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According to the post that mentioned the size and stickers, the saucer section can be removed.

Honestly I wasn't even kidding. To me those were indeed his most memorable moments. Falcon as an Avenger was always pretty inoffensive, Cap's good friend, but in a team setting he just blended into the background up to and including Endgame. We didn't know anything much about his life story and he didn't have anything much in the way of a personality. I've seen both TWS and Ant-Man 1 and he only stood out to me in that one scene in Ant-Man 1 (and not in a good way). When Cap handed him the shield at the end of Endgame I was like "Huh. Well, I guess he is the most decent person Steve knows that's still alive, so sure, why not." The gesture didn't pack a punch or anything. I didn't even like Steve Rogers much but you can't deny he was a strong personality, someone who'd fought very hard to get where he was and who'd made the identity of Captain America (originally just a marketing gag) all his own - a fitting counterpart to Tony Stark's Iron Man. Falcon was never like that. And neither was War Machine, hence my comment about Armor Wars being cancelled. I'd be like making Happy Hogan the new Captain America or Iron Man - he's a perfectly fine supporting character but not someone with a personality you can really root for. And that's the problem right now - with most of the old Avengers dead or retired, we have a roster comprised almost exclusively of perfectly fine supporting characters but nothing more. Tony Stark dying got people up in arms because it was a monumental injustice after seeing him struggle for so hard and so long, and that's exactly why it worked. We need characters like this again. Honestly I don't think team movies like Thunderbolts or FF will be the solution either, even though apparently that's the best Marvel can do right now. Those, too, would need at least one breakout character - like the Guardians would never have worked without Star-Lord. Otherwise you just end up with something like Eternals, a bunch of mostly inoffensive characters but not someone whose fate you'd lose sleep over. The only truly interesting and conflicted ones were Druig and Ikaris, and what did Marvel do - relegate Druig into the background and kill Ikaris off! The current concept of dragging B- and C-listers into the spotlight doesn't work because just because we've seen these people before doesn't mean we will get invested (like Falcon has proven). Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was a much better effort than most in that regard, in that it introduced a whole new character with his own backstory and conflicts and made us root for him, but then he was barely in the same continuity as the rest of the MCU and they haven't done anything with him since 2021. Right now the only characters left who I think could carry a movie on their own are Captain Marvel (and it seems like I'm in the minority here, plus as of The Marvels she's semi-retired anyway) and Dr Strange. (Also Loki and Agatha Harkness but there's no chance of that.) If they go through with replacing them with Kamala and America there'll be no-one left at all. I don't even dislike Kamala but I'm not invested in her, either, and it's high time we got some leads we could get invested in again.

You mean people won't be rooting for RDJ if the only alternative are characters like Yelena? Not likely IMO. Well, I mean his most memorable moments before were getting beaten up by Ant-Man and contributing to War Machine's crippling injury, so it's not like he was doing great then either. But I agree - the extended Disney+ Trailer for BNW makes it look like Harrison Ford is the main character, and to add insult to injury the CGI wings on both Falconcap and Falcon look hilariously fake.

Well using the same for both, even due to cost, would finally be a step in the right direction if you ask me. I'm very tired of LEGO going "curvy waist and lipstick, look it's a girl!" for any female characters from princesses to barbarian warriors.

Let me help you there. Have you seen a movie where all the personnel of Fury's space station were eaten by flerkittens to a soundtrack of "Memory" from Cats? 'Cause that alone has to rank among the MCU's top ten moments EVER. So - not very as it turns out? Thanos: I AM INEVITABLE. Tony: Nope not on my watch.

