The Reputation Institute has released their 2021 Global RepTrak 100 rankings, which quantifies, "how people feel, think, and act towards companies globally." Coming in at the top of the list for the second year in a row is The LEGO Group, which was also the only company to achieve an 'excellent' score of 80 points or higher. The competition was pretty stiff, with TLG beating out Rolex, Ferrari, Bosch, Harley-Davidson, Canon, Adidas, Disney, Microsoft, and Sony to round out the top ten. Congratulations to them, and hopefully they can keep their sterling reputation clean in the years to come!

Recently the LEGO AFOLET Team was kind enough to send BZPower a selection of the upcoming sets based on the film Minions: The Rise of Gru, which comes to theaters on July 1st. Today we're taking a look at 75546 Minions in Gru's Lab, which contains 87 pieces and will retail for $20 when it releases on April 26th. Instead of doing a full text and image review, we've just made a couple of videos to share our thoughts on the set. You can watch the review and the time-lapse build over on the BZPower YouTube channel. Overall, this set is made for young kids, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you know a child who loves Minions, they'll love this set. For adult builders, there's little here in elements or interesting techniques to make it worth purchasing. If you like Minions and want to collect the characters, for $20 it's not a bad way to snag two of them.  

After leaking and appearing in stores early, The LEGO Group has taken to Twitter to share the first official look at the next wave of Collectible minifigures. Based on the classic Looney Tunes characters, who date back to the 1930s, you will soon be able to add Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Petunia Pig, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, Sylvester, Tweety, the Tasmanian Devil, Marvin the Martian, Speedy Gonzales, and Babs Bunny to your minifigure displays. These figs are presumably being released to cash in on the hype of Space Jam: A New Legacy, which is comign to theaters on July 16th, and I'm sure there are plenty of fans out there who will totally be down to buy them all. How about you - let us know in the Talkback!

It's been a jaw-dropping four days since the last time we reported on a LEGO Ideas project achieving ten thousand votes of support - people are slacking! Joining the 10k Club is Medieval Marketplace by DominikQN, hardly the first model capturing this era that has been submitted to the Ideas team for consideration. I appreciate that the builder kept the size of the model reasonable while still packing in some great details, especially on the clock tower. We wish them the best of luck when they enter their upcoming review phase!

Let's take a trip down memory lane to Sesame Street! Join us on Sunday, April 11th at 1 PM Eastern on the BZPower Twitch channel as we build the LEGO Ideas set 21324 123 Sesame Street and wax nostalgic about the classic Jim Henson educational show. We'll chat about how Muppets are awesome and give away some free LEGO sets. Hope to see you there!

There's been some interesting discussion lately in the Bionicle Storyline & Theories forum about what defines a Rahi in the Matoran Universe. It was kicked off by BZPower Member Zidonaro who asked, Why is Keetongu considered a Rahi? A variety of points have been brought up and comparisons made, some of which have made even more questions arise! Go join in and share your thoughts or just read through to go a bit more in depth with the lore of Bionicle.

Last night Fox announced on Twitter that the second season of the US iteration of LEGO Masters would begin airing on June 1st. Hopefully we'll be learning who the contestants are in the coming two months and with any luck we'll see some familiar faces as we did during the first season. I'm definitely interested to see what changes they make to the format of the show, who will be hosting, and who the judges will be!

There's been some fantastic Bionicle projects popping up on LEGO Ideas over the past year or so as we make our way to the twentieth anniversary of the theme. One of the latest is The Ancient Temple by rr.raelis, which features a brick-built Kini Nui, six neat miniature Toa, and a wonderful Vakama to share the Legend of Bionicle. I love how the architecture captures that 2001 vibe of the mysterious, overgrown island that we began exploring in the MNOG. The figures are quite detailed, although the printed tiles for their faces might be difficult to achieve in an actual set. It has my vote of support for sure, and if you like it, consider adding your vote too!

It's Wednesday, which means a new episode of the Bits N' Bricks podcast has released. There's not a lot of specific videogame discussion, but that's okay because journalist Brian Crecente and documentarian Ethan Vincent got to sit down (virtually) with Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen and Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, two names in LEGO history that hopefully need no introduction. It was great to hear how Kjeld's background as a hobbyist programmer influenced the company's early forays into technology, and Jorgen was amazingly transparent about mistakes made around LEGO Universe and other decisions during his tenure as CEO. Here's hoping that experience leads to a future of more awesome LEGO games! Go listen to Episode 18 - A Fabled History on the LEGO Games YouTube channel or your preferred podcast platform today! Word is that next week they'll be discussing the future of the show, which I look forward to learning about!

Recently Microsoft kicked off their Xbox Spring Sale, which includes over five hundred games and add-ons you can save on. For brick fans, they have a variety of LEGO titles on sale for 50-75% off. I've got my eye on The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame for only $8, but there's a lot of other great deals there to be found. You can see the full list over on Major Nelson's Blog. Hopefully you can find some fun additions to your collection!

Tonight we're heading back to LEGO Dimensions for our weekly videogame stream. The plan is to head to Middle Earth and play through the level and open world areas, collecting things that need collecting and hopefully beating up a whole lot of Orcs! Come on by the BZPower Twitch Channel starting at 7:30 PM Eastern tonight to watch! I can already hear Howard Shore's music playing and can see the pipe-weed smoke rings coming out of Hobbiton. See you there!

Who doesn't love the winter holidays? Even if it feels like they're forever away right now, it'll be December before we know it. In that vein, a new project has reached ten thousand votes of support on LEGO Ideas: Winter Snow Globes by legotruman, which features a gingerbread house, a Christmas tree, and a snowman encased in transparent globes. The submission is the fifth project this builder has had reach the goal, with Vincent van Gogh: The Starry Night coming out in the future. These MOCs are adorable and replete with fun details and techniques and would be great holiday decorations. We'll keep our fingers crossed for a favorable review result!

