Kit Figsto

I'm also someone that prefers all of my pieces are new, so you're not alone there! Buying the Ninjago Gardens and parting it out sounds like a good idea, especially if you do what you said and sell the figures to make back a bit of that money. If you get lucky, too, sometimes you can find the bulk brick "sets" on sale, I remember here in the US there was one of the large $50 sets of random bricks that people were finding at Walmart for incredibly cheap. Those are a bit more unusual to find on sale, but if you are able to get those, it's nice for just basic bricks of different colors, which are sometimes more difficult than you might think to acquire. As far as acquiring more specialized or rare elements, your best bet is to use Pick a Brick or Bricks and Pieces, there's a topic over on the Licensed Themes subforum where people talk about specialized parts from sets (printed tiles, minifigure accessories, that sort of thing) available on Bricks and Pieces. It's fairly affordable to order off of there, the biggest downside is that once they run out of parts to sell, they almost never restock (my guess is that it's extras that they had from their inventory of replacement parts, so they need to retain some to send out as possible replacements and can only sell a certain amount).

I could also see them adding a certain spoiler-y figure, since it wouldn't require a new design or anything, but it depends how soon after the release of the season finale that they still consider it to be spoilers. A second Darktrooper, to me, is probably the best choice, since there were multiple onboard the ship and we're not going to really have an opportunity to get more of them in any other sets unless they did something based on Episode 14 (the first one with Boba Fett). Plus, keeping Bo-Katan exclusive to the Mandalorian Fighter entices people to buy that (and thankfully it's only $60, if I remember right).

The May UCS (which I believe is the gunship?) tends to usually get a reveal in late April, typically UCS stuff doesn't really leak or if it does, it's very close to the official reveal date. For example, the cantina had one of the promo shots leak like two weeks before the reveal and I think a blurry picture of the set as a whole came out about a week before the official reveal. I would assume that the Lars Homestead is indeed a vignette, since I highly doubt they would make one of the most requested locations into a set that is super limited in quantity and only available with the purchase of a UCS set. Last year, we got a very blurry picture of General Grievous' fighter right around this time, but that was highly atypical if I remember right. We had the 501st set officially revealed in April, I believe the AT-AT revealed in mid-May, and then everything else leaked at like the end of May/early June. I would assume some stuff might trickle out in the spring, but the safest assumption is just early summer for pictures.

I think if they want to go for total accuracy, it would be a new mold, worst case scenario they just give us a black bar piece and a lightsaber hilt. Most likely is probably just a black katana piece, though, at least in my opinion.

I'm actually very surprised they're making it, I didn't expect it since it's pretty different from every other Speed Champions set thus far, but I'm definitely going to have to get that set! I'm wondering if they'll license it through the team that actually runs the MOPAR dragsters, since they only sponsor like two cars (whereas with the NASCAR-inspired Camaro, Chevy has multiple cars). Unlikely, but they've had some really cool designs for the MOPAR dragsters in the past few years, so I'd love to see a realistic version. The Corvette pack sounds great as well.

Echo and Hunter, from what I can see, look like their helmets would be fine with their normal P2 mold, just printed sort of like they did JEK-14's helmet. Tech definitely would require a new mold, though. If they only could do one molded helmet, I'd rather they Wrecker's helmet re-used an existing mold and was slightly less accurate over Tech's, since I think Tech's is a bit more distinctive.

I was thinking, something that might work really well is a line in the style of the winter village sets. One release each year, something around $80-150, and they can rotate which theme the set is based off of each year. So one year they might do a large set that's based on the old Forestmen sets, then the next year, we get something that resembles Blacktron, the next year something from Pirates, then throw in something from like Adventurers or Paradisa or something. And they could do stuff sort of like Barracuda Bay, where they take inspiration from an old set, but it's not necessarily a direct remake of it. LEGO seems hesitant to bring back some of these old themes, I guess because full lines of Castle/Pirates/Space haven't been as lucrative as their main cash cows (City, Ninjago, Technic, Friends, licensed stuff), and they're never going to please everyone, since some sectors of the fandom just want basically a continuation of 80s/90s lines, while others don't care about all of that stuff and would want new subthemes and all. This would allow them to do stuff that fans ask for in terms of bringing back old themes, but they don't have to actually launch an entire theme that only appeals to a certain sector of those nostalgic for it.

