Dadnology Week 31: LEGO's August Wave, Spider-Man & Halo Evolved
Week 31, 2026: LEGO's biggest wave of the year lands August 1, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avatar Season 2 hit screens, Halo: Campaign Evolved earns a 9, and a 4-year Ring Alarm verdict.
This post contains affiliate links. We may earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, Dadnology earns from qualifying purchases.
🕷️ The Week That Was — Spider-Man Swings In, LEGO’s Biggest Month Begins
This week is really a preview of next week wearing a trench coat. LEGO’s biggest wave of the year — seven One Piece sets and five Olivia Rodrigo Editions sets — doesn’t technically land until August 1, but the reveals, prices and full specs all arrived this week, and there’s a genuine ten-day window on a free LEGO set that starts counting down the moment August does. On screen, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is already in theaters, Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender returned with its darkest season yet, and Jumanji: Open World showed its hand for the first time. Gaming had exactly one news story, but it was a good one: Halo: Campaign Evolved launched and turned out to be the rare remake that’s honest about not being essential. And away from news entirely, our 4-year Ring Alarm review is the kind of piece we don’t get to publish often — a verdict built on actual years of ownership rather than a launch-week trial.
Jump to: 🎬 Movies & TV · 🎮 Gaming · 🧱 LEGO & Family · 🏠 Smart Home, Camera & Tech
🎬 Movie & TV News This Week
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is finally in theaters
Spider-Man: Brand New Day has arrived, and our theatrical release-week coverage is built for exactly this moment — a fast on-ramp rather than a full review, which is coming once we’ve actually seen it. The premise only lands as an earned consequence if you remember what Peter Parker gave up at the end of No Way Home: a city that has no memory of who he is. If that’s fuzzy, our spoiler recap of the whole trilogy covers Homecoming, Far From Home and No Way Home in about ten minutes, and our multiverse explainer breaks down exactly what Doctor Strange’s spell did. Everything officially confirmed about the film itself — cast, rating, release details — is in our Brand New Day rundown.
Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 hits Netflix, and hits hard
Netflix’s live-action Avatar came back this week with Book Two: Earth, and our full Season 2 review rates it an 8.5 — a real step up from Season 1. Toph Beifong arrives, Azula finally lands as a genuine threat instead of a stiff first attempt, and the season ends on what might be the single most brutal cliffhanger this franchise has ever produced, live-action or animated. We’ve nudged the age guidance up to 9+ for this one — the war themes and that finale hit noticeably harder than Season 1 did. The good news for anyone left hanging: Season 3 is already confirmed and was filmed back-to-back with Season 2, so the wait for an answer shouldn’t be a long one. If Toph’s arrival makes you want the source material, the animated original’s Book Two: Earth is still the definitive version — the Avatar & Korra complete series collection is the way to have both shows on hand at once.
AdAvatar & The Legend of Korra — Complete Series Collection (Blu-ray) (opens in a new tab)
Both animated shows in one box — the chaser we'd recommend after Netflix's live-action Season 2.
Jumanji: Open World breaks the game out of the console
Sony dropped the first trailer for Jumanji: Open World, and the premise flips the formula the last two reboot films built on: instead of people getting sucked into the game, the game escapes into the real world, jungle chaos included. Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan all return as the game-avatar quartet, director Jake Kasdan is back, and it’s billed as the finale of the rebooted trilogy. It lands in theaters December 25 — moved there specifically to dodge Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three, which is smart counter-programming for a family trip that isn’t chasing the biggest ticket in the building. No rating yet, but both previous films landed PG-13 and there’s no signal here that changes.
Still worth the trip: The Odyssey
If Spider-Man and Avatar aren’t quite what tonight calls for, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is still playing, and it’s still our pick for the better big-screen experience of the summer — our review landed on an honest 8/10. The first two-thirds ask for real patience, but the final hour, Odysseus’s reunion with his father and his dog, is some of Nolan’s best filmmaking yet. It’s an R-rated pick built for a date night rather than a family trip, but if you haven’t caught it yet, this is the reminder to go before it leaves IMAX screens.
AdHalo: Campaign Evolved (Xbox Series X|S) (opens in a new tab)
The Unreal Engine 5 rebuild of the 2001 original, with a genuinely new campaign. We gave it a 9.
🎮 Gaming News for Dads
Halo: Campaign Evolved lands — a 9, and an honest one
Halo: Campaign Evolved launched July 28 on Xbox and, for the first time in franchise history, PlayStation — a full Unreal Engine 5 rebuild of the 2001 original, plus a genuinely new three-mission campaign called Operation: Meteorite that puts Master Chief alongside Sergeant Johnson against new enemies. We’ve been playing it since day one, and the review lands on a 9 for a reason worth repeating here: the graphics overhaul is a real wow and the new content earns its place, but the Master Chief Collection already delivers the same core campaign at 60fps for less, so this is a fantastic remake rather than a required purchase. If you love Halo and want the best-looking version of where it all started, buy the Xbox version without hesitation. If you already own the Collection and mostly want to relive the campaign, that itch is already scratched. For the full breakdown of exactly what changed between the two versions — engine, new content, and why 25 years of Xbox exclusivity just ended — our Campaign Evolved vs. the original comparison covers every difference in detail.
It was otherwise a quiet week on the gaming news front — no new reveals to sit alongside last week’s Marvel’s Wolverine date or the Star Wars: Zero Company cast news, both of which are still very much live stories heading into their own September and August launches.
