Mandalorianknight

@CloneCommando99 I'm going to immediately need figures of Syril Karn (ghorman drip with beret) and the rydo huffing, bond-level playboy that is Wilmon Peak. Mandoknight Walletbuster wave- a wave of sets where I'd be hard-pressed to pass on any of them, but staying within the realm of plausibility (realistic-ish prices, no Mara Jades, Thrawn Trilogy sets, etc): Yavin Rebellion battle pack ($19.99): 2x Rebel Fleet Trooper, 1x Rebel Honor Guard, 1x Rebel Technician. Build is a small bit of Yavin temple wall with two bunks and a weapon rack on the other side- it's modular and can fit with MBS Yavin. Imperial troopers battle pack ($19.99): 2x stormtrooper, 1x Imperial Navy Trooper, 1x death trooper. Build is a turbolaser battery. Maul's Rampage ($49.99): Venator hallway (Same size as Tantive IV one from 2024) with sliding door. Includes Darth Maul, 1x "shiny" clone trooper, 2x 332nd trooper (using the new "tomato soup" color for the helmet's markings instead of orange), and 1x 501st trooper, and ARC Jesse. Wolfpack Headhunter ($59.99): Z-95 headhunter with commander Wolffe, 2x Wolfpack Troopers, P2 Warthog, and 2x buildable droidikas. Y-wing starfighter ($79.99): Rebel Gold Squadron Y-wing with Jon "Dutch" Vander, Dex Tiree, a Rebel Astromech (modernized version of the one from the 1999 Y-wing) and Grand Moff Tarkin. TIE reaper ($109.99): TIE Reaper with space for a minimum of 8 troopers in the main bay, as well as two pilots in the cockpit. Comes with 2x TIE pilot , 4x Death Trooper, Baze Malbus, and Chirrut Imwe. Venator Class Republic Attack Cruiser ($159.99): Includes interior bridge, holotable conference room, and armory. Comes with Wulf Yularen, Anakin Skywalker (navy and maroon robes with armor), Obi-Wan Kenobi (tan robes with white armor), Ahsoka Tano (re-used from interceptor), Captain Rex (P1), 2x unarmored clone officer, and 2x 501st trooper (P1). U-wing starfighter ($179.99): New cockpit mold. Comes with Cassian Andor (Scarif Jacket), Jyn Erso, K-2S0, Bodhi Rook, Melshi, Pao, Bistan, and 2x U-wing pilot. MBS Yavin Rebel Base ($399.99): Massive Yavin Temple (roughly half, so it can be placed against a wall) with three central levels. The first level mostly consists of open space for hanger bays with scaffolding/cranes/maintenance vehicles scattered about, but also includes an Andor/RO style conference table. The second level contains the Trench Run briefing room and the throne room/ceremony room. The third level contains a smaller tactical display room as well as smaller barracks style rooms. The set also includes a Midi-Scale X-wing and Midi-Scale Y-wing. Comes with Luke Skywalker (pilot), Luke Skywalker (Yellow Jacket), Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia (medal ceremony), C-3PO, R2-D2, Jan Dodanna, Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, 2x Rebel Honor Guard, 2x Rebel Fleet Trooper, 1x Rebel Technician, 2x Rebel Astromech, Dutch Vander, Biggs Darklighter, Jek Porkins, Garven Dries, and Wedge Antilles. Comes with GWP: Cassian Andor's house ($29.99 value): Cassian's homestead, including bed, shelf of plants, and card table. Comes with Cassian Andor (S2 finale Jacket), Kleya, and Melshi.

IIRC either Lucasfilm wanted the Zeta but the designers preferred to do Krennic's (Which makes sense, it's a more interesting build), or the other way around. Either way one group behind the scenes wanted the Zeta instead but it didn't end up happening.

The quantity of vegetables coming at you is going to be too large to dodge. Though I do like the implication that either Mark Hamill/Harrison Ford/Billy Dee Williams/etc shouldn't coach their replacements, or would just be appearing in the films themselves as 20 yr old Luke/30 year old Han/Lando.