I think this is considered on-topic since it's about 2021 sets but please don't hurt me mods if I'm straying here. Was the figure lineup for Gideon's cruiser ever actually confirmed? Because I think that one in particular had some conflicting reports early on about who was coming, I remember some people were saying Bo-Katan was in it, then others said that she was only coming in the Mandalorian Starfighter. Actually for that matter, are any of these figure lineups confirmed for sure, is it something where we know certain figures (Gar Saxon, Bo-Katan, etc) are coming, but it's more of a guess as far as which sets they're part of, or is it something like what happened last fall where the preliminary info was only partially complete (like the X-Wing). Just because, I mean, some of these reported fig lineups seem fairly intuitive (like if the Slave I is indeed an OT version, of course it'll have Boba and Han, getting all 5 of the Bad Batch makes sense in a $100 set, Ahsoka vs. Maul should contain, well, Ahsoka and Maul, et cetera).

Love the use of those rounded 1x1 tiles for the valve covers, and the Technic pins work amazingly well for the fuel injection stacks. Nice work!

I felt the same way, I know that they gave the option for "add a subtheme" but it seemed like space would almost assuredly be some sort of classic space blue/gray/yellow ship and pirates would probably be a ship, whereas I would've totally voted for one of the later space subthemes or imperials (a remake of Imperial Trading Post would be incredible). I wasn't confident enough that people would actually push for one of those subthemes, so I went with Castle, since I think it has the best chance to incorporate aspects from forestmen or other factions.

And the Star Wars figures, considering how "meh" the reaction to those seemed to be, still stuck around for like 3-4 years. Point being, there was still a demand even if that wasn't what constraction fans necessarily were hoping for. Part of that may be because the Star Wars branding propped it up a bit, but I also feel like some of those legitimately looked really, really good (Boba Fett, Darth Vader, Grievous), and proved that they can still make appealing constraction figures (and the prices on the secondary market for some of those shows it, too).

I think it has a couple of things working against it. It did get a lot of votes initially, but you had to remember that people who didn't vote for any of Bionicle/Castle/Pirates/Space the first time are probably more likely to throw their support behind something that's a system theme (if someone didn't vote for Bionicle the first go-round, I really don't see them voting for it this time), so I feel like Bionicle's total isn't likely to really go up from its initial vote total. Secondly, LEGO is keeping this vote blind (as far as we know), so, if they don't think Bionicle is viable as a one-off, 18+ set, they can just not make it. And I feel like of the four, Bionicle is the weakest "on-paper" idea of the four themes as an 18+, large scale set. I feel like the best outcome here might be that Bionicle doesn't win (Bionicle fans don't kill me please) but rather, LEGO sees that there is a large demand for it to come back, and tries either a new constraction theme or revives it for a third attempt. If they want to attempt to re-capture the story of Bionicle, doing one set isn't going to be very effective, I think they'd need a full theme to really do it.

I think a Geonosis Arena and maybe a Jedi Temple could work as MBS sets in the future, but again, I feel like it depends on whether or not LEGO sees prequel MBS as a viable product, and whether or not they see the buyer market for MBS as the same for UCS sets. Either way, though, I'm definitely anxious to see how the Gunship turns out. I more than likely wasn't going to buy it (I don't think I can justify the Cantina PLUS the Gunship in the span of a year ), but I am curious to see how they do it and how large it actually is.

Realistically that's what I see happening. Even if this were a minifig-scale set, at $350, I don't know how well it would've sold with the demographic that was very vocal about this set in the poll. I don't frequent a lot of those communities online but I do browse sometimes in the Youtube/Instagram/Reddit areas where people were throwing support behind this, a very common theme is "That's overpriced" or "I want this but I don't have the money" or whatever. That's obviously not everyone, but people on the younger end have less disposable income to throw down on a $350 set, especially those too young to work (I can 100% guarantee my parents would've never sprung for a $350 set, and it would've taken me forever to save up that much). Perhaps my naysaying is totally wrong, but I think if this fails (which I think it currently has more working against it than it does for it), prequel UCS in the future is dead in the water. No idea if that would rule out the chances of a prequel MBS set in the future since I can't really tell how LEGO treats it versus the UCS line (do they see it as a separate target market or not, etc).

