jdubbs

At some point there will be another system-scale gunship. It is almost inevitable, someday. But every year folks on this forum whip themselves into a frenzy thinking this is gonna be the year, and what starts as a wish turns into a rumor turns into a fact turns into massive disappointment once everyone is ultimately reminded... it was just a wish. Someday, yes, that wish will be fulfilled... at which point a hundred people will pop out of the woodwork making comments like "I'm so glad I was right about the gunship" while conveniently forgetting the many years when they predicted the same thing and were wrong, and conveniently ignoring the fact that everyone else predicted it too, because it was easy to predict. Full disclosure: I don't know whether this set everyone is so worked up about is a gunship or not. The fact that I don't suggests to me it's a store exclusive (I haven't checked... I don't honestly care at this point), which further suggests it's not a gunship, since that ship has wide enough appeal to do quite well as a broader mainline release. Still, it could be. But to say that it has to be, or that it almost certainly is, or even that it most likely is... that's wish fulfillment at work. And if you insist on rationalizing why it's not, then it's possibly delusion at work. A set this size could just as easily, and perhaps even more likely be... a Fondor Haulcraft. A Ghost. Some other, unknown set from Ahsoka. Some unknown set from The Mandalorian. Hell, a scaled-down Millennium Falcon, to go with your scaled-down X- and Y-Wings. A statue... B2EMO perhaps. Or a gonk droid. Or a life-sized mouse droid. Or an Ewok. Or... it could be a gunship. The point is: a gunship might be inevitable some year. It isn't inevitable this year. (Unless it is.)

You guys have once again fallen in the trap of thinking that LEGO is somehow beholden to all these anniversaries and duty-bound to treat them all equally. When the reality is that neither has ever been the case. Most anniversaries have gone by with no meaningful support at all. Whether LEGO chooses to support the RotJ anniversary with two sets or twenty, has no bearing at all on how they will support the CW anniversary. And to try to further contort that all into proof you are getting a gunship... well, that dog won't hunt.

You've seen the box art for all three quotes sets, and both UCS sets? Please, do share...

Okay, fine. But we're really splitting hairs here...

The TIE Bomber did not appear in Return of the Jedi. LEGO may have labeled it as an anniversary set, but I don't think anyone seriously counts it as such. It would be like LEGO releasing Maul's Sith Interceptor with an AotC anniversary logo on it.... except in that case the Internet would be in flames, there'd be videos from every "influencer" decrying how LEGO hates the prequels or is run by idiots, and this forum would probably have imploded from the agita. You are also counting three diorama sets when... there may well only be two. And you're counting a fairly generic X-Wing -- one which appears in no less than 5 Star Wars films (and originated two films earlier) -- as a RotJ anniversary set. And then also making a giant assumption about a second UCS set based on literally zero info. You have not supported your thesis particularly well with this "evidence".

It's from the Celebration agenda. A panel showcasing RotJ anniversary sets and... entirely coincidentally... the X-Wing.

Here we go! The bi-annual hair-splitting debate about what constitutes a UCS set...

What I’m getting at is that your initial comments can be interpreted as rather sexist. If that wasn’t your intent, great!

Wow. Just... wow. Lemme guess, you were the sort to drop the term "Mary Sue" between every other breath, roundabouts 2016?

If it walks like a duck... swims like a duck... quacks like a duck...

It just seems like some of you are intent on finding the cloud in every silver lining... Consider that it could have been another Millennium Falcon, or any number of other rehashes. Fact is, LEGO took a chance and devoted their big flagship set to a playset for the first time ever. So maybe, hold off trashing it until you've seen it... and consider that if it sells well, LEGO might be encouraged to do other playsets at this price point, maybe even prequel era ones, if that's your cup of tea?

Let's try to keep this in perspective. 11 figs is more than any other Star Wars set this size/price has ever included, almost 2x what we typically see. I know everyone here loves to fantasize about Hera and Chopper and Rogue One figs and so on... but try to remember that this is an exceptional assortment of minifigures for a Star Wars set, more in line with Harry Potter.

Renown has posted here before. And he knows what he’s talking about.

This is possibly the most convoluted, nonsensical reason I've ever read as to why one would not share the information they supposedly — emphasis on supposedly — know. Nobody who is a self-identified "leaker" put one iota of effort into obtaining those leaks... other than opening an email, or a DM, or a Discord server, where they got their info handed to them. There's no sleuthing here, no investigative reporting, no greasing of palms or meeting secret sources in subterranean garages. It's purely a matter of who you know and whether you honor their wishes... or not. If you're going to claim to have information and then very deliberately remind people of that "fact" seven (seven!) times in one day, you should at least make the effort to formulate a good excuse why you won't get specific. Here are some specifics I can share (still slightly vague, I know... it's the best I can do): 1. The prequel-era sets are few, and small. And yes, they are rehashes. (Remind yourself you got big prequel-era sets last year. Every day can't be Christmas.) 2. At this point the gimmick sets should be really obvious to anyone paying attention. 3. Brace yourself for price increases. And anyone overly concerned with PPP should just give up now. 4. The two big (non-UCS) sets are way out of left field.

