jdubbs

There has been no confirmation of a Harry Potter CMF series, let alone when it might appear. The CMF series following the second Batman series is supposedly birthday-themed, due in the spring.

If it's a magnet would the minifig be removable/posable like a regular fig? Or more like a keychain minifig? I've never actually handled a LEGO magnet product so not sure what to expect... I would just like *some* way to acquire a few Vaders without buying a full set. I have spots in my collection for 4-5 more of them and don't really want to pay eBay prices to get them.

Since the license is through Warner Brothers, I doubt they would use anything other than the movie likenesses.

Don't recall saying anything about proof. I believe used the word "guess" which would be pretty close to the opposite of "proof". In any event, while it is true that LEGO has had similar products on the shelves at the same time, they've also retired products early seemingly to avoid this, e.g., the Rebels A-Wing/TIE set which retired after just six months, followed closely by the TRU A-Wing. Sad to see the Vader Pod giveaway was cancelled. Was hoping to pick up a few Vaders cheap. https://brickset.com/article/32590/star-wars-pod-promotion-cancelled

Most likely they are giving more time for the Rogue One AT-ST to clear off shelves before releasing a similarly-designed model for TLJ.... guessing it comes in March.

While the 7264 set was a nice value and contained — for me at least — a more iconic selection of minifigs than the 75094, I think there are several reasons why an update of the Tydirium/Lambda shuttle wouldn't (and shouldn't) happen in the next few years: There are two shuttles on shelves now, and while one is due to retire within the year, it's rare for LEGO to sell two similar designs at the same time (though obviously it happens, e.g., Poe's two X-Wings). There are two other much older shuttles more in need of updating (7659 Imperial Landing Craft and 8096 Palpatine's Shuttle from RotS). The Imperial Landing Craft in particular needs a refresh, given 7659's simplistic build and the enormous parts used for its hull... I think it could see release as a Rebels set if LEGO is willing to go there again. (Kylo's shuttle also needs updating given the incorrect color scheme and wings, but I doubt we'll see that unless it appears in Episode IX.) The cargo shuttle from Rogue One has not yet seen a release, and given its prominence in the film and the fact that it was edged out of production to make way for Krennick's shuttle, I think we'd see it before a rehash of the Tydirium, which just left store shelves a year ago. But who knows? LEGO has shown a willingness to re-release sets over and over like the Landspeeder, so maybe they'll opt for a Tydirium sooner than later. But I think you'd be better off picking up the 75094 shuttle before it gets insanely expensive and supplementing with a few Royal Guards and the Emperor, which are readily available, and the freebie Vader Battle Pod when it is released later this month.

With rare exception, minifigs that have a distressed or angry expression also have a happy or neutral expression on the opposite side of the head... the angry/distressed expression is provided as an alternate face, and almost never the sole face. The only exceptions I can think of would be certain licensed characters like Kylo Ren, Angry Clone, etc. and maybe the occasional "bad guy" CMF. Even Garmadon, Voldemort, Lord Business, and the Emperor typically have smiles on one of their two faces (granted, they are evil, maniacal smiles, but smiles all the same...) Bringing it back the Downtown Diner... just three of the included minifigs appear to come with distressed or unconventional faces (sweating weightlifter, singing recording artist, grumpy recording engineer/photographer) all of which have happy faces as well.

It’s no doubt so they don’t have to pay the Brando estate. Or because Brando’s contract didn’t cover licensed toy merch.

Very well said... I could not agree more, Aanchir. Your comments, especially the second paragraph, bring to mind a book written by a close friend of mine: Journey, by Aaron Becker. It's a wordless children's picture book, depicting a young girl who can't get her family's attention, picks up a crayon, and draws an entrance to a fantastical world that she then steps into. What sets it apart from most children's books is that I have to provide the details of the story as I read it to my son, since there aren't any words. The broad strokes are all on the page, but a lot is still left up to interpretation and so each time you read it, the story changes. As my son gets older (he's now 3), there are a lot of details that he is now filling in himself, so the questions he asks — "why is she sad?" "why are the bad guys chasing her?" etc. — he now answers himself. The same goes for the LEGOs we play with together... my son generates stories and characters for everybody, taking the cues that the figures provide and running with them. (Sidebar: Aaron is a big LEGO fan and is actually the one that introduced me to LEGOs as an adult... though he's also a bit of an old-school purist and might actually prefer the generic smileys!).

It's still listed on the downloadable December calendar. But I hope you're right, as I'd like to pick up a few of the Vader pods and it would be nice to use the January Star Wars sets to get them.... since I have all but one of the current releases.