Well put on all points! I'd also love to see some of those sets remade, I voted for Castle but I'd absolutely love a remake of any of those Space sets and the Imperial Trading Post in particular as well! I completely agree that I think with those big, long running themes, I think it's more about whether it fits the "spirit" of the theme. Obviously if I took a set from Galaxy Squad, a set from Life on Mars, a set from Ice Planet 2002, and a set from 70s Classic Space, they're going to look completely out of place with each other, but they all still fit into the idea of LEGO space, what with exploration and futuristic vehicles, with some of the themes having some kind of aliens involved too. Like, you could do the same thing with a City set, World City set, something from 90s town, and something from 70s town, where each of those are going to be very, very different in terms of the level of detail and such, but they're all part of the same idea of representing an everyday vehicle or location in LEGO.

Agree on the gunship, and about Shaak Ti, if you rewatch the scene, it's actually sort of comical, when the Jedi are boarding the gunships to escape, Ki-Adi-Mundi's actor is really going above and beyond with deflecting laser blasts, while Shaak Ti is like hobbling over to the gunship, you'd think they would've reshot it with a bit more urgency. But yeah, reading YouTube and Instagram comments, it was honestly ridiculous the expectations people had for this set. It wasn't going to be Clone Wars based (they've only done 1.5 prequel UCS sets that clearly didn't sell very well, and now people expect to branch out and make a UCS set based on a cartoon, that yes, does have appeal beyond kids, but is largely targeted at 9-14 year olds??), and even if we DID get P2 Cody, it was almost certainly not going to be minifigure-based. People were expecting it to be something like the AT-OT and Dropship and now are going to be mad at "Lazy LEGO for screwing this set up" even though almost no UCS ships are in the style of a playset. And again, even if we did get P2 Cody, how many people would've spent $350 for one figure? If people mostly cared about the figures, it wasn't about the model in the first place, so why push so hard for a UCS one where the focus is on a display piece?

If I had to guess, I wouldn't be surprised if they do consider doing some "throwback" themed sets after this whole thing is over. Barracuda Bay seems to be popular, like you said, and this poll got over 70,000 votes. Even if some of those were dummy accounts that people made to vote multiple times, that's still a ton of people interested in this. Between the four that made it plus Adventurers and Trains, all of those had over 10,000 votes each, which I think would indicate that there is a demand for doing sets based on these old themes.

Heck, people don't even really consider Rock Raiders to be space even though it's set in outer space/on alien planets. (For what it's worth, I think it's totally fair to not really think of it under the space umbrella because for the most part, they could be futuristic Earth vehicles, they just happen to be put in space). If people don't accept that as space, there's no chance whatsoever people are going to accept a globe model as part of space. I understand the argument that "LEGO might count it as space" but even then I highly doubt it, I think LEGO has enough sense to know what people are asking for when it comes to space.

Even if LEGO counts it as a "space" set, that it very much not what space fans are looking for. When people think LEGO Space, I would assume most people are thinking of playsets with a futuristic design - spaceships, lunar bases, robots, rovers, etc. Even if the Blacksmith isn't a "castle" per say, it fits in very well with the established Castle builds and themes. They've done blacksmith shops or buildings that aren't a castle, but most definitely fit into the medieval style. A display model of the Earth doesn't really fit with any prior space theme, whether it's the 70s Classic Space or 2009 Space Police III.

