LOBOT-OMY

Are Lego testing the water for future cloud city set/s?

Recommended Posts

Guys,

I just wondered whether you think the poor reviews and general public disappointment with 'Assault on Hoth' (75098) will make a cloud city based set even more unlikely now, or in the future? I think the general consensus is lego are biased towards 'starship or vehicle' based starwars sets rather than playsets such as Endor, Death Star, Mos Eisley Cantina etc, but I just wonder whether the poor sales of 75098 could put the brakes on lego EVER releasing a cloud city set?

I wish there was a way for us lego starwars fans to communicate directly with Lego group and vote on ideas for the next large lego set. Clearly lego know their market far better than I do, but it does concern me that the recent carbon freezing chamber and the hoth set seem to be receiving very poor reviews as I am worried this will put the final nail in the coffin for ANY further cloud city stuff.

I just wish someone at Lego would get on with discussing, planning, or designing some large cloud city set or modular sets. At the very least, even just individual 'scene' sets such as the classic "I am your Father" duel and/or a Bespin cloud-car set would surely sell like hot cakes?

Finally, I should say that I am no fan of the hoth set either, but I do really like the 75137 carbon freeze chamber and I have bought quite a few sets. The Ugnaught minifig is superb!

'Nuff said. :classic:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The problem with assault on hoth was it was a combination of old sets. If they would of released this as a non ucs set and had another true ucs set in its place for the may ucs I do not think there would of been as much negativity. But when you only get 2 ucs sets a year, they need to really be careful on what they release.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Lego did release a brand new Ugnaught with the carbon freezing chamber, which is the first Bespin set since 2003. They also released a brand new Bespin guard with the Slave 1, which is also coming with the 2016 advent calendar. If Lego ever decides to make a move, now is the time ( Bespin will also be a new map in Battlefront, and Lando a playable hero, make it already Lego!)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Rather than a content upon which the set is based, I think it is the actual execution of given set which forms the customer feedback. The problem with Cloud City I can see is that it is a big structure and each scene, in order to look appropriate, requires a lot of bricks. That's why most scenes Lego try to recreate into medium sized sets look somewhat sparse and unfinished. That's the case with carbon chamber I think. The set itself look like a one third of what it should be and you ultimately have to buy several of these to get the scene look right. And even if you do that, it's still torn apart from the context of the whole room, which is supposed to be enclosed with walls, somewhere inside of the city. And then again, buying several sets to create an ultimate version is alright for some core fans like you but most standard customers would like to receive complete set right out of the box. And that's not how this freezing chamber look in my opinion.

I think that the only concept for UCS Cloud City which may please the core fans is something like this, where the piece count is just massive and I it's easy to imagine number of issues (stability, construction) why this is not great for TLG to tackle.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The biggest problem with 75098 isn't for the playset like design, but the UCS tag, set name and the price tag. If 75098 isn't released as a UCS set and named "Echo Base", the consumers will only be slightly disappointed at best and the lack of believable Imperial forces in the set won't be that striking.

But sure, Lego need to release more set based on Cloud City. But for me, a UCS Cloud City (Or a massive playset) isn't really likely in near future because of the reasons Krisandkris12 mentioned.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think the Endorsed set did well enough (no evidence to back up my opinion) based on people's reviews of the set. One player did good, the other will bomb. As mentioned, it was more the execution of the set rather than the scene setting and playset type itself.

I'd welcome it in the quality of the Deathstar or Endor, but not similar to Hoth.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Cloud car does work as a set altough I see nothing really exeptional on that proposal you linked. I'm guessing though that one of the reasons why cloud car doesn't get released very often is the lack of demand, Not only it didn't have the greatest role in the movie but it belongs to the Cloud City which is (as you noticed :D) not very prominent within the lego SW line.

I am your Father would make for a wonderful MOC but again not very good set. Despite being collectors dream, this is what - a 1500 piece catwalk which allows you to recreate one (no matter how iconic) scene and other than that it doesn't have much to it (not to mention it would be fragile and very kid-play unfriendly).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yes but lego have many options for a future cloud city set/s. For example, they could release themed sets based around the cloud city environment, as I already stated. Also, look at this superb design that sadly got very little support -

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/62673

Hey, thanks for linking to my (now expired) project! I was actually very pleased with the 300+ votes it got. I think with a few changes (adding a mini cloud car, millennium falcon, and Slave 1; adding an unrealistic number of minifigs) and some better marketing and the project could have done much better. Maybe I'll re-submit the project and see if I can do any better.

More generally, what's stopping the AFOLs in this community from putting our heads together and designing a "UCS" Cloud City since Lego isn't doing it? That was the idea behind my attempt, but I know there are much more talented builders around here than I am. I think that would make for a fantastic community build project. I would certainly welcome anyone who wants to revise and improve my model.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

In certain aspects regarding the model representation, the Cloud CIty is very similar to the Death Star. It is huge, it has iconic exterior and multiple interior features. I believe that trully succesful model would have to combine both. Take away the interiors and you end up with UCS model (sort of like 10143) and, to be honest, I highly doubt that Cloud City is popular and visually attractive enough to make a good subject for such display set (symmetric and kind of boring shape, tricky stand attachment...).

