Huigberts Builds

Nah I doubt that. While Rebels indeed didn't do too well after it's first wave, that could be blamed on the uninteresting choice of vehicles and poor figure selection. Resistance did indeed sold poorly. Again there was a terrible vehicle and figure selection. They included figures that were unimportant to the show. Gave us only 1 true main character. And while the children most likely want the aces ships to race against each other, they got a resistance vehicle and 1 ace ship, which wasn't even the one from the main character and also the only one without any colour. The Clone wars will do well with both teen fans who grew up with the show as adult fans. That's already quite some people. Than there's the kids, who really don't care if they've watched every single episode to buy the sets. Even though they might have watched all of them because it became easily available for them to watch on disney+. And most of them probably do know you start a serie with its first season. Unless they would purposely go to disney+ and manually click on the last season, because disney+ just starts the show on the first episode. They might only skip the movie. Besides they usually only care if the set looks cool or not.

At that price point I can see the sets being something like: $19,99 - Minestry of Magic Figures - Harry, Dumbledore, Voldemort, Lucius $29,99 - Second Task Figures - Harry, Merpeople, Victor, Igor Karkaroff, Gabrielle, Hermione (unlikely, too much figs, but idk) $69,99 - The Burrow Figures - Harry, Ron, Molly, Arthur, Fenrir, Ginny $99,99. Astronomy tower + Greenhouse Rooms - Umbridge Office, Dumbledore's Army/Room of Requirements, Slytherin Common Room Figures - Harry, Luna, Fred, George, Slughorn, Draco, Umbridge, Firenze $39,99 Borgin and Burkes Harry, Snape, Narcissa Malfoy, Bellatrix I based this on the reusability of the Gabrielle face. The fact that the greenhouses only play a big part in chamber of secrets and half blood prince. Dumbledore seemed to dark in the astronomy tower so he replaces the more obvious (but also too dark) choice of Sirius in the ministry. Prices for B&B and second task could but switched, depending on whether more figures or a bigger build would be more expensive. Fair enough. But I think the advent calendars don't necessarily have to be build around Christmas, but rather winter in general. For which poa Hogsmeade would be the next in line. But who knows? I'll let myself be surprised, the theme managed that already for 2 years in a row.

If the prequels are getting some love this year it better be aotc. There are so many scenes still missing. But to be honest so are tpm and rots scenes. We still haven't had Boss Nass for example. But I doubt we'll see anything we haven't seen before. I guess they are just slowly getting afraid to take risks with sets and are mostly only releasing 'remakes' of vehicles that usually did well. But I don't really think that's on Lego, it's the star wars merchandising in general that rather keeps things save. Which after some time becomes the least save thing they could.

I'm still not too certain about a yule ball advent calendar. There are still so many other Christmas themed scenes to choose from that I just don't know where they're going for this year. I can also see something Hogsmeade related or Weasley centered. Or perhaps the slug club considering this wave is most likely ootp and hbp centered. I'm just gonna let myself be surprised, otherwise I'll be setting myself up for disappointment. Besides we just got a yule ball centered set, and I'm not sure if they'll put the 3 exclusive figures for the trio togheter in another set when the clock tower is still on the shelves (assuming they will always include the main trio)

Well that's worrying. But not that surprising as last jedi sets are still warming the shelves in my local stores, full price. So do those of tros and those 4+ or something sets. At least Solo did reasonably well in my local stores (probably because they where mostly a fresh breath of air). And the Mandalorian was basically gone day 1, but that's only 2 small sets. I didn't really expect anything this year since it takes a while for them to change their strategy, but they should really start making some changes.

Nah don't count on it. I'm pretty sure that, at least for a while, every HP advent Calendar will at least include Harry. Most likely Ron and Hermione as well. But who knows.

Such a shame. I guess next time we might see a reveal is with New York Toy Fair?

The problem with Grimmauld place is that it isn't that interesting of a location in the movies. The only thing it has really going for it is the house appearing between the other houses, which will be difficult to pull off in a regular set, but without it it's really just a house with a wall covered in paintings. Ofcourse they could include some play features like ghost dumbledore jumping towards you or something but that's really about it. It's such a set where either they should go all out or otherwise shouldn't do it at all. And since there are still so many better options left to make as sets, as well as all of the characters at Grimmauld Place appearing in at least 1 more location (besides Kreacher), I don't think we will see it anytime soon.

That's regular Bellatrix. We were talking about Azkaban Bellatrix, who has little chance of appearing in a set.

Yeah I agree, leaks usually help me manage my money better so I could save up for the sets I want and buy more in the end. However, since it's only a minority of Lego buyers who go all the way out to search for leaks I don't think that really balances out the negative effects of leaks at all. I think the last minute advent calendar of last year is a good indicator of the faith Lego has in this theme. I just hope Lego isn't that kind of company that's like: "It will sell anyway so we don't have to put any effort in it."

Yeah this is most likely the reason. A last minute designed set just to cash in on his success as quickly as possible. Like you said, they probably started to design the set around the time baby yoda was announced, sadly meaning a real set with him is probably still at least a year away.

Yeah that's true I guess. Still, only front printing is better than no printing at all (looking at you Fleur).

The previous Bellatrix piece was pretty much perfect. Only could have used some printing for the white hairs, so maybe duel molded this time around? As it's probably hard to print on such a piece. Anyway a cmf Azkaban Bellatrix is also good for army building some prisoners.

It's been quite some time since then so I guess I might have miss remembered the details. I was just using it as a comparison but now that you mention it I think it's a wrong example. But I'm going too much of topic here. My point just was that looking at some of the comments under Instagram posts and youtube videos people are kinda voting for the wrong reasons (I think most of us have seen them by now) which I don't think will help their cause, quite the opposite. But I'm sure that doesn't apply to any of us here. My apologies for bringing up that Hasbro poll.

I don't think liking any SW material other than the original trilogy and wanting merchandise for it makes you any less of a Star Wars fan. I think it has been an issue for quite some time now how there's a lack of anything other than original trilogy stuff. First with the prequels and now with the Sequels as well. I think this poll is the perfect opportunity to show that we want more than just OT stuff. And I don't mean that it should win, even if it doesn't, at least they'll see a lot of people also voted for the gunship. However we should avoid massively voting for something just to send a message, and for when it eventually releases not to buy it. That will send mixed signals. Something similar happened with a Hasbro figure contest a few years ago. People wanted more representation for the EU characters and thus wanted to send a message by massively voting for Jaina but with no interest of actually buying figures. Hasbro took notice and basically eliminated her from the polls. So voting for the gunship just to send a message won't really help. I rather lose the poll than the set selling terribly.