Mandalorianknight

We know that the 18+ market doesn't translate to "we can make sets with a maturity level for only adults", it's more of a marketing gimmick. There's some leeway- we know from the Daily Bugle spider-man set designer that they could make the comic versions of characters associated with adult television such as Daredevil or Punisher, but the issue with Andor is it's not like Syril and Dedra are popping up in kids' cartoons alongside the more mature content. I think all the droids turned evil and tried to take over the galaxy, which is funny because a lot of the same characters involved in that story are involved in a novel that takes place later with basically the same plot and nobody ever mentions that this happened like five years earlier (because the novel came out first). It's sad that star wars comics fell into the marvel "EVERY YEAR NEEDS A BILLION MASSIVE EVENTS ADVERTISED AS FOREVER CHANGING THE STATUS QUO (they'll be reverted to normal within a year)" trope. Fair- I give the advents a little more slack since it's not a normal set so I can get why they'd be christmas themed, but I do dislike the OC characters from the RTG/Freemaker/Yoda Chronicles sets. At the very least I think the new prints created for them should work for other characters- slap Dash Rendar's jacket on the RTG kid, or give him a Cal poncho or something. There's just no way it's good at this point, though. It has so few pieces that it either is using massive underdetailed parts and ends up looking like a 4+ turbo tank, or it's a consistent level of detail for LSW2025 and looks like a $100 set being sold for $150-160. GAR engineering at it's finest- remember, if someone says something is military-grade, that is NOT a compliment to it's quality. It would be a nice way to get legends characters out there and add some desirability for fans who aren't interested in christmas sweater characters. I hate that part of me unironically thinks this would be a fun meta display to show off the collector's disguise in my collection. My issue is that I don't think "it's already been ruined" is a good reason to just give up and do whatever. People thought SW was ruined after the prequels, and then TCW 2008 carried that (at the time) half of the entire franchise on it's back and got a lot of people to turn around on the era. Everything is salvageable. As I've said before I think we need something radically different once stuff like TMAG and Starfighter bring back public goodwill, but I don't mean radically different in terms of edgy or ultraviolent or horror. I mean a different setting with different characters, not just retreading what the GA's seen three times now. I mean, of course, Kotor. Full-scale armies of jedi and sith. All the bells and whistles.

To be fair his is the most different in terms of uniform- there's no white on it at the top at all- but it's not even so much the uniforms as the pretending three quarters of the 4 look the same torso wise, which again loops back around to Thing just being a normal minifigure with a funny hat and hulk hands. It doesn't work. Construction figure is the type of thing fake lego puts into their titles to show up on ebay or amazon when looking for real legos, I wonder if it's something to do with that, but at the same time like you say nobody's searching "construction figure" so I don't know how that even helps. I mean we don't even have to guess- a standard construction figure goes for $30. It's been pretty commonly stated that the value added of a lego minifigure seems to be about $3 average for a licensed theme in lego's eyes, and these are hardly average quality for licensed minifigures. We end up with $42, generously, and maybe lego charges $45 to round up, though I'd say even that is somewhat overpriced considering how little effort went into these figures. If they went all out on the figs and gave us a bigfig thing, flamed on johnny, unique torso prints for every F4 member (how are we now at the point where it's not even leg printing, but TORSO PRINTING that lego's skimping on), dual-molded boots, and stretchy arms Reed, $50 works to me as that'd be $30 for the fig plus $5 per fig, which is how much CMF figs go for. But it's $10 more than that with what I'd consider actively below the bare minimum detailing needed for the F4. Unless this movie does DP&W/NWH numbers, I don't think this set sells well at all. And honestly the figures are so lackluster I'm not even on "I'll wait for it to hit 40% off and buy it", I'll just pick up an ebay or bricklink listing for a new figless galactus for like $20. These just aren't the F4 to me- I'd say they put Doom in charge of production, but clown shoes aside, Reed turned out the best, and Ben, who doom often sees as just Reed's victim, turned out worst. I mean yeah they're using the same torso for 3/4ths of the four. I've said this a few times now but there are different body types for human male, human female, and guy made of rocks, but even beyond that, their uniform designs aren't the same. Sue has the classic white cowl collar whereas Ben and Johnny have some sort of horizontal white stripe across the top of their torsos (that extends to the arms, but we were never getting that). Maybe you could re-use Johnny's torso for Thing if you put the Paz Vizla armor over it to bulk him up, but using one torso for 3/4ths of the four just doesn't work.

