NoOneOfImportance

He did, yes. On one of his posts about the Chinese New Year sets, someone asked him about the Z-95 and Temple and he specifically said they were not coming.

Given how much LEGO is throwing desired figs into cheap sets, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them is Thrawn at this point. haha

When there are more Star Wars waves in a year than Disney Plus Marvel content releases, we are indeed at a stranger point of the past few years. That being said, I do like the staggered waves, especially with April generally being more 18+ heavy and surrounding waves being more kid-friendly.

I'm curious to see how long themes like this and Animal Crossing last. Wonder if they'll be able to keep this going for long, or if they'll be 1-2 year themes.

Looks like pre-orders have ended both on LEGO's site and Target. We shall see if they reopen. In any case, I guess that's probably a good sign that it's selling well?

In the best way, the incessant remakes aren't for you, or for us, so much as for the new generation growing up with Star Wars. For the kid who has no X-Wing, having a new one on the shelf for $50 is great, even if you personally have the 2006 and haven't cared for years. Star Wars is a franchise that is constantly getting new fans who want products for it, and not all of them have the knowledge/desire/ability to scour Ebay for expensive old sets just to get a classic starfighter.

I'm gonna kinda follow along with this and say that the scene was, in retrospect, just okay as a whole. It was another unnecessary Order 66 scene to add to the list. As much as I'm glad Ahmed Best got to come back, the figure is, like you said, a swapped out Mace Windu head with a robe (because you know the LEGO fig will be pretty much that)...

My main question is when we'll get a larger Venom figure to use. Almost every appearance anymore he is portrayed as a larger, hulking figure, and, while I'm not sure a big-fig would be perfect, a larger build for him would be interesting as a set (for the record, fig-based, not something like the buildable figure).

I'm not sure I would agree with this. Look at it this way: for people who don't want to combine figs from the 332nd and 501st packs (whether due to lack of interest or of knowledge), they now have a Rex, 332nd, and 501st specialist army with no regulars available (and the only ones that were available don't match the helmet hole look). LEGO would be smart to put 501st into this set. They go with the scene, and for people who want 501st for their army, they would then have to buy multiples of this set to acquire that (and since I doubt this set will have more than two of any trooper, that would entail people buying a lot of this set). Remember, not everyone is aftermarket-experienced. They buy what is on shelves to army-build, etc., and LEGO knows that. Additionally, from a budgeting standpoint, I would rather LEGO reuse prints to make 501st for this set and give us good anniversary figs with the budget than put a bunch of extra effort into two troopers for a $30 set that don't need it. LEGO's theme budget isn't unlimited, and I would rather it go where it matters more (at least to myself and some).

Another important thing to note is that all choices ultimately have to get run through Marvel themselves (as Stafford said with the Bugle). I am very intrigued to hear from the designers which figs they wanted to add but couldn't, etc. if that information can be shared.

Kinda this, yeah. It feels like they went halfway with some of the scenes. We get the hammer scene, but we don't have a normal Banner (who is an easy inclusion without needing new prints, and it would fit the "I'm always angry" scene with the Leviathan too. We get Vision and Scarlet Witch, but we don't have Quicksilver to complete the birth of Vision (we also don't have the Tony fig from the big Hulkbuster which was made to represent that scene and would have worked easily). We randomly have Wong, but we don't have Strange (we don't need either). We have Fury but no Hill or Coulson that could have easily fit in. I understand some of those are wishlisting to a degree, but there are definitely scenes they could have easily played out that are just missing a fig or two.

This, yep. He's the one who was certain that the new battle pack had an ARC-170 and was certain that the fake Death Star leak was true, among other things. And a lot of his rumors like the Maul and ARC ones are taken from Lifebricks without credit (and without validity much of the time) to pass off as his own. He's not a reliable leaker in his own right. Going back to the topic at hand, I am curious how they are picking these figs. Would love to see more of these one-off figs, but it seems weird to have Malak and no other KOTOR items available, etc. Makes me wonder how many more random fig inclusions we'll see in the summer, etc.

That looks great! Is there any thought for instructions or a breakdown of the build at some point?

The MK.85 also appears with the newer style helmet in the Iron Man armory from last year, though I suppose we all do want to forget that set.

Glad I can be helpful with im-mort(is)-alizing this important moment. Guess only time will tell the outcome. In other news, is anyone else surprised that there's only one rumored diorama for next year?

Nice to see my signature is helpful for something. I'll have to make an addition to it....

This is why I don't mind a lack of leg printing on some figures. If the removal of leg printing for some allows the budget for great figs like this with full printing, I'm okay with that.

I'm guessing this is just a budget consideration. Easier to throw in a cheap Ant-Man microfigure we keep getting in other sets to leave more budget for other figs/ aspects of the build.

For the record (and rereading my post, I didn’t phrase it well), I think the wave is great. I didn’t mean that I think the wave seems so much worse, but rather that for some it’s easier to look back and not like sets as much because of innacuracies (like with Kylo’s shuttle). Not something that bothers me, but I see how some people think sets are “worse” after they see inaccuracies that are just because of lack of concept art.

I don't know that we're getting terribly worse sets. People are pretty unanimously loving the Ahsoka wave. It's just that because of concept art not being up to date/info being sparse, it makes the sets feel so much worse, no matter how well they are designed. I mean, that would have to be a pretty downsized Chimera to make that work... I think it just depends what designers had to work with. If they didn't get all the info/designs for the Chimera, then I could see an Eye of Sion releasing first since they clearly had designs to work with from the earlier episodes (where that ship obviously appeared). But I guess time will tell.

I'm honestly wondering if it's more likely we'll see a Chimera or a set of the Eye. Both could easily include Thrawn, but the ISD seems to be a likely candidate for the flagship set of Filoni's movie (if it's in that). Wouldn't likely impact the fig selection much, but interested to see what/which they would pick if there is more Ahsoka next year.

Honestly, even with the reboot, I question how quickly LEGO is going to rush out to make Swamp Thing, etc... I see sets releasing when Superman Legacy arrives, but given how badly "unknown superhero" movies have done recently, I don't think LEGO or any toy company is going to immediately bank on this rebook doing that well. Black Panther 2, Eternals, etc. action figs and such are still sitting on shelves in some places... (Before I get a slew of discussion about how x, y, z character isn't "unknown," I only mean in the way of "worldwide known" like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, etc. are, not that no one knows of Swamp Thing, etc.).

I mean, A-Tower would likely have a much larger base area, like people have said, so $525 for that building isn't out of possibility if it's a 32x48 or 32x64 footprint.

But why put Cad Bane in a cool set with a Rancor and Scorponek when you could put him in a ship no one wants! At the end of the day, companies make what's popular. It says something that basically no one did ROS sets after the movie, not just LEGO. I don't think the Bad Batch shuttle did well enough to warrant more sets for that show either. Given Thrawn's popularity and the Chimera, I would NOT be surprised if we see some more Ahsoka sets this next summer, whether a Chimera itself or something else with the figs people want. I could honestly also see a Rebels revamp set, similar to revamped Clone Wars sets of late, that could include Kanan or Zeb, etc. to make them available when people most want them.

This. And for anyone who is about to say "but they're $5" - yes, they are, but they are a $5 figure made to be available for 2 months with a completely different budget setup. Just because a set is $850 doesn't mean that they necessarily have the budget to make every figure with arm and side leg printing. There is very clearly a lot of budget that goes into a build, and designers do not get to pick the price or budget when they are given the task of creating a set.