LEGO Star Wars 2020 Set Discussion - READ FIRST POST!!!

[lego_guyon02]

6 minutes ago, Redroe said:

I confidently expected that set to be another 120 quid beast. 

Why? We've known the price of that set for months

[Redroe]

11 minutes ago, Guyon2002 said:

Why? We've known the price of that set for months

Only if you regularly read forums and leaks... I've only known since I joined eurobricks a fortnight ago. And leaked prices are often iffy. They tend to be translated between currencies I think. But anyway, it would be very Lego to release the final two Knights in a big set. If people are into Knights, then they'd have shelled out for the big set anyway, and the people who don't care for the product won't buy the cheaper one anyway. Either way Lego win. 

[Terrasher]

I believe Brickset mentioned that TLG told them that Grievous is a particularly complex and pricey figure to produce. However, the previous Soulless One retailed for 50$ and had about 450 pieces I believe.

Also, the descriptions for the sets crack me up . From Brickset user FlyerBeast:

"Okay so, things they're boasting about these sets in the write-ups:
> Contains instructions
> No batteries required (that's almost a negative, to me)
> The pieces fit together and can be taken apart
> All the pieces are Lego pieces, not anything else
> You can play with them
> People can be fans of Star Wars
> It is socially acceptable to give this to someone as a gift
> Children have imaginations
> There are other products in the range
> We also made a videogame"

Edited June 17, 2020 by Terrasher

[Redroe]

2 minutes ago, Terrasher said:

 

> It is socially acceptable to give this to someone as a gift

Translated from an eastern language for sure! I once had a Korean motorbike and the label on the tank read "be aware that the petroleum liquid can set the person on fire". Pretty grim stuff.

[BacktoBricks]

25 minutes ago, Terrasher said:

> All the pieces are Lego pieces, not anything else

And here was me expecting them to throw in a handful of Lepin. ?

This part of the description really gets me though:

• Ever since 1958, LEGO bricks have met the highest industry standards, which ensures they are consistent and connect and pull apart easily every time – no need to use the Force!
• LEGO bricks and pieces are tested in almost every way imaginable so you can be sure that this Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith building set meets the highest safety standards here on planet Earth – and in galaxies far, far away!

I feel like the write ups are trying to justify the price by promoting a safety aspect to casual consumers who have recently seen the market a lot more contaminated with knock off bricks which must seem more and more appealing in the wake of some of these insane prices.

But clearly Obi didn't get the old safety memo though because he somehow managed to get himself beat up instead of looking squeaky clean.

Edited June 17, 2020 by BacktoBricks

[BigGuy4U]

6 hours ago, TeddytheSpoon said:

Now that you mention it, that could be the distinction between exclusive codes and a one-time thing. 7 randomised letters could quite easily mean individual codes to unlock one or both of the Christmas sweater characters (which is what I assume they would be), whereas the other codes would all be the same, so that if you happen to have the set by the time the game comes out you could immediately play as Palpatine, for instance. I'd be OK with that way of doing it I think, as you don't lose out on any key characters but there's still something of an incentive to buy the sets. 

That would make sense and I'm hoping they do it that way since the advent calendar is the only set with a code I plan on getting anyway. Even if the codes are the only way to unlock certain things, if it's the same code in every set they'll make their way to the internet pretty fast.

[Redroe]

5 minutes ago, BacktoBricks said:

Obi didn't get the old safety memo though because he somehow managed to get himself beat up instead of looking squeaky clean.

MandR productions went to town on that and I don't blame him. Even the face is wrong for the Utapau duel. A mild concern/sassy MacGregor smirk please, Lego.

[BacktoBricks]

5 minutes ago, Redroe said:

MandR productions went to town on that and I don't blame him. Even the face is wrong for the Utapau duel. A mild concern/sassy MacGregor smirk please, Lego.

I know lol. I saw his video days after I'd seen the leaked images and he said he'd done the same as me when he first saw the figure - straight away check the Utapau scene because your damn sure Obi-Wan came out of that fight looking mighty fine and should not be battered up. And yeah, I like the face on the ep 1 Obi from Sebulba's Podracer for instance because it has a good old Obi smirk.