The movie fantasticar pales in comparison to the flying bathtub. That's a concise way of putting it if ever I've heard it. Probably the only time I've ever wanted a marvel set for the build but couldn't care less about the figs. I hate this search engine/ai algorithm optimization naming convention. I know that, as with other situations where a set name is inaccurate or bad, people are gonna say it doesn't impact the set itself, but it's still dumb. I refuse to believe that naming this set something like "The Fantastic Four: Coming of Galactus" would impact sales on a statistically significant level. I noticed that too! I wonder why. Yup. I've been burned so many times. Even for the stuff that's just bringing back old beloved characters, like NWH and DP&W, I'm getting burned with Daredevil now. Which hurt the most because Netflix Daredevil is my favorite onscreen marvel content. I'm on the Thunderbolts hype train, but if that fails me, I don't even think I'll go watch F4, I think i'll just be done with the MCU as a whole. Honestly I don't know who I'd consider the least bad as they're all bad in different ways. I might give points to sue for being the most generally usable for both her movie and main comic version, but even then the figure required so little to be passable- just a new torso print- and yet they couldn't even do that and she's a The Thing/Human Torch (who again don't share body types with eachother OR sue) figure with a generic female head plopped on. I get by generic male head you just mean a generic head lying around to use for the comic version, but when I hear "generic Male head" I think of that stupid brown eyebrow resistance trooper head they've been using on Hawkeye recently and something about that head on Mr. Fantastic just feels cursed to me. Personally I'll be trying to get a new copy of the set with the figs removed for ~$20, which I think I have a good chance of. These guys just aren't the F4 to me, but that's a great Galactus.

They need to sit down! (I never understood this- there are plenty of times where lego throws a "2x2 tile, modified with studs on edge" on the floor of a vehicle with no backing and goes "behold, a seat". No reason not to actually use that with figs who wear backpacks- people take off their backpacks to sit down in real life, and backless seats on military vehicles exist in real life...) Yeah, there's a non-zero chance the tank itself (minus the wheels) ends up being ~600 pieces, which is just not enough. We might be getting the rumored Tiny Tank after all, just at triple the price. I thought I'd seen some interview or something where they explicitly said they're redoing the meeting, but I might have been wrong. Either way it irks me a bit, but I've come to understand that we are back to tiered canon, so at this point I'm OK with it. Especially because there's a LOT of stuff in comics and novels I'm not a fan of, such as how they've fit like five massive galaxy-threatening events in the year gap between ESB and ROTJ which is just laughable to me. The thing (haha) is I don't think we need Star Wars alien or thing when we have Alien or thing. I don't mind novels like Red Harvest or Death Troopers as I think that the novels and comics aren't to the same standard as the onscreen media. I'd also be ok with something like the Screaming Citadel arc in the first run of canon Marvel SW comics, where it has spooky/gothic themes but is still primarily a Star Wars story rather than a horror story set in the star wars universe. I also think that marvel is different- it as a universe is much more varied. It's universe first rather than story first, and it also has hundreds of different universes of characters, which can vary wildly in tone and characterization. It's how you can have a Logan (2017) about a character kids used to watch in X-men cartoons. This is also where I get into stuff like the marvelization of star wars- that's often used to just mean "quippy and lots of crossover" but in my case here I mean it as treating star wars as a universe in which any level of story or tone can be dropped in. This is personal preference but I prefer my star wars to feel like star wars, and to be within a rough range of tone and story type. This isn't to say I want it to all be homogenized- I think Clone Wars is a great example of the variety of tones you can get that all feel like star wars- but there's a limit to what I think should be allowed in star wars. I don't think star wars should have full on R-rated horror, or sexual content, or R-rated levels of graphic violence. That's not to say I'm against them in media in general- two of my favorite shows are Invincible and Netflix's Daredevil, which are both known for graphic violence and contain more explicitly sexual content than I'd want to see in star wars- they just don't fit what I think Star Wars should mean as a story. Honestly I'm not generally a fan of them using the print budget for the ACs on sweaters- I'd prefer either non-holiday exclusives or the santas- but something about the idea of Han and Lando being sweater bros is a lot of fun to me. Especially if Lando's sweater inexplicably has a knitted cape on it. Yeah any excitement I had for that set was gone, and I'm back to the only 2025 SW sets I'll be buying as two copies of the battle pack. And maybe that GWP if I end up getting the Ghost for the May 4th event. If that isn't just a perfect example of how lego sees the theme "eh, who cares about minfigs of han and leia. the 50 year old men, the demographic comprising the only OT fans of course, prefer having model ships on their desk over normal lego sets. That's why they're buying our lego model ships, rather than normal model spaceships." I mean, from a certain point of view, the novelization did release first, in which case from a certain interpretation the true canon would only be that novelization and Splinter of the Mind's Eye. (I was going to make a joke about how messed up Splinter of the Mind's Eye ends up being in legends, but in this version of the canon ROTJ wouldn't be true canon, so I guess it's fine) But yeah of course, the official canon is, as of now, the original saga, TCW 2008, and anything published by disney... except for parts of the Ahsoka novel... the Kanan comic.... the Cassian and K2 comic... assumably the Son of Dathomir comic will be overwritten... ( I agree in general- it's all up to interpretation what any person wants to consider canon, but officially the current canon includes all the disney stuff and the legends canon is the old tiered system, but it is funny that the new disney canon also has fallen into the tiered system it was set up to avoid.) Yeah, exactly. Not everything needs to be in star wars. It doesn't intrinsically benefit from having shocking/edgy/horror/graphically violent content.

