If two sets are enough to confirm a trend, then we can consider that LEGO has decided to take matters into its own hands and reshuffle the cards to satisfy the fans and fight against speculation with in turn the implementation of a strategy to limit the impact of counterfeiting.

I deliberately leave aside the sets which are more reinterpretations than reissues like the references 10240 Red Five X-Wing Starfighter (2013) 75144 Snowspeeder (2017) or 75192 Millennium Falcon (2017), and I keep the few sets that are similar enough to the previous models to consider them as re-releases: 75159 Death Star (2016) et 10256 Taj Mahal. We will also remember the set 10249 Winter Toy Shop released in 2015, which was a reissue of the set of the same name (LEGO ref. 10199) released in 2009.

Obviously, anyone who arrived too late in the LEGO hobby to purchase the set 10189 Taj Mahal (2008) are now delighted to be able to afford this emblematic box at a reasonable price. LEGO makes new fans happy and shows them that their interest in this set has been taken into account.

The and 10188 Death Star will not have been absent from the shelves for long before the 75159 set replaced it: less than a year. Speculators did not have time to take advantage of the void left by the original box in the manufacturer's catalog.

By republishing a set that has become very popular with "investors", LEGO is also sending a strong signal and confirms that it is the manufacturer who controls the market and not the dealers. Today's surprise announcement is, in my opinion, the result of a carefully considered strategy. LEGO kept this set a secret until the end. No teasing, no communication, not even to fan sites or LUGs who are usually the first to know about an imminent new product announcement.

In my opinion, this is no coincidence, it was the most skilful method of catching the secondary market by surprise, without giving dealers time to lower their prices to sell their stocks. This secondary market with its hallucinating prices also maintains the "LEGO legend" and the collector's side of these high-end toys, but LEGO probably also wants to exploit the popularity of certain references and make a more ... financial profit.

If we can legitimately think that LEGO decides to put back on the market some very popular products to cut the grass under the foot to an aftermarket which has taken off in recent years and which provides good margins to the most patient resellers, However, I can't help but think that these re-releases are also a very effective strategy against counterfeiting LEGO products.

The secret behind the announcement of the set 10256 Taj Mahal has no direct impact on the counterfeit market: LEPIN is already copying the Taj Mahal from 2008 and this new official version is perfectly identical to the previous one. There was no risk here that LEPIN would take LEGO by surprise and offer a copy of the set before the official version was actually available.

But the Taj Mahal in LEPIN version is selling well, just look at the number of sales made by the different merchants who offer this copy on Aliexpress to realize it. It takes 200 € to afford a copy of the thing, delivered without box and with instructions in digital format.

By adding € 130, we will therefore be able to obtain an original and official version from November 1, with a beautiful box, a nice instruction booklet and parts made by LEGO ... The difference is almost reasonable, many customers potentials will probably agree to pay the difference to add a "real" Taj Mahal to their collection and not just a copy.

Anyone who turned out of spite to copies of sets whose official versions have become overpriced in the secondary market will now think maybe twice before doing the same for a future purchase.

More than the announcement of the set 10256 Taj Mahal, it is this trend that everyone suspects and hopes that should logically help curb the purchase of counterfeits. Many fans might be willing to wait a few more months to afford a counterfeit set, hoping they don't have to because LEGO is finally offering a reissue at an acceptable price.

If the trend is confirmed, LEGO will find its account in all sectors: fans will be in heaven, the secondary market will emerge from the current speculative bubble which only asks to explode to return to a more reasonable offer and the business of counterfeiting will also be gradually (and perhaps lastingly) affected.

You don't change a winning team and Megan Rothrock understood that. So here is a new book in the series "Lego workshop"translated into French by the publisher Huginn & Muninn: Brick adventures (27.00 € at amazon).

As with the previous two volumes from the same collection, this book is a mix of minifig-based comics, instructions and ideas around the LEGO product. The concept is enticing, we are promised "150 creative ideas and 40 models to build", but the realization is less and less convincing.

This series of books is in fact only a compilation of different models proposed by several creators and here vaguely united by a red thread without great effort on the layout and the readability which has further deteriorated since the first volumes.

It is on the side of the instructions provided that I criticize this work for its real lack of homogeneity. There are indeed about forty models to assemble, but the level of readability of the instructions provided now turns from (often) fair to (sometimes) indecipherable. The inventories of the parts required for each model do not always include any numerical reference allowing them to be quickly located on Bricklink or at LEGO.

Good luck, if you plan to replicate some of the models on offer while relying on your bulk of LEGO. You may not have some very specific parts and you will have to search for them on the internet based on the simple visual provided.

The book is ultimately more a compilation of good ideas than a collection of models, the layout of the assembly instructions really lacks consistency.

