I’ve heard two stories: one as you describe, and one where the set was momentarily “Available now”. I never saw that–went straight to “Out of stock”. It currently says “Out of stock, will ship in 30 days”, which is a different message than before. There’s been a lot of hype about this set, so here’s hoping that it’s not going to be a one-off as originally planned.
Sounds like they flew off the shelves at Lego retail stores too, lots of reports of people lining up for them and stock clearing out in minutes. I don’t think there’s a store anywhere near me, so that was never an option. I just hope they really do come through with these “backordered” online orders. I still haven’t gotten any kind of order confirmation from them, although that’s not unusual. It’s occasionally taken a day or two for them to process my orders.
Wow, so when I placed my order on August 1 for the Exo Suit(s), ECTO-1, and Research Institute, I was mostly just worried about the Exo Suit selling out. The ECTO-1 has been in production for a few months, and with last year’s DeLorean still in production, I assume there’s no hurry on that. And the Research Institute was debuting alongside the Exo Suit August 1, so I figured I’d just order everything at once.
The ECTO-1 and Research Institute arrived yesterday, and my Exo Suits are still backordered, but I was just surprised to learn the Research Institute is sold out from shop.lego.com. I think you could still order an Exo Suit now if you’re willing to wait a while for it to ship, it only says “Temporarily Unavailable”, but the Research Institute just says flat out “Sold Out”.
I don’t know if there’s any precedent, but I hope they do another run of it. And I hope it sold out because demand was just unpredictably high, and not because they intentionally low-balled their estimates.
Ok I need to avoid this thread like the plague. It is far too dangerous to me. I would be lying if I didn’t secretly admit that one of the most exciting things about now having a child is that in a few short years I can buy him Lego. Seeing all these neat sets, and already planning to spend foolishly large sums on Lego for him, is not good. Stop enabling me >|P
Heck, I started buying sets for my son before he was actually born. He actually bought a set for me for my last birthday. Raised him right!
I’m about 75% complete in assembling the 10221 Super Star Destroyer Executor. Been my little blow off steam project over the last few months. I can put a pic of it up here when it’s done.
You can’t add an Exo-Suit to your cart. LEGO had originally said that this was a one-off run like the Curiosity Rover (proudly sitting on my mantle), but I’m hoping that, with the hype, how quickly it was selling, and all that jazz, they’ll bring it back as an entire theme. I’d love to see Neo-Space (reboots of the original Space colours/designs) and/or an Exo-Suit line: battle suits, recon, jump suits, etc.
Oh you’re right, you can’t add the Exo Suit or the Research Institute to your cart. But Exo Suit does just say Temporarily out of Stock, Research Institute offers no such hope.
…and it’s back to Available Now!
And out of stock again.
Of course not! The Milano was actually one of the most fun sets I’ve put together in a while, in addition to the general Guardians of the Galaxy appeal.
The “Escape from Knowhere” set you didn’t mention was a shame though, because it’s the only way to get Rocket and Groot, but it’s a pretty lame set. Not much to the build, not much to look at.
My two Exo Suits finally arrived yesterday. Here’s what I think: it’s cool looking, but not great.
There’s one glaring problem with the greebling on the shoulders where the construction as designed literally just falls apart if you even touch it. It’s a pretty weak connection to begin with, and somewhere on some Lego forum I saw an explanation that after production, Lego actually discovered some of their molds were worn out for one of the parts, so it’s actually a manufacturing defect that the pieces don’t grip as well as they should. I have no idea if that’s true, but I can verify it falls apart. There are a few workarounds if you’ve got the spare parts, so I’ve got things held together okay now, but even ignoring this specific issue, I’m not thrilled with the build.
There’s a lot of greebling, mostly with Technics pieces, and that’s basically the problem. It looks great on the finished piece, but there’s a good reason this isn’t how most Lego sets are built: it’s sort of a pain to build, and sort of a pain to pose afterward. It has more joints and range of movement than most of the other Lego “mech” sets I own, so with patience it’s a lot more posable, but it’s also a lot harder to find the right place to grip it to move things around without smashing other pieces out of position. It’s not well suited for “play” at all.
That said, I’m glad that Lego is taking a chance on something like this. It launched alongside the Research Institute, and so far that makes these the only two CUUSOO/Ideas projects to make it into production that aren’t licensed properties or real world objects. Even with my problems with the Exo Suit, if they came out with another version next year I’d buy it too just to support the project.
Also, it’s cool that it comes with two classic Lego space minifigs (though it’s not the original space helmet style), and the little “turtle” mech is great.
I haven’t decided if I’m going to assemble my second Exo Suit yet. I fully planned to assemble and display both when I ordered it, so far I’m not the type to horde/resell Lego, but I think I might wait a while just because the build wasn’t that fun. I may literally save it for a rainy day.
One last thing, a book recommendation. LEGO Space: Building the Future is a fantastic collection of the custom space-themed builds of Peter Reid, the man who’s original design was the basis for this Exo Suit. The book is presented as sort of a history book depicting first some actual space travel history, and then the fictional history Reid and Goddard cooked up for Reid’s amazing space models. I can easily lose an hour or two when I stumble onto a cool Flickr group of Lego custom builds, and this book is the best of the best when it comes to space stuff. It also includes instructions for a hand full of models, though I imagine most casual Lego fans won’t have enough of the right pieces for many of them.
edit: Here’s a more in depth review of the book.
Learned something new today. Thanks WS.
“Greebling”
Schmidt, the reason those connections are weak is because Lego has been using the same mould for the robot arms since the 80s. The mould has now been replaced and the connection should be better in the next set.
The Lego Lord of the Rings Tower of Orthanc was released over a year ago, but I finally pulled the trigger on it last week and I just wanted to report that it’s one of my favorite sets so far. It’s even taller than I expected, and was a pretty fun build despite how monochromatic it is. Looks like LEGO’s online store is currently out of stock, so it’s probably too late to get in on October’s double VIP points with this set, but I still highly recommend it as a great build and gorgeous display piece. Pretty pricey for kids, but cool stuff on the interior if you actually want to play with it too.
I saw the Battle of Five Armies set in the store the other day. Spoilers, Lego! Sheesh!
Have you guys ever checked out Chris McVeigh’s custom Lego builds? He offers the instructions on his site as well as the option to buy kits from him for some of the models, mostly small, technology themed models. I just got “My First Computer (Byte Edition)”, and it’s an awesome little model:
Also, I mentioned the Lego Space: Exploring the Future book a few posts ago, but there are a lot of other cool Lego coffee table books available from that publisher, No Starch Press. I’d check out Art of the Brick, and Beautiful Lego 1 and 2.
WSJ has the exclusive reveal of the SHIELD Helicarrier: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/01/29/heres-your-first-look-at-legos-shield-helicarrier-set-exclusive/
I caved and ordered the EV3 kit.