Brickadeer

To me, it all looks pretty neat, innocent, and magic, and I see it knowing how it'll all end. So to me, this arc is basically is giving an impression of what gets lost with the annihilation of the Jedi order.

What does it mean if an email in the outbox is not displayed normal (read) or fat (unread), but in italics?

I think that expecting the worst is pretty rational, since it can hardly lead to disappointment :) I hope though that the first series won't be set in the Old Republic, nor after Episode VI, but rather between Episode III and Episode IV, so that it'll deal with the fates of e. g. Ahsoka, Rex and Ventress (if their fates are not clarified in TCW), the emergence of the Rebellion, the rise of the empire and particularly Vader's contributions. The good thing would be that it'd provide us with non-TCW versions of these characters.

I disagree. The things I didn't like about the PT didn't come up after the OT; rather, they could be already observed in ROTJ, so I don't buy the "George was a great guy but than he became creative crap"-story. He always came up with pretty good ideas, and he came up with pretty bad ideas, as well. Maybe, in the PT, not as many bad ideas were sorted out as in the OT, but that is something different than claiming Lucas' has lost his genius. Well, to me, it's this: Disney is family-stuff. Star Wars wasn't always what Disney considers to be family-stuff. That is especially true for the PT and TCW: remember Anakin loosing his hand, or burning in the lava, or Dooku being decapicitated, or, more recently, Pre Viszla killing an innocent child and burning down a whole village, or Ahsoka decapitating four members of the Death Watch similarly, which broadly was considered to be a pretty cool move. Maybe such scenes are not what defines Star Wars. On the other hand, I don't like idea that we won't see such scenes because they are not something that Disney wants to be associated with, which are not family-friendly enough, which may result in scenes that are less explicit, softened, and less apt to, say, raise stronger emotions. Good story tellers have recognized that TV is the better medium for storytelling anyway. As Bryan Cranston put it in an interview in the Geman magazine Der Spiegel, "Today, the audience is much more demanding. It demands more quality, more complex stories and character, no 'of-the-pegg-clothing'. You can't do something arbitrary, nice. There won't be anymore series like "Matlock" or "Magnum". That's over. These story are too unreal." I think that LucasArts was aware of this recent development, and that Underworld was pretty much in line with this development. What I see is the risk that Disney will produce movies that are arbitrary and nice, but clearly not special. That's why I think that Disney is a step back, and that exploring such aspects of Star Wars will be prevented. Rather, I think Star Wars will become in a certain sense less innovative and more repetetive.

Actually, I prefer a good TV series to a movie every time. The reason is that stories can be told differently, better, since the authors have more time for developing the characters and the stories. Good examples are Battlestar Galactica, Dexter, Breaking Bad, The Boardwalk Empire, or Game of Thrones, and I think the same is true for TCW. To me, the major shortcomming of the PT was a lack of time: characters weren't developed thoroughly, and many questions were left open. So the logical step was to make a TV series, not another movie.

I'm speechless. The future of TCW is unclear. Underworld was supposed to aim at the more mature audience; I think it's save to say that this project is dead. I'm not exactly looking forward for the films that'll come.

I'm pretty sure that noone here can or will tell you when further official pictures will be available. Try to stay alive; I'm pretty sure you'll make it ;)

Now that TCW doesn't feature phase I troopers anymore, I think it's pretty likely we'll see more AOTC clones. Since Lego likes putting both factions in one set, I think that we'll might see a new Gunship based on the scene where Anakin and Padme are chasing Count Dooku on his speeder. In this case, I don't think we'll see any new gunships based on TCW (Wolfpack, the red ones seen in the trailer of season 5 that are related to Commander Thorne) any soon. On the other hand, I don't believe that Lego will feature ROTS clones before TCW is over. An Ewok village would be a pretty nice set as well. It could include several playfeatures: the rebels getting caught by the Ewok trap, C3PO flying on the throne, a little platform where the scene takes place, two trees the removable platform rests on, further playfeatures for destroying an AT-ST, and of course an AT-ST itself.

He's on the box cover, so I think he's done.

I haven't been aware of Leeland Chee's notes how the TCW episodes fit into a timeline: http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/tag/chronicling-the-clone-wars/

I generally share your concern about the Lego helmets. As Oky has observed, the new helmets seem to have no holes for attaching visors or range finders. I think we have to sit and wait.

Currently, we have no clear shots of the helmets. To me, the phase II troopers are looking actually much more similar in the movies and the series than the phase I troopers. That's especially true for the torso, but as well for the helmet.

