Samppu

Interesting! I don't follow Marvel or DC so this was news for me. I tend to compare Star Wars to Harry Potter, which does yield new molds and prints in rich quantities. Ninjago and other in-house themes then make me just jealous and maybe even a bit sad, because they show the potential which will probably never materialize in Star Wars. At least Speed Champions deliver us excellent new curved slopes and other fantastic pieces for the tricky curvatures of Star Wars ships to increase the possibilites of MOC building.

True. Comes to mind, if there was such a set indeed being planned but it got cancelled? Or something like that the original plan was to make a full jedi starfighter, but then it got changed into a microfighter, because that price slot was still missing? After all, Plo Koon jedi starfighter would have paired perfectly well with the current ARC-170, which even has the background image from that exact scene in Cato Neimoidia. Perhaps some love & flowers curator either at Disney or at Lego was hunting for things that could be cancelled and it found its pray?

The original 501st battlepack probably was. Given that it takes a few years from data to decision to design, the current clone wave still probably largely reflects the aftershock of what happened when that battlepack hit the shelves. Personally I enjoy the clones. UT-AT and the Galactic Marines? Commander Bly and Aayla Secure? 327th battlepack? Yes to all. Though, I also use customs anyway, so I have these covered probably anyway better than what Lego releases, but still, Episode III was and still is my most favorite movie and particularly the book. Yet from a broader salespoint, the problem in the toy industry in general is often that the consultants and statisticians working for the big companies have no real connection to the products they study, even less to the fanbase, or necessarily even to the kids. The only thing they do is that they apply rigid analytical tools to a given product and then produce a recommendation, even if those tools are "rules of thumb" at best. E.g. it is a rule of thumb that a product related to an ongoing TV show will be popular, but then, that is not always the case and the consultants miss the ability that we all here tend to have that we can see with a glance if a design makes sense, if it is iconic related to the show and whether that show will be popular among the folks in the first place. The consultans cannot, and how could they? In their eyes there is no difference between things like the sequels or the prequels. To them it's all just Star Wars. Interesting thought and I could see there might be sense in this! Though, if it was true, it would make sense for them to spread the rumors and "leak" images well beforehand to gear hype and let everyone know what is coming well in advance for tyem to prepare. The logic even sort of applies to this year with the Sail's Barge.

Exactly. Harry Potter has done exactly this in a very successful way given that it got two CMF lineups. Had the first one somehow failed or cannibalised the sales of the sets, they probably wouldn't have done the second series. The same thing with the superheroes. Star Wars has tons of characters, which are iconic yet not part of the main heroes and thus which were not likely to appear in any set. For them a CMF lineup or appearance in an advent calendar would be the best opportunity to bring them about. For example, any Padme dress or Mass Amedda or Dexter or any Fallen Order character etc. And perhaps most importantly the viewpoint should not only be whether a SW CMF line would reduce the sales of SW sets, but whether it could actually increase them. For example, if we now had a number of Jabba's thugs available as CMF figures, they could potentially even drive the desire to buy the actual barge for them to guard.

Sharing this sentiment. If the poly- sorry, the paperbag costed a lot to produce, then they could just reduce the amount of other stuff as gifts or raise the dollar tresshold for getting one as a freebie, and should they go through the trouble of making a new mold for the paperbag, they could just reuse the same mold in some other set (like the advent calendar, heh ) to make it more sensible production-wise... There is no looking at the mouth of a gift horse, but I feel that the logic of some people go that "oh, he loves Legos very much, but he also has them already so many, so can I figure out something else Lego related to give as a gift?" Regards, over the years I have been given multiples of somewhat useless Lego-related stuff which are not bricks, like storage boxes... I wonder if something of the sort could also be the idea behind coins etc. non-brick stuff as GWPs?

