TeddytheSpoon

If Rebels gets its rumoured sequel series, I could see them making more sets, though not in the volume that we saw back in 2014 (I think?). If nothing else I'd love to get another Ghost having missed out on the first one. I think part of the problem with Solo is that they've kind of made all the sets they could with that. Aside from the Crimson Dawn yacht thing (I forget what it's called), the TIE heavy which is really not that different to a normal TIE, and maybe another Mimban set, I think they'd have to start repeating things, which in any case may not sell as well given the film isn't that popular with the more casual SW fan. Rogue One is a different story as I think the film had more going on that could easily translate to a LEGO set - AT-ACT, the cargo shuttle, Eadu, Jedha, any number of capital ships, TIE reaper... The one I want the most is a hammerhead corvette in some form. UCS would be nice, but I feel like a playset on a similar scale to the Tantive IV could work really well, although we'd have to wait a while given we've just had one of them. Throw in some Alderaanian honour guard, Raddis, Bail Organa and Mon Mothma and I think you'd have a great set.

I love the B-wing, I'd almost forgotten it appeared in that colour scheme. I might have to MOC a full size one after seeing yours!

This looks really neat! I'm not too familiar with the source material so it may be accurate, but is there a way for those light grey bits on the front of the engine nacelles to hug them a bit more? The front view makes it look like they're floating a long way from it. I thought they were closer but it could be my imagination. I love the shaping of the underside especially.

To be fair the interceptor and bomber are both in the game as well, so it's perfectly reasonable any one of them could show up. Imagine if we got a remake of 10131 with four TIEs from Squadrons as a 2021 D2C... What I will say about the great prequel debate is that it's been a long while since we had a big prequel set; 2015 if you count the latest Darth Maul ship, with the last $100+ ship being the gunship from 2013 (!), inflation notwithstanding. (EDIT: I forgot about the Jedi starfighter and hyperdrive from 2017 which was $100, but I thought that was overpriced at the time...) The bigger, pricier sets tend to be 'better' sets, or at least more impressive, while the smaller ones inevitably have more design compromises, which would support/explain the low quality argument. At the end of the day it's all academic though, as the quality of sets is so subjective, as we've seen in this thread.

I'd love to get a TIE Reaper as a Squadrons tie-in (if you'll pardon the pun).

Same here, I love clone armies as much as the next guy, and I've definitely got caught up in the TCW hype train. Thing is I'd also like some more podracers, another Zam Wessel, Jango's Slave I or even some Kamino sets, and having people go 'wHeRe ArE tHe PrEqUeL sEtS' in instances like this where it's nearly half the wave makes those less likely (though in fairness I'm not sure what the demand for the ones I mentioned would be like). I'm not pointing any fingers - on here it's been reasonably measured, but I have seen it elsewhere.

I've seen a lot of people say the prequel era gets underrepresented, when we've got four sets of a nine-set wave from then, irrespective of what you think the quality might be. I do wonder if some people say prequel sets when really they mean they want sets with clones in them. Speaking of clones, the black hips certainly do look better. If they were printed they probably wouldn't look too bad - the airborne trooper I think looks fine, and the scout trooper that's out at the moment I think looks great, both of which are white hips but with printing.

The torso thing is honestly baffling, for both Obi-Wan and Anakin. My first instinct would be cost cutting for some reason, but as you say, is a minor print change really that expensive? They warranted slapping a radio headpiece print onto Anakin's head (which incidentally looks to be the same as the duel set in every other respect), so it can't be that much. I'm loath to call the LEGO designers lazy, and I'd like to assume there is a business decision behind it. This is spitballing, but I'm wondering if that Mustafar set severely undersold. If so it might explain why they would try to offload the surplus figures. That might work for Anakin but they've somewhat shot themselves in the foot by making Soulless One £10 more expensive than a set with over 100 more pieces, so Obi-Wan may not go so quickly. That to me is the most plausible explanation, but I don't have any decent knowledge of how well that Mustafar set sold.

Microscale Cloud City could work and would pretty sweet. Not sure about the other idea if only because it's quite close to the MBS set. That said, if MandR turns out to be right and they are different sets, I'm not sure we'd get two Cloud City sets, as that's a lot of Bespin out at once. I could see some sort of ESB vignette happening similar to the recent GWPs though.

Perhaps a cloud car then? Would be interesting to see what they could do with that at $40.

Now that you mention it, that could be the distinction between exclusive codes and a one-time thing. 7 randomised letters could quite easily mean individual codes to unlock one or both of the Christmas sweater characters (which is what I assume they would be), whereas the other codes would all be the same, so that if you happen to have the set by the time the game comes out you could immediately play as Palpatine, for instance. I'd be OK with that way of doing it I think, as you don't lose out on any key characters but there's still something of an incentive to buy the sets.

