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Messages - efranks

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Watto's Junk Yard / Re: Harry Potter
« on: January 2, 2013, 12:01 AM »
Dredging this thread up.  I spent most of yesterday and today watching all 8 Potter films.  I've been reading through the series again, just started Half Blood Prince, but had sort of planned the marathon a while ago. 

When we went to Celebration VI this year, I went to Universal again to see the HP attraction and on th way out picked up a couple bottles of Pumpkin Juice and a chocolate frog and figured a marathon was a good time to for them.  It takes about 20 hours to watch everything so I watched the first 4 movies yesterday and finished the rest off today.  It was a really lazy way to spend the holiday but it was fun. 

With the books fresh in my mind, I've seen the movies more, it surprised me how much GoF, OotP and HBP were changed.  The first time I'd read the novels it had been a while since I'd seen a couple of the films and vice versa next time I saw the movies.  The first three films (w/ some variances in Prisoner) are pretty accurate so I guess I forgot how different the next three are.  I still love the movies, but I think I'm a little less impressed with their interpretations than I have been in the past.

And I'm still not at all happy with the end of Deathly Hallows 2 when Harry doesn't fix his busted wand. 

Still have to finish off reading HBP and then read the DH, though. 



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197
Middle Earth / Re: LOTR LEGO
« on: December 30, 2012, 08:03 PM »
When  you build Shelob, she has the large "bulb" on the back end and the string goes inside that on a spool.  The rod that goes through the spool extends through the bottom and there's a Technix gear on the bottom that you use to wind/unwind the string.

But on the bottom of the main body, not part of the bulb, is a light grey 2x2 axle with wheels on each end that doesn't connect to the mechanism for winding/unwinding the string.  It seems like it could be of some use w/ the string, but nothing in the instructions shows this and none of the play pattern shown really addresses it either.  So, it kind of becomes a useless piece and, like I said, kind of random.

I guess you could come up with something to use it for, with the string somehow, but it just seems like an odd addition.

And one other thing, did anyone else end up with a lot of extra pieces on this set?  I had a lot more than usual, I had 3 Rings, 2 Stings, an extra arm for Gollum and some other random pieces.  It was a lot of stuff.

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198
LEGO / Re: LEGO
« on: December 30, 2012, 03:08 AM »
As I posed over in the Middle Earth section, I hit up another Walmart Sat afternoon, mostly looking for more sale items.  Found and bought the Shelob and Moria set.  They had the Dino Defense for half off and some misc City sets on discount but I don't think they were all 50%. 

All of the SW sets that have seen markdowns were sold out.

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199
Middle Earth / Re: LOTR LEGO
« on: December 30, 2012, 02:49 AM »
I just picked up the Shelob set at Walmart today and put it together.  I really like Shelob, I think it's a pretty cool build but I have a question; does anyone know what the light grey axle and wheels are for on the bottom?

They seem entirely random.  I thought they might be there for later in the build, something to do with the "web" but there's nothing in the instructions about that so, unless I imagine some usage, I just don't get it.  I took them off.  Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Anyway, I braved the snow today and hit up a WM in the next town over.  Found the Shelob set for $13 and picked up the Mines of Moria set for $54.  They also had Weathertop on sale but I think it was $40 and that didn't seem like as good of a deal.  They didn't have Helm's Deep and I don't think they had the add-on Uruk-hai Army set either.  They did have Gandalf Arrives but I don't think it was on sale.

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200
LEGO / Re: LEGO
« on: December 28, 2012, 11:12 AM »
Heard there were some good finds at Walmart and Target on Lego over the last couple of days.  Of course, we were snowed in yesterday so I didn't get out, and Target had already been picked clean, but I stopped at Walmart on the way to work this morning.

I scanned the Jabba's Palace and Millennium Falcon sets, which have been found on markdown, but they were scanning at normal price.  I also checked the Avenger Quinjet set and it wasn't marked down either.

