Mandalorianknight

This is partly true, but it's specifically for sets that last long on shelves without restocks/new production runs, which is generally hard to gauge. For example, some UCS sets last drastically longer than the norm due to how well they sell. On the other hand, some sets sit around on shelves longer than the typical production run simply because they aren't selling. I'll give an example- X-jet's only been out for a year and a half, but it's gone everywhere around me. Not because it sold like hotcakes, but because it barely sold at all, got on deep discounts (that mostly got snapped up before i could get to the stores ) and the retailers never ordered more. I don't know. It's the type of thing that putting out a small $10-30 set could test, but instead lego went for the demo least likely to be fans of the sequel trilogy- adult collectors who either are still nursing their wounds from the PT or grew up on the PT and had the reaction to the ST older fans did to the PT. I think that's true, and lego seems to be focusing more on the vocal than the minority part of that. This year reads like they asked MandR what sets he wanted.

This might be a hot take but I actually don't think battle packs do as well as we all like to imagine. I've seen the 332nd pack for as low as $6 now, but in general most of the recent $20 packs I've been able to find for $10-15 pretty consistently less than a year after release. (The only holdout of the $20 price point being the mando one weirdly enough, but I'm sure that'll change.) I also imagine that even at $20, with 4 figs and a licensing fee the profit margins aren't as good as, say, the starfighter sets. I could easily see lego being worried about eating their own sales by having too many out at the same time, and viewing it as not worth the additional factory space/new prints/etc to pump out the same numbers as before. How many times is a user going to fall for an imperial officer in this thread? See, the thing is, I think most people would view a ship or helmet as more discreet than a blaring yellow "STAR WARS" sitting on their table. That's what I'm not understanding about this- it feels incredibly basic and bland but at the same time very loud and visible.

I'd assume the same general requirements are there as for Deadpool. Punisher is one of the seven thousand characters rumored to be in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, so maybe we will get one. (Side note- I do hope this one happens, it would be nice to A: See ol' "no one dies" interact with "you hit 'em and they get back up I hit 'em and they stay down", to establish a baseline for this Peter before he gets corrupted by a symbiote, and B: because Punisher will immediately become Peter's surrogate father like with the girl in S2) We're saying essentially the same thing- that Christmas isn't currently a holiday in a solely religious context. What I directly said and you quoted me as saying was that Christmas sets aren't explicitly religious but based off Judeo-Christian Culture and values. You can't make the argument that Santa Claus-Saint Nick- isn't based off that culture, or that whatever you personally want it to mean, holidays like Christmas and Easter aren't derived from religious events, but at the same time, the holiday has become corporatized and genericized to the extent it's safe for lego to make sets off it. That was my point. In response to someone saying it was ironic that lego wouldn't make explicitly religious sets but was ok making "weapons of war", I was just pointing out that much as lego makes sets based off holidays that, genericized or not, are based in religion, they have no issue making fictional or historical military vehicles insomuch as they aren't modern day weapons. Lego wouldn't make the Nativity or a modern-day Abrams tank, but they have no issue making Christmas sets or fictional military vehicles.

Some more Rivals sets based on more recent content: Krakoan Gate ($14.99): Krakoan Teleportation gate with Emma Frost, Magneto (King Magnus), Psylocke (blue and gold) and Magik (blue and gold) Ratataskor's Breakout ($49.99): Buildable Ratataskor alongside a gate with an explode feature. Comes with Thing, Human Torch, Dracula, and Squirrel Girl. Rivals of Ultron ($89.99): The Cradle build with 2 teleporters (including a feature to "teleport" a figure by pushing them through the first teleporter, sending them down a hidden slide to the second) and some explode features, as well as a feature to reveal Cerebron out of the cradle. Comes with Ultron, 2x Ultron Bot, Cerebron, Emma Frost, Wolverine, Captain America (Hellfire Gala) and Star Lord (King of Spartax)

I feel like that's counterbalanced by it being a GWP, though, right? Assumably they make significantly fewer copies of GWPs, especially theme-specific ones, than retail sets. Even repeating three times I doubt as many of this torso are being produced as a standard system set figure's.

