Flawless Cowboy

That’s wonderful. Anakin really does complete the scene when Maul almost turns him into roadkill. Glad he’s in the set. Qui-gon seems to have his poncho as well. At the same time I find it curious that obi wan, who is in the anniversary branding, isn’t in any set (yet, at least) On a side note, if the leaks on the infiltrator were incomplete, it gives me more hope that the sail barge leaks were also far from final.

The outline of the set implies young Anakin, who wasn’t part of the leaks…unless this is an old Infiltrator?

Any set can be a display set. “Build, play, and display” is a marketing tag under the specifications of nearly every Star Wars kid set on Lego D2C. I brought up age because both an 8+ set and a 10+ set are “kid-targeted” sets, by Lego’s own marketing admission. To suggest that the R2 is more deserving of a detailed figure than the Tantive hallway is pedantic and arbitrary, as only two years separate the recommended starting age of the sets, which, again, are both intended for the non-adult market first and foremost. Not to mention there’s already an adult-oriented R2 on the market. Not to mention that both figures have an equal amount of effort going into them, and the problem isn’t attention to detail, but rather execution of the print which has been an issue with their manufacturing since the 212th were butchered. Being a grammar nazi on an online forum is just silly.

You’re really gonna die on this hill that an 8+ set is only for children, but a 10+ set is for teens and adults. Are people after the age of 10 not getting 8+ sets? The random caps lock and insults are incredibly childish and off-putting friend, I think we’re done here.

This applies to every Lego set regardless of the age on the box. They can appeal to kids, teens, and adults. So again, you’re not making any sense here, none of the anniversary figs are releasing in “18+” sets.

A 10+ set is not aimed at adults anymore than an 8+ set. That’s what 18+ is for. We’re talking about a two year difference on the box, one deserves a Malak that you claim is suitable for adult-level detail, but the one in the 8+ set doesn’t have to be? And I’m cherry picking? Stop moving the goal posts. If I was being extra pedantic, I’d point out that the (+) on the box of Lego sets indicates that it’s for literally all age groups. “Also, the backlash isn't as unanimous as you think it is, I (partly) counted 70 of the comments on Mandr's video, and the public was split, with many of the comments beingfavourable to the new fives or saying it had no issues” I don’t know if you’re trolling or not, but you don’t need to count comments, people simply upvote the opinions they agree with, and the most popular comments on those videos are crapping all over the figure.

Unfortunately, the biggest lego channels are the ones who create angry echo chambers. It’s what sells.

Cool. Now scroll through the hundreds of comments on MandR, Lifebricks, or any other Lego sensationalist’s video on it. 18 comments on brickset is your sample size? “I have never heard of anyone buying a set for their kid because of warm nostalgic feelings” ”I’ve never heard about this, therefore it must never happen”, the post. Straight from Lego’s own product page on the Indiana Jones set: Daring adventures – LEGO® Indiana Jones™ toys let parents revel in nostalgia and introduce their children to the action-packed stories of the first 3 movies with a range of playsets ”Malak is in a UCS set, AKA aimed at adults who are buying for themselves or teens” Nope, he’s in a 10+ set, which is only two years off from the set Fives is in. Ten year olds are adults now?

The overwhelming majority of kids sets are purchased by adults, for kids. Most families that even have the luxury of getting toys for their kids don’t do privileged things like “allowances” and “chore money”. I’m willing to bet more adults buy kids sets for themselves, than kids who buy sets for themselves.

The fringe community of fanatics in favor of Lego. The main subreddit is even more critical of Fives, would you like to see even more hate from the bigger, more jaded community? You said you only witnessed a few comments here and there which is extremely dubious. “you have not shown ANY evidence that the majority of sales are made to adults, so you know...” Kids don’t spend their own money. Parents buy Lego sets for them. Is this really even a point? Kids ask their parents to buy them sets, and parents buy sets for their children without being asked. Kids aren’t watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, nostalgic parents see a kid’s set from that movie on the shelf, they get warm feelings from their youth, and they buy a toy for little Timmy to play with. I agree Malak is very well done, that’s my whole point, they went above and beyond when, to kids, much less detail and effort would have sufficed. Lego sets these benchmarks of quality, and when they don’t meet them, fans rightfully get upset. “why put effort into making them perfectly accurate, when kids won't even be able to appreciate these small and expensive extras and the only people who will be able to appreciate will find something else to complain about anyways” The whole debacle with Fives is that his problems aren’t “minor”, they’re laughable wrong. And as I’ve illustrated, this isn’t an opinion in the minority. There’s a reason Fives’ “eyebrows” became a meme in the community. If you “haven’t seen” the backlash, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, it means you haven’t looked.

