TeufelHund

The new ISD is pretty good if you want this sort of thing - Vader, a couple of Stormies + a Death Star Trooper, Imperial officer and crewman.

The orginal editions were the original versions shown in cinemas form 1977-1983. The special editions were released in cinemas in the late 90s with additional scenes and special effects (including some rather wonky early CGI and stupid retconning like Greedo shooting first to make Han look less unscrupulous than he did in the original releases). When the films were later released on DVD, Lucas couldn't help but do some extra tinkering so that suddenly Anakin's force ghost at the end of ROTJ suddenly transformed into a youthful Haden Christensen and the holographic emperor in TESB being replaced by the actor who played the role in the prequels and ROTJ). So basically there are three versions of each of the original trilogy films - the orignal theatrical releases, the theatrical special editions and the DVD special editions. I believe the Blu Rays are the same as the later vesions but could be wrong.

Is there any difference between the stormies in the ISD and the Rebels one from the Ghost set? I thought they were pretty much the same. I'm assuming that the Shadow Troopers battlepack is based on Rebels because I though Disney weren't doing EU stuff any more.

I'm hesitant to pass judgement until we get better pictures, but it looks like the smallest set is the only must-buy from my perspective. Three great, exclusive figures in one set (although Elrond does look a bit like the polybag from a couple of years back). Compared to the endless rehashed figures in the other sets. The builds also look pretty ordinary - particularly Battle of the Five Armies. The first waves of LOTOR & the Hobbit were great but they've really dropped the ball since then.

I'm mainly an OT guy but will pick up a few Rebels sets if they've got useful OT figures in them. Imperial Troops Transport definitely sounds interesting. The Microfighter ATAT might be a cheap way to get a new ATAT driver or General Veers figure. Shadow Troopers could be interesting but more details would be needed to make it a must-buy. A generic Imperial battlepack with variations of all the Imperials included in the new ISD would sell like hotcakes but I guess TLG would rather you went out an bought an ISD...also where's my system-scale Imperial Shuttle? They haven't released one of those for ages.

I saw something on another forum hinting that there might be a Castle UCS set delivered in the near future. Given that the MMV was released in 2009, the Kingdoms Joust in 2012, 2015 would seem logical for another release. A Medieval Fair would be a nice addition to the above two sets IMO.

You mean like this: http://brickset.com/sets/7029-1/Skeleton-Ship-Attack I think we can rely on TLG producing a pirate ship with almost annual frequency. Since the release of the Imperial Flagship and the end of the last Pirates theme we've had the Queen Anne's Revenge, The Black Pearl, the LOTR pirate ship and even a Duplo Pirate ship released. I think it's safe to say these sell pretty reliably.

I actually liked the second film up to the Laketown bit - Mirkwood and the Barrel Escape, while clearly altered to make them more exciting than the novel, were at least in the spirit of the books. The whole Laketown bit where Dwarves have to be smuggled into the town but apparently orcs and elves are permitted to carry out open warfare on the rooftops was bad but the final "Let's make a giant statue of molten gold to defeat this dragon" was pitiful. I couldn't believe a years worth of focus groups could have come up with something that lame yet somehow PJ managed it. Yep - Legolas surfing down steps on a shield or off the trunks of giant elephants sure was realistic...in retrospect the seeds of some of the Hobbit decisions were clearly evident in the last couple of LOTOR films - which is why Fellowship still remains my favourite as it was much more grounded.Back on topic - they should have called the Erebor set "Smaug + parts pack" cause that's what it looks like to me.

Built the EW over the weekend with help from my 6 year old. I have to say that this is one of the sets where the whole thing really comes together beautifully at the end and this mother is huge. There were some particularly fiddly bits (eg the handrails and suspension bridge), but overall the build was very satisfying and cleverly put together. With minimal adjustment it could be a great Elvish treetop village or Islander/Cannibal hangout etc etc. If you simply want to do a scene with a lot of trees/foilage this would be a great set to buy, sell the minfigs and treat as a mega parts-pack as it is literally full of nice earthy browns and sand colours plus tons of leaves/fronds. Now I just need the Moss Eisley set to show up and then I'll be good with regards to Lego at least until the Hobbit sets show up later in the year. EDIT: Apparently Toys R US has 20% off all full priced toys this weekend.