Oh boy, just in the other thread there was the discussion that the advent calendars would not make sense to include new molds. But! Here's a crazy idea: please Lego, do a novel figure of Padme with a new mold for her hair or hat and reuse that mold in Ninjago, where it would probably fit just as well as any of the dozen new molds Ninjago is going to get anyway... Mold-wise it would not cost a penny more, and the Ninjago kids would not even guess, even less care, that the mold is a reuse from Star Wars, but the novel mold and the Padme figure itself in the advent calendar would make virtually every Star Wars fan happy and particularly the prequel fans, me included, would surely buy the calendar for 50+ euros and dollars, even both at the same time and even if it was nothing else but that one Padme figure + 23 brick separators.

Ok, you win, but still, the mold didn't need to be new if at least the character was. E.g. having a novel Kaminoan like Lama Su with the same mold from Taun We in Obi-Wan's starfighter would have been most welcome, or an additional Jabba's thug with the same reused helmet from the UCS Sail Barge.

Good point, though I still disagree. Their shelflife may be short, but there would be more incentive to buy them in the first place, if they included even one new mold in the calendar. Past 5 years I would have happily bought one for me before Christmas, but there has been no incentive to do so, because there has been nothing of interest or value in them: five figures, two of which are silly holiday figures and three which are cheaply available elsewhere. Even one new mold would have drastically changed this perceived value at least in my eyes. Moreover, the missed opportunity is that the calendars could include some of the more obscure characters, which were hard to include in actual sets, like Dexter or like they have done in Harry Potter with the phantoms.

Imperial battlepacks, yes please, but I see that unlikely since there will already be that night trooper one. The Christmas calendars seem to me like the worst missed opportunity to include obscure and desirable figures, like Boss Nass, Dexter, Imperial dignitary, an unseen Jabba's guard or alien... In Harry Potter they do exactly that after all by including obscure ghosts for example. In Star Wars we rarely get any novel figures in calendars, which were not available elsewhere, and usually pretty easily - the Bespin pilot perhaps was one welcome exception, which comes to mind, but not many others...

Hahah, glad to see I'm not the only one with a project! Though I have cats, but yeah. Oh, congratulations! Agree that I miss the adventures line, too. At least I hope we could get more remakes of the old figures in the future cmf series in the style of the Johnny Thunder in a recent series:

Totally agree on every word you said about the ban. Though keep in mind that the scout kids do not represent the norm necessarily, because the smartphone addicted kids won't join the scouts in the first place. But yeap, if I have kids, they shall get their first smartphone as a graduation gift from college. Playstation is ok with sensible screen time, because action games actually develop reaction time and motorics even, whereas whatsapp or whatever the kids use to communicate can be more sensibly used on an actual computer in order not to become an outcast among their peers. But smartphones nope. There is little to encourage their use as a kid, and I say this as a brain researcher. They are designed to be addictive, and they succeed in it very well, whereas the benefits from a kid's perspective are minor in comparison, because the kids, especially the younger ones, probably don't need things like Google maps, email, or internet bank anyway. If my kids die because they did not have a smartphone, I shall call it evolution then. So my true concern is not whether my kids will love TikTok instead of Lego, but whether my kids will love Ninjago instead of Star Wars......

Earlier I head that covid was the main reason for the Lego Company to keep thriving at all. I did not check these numbers, but a couple of years ago I saw a stat that 2015 - 2% of the revenue came from the adult market, the rest 98% from the kids. 2021 (or so) - even as many as 20% of the revenue came from the adults. The kids are only addicted to TikTok and smartphone nowadays, it is the adult market, which has become a considerable motor for the growth, I have understood. Covid was, as you implied, fuel to the fire in catching more adults to the hobby.

My thoughts exactly. Probably an unpopular opinion, but personally I enjoy alien characters in battlepacks, even the infamous phase I clone & jedi combination. Granted, it makes army building more difficult, but on the other hand, it makes amassing civilian citizens so much easier compared to the situation where those alien head pieces only came in expensive sets. Do it either way, you can always find a reason to praise or complain, I guess. So far at least I personally have found excellent uses for the Ki Adi Mundi and Barris Offee pieces, and in ways, which do not feel overusing the same pieces. Particularly Mundi's torso is very desirable.

