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LEGO Elves!


Aanchir

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Next March, LEGO is introducing a new girl-oriented theme called LEGO Elves! The teaser site has images of the main characters, a video, and a taste of the theme's otherworldly setting of Elvendale.

 

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The characters, from left to right, are Aira Windwhistler, Farran Leafshade, Emily Jones, Naida Riverheart, and Azari Firedancer! The four elf characters represent the elements of Air, Earth, Water, and Fire, respectively!

 

Here's a story description translated from the German catalog (pages 46–47): "Join Emily Jones in her exciting journey through the magical world of Elvendale, beginning at a mysterious door in her grandmother's garden. Emily needs help to find the way back home. In order to open the gate to that separates her from her home, Emily must find four keys - but she can only manage this with the help of her elven friends. Learn all the details about LEGO Elves on LEGO.com/elves and download the app, to witness the adventure!"

 

I am so incredibly excited for this theme! It's got a lot of the same magic that drew me to themes like BIONICLE and Ninjago, but wrapped up in my teenage love of magical fantasy races from fairy tales and folklore! I've been saying for a while that what LEGO needed to follow up the success of LEGO Friends was a dedicated in-house fantasy theme for girls, and this one has so far surpassed my wildest expectations!

 

What do you think about this theme?

Edited by Aanchir
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By the way, is Friends being replaced by this?

 

-NotS

Nope, in the same catalogue there's quite a few new Friends sets listed... ;)

 

Yeah, the two themes are going to carry on separately. On some levels, you could say that Friends is to LEGO City as Elves is to LEGO Ninjago.

 

We can expect more Elves sets in the summer, since the sets we've seen only include three of the magical keys. There's some type of castle or temple in the background of some of the catalogs and box art that I'm sure will play a big role in the story, and might very easily appear in the sets as well. I think it's where the characters need to bring the keys once they've found all four of them, since it appears alongside the keys on the map Emily's holding on the box art.

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Any set pictures yet?

Yep! Click here and jump to page 46. All the set images are clickable and bring up images of the sets' boxes, along with German product descriptions. Here are some links to see the box images in full-size, for convenience's sake:Brickset also has images of the sets out of their packages. Edited by Aanchir
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The name struck me as a bit underwhelming so I sort of ignored it at first, but looking at this information, it does seem pretty interesting.  The four elemental keys are really drawing on my Final Fantasy memories!  It'll be neat to see where this goes.

Edited by Pahrak #0579
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Any set pictures yet?

Yep! Click here and jump to page 46. All the set images are clickable and bring up images of the sets' boxes, along with German product descriptions. Here are some links to see the box images in full-size, for convenience's sake:Brickset also has images of the sets out of their packages.

 

*shakes head* Too much good Lego, not enough money. 

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Quite interesting actually... Generally I don't like this sort of thing. I doubt I'll be getting any sets, but it looks decent. The elemental thing is neat, I don't really think they've done that with anything other than Bionicle and Ninjago so far. Both of those were pretty great, so I've got good expectations for this. It's more... hm, what's the word? More... Ah, that's it! The art style. It's very different than Lego's past series, and that's a good thing. The last great series I remember that had new, different art was Exo-Force... and I still want to know how that ended.

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I heard a RUMOR this is replacing Friends in the summer. 

 

False, right?

Absolutely false. Friends is still massively successful, there's no sense in replacing it with something that doesn't even fit into the same genre. What's more, the upcoming wave of Friends sets is still fairly large, and the first wave of Elves sets is much smaller. When a theme is on its way out and a new theme is on its way in to replace it, usually the reverse is true: the new theme will get a very large first wave, while the returning theme gets a significantly reduced final wave.
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I heard a RUMOR this is replacing Friends in the summer. 

 

False, right?

Absolutely false. Friends is still massively successful, there's no sense in replacing it with something that doesn't even fit into the same genre. What's more, the upcoming wave of Friends sets is still fairly large, and the first wave of Elves sets is much smaller. When a theme is on its way out and a new theme is on its way in to replace it, usually the reverse is true: the new theme will get a very large first wave, while the returning theme gets a significantly reduced final wave.

 

 

Such as: Bionicle stars vs. Hero Factory's explosive first year. to give a familiar example.

Edited by Rahkshi Lalonde

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I heard a RUMOR this is replacing Friends in the summer. 

 

False, right?

Absolutely false. Friends is still massively successful, there's no sense in replacing it with something that doesn't even fit into the same genre. What's more, the upcoming wave of Friends sets is still fairly large, and the first wave of Elves sets is much smaller. When a theme is on its way out and a new theme is on its way in to replace it, usually the reverse is true: the new theme will get a very large first wave, while the returning theme gets a significantly reduced final wave.

