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In the USA, Cobi is quite a bit more expensive than Lego, per part and per gram. The recent Pokemon and GI Joe sets by Mega have also been just about as expensive as Lego. There isn't really much of a price difference between Lego and Mega anymore. Funwhole has been cheaper, but that's about to change, and it might have been subsidized anyway (to put on a tiny tinfoil hat that I don't really believe in). Cobi $$$ > Lego and Mega $$ > Funwhole and Pantasy $

Ah, but those X-wings aren't yellow or blue prequel spaceships, are they? ;)

With regard to yellow or blue prequel spaceships from Star Wars, isn't that a bit of a No True Scotsman argument? I don't like those designs, therefore I think they're repetitive. The point is that when you look at Star Wars designs outside the Original Trilogy that are variations on a theme, and you take them on their own terms, you can recognize quite a bit of difference between them. Going in the opposite direction and considering unlicensed sets, when I was a kid browsing Brickset I actually used to find a lot of the old pre-1999 Space, Castle, and Pirates sets (and a lot of the newer sets in those themes, actually) quite repetitive and boring. It's only as an adult that I've learned to appreciate a lot of the old Space, Castle, and Pirates sets on their own terms. With modern sets, I'm a spaceship and airplane guy and I'm not very interested in mechs, characters, or creatures (big articulated figures in general). I can quite happily go on and on about the creative and interesting differences between various spaceship and airplane sets, while I find mechs, characters, and creatures very dull and repetitive. However, someone with different tastes would say quite the opposite, and when I consider the mech-like builds in various themes on their own terms, I can recognize a lot of variation and innovation between different builds. With regard to unlicensed themes being too weird, I mostly agree with that. When everything in a theme is a zany mashup, nothing stands out and it all feels very similar, despite being very different. I prefer orderly "low-entropy" original themes to disorderly "high-entropy" original themes. When free-playing with Lego sets, it's easier to mash up different items from orderly themes into a disorderly, zany play pattern in the natural, organic process of play (chase your City car with your T-rex, then chase your T-rex with your X-wing) than it is to make things in an already zany set a little less wild. For example, Mr Oz's Space Car has an alt build on Rebrickable that separates out the Car from the Space parts and uses the Space parts to build a pretty decent Mars Perseverance Rover, but it takes some effort to do that. The builds from short-lived disorderly themes like Dreamzzz and Nexo Knights often feel coarse and unrefined, because there are few constraints that lead designers to elegant solutions. I do hope Lego can get its mojo back with evergreen in-house Castle, Pirates, and Wild West, but as I've said before in this thread, there's some pretty stiff competition there. That reminds me - I need to stock up on alt-brand Castle and Pirates before tariffs wreck everything, if it's not already too late!

