Kit Figsto

I'll be curious to see for sure. The AT-TE and Republic Gunship were both $140 and seemed to hover right around that $115 mark after about 8-10 months of being on shelves (I think that on a good sale week, they were like $100?). If these sets, which had a higher MSRP, end up cheaper than those were, I think it's reasonable to infer that sales have been poor.

I agree, but wouldn't that support the point that he was making? If we're assuming that there's a markup on PAB parts (which there definitely is) to account for the fact that everything is hand-picked and inventoried, the parts themselves would, in theory, cost under $100, meaning that LEGO's charging essentially a $50-60 premium for: licensing fees, design costs, 5 minifigures, and 3 battle droids, which is absurd. My own observations, after having been to two Targets and a Walmart in the past couple of days is that we're screwed when it comes to any hope of them changing prices. I saw plenty of Microfighters and Night Trooper BPs, a handful of the Snowspeeder and V-19, probably 40+ of Jango's ship, but a total of one MTT, no CTT, and only a couple of 327th BPs between all of the stores. So much for "these prices are too much so I'm not going to buy!" that I saw seeing all over Reddit and Instagram. Another interesting thing, at one of the Targets, they had an endcap with a bunch of sets that were $9.99 or less. There were probably 5-6 City, Creator and Friends sets each, a couple of Ninjago, a Minecraft set, an Animal Crossing set, a Technic set, and I think a couple of Marvel and Dreamzz sets. Nothing from SW (or DC, for that matter, but that's a whole separate thing ), though in the aisle itself, the Luke mech was marked down to like $9.49 or something. Anyway, I think that's another big problem with the theme right now, there is truly nothing affordable/"allowance money" priced other than a microscale Falcon polybag (which looks really good, but doesn't have the same play value that a full set with minifigures has) or a mech, which, again, has playability, but not the same way that some of the small City or Ninjago stuff does, where you're getting a vehicle and 2+ minifigures. The term "conflict in a box" gets thrown around, but the fact is, with SW, your cheapest possible set in that instance is like $25-30, whereas you can get it in City, Ninjago, or Marvel for $10-15.

First point, I agree. I'm usually okay with/understanding of minifigure decisions, even if they are strange at times, because I'm assuming there's either budgetary constraints or other issues that we aren't privy to. This just completely baffles me - as you said, this is literally the most expensive set ever and is supposed to be the flagship LSW set - what could possibly top this? It should be the gold standard of detail, especially in cases where it's super easy - the lack of dual molded legs on C-3PO is especially odd. And I agree, I'd love some Kenner-esque location playsets. The MBS Cloud City is one of my favorite sets of all time, and I'd love if it they released a downscaled version (I know, I know, "downscaled" is a bad word around here ) with like the dining room, hallway section, carbon freezing chamber, and dueling catwalk. I'm thinking something like the Kenner Micro Collection Cloud City, though probably a bit smaller.

At this point, how many original SW molds are still around and in use? I count the battle droid head/body/legs, Qui-Gon's hair, Royal Guard helmet, Astromech bodies/heads/legs, lightsaber hilts, and I think that's it? Obviously, there's some newer ones that haven't had time to be re-molded or updated, but of the ones going back 20-25 years, it seems like that's it. Kind of impressive that some of them, like battle droids, Astromechs, and lightsabers, have held up this long, as they got them pretty much perfectly the first time around. This is a good point. I'm not usually too upset with small details on minifigures being not 100% accurate, but I agree that if this set is the most expensive one ever, it should be as close to perfect as possible. I own two MBS/UCS sets, the Cantina and Cloud City, both of which were $350, and the figures are pretty much perfect in those. The Cantina alone had, I believe, three new minfiigure part molds, two of which are fairly unlikely to appear again (Ponda Baba probably has to show up again at some point, but I highly doubt it with Labria, and Garindan is like 50/50 at best), and Cloud City had pretty much the best possible versions of Han, Lando, and Boba Fett ever made, not to mention Bespin Leia, Luke, and brand new Cloud Car pilot designs with a new helmet mold.

I think it really depends on the retailer and the set. The 20% off thing really only became the common practice maybe 4-5 years ago, because growing up, LEGO was almost never, EVER on sale, unless it was a clearance situation. If you've got a situation with, say, the Turbo Tank, it's unlikely that the average person is buying multiples of that, so if sales are really, really poor at full price and pick up a little bit at 20-30% off sales, I think stores would notice that. I doubt that was the case with stuff like the AT-TE or Coruscant Gunship, my educated guess is that those sold pretty well at full price and even better on sale.

