Faefrost

There is not much that we the fans can do. What probably will help however will be that big new Lego factory being built in China. It will greatly reduce the transport costs that get built into that infrastructure overhead. Plus China has been very aggressive recently in negotiating very favorable trade deals with Australia and New Zealand. The Chinese factory may allow Lego products to be considered "made in China" for both domestic Chinese sales and for certain local nations such as Australia. The favorable trade deals and the Cinese Wan being directly convertible to the Aussie Dollar may allow Lego to treat the entire region as one for cost amortization, and the shortened supply chain makes it much more practical to do so. All this should lead to Lego prices falling to at least Euro levels in the entire region. ( See folks! That Chinese Lego factory is not the bastion of pure evil that some fear.)

Pure speculation on my part, but I'm guessing they are going one of two ways. (Maybe spoilers? i really have no idea, im just guessing)

My take is the studio is not liking what they are seeing in terms of script and preproduction, and are really not liking the requested budget, and have sent the whole thing back to square one.

One other thing that our poor suffering Aussie and Kiwi friends have to keep in mind. The pricing is not that TLG hates this region. Regional or National pricing is based on the costs of bringing the product to market amortized over the expected number of products sold. That "Amortized over the expected sales" is where the US, Germany and Canada tend to win out. Lets look at what is normally the worst case area, Australia. (And yes New Zealand gets it the same or worse, but the larger size makes the Aussies a better example). Our problem is we think of the problem in a 1 to 1 manner. A straight currency conversion. We assume costs are equal or are even directly relative or flat. We have heard the term "economis of scale" without ever quite understanding it. Here is what we often fail to realize. There is a minimum base cost for entering into any countries market. It does not matter if it is the US or Ireland or Australia. The base costs of infrastructure needed will be fairly high, and at the minimum level fairly static. Distribution, transportation, marketing, etc etc. while they may scale upwards, there is always a lower or bottom threshold to them that must be in place. The costs of this minimum threshold are then divided or amortized among the expected products to be sold. Now if you are expecting one market to sell over a million pieces this mortization will be far less visable than in the market where you are expecting to sell 50,000 pieces. Yes the costs of infrastructure and delivery in the 1 million region will be greater, but the cost increases are not a straight ratio. They are a quickly flattening curve. The costs associated with going form 100,000 units to 200,000 units are substantially greater that the further costs associated with going from 800,000 units to 1 million. This is where the US and Germany win out. They are a large enough sales market that the basic costs of doing business there get very diluted amongst the shear number of sets being sold. Whereas each set sold in Australia carries a very very large piece of those basic costs of doing business. And the sad thing is at certain levels it gets a bit self perpetuating. Australia's total sales numbers will remain lower, and hence its amortized costs more concentrated per set, in part because they are priced higher. TLG would essentially have to prime the pump a bit and effectively subsidize Australian sales with sales from another region, in order to increase overall sales numbers and allow the needed costs to be spread around more broadly locally. But here's the kicker. Many countries have very protectionist import laws that make it very illegal for a foreign company to do this sort of thing. The price of the goods must reflect the actual costs of the goods sold. I could be wrong, but I think Australia is or has been one of these type countries. Is this making any sense?

It's just great seeing Warwick Davis in a Doctor Who episode.

ThAt would make the most sense.

That Sith fig makes me feel almost prescient for using the CMF Series 8 Robot head and torso as a TOR Sith Warrior http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3626bpb792

