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Even though the 10211 Grand Emporium isn’t technically available until March 3, somebody already has one and has posted a time-lapse video of its assembly on YouTube:

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Last weekend, Kris Abel from CTV News visited the Canadian Toy & Hobby Fair and got a good look at upcoming LEGO sets from the LEGO Canada display. He posted a lot of pictures (would have loved more from some of the Atlantis sets) and a lot of them I was surprised at. They were some of the first good photos I’ve seen of some of the unreleased sets scheduled for later in the year.

A few highlights:

8077 Atlantis Exploration HQ

8078 Portal Of Atlantis

My observation on the Atlantis sets:
* The 8077 Atlantis Exploration HQ looks to be shaping up well. The first blurry shots I saw a while back made it look closer to the 7775 Aqua Raiders Aquabase Invasion. It looks to be a square-ish/self-contained structure which makes sense. I’m assuming the vehicles will dock on top.
* The 8078 Portal of Atlantis (the infamous Shark Temple or Shark Castle) is bigger than I thought and looks to have a lot of really cool and unique parts. It’s hard to get a sense of the minifigs since they were mixed together with other sets. There looks to be some parts in colors that we haven’t seen before. The box shows 898 pieces but that’s obviously subject to change since it’s a prototype. I’m not sure on new minifigs – there is a skeleton with some diving gear on that has a trident symbol on their head. You can barely make out what looks to be the “turtle warrior” on top of the Portal, that’s been discussed in the past.
* Kris mentioned when discussing the Space Police sets that Atlantis was the focus this year, hence the lack of a lot of new Space Police sets.

As Kris notes, a lot of the upcoming sets are prototypes/mock-ups and details are not yet finalized. Nothing from Harry Potter and nothing new from the Toy Story line that’s not already out. I’m not quite as interested in the World Racers line or the Hero Factory line, but it looks like both could give us some new parts or older parts in new colors. Looking at the boxes for the World Racers, I think they’ll probably sell very well to the target audience.

Some of the other sets shown (besides 8077/8078) include quite a few sets that are currently available and some that are limited right now or unavailable (depending on area), such as:
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We thought that LEGO’s 10211 Grand Emporium would be showing up in March as did everybody else. Turns out that we may get it at the beginning of March. Huw over at Brickset mentions that it looks to be shipping to North American and Europe a month from now.

The LEGO Shop has it listed in the LEGO Exclusives section and they are showing a ship date of March 3, 2010.

This is the description for it:

Welcome to the grand opening of the Grand Emporium!

“The LEGO Modular Buildings series continues with this spectacularly detailed 3-story department store, designed in a realistic scale with lots of special building techniques and rare pieces. On the street outside, citizens carry shopping bags, send letters at the mailbox, admire the window mannequins, then cool off at the ice cream stand while a busy window washer works above. Enter through the revolving doors to discover a ground-floor clothing department, complete with a cash register, fitting room, hats, jewelry, perfume, and even a selection of spare trousers. A brick-built escalator carries customers to the second floor housewares department with glassware and golden plates for special occasions, and then it’s up to the top floor for the toy department (complete with toy house and push-scooter) with an impressive chandelier above the open atrium. Up on the roof are a billboard and skylight!

Highlights:
* Measures 15″” (38 cm) high and 10 in (25 cm) wide
* 7 minifigures
* 2182 Pieces
* Designed for a corner location (similar to Cafe Corner)
* Prices: €.149,99, GBA 97.85 (UK), $149.99 (US)

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The group pool at flickr for Brickvention 2010 is now active and being updated.

Brickvention is a LEGO-oriented convention and exhibition held every year in Australia. This year’s event took place January 23rd and January 24th in Melbourne. There were hundreds of models/sets/MOCs from all around Australia, along with demonstrations and games.

Brickvention pool at flickr

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Huw over at Brickset attended the London Toy Fair today to look at LEGO’s upcoming offerings. No photography was allowed unfortunately. Huw made plenty of observations on the displayed sets.

A few notes on Huw’s observations:
* The Harry Potter launches towards the end of this year will be well-received, and The Burrows sounds like it’s what a lot of us were hoping for. I’m surprised at the number of new minifigs – two dozen or so.
* City Trains sounds very promising
* The Prince of Persia theme sounds awesome as well
* Hero Factory will probably be a suitable replacement for Bionicle
* Technic’s launches in August sound solid
* Also the collectible minifigs sound as good as they look. I’m not too happy that some will be rarer than others.

What I’m most excited about is this:

The three summer Atlantis sets look interesting: there’s another creature, a lobster I think, an underwater base and the ‘portal of Atlantis’. The pictures shown elsewhere of these are only a small part of them.

Full article Brickset

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Huw at Brickset has posted some high resolution images of the upcoming 8683 Collectable Minifigures / Minifigs.

For a larger version of the above, see this Flickr photo and for a peek at the packaging, see this Flickr photo.

There are 16 in all. These are due to be rolled out in June of 2010, with another wave of 16 following a few months later. From everything that’s been published so far, you won’t know what figures you are getting if you buy the packages individually. We came up with a list of the minifigs back in December and it still looks to be accurate:

1 Caveman
2 Female Cheerleader
3 Clown
4 Cowboy/Adventurer
5 Crash test dummy
6 SCUBA diver
7 Female American Indian
8 Magician
9 Ninja
10 Female Nurse
11 Robin Hood/Archer type
12 Robot
13 Kid (with skateboard)
14 Astronaut
15 Lucha libre wrestler
16 Zombie businessman

It’s going to be a neat set of minifigs.

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If you missed LEGO Atlantis: The Movie (our review of it), you can watch it through the Cartoon Network’s video site – here’s a direct link to part 1 – there are 5 parts. If for some reason that link expires, just check the video site site and browse around for Atlantis.

I do not know how long it will be available online or what, if any, countries it is restricted to.

Still no word on future airings on Cartoon Network, or availability on DVD. It would be cool if they included it on the LEGO Adventures of Clutch Powers DVD, which is LEGO’s first full-length movie. As far as I know, that is not being broadcast anywhere, and will only be available through purchase or rental.

Amazon has the Clutch Powers DVD pre-order for $18.99 and Amazon.com Video on Demand has it for $3.99 for a 24 hour rental or $14.99 for purchase. It’ll be available towards the end of February 2010.

The animation in the Atlantis Movie looks very similar to that of the Clutch Powers movie.