I don't really have the expertise or knowledge to say much about the creative freedom of the theme lead or whoever it is that picks the design briefs and sets the budgets, but here's my thoughts on that: Long-running licensed themes with plenty of fresh new content and a deep back catalog of source material have a lot of freedom to pick and choose what to include in the makeup of each release wave or of each year's set lineup. We see this in the arguments over what to include in each year of the Star Wars theme. Material featured in new media is either entirely new (the Skeleton Crew ship) or a remake after an increasingly long remake interval (the Ahsoka shuttle, the Ghost), and material from the back catalog can feature very deep cuts (the Coruscant Guard gunship, the rumored UT-AT). Moreover, as much as we like to complain about buildable droids, creatures, helmets, dioramas, etc., on the forums, those are new set ideas and new set categories that haven't been done before, even if we don't like the results and we wish there were more traditional playsets instead. To play devil's advocate here, I'd argue that the LSW design team is actually showing tremendous creativity in pushing out all these buildables and other non-standard set formats that we on the forums don't like very much. Long-running licensed themes with little to no new content and a shallow back catalog of source material have less freedom to shape new and unexpected set lineups each year. We see this in the Harry Potter remake cycle, where the high degree of commonality and continuity from film to film means there's not much that can be done with new set concepts. However, the designers there still generally do what they can. I'm particularly impressed with this year's iteration of the Flying Lesson. That is a nice castle tower that can be used in a lot of Castle settings outside Harry Potter. It may be more expensive than previous versions of the scene (the first Flying Lesson set was basically a polybag), but it's a creative concept with a clever design and a versatile application. Long-running licensed themes with a huge catalog of source material can basically do whatever they want to shape a release wave. Speed Champions can basically do any fast or sporty car ever made. Technic is an unusual case. Its history is unlicensed, but the licensed fraction has grown to be the majority of the theme, and lots of people complain about too many identical licensed cars and not enough construction machinery or mechanical innovation. I concede that the variety of models in the Technic theme in the past few years has fallen quite a bit since a golden age of ~2005-2017, but I've gone through the entire back catalog of Technic on Brickset and I can't see much difference between the variety of sets available today and the variety of sets available in any ~3-year window of the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s. Technic in that period had just as many repetitive small/medium cars and motorcycles as it does today, it's just that today's sets carry licenses that don't seem to affect the cost much. The mechanical complexity of today's "car transporter gang" (as RacingBrick calls them) is equal to or greater than the mechanical complexity of the small/medium cars and buggies of classic studded Technic, and there are about as many year-to-year changes in mechanical features and authenticity. Same goes for the motorcycles. Although we don't get as much construction machinery as we used to, the truth is that Technic's bread and butter has always been small, boring, repetitive little cars and buggies, especially if you count the Racers sets of the 2000s that were temporarily branded under a different theme before being brought back home to Technic after ~2013. We still get interesting small, medium, and large Technic sets that either have no license or have a license that either doesn't really impact the set itself (the Mack garbage truck, the Airbus helicopter) or actually elevates it (the Mars Perseverance rover). I refer to the small propeller plane from 2025, the cargo spaceship from 2024, the Sun-Earth-Moon orrery from 2024, the fire plane from 2023, the Perseverance rover from 2023, the Airbus helicopter from 2022, the wrecker truck from 2021. Those are as creative and mechanically interesting as any of the great Technic sets from the past.