So there is the second option of sacrificing the exteriors and implementing some cool interior features. Lego pulled this off ingeniously the 10188 Death Star. But the main reason for this set being so cool is that it retains the main resemblance with the subject. It is a propper ball shaped Death Star as we know it and it is somewhat easy to imagine the skins on it, even though it's open all around. Now imagine it wouldn't be like that. Imagine it would be just random a mesh of interior features put together into a playset. Some hangar, Superlaser next to it, then some ladder, catwalk, some room... I very much doubt such set, although being great source of play and minifigures perhaps, would get a fraction of love.

The problem with Cloud City is that it doesn't seem to be executable in 10188 way :( At least I can't imagine that. With the notable exception of tha VAkkron's digital model, all the attempts correspond to the 'random mesh' type of model.

I'd be extremely happy if someone proved me wrong and built a CS playset that would be aesthetically pleasing just as DS is. Or even better, if LEGO produced such set straight away. The fact is, however, that I'm doubtful about that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I just wish someone at Lego would get on with discussing, planning, or designing some large cloud city set or modular sets. At the very least, even just individual 'scene' sets such as the classic "I am your Father" duel and/or a Bespin cloud-car set would surely sell like hot cakes?

My guess is that they have, but you have to keep in mind that their test/target audience are kids. Neither of those sets are very interesting for kids. The big reveal scene isn't very kid friendly and honestly would make a terribly boring playset by itself. Not to mention too similar to the (very recent) death star duel. The cloud car is also pretty boring in my opinion. It didn't interest me as a kid and doesn't interest me now. At least the skyhopper (a kind of backgroundish vehicle as well) has some kind of connection to the main character.

The main problem with cloud city is that there's just very little action happening outside of the duel and escape. There is a clear pattern regarding playset style sets. Hoth and Endor feature plenty of action in the movies, and also tatooine to a lesser extent. To my nephews Cloud City is just that place Vader chopped off Luke's hand.

Edited by khatmorg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's really bad that so much of episode v is neglected but we have 5 different versions of basically every possible scenario on hoth. This would be cool:

Twin-Pod Cloud Car

~300 pieces

Includes: Pilot, Lando Calrissian (baron administrator), Leia (bespin gown), bespin guard (one of the guys with the pencil moustaches)

then you could do the duel one of two ways

Escape from Cloud City

~700 pieces

has two sections, one is the end of the catwalk where Vader beats Luke, the other could be the area where leia, Lando and the others escape the stormtroopers. Action feature gimmicks for kids also.

Includes: Vader (ESB), Luke (bespin, battle damaged clothes and face prints, also with 75052 hair in dark tan), R2, Leia (hoth jumpsuit but as worn in bespin, stormtrooper, and either chewie, Lando

Or just the catwalk as a little set with Vader and Luke, but of course this is a non starter because Lego needs to have Vader is $100+ sets only.

Also a dagobah set would be great. When the new t-65 x wing is redone, it should be on dagobah, with maybe a little hut .

~700 pieces. Includes Luke (training montage gear), yoda, dirty r2, and Ben as force ghost

But of course, instead they will produce absolutely rubbish ships from a tv show that will warm shelves for months. I find it hard to believe that the people at Lego would go ahead with that instead of the variety of iconic scenes, vehicles etc. that are ignored

It's also pretty awful that there are only 16 sets from episode 2 of which only 13 are original, but there's already that many for Episode 7

Edited by atlas

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Guys,

I just wondered whether you think the poor reviews and general public disappointment with 'Assault on Hoth' (75098) will make a cloud city based set even more unlikely now, or in the future? I think the general consensus is lego are biased towards 'starship or vehicle' based starwars sets rather than playsets such as Endor, Death Star, Mos Eisley Cantina etc, but I just wonder whether the poor sales of 75098 could put the brakes on lego EVER releasing a cloud city set?

I wouldn't say that was entirely the case. It's not that everyone hates playsets, it's just that (in the case of Hoth for example) they haven't been executed well. I mean take the Death Star for example, that was sold for (8?) years. That's better than any UCS set or any Star Wars sets.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yes but lego have many options for a future cloud city set/s. For example, they could release themed sets based around the cloud city environment, as I already stated. Also, look at this superb design that sadly got very little support -

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/62673

Thats actually not a bad starting point. A two-story design might be the best way to go for a new Cloud City set. One thing I don't like about this particular project however is the large amount of dead space and empty hallways. It could really benefit from being scaled down to a more compact size and focus on the essential rooms:

- Dining Room

- Carbon Chamber

- Duel Area

- Landing Platform

- Junk Room

- Possibly the prison/torture chamber

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.