That's all fair- I think we largely agree, the biggest difference for me is that I just would draw the line in where we cross over from variety to too far before some of the andor s2 stuff, not after. I assume most people wouldn't want, say, a straight-up sex scene in star wars, or nudity. I know there are some calls for it (and rumors it's in development) but I personally would never want them to make a full on R-rated star wars horror movie, either. (Also as a super minor nitpick to an otherwise very well put together statement, a lot of critics LOVED TLJ precisely for those "we've made the heroes depressed and not heroic" expectation subversion) I'm still thinking one of the Peridea exclusives shows up, but beyond that I don't know. Honestly for better or worse this is still clearly true- Filoni's overwritten books and novels, and the same assumably is happening in Andor S2, there's no way they just adapt the comic showing him and K2 meeting. I owe @Darth_Bane13 an apology (I think it was him? Whoever I was saying this tank wouldn't necessarily be that much smaller to). I was wrong to assume lego was capable of pulling anything quality off with a set like this anymore. Make sure to add a bare minimum of 21 more pieces for the figures (Assuming only 4 figures, no droids, no backpacks and single-piece guns for the troopers)

We're lucky it wasn't "The Fantastic Four^tm featuring Mr. Fantastic^tm, The Invisible Woman^tm, The non-flaming Human Torch^tm, and The Thing^tm vs Galactus^tm Construction Figure^tm"

Yup. We're reaching long enough since the reboot failed that it should be ok to start testing the waters again. A Fire Robot creator set would be nice, and I'm shocked they haven't been giving us CMF figures of the main Toa every now and again. Take that back. Yup: In order for me: Reed is the only one that I think works for the movie version, but even then it's lazy to not give him the stretchy arms. None of him really works for the comic version- I suppose the torso's better than nothing, but it's got the weird vertical lines and a much lighter blue than the comic F4 usually are. Add in no temples for the hair... the head is fine for Pedro but seeing as we have the mando one a weird choice for a new print in a set that desperately needed every print in the budget. Movie 7/10, comic usability 3/10. Thing isn't terrible for the movie version, but lego's so unbelievably lazy that they can't throw a different color hands on it, so he's wearing gloves under his weird rock hands (and the rock hands don't work at all, same with the head attachment. They do weird things for his proportions.) Because the hand issue can be solved in a purist manner I'll give him points for the movie version, but none of this is even remotely usable for comic thing. Wearing a shirt, he's not orange, and I still think he shouldn't be a normal minifigure. Movie 6/10, comic usability 1/10. Sue is the one that should be simplest, but they somehow managed to skip just the tiny amount of effort she needs and make her re-use the "generic woman" head and the THING torso? Sue and Johnny's torsos don't look the same, much less Sue (or Johnny) and a guy made of rocks. The head is excusable given the current state of the theme and since it at least generally fits Vanessa Kirby. The torso was the bare minimum of effort and is a complete write-off of the figure's viability- it's literally entirely comprised of parts from other figs. Movie 6/10, comic usability 0/10. Johnny is a tough one as re-used head aside, he fits the movie version pretty well. That said, it's the movie version's NON FLAMED FORM. It'd be like if the avengers sets in 2012 only came with Tony Stark and not Iron Man. We're not here for Johnny Firecracker, we're here for the Human Torch. Johnny also suffers from the genericized torso. A normal man does not look the same in a superhero suit as a rock man. Movie technical 8/10, realistically 0/10, comic 1/10 (Hair is perfect for a comic non flamed Johnny but again, come on, nobody was begging for specifically non-flamed Johnny) A bit, but I agree that overall he looks incredible. I look forward to getting my hands on the build. I'm worried about this part- for this set to succeed, the movie needs to do really well, because the figures aren't faithful to the comics, and parents aren't going to look at this and think the 4 little guys make it worth double the price of the spider man and green goblin next to it. Now the movie could definitely do well- I think regardless of quality, it'll at least ride on some Thunderbolts hype because I have some confidence that Thunderbolts will have some insane legs and shock the box office- but if it doesn't, I think lego goes "oh, even fewer MCU tie ins, no lego fantastic four" and we never get comic versions.

