fujishig

They're still available.

While there may be a lot of lego speculators (and lots and lots of people who don't mind feeling up dozens of blindbagged minifigs), Legos actually have awesome distribution, outside of the comicon melee. Lego sets basically only become hard to find after they're retired. Compare that to almost any other toy on the toy shelf, where people have to hunt them down and battle scalpers to get collectibles. I can't even imagine collecting Hot Wheels.

Lots of sets use Technic pieces now (and those Bionicle joints), but I think they integrate pretty well. Otherwise there's no way you get ships with angled wings, for instance. I've been making a lot of spaceships recently, and those understandably have fewer bricks and lots of layered flat pieces. But if you build buildings and such (like the Friends line) there are still a lot of bricks. Overall I still think they do a good job of not just creating custom pieces as a lazy way to make designs look like the stuff they're based on and a lot of the builds are pretty clever. Even that Chima/faux-Thundercats line has some cool looking stuff.

Michael Corvin

We have most of the Friends sets and they definitely got lazy with some of the bigger sets. For example, in any normal set you have a section of a wall made of overlapping 1x2s and in these they molded what is essentially 4 or 5 1x2s into a single tall piece.

fujishig

Well, there's only so many ways you can make a non-enclosed building, which is what 90% of the bigger Friends sets are. It really shows the difference between the lines, though; the City stuff is mostly vehicles and/or buildings with vehicles or action features. The Friends stuff is mostly buildings with grills, bathrooms, storage, room for pets, etc.

LJG765

Going to an actual Lego store tomorrow. Hoping to see this in person. Maybe that will help me make up my mind whether or not to buy. (And I know going in, it might not be in stock, but they usually have their more popular items built in a display case.)

GuessWho

Lucky! All I have are Central Perk & the Ross/Marcel the monkey minifig pack.

Still looking for the Monica/Rachel apartment, Chandler/Joey apartment, and the online-exclusive hallway that connects them.

LJG765

Just an update if anyone is curious. I did get to the Lego store in the Mall of America today. They had a bunch of the car in stock. Didn't see one on display, but after looking at the box, I decided to buy it anyway. That you can build all 3 models pushed me over the top. The box is fairly small, but heavy. Looking forward to building it.

Drexl

To those wanting a Lego BTTF video game, how would that work? For these games, you need a never-ending supply of bad guys to beat up. Unlike Star Wars or Batman, BTTF doesn't have that. There just isn't enough combat in BTTF. They had to look to the adventure genre to finally make a decent game.

What would they do with Lego, have Biff followed around by a bunch of goons? That might be plausible in the alternate 1985 or the wild west, but even then it would be silly because Doc and Marty don't fight their way out of trouble.

fujishig

I don't think people want a BTTF lego game as much as they want an excuse for Lego to bring out more sets.

But hey, Simpsons is coming out soon and will drain our wallets soon enough.

adrenaline78

I received my BTTF set today. Didn't even know it shipped. Anyhow while it does look amateur hour, we have to remember that this was a fan made set, and can be converted to all 3 different delorean's. I think it's pretty cool!

LJG765

I put mine together yesterday. It is pretty solid, though a bit small. There are parts that aren't the sturdiest-like the doors. For moving parts, they're pretty fragile, only one dot brick holding them on to the frame. But they do move up and down which is nice. The wheels move easily from the normal position to hover car. 98% of the car is the same for all three versions. For versions 2 and 3, you build a small hood engine part and the white thing that you fed the car with (instead of gas, forget it's name). You also change the license plate. It's really hard to get the mini figs in the car without breaking part of it and having to rebuild.

The instructions are quite nice. They are a soft bound book, with a spine, rather than just a few pages stapled together. A bit of an interview from the creators and some pages on the movie. In the instructions are snippets as well.

I also liked how they made the box. It's heavier cardboard, compact and the opening is made to "lock" into place with flaps, so you can use it for storing the instructions and extra pieces and not feel like you're taking up a ton of space for storing the box.

Overall, if you're a fan, you may want it. It's not perfect, but it's probably the closest we'll get.

CalebAndCo

"Mr. Fusion"

LJG765

I knew it was Mr. something! Thanks, drives me nuts when I can't think of the name.