The Stud

These look decent, I’m just a little let down personally. Surprisingly, I think the new Batcave might be my favorite set of the wave. It’s got a good amount of figures and a better bike than the $15 set. I’ll probably pick it up. The brick built Batmobile is decent, I just don’t love the design. Fortunately, it won’t be too expensive. It’ll go well with my TLBM Speedwagon, 2019 Batmobile, Classic TV Series Batmobile and the recent Tumbler (when I get that). The $15 bikes are pretty bad though. They look like they were designed over a decade ago with how chunky they look compared to Lego’s current builds. Easy pass since I’m getting everything I want from this set in the other two. I wish Battinson had a new cowl, but honestly the same generic Batman face again is even more disappointing. I thought it was kinda charming when they reused that 2012 face in The Dark Knight sets, but it just looks kinda out of place here.

I think that the Republic Fighter Tank rumor is dubious already, let alone speculating that Commander Cody is somehow included. I have no doubt that Lego has heard the outcries for a Phase Two Commander Cody figure, however, and wouldn’t be surprised if we see him included somewhere in the next few years.

Bought Santa’s Visit at the Lego Store on Friday - my first Winter Village set. Also got that Seasonal Penguin set as an impulse buy. I think I’ll build my Seasonal Lego stuff around Thanksgiving break to get in this Christmas mood next month. Santa’s Sleigh also came back in stock earlier today so I was sure to order one.

I just saw this MOC on display at Brickworld Indy today. I was even more amazed by the intricate detail than I already was when I’d seen pictures of it months ago. Kudos!

I wonder how Lego is going to handle next summer’s wave. For 2020, it was a blend of sets from all eras and had sets from each trilogy, The Clone Wars, Mando and Galaxy’s Edge. For 2021, it was almost entirely fixated on the Disney+ shows with more sets for Mando and Clone Wars, as well as a set for The Bad Batch and a few OT/PT sets. Now by the time the next summer wave comes out, The Book of Boba Fett, Kenobi, Andor and The Bad Batch Season 2 would presumably all have aired or still be airing. I’m also curious to see if they’ll put out more Mando sets to coincide with that release. They know sets from the show sell like hot cakes now, so I guess it depends if Lucasfilm gives them enough material to do non-spoilery sets around when that season comes out. EDIT: Apparently, Book of Boba Fett starts steaming December 29th. In that case, it’s kinda awesome that the Boba Fett Palace set will drop just a couple days after the show starts.

I’m sure this is only going to get higher in the second half of the year considering all the hype there was for the August waves of sets, not to mention the Marvel CMFs and some very large D2Cs coming out in the fall months.

I wonder if one of those unknown sets could possibly be a dual microfighter set? This would be the first year since 2017 that we haven’t gotten one I believe.

I'm sure the conflict between Bo-Katan and Din Djarin will be a major plot thread in Mandalorian Season 3. I think that'll be more interesting in the long run. I agree that the finale, and season as a whole, played heavily into nostalgia, but I don't feel that fan service is inherently bad as long as the storyline isn't compromised (which I don't feel was the case with Mando Season 2). Luke is technically the only Jedi around anymore (barring exceptions like Ahsoka or Ezra), so his appearance was sort of inevitable. I don't feel like Luke's appearance compromised the emotional goodbye between Din and Grogu, but I digress! I'm honestly surprised that we're getting a Mandalorian set with Luke Skywalker before something with Cobb Vanth or Ahsoka. Luke's appearance was definitely the biggest surprise of the whole season, whereas Cobb and Ahsoka's appearances were widely reported by insiders for months in advance. Not that that would affect Lego's decision making of course, but I feel like those characters were kept less under wraps and other brands got out Cobb and Ahsoka merch a lot quicker in general. I suppose it comes down to this Dark Trooper set being pretty easy to make on paper (three of the figures are the same and already in production, Luke is an easy reuse or minor redesign, and the build probably doesn't re-invent the wheel.) I wonder if we'll have to wait for Ahsoka's show to get a post-ROTJ/Mando-era figure of her, and I strongly suspect that Cobb Vanth will play a role in at least one of the upcoming shows, so I guess it's just a matter of time.

I'm not a fan of the new Hogwarts system personally (the girls' bathroom is the only set that I got and plan to get from it), so while this doesn't really affect me, I think it's strange that a whole section of this new Hogwarts system is locked behind a GWP. I'm sure they won't include this set in pictures of the full castle in the future, so where would this even fit in at?

There's the Batman Caped Crusader animated series coming out. BTAS co-creator Bruce Timm is involved and the font on the poster looked the same, but it's otherwise unclear if it's related to BTAS or the DCAU yet. I'd love BTAS sets too for the record.

It’ll probably be a “battle pack” the same way that the AAT or Imperial Marauder are Battle Packs. They’re more expensive and come with a named character each, but are otherwise very massable. Though this one most likely won’t have a vehicle build, so that makes it even less of a Battle Pack. That’s a deep cut. I’m excited for this. I imagine the build would have to be that elevator and hallway that Luke fought the Dark Troopers in, so buying multiples might be a good way to get a bunch of parts to do a MOC of this scene. Hopefully the Luke figure is a little updated and not just ROTJ Luke again.

It’s not real, just a fan concept, though I wouldn’t be surprised if this is close to how he appears in the film. No Way Home Gobby will make for a cool Lego fig regardless, especially if we could potentially get a Willem Dafoe face print under the helmet. (Assuming the figure has a helmet of course.)

If he was a part of a DC CMF Series 2, there’s no way we’d be hearing about it yet. The first two series next year are Series 22 and The Muppets, so a potential DC Series 2 wouldn’t come until 2HY of 2022 at the earliest. And honestly, I don’t think we’ll get a DC Series 2 for a while, so I wouldn’t count on it personally.

