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Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 2:37 am
by Bruce N H
Hey guys,

This went up on FBTB a little bit ago, so I assume it's being presented officially at BrickCon this evening. Due out in January, the biggest Super Heroes set so far - Arkham Asylum Breakout

Image

Be sure to check out the full size image to see lots of cool details, including some intriguing new elements.

Bruce

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 8:07 am
by Redav
Interesting use of things like the frog, cuff and weapons like a sai and claw. LEGO has certainly become more dynamic with the use if their pieces over the last decade. I was hoping to see a green hood but maybe next time?

Thanks for posting, Bruce.

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 2:00 pm
by Bluesecrets
Indeed it was shown at Brickcon. It is very lovely. Packed full of amazing details to make it look gothic. All but two of the figs are new versions. It has some nice moving features too. It has references to some of the movies and comic books built in it too.

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 2:10 pm
by Bruce N H
Hey Blue (or anyone else at BrickCon),

Could you get a good picture of that new wing element that is part of the statues by the gate?

Thanks!
Bruce

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 4:47 pm
by Ryclen
I also see grey Gollum arms. :tasty: Unfortunately, unless this set is going for $30, I doubt I'll be able to afford it with all the LOTR and Hobbit stuff going around. It does look very nice though.

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 5:29 pm
by DNL
Bruce, I found a picture of the wing.
I'm not really interested in the super heroes sets, but i'm impressed by how few big prefab pieces this set contains.

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2012 2:13 am
by Athos
This set really isn't doing much for me. Maybe its all the dark bley (I have a ton of it). The only really interesting parts to me are Harleen Quinzell figure and those wings...

Steve

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 11:48 am
by andhe
Redav wrote:Interesting use of things like the frog, cuff and weapons like a sai and claw. LEGO has certainly become more dynamic with the use if their pieces over the last decade. I was hoping to see a green hood but maybe next time?

Thanks for posting, Bruce.
I don't know if you mean Green Arrow, or an actual green lego hood, but the Dr Doom fig in a future Marvel set has a green hood.

I think someone said the wing was a Chima piece so interesting to see it debut in a superheroes set first!

I wonder why TLG are basically just updating all their old sets? Haven't all the Batman sets basically been updates of the old line? Even down to the figs/characters involved. I guess this seems to work ok for Star Wars, and it's not a complaint (seeing as the majority of people don't own, or would be unaware of the previous versions), just from a creative perspective, I would have thought the design department would want to be a bit more adventurous.

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 3:21 pm
by Bruce N H
andhe wrote: I wonder why TLG are basically just updating all their old sets? Haven't all the Batman sets basically been updates of the old line? Even down to the figs/characters involved.
Hey,

It comes down to the fact that LEGO's main audience isn't us, the AFOLs who have been around an collecting for years, and who buy older sets on Bricklink etc. Instead they are primarily selling to ten year olds (well, their parents). Today's ten year old wasn't into System sets the last time they released the Batman line, so you've got a whole new buying audience that doesn't have any of the previous version of the sets. And once you've decided to do a Batman line, you pretty much have to release certain things - the Batmobile, the Batcave, Batplane, Batboat, and certain villains like the Joker, before you can go on to other - perhaps worthy, but more obscure - settings, vehicles and characters.

I'd compare LEGO in some ways to how Disney re-releases their classic movies on DVD. Both Disney and LEGO market primarily to kids, both classic products that still wear very well, both have been around for generations, so that parents (and grandparents) who enjoyed their products when they were young are now buying them for a new generation of kids. We just bought the new edition of Cinderella this weekend, and Disney is advertising that you need to buy it now because it's going "back in the vault". They can do this, because they have this catalog of classic product - next year they'll have a special edition of Sleeping Beauty or whatever, and after that a remastered Little Mermaid, etc etc etc, and then in ten years they'll be ready to release a new iteration of Cinderella. And by that time, there will be a whole new batch of kids and young parents. In addition to the rotating new generations of customers, with each new iteration there is some updated material, so even those who got it in the past might want a new version. So this time it's on Blu-Ray, while ten years ago it was on DVD, and ten years before that it was on VHS. And there's new content - we watched a clip with our daughter that looked at concept art and songs that never made it into the movie. Or to take another example, they also can re-release movies to the theater every so many years. So my kids hadn't seen Nemo on the big screen, since it was years before they were born, so now we can see it in the theater again. But not just the new generation, they've added new content - this time it's in 3-D. Without ever generating new content, Disney could continue earning money for decades just by re-tooling their old movies.

Okay, back to LEGO. In addition to hitting a new generation of buyers, as with the new DVD release, you get new bonus features - redesign, new features, new figs, etc. So even those who bought the original might want to buy the new version as well.

Bruce

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 5:28 pm
by ffilz
Spot on Bruce.

If my budget allowed it, I would absolutely buy multiple copies of this set.

Frank

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 10:47 am
by andhe
You only quoted half of what I said!...
andhe wrote: I wonder why TLG are basically just updating all their old sets? Haven't all the Batman sets basically been updates of the old line? Even down to the figs/characters involved. I guess this seems to work ok for Star Wars, and it's not a complaint (seeing as the majority of people don't own, or would be unaware of the previous versions), just from a creative perspective, I would have thought the design department would want to be a bit more adventurous.
I appreciate that the majority of the current Lego buying market won't have an recollection of previous models, and that TLG need to cover classic/iconic scenes/vehicles, and I guess in some regards, there's only a certain amount of ways you can make a lego batmobile/asylum/batcave etc.

But my point was more, that from a design point of view (working in that field myself) it's a lot more satisfying to create something new, than re-hash someones previous idea.

For example, the Funhouse was something that hadn't been done before, fitted into the DC line very well, had a good balance of figures, a reasonable price point, and consequently did very well!

I'm not knocking the designer, or the model, which having watched the design video I actually think is very good. But he's obviously just working to the design brief given to him. It just feels like TLG has dusted off the old project spec, changed the date to 2013 and asked them for a 'quick win' rather than innovating.

For those interested in the designer video, it's on Lego's facebook here https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=662924357701

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:09 pm
by Count Blacktron
I have the old Batman Arkham set, and while it was welcome as an addition at the time it is not a great set design, sort of like the first Harry Potter Hogwarts. This new update is not only a remarkably more mature building set, but it more accurately reflects the Batman Arkham game as well so it will appeal to a broader base than just kids. Most people were not even aware of the original one until after the set came and went. The pluses of getting some of the same characters over again is that it frees up the parts from those figures to make my own characters/costume updates for other creations.

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2012 5:59 am
by TeufelHund
I'm on the fence about this - I have a couple of the new batman sets and quite like them (the new Batmobile is a thing of beauty) but I'm not sure about this...I guess I'll just have to wait and see. I was thinking about getting the Haunted House too but in the end settled for the Vampire Castle as I prefered the interactivity and castle-friendly bits to the fairly staid and dull looking Haunted House (even though I can't actually stand the Monster Fighters themselves).

Re: Arkham Asylum Breakout

Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2012 9:17 pm
by AK_Brickster
Duuude.... the vampire castle is vastly inferior to the haunted house in terms of MOC-ability. The haunted house has more parts, fewer big panels/prefab pieces, lots of sand green..... the list goes on!

I am most excited to get some of the new wing pieces from this set. I was discussing with some people how to attach them to the back of a regular fig though. There doesn't seem to be an easy solution to it just yet. (having just built the Black Pearl for the first time last night, the two clips in between the torso and the 2x2x3 slope work well, but wouldn't work if you wanted to attach the wings to a legged minifig)