LurkingEhlek

I have no problem putting $50 down for that X-Wing. I actually enjoy the simplicity of details like the cannons and even if the nose shape is not screen accurate, I like how thinner it is compared to every X-Wing since the theme launched.

I am going to admit I was a little tired and did not articulate my thoughts in a good way, which is going to cause misinterpretation. When I said Clone Wars burnout, I did not necessarily mean The Clone Wars burnout. I was trying to frame my point on Clone Wars era vehicles and not necessarily sets that are based on the show. That was my fault. It's actually the fact that Clone Wars sets are mostly remakes that irks me. I was going to extent my point to include Geonosis and Kashyyyk as offenders of over exposed battlegrounds but cut it for space. Kashyyyk in particular is a better comparison as the Prequels Hoth because how many camo troopers, droids and dwarf spider droids does one need. I also agree with you about the Clone Wars not reaching potential, that is why I posted this opinion. There are some vehicles that would be good (A Trident Droid Sub, A red Mandalorian Starfighter, any Separatist warship), but I would still rather Lego tread new water with sets from the Prequel Films themselves (a remade Bounty Hunter Pursuit, A Yoda Sidious Senate duel, a Kamino landing platform battle, etc.) compared to stuff from a supplementary TV series.

While there is more to Star Wars than X-Wings and Ties I will go on the flip side and say that I am just as close to Clone Wars burnout and am happy we are getting a wave long break from it. The Clone Wars has been guilty of dominating Prequel content more than Hoth or Luke's Landspeeders ever have dominated OT content. I would love a Bounty Hunter Pursuit remake, more podrace sets, redone location duels and Wookiee vehicles. Instead Lego rehashes BARCS, Jedi Starfighters, and out of scale Clone Walkers yet they don't get a fraction of the criticism because they often come with a clone with a unique paint job. I feel like the late TFOL and early AFOLs, particularly those who subscribe to Star Wars Youtubers, look at Lego Star Wars with a very strong good or bad with no in between mentality. I grew up with the Prequels and TCW, so I have just as fond of a nostalgia for the era. Yet there are others in my demographic that throw a fit if they do not get their fix of clone army building to line up on a base plate for Reddit/Instagram clout with all the sets they scalped.

This list looks plausible, but I am not even that disappointed. I am annoyed that the AT-AT and Falcon are getting redone as Microfighters, as we already have gotten them before. The only way I would buy a Falcon microfighter would be if it had any variant of Lando in it. The Tauntaun sounds novel and fits with the creature theme two packs. I hope the unrevealed microfighter is a new vehicle. There a lot of Mandalorian season 1 settings that could get $30 sets, or it could be something from the start of season 2. This will be what the wave hinges on for me. I was going to make a claim I thought was controversial but it seems most people agree with pricing down the X-Wing and Tie. It's a good idea. Lego simply has been pricing many kids out of iconic sets due to scale and detail. Even as an AFOL I was hesitant to buy the 2018 X-Wing due to the $80 price tag. This year's X-Wing and Tie in particular hit a critical mass of being overpriced. If we have to sacrifice scale a bit, that is fine. I will take low complexity over a high price. However, the choice to put two X-Wings in the same wave is baffling. While they are different ships from different trilogies, they are still X-Wings. I accept that an X-Wing should be on shelves at all time, but putting two in the same wave when they compete for a smaller price point is short sighted. Lego also could have went with Vader's Tie instead of a regular one since that translates better to a lower price and it has been four and a half years since the last one which was bundled with a lackluster A-Wing. I think doing a shuttle well at the suggest price is doable, and since I skipped out on the 2016 one I may pick this up if it is not overly scaled down. This is a ship that can only be in scale in UCS anyway. The Helmets will probably be all OT based, which is a shame since the prequels have nothing this wave. A clone Helmet would be nice. I see this wave as a silver lining for me to save some money back for future waves and/or the Cantina. There is only 1 absolute purchase (Mando set), and two maybe purchases (X-Wing and Shuttle). It is hard for me to evoke negative thoughts about a wave I will not buy much of. Now if Summer 2021 is equally as lackluster, then I will be disappointed.

I am pretty sure that is Hrcheck Kal Fas pasted twice in the image since there are two Devaronians, one near Hrcheck Kal Fas. It was probably taken from a photo of the speeder build that was planted in the blank space and the figures were not cropped out. It's a real shame as this thread has made me a big Elis Helrot fan just on the assumption that he may have got in, but the Saurin is cool.