My confusion is then just that the largest system sets are $180, and UCS sets go as low as $200, even nowadays with the AT-ST. You said you wanted them more affordable than UCS, but there's just no room between them. But the snowtroopers need to sit down! However will they do this with kamas (ignore that figures with cloth kamas could sit perfectly fine....) That'd be my third-ever UCS set (Boba's Slave One and the AT-AT being the other two). At $240 it could easily be more or less figure scale, and we could finally get a good cockpit setup- though it might require a new mold. Most likely, although at $1000 there's certainly a price gap between it and the previous MBS sets. I still hope we can get an Endor or Yavin soon. (And hey, we could get Cassian's house as a Yavin GWP if we want more Andor, that would fit well.)

@Murdoch17 is right- it's part of the blacktron theme, it's got the blacktron logo and figures... it's a blacktron set. In your hypothetical scenario, if lego released what you described, yes, it would be a blacktron set.

I don't think the MTT or turbo tank will be good either- my point is you're asking for them to be better in literally every way without the price increasing much, whilst as I said, many of the sets people say were better, even at the vastly lower amount of detail they had, already go for close to UCS prices nowadays purely accounting for inflation. Realistically speaking, if you don't want lego to downsize the vehicles, then they're either going to have to be less detailed, come with fewer figures, or cost more. (Again, unless we've been misled about the turbo tank it could probably do 1 or 2 of these for the price they're asking, but it can't be everything.) Again, take the 2010 tank, which would be $180 nowadays. Would you be OK with that 2010 level of detailing for near-UCS prices? (If so I honestly do understand your argument a lot more, exchanging detail for size is a pretty understandable tradeoff.) I WARNED YOU ALL. When Thor and Loki had rubber capes last year, I warned you all this was coming. You all laughed. People who post in this thread said it was crazy. But like Saw Gerrera about the death star, I was right all along. Soon, there will be no cloth left. (Ok, but seriously, I do think this is an issue. The cloth pauldrons weren't perfect, but rubber or plastic ones will have a few major disadvantages: Thickness- the cloth pauldrons were thinner than plastic or rubber brackets are. The increased thickness could make troopers look weirdly tall, especially if they're designed in such a manner as to allow for backpacks to be attached. Which brings me to my second point. Flexibility- the cloth pauldrons could fit on pretty much anyone with a neck. There's going to be a major issue here where Yeah at the end of the day there's simply no good options in the existing palette. He would really benefit from a new color, but those are rare to get from lego and I'm not sure I'd put "new shade of green" at the top of my list. I guess they could- we've had plastic kamas before, after all- but i'd have the same figure height and flexibility concerns as with the pauldrons. (And I think lego would too, given the whole reason they scrapped cloth pauldrons was "they can't sit down"- with the old plastic kamas they literally couldn't bend their legs.) Yeah- especially given that it only fits 1-2 figures in the hold, I think it's not a great representation of the ship overall, but for $70 it's actually fairly good value and works well for people who just want a representation of the ship, sort of like a midi-scale. The U-wing just needs to be a larger ship at a higher price point.

All good options, I'm surprised we haven't yet had a new Headhunter or a normal Falcon. I like the Falcon's figure lineup a lot too, Garindan adds some collectability figure wise.

There are ways where I like it- such as TCW Dooku's appearance being stated to be how republic propaganda portrays him in live-action in the propaganda book- but I mainly prefer it just to explain stylistic choices like that. I don't like the idea that the events we're seeing on screen aren't real to that universe. I don't necessarily have an issue with there having been some sort of inter-cell squabble beforehand, but I dislike how the show was portraying and talking about gold squadron like Luthen's group took all the real risk and gold squadron was just a PR stunt "for the story". If they'd followed it up with one of the people saying that hearing that half of gold squadron died protecting Mon from a new type of TIE fighter, I wouldn't mind it, but as-is anyone who just watches andor is coming off with the impression that the rebellion we see in ANH are just gloryhounds whereas the Andor crew was taking all the risks. It felt like Gilroy was mad he had to work around a cartoon- which we know is true, given what he's said about Rebels's version of Mothma's speech- and letting it bleed into the show too much. I do at times wish we could have had a full show, but I also think that things would have taken too long to pay off for a lot of people. I'm not sure I could sit through two full seasons of Ghorman before the massacre. I didn't have your foresight on Kleya- I thought she was a bit of a nothing character in S1, and while I realized they were giving the actress a bit more to do in season 2 I wasn't expecting her to come out swinging as the MVP of that final arc. Same on Partagaz- I liked him but had no idea his final scene in the show was coming- what he's able to convey with just his movements and a few words is incredible.