I was a little iffy based on the early leaked photo, but I have to say I am really impressed by the official set reveal. The interior spaces are what sell it for me… not splitting up the baseplate into multiple buildings allows for much more detailed/realistic interiors. Granted, they’re still undersized, but the core elements of a diner, gym, and studio are all there, without feeling shoe-horned in… there even seems to be a luxurious amount of space in the diner level… I was never particularly attached to the old-style smiley faces — aside from Emmett, they just don’t convey enough personality to me, and remind me too much of the lack of detail in Playmobil figures — so for me, the switch to modern faces is a welcome one. And they allow a lot more in the way of story to come through in the set. The alternate faces of the weightlifter and recording artist are great additions that would never have been possible with old-school smileys. I’m also impressed with some of the architectural flourishes on the left side of the model… the spiral staircase, the wrap-around awning, the drainpipe and tiered terraces all give needed detail to the more understated light tan areas. I know others have found fault with this section of the building, but I think it serves as a nice bridge to the older modulars, and gives the impression of an older building that has been partially renovated to a newer “moderne” style. The fuchsia and teal may be a bit loud, but they’re absolutely the right choice for this as a standalone set. I do not understand people griping about the colors… it’s like watching House Hunters and seeing a buyer reject a house because the walls are the wrong color… just paint them! It shouldn’t be that hard or that expensive to swap out a few bricks for more muted equivalents. I am eager to see the designer video, and I hope they don’t wait until the set is released to post the video. Jamie or whoever designed this should be really proud of their work. I’m curious how much they accentuate (or even acknowledge) the differences between this set and the previous modulars, and whether they approached it as a deliberate new direction/evolution for the line, or just a one-off detour like the Parisian Restaurant, Palace Cinema, etc. My guess is this set sells very well. It has a lot of curb (shelf) appeal and — without meaning to appear sexist — should attract younger female buyers of Friends sets to the fold, since it can reasonably fit in with that line of toys.

If the images were in CMYK they would be more muted, not more saturated. I believe the issue is related to the colorspace of Jim's computer or browser... e.g., Flickr may be converting the images improperly upon upload if he's using, say, a newer Mac with a Wide Gamut/HDR (High Dynamic Range) monitor and a browser that doesn't support the expanded colorspace properly (like Firefox). Or it's a translation issue between RGB and sRGB. Something along those lines.

Looking at the new photo, I would guess the rear post terminates in a plinth with one of the pins, and the front-most step includes the other pin.

I don't think it's technically a corner building... kind of a weird hybrid. The sidewalk doesn't extend around the corner... only to the stairs.

It seems to me this would be more successful if there were two cycles... one blue and one red? Hoping the light trail gets reworked as a solid ribbon, versus round studs which look more like exhaust...

The back of my cockpit is constantly falling off. The connection to the body of the cockpit is tenuous and the last few clip-on slopes are really hard to get on without them all falling off again. That said, it is my second-favorite UCS model, after Slave I.

This should give you an idea of demand for the two sets: https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Advanced-Models/subtheme-Modular-Buildings. 9600+ Brickset users want Cafe Corner, versus 5500+ who want Market Street. This despite nearly 2x as many people already owning Cafe Corner versus Market Street. Demand for Cafe Corner and Green Grocer is far higher than any other modular... if LEGO does decide to re-release a modular set, it would most logically be one of those two.

Courtesy of Rebel Scum, here is the Mos Eisley set description... in Hungarian. LEGO® 75205 Mos Eisley Cantina™. Töltsd az időt a Tatooine legveszélyesebb kocsmájában, a Mos Eisley Cantina-ban. Parkolj le odakint az Ubrikkian 9000 gondolával! Segíts Han Solonak lesöpörni Greedót a székéről, anélkül, hogy magára vonná a Homokosztagos figyelmét! Tarts rendet Wuherrel, miközben ő felszolgálja az italokat! Ez csak egy átlagos nap a Mos Eisley Cantina™-ban! It is from this website: https://kockashop.hu/lego/mos-eisley-cantina-75205 (Is that allowed? There aren't any photos...) The translation from Rebel Scum: Spend time in Tatooine's most dangerous pub, Mos Eisley Cantina. Park outside with the Ubrikkian 9000 gondola! Help Han Solo swoop up Greedo from his chair without letting the Sagittarian's attention. Keep up with Wuher while he drinks the drinks! It's just an average day at Mos Eisley Cantina ™! I believe Sagittarian is meant to be stormtrooper? This is the Ubrikkian 9000: https://www.google.com/search?q=Ubrikkian+9000&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWzcumtOHXAhXKjFQKHQW8BdEQ_AUIDCgD&biw=1242&bih=1051