I was actually brainstorming a Podrace MBS, but you beat me to the punch with most of what I was going to say. I would swap Neva Kee's pod for Ben's just because it got more screentime even if it was comic relief. As for pilots, Mawhonic would be a good choice to include just to give the Ree-Yees mold another use. Plus Aldar Beedo would could use redemption after being both the single worst mini-figure in Lego Star Wars history and a lackluster 1 piece mold. As for audience members, Weazel should be included on the basis of more Warwick Davis. Lastly, if you wanted to use new molds multiple times and be cruel you could include Ratts Tyrell and have his family in the audience.

To play Devaronian's advocate for the figure repeats, a good chunk of repeated figures are mass-able like Sandtroopers, Jawas, and the Modal Nodes. Or they have good parts that can be used to make custom figures. An Obi-Wan copy is a free set of Jedi Robes. Luke and Wuher are head swaps away from generic moisture farmers. Some of the frustration I get though, as I'm really about to have my fifth modern Chewbacca (Which is sort of annoying since the 2015 figure was clearly designed to look like ROTS Chewbacca and personally looks off when used in an Original Trilogy context). On the other hand, I am surprised that somehow the last non-red arm 3PO I own is from the 2010 Landspeeder.

As said, the big thing with figures on the secondary market comes from if the figure stays exclusive (Which is frustrating in cases like Rebels Ahsoka and Zeb which could have went in other sets if Rebels sets did not do so bad). However I would wait on Ponda and Garindan. Since those two have new head molds I would not be surprised if they popped up in a future smaller Cantina or Landspeeder sets respectively four to six years from now. So if I were skipping this set and hunting minifigs, I would focus on Kabe, the Devaronian, etc. who have a good chance to remain exclusive. Another rule of thumb to follow would be to wait until the 2021 advent calendar to avoid a Cloud Car Pilot scenario.

I am glad my low figure estimate was blown out of the water with Garindan, the Devaronian, and Kal-Fas. If I had seen just the figure list, I would have called it out as wild wish-listing. What I enjoy most is the amount of terrain surrounding the buildings they give you, where figures can comfortably be set outside. Plus it is nice to finally get two vaporator builds that are actually tall. The Dewback pen is great. That means I will now have a full family of them complete with the child sized brick built microfighter. The mandatory landspeeder joke was satisfied but averted with the white speeder and the Ubirkkian. And I don't fault the Ubrikkian repeat since it is directly in front of the Cantina door in the film. So overall in a vaccuum this satisfied the volume of stuff decently well. The moment of truth will be when a better look at the cantina interior shows up.

That's proof I was too sleep deprived to remember the most iconic part of the scene. Either way that just makes my bottom line that the figure slots are pretty well filled out more solidified.

I decided to number-crunch how Mos Eisley's figure selection will look and my current estimate list puts it at a satisfying range of 12~16. 6 in potential leaks. (Sandtrooper, Jawa, Momaw Nadon, Kabe, Ponda Baba, Dr. Evazan) 6 safe bets (Luke, Obi-Wan, Han, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO) I was hesitant to include the droids before the leaks showed this was in the streets. 2 that are not as safe, but I doubt would be excluded as they already exist in Lego (Wuher and Greedo) 2 are figures that could easily be duplicated (Sandtrooper and Jawa) That means if all of those above are in it, Mos Eisley would be two short of matching BACC's 18. The thing is, I personally feel this is a better set of figures than BACC just due to getting better new characters (Compare Ponda to Cloud Car Pilot or Kabe to the brown whiskered Ugnaught). I will however concede that BACC will for sure have better versions of existing characters (Compare Tatooine Luke who is widespread in modern Star Wars to Bespin Luke). Interpret this breakdown however you want, but I expect the set to just be these figures. Would love to be wrong though.

The thing that makes me hesitant is both Kabe and Mowmad Nadon would be pretty easy to do customs of. On the other hand, they would also be easy for Lego to include in a set. I'm in the firm maybe real camp.