Edited June 17, 2020 by BacktoBricks

[Mandalorianknight]

29 minutes ago, BacktoBricks said:

And here was me expecting them to throw in a handful of Lepin. ?

This part of the description really gets me though:

• Ever since 1958, LEGO bricks have met the highest industry standards, which ensures they are consistent and connect and pull apart easily every time – no need to use the Force!
• LEGO bricks and pieces are tested in almost every way imaginable so you can be sure that this Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith building set meets the highest safety standards here on planet Earth – and in galaxies far, far away!

I feel like the write ups are trying to justify the price by promoting a safety aspect to casual consumers who have recently seen the market a lot more contaminated with knock off bricks which must seem more and more appealing in the wake of some of these insane prices.

But clearly Obi didn't get the old safety memo though because he somehow managed to get himself beat up instead of looking squeaky clean.

They're also trying to get more sales in china, what with the new factories and literal new theme, so it makes sense that they're trying to differentiate between them and knockoffs.

15 minutes ago, BacktoBricks said:

I know lol. I saw his video days after I'd seen the leaked images and he said he'd done the same as me when he first saw the figure - straight away check the Utapau scene because your damn sure Obi-Wan came out of that fight looking mighty fine and should not be battered up. And yeah, I like the face on the ep 1 Obi from Sebulba's Podracer for instance because it has a good old Obi smirk.

Yeah, they really shouldn't have given him that torso. And c'mon, is it really that expensive for them to make a new print that's the exact same thing but with a few marks removed? 

[benderisgreat]

2 minutes ago, Mandalorianknight said:

 

Yeah, they really shouldn't have given him that torso. And c'mon, is it really that expensive for them to make a new print that's the exact same thing but with a few marks removed? 

Exactly my thoughts! When they released Obi-Wan and Anakin in Mustafar set I noticed they don't have burn marks on legs, so to reuse legs with "clean" robes in summer sets. Nope, Lego just decided to be lazy and reuse figures for some reason. I mean there's no reason to get Anakin Jedi Interceptor since I have 2014 one and figure in new one is a reuse. Why Lego dropped the quality so much?

[TeddytheSpoon]

 

5 minutes ago, Mandalorianknight said:

Yeah, they really shouldn't have given him that torso. And c'mon, is it really that expensive for them to make a new print that's the exact same thing but with a few marks removed? 

The torso thing is honestly baffling, for both Obi-Wan and Anakin. My first instinct would be cost cutting for some reason, but as you say, is a minor print change really that expensive? They warranted slapping a radio headpiece print onto Anakin's head (which incidentally looks to be the same as the duel set in every other respect), so it can't be that much. I'm loath to call the LEGO designers lazy, and I'd like to assume there is a business decision behind it.

This is spitballing, but I'm wondering if that Mustafar set severely undersold. If so it might explain why they would try to offload the surplus figures. That might work for Anakin but they've somewhat shot themselves in the foot by making Soulless One £10 more expensive than a set with over 100 more pieces, so Obi-Wan may not go so quickly. That to me is the most plausible explanation, but I don't have any decent knowledge of how well that Mustafar set sold.

[Fenghuang0296]

Okay so I was considering getting the IT-S Transport but now that we have pictures . . as a troop transport it is shockingly useless. It fits maybe four minifigures? That is a lot of bulk for not a lot of functionality. Hard pass and I’m severely disappointed. 

[BigGuy4U]

37 minutes ago, TeddytheSpoon said:

 

The torso thing is honestly baffling, for both Obi-Wan and Anakin. My first instinct would be cost cutting for some reason, but as you say, is a minor print change really that expensive? They warranted slapping a radio headpiece print onto Anakin's head (which incidentally looks to be the same as the duel set in every other respect), so it can't be that much. I'm loath to call the LEGO designers lazy, and I'd like to assume there is a business decision behind it.

This is spitballing, but I'm wondering if that Mustafar set severely undersold. If so it might explain why they would try to offload the surplus figures. That might work for Anakin but they've somewhat shot themselves in the foot by making Soulless One £10 more expensive than a set with over 100 more pieces, so Obi-Wan may not go so quickly. That to me is the most plausible explanation, but I don't have any decent knowledge of how well that Mustafar set sold.

