Mandalorianknight

I think he specifically means the suit from the Raimi movies, so the helmet and no purple cloth on the front. Though I have to say Raimi Goblin sort of suffers from the Boba Fett issue of there being no official lego color that works all that well for him. The Thunderbolts one has too many figures to fit this sort of price point, but I would love some form of set coverage from them. The Civil War duel is iconic and something I'm sure will do well- though they'll likely wait until the larger diorama retires- and I think it's A: reasonable for cap to assume that iron man would have some sort of backup in place, and B: that cap is the type of guy who probably would have informed someone of the location anyway to make sure. It's clear from him sending the phone that at the very least he assumed Tony survived. And you can of course also do this for the existing epic moments- "A billionaire violently beats a man with DiD having a mental heath crisis!" "A man who beat his girlfriend attacks someone he got fired and a father trying to help his sick daughter!"- anything from these movies can be made to sound bad. I think the Titan battle has to be a shoe-in for either an Epic Moment (if it's restricted to Tony and/or Strange vs Thanos) or a larger diorama with everyone. We now have confirmation Deadpool will be joining rivals next year, as well as his design, which is distinct from his comic/movie one featuring a bomber jacket/vest and a much longer... head sock? I don't know what you'd call it. Lego still seems hesitant to make Rivals sets for some reason, but if they ever get around to it, it'd be interesting to see if that brings us a new lego deadpool.

Avoiding oversaturation of the market with too many gimmick lines is likely part of why. I'm not sure how well Starkiller Base Duel did, but I know the Mustafar duel did fairly well being the cheapest way to get obi-wan and anakin at a time when non-headset versions hadn't appeared in some time, so I doubt it they did poorly enough to kill the subline. Whereas the battle packs moving to $20 happened the year after the last duel set, implying they absorbed it's slot. I wouldn't mind the duel sets moving to $25, though, especially if it let them squeeze in a third figure where necessary (such as a throne room duel- not that we need one right now). The accessory packs are a lot easier to understand IMO. The limited availability caused a lot of fan backlash, and while lego doesn't listen to fans as much we might like, they do do it sometimes. Though it's probably more likely that it was simply an experiment as to how to adapt battle packs- inflation vs shrinkflation, as it was, do we get more expensive battle packs at full size or these 3-fig, smaller build accessory packs?- and they chose the inflated packs. Which, while obviously we would all prefer $15 packs with four figs, I do think the $20 packs with four are better than $15 ones with 3 and an even smaller build. The death star is the only one that I think would really work all that well, but at the same time I think it would work EXCEPTIONALLY well. So many rooms work as sets on their own (trash compactor, detention block, we've already had a system playset of the chasm escape and imperial cannon/tractor beam room, the vader duel scene, etc), and connecting them together would be a great gimmick. I was fortunate enough to be given a copy of the new advent calendar- I tend not to buy them myself, unless I find it after christmas on sale- and I have to say, while I'd like more minifigures in these, format-wise this is far and away the best advent calendar lego's ever produced for this theme. As an experience, getting to build a new bit of the workshop every day really makes you feel like you're building towards something more than just random ships. I'm very happy with this calendar and hope lego continues to produce themed calendars with no minibuilds.

The Duel sets were such an excellent subtheme and I don't understand why they only made a few of them. They're such an easy way to get two major characters on shelves for a low price point, so the sales should have been excellent. Wouldn't this imply she has a lax or uncaring attitude towards the TIE Avenger? Though I suppose if the movie's good, she'll gain an understanding of the importance of upholding the values of truth, justice, and the TIE avenger, so maybe it'd work out in the end. I know people tend to hate battle packs with named characters, but a battle pack of four cantina aliens would be great. Unlikely- kids would probably not be as interested in a factionless pack, and while you could throw weapons and a speeder in to make it more dynamic it's still not going to do as well as clones or imperials or rebels or what have you- but it would be great for us.

Absolutely. Though it's only fair to point out that while they've made X sets for Superman 2025 and 10X sets for supergirl, they've made 50X+24 sets for the Sonic the Hedgehog crossover (just oddly enough without any of the leaguers or darkseid?).

