Our good friend Huw over at Brickset recently attended the UK Toy Fair in London. Huw writes, “Although photography was not allowed on the stand, there was nothing stopping photos being taken of the stand: the sides and, for that matter, from the balcony above. This picture was decorating the side of the stand and as you can see it shows the whole Fellowship of the Ring.”
Read all of Huw’s report about the LOTR sets over on Brickset, and be sure to check out the rest of his coverage.
Though The Brothers Brick couldn’t make it to New York this year for Toy Fair, our friends over at FBTB attended both the press event and the full show, to bring everyone great pictures of new and upcoming LEGO sets.
A few quick highlights…
LEGO Star Wars returns to Episode I: The Phantom Menace with a number of new sets that refresh designs from 10 or more years ago, including podracers and Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator.
LEGO expands its Disney/Pixar line with a System-scale Cars theme.
I’m personally most intrigued by the new Alien Conquest theme, which, if it’s anything like Agents or NinjaGo, has serious potential to be rather awesome. (Xenophobic blah blah blah. I’ll apologize on behalf of humanity when the little green men show up at my front door.)
Check out all of the different themes on FBTB.net.
Figures.com has detailed pictures of the upcoming Harry Potter sets for late 2010. Although you won’t be getting four Snapes in 4737 Quidditch Match, you can count on expanding your collection of Harry Potter minifigs with popular characters such as Ginny Weasley in the non-existent burning of 4840 The Burrow and Luna Lovegood with her Spectrespec glasses in 4841 Hogwarts Express. Check out more pictures in the gallery to see what all is new.
Click here for more new pictures from the other themes.
As several commenters noted, one theme missing from the recent news about late 2010 LEGO sets was any reference to LEGO Harry Potter. With part one of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie due out this November, the omission was striking.
LEGO Harry Potter fans need fear no more. Some of the LEGO Harry Potter sets planned for an October release include:
New minifigs include Bellatrix Lestrange and Luna Lovegood.
UPDATE: Toy Fair 2010 has revealed first photos of 2010 LEGO Harry Potter sets.
Here’s the full press release:
BURBANK, Calif.–(EON: Enhanced Online News)–Warner Bros. Consumer Products (WBCP) announced today an extension of its successful partnership with leading toy manufacturer, The LEGO Group, to bring the magical world of Harry Potter to fans everywhere. Under the agreement, The LEGO Group is creatively tapping into the Harry Potter magic to develop spell-binding construction sets and a board game inspired by the property in anticipation of the November 19 theatrical release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I, as well as the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 in 2011.
“The world of Harry Potter has inspired some of our most successful products and we are thrilled to continue creating imaginative play opportunities for fans everywhere”
“We have enjoyed a longstanding, successful partnership with The LEGO Group around Harry Potter and we are delighted to continue this relationship as we approach the release of the seventh film,” said Karen McTier, executive vice president, domestic licensing and worldwide marketing, Warner Bros. Consumer Products. “Fans of the franchise will be excited to discover the wonderfully original LEGO products inspired by the beloved stories and characters.”“The world of Harry Potter has inspired some of our most successful products and we are thrilled to continue creating imaginative play opportunities for fans everywhere,” said Jill Wilfert, vice president, global licensing for LEGO Group. “The magical stories brought to life in the films give us the potential for an incredible array of offerings, the best of which are represented in our upcoming lines.”
Based on the compelling stories and characters of the Harry Potter films, the new line includes six construction sets derived from iconic scenes and locations, including the Hogwarts Castle, Hagrid’s Hut, Hogwarts Express and Quidditch Match and leveraging building surprises of previously released LEGO® Harry Potter sets, some of which ranked among all-time LEGO best-sellers. Available in October, the sets feature new and newly decorated minifigures, like Bellatrix Lestrange and Luna Lovegood.
Additionally, as the LEGO brand rolls into the board game category for the first time in 2010, it brings the Harry Potter property with it in a premium, constructible board game called Hogwarts, launching in August. Players build and then move throughout the iconic castle to be the first to collect various objects to win the game – but even the most skilled players can be foiled by an ability to move classrooms around the board.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and TT Games also announced LEGO® Harry Potter™: Years 1-4, the latest addition to the blockbuster LEGO video games franchise. Releasing this May on multiple gaming platforms, the game takes players on a magical adventure through the first four Harry Potter books and movies, as they build, make potions, solve puzzles and cast spells.
