LEGO Star Wars 2021 Set Discussion - READ FIRST POST!!!

[Kit Figsto]

2 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

Every time the contract is renewed there's doom and gloom surrounding the date the renewal ends, despite the fact that they've renewed it multiple times and there's no reason they'd stop, LSW is profitable for both disney and lego. It's just pessimism.

At this point, I would make the argument that LEGO is the marquee SW toy.  Action figures probably still rival it, but there's fewer figures out at one time compared to the number of sets (or, at least it seems that way, because whenever I go into the aisle at Target/Walmart that has SW toys, it seems to be the same 5-6 figures everywhere).  I feel like, more than any other license that LEGO holds, people associate the two brands, a lot.  It's not like other licenses aren't as big - Marvel/DC is likely a bigger brand than SW at the moment, but it doesn't seem like it's got the same implicit association with LEGO that SW holds.  Ditto for Harry Potter, though I would say SW is bigger than HP still.

Maybe it's because there's a big overlap between fans of Star Wars and people who collect LEGO, maybe it's because it's been around longer than any other license, I don't really know.  I would suggest that who are millenials/older Gen-Z might even make the association because the LSW video games (I say this as someone on the younger end of things, I know that myself and many of my friends from ages 6-10 were pretty much obsessed with the LSW video games, I think I'd gotten the plot of most of the movies from that before I'd even seen all of them).  

[MAVERICK26]

1 hour ago, Prometheus87 said:

Why are you assuming Lego Star Wars is done in 2025 and won't be renewed? 

It's an either / or situation - In 2025 OR the very last set that TLG produces under LSW.

[Mandalorianknight]

5 hours ago, Kit Figsto said:

At this point, I would make the argument that LEGO is the marquee SW toy.  Action figures probably still rival it, but there's fewer figures out at one time compared to the number of sets (or, at least it seems that way, because whenever I go into the aisle at Target/Walmart that has SW toys, it seems to be the same 5-6 figures everywhere).  I feel like, more than any other license that LEGO holds, people associate the two brands, a lot.  It's not like other licenses aren't as big - Marvel/DC is likely a bigger brand than SW at the moment, but it doesn't seem like it's got the same implicit association with LEGO that SW holds.  Ditto for Harry Potter, though I would say SW is bigger than HP still.

Maybe it's because there's a big overlap between fans of Star Wars and people who collect LEGO, maybe it's because it's been around longer than any other license, I don't really know.  I would suggest that who are millenials/older Gen-Z might even make the association because the LSW video games (I say this as someone on the younger end of things, I know that myself and many of my friends from ages 6-10 were pretty much obsessed with the LSW video games, I think I'd gotten the plot of most of the movies from that before I'd even seen all of them).  

No, I think you're right that they're the biggest SW toys at this point. I'd say the only thing coming CLOSE is the funko pops, action figures no longer have nearly as much popularity. I also agree that the videogames helped engrain the lego-star wars connection in the culture, to the point that SW has a bigger connection with lego than comparably large brands like Marvel and DC.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

4 minutes ago, Mandalorianknight said:

No, I think you're right that they're the biggest SW toys at this point. I'd say the only thing coming CLOSE is the funko pops, action figures no longer have nearly as much popularity. I also agree that the videogames helped engrain the lego-star wars connection in the culture, to the point that SW has a bigger connection with lego than comparably large brands like Marvel and DC.

Yeah, I don't think that's a controversial statement at all. If I go to Amazon's 'Toys and Games' section and search for 'Star Wars', fully half (15/30) of the results on the first page are LEGO products (and 7 of the other 15 are Baby Yoda in some form). There's no publicly available information about how much the license is worth, but it's safe to say that it's an enormous amount and that LEGO and Disney are both profiting massively from it.

[BigA_7]

With the UCS gunship, I think it's a bit sad to see how they asked the fans what figures they want but throw in Mace Windu and a Captain. I think the "It's from episode 2" argument is dumb because the Gunship is so iconic across II, Clone Wars and III. In the grand scheme of things tho, it is just 2 figures and I don't care about Cody. I am annoyed that there aren't pilots. How come lego never has enough troopers to fill out vehicles?