It does. I don't mind the current method of microfighters being "exclusive or expensive figure in a cheap set" since I use the builds as part packs anyway, but it would be nice to get actual microfighter packs again rather than "plo koon and some blue pieces nobody cares about" or "Rex and some blue pieces nobody cares about" or whatever. That said, with $10 price point non-gimmick sets coming... maybe we don't need microfighters at all anymore and can start just having system scaled $10 sets. I assume this is a joke, but I could kind of see it? The main issue is the planet itself, which is just a big two-piece chunk of plastic, and that the actual builds suffer from scaling issues just as much as microfighters without any play features or figure interactability microfighters have... but as a bionicle fan I am a sucker for unique packaging in which the part container is made of lego elements. It is impressive that, whatever you thought the planet sets consisted of, your suggestion is 1:1 with them. Apparently you would have been a good subline designer.

Always depends on what Glup Shitto, but I think I have to say Sim Aloo. I usually prefer aliens since in my view they fit the vibe more, but the silly purple hat counts IMO. I don't count most clones or imperial officers or what have you as glup shittos, because even if the specific character is a glup shitto, most people will recognize them as "clone trooper" or "imperial officer" Yes, microfighters as a medium have been largely phased out, we're down to one a year. They've been on the decline since pretty much 2016/2017, but the loss of the dual packs in, I want to say 2022? really showed the slowdown. Yup. It's a big investment and big risk by lego, and I don't understand why they're making such a big play here. Valid point, but as my counterpoint, I don't own Ponda Baba or Dr. Evazan and would like to. (Also from that one mobile game, I have the idea of aqualish rebel engineers stuck in my head and would quite like a few copies of Ponda Baba's head for my rebel base but don't want them badly enough to spend... oh, they're $13 each in the US. That's bad, but honestly not as much as I was expecting.)

They would, and especially with lego seeming more comfortable making builds that don't have stud shooters on them so long as they include that little mortar (the mando/imperial pack for example), we should be able to get them. Ninjago/Monkie Kid/dreamzz have creature sets that sell very well, I have no doubts a star wars creature build could do comparably to a vehicle. Even for larger creatures- a $35ish Rancor with Luke and Gammorrean figs, an arena beasts 3-pack, etc would all do well in my view. But they would have to include figures to interact with and be articulated/have play features rather than 18+ statues, so automatic no from lego. And they totally could have- had this not been a smart brick set, I think it would have been a totally reasonable assumption that an $80 cantina could include a new alien or two, or at least some of the MBS exclusives like Ponda or Evazan. But in the end the whole think is a moot point, because the dewback won't look good anyway.

Yeah, I see what you mean about the bike and will definitely be Moccing it, but at $10 it's just easier to buy this to use as a base when buying an older GR by itself would end up being more than that if you include shipping from bricklink. Plus, with this being the first one with a removable flame, if I don't want to display the penance stare I can replace his head with any skeleton head (currently planning on using the classis "evil" skeleton head from fantasy era) If I didn't have a Tobey the sandman set would be an immediate day one as well- it probably still will given that $25 price tag. And yes, you're right that it's good to support the price point for diorama sets. In regards to your F4 review, I think it does come down to, as you say, the best film interpretation, though still not a great interpretation. Johnny is less of a jerk than the 05/07 one, but so is comic Johnny most of the time. At least in most of the F4 stuff I've read, he's less of a playboy and more of the type of guy who falls in love with a new "the one" girl every two weeks and then when it inevitably fails falls in love again two weeks later. The other three may actually be characterized slightly worse than their 05/07 versions- even Sue, who has more depth of character than previous versions, feels like she got characterized to a different personality than her comic one. The current rumors still imply they cut a solid chunk of the good/fun characters (John, Ava, Alexi, Johnny, Ben) so we can focus on scattered bits of the thunderbolts and F4 alongside a whole Samvenger team that assumably assembles offscreen and will be full of phase 4/5 characters nobody cares about or likes. Also, (I hope this doesn't count as a spoiler) I saw a film set leak and the Russos have kept that stupid beret for John. Somebody needs to walk onto the set and swap it with the cowl while on his head indiana jones-stealing-the-idol- style. Don't even remind me about DDBA or it's "yeah we're pretty sure Daredevil's vaguely catholic, maybe, he's gonna act embarrassed when his girlfriend asks about it" stuff. I still can't believe that show managed to character assassinate (or actually assassinate) half the cast and yet it gets as many seasons as the netflix show? Sure, after some time the public will get more used to thing, but a big part of the character- especially early on- is that a lot of the outside world views him as a monster, and even after they realize he's on the good team are still uncomfortable or jumpy around him. Everybody seems absolutely fine and normal with Ben and there's no indication- not that it would necessarily be advertised- that he ever went through anything regarding his appearance. That would be awesome, but I wonder if they'll space out the Raimi epic moments a bit more. They have the whole MCU, another spider-man franchise, and other pre-MCU properties to pull from, I think we'll probably see something Captain America, Thor, or Black Panther related soon, though whether that's alongside a Goblin fight epic moment or in place of it in that wave, I don't know. Not officially, but it's probably a prototype for the subline the way we had the Vader's meditation pod diorama a little before the actual diorama subline started.

