jdubbs

I definitely take your points and agree that not all retired sets can be re-released... and yes, Bricklinking is an option, though it too can be expensive and time-consuming, depending on how accurate you want to be to the original. I guess I just feel that — while I don't want to belabor the issue or drive this thread off-track — there are certain sets that have become iconic, such as Cafe Corner, Emerald Night train, Imperial Flagship, etc., for which there is clearly a strong, resurgent market, especially as LEGO fandom grows. (Just look at Cafe Corner's listing in Brickset... nearly twice as many people want it than have it, and nearly twice as many people want it versus any other modular set.) The UCS Millennium Falcon is a set that didn't actually do that well when it was original released, and yet ended up selling for 10x the original price on the secondary market.... the demand for it grew and grew until now LEGO is (or appears to be) issuing a new version of it. I'd like to think that other (non-Star Wars) iconic sets could receive similar treatment down the line.

The snarky cynic in me wants to say, "well just make the whole thing one stud taller, duh." though of course I know there's more to it than that. And my guess is that a re-release of Cafe Corner would require more than just accommodating a few updated parts... since they didn't include interiors back then, a new edition would probably be more of an upgraded model than a re-release. So yes, unlikely... but, a boy can dream...

I found the Arkham set to be a fairly poor representation of the location depicted in the movie, so I hope a Wayne Manor set would be a major step up from it. Even though Arkham is on sale now at shop.lego.com, I'm hesitant to buy it given its anemic interior and lack of visual appeal (like...why is it brown? where is the gothic and gargoyles? where is the creepy iron gate? Sticking some lightsaber hilts on the roof just doesn't cut it for me). Wayne Manor ought to be more on the scale of the Monster Fighters Haunted House... or even bigger.

What are the chances LEGO would re-release the original modular buildings, starting with Cafe Corner? That set is over 10 years old, most people missed out on it since the modular line was just getting off the ground... and the aftermarket on it obviously prevents most of us from ever owning it. They re-released/updated the Toy Shop from the Winter Village collection a few years ago, after all. And they seem to have no problem rehashing UCS Star Wars sets year after year. It seems like there would be a market for LEGO to cycle through the first few modular sets one per year in the summer as a limited-run anniversary edition, and still put out a new set each January. As for the next new modular building, I would like to see a residential/mixed use building as well. But if so, I hope they return to a ~$150 price point for it, especially given how many massive new sets are coming to market (Ninjago City, UCS Falcon, Wayne Manor(?), etc.). If LEGO is going to keep pushing $270 modular sets at us, they ought to be grander structures... e.g., a train station (seems unlikely for 2018, if that is actually the subject of this year's Winter Village set), a natural history museum (the interior could outdo the exterior for once: dinosaur skeleton, wooly mammoth, cavemen, etc.), or a library. Assembly Square just felt like a Pet Shop or Detective's Office with another small building tacked on... for nearly 2x the price (though the homages to previous modular sets were nice).

From the brief glimpse I got of the photo before it was taken down, it was 2 RotS Clone Troopers (no deco that I can remember?), Ki Adi Mundi, and Coleman Trebor I think? Nothing looked like a new sculpt to me. Clone trooper was riding on a speeder that looked inspired by the gunship. Early rendering, not final. Edit: Although, that doesn't entirely make sense, since Coleman Trebor was killed in the Battle of Geonosis, before the advent of the second Clone Trooper design. So either my memory of the photo is faulty or Coleman is a placeholder, or it's just not movie-accurate.

The Classic TV Batcave/Wayne Manor DTC set is retiring (and on markdown, which is rare) after just a year on the market... this could easily be an indication a new Wayne Manor set is on the horizon. (I hope so... the Wayne Manor interiors were beautifully designed in the LEGO Batman Movie... I wish the Making Of book had shown more of them).

Was the radar dish round (original trilogy) or rectangular (TFA) on the box cover?

Maybe you could give the guy a chance to respond before calling him a troll?

The advantage of a set not being labeled UCS is wider distribution. Big-box retailers (in the US, at least) such as Target, ToysRUs, Walmart, etc. don’t stock UCS sets in most stores given that their high price point typically can’t be discounted. BB-8 proved to be a surprisingly popular character and no doubt LEGO realizes that they can sell a lot more of it if it's actually on store shelves.

That is so interesting... he did a lot of my favorite recent sets, which raises my hopes even further for the UCS Falcon, assuming that's what he's alluding to. And for those knocking his involvement on the Assault on Hoth UCS set, it sounds like his hands were pretty tied. Fascinating that we almost got the cargo shuttle instead of Krennick's shuttle last year... I guess there's still hope for an official set down the line. I'm a bit surprised he's able to comment so freely on the inner workings of the LEGO design process...

Dark bluish gray is pretty accurate to the prop color... I think the issue is that our memory of it is darker, because it was filmed against a bright background, increasing the contrast of the droid on-screen. Not unlike how Han's brown jacket appeared blue in some shots because of the ambient light or the cool lens filters or whatever. Personally I wish LEGO would start using the darker gun-metal in larger quantities, because there are clearly a lot of designs that would benefit from it, e.g., Kylo's Shuttle, K-2SO, this droid, etc. The question you now have to ask yourself is, what would a 1000 piece build look like?

