jdubbs

In that case I'm not going to speculate on what info they had (or thought they had). And I can't get into specifics other than to say 2020 looks pretty meager for anyone collecting system-scale sets.

They weren't on (public) display at the UK Toy Fair either. Invite-only closed room. And I don't believe they were shown publicly at the European toy fairs last year either. Perhaps the April wave will be displayed at the NY Toy Fair late next month? If you're basing that statement on the list of summer sets floating around a few weeks back, it was bogus...

I'm not sure I would blame it on the sequel trilogy sets. 2019 was a pretty cr@p year for LEGO Star Wars all-around. The 20th anniversary sets were (all but one) a resounding dud, the action battle sets didn't seem to appeal to kids as well as expected, and the year was overrun with rehashes of existing builds that had only barely left shelves a few years prior. LEGO missed a huge opportunity to cash in on the success of the Mandalorian but clearly didn't have enough faith in the show to invest in more than one small set (which clearly required minimal effort on LEGO's part) and a battle pack. Don't expect things to improve in 2020... it's looking like they're going to get worse before they get better.

Helmets, rather than busts. A buildable D-0 droid in the manner of BB-8/Porg/Yoda has also been reported publicly I believe, as well as one unnamed system set. Guessing they will be revealed publicly at New York Toy Fair in 3 weeks. Beyond that, I think people would do well to keep expectations low for the rest of the year. Well, yeah. That’s kind of what happens when the folks with all the info get tired of being second-guessed, pack up and take their toys elsewhere. :(

The problem here is that, given the available parts (and the very limited sizes of round and curved parts in particular), LEGO can't just pick any scale and build to it... sets often end up being slightly under (or over) minifig scale because that's the best they can do given the constraints of existing molds. So if the previous System Gunship was, for instance, 90% of minifig scale, it's not like they'll necessarily be able to size it up 10% to make it exactly minifig scale; the next achievable size up might be 125% of minifig scale, if that's what the parts allow. In this case, the dome pieces used for the ball turrets could be a really limiting factor, or the parts needed for the engines and cockpit canopies. Sure, they can develop new molds if absolutely necessary, but that's expensive and they've shown an unwillingness to do this even when there are sets crying out for it (System Snowspeeder, I'm looking at you.) If I had to guess, I'd say a UCS Republic Gunship duplicates the previous System set scale and adds a secondary build, more detail, and a few more figs to get to a $200 ticket (probably marketed as a "Master Builder Series" set in this case), or else gets scaled way up beyond minifig scale and comes with just one or two token figures. Either way, some contingent of fans will scream bloody murder that it wasn't whatever they wanted.

Perhaps you could try being a little more respectful of the other members of this forum.

Aye aye, minimod!

All four figures were based on costumes shown in the show. Someone lightened various screenshots and identified them all, including the purple splotch one. I don't remember where it was posted but I can't imagine it would be that hard to find if you need to see for yourself.

Regardless of the merits or faults of MandR’s videos, I think his campaign for that battle pack actually worked against his goal of getting it ever made. It just became so obnoxious in its pervasiveness that I think LEGO won’t ever make it a reality, for fear of encouraging more campaigns like that.

The counter argument to be made is that Lego’s business model is to make profits. And CMFs have clearly been very profitable for them, especially licensed CMFs, which have come to dominate the lineup. Yes, figures drive sales of sets, but they clearly can’t be all that important (to the point of ruling out a CMF) given 1) the Harry Potter sets continue to sell really well despite the overwhelming success of the HP CMF line and 2) LEGO doesn’t appear to be prioritizing unique figure selection in its Star Wars sets (if you look at how many 2019 sets had no new figs). Bottom line is there are a ton of characters in the Star Wars universe that could fill several CMF series while still leaving room for exclusive figs in sets. Still lots of opportunities to make unique versions of key characters. Arm printing, leg printing, unique accessories, etc. Vader could come with a new interrogation droid mold. Or a better helmet. Leia could come with a hood-up-over-cinnamon-buns hairpiece. Luke could come with his floppy hat. We’ve never gotten a snowy Chewie. And so on.

That's my point: they are designed a year or more in advance, and given Star Wars D2Cs typically have a shelf life of 2-3 years, it seems unlikely that LEGO would have planned another playset with Cloud City (not to mention the Death Star and the Tantive, which is play-oriented) theoretically still on shelves. But, who knows? I am not trying to hint at anything, no. While I have read one report of what the fall D2C is supposed to be, the information is questionable so I'm not going to repeat it publicly.

The Cloud City “Master Builders” set retired way earlier than anyone expected, so I really doubt LEGO would have planned for another set like it so soon. The fall D2C is more likely another capital ship, rather than a playset.