Unfortunately there is no google translate for the aslume. It's just a lot of jokes, man-who-is-not-turtle. Sort of? Watch the scene by the way, it's the best one in the show by far as I think I say whenever I bring it or punisher up. Matt comes to punisher about whatever so-so plotline Matt's currently involved in and Punisher basically immediately goes "nah I don't care about that and neither do you, you're really here because of *traumatic event from the start of the season that feels like it should be more prominent in the show*". Basically, to talk about it without spoiling what specifically makes that event so traumatic, Punisher then says that the real reason Matt came to talk to him was because Punisher in the past has told Matt he should kill, and Frank thinks he's here because subconsciously he wants Punisher to convince him to kill the villain from the traumatic event. Punisher does end up giving Matt what he wants, moreso to let him vent and force him to face what he's been ignoring. Punisher hasn't really shown all that much interest in fighting Kingpin, or Bullseye, in the MCU/Netflix. It's not like he comes after them and then lets them go. I assume he kind of views it as Matt's war to fight and doesn't want to step on his toes because Matt's against killing and he knows that if Daredevil really wanted to, he could put Punisher behind bars for life. There's certainly issues with the timeline regarding kingpin and whatever the hell he's been up to between Daredevil season 3 and Born Again, but at the same time we have no idea what Punisher was up to in that time, and he doesn't seem to be in the best place or active as punisher as of their meeting in Born Again. It's a lot more true in the comics, but in the netflix series it hasn't really been an issue. Business Baby's survival was confirmed by Robert Kirkman, thankfully, but assumably Conquest knew Business Baby had to file his taxes right after the war and would be unable to help. Putting Rex-Goat and Midmortal in the same sentence is diabolical. I do like the idea that Conquest showed up during the war and was just like "why are there 20-something versions of this guy running around? I'll just wait and assume whichever one lives is the strongest and therefore most interesting fight."

Since disney is assumably behind the name, perhaps "uyhgur one" would have been ok to print on the plaque. I'd be careful with honey, there's reports that it hides a lot of the better discounts. GWP is crazy good. 3 sets of arm printing and dual molded legs in one GWP? That's a huge budget for a gift set. Not sure how this works out exactly budget wise but I do feel like this could have been an obscure commander like Fordo or Doom alongside some generic clones instead, but this works pretty well. A super obscure vehicle and some noncombatant clones. For this year and coming with the Slave One that's fine.

Same- lego c'mon please They want a battle in a box for those so they can't make both the starfighters clone ones. This was a joke but given how much of the august wave is clone based I kind of unironically think something similar may have been a factor- if they wanted that $110 price point the others were at, there aren't many good Clone Wars options. I also wonder if they haven't been selling well- lego wouldn't have been able to use sales data from last year's, but I've seen the mando and ahsoka ones for $65-75 pretty consistently (and yet, when I made up my mind to buy them, they were gone... ) And a pretty significant price increase, I don't know if the sets would have much in common at that point. My thoughts: ROTS pack is pretty neat. A little confused why Palpy Boy is in his end-of-movie robes rather than the red ones that come to mind when I think of ROTS palps, and either Mace or Padme should have been swapped out for Kenobi, but overall a good pack. I wish that Grievous was availible solo, if he had been it'd have been my first brickheadz... since Boba, I think. Shuttle is great, but X-jet levels of overpriced. I hope I can snap this one up for ~$40 because otherwise I'm not getting it. That helmet is a disgrace and lego should actually be embarrassed that they put that out there. That's not a lego kylo ren helmet, that's a black dome with Kylo Ren's helmet design stickered onto it. Why even make the helmet if you can't represent the details with any accuracy without resorting to printing basically every silver part of the helmet?