As long as they can keep pumping out 4+ Batman vs. Joker sets and $300+ D2C stuff that appears to keep selling well, I don't see it ever getting cancelled. At the very least, LEGO having the license means that Mattel's building brick brand or another competitor can't get it.

Yes, I agree here, I think that LEGO prices from the “golden age” in the eyes of many (80s/90s) were actually quite a bit higher than people realize. I believe that the Forestmen’s Crossing has an inflation-adjusted price of like $70, Enchanted Island was around $150, the original Eldorado Fortress was somewhere in that $160 neighborhood, etc, which all translate to horrendous PPP ratios. Granted, they all included baseplates and some larger elements, but they were still, without a doubt, very expensive, especially if other tots on the shelves, like action figures or Hot Wheels cars, cost $3 or $1 each. I don’t disagree with the point that prices lately have risen at a somewhat unreasonable and unsustainable level, but I think part of this is our perception. Prices in the 2000s and 2010s remained mostly stable - a $20 set in 2002 felt like it was pretty much the same size as a $20 set in 2018, and it felt like the value was there. Lately, it feels like large parts have completely gone by the wayside and while we’re still getting similar price per piece ratios, a lot of it feels overengineered just to inflate the part count. That said, I think a happy medium is absolutely doable. I think that people would be upset if they put out a 400 piece set at $150 but justified it because it had a raised baseplate (as if we’re ever getting those back…) but I also think that modern manufactuing techniques, and economies of scale would suggest that the cost should be able to stay closer to what it was 8 years ago. It definitely does with some stuff - the Up House or the recent Indiana Jones sets felt like they were priced very fairly, yet you’ll have stuff like this summer’s Star Wars wave or some of the Batman stuff where everything feels $20-30 overpriced, even if the PPP seems okay.

I think this is also the issue. People on YouTube on Instagram and Reddit are going to complain nonstop about prices/design/whatever else regardless, just as it's been for the past 5 years (and in this case, I do feel that it's justified), yet, lo and behold, I'll bet that most LEGO stores will still sell out of the majority of this wave on August 1st. There's no real incentive for them to change their design practices if stuff is still flying off of the shelves as it has been for years now.

Agree with all. I don't think it's necessarily the designers' faults, as the Juggernaut is seemingly the first time in a while that I remember seeing a set with truly major stability issues (this problem was much, much more common 20-30 years ago, but it's really a thing of the past now), I'm guessing it's a lot more of constraints with budgets + part counts, which is where my issues lie. The U-Wing is another great example of a set that probably shouldn't have been downscaled. I own the previous one and the new one, in comparison, just doesn't look like as good of a toy. The design itself is a little bit sleeker and cleaner, but as an actual, playable toy, the 2017 version seems far, far, far superior. The thing is, I would have no problem with paying $100-120 for an updated U-Wing at the same scale as the 2017 version. What I don't want is a $70 version that's much smaller and somehow still seems overpriced. There's certain sets that don't need to be scaled down, and there's also certain sets that somehow are simultaneously scaled down and still just as expensive as before. They have to pick one, though.

I'm not usually one to get super upset with LEGO's decisions (the way I see it, it's a toy and it's out of my control, not worth me getting worked up over, and I can usually see some logic in the decision making) but this one is just ridiculous. The size comparison is super telling. I have no problem with downscaled sets, WHEN APPROPRIATE - I've said it many times on this forum, but the 2020/21 (forgot which year, exactly) versions of the X-Wing and TIE at $50 and $40, respectively, were perfect. Good size, great price, just enough detail + minifigure inclusions to make a really fun playable and displayable set, especially since the prior versions of those sets were like $90 and $80 and much larger than they needed to be. The problem is that there are sets that don't need to be downscaled, this being one of them. Previous iterations of the set have shown that for the same exact piece count, they can make something larger, but once again, it's my biggest gripe with modern LEGO (specifically SW), as it's using a bunch of tiny pieces when previously, one would do the trick. What is the aversion to using large pieces or making large models? I'm not asking for the return of molded baseplates or giant classic space translucent window pieces, because I know that's not happening, but it feels as if every piece larger than, like, an 8x8 plate is being phased out. Is it just cheapness?