[Stuartn]

13 minutes ago, BigA_7 said:

With the UCS gunship, I think it's a bit sad to see how they asked the fans what figures they want but throw in Mace Windu and a Captain. I think the "It's from episode 2" argument is dumb because the Gunship is so iconic across II, Clone Wars and III. In the grand scheme of things tho, it is just 2 figures and I don't care about Cody. I am annoyed that there aren't pilots. How come lego never has enough troopers to fill out vehicles?

I think filling out the vehicle shouldn't be a concern as it is UCS scale, though the argument applies to many other system sets. Although it is iconic across three different sources, it was said in the vote that it would be an AOTC set so while a set could have Cody and still a be a great if not better set, it was predetermined not to be so.

I think that there is a reason not to include Cody or any other unique figure, from a marketing perspective, especially with a less iconic prequel set. With UCS sets, there is likely a desire to attract adult buyers who aren't necessarily AFOLs. This is probably heightened since shows like Lego Masters many countries have normalised Lego as an adult-friendly display piece or artistic medium. However, for an adult to want to buy a Lego set and display it, they want it to be iconic or relatable, for them to recognise the set.

Hence a generic-ish clone and Mace Windu provide that feature of the set for the audience to recognise and want the set, especially since Mace Windu is featured heavily in the gunship in AOTC, the Clone Wars and ROTS. While Cody was clearly right next to a gunship in a few scenes, audiences may not make the association as easily.

I do wonder, and this is clutching to straws, since Mace Windu is associated with the vehicle in Ep III, could it be an ROTS set as Cody could easily be misconstrued as 'clone captain', depending on how the leak has been provided or who from.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Stuartn

[Iegosw80]

Unique figures are better served to prop up smaller sets imo. Like the Chancellor Palpatine in the Droid Tri fighter set a while back. Not the type of vehicle fans will necessarily be overly excited about, so that figure really helps to make it a good deal.

A UCS set is all about the display value. When a set is oversized you can't even put figures in it and make it look good, so I understand why they went with just the two which will likely just be placed on the plaque, not in the set itself.

Cody can be included in just about any Utapau themed set if they want to do that.

[2lazeetomakeaname]

2 hours ago, Iegosw80 said:

Unique figures are better served to prop up smaller sets imo. Like the Chancellor Palpatine in the Droid Tri fighter set a while back. Not the type of vehicle fans will necessarily be overly excited about, so that figure really helps to make it a good deal.

A UCS set is all about the display value. When a set is oversized you can't even put figures in it and make it look good, so I understand why they went with just the two which will likely just be placed on the plaque, not in the set itself.

Cody can be included in just about any Utapau themed set if they want to do that.

This makes sense but then why did they ASK what figures people wanted?

[Kit Figsto]

2 hours ago, Iegosw80 said:

A UCS set is all about the display value. When a set is oversized you can't even put figures in it and make it look good, so I understand why they went with just the two which will likely just be placed on the plaque, not in the set itself.

This is the big thing.  It wouldn't make sense for them to include 10+ clones or whatever when the set is way out of scale with them.  The only UCS/MBS type sets that have included large quantities of figures are the playsets (Hoth, the Death Star, Ewok Village, Cloud City, Mos Eisley, etc) or ones that where the figures are in scale with the model (The Sandcrawler and the second Millennium Falcon). 

I agree, assuming the rumor is true, it is very strange that we're apparently not getting a Clone Pilot (if it were up to me, I probably would've gone with two Clone Pilots plus either Yoda or Mace Windu), but the model was never going to include more than 2-4 figures being a larger-than-minifigure-scale build.