I hope this is a joke, because otherwise you're really overthinking this- 1. While I'm not a fan of the happy holidaysization of christmas- companies trying to have their christmas cookies and eat them too- lego still does santa and stuff. They wouldn't do any explicitly religious sets, but they make sets based off Judeo-Christian culture and holidays, because, let's be real here, western culture is fundamentally based on Judeo-Christian values so there's not really a point to trying to avoid any mention of it. It'd be like if lego didn't make any police, fire, or ambulance sets because they wanted to avoid politics and emergency responders generally work for their country's governments. 2. The AT-AT is a fictional vehicle from the star wars franchise, not a real tank. I know you know this, but you've gotta understand the distinction, because lego is A-ok with fictional war vehicles because, you know, they aren't real. Nobody's been killed by AT-ATs in real life. There aren't even any real world vehicles remotely close to AT-ATs. (Also, if there's some sort of moral objection to a christmas AT-AT, would you not also object to nutcrackers? They're arguably significantly worse, fun christmas decorations that wear uniforms similar to actual real soldiers of the past who participated in actual real wars where real people died, not family-friendly fictional space ones. Obviously it's ridiculous to claim Nutcrakers are are some sort of dark murder thing, right? And unlike them, AT-ATs are toys based on family friendly space movies!) TLDR: I want a menorah Y-wing that drops dreidels and will also be needing a christmas tree ewok village. Yeah sure hypothetically speaking- clearly this designer hasn't been given any information about it, but if Doomsday does really well and deadpool is featured in the movie in, as they say, a scene that isn't "R lite" or whatever. I suppose the same is now true for those three. There were rumors Bernthal is in Spider-Man 4, so I'd be very happy to get a figure of the man who in Born Again literally told his writers "nah that's out of character, let me write it" and then dropped a scene an order of magnitude better than anything else in the show. (Though also, Kingpin's lower on the priority list for me as I feel confident lego would just make him re-used parts, and it's not hard to Purist one. Still tough for Daredevil, though I've got a pretty solid unmasked one, and impossible for punisher unless you want him to have a spandex torso or legoized skull.)

The Maelstrom- since it appears to have the designer's favor- made sure they didn't code the Dummy into the game because they knew he couldn't lose. You may be armed and dangerous but I'm JUDGE, JURY, EXEUCTIONER! (side note: I feel like this is a weirdly out of character line for both the colder comic punisher and the more heroic Bernthal punisher- the "I'm doing this my way" line friendlies hear fits him a lot better, like he's gotten sick of watching his friends die while he uses rubber bullets and is switching to "reduce the enemies to dust") Oh you may be able to fly (though so many of your brothers are not) but it's simply a tool, a piece of optional equipment for your army, an ability your jewelery grants you. It's a fundamental part of my creed. Your mistake is believing that my suit isn't Beskar weave. Also, I think I'm moon knight or something in the lore from when Khonshu had me stealing Mara Jade minifigures from the factory or whatever that was. I also mentioned being the Mand'alor during my turtle monologue which I don't really want to add to my lore but in this hypothetical, depending on your interpretation of Mand'alor, could either mean nothing or totally change the odds.

The first part is a fair point but I think you're missing what people mean when they talk about creativity with the older themes. The older space and castle themes that only had a loose outline of faction descriptions and had few if any named characters, much less a concrete storyline, encouraged creativity in kids to tell stories and come up with their own characters, something that's not necessarily as prominent with all the licensed and story themes. Sure, kids still make their own scenarios, but the incentive to make up your own characters isn't as strong when everything's laid out for you. It's company side storytelling vs consumer side storytelling. Edit: Jeez I don't think I even needed to make my turtle monologue joke this thread is crazy enough as it is. Danth's attacking star wars again, people aren't understanding Renny's writing style is semi satirical and have actually gotten him to make serious posts, etc.