I'll say this once again, but this is yet another example of the downsizing stuff with part counts that seem okay on the surface, but are overengineered with tiny pieces (IMO, just for the sake of boosting the piece count) and somehow ending up with a smaller piece count. What the heck is LEGO's aversion to using, like, actually decent sized pieces these days? Looking at Jango's ship here, it looks like it's about 8 bricks tall at the top of the cockpit and slopes up another 2-3. Compare that to the model from 2006, almost 20 years old, which had about 200 fewer pieces and looks to be either 13 or 14 bricks tall all the way across, while also being wider. That one cost $50, which, accounting for inflation, is $81. So we've got a price difference, in theory, of $11, yet the actual size is significantly smaller than that. I truly think that this is mostly a Star Wars problem - there's a number of sets out right now that seem to have completely reasonable pricing (most of Dreamzzz's prices seem fine, the recent Indiana Jones stuff was priced well, City seems to be okay, HP and Marvel don't seem too bad, and some of the Disney stuff is well priced, like the Up house). The only other series that seem to have consistently terrible pricing is DC/Batman. I just don't get it. Where is the value?

That's really interesting, because one of the sets that I didn't have this issue with was the Scorpion Tracker (5918), which features part 3483 for its tires. However, the tires that did have the slimy issue were part 6015, which I didn't have the problem with on two other sets from 1997 that both featured that exact same part (10 total across both sets). Now I'm wondering if it was a storage issue or a manufacturing issue. The parts cracking lead me to believe that it may have played a factor, but I'm not sure now!

Regarding the point about instructions/individual parts not being "new," I've always felt that the distinction between selling individual parts, minifigures, boxes, or instructions and listing them as "new" was kind of hokey to begin with. I might be in the minority here, but to me, something is "new" when it's in the original box and has not been opened or used. If someone buys a set and parts it out, the brick may not have been used in the sense of being built with, but in my mind, by it being removed from all original packaging, it has lost its "newness." Especially in the case of a minifigure, it's impossible, in my mind, for it to be sold as "new" but loose, because it requires assembly. Further, there's literally no way to verify newness of parts coming from BL or other third party sellers. Without a doubt, there's ways to tell if a brick or minifigure has been used (scratches, cracks, damaged edges/corners, etc.) but I could very easily disassemble a set of mine that I just recently bought and list the parts as "new" because they still look new enough. Now, this might beg the question "if it looks new, who cares?" but my point is that, as someone who really only buys new stuff, I won't buy parts from third party sellers because, again, I want to get something "new" and not "used being passed off as new," especially if I'm paying a premium for new items. If buying used doesn't bother you, more power to you. This gets even more shady at times on eBay, where I see people all the time listing stuff that is blatantly used under the "new" category. I can't tell how you many people I've seen literally listing built sets as "new" which, I don't care how good of condition it's in, that's just untrue (especially when it's a set from the early 90s!). Regarding the set, though, I think it's just a case of bad luck and poor storage on the part of the seller. I bought a new copy of 6753 Arctic Expedition off of eBay earlier this year, and it was very clearly sealed, but I'm guessing had been stored in a garage or some place without climate control, because the robot vehicle's tires had a very slimy, sticky residue on them (likely from melting), one of the minifigure's torsos had a very stiff arm, which upon messing with, caused the arm itself to break and the torso to crack, and a 1x2 grill tile also cracked. My guess is that heat caused the plastic to weaken over time, but I'm not sure. In the time since then, I've bought and built a total of 3 other sets from 1997 and 1998 (all of which are actually older than the Arctic Expedition set) that contain between them 16 tires, and the worst issue that I ran into was one of the sets having a slight crease in the sticker sheet. No melting issues with the rubber pieces, nor do any bricks feel brittle. One of the sets was purchased from BL, the other two from a LEGO resale shop near me. Sometimes that sort of thing happens, and it's unfortunate when it does, but I don't think it really is worth the time or effort that it would take for sellers to create fake sealed sets, at least in the case of like 99% of sets, especially since it would have to be convincing enough to actually fool a customer.

I think that the downscaled stuff was perfect around 2020-2021 when they first started doing it. That was the year of the $50 X-Wing and $40 TIE, which were fantastic. Much more similar to the older 2000s models, but updated techniques and nothing felt over-engineered. The ships were also simply getting too big. The Solo TIE Fighter was like $70 and was just massive for no real reason, so a downscaled version was great. The problem has been that we're either getting stuff that's downscaled but somehow is the same piece count as before (the ARC-170, for example, which I think actually has more pieces than the previous version despite being smaller) or stuff that doesn't need to be downscaled.

