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

[Mandalorianknight]

27 minutes ago, Meadius said:

I don't know whether the FO BPs sold poorly or not, but if they did I imagine it was probably more the fault of a lack of overall interest in the sequels than anything else, though if I remember right the first one they ever did was pretty bad for army-building (it only had one regular Stormtrooper). I also rarely saw any of those BPs you mentioned, so I suppose Lego might just be taking a break to reassess the concept, and not necessarily because of poor sales (I can't imagine that's the case considering how the Mando BP was rather hard to get when it released). 

I think the point was more so that we got 3 first order battle packs in the span of a two years or so, and wanted to army-build actual stormtroopers. Most people did like TFA before TLJ came out, and people were hyped for TLJ itself before it released, so it would only have been the January 2018 pack that was in danger of sales based on film reception. But if you wanted to army-build troopers, you didn't need three packs. And then we get into composition: The first one had two stormtroopers, one of which was wearing the straps thing, an officer, and a technician. The second had two stormtroopers, an officer, and a flametrooper, and the third had two executioners, a technician, and a shuttle pilot. If I remember correctly, at the time people grumbled about the first's composition but bought it, and then a year and a half later when the second, better for army-building pack came out, lego kind of shot themselves in the foot. Army-builders already got the 2016 battle pack or the multiple other sets the stormies and flametroopers were available in, and the only exclusive figure was an undesirable first order officer in navy blue. I definately saw that pack warming shelves, though I personally bought one myself just to get FN-2199. The third pack really didn't hold value for army builders. We only saw two of the executioners onscreen at once, the technician came in just about every set and is one of the cheapest SW minifigs on bricklink, and the shuttle pilot is just the technician with an open-faced helmet (Plus I don't think we ever actually see them in the films).

So imagine it with clones:

January 2022: A battle pack comes out with a p2 clone trooper, clone trooper with straps printed on the torso, unarmored clone officer, and an astromech droid. People complain about the composition, a few accusations about lego sabotaging the prequels are thrown, but most people who wanted clones buy some copies.

August 2023: A battle pack releases with two p2 clone troopers, a red jet trooper, and another unarmored officer, this one with a slightly different outfit. The jet trooper and p2 clones both came in a few sets over the past year, so the only exclusive fig is the unarmored officer with a slightly different outfit. Since most people already have a substantial clone army at this point, the pack doesn't sell as well.

January 2024: A battle pack releases with p2, non-arc jesse and kix, as well as an astromech droid and an unarmored clone trooper (again). Hardcore fans get one copy for Jesse and Kix.

TLDR: Lego shot themselves in the foot with composition and repetition.

[Archer]

47 minutes ago, Mandalorianknight said:

TLDR: Lego shot themselves in the foot with composition and repetition.

Yeah, the repetition of those three packs was what i was trying to point to. Composition of the figures is a consistent issue in BPs but I can't think of any other time where that many packs felt as "samey'.

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

On 8/8/2021 at 8:58 PM, BrickBob Studpants said:

No, but Land- and Snowspeeders tend to get remade in rather quick succession, even more so than other popular sets  I agree with @Alex though, I wouldn't mind too much if new windshield pieces were involved. Then again, they could release the blue Landspeeder from Mando instead 

I think you're right, it was indeed a bit later last year, but that was unusually late as opposed to this year being unusually early  Set lists popping up in August has always been the norm, with a few outliers in either direction (1HY 2016 being so ridiculously early that a lot of people, myself included, completely dismissed the list at first)

 

SW is like CITY - they produce what works. And why making a new windscreen if the old one still sells? I think especially the windscreen is horrible but not to mention even how oversized they are
...again I think those sets are not for the collectors. I always find it weird so many people here actually consider buying most of the sets. It makes much more sense to me to get some parts and make a great MOC.

[necrochasm]

1 hour ago, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

SW is like CITY - they produce what works. And why making a new windscreen if the old one still sells? I think especially the windscreen is horrible but not to mention even how oversized they are

but by that argument, why did the X-Wing get a new cockpit? Why have sets evolve in general? And why produce new sets of it that are identical with no noticeable changes or improvements??

