Kit Figsto

I think the print was different since ROTS Vader was a bit different from OT Vader. I know the head was the fleshy one, not sure on the body print but it was a slightly different figure anyway. Now, in practice, very few people probably care, but just throwing that out there. The plus of the set being not a retail exclusive is that, despite being $80, several retailers carrying it means it's more likely to go on discount at some point. Walmart typically discounts stuff pretty quickly in the US, and Target has actually started as well. If that ends up around, say, $64.99 at some point (definitely plausible depending on how it sells, considering the Mandalorian AT-ST is at $40 for quite a while) that's not a bad deal at all. For some reason, ANH Leia in general is a much rarer figure than you'd expect? Like the most iconic version of Leia is probably ANH, in the same way that the most iconic Han is probably ANH and same with Tatooine Luke. There isn't really an issue with the latter two, but for whatever reason outside of the Death Star Escape, there hadn't been many ANH Leias, you basically had to buy a Millenium Falcon if you wanted her.

With the Animaniacs reboot it could be possible, there's definitely been strangers licenses, but those seem less common since around 2012 or so.

I do, but I'm overly particular about it For whatever reason I just want to be the one to open/build it. Weird, I know, but just how I am.

Also, most casual collectors (read: most LEGO buyers) aren't going on BL to buy figures. Even then, you've got people (like me, ha) that buy quite a bit of LEGO every year but don't want used/secondhand figures, I prefer getting all of my stuff new. Even if a figure is super cheap on the secondary market, I'll only buy if it's from an advent calendar in the sealed bag or if I'm buying a set, that's just the way I am with my stuff. Outside of the Shuttle I think it's fine, the volume of sets is just off putting. The TIE doesn't have super exciting figures but realistically there wasn't going to be anything new in there, and the protocol droid may as well be new (even if it's only a minor printing variation) since that type of droid was previously exclusive to a $500 set that not everyone was going to be buying or the Sandcrawler from a few years ago in a different color. The X-Wing figures are great, at least in my opinion. The Mandalorian figure alone carries his set, getting The Child for cheap is just gravy, again even if he's not new. I agree that the Shuttle figures aren't super exciting, but on the flip side, we hadn't had a ROTJ Luke for, what seemed like at least, a couple of years before Final Duel. I get that it's a bit disappointing to get the same figure like 9 months later, but if Final Duel is also a retail exclusive (which sometimes seem to have a shorter shelf-life?) they may want to get the figure out to a wider group of consumers.

I had a similar experience, I think I bought the watch that had ROTJ Luke (sadly I've lost the hair piece and I forgot if it came with a lightsaber, but I know I still have the body, legs and face!), I don't think I had a Leia or Han until I was older (heck, I still don't have an ANH Leia other than the celebration one from the Y-Wing), and I think my first Chewbacca figure wasn't until Cloud City. Same deal with Vader and Boba Fett, for a while those guys were really rare and I still don't even know if I ever got a set that had an original Vader.

If the pattern holds, I think next fall's D2C set would either be a UCS ship or D2C vehicle, since the past four years went, if I remember right, UCS Falcon -> Cloud City -> UCS Star Destroyer + D2C Tantive IV -> Cantina Speaking of which, is there a retirement date yet for the Falcon? I remember rumors that it would be done after 2020 but it seems to still be around? This is a legitimate thing. When I was younger, I actually never had a Luke figure - every single one was in a set that was too expensive or retired. It was the same problem with Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and so on. Outside of the very first couple of years of the line, cheap sets didn't have as many main characters like they do now. If you wanted a ANH Han, you had to buy a $100+ Millenium Falcon, same deal with Chewbacca. Now, between Microfighters, 4+ and many cheap sets containing main characters, it's pretty easy for people to get the main characters without breaking the bank.

I do feel as though the quality of sets hasn't decreased, an I do like what we're getting this wave, my general issue is just the number of sets or minifigures seemingly shrinking in recent years.