And before someone says "They should've just made it minifigure scale," almost no UCS ships/vehicles have been minifigure scale, and the ones that are were made as such because they can't be represented in minifigure scale at a normal, non-UCS price point.  For example, the Slave I or Millennium Falcon are passable at a $80-120 price point, but are way too small to truly be in-scale.  Conversely, stuff like an A-Wing, X-Wing, Snowspeeder, etc, those are all easily made at minifigure scale at retail price points.  The Gunship falls into the latter category, because the $120-150 versions of the ship are relatively close to minifigure scale.  Even if those models aren't perfectly in-scale, they can't really size it up or down that much while leaving it in-scale, just because minifigures have a weird proportion to them, so some proportion is always going to be a little bit off.  

FWIW, I feel many people (myself included) would probably have been happier if they just went with some other prequel UCS and/or just did the Nebulon B, then put out a regular, system-scale Gunship at $130-150 or whatever.  I know there are definitely people excited for a massive display piece, but I sense there will be a lot of disappointed people when this is revealed, despite every previous UCS set pointing to the fact that it won't just be "slightly larger Gunship with 15 clones + Rex + Cody" or whatever people were hoping for.

And just to re-iterate, I do definitely still agree that the choice of figures is strange.  I get including Mace Windu, because they probably want one named character, but the captain over a pilot is odd.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Kit Figsto

[BrickBob Studpants]

17 hours ago, BigA_7 said:

I think the "It's from episode 2" argument is dumb because the Gunship is so iconic across II, Clone Wars and III.

True, it appears in TCW and ROTS too, but AOTC is undoubtedly THE movie when it comes to the gunship  It’s introduced there and has a lot of screentime, which cannot be said for ROTS. Plus the version that appears in TCW doesn’t have the bubble turrets, so if you consider all of this, AOTC was the obvious choice 

[Mandalorianknight]

17 hours ago, BigA_7 said:

I think the "It's from episode 2" argument is dumb because the Gunship is so iconic across II, Clone Wars and III. In the grand scheme of things tho, it is just 2 figures and I don't care about Cody.

How come lego never has enough troopers to fill out vehicles?

Three things:

We don't know for sure that it's just a clone captain and mace windu.

They've been saying from the beginning that it's episode 2, from battle of geonosis. It's in other things but LEGO said from the start that it would be the model from attack of the clones (The clone wars vehicle is actually slightly different).

It's a UCS set, it's not supposed to have a full figure complement, it's supposed to be a display set with related figures on the plaque. We were never going to get something like 2 clone pilots, anakin, ahsoka, jedi bob, and every named clone.

[Stefanisimo]

2 hours ago, 2lazeetomakeaname said:

This makes sense but then why did they ASK what figures people wanted?

It can be a way of analyzing the market and getting some input on what people want, minifigures not necessarily intended to be included in the fan vote set.

Also, they probably had some ideas for who to include if they were already thinking about the sets, so it can be a way for them to see how their ideas and thoughts align with those of the general audience.

[Iegosw80]

3 hours ago, 2lazeetomakeaname said:

This makes sense but then why did they ASK what figures people wanted?

Obviously we can only guess since they seemingly ignored the winner. I don't think they ask for no reason or as a marketing ploy (value of that sounds dubious), so either the figure people wanted is already planned in a different set, or they felt an EIII figure in a II set would make no sense.

I know there has been some backlash when they include these unique figures in large set, because then some fans feel they are forced to buy a huge set just to get a figure, so perhaps that is a reason too. They want to know what fans like, get a general idea, then if it fits with their plans they do it. I remember they did something similar years ago, asked fans what kind of special sets they wanted. I think they were Battle of Endor, Mon Calamari Starcruiser and Palpatine's Arrest. All of them were made, so I'm sure fans opinions matter to them.

[Iegosw80]

3 hours ago, Kit Figsto said:

This is the big thing.  It wouldn't make sense for them to include 10+ clones or whatever when the set is way out of scale with them.  The only UCS/MBS type sets that have included large quantities of figures are the playsets (Hoth, the Death Star, Ewok Village, Cloud City, Mos Eisley, etc) or ones that where the figures are in scale with the model (The Sandcrawler and the second Millennium Falcon). 

I agree, assuming the rumor is true, it is very strange that we're apparently not getting a Clone Pilot (if it were up to me, I probably would've gone with two Clone Pilots plus either Yoda or Mace Windu), but the model was never going to include more than 2-4 figures being a larger-than-minifigure-scale build.

