Harry Potter Advent Calendar - Day 10
Posted by CapnRex101,
Minifigures have emerged on days one and five of this Advent Calendar and another minifigure therefore seems probable today, assuming the pattern continues.
Let's open the door and find out...
Ron Weasley arrives today, wearing his antiquated dress robes from the Yule Ball. The same minifigure has previously appeared in 75948 Hogwarts Clock Tower but I think such repetition can be excused because the Advent Calendar is focused upon the Yule Ball and Ron is vitally important to those scenes. Furthermore, the minifigure looks excellent.
The reddish brown dress robes appear appropriately ornate, featuring subtle patterning across both sides of the torso. I like the red frills around the collar and the billowing ruffs on Ron's shirt closely resemble the source material. Unfortunately, the jacket decoration does not continue on the medium legs but I expect that would have been difficult to achieve since these medium legs have not been dual-moulded before.
Ron is memorably determined to detest the entire Yule Ball experience so features an ideally sour expression on one side of his head. The other appears more cheerful. This dark orange hair piece looks perfect for the character and Ron includes a reddish brown wand, as normal.
Overall - 4.0 - This minifigure has appeared before which lessens its appeal, although Ron's presence was an absolute necessity in my opinion and he looks fantastic.
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16 comments on this article
I'm reluctant to criticise duplicate minifigs like this too much, on the basis that if you don't Bricklink them (which many people will not) you're looking at a very expensive set that kind of demands more purchases to fully appreciate. Not everyone has the resources to drop £85 all at once.
@CCC said:
"I agree it is necessary to include him, but this is now the second repeat minifigure from the same set. It looks like bad planning on LEGO's part to do so much Yule Ball material in the previous set."
I absolutely agree regarding the planning for Advent Calendars and 75948 Hogwarts Clock Tower. To me, the Harry Potter Advent Calendars seem overwhelmingly simple to prepare because every Harry Potter book contains entire sections dedicated to Christmas. I would have organised them as follows:
2019 - The Philosopher's Stone - 75964 Harry Potter Advent Calendar.
2020 - The Prisoner of Azkaban - Items would focus upon Hogsmeade and the Marauder's Map.
2021 - The Order of the Phoenix - Items would focus upon 12 Grimmauld Place and maybe Diagon Alley, which is not visited onscreen during Christmas but could be fun.
2022 - The Deathly Hallows - I think this is the most difficult one because Harry visiting his parents' grave, as he does at Christmas, is not entirely suitable! However, you could focus upon Godric's Hollow more broadly or perhaps produce festive ornaments inspired by the Deathly Hallows and Horcruxes, along with some requisite minifigures.
2023 - The Chamber of Secrets - Items would focus upon the Polyjuice Potion and Slytherin Common Room.
2024 - The Goblet of Fire - 75981 Harry Potter Advent Calendar. 75948 Hogwarts Clock Tower will have been retired for several years.
2025 - The Half-Blood Prince - Items would focus upon the Burrow and the Death Eater attack. By this time, 75980 Attack on the Burrow will have been retired for several years.
LEGO can have those ideas for free and move The Prisoner of Azkaban to 2024, should they be reading :o)
Oh hey, this is the part of the movie franchise where all the characters had the most awful hair-cuts.
As someone who owns the clock tower set, yeah I knew that I would have duplicates of the figures. I think they could have chosen so many other people instead of duplicating the same ones. Karkaroff for example would have gone well has we got Madame Maxine in the other set.
Harry's generic dress robes are basically an army builder as you can put another head on it, while Ron and SPOILER are not that useful if you don't already have them, but makes perfect little gifts for friends who are Potter fans. I'm giving my spares away along with some white minifig stands from The LEGO Movie 2 CMFs :) Irksome as it might be to completionists, making this set without the trio would have been a bad idea.
As for @CapnRex101's suggestions, I've been thinking along the same lines, but with a smaller scope, as I don't think a Grimmauld Place, Burrow Year Six, or Deathly Hallows calendar would be a good idea. And I certainly hope they're done with Slughorn's party, as doing it once was more than enough.
I really hope for a Polyjuice Potion themed calendar, and I think a Hogsmeade Year 3 calendar would be good, and, perhaps most likely for next year: a Dumbledore's Army themed one, alternating between Hogsmeade and the Room of Requirement. The exclusive 2x3 tile which appears to be a tradition in the making, could be the list of members.