Which is what I really don't understand. I know that Star Wars allegedly isn't their main cash cow as far as licensed sales anymore, but why is it contracting this way (rhetorical question, I don't think anyone here has the answers)? Perhaps partially due to LEGO as a brand being way stronger than it was ten or twenty years ago, so I assume it's probably easier for them to go to an IP and reach a deal (like their recent collaborations with Universal and Nintendo) and therefore just in terms of volume, you've got more properties taking away some sales from Star Wars stuff. Ten years ago it was basically Star Wars, on-and-off Harry Potter or Batman/Super Heroes stuff, then stuff that lasted for one or two waves (Indiana Jones, Prince of Persia, Speed Racer, etc), but now there seems to be a lot more steady competition which could detract some from sales. But my point is that Star Wars as a brand is still very strong, perhaps at its height in terms of brand exposure (at least since the prequels came out) with the sequels and D+ having success with a flagship part being The Mandalorian that it seems a lot of non-SW fans are even invested in. Speaking as someone from the younger generation of Star Wars and LEGO fans, LEGO and Star Wars were almost synonymous among fans, especially from that younger demographic. The overlap between collecting niches seems really big to me, people now collect minifigures just as much as action figures (and there's clearly a demand for a lot of rare characters, judging by secondary market prices on characters like Lando, Zeb, Ahsoka, Rex, Jango Fett, etc), and even if SW toy sales are down overall like some have suggested, the secondary market prices for a lot of retired SW sets (regardless of whether it's prequels, OT, Rebels, CW, or whatever) plus the fact that there are several new sets continuously on backorder/sold out of Shop @ Home (be it the $350 cantina or the $30 501st set) leads me to believe that the demand is still very strong. It seems like they could very easily have a theme that could be dominating the licensed market, but for whatever reason, keep shooting themselves in the foot. They put out two highly requested sets in the summer that, in terms of builds, realistically aren't all that incredible, but still have a ton of hype surrounding them and seem to be selling well, then put out a fantastic MBS cantina, now turn around and give us the smallest wave in a while with some good parts and some that are, frankly, pretty disappointing. This is a long-winded way of saying - why are they insisting on cutting costs when the brand itself is still highly, highly desirable, be it by kids, younger age AFOLs/TFOLs, or AFOLS that have been into LSW for a while? I'm not talking about minor stuff like Vader's arm printing or whatever, to me it's more of the big-picture stuff. If they want to reduce the size of lines, that's fine, but there isn't a massive uptick in the quality of sets that makes up for it. I really, honestly do like the TIE and X-Wing, but this wave is essentially four sets and only one is anything new. I get that a "soft reset" necessitates going back to basic builds, but why not throw in one or two more location or duel sets that are at least some new scenes (Maul vs. Ahsoka? Exegol? You get the idea). Sorry, this got more ramble-y than I was initially intending.

I wouldn't even consider the AT-RT sizing an error, it's just the way that their AT-RTs are. Minifigures are such that vehicles (not just in Star Wars, but in City or Licensed too) generally either are slightly oversized and have correct proportions relative to the vehicle itself, or are in-scale with a minifigure but have whacky proportions relative to the actual vehicle (eg: legs are the same size as the cockpit area, or in City, you can't fit multiple figures in a car unless it's really wide, and then it looks way wider than a normal car should be). The AT-RT in the clone battle pack from like 2010 and the Geonosis troopers one were probably the only ones that were remotely in scale, but if they put that in a $30 set, people would be equally as angry because it's not a very substantial build. And like I said before, I'd bet that this being a preliminary retailer image, they probably messed up the rendering and didn't change it. It's sort of like that time a couple of years ago that they didn't photoshop out the 3x3 disks from underneath the figures on the promotional art. They may have cut corners in places with the line but that's a way bigger oversight than giving Obi-Wan tattered robes in a set where he shouldn't have had them.

This would probably be more appropriate for the 2020 thread, but that's sort of died at this point and I don't want to bump an old topic, so I'll post here instead - despite having the cantina set since September 16th (or whichever day it came out on), I held off on starting it until Halloween, and have just now finished up the cantina itself doing about a bag every day or two (still have the last two bags which are the smaller side buildings). I just wanted to say, for anyone debating this set, it's absolutely stunning in person. The building looks great, the build experience is much better than you would think (it's not just stacking tan 1x8s on top of each other 500 times like you might think by looking at it), the figures are incredible, and the interior is pretty amazing. My only real complaints with the set are minor (no hair piece for Obi-Wan, Greedo doesn't have printed hips, I don't really like the new Stormtrooper helmet mold) but those absolutely don't detract from how great of a display and/or playset this thing is. They definitely knocked it out of the park on that one, and I think this is the set best suited to the MBS format so far in terms of being able to capture a fully complete scene (I really like Cloud City but obviously it's more of a collection of scenes since doing a full scale Cloud City would be more or less impossible for obvious reasons).

Wow, I'm all kinds of wrong today Thanks for clearing that up. Very strange that this "reset" both made the line smaller and decreased the amount of new characters and such from normal. You'd think that with smaller sets that they would maybe make the line a little bit larger or about the same as normal? The X-Wing and TIE seemed good but the Shuttle just seems like they're phoning it in. The actual model looks nice but it's hard to get a sense of the scale of it, and the minifigure selection is very, very lackluster.

Actually I think I'm wrong, I think they updated the torso for the Microfighters pack last January and this is the same one. So it was only used in one set, but your count was correct.

I think the Tusken and Protocol Droid both have updated prints but I'm not 100% sure and Leia, while not new, was only available in a $200 set that was D2C so I do think that's nice. I agree with your overall point, though, I wouldn't care as much about repeats if the wave wasn't so small. And also, I would reserve judgement on Luke's lightsaber color until the pictures are finalized, we've seen numerous examples of preliminary catalog photos with issues that have to get fixed. For all we know, that could be the reason that it wasn't revealed with the TIE and X-Wing.

