Kit Figsto

If you're talking Kenner, just glancing quickly at the list of original figures from the OT: We've had Death Star Troopers but not a specific DS commander, we've had Death Star droids before but not in silver, Snaggletooth is missing still, everyone is there from ESB, and from RoTJ we're missing 8D8, Klaatu, Prune Face, Tessek, Droopy McCool, and Sy Snootles. Nien Numb is technically missing still, but it appears that we're getting him sooner rather than later. So not really much!

Wow, I've honestly never realized that was a thing, and I've even noticed the Stormtroopers before in that scene with the tractor beam. That's pretty cool! I think it's somewhat unlikely, but you never know, we've gotten some pretty random variants of characters before.

Assuming he's coming in 2024, I'd guess that has to be it, unless either the anniversary set has some missing info or there's some retailer exclusive that's missing (though I feel like the sets he's most logical to appear in would be some versions of Rebel ships, which would seem unlikely to be retailer exclusives in my opinion). However, as many have said, we're very due for an OT Falcon re-release, so like the article says, it could be a 2025 figure in a set like that, which would make a lot of sense to me. I think this basically wraps up almost OT character as minifigures! Now that we're getting him and we got Aunt Beru, the only missing ones are pretty much Imperial officers, Rebel pilots, and background aliens from the Cantina/Jabba's Palace. There are some updated RoTJ characters that would be nice (namely Mon Mothma), but I can't really think of a named, recognizable character that is still missing.

Again, there's a difference between UCS sets that are minifigure compatible and UCS sets that aren't. The AT-AT was more or less minifigure scale, and thus made sense to include a plethora of figures. For the first 10 years of the UCS line, the only stuff that came with minifigures were the 2008 Death Star (which was more of a giant playset) and the Lambda (minifigure scale). The first non-minifig scale set to come with figures was the 2011 SSD. When Obi-Wan's fighter came out, it wasn't the norm for UCS stuff to come with minifigures (I went back to check and couldn't find EB comments where people had issue with the lack of figure, but admittedly didn't dig for that long). The way I see it, minifigures in a display-scale UCS set are a nice bonus, but I feel as if there is way too much emphasis placed on them. Anyone is free to spend their money how they wish, but in my personal opinion, I feel like it'd be a huge waste if I was hinging my decision to buy a $250 set based on whether or not it comes with one minifigure or two.

I genuinely don't know where this massive minifigure uproar discourse comes from every time a non-minifig scale UCS set comes out. (actually I do, it was the whole Gunship fiasco, which was completely predictable from the get-go. The set was never going to be minifigure scale and I don't know why people were so blindsided by that). They have been very consistent with UCS minifigure selection. 1) If the ship/vehicle cannot be represented accurately at a playscale size, the UCS set will almost certainly be minifigure-scale, or as close to minifigure scale as you can realistically get. (Examples - minifig scale = The Slave I, Millenium Falcon, Sandcrawler, Imperial Shuttle, etc; non-minifig scale = X-Wing, Landspeeder, Y-Wing, TIE, etc; minifigure scale isn't possible, but they make it as large as they can = SSD, ISD, Venator, etc). 2) If the ship/vehicle falls into category A, a larger minifigure selection is generally the case, but at the very least, the characters most associated with the ship/vehicle are included. 3) If the ship/vehicle falls into category B, 1-2 minifigures is the norm. As a @SketchBrick pointed out, this wasn't even always the case, as it wasn't until the 2010s that non-minifig scale UCS models even came with minifigures, since they're essentially just display add-ons when the ship/vehicle is too big to interact with them. 4) If the ship/vehicle falls into category C, it varies heavily. The SSD had like five minifigures, the second ISD and Venator have each had two, so the five might just be an anomaly, but they've truly only done like 4 ships that are in this category and one was two decades ago. 5) MBS sets (or sets that retroactively fit the MBS label, such as the Ewok Village, Death Star playset, Assault on Hoth, and 2003 Cloud City if you count that) will have a large minifigure selection regardless. Point being, I don't really know why the TIE having two minifigures instead of one would be the main selling point. It's a $240 display model that the minifigure can't do anything with, so I'm not sure why the inclusion or omission of a figure is that major of a point.