I think these two sentences perfectly exacerbate the problem lego does have. You want sets cheaper than UCS sets, but with- -Larger -More detailed -Have good features (assuming play features) -Better/more figures The May UCS pricepoint has generally been $40-60 from the most expensive system price point- don't get me wrong, I think even without seeing the builds we know there are issues with both this year's flagship sets and that they're both overpriced, but "it needs to be more affordable and also better in every way" isn't really something that's realistic to expect out of any product. To use the turbo tank as an example- a lot of people point to the 2010 one as the best turbo tank. That set would be almost $180 today purely adjusting for inflation- and that's with significantly less detail than we have today. It included six minifigures- none of which have leg printing, and four of which are repeats. If lego released the exact same product today with the inflation adjusted price, people would be outraged. Realistically speaking, if we want more detailed figs, 2025 part density/detailing, etc, either we have to compromise in other places, or we're creeping dangerously close to justified UCS pricing, even discounting how much lego would actually charge for a product like that. Now it's also absolutely true that the current turbo tank and MTT are almost certainly going to be overpriced and not good sets. But if lego's just hearing "we want bigger and more detailed and more figs and more accurate/detailed figs but is also has to be more affordable than UCS sets"... I don't have much faith in lego learning the right lessons in the best of circumstances, but how do they draw improvements from that?

Yeah, exactly. Including him towards the end works to bridge the tonal gap to RO, but like I said, awakened K2 in the Ghorman Massacre or watching Brasso die would be jarring. I don't hate the concept, but I never like the idea that the original trilogy is some sort of propaganda or manipulating the truth in some way because, like, it's the star wars. I'm fine with stuff like Andor adding context, but I don't like the idea that it's the "truth" any more than the rest. That actually bugged me about the show- in the Mon Mothma escape episode, we know from behind the scenes that Gilroy was pretty dismissive of Rebels and frustrated that he couldn't fully overwrite it, and it clearly leaked into the actual writing with some of the yavin characters saying that Andor can't keep helping Mon and Gold Squadron has to step in because "that has to be the story". It makes it seem like Gold Squadron was just some PR heroic thing rather than the important operation- and sacrifice of more people and material than Andor's part of the escape- that it really was.

Seriously- the one separatist set to balance all the clone stuff and they still feel the need to put republic minifigs in instead of separatist ones. God forbid we be deprived of any more clone troopers. I feel like with all the big SW playsets recently, we get FEWER figs than initially leaked, not more. Yavin, the "death star playset", etc all had fewer figures than we were told. To be fair, while I agree they're both too low, a number of the sets you mentioned only had 5 minifigs or 4+ an astromech, which isn't that much of a leap. Don't get me wrong though, I agree in general. Especially on the MTT- I'd be ok with only two minifigs if there were a ton of droids, but it's not even that many droids.

Syril's always wanted to do the right thing- he doesn't know that the imperials are the bad guys and from that perspective, he's the "good guy"- he starts hunting Andor because he killed two coworkers and his boss tried to cover it up. He keeps going after being fired because he knows no one else will bring him to justice, and ends up falling in love with one of the only people in his government who seems competent at her job. During the Ghorman arc, while undercover, he's able to see the truth of what's going on without the empire restricting his information. So when he realizes the empire's just making a ploy to destroy the planet, he flips out, because his whole worldview is flipped upside down- the government he's been fighting for isn't one just riddled with incompetence, but one where the competent people, including the woman he loves, are actively committing false flag operations so they can destroy a planet. He essentially starts to break free of imperial conditioning, and tragically, while he's still struggling with the shock of this runs into Cassian- who's essentially this guy's Boogeyman- and tries to kill him. He is fun, but doesn't fit the tone of the show much- I couldn't see K quipping his way through the Ghorman Massacre or Bix leaving or Brasso's death. And ironically, he isn't in the two funniest moments in the show (Melshi walking directly into the ISB beams and then just staring at them or Saw's whole "you don't know me, I'm in the wind, I'm a shadow in the night" speech while the rebels are repeatedly telling them they know exactly where he is)