I haven't seen the Hulk solo movie but Thor The Dark World, while not great, was still way, way better than Thor 4. Ant-Man and the Wasp was actually the best Ant-Man movie by a large margin (which admittedly isn't saying much). Like @Mandalorianknight is saying, the MCU has lost its consistent seal of quality. I'd also argue that it has lost its tonal consistency. Before Infinity War you knew that with a MCU movie you'd get fast-paced comic hero action with witty and flippant dialogue. These days you might end up with anything from horror influences (Dr Strange 2, which I agree was still one of the better entries) to slow and introspective (Eternals) to cringe comedy (Thor 4) to pretty much standard action movies with hardly any superpowers (Thunderbolts). So it's not really surprising that a lot of those movies are more divisive and/or don't meet the majority of the target group's tastes. Plus, cohesiveness. Some movies like Shang-Chi (which I liked) or Eternals (which could have been better written but again had aspects I liked) are so far removed from the others in terms of setting, mythology, and characters that they don't really feel like MCU movies at all. I think it was the same with some of the more established MCU characters initially - the Guardians especially came out of nowhere -, but now the timing no longer works. Eternals and Shang-Chi both came out in 2021 and both teased a sequel that would presumably tie them into the larger continuity but nothing has manifested, not even a mini-series or crossover to another project. The MCU pre-Endgame had the occasional ignored plot hook but didn't drop its characters left and right. At the same time the scope keeps expanding. Previously we had a core group of six Avengers that only gradually expanded, and were mostly based in North America (or space). Now we have movies set all over the world but whose heroes for the most part don't interact or even know of each other. And Marvel keeps bringing in large groups! Previously, the largest group of characters were the Guardians with five or six members and very distinctive personalities and designs. Now Eternals alone had ten main characters (not even counting the non-Eternals), there's the FF, there's the X-Men, and because of the Multiverse there's in some cases multiple versions of a single character! Are we supposed to care about all of them? Basically, the MCU these days just looks like a disjointed mess where everyone (both on the production and on the character side) does their own thing, continuity issues are ignored (say, The Marvels following Secret Invasion), and we don't even have any real idea who the new Avengers should be or who'd lead them. So it's not surprise to me that people would go from "I'll watch all the movies" to "I'll pick and choose the few that sound decent on their own".

The Gum Gum fruit I expect we'll get. Since Yoru probably already needs a new sword mould I"m less sure about Mihawk's knife. And pretty much the only way they could do a Transponder snail is with a stickered or printed tile, I'd think, in which case they might as well not bother as far as I'm concerned.

YMMV. To me War Machine is more like knock-off Iron Man without the personality. I think a surprisingly large part of the audience care more about charismatic leads than about robot suits, and were rooting for Tony Stark but would not root for Rhodey. How forgettable is his personality? Well apparently he'd been replaced by a Skrull for the last couple of movies and Marvel doesn't act like that's a big deal! Screentime maybe, but like someone has said, his entire brand was being friends with Iron Man and even then we never got any fallout from, say, Tony's death. It would be as if Hawkeye were only in the MCU as Natasha's best buddy and Scarlet Witch were only in it as Vision's girlfriend. They were always more complex characters than him.

The Armor Wars movie is apparently dead according to recent leaks, good riddance. Maybe Marvel are finally wising up about every B- and C-lister from the Infinity Saga getting their own movie or series? In other news, catching up on my missing MCU movies I've finally found one worse than Quantumania: Thor Love & Thunder. Yikes that thing is unwatchable, I didn't even get halfway through, just stared at the screen like WTF am I seeing here? And who thought this would be funny and/or in good taste? The Guardians who are barely in it are awfully written, I felt embarrassed for Chris Pratt whose unhappiness with the material and/or direction radiated from the screen. How that thing made money while The Marvels (a cinematic masterpiece in comparison, despite its problems) flopped I'll never understand. I guess it mostly benefitted from its 2022 release at a time when the future of the MCU still looked brighter and people were more worried about missing out on individual entries? At least it gave us a decent LEGO set in the Goat Boat. Ah, the times when MCU movies still got an automatic wave of several sets.

Honestly I am not surprised on both counts. The Morgan and Buggy episodes feature the same Straw Hat trio but the Buggy one wins out by having a more visually appealing setting and a flashier villain (who appears in more episodes, too). And while prosthetics for minifigs are a recent LEGO thing, an axe for a hand is hardly kid-friendly and might well look silly in minifig form. Syrup Village has, again, the least visually interesting setting compared to say the Baratie or Arlong Park. And it’s the darkest and least kid-friendly arc; not that the others are necessarily less violent but all the poisoning and stalking people through secret passageways screams thriller more than swashbuckling adventure. Plus Sham and Buchi seem to be one-off characters with no further plot relevance and if Kuro shows up again later they can always include him in a set then.