 

 

Such as: Bionicle stars vs. Hero Factory's explosive first year. to give a familiar example.

 

Yep, 6 small sets versus a variety of 14 sets. I don't have any interest in the Friends line, but I can assure you it won't be ending for at least another year or two. As Aanchir said, they're different genres, so they'll both be running at the same time.

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Aw yeah! This looks awesome. I absolutely love the art style in the animations. I wish the Bionicle shorts could be that detailed. It reminds me of all the stuff that made Bionicle a hit, but translated for girls. And that's pretty cool. I'll definitely be on the lookout for Elves stuff.

 

What if we can even get Elves constraction sets (and/or dolls) down the line? The character designs are way too detailed to just be minifigs.

 

I think the fact that this is getting such a big launch is testament to the fact that Lego is taking girls more seriously as a demographic, and actually putting effort into it now.

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Are you sure it's directed at girls? I don't really see why it would be, there's a male character, too.

 

I want to see what their personalities are. I have a feeling Aira's gonna be my favorite, based on their names and what we know so far.

 

Also, it seems like this theme is going to make more trans-purple 1x1 round tiles available, cool.

 

I like the look of the boxes, too.

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Are you sure it's directed at girls? I don't really see why it would be, there's a male character, too.

It seems to be primarily aimed at girls in the same way that Friends and Disney Princess are primarily aimed at girls or BIONICLE, Ninjago, and Legends of Chima are primarily aimed at boys. Including girl characters in a boy-oriented theme or vice-versa helps to generate crossover appeal (because there's no reason a theme should completely exclude fans of one gender just because that gender isn't its primary target), but more importantly it helps make the theme more realistic than if it had a 100% male or female cast. Even a young girl who thinks boys are gross or boring recognizes that they exist in real life and will often want to be able to reflect that in their play.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I love the new Elves! Can't wait to get them. The concept seems really good and I love the colours they used in the sets. Definitely buying these, although I will still need some money for all those Bionicle sets, of course...  ;)

 

So far, I love 2015! There are some really good sets and themes this year.

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It's interesting, but the setting is so far a slightly generic enchanted forest. I haven't made up my mind about it yet.

It seems to me like we're going to see a fairly diverse range of environments, judging from things like like Naida's Epic Adventure Ship and the castle that appears in the background of a lot of the box art. I'm also not sure what it is about the forest areas that seems generic to you... I think what we've seen of them feels very unique and otherworldly, what with the gems growing from all the plants and the huge crystal formation at the base of one of the trees.

 

What's more, I think there's a great chance that we'll see more environments in the show than what we've seen depicted in the sets. Sets in a theme are often constrained to maintaining a very consistent design language so they appear to fit together, and thus they miss out on some of the more colorful locations that might seem awkward and out-of-place in a collection of sets. You'd never know how diverse Ninjago's environments are just from looking at the sets (especially the 2012 sets, which had few landscape features besides repetitive snake shrines)! For that matter, Voya Nui isn't all volcanoes and dark-colored fortresses, but the 2006 BIONICLE playsets certainly made it seem that way.

Edited by Aanchir
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....That was pretty good. Is it weird that I might want one of the sets?

 

Well I hope not. I do, too. As I mentioned elsewhere, I love the color scheme. It seems very unique to this line and gives the sets an otherwordly appearence that works well for a fantasy land. It reminds me a bit of Lothlorien from The Fellowship of the Ring (movie), which as far as I'm concerned is a good thing.

 

There's a lot of potential with this line, so hopefully it delivers.

BZPRPG
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....That was pretty good. Is it weird that I might want one of the sets?

 

Well I hope not. I do, too. As I mentioned elsewhere, I love the color scheme. It seems very unique to this line and gives the sets an otherwordly appearence that works well for a fantasy land. It reminds me a bit of Lothlorien from The Fellowship of the Ring (movie), which as far as I'm concerned is a good thing.

 

There's a lot of potential with this line, so hopefully it delivers.

 

I might not get the sets, but I sure will be following the story. I can't pick a favorite character yet, but this Azari chick is my type of girl.

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Two new character videos have been posted on the Elves website (but not yet put on the YouTube page). One of them is for Farran the Earth elf and the other is for Emily Jones, the human character who, in her own words, is lost. At this point I'm going to guess that the characters have to find the keys to open a portal to get her home.

 

I imagine we'll be getting the last two shortly since those two came in such close proximity to the video of Azari.