Same here! I hope so- it'd be nice if they segmented the sets by teams, so say something like: X-jet with the Fox X-men The Tower Formerly Known as Avengers with the Thunderbolts* IDK some car or big mech with the Lame Avengers^TM But I think we'll probably end up getting a small number of sets with the teams mixed throughout so that you have to buy them all to complete any one team. In which case, I'll likely get whichever one includes John and Yelena and that's it. You can see the future. There is an easy solution here, lego, bring bionicle back properly next time. Very torn on the set- I thought it'd be a crappy Galactus build with some good figs, but it's entirely the other way around. Galactus looks great, and I'll be trolling bricklink for "new, no figures" listings for the set to snag one cheap. But the figs... the figs are awful and the lowest effort I've ever seen: Thing, Johnny, and Sue should not all be using the same torso print- that's absolutely ridiculous. Inexcusable that Sue didn't get her own torso print. The re-used faces for Sue and Johnny I can at least understand, but Sue needed her own torso. More importantly, Thing and Johnny don't work AT ALL. Johnny should be flamed on- you had the budget to give Pedro a new face when he already had a perfectly good one, but you can't make Flamed-on Johnny? Thing is also ridiculous- the hands aren't bad because you can just take them off, except for some reason he's wearing gloves UNDER his hands? (Again, a bit of a nitpick, but a microcasm for how stupid these figures are.) Just so we're clear, this entire set contains 4 new minifigure prints, and one new mold. Too low for the first family's first time in lego, but even then, used horribly. At the very least, Reed's head print should have been used for Sue's torso, but ideally a set like this shouldn't be restricted to 4 prints so we could get a flame-on Johnny. (And even more ideally, it's a comic set so they don't have weird vertical lines on their suits and we get an accurate Thing, but that's not on lego) I like the F4, Thing in particular, but the only part of this set that interests me at all is Galactus. I hope we get a comic set down the line at some point.

I can't respond to the first part here without getting into more spoilery territory for the episode, but I'll shoot you a PM on why I think lego would consider it a different case. This is where it comes down to personal preference, but I honestly would vastly prefer star wars shoot for a skeleton crew approach, even if I think most of Andor S2 is better than skeleton crew. Skeleton Crew has the star wars spirit, and even though I felt the ending wasn't as satisfying as I was expecting it to be, I think it's a good star wars story for kids. I loved Andor S1, but I did understand the complaints that it didn't feel as much like star wars, and I think Season 2 exacerbates that significantly. Whether it's Tony Gilroy or some exec at disney, I think between seasons 1 and 2 the goalpost shifted from "let's make good star wars" to "Oh, shoot, critics like this one, we might be able to get some emmys". I despise award culture in media in general, I think it's full of pseudointellectuals who pretend that a movie being depressing, shocking, or covering hot-button issues makes it automatically a good story (I'll add that I think TLJ was in part an attempt at this with all the "subverting expectations"), and while Andor's so far still a good story, it's also falling into those award culture tropes, and usually that gets worse over time, not better. I hope I'll be proven wrong- I loved season 1 and season 2 is still, as you say, miles better than something like Acolyte. At the end of the day I just think that onscreen star wars should strive for being generally family-friendly and keeping a slightly consistent tone. It's not that I dislike media in general covering certain things- I love Invincible, which in short order will be much more depressing, shocking, and explicitly paralleling of real-world issues than Andor- but at the end of the day I think when star wars tries for the emmy-bait strategy, it stops feeling as much like star wars. They won't. This is a nearly $0.2 PPP, even before any increases were added, that we now know isn't containing 10 giant wheel pieces, and seems to include a small number of figures. I look forewords to picking it up for $56 like the skeleton crew set. Of course, the clickbaity leakers who, say, drag out a tiny bit of information over a multi-hour podcast, or the ones who just completely make stuff up are a real annoyance. All the Palpatine stuff is great, like the phone call from vader after the death star gets destroyed. It is nice to get more set-like GWPs again. I didn't mind stuff like the mini death star or Beru's kitchen, and to be honest I didn't hate the microbuilds, but minifigures are nice to get. Honestly? At this point, if I thought lego would learn the right lesson from this, I would want them to be bad so lego realized they can't price sets like this. But the lesson they'd learn is probably something like "Oh, this is too many minifigures in the set", or just swinging the pendulum around and not making any clone sets at all for half a decade. I can feel the off-topic warning coming, so all I'll say is that while I think your interpretation is a valid one, it's A: Just an interpretation. It's a fine way to view the franchise, but not the only one or the "true" one, and B: in your interpretation, most of the EU, including the excellent game your own profile picture is from, wouldn't have ever been canon.

