First look at Back to the Future set

The latest Lego Stores' calendar-leaflet has been released, which includes the first image released of the forthcoming Lego Cuusoo Back to the Future Delorean set:

BrickNews have also released a document which has more images of the set, including a glimpse at the box, and the minifigures included. The document also reveals that, like the original Cuusoo project proposal, the set with include parts and instructions to build three versions of the Delorean, representing it's look from each of the films in the Back to the Future trilogy:

Here are the three originally proposed versions of the set. As you can see, while it's pretty close to the submitted designs, there have been some tweaks. Notably the mechanism for turning the wheels has been changed, and looks much neater as the result. The bonnet design is also different, and while it doesn't look as smooth, it probably does allow a more stable build when adding the module on the front of the third version.

The Delorean will be available from Lego stores and online in July.

Next Cuusoo set announced, and more sets in the running

The latest Cuusoo review results have been announced, of the three sets that made it to the review stage in Autumn last year (after getting ten-thousands supporters on the Cuusoo website), one will be going into production, with second still being considered. The set that is definitely going ahead is the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover, based on the current NASA robotic rover mission on Mars, and designed by one of the engineers from the actual rover. This set builds on something of a science/exploration sub-theme within the successful Cuusoo projects to date, following on from the Shinkai 6500 Submarine, and the Hayabusa spacecraft. The set is likely to be quite similar to the design submitted, as it has been deemed well built and at about the right scale for the size set Lego expect to produce. Here are their comments on the project:

After analyzing the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover project, we learned that this product has niche appeal and strong demand from the space and education communities. The product aligns well with the LEGO Group’s mission to “inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow,” including those who will build our future in outer space.

Like the Back to the Future Time Machine, which was approved in the Summer Review, the model presented in this project is built very closely to the LEGO Group’s design standards and so the final product will be very close to Perijove’s original design. It has a high play value, it fits well with voters’ price expectations, and we’ve secured the rights from NASA to release this project as the next LEGO CUUSOO set.

For these reasons, the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover project has passed the LEGO Review, and has been selected for production as the next LEGO CUUSOO set. Pricing and availability are still being determined.

There is already a chance to win this set! Lego's reBrick website and NASA are inviting Lego builders to to make models based on future NASA missions to win the Curiosity set, once it's out, and some other NASA goodies.

Two other sets were up for review alongside the Curiosity:

• Thinking with Portals, a series of Lego game proposals based on the video game Portal 2. Despite announcing the review results, they've not quite finished looked at the possibilities of doing something with this yet, so a set might still be forthcoming.
• USC Sandcrawler from Star Wars. Lego have ruled out the Sandcrawler, citing issues with their Star Wars license. It also seems to me that this would have been a ludicrously large set. There has previously been a Sandcrawler set, which while not accurate minifigure scale was still pretty significant.

Cuusoo also released a video explaining these latest review results, check it out:



In other Cuusoo related news, a Brickset reader noted that the Minecraft set (the third Cuusoo set to be produced) has been renamed in Lego's database, from "Micro World", to "Micro World - The Forest". This appears to be setting the stage for additional Minecraft sets; a Hungarian website, Kockamania, has reported a rumour of two new sets being planned.

Meanwhile, several other projects have gotten through to the review stage recently. Continue after the jump to check them out:

The Lego Movie

Warner Brother have released the trailer and teaser poster for The Lego Movie, which is due out next February. The film comes from writers and directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who previously brought us the charming, hilarious, and beautiful, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (one of my very favourite films).

As the trailer demonstrates, the movie pulls in Lego characters and designs from the entire range of licenses and original themes, new and old - It's just as if the world of The Lego Movie takes place in your own eclectic Lego collection. There are some nice new character, location, and vehicle designs too, which surely will be translated into real world sets as well.

Voice talents include Chirs Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Liam Neeson, and Morgan Freeman. Here's the official synopsis:

The 3D computer animated adventure tells the story of Emmet, an ordinary, rules-following, perfectly average LEGO minifigure who is mistakenly identified as the most extraordinary person and the key to saving the world. He is drafted into a fellowship of strangers on an epic quest to stop an evil tyrant, a journey for which Emmet is hopelessly and hilariously underprepared.

UPDATE: An international version of the trailer has also been released, it's a bit shorted but has a few extra scenes (have added more screencaps from this below as well):

Here are some screencaps from the trailer (after the jump), which hopefully gives us some clues to a few future Collectible Minifigures (there is definitely a panda costume character among the crowds, and several new historical characters), or sets based on the film - The new characters for the film have some especially nice character designs, plus there seems to be a Western sequence:

Brickverse returns!

So, I possibly didn't pick the best time to start my new Lego blog, just a couple of months before the release of Star Trek Into Darkness - As that meant I was snowed under with the amount of Star Trek stuff I had to talk about on my Star Trek site, The Trek Collective. More normal levels of Star Trek have now returned though, so after neglecting this place for a little while, I'm back. Lots to catch up on!