I think it's actually $249US, but SW always gets a special extra markup, it seems...hence the ridiculous AUD RRP.

It does kind of remind me of the Dwarf Mine set from Fantasy Era - I guess the interior of the throne and mine look ok (even though I hated the whole smelting nonsense from the end of the last film) and Smaug looks decent. I could do without the repeats of Dwarf figures I've already got and I guess Bilbo is kind of essential to the scene, but overall i'm kind of dissapointed. Maybe it isn't possible to capture Erebor short of a 3000 piece UCS set but I can't help thinking it wouldn't have been better to include Smaug in a smaller Lake Town set along with Bard and a few extra Lake Town figures.

Could they be ripping them off shelves to fill online orders? I could confirmation my EV has shipped, so I'm ok. I didn't feel like camping out Target only to find out the stock was gone already when I arrived.

The Tumbler is pretty ugly IMO - if you are desperate for a big black tank I say go for it, but otherwise it's an awfully expensive way to get a couple of nice minifigs. As an owner of Orthanc I'm not necessarilly against things made entirely of black bricks but there's just not that much aesthetically pleaseing about the Tumbler.

I would anticipate at least 20% off which would bring it down to around $310. So maybe $299 if we're lucky. Given I still have a gift card I can use at Target with about $40 left on it this will probably be the cheapest option for me over Amazon.

I hope that the volume Myer moves in this sale is way down on last year...and not just on Lego. I know I would specifically go in for the extra 10% off on big Lego buys and inevitably buy a bunch of other stuff from the catalogue for upcoming birthdays or stocking stuffers. PR I guess is still 20% off RRP which is decent value given it isn't available anywhere else but there's not much else worth the effort of a special trip for.

They just need to add some explosion SFX and it would be perfect...

There's a Eurobricks review here: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=95965

Good thing the only set I want from SW this year is the Cantina - the ATAT and ISD seem in line with their piece counts but the prices on every other set seem OTT. For example the new Snowspeeder with a small Imperial gun is $60 whereas last year you get virtually the same Snowspeeder and Imperial gun plus a Probe droid, two trench emplacements, speeder bike, Tauntaun and extra minfigs for only $10 more!

As someone who has worked in museums for years developing storage facilities the way they house their collection is a bit of a worry - everything seems to be stacked on top of each other meaning boxes will crush and deform with time, things are stored behind other things meaning locating items will be problematic and there will be a lot of double-handling needed to retrieve material and the fact they handle everything without gloves means that oil and grime will tranfer easily from people's hands to the collection. The use of compactus-style shelving is good as it saves space but it looks to me if they're serious about protecting this collection they probably need to expand the storage space and spread the collection out a bit more. I'm not sure what there Air-conditioning is set at but longevity could also be improved by controlling the temperature and humidity levels as well. Despite this - it was very nice to see the original Yellow Castle "in the flesh". If only my parents had given me that when I asked I might never have come out of my Dark Ages...

Was there anyone out there unsatisfied with the last couple of Bobas we got - I'm not sure what else they can do to improve it from here. Also does the Darth in the ISD have a new helmet piece? I ask because I have the Revised DK book and the new Darth's helmet looks different to all the other Darth helmets in the minifg gallery at the back although it could just be a result of being photgraphed at a different angle.

I guess I now know what my son and I will be doing over the next school holidays after this is released...let's hope they do a movie like they did for the last one. IMO The best Lego games are those where TT has come up with an original storyline (eg Batman, Marvel) without the restirctions of having to reproduce scenarios from existing films.

I much prefer the look of my 2006 version (especially the booster rocket array) although I'll admit the new version has more generically useful minfigs for Imperial MOCs. The 2006 version though is a bugger to build, is fragile and not swooshable at all. I didn't find it an enjoyable buidling experience at all (in fact it wasn't until some years after I got this for a present that I really came out of my Dark Ages) although I like the look of it very much. If the new version can fix some of these issues it might be worth picking up.

Great stuff...but where's Indy?

Just buy a couple of Friends sets and you should be sorted.

I had a lot of Classic Space sets (with the Red and White spacemen) but even though I only had the one small Castle set (Knight's Procession) I remember endlessly building castles to set the minifigs up in, so I gotta go with Castle.