Anakin's head is also recycled from the 2018 Starfighter, nothing about him is new.

[icm]

^^ Looks like it has about the same amount of interior space as the U-wing kit from 2016, and it's a lot easier to access the interior.

Edited June 17, 2020 by icm

[Clone OPatra]

6 hours ago, Sabre-aN said:

Also now that we have official images of all the new clones I whipped up a quick comparison so I could see what they would look like with black hips and/or coloured arms like they used to have, might also be of use to someone else:

Thanks so much for this mock-up! For me personally the thing they most need is the black hips. There's just not enough contrast without them. I thought the blue arms would be necessary too but looking at the options, white arms surprisingly look fine to me once the hips are swapped.

People have already covered most thoughts I might have had. I'll just say, the Soulless One price reads to me like a data entry error.

Person 1: "Whoops, who put $80 in the system for this??"

Person 2: "Ah well, just leave it, we've been selling other starfighters for around the price, no one will ever know."

There are issues also with "pricing for discount". First, it makes the LEGO store and LEGO online irrelevant if that's the point of the pricing, or it disadvantages people who go to those outlets for their LEGO. Second, not all regions of the world get the same scale of discounting as goes on in the US, so once again the entire world besides the US is screwed over by prices that are set overly high in order to be discounted.

The AUD prices are a bit wonky to begin with: for some reason the Soulless One and Night Buzzard are priced the same in Oz ($120), while the ITS and Final Duel which are the same price in many regions are $10 apart, with the ITS actually being the cheaper of the two despite having more pieces!  The same weirdness happened with Harry Potter this year, so I'm not surprised, but it's still weird.

Overall this wave should come across as spectacular given the broad range of sets covering source material from many eras, some including desirable figures that people most certainly want, but the aspects that are a let down unfortunately aren't insignificant.

[Renny The Spaceman]

I really like the new Grievous Starfighter, shame it's so overpriced 

[Kit Figsto]

1 hour ago, TeddytheSpoon said:

This is spitballing, but I'm wondering if that Mustafar set severely undersold. If so it might explain why they would try to offload the surplus figures. That might work for Anakin but they've somewhat shot themselves in the foot by making Soulless One £10 more expensive than a set with over 100 more pieces, so Obi-Wan may not go so quickly. That to me is the most plausible explanation, but I don't have any decent knowledge of how well that Mustafar set sold.

This is completely anecdotal, and I know one person's experience doesn't sum up the others, but the other day I went to a Target for the first time in almost three months (haven't been to any stores that sell LEGO in that time).  Their LEGO SW section was cleaned out with the exception of a single Landspeeder, a handful of the Death Star Cannon (never seems to sell well near me for whatever reason), a couple other random 2018/19 sets, and then a handful of the Mustafar duel - that was the only one of the 2020 sets that there were multiples of.  My guess was that the reports of production being delayed/affected are true, perhaps why their selection was so bleak (City and most other non-licensed themes seemed to be alright, but I think the other licensed themes were pretty picked over as well), but the fact that there were a ton of the Mustafar sets was interesting.  My first thought was that it made sense because it wasn't a set you'd likely buy multiples of, so once you have one, you don't need more, but on the other hand, so are the Landspeeder and Obi-Wan's Hut, especially with the Landspeeder, since we get one every other year.  So again, just my own personal experience, but it was interesting that the Mustafar set was the only of the 2020 sets that seemed to be plentiful.

53 minutes ago, Clone OPatra said:

Thanks so much for this mock-up! For me personally the thing they most need is the black hips. There's just not enough contrast without them. I thought the blue arms would be necessary too but looking at the options, white arms surprisingly look fine to me once the hips are swapped.

100% in agreement here, the black hips, even if not entirely accurate to the costumes, are as close as you can get and provide some contrast that just makes them look a bit more realistic.

[Hulk_Smash]

Regarding the codes in the sets, The Lego Movie also did with that game and the sets and I think it just unlocked stuff you could already get in the game, you just didn’t need to find the thing in game. Same as when you do the survey thing for games and get a code for a character.

But that was 6 years ago, this might be different.