Hahah. But she is! And I'm afraid I begin to be old enough to bring in Admiral Daala as well.. But perhaps rather than fantasizing about what could have been in the official canon media on the forum, I could just build and share some of those alternative stories in the Lego form. That is one of the main enjoynments of this hobby after all, one can do in his or her own Lego Star Wars Universe just as one pleases regardless of what should be considered canon or not.

I share this perception, too. I only buy the helmets to make my own customs with water decals, because I really don't like the animated style printing, even if it is better than the horrible printing style of the early 2010s... Generally they could just make the characters consistently in Lego style regardless of the source media being animated or live-action.

And not just in the Lego. In the EU Lando is a main character equal to Han, occupying practically as much pages of the books as any other of the three (Luke, Leia, Han), but then when Disney decides to bring in the SJW into the SW universe beginning with the episode VII they bring every other actor back to their roles except the only black guy. The same thing goes for Mon Mothma. Desire for strong female leadership? Yep, ditch her out and bring Holo in. The list could go on even more, if we consider popular EU characters which likely would have made an impact on fresh audiences as well, like Mara Jade. Desire for intelligent and capable female protagonist? Yep, ditch Mara Jade out, and bring Rey in. It makes me a bit sad that even with the premise that the sequel trilogy should have an agenda, there would have been so much better, or should I say so much more artistic, ways to include those themes... Oh Thrawn, sigh. Imagine if the sequel trilogy had included Thrawn as the main antagonist, and the same agenda we got anyway would have been built around alien racism with a setting of the sort that the Empire lost the Emperor and the Death Stars, because they were unwilling to use their best talents before due to discrimination, but Thrawn would now see, or at least try to see, a change in that, though not without internal resistance and troubles from the old school Imperial commanders. And of course, there are those three guards in the barge, but they are hardly a reason to buy the set, so having a battlepack of Jabba's thugs would not affect the sales of the barge. With the cantina it might have affected, had there been a battlepack including the most interesting alien characters from the cantina set, because the aliens and characters made an important incentive to buy the set, which otherwise consisted mostly of tan walls. The barge surely does not have that problem.

Yes. This would be perfect, something akin to the Bountyhunter Battlepack. Jabba's thugs would be a sensible addition now that we have the sail barge available. Of course, I wonder how the bountyhunter pack performed, because there seems to be no excuse to not have released one with a toy scaled desert skiff along with the barge in the first place. Namely, there are no aliens in the skiff set or in the barge really, so a battlepack would not have decreased the incentive to buy them, on the contrary, it would have made it more appealing when the scene could be completed with more than just one Gamorrean guard...

True, but at least the ones we are about to get are diehard-hot-wants! A CIS higher-up, pretty much anyone we haven't yet seen like Watt Tambor? Yes please! Galactic Marine? I wished you to accompany the Kashyyyk and Utapau troopers back then, but better late than never. The same is true for the other remaining movie troopers. Dedra? Just please, please give her double molded hair/cap piece... Even if the overall amount is small, the rate of interest in them is at least high

This was a good one... But honestly, I am happy. I have always wanted, and I still very much want, all the on screen (in prequel movies) clones, and if the rumors turn out true, I will soon have them. Of course, the design might be the weird clone wars style printing and I might opt for customizing after all, but shall see. I am happy now as it stands.

This I can agree. Even putting them under wings would have been preferable with ARC-170, but that is an easy thing to change if one wants, though.