@CapnRex101:
The HPACs are about a year behind the rest of the theme. HP did years 1-2 in 2018, years 3-4 in 2019, and years 5-6 in 2020, while the HPAC did year 1 in 2019 and year 4 in 2020. Rather than try to work every movie into an HPAC, I think they’re focusing on finding the most HPAC-worthy scenes and skipping everything else, so they don’t get further behind the rest of the theme.
Anyways, the license is not with Rowling for the books, but WB for the movies. Basing an entire HPAC on a scene that was never even filmed would be a little weird in that regard. If the pattern holds, next year should focus primarily on the final two films, while the HPAC will probably cover the Slug Club party, since that’s the only remaining Christmasy scene, and fits the 2020 focus (again, one year behind the rest of the theme).
@PurpleDave said:
" @CapnRex101 :
The HPACs are about a year behind the rest of the theme. HP did years 1-2 in 2018, years 3-4 in 2019, and years 5-6 in 2020, while the HPAC did year 1 in 2019 and year 4 in 2020. Rather than try to work every movie into an HPAC, I think they’re focusing on finding the most HPAC-worthy scenes and skipping everything else, so they don’t get further behind the rest of the theme.
Anyways, the license is not with Rowling for the books, but WB for the movies. Basing an entire HPAC on a scene that was never even filmed would be a little weird in that regard. If the pattern holds, next year should focus primarily on the final two films, while the HPAC will probably cover the Slug Club party, since that’s the only remaining Christmasy scene, and fits the 2020 focus (again, one year behind the rest of the theme)."
I am very much aware of the release strategy for LEGO Harry Potter, having spoken at length to those directing it. However, I am merely presenting what I believe should happen, rather than what I expect will happen. There is more than enough content to justify seven Advent Calendars encompassing each movie, or two movies in the case of The Deathly Hallows. In fact, LEGO could simply skip The Deathly Hallows for 2022 if they wished, thereby situating the Advent Calendars in sequence with the main sets from 2022 onwards.
Of course, the theme may not be planned to continue beyond 2021 or shortly afterwards. I find that overwhelmingly unlikely based upon its excellent sales performance but stranger things have happened with LEGO!
Also, I did not mention anything that did not appear onscreen other than Diagon Alley and that was not featured in the books during Christmas either. Even so, Diagon Alley has been transformed for Christmas at the Warner Bros. Studio Tour and we know that is considered valid source material for LEGO because they have used it before!
@CapnRex101 said:
"
Of course, the theme may not be planned to continue beyond 2021 or shortly afterwards. I find that overwhelmingly unlikely based upon its excellent sales performance but stranger things have happened with LEGO!
"
If they continue Harry Potter after they finish moving chronologically through the movies, I would like to see a Shrieking Shack, the Chamber of Secrets, and maybe something with the Ministry of Magic, based on either Order of the Phoenix or Deathly Hallows.
I would expect that next year's advent calendar is most likely to be based around the theme of Christmas at Grimmauld Place. Then we could get, for example, Sirius in his Order of the Phoenix clothes, which haven't made it to minifigure form so far; and maybe new outfits for Molly and Arthur Weasley, along with the inevitable Harry/Ron/Hermione figures. In the movie (though not the book), Arthur was 'home' for Christmas, and we see a few distinctive Wizard-Christmas decorations in that scene, such as the miniature flying-Santa-on-broomstick... plus, Lego hasn't done anything based on Grimmauld Place as far as I recall, so there could possibly be some builds that represent the house, too.
Plus, maybe a mini-model of Buckbeak, since he spent the whole movie cooped up in the attic of said house and was never actually seen ^^
I mean, if they continue the current trend, it's either that or the movie-only Death Eater attack on the Burrow, which... isn't exactly the festive material you'd expect from an Advent Calendar xD
@CapnRex101:
You may be aware, but not everyone else is. Especially with the 24-hour time limit on these posts, there’s not a lot of opportunity for back-and-forth before the comment section closes. A lot of people who do comment don’t seem to read any of the other comments, or come back after they’ve posted a comment, so it’s easier to just put it out there right away in case someone will actually read them.