Agreed. This will fail in the business case as being in conflict with the active license. A UCS type ultra detailed Tumbler we might have had a hope for. But Lego has twice produced a "minifig scale" Tumbler set. One years age (insane aftermarket prices) and the smaller dinky one just this year. I know they say that a project being a part of an active license does not disqualify it. But I honestly think whoever drew up that policy did not investigate things deeply enough. And this is the same thing that killed the MWT and will kill the Sandcrawler project. In the case of an active license they have no effective way to differentiate between a CuuSoo project, and one that is actually within the production loop or would be part of the normal production schedule. Take the Sandcrawler as an example. For purposes of their license how does Lego differentiate between a CuuSoo proposal and simply remaking a new version of set 10144? Why would the license holders ever agree to doing a major item like that as a very small limited release CuuSoo project with ties to an outside designer, when the license and the design is already active with TLG? It's one thing if the project was an obscure subject under the broader license that would never otherwise see a regular release (As an example something obscure from Star Wars such as Dash Rendar's Outrider, or an unusual but well known video game ship. For Batman, maybe a 40's era Batmobile?) But I am doubtful that they will ever go for a main primary or iconic subject as a CuuSoo project while the license is still active and a front line presence on retail shelves. I just think the legal stuff probably gets too complicated.

I thought there was a report that they weren't doing those anymore?

I can't speak to their regional or national pricing. But the reason they will not send to freight forwarders any longer is because of the prevalence of the Drop Ship scam and CC fraud they have been hit with in the past year.

As expected the Batman Tumbler hit 10k today. Congrats!

Let's not forget Harry's greatest creation KONG!!! RIP oh great master of the imagination.

The Thief makes sense, at least when compared to the Astronaut with the Magical Fairy Wand?

It will be interesting to see what direction they go in after LotR ends. But it might not have as much impact on Castle as you think. Remember LotR was more a direct replacement for Harry Potter, not so much The traditional Castle line. I'm also not sure how eager TLG would be to revisit a multicolored named knights theme. The last time they did that was not real well received. Granted they have scored well with Ninjago and Chima since then.

I think your design looks much better. You git the shape of the front right. And I think your engines look better proportioned.

It may be that it was a set that did not get as large a production run as some of the less expensive ones, and as such is reaching low stock levels or sold out from the warehouse sooner. It's not that they "retire" it and pull it from the shelves. It's that they have sold out or are selling out of what they have made, but don't plan on going back and making more. So it may sell out in different regions or countries at different times. And may still be found on some retail shelves after it has been retired from S@H.

Oh one other minor disappointment. Another Sith Trooper? They couldn't have given us a minifig of the annoying creepy foot fetishy protocol droid that comes on every player ship instead? And when I say annoying I am not kidding. When SWTOR went free to play, one of the "features" they offered to sell you for real money was the ability to shut the robot up. It was one of the more cunningly evil ways of monetizing a game that I have ever seen. Truly worthy of a Sith

I remember early on when we first saw rumors of this waves LotR sets there was also the mention of what seemed to be a smaller "Frodo and the Ringwraith" set. Has anything ever been seen or heard about that? Was it pure rumor, or is there a hope that there is still a small exclusive somewhere in the pipeline? (I ask this because we just saw a picture of the SW Jedi Defender set for the first time today.) As far as the Hobbit? I'm fearful that DoS will be a smaller wave than we would like. Because of the last minute shift to three movies they wasted two DoS sets last wave. I expect we will see something from Laketown, and hopefully Beorn's house. And some sort of Erebor and Smaug set. But without knowing what they will also be doing with the whole White Council / Necromancer side story it is hard to guess.

I like it. It looks like a great interpretation of the ship. It has a bigger feel to it than the Sith Fury, and just has a great deal of presence. My only complaint is the front section looks a little too flat or squashed. I think it should peak a little more in the center. But it still looks really good. But Am I seeing this right that there are 4 sets this release hat break the $100 barrier? That's getting kind of scary and annoying.

I wouldn't rule out a nice little A Wing. It would fall in line with the successful Snowspeeder. I think Slave 1 is problematic because of the curves that would be needed. I think we would see a UCS Venator before a new old school SD. Weirdly (or maybe not so much) the Venator has become one of the favorites from the PT in the more adult modeling community. There is also room for some truly awesome UCS ground vehicles. The CuuSoo Jawa Sandcrawler is a good example. Or an ATAT or Juggernaut. ( I think the real secret is it has to be either OT, or if PT, clone related. No Droid or Jedi vehicles from