Meaf

Maybe this is a relatively minor critique, but I don't know why they left those tan pins visible on the back of the Final Duel diorama when the designers went to the trouble of making it relatively detailed. Normally I'm not one to get too annoyed by that stuff, but when the entire point of the set is to be displayed you'd think they would want it to look as good as possible.

100%. For the time being at least he's probably the only one that can sell a set on his own (as evidenced by the fact that he got a mech). Maybe that won't be the case once they're in the MCU, but for now it's safe to assume that any Lego X-Men release is probably going to have him, other than maybe if they did 3 or 4 sets in one wave, which I seriously doubt is happening any time soon.

Well they do have LotR for that latter category now, though time will tell if they plan on doing much with it. That said, I do think there's room for both. LotR is pretty much the western fantasy world played straight (in large part because it kick started modern fantasy), whereas Zelda is more a blend of western and Japanese fantasy concepts. Zelda also changes technology levels and settings a lot game-to-game, which could help too.

I hate to be that guy but have I missed anything of note? I was up to date when we were on page 165 but I hadn't had a chance to check since this afternoon and now I seem to have missed 9 pages of discussion (and maybe more information?). Anyway, whoever brought up the point about the 332nd and 501st battlepacks being swappable is a genius. Honestly it makes me tempting to get two of each (which I literally never do), but I'll probably just swap them as necessary.

Agreed. Also, while Lego are prone to making questionable decisions (as the leak of the gunship not being the generic version shows), I don't really think they'd go so far as to make a different but similar ship to the Gunship when it has been so highly requested as of the last few years.

Well now that I've read the last 10 pages, I guess I can say I feel mildly vindicated since I was leaning more towards the leaks being real. Anyway, the sets all sound pretty interesting but honestly I am not sure if I'll get any of them other than the Swamp Speeder (it's super overpriced but I can't not get the 332nd). The Gunship sounds cool but I'm not sure if it will fit in the budget, and I know for a fact I will never be able to afford the Venator. I'm glad Promobricks is saying that Rex will show up elsewhere because it'd really have sucked if he was stuck there. I really hope that the only difference between the UCS Rex and whichever one we get next is the face print, because even losing arm printing (assuming he has it) between them would be a shame.

To add on to this, even putting aide the whole April Fool's element, I cannot ever see Lego putting Rex in a set that expensive. Heck I don't think he'll even show up in one as expensive as Cody did, because he's among the most popular non-movie characters in the wider Star Wars universe. The amount of money they'd make from locking him in a $650 UCS cannot possibly make up for the amount they'd make if they just throw him in a reasonably priced set that almost any fan can afford.

Maybe they'll throw in the D2C Hulkbuster too

I wonder if it's going to drop further. Maybe it's seen some success with the general market, but even the biggest fans of it on this forum (of which there are hardly any) seemed to think it had major flaws and was way too expensive.

It would work so well. I don't know if it's going to be a priority for Lego (they have a lot of other themes) but I imagine they must have at least thought about it.

It's technically not a Direct and only ten minutes long, so I don't expect it'll show up there. TotK comes out in six weeks and we've hardly seen anything from it, so I don't think they'd spend some of that ten minutes showing off merch (for the older games too). That said, this is Nintendo we're talking about so anything is possible.

Don't really care about the Endor diorama but wow the Final Duel looks so great, it might actually be the first diorama I end up getting. My biggest problem with it (as seems to be the case for everyone else) is that it just seems way too expensive. Even when you factor in inflation and Star Wars tax, it's obvious that the black base is eating up a ton of parts that are really not necessary. If it goes on sale for a reasonable price then I will likely end up buying it, but this year is already going to be pretty expensive for me so it feels difficult to justify at full price.

Oh no you're totally right. To an extent I understand why people would be worried, but there's still plenty of time for us to hear more. D2C leaks are really pretty all over the place: sometimes we learn about them in detail like a year before release, and other times they get reported on two days before the official reveal. It seems like this new expansion, whatever it is, will probably fall somewhere closer to the latter category. To be honest though, the past three Ninjago City sets have been so great that I don't really need to see/read leaks, because I am confident whatever Lego puts out will be among the best sets to release this year.

I suppose that's fair, but I think in this case people are mildly concerned since we only learned about recently (not that that necessarily justifies those concerns). It feels like these days it is pretty common for information on D2Cs to come at a slow drip over several months, so the new Ninjago City expansion feels like a little bit of an outlier in that regard even though there are other examples of that happening.

I thought the release date was June 1st?

I was going to comment the same thing. Relative to how popular and important he has been in recent Star Wars media it's honestly shocking we haven't already gotten a new version of him. I'm sure there will be requests for other notable clones after we get Rex, but the demand for him feels very justified to me when you consider that he's one of the only recent main characters we haven't gotten in minifigure form.

The general vibe I've been getting is that it isn't gonna make it out this year. To be fair though, it could absolutely still come out in 2023 somewhere later down the line. TotK will be Nintendo's big game for the rest of the year once it's out so it isn't as though the Lego set wouldn't be relevant in November.

One of the set designers said that in an interview back in 2021 or 2022, but I get the impression that it was a spur-of-the-moment statement and not any kind of official decision on Lego's part. As you pointed out, it really doesn't make any sense.

Is there any word from any of the (reliable) leakers about when we might get some details about the rest of the Summer/September sets? I'm getting very tired of the current speculation, and it feels like we're at the point where we could start getting some concrete information.

I think that's a very fair point, and I'd also add that it's just not on the same level on iconic-ness as the sets that currently have a system and UCS version available. With something like the Falcon there's always going to be a market for both, but the Gunship, while popular with PT fans, is probably not well-known enough that the UCS and system versions would both sell well simultaneously.

I remember someone suggested it could be the Home One, which would fit the bill pretty well. A lot of the characters that could be included in it haven't shown up in a while, and the last version (which wasn't even a ship) released more than 10 years ago.

I don't follow the show so I dunno how much that description lines up with what has happened previously, but I also think that it may be false just based on the set names. Imperium Dragon Hunter Hound and Elemental Dragon vs. The Empress Mech both make it sound like the ninjas would be fighting some kind of empire, which doesn't fit at all with that season description. Lego does often use adjectives quite liberally so I don't think those two set names explicitly shoot down the season description, but they don't really help it at all.

Should just be a larger system scale set. For a recent-ish comparison, the Light Cruiser was a 10+ set with a similar piece count.

I don't think we're gonna see the last Mando set next Tuesday unless they actually just screwed up the name. The new episode was interesting but doesn't fit the Fang Fighter v TIE name, and even if there was another set we don't know about I kinda doubt it'd be paced on this relatively slower episode.

$50 seems a bit steep to me, but I suppose that's just the usual for Lego these days. The build looks pretty good to me and Bo Katan looks awesome. The Darksaber could be better but I'm fine with it as is. I think I might wait a little and see if Bo Katan and the Darksaber show up elsewhere, but if not then I will try and get this one on sale.