Kit Figsto

I feel like it's a bit of a leap in logic to say that the fact that we MIGHT not get a lot of figures or interior space in the Barge is because the set MIGHT not come with Leia which MIGHT be because Disney axed it which MIGHT mean LEGO didn't put an interior in the set.

It seems like they've gotten way, way more secretive about controlling visual leaks, but word of mouth leaks are still common. If you remember, even 4-5 years ago, retailer catalog images would leak super early (even if the image for a listing was literally just a giant question mark with a watermark over it), but whenever we do get preliminary images out of catalogs, it's much closer to the actual release dates now. However, I think word of mouth leaks are way harder to control, since it's harder to figure out where it comes from and there's certain inevitability in info slipping through the cracks that can't really be avoided (that is, you can't just get rid of factory workers in the same way that you can change the way you distribute info to retailers about upcoming sets). I often wonder where the sources for these WOM leaks are - I get the sense that some of the leakers have one specific source (maybe a friend that works for LEGO in some capacity or gets retailer catalogs super early) and others have a reputation as a reliable leaker and therefore have sources come to them. I could be completely wrong on that, but that's just the impression that I get. I know that I'll likely never know, because revealing sources could get someone fired, but it's something I'm curious about.

Bit of a random question, but I figured someone on here might know. I'm based in the US and, naturally, my BL account for both buying and selling is also based in the US. I have a family member that will be living in the EU for a time period, and I've had my eye on a couple of sets that are much, much cheaper to buy from sellers in the EU than in the US. It looks like, depending on the country I'd be ordering from, it would be cheaper on shipping to have it sent to Ireland instead of to the US. I was weighing the possibility of ordering them, having them shipped to my relative, and then having them bring these back to me once they return stateside. However, my billing address and payment method will still be based in the US. I know that I could input a delivery address to Ireland on my account, but if a store doesn't allow shipping to US based customers, would it still allow me to check out? Or would it be easier to just make a new account with this Ireland address specifically for this purpose?

I'm also wondering if the evil C-3PO and evil Chewbacca are indeed those characters or if it's 0-0-0 and Krrsantan. I'm betting it's the former, but at the very least, they should be pretty similar (the only real differences in the protocol droids would be whether or not he has red eyes, and with Krrsantan, I think it'd be passable enough) to the other characters to where the figures would probably work for either. The biggest thing that's making me wonder which route they go is that it comes with both Rey and Vader. Obviously there's no continuity to worry about in the first place, but that means they're not just doing a TRoS version where they flip the good guys and bad guys around or something.

Ah, thank you for the correction! I get those two mixed up from time to time since they seem to leak info in very similar manners and are probably two of the only sources I can think of that have actual websites and don't just use social media or message boards. Given that this minifigure list is from a proven source, I feel like there's no way this is the conference room, since I don't know why the bulk of the figures would be army builders and not actual officers (especially since the officers that would be likely included are named ones that are pretty recognizable). I mean, there is absolutely no way they'd do this set without Tarkin, and he'd definitely be identifiable and unlikely to be just a generic "Imperial Officer." Since there's no good guys included, I wonder if this isn't something akin to one of the old Kenner Death Star playsets, where it's got a couple of different rooms and is more of a play-oriented thing, as opposed to representing one specific scene. Besides the conference room, any of the major DS locations either necessitate including hero characters (detention block, trash compacter, control room, tractor beam, lightsaber duel area), which wouldn't work with this minifig list.

Honestly, given a lot of leakers' track records lately, if it isn't Falconfan, Landino, stonewars (I'm pretty sure the only thing they've gotten majorly wrong was the Indy 5 set numbers, and it's still unclear if that was their bad info or something was cancelled), Renown, Foggyfate, jdubbs (though I don't really know if I've seen him posting leak info lately), or some of the other proven EB folks, I feel like you have to take it with a grain of salt. I know I'm missing a few others, but a lot of the major names being thrown around in the last few pages are all over the place in terms of their leak credibility and it's probably not worth even getting upset over the supposed letdowns of these leaks until we have info from more proven people. There's been a lot of "and this set possibly has this" or extremely random clues (like, even if it is true, where the heck does the "more than two eyes" thing even come from? Is that a leaker intentionally being cryptic, or is that actually the best that a source can do on what something is?) that seem more like CYA than actual leaks, so I'd just stay with the people that are definitely trusted. And I think there's a difference between Renown or whomever being cryptic and someone with a sketchy track record being cryptic because they don't actually know but want to seem legitimate.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the Greekbricks conference room rumor has been posted, debunked, then posted again, and we're still in the "not yet debunked" phase for the second time.

