NoOneOfImportance

Dedra Meero?

And with the Snowie pack now gone, we are left with nothing but extraordinary amounts of clones...

See I'm in the camp where I am excited for the midis and the diorama, but that's about it. I'm not as big of a Clone Wars fan (nothing against it), so I'm just sitting around waiting for a good way to amass Imperials again (and every year seeing more Clones instead...)

I would not be surprised if we got redesigns of multiple Spidey figs in January. To my knowledge (and this was mentioned elsewhere as well), we haven't gotten a Spidey design refresh in a bit, and I could see that happening with Ghost Spider, Ock, Goblin, and perhaps even Venom since all of them have been using their 2020 designs for the past 3 years in the few instances they have appeared (except Venom, as he's been in everything). The Bugle would really be the only "outdated" set with designs, and for that set it wouldn't hurt it, since none of the designs are bad (and that set reportedly retires December 2024 by current lists, so the old designs wouldn't be around that long in production anyway). But to be fair, that is all speculation. For all we know Venom will just have a different backpack or no changes at all.

Considering that city trains have used wheels with friction bands on them, this is very likely not the issue. I'm sure some bands were used. If bands were the issue, it is very likely a situation where it would involve creating a new mould of some sort to have the friction bands on the larger locomotive wheels, which they did not want to do (unless I am unaware of a currently available part with that). My guess is that (as @kbalage said in his video), it was a situation where any method of adding motorization caused some unknown stress that was not allowed within the QC testing for trains - similar to how @Anio and his 75060 Slave 1 bar modifications caused some kind of unknown stress that was not allowed when designing the set but may work fine for individual redesigns (apologies if I am not crediting the correct designer of the Slave 1 mods). We don't know enough of how LEGO does testing on train components to make a definite conclusion here, but it is nice to see some solutions working now.

The same print on a different color would still be considered a new part, so it would cost factory space and likely some degree of money, even if that isn't spent in development time for the print itself.

The hardest part of Moria is making all of the individual scenes into a cohesive set. While there are a lot of good areas, a big set (even $500 USD), would have to connect the areas weirdly to include them all (I personally don't want an Assault on Hoth situation for a LOTR D2C). Sets like Bag End for $300 or a microscale Minas Tirith for $470 would be great, but in either case, they are singular, connected locations rather than a bunch of scenes that happen to be in the same place.

The odd thing is that we have an AFOL modular set releasing a few days beforehand as the Avengers Tower, so it's not like the 18+ line isn't getting something new at the same time. And again, A-Tower is a modular as well, which means this is the closest that two modulars have released to each other (to my knowledge).

I think some of this is also dependent on how they display the figures. For example, if they were doing something similar to 2019 with the classic figs remade, or to HP with the golden figures in 2021, then I could see one being in a D2C. For example, a golden classic Boba in the Sail Barge. But I just don't see a random fig showing up in a Sail Barge or something. In the case of HP and Ninjago as well, the D2Cs were centered on the idea of the celebration. NC Gardens was THE anniversary set above them all (with Wu in it accordingly), and Icons was a celebration of Harry Potter (with the three golden figs in it). The Sail Barge doesn't really fit this in my opinion. Maybe if it was a Death Star or something, but not a Sail Barge.

Agreed on this. Every floor has some central item, but otherwise just emptiness around it. There's a prison without much surrounding. There's an armory, but there's just one suit screen and a stand in the center (Ironically I feel like adding in bits of 76216 would help with this). It just feels less busy than it should. The Bugle had personality on every floor and bits of newsroom clutter. This feels so polished and empty. It still feels like a good expensive D2C for the tower, in part because I'll be displaying it on the modular street and keeping it closed generally, and the outside is perfect, but the inside is just underwhelming.

Agreed on the Indy comment (though those just sit at my local Target of late) The thing is, do we know that LEGO Marvel is doing well overall? Movie sets or otherwise? Heck, I expected the Spiderman Final Battle to be out of stock consistently for a little while, but it never seems to sell at my local Target, much less GOTG3 sets (a movie that did well overall and had sets with the full team split up to collect). Even the tie-in sets for movies and shows that are enjoyed from Phase 4-5 just seem to fill shelves. And we don't need to talk about buildable figures. While I would agree that LEGO should shy away from MCU sets as much and focus on comics-based sets again (Please 2099, LEGO), we have to ask if that's even the issue here in the first place, or if it's super-hero sets as a whole...

Agreed with this, and I think it makes sense. It's just like how the ROS line wasn't branded as 20th anniversary. Any 25th sets will likely be staples of the theme, remakes of classic sets, or iconic moments or figures from Star Wars as a whole. As such, it doesn't make sense to have Mando or Ahsoka there as "newer content." The sad thing, what does make sense then is another Luke's Landspeeder.

He did, yes. On one of his posts about the Chinese New Year sets, someone asked him about the Z-95 and Temple and he specifically said they were not coming.

Given how much LEGO is throwing desired figs into cheap sets, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them is Thrawn at this point. haha

When there are more Star Wars waves in a year than Disney Plus Marvel content releases, we are indeed at a stranger point of the past few years. That being said, I do like the staggered waves, especially with April generally being more 18+ heavy and surrounding waves being more kid-friendly.