I figured I would give my variation of the 2021 wave based on the idea that it would be smaller in both individual set size and quantity than usual with no battle packs. I would say these are 50% want and 50% tempered expectations. Microfighters AT-TE ($9.99) Clone Gunner phase II Jedi Starfighter ($9.99) Plo Koon Blurrg and Sandcrawler ($19.99) Kuiil and Off-World Jawa The standalone Microfighters tend to still be paired based on conflict, but I would wager Lego knows by now that Microfighters with battle droids don't sell well. So I went with a Clone and Jedi conflict with two vehicles that have been passed over for some odd reason. For the combined pack, I doubt lego would put the Mandalorian or Gideon in a microfighter yet, and speeder bikes are too small to micro-size. Kuiil is a figure that has a high risk of being skipped and a Jawa recolor seems like something Lego would jump at releasing in some form. 4+ Tie Bomber ($29.99) Tie Pilot, Imperial Officer (Either Naval Captain or Admiral rank), Stormtrooper. Includes a star destroyer panel build. Reasoning: A full scale tie bomber is not going to happen, but as a larger scale 4+ set I could see it happening. Standard Wave Jabba's Message ($19.99) C-3PO, R2-D2, Bib Fortuna. A remake of the palace gate build as a standalone set. Includes a B'omarr monk droid. Escape from Nevarro ($24.99) Beskar Mandalorian, Paz Vizsla, Nevarro Bounty Hunter (Rodian) A small build of the Nevarro streets and buildings featuring enough terrain that figures can take cover behind along with the small astromech piloted speeder. Corporate Alliance Tank Droid ($29.99) Captain Rex, Phase II Clone Trooper, B2 Battle droid x2 A Clone Wars set meant to sell Captain Rex mostly along with an updated blank phase two trooper. Mandalore Throne Room ($39.99) Bo Katan, 332nd clone, Maul, Minister Almec Lego would be smarter to keep Ahsoka exclusive to one set, but that does not mean the throne room has to be forgotten. Instead I just say throw in exclusive figures of Bo Katan and Almec who don't require unique helmet molds. Detention Block Escape ($59.99) Luke (Dirty Stormtrooper Disguise), Chewbacca, Leia, Han (Stormtrooper), Imperial Security Officer A larger original trilogy Death Star playset. A two layered build featuring the communications center, small indication of the detention hallway with a cell on one side and a minifigure sized vent on the other on the top layer. The bottom layer features the trash room with a trap door build that drops a figure to the Dianoga compartment along with compressing walls. Includes the interrogation droid and the Dianoga. Moff Gideon's Tie Fighter ($79.99) Moff Gideon, The Client, Death Trooper, Remnant Stormtrooper.

The mouth is the only part that I think is off, otherwise this looks like the best model they have done.

The OT also has 5 Jabba palace related playsets. I can also extend the Turbo Tank Problem to a lot of sets actually that are more frail in older versions. A lot of that value perception comes from this being an AFOL community emphasizes display rather than wear and tear, making scale more important. Unpopular opinion adjacent to that: UCS sets do not have to be $200 minimum in exchange for inflated scale. I could go for smaller ucs crafts at the $90-160 range than deluxe cases like the A-Wing and Tie Fighter which were both noticeably out of scale. I am going to assume part of that hesitation comes from the last time Lego trying a lower price UCS was Obi-Wan's Starfighter which I think would be fair to assume did not do well.

Battle Packs on the whole are valued too much by the community and I would sooner take battle packs with non-troopers like the Bounty Hunters, Geonosis Jedi, and Tatooine pack over a conglomeration of obscure 1 second of screen time troops. Betrayal at Cloud City is a very acquired taste, but on the whole an alright set. I don't really care if figures have all the bells and whistles with dual molds and arm printing. Detail for the sake of detail like on the imperial crewman from the Star Destroyer or a good 70% of customs can be off putting. The angry clone head being a filler head never bugged me as it looked so generic that I could disassociate it from Jango. I will concede that they should have used the smug clone head more. I actually hope Lego takes a second crack at remaking some sequel sets (Mostly TFA) sooner rather than later. Like Winter of 2022 I could go for revised Rey Speeder and Jakku Junkyard, First Order Transport and Takodana. Just no X-Wings, Quadjumpers, Snowspeeders or Ties. Boss Nass is my most wanted Prequel figure to be made, above separatist council members.

The IT-S, Razorcrest and Advent are also not up yet. That said none of those are that surprising to be released actually in September.

What I want to see from that Yoda book leak is if the astromech dome is new or reused from the original X-Wing Microfighter. It being blocked makes it hard to tell.

The Gungun mold is different with more depth to the eyelids in the original version. A more apt example would be the Rodian head which as seen plenty of use since greedo. Bib Fortuna's headpiece was also shared between versions. Lightsabers are obviously the same configuration, but apart from those and what you mentioned, as a rule of thumb a lot of early molds have been phased out (Or in the case of the Rebel Pilot Helmet, given an altered helmet once then reverted back to the original).