I thought it stumbled a bit early on but ended up as some of the best star wars we've ever had. The final 5 episodes are incredible, the last arc is absolute peak, and the final montage/scenes are incredible. I was shocked that As for Dedra, hey,

I would absolutely 100% buy the hell out of an incinerator room playset, the Sentry Watchtower, the limo chase, etc. Just missing justice, and the american way. the lasso Literally anything from this franchise not based on batman movies. I though "I just need something besides batman" was going to be the worst the theme could get before dying, now it's "I wish we could get some comic batman sets." In what world is a $15 mech with superman and lex the best set of the year?

Thank you! One of my favorite things with the figure entries is finding parts that look like they were meant to fit together, like Beckett's torso and the mandalorian warrior legs (There's even a hint of navy on Beckett's torso that matches with the leg color, making it look like he's got a jumpsuit or body glove on under the robes, which I didn't notice until taking pictures for the entry). Excited to see what everyone comes up with for this one- I think one of the coolest last year was @Oky using Maleficent's horns for an evil Ahsoka.

I would say this is blatant Thunderbolts erasure but that movie was also robbed of a set in favor of The Fantastic Last of Us and Air Force One 2. But look we all know why this didn't get a set- lego doesn't have faith in DC. It's not like lego was able to watch the movie before deciding whether or not to make direct tie-ins, they didn't know what it would be like

Yup, exactly. There's no way- I don't think marvel themselves have any faith in this show- as evidenced by the fact that they seemingly forgot to release a trailer until people started bringing it up- and none of the live action disney+ shows have gotten sets. If there's a marvel CMF series 3 maybe she and Anthony Ramos appear, but that's it. As for her following on from a popular character, we've seen from Samcap that taking the mantle of someone people liked (even if it's someone who was generally liked taking the mantle) doesn't translate to success for the new version of the character, and IIRC Ironheart was always the least well-received of the ANAD replacements/legacies. People aren't complaining about this enough- you all want to talk about lego being lazy? they were so lazy that they couldn't give thing the correct color of hands because they needed to reuse the exact same torso for human man, human woman, and a literal guy made of rocks. Ben is wearing gloves under his hands. That's a truly messed up Reed Richards experiment there.

I need to know how you feel about the ending of Andor. Absolute Cinema

Yes, exactly- nobody's saying it's the first time moral greyness has been in the franchise, just that andor's able to explore it a lot more than most shows. I agree that that's who he is, but unfortunately I know there are some people out there who think fighting the empire justifies him being "a little extreme"- I am absolutely not one of them. The whole "he killed tech" thing aside objectively speaking saw is the terrorist the empire wishes all the rebels were. This is totally off-topic, but we have had plenty of zombies in lego before- whenever lego does a spooky theme, like CMF 14 or the Monster Fighters theme, we get a rash of zombies- four in Monster Fighters and three in CMF 14, plus the occasional one in Vidyo or the halloween exclusives. They even put a zombie-like Mummy in the indiana jones well of souls a few years back despite the mummy not actually being an animate creature in that movie. This is true but the same with any mature property parents wouldn't be OK with their kids watching, and lego still likes to avoid them. This is also true, though I'd argue it wouldn't translate much- the Tac Pod was there as part of lego's time honored tradition of their tie in material containing recent sets no matter how well they connect. The Narkina jumpsuits are a fun easter egg but no kid is going to buy a Kino Loy Prison Monologue set just because Yoda wore the same jumpsuit in RTG. (On the flip side of this, I don't think there'd be any issue throwing one of the Narkina suited jedi into an RTG set.)