Beats me...

[BrickBob Studpants]

Funny how SW, which is usually among the first themes to have set lists leaked, is now one of the few 2022 themes we haven’t heard anything about yet (the others being Creator, Technic, Disney, and HP) 

Don’t let the youtube hatemongers catch wind of it 

[PreVizsla]

2 hours ago, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

I always find it weird so many people here actually consider buying most of the sets. It makes much more sense to me to get some parts and make a great MOC.

It makes more sense in theory. In reality if you don't already have the pieces and can't build mocs you are screwed.  When you buy a set from LEGO you get figures and a certain quality of pieces and the build. I can either buy a flawed mandalorian starfighter with 3 great figures from LEGO for 60$ or buy instructions for 9$ for a custom one, pay 300$ plus shipping 3 times cause 1 seller doesn't have all the pieces just to get old parts and questionable quality and sturdiness.

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

1 hour ago, necrochasm said:

but by that argument, why did the X-Wing get a new cockpit? Why have sets evolve in general? And why produce new sets of it that are identical with no noticeable changes or improvements??

Beats me...

of course a new cockpit would be important and really necessary. I'd argue they have (as for hairpieces) better molds already. But Lego is a company and you can think of it from a companys perspective: take the old design (it sold well), put some more stability, some new sleek pieces, updated figs and - voila; you got yourself a new set. It's horrible, I know. But why do people here even look at it? It's produced for some kids who  don't own the previous 6 but probably not a single version of the vehicle.

For some sets they can afford to make new molds and for some they don't. Because they have to invest in other things - like other new molds and high production quality for their in house themes (which makes sense as they make more money of them due to the lack of licence fee). As a designer you just sit there and someone will tell you: you have this, now design this. It's a company but for some reason people here act (often) like it's charity or fanservice. Just don't buy the set and you save some money anyway?

And I'd argue many times there are actual improvements - the latest snowspeeders were becomming thicer and more stable - I don't care about this but for others this may be important.
I've heard this a lot about the last 3 landspeeders: I think actually almost every version was a big step up from the version before. At least the last one was different enough; built up engines, better seats, overal waay better build!

 

27 minutes ago, PreVizsla said:

It makes more sense in theory. In reality if you don't already have the pieces and can't build mocs you are screwed.  When you buy a set from LEGO you get figures and a certain quality of pieces and the build. I can either buy a flawed mandalorian starfighter with 3 great figures from LEGO for 60$ or buy instructions for 9$ for a custom one, pay 300$ plus shipping 3 times cause 1 seller doesn't have all the pieces just to get old parts and questionable quality and sturdiness.

I would argue there's a middle ground: The Razor Crest had a good structure but I thought it was completely messy. So I ordered a lot of parts - mostly light grey plates - to make it completely studless. Maybe I spent about 10$, maybe a bit more. But now I have a much better looking ship. Would I have liked Lego to make sets with better colours and less studs? For sure! But it wasn't that hard to mod the set in the right direction.

And if you have some sets already you may be even able to build some MOC's almost completely out of your own collection. I don't buy that much Lego but even I can do that.

I think starting a dialogue with the company and demanding sleeker, more colour consistant sets, a better way to get old sets and parts would be very welcome to both companies. Otherwise many costumers will defacto turn to different brands. But as long as there is so much hatetalk (not talking about you guys and gals) and moralisation (ok this I read a lot here) I rear the AFOL community appears like a joke. Lego is a company within capitalism; they have no reason to act moral but every reason to act immoral.

[Mandalorianknight]

22 hours ago, Archer said:

Yeah, the repetition of those three packs was what i was trying to point to. Composition of the figures is a consistent issue in BPs but I can't think of any other time where that many packs felt as "samey'.

And I assume that's why we get sets like the tatooine battle pack, too. If you just repeat the same figs in a battle pack, they won't sell as well.

