legolandia

A great review however it needs a slight correction . Not sure if someone else mentioned it before but the black sith trooper is not the same as the one in the battle pack. There are some differences in design. The red stripe on the helmet is narrower and the breathing aparatus is completely silver compared to the grey and silver on the battle pack trooper helmet.

I dont think LSW theme buzz is at its lowest. For the past 5 years we have had 5 CW series which have brought in a large audience (young and old) and the recent Disney takeover and announcement of the 7th film have peaked the public's interest in SW again. On one hand I do agree with you that there is a lot more (ships, structures, etc) that Lego can release. On the other hand as a mainly minifigure collector I am grateful that I have the chance to get a lot of minifigures by spending little money on the sets. My wallet is thankful for the occassional break like this. I do wish Lego released at least one major set (the AT-AP doesn't count in my eyes). But then again we may get something nice in the "UCS" line.

All these sets are good for building an army or battle scene but there isnt any outstanding big ships. I wonder why Lego continues to be stubborn about building a large Separatist cruiser/ship. Apart from Malevolence we have nothing else. On a positive note the minifigures look very nice and Chewy finally got a remake.

Fully agree. I am quite saddened by lego's decision to stop the planet sets. Shame.

I think there's quite a bit of selective moaning going on here. I dont remember people kicking off when news broke a few pages back regarding the Yoda NYIlove minifigure?

Damn, and I went and bought it full price. Oh well it serves me right for not waiting.

Why, what happened to the B-Wing set?

Ah, if only... it is wayyy overdue. I suppose finding the instructions would be good enough. That way we can build the set and particularly that droid.

They can paint Yoda's head blue instead of green. That should solve the problem nicely. The thing to remember is that these are toys aimed at children and 1000% accuracy is not needed. Trans blue is as near as Lego can get to an aura and that works pretty good in my opinion.

My prayers have been answered. I am definitely buying this one the best looking ships from the game.

The sets are great and the mini figures too. However I hope those prices are inflated because they are way too expensive. It seems most of the sets are in the higher price bracket which makes no sense.

I can see where both Brickadeer and Oky are coming from. The problem is that the following statement on StarWars website is quite confusing and contradictory: On one side it says that SWCW is to be wound down and on the other they say that they are continuing to prduce some great CW story arcs . My only logical conclusion is that they will continue to produce CW themed episodes but they will either come under a different series name or they will be lengthy standalones "After five highly successful and critically acclaimed seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, we feel the time has come to wind down the series. While the studio is no longer producing new episodes for Cartoon Network, we're continuing production on new Clone Wars story arcs that promise to be some of the most thrilling adventures ever seen. Stay tuned for more information on where fans can soon find this bonus content. In the video below, Supervising Director Dave Filoni offers a peek of what is to come in Star Wars: The Clone Wars." (quote taken from Starwars.com) On the positive side this means that no matter what Lego will still have a chance to bring out CW themed characters

Yes but they are still producing Clone Wars story arcs though. Maybe this time we will get some decent stuff rather than the fluff that SW Clone Wars series had. Plus they will introduce a new series from a different timeline so there is more opportunities there for more characters. Personally, I would be happy for Lego never to produce endless remakes of the same character ever again.

Yes of course but there are two ways of making money: one by innovation and bringing out something new and the other one by copying and doing something that has been done before and is a safe bet. I'm afraid Lego are chosing the latter route with the x-wing. Strange B-level ship? Sorry but I think you are forgetting the fact that we have barely got any of the separatist/trade federation capital ships. And I doubt very much they are "strange B-level" ships. By the way let me clarify that I am primarily a Lego SW minifigure collector and can very happily live with the fact that Lego is deciding to rehash some UCS set. I was mainly discussing the issue on principle. I am not sad or upset about it. In fact the day when Lego's decisions regarding some toy or another affect my cheerfulness is the day when i will just sell everything and never look at Lego again. I do not consider myself a hardcore collector so please do not think I am one that is sitting in the corner crying his eyes out. My cheerfulness levels remain at optimal levels.

I am well aware of how the terms are defined in the English dictionary. However, you are looking at the terms separately. if you look at those terms together i.e. UCS they imply much more than when they are used separately. So in a way it is a form of marketing ploy which leads people to believe that something is much more better than it would have been if it didn't have those terms in its name. There has been considerable research in respect to the psychological effect that some words have when used in the marketing of a product and although Lego may not agree with the fans' interpretation of the term UCS they certainly used it for a specific purpose. It's like the ready made lasagne here in the UK. It was marketed as beef lasagne and people loved it and never complained but when they found out that it had horse meat in it instead all hell broke loose. lol As a matter of fact am I right in thinking that Lego dropped the UCS term recently and there was a great deal of controversy or discussion about it? Personally I think that those "unwritten agreements" matter a lot to the fan base and they define the reliability and trustworthiness of a company. However we can argue "until the cows come home" as they say about this subject and no one would be a winner or loser in the end. What I am concerned about though is the fact that the Lego designers are getting damn lazy and rather than use their time to bring out a new ship (which as I said the SW universe has plenty of significant ones) they chose to rehash an old one instead just because they know that it is a cash cow (i.e. it is a sure sell that will go like hot cakes). To me that is pure laziness and "who cares for the fans"ness kind of attitude. But this is what happens when a company has the monopoly and they remain pretty much unchallenged. And that is why I hope that Lego's competitors get stronger faster and that way they can challenge Lego in the market. Then we will see how fast their designers will pull their finger out... Apologies for all the negativity. I'm not usually one for complaints. However every now and again one needs to vent I suppose.