This is becoming a hotter and hotter take but I actually think Dave is the one who "gets it" most. He certainly shows favor to his favorite characters, and I don't like his tendency to overwrite books and comics when it suits him, but Ahsoka felt the most like classic star wars to me out of anything in the disney era. Faverau's good too, but Mando S3 dropped the ball. Chow did well on Mando but I don't think Kenobi worked even as a concept- I wouldn't mind seeing her return as a director, but I also wouldn't put her at the level of the former two. It seems like Gilroy is pushing hard on the emmy-bait, which IMO should never be the goal of star wars, although it'd be extremely hard to derail Andor to the extend it becomes a bad show. Obviously there's no risk of the Acolyte showrunners returning to lucasfilm, so I don't even need to speak on that. But yeah, it does seem like the mandoverse shows are culminating in the assembling of the space avengers. All people remember about the death star is that Mas and Sly knew it existed. Really, any vehicle in star wars can best be described by how closely related those two are to it, right? I guess it makes sense that the list is in turmoil- we know there were official-in-lego lists for the spider-man daily bugle with almost three times the final amount of figures, so it makes sense things would be in flux for an even larger set- but unfortunate if it was another situation where fake leakers just tried to generate buzz. Always a fun one. One of my favorite quotes is when the construction is interrupting his monologue, and when he suggests they stop the worker is like "Look, I don't tell you how to threaten your little blonde kid or whatever, don't tell me how to do my job." I used to do them annually just because I wanted enough of the march/may sets that I'd hit the threshold anyway, but I didn't get any last year, and depending on whether or not I pull the trigger on the ghost, I won't this year either. Dude my local walmart had them for $56 each. I've got two in my apartment right now- since the figures sell for more than that online, it's essentially free parts- and all my friends each grabbed a copy. I can PM you if you want but it's broken into non-star wars news sites at this point, you'll probably see it soon anyway. That's the last I'll say on it.

I'll be even more vague since we're not meant to discuss the events of the scene, but yes, there will be no more Andor sets, absolutely. I think if lego knew, the U-wing would have been adjusted to a Rogue One set. Honestly I think I would have preferred that Exactly. Stellar minifigs are great but they have to at least make a little sense for the inclusion- I wouldn't even mind a generic imperial vehicle much but the death star is a specific two vehicles that we never saw either of them near. This reminds me of one of the best sithposts I've ever seen in my life- it was a "leak" (Obviously fake as you'll see, don't worry) for the end of Andor S2 around the time that went something like this.... *The death star laser hits the ocean, Cassian embracing Jyn as their deaths approach. In the instant before he's incinerated, we see robed arms grab him by the back and throwing him through a portal. Andor opens his eyes, looking around at... stars? He looks down at the ground only to see a transparent blue bridge with nothing but more stars below it. Bewildered, he stands and turns around, only to see Ahsoka Tano.* Ahsoka: "You think you're the only rebel in the galaxy? I've seen your story. I've seen Andor. And I'm here to talk to you about the mandalorian initiative." Obviously fake, but it's just such a perfect joke about the feared Marvelization of star wars. I think ironically Andor's actually going to the other extreme, the "we're now just entirely gunning for emmy-bait prestige". What? Of course not? Darth Vader KILLED Anakin, Obi-Wan tells us that in A New Hope! Smart. I may end up doing that with the ghost and a microfighter or something.