I hope this helps: http://www.supertoys.co.uk/lego/lego-star-wars

My concern is not that Lego tries to open the market for new customers. My concern is that occasionally, Lego does so at the expense of existing customers. That is the case when army building potential of a set is not realized (e. g. 7913 and 9489). A look at Bricklink indicates that the supply of Endor troopers and Scout troopers is relatively high, while the supply of Stormtroopers from the same battle pack is relatively low. I think that this fact indicates that on the average, the Stormtrooper is the most wanted figure of 9489. So to me, the big question is how the decision not to include two Stormtroopers (either by replacing the Scout trooper or by giving up the "rule of four" (minifigs per battle pack)) affects the sales of this set: does attract more customers than it deters? Since the strategy to open the market by combining two factions per battle pack seems to aim at the more casual buyer, I think it's practically impossible to evaluate the consequences of this decision. To some degree, Lego seems to be on blind flight. The issue with 7913 is that it contains two bomb squad troopers. Complaining about this fact doesn't help to understand why Lego included two of them. I do not believe that cost-wise, a bomb squad trooper is cheaper in production than a plain trooper or a different trooper, so the question is why they included two of them. The only answer I can see is that they look nicely coloured and somehow neat. So again, the question is: does Lego's decision attract more customers than it deters? And the same logic can be applied to 75000. The conclusion I have to draw so far is that customers who may intend to buy multiple sets (“army builders”) are not taken into account at all. I cannot judge, however, whether or not this is a smart strategy. To summarize, I do not claim to fully understand the market of battle packs. But I consider the possibility that Lego does neither.

I know that you were talking about 8014. To me, it is still the best battle pack that was ever made. I didn't argue about 8014. Rather, I said that the battle packs got worse (= lowered potential for army building) before Lego introduced different factions in a battle pack.

I do not fully agree. 7913 had four clones, so the issue of different factions in one battle pack doesn't exist here. Nevertheless, it was a bad battle pack, simply because the figures that posed the majority (bomb squad troopers) had the lowest potential for army building. The potential of army building of 8083 and 8084 was also comparatively low because of the composition of the minifigures (2 troopers, 1 commander, 1 pilot), not because they contained different factions. So to me, with 8083 and 8084, the potential of the battle packs was cut down to 50 %. With 75000, it is cut down to 25 %. With 4 minifigs in a battle pack, the relation can't get worse.

Personally, I prefer the MHC. Of course it doesn't match the scale, but that's true for pretty much every Star Wars vehicle Lego made. On the upside, the MHC looks pretty neat and accurate. To me, it was a big surprise; I never assumed that this vehicle would ever make it into a set.

I like them, but actually they remind me a bit of the centurions from the original Battlestar Galactica series.

Hi! This is a series of pictures, but not a review. There is not a single explanation of what you are reviewing, nor of what's the precise relation between a picture and an aspect of the set you might wish to discuss/review. Btw., the correct set number is 9493.

Yeah, I somehow missed the "don't" when writing :) (Actually, I wanted to write "no holes", but the result is the same). As for the Kamino planet set, I'm positive that it won't come with a TCW minifig.

As Oky observed, the helmets don't seem to have holes for accessoires. The fact that Rex doesn't come with an antenna indicates that Oky's observation may be actually correct. Rex wears a "skirt thing" (= "kama"), though.

To me, 75002 is a very competent update of 7250 (I'd call the resemblence between the two models striking). 7250 was recognized as being a bit out of scale when it came out (I think the overall opinion was that it is a pretty good set, though), so I think it cannot be a surprise when people are pointing out that 75002 is at least a bit out scale as well.

No. I described the changes that can be expected in an earlier post. If you compare the molds, you'll see that they are different (as described in my earlier post). I think they'll have newly designed heads or Boba's head. I'm not sure on that yet because for me, the pictures are too inaccurate to make a judgement about the quality of the clones. Rather, I wonder why people have stopped complaining about the fact that a battle pack contains just *one* plain clone...it's pretty much as if Lego is trying to make sure that people don't buy too many of this particular set (army builder). For me, this policy works pretty well. I do not understand as well why people constantly say that Rex looks fine. From what I can see, the helmet is nicely designed. He has leg printing. And that's it. The pauldron is pretty much oversized, making his general appearance, well, looking absolutely not cool. At least, that's my impression.

Hmm... AT-RT: looks very nice, but it's way too big. Not sure yet if I like the design of the phase II helmets. Clone Battle Pack: as assumed, it's an Episode II set. I generally like it. I find it pretty odd though that the number of the figures I want from a battle pack has constantly dropped from 4 to 1. Headhunter: I really like the design of the model. Not sure yet about the clones. Umbaran MHC: Looks pretty neat! Not sure yet about the phase II helmet. BARC: Not sure yet about Rex' new helmet, but definetly disappointed by the pauldron/armor. It's even worse than the pauldron of the ARC trooper. Looks pretty crappy to me, and exactly what I feared.

amazon.it: LEGO Star Wars 10188 - Death Star - EUR 322,00 LEGO Star Wars 10212 - Imperial Shuttle - EUR 207,99 LEGO Star Wars 10225 - R2/D2 - EUR 149,99 LEGO Star Wars 7962 - Anakin's & Sebulba's Podracers - EUR 49,99