Edited by Vorahk1Panrahk2
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Two new character videos have been posted on the Elves website (but not yet put on the YouTube page). One of them is for Farran the Earth elf and the other is for Emily Jones, the human character who, in her own words, is lost. At this point I'm going to guess that the characters have to find the keys to open a portal to get her home.

 

I imagine we'll be getting the last two shortly since those two came in such close proximity to the video of Azari.

Awesome! Note that the Emily Jones video has what appears to be a new character. Maybe a relative of Aira's?

 

Incidentally, the Argos catalog for the UK seems to confirm what had been something of a suspicion of mine, which is that Elves is aimed for a slightly higher age range than the Friends and Disney Princess themes. Every set down to the smallest is being marketed for ages seven and up, as opposed to five and up or six and up for similarly priced Friends sets.

 

Also, it turns out Aira's last name is Windwhistler, not Whisperwind. I've corrected the first post accordingly. Does anybody else think it sounds like she's voiced by Ashleigh Ball from her line in Emily's character video?

 

I managed to find a site that has full product descriptions in English. There are a few neat insights there:

41071, 41072, 41073, 41074, 41075, and 41076.

 

Emily's character video appears to be stressing the importance of her pendant. It wouldn't surprise me if that is a part of how she was able to get to Elvendale in the first place, and how she will be able to travel back and forth between Elvendale and the human world once this first story arc is concluded.

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The product description confirms my guess- but I guess that wasn't exactly a hard thing to deduce. I find it odd that the baker's name is "Johnny." He appears to be an elf from the product image (those ears), but why is his name so normal? Could it be because LEGO wants to distinguish between the primary and secondary elf characters, giving the more unique names to the more important characters?

 

I thought at first that the character you pointed out was the other white one with the purple hair (Aira?), but she is wearing different clothes with a different hairstyle. I guess the two are distinctive enough in look that it won't get confusing, but a different combination would have helped. OR, since LEGO seems to have a thing for reusing characters and upgrading them, maybe that's some sort of... advanced elf form for her? She definitely has a more regal look than the others. I don't know, just making guesses. She could be a relative, or tribe member if these elves have tribes, or whatever a group of elves is called.

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From Brickset's London Toy Fair coverage:

 

Elves

 

In addition to the sets we know are coming in March, there will be two more in the Summer:

 

41077 Aira's Pegasus Sleigh (£35) - a sleigh hauled by two white horses with wings. There must have been more to it than that given the price but I can't recall. Comes with figures Azari and Aira.

 

41078 Skyra's Mysterious Sky Castle (£75) - On a c.16x32 green baseplate, primarily tan but with plenty of purple and light purple/lavender pieces. Has some sort of portal in the front of it, presumably the way back for the human character, Emily, in the story. Comes with Naida, Emily and Sky Lady figures.

Sounds exciting! And they're two things a lot of people anticipated we'd be getting as sets, since the pegasus sleigh/chariot appeared in the original trailer and the castle appears in the background of a lot of the ads and box art. Of course, it doesn't confirm which of the two sets will have the air key. I'm guessing it's the former rather than the latter, since the sky castle is presumably where the keys need to be brought to. For all we know, the castle might come with all four keys, the same way some big sets in themes like Ninjago, Atlantis, and Monster Fighters have included all of the magical artifacts from the other sets.

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Posted this in the Farran/Emily video discussion topic, but figured it could go here as well: Meet Naida and Aira. And to address Aanchir's statement above, the latter does sound suspiciously like Rainbow Dash.

Which is fantastic. We'll be able to mash up Rainbow Dash and Aira's lines just as easily as Avohkah Tamer did with Jaller and Shining Armor's.

Edited by Lyichir
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Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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  • 2 weeks later...

A new trailer has been posted on the LEGO Elves teaser site, though it's not on the YouTube channel yet. All five characters videos have made it on there as well, but they've all already been on YouTube for a while.

Good spotting! Yesterday they tried to upload that same trailer and accidentally posted the full 22-minute mini-movie that tells the story for this year. I was able to watch it, but it was taken down after just a couple hours. The pacing started out feeling a bit rushed but it quickly found its groove, and it had excellent voice acting, animation, music, and storytelling.

 

Also, if anybody's interested, the online LEGO shop now has not only the sets (not available for purchase until March, though), but also a landing page similar to the one BIONICLE got towards the end of last year. It even includes the option to sign up for an e–mail alert when the sets become available!

 

If you want to see the sets (including summer sets) in more detail, Spieletest has a video from the Nuremberg Toy Fair:

 

http://youtu.be/aK99n5q1v-4?t=35s

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