And before someone says "They should've just made it minifigure scale," almost no UCS ships/vehicles have been minifigure scale, and the ones that are were made as such because they can't be represented in minifigure scale at a normal, non-UCS price point.  For example, the Slave I or Millennium Falcon are passable at a $80-120 price point, but are way too small to truly be in-scale.  Conversely, stuff like an A-Wing, X-Wing, Snowspeeder, etc, those are all easily made at minifigure scale at retail price points.  The Gunship falls into the latter category, because the $120-150 versions of the ship are relatively close to minifigure scale.  Even if those models aren't perfectly in-scale, they can't really size it up or down that much while leaving it in-scale, just because minifigures have a weird proportion to them, so some proportion is always going to be a little bit off.  

FWIW, I feel many people (myself included) would probably have been happier if they just went with some other prequel UCS and/or just did the Nebulon B, then put out a regular, system-scale Gunship at $130-150 or whatever.  I know there are definitely people excited for a massive display piece, but I sense there will be a lot of disappointed people when this is revealed, despite every previous UCS set pointing to the fact that it won't just be "slightly larger Gunship with 15 clones + Rex + Cody" or whatever people were hoping for.

And just to re-iterate, I do definitely still agree that the choice of figures is strange.  I get including Mace Windu, because they probably want one named character, but the captain over a pilot is odd.

I think it is simply because this is UCS and not MBS. You only get 2 figures to place next to the plaque, so if one of them is Mace Windu the other should be a clone. From Episode II that can either be the pilot or the captain and they went with the latter. I don't really see the controversy. Not like the clone pilot is some major cult character or hasn't been made in a set before.

While I'm very excited to finally get a large sized UCS from the PT I am also worried LEGO is comitting the same mistake as before with those films, playing it too safe. In principle there is nothing wrong with the set, they've done plenty of oversized sets for popular ships before. But in this case most fans would be more than happy with a slightly enlarged regular set with lots of minifigures. Say 6 to 8 with a mix of Jedi and Clones. A set like that would receive negative complaints from almost no one. When they first opt to go as large as 3000 pieces the Venator is much better choice for a flagship Prequel set. In universe it is a little bit smaller than the SD so the size would be close to perfect. It would also be something completely new. The CW set they made years back was alright but clunky and inaccurate. With 3000 pieces you could make a real nice display set which I would assume is highly wanted by that section of SW fans.

On the other hand the quoted prices for these upcoming sets seem low. Only 300 dollar for a 3000 pcs set? The last Star Destroyer was $ 700 with less than 5000 pcs.  

[KevinMD]

4 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

True, it appears in TCW and ROTS too, but AOTC is undoubtedly THE movie when it comes to the gunship  It’s introduced there and has a lot of screentime, which cannot be said for ROTS. Plus the version that appears in TCW doesn’t have the bubble turrets, so if you consider all of this, AOTC was the obvious choice 

It absolutely had turrets in the tv show, I just saw them on the geonosis attack episode tonight where ki amundi beats skywalker in kills.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

53 minutes ago, KevinMD said:

It absolutely had turrets in the tv show, I just saw them on the geonosis attack episode tonight where ki amundi beats skywalker in kills.

That arc was one of the only ones in TCW where they had them. The vast majority of the ones shown didn't.

[mirkwoodspiders]

7 hours ago, 2lazeetomakeaname said:

This makes sense but then why did they ASK what figures people wanted?

I get the frustration, but I think many people are assuming a) LEGO has to give us what we ask for, which they don't and never promised to do, and b) Mace Windu and a clone captain aren't what the majority of people voted for, which they might have been. We might never know. The Cody discussion is honestly getting a little tired. I personally don't care much about the character, but I hope LEGO does put him in a set soon, if only to get people to stop complaining about his absence on this forum!

[Mandalorianknight]

4 hours ago, Iegosw80 said:

Obviously we can only guess since they seemingly ignored the winner. I don't think they ask for no reason or as a marketing ploy (value of that sounds dubious), so either the figure people wanted is already planned in a different set, or they felt an EIII figure in a II set would make no sense.