CALLED IT! The ONLY thing I got wrong was switching Merry and Arlong Park around. ;-) Found in the usual place: 75636 Partys Bar 301 pieces EUR 30 - Figs would include Shanks, young Luffy, and possibly Makino or the bandit (I don't really expect more than three figs at the most, possibly only two given that both Shanks and Luffy would have to be exclusive). This would also be the setting where Shanks hands over the hat so that's presumably what the leaked hat piece is for. 75637 Buggy's Circus 537 pieces EUR 50 - anyone else expect a spinning wheel? I sure do! - Figs would be Buggy, Luffy, Zoro, Nami, and possibly Cabuji. Zoro's and Nami's outfits in that episode are the same as in the duel with Mihawk/the final scene of episode 8, so they might be repurposed here and on the Baratie/Going Merry. (At least I think Zoro's outfit is the same - the shirt looks green rather than blue in the circus tent but that might be the lighting.) 75638 Arlong Park 926 pieces EUR 80 - I cannot see this giving us more than 8 figs at the very most, so that's the Straw Hats (5) + Arlong (1) + one or two fishmen for them to fight? Luffy wears the same outfit in this scene as in the final episode of episode 8, the red vest that's already been leaked (and the stretched arms would make sense here). It's noteworthy that Nami is wearing Luffy's hat throughout that scene, I'm not sure how LEGO's going to solve this. 75639 Going Merry 1376 pieces EUR 130 75640 Baratie 18+ 3402 pieces EUR 300 Also it's said that we get "at least" 6 more sets in 2026. Presumably these will be based off season 2.

For the Merry I'd expect the main cast in the outfits from the end of episode 8: Luffy - straw Hat with black hair (as per leak), red vest torso (as per leak though probably without the stretched arms which should belong to the Arlong Park set), blue cut-off pants. (He wears the same thing at Shells Town but I don't think we'll get a set of that.) Zoro - green hair and no bandana, white shirt, green striped haramaki sash, black boots and pants. (He also wears the same thing in the Marine Base fight though he puts on the bandana during it.) Nami - white-and-blue shirt, orange skirt (the same skirt as on the Baratie, I think, so they could repurpose it). Usopp - brown dungarees, no shirt, red bandana hair piece (as per leak - the same bandana as on the Baratie) Sanji - black suit (so the entire outfit could be repurposed, too)

Assuming that the Baratie set will include the duel with Mihawk, this would give us at the very least the following characters and outfits: Mihawk (presumably exclusive to this set) with dashing feathered hat, open black-and-red coat, and no shirt wielding sword Yoru (and small knife? The standard LEGO knife is a different shape but they might well include it. Or they might just print the knife on Mihawk's torso I guess.) Zoro in duel outfit (dark pants and boots, dark red striped haramaki sash, dark blue shirt, black bandana) with all three swords (and some way to carry Wado in his mouth, i.e. a trans-clear neck brace or something) Luffy in Baratie outfit (red shirt with green dungarees or possibly the blue-white shirt from the Arlong fight but I'd expect the former, and of course the leaked straw hat/black hair piece) Usopp in dark red coat with no shirt and then either the dark red tricorn hat from the first day or the red bandana hairpiece that's already leaked from the second day, I'd expect the latter Nami in Baratie outfit (pink shirt, short orange skirt) Zeff (presumably exclusive to this set) with peg leg in chef's outfit with towering hat (he doesn't always wear it and at one point he wears a red-and-white striped shirt, but the chef's whites and towering hat are too much fun to leave them out) Sanji (black suit, striped shirt, black tie - though he doesn't always wear the suit jacket so it might be missing) Other than that, there's some cooks or pirates (say, the two whose fight in the dining room Sanji breaks up), the fishman host, Gin the shipwrecked pirate, or of course Arlong harrassing some fancily-dressed diners to chose from. Another option might be the visit by the marines in episode 7 (Garp, Kody, Helmeppo).

