CallumPears

Wow, a lot of people are gonna be pretty upset. The Plo-Koon's fighter "leak" especially has already spread like wildfire and it'll take a lot more time for the news that it's (probably) fake to catch up.

Would be great, though I wouldn't get my hopes up too high yet. Inflation adjusted, the 2015 set would be about $250 today. So, at $240 (so $10 less but with 2 fewer minifigures) I'd expect the build to be pretty much the same, i.e. no interior other than the cockpit. Hope to be proven wrong though!

In the original wave, the dark tan ones were the Isengard worker orcs and then they just got lazy and reused them for all other orc soldiers. We never got proper orc soldiers until the new Barad-Dûr set. In the movies, other than the green ones in Moria, most orc groups have a huge variety of appearance and colour so they could really be from anywhere. Specifically though I think the olive green ones in Barad-Dûr are from Cirith Ungol (the ones who take Frodo from Shelob's lair) while the orangey ones could either be from Minas Morgul (the ones who siege Minas Tirith) along with Gothmog or from Mordor itself (like the ones at the Black Gate) as they look the same in the movies (same plated armour).

Yeah I was annoyed by that. On the box is one thing but on the UCS plaque I want the proper name.

Supposedly the U-wing will include Dedra Meero, and there should be another Andor set too. However, this is from Jedi Bricks who isn't exactly reliable- not sure if he got it from somewhere else or if it's pure speculation. If there's nobody else saying it then it's probably fake tbh. If true, hopefully she doesn't have obviously feminine details so we can reuse the torso for other ISB officers.

Cut down to save space, but yeah I agree with everything you said here, particularly about the lack of guards and no way to get more. Getting more "Glup Shittos" was my number 2 wish with this set and the skiff (with number 1 being an RotJ-accurate Boba )- this scene was my favourite as a kid and I always wanted to get as many of the named characters as possible (and made a lot of customs of ones that never got official figures). Of the 4 guards we do get in the barge (Gamorrean, Vizam, Wooof, Kithaba) only the Gamorrean gets leg printing (but not dual moulding which would really improve him... guess they blew that budget on Leia) while the others don't. But, to me the worst part is that only 2 of them are actually new characters. Getting another Gamorrean is fine since there are a bunch of those guys, but Kithaba? Complete waste of a figure slot. The 2012 figure still holds up and is incredibly cheap even now. Of all the guards they could have chosen, why did they choose one of the few they'd already made? Sure, maybe people collecting now don't have the 2012 one and for some reason aren't aware of Bricklink/eBay/etc., but you know who they also don't have? Barada, Pote Snitkin, Yotts Oren, Vedain, Taym Dren-Garen, and a couple dozen others. They get a guard either way, and the rest of us get something actually interesting (granted his new bandana is nice but that vs getting a different character is an easy choice for me). Literally not exaggerating when I say that I want a dozen more minifigures between the barge and the skiff. Compared with other large sets out right now that is not an unreasonable request, especially with how many characters there are in the scene. And as I said over in the 2024 thread, they wouldn't need new moulds for most of them. Wooof's helmet could even be reused a few times. We desperately need a "Jabba's thugs" battle pack, and even that would only give us 4 figures (and one would be a reused Gamorrean- which is fair enough as they're the most iconic but it's all the more reason that the skiff/barge should've had more; more than 0 in the case of the skiff). Maybe a couple of small palace sets in the style of the old "Jabba's Prize" and "Jabba's Message" sets (there are several possible scenes they could depict, and each could include a couple of extra guards).

Yeah that's definitely a risk. And this one's definitely going to be more popular than the Holiday Falcon. I guess we hope for double points and a GWP to soften it a little.

There's a chance. The Holiday Falcon set was at like 1/3 off in its last few weeks of availability, as were the Hoth Rebel and Clone 3-figure packs the year prior (though those last 2 were rarely in stock at the discounted price- I managed to get an order for 2 of the Hoth packs and one of them got lost in transit and they couldn't replace it due to being out of stock )

Yeah I'm very surprised we haven't had one with the new hairpiece yet. And the face print is still based on the really old design too, without any cheek lines. Knowing LEGO nowadays it'll just be a 1x2x5 with a sticker on it

Maybe special ones get kept around for longer? I doubt it's a hard "welp, it's been 4 years and 364 days, guess we gotta throw this out tomorrow". Also I mentioned in a previous post about wanting more minifigures in the barge that Jabba is a big figure so a direct comparison to the Cantina would need to account for that. Someone on Reddit just reminded me that the Cantina includes a dewback, so the barge is even worse than I thought in comparison!

He's got different printing. Solid Brix does a comparison in his review. Same mould though- apparently it even still says 2011 on the inside. That makes sense though since it's already perfect.

That's definitely the best pilot combination (since Oddball's copilot at Coruscant wears the same helmet as Jag). Shame there's not a 4th minifigure though, like a Jedi.