The reason that a dewback or landspeeder is normally included in system cantinas is to add play value- otherwise it's just a relatively plain tan building with no real play features beyond maybe the "greedo's corpse falls out of the booth" one they did in 2019. Adding a vehicle or creature makes it more dynamic and interesting for kids. (It also helps complete the scene and serves as a way to get a dewback in a set at all- there aren't a lot of other places you can put them). I agree that the one we get isn't likely to be good, but I mean... I don't think the cantina itself is likely to be very good either in smart set format. I also don't think a brick-built dewback and unique alien minifigures are an either-or- I could maybe see it if it was a new molded, dewback, but I doubt it was "$80 666 piece set with four figures" vs "$80 500ish piece set with four figures plus one or two new alien figures" Yes, but it was about five years ago, so it's pretty rough and uses the microfighter head as a base: I may try a better one sometime.

I agree that Miles and Gwen shouldn't be there- they've become too prominent in main-universe spider-man stuff anyway (especially spider-Gwen, who either overwrites mainline Gwen or just doesn't work as a character in "normal" universes), but I do think it's funny that the implication here would be that JJJ counts as a combatant rather than a civilian. (Which I think is fair- he's tried to have spider-man killed a number of times, come close to shooting Goblin in the head, etc. He can hold his own.) I am very excited for this wave, even if the only set I'm absolutely sure I'm picking up is the ghost rider bike. At $25 I'll probably get the SM3 set as well, and I'm considering taking the bugle and modding it into another building, though I'll likely wait for a discount for that one.

Thank you! Thank you, it's 175 pieces (assuming you use the rubber bridle piece, it's a few more if you go with the set of bars I used in stud.io because they don't have that element.) There is a brick-built dewback in the cantina, but given it's supposed to be smart-brick integrated I suspect it'll look pretty blocky. I went through some possible ANH 50th anniversary sets and I'm feeling a bit better about our chances at a good 2027 wave now. There's a few solid ships left that they aren't about to "smart", and you could even make the argument that the X-wing or Falcon could be done due to their odd price points for the smart sets. (I.e. you could do a single $60ish X-wing that should be fairly different in intended target audience/price point from the $100 smart one, or vice verse with a falcon around the $170 price point).

Yeah a meme using a popular format about the TIE avenger is in no way an endorsement of some weird stuff in the movie it's from. I just think that the Dewback is large enough that it can indeed be represented by bricks rather than a single molded chunk (or two, given the jaw). I'm not lego, but I was able to come up with this without even using any recolored pieces: And as a bonus, this one can actually move more than just it's jaw. (Ignore the blocky bridle, the rubber bridle isn't in Stud.io). I have similar issues with things like the Rancor- you can get pretty solid shaping with modern pieces, not to mention a LOT more articulation than the statue-like molded creatures tend to get, so I just don't see why we have a single big mold. For me it'd be the same as if they made a big specialized mold for a speeder or ship- we could get much more accurate shaping for the imperial spider bike used on endor if we did a specialized body mold, but I don't think many people want that. I know a lot of people see creatures differently and I don't care a ton, especially since it's easier for me to brick-build a creature than for someone to custom-mold one, but it is my preference. Not that it matters anyway- I'm sure the smart brick-compatible one will look even rougher than mine.

Yeah, this means literally nothing for lego regardless of what it means for the DCU. They haven't tied much into recent material (besides batman) since 2020.

Is this a thing I say? I can think of a lot of common phrases I use but I didn't realize this was one of them. Sometimes you can't see it unless someone else points it out. Happy to have you on the forum! The absolute superman thing is incredible

Can someone please put a Mara minifigure in a tie avenger moc? I can give moc instructions to someone if they need them to do this. *501st flashbacks* I think the way CC's going about it is probably the best. IIRC we've had evidence before that some people at lego do read the forum, and as we've seen before campaigns on instagram-type social media platforms tend to devolve into spam groups.