Do you mean the EUR 130 set, or did the price change? Makes sense, though, because like I've said the Baratie is a lot bigger than the Merry and displaying both would otherwise be awkward. Plus that way they can lock Mihawk behind a EUR 300 paywall. *sigh*

I'd love to see LEGO's marketing description of this set and its play features: "Cook up poison soup in the kitchen and serve it to the mistress of the household in the dining room!" "Murder your guests and throw them in the well!" "Stalk the mistress of the household through the secret passageways in order to take away her inheritance!" (I'm assuming they wouldn't actually include the wine cellar because, well, wine. Even Malfoy Manor's cellar only had trans-light blue liquid coming out of the barrels.)

Interesting predictions! I don't really think we'll get Syrup Village, and what would Garp and Koby do at Arlong Park? (Round up the beaten fishmen presumably but this was never shown in the actual episode.) On the other hand I can't really see an Arlong Park set with Zoro but not Sanji, since their team-up was pretty epic. Your argument for the Merry being the biggest set certainly has merit (though the Merry isn't such a big ship and if it dwarfs all the various buildings from the other sets, as well as the Baratie, it would make it harder to display). Another thought that occurs to me, what if the biggest set is two ships, i.e. Garp's ship and the Merry? Though as I've noted above, Luffy's leaked torso at least doesn't fit his outfit during the one time the ships have so far met on the ocean. In other news, Netflix have officially announced that they've finished shooting season 2, and have posted a pic on Instagram showing the main cast's outfits in Loguetown. Zoro is wearing the exact same thing from the barrel scene in episode 8, I think, and Luffy the same (or a very similar) vest which also corresponds to the leaked torso. But Nami and Sanji have different outfits, and Usopp is wearing a pale lilac sleeveless shirt and matching bandana. The last fact makes me think that we can rule out a set based on Loguetown since, if it involves Usopp, they'd have to recolour his bandana again (and a colour normally reserved for Elves and Friends sets, too, so you'd think this recolour wouldn't see much use). Other than that, current articles about season 2 mention Tony Chopper (who'll be animated), Nico Robin, King Wapol, and the fact that the Alabasta arc won't happen this season.

Actually we have. 4722 Gryffindor had both the common room and the dorm, though a barebones version of both.

See, that's where you're wrong. The current price for a LEGO Marvel set with three figs is EUR 95 (and you even get three cats thrown in for free!). Though it goes down EUR 10 with each extra minifig, so a four-fig set is only EUR 85. By this logic a five-fig set should be EUR 75 so EUR 55 is actually a bargain. (I'm open to being hired by LEGO as a Pricing Manager any time.)

The last Fluffy was just fine except for the crappy light bluish gray parts, but that's not a problem of scaling. And if anything it was too big - the only way you can cram it into one of the 2021 Hogwarts modules is if you pose it lying down (i.e. sleeping). A Fluffy of that size would work well for the current system, I think. Also, LEGO seem to have a thing for both vehicles and animal characters even in themes which don't have many of either (hence the fixation with the otherwise not very important Ford Anglia) so I think Fluffy's probably a given.

Well, the good thing is, both of them can fly. So - ceiling space?