As with the previous volumes, you often have to be content with photos of the different assembly steps and deduce the positioning of the parts to be added. Some of the instructions offered in this third volume, especially those using white pieces, are almost incomprehensible.

Several of the models presented are only digital versions of each of the creations in question. A bit of a shame for a book that claims to be part of the collection "The LEGO Workshop".

We really have the impression that Megan Rothrock no longer makes an effort to offer real decomposed models and is now content with a few screenshots. Its name is undoubtedly enough to motivate certain MOCeurs who see in these books an opportunity to make themselves known a little more.

Yet today there are many tools that allow you to generate readable instructions, but maybe it was too much work ...

The few comics on offer struggle to hide the impression of shoddy work that emerges from this new volume. It's uninteresting filler, just to create a semblance of interactivity. We are very far from the promised "Adventure".

Since the proposed creations do not meet the most demanding creative challenge, this book is aimed primarily at young audiences. Unfortunately, the completion of this third volume is so poor that young LEGO fans should quickly tire of trying to decipher the instructions on offer.

I say no, at € 27 for 150 pages of passable photos and muddled instructions, this LEGO Workshop is not up to what the first volume of this series released in 2014 offered (LEGO Workshop 1: Ideas to build).

Megan Rothrock continues to exploit her juicy vein, some MOCeurs probably find there a forum to publicize their art and pocket some royalties in the process and sales are clearly sufficient to justify the publication of new volumes, but she does so less and less good.

LEGO Workshop 3: Brick Adventures - 192 pages - 27.00 €

Note: we do as usual, you have until October 15, 2017 at 23:59 p.m. to manifest yourself in the comments.

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.

The offer of books around LEGO products continues to grow and if some of them are simple collections of beautiful creations to leaf through from time to time or catalogs filled with official visuals surfing on the popularity of such and such range, other books are more intended to help develop your creativity in a less passive way.

Your LEGO Movies: The Perfect Director's Manual falls into this last category of books from which one discovers a particular subject and one improves certain techniques in passing. This is the French version of the book The LEGO Animation Book written by David Pagano (paganomation) and David Pickett (brick 101), two benchmark Brickfilms directors.

For those who do not yet know, a Brickfilm is a video sequence featuring LEGO bricks and minifigs animated frame by frame (stop motion). Directing a Brickfilm therefore requires a lot of patience and creativity, but also requires some serious technical knowledge on the part of the director for the result to be visually successful. Many try, few manage to produce original content that is really enjoyable to watch.

This book is a real guide that will help the bravest to embark on this time-consuming and demanding activity. But did you really have to write a book to learn how to make an animated film? Both authors have thought of everything and this guide has an interesting common thread that highlights the purpose of the content, the video below. Many shots of this film are also used as illustrations for the various chapters of the book.

Watch a first time The Magic Picnic like an ordinary spectator before you start reading the book and then return to it with your eye of a director in the making to understand how the techniques presented in the book are implemented. You will then have set foot in this hobby which allows you to approach the passion for LEGO from an original angle.

Over the 216 richly illustrated pages, Your LEGO Movies: The Perfect Director's Manual really tackles all aspects of making brickfilms, from script writing to post-production, selecting a suitable camera, setting up optimized lighting and creation of special effects. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I had the impression that I had in my hands a product that really covered the subject.

As a regular viewer of the various more or less successful brickfilms that flood Youtube, I found answers to the questions I usually ask myself by discovering certain creations that fall short of recurring technical gaps: How to properly light a scene and especially keep the same level of lighting throughout the sequence, how to ensure perfect fluidity of the animation, how to tell a story with a beginning and an end, etc ...

Well-informed directors may only find there reminders of elementary rules that they already know by heart, but fans who want to get started will have in their hands a fun and well-researched manual that should help them methodically solve all problems. which they may face in their quest for the perfect Brickfilm.

Be careful, the book is not the result of an extreme popularization of this hobby which seeks to appeal to very young audiences. The assistance of an adult to explain certain technical terms to the youngest will therefore be welcome, in order to allow them to continue to progress in their discovery of this art.

I meet a lot of LEGO fans who have at least once wanted to create their own films. Most don't really know where to start and just spend hours looking at the creations of talented directors who don't really share their crafting secrets.

Their numerous attempts to produce something correct in turn sometimes end up discouraging them definitively, either because the result does not live up to their expectations, or because their audience generally does not fail to point the finger with a finger. your condescending the faults of their creation. Our skills as parents on the subject are often very limited and this book is in my opinion a relevant solution to give the youngest the keys to an enriching and creative activity.

David Pagano and David Pickett make an effort here to be truly didactic and the book is organized into thematic chapters to which those who have already started their career as an animator / director can refer to in case of doubt or need to find an answer. specific to a particular technical question.
I say yes, to arouse vocations or to deepen the subject.

The book, edited by Huginn & Munnin, is available at amazon at the price of 18.95 €. To offer with a small box to move without delay from theory to practice.