I had ambitions of writing a big long novel of a post in this thread, but realistically I'm not going to be able to take time for that, so here are a few quick thoughts (ok, maybe this is a long post after all): Another distinction we need to keep in mind here is the creativity of the set designers vs the creativity of the theme lead or the bean counters who fix budgets and specify the design briefs. For instance, take the Hulk monster truck. On the one hand, that's not a very creative idea. Build a monster truck in Hulk colors and sell it for an outrageous price. However, that's not the set designer's fault. Set designers have to work to design briefs and budgets that are fixed for them beforehand, and they have to work within the constraints of the part stocking system and guidelines for sturdiness and durability. Within those constraints, they have very broad latitude to do what they want. So, given the brief of a Hulk monster truck, Adam Grabowski went ahead and had fun building a nice little monster truck. The creativity displayed there is in the technical execution, and as consumers without access to the details of the design process we don't see most of the creative decisions that go into that set design. Now, as for the design brief itself: was that a creative idea, or not? On the one hand, obviously not! On the other hand, isn't that kind of a fun, wacky, zany, creative idea that's more off-the-wall and out-there than something plucked straight from the MCU or the comics pages? This leads into my next point. There's creativity of concept, and creativity of technical execution. I concede that unlicensed themes have more creative freedom of concept, but I contend that licensed themes drive more creativity of technical execution. This is because licensed themes, and licensed sets in mixed licensed/unlicensed themes, and sets closely based on real-world inspirations though without formal licenses (e.g., Architecture and Botanical sets, the nice Creator 3-in-1 models of real-world animals like the tiger, the fox, the giraffe, the flamingo, and the panda), have canonical source material that they need to match, and it looks or feels wrong if they don't match. It takes much more technical creativity to design an 8w Speed Champions model of a Ferrari F40, or to design ten distinct 8w Speed Champions models of individual Formula 1 race cars, than it does to design a generic 8w sports car or a generic 8w Formula-style race car. Similarly, it takes a good deal of techncial creativity to take advantage of new parts, techniques, and building standards to design a new version of a Star Wars standard that is more detailed, more accurate, sturdier, or with better play features than the previous version, while still looking like the source material - or to design a new version that is smaller and less expensive without sacrificing too much detail, accuracy, or playabiliity. This is true across all scales and price points of licensed and quasi-licensed sets. Fidelity to the source material drives technical innovation and spurs creative building solutions. This is true even in unlicensed themes like City and Friends, as the level of detail and innovative technical solutions in those themes have been elevated by having to make their generic cars compete with the licensed cars from Speed Champions, and when the Speed Champions design lead moved to City. Creative building solutions from licensed themes are then picked up by unlicensed themes, elevating build quality across the board. The high standard of building we expect from official Lego sets today is a direct result of the proliferation of licensed and quasi-licensed products. Now, what about the creativity of the end user? As an extremely online AFOL with no kids, my best points of reference are Rebrickable and Flickr or Instagram. I see no difference in the creativity of alt builds for licensed sets and unlicensed sets. Virtually any set can be rebuilt into a form that is completely different from the model in the instructions, with no source pattern to follow; virtually any set can be rebuilt into a form that emulates a completely different source material than the model in the instructions. True, cars are best suited to rebuilding into other kinds of cars, and starfighters without wheels aren't very well suited to rebuilding into cars, but those are basic limitations of the available parts without regard to licensed status. It's a function of the versatility of the parts used in the primary build, not of licensed or unlicensed status. But I will venture to state that licensed sets are often more versatile for rebuilding into a wide variety of different things than unlicensed sets are. That's because licensed sets, to achieve a close resemblance to the source material, are often forced to use versatile parts in creative ways, whereas unlicensed sets can often use very specialized parts in very straightforward applications that don't lend themselves to reuse. The example I'm thinking of is quite old by now, but it illustrates a wide gap in versatility of parts in licensed vs unlicensed themes that were almost contemporary. Which set is more versatile for rebuilding into something completely different, the Insectoids 6907 Sonic Stinger from 1998, or the Star Wars 7141 Naboo Fighter from 1999? I know from experience that the 7141 is pretty versatile. I rebuilt it into a fighter jet, a light freighter spaceship, a dragster, a mech, a boat, etc. I can't imagine doing that with the 6907.

I bet the Christmas AT-AT will be made to look like Santa's sleigh somehow.

Well, that's a way to get a small bread and butter Original Trilogy set out this year - paywalling a TIE Fighter as a GWP with the $1000 Death Star. Just like paywalling a small bread and butter Star Trek shuttlecraft as a GWP with a $400 Enterprise.

Well, except for the fire truck mech. But yeah, Dreamzzz has become pretty oversaturated with mech builds.

I think what most people who want more unlicensed themes actually want isn't more open-ended zany/wacky themes without real-world source material, but more of the old standards like Castle, Trains, Pirates, and Wild West. However, Lego has had little room to maneuver in those old standard spaces lately because of stiff competition from Pantasy, Funwhole, Bluebrixx, and other brands that have aggressively moved into those empty niches in the market. The backfilling of the bottom of the market with low-cost Castle, Trains, Pirates, and Wild West from those other brands may soon change, leaving room for Lego to come back with regular play themes. However, that would be a best-case outcome of a situation that's most likely to leave everyone a lot poorer and a lot less friendly to each other.

You know what a big deal it is that Lego is getting the Pokemon license when Mega used to have it? It would be an even bigger deal if Lego were to give up the Super Heroes, Star Wars, or Jurassic licenses to another company. Personally, I'm fine with the Jurassic license being an umbrella label for all sorts of dinosaur sets with minimal connection to the movies.

Stunning model. Looks so much better than the 2015 version, especially in the compound curves of the base. Can't wait for the playscale version.