I'm almost positive that they've done this the past few years. I don't know why that's the case, but the last couple of waves have hit shelves in the US a little bit later than the rest of the world.

The other lightsaber builds have gone for quite a bit on BL, I bought the Cantina during the VIP window and made back like $100 by selling the Yoda lightsaber promo. I expected the price on that to go down as most GWPs do (start off high and then drop once the hype dies down + supply increases), but annoyingly, it appears to be even more, I could've made back nearly 2/3rds of the original purchase price . Anyway, I think it depends on whether or not it's VIP/Insider exclusive. The Yoda one was only available for VIPs during the early release window, so I think it's a lot rarer, whereas the Luke appeared to just be a general release as long as you bought the AT-AT, and that one goes for around $100 on BL. If this is a VIP-only promo, I think it'll end up being probably $200+, since it's a $500 set, but a general release likely will be like $80-100? Either way, it's a solid chunk of the price that you can make back, especially since UCS stuff doesn't ever go on sale, so you may as well buy it early if you 100% know you're going to want it.

The minifigure selections of the Sail Barge sets sound nice, and I'm glad that they seem to complement each other, but I'm not sure about the quantity. Cloud City and the Cantina both had 20+ if you count droids, so 10 is just a little bit light. I get that they didn't want to repeat figures across the Barge and Sarlacc sets, so that kind of eliminates Luke/Han/Chewie/Boba/Lando, and I'm assuming that the Barge is simply too large to downscale and have included the Sarlacc + skiff(s), so splitting the sets was probably their best option there, but I feel like 5-6 more figs would've been nice, especially since Salacious Crumb isn't even really a figure. Say, those ten, plus another Gamorrean or two (assuming it's just the one, I think it'd be a little bit odd if it didn't come with at least two), a Nikto (since that won't require a new mold), a Quarren (mold already exists), and maybe Saelt-Marae (Yak-Face) as the major Jabba's Palace alien still unmade. Normally, I'm totally fine with figure selections in UCS sets, I think getting 1-2 in a UCS ship is more than generous, but this one seems to be playscale, so I think 15-20 is more apt, especially at a $500 price point. I'll reserve judgement until we have pictures, but 10 just seems a little light.

To be fair, this happens a lot. Sometimes I think it’s people making things up and trying to pass them off as a real leak, either so that if it does work out, they gain credibility, or just honest speculation that gets misconstrued as fact. Last year, there were a ton of people saying that the 332nd BP either came with Bly or Rex, for example. I’ve noticed that most of the reliable leakers will say “likely” or “might” include certain figures sometimes and other times just say it includes a figure, so I feel like at times that can get misconstrued.

I think the point is that, while City subthemes are smaller, the City line as a whole gets probably 30+ sets each year. Star Wars and Marvel probably get 18-20+ annually if I had to guess. Harry Potter is probably somewhere in that 15-20 range as well. DC gets maybe a handful of sets each year, usually 1-2 of which are UCS-scale, another 1-2 of which are 4+, maybe a polybag, and then like 2-3 system scale sets. I know that DC isn't as popular right now as Marvel or Star Wars, but theoretically it should be a well-known enough property to where we could get larger waves, even if it's still really heavily Batman focused (think the 2006-2009 era). For whatever reason, though, the sets just don't seem to sell well enough to warrant this.

The CMF set is such a fun assortment, I really hope that the QR code trick continues to work. I definitely need a few of the Ice Planet guys, and I love the the alien tourist, constellation, M-Tron guy, and UFO costume.