I don't like this to be honest. Krennic is fine- Galen is at least understandable considering while we never saw him ON the death star, he was pretty heavily connected to it and the death star's architect makes sense as a death star exclusive fig. But Mas and Sly are just tangentially connected by being part of the same faction, but they aren't even military roles- it feels like they're throwing in exclusives for the purpose of including exclusives, whether they make sense or not. All this to say I'll be perfectly fine with it so long as next year we get a Mas Amedda vs Sly Moore senate pod microfighter two pack. Yup. There are much better places to put them- I won't even say "it's better than not getting them" because at $1000 very, very few people are going to get them. I could easily see Mas reaching pre-microfighter Rex prices online. Of course! Are we blind? Deploy the 41st garrison! Yeah, I know- I'm sure they'll unfortunately take up another big set slot before this era's done. I think we'll see wolfpack too, though that doesn't bother me as they've been a pretty hard legion to get ahold of and are fairly prominent in TCW. Yes, exactly. Many things aren't black and white- as you say, including what's intended to be white prints on black parts! I think Dedra's a solid 8/10 fig at the end of the day. I don't really care much about her (No offense intended, @THELEGOBATMAN) but it's a good representation. One of the most impressive things lego's done is manage to turn a number of big clone fans against the clone sets. You, me, the guy who's literally got clone commando in his name...

Everything I see about Thunderbolts makes me want sets more. I might end up eating my words on this- after the first scene of Daredevil *not really* born again, I thought we were getting something on the level of the netflix show, but then it turned out it was an unrelated soft reboot only held together to the netflix show with duct tape and Jon Bernthal- but from everything I've seen and everything I've heard this might actually be marvel's first successful post- endgame movie that is developing new/unused characters rather than relying on infinity saga or pre-mcu greats. I hope at the very least we get a set with the full team in doomsday- I don't want to spend $300 to obtain these guys.

Yup- it's better than getting the 41st again. I always thought the idea of it only being Ki-Adi, Bacara, and 2 GMs was strange. I assume there'll be at least one more GM, maybe a "driver" too, and some droids of some kind are almost a given. Like I said I don't think blind praise is good either, but complaining about Dedra Meero's legs of all things this year feels like looking at a flaming haystack and complaining that the needle inside it has a manufacturing defect. Especially when the U-wing seems to be comparatively good value. And then lego learns the wrong lesson from it, as always. "People don't like these sets? It must be because the clones aren't 501st. More blue clone battle packs!" Interesting. They were never on the DS that I know of, but I guess it adds exclusivity to the set...

Looks very nice! Immediately fits right in to the GAR design scheme. Welcome to eurobricks!

The opacity problem isn't quite as bad here, at least in the image you showed, and I don't think it's all that bad that a relatively minor character in the grand scheme of things "only" has a new mold and not side leg printing or dual molding. As-is, the U-wing is one of the only sets we've gotten this year with a good price, I don't think it's any more constructive to get so annoyed over a minor flaw than it is to blindly praise it. Yup. Lego isn't your friend, per se, but they're usually not actively against you either. It's a business relationship, but I think a lot of people nowadays see things as more personal than they are. Yes, exactly- so long as the individual set 100% commits to either of those archtypes, I don't mind which archtype it chooses. I think @Agent Kallus made a moc-up years ago. It would have been a nice set to come out alongside the MBS cantina back in 2021, but unfortunately I don't think we'll have any sort of chance until the next cantina releases, and even then only a small chance. Side leg printing is a lot rarer, so I'm not sure. I think in this particular instance, since dual-molding already shows up in the needed color, it would probably have been cheaper than adding a new print zone to each leg (and remove the opacity issue) I'm not gonna lie- while I like Andor (though I haven't seen the new season yet- too busy this week to sit down for three hours to watch it), my hope is 2026 brings us an Outlander. The new star wars era has a bad habit of creating and then forgetting about new TIEs and imperials, and I'd love to see the outlander get more use in TMAG. 2027 will almost certainly bring up 50th anniversary X-wing and TIE fighters- we've been operating 1 every three years since 2018. Instructions unclear, imperial V-wing scheduled for january 2026- let's make both groups unhappy.