3 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Funny how SW, which is usually among the first themes to have set lists leaked, is now one of the few 2022 themes we haven’t heard anything about yet (the others being Creator, Technic, Disney, and HP) 

And if i remember correctly technic and creator usually leak pretty early on, too. Eh, I suppose we'll see it soon enough.

2 hours ago, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

Lego is a company within capitalism; they have no reason to act moral but every reason to act immoral.

This is a common fallacy. Not to get too philosophical or geopolitical, but Lego 100% has reasons to act moral, because if they act immoral people would stop buying from them and they'd lose sales. (Also, because the company is made up of humans just like us, which people too often forget) To use an example I don't even personally agree with, lego cancelled the osprey after models were sent to retailers just because a group said they were breaking their moral standard of no modern military sets. Cancelling a large set that far into production, not just losing the potential sales of the set but having the scrap the already-produced copies and most likely having to refund the retailers that bought them, that definately cost them a lot. Think about it this way: say january 2022 the battle packs are $30. And not like the 501st packs where they added extra figures and a lot more bricks; it's just, say, the 2017 rebel battle pack but $30. Sure, they'll make more profit per copy sold, but you think that set's going to sell even remotely well?

[TeddytheSpoon]

2 hours ago, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

I would argue there's a middle ground: The Razor Crest had a good structure but I thought it was completely messy. So I ordered a lot of parts - mostly light grey plates - to make it completely studless. Maybe I spent about 10$, maybe a bit more. But now I have a much better looking ship. Would I have liked Lego to make sets with better colours and less studs? For sure! But it wasn't that hard to mod the set in the right direction.

And if you have some sets already you may be even able to build some MOC's almost completely out of your own collection. I don't buy that much Lego but even I can do that.

I think starting a dialogue with the company and demanding sleeker, more colour consistant sets, a better way to get old sets and parts would be very welcome to both companies. Otherwise many costumers will defacto turn to different brands. But as long as there is so much hatetalk (not talking about you guys and gals) and moralisation (ok this I read a lot here) I rear the AFOL community appears like a joke. Lego is a company within capitalism; they have no reason to act moral but every reason to act immoral.

Agreed, modding is a pretty good middle ground to get some really nice models, and it's a bit less daunting than creating a new model entirely from scratch. With enough mods it can even become a MOC in its own right eventually.

I don't think LEGO treats AFOLs as a joke any more. Historically that's probably true but it's hard not to notice their change in approach in the last year or two; regardless of what you think of the execution, they're clearly very aware of the adult market (note that that doesn't include playsets). I do think the consistency of colours and prints (especially prints) needs some improvement, but TLG has no control whatsoever over old sets and parts other than to keep producing them ad infinitum (which, frankly, is how companies go bust). There's not really anything they can do for that and I doubt they'd stand to gain anything from doing so.

2 minutes ago, Mandalorianknight said:

This is a common fallacy. Not to get too philosophical or geopolitical, but Lego 100% has reasons to act moral, because if they act immoral people would stop buying from them and they'd lose sales. (Also, because the company is made up of humans just like us, which people too often forget) To use an example I don't even personally agree with, lego cancelled the osprey after models were sent to retailers just because a group said they were breaking their moral standard of no modern military sets. Cancelling a large set that far into production, not just losing the potential sales of the set but having the scrap the already-produced copies and most likely having to refund the retailers that bought them, that definately cost them a lot. Think about it this way: say january 2022 the battle packs are $30. And not like the 501st packs where they added extra figures and a lot more bricks; it's just, say, the 2017 rebel battle pack but $30. Sure, they'll make more profit per copy sold, but you think that set's going to sell even remotely well?

And if we're bringing morality into it (I realise ironically, given that @Kim-Kwang-Seok pointed that out ), then that rules out a LOT of the alternative-to-LEGO brands.

[PreVizsla]

5 hours ago, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

I would argue there's a middle ground: The Razor Crest had a good structure but I thought it was completely messy. So I ordered a lot of parts - mostly light grey plates - to make it completely studless. Maybe I spent about 10$, maybe a bit more. But now I have a much better looking ship. Would I have liked Lego to make sets with better colours and less studs? For sure! But it wasn't that hard to mod the set in the right direction.