Sorry to disagree but I am a collector myself and I have collected various things for a long time. I can assure you that even collectors do have an expectation that the items they pay a lot of money for would increase (or at least maintain their value) in the future. When a set is released under the name of Ultimate Collector Series that implies that it is a collectible item and therefore it is released either in limited numbers or for a limited time (the latter in Lego UCS case) and in the majority of cases that implies that its value will be either the same or increase in the future. This is generally the case with all forms of art and Lego SW is a form of art, especially the UCS series. The UCS series is certainly not aimed at kids to play with. In fact quite a lot of UCS sets have very little playability. I would love to see a kid play with a Super Star Destroyer. Therefore although Lego may not specify in writing the way a product is marketed implies that it is very unlikely that product would be released again. Call it "a gentleman's agreement". So it is quite understandable that a lot of collectors of UCS sets would not be very happy with re-releases. And by the way I see no reason (either than greed and milking a cash cow) for Lego to re-release a UCS set when there are so many more "important" ships that could be made into UCS. And there will be many more in years to come when the new films are released. What happened to Jedi temple, the large separatist/trade federation ships and so many more?

Can I ask when the new 2013 sets are coming out? Is it in the beginning of January?

Do the polybags contain special figures which are not found in the sets?

Visited TRU store here in UK today and they had a good offer on (£20 free gift card when you spend £75 on Lego sets). So I purchased Unexpected Gathering and Escape from Mirkwood Spiders

Liking the new planet sets. Although very disappointed that Lego didn't include a Kaminoan with the Kamino planet.

I fully agree with your sentiments there Sir. I certainly enjoy all Star Wars films and at the same time OT is definitely not my favourite (Episode 3 is, there, I've said it ). They don't have to. They could be a standalone trilogy. It would be self sustaining enough to attract new audiences and the old timers (having sen and read a lot) will certainly be able to keep up with the story evolution. You never know, it may actually encourage a lot of people to start buying EU books and read them. I am proud to say that I own the entire EU SW novels and I have certainly enjoyed reading them. There are no more than 5 of them which I couldn't care less about but the rest of them are damn fine examples of writing. It's a good job that only a minority of people are ready to throw away quite a bit of the EU stuff.

You must be joking! Ignoring 90% of the EU means killing it altogether which would have massive repercussions on the entire franchise. The CW animated series distorted and clashed with only a bit of the EU lines and it caused one of the best writers (Karen Traviss) to pull out altogether. And do you really think that if Tim was in charge he would agree to ignoring the current EU? In my opinion 7,8and 9 should be move its focus from the already established characters of Han, Luke and Leia and should move on to creating and/or developing new characters. For example they could look into a galaxy where Ben and Jaina are the main characters and Tenel Ka's daughter is the Jedi Queen (which would tie perfectly with the latest Fate of the Jedi series. Or they could delve into the past and look into the Mandalorian Wars (very much a favourite of the fans). That would inject some freshness into the franchise and also provide the writers of the EU with direction and ideas they could use for writing future books.

I fully agree with you as long as the episodes of the TV series are all linked and a continuity of each other. In that case I would prefer the TV series more than a movie. Still though a movie has that extra special appeal attached to it.

Am I the only person who is happy about the news? I think it is about time that Lucas stopped controlling Star Wars franchise. After all, all he has done in the last decade is hinder the logical progress of the franchise by being reluctant to release more SW films. All he has released is the animated series which was has failed to quench the thirst of the fans for more movies and at the same time managed to alienate some of the EU authors by completely going against the established story lines in the books. I don't think Disney will make the mistake of alienating the fans by going against the EU considering that it has invested $4b. The advancements in CGI in recent years have opened the doors for future SW films to have superb scenery and bring entire worlds to life. I will make sure to stay away from any SW boards for a good few months because I'm sure they will be full of OT hardcore fans grumbling about how the world has come to an end.

I am surprised that there aren't any "big" sets yet. If I am not mistaken every wave does tend to have a big set which costs around the £$€ 100 mark. Unless Lego has decided that there are quite a few large sets for sale and they're taking a break?