You must be thinking of Turtle, or perhaps Riddler DC. This is a third, totally unrelated person. Try again, Optimus. I was gonna ask about them before his response to Commando so expertly reminded me that he is definitely not Turtle in any way, shape, or form. How dare you bequeath upon him the role I've worked so hard to fill? How dare Commando take my place upon the throne? His "battle for the shell" a mere facade, for what is my Beskar if not the Mandalorian's equivalent of the Testudine Cryptodira's armored back? It was I who first alerted him to the presence of this third, totally unrelated, definitely not turtle account. I who allowed the forsaken one's spirit to channel into me in Turtle Tuesday posts. I who immortalized the turtle in digital bricks in two separate monuments to the asylum that birthed him. Does he seek to challenge my authority in all things armored and chipped? What chance does a mere cloned soldier stand against Khonshu's avatar? What construct of will could pierce the Beskar'gam that so guards my heart? The clones of Jango Fett may have adopted the high ground into their jetpacks but it was Mandalorians who developed the technology. IT WAS MY PEOPLE WHO FIRST FLEW LIKE A BEE! That monologue probably belongs in the Aslume, but moving on- As for the answer to the question this topic's actually about... insert that gif of Pa Kent going "..maybe". It's undeniable that while most lego sets were aimed at kids and focused on general archtypes (town, space, pirates, castles, Old West, ninjas... submarines, for some reason), modern lego has an increasing fraction of sets focused on adults as well as focusing on licensed sets, seemingly at the expense of unlicensed ones. I don't have a problem with Icons legoizing everything, but I'm sympathetic to the idea that modern lego's a different beast than the lego of 20-50 years ago, and that licensed themes contributed to the increasing story focus on even the unlicensed themes. Even City has a big chunk of named characters and story bits now. On the other hand, I don't think that, say, Star Wars is the reason we haven't had an in-house space theme outside the solar system (Galaxy Squad at the very least disproves the notion that it's a contractual thing), or that Harry Potter prevents normal castle sets. I think that, whether it's really true of kids or not, lego just doesn't believe those themes would do well unattached to known properties. (This is, I think, why the only sets we get for classic space and castle tend to be adult focused- people who have nostalgia for the old themes). Current lego, Ninjago aside, is much too focused on chasing trends and trying to integrate the story concept "being an ipad kid" (Hidden Side's weapons being iphones, Vidiyo literally being lego tiktok, the Cooper focus in Dreamzzz, which in general was more of a catch-all than a uniform theme) to make a new Ninjago or new Bionicle.

THE MOON HAUNTS YOU! Just checked my watch... it's almost clobbering time. Single most based interview with a lego employee ever if true. Instead of blatantly false info like "all yellow clones are the same" or "we can't make JFO sets because it's... the equivalent rating of the films", it's just telling a bunch of kids "you can't play your video game anymore because the bad guy beat you, skill issue."

You know what, that's actually a lot of fun, I like that.

It would be fitting for the theme if it got cancelled, but I'm sure there's just not much to say about it.

The first two complaints are answered by the same statement- superhero content is pretty hit and miss so lego now does a lot more wait-and-see than frontloading stuff. I'm hoping we'll start seeing Rivals sets next year, and Superman depends on how well the movie does. Spider-verse was allegedly licensing issues, if you take the designer's statement about why the set we got was so overpriced at face value. As for the rest, they weren't that popular, lego doesn't have much of a profit motive to make sets for them. X-men 97's sets were virtually indistinguishable from what comic book X-men sets would be, and people had been asking for X-men sets for a decade, so they knew they'd do well. (Hence the disgusting X-jet price.) @Lego Nostalgia, they lay out the win conditions for a deadpool fig so I can now concretely tell you that the earliest he could possibly appear is a post-secret wars spoiler set.

When has that ever stopped them before? I'm shocked we didn't get a $17 mech set that's just Grogu in an IG-12 suit.