In recent years, we've had DS playsets based on the tractor beam/a gun turret, the rope swing, and the trash compactor. I'm going to make an educated guess that it's based on DS I and not II, since the only locations on II that we really see are the throne room (which we just got as both as playset and diorama) and the hangar bay (which wouldn't work as set unless the focal point was the Imperial Shuttle, which wouldn't be listed as a "Death Star" set). Based on that, I'd say it could be a playset based around the detention block/trash compactor (maybe a scaled-up version of these rooms from the UCS Death Star) or a couple of hallway sections with, like, the briefing room, an elevator, and maybe the room that R2 and 3PO are hiding out in? With respect to the Sail Barge, my personal prediction is that the interior will have Jabba's throne section with maybe a little bit of detailing, but most of the detail will be on the roof and exterior and the rest of the interior will be structural support, since it's supposed to be a pretty big model. Honestly, I'm not too surprised that the inside isn't as detailed, as long as that area specifically is covered, since I really don't know what else there even is inside. We barely see the interior, as most of the action takes place on/outside of the Barge. I will say, I think it's odd that the Sarlacc set is being released, as it suggests it's supposed to be a companion to the Sail Barge, which would probably mean no Sarlacc and no Skiffs in the Sail Barge. I was sort of assuming that a decent amount of the piece count would've gone towards those side models, but I guess that means the Sail Barge will truly be in scale. I'm curious if the quantity or quality of minifigures is what's up for debate. I'm going to predict that the figures in the Sarlacc pit set won't be repeated (unless they go with a hyper-detailed Boba or something) in both set, which sort of limits the number of figures for the Barge itself.

Also worth noting that kids aren't oblivious to the nostalgic stuff that LEGO's trying to hit on here either. My childhood LEGO was 5-8 years past the eras of Rock Raiders, Adventurers, Alpha Team, or Island Xtreme Stunts, but as a kid, I thought that stuff was super cool. Heck, Jedi Bob was before my time but I still knew who he was from the visual dictionaries or Brickset/online set listings and stuff. Obviously some of this stuff is a little bit older than that (Jedi Bob, or if they do give us Rebel Friend or something else like that), but kids aren't totally unaware of these kinds of things.

I am utterly shocked no one has quoted Last Crusade yet... "Indiana...let it go"

I wonder if it will truly be braille, or more like the dot codes that some of the early series had (if I remember right, series 1 had unique barcodes for each figure that you could ID, and then the next 4-5 series had the dot codes on the bottom of the bag that were really hard to decipher, but was a working method). Anyway, I'm here reading about everyone working through methods of figuring out these figures and I can't even find the darn things. B&N had none despite their website saying they had them in stock, Target has had nothing, Walgreens has had a space on the pegs with a barcode but nothing (though they're $6.49 there, so I'd prefer to buy elsewhere), and while I found 4 at Walmart, they were the small QR codes, so I couldn't actually get any info off of that. Why I've had this much of a problem, I don't know, because I've seen people online finding these for like 3 weeks now. I had the same issue with the last Disney series, it was like two weeks into May (and being in another state altogether) before I was able to find them.

It's also possible that the book figure is an updated version of another figure, sort of like how we had a re-issued version of Tatooine Luke in like 2014 and the 20th anniversary figures, with the 25th anniversary logo. He also literally says in the video that he messaged leakers (no idea who his sources are) and some of them said they don't think there's any logo printing on the figures included in sets.

The bulk of the merch focus, other than toys specifically targeted at kids (a few Hasbro Worlds of Adventure playsets), was definitely on the legacy films. Hasbro made figures of almost every major character from Raiders and TLC (the only ones missing were uniformed soldiers, which I can understand since they can't leave out certain details as easily like LEGO can), a few from ToD, and then 4 of the main DoD characters, with nothing at all from Crystal Skull. The only brand that actually seemed to focus heavily on DoD was Funko, interestingly enough. They were the only ones to make a Teddy figure. I think it's a shame that companies were just sort of assuming the movie would fail in the merch department, I understand since Indy has never been the same merch giant that Star Wars, Marvel, and at this point Jurassic Park apparently are, but it would've been nice to get something more.

Brickheadz also aren’t my cup of tea (I only own the Frankenstein one, though I think there’s some really cool ones, I’ve been tempted by the Tusken Raider often), but I think TPM’s character designs are interesting enough to where there could be some neat builds. Maul, Queen Amidala, Qui-Gon, Jar-Jar, and either Obi-Wan, Nute Gunray, bare C-3PO, young Anakin, maybe with his podracing helmet, would be a nice assortment.