You’re losing the plot. You wanted proof that more than “a few comments” were disappointed with Fives, I gave you proof with hundreds of upvotes. This is unrelated to the discussion on Lego and age. “Above all, kids won't care is an accurate observation of the calculations business types tend to make. Kids DO care about prices, because when they are too high, they can't get them.” Right, so again, disregarding the entire point about how the opinions of kids alone shouldn’t dictate Lego’s decisions, especially when it’s clear that most of these anniversary figures are targeting adults (not to mention it’s adults who are buying toys for their kids). The overwhelming majority of people who know Darth Malak are adults who played KOTOR, a game kids are not playing today. Hell, hardly anyone is playing it today, it’s too janky by modern standards. Why should Lego even remotely try to do things like arm printing? Why go the extra mile to include cloth pieces? After all, kids won’t care. It seems Lego is doing something very stupid, in your estimation. I’m sure kids wouldn’t care too much if Fives was missing leg printing (ten years ago, clones didn’t even have leg printing and kids still loved them), so why bother? Lego could easily cut corners in so many areas if all they needed was the approval of six year olds. This is your logic.

That subreddit is a fringe group made in response to unwarranted criticism of lego and blind consumerism. They’re the most likely to be defensive of Lego which makes them an excellent litmus test. Different hobbies attract different age groups, and Lego definitely skews younger (and by extension individual social media communities will be younger as well). Overall Reddit user age doesn’t help your argument (would one expect r/teens to have the same average user age as r/retirement?) Perhaps you’re biased by your own generation, but kids and young teens today comprise an absolutely massive social media presence, especially in gaming communities. And they most definitely are hooked on the bad habits and opinions of content creators like MandR, as Jang said, “rich adults showing off thousands of the same figure to adoring kids online”. Above all, “kids won’t care” is an awful hand-wave of an excuse for poor quality and poor execution of a product, and does not address the core issues. Kids also don’t care about prices as long as they get their toys, this is an inherently flawed way of looking at things.

No, but many children and teens 12-18, the prime demographic of kids’ sets, do. Sure, I don’t know if I’m allowed to post links, but there’s a sarcastic one titled “why are people mad about fives” and another one titled “but he will manage to buy hundreds of it” both with several hundred upvotes and comments criticizing the figure you can easily find

My guy, even the lego circlejerk subreddit was clowning on fives, everyone thinks he sucks. The billion dollar corporation made an oopsie, it’s ok to point it out. As for the kids? The ones watching MandR and Lifebricks whine for a living and parroting their talking points? Who do you think is making a ruckus on social media and Reddit about helmet holes? Adults in their thirties?

*Lego makes a figure that is near-unanimously panned* ”cmon man that’s absurd” nah bro you’re in the minority on this one. Just because Lego is guilty of other issues like bad pricing, poor color consistency, poor prints, doesn’t mean people aren’t allowed to voice their concerns about individual points that you don’t consider to be “real issues”

This. Lego doesn’t struggle with printing around the fin, this is a recent phenomenon. Examine the notable differences in the printing between the old 212th and the new 212th, or the 2020 Ahsoka Clone with the 2023 Ahsoka clone, how warped and spaced out the new prints are. I don’t mind helmet holes for the aesthetic disruption they create, but I do mind them because they are clearly causing some severe issues in printing around the crown. Fives doesn’t look “wonky”, I had no idea what the hell I was even looking at when I first saw a picture of the figure, until I read it was titled “fives leak”. It looks atrocious, not bad, not wonky, atrocious. I don’t even care much for TCW but it’s sad to see nonetheless. We’re not asking for unreasonable, hot-toys level attention to detail here. We’re asking Lego to meet the benchmark of quality they were hitting a decade ago

A helmet that doesn’t look like a printing error

“Inferior fives” shudder

Same. They can’t be too far off though

One step closer to Leia choking out Jabba…

To be fair this extends to prints for me too, it’s the idea of Lego printing a graphic instead of using…Lego :| Other toys can use prints, but they can’t use Lego pieces, that’s always been part of the appeal for me.

Anytime I see a sticker being used instead of an obvious small Lego piece (which is understandable in kids’ sets) my heart breaks. Forgive me. I believe the door is also a giant sticker

I take it back, too many stickers on the tantive set it looks cheap. Should’ve been an 18+ set. On the other hand, buildable R2 actually looks amazing wtf?

Wonder what function the technic knobs on the side have. Also it really looks designed to have two connected together! This is a $110 set

Set actually looks clean, great piece usage to capture details instead of relying on stickers like the disappointing dark trooper hallway did. Very disappointing. They’ll give Boba the same treatment this year in the Sarlacc set, he’s still wearing ESB armor. Lego keeps dropping the ball on these.