Only just noticed Vader's arm printing. That looks fantastic.

The advent calendar looks great, one of the best for a few years I reckon. Rudolf the red-nosed tauntaun is pretty neat. Great to get more pics of the IT-S transport. I wasn't crazy interested after the leaks, but seeing more pictures of it makes it look pretty appealing. Soulless One continues to be one of the most baffling decisions made by LEGO. Does anyone know if the Skywalker Saga codes are included in the sets, or are they codes that you find in the game? I assume the former, but I don't want to have to pick up certain sets just to complete the game...

Because that's not how they're marketed. UCS sets are aimed at collectors and older fans for display, not army builders. LEGO's '18+' sets are designed to satisfy AFOLs to an extent, but they mainly want to attract adults who wouldn't normally buy LEGO to expand their customer base. These adults want sculptures that'll look good on their mantelpiece, not rows of minifigs, that are perceived very much as toys. That's also the reason these sets are presented in clean, minimalist houses, to answer your previous query. Either way, I very much doubt the inclusion of six exclusive figs would greatly affect the sales; if that were the case - albeit I realise they're not exclusive figs - the Cloud City MBS would have sold like hot cakes, and AFAIK it hasn't. This is a conversation for a different thread so I'm gonna come back when the conversation has gone back to 2020 sets.

It normally does. I think the only things that are in brand stores but not on S@H are region-specific things, like how the Leicester Square store in London has the miniature London bus or that figure in a bowler hat (I wanna say he's called Lesley or something).

As cool as that would be, I'm not sure they'd need to with something as big as the Y-Wing. To be honest people will lap any set with P2 Rex in it, regardless of what else is in it. I'd imagine it being a beefed-up version of the yellow 2009 one, with Ahsoka, Rex and maybe a 332nd trooper (or Jesse, in my dreams ), probably cost around $70-$80.

Who was it that said we were good at going off topic? I'll throw in my two cents before getting back on track with a bit of development guesswork... Assuming the development cycle for a system scale set is about a year, then the market research (involving kids, since lest we forget, LEGO is a toy first and foremost...) when deciding what sets to make could be at best six months out of date upon release, assuming it takes place halfway through. That would put us just before TCW Season 7's release, so to an extent LEGO are having to guesstimate what the demand for these sets is going to be. For UCS sets that timeline could be even longer. If they underestimated the demand for prequel sets after TCW, then we might see that corrected in future waves. (Also no-one mentioned the Grievous figure when talking about prequel UCS sets... I really liked that set.) I'd be surprised if there was a landing platform. UCS ships like that tend to just rely on the black stands rather than scenery for displaying it. If the piece count rumour of ~3,000 is correct, I could quite easily see those extra 500 pieces put to use in a better shaped cockpit and landing gear, and maybe a more substantial stand. While arguably on the high side $350ish would make sense with that piece count.

The press release says that all the merch will be available online in 'the not so distant future', which I assume would include the LEGO exclusive. If that goes on 'normal' sale in its limited numbers it's going to be utter carnage. I'm wondering what they could improve on if the shuttle rumour is true, the 2010 model looked pretty perfect. Maybe the cockpit?

I was wondering where the Count thing came from. ESB makes most sense to me, given that the AT-AT is the only set we've really got so far to commemorate the anniversary and I was expecting a few more. I'm crossing my fingers for a TIE Bomber; the only thing would be it seems a bit small for a D2C set. Was the dropship from a few years back D2C or was that just a store exclusive? Also, it's incredibly far-fetched, but TLG could pull a blinder and give us a Nebulon-B.

Plenty have said it but I think the blue one from TCW is a prime candidate for a set in the near future, could see that being where we get our phase 2 Rex.

I was wondering if shorty had anything to do with it, but the only ESB thing related to that I can think of would be Yoda, and I'm not sure they'd do another Yoda's hut.

These are pretty great, especially like the Headhunter. If it doesn't get made as a playset, I'd say the blue Y-Wing would be a prime candidate for a microfighter, maybe alongside a Vulture Droid. I'd love for them to put Rex in that set but I would imagine they'd put him in a more expensive set, so maybe a clone pilot. Looking forward to see what you make of the Mandalore location set!

To be fair, I think LEGO sets do look better when they're designed as LEGO interpretations rather than being as accurate as possible. This is probably a discussion for another thread, but I think that embracing the playset side of things works better for system sets, as toys at least. The first thing that comes to mind is Droidekas - while the more recent ones are technically more accurate, they won't beat the original ca. 2000 ones for getting the idea across, and they just look so much cleaner at the scale. Agree with previous points that variations on the standard blasters are great, especially if it's just adding on pieces.

I was holding out hope that the rumoured price for Soulless One was gonna be off, but 80EUR with Mustafar Kenobi... Grim.

I just realised I forgot to post my entry here... Excuse the delay!