EverydayBricks is a Lego blog featuring news, reviews, and photos from the world of Lego. Feel free to contact Everyday Bricks about your MOCs or Custom Minifigures.
Lego has just been announced as the most powerful brand in the world. That is according to this years (2015) Brand Finance report. The recent release and unexpected success of The Lego Movie caused Lego to replace Ferrari as the leader (which came in 9th place this year). The report looks at a few aspects of strength, such as familiarity, loyalty, promotion, satisfaction, and reputation.
“Lego is a uniquely creative and immersive toy; children love the ability to construct their own worlds that it provides. In a tech-saturated world, parents approve of the back-to-basics creativity it encourages and have a lingering nostalgia for the brand long after their own childhoods.” — Brand Finance
Also of note: Apple was named as the having the highest brand value in history. While Twitter was named as the fastest growing brand.
Humble Bundle recently revealed their newest books bundle. This time featuring a whole bunch of kids friendly “brainiac” books. There are currently 13 books offered, and in a few days their will be a few more added. As of right now there are 5 Lego themed books in this deal. Including Steampunk Lego, which might just be one of the most beautiful books on Lego released. Best of all the whole thing is “pay what you want.” You have until the 16th to make up your mind.
“Get your thinking caps on, brainiacs! Fire up your synapses and get reading. This is a book bundle made with your brain in mind. Name your price for the The Manga Guide to Electricity; The LEGO Adventure Book, Vol. 1; Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred; Lauren Ipsum; and Ruby Wizardry. If you pay more than the average price, you’ll also get Build Your Own Website; Incredible LEGO Technic; Python for Kids; The Manga Guide to Physics; and LEGO Space. If you pay $15 or more, you’ll receive all of the above plus The LEGO Neighborhood Book; Steampunk LEGO; and JavaScript for Kids. Now that’s some food for thought! This bundle comes to you from No Starch Press, publishers of the finest in geek entertainment. Since 1994, they have published books on topics like LEGO, hacking, science, math, and programming for all ages.”
The Lego Ideas Second 2014 Review has been released. Two new sets have been announced for the next releases. Wall-E made the cut, and from the last Lego Ideas Review, Doctor Who has been approved. Wall-E was originally designed and submitted by Angus MacLane, who actually worked on the original film as an animator and director. It sounds like this model was designed during production. Then years later submitted for review on Lego Ideas. We can now bombard Lego with EVE.
Doctor Who and Companions has also passed the review system. This might just be the most demanded Lego theme in the recent past. Originally created by AndrewClark2, his proposal had a whole lot of competition. The details on which Doctor Who and what companions was not revealed, but we can assume that the TARDIS will be there. Whenever this set is released it will probably be extremely hard to find.
Lego passed up a lot of interesting proposals. The Hubble Space Telescope seemed to be a favor for this review, but it didn’t pass. Science and space stuff has had great success in the past. The other proposals, the Invisible Hand, X-Men X Mansion, Lego Lightsabers, UCS AT-AT, Wayne Manor, and the Ghostbuster Headquarters were also passed on. These were all huge sets, and Lego seem to be most comfortable in the $30-50 range.
The next review will be coming in late spring. Look out for the results on Avenger Helicarrier, Labyrinth Marble Maze, F7A Hornet, The Goonies, The Natural History Museum, The Lord of the Rings Minas Tirith, Jurassic Park, Piano, and the Flying Dutchman. We can all guess at the status of the Helicarrier…
Check out the full review below, which has some fun Lego behind the scenes stuff worked into it:
There have been rumors for a few months that Lego would be releasing a SHIELD Helicarrier (and many huge Lego Ideas projects). It is not a rumor anymore, Lego has just announced the Lego Super Heroes, The SHIELD Helicarrier (76042) from the Avengers film will be released soon. The biggest problem about such a set is the scale, it is just so large that what everyone wants is just not a feasible release. It would be either too big or too small. What we get here is an amalgamation of a few scales in order to best represent the massive flying fortress. Interestingly, there is a whole set of Minifigures, and Microfigures (Mini-Minifigures).
The Helicarrier will include 2,996 pieces, and will retail for about $349.99. It will be available on March 1st. Just in time for the Avengers: Age of Ultron film in May.
This thing is huge. It is 2 1/2 feet long (31″ or 80cm) long and almost almost 1 foot tall (11″ or 29cm). The included Quinjets are a nice touch; even if they are way out of scale. The tinnier Fighter Jets fit in much better but are less recognizable. This seems like a good compromise, by including both Lego is giving you options for how to display this.