I have no idea what they have planned going forward. The only five sets I’ve seen for 2021 are the Year 1 books and the mosaic (which isn’t tied to any year). I’ve been expecting Year 7 sets to be the focus next year since 2018, but maybe they’ll skip it and go back to the start. Or maybe they’ll seed a few HP7 sets in with several HP1-2 sets. Four years seems a bit short for a repeat cycle, so three years is just a terrible idea. If they sell, though, shelving it this quickly is unlikely, especially as long as there are still FB movies to help generate interest.
I forgot about the theme park. A guy in my LUG did determine that the “inaccurate” microscale Hogwarts is directly based on the Florida park’s castle. Still, Slug Club seems like the only strong contender for another unified HPAC scene. After that they may just switch to random bits from all 8 films. That would kinda suck, because the scene-building is the coolest aspect of the HPACs.
Personally I would love them to do a Christmas at Grimmauld place next year. Have Sirius, Molly and Arthur, or for a different character have Bill. Although I'm hoping he appears next year in some kind of wedding set.
I don't really understand complaints about repeated minifigures when they've only previously appeared in $90 sets that are hard to get for some people. I already own the Clock Tower, but I don't expect an advent calendar to have 6 entirely brand-new and exclusive minifigures. Harry, Ron, and Hermione in their Yule Ball outfits fit perfectly into the scene and they aren't common. For people who already have them, you can scrap them for parts, sell them on BrickLink, or give them away to friends or family. For me, three repeated figures don't detract from this advent calendar when they were uncommon in the first place, there's plenty of awesome builds to flesh out the Yule Ball scene, and we're getting three amazing exclusive minifigures (including two characters who have never been seen in LEGO before).
@ThatBionicleGuy:
AKA Sirius in his "anything but prison stripes" outfit? No, besides never making a "freed" version of Sirius, they've never done a single set based on his home. Partly that's because they blitzed the first two movies, backed off a bit for the third, did a small number of sets for the fourth, did _a_ Hogwarts Castle set for the fifth, and basically ignored the next two movies before doing a retrospective wave for the entire run to tie into the eighth. Technically, Buckbeak's whereabouts were not revealed to the film audience, so he could have been anywhere. And I would pay good money to get a Christmasy version of Bellatrix. Her in a goth Mrs. Clause outfit would be hilarious. I mean, it might scar some kids for life, but that seems like such a small price to pay...
@kacie:
Percy, Bill, and Charlie (only visible in one photo, I believe) have never received physical minifigs. It would be cool if they could figure out a way to rectify that, but I don't think an HPAC is the solution. Every HPAC will almost certainly include minifigs for Harry, Ron, and Hermione, which basically leaves three open slots for other characters. Christmas at the Weasleys will probably include Ginny, and giving Bill one of the remaining spots basically means you'd have to give the last one to Fleur.
@GoldenNinja3000:
Some people got spoiled on last year's HPAC. Where the SWAC started out with one solitary exclusive (Christmas-themed) minifig, the first HPAC had six minifigs, only one of which is a straight repeat (Dumbledore from the Great Hall set). McGonagall may only be exclusive because she comes with a double-sided head, but that still makes her different than her own Great Hall minifig. And since the trio were all exclusive, people didn't mind getting their umpteenth minifig of all three characters. It's a little different here where common characters are the repeats, and the exclusive minifigs are based on characters that have rarely or never appeared before.
For some reason, Ron’s head is on so tightly that I can’t pull it off or turn it around. I don’t think I’ve ever had this problem with a minifig.
@nrith said:
"For some reason, Ron’s head is on so tightly that I can’t pull it off or turn it around. I don’t think I’ve ever had this problem with a minifig. "
When you manage to get it off again I recommend rubbing the neck with a soap bar to help remove some friction. Does the neck have a black mark painted on it? It might be that too much paint got applied which is adding extra width to the neck - that should diminish with successive attachment / removal of the head over time.
@PurpleDave said:
"Technically, Buckbeak's whereabouts were not revealed to the film audience, so he could have been anywhere. And I would pay good money to get a Christmasy version of Bellatrix. Her in a goth Mrs. Clause outfit would be hilarious. I mean, it might scar some kids for life, but that seems like such a small price to pay..."
Oh wow, that would be incredibly amusing! Let's go with that idea!
Huh, I forgot Buckbeak wasn't mentioned in the movie :o I know the video-game tie-in referenced him being in the attic, so I guess that's what I got confused with. But even so, he's associated with Siruis after they flew off together at the end of PoA, so a mini-build of him would still feel like a natural inclusion to me ^^