Oh, no... they're definitely going to do Smart Groot, and I don't think Iron Groot is impossible either. Unfortunately I don't know how much more we're going to see anytime particularly soon- Sure, the figures will probably be re-used in Doomsday sets, or maybe even get new torsos, but I wouldn't count those as F4 sets, especially since

All excellent. I would want literally all of these and think most of them would make good sets that would sell fairly well. My only concern is that the N-1 might be a bit small of a ship for a $70 set-though adding a vulture droid in would fix that right up-, and the reverse for the Defender (remember, it's got 50% more wings than something like the interceptor, and scaling it down a bit runs into the issue of making the cockpit look bulbous and chibi). In light of smart bricks stabbing my hoped-for ANH anniversary wave in the jugular, I'm going to put one out there trying to pick up the pieces as best I can. I think we can fit a few of the more iconic vehicles in at different price points, and maybe one or two other things as different styles of set. Here's what I've got, going overboard and making almost a full HY of ANH sets, which might be a bit much but hey, 50 years of the whole reason we have a franchise to complain about is a big deal: January: Tusken Ambush ($9.99): Brick-built Bantha with a Tusken Raider and Luke Skywalker (Farmboy) Sandtrooper Battle Pack ($19.99): A brick-built Dewback with 4x Sandtrooper (2 black pauldrons, a white pauldron, and an orange pauldron.) Yavin IV Rebel Defense ($29.99): A small collection of rebel builds- a gantry, a ground cart, the lookout post, and a small turret. Comes with 2x Rebel Fleet Trooper, 1x Rebel Ground crew, and 1x Rebel Honor Guard, as well as two Astromech Droids. Droid Escape Pod: 50th Anniversary ($19.99): C-3PO and R2-D2 with Stormtrooper (Mcquarrie concept art with white lightsaber and shield) TIE Fighter: 50th Anniversary ($54.99): Has sand blue instead of LBG. Comes with a TIE pilot, Stormtrooper, Moff Tarkin, and C-3PO (mcquarrie concept art) X-wing Starfighter: 50th Anniversary ($64.99 - this one is the least likely, but you HAVE to have an X-wing if you're doing an ANH anniversary wave): Comes with Luke Skywalker (Pilot), R2-D2, Biggs Darklighter, and Luke Skywalker (mcquarrie concept art with blaster and yellow lightsaber). Y-wing Starfighter: 50th Anniversary ($79.99): Y-wing with Dex Tiree, Dravis Krail, an astromech droid, Han Solo, and Chewbacca (Mcquarrie concept art with blaster rifle and a new lasat head mold) The Millennium Falcon: 50th Anniversary ($169.99- I've been advocating for a downsized one for awhile but the extra size and cost will keep the price point further from the "smart" one): Millennium Falcon with full interior as always. It is slightly downsized from the dark falcon, but a bit cheaper and with a number more figures. Comes with Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3PO, Ben Kenobi, Darth Vader, and 2x Spacetrooper, as well as 50th anniversary Darth Vader (mcquarrie concept art with blue lightsaber). Diorama: Cantina Confrontation ($79.99): The build itself is the cantina bar and associated seating. Comes with Luke Skywalker (Farmboy), Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ponda Baba, Dr. Evazan, and Wuher. Midi-scale: Star Destroyer Devastator ($89.99): Comes with a mini tantive IV and, in a first for the subline, a minifigure of Dane Jir. Helmet collection: C-3PO ($69.99) Bust: Stormtrooper Bust ($59.99): Stormtrooper. UCS Tantive IV ($699.99): UCS Tantive IV ship with full interior. A bridge in the front, the main hallway in the main hallway, the room where Leia records the message on one side of the fuselage, and the escape pod entryway on the other. Includes Princess Leia, Captain Antilles, C-3PO, R2-D2, 2x Rebel Fleet Trooper, and Rebel Fleet Officer (Rebel Friend). 20 years of Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (GWP with Tantive IV): a build of the small Tantive IV room you start the game in with the lever consoles and a minikit. Comes with Princess Leia and Captain Antilles (Based on leia's 2007 design- used in the game- and Antilles's game design.)

That's unfair to the writers, they're been making generic and formulaic movies long before ai. :D There's only one F4 lego set. When he said he was the superior spider-man, he meant it. Otto is putting peter's workout routine to shame.