Even though this is not the typical kids playset, Lego has still included a handful of play features. The engine rotors are internally connected and can be turned with just one handle movement. The top deck, runway, can be removed to reveal a fully featured bridge. Both of these features can be connected with the Lego Power Functions, which will light up the interior and spin the engines automatically.
One of the coolest details is the fully detailed bridge. With the Microfigures it is looking semi-accurate to the film version.
There are 12 Microfigures! 4 of the main heroes and 8 SHIELD agents. These are a great way to incorporate the characters into the Helicarrier without being too far out of scale. Interestingly, the two female characters that are included as Minifigures are not represented as Microfigures. The good news is that SHIELD Agent Maria Hill gets an exclusive Minifigure here. Hopefully she won’t stay exclusive for too long…
Build and display the huge SHIELD Helicarrier!
Take on the challenge of building this awesome LEGO® model of The SHIELD Helicarrier. Construct the flying aircraft carrier with 2 runways, microscale Quinjets, fighter jets and ground support vehicles. The set also comes with many of your favorite LEGO Marvel Super Heroes minifigures, plus 12 microfigures to display on deck and within the highly detailed interior. Includes 5 minifigures: Nick Fury, Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye and Maria Hill.
Includes 5 minifigures: Nick Fury, Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye and Maria Hill, plus an iconic SHIELD eagle stand to display them on.
Features 3 microscale Quinjets, 3 fighter jets, a gasoline truck, 2 forklift trucks, 2 runways, 4 road blockades, armored exterior with translucent elements, detailed interior, plus 12 microfigures (Nick Fury, Hawkeye, Captain America, Iron Man and 8 SHIELD agents).
Also includes a detailed runway.
Weapons include Hawkeye’s bow, Black Widow’s gun and Captain America’s shield.
SHIELD Agent Maria Hill minifigure is new for spring 2015!
Includes a plaque with facts about The SHIELD Helicarrier.
Add lights and spinning rotors to the Helicarrier with the 88000, 8883 and 8870 LEGO® Power Functions sets (sold separately).
Rotors can also be turned manually.
Includes a display stand.
Helicarrier measures over 11” (29cm) high, 31” (80cm) long and 17” (45cm) wide
Each Quinjet measures over 1” (3cm) high, 2” (7cm) long and 2” (7cm) wide
Minifigure stand measures over 4” (12cm) high, and 2” (6cm deep) and 6” (16cm wide)
Lego is going strong with their Collectible Minifigures theme. The recent Series 13 has proven to be extremely hard to find, with most retailers sold out long ago. 2015 is going to be another weird year for this theme. The next release will be the Simpsons Series 2 (a bunch of early production images were leaked). After that the official Series 14 will be released in the late summer or early fall. Breaking with the normal formula this series will be completely themed for Halloween. There will be 16 various monster and horror themed Minifigs in this release, some of them will even feature some extremely cool new molds.
So far 11 of them have been leaked, with the other 5 still hidden away somewhere. There is the (80s?) Frankenstein, Zombie Office Worker, Zombie Cheerleader, the Tigeress (a female tiger), a Mad Scientist, a Werewolf named Kel, a Zombie Pirate Captain, a Plant Man, a Witch and her Black Cat, a Vampire (actually a Vampiress), and a Skeleton Costume Man.
The Tigeress might be one of the most popular of Minifigures, coming with one of those new Minifig tails, and a neat 1960ish hair piece with ears.
The other stand out is the crazy Mad Scientist. This is the first Minifigure to come with an elongated head. This is a super cool piece but most likely it is attached to the glasses/hair. Making it a little less interesting.
The Werewolf is looking pretty familiar (Monster Fighters) and the Undead Pirate has some awesome printing. Check out the skull and crossbones, this one is looking extra dead.
The Plant Guy is maybe the least interesting figure, and the Witch represents a pretty popular Halloween style.
The Vampiress is looking deadly, and the plainish Skeleton Guy is pretty charming.
These leaked images of the Lego Collectible Minifigures Series 14 (71010) were posted over on Baidu, but have apparently been taken down. http://tieba.baidu.com/p/3544398851
For a little while now there have been rumors of an official Lego Scooby Doo theme for 2015. It certainly is not the most demanded theme, but Lego is trying its best to win over all our hearts. Everything is being timed for maximum exposure, with a new Scooby Doo TV show titled “Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!” premiering on Cartoon Network soon. The first official images from Lego are starting to be released. The most popular set will probably be the Mystery Machine (75902) which will retail at $29.99. This set features Shaggy, Scooby Doo, and Fred fighting off a zombie and evil tree. Scooby Doo is looking especially impressive, with some fine printing that puts most of the other Lego dogs to shame.