They could make it a promo you pay extra for like that Ninjago Brickheadz set if they aren’t selling it on its own.

I have a feeling that these Minifigure Accessory Sets are just going to include named characters or at least less massable characters. Like instead of getting battle packs like the ones with the Bounty Hunters or Ki-Adi Mundi and Barriss Offee; we’ll get accessory sets for things like that. Now that they’re bringing back battle packs after such a hiatus, I don’t think they want these Minifigure Accessory Sets competing with them, even if they are Lego Store Exclusives.

I think the movie cast is hilarious and honestly makes me more interested in the movie. Surely Lego sets will coincide with this release since they already have a good relationship with Illumination and Nintendo. Looks like we might be getting yet another Lego Chris Pratt character to add to our collections!

It’s probably going to be pretty similar to that Amelia Earhart set from earlier this year. If that’s the case, it’ll probably pop up in March. That Amelia Earhart set is also one of my favorite Lego promos ever so hopefully this one has the same level of quality.

To be honest, a Star Wars CMF series wouldn’t really interest me. We already get tons of sets and the figures sell quite a few of them anyway. Whether they can make one or not, I’m okay without one. I feel like this debate over whether or not they can make one pops up a lot and it always ends up at the same “who knows?” conclusion.

If it’s Book of Boba Fett based, probably not, unless they’re really trying to keep some of the other characters in that show under wraps. I’d imagine we’ll get three new figures along with possibly new versions of Boba Fett and Fennec Shand if Darth Vader’s Castle is anything to go off of. I could see them throwing in a new Gamorrean Guard. The way they treated fans lately? What? Having a couple errors in the UCS Gunship promotion doesn’t mean that they’re mistreating fans or something like that.

I'm not a Simpsons fan, so I'd be down with a Modular Convenience Store equivalent to Kwik E Mart. Maybe they could include some more apartments on the upper floors. If Lego were to do a Modular Hotel, I wonder how they could go about it. It's not like they can include tons of hotel rooms, maybe one or two for each floor. I would still love to have one someday.

I'm not sure about the Santa Front Yard but I could see the Living Room being similar to a much smaller version of Bro Thor's House. I saw the Santa's Visit at two Lego Stores recently. I was super tempted to pick it up but I'll wait until November most likely.

I guess they call Miles that so that they don’t have two Spider-Man(s) in the show but also aren’t referring to him by his secret identity. Spin is kind of a random name for him, though I get what they’re trying to do there. (“Spinning a web.”) Solid detective work, though I worry that Wong will be left out of the $30 ITMoM set as LEGO tends to only include three minifigures in $30 Marvel sets, and on the occasions they do include more than 3 (like in the Shang-Chi car chase set) they’re usually non-exclusive ones that come in other sets, which wouldn’t work since Doctor Strange is only getting one. (Unless Strange himself is reused from the NWH set, then maybe new variants of the other three could be included.) Otherwise, I see your theory being pretty on point. Also, count me in on hoping that one of the series next year is a Marvel one. I know it didn’t work out the other times Lego has done a Licensed Series 2 a year after the first, but with how well this year’s Marvel series has done already, and with all the hype for the numerous D+ shows, it would make sense for them to do an annual Marvel CMF. (Though of course, by the time Lego was planning next year’s series out, they had no way of knowing the Marvel CMF would perform so well, so we’ll have to wait and see.)

Well, next year is shaping up to be an even more interesting year for CMFs than I had already been expecting. A week ago, I would have guessed the series would be 22, Disney Series 3 and Harry Potter Series 3. Now I’m very unsure about the latter two. Hopefully Series 22 keeps up the quality that Series 21 had this year, as that was the best non-licensed series in years in my opinion. I’m very excited for the Muppets series and those other two series could practically be anything. I have a feeling that one of the other series will also be a new license or series that they’ve never done before. Wild guess, but maybe they could do something with their Universal Music partnership in place of Vidiyo? (Not that I think this will happen necessarily.) I wonder if the hype toward the Marvel series is what pushed Lego to make an entire fourth series this year. Not that they would have known this when they were planning next year’s series out obviously, but I’d wager that Marvel is one of the most popular series they’ve done to date. Maybe this is a pipe dream, but an annual CMF series representing each year’s Disney+ shows would be amazing. As for the prospect of having four series a year, I find that very exciting. To me, it makes a lot of sense to do a series for each quarter of the year, though it will be interesting to see if stores like Target will end up having multiple series on shelves at once which already happens at some locations. What’s nice is that we’ll be getting the same number of minifigures as we would have when we were getting sixteen figure series.

Ooh, I hadn’t even thought of that. That would be a terrific set and would go really well with the Bespin Duel and Vader Meditation Chamber. Luke, R2, Yoda and possibly Darth Vader are safe bets, but this could also be the set that we finally get a Force Ghost Obi-Wan in. It would be especially disappointing seeing as how we still don’t have an Exegol playset, which needs a set far more than the Kef Bir duel.

I wonder if this new Boba's Palace could be the 75326 $100 set. It would be similar to their approach to The Bad Batch, which was also a new D+ show and has only gotten one $100 set so far. Boba and Fennec are practically guaranteed regardless, though it’s a question as to whether it’ll be the same figures we just got or new variants. I hear people guessing that the 75329 Death Star set could be based off the prison escape and trash compacter scenes. I would love it if we got a LEGO version of this old Kenner playset: Regardless, I'm interested to see how these sets turn out. Personally, I think people are being a little too harsh on these sets when we only have names, prices, etc. I like that we're learning more about this wave over time like we did with the Summer 2020 sets.