Oh I absolutely agree. The idea people had that lego was doing some sort of misleading marketing was completely out of bounds. (Not that they don't do that, but in this instance lego isn't obligated to spell out "by exclusive we mean timed exclusive." If someone spent $625 on a lego set for a single minifigure of a popular character thinking it would never be made again, after lego already said they would try not to keep desirable figures locked behind UCS sets, that's their problem, not lego's.) Yeah. I don't necessarily mind the ones with four named characters so long as they're desirable ones (say, a pack of Kit Fisto, Plo, Agen, and Mace) or could be mixed up to create generic civilians (say, a pack of cantina aliens), but I will say I'm not a fan of the ones that have 2 named characters and two generics. I prefer them to pick one lane or the other for the set- either it's a character pack or a battle pack. Fair- whatever gets Dooku released. Yeah, seeing as they use the normal ones for Ahsoka, who's been in three sets that could have used those hilts I suppose it's wishful thinking to imagine they'd do it for ventress, who will assumably only be in the one set. The thing is, while they haven't killed a main character in the OT, the stormies not only stun leia early on but land another hit on her in the battle of endor. Basically every scene they're in they either mop the floor with their opponents- even scoring hits on main characters if present- or we're explicitly told they're under orders that vader "wants them alive". As far as generic mooks go their track record feels better than average, but the joke got burned into people's brains so much it ended up becoming canon. That's unfortunate, I regularly see all of those at my local walmart for double that discount (except for the Crest, but I've seen that one online for almost 60% off before.)

Not officially, but as I think @brickbride's said, that giant shelfwarming Black Panther bust seems like it may have been motivated by the actor's death. Of course, this set wasn't designed for Kilmer's death, and I doubt they'd put it into the instructions or something.

If you can find them. Around me last year they inexplicably went on sale everywhere in NOVEMBER, and all got snapped up before I reached the store. I heard Costco had them for as low as $7, but not my Costco. This is a tangent but it's funny that "tagging a named character" is trooper of the year in the shows, when the whole "stormtroopers can't aim" thing wasn't present in the OT. They do well on the tantive, and miss on the death star because we're explicitly told the empire let the heroes get away. They do pretty well on Hoth. They tag Leia on Endor. Ben Kenobi has a line in ANH about their precision. Some of the subsequent canon material like the Thrawn trilogy reinforces the idea that stormtroopers are the shock troops of the empire and don't mess around. I'd prefer Thrawn to Maul just because we've got the Maulmech coming, but I do think there's a good shot at at least one of the Peridea exclusives. Thrawn would be best as it'd make that Grand Admiral torso more accessible and allow for more Chiss, but I'd be happy to have a new Ezra or Ahsoka the White too. Yup. That was a genius move from lego- profiting off the people who just couldn't wait for a Rex, then letting everyone buy the figure. Though interestingly enough I've seen some significant sales online at this point- I wonder if Microfighters just don't sell as well anymore, since that was the best-case scenario figure wise and it's still ending up at almost half price in a lot of places. This is a very good point and as you say a good microcasm for how they view the franchise right now. Lego sees it as OT/Mando/ST/Clones, not necessarily prequels. (Or more accurately, 18+buildable/Clones.) Now, I think they're correct that the majority of prequel sets that would sell particularly well involve the clones in some capacity, but as you say, there's plenty of duels that'd do well. I'm still surprised we haven't had a Duel of the Fates larger than $25. That probably is at least part of the reason why- they assumably wouldn't chrome it anymore, and I wonder if that changes something. That said, we should count our blessings- if he does return I have a sneaking suspicion he'd use the normal hilt. Speaking of hilts, do we think Ventress will get curved ones again? Her old mold is gone, and Ahsoka's curved-ish sabers went from using that mold in 2016 to the normal mold for the Ahsoka sets in 2023/24.

Yup. If we're doing anniversaries in 5 year increments, the following years are covered: 2026: RO 10 years 2027: TLJ 10 years, AOTC 25 years, ANH 50 YEARS! 2028: ROTJ 45 years, Solo 10 years, TCW 20 years, "The Clone Wars era" 25 years 2029: TROS 10 years, TPM 30 years, LSW 30 years, Mando 10 years 2030: ROTS 25 YEARS, TFA 15 years, ESB 50 YEARS! And then it repeats again, and again, and again. There is no future there. With new anniversaries in the 6/1 years for TMAG, 7/2 years for Starfighter, etc. Point being, literally every year now has at least one movie's _5th or _0th anniversary. And some years are getting pretty crowded. I think lego's figured out that anniversaries are a neat marketing gimmick, but when every year is someo movie's anniversary, it's not as special. With how many projects there are at this point, I think we're gonna reach the point where most projects only get sets during their anniversary years.