This past week The LEGO Foundation announced a partnership with Play Included to revamp the 'Brick-by-Brick' program. The goal is to use LEGO bricks as part of a 'Brick Club' which gives children a space to improve on their social interaction and communication skills, especially those on the autistic spectrum. This is just the next step in an effort that has been around for a while, and more plans exist to expand the program to include materials and lessons for parents to utilize at home to further the education and development of their children. You can learn a lot more over at the press release in the LEGO Newsroom. Overall, this sounds like an amazing initiative that I hope continues to grow and help kids around the globe.

Today might be the first time that a builder has had ten of their projects achieve ten thousand votes of support on LEGO Ideas, a feat that I am dubbing the '100k Club.' The Lisbon Tram by Bricky_Brick is the tenth model, although only Pirates of Barracuda Bay has made it onto shelves so far. The city street features superb attention to detail as all of the creator's designs do and could be a great addition to the Ideas theme. I like all of the little vignettes included in the MOC and the wide collection of characters. We wish them the best of luck when they enter their upcoming review phase!

Earlier today, TT Games shared on Twitter that LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will not be releasing this spring, as announced in August last year. Originally the game was scheduled to come out before the 2020 holiday season, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was pushed back. At this point it seems like there might be more to the delays than the shift to remote work. I can't imagine that creating a single title that covers the events of at least nine films and features 300 different playable characters is a simple feat, so as much as I want to play the game, I'd rather it be done right than rushed out the door. I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about it and hopefully playing it later this year!

Over a decade after we discovered that we were in Mata Nui all along, it's time to go back to the barren landscape that fans discovered in 2009. A bunch of builders put together a collaboration of re-imaginings of sets from that year, including BZPower member BrickPharaoh. His contributions can be seen in Return To Bara Magna - Tuma (Wave 1) and Baranus V7 (Wave 2), and both builds look fantastic. The use of more recent CCBS pieces in Tuma gives him much smoother lines, which make his spiky weapons and wings stand out that much more. In the second build, I love the use of both the Iruini shields on the chariot and the dragon heads as the lower jaws of Spikit, giving the beast a very vicious visage. Go give both a closer look and make sure you click through to Flickr to see all of the Bara Magna builds!

Welcome to April! We're out of the practical joke game, so when I tell you that we have a new raffle for you all to enter you should definitely believe me. Head over to the 2021 Member Raffle #4 and drop your name in the hat for a chance to win 75528 Rey, the buildable figure based on the character's appearance in the incredibly popular Star War Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Whether or not you agree with that last line, free LEGO pieces are still fun and free! You could get lucky and be like ~Xemnas~, who won our March raffle - congrats to him and good luck to you all!

Through an intense battle of wits, a new project has achieved ten thousand votes of support on LEGO Ideas: The Princess Bride: The Guilder Frontier by FSLeinad, who makes their 10k Club debut with this creation. Based on the classic and beloved film, the MOC incorporates four vignettes from key scenes, each quickly recognizable if you're a fan. The minifigs capture the characters to a t, and I'm sure it would be a popular set if it makes it to store shelves. We wish it the best of luck in the review phase!

In this week's installment of the Bits N' Bricks podcast, journalist Brian Crecente and documentarian Ethan Vincent stop looking at past achievements in LEGO Gaming and instead reflect on the here-and-now and the what-will-be of digital LEGO play. You can listen to Episode 17 - LEGO Video Games and Digital Play to hear from The LEGO Group CEO Niels B. Christiansen, Chief Product and Marketing Officer Julia Goldin, and Vice President of LEGO Games Sean McEvoy. They each share their unique perspectives on what has gotten the company to where it is with gaming and where they see things headed tomorrow and years down the road. Go give it a listen and make sure you check back next week for the second part of the interviews!

I hope everyone is having a fantastic Tuesday! And what could be more fun on such a day than playing videogames? Starting at 7:30 PM Eastern tonight we'll be over on the BZPower Twitch channel playing some more of The LEGO Movie: The Videogame as we go through the final act of the film by entering Octan Tower, the lair of Lord Business! Come watch, chat with us, and help us decide what we play next week when we go back to LEGO Dimensions!

810NICLE Day is coming this August, and since it's the twentieth anniversary of the franchise we're going to be celebrating in a huge way! Our friends over at The Beaverhouse shared the 810NICLE Day 2021 Founders & Contributors Panels Announcement Trailer yesterday, revealing two panels that will be broadcast later this year. The first panel will feature Martin Riber Andersen, Greg Farshtey, Carlos D'Anda, Alastair Swinnerton, Christian Faber, and Bob Thompson while the second will have Darvell Hunt, David Madden, Justin Luchter, Peter Mack, and BZPower's very own Kelly McKiernan. If you'd like to ask questions of these esteemed Bionicle team members, you can hit up these links: Founders Panel and Contributors Panel. The deadline for submitting questions is July 1st, but don't delay!

If you're a consistent reader of LEGO Ideas interviews you may have met Saabfan before. One of the builders behind the amazing NASA Apollo Saturn V rocket and also the creator of a Fiat 500 model that was not approved is back again to share his thoughts on his latest 10k Club entry. Check out Hasan's interview with Felix Stiessen, the creator of Bag End to re-learn a bit about the man behind the MOCs and more about what inspired him to design the amazing Hobbit hole that literally leaps off the page of the classic book. It's a great look into the model and the challenges that he overcame before it was able to enter the review phase. Give it a read!