I think the problem was that nothing should've been split into subthemes from the get-go. There were 30 themes, of which fourteen were original. There were literally more subthemes than overarching themes! I'm counting "Castle" as an overall thing, not breaking it up into what counts as classic castle and what's not, same with space, I'm not dividing it up into what's considered classic space and what is, I dunno, "early-modern space" or something (I kid ). That's also counting Aquazone and Rock Raiders as their own things, the former I heard was supposed to take place in space, the latter I know was set in space, but with both I don't think they're really fair to count as space, since they were primarily just underwater/land vehicles, not spacecraft or bases. What they should've just done is get rid of Divers/Xtreme Team/Arctic and throw that in with Town, get rid of Imperials and throw that in with Pirates, get rid of all of the Castle subthemes and just do a blanket "Castle" thing, get rid of the Space subthemes and do a blanket "Space" thing, and then add in one more theme if they want a round 15 (Galidor, perhaps , or more realistically, they could've done Exo-Force, Vikings, Racers, Island Xtreme Stunts, or like Agents or something). It wouldn't really matter anyway since realistically the only theme that wasn't on the list that I could've actually seen doing well was Western, which, I think the fact that a discussion lasted several pages proves why that maybe wouldn't be a great idea, even if you agree or disagree with the points being made on either side. Now, looking at Brickset, I'm actually kind of surprised how few themes there actually are that aren't licensed. If you don't break stuff into subthemes...there's a lot fewer themes than you may think. Outside of the ones that were already on the poll, then those other couple that I mentioned, the only ones that really even existed were essentially re-hashes of old themes (Pharaoh's Quest, Aqua Raiders, etc) or wouldn't be viable (Dino Attack/Dino 2010). So I almost wonder if they split some of these just to get more options on the poll and make it 30 themes rather than 10 or 15.

I think a user in the thread over in General Discussion went through and picked out the minimum number of Castle voters (ie, the number of voters that had to put at least one Castle subtheme, regardless of whether or not they put more) when a blog shared the results in the middle of the poll. I believe it was either enough to put it past Bionicle at the time or enough to firmly put it top 3.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised that Model Team ended up at #12, I'm hoping if this was indeed a way to gauge fan interest about what themes fans want to return, LEGO might consider doing a set or two in the vein of the old Model Team stuff. Anyway, since Adventurers is out, I think I'll be voting for Castle - I'd like to see Pirates but something more in the vein of a harbor/town, which I'm not sure they'd actually do (I feel like it'd more likely be a ship), but I think Castle has a lot of potential between the various factions.

True, I did forget Friends, and I'm actually quite surprised Bellville had a 15 year run, I forgot that it lasted that long into the late 2000s. While I did also forget Racers, I think you're right in that the early 2000s versions of the sets were based around a story element (Rocket Racer and the monsters, with the tie-in with the video game, quite a fun game, I might add ) whereas after around 2005, it was more of the Tiny Turbos and some playsets for them and $12-20 pull-back cars that used some Technic and some bricks. Same with Creator, there's always been some sort of "basic brick" theme, whether it's just bulk buckets of parts or stuff that's a bit more structured to actually build models, I feel like Creator just happens to be the thing filling that niche for the past two decades. I don't think it's Creator specifically that's a success (in the same way that Ninjago has captured a specific audience with its story and characters), its more just that it's the appeal of generic bricks/builds that people like. Either way, though, between Town/Pirates/Space and Bionicle/Technic (another one I realized that was left off)/Ninjago/Friends/Belville and arguably Racers, that's 7-8 in-house themes out of probably hundreds that have had a ten year run or longer, but there are others that were certainly successful despite not having that kind of longevity.

I agree with your point overall, though the one other example (not to get back into the "should it be going up against system sets in this poll" thing) is Bionicle 1.0, but other than that, I can't really think of any other in-house themes that have lasted more than, say, 8-10 years.

Agree, and when they've tried to go for something that's more tech-focused where the bricks take the back seat, it hasn't really worked either (Dimensions, Life of George, etc). Nexo Knights is the only one where I suppose you could make a case that it wasn't entirely the concept of the theme, but more that it was too similar in terms of target audience to Ninjago (which was the same reason why Legends of Chima seemed to not do well), but either way, the tech thing, other than Mario, has absolutely not worked. And like it had been said earlier, Mario probably has worked because (1) it's Mario, Nintendo isn't going to let that flop, and (2) it actually combines tech with play, it's not "Build something then use your phone" or "Build something that doesn't really do anything but you can use it in a video game."