I think starting a dialogue with the company and demanding sleeker, more colour consistant sets, a better way to get old sets and parts would be very welcome to both companies. Otherwise many costumers will defacto turn to different brands. 

Yeah i am all for moding the existing set if you buy extra pieces, but it takes certain skill and a deep pocket to make an entire set by yourself. I can certainly switch my mandalorian fighter to mauls gauntlet, but can i build the entire ship from scratch? definitely not and i doubt the average consumer can either. 

I agree, but how do you establish a dialog with a multi billion dollar company? They are not going to listen to 50 people on the forum and for every person that votes with their wallet there is another that is buying that same set, only one that can make a difference are LAN members or other influential people in community, but they will most likely use that position for something they want ( no judgment i would do the same).  If i lived in USA i would probably not even buy official LEGO stuff i would rather buy sets i want from custom sellers like Republic Bricks, but dealing with customs and paying fees and taxes is just not worth it.

Edited August 12, 2021 by PreVizsla
i can do what i want

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

8 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

And I assume that's why we get sets like the tatooine battle pack, too. If you just repeat the same figs in a battle pack, they won't sell as well.

And if i remember correctly technic and creator usually leak pretty early on, too. Eh, I suppose we'll see it soon enough.

This is a common fallacy. Not to get too philosophical or geopolitical, but Lego 100% has reasons to act moral, because if they act immoral people would stop buying from them and they'd lose sales. (Also, because the company is made up of humans just like us, which people too often forget) To use an example I don't even personally agree with, lego cancelled the osprey after models were sent to retailers just because a group said they were breaking their moral standard of no modern military sets. Cancelling a large set that far into production, not just losing the potential sales of the set but having the scrap the already-produced copies and most likely having to refund the retailers that bought them, that definately cost them a lot. Think about it this way: say january 2022 the battle packs are $30. And not like the 501st packs where they added extra figures and a lot more bricks; it's just, say, the 2017 rebel battle pack but $30. Sure, they'll make more profit per copy sold, but you think that set's going to sell even remotely well?

I guess it's about from what angle you view this. Take your example; the ofsprey: like many other sets did - they cancell it because it could destroy a certain image they want to keep? Is the image important for making profit or because of the values? I am quite happy with the company actually but at the end of the day they'll do what they need to do to make enough money. If some artsy-people up there can do some nice and social stuff and if they can combine this with marketing and "family values" or something like this, it's fine. But I've worked in enough companies that went broke to see which path they go when they are not the top dog anymore - or threatened to not be. hint: it's a dirty path. Paper wasn't purchased anymore at the local recyceling company but shipped from eastern european companies with horrible wages for their workers.

Again, this ain't about shaming Lego. It's a system we live in and of course they're gonna give us the Ahsoka-Maul set for 20€ (more worth 15) because they know people will buy it. I am fine with that as I don't need to buy if I don't want. I will be happy whenever they (for whatever reason) don't make that 25% increase but I won't expect or complain too much if they do, because they are a business not a social club.

 

 

8 hours ago, PreVizsla said:

Yeah i am all for moding the existing set if you buy extra pieces, but it takes certain skill and a deep pocket to make an entire set by yourself. I can certainly switch my mandalorian fighter to mauls gauntlet, but can i build the entire ship from scratch? definitely not and i doubt the average consumer can either. 

I agree, but how do you establish a dialog with a multi billion dollar company? They are not going to listen to 50 people on the forum and for every person that votes with their wallet there is another that is buying that same set, only one that can make a difference are LAN members or other influential people in community, but they will most likely use that position for something they want ( no judgment i would do the same).  If i lived in USA i would probably not even buy official LEGO stuff i would rather buy sets i want from custom sellers like Republic Bricks, but dealing with customs and paying fees and taxes is just not worth it.