[PicnicBasketSam]

32 minutes ago, Kit Figsto said:

Their LEGO SW section was cleaned out with the exception of [...] a handful of the Death Star Cannon (never seems to sell well near me for whatever reason)

Somebody gave me the Death Star Cannon in December and I think the reason it doesn't sell is that it's not good. It's two extremely miniaturized pieces of the death star put together in a way that doesn't make much sense, all you can do is turn the reactor off and fire the cannon at nothing, it doesn't represent a really iconic moment or even look all that good as a display model (it's WAY too small to play with minifigures around, you can't even properly stand Obi-Wan next to the reactor) so I'm at a loss as to what this set is supposed to be and it's probably one of the most boring sets in this theme in recent memory.

I think my favorite set of this September wave is easily the Razor Crest. It's expensive, sure, and the interior is sparse, but that's an easy fix - aside from that it looks like a really great representation of the onscreen vehicle, it comes with a decent number of minifigures plus a Baby Yoda (speaking of which, putting him in a $130 set almost a full year after his introduction is a real dick move), there's tons of room inside, it's not a remake or reissue, and it's decently minifigure scaled. They seem to have done a great job with this.

Weird that there isn't more of a presence for The Rise of Skywalker in this summer wave. I looked on Brickset at all the sets that have been made for it and while I don't think that movie is very good and there aren't many scenes or locations in it that lend themselves well to LEGO sets, and just making vehicles that have seconds of screentime is probably the best thing to do, it feels like there are gaping holes in the lineup. I think you need a Rey/Kylo Ren lightsaber duel and a Rey/Palpatine final showdown at the very least, but since this breaks the trend of not putting any of the main characters in the same set or in relatively inexpensive sets (Pasaana Speeder Chase, with Rey and BB-8, is the only one that costs less than $70) it wouldn't surprise me if those never got made.

[Kit Figsto]

21 minutes ago, PicnicBasketSam said:

Somebody gave me the Death Star Cannon in December and I think the reason it doesn't sell is that it's not good. It's two extremely miniaturized pieces of the death star put together in a way that doesn't make much sense, all you can do is turn the reactor off and fire the cannon at nothing, it doesn't represent a really iconic moment or even look all that good as a display model (it's WAY too small to play with minifigures around, you can't even properly stand Obi-Wan next to the reactor) so I'm at a loss as to what this set is supposed to be and it's probably one of the most boring sets in this theme in recent memory.

My guess is that they wanted to make a set representing the shield generator scene, which is pretty famous, but they couldn't make a set that was just the DS Cannon, so they needed to add the cannon as a play feature.  I think it's a decent set and I love getting another DS gunner, since they're really one of my favorite SW character designs ever, but I think it works best if you combine the set with some of the other Death Star vignettes.  

But anyway, I am wondering if there's truth to the thing about the factories delaying production on the already made 2020 sets, or if it's just the upcoming ones that got delayed as a result of the pandemic.

[Mandalorianknight]

3 hours ago, TeddytheSpoon said:

This is spitballing, but I'm wondering if that Mustafar set severely undersold. If so it might explain why they would try to offload the surplus figures. That might work for Anakin but they've somewhat shot themselves in the foot by making Soulless One £10 more expensive than a set with over 100 more pieces, so Obi-Wan may not go so quickly. That to me is the most plausible explanation, but I don't have any decent knowledge of how well that Mustafar set sold.

I'm not sure, these were/maybe are going to be august releases for the most part, so by the time that they get any real stats on how well the set is selling, I don't think they'd have time to replace the torso.

That said, just from what I've seen, this set really hasn't been selling well, so maybe it was a last-minute fix. I'd be severely disappointed if that were the case, it's uncharacteristically lazy of them. 

2 hours ago, icm said:

^^ Looks like it has about the same amount of interior space as the U-wing kit from 2016, and it's a lot easier to access the interior.

True, no more barely being able to cram your hand to get the figure in there. They've got a great image of it with some pieces missing, and I think you could easily fit 4-6 figures in there, maybe 8 or ten if you really cram them in.

2 hours ago, Clone OPatra said:

People have already covered most thoughts I might have had. I'll just say, the Soulless One price reads to me like a data entry error.