Note: we do as usual, you have until October 7, 2017 at 23:59 p.m. to manifest yourself in the comments.

Update : The winner was drawn at random and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.

The LEGO Ninjago Movie, this is the other LEGO-based movie of this year 2017, after The LEGO Batman Movie, and the third film featuring bricks and minifigs to be released in theaters since The LEGO Movie (2014)

I was able to attend a press screening and I am giving you my first impressions of this new animated film which features young ninjas who are already heroes of their own TV series.

I'm an adult and despite all the indulgence and benevolence I generally have for anything related to the LEGO universe, I left the room a little disappointed. However, I did not expect a film tribute to the entire LEGO generation as it was in its time The LEGO Movie with its winks, its references and the possible double reading of the subject. This film is obviously aimed at a very young audience who will happily laugh at easy jokes and let themselves be carried away by the omnipresent rehearsal comedy.

If you don't want to know anything about the movie before you go see it, stop by here.

Technically, the film is set back. Those who remember The LEGO Movie will be disappointed to see that here the brick does not occupy the entire screen. Natural sets are not made from LEGO bricks. You get used to it quickly, but sometimes you have the impression of watching one of those late afternoon cartoons on an obscure children's channel. Everything in the background is simplified, suggested and a little blurry. Ultimate paradox, LEGO sells sets containing reproductions in LEGO bricks of elements which themselves are simple drawings in the film ...

The director has also given himself some liberties with the minifigs which in the process lose their main characteristics of bits of plastic with relatively limited possibilities. Visually, the minifigs are believable, even over-textured, but the arms and legs of the characters too often take improbable angles and seem to float on the torso, especially during fight scenes. The same goes for the characters' heads, which sometimes tilt a little too much. We also discover that the characters' hands can hold and manipulate objects whose diameter is much greater. The animation of the eyes and the mouth seems to me less well integrated than on the two previous films, enough in any case for me to ask myself the question when leaving the room. These details will be considered trivial by most spectators.

After an introductory sequence that defines its context, the film begins strong, almost hysterically, with a few minutes on which the various trailers (and sets) seen so far are based.

It's rhythmic, the action scenes are readable, and humor helps to relativize the violence suggested. Ninjago City is ravaged, the civilians are fleeing, the bad guys are ruthless, the ninjas are coming to the rescue and the kids will love it because they came for it. The different mechs make a quick passage in the film, we will not see them again later. This entry would almost sound like a well-timed ad to make sure that even if you lose track later, you will still go and buy a derivative.

And suddenly, the film falls irremediably into simplistic psychological melodrama about father-son relationships, the burden of inheritance, difference and its social consequences and gets lost in useless chatter during endless scenes punctuated with jokes. without interest to dilute the whole. The subject of the film becomes confused, even if we already know the end.

Everything else becomes incidental and secondary, Godzichat included, and the film only revolves around Lloyd, his father and his mother with boring flashbacks and moralizing happy ending. Lots of downtime and static scenes. The little ones will probably lose track and start to get impatient.

It's more of a film about Lloyd and his father than anything else. The other ninjas act as extras, you don't hear them much and they just nod, take offense or laugh. Good for the judoka Teddy Riner who lends his voice to Cole and painfully recites his text. Don't expect to see the plethora of "civilians" sold in the various sets playing a role in the film, either. It almost looks like LEGO made up their names.

Unlike The LEGO Movie, the director here puts the viewer at ease from the beginning of the film: The putting into perspective of the toy which is ultimately only at the service of the one who plays is announced. The LEGO Movie ended by reminding us that the LEGO products on sale at the corner store have the power to tell all the stories coming out of your imagination, here we are informed from the start that they are only a vector of transmission of the moral of the film. This is not a movie about the adventures of young ninjas well known to fans. It's a somewhat boring and conventional moralizing fable told through LEGO toys.

What could have been family entertainment based on a universe much appreciated by the youngest turns into a laborious tale that wants to tackle many social topics and does so in a clumsy and reductive way, as if this giant advertisement needs to be made up as an ode to tolerance and the acceptance of difference to give oneself a clear conscience.

Children will undoubtedly find what they are looking for, especially during the first part of the film. Garmadon is a cartoonish super-villain who still has a heart, ninjas are stronger together, in short, you know the song. The on-screen stealth of the content of some sets based on the film (all the boxes featuring the different robots) is a little disappointing, but as we will only remember these really successful action scenes punctuated by winks. look at Pacific Rim or Transformers, it's not that big of a deal.

Release in theaters on October 11th.

Today we are talking about the set 17101 LEGO Boost Creative Toolbox, the new LEGO kit which intends to reconcile plastic bricks and multimedia functions and which will incidentally prepare your children to enter the Mindstorms universe.