The most likely reasoning behind it being cancelled is that Disney/LF pulled the plug, as I can only think of one other example of a set that made it that far into production stage and was cancelled (Osprey Helicopter) and that one both was given a clear PR explanation as to why they cancelled it, and also had a more likely reason for it being scrapped (the gear function straight up didn't work), so they could blame the very, very small public backlash since it was probably easier than pulling every copy they had already made in order to redesign the set. I mean, technically, the fact that we got any explanation at all is a surprise to me, since the set was never announced or publicly revealed, it was just a set number and leaked photo. They didn't have to even acknowledge the fact that the set existed.

Oh, also, if that Darth Rey figure turns out to be true, that's awesome, I was really hoping for that figure when we got TRoS sets a few years back, so I'm excited to possibly be getting her.

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think that they're sort of just following the pattern of other toy companies doing anniversaries and using that same branding. That's probably why the Clone Wars and ROTJ logos made it onto basically any sets tangentially related to either of those properties this year, since Hasbro and other toy makers were using that branding. In the past, they've really only done stuff to celebrate anniversaries of LSW, not the actual movies, and my guess is that trend will continue, but the exception I could see is that since we have diorama sets being commonplace now, they might focus those on an anniversary (as they did last year and as they might continue next year), and then slap the anniversary logo on a system set or two that they were going to make anyway (as they did with the TIE Bomber).

Is it that very few people want the figure, or only that a small amount are actually willing and able to fork over $400+ for a single figure? RR has remained plenty popular over the years, and just for comparison, I count around 20 sales of the Rock Raiders Crew set between eBay and Bricklink since September, varying from around $20 used up to as much as $90 new, when that set is essentially just six minifigures and a couple of small accessories. I'd wager it's more a product of the price being ridiculous than anything else.

Ehh...yes and no. There are some examples where the market goes wacko on something and jacks up the price, but there have been examples in the past of resellers working in bad faith to artificially inflate the prices of certain minifigures. There were some idiots on Instagram a few years ago that would do this thing where they'd buy up all of the BL stock of desirable minifigures (usually Star Wars ones) and then immediately re-list them all at a much higher price, since they now controlled a major supply. I believe they did it with Finch Dallow and Thrawn, possibly some others that I can't remember. I would pull up the SW forum where people were talking about this, but it was from like the 2020 set discussion topic and I really don't feel like going that far back, sorry. IIRC Thrawn was like a $20 figure and is now over $130 (now, I will grant that there's probably been a recent bump due to Ahsoka, but a $110 increase over the last 3 years isn't an organic growth in value, the supply of Thawn minifigures has not dwindled that much). So, yes, people are paying that price, but it's artificially inflated because some people decided to act in bad faith a few years ago and force the prices to go way up. Now, at least with Star Wars, LEGO has seemingly been combatting this a bit by putting fewer exclusive/desirable minifigures out there locked behind $$$ sets (the meltdown among resellers when the Captain Rex's Y-Wing microfighter leaked was rather humorous to me). Chief from Rock Raiders is actually another example, RR Slugger did a video talking about it, but he mentioned sellers who are sitting on stockpiles of them and purposely only listing one at a time as a way to keep the sale price high, even though, again, the actual supply of that figure isn't low enough to warrant $300+ for a single minifig. Anyway, I have what I think is an unpopular opinion about LEGO, and that has to do with their policy towards depicting war. Every time they put out a set that's toeing this line, it seems like people tend to get all up in arms about them being contradictory and such, but I feel like their policy here has always been pretty clear. They're never going to do anything depicting modern war, but historical or fantasy stuff has been allowed for like the past 40 years. They've done multiple WWI biplanes that aren't even connected to any license, they've done the US cavalry, and they've done some 1930s war planes from Indiana Jones. Stuff like Star Wars or LEGO's in-house sci-fi themes that depict conflict are pure fantasy, and then you have castle and pirates that sort of toe the line between fantasy and historical, depending on which subtheme or iteration you're talking about. With the Osprey, I've also heard that it was more of a structural issue than anything, and they just conveniently agreed with the group complaining as part of their reasoning to cancel the set. The point to me is that I think they've always been consistent on this, and I'm not sure why it causes a big stink every time something near the line comes up.

