Samppu

Great use of the perspective technique here! Adding perhaps one slightly more recognizable object (micro TIE-fighter or Imperial landing platform or the command tower etc.) to anchor the relative size of the background could still add a little, but good work nevertheless! - Samppu

Very cool! Any video? ;) - Samppu

Most impressive! Are the capes custom made or official ones? - Samppu

Yep, I have to agree to this. Would make me and probably many others happy if they started printing the arms and using double molded legs and arms for Star Wars figures, though... In addition, you can find relatively nice prices even on Bricklink if you don't find sale prices in your homecountry. - Samppu

I agree this has been partly poor strategy from TLG, but let's not forget that they are married to Disney in a way at the moment considering Star Wars, and thus they are supposed to make sets from the new movies, but if the new movies (the sequel trilogy in particular) just copy everything from the original trilogy - the vehicles included - TLG has had few other options than to make those classic ship all over again. Of course, I agree this is way too much to blame only Disney, but to some extent the problem originates from Disney's way of making movies. Not to talk about the fact that half of the movies have been almost completely reshot just months before the release, which then resulted TLG having to go by with inaccurate concept art and vehicles that never appeared in the movies and in general not knowing which vehicles or scenes might actually be important in the final movie. Now that the sequel trilogy is done, for the good and the bad (to my mind, very bad: rip Thrawn-trilogy...), I think these kinds of problems will somewhat ease for the TLG for the while. - Samppu

Oh, so very smooth! Especially the cockpit of the TIE Razor! - Samppu

Yep, I actually saw that when he said it, but funny enough, if it really is an UCS AT-AT, either he is not speaking entirely the truth for whatever reason or then it has been quite a coincidence as such hints have been there in (at least many of) the previous UCS sets! :D But yep, I intended this more as a joke than any serious speculation. - Samppu

Yes I know, and I am certainly not expecting to see the UCS Construction AT-AT.. :D But it can a be a more careful hint for the actual AT-AT nevertheless. Well, we get to see if that is true soon enough, but I would find it amusing if it was true. - Samppu

In relation to this, we have had the cute theory that the next UCS vehicle would be hinted in the box of the previous one. In the UCS Star Destroyer there is an AT-AT (the civilian model used for construction duty) at the background. - Samppu In these kinds of cases it can very well be that there has been a coherent idea about a theme or collection of sets, but it has been eventually cancelled, and only one or some of the sets then released anyway. - Samppu

They actually had a similar sort of a vote for a regular set back in 2009 (or so, don't remember the exact year) and out of the three options, at least two were actually made: Palpatine's Arrest and Mon Calamari Star Cruiser (the set depicting the interior). I unfortunately do not remember what might have been the third option. But anyway, I do believe it is totally possible to get to see the Nebulon as well. - Samppu

Obi-Wan hoodie actually looks pretty good! - Samppu

Great idea, love it! Do you use train tracks or roller coaster tracks in this? - Samppu

Well, I'd say the Tantive IV was as close to UCS as a set can be in all but name with 200+ EUR price, reasonably detailed design and big size - certainly more so than the infamous UCS Battle of Hoth at least... =D Anyway, I was not thinking that the design would be primarily a playset, as you said, it is supposed to be an UCS set, but something along the line as UCS Falcon and the Super Star Destroyer have been in addition to the Tantive IV: they are certainly UCS, but they both had at least some cool ideas for interiors. The UCS Falcon actually had even great looking interiors while the SSD not so much but the idea itself was good to my mind. I would have enjoyed a star destroyer command bridge (in a reasonable minifigure scale) inside the new ISD, for example. Thus having interior is not mutually exclusive with a set being UCS set, I would argue. But yes, you are absolutely right that the shape would force some limitations, of course, but we have seen great takes on this from the MOCers, so it is certainly not impossible. - Samppu

I will not vote for the TIE Bomber for sure. The ship itself is very interesting, but the UCS TIE-Fighter was simply horrible by design (lots of studs, no curved edges, pretty much any modern MOCer has done amazing job already so why not to copy some of their ideas...) and we probably wouldn't get any interesting minifigures with it... Gunship vs. Nebulon is then a harder debate. I would love to see them both. The gunship might bring us new molds for the canon balls as noted above, and that would be awesome for sure. But then, on the other hand, the ship should be in minifigure scale to make any sense, because the UCS version should be 700 euros and comparable to UCS Falcon if it was to be made in larger scale. Thus the gunship should be a minifigure scaled ship that simply has an improved design and more pieces than the 2013 (-14?) minifigure version. The gunship could be made epic, though, if it was designed to be from ROTS rather than from AOC movie if it would bring us Commander Cody, for example. I would be very happy with Nebulon B Frigate that would be designed along the same idea as the new Tantive IV has been: UCS from the out, minifigure scaled interiors where possible. However, we should get some very exclusive figures with it to make it standout... Updated rebel officer (Crix Madine style), rebel officer as seen at the end of ANH (dark brown uniform with dark tan cap), rebel officer (Jan Dodonna style)? I think I will go with the UCS gunship, because I would rather see the rebel officer minifigures in a battlepack, but Commander Cody in an exclusive and expensive UCS set is ok, as you are only ever going to want just one. - Samppu