Oh, I think for a UCS one we could do even better than that. The 2001 set would "only" be around $375 today, and while I'm sure an interior, some minifigures, and lego's own increases past inflation would bump that up to $450-500, I could easily see a UCS tantive IV taking up that $600-700 slot the star destroyers have. It could be pretty dang big. I think you've got a good chance at being right, the only possible issue I see here is that it'd probably be mostly DBG since there aren't a ton of pearl dark grey pieces, but I don't think that would dissuade lego and we'd just end up getting a DBG build. It's not unlikely, though I'd personally prefer a classic rebel one given how long it's been since the last playscale rebel Y-wing. I'm in the minority on this but I'm of the opinion that if a creature is large enough to be brick-built, it should be. The giant molded creatures don't feel like Lego to me- it's one of the reasons I've never liked the dinosaur themes, whether it was jurassic world or the unlicensed ones. I'm aware most people feel differently. It's hard to tell for sure. The cantina's allegedly about the same as the 2014 one, which had 616 pieces and part of it's piece count dedicated to a landspeeder, so it's entirely possible. My guess is it's the correct size, but super blocky and simple. IIRC the smart brick in these sets will be a 2x4x2 brick.

A big new Sandcrawler would be nice, as well as a Tantive IV (though I'd prefer a UCS version). A lot of the others end up being "tatooine building'- which I don't think we'll see any of given the similarities to the cantina and the overall seeming lack of popularity of playsets- or more obscure vehicles- I highly doubt we get an ANH outrider, and while we did somehow get two T-16s, with the amount of content lego now has to draw from I think it's unlikely we see another unless the vehicle itself shows up in media rather than "the toy Luke swooshes around". A good Y-wing would be nice, maybe packed in with the generic TIE, a nice semi-callback to the 1999 set with Vader's TIE. I hadn't even considered that, but you're unfortunately right. If lego's going to far as to dedicate eight sets in a single wave to the smart brick, it's unlikely they're being so cautious as to wait and see how they do before making more. There's likely some 2027 smart sets already in the pipeline that'll be too far in production to kill by the time the 2026 ones' shelfwaming becomes apparent- it's possible there's Smart sets even in 2HY 2026. I'm really tempted to say the one silver lining of this wave is we finally get a brick-built dewback, because they are a creature large enough for lego to make reasonably accurately with standard elements... but I'm sure it'll be a simple, blocky design with a big barcode tag on it to integrate with smart bricks.

Good analysis, I think you're on the money with a number of these. However, the statues aren't typically 18+, and we know from the Marvel theme that lego intends for the busts and statues to coexist. I still think we'll see some of them. I still think we'll see a big august wave, we've had them for a long time and I can't see lego frontloading the year only to have virtually nothing in 2HY. If that was the plan, I assume they'd have held the smart sets off until august and released them then. I hate that you're right. This is going to be the singular post of yours that lego listens to, you know. The monkey's paw curls. I understand where you're coming from but I think this is an example where we can look outside the pattern. This year includes both a new movie and lego's weird foray into smart sets. I think it's reasonable to assume there will be more sets than normal and we'll still receive an august wave- it would be extremely strange for lego's 2HY to consist of the calendar and a UCS and nothing else, we almost always get a big august wave. Now that august wave will be a repeat of 2025's in all likelihood, but still. Exactly. (And yeah- it looks like Lloyd's titan mech has knees and can do a kneeling pose, which means at this point the designers can't be stopped. Lack of knees was the only thing holding them back.) Between the leaked sketch of the X-wing, the confirmation that the sets without the smart brick themselves will still have compromised builds (the leakers mentioning how weird the AT-ST looks), and the exorbitant prices with, in some sets, super low figure counts... yeah. There won't be much here at all for people who want normal dumb legos like us. I'd hope so, but what would they even do for ANH anniversary sets? In 2027, we'll already have an X-wing, Millenium Falcon, Cantina, and Landspeeder on shelves. Horrible "smart" versions, yes, but "playsets" all the same. That could have been the year to set a new standard, a new excellent falcon that stays on shelves a half-decade, a cantina with the size and figure count of 2023's Yavin, but no. We had to make the smart versions this year. The wave could have what, a normal TIE fighter (which wouldn't be altogether too exciting seeing as we had one last year- I wouldn't hate it since the normal TIE should be on shelves pretty consistently and the 2024 one would be retiring, but still)? A droid escape pod? The only and only thing I will let myself hope for in 2027 is a UCS Tantive IV.