The Force Awakens was delayed, from May 2015 to December 2015. But this happened early enough (around the time that Abrams tossed the original script and wrote a new one with Kasden) that I doubt any merchandise had been designed or produced by LEGO. I seem to recall people saying that LEGO had a bunch of Episode II and III product at some stage of development in anticipation of the (canceled) theatrical 3D re-releases. Which might explain why they keep giving us Jedi Starfighters wave after wave... Other than that, there was at least one Hobbit set affected when Peter Jackson went from 2 to 3 movies... Mirkwood Spiders got released with the first movie, even though that scene got moved to the second movie... LEGO added a sticker to the box to explain the disparity. If Solo does get pushed to December, I doubt Disney would allow merchandise to hit shelves 8-9 months ahead of the release date... and I doubt LEGO would want to release it then either, since sets wouldn't sell nearly as well without the movie in theaters to support them.

I think the real question here is: what happens if Solo is pushed back to December? Presumably Ron Howard will decide soon whether he can deliver the movie 9 months from now. I suspect Kennedy chose him partly because he could, but also because he has the clout to tell Disney they need to delay the movie, if does end up needing substantial reshoots. If it does get delayed, is it still possible for LEGO to shift next year's spring sets back to fall? Would there be product far enough along in the pipeline to fill their spot? etc.

Agreed. The problem is that everyone thinks of Star Wars differently.... some will (or won't) want to see figs from comic books, video games, etc. Others will or won't want to see figs from "Legends" properties... which inevitably brings up the tedious question of what is canon and what isn't. And then someone will want to include all of the imperial officers which brings in the also-tedious question of their proper rank insignias... And however you slice and dice it, there are always vagaries... e.g., if you limit it to named, speaking characters in movies, would you really prefer a minifig of the rebel guy with one line who frees Jyn Erso from the turbo tank prison transport over, say, an unnamed non-speaking alien in Jabba's Palace (though I suppose every character there has a name at this point)? Do you include minifigs that were released, but with yellow heads? Or pupil-less eyes? Or exaggerated Clone Wars face styling? etc... As each new movie comes out, the likelihood we will see any given legacy character in minifig form becomes smaller and smaller... especially if that character requires a new head mold. I think our only hope for filling major (let alone minor) holes is a CMF line, which barring a complete reversal won't happen until 2020 at earliest (the year Hasbro's current licensing agreement with Lucasfilm expires). I am only guessing, but I think it's because Disney wanted to shift one of the half-dozen Marvel movies they release each year to the December spot, to space them out better. With only one Star Wars movie released each year, it only has to compete with itself (and every other summer movie, I suppose).

Possibly to make way for the Han Solo sets coming in March/April (assuming that the movie is still released in May... which seems like it might be a stretch now)? And/or the December set(s) reveal some kind of plot details that Lucasfilm doesn't want revealed until closer to the release of TLJ?

I am surprised by the lack of hero characters across these sets. While each set does seem to have at least one named character, the fact that there is only one Rey seems like a hard sell for kids (not to mention the beaten-to-death topic of no Luke/Leia/Chewie). Contrast this with The LEGO Batman Movie sets, which seem to have a Batman fig in almost every set (obviously, the opposite extreme). The ship designs are pretty lackluster, imo. They're either poor adaptations of OT vehicles typical of what you'd see in a budget video game, or generic space vehicles that could have been in any other wannabe movie. I find the entire wave to be pretty uninspiring. Hoping this isn't true of the movie as well...

These are typically part of the winter wave.

Re-reading the posts that precede THELEGOBATMAN's post, it appears he was referring to the "news" that the set includes 6 minifigs, whereas it looks like it actually has 4 (including the black BB unit).

Could this be the new 75204 Sandspeeder set listed for December on the first post? Though I would have preferred to see this set in the initial wave, since it's by far the coolest thing shown in the teaser trailer. It just occurred to me that 75176 Resistance Transport Pod might be the bacta/medical pod that Finn is being transported in, in the teaser trailer? (Maybe this was obvious... but I initially assumed this was a vehicle of some kind.) Re: this new picture... We don't know what we don't know. There could be another row above or below what is shown in the picture, or another page with a handful of additional minifigs. All this speculation about who isn't included and how dire that is for the initial wave doesn't really serve much purpose other than to fill up more and more pages of this thread.

Kylo's shuttle, out of the box at least, isn't the greatest set. The color is wrong and the wings don't angle out as they should. You can find a fair number of mods online that correct these issues, but if you're not prepared to tinker and don't have the budget to replace half the pieces with black equivalents, you might just want to wait for the second generation of this set, whenever/iferver it is released. (Maybe by Episode 9, provided the shuttle survives Episode 8? Then again, this may be the only version we ever get.) But other than that, yes I always buy the oldest set (and/or the one on sale) if I have to choose. Of the four you mentioned, I'd expect Kylo's Shuttle to be retired first, but that's just a guess.

@Stash2Sixx: When someone sees a photo of a set or a minifig on some third-party site, which thread is the appropriate place to post about it? i.e., when someone wants to post "There's a new photo of XYZ over on reddit" (which I believe is allowed... right?) where does that go? News thread or Discussion thread?

I too don't see a lot of opportunities for signature/iconic buildings in Gotham. I guess you could just do some gothic-styled buildings and call that Gotham? With the classic TV Batcave being retired so soon, I am guessing there's not as much demand for Wayne Manor as some of us might think or hope? A train station would be really nice, though. And it seems like there are opportunities for story within it, which Lego designers like to start with. Not to mention synergy with an actual train set...

How. Many. Times. Can. We. Go. Through. This? It's like living in Groundhog's Day, in reverse, in slow motion, poorly dubbed in a foreign language.

The smallest sets tend to have the shortest lifespan. The January wave of battle packs may have sold through more quickly since there were only two of them this year.

Thanks, good to know... I have a vague memory of seeing triple points offered late last year, but it could been EU people here posting about it in their locations.