Thomas_w

Youtube as a "career" in general seems to end in drama, burnout and resentment for pretty much every hobby I follow on there (I am interested in organic chemistry and there is currently a fall out amongst all the chem-tubers). The big names in each hobby are a small set of people and largely exist online and in a little echo chamber and eventually it all blows up. I can imagine the grind of having to constantly produce content, chase ad revenue and so-on eventually saps all joy out of the hobby that you originally created videos for. There do seem to be a few Lego-tubers out there where this hasn't happened to them, I can suggest RR Slugger, who doesn't do reviews as such, but posts interesting Lego content seemingly free of drama. As for "high-profile reviewer" my impression is that his passion for the hobby (or at least) Youtube has been ebbing away and it has made much of his content dour and irritable. Enough that I more-or-less stopped watching any reviews of things I might be interested in. With him, I get the impression he is independently wealthy enough to not need the income from his channel, which begs the question, why do it?

I think for the high-profile reviewer in question, he has been so vocal about being independent / unsponsored in the past, that now upon taking sponsorship has to almost performatively justify why he is now doing this. That video (not the review, but the "talk about sponsorship") was erratic and, frankly, bizarre, which I think stems from the cognitive dissonance of building your brand on integrity, and no sponsorships, but then taking some money / products for reviews anyway. It's something that I think Youtubers care about much more than their audience. The video reviews are good in that you can see a product close up, different angles, close up of the figures. I appreciate the well-produced videos that "high profile" reviewer and others put out. But do I care about their opinion? Not really. Another long-winded rant about stickers or "price-to-part ratio", not really.

Oh you are the DnD guy who made everything in red and black! Super cool. I can't wait to see the progress on this one. Did you play Baldurs Gate 3?

I love everything about this BardDandelion! I think I like the dragonflies you made the best. But everything has so much personality. I don't know if you are familiar with the children's TV show "Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom" but it reminds me a lot of that.

@carpandean Oh my, I love it. I also prefer the original Lego Boba Fett mask. The mandalorian one is very cool.

Haha, it was relative to an undergraduate funded by the basic student loan here in the UK. I felt like an absolute king because I lived in College accommodation which was quite cheap.

Great to see some retro Lego heads amongst the figures here. I think 14 is my favourite because its exactly the sort of mixed up dude I would have made when I was younger.

Around 10 years ago I went through a phase of buying a few older sets, Blacktron II, M-tron and Forestmen. Basically some sets I wanted as a child and never got. I had just started my PhD and finally had a bit of ££ to spend with my stipend. At this time buying older sets on Bricklink was actually pretty cheap (definitely relative to now) especially if you didn't mind about the box or instructions. I remember buying a lot of sets from EU countries because shipping them to the UK was cheaper than buying them domestically. Having looked recently for some older sets they seem to be astronomically priced relative to back when I was buying them. Things like Adventurers, Ice Planet, older Star Wars sets are all just too much for me to justify buying them for nostalgia, especially in context of all the amazing intricate and diverse sets Lego release now.

I had an order in on the 1st Jan for England, it got dispatched on the 13th and the DPD tracker suggested it was held for customs clearance for 2 days. Was not expecting it to be so long, but given the huge changes with regards to Brexit and also the global pandemic I think it is justified and understandable. Feels like the UK had taken a huge step back though.

I think 1/5 is very unfair and perhaps you should judge the set on its own merits. Fine, you don't like the concept of the Microfighters, I am halfway inclined to agree, but I do think being critical of this set because Han Solo is a common figure and there have been previous Millennium Falcon Microfighters is missing the point and the way it is written can be interpreted as mean spirited and condescending rather than satirical or humorous. It's 6 years since the last Millennium Falcon Microfighter with Han Solo was in it, think how many children have grown up, been introduced to Star Wars in that time? How many might want a cool set with Han Solo only for their parents to look it up and find that their options are £120 for Slave I or £350 for the Cloud City? Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon are two of the most defining, iconic, things about Star Wars. People who haven't even seen these films would recognise them. Maybe instead of groaning at Grandma not buying you a "real set" (ugh) you should celebrate that Lego has provided a route (by Microfighters) to bring the most popular characters and the spaceships to less affluent families who cannot spend hundreds of pounds to buy sets containing chase figures that are released each year.

Setting aside that this set is a cheap (ish) way to get the Mandalorian and Child figures, it does feel a bit sparse otherwise. In a dream world it would have included a bantha (perhaps in lieu of the speeder and the crossbow?). Having seen the episode I agree with Retro and Calanon in that I would have liked to see Cobb Vanth included, but given the chance of the figure being leaked online I guess it was safer not to include. The Tusken Raider camp is nice, it could have been expanded on if the crossbow wasn't a feature. I mean its not terrible, but if it wasn't for the two major figures I think it would be received more poorly, can you imagine this set with say Luke and R2D2? It wouldn't be popular.

Very slick, love the use of the classic Fright Knight Witch torso and the 90's "generic female" head.