The CTT doesn't look bad design-wise, I think the thing that's really throwing me off is the fact that it's only 4 studs wide at the front cockpit. The photo's perspective is also kind of odd, because it looks like the body ends over the 4th set of wheels, but there's a 5th pair of wheel behind it (which would make sense, as the thing has 10 wheels, so I'm not totally sure what's going on there). The minifigures look really good, though. I don't see myself getting it, but it's an interesting one, and I'd like to see the interior/additional photos. I think that the V-19 looks really good, and price-wise, doesn't seem too bad, especially if a discount knocks it down to $55-ish. I don't really have a desire for the ship in my collection, so I doubt that I'll buy it, but that one to me might be the best looking set. I'll probably be picking up Jango's Starship once it's on sale, I don't love it for $70 (I think the new size is just a little bit too small, I think that the 2002, 2006, 2010, and anniversary versions were best there) but the minifigures are awesome and I've wanted this version of the ship for a while. Bly looks phenomenal to me, but that's about it that I'm interested in on the MTT, so I'll pass. I like the Wicket set, but I won't be getting it. The Snowspeeder looks fun and I like the canopy piece a lot. Again, might be a sale purchase for me.

At least that one fake leaker on Instagram posts creative photoshopped stuff (I forgot their name, but it was the one who did the minidoll Kaminoan a couple of years back). The rest seem to either just steal actual leaks and pass themselves off as credible, make stuff up that seems sort of plausible but way too good to be true, or just be as vague as possible so that they can point to literally anything and say "See! I predicted this!"

That seems likely to me. I know in the past that there's been reliable leakers on Instagram or Eurobricks who have drip fed info and they've alluded to not being able to reveal specific things until certain times - why, who knows, but I'd imagine it might have to do with not revealing their sources (maybe after X date, some stuff becomes more known within LEGO employees, so therefore it's less obvious who leaked it if the stuff comes out to the public beforehand, something like that?). jdubbs was one that would often do this, but he'd do stuff cryptically, generally feeding info way before other leakers on Instagram or Reddit would, and it was always correct. I remember he was the first one to mention that we'd be getting an MBS Cantina. However, people like this typically would do more "big picture" leaks - we're getting X ship/location, or we're getting a minifigure of Y character at some point this summer. What they didn't do is all of the annoying style of leaking that's become commonplace, and I'm convinced is just clickbait stuff, that's like "the Turbo Tank includes AT LEAST one minifigure that has a left foot!" Half of the Instagram leakers seem to be doing this, and I think it's a mix of people not actually knowing anything but wanting to seem reliable, or people just trying to farm engagement.

No, you're right. There's definitely been a clamping down on leaks. 4-5 years ago, we'd have pretty much had descriptions and fairly complete minifigure lists, and then usually one or two sets would've been officially revealed in April/May, with leaks coming near the end of May/start of June. I don't know who else remembers, but in either 2020 or 2021, they did a that virtual LEGO convention, and half of the Internet was mad because the reveals were of stuff that already leaked (outrage that I thought was really dumb, because...the whole point is leaks is that they aren't supposed to be out in public, so of course they're going to still reveal the stuff anyway). Now? We've got a few sets that we still weren't even 100% sure what they were until like a week ago.

I feel as if LEGO's ability to increase the detail of their sets (with both better building techniques, new parts, new colors, etc) has been a blessing and a curse. Even comparing modern sets to stuff from 10-15 years ago, it's night and day in terms of the level of detail and "sleekness" that modern stuff has. Even over the last 4-5 years, there's been jumps - I'm using a now SW example, but compared the semi truck in 60305 with the one from 60408 or the truck in 60406. That's a 4 year gap and the newer ones look very different when you look closely at the details. However, that's just the thing, at least in my opinion - when you look closely. Some of these differences feel negligible, yet we're taking like 100 more pieces to build something that just doesn't need 100 more pieces, and in the process, is smaller. The U-Wing is a great example. The new one looks great. It's accurate to the source material, the shaping looks good, the minifigures look good, etc. However, I saw it in person for the first time yesterday, and the thing is TINY compared to the Rogue One version. In spite of that, it costs $70 ($10 less than the original) and only has 50 fewer pieces, even though it's an inch shorter with the wings closed and an inch narrower with the wings closed (I can't find specs with them open) has one fewer minifigure, doesn't have the guns in the crew hold, and the wings are 2 studs narrower on each side. The engines on the new one look way better, the front section of the cargo hold looks like a much smoother transition to the body, and the minifigures look great, but that's coming at the expense of a lot of the parts that went into the size of the first one being re-allocated to make the engines or cargo doors more detailed. I wouldn't be surprised if the wings on the new one take the same amount of parts as the old one, despite being like half of the width. The ARC-170 is another great example of this, but I don't own any of them, so I can't compare it as easily as I can with the U-Wing. The new one is like 200 pieces more than the last one and looks to be about 2/3rds of the size. My point here is that, yes, the new stuff looks great. Yes, the price per piece ratios are *generally* still pretty solid. Yes, we're getting more sturdy, detailed models. However, in doing so, it feels like almost everything is overengineered just for the sake of overengineering it. I don't think it's the fault of designers, because they're clearly very talented at what they do, and working with limitations, but it does really feel, at times, that they're just cramming more and more pieces into a smaller and smaller package, because they can't get the same level of detail into a larger set without the part count being astronomical, and therefore the price being astronomical. The thing is, I don't really feel like I need that level of detail. I'm perfectly happy with exposed studs or with stuff that maybe isn't 100% accurate to the real thing. Back to my non-SW example, I've got the LEGOLAND California truck from 1997 sitting on the table next to me as I write this, I bought it a few weeks ago, built it, and have had it out since. Is it as accurate as a new City set? Not even close. Are there areas where the stability isn't great? Absolutely. But, it's just as recognizable as a semi truck as one put out this year, and I think that point is overlooked. I don't need a screen-accurate Millennium Falcon, I just want it to look good on display, have play features, and have a decent level of detail. I don't need every stud to be tiled over or every single curve to be perfectly smooth.

