RyansRebuid

These are hilarious. Love the Hulk fist guns.

If they play the hits, there's no risk of failure, right? This movie has nothing going for it nostalgia-wise, and even with Ryan Gosling, who knows how it'll perform critically and financially. It's an untapped era… and the two previous times that happened in Star Wars were the Mandalorian and the Acolyte. (Ugh, I feel bad breathing those two in the same sentence.) For the former, it got one set—a redundant remake at that, and as for the latter, obviously it didn't perform well, and I think TLG avoided a shelf-warmer with that one. We'll see the set potential of Starfighter upon the trailer release, so I'll hold my tongue for now. In the short term there's low chance of failure. But I think this consistent lack of risk-taking turns people off long term. You already see on this board the people who have been collecting for a long time underwhelmed by this Jan wave because they already have the stuff. I think playing it safe too long eventually becomes a risk in and of itself.

If we only get 3 sets for the big new movie, what are they doing with this theme, y'know? If the new stuff doesn't get sets anymore it's all remakes forever. Also, sometimes it seems like you all are reacting to news from the same source, but unless I missed it, it's not posted here. Were all these sets posted on Reddit or something, and we're all reacting to that? There's a list in yesterday's post, but not piece counts or prices.

Wait, the different countries get different mags? This is wild. I'm going to Europe (Spain & UK) in August and was wondering if I could casually pick up a Lego magazine for the figure and as a fun souvenir. But it sounds like the competition is a bit more intense than "tourist wanders into convenience store."

Obviously this back-and-forth has gone on for ages, so I doubt I'm adding anything you haven't heard, but I'll just present the opposition case. Which is that Luke is whiny in much of Episodes 4 and 5, and has mostly overcome this in Episode 6, but people aren't stagnant. Bad changes in people's lives can undo or challenge "character development." I think "whiny" Luke was so much more of an interesting choice than some generic Wizened Sage character. The Luke/Rey stuff is the strongest material in that movie, and is in so many ways reminiscent of Yoda/Luke. Yeah, I just strongly disagree. I don't think all the choices were right, but the characters have all grown (or changed) in interesting and challenging ways.

I think the feeling around TFA is more sour now because it commits the huge canon sin of blowing up like 5 planets. And now that it's not the new! Star! Wars! movie anymore its almost exact match to A New Hope is more obvious. The Last Jedi is the best of the three, but got trapped in the culture war, which I don't think was ever a big issue for Star Wars before that. A bummer. It's got a lot of flaws but it also has, like, any original ideas at all, which is unique among the Disney movies. (Rogue One is in second there, but I just rewatched it and honestly I think Andor has made it overrated.) I think I'd strongly disagree with this idea. Luke doesn't lean into it as hard as Rey or ofc Anakin, but there's dark-side dalliances in both Episodes 5 and 6. The most recent set of villains Kylo Ren and (IM THE SPY ) General Hux both make morally complex actions. (Edit: Maybe you were talking TV canon, but this is w/r/t movies. I haven't followed the modern TV canon closely. And honestly I think someday the shoe will drop and all the bad TV will be excised from the canon just like the original EU.) Speaking of the guy, Luke's X-Wing is getting swapped out at work today with the Sith Infiltrator. Time to go home and hang out with Dodonna, Luke. My office energy is now sinister.

Great to hear about the build from everybody!

I agree that it would be great to sever the ties from the current Star Wars saga/continuity. I'd be okay if the movies for Star Wars went away. But I'd worry a little bit that that would mean less Star Wars other stuff that I like, like games, books, and ofc Legos. Obviously, since the 90s we've basically constantly gotten that extra stuff whether or not there were movies coming out. But if Star Wars really is weaker than ever, or maybe weakest since like 1989, then I worry about the smaller media material getting cut down to size

Any thoughts on building Minas Tirith? Things you like/dislike. I dislike that these forums move so quickly from speculating on one thing to the next, especially given that we actually just got something.

Finally got a chance to see the movie on a discount day. In just the 4th week it's already quite difficult to find a showing where I live in a major east coast city. A bunch of theaters have already taken it out of the rotation. Seems like it's doing quite poorly money-wise. Scattered thoughts: I would say I enjoyed the movie. I think everyone at the screenings going, basically, "it's fun" is about correct. Low stakes are okay. It definitely does feel like a stitched-together TV special with a few episodes, although obviously Lucasfilm has denied that any of this was written for TV. On one occasion it felt like we were about to go to commercial. Mando being a one-man army is a bit uninteresting in some regards because it trivializes most combat situations, but I guess Mandalorians are supposed to be the coolest dudes. That arena fight has, like, 4 more monsters than it needs to. It's overwhelming to try and follow. Cool creature designs, though. Overall hugely respected how many creatures there were. Extreme commitment, in a good way, to showing Star Wars full of aliens. I hate celebrity voice-casting. Jeremy Allen White was actually okay, but a bunch of the others were not great. The best vocal performance in the movie is Zeb because he's voiced by an actual voice actor. Nice seeing Steve Blum's name in the opening credits for a big movie. Superb anime dub guy. The Anzellans rocked. The solo bit with Grogu is probably one of the strongest sequences and is one of the few times the movie took a breather. I think in a few years this will be considered an underrated film in the Star Wars canon. This is a decent movie that came out when Star Wars needed a great movie. Unvarnished hater take: Dave Filoni putting himself in this movie as "Trapper Wolf" is loser behavior, I'm sorry. The cut to him looking cool in his OC-megablocks outfit as they bring Janu Coin in is eye-rolling. Kathleen Kennedy may have had no plan, but at least she had the self-respect not to cast herself as Killer K le epic Imperial Hunter in Episodes 7-9.

I know it's not the same thing, but I couldn't help but crack up a bit when I noticed it. I am going to Barcelona this year to see the Sagrada Familia, and the flights + tour costs about as much as this set.

Jiggly is so bad that it almost wraps around to being good. I'm tempted to get it for the $15 because it's an absolutely hilarious toy.

Oh but how else will I find out what to do with my new battle droids from 2007 or 2008

SMART Play™: Charizard vs. Jolteon Ultimate Battle costing $120 (USD) seems absolutely scandalous. The Jigglypuff one is extremely funny looking. I'm definitely going to try and work it in as an extremely specific reaction image. Honestly I'm a bit relieved that these have a kind of junky, for-kids look so far. I think I'd be extremely tempted by a Lego System line of Pokemon Play Sets. We'll see about that rumored Pokeball set.

"Making a joke about Grogu dying" being the hot social media trend of the moment seems like a bad indicator of sentiment around Star Wars ngl. Although it is extremely funny. https://defector.com/kill-grogu?giftLink=ab49aac2a42b82844a3d79dc36c0f92a