Brilliantly creative, love seeing different methods to create interesting poses. Despite that I think my personal favourite is the chap in the middle.

This is a really neat little retro-style build you have made ProfSrlojohn. I like the coffee mugs-as-headlamps and how you have managed to keep the style and aesthetic of the M-tron sets, but incorporated newer elements. Something about the bubble-canopy always makes me think submersible and not spaceship and so my mind immediately decided this was some sort of aquatic suvery ship, where the M-tron guys scour the depths for space cargo or salvage.

The pipe element on Sir Archibald is neat, is that an official Lego element? I get a real Fantasy Era vibe from these guys and the newer CMF armour slots in neatly with the existing silvery toned helmets. What caused such a happy go lucky bunch of dudes to sign up with the Fright Knights anyway?

I think it looks great 009. Sort of giving me a Genie from Disney Aladdin gone rogue vibe and perhaps a bit of Diablo II in there as well. I guess one thing about it that isn't clear to me is the head area of the demon. Is the blue 1 x 1 tile his "head" and its just tiny relative to his horns and torso? I always enjoy seeing how builders make larger sized characters from bricks in lieu of using BigFigs. Thanks for sharing.

Great job 009, I was immediately drawn to the black wraith / phantom things nicely positioned with the transparent elements. I found the use of the minifigure head on a brick build body to be particularly unnerving, as I was expecting the rest of the minifigure. It very much gives them a spooky and otherworldly vibe. The use of the flags to create a tattered cloth effect is also very well realised. Do you have a link to the model you were trying to recreate? I would be interested to see what these ghost guys looked like.

I agree with you, I got this recently and was really impressed for a promotional item. A couple of things I noticed were; 1. The vendor minifigure doesn't quite fit the rest of the kiosk, he clearly belongs in a hipster coffee shop, while the kiosk has a sort of skeevy late-20th century theme park vibe to it. 2. That the domed elements that form the roof would have been more aesthetically pleasing (to my eyes) if they were the same blue shade as other elements in the kiosk, rather than black. For me, this was a great and much appreciated promo item. I particularly like the female minifigure, her all denim outfit is very retro-cool and fits nicely into the imagined cyberpunk megacity MOC that I dream of making one day.

I would like to see this. Perhaps a series of vignette type sets that were not exclusively focused on some sort of battle or conflict. Civilian life in Star Wars perhaps? I don't think it will happen as it has been ~ 20 years and the pattern is very familiar now. I echo what lots of other posters here think in that the cycle of X-wing, Snowspeeder, AT-ST and landspeeder has become quite uninspiring. I was hoping that the sequel trilogy would really diversify the type of sets we got, but it has been largely the same. That being said, I don't think this is a fault of the Lego designers, but more that the sequel films have been quite uninspired in their designs (a TIE fighter, but with white wings for example). I think Lego have tried to branch out where they could. They tried making their own stories (Freemaker) and explored other spin outs of Star Wars like the Old Republic MMO, but it always comes back around. What even would a break mean for Lego Star Wars? If they took 5 years out and came back, it would just be the same stuff and everyone would lap it up. It would be more-or-less the situation now, but with a gap in the cycle.

Hi, I saw it in a Tescos (Newmarket, Suffolk) yesterday for £19.99. I didn't grab it, but I did get the Bounty Hunter Battlepack for £9.49. It wasn't in their system yet so someone did it manually. It seems like a good deal for a tenner, but I am not sure if this is some pricing mishap. The label on the shelf clearly said £9.49 for it though.

Honestly, I think its the original Boba Fett. I know there are so many more detailed versions of him but I have had him since I was ~ 12 and he is as cool now as he was then.

I guess currently we pay VAT on Lego sets if you buy them in the UK and Lego in the UK is already quite expensive relative to the USA (10p / piece roughly is more expensive than 10 cents per piece) so its already sort of a raw deal. I don't fully understand what will happen (does anyone?), but if a new trade deal is reached with the EU there could be some sort of tarrif on "luxury" imports, which I assume that Lego could be considered as. The cost would probably increase then. Its all very speculative though and I myself am confused if Lego sets made in say China would be subject to different tariffs than those made in Denmark or wherever in the EU. For the next two years at least nothing should change with regards to regulation, but economic uncertainties and potential recession as a result of Brexit might make your £££s worth less in a global setting.

Its tough, but I think the Death Star would be the one I kept.

This set is crazy, its like a weird fantasy evil demon podracer . This was a really good review, but I would pass on the set because its just not my thing and I can't see myself using some of the parts for anything else (the giant red ball heads for example). I think as a child I would have loved it. I do really like that they bought back the "serf cowl" piece, any set with that in it is worth something in my book.

Combining it looks great! Lego really knocked it out of the park with this one I think. I really like that TLG have based some of the designs on the Spiderman cartoon (though I assume the cartoon took inspiration from a particular comic book artist). I really hope that one day there will be Mysterio in Lego.