I'm sure they're using it for something, though I doubt it'll be P2 cody, since he doesn't fit in the set timeline-wise. My guess is the fan-vote figure either hasn't been leaked yet, or it actually was the clone captain and/or windu, and they were just the most requested figures that fit the setting.

1 hour ago, KevinMD said:

It absolutely had turrets in the tv show, I just saw them on the geonosis attack episode tonight where ki amundi beats skywalker in kills.

Most of the episodes did not have this, though.

[KevinMD]

32 minutes ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

That arc was one of the only ones in TCW where they had them. The vast majority of the ones shown didn't.

 

2 minutes ago, Mandalorianknight said:

Most of the episodes did not have this, though.

Huh. So a movie that has one battle where we see the gunship, and then a clone wars episode arc on the exact same planet. Maybe the turret version should be called the geonosian version.

sorry for being pedantic but you said all and I literally watched an episode tonight with them so figured I would point it out. 

[Clone OPatra]

Earlier seasons of TCW didn't have turrets because they didn't have the budget/time to make the animation work with all of the "turret glass". The per-episode budget increased and the animation got more sophisticated as the show went on, so they were able to add the turrets back in later.

So basically, the gunship is always supposed to have turrets, but it just didn't in TCW for a while because of real-world reasons and not in-universe reasons.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

24 minutes ago, Clone OPatra said:

Earlier seasons of TCW didn't have turrets because they didn't have the budget/time to make the animation work with all of the "turret glass". The per-episode budget increased and the animation got more sophisticated as the show went on, so they were able to add the turrets back in later.

So basically, the gunship is always supposed to have turrets, but it just didn't in TCW for a while because of real-world reasons and not in-universe reasons.

I'm not sure that's correct. The Geonosis arc was quite early in TCW (season 2), and the gunships continued to normally not have turrets for the whole run of the show--the ones in the Bad Batch arc in season 7 don't, for example--so it's definitely not the case that they intended for them to always have turrets and couldn't initially animate it. The in-universe reason (which admittedly has been inconsistent) is that the version from AotC isn't spaceworthy, since the turrets mean the troop bay doors don't reach all the way to the front and that hold can't be sealed. For both the Geonosis landings they got past that by bringing the Venators and Acclamators way down into the atmosphere to launch the gunships, but that's not always practical, so for most of the war they traded some firepower for the ability to launch directly from a ship in orbit. Plus, in other parts of TCW they showed them with other equipment mounted in that spot (floodlights for the Umbara arc, for example). The variant shown for the 2nd Battle of Geonosis has the turrets mounted further forwards than in AotC and doesn't have the smaller openings in front of the troop bay, so I'm not sure what's up with that version in-universe, but it's clearly intentionally not the same as the movie design.

[Clone OPatra]

5 minutes ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

I'm not sure that's correct.

Ah fair enough. I definitely remember either reading or watching an interview with Filoni (or someone else involved) citing initial problems animating the bubble turrets. It's been a long time since then and memory is an unreliable thing!

[Stuartn]

1 hour ago, Clone OPatra said:

Ah fair enough. I definitely remember either reading or watching an interview with Filoni (or someone else involved) citing initial problems animating the bubble turrets. It's been a long time since then and memory is an unreliable thing!

I remember that turrets were removed from the Y Wing in A New Hope as there was issues with the computer editing for that movie

[McMurder_them_softly]

14 hours ago, Iegosw80 said:

On the other hand the quoted prices for these upcoming sets seem low. Only 300 dollar for a 3000 pcs set? The last Star Destroyer was $ 700 with less than 5000 pcs.  

Probably goes to show price per piece is a rough metric at best. All pieces are not the same. The Star Destroyer weighs close to the MF, but less pieces (more large plates, less smaller detail bits). 

If anything, my wallet is appreciative of the lower relative prices. 

[JaHawk2009]

I'm going to order either the Vader bust or the Probe Droid this evening. Which is the better set?