Thank you! To try and fix it, and respond to Max_Lego's second round- This is Jedha, right? If I remember right, this is seen as a big risk they were taking that was only done because the other option was a 100% chance of exploding. I'd assume there was significant risk involved- it doesn't make han solo look like an idiot, as there's no situations in the OT where the only options are "uncalculated hyperspace jump" or "immediate fiery death". Is the gravity well theory ever explicitly stated in the OT? Because if not, it's not an inconsistency with those films, just supplemental material. There's a few things here- For one thing, the actual voting leadership of the rebel council does not include droids or your average joe technicians- it's a few senators and generals led by Mon Mothma. There's nothing in the OT that would imply the remaining members of the council didn't make the plan for the trench run offscreen- indeed, Dodanna is a member of that council and we see Mon Mothma running the show in ROTJ. Yes, the characters have disagreements on how to deal with the enemy forces- this is a real thing that exists even in my own country's military structure. It's not inconsistent to assume any argument would have been hashed out by that council before the plan was told to the low level troops, and it's also pretty reasonable to assume that the rebels were galvanized to act after scarif. (And as a side note, "good soldiers follow orders" is not a "good guy" thing in star wars- it's quite literally what the clones say when brainwashed to commit genocide upon a religious order.) Well, Galen couldn't put a giant self destruct button on the battle station without the empire noticing, right? It had to be something they wouldn't spot, which means it would be hard to hit. If you're saying it's an inconsistency because you personally think it would be completely impossible without the force, I don't think that's on the movie, I think that's on your interpretation of it. Luke using the force to make that shot doesn't mean it would have been literally impossible without it- clearly even in ANH the rebels think it's possible even without knowing Luke has the force. Overall it seems like RO doesn't contradict anything actually stated or explicitly shown in the OT, and moreso your personal interpretation of the movie and implications you wanted to draw from it.

The thing (haha) is comics have always had wildly varied size inconsistencies, and bigfigs are commonly used for characters that aren't really that much bigger than a normal person because at the end of the day lego proportions aren't the same as real-life ones. What I want out of my Thing figure is for him to size up against my Hulk figure and to look larger than the rest of the four, or have his accurate refrigerator width in a Rivals display. I'd have no issue with a minifigure thing also existing, but I want the option to have a bigfig. They also make his proportions really strange, especially for a lego minifigure. He looks less like Thing and more like a guy wearing hulk hands.

That's fair, but I don't think that'd be what lego's worried about. I think generally lego doesn't have a problem displaying zombies- as a concept zombies have become pretty generalized and "safe"- the Ahsoka zombies or Minecraft zombies aren't at risk of being conflated with something like the Walking Dead- I guess I heard they don't call them zombies in that show but you get the point. They've shown up in a few in-house themes, too. I think lego's less worried about kids being scared of the content in the set- they aren't going to make a set based on Krole, or the Ghorman Massacre, or Saw radicalizing Wilmon as they huff space gasoline- and more worried about parents thinking it's OK to put Andor on for their 8 year old because it's got a lego set. If andor's popularity translated to kids, I don't think most of Andor's content would matter- if it was super popular, I'm sure they'd find a way around the krole stuff too- but at the end of the day I just don't think kids are into andor- maturity aside it's just not a show that I think would appeal much to kids- and as I've said I don't think there's much set material for the 18+ sublines either. Nobody's arguing that that there isn't a good side or a bad side, or that there hasn't been any moral greyness in star wars before. What people are saying is that this one muddies the waters and explores moral greyness a lot more than most star wars content. (Also, I don't think we clearly do know what side Syril's on towards the end of his story, and I'd say even within the sides there are good guys and bad guys. This might be controversial, but I think despite being on the good guy's team, Saw is a bad guy. He targets civilians, he kidnaps and radicalizes people and them casts them aside when he's done with them, he's the terrorist the empire tries to paint the rebellion as. He arguably does significant damage to his own side due to that.) Again- point being, nobody's saying this is the only time star wars has ever explored these concepts or that Andor doesn't have a general good side and bad side, we're saying it explores these topics to a greater extent than most star wars. I generally like to think I don't fall for this stuff as much, especially with how I was more cynical towards this season from the start, but my heart skipped a beat when they mentioned Ukio just from that planet's role in the Thrawn Trilogy. I'm not going to go through this point by point, as I'm sure other people are going to, but I'll just say If I remember correctly, despite being a similar looking machine, those actually are for soil filtration due to past volcanic activity.