And don’t forget that TT Games is releasing the LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 video game later this year as well.
Once again stealing the New York Toy Fair’s thunder, the first publicly available photos (read: not stolen or leaked) of late 2010 LEGO sets come from the Canadian Toy & Hobby Fair, via CTV tech reporter Kris Abel.
Of particular note for LEGO Castle fans is the new Kingdoms theme.
Check out Kris’ main post for links to each of his theme-specific posts, including:
The Brothers Brick got an invite to the LEGO Preview at Toy Fair 2009, but we just couldn’t make it. :-( The good news is that our pals from FBTB and BrickJournal are covering this important event.
Although we’ve seen quite a few of the late 2009 LEGO sets from the earlier Canadian toy fair, there are still some surprises in store for LEGO fans.
The big news — particularly among LEGO Star Wars fans — seems to be the announcement of 10195 Republic Dropship with AT-OT Walker, here being shown off by Erik Varzegi:
Other major LEGO Star Wars news includes a playset of Admiral Ackbar’s Home One (the result of fan voting back in May 2008), with these minifigs:
Personally, I’m most excited about the new Space Police sets, including 5971 Gold Heist:
In other news, LEGO and Disney have announced a deal to release LEGO sets based on three Disney movies: Toy Story, Cars, and Prince of Persia. (What, no LEGO Wall-E?)
Check out more photos from Ace Kim, Mike Crowley, and Joe Meno.
There are a lot of photos to go through, so let us know if you see something particularly cool we should highlight.
UPDATE: Nearly all of the LEGO sets featured in this post are now available, including LEGO Space Police, Castle, and Agents 2.0.
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LEGO fans don’t normally get an official look at third-quarter LEGO set releases until Toy Fair New York in mid-February. However, CTV technology journalist Kris Abel visited the Canadian Toy & Hobby Fair in Toronto this past weekend, posting a full run-down of the late 2009 LEGO releases.
We’ve confirmed with The LEGO Group that this is official. Although Kris Abel reports that many of the sets and box art are still prototypes, his photos of the sets themselves are pretty good. In keeping with our new policy, then, here goes…
First up,
5972 Container Heist opens up to reveal a massive cannon:
If you can’t see the photos, click the links at the bottom of this post.
5974 Galactic Enforcer has classic (dare I say Classic?) lines:
The alien criminals in the LEGO Space Police sets have several new, unique pieces:
In LEGO Star Wars news, Endor gets a bunker (8038), the Y-Wing gets a facelift (8037), the Neimoidians get their own shuttle (with Nute Gunray minifig?), and 7749 Echo Base includes a first-ever LEGO tauntaun:
LEGO Power Miners sport a larger rock monster and a very large drilling platform:
The LEGO Indiana Jones assortment includes a boat chase, a pair of fighters, and a new Elsa Schneider minifig:
On the LEGO Castle front, the trolls get their castle and the undead make their return in 7079 Drawbridge Defense:
Finally, LEGO has announced MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0, with a new color sensor.
You can read all of Kris Abel’s coverage on his blog:
We’ll expect even more complete coverage at Toy Fair New York in a few weeks from the usual suspects. In the meantime, share your thoughts in the comments.
Toy Fair 2008 is approaching and there have been pictures of the late 2008 sets circulating on the web. I found Joe Meno with some of the first pictures of themes including Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Speed Racer, Bionicle, and Batman.
Update (AB): Ace Kim also has extensive pictures from Toy Fair 2008, nicely organized into photosets with lots of great details — prices, release dates, etc.:
A good day for Lego Star Wars fans, we get to see pictures of the upcoming summer 2008 sets and their minifigs from coverage of UK’s Toy Fair. Check out the gallery!
Pictures from the Nuremburg Toy Fair have shown up on Brickshelf. We’ve seen pictures of most of these sets already, and known most of them were in the pipeline, but it’s nice to see pictures — and there are a couple surprises.
EDIT: Looks like the pictures have been moved or deleted, and the folder itself is currently not public. I’ll add pictures again once they become available.