Lego has been around for many a year and the brand has truly become a force to be reckoned with in recent times. Not only does the brand produce a vast selection of bricks and sets inspired by an array of both well-known and original characters and series, but they have branched out into other areas such as movie-making, as with the brilliant Lego movies, and theme parks in the form of Legoland aka Windsor. In an era where digital, screen-based entertainment is at an all time high, toys from this brand offer an opportunity to get back to some fun, hands-on play away from electronic devices. There are many construction toys on the market and shoppers have a lot of choose from. Listed above you will find many items from Lego's catalogue, from the classic to the new. There are specialised options for toddlers, as found with the Duplo kits, and even sets designed for more professional or advanced use, such as Lego Technic or Architecture. It is not difficult to find cheap Lego sets, though the cost usually depends on the number of pieces and minifigures included.
Sometimes the large editions with a few hundred pieces may be pricier than other options, but may represent better value. The Lego Technic line has sets that use bricks along with interconnecting pieces such as plastic rods, and special pieces like gears and axles. Technic sets are quite complex and have moveable parts, making for a more difficult build. There are over 100 sets in total available in the series, which has been around since 1977. Mindstorms, a robotic Lego line, incorporates many of the Technic pieces. These sets allow you to build, customise and even programme your own robots. Technic is aimed at children between the ages of about 7 to 16 and offers them the opportunity to practise building and handling various technical devices. In addition to robots these include motorcycles, diggers and helicopters. When it comes to movies, TV and video games, Lego have experimented with lots of franchises and genres. The most famous and sought after sets that are based on movies include Star Wars Lego, and Marvel Superheroes.
The brand teamed up with Marvel to create the Superheroes range and characters like Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman make an appearance in the video game, sets and accessories in the line. Series that were created and developed by Lego themselves include the following: Many of these have a back story with an element of good vs. evil. Nexo Knights in particular is inspired by, and convincingly representative of medieval times, and presents a world where knights from the days of yore merge with futuristic technology. The Lego Duplo series is ideal for younger builders. It is designed especially for children aged from about 2 years to 5 years, though this varies from product to product. The 'My First' duplo sets include simple, fun structures like space rockets, trucks, gardens and farms. Lego have a dedicated Duplo website to inform parents about the range and to provide extra activities such as images for printing and colouring in and various games for children that can be download as apps.
Within each series there are various types of sets, accessories and figures available. They range in size, number of pieces and price. They can also be filtered via their year of release so, if you are searching for the newest Lego sets, 2016 can be selected under 'listed since' to find these. With any of the Lego products, it is important to adhere to the recommended age in particular with young children, due to the risk of choking on small parts. If you are searching for building blocks under a certain theme like Barbie, Dora the Explorer or the video games Halo and Call of Duty, then construction toys from Mega Bloks are worth checking out. Mega Bloks is a Canadian brand that produces building bricks similar to Lego's. Their product range encompasses many different characters and themes that are not available from their Danish counterparts. Particularly popular series include Mega Bloks Call of Duty, Halo Mega Bloks, Mega Bloks Minions and Mega Bloks First Builders. Just like Lego, toys from Mega Bloks let you build and create landscapes, characters and places, and are suitable for various ages depending on the product.
‘The LEGO Batman Movie’ Is a Roadmap For Being a Better FanPosted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2017 by Jacob HallIt’s hard to dislike any movie that features a Gymkata joke inside a Gremlins joke inside a The Twilight Zone joke, so yes, The LEGO Batman Movie is perfectly delightful. When a film’s biggest flaw is that there are so many jokes that you can’t keep up with them and start to feel overwhelmed by the number of Easter eggs and references flying by you (and sometimes right over your head), something has been done right. This film is an anarchic joy and a worthy successor to the subversive The LEGO Movie, the rare blockbuster that chomped down the hand that feeds it with gleeful abandon.But here’s the thing: The LEGO Batman Movie is actually a damn good Batman movie. More than that, it’s a movie that’s all about how to be a better fan. And not just a fan of Gotham City’s homegrown billionaire vigilante – this movie is a guidebook for how to properly appreciate the characters and stories you love.
The LEGO Batman Movie lays its cards on the table in the first act: every Batman story that has ever been told is canon. That means that Will Arnett’s Bruce Wayne, still just as self-serious and self-serving as he was in The LEGO Movie, once fought the Joker while he was holding two ferries hostage and wore a batsuit with rubber nipples on it and danced the Batusi in the ’60s and really hates Superman and considers him his arch-enemy. It’s a backstory comprised entirely of knowing contradictions. None of these storylines gel together and there is no way for one character, fictional or not, to actually embody nearly 80 years of cultural shifts. Like James Bond, Batman has meant something different in every decade, based entirely on the whims of the artists telling his stories and the tastes of the audiences devouring them.And that brings us to the most magical element of The LEGO Batman Movie: it owns these contradictions. It knows that Batman isn’t just one character – he’s dozens of characters.
It’s not even ashamed of the embarrassing moments – it revels in them. If time can transform a tragedy into comedy, then time can transform Batman & Robin into a fascinating component of Batman lore worth considering as a larger cultural statement rather than something that just makes you groan whenever you think about it.While The LEGO Batman Movie has the rapid-fire pace of Airplane! and the pop culture awareness of a savvy geek with a disposable income and too much time on their hands, it also feels like the closest we’ll ever get to a Grant Morrison-inspired Batman movie. Morrison, the brilliant (and sometimes brilliantly frustrating) comic book writer behind titles like Arkham Asylum and All-Star Superman, has spent his career showcasing an intoxicating love/hate relationship with comic book superheroes. His stories pick iconic characters apart, dissect them to expose their component parts, and re-assemble them in forms both unfamiliar and all too recognizable.But he also has a deep respect for these characters, diving deep into their past and exploring the margins of their histories to resurrect concepts and characters and ideas that have been left by the wayside over the decades, polishing them off for a modern reinvention.
Nothing is off limits. If it’s been published, it has happened. It’s all fair game. It must be acknowledged.Like Morrison’s work, The LEGO Batman Movie loves Batman. And it hates Batman. But it loves to hate Batman. Like The LEGO Batman Movie itself, that sounds like a big contradiction, but it may be the healthiest way to appreciate just about anything.Does being a Batman fan mean immediately loving everything the character is in, blindly buying every single comic book and loudly defending every single movie just because you’re a fan and that’s what fans do? No, of course not. Disliking individual films from series you love, having mixed feelings on specific comic book runs, and being prepared to talk about why certain things piss you the hell off is more important than simple affection. How can you truly love something if you don’t know it inside and out? And how can you know something inside and out unless you’ve seen every single flaw and sighed at every embarrassing moment and still decided “Yeah, I still love you.”