I think that this is the crux of the issue right here. I'm, I guess, tangentially a Space fan (in that I do like some of the sets and themes, but I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore Space fan). I feel like the 80s/early-mid-90s Space stuff captured a similar aesthetic, for the most part. As time went on, we started to get some more specialized parts, or minifigure printing became more complex (compare Ice Planet to Blacktron I, for example), but I feel as if the sets still had some level of compatibility. I feel like this changed with probably Life on Mars or Mars Mission, since that was around the time that LEGO began to produce a lot more specialized elements, namely adding more curvature into the mix, which I think is a big change specifically for Space since Castle and Pirates sort of already had their specialized parts (pirate ship hull/mast parts, castle walls, etc), whereas Space, with it being a largely vehicle-based theme, had to rely on a lot of angle/wing plates to capture curves. Ironically, most of the aforementioned specialized parts for Pirates/Castle don't really exist anymore, whereas Space still makes good use of a lot of smooth slope/curved parts. In addition to parts, I also think that time itself has simply changed some things. The idea of futuristic spacecraft looked a bit different in the 70s/80s/90s than it does now (and that can even be seen if you compare some of the ships from OG Classic Space with some of the mid-90s stuff). Anyway, IMO, that's probably why there exists a distinct different of opinion between a lot of Space fans. Some people tend to favor the older aesthetic (which can be captured while still using modern parts, I think the Galaxy Explorer and Blacktron Cruiser do a fantastic job of creating sets that fit in with 80s/90s Space but also look a little bit sleeker/updated), while others are okay with whatever comes out under the Space umbrella. As a side-note, I sort of wonder if the current City Space sets were just released as "Space" or some sort of subtheme name and not just "City" if some folks would have less of an issue with them. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinions on the sets, and I think at the end of the day, "buy what you like" is probably the best rule to follow.

There's a difference between adult-oriented D2C, artwork or nostalgia-focused sets (such as UCS Star Wars ships, flower or mosaic sets, or stuff like the NES model) and MA/R rated properties, which to my knowledge, they have never truly based sets on anything that falls into that category. And before the whole debate opens up, they're pretty consistent in their depictions of violence/controversial subjects: fantasy/historical violence (such as super heroes or science fiction) is almost always fair game, modern/realistic depictions of violence or stuff that's blatantly MA (drugs/sex/alcohol) has pretty much always been off of the table (unless you count set 1687 from 1993, which was basically the LEGO drug smuggling playset ).

I think that's a fair gripe, my main point is just to highlight that, in all honesty, I really don't know where the expectation of lots and lots of figures in medium-sized ship builds is coming from, since it's pretty much never been the case. Just going back to some random sets to further cement my point - The Twilight (2008, $100, two figures + R2 + Rotta the Huttlet); 20th Anniversary Slave I (2019, $120, 5 figures including an anniversary fig); Resistance Troop Transport (2015, $70, 4 figures); Solo TIE Fighter (2018, $70, 4 figures). Vehicles are a bit of a crapshoot as it is with minifigure amounts, but the general rule for the past, say, 5-10 years seems to have been 3-4 figures and maybe a droid if it's less than $100 (and this obviously does not include battle packs). There are examples of sets that may have had a 5th figure, but realistically expecting anything beyond 4 for this set isn't super realistic. It's entirely possible that if this wasn't a 25th anniversary set, it would've literally just been Anakin, Qui-Gon, and Maul.

Again on the minifigures, the complaint about not enough is just not realistic expectations. I post this *standing* in the LEGO SW aisle (yes, really), and the non-location sets I see in front of me are: Mando N-1 - $60, 2 figures + Grogu + BD droid (basically 2 figs) Ahsoka’s T-6 - $80, 4 figs Gunship - $140, 5 figs AT-TE - $140, 5 figs + 3 battle droids Falcon - $160, 5 figs + R2 + D-0 Mando Fang Fighter - $100, 3 figs + astromech TIE Bomber - $65, 3 figs + Gonk droid Spider Tank - $50, 2 figs + Grogu Yoda’s fighter - $35, 1 fig + R2 Pirate Snub fighter - $35, 2 figs Obi-Wan’s fighter - $30, 2 figs + astromech And then 3 battle packs. Whether you agree or not, 3-4 figures in a $50-$100 set is pretty much par for the course at this point. Even going back a few years, the Imperial Shuttle, General Grievous’ Fighter, the X-Wing, they all followed that pattern too.