I actually see the spring loaded shooter as the best part Lego Star Wars has ever received, as I believe the 2014 Anakin's Jedi Starfighter was the first one to get them. It makes it possible to build fun, screen accurate (in the sense that the actual missiles look like lasers blasts in Star Wars style) laser cannons in very cramped space in ways that simply were not possible before. I agree that many sets just clumsily add them on top of whatever, but from the perspective of a moccer, the possibilities are truly limitless, and they are anyway very easy to conceal in general, as even done in a few sets. Indeed, it is dull to disdain them being childlike, because they can be perfectly concealed in almost every case, and their launching mechanism can be made more clever than simple finger pressing. E.g. I have a couple of ones, where you can launch them by pulling the joystick in the cockpit, or I have seen some examples how they are used to gear machine gun -like fire in gunships, which are launched by pressing a hidden button. For the same reason I enjoy even the stud shooters, especially the newer version with more powerful blast. They are a bit clumsy as blasters but they make extremely convenient pieces for actually functioning mortars, bazookas, grenade launchers (like in AT-ST or AT-PT) and certain big blasters in dwarf spider droids and other such machines. This is not a counter-argument against the technic shooters or other mechanisms like bombs, though. The more the merrier, as this aspect sets Lego building apart from ordinary model building (Revell and other stuff I mean).

I am simply curious, what is so bad about it? Or rather, what the logo set should be like to earn the fans' appraisal? And really, I am generally just curious, because I don't see it, but I am not so familiar with Marvel myself. Hmm... Well, now that I think of it from the perspective that if they release a similar thing with Star Wars like light bluish gray or white text over a black background, well... Yeah, maybe I get it after all.

I totally agree, and I still believe that the kids would prefer playsets, too. That's what Lego is about afterall compared to other toys; everything in principle fits to the same universe, even the minidolls and traditional Lego figures share the same universe. I remember that as a kid we did find some funny problems with my sister when my spiderman action figure tried to make a visit to my sister's doll house, but he got stuck into the door... Anyway, I would guess that the mechs and microfighters are just a solution to the dropping price level of birthday gifts. It used to be 20 € when I was working in a toyshop, so the logic went "Something Lego, something Star Wars, around 20 € for my son's friend Bob" = a battlepack Nowadays I guess it goes like "Something Lego, something Star Wars, around 15 € for my son's friend Bob" = a microfighter

This is an actually interesting question, whether there is either some lack of love or lack of competence in the SW design team, or if every sign of smug or ignorance is caused simply by higher ups demanding good marketing profile etc. On one hand, I would believe that in every interview etc. the designers have no choice but to praise what they have done. That is the standard in the music industry and in Hollywood etc., so probably also regarding Lego. Though, one could still point out clear design choices and arguments behind them, not merely praise that everything about everything is great, but to really argue for one's choices, like "Khetanna looks dark brown in the movies, but we made it reddish brown because this and that". This would still be good marketing, but still showing some humble and most importantly, honest analysis that there are choices to make in the design process. If everything about everything is great, that generally does not sound very genuine... I would also guess that the SW team has had novel recruits over the years, and probably they are behind the modern master pieces (from the technical perspective of Lego building) like the Ferrix shuttle. But then, the ones who originally began the job at the end of the 1990s might still hold a place, unless someone has retired, or someone has kicked them out at some point, which I might doubt. Due to their long experience they might even have a lot of authority even if their skill and knowledge might seriously lack behind the modern standards and current masters. The examples possibly supporting this inference are at least the never-changing snowspeeder, which has had the same design for more than two decades, even if examples and novel pieces for improvement have been common and widespread for long. Like, if some contemporary master builder would have that task to design a new snowspeeder at Lego and under their limitations, hands up, how many of you would believe they would still go with the exactly same core design? Another supporting evidence might be the variable design quality between sets, and sometimes rookie flaws in them, like the UCS star destroyer having serious gaps. These make me at least feel that there might be designers of separate levels at work. Though, these are only some aspects I have personally picked up in the designs and their presentation over the years. Cannot really say for sure, if there is any truth to these notions.

Yeah, I actually use the familyguy helmets only on custom spacetroopers, which have a small hardsuit following the standard stormtrooper design. For the actual stormtrooper corps I use either the old helmets or 3rd party customs.