If you look at the third picture in the listing, they include a shot of the actual LEGO part. It does look like a test run of that helmet, in which the plastic didn't make it all the way through the mold.

L3 did not appear in any set. No minifig or official brick-built version of her was created, though several people have made mocs of her.

Remember that pricing isn't just straight currency conversion. For one thing, European prices include VAT baked into the sticker price (as much as 20%) whereas US prices have sales tax (typically 7-9%) added on top of the sticker price. Licensing fees may be different in different regions, and shipping/import charges are going to be all over the map (haha) depending on where a set is produced. Creator Expert sets, for instance, are almost always "cheaper" in the EU than in the US, which I suspect is because they are manufactured primarily in the Billund factory. Certain sets that have limited appeal or smaller production runs may only be produced in one factory (e.g., Mexico) and then shipped everywhere else, resulting in lower prices in North America than in the EU. (This may also explain why some sets retire earlier in some markets than in others, if it's no longer cost-effective to continue importing them). In addition, LEGO has most likely been inching up their UK prices in anticipation of Brexit, so that they don't have to do a massive across-the-board price hike once/if Brexit finally happens. And LEGO could easily be experimenting with variable pricing on some sets (testing a higher price on, say, a Landspeeder in the EU and a cheaper price on the same set in the US) given what they expect demand/volume to be (if, say, Landspeeders historically sell better in the US than the EU), and what they think the market can bear.

Personally I prefer the look of barneius' TIEs. They feel more like what LEGO would do if price were not such a factor in their builds (some exposed studs, but not too many, so a nice middle ground between all-SNOT and overstudded official builds). I have not built them myself but a friend has and he says they are really well built, stable, with easy-to-follow instructions.

Number of pieces isn’t everything. Taken alone it’s a pretty poor metric.

I believe the answer to you question is laid out pretty clearly in the above post.

Slang for children.

I'm not hinting, no. My "prediction" is just an educated guess. But I do think a playset like you suggest is probably one of the next (if not the next) Assault on Hoth/Betrayal at Cloud City-type set LEGO does, and I could also see LEGO updating the UCS AT-ST build in the next few years...

I’ll go out on a limb and predict the next AT-ST comes in a D2C.

The landspeeder costs $30, a low-risk, easy seller. The Falcon is an iconic ship with 40+ years of history spanning 7 movies (well, 8 if you count its cameo in AotC) and a proven track record of selling well over and over. The Ghost does not compare to either of these examples. The likelihood of another Ghost anytime at all – let alone soon – is slim-to-none.

By all accounts the sets from Rebels sold horribly. Granted, some of this was down to timing, set selection, etc. But I wouldn’t expect Lego to revisit any of those any time soon. Especially the Ghost, which would chew up a coveted price point that Lego tends to reserve for sure-sellers.

When there is a major change to a figure, as there was with the new dual-molded stormtrooper and biker scout helmets, I generally standardize on the newer version if I can do so without too much expense. When it's a smaller change, like the print revision to the snow trooper torso/legs this year, I mix the old and new together... especially when they're rebels, where a bit of rag-tag is to be expected. For the current stormtroopers, only the helmet changed (the torso and legs remain consistent with the outgoing sw585 version of the figure) so I found a bunch of the new helmets on eBay or Bricklink and upgraded my existing troopers to match the new ones. I also have a friend who is sticking with the 585 version of the stormtrooper, so we agreed to swap helmets so he gets my old helmets and I get the dual-molded helmets from any new sets he buys. Win-win. Any figs who haven't been upgraded get positioned toward the back (or in the shadows) of my set displays, with the newer versions getting more prominent placement.

Yeah, the sequel designs are partly to blame for the repetition of the October wave, not to mention spoilers being on lockdown until the new year. Still, LEGO could have chosen a location build from the first episode of Mandalorian over the AT-ST, which would have felt a bit fresher without spoiling anything. For me, the main offenders in 2019 were the AT-AP, Droid Gunship, and the entire 20th Anniversary wave (minus the Slave 1, which actually got an all-new build). Yes, the Droid Gunship and the podracer got modest upgrades by way of better greebling, but by and large these were sets whose previous iterations were more than adequate, and they came at the expense of all-new sets from Rogue One, Solo, or the many prequel/original trilogy ships which haven't seen the light of day in over a decade (if ever). Not to mention the Juniors/4+ sets and the "battle" sets which chewed up more spots in the year's lineup... I don't fault LEGO for trying new things, trying to appeal to kids (they are the primary market, after all), or branching Star Wars out into the Juniors line. I just wish that maybe this all hadn't happened the same year we got rehash after rehash.