But, I found the Triceratops Trapper and Space Center sets for 50% off and bought them. 

The price scanner at my WM is not that close so I got tired of making trips, but I think I'm going back over after work because some stores have had the Malevolence and Republic Frigate marked down also and I want to check them.  Also sounds as if some LOTR and quite a few of the City sets are marked down so I'm going to check them also.

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201
Middle Earth / Re: The Hobbit -LEGO
« on: December 25, 2012, 01:33 AM »
TRU is notorious for being up to $30 over WM and Target prices on Lego sets.  I was in there Sunday and they still had some Harry Potter Hogwarts (4867) sets which retailed for $49.99...TRU had them for $79.99.  Even when it's not the holiday season, TRU is still way over the odds on sets.

I think they do it because, like Diddly said, they can be the last stop for people that find stuff sold out at WM and Target, plus they carry a lot more inventory than either of the other two.  They have the mindset that since they're really the only toy retailer left, on a large scale, that they're a destination and people will pay more for the experience.

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202
Watto's Junk Yard / Re: 'The Hobbit' movie
« on: December 19, 2012, 01:18 PM »
...and the "Under the Mountain" song the dwarves sing right after that was freaking awesome.

That was one of my favorite parts of the movie.  That song was perfect.

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203
Joe Defender / Re: GI Joe Retaliation - The Toys!
« on: December 17, 2012, 04:02 PM »
I didn't see any figures or vehicles, but my Target put out 3 or so of the Ninja Gun that The Rock uses in the film; straight to clearance.  I'm planning on haunting the clearance section at Target just to see what they put out...they suddenly found another case of that Maul/Opress/Sister pack for clearance and, while not marked down yet, had at least one more case of that abysmal BP offering that included the Bomb Squad CW Clone and the terrible Han/Chewie/C-3PO set...not marked clearance, though.  God, Hasbro ****** up the last year.

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204
Watto's Junk Yard / Re: The Walking Dead
« on: December 17, 2012, 09:42 AM »
There was definitely some creepiness to Axel when he was talking to Beth but then after Carol pulled him aside he made the comment about thinking she was gay.  When she said she wasn’t, he seemed a little more interested in her before she shut him down.  So I think there was a moment there where it could have gone one way then didn’t.  I think it wasn’t so much he’s a pedophile as, like he said, he hadn’t seen a woman in a long time and started with the one he thought the most available.

But here’s a fun tidbit; the chick that plays Beth?  She’s about 27.

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205
Watto's Junk Yard / Re: Official Movie Thread
« on: December 14, 2012, 01:37 PM »
What's with all the desroyed future Earths movies?  Saw trailers last night for Oblivion, After Earth, The Host and there might even have been one more.

Don't get me wrong, they all looked kind of interesting, but that seems to be the theme of next year's films.

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206
Watto's Junk Yard / Re: 'The Hobbit' movie
« on: December 14, 2012, 01:20 PM »
Saw this last night in 3D and really liked it.  There are quite a few changes from the book but I was mostly okay with them.  There's a whole extra villain introduced into the movie that's not in the book and the Dwarves are a little more bad-ass than in the book.

I thought that the higher frame rate was supposed to cut down on motion blur, but I noticed a few placed where the blur was terrible; some of the beginning scenes in Dale, during their run through the Goblin layer in the mountian and one other that I'm forgetting now.  Otherwise, I thought the film looked gorgeous and the 3D made some things really pop.  Jackson also, IMO, did a good job in letting the 3D enhance things and didn't play it as a gag so he could throw stuff "out" of the screen at you, sort of like how Cameron treated Avatar, but unlike how pretty much everyone else treats it.

There's a decent article over on The Daily Beast pointing out 19 changes from the book to film.  I think the writer is nitpicking on a couple of them, meaning yes, they are changes, but they're so minor I probably wouldn't think to point them out, and I think she missed the point on at least one of them...still a good article, though.