Interestingly enough bits and pieces of that community do gain a certain attention. I don't know the answer but I'm sure some things can be done. Mostly I think an exchange of information is nice - I feel also like this has been slightly improved over the last 2 years. Like designers explaining certain reasons for certain choices which the community here was unaware of.

about the MOC's: I think we gotta respect how far the parts production has come just in the last 5 years or so, compared to how blocky it was before. But still, Lego has a long way to go - other competitors have way more to offer in terms of mixed colours, studeless pieces and so on. I'm just thinking of how the inverted sloap pieces were a game changer. I'm sure comming developements will make easy MOC's and mods easier.

[ARC2149Nova]

For what it's worth, I heard the osprey was a #### build, so I think they decided to scrap it for that while still saving face. 

The Coast Guard in and of itself is a military unit, despite it's main goal of search & rescue, so a Coast Guard variant of an Osprey makes sense and would still fit with Lego's values.

[Prometheus87]

36 minutes ago, ARC2149Nova said:

For what it's worth, I heard the osprey was a #### build, so I think they decided to scrap it for that while still saving face. 

The Coast Guard in and of itself is a military unit, despite it's main goal of search & rescue, so a Coast Guard variant of an Osprey makes sense and would still fit with Lego's values.

Yeah, and they had actual Coast Guard sets in the past as well. 

[ARC2149Nova]

46 minutes ago, Prometheus87 said:

Yeah, and they had actual Coast Guard sets in the past as well. 

I meant to make that point clearer  so thanks 

[Mandalorianknight]

2 hours ago, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

I guess it's about from what angle you view this. Take your example; the ofsprey: like many other sets did - they cancell it because it could destroy a certain image they want to keep? Is the image important for making profit or because of the values? I am quite happy with the company actually but at the end of the day they'll do what they need to do to make enough money. If some artsy-people up there can do some nice and social stuff and if they can combine this with marketing and "family values" or something like this, it's fine. But I've worked in enough companies that went broke to see which path they go when they are not the top dog anymore - or threatened to not be. hint: it's a dirty path. Paper wasn't purchased anymore at the local recyceling company but shipped from eastern european companies with horrible wages for their workers.

Again, this ain't about shaming Lego. It's a system we live in and of course they're gonna give us the Ahsoka-Maul set for 20€ (more worth 15) because they know people will buy it. I am fine with that as I don't need to buy if I don't want. I will be happy whenever they (for whatever reason) don't make that 25% increase but I won't expect or complain too much if they do, because they are a business not a social club.

The point is, it doesn't matter what reason they choose to do something moral, it's that the market and the people encouraged a moral action. (Or what the people claimed was moral, honestly I don't see a problem.) I agree that at the end of the day they'll do what makes them the most money, my point is more so that the "system we live in" makes it so the most money can be gained by doing more moral things than not. This means that while prices will increase, they lose financially by making things crazy expensive (think of snoke's throne room, or heck, grievous's starfighter hasn't sold well from what i've seen) But anyway, I've gone off-topic far enough. (In fact, by mentioned the osprey I've created multiple completely unrelated-to-the-topic posts, apparently )

 

Why is this list taking so long to leak? Most other themes have, and I believe someone mentioned a leaker said they'd seen it?

[BigA_7]

I'm building the bad batch shuttle and I don't like how those technic pieces on the bottoms of the wings are light grey... it really sticks out and it would have been great if they were just moulded in black. I don't get why lego does stuff like that and throws contrasting and sometimes random colours onto builds, with hidden technique stuff its understandable but for stuff like that on the bottom of the wing, its annoying since they have already moulded that piece in black before

[hondohnaka]

7 hours ago, ARC2149Nova said:

For what it's worth, I heard the osprey was a #### build, so I think they decided to scrap it for that while still saving face. 

The Coast Guard in and of itself is a military unit, despite it's main goal of search & rescue, so a Coast Guard variant of an Osprey makes sense and would still fit with Lego's values.

Yeah I think Jang said the gearbox just plain doesn’t work 70% of the time. 
 

Acc to brickfanatic the entire summer lineup is due to retire next December which feels like a bizarrely short shelf life. 