That is hilarious, I hadn't realized that. It's $15 cheaper, too (though obviously it has no figures and likely has more smaller parts.) It's funny that we're all calling out Ninjago as the one we're comparing it to or wanting to move to. Obviously you can't directly compare everything, such as price, because lego doesn't pay a ninjago license. But you can point out that ninjago doesn't have smart sets, and that their adult-focused sets are much more interesting than most of the 18+ gimmick line SW sets we get. (And while value isn't comparable in terms of ninjago to star wars, you can see that the value of the adult focused ninjago sets isn't worse than that of the playset ones. If anything, it's better- again, that set with EIGHT NEW FIGURES for $45. You can't say the same for LSW- although with august 2025 and 1hy 2026, the playsets seem to have caught up to the 18+ ones in being just disgusting value.) I hope so but I guarantee you there'll be at least one more buildable character, if not multiple- my personal guesses are a Vader or Stormtrooper statue, a clone statue of some kind and/or a new separatist droid. I'll go further and say we'll get at least two more cloneslop sets- my guess is a $40-50ish Wolfpack battle pack and a $160 republic dropship or something with the kashyyyk troopers, ideally one or two of those solid $50-70 starfighters (Something for the separatists would be nice, or maybe a Headhunter. This is also the wave it would make the most sense for a TIE Avenger to appear in -besides the one around Andor's release of course- if it did.), and if we're lucky a few good Ahsoka S2 sets. Actually, I think it'd be just fine. Most starfighters the past few years have been $60-70 or as part of a $110 2-pack. In the worst case, we'd see it in one of those two-packs, where it'd probably be about the same size as the 2016 model (but updated to reflect modern design schemes). In the best case, we'd get it as it's own $70 set, at a pretty good size. And similarly, those $60-70 starfighters and the $110 two packs are decent value, at least compared to most of the other sets in this theme recently. Though I will say, while the TIE advanced would be likely to escape those issues, if we don't want any remakes of sets from a decade or more ago because there's a chance they'd be smaller or more expensive (fun fact by the way, the 2016 set with the advanced is, inflation adjusted, over $120 today despite being if anything less value than the starfighter two packs we tend to get. There is a chance things go poorly.)