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207
Watto's Junk Yard / Re: Stupid **** From the Internet Thread.
« on: December 12, 2012, 04:03 PM »
Thought I'd post his here.  Maybe we should have a ****** Movie Poster thread.  Anyway, saw the movie poster for Tom Cruise's movie Oblivion and thought it looked a little familiar.  Then I looked closer and decided it needed an update.



They're making it too easy.

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208
Watto's Junk Yard / Re: 'The Hobbit' movie
« on: December 12, 2012, 01:59 PM »
Ordered my ticket last night.  Opted to see this in 3D which I normally don't do.  Even my relatively small local theater has sold out several showings of both 2D and 3D viewings for midnight tomorrow.  Starting to get excited for this.

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209
LEGO / Re: LEGO
« on: December 12, 2012, 01:56 PM »
I wanted the Robot and Pirate Captain but never found them...and that was about it.  Wasn't interested in any of the others.  My Target just put out a small display of Series 7 and I pulled an Aztec and another Galaxy Patrol figure, though.

I have a spare Pirate Captain, would you be interested in trading for the Galaxy Patrol?

I guess I read over this earlier.  Thanks for the offer but I'm hanging on to the GP figures to go with my classic Space sets.

Noticed last night that Target sold through all the Series 7 minifigs they put out, they went fast.  But they put some S8 in the bin, added some of the bagged Batmobile sets from the holiday section and filled it back up.

I also saw that Target has bagged TIE Fighter sets in the checkout aisles.  I think it's still set 8028 which has been out a few times.  It is in the Movie Heroes style Maul packaging, which is how WM sold it back around Easter time.

Adam over at Galactic Hunter posted to Twitter a few days ago that he spotted some bagged sets at WM.  He mentioned an MTT and something else.  I figured they probably had another shelf bin with sets like the did in March when they had the TIE, Republic Attack cruiser, SD and STAP.  I haven't seen them locally, anyone else finding them?

My Walmart's stock of Star Wars Lego got decimated sometime in the last 2 or 3 days.  Nearly all of the sets across all price ranges were cleaned out.  Just a handful of the most expenisve sets, like Jabba's palace and the Malevolence, and the cheaper sets that they had a lot of stock of, like the Planet sets, left.  A few here and there of the other sizes but Battle Packs, the red TOR fighter, Jedi Starfighters...gone.

City got pretty wiped out at Target this week too, with the BOGOHO sale.  Still a lot left but if history is any indication, two weeks from today they should have bare shelves as well.  Target almost completely sells out of Lego this time of year, every year.

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210
I could see Hasbro basically punt in 2014 but I hope not.  If they do let the VC figures ride until the middle of 2013 and then roll out the new BaD figures we've seen, they could use late 2013 and 2014 to do a couple of waves of OT and PT characters from their parking lot to sort of clear them out to concentrate on Sequel Trilogy figures from there on out. 

The easier approach, of course, would be just to re-pack a lot of crap in 2014 and basically not do any new tooling.  If they put out the right characters it could work, but I don't trust them to do that, they'll keep Maul, Vader, Luke, Obi-Wan and Anakin in the mix, and we really don't need any more of them, basically, ever.  Or at least until they've had a good break.

Jeff might be onto something though, about the figures that have recently started showing up at WM and TRU again.  This plan may already be in motion and that's why we're seeing them.  I guess it's always possible that Hasbro worked with the retailers, said they'd hold onto the new stuff and maybe gave them a deal on the VC stuff so they'd take them.  Might be better for Hasbro to cut a deal with the big 3 retailers rather than cutting a deal with the Five Below, TJ Maxx/Marshalls, Ross type stores.

"Fan favorite" is definitely marketing spin but really, there are some good characters in those cases.  Some good army builders, Vizla, Tarkin, Anakin, Luke...they're good figures and from reading the forums, it seems like there is still room in the market for more.  Lot of people haven't seen some of these and even though they've been online, you have to think that there are still collectors out there not on the forums and that don't order online and they've probably not haid their fill of these yet.

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