I feel bad for worldwide markets if they do indeed miss out on this and have to import. That said the fact that a region is getting something that was going to be exclusive to events that could not pan out is nice. Plus, breaking down the set, the only exclusive part is a plaque and the boxart/instructions. If this included a new figure or radically rare pieces then I would not give Lego excuses.

In terms of Kenner style figures, the Cantina could do both a blue and red Snaggletooth for the simple fact that they are much more subtle compared to turquoise bathing suit Hammerhead and Green Greedo. Plus if they went with a moulded head they could get two uses out of it (They could also get by with prints better than some aliens). While there are other Cantina aliens that appeal to me more, Snaggletooth being part of the Kenner line catapults them pretty high.

I could see the helmet being part of Hunter, as he would be the only member of the Bad Batch to not need a unique helmet, but at the same time I will never rule out Lego making another Kashyyyk set with Gree as Kashyyyk has basically become the Hoth of prequel sets. However, the Bad Batch will absolutely get a set with the show, so no shame either way. Edit: Ah so it's the darker metallic. So unless we get some Republic Shadow Troopers out of non-canon nowhere then I have a good feeling about this.

I would wager the low initial Mandalorian content comes from two reasons. The first reason stems from Star Wars TV shows getting less sets as time went on. There is a big difference between the Clone Wars treatment compared to Rebels compared to Resistance. Then you have the wrench of it being live action, which had absolutely no precedent. The closest to live action Star Wars on TV was the Holiday Special. I would say the bigger reason comes down to relative competition within the theme. The later seasons Rebels, Resistance, and The Mandalorian were all released during the new movie buzz that sucked a lot of air out of the room. Compare this to Clone Wars which had no conflicting films during its run (It even got a film in the form of a poorly strung together pilot arc of the show with a bad plot and animation, but TCW movie is its own can of worms). The Clone Wars was the new sheriff in town, which took up around half of the set real estate while the Original Trilogy took the other half, give or take the waves for the prequels which were planned around the 3D re-releases that did not happen apart from TPM. The Mandalorian had to share the spotlight with not just a Saga film, but the grand finale of Saga films. Taking both of these points into account, things make sense. The Mandalorian was given a backburner role compared to TROS, as designers do not have foresight on how media will be received and have to guess. If I were Lego or any toy manufacturer pressed with a choice three years ago on what sets to make, I would have prioritized the final film of a cultural phenomenon compared to a risky live action show on an experimental streaming service when the last TV shows that appealed more strongly to younger audiences saw less and less releases. I will also say the low profile of the Mandalorian was what made it so good as a sleeper hit. If they had spammed merchandise of the child and milked the jokes out of the gate, it would have been seen as forced and vapid. But now that the sequel trilogy is pretty exhausted of content and the Mando is the big face of Star Wars, I can see a bigger push to catch up.

Honestly as someone who has started to lose patience with the larger sets lego has been producing I am fine with getting a smaller volume of sets and smaller builds. There are still plenty of sub $40 stuff that I would not object to being made (I'll later post that list in future sets). As a rule of thumb, I can swallow an overpriced small set (AAT) a lot better than an overpriced medium-large sized set (Night Buzzard, literally every Tie/X-wing in the past 5 years). Now if Lego goes all in on the Grievous star fighter approach and cuts large sets but place smaller sets at a larger price point then we would have a problem. Familiar is what makes me apprehensive because of how broad and vague that phrasing is. Sure we can rule out speculation on things we rarely get (Wampa Cave, Flash Speeder, the like), but there is a lot of subjectivity to how one interprets familiar. On one hand we could get sets similar to what we have been getting that are new. A Death Star set with Han and Chewbacca comes to mind. On the other hand it could be tepid repeats like a Rebel A-Wing, a Jedi Starfighter from someone other than Anakin/Obi-Wan, a Desert skiff, or a Corporate Alliance Tank Droid. On the imaginary third hand it could be embracing the Gnajbricks Lavaspeeder meme coupled with direct rehashes of any set from 2016 onward.

Clearer pictures helped a lot with these two. I will also say that Ponda has always had a pretty goofy large head if you go for set accuracy, it is just that Kenner made the Walrus Man head smaller and that led other pre-Rouge One content to underestimating the size.