I think this explanation is most likely. I could definitely see the UT-AT being the original idea, and then the designers/whoever deciding that Turbo Tank would sell better (let's face it, it's way more recognizable, especially since it showed up in Mando, and as a toy, it probably is more appealing - giant tank with 10 wheels versus a hovertank that would probably just look like a rectangle with a cockpit and gun) but included the Galactic Marines still. Also, after the whole Target Temple of Doom thing, I'm wary about point-of-sale leaks (I know that situation was different, but still).

Hey, fair enough. I legitimately wasn't sure if it was a popular choice or if this was just people making a mountain out of a molehill. I do think that the Turbo Tank is more known (especially as it had a prominent role in the Mandalorian, even if it wasn't the exact same version), but I can understand being disappointed if someone like yourself was hoping for a UT-AT. I guess I just wasn't sure, since some people seemed more hyped about the figures, and if that's the case, then it wouldn't really matter to that person if it was a Turbo Tank or UT-AT, as long as it's the same minifigures. Fair, but I guess to me, it seems less disappointing of a remake since it's only been made 3 times in the past 20 years. With the larger set price points, I feel like there's typically one pretty much reserved for the Falcon at all times, so the other 1-2 that we get at a time in that $140-180 range isn't going to have a ton of variety if they're trying to accommodate requested remakes and new stuff.

Turbo Tank sounds great. I think it's worth reserving judgement on the piece count until we actually see the thing, because it's inevitably going to have a lot of large pieces, with the wheels and the plates that probably will make up the sides/roof. Are people that attached to a UT-AT, or is this just complaining for the sake of complaining? It was in the movie for like three seconds (in the background of a scene where the action didn't take place in the background, nonetheless), whereas the Turbo Tank, while also initially in the background of scenes, has at least shown up repeatedly in semi-large roles in other shows. Plus, they've pretty much always played loosey goosey with clone legions and vehicles, not really adhering to specific scenes, but more of a "this is a clone vehicle, so we'll throw in this legion and this Jedi" even if it didn't actually appear together on screen, since at some point, they probably would've fought with that specific vehicle. Also, while it is a remake, I feel like people online are also constantly complaining about the demand for certain remakes - well, I checked BL, and the cheapest Turbo Tank is $300 for a new one ($190 for a sealed Brickmaster polybag version), so there is most definitely demand for this.

The 4+ Poe's X-Wing from a few years ago seemed to have a decently long shelf life (about 18 months) and I don't recall it getting clearanced, at least. That said, the junior sets are probably a bit different in demographic in that it's like, 80% just parents buying whatever is on shelves, or the kid wanting a LEGO Star Wars set and that being the age-appropriate one. This is an unpopular opinion, but the two packs that you mentioned, as well as the things like the Imperial Guards + Gunners or Jedi + Clone BP were some of my favorites. The Tatooine one was just a unique and cool concept, and inadvertently became a perfect add-on pack to go with the MBS Cantina (it was just, like, three years too early), the Bounter Hunter one was a fantastic way to get 4 desirable characters, and the others were just interesting to me. I'd love it if they did one army building BP + one character-based BP at the same time (stuff like an all-Jedi BP, one with some named Clones, an Endor one with some Ewoks, et cetera), but I think since they scaled the number back, the focus is going to be on the army building ones, or maybe the 2 vs. 2 concept (like the Mandalorian one on shelves right now).

I'm guessing that the fact that they can repeat the same figure 3 times also helps budget-wise, since whatever overhead costs are associated with designing the print and setting up the machine to print it can be factored out of the equation. I still don't quite understand the logic sometimes behind what does/doesn't get printed arms or dual molded legs, but this instance makes some sense to me.

Well, it was indeed fake. Ah, well.