[Archer]

1 hour ago, hondohnaka said:

Acc to brickfanatic the entire summer lineup is due to retire next December which feels like a bizarrely short shelf life. 

As in the sets that came out this month? That's bananas! I find that a bit hard to believe, even a full year seems short.

 

edit: I just went to the site, the summer sets say Dec, 2022. 1.5 years has been the generally accepted shelf life for a while on most non-UCS sets.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Archer

[BrickBob Studpants]

3 minutes ago, Archer said:

As in the sets that came out this month? That's bananas! I find that a bit hard to believe, even a full year seems short.

They mean December 2022  Brickfanatics’ EOL list is split into two parts, one for Dec 2021 and the other Dec 2022

[Mandalorianknight]

4 hours ago, BigA_7 said:

I'm building the bad batch shuttle and I don't like how those technic pieces on the bottoms of the wings are light grey... it really sticks out and it would have been great if they were just moulded in black. I don't get why lego does stuff like that and throws contrasting and sometimes random colours onto builds, with hidden technique stuff its understandable but for stuff like that on the bottom of the wing, its annoying since they have already moulded that piece in black before

Try being a bionicle fan, with the red axles and blue pins massacring nearly every figure's color scheme. 

They do it to make it easier for kids to see for the most part (hence why "odd" axles are grey and "even" length ones are black, why pins are black/grey depending on friction, half pin/axles are blue/tan depending on friction, and short axles are red.).   You're referring to the actual technic bricks and plates, aren't you... yeah those are annoying especially since many already exist in black.

3 hours ago, hondohnaka said:

Acc to brickfanatic the entire summer lineup is due to retire next December which feels like a bizarrely short shelf life. 

Dec 2022 would be 1.5 years, which is normal.

[hondohnaka]

My order finally showed up, the Imperial Marauder is absolutely gorgeous. Glad I bought two. 

[lomis]

2 hours ago, hondohnaka said:

My order finally showed up, the Imperial Marauder is absolutely gorgeous. Glad I bought two. 

I just got shipping confirmation today that my order will be delivered next week on the 18th and I ordered on day 1.
I don't think I'll be ordering from lego.com again after this. The delay has just been crazy.

[hondohnaka]

3 minutes ago, lomis said:

I just got shipping confirmation today that my order will be delivered next week on the 18th and I ordered on day 1.
I don't think I'll be ordering from lego.com again after this. The delay has just been crazy.

At this point, yeah, I’ll be taking my chances with the store hunt. I could have had this entire order the day after if I’d bought off Amazon. It’s ridiculous. 

[lomis]

5 minutes ago, hondohnaka said:

At this point, yeah, I’ll be taking my chances with the store hunt. I could have had this entire order the day after if I’d bought off Amazon. It’s ridiculous. 

True.

I was put into the queue just after midnight EDT on 2021-08-01 and my items as "In Warehouse" after I ordered.
But they weren't shipped until almost two weeks later? Yikes!

I'm glad I ordered at least one of the new sets on Amazon.
I don't think I'll be doing much shopping on lego.com from now on unless there is something exclusive.

[Prometheus87]

1 hour ago, lomis said:

True.

I was put into the queue just after midnight EDT on 2021-08-01 and my items as "In Warehouse" after I ordered.
But they weren't shipped until almost two weeks later? Yikes!

I'm glad I ordered at least one of the new sets on Amazon.
I don't think I'll be doing much shopping on lego.com from now on unless there is something exclusive.

I also was put in a queue right after midnight. Bought a bunch of the smaller sets but somehow, despite ordering it at 12:30 AM ET, they put it in "review" and then many went in backorder, and I missed out on the Marvel GWP and not able to get any put one of the backordered SW sets.  My first half of the order just shipped today and won't arrive until next week as well. 

I'm going to be pulling back from buying at lego.com as well, and other than big sets to get a nice GWP, I'll be trying the box stores more. 

Added - also a lot of items seem to be arriving dented or crushed. 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Prometheus87