Flawless Cowboy

Isn’t MBS Endor basically confirmed? It was a part of that TandN leak where everything has come true so far. Plus, we’re overdue an MBS.

Hot Toys uses flakey, deteriorating faux leather that has a shorter shelf life than early 00’s Lego stickers.

For the same reason we criticize people for voting for the “wrong” candidate, I suppose. Every dollar spent is a vote in the market, and every little bit helps. Silencing criticism of how people spend their money only helps bad companies.

Gotcha. You said “for a while” which made it seem like it was going to be OOS for weeks or months. I also don’t know where you live.

Why would a $45 battlepack be “hard to get a hold of”? Even the sensibly priced ones in recent memory were not difficult to obtain. It does. See: Hulkbuster and Black Panther Bust. I think they hit a 50% discount on Lego at a certain point. This wasn’t due to a concerted protest, just the natural reaction of consumers.

You’re trolling, right?

The penny pinching on the figures in this set astounds me. Even when other themes deliver underwhelming big budget builds, like the LOTR Shire, the figures are treated with the utmost respect, dual molded everything. If this set is a diorama, the figures are even more crucial to the display value of the build because there is no iconic spherical silhouette to mask the interior. The figures ARE the exterior detailing now, and the depressing thing is that we can’t even say “well maybe someday they’ll get it right”, because it’s a $1,000 toy. It literally can’t be a more appropriate opportunity to deliver the best renditions of these characters. This is it, LSW with this set is essentially saying, “this is the best your money can afford in this theme”. Money is no longer the issue, it’s the people making these decisions who are the limiting factor.

If it is indeed a box, a height of 70 cm and length of 79 cm seems staggeringly large. How do you vertically populate a diorama that tall over such a length?

What happened with the back of the MTT? It looks unfinished, nothing but studs. Even the 2014 model featured the right details. And the “weapons rack” feels like an afterthought. All the ingenuity went into the deployment mechanism and the model has nothing else going for it

I see this complaint a lot and I just don’t get it. No oversized UCS set has ever come with two identical figures. I’d understand if people wanted a Chewbacca because he’s relevant to the scene, or if they asked for dual molded legs, but this is not a minifig-scale build. The figure goes on the stand. The Justifier had a landing function that was reminiscent of the V19, the rear wing’s movement folded two side skids using technic pieces. It’s definitely doable, perhaps not at this scale. Either way, this V19 is a far less ambitious successor.

And it doesn’t even have landing gear…it’s just a less cool toy overall.

What is the purpose of the back half of the MTT? To hold the STAP perhaps? It’s a pretty large void but it’s detailed.

Lego updated its stickers sometime in the 00s, my old UCS N1’s stickers are almost all disintegrated, but my 2005 vulture droid looks flawless, even though part of the sticker is hanging over the piece. And it’s not like I kept it out of the elements when I was younger. Hopefully they stick forever!

How do you deal with stickers fading over time on older sets? Do you get replacements?

The new Galactic Marines helmet mold is almost certainly going to be reused when they release a Mandalorian and Grogu AT-AT, so backpacks will return. This also explains why the goggles sit too low on the Marines, the eye print won’t have to change when they swap over to snow troopers.

Funny. I just opened a few of the early Star Wars advent calendars I ordered off bricklink. They each had at least five humanoid characters, in addition to droids and charming small ship builds. This one has a 3PO with red eyes, a Santa themed jawa, and the rest are droids or micro figures. The builds look terrible, small parts pack afterthoughts. Grim.

How in the world is the buildable B1 $130, but K2SO is $90?

Considering the 2021 chibi tie fighter had over 400 pieces and the Death Star GWP tie fighter is 236 pieces, I think it’s going to be midi scale and will possibly even pair with the Death Star itself, in a hangar interior for example.

Going to look fantastic next to Boba’s Slave I

Wasn’t Filoni writer and director on much of the beloved Clone Wars?

The entertainment industry has definitely shifted from crafting films to churning out a myriad of television shows on streaming services. A far, far dumber form of entertainment.

Fateful teasing an Indiana Jones return. April Fools aside, this would be the fifth true “prediction” from T&N’s 2023 list. The final one would be an Endor MBS, which I assume would come out next year.

No. The older generations are getting catered to with the adult lines and considering we’re getting a thousand dollar set this year, the mature market is lucrative. As long as there are people who “grew up” with Star Wars, the brand will continue. As far as kids go, the number of children’s sets has already been dwarfed by the 18+ sets. Star Wars doesn’t have the choke hold it once did on the younger crowd and I don’t see that changing, but Lego makes crazy money off adults alone. If anything, it might go the way of LOTR, focusing more and more on adults. After all, kids aren’t watching LOTR, and they surely aren’t reading the books either.

To be back on topic, I wonder at what point Lego will decide to scale down their pricing, they’re the only major toy manufacturer who grew in 2024. It seems they’re trying to position themselves as a luxury toy on par with something like hot toys.

Nope, I never said this. I very clearly said that there is a misconception that Marcia was the main reason the originals were well received and that her absence was the reason the prequels were not. The “Star Wars was saved in the edit!” claims were dismissed by Marcia herself. Would the prequels have been different with her presence? Sure. Would they have been better? Not necessarily, why? Because she didn’t like TPM? Because her work was very well received once upon a time? This is a fruitless rabbit hole to go down. This ties to the greater misconception that Lucas received special pushback during the original trilogy filming that was absent during the prequel trilogy. “Lucas didn’t have any moderating influences” is your quote, and it is patently false and baseless.