The current line up features 5 sets covering a good amount of the show: Mummy Museum Mystery (75900), Mystery Plane Adventures (75901), Mystery Machine (75902), Haunted Lighthouse (75903), and Mystery Mansion (75904). The whole gang will be represented in Minifigure form. Fred, Shaggy, Scooby-Doo, Daphne, and Velma. Hopefully we won’t need to purchase the whole theme to complete the team.
Interestingly, there will be a special Lego episode, probably animated as a 3D CGI cartoon…
“In another first, the Scooby Gang will be animated in LEGO form. In 2015, fans can look forward to a 22-minute LEGO special, featuring Scooby-Doo, and produced in partnership with Warner Bros. Animation. In addition, Warner Bros. Animation will also be producing made-for-video movie titles, which will be released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in the coming years.”
Lego has also been teasing Lego Scooby Doo across its social media this week:
The Academy Award (The Oscar) nominations for Best Animated Feature were revealed for 2015, and surprisingly The Lego Movie wasn’t among those honored. This year ended up being an incredibly competitive category for animation. With Big Hero 6, The Boxtrolls, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Song of the Sea, and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya pushing out The Lego Movie. This is such an oddity as most years do not even have enough contendors to fill up the nominations. With only 3 or 4 films competing. The Lego Movie did get one nomination for Everything Is Awesome in the Best Original Song category.
This didn’t stop the directors of The Lego Movie from having a little bit of fun. Phil Lord decided to just build his own Oscar, while Chris Miller helped people come to terms with the news.
It’s Christmas early. Hispabrick #021 has just been released. The new issue has major features on Lego Star Wars, Aliens, Miniland, Mindstorms, reviews, and interviews. This 101 page digital magazine is available as a 40+ MB PDF and best of all it is free.
Hispabrick is one of the best Lego magazines out there. Their content is top notch, and contains a lot of exclusive stuff. Even awesome instructions for your own Lego projects.
For this holiday season Lego has gifted some of their Employees an exclusive set. The Lego Hub: Birds (4002014) set features 487 pieces and is not averrable in stores. But, if you are lucky enough you may find a few of these listed for sale around the internet, but be prepared for high prices. This cute little set is in a new Lego Hub theme, which refers to employee offices (hubs) around the world. This may be a clue that more of these exclusive sets will be given away in the future. There is one bird per major Hub. There are five birds represented here, with what looks like a Sparrow, Stork, Swan, Robin, and an Eagle. If you have more information on the specific species of bird, please let us know.
Lego is on a roll with their Collectable Minifigures. The newest Lego Collectable Minifigures Series 13 (71008) has a release date of January 2015. Which means you can probably expect a few retailers to sell them at the end of December. So, make sure to save up your Christmas money because there are a lot of great figures. Series 13 continues the trend of extremely detailed Minifigs, while increasing the quality. These figures are still made in China but a lot of the production problems of the past have been worked out (slightly off colors, tight or loose connections, etc.). Interestingly, there is also some sort of code/contest thing going on with each figure. The only bad news is that these are at the, now permanent, price point of $3.99. Although some retailers (notably Target) may be selling them at $2.99.
Lego has made a few breakthroughs in Lego Minifigures during the Collectable Minifig theme. This time around there seems to be a breakthrough in cloth capes. Featuring multi-piece capes with color printing! Whoa!
As has been the case for the past few years Lego reviewer WhiteFang has received a full set of Collectible Minifigures early. This allows WhiteFang to be the definitive source for Minifigure reviews. Check out the full Series 13 review over on Eurobricks, it features part analysis, detailed photos, and commentary about the latest release. A full box of Minifigs will include rare, uncommon, and common figures. The common Minifigures include the Goblin, Carpenter, and Galaxy Trooper at 5 each per box. The uncommon ones include the Classic King, Sheriff, Snake Charmer, Alien Trooper, Egyptian Warrior, Evil Wizard at 4 per box. The hardest to find, rare, Minifigs will be the Unicorn Girl, Paleontologist, Fencer, Samurai, Disco Diva, Hot Dog Man, and Lady Cyclops at 3 per box.