🧱 LEGO & Family Round-up
One Piece becomes a real LEGO line
LEGO’s first properly-sized One Piece wave hits shelves August 1: seven sets from $29.99 to $179.99, covering the Drum Island arc and Little Garden. The flagship, Garp’s Marine Battleship (75646), is the one worth talking about — 1,705 pieces, 8 minifigures (Zoro, Usopp, Nami, Miss All Sunday, Tashigi, Helmeppo, Koby and Vice Admiral Garp), and a deck that opens up into a map room, Garp’s office and a market scene, which is what makes it survive past the first weekend rather than becoming a shelf display. At the other end, Dr. Hiriluk’s Hideout (75641) is 271 pieces for $29.99 — the sensible thirty dollars to spend if you’re not yet sure the One Piece phase in your house is permanent.
AdLEGO One Piece Dr. Hiriluk's Hideout (75641) (opens in a new tab)
The cheap entry point into LEGO's first full One Piece wave: 271 pieces, $29.99. Lands August 1.
LEGO built a guitar out of Olivia Rodrigo
Also landing August 1: LEGO’s Olivia Rodrigo Editions collection, five sets built around references from across her career — the first time LEGO has built a line around a working musician. The headline Dual Guitar (43031) is 1,228 pieces for $119.99, split straight down the middle in light purple and dark grey, with two minifigures recreating her Glastonbury dress and a sparkly red GUTS-tour outfit. The more approachable pick is the Flower Bouquet (11507) — 400 pieces, $49.99, a purple flower built from tiny electric guitars (worth noting: it’s Botanicals-branded, not Editions). This is LEGO finally building something for the thirteen-to-sixteen crowd that’s aged out of Creator sets and hasn’t yet developed a $300 display habit — a genuinely underserved shelf.
A free X-Files set, for ten days only
The one with an actual clock on it: LEGO is giving away Scully’s Lab (40896), a 221-piece gift with purchase attached to the Ideas set The X-Files (21369), running August 1–10 at LEGO.com and LEGO Stores only. Buy the $199.99 main set in that window and the free lab — complete with an exclusive Dana Scully minifigure — lands in your basket automatically. Insiders get access from the 1st; everyone else waits until general sale on the 4th, which quietly shrinks the real window to a week for most buyers. If the X-Files set was already on your list, there’s no version of this where waiting wins.
All three sit inside the largest LEGO release month of the year — our August 2026 LEGO buying guide covers what’s actually worth the budget across the full wave.
🏠 Smart Home, Camera & Tech Round-up
Four years, nine cameras, three false alarms: our honest Ring Alarm verdict
No breaking smart-home news this week, but the piece we’re proudest of went up: our 4-year Ring Alarm long-term review — 9/10, from a system that grew from a starter kit in November 2021 into nine cameras and contact sensors on every ground-floor door and window.
Most smart-home reviews get written after a fortnight, which is exactly long enough to miss everything that matters. Four years in, we can tell you which part of the system caused every single false alarm we’ve ever had (and why we ripped it out entirely), what the batteries actually do once they’re past their first winter, and whether the subscription still earns its money on year four. If a security system is on your list, the 8-piece starter kit is still where we’d start — but read the review first, because the thing we removed is in most starter bundles.
AdRing Alarm 8-Piece Kit (opens in a new tab)
The starter kit our 4-year, 9-camera Ring review still recommends as the sensible entry point.
Dadnology Take
This is a setup week more than a landing week — the real story is Sunday night into Monday, when LEGO’s biggest wave of the year actually hits shelves. But plenty is worth acting on today: Spider-Man is in theaters now, Avatar Season 2 is streaming with a genuine step up in quality, Halo: Campaign Evolved earns its 9 without needing a repurchase from Master Chief Collection owners, and the X-Files gift-with-purchase has a real, short deadline. And if you’ve been putting off a smart-home decision, our 4-year Ring Alarm verdict is exactly the kind of long-term data that a launch-week review can’t give you. If you were buying that LEGO set anyway, buy it in the next ten days.
The Dadnology Week archive: missed last week? Catch up with Dadnology Week 30.
❓ FAQ
What were the biggest dad-relevant stories in week 31, 2026?
What is the best family pick from week 31, 2026?
Is it worth buying Halo: Campaign Evolved if I already own the Master Chief Collection?
Is Ring Alarm worth it after this long?
What did Dadnology publish this week?
Dadnology Weekly
One email a week: the LEGO, gaming and movie news worth a dad's time — plus what we actually reviewed. No hype, no daily spam.
Disclaimer: This review and its visuals were created with the help of AI. Some links may be affiliate links – we may earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.
You might also like
Dadnology Week 30: Comic-Con Takes Over Everything
Comic-Con weeks are always loud, but this one actually mattered: Marvel put hard 2028 dates on the board, Wolverine and Rings of Power both got release dates, and the Avatar movie moved up so quietly that half the internet still has the wrong date.
Dadnology Week 29: The Odyssey, Halo's Return & The World Cup Final
The Odyssey posts Nolan's best opening ever, Halo: Campaign Evolved nears its July 28 launch, and Spain meets Argentina in Sunday's World Cup final. Add our own biggest content week in a while — Hermes Agent, GTA 6, LEGO and a real Project Hail Mary review — and week 29 does not let up.
Halo: Campaign Evolved Review: Fantastic, But You Don't NEED It
The graphics update is a wow and the new levels are a genuinely great addition. Docking a point purely because you do not strictly need this remake when the Master Chief Collection already delivers the same great experience.