It's not bad, but the cockpit area definitely shows it's age. Lots of larger slope pieces, which was starting to fade from the design schema even at that time, and is pretty much gone now. I could MOC it- I have MOCed it in the past, I've been actively working on one the past week or two- but the point is I shouldn't have to resort to MOCs or parting out a decade-old set. This isn't some obscure vehicle from one of the shows- it's the ship the main villain of the original movies uses. I'm sure we'll get a "dumb" palpatine in normal system sets, and Pilot Luke's still warming shelves in his mech. But yes, the dagobah variant (and ironically the farmboy one) probably aren't going to get normal versions anytime soon. Not to mention Greedo, which should be a much bigger deal than he is. He doesn't have a big role in the saga, but his scene in the original movie is super memorable. Everyone knows greedo. My grandma knows greedo. We're not getting a normal greedo anytime soon. That $45 set that has the entire main cast in their season 1/year two outfits, plus an EIGHTH minifigure of one of the masters from the flashbacks, and still has a reasonably large and detailed display build of the monastery entrance? Usually I just drool at the catalog images of the titan mech gundam sets I'd have nowhere to display, but I'm 100% buying that anniversary set. Day One. I might even go to a lego store for it. And while I'm there I might as well pick up that 18+ fire knight mech too... at least ninjago's 18+ sets have minifigures. The 1HYs are usually pretty bad with the 2HYs... not being great, but at least including some decently sized system sets. I'm sure the 2HY this year will continue to... provide system sets at a decent size, but that's about it. Maybe we'll get another one or two of those $50-70 starfighters that tend to be pretty solid- Headhunter, maybe, or a V-wing vs Vulture Droid dogfight set- but I'm sure the rest will be cloneslop where it's some extremely overpriced vehicle with a new-to-2020-design-scheme legion. You hit the nail on the head pretty well. There are three major issues: 1. The Pricing. Luckily I think we're starting to see some cracks appear. The mechs have decreased in price, and the 2025 sets have at least anecdotally being going on more frequent and deeper discounts than I can ever remember a year of SW sets doing upon release. 2. The 18+/gimmick override. Look, nobody's got an issue with there being a few sets a year dedicated to microfighters/battle packs/the 18+ stuff. But we're at the point where almost the entire 1HY is dedicated to some gimmick or another. We get 1-1.5 waves of system playsets a year now, and with the smart gimmick killing more playsets, it's going to get really bad. If it wasn't for there being a movie this year, we'd have no system sets over 210 pieces for 2/3rds of the year. 3. Playset era imbalance- it's almost all clones. Of course. Lego has figured out they can sell pretty much anything with a couple troopers of a new legion in it and it will still be considered and purchased as if it was a clone battle pack. If the 327th pack's sales and the lack of discounts on the Juggernaut are any indication, that's only going to continue to spiral. Hopefully we'll get some good ahsoka S2 stuff later this year, or the Mando sets will surprise us, but if that's not the case it looks like I'm entering my second year without buying any new star wars sets. Oh man I hadn't read through all the descriptions yet but man these are terrible. Some especially perfect bits: The minifigure counts are disgusting, as I'm sure we all expected (2 minifigures in a $70 set?) but the selections are hilarious too. Luke's landspeeder coming with him, a Jawa, and a GNK? No R2 or threepio? They're unsure whether or not the cantina includes ANY heroes besides Old Ben, it would be hilarious if Luke and Han weren't there because I'm not even sure what they'd depict on the box- Greedo just having a nice drink? The Cantina piece count is perfect for this subline, as if the devil himself was behind this wave. The TIE advanced may actually be getting it the worst- 473 pieces with two side builds? Either it's a microfighter with a smart brick sticking out the back, or it's a large 4+ build. That $100 falcon is going to look ATROCIUS. The current falcons could definitely be downsized a bit and stay figure-scale, but by "a bit" I mean down to like a $130-140 price tag, not a smart-fig-inflated $100. This falcon has just about HALF the piece count of the previous one (56%).

Those would both be good options. A Carbon Freeze Chamber with bespin lando specifically would be a great choice because I don't think that figure's been reasonably accessible in modern design scheme. Ironically the last two of him in system sets were BOTH the 2003 look. If that's what Renown meant I'm gonna lose it. Preseumably there will be a mini and gross "smart" A-wing included but I will excuse this build, and this build ONLY, for the fact that intentionally or not they're representing the scene where that one A-wing pilot crashes into the executor bridge and it's somehow the straw the breaks the camel's back, causing the executor to crash into the death star. Yup. This wave is irrevocably compromised. None of these should count as "resetting the clock" on our remakes so to speak, but I have no doubt this will set the timeline back even farther on our next normal TIE Advanced. (I also think the Endor AT-ST and playset Mos Eisley were about due for a remake, but they're compromised as well.) I just can't see that being the case either unfortunately. Almost all of lego's app-or-technology-integration effects this past decade or so have failed. Mario seems to be doing well enough, but we have no metric for how well "dumb" mario playsets would do so it's hard to compare. This is almost a worst-case scenario for me. Not only is it a full wave of irrevocably compromised sets, but it sets the clock back on a number of sets I either really wanted to get normal versions of (TIE advanced) or thought could really use some solid updates (A new Endor AT-ST, a playset Mos Eisely, and an OT millenium falcon). It will now be longer still before we get actual good versions of those. Not to mention, given the literal only time lego's ever learned the correct lesson from set sales was "nobody is buying $18 mechs make them cheaper", this will probably lead to lego thinking OT playsets won't sell and doubling down on making sure the few system sets we still get are just different sizes of clone battle packs.

Interesting. Are you counting the mini tie advanced included in the death star, as that set retired just under five years ago? I assume you meant that or the European magazine polybag from 2023, but I will irresponsibly be taking this as evidence the TIE Advanced set isn't actually compromised by smart bricks. I wouldn't count the UCS set, as it's just a segment of a $1000 set so it's wild different than anything else, but I'd agree that the diorama is more or less the same as the 2020 set in terms of representation and that this new one's coming a bit soon. That said, being a smartslop set, at least it resets the clock on the next actual throne room duel set. I'd much rather the smart sets be remakes of things we've recently gotten than new or long-retired material. They really need to do a cloud city in the vein of the old 2003 set, or similar to 2023's Yavin.