So here's a summary of one piece leaked minifig parts so far and which episodes/locations they correspond to: 1) Luffy, torso with (dark) red vest and stretched arms: episode 1 (Shell Town), not episode 2 (Orange Town - he's wearing a white T-Shirt), not episodes 3+4 (Syrup Village - he's wearing sort of a Hawaiian shirt and a black vest for dinner), not episode 5+6 (Baratie - he's wearing dungarees and a red T-Shirt and a mostly blue T-Shirt later on), episodes 7+8 (Coco Village, Arlong Park; also on the Going Merry though his arms wouldn't need to be stretched then) 2) Luffy, black hair/straw hat combo: well that doesn't narrow it down at all 3) Luffy? or Shanks?, straw hat with a way for minifig to grip it: could be Windmill Village (Shanks handing young Luffy his hat) but there's other options as well 4) Buggy: blue hair/hat combo: episode 2 (Orange Town) (Buggy appears also in episodes 3 and 8 and his head appears in several other episodes but always without the hat) 5) Usopp, hair/red bandana combo: episodes 3+4 (Syrup Village), episodes 5-6 (Baratie - though not during the initial dinner and bar visit there) 6) Usopp, hair/green bandana combo: episodes 7+8 (Coco Village, Arlong Park; also on the Going Merry) 7) Shanks, (dark) red hair/straw hat combo: flashbacks in episode 1+2 (Windmill Village including bar fight and Lord of the Coast fight, giving young Luffy his hat) Did I miss anything? If I'm correct then we can deduce a couple of things: - Merry is probably a given anyway. - There's going to be a fight scene set of either Shell Town, Coco Village, or Arlong Park. (I also assume that the same Luffy torso, with normal arms, will be used for the Merry.) - There's a set with Buggy in Orange Town. - There's a set with Usopp in either Syrup Village or Baratie and another one with Usopp either in Coco Village, Arlong Park, or on the Merry. - There's a set with Shanks from one of the flashbacks in and around Windmill Village. Personally I think the Lord of the Coast fight is likely but it could also be Shanks giving Luffy his hat. This in turn gives us the following locations: Merry, Shell Town/Coco Village/Arlong Park, Orange Town, Syrup Village/Baratie, Windmill Village. The ones I've put together are mutually exclusive so we'd either get one or the other. Personally I think the Baratie is more likely than Syrup Village and Arlong Park is the most likely out of the other three but you never know. Coco Village, on the other hand, could give us Garp & Co. So here's my best guess: 75636 - 301 Pieces, $29.99 - Windmill Village/whatever with Shanks (Lord of the Coast fight?): Shanks, young Luffy, Makino? 75637 - 573 Pieces - $49.99 - Orange Town: Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Buggy, Cabuji? 75639 - 1376 Pieces - $129.99 - Arlong Park/Coco Village: Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Usopp (green bandana), Sanji, Arlong, one or two of Arlong's henchfish? Alternatively Garp & Marines (Kody, Helmeppo, Nezumi)? 75638 - 926 Pieces - $79.99 - Merry: all the Straw Hats possibly including Kaya 75640 - 3,402 Pieces - $299.99 - Baratie: all the Straw Hats, Mihawk, Zeff, Arlong?

I can't see that. The Red Force is only shown in flashbacks in season 1 and that hardly at all. We have two major ship locations (Baratie and Merry) and a bunch of others that get more screentime than the Red Force (Alvida's ship, Nami's sloop, Garp's ship) not counting the land-based locations. I doubt they'd waste one slot out of five on it. Themes this small don't usually get polybags. But you never know.

Consensus seems to be there won't be any because a) there's a lot of D2Cs on the shelves already (though the Hogwarts Express has retired, that still leaves the 2018 microscale castle, 2020 Diagon Alley, Gringotts, Hogwarts Icons, and the Burrow) and also because by now we're getting regular sets (like the microscale Diagon Alley) and even regular playsets (like the Great Hall and the rumoured Main Tower) at a price point previously reserved for D2Cs. But you never know.

Thanks, I hadn't known about that one. It seems to be the same hat/hair combo as Luffy's with the hair recoloured a dark red. And honestly that's baffling to me because Shanks' and Luffy's hair looks completely different in the show - Luffy has curls and much shorter hair, Shanks has straight and longer hair. It makes me wonder if they're trying to save money by using the same mould for both. Hey, maybe they'll use a recolour of the leaked Usopp hair/bandana combo for Zoro as well! (Also the red is way to dark for Show!Shanks, but there's already been a leak of Luffy's torso piece and the vest is also a much darker red than in the show, so that's apparently what they're going for.) If the hat/hair combo for Shanks is legit then I do think we might get a set for Shanks, young Luffy, and the Lord of the Coast for the reasons outlined above.

Do you have a source for that? The only leaks I've seen are a hat/dark hair combo (for Luffy) and a hat without hair but which would allow a minifig to carry it in its hand. This might point to a scene of Shanks handing the hat to little Luffy but not necessarily so (i.e. Luffy takes off the hat and gives it to Nami in Coco Village, Nami takes the hat from Luffy and throws it in the air in the Big Top ...). If there's an actual hat/red hair combo for Shanks I couldn't find it.