Absolutely not. Aside from all the leaks saying it was more like Arisham, the F4 set is the same cost as the busts but with three more figures. Even if you think lego would put out a galactus bust as a playset, they aren't gonna throw in 3 extra figs for the same price. Welcome to eurobricks fellow Moon Knight main! I believe that is what was being said about Galactus. Either that or incorrectly believing his successful movie would make BP as popular as the MCU made Iron Man. It... did not. He's certainly in one of the higher tiers of avengers, right after that cap/iron man/thor trio in the BW/Hawkeye/Ant-Man/Wasp tier, but he's not the next spider-man. And the combination of the actor's passing and the studio's "recasting is bad but only sometimes" refusal to keep T'Challa in the movies led to the wave of popularity he was gaining fading fast.

*we get GL mech with re-used Batman and Joker figs*

I ever see that bust for 20% or more off I'm snapping it up. I haven't been all that consciously aware of it, but the only sets larger than a battle pack I've bought from this theme since endgame have all been spider-man, which I just noticed. These are not a bad line, especially as far as the 18+ sublines go. I especially like the rotated base and the inclusion of a minifigure. If they just dropped the price down a bit I think these would do very well. (Spider-man, at least. Iron Man looks like he just ate a lemon)

Love seeing these, excited to see the shuttle pod to round it all out.

I don't know how big of a trend this is but I saw a ton of comments imperialposting ("take the L, long live the empire", "cope and seethe, rebel scum", that sort of thing) under one of the Andor TV spots and I thought that was a lot of fun. Glad that I can pass on what I have learned and @Swordy others If we're talking Rebel Y-wing, it would end up being THREE RFTs in between, unless people wanted to count the baby one in Yavin. I'll be fair enough to say much as I think it's important for the main OT vehicles to be on shelves, some of the main PT vehicles should too, but I'd hardly count the RFT as one. (IMO it's not as defined as the OT since there's just so many onscreen vehicles- the PT lacks the certainty of the TIE fighter or X-wing instead opting to put out a much larger number of vehicles with less individual screen time- but I'd say a Jedi Starfighter and Laarti should more or less always be availible- though with the Laarti in a falcon position where it's more of "if it does well it stays on shelves for half a decade" rather than getting a new gunship every three years- I'd put the AT-RT here too, not so much because of the vehicle itself but as it's an entry level clone vehicle.) Anyway point being I'm not opposed to the PT getting remade vehicles frequently, though I think for them due to the nature of the films it's more archtypes than specific models, but either way the RFT is a wild one to get two or potentially three models in between rebel Y-wings.

I'm normally pretty rough on the busts but I'll be honest, I like the iron spider one. If it wasn't $60, I'd buy it, and even then while more than I'd pay $60 isn't the worst price in the world- I'd probably pay $50 for one of these if they did an outfit or character I had a particular affinity for. Iron man one just doesn't work, the head's all wrong, but the spider-man one is great, the head turned out really well. I think it looks much better than the full helmet set despite the much smaller size. Would love to see one for Moon Knight. They knock the price down 20% and pump out more on the iron spider quality, I'll start collecting the heroes I care about.

This is actually an Avengers Doomsday set, where Ant-Man will travel to the star wars universe and enlarge the Tantive so it can fight back. He forgot to enlarge the occupants so nobody can control the ship and it crashes into Mos Eisley, tragically... The funny thing is I have seen people claim that the $1000 death star makes up for no other OT system sets, like 90% of lego star wars fans have a continuous 2ft sphere of shelf space and the down payment on a Toyota Camry lying around I don't think obscurity should necessarily stop a set from being made, if the UT-AT wasn't coming in the the clone bonanza year I wouldn't mind it, but "the bridge Ki-Adi Mundi dies on" is definitely testing that obscurity belief. Maybe there's a Republic Fighter Tank driving over it. Combined with the profile picture, this immediately made me think of "all you can tell me is that I will find Jabba... at Jabba's Palace?" It just showed up a few minutes ago on *shudders* the platform that sounds like Ribbit. (I feel like saying the platform name is probably allowed, but I'm unreasonably proud of "the one that sounds like ribbit")

Yeah that's nothing. It's an easter egg. Really doesn't improve the set quality IMO, it's still a very strange choice for a set. I believe we did, just most of us are the same as you here so it didn't really get discussed. Solid build, though.