Yeah, I want to know as well. With the ToD cancellation, there’s at least a reason that’s most likely the case (LF pulling the plug last minute, as it appears Hasbro also cancelled a Mola Ram figure in the 11th hour), which would also explain why LEGO was more open about that cancellation than most (I feel like them allowing LAN members to show leaked pictures could’ve been a very subtle way of saying “hey, we were all good to release this”). But I’m still thoroughly confused why we didn’t get any DoD sets at all. A super easy 4 wave series could’ve been a cheap parade scene with horse and motorcycle, a $30-40 tuk-tuk chase, and then 2 of Archimedes’ tomb, the train from the opening, Voller’s plane, or Renaldo’s boat. That’d knock out essentially every major character with costume variants of Indy and Helena, and I think even if someone didn’t care for the movie (I happened to love it), the builds would still be unique and exciting enough to entice people to buy it.

I remember in Jangbrick's review of the 2023 Eldorado Fortress, he sort of talks about this, bringing up the price/piece of the original and comparing it to the price/piece of the new one and essentially giving the conclusion that accounting for inflation and the amount of "stuff" that you get in each one, they were roughly the same value-wise. Part of his argument was pretty interesting, actually, he said that in his opinion, LEGO has always been expensive, but there was a period in the late 2000s/2010s where inflation hadn't really caught up to it, and then all of a sudden, in the last 4-5 years, they've sort of overcorrected and that's why we've seen price jumps in sets. In the context of Star Wars, I think this is pretty true, since battle packs were originally $10, then had crept up to like $12 or 13 by 2015ish (which, considering they had come out in 2007, that's not a bad jump at all over like 8 years), and then after being brought back, were suddenly $20, and now are listed at, what, $26, but no one is actually selling them for that price. So the actual rate of inflation of prices has been all over the place, but the end dollar amount isn't really more than it would've been if they'd just steadily increased it by 50 cents or so per year since 2007, we just had a couple of larger leaps in price which make it feel worse than it is. I realize this isn't exactly what you said, since he was saying that the 2000s/2010s were cheaper than today, but I thought it was pretty interesting nonetheless.

I'm not sure if they'd ever go to paper bags for the CMFs, just because they seem too easy to potentially steal, but I forgot that the magazine promo figures/sets come in paper bags, so maybe it's worked in the past. Either way, I'm just not a fan of the boxes at all. Like, yes, the bag didn't tell us which figure was in it, but with some work, you could figure it out, which I appreciated, so it was still a "blind bag" but you could figure it out.

I agree. On one hand, I know that the reasoning they gave was to save on plastic in favor of cardboard, which I think is good, but on the other hand, I also don't really buy that reasoning. First off, they've been "switching over" from plastic to paper bags for, what, like five years now? As far as I'm aware, the paper bags have only shown up in a handful of sets, so I feel like if they really were making the step to get rid of plastic bags, they'd prioritize the plastic bags in sets first, given that they likely produce far, far more of those than CMF bags. Second, the bags had an actually viable and accurate method for determining what's inside, but it's not one that everyone could do. A casual collector or kid likely isn't going to be able to feel the difference between parts the same way that a more experienced buyer could, but my hunch is that they feel that putting the figures in boxes and thus making them essentially impossible to tell what's inside (I know, I know, there's the scale method, but it's not 100% accurate, and realistically, how many people are going to either bring the scale to a store with them or buy a bunch of figures, take them home, weigh them, and return the ones that they don't want?), they're going to sell more. I haven't seen theft, but that's another argument for the bags, because it seems like these boxes would be way easier to open and steal the contents. The bags were actually quite tough to open unless you had scissors. My hope is that this has actually negatively impacted sales to the point where they'll switch back to bags. Realistically, it's probably not likely, but I know that in the action figure world, Hasbro switched over to a plastic free packaging method for their black series figures (which makes more sense than this does, because you're not blind-buying a figure the same way these are blind boxes), and I guess enough people complained that they're going back to the packages having a blister.

This thread reminded me, did anything ever come of that survey a couple of years ago mentioning a subscription service for retired sets? I know that nothing exists as of yet on that front, but have there been any rumors or even follow-up mention by LEGO about anything of the sort?

I also feel like people are glossing over the fact that this set itself doesn't cost $250. Like, this is the same thing as people getting annoyed about "having" to buy a $150 set just to get one minifigure, or whatever and are forgetting that you're paying for other things with it too. Like, the way I see it, if you know there's a desirable GWP coming (which most people on this forum tend to be in the know about), I always just wait to buy stuff until the GWP is coming. I've had my eye on the Eldorado Fortress for a bit, so I'm just choosing to buy it now and then will also get a couple of bonus items along the way. I don't feel like I'm paying $250 for Majisto's Workshop, I feel like I'm paying $250 for the Eldorado Fortress plus one other set that's TBD, and getting two GWPs plus bonus rewards points.