Tbh I am ok with the skiff and sarlacc not being included. Obviously not everyone's in this situation but I already have several skiffs and sarlaccs from previous sets so at this point an additional one with the barge would just be spare parts (and it's better as a separate set so people can get 2 to complete the scene... though I have no idea where we're supposed to get the guard figures to put on them). Still, the point of not wanting them together should be to save money by not getting the skiff I don't need. It should be a good $100 cheaper for what you get (and the skiff set should be a lot less too). Either that or include a dozen more minifigures of the various guards between the two sets. Most of them could even reuse parts like Wooof and Vizam's heads for the various other Nikto guards, Wooof's helmet for Klaatu, and some of them wear similar clothes so a new torso print for that style could be spread across like 3 figures between the sets (I'm thinking Vedain in the skiff then Klaatu and one of the human guards on the barge- they don't have exactly the same outfits but imo it's close enough and would be better than just never making those characters at all). Saying "a dozen extra figures" sounds completely crazy at first but compared to the Cantina and other cheaper sets I genuinely don't feel like I'm exaggerating at all, especially when I think they could get away with no new moulded parts now that we've got Wooof's helmet as several of them have that same helmet design (and again, they could've split them between the barge and skiff since both sets are severely lacking in the Glup Shitto department, with the skiff not having a single one). ALSO I noticed from some reviews that only some of the window panels with the grille pieces on can actually open, so it doesn't have the hatch that Luke pulls a weequay out of when he's climbing up the side of the barge

Yeah this sums it up nicely. I like the vehicle, but it's all the unique alien guards that really make the scene. That's also why the skiff set is so unappealing to me. Sure, it's a good build for the skiff itself (Not a fan of the sarlacc; yeah it's nice to have an actual pit but the shaping is terrible. 2006 still reigns supreme for me.) but the figures included aren't great aside from the "bonus" Nien Nunb and it's again missing the Glup Shittos. (Still, it features Boba's RotJ armour which is my favorite design. At least they managed to get that righ- oh.)

Yeah I made a bunch of them a few years ago with existing parts and some of them were tough. I ended up leaving Barada without a bandana since as you mentioned it doesn't exist in an appropriate colour. Also bought a lot of the TCW Nikto heads since that was the only Nikto available at the time; hopefully I can get a few copies of the Snubfighter cheap to replace those (though honestly I kinda prefer the expression and texture on the TCW version- the new ones look too... smooth?), and I made some custom torsos by just printing designs on paper and gluing them on (nowadays I might look to other sites to get printed ones but I don't think I did a bad job considering I was 14 at the time). For Brock Starsher I used Unkar's Thug's head with Cad Bane's tubes. Some others like Gailid and Velken Terezi were easy enough to do without any special parts or customised torsos. I think my obsession with doing that is part of why I'm pretty disappointed in the overall selection of figures we've got between the two sets this year- especially the complete lack of any guards in the skiff set. Oh, and my custom Wooof has leg printing which I'll probably transfer to the new one. (Nothing fancy- I just used the legs off the old CMF Ice Fisherman.)

Even so, they brought it back in 2012 and originally made it for a super cheap set back in 2003. Honestly for a $500 set it isn't too unreasonable to expect every single figure to have exclusive moulds. (Obviously not necessary but if they can do it for CMFs then they can do it here)

Yeah think I agree with this, though I'd say C-3PO is a downgrade since other UCS sets (landspeeder and statue) have him with the grey leg (though tbh I'm not a fan of that either as it should've been made in silver not grey). I've definitely come around a bit on Leia's legs but still not a huge fan. To me the best strategy would've been to print a vertical line of skin on the sides of the legs to make them a bit more accurate. Also good news: high quality images are now up on the LEGO site and while there's still no transparent frog there is an olive green one! Also with the clearer official pictures we can see that Jabba's tattoo is there as expected. The Rebel vs Imperial double battle pack is on there too at £35. Not a bad price tbh. Rebel Friend and a Shadow Stormtrooper should've been there but it's not completely unreasonable (still probably going to wait for double points and a GWP, or a discount of some sort).

I've seen a couple comments on other sites that C-3PO doesn't have a silver leg in RotJ and that's why he doesn't have the dual-molded one here. I want to dispel that before other people see it and use it as another flawed dismissal of legitimate criticism: He absolutely does have the silver leg in RotJ. The bright lighting for the Tatooine scenes makes it harder to see but it is definitely there in some shots, and if you want a really good look at it just check the scenes in the ewok village. Also if it was true then the figure would still be inaccurate as they still gave him the silver print anyway so either way it wouldn't be a good defence.

You'll probably have a lot of people lining up to do a straight swap.

Yeah think I agree with everything you say about the figures here. Just so many flaws that really shouldn't be present in any set, nevermind an 18+ one. I'm still interested in the vehicle itself if I can get a good price, and a few of the figures.

Ok there's a 32 second "lifestyle" video of a guy putting the barge together. The ones I've seen so far are pretty low quality so still can't make out small details like the tattoo.

Maybe the arms got taken off and swapped at some point? Mine definitely has it on his right arm and came like that out of the sealed box.

The 2012 version has it on the right arm. But yeah we technically don't know yet whether the new one will- since we haven't seen his right arm yet he hopefully does have it. I don't see why he wouldn't, but then I also don't see why they made a lot of the decisions they have with the minifigures in this set. Also I was wrong about Kithaba having yellow eyes: it was just the filter on the leaked image that made them look yellow. However, the white part is weirdly large so his face still doesn't look great. Love that he has the new bandana piece though.

Yay, another thing to add to the list of why the minifigures in this set should have been so much better. (Edit: didn't realise we haven't seen his right arm yet so it's still up in the air- he probably does have it)

Eh, not about being "sexy", just about being accurate. Plenty of figures in city sets have swimsuits so it shouldn't really be an issue. But yeah gimme the trans green phrog. Edit: damn, ninja'd by your post about no frog Also just seen the full pictures, kinda disappointed by the name on the UCS plaque but that's not the biggest issue I have with the set (that award goes to be the various problems with the minifigures). The build itself looks great.