Yep, I would believe this too. There is no risk for them to make the series, but possibly huge gains. After all, it most certainly would be the best selling CMF line ever. If they make characters that are not appearing in the current sets (you could fill 20 different characters simply by different phases and armors of clone troopers alone, so there is plenty to choose from), they probably wouldn't affect the sale of the sets too much, the easily accessible figures might pull in a lot of new fans, and even if it didn't, there wouldn't be any major damage to anything really. So I guess we only have to wait for the licence issues to resolve. - Samppu

If you already happened to be a purist, it is easy to ignore such the change about custom parts, but I dare to argue that different sort of 3rd party customs have been one of the key factors making the AFOL community to be born and grow to the extent it is right now, particularly considering the builders rather than the collectors. 3rd party customs such as the BrickArms for military and Star Wars themes, metallic parts for Technic builders, chromed parts, S-Brick, custom minifigures, railway parts for their respective users have been vital to make certain themes interesting from an adult's perspective. AFOLs have been time and again the most loyal followers of a brand according to many surveys, and I don't doubt that any of us wouldn't be happy to buy such special parts from the TLG, should it be possible. I am not sure if I had ever got so exited about certain themes without custom made gun parts. I have always loved Lego building as such, and I try to make things as purist as possible, but especially the small arms just cannot be done into as much detail in any other way than using customs. I feel and I am afraid that the AFOL community as a hobby community will suffer a major hit as a result of this. It does not concern everybody of course, because a certain number of purist builders and collectors especially might even feel a sort of satisfaction over it, but it does concern great many of us. More than that, I hate the idea of TLG quite literally pushing into my Lego room saying what I can do and what I cannot do regarding my personal hobby as if my creations on the internet were there for the sole purpose of advertising their brand. - Samppu

Ahahaa, these are genius! I especially like the turbotank. Would prefer to see them as actual bricks, though, but anyway, nice work! - Samppu

I put them into different companies or platoons. The stormtrooper armor, even the standard one, has some variations both in the movies and in the EU depending from the era and place, so I personally feel it is ok to have differently looking units as long as the units are uniform within themselves. It is a kind of the same idea as with the differently colored clone troopers. - Samppu

Whoa this is genius! The overall shape can be still improved, sure, but the idea to use the lbg windscreens together with the cockpit window is the innovation the next generation of TIE-fighters has been waiting for. Great work! - Samppu

I admit that I am a Star Wars builder really, so not in the position to be the best expert regarding technic-sets, but to my mind, they did a lot of things absolutely right with this set. =) Smarthub with gyro and the possibility to control PF motors with your smart device has been possible with the S-brick for a while, but now that it is possible with official Lego equipment, it opens a whole lot of cool opportunities. In addition to that, I know a looooot of people who will jump out of their chairs when they see it is from Top Gear. - Samppu

Looks very good, though I disagree on the philosophy about the scale, because using height for scale does not really work well with Lego figures in my opinion. Their heads are relatively so large compared to the humans that, for example, in this case the vehicle actually looks too small if you take the scale from the helmet instead of the height of the figure. My point is that you could easily make the AT-RT a little bigger to have more space for the details without losing the proper scale. Nevertheless, the overall appearance really catches the shape of it extremely well and building in this size is very difficult so great work on that. =) - Samppu

Couldn't agree more on this. The two minute appearance of the old - literally old - actors was not worth to destroy the whole existing universe. If they had had some idea of replacement in their mind, it would have been at least a decisive decision (still a bad one to my mind, but a decision). I got the feeling that the people who made the decisions were really not interested nor very educated about the Star Wars universe. - Samppu

Yep, that is true. And this problem would not change no matter how much time the designers had to create a set. I was only thinking in terms of time and pressure thinking about e.g. the snowspeeder anniversary set that is yet another copy of the decade old design. Whether the problem is in lack of talent (I would guess not), lack of fresh ideas or, most probably, lack of time, hiring a few more and new designers would certainly improve all of these problems. - Samppu

I wouldn't put it so hard, but I kind of agree to this. From the perspective of a MOC builder, the more is often the better as it is usually the minifigures and new molds that are the most interesting parts of new sets. I understand the completionist viewpoint, though, but hardcore collectors are a minority. However, I do agree to the original post in the fact that many of the new sets have been clumsy and boring remakes of decades old designs. Whereas one solution was to slow down the production rate in order to gain back more quality, I don't think that a billion dollar enterprise would really be lacking the means to produce high quality designs in short intervals. Quite simply, hire new and more designers. There is a queue of extremely talented and enthusiastic fans to join TLG's ranks. - Samppu

I would think Star Wars -movie related discussion should be at least linked to this part of the forum, because everyone here is, of course, a fan of Star Wars as well, and the discussion topics related to the movies go easily past your attention if you regularly follow only the Star Wars forum. I am interested in the topic, but I wouldn't be willing to scroll multiple different parts of the forum regularly to find the relevant Star Wars topics. The same applies also to custom minifigures, Star Wars related Mindstorms builds etc. E.g. We could have a general topic "Links to Star Wars related discussion in other parts of the forum" and then everyone who e.g. posts a new topic about an upcoming movie etc. in some other part of the forum could then notify the Star Wars fans here that there is a heated discussion starting over here. - Samppu