PLEASE. Would be an incredible set. But since this is an awesome game ship with a great cast of characters, we know it won't happen. Still waiting on my Stinger Mantis. Son of Dathomir will probably be very loosely adapted into this (since Filoni's fatal flaw is overwriting book/comic canon) so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of stuff from that ended up being in the show. Maul's gauntlet fighter is probable for the show (and possible for a set), but he builds a whole army with plenty of vehicles in that comic.

Oh yeah. "Release desirable fig that you have to spend a fair chunk of change to get, then put them in an AC a few months later" is a lego classic. Unfortunately the AC's cost just keeps rising to the point it's no longer quite what it once was, but dropping a GWP exclusive into it would definitely add some value. Agreed- on the topic of the AOTC anniversary, I still think that the AT-TE was planned as an AOTC anniversary set and changed to give the overexcited fans Phase 2 cody. The duels were definitely an untapped goldmine. There were so many good choices they never ended up doing. I know they had some, but I maintain that three in 20 years isn't much of a thing as opposed to now, where there's been an anniversary almost every year since 2019.

That would be one of the funniest possible moves by lego. Yup. There's been a consensus that lego forgets or ignores anniversaries (which, anniversaries really weren't much of a thing for the brand until 2019 anyway), but it's not so much that they ignore them, it's that anniversary products for movies are more aimed at the adults who are nostalgic for the anniversary and less at kids, and lego makes so many 18+ sets anyway, that most of the sets end up being 18+ gimmicks. ROTS is the first year where the anniversary movie is actually getting a fair number of system sets that at least mostly tie in (plo fighter, ARC, 327th pack, possibly the Galactic Marines set who knows at this point) That would also be nice for the army builders.

This is diabolical, and since it criticizes a set from almost a decade ago and Big Chewie is showing up, I honestly think it could happen. I'm not expecting lego to make any jokes about how everything is 18+ now or all the clones, but I think they're able to poke fun at themselves when it comes to stuff like Jyn literally still being on shelves in malls across the country. I've seen them myself as recently as last year, and not at secondhand/thrift stores either, a row of her MISB alongside 2023/24 sets. Right, there's three of us. That is officially enough to start a cult. Yeah. It's a blow for color variety, but you gotta keep your boss's style intact. No that's accurate Ninth Jedi is peak fiction I swore they were both on screen at the same time but now that I rewatched the trailer it may just be weird lighting and/or an alternate customization for Tricks. I forgot that they locked Omeeega behind a $170 set for a bit. Crazy choice to put the kid appeal character out of reach of most kids, but at least she showed up in the calendar. Yup. Every once in awhile you get a Sandspeeder or a Malak or an Evil Millennium Falcon out of nowhere.

Wow, 30% off is really nice for newer sets. It'd definitely make it a lot easier to stomach some of the star wars set prices these past few years. Of course- it's a neat ship but it is not nearly well known enough to be a flagship for an august wave. Either lego was given outdated information about the Justifier's role in TBB, or some executive was really banking on Cad Bane being the single most desirable figure of all time. Yup. We just got Malak last year. However the odds may be, there's always hope. Fell to my knees reading this. Greatest announcement since they announced that Fallen Order would be a trilogy. I doubt it'll get sets, but I don't care, I'll purist MOC everyone on screen if I have to, that was the best thing to come out of animated star wars since the Siege of Mandalore, it's an excellent place to take the franchise. I think it can't be canon given the setting and circumstances unless it's in another galaxy and/or radically removed timeline wise. I assume it means this is our first non-anthology Legends TV show produced since the creation of the current canon. Ah. So the timelines might not quite work out, but either way, close enough that there might be enough wiggle room for a small role. As much as I like the deltas, yup, these guys have more of a rogue aura and work better for this type of game- I would not be able to play X-com with everyone wearing the same suit of armor with just different colored stripes to distinguish them. Every single one of these guys is bursting with unique character- even the two clones gave off different vibes in just the two minute trailer we had. And everyone looks SICK. The design they went with for the jedi gives him a rogue and menacing feel you couldn't accomplish with a more humanoid face- we know the jedi in general are moral paragons, so giving it a more alien feel helps to add some ambiguity and fear to it's vibe. Also really like the human- from the poster I was getting Cassian vibes, and while that would have been pretty cool, I'm loving this sort of grizzled cowboy accent and speech pattern he's got going on. Sort of reminds me of the cowboy from the SWTOR trailer back in the day. It's crazy that for how many characters it has, your list could be effectively completed in just four sets (larger canon imperial set, smaller HTTE set, Delta Squad set, JFO set)