Person 1: "Whoops, who put $80 in the system for this??"

Person 2: "Ah well, just leave it, we've been selling other starfighters for around the price, no one will ever know."

I've been thinking the same thing (well, not that it was a system error, but that it's somewhat strange as to why it's so expensive). this isn't just "lego is overpriced", this is a different level of value for the price than they normally have. The fact that the KOR ship has more parts, is probably more desirable to most kids right now (say what you will about your favorite trilogy, most 6-12 year olds I know like whatever's new), and is cheaper supports this.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Mandalorianknight

[Kit Figsto]

5 minutes ago, Mandalorianknight said:

I've been thinking the same thing (well, not that it was a system error, but that it's somewhat strange as to why it's so expensive). this isn't just "lego is overpriced", this is a different level of value for the price than they normally have. The fact that the KOR ship has more parts, is probably more desirable to most kids right now (say what you will about your favorite trilogy, most 6-12 year olds I know like whatever's new), and is cheaper supports this.

I truly don't understand it either.  Another poster adjusted the previous one for inflation and came up with about a $60 price point, which seems fair.  Even if the inclusion of Grievous jacks that up by $5-10...I just don't see it.  I don't think there's any new molds in the set, I don't see a ton of extremely huge or complex molds other than maybe those triangular bricks that make up the wings, only three figures and no new molds there (the airborne's helmet is the same as the Utapau BP, right?), I really just don't understand it.  I'm sure there's some sort of reason for it but, like you said, it seems more than just the typical "LEGO overpriced" thing.

[2maxwell]

The torso's carrying over from the Mustafar set really is confusing. Any look at figures shows how often Lego likes to change up prints, even when they really don't need to. I get that the Mustafar set isn't one you'd buy multiples of, but it seems weird to me that it would sell so poorly. It was cheap, had two main characters most people would want, and had decent play features. Amusingly, the main reason I didn't get it was because of the battle damage on the prints haha. Still, that set selling poorly is the answer that makes the most sense to me at this point.

[Paul11283652]

6 minutes ago, 2maxwell said:

The torso's carrying over from the Mustafar set really is confusing. Any look at figures shows how often Lego likes to change up prints, even when they really don't need to. I get that the Mustafar set isn't one you'd buy multiples of, but it seems weird to me that it would sell so poorly. It was cheap, had two main characters most people would want, and had decent play features. Amusingly, the main reason I didn't get it was because of the battle damage on the prints haha. Still, that set selling poorly is the answer that makes the most sense to me at this point.

Perhaps because it’s a confronting scene and parents would reluctant for any children under 10 or so to watch ROTS. Therefore it’s a small set that only sells to older children that might normally be interested in other themes or adults.

I agree that it is baffling Lego used the torso from Mustafar when they also produced Obi-Wan’s torso from Tatooine that would have worked perfectly anyway.

[Mandalorianknight]

59 minutes ago, Paul11283652 said:

Perhaps because it’s a confronting scene and parents would reluctant for any children under 10 or so to watch ROTS. Therefore it’s a small set that only sells to older children that might normally be interested in other themes or adults.

I agree that it is baffling Lego used the torso from Mustafar when they also produced Obi-Wan’s torso from Tatooine that would have worked perfectly anyway.

I don't think many parents wouldn't be ok with their kid getting a ROTS lego set, I mean it's star wars, it's family friendly (at least the films). If a parent isn't going to buy the obi-wan vs anakin set, they probably wouldn't be buying the normal SW sets anyway.

1 hour ago, Kit Figsto said:

I truly don't understand it either.  Another poster adjusted the previous one for inflation and came up with about a $60 price point, which seems fair.  Even if the inclusion of Grievous jacks that up by $5-10...I just don't see it.  I don't think there's any new molds in the set, I don't see a ton of extremely huge or complex molds other than maybe those triangular bricks that make up the wings, only three figures and no new molds there (the airborne's helmet is the same as the Utapau BP, right?), I really just don't understand it.  I'm sure there's some sort of reason for it but, like you said, it seems more than just the typical "LEGO overpriced" thing.

It is really strange. $60 should have been the price, and I could even see $70, but $80 is just insane.