To be fair cloth kamas would cover the kama printing on their legs, wouldn't they? I haven't been to either, so you've got more experience there, but it's what the behind-the-scenes interviews and articles are saying. Actually, I'm not sure. (I mean for one thing we'd never get a Ghorman Plaza set just because it'd be a fairly uninteresting/play feature-less build unless it was MASSIVE, and the scene is dependent upon being packed to the brim with figures lego wouldn't give us nearly enough of, but I know your point isn't the literal set feasibility but more the appropriateness.) Zombie Stormtroopers are a fantasy concept- they might be too scary for younger kids, but most kids within lego's intended age range know zombie stormtroopers aren't real, and they're presented in a fantastical setting- peridea is described in the show as something out of a fairytale. The stormtroopers and KX droids are the only bits of sci-fi or fantastic flair to the plaza scenes, which also include plenty of more realistic or graphic violence, plenty of blood on people, an unhelmeted human shooting another unhelmeted human in the side of the head, a woman ragdolling into the ground and a close-up of her lifeless corpse, and a human hurting and choking his wife in a scenario where his wife is the bad guy, which is not something I'd want to show kids unless they were able to understand that even though Dedra is a bad guy in the show and Syril is angry she's hurting innocents, you should never, ever do that in real life. That said, while I think this is the most graphic we've seen any of that, most of it's been in star wars before- I don't think any of the Ghorman arc would particularly rule out andor sets on a maturity level. (Not that there aren't other things- again on the topic of fantasy vs realistic violence, nobody has issues with people cosplaying Vader, a guy who killed a bunch of kids- or even specifically Knightfall Anakin-, but I think there'd be a lot of controversy if someone showed up to celebration dressed as Lieutenant Krole, because even though they're both bad guys, the specifics of what they did and how the scenes played out are very different.) I still don't think we'd see set coverage though, simply because I don't think kids would be very interested in Andor and there's not really anything from the Ghorman arc that'd lend itself well to an 18+ set. I mean, every show is good vs evil in some capacity, he's saying it's not black and white. Obviously in the larger terms the rebels are good and the empire's bad, but there's a lot of in-between. (We're a week in and talking about the Ghorman Massacre so I think it's OK to say this) Syril, for instance, is a pretty complex character. He's not actually fully affiliated with the empire until he becomes an ISB field agent, and when we find that out we also see he's somewhat conflicted about causing harm to the Ghormans. In the end he clearly figures it out and nearly kills Dedra over what she's done, seeming like he's becoming a rebel/"good guy", but while trying to figure out what to do, runs into the main protagonist- from his perspective essentially the boogeyman who's been haunting him for years popping in to go "hey your wife is committing false flag attacks but also there were outside agitators like me" and dies trying to kill our main protagonist. Syril isn't really a clear cut good guy or bad guy. Saw and Luthen are on the side of the good guys, but do some pretty "bad guy" things. I don't believe it's happened in the show yet but we know Saw is a guy who has absolutely zero issue murdering civilians. As I believe you've pointed out before, our main protagonist starts the show off by shooting an unarmed and pleading man in the head. We know in RO he kills one of his own informants. The rebels are good and the empire's bad but there's plenty of morally dubious stuff going on on both sides.

The writing that's on the wall. (But seriously, you have to admit- these last few years, the sets have heavily declined in both number and scope. We've gone from DC superheroes to the occasional set based on an old Batman movie or show.) As I've said before, I honestly think without the 4+ sets we would have seen the theme fold into Icons already. As-is, given we know the superheroes team are primarily marvel fans, I'm sure they're looking for a way to hand off that budget drain to another theme.

It was a commandment not only of our religion but of our whole society, built out of the last great war. "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of the human mind." Every civilization, our very universe was predicated upon preventing such an eventuality. Only Ultron didn't come from our universe....