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Ok, there's another quote that supports the idea that Star Wars blocked Space for the duration of the first license period. I'm still not convinced about the second, third, or fourth license periods.

Including a nice juicy delicious rumor of a $250 Icons Space Shuttle and 747 carrier aircraft out in May

Uh, that is not what I had in mind when I pictured a City tower. I might try to Bricklink the spaceship but probably not.

I called Customer Service and asked if they had any more information about this order. They said that a big shipment of Pick a Brick on around March 3 had gotten stuck in customs, and it looked like my order was a part of that. They said it should hopefully be delivered by the end of next week. I wonder if PaB getting stuck in customs has anything to do with You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters picking fights with all and sundry after taking over the Ministry of Magic.

I like what I see of the house so far. If the interior is good, I'll probably try and get this set for half price without minifigures.

There have been a handful of brief comments in passing by former employees that support the theory, but I don't think there's enough weight of evidence to confirm the theory beyond a reasonable doubt.

Strange New Worlds, 10497 Galaxy Explorer, 10355 Blacktron Renegade: modern homages done right!

@Mandalorianknight, this is @danth's favorite conspiracy theory. Just let it be.

Take a look at this. https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-198070/IBrickedItUp/cabover-semi-truck-and-optimus-prime-mech/#details

Well, whatever small blue planet was in the background of the box art for Space Police 3 and Galaxy Squad, the actual content of the sets for Mars Mission, Space Police 3, and Galaxy Squad was as far-out as it was for any pre-1999 Space theme, and IMO that's what counts. But I don't really think it's worth hashing this out again. Because everything is under NDA, there's very few statements other than circumstantial evidence to back any of this up, but it does appear that changing availability and theming of Lego Space is at least somewhat correlated to Lego Star Wars license renewals and renegotiations.

Nearly three weeks later, my Pick a Brick Standard order that I placed on December 9 and that was shipped on March 3 still hasn't arrived.

Yeah, the color of Jango Fett's jumpsuit has never read as any shade of purple to me. It's always seemed to me like a faded navy blue or denim blue of a piece of clothing that's lost a lot of blue dye and become grayed and muddy from being thrown in mixed washer loads too many times - which seems fitting for a single dad on the go whose skill set is assassination, not housekeeping.

The Pokemon license has not been entirely exclusive in building bricks. Keeppley has had the Pokemon license in Asia, while Mega has had it in the West. Not all of the licenses Lego acquires are exclusive licenses. Other brick companies, like Cada and Rastar, are still doing licensed Formula 1 race cars despite Lego acquiring a license to the entire franchise. If Pokemon remains a non-exclusive license and Mega retains the right to make Pokemon sets, then this is a smart move by the Pokemon license holders to expand their market. Otherwise, it's an aggressive move by Lego to cut off one of their main competitors at the knees, just like the rumored acquisition of the Star Trek license was an aggressive move to cut off an emerging competitor (and their main competitor in Germany) at the knees. Just as Star Trek was Bluebrixx's major license, Pokemon and Halo are the two major licenses that have been Mega's bread and butter over the past decade or more. Mega has been doing such a good job with their Pokemon line that I hate to see it go to Lego. The Lego product line will probably be much smaller, less diverse, less long-lived, and more expensive, while being plagued with gray ball joints, too many stickers, and bizarre choices for scaling and play content. On the other hand, it could be a surprise hit like Super Mario, which has generally been a pretty good line despite the frustrating lack of minifigs. I suspect that Lego has taken over the license from Mega instead of sharing it, which is why Mattel (the owner of Mega) is retaliating by moving aggressively to take market share from Lego in the adult building space. Mattel Brick Shop, which launches in May, is marketed as having higher quality than Lego at lower price, and the rumors for its first products are a 1500-piece Mercedes 300 SL. That would be striking directly at Lego's highly successful line of Creator Expert/Icons cars. It'll be interesting to see how this all goes down.