I think for a lot of us, whether you like the Diner or not depends on where you envision your LEGO city/town being located. If you imagine your town being set in Europe, the Palace Cinema and the Diner don’t fit in that well, since both have distinctly American architectural influences (Mann’s Chinese Theater, with its own obvious Asian influences, and 50’s era Art Deco), neither of which really made their way across the pond. Even though a Parisian Restaurant is equally specific in its European influences, it can more easily fit in a US-based LEGO town since we already tend to mash up architecture from all over the world. My LEGO town isn’t built yet — I’m still in the process of acquiring the sets and plotting out how I want the layout to work — but I’ve always envisioned it as fairly European, and so fitting in the Palace Cinema and Diner may be challenging. (This is why I skipped the Town Hall… aside from the fact that it's just too damn big and expensive, it looks too much to me like the clocktower from Back to the Future, as another poster already commented.) Still, my all-time favorite LEGO town is Feanor001’s New-Brickstadt which incorporates both the Town Hall and Palace Cinema in a European setting to good effect. As Feanor001 has done in his town, if you work hard enough at the connecting bits — the roads, common spaces, greenery, MOCs, etc. — you can make these disparate buildings work together. I’ll certainly be getting the Diner, but I’ll wait until it goes on sale for Brick Friday or some other big promotion, since I still have three of the current modulars and two of the retired sets to pick up.

shop.lego.com has a filter to show sets that are retiring soon, and those sets are flagged with a badge on the product page. In general, most sets last ~2 years on the US LEGO website and at the major online resellers (TRU, Amazon, Target, etc.) so you can expect most anything in TFA packaging to be cleared from store shelves by New Year's. Some sets also appear to have shorter runs in the EU, like a few of the Winter Village sets which you can still get in the US but not in the UK. From a comment one of the LEGO designers made on Brickset, it sounds like several of the Rogue One sets are going to retire earlier than usual, near the end of the year. Pure speculation, but this may be to allow a few of the TFA sets to live longer, like the TIE Fighter, Poe's X-Wing, and Kylo's Shuttle, which all appear in TLJ. (Or those sets could retire this winter too, to make way for updated models in the spring/summer.)

Any updates? I too would be interested in the LDD or instructions once you're done, if you'e inclined to share/sell them. It's a beautiful building you've created, more impressive than many of the official modulars.

I think it's unlikely that TRU would completely go under; it's more likely they would close stores in underperforming markets, though they already did this a few years ago. In theory Chapter 11 allows them to restructure their debt (pay creditors like LEGO less than they are owed) and avoid total collapse. But suppliers like LEGO, Hasbro, etc. may be less willing to commit to multi-year exclusives given the uncertainty about TRU's future and whether/how much they will get paid. And given that TRU likely pays a premium for such exclusives, they may not be in a position to take on new exclusives until they've re-emerged from bankruptcy.

Given that Walmart's exclusive Landspeeder was nearly identical to the version included in 2014's Cantina combo set, I'd bet that LEGO broke up the set and pitched the Landspeeder and Cantina as a pair of lower-cost, recycled exclusives to Walmart. Cheaper for Walmart since they trade mostly at the low end of the market, and cheaper for LEGO since they don't have to design new sets. The 2014 combo set was 615 pieces. The 2017 Landspeeder was 149, of which 125 were devoted to the actual landspeeder build. That means the 2014 combo set had ±490 pieces devoted to the Cantina, Vaporator, Minifigs, and Dewback. Assuming the 2018 Cantina has 376 pieces, that would be consistent with the 2014 set minus the landspeeder, drawback, vaporator, and ~4 minifigs. My guess is the new Cantina comes with just Han, Greedo and Wuher, and maaaaaybe the two sandtroopers that were recently leaked... but I also think those could end up in yet another small set with the Dewback. Otherwise, the new Cantina would have to substantially smaller/simpler than the old one. With TRU in bankruptcy, I wouldn't be surprised if they forgo exclusives next year... I hope I'm wrong about that, as TRU exclusives have been pretty good this year (e.g., Bricktober).

Agree 100%. LEGO needs to find a middle ground between these dinky playsets like Maz Kanata's Palace and the oversized ones like Assault on Hoth. The Scarif Bunker was fairly reasonable, but still way under-scaled. Really hoping the new Cantina can merge with the previous set to form a larger set.

Having now seen the photos... I'm pretty underwhelmed. Not a fan of combining microfighters into 2-packs... while in this particular case I would buy one of each anyway, most years there are only 1 or 2 in the series that I ever want... doubling them up means you have to buy sets you may not want. At least it's a cheap way to get an extra Kylo. Ahch-To Training and Defense of Crait look sooooo small. I guess it's nice not to have to pay a fortune to get Luke, and you can always buy a second or third set to amass a more complete scene, but it seems strange how small it is given how prominently the Luke/Rey scenes have been in the trailers. Seriously have to wonder how many Resistance Pilots/Troopers and First Order Gunners/Techs LEGO thinks we need or want.