The alibi of learning to program is often put forward as soon as we talk about this product, as if the educational guarantee had become essential to sell a toy of this type. Rest assured, it is indeed a toy.

If you want to give yourself a good conscience by offering your offspring a kit at 159.99 € that will allow them to get a job as an engineer at NASA, go your way. Here, we have fun above all and the programming side is in fact a few icons that we move in the interface of the application so that the robot performs a few simple actions. Those who discovered the concept Scratch at school will be on familiar ground, others will quickly adapt to this simplified programming interface.

As with the kit LEGO Education WeDo 2.0, you just need to know how to recognize the pictograms on the different icons to bring the different robots to life and have a good time. Nothing very complicated.

Those who already know the Mindstorms concept will not be disoriented here, with a kit from the same barrel which is aimed at a younger audience and which highlights the new connectors Power Functions already present in the new boxes of the LEGO Education range.

While waiting for a new version of the Mindstorms Kit integrating sensors equipped with these more compact connectors, the younger generation will therefore be able to get their hands on this LEGO Boost kit delivered with a main brick (Move hub) which manages the Bluetooth connection and has two motors, an interactive motor and a motion, distance and color sensor.

In the box, 840 pieces that will be used to assemble the five models offered. Impossible to assemble them all at the same time with the supplied inventory, it is necessary to disassemble at least partially one of them to build another one.

I (re) specify in passing that you must have a tablet under iOS 10.3 and above or Android 5.0 and above to take advantage of all the interactivity promised by LEGO. Bluetooth essential.

No Windows version, so exit the use of Surface tablets and other clones. Lego ad upcoming compatibility with Fire 7 and HD8 tablets sold by amazon and that's good news: these tablets are affordable.

The use of the application provided for programming the various elements is essential here. All interactivity is also deported to the tablet on which the application is installed. For example, the sound comes out only through the speakers of the tablet. Ditto for the acquisition of sound orders which will go through the microphone of the tablet. The magic of the concept is a little attenuated.

The application will have to be quickly updated, its ergonomics can be improved. Navigating the menus and sub-menus is a bit laborious due to many slowdowns even with a latest generation iPad. The instructions are sometimes difficult to read in low light and the app drains the tablet battery really quickly.

No paper documentation in this set, everything goes through the tablet too. It's a shame, LEGO could have at least been able to print the assembly instructions for the different robots even if the choice of mixing assembly phases and discovery sequences of the interaction possibilities offered by each model justifies this choice.

The learning phase is highly scripted, you will have to get to the end of the giant tutorial to then be able to give free rein to your imagination if you have not given up by then. For each "robot", you will have to go through different stages that detail the functions one by one before getting down to business and accessing an even larger inventory of creative programming. What seemed like a good idea quickly turns into a painstaking process that will strain the patience of the youngest. The child will at least discover the notion of perseverance ...

The assembly steps presented on the tablet are identical to those usually present in the paper format booklets. No 3D rotation of the assembly in progress, which would however have been useful to allow the youngest to better understand the placement of parts from different perspectives.

The "smart" brick, the Move hub, is powered by six AAA batteries which will also quickly run out. Fortunately, these batteries can be replaced without taking everything apart. A rechargeable battery with a micro-USB port would have been welcome, we are in 2017 ...

Please note, this is not a radio-controlled toy to be controlled as you see fit via a virtual remote control. You have to assign specific actions and then launch the sequence that allows them to be carried out. Vernie the robot, often put forward in communication around the LEGO Boost concept, is not an autonomous and intelligent robot either. It will only do what you ask it to do through the app.

I have only built two models out of the five offered and I am far from having toured all the possibilities offered by this set, but this forced coupling between LEGO bricks and multimedia device looks in my opinion for the moment more like an attempt not yet completely convincing to divert the attention of all those children who prefer to play or watch videos on their iPad than to a really successful concept. The promise is enticing, the realization is a bit disappointing. Hopefully, by Christmas, LEGO will have fixed the few flaws in the app that are spoiling the experience a bit.

LEGO mentions that this set is intended for children between the ages of 7 and 12. It's a bit pretentious. I think a 12-year-old kid today expects a little more from an interactive toy than what LEGO Boost has to offer. With a little help navigating the different menus, the youngest will get by. The application contains almost no text outside of the initial configuration phase. Everything else is based on illustrations and pictograms.

In short, if you already have a (very) recent tablet and you are ready to let your children monopolize it for long hours, go for it, you will make people happy. Stick around, they'll probably need your help moving forward without dropping everything along the way.

Special thanks RobotAdvance, official distributor of the LEGO Education range in France, who provided me with this kit. Do not hesitate to contact the brand via his website or his facebook page if you have any questions regarding the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 ranges, LEGO Boost or LEGO Education.

Note: We do as usual, you have until September 30, 2017 at 23:59 p.m. to manifest yourself in the comments.

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.