This is because most of the leaks you see originate from the retail channel. Anyone from store buyers/reps that see sets in catalogs or at trade shows, down to cashiers with access to inventory or point of sale systems. They learn about most retail sets 6ish months before they release, which then trickles down to the gen pop. The UCS sets are initially sold direct to consumers ("DTC" or "D2C") — that means they're LEGO store exclusives for their first three months — and so they're typically not shared with retail partners in advance. Hence, fewer leaks... unless a fig sneaks out of a factory or someone internal to LEGO talks, which is a lot rarer than you might think... The other exception are channel/partner store exclusives, i.e., those sold only at Target or Walmart or Amazon. Those aren't shared with other retailers or shown in catalogs or at conventions, so few outside of LEGO learn of their existence until much closer to release (which often fall outside of the Jan/Apr/Aug cycle for Star Wars sets, further obscuring their identities).

What did I do to deserve such scorn?

Cheaper than these? https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/thanos-mech-armour-76242

All B.S.

The underlying problem (as I see it at least) is that year-in, year-out people see an anniversary logo and, despite all the previous years' evidence to the contrary, immediately jump to the conclusion that they're somehow getting loads of sets to commemorate that anniversary... entire waves of sets, giant enormous flagship sets, UCS sets, MBS sets, and the like... when the reality is that LEGO has never ever ever ever done anything consequential or particularly logical to mark these anniversaries, other than a logo that Lucasfilm probably insisted that they use, resulting in an obligatory battle pack or application to a mismatched product (TIE Bomber, anyone?). Anyone expecting more than this is just setting themselves up for disappointment.

No.

Well, looking at last year alone... the quotes sets were not consecutively numbered. Nor the helmets. Nor the Obi-Wan Kemobi sets...

7130 Snowspeeder. Then later, following a dark age, 75102 Poe's X-Wing Fighter.

Beautifully done, Rubble. Have you considered doing a GR-75 rebel transport to go along with it?

I'm not really seeing why it matters one way or another, whether Holdo was the first, or merely the first to be depicted... but I'm guessing you won't be satisfied either way. If the Holdo maneuver had happened before, then there is this supposed problem of, why we haven't seen it? (because our understanding of Star Wars history is clearly exhaustive, through the maybe 100 hours of programming released to date... most of which spans a few decades of time). On the other hand, if it hadn't happened before, then there is this supposed problem of, why not? for which apparently the "there's a first time for everything" answer is insufficient... even though virtually every other Star Wars show or movie does something previously unseen at one point or another, and very few of those new things warranted on-screen explanation. It seems to me the real problem here is that it breaks certain viewers’ rather narrow headcanon about what supposedly can and cannot happen in Star Wars... But, all this aside, do you really want to restrict storytelling to this degree? Where every new show or movie must slavishly replicate the choices and actions of the stories that preceded it? Are we to just watch movies of farmboys blowing up Death Stars, over and over? I personally go to the movies hoping to see something new… something unexpected, something that will surprise and delight. If I wanted to see the same story told over and over again, well… I’d go see a Marvel movie. Was TLJ perfect? No… but if I were going to pick at things in it, I’d start with the corny jokes or the tension-sapping slow-speed chase or the over-reliance on giant gray machines that needed to be destroyed… not the fact that they tried something new when it came time to blow something up. To try to steer this back to something vaguely on topic… I love Luthen and his Haulcraft, with or without its side-mounted lasers-lightsabers-kyber-whatever-they-were, which I honestly don’t think need any kind of explanation, either on-screen or by fans. I hope we see as many MOCs of it as we did of the Razor Crest. And, fingers crossed, an official set in the new year.

Again, because most people aren't suicidal, or willing to sacrifice the lives of every member of their crew to destroy another ship. I'm not seeing how Holdo's choice to sacrifice her own life in order to save the rebellion constitutes a "whim". It's pretty clearly a move of desperation... I would call it "inspired" if anything. In real life, no one had ever hijacked a plane... until someone hijacked a plane. And then, for many years following, the practice was disturbingly common. The same goes for most any other act of terrorism or guerrilla warfare, which don't need to be listed here. The fact that no one had done the Holdo maneuver doesn't really require any explanation other than, no one had done it yet.