Especially when like half the time I don't even think people will buy it. A Brickheadzwould probably sell okay among people that voted for it since it's so cheap but the Gunship one got the same thing and I highly, highly, highly doubt more than 50% of the people that came from youtube/reddit to vote for it are actually going to buy it, especially since the general userbase is a lot younger and aren't buying $250-300 UCS sets.

I half expected us to get him like we got Garindan as a long-requested fan-favorite in the Cantina, but I don't think Willrow Hood is even as popular as him.

I feel like the next OT B-Wing would be a good spot for him, and it's coming up on 7 years (since it was a 2014 release and we know that we aren't getting one this winter) since the last one. I know he wasn't a B-Wing pilot but it's sort of the same as them sticking random bounty hunters in with Slave I. On the subject of the sets, I just saw the Tauntaun and AT-AT microfighter pack, I like being able to get both an AT-AT driver and Hoth Luke in a cheap set, and I think that the inclusion of stud shooters is a little strange, since normally they just put it on the vehicle, and if they don't have any sort of weapon (like a creature), they just don't put any stud shooter.

In universe the droids do sit a bit higher than just the head exposed. (See below). He might be sitting a bit higher in the model but it's definitely a bit more accurate than just having the head exposed, which is what had been the case previously.

I think you're looking at it in too much of binary terms. There's plenty of overlap between people that buy sets from all trilogies or movies, people don't necessarily stratify along trilogy lines. Of course, there are some that heavily favor one era or type of set over another, but that's not representative of the entire consumer sector buying sets. On the subject of the Shuttle, that was like 7-8 years ago, that set was due for a remake regardless. In the time between then and now, there's a lot of people who either stopped or started collecting. The last full-scale TIE was in 2018 for SOLO and cost $70. I know that we don't know sales, but that had to put off a lot of customers. Same deal with the X-Wing, that thing was getting close to $80 which is insane. Even if someone is a kid, they've almost assuredly seen the OT and would recognize/want Luke's X-Wing, now it's actually affordable. As far as the sets, I'm loving the TIE, it looks really good and the price point is perfect. I would've liked to get a boarding ladder of some kind but that's sort of a minor critique at this point. Love the protocol droid as well. The X-Wing's back half looks incredible, the front looks kind of skinny to me but it's not terrible, I think it's just different than what I'm used to seeing with previous models. The figure selection is great though, a rare Leia and brand new Dodonna will make that set appealing to a lot of people.

Yeah, I know here in the US, Kohl's retailers would put stuff out in late December. I found the Mando battlepack like a few days after Christmas, but I'm pretty sure they had it out prior to that. Toys R Us used to be notorious for it too, which was always really great, but sadly TRU is no more in the USA. I also found Obi-Wan's Hut at Target in like early-December but finding sets at the largest retailers is very unusual in my experience, and I know often you can't actually buy the sets because they haven't been put into the system or are street-dated for later.

I've got the figure, can confirm they are printed. I don't think a new mold would really work for the Mandalorian helmet. The helmet is really snug around a figure's head, so they can't make the cheek indentation actually a thing without making the helmet larger, which would just look really weird in LEGO form. It's one of those things that's limited by the medium - obvious a real person's head isn't a cylinder, so the helmet can fit the contours of a person's face. That's not really feasible in LEGO form since, well, there aren't any contours.

Mandalorian S2 wave based on what we have seen so far. A few of these are likely very forced, but I wanted to see what you could theoretically do based on half of the season. Spoilers ahead, be warned if you haven't seen it!

Didn't that happen with the UCS Y-Wing? Where nobody knew it existed until it was found on shelves? The pessimistic side of me thinks that probably was just referring to more Mandalorian toys being revealed on Monday, not necessarily Lego specifically, but who knows?

Cool stuff, getting Beskar Mando plus the Child in a cheap set is already awesome but the side builds actually look pretty decent, and I still love the new Tusken (at this point I don't know if I can still call it "new" considering it's like 5 years old, but the 2002 Tuskens are still what I think of when I think of the minifig versions, ) regardless of how many I've collected. Also, I wonder if this means that the original Mando figure will become a bit rarer, since historically they haven't ever gone back in time when making sets based on a Star Wars TV show (as in, once a character changed appearance or a vehicle was no longer in use, like the Twilight or Sabine's armor/hair changing, LEGO never remade the old ships or went back to old versions of the figure), and I don't see a reason why Mando would stop using the Beskar armor. Unless they gave us Kuiil's farm, every other viable set was from an episode/scene that had him in Beskar armor.

Fantastic work! Are the wheels able to be rotated from driving mode to hover mode, or do they have to be removed and re-assembled?

Yeah, this could be another "Leaf" situation all over again, where people thought Monkie Kid was supposed to have an interactive element (and also be a conglomeration of time traveling pirates/castle), then the Mario reveal came way out of left field and caught everyone by surprise. Seems best to just temper expectations and wait until we have more details, since a lot of new themes tend to be very vague until they get officially revealed/leaked.