding actors that can match Rickman, Coltrane, Harris, and co, a composer that can compete with Williams, or an art/costume department that can outdo the excellent work done for the movies It‘s an uphill battle from the get-go because everything will be compared to the movies. And then there‘s the living can of worms that‘s JKR. Edited February 25, 2024 by BrickBob Studpants
Clone OPatra Posted February 25, 2024 Author Posted February 25, 2024 2 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said: What’s the point of stretching a 2 hour movie into an 8-10 hour season? Having more is not always better. The point would be adapting books that apart from the first three were massively cut down to fit film length and lost a lot of the story and magic in the process. There are a lot of people that started out as fans of the books and never really loved what was done with the movies. The first two are kind of slow and the child acting is shonky. The third is suddenly very dark. And then after that half or more of the story is thrown out each time and the characters are simplified. Not to mention details the films get wrong as basic as spells. If done correctly, a show could simply provide a new, different take on the books, and preserve more of the story. All that said, I also think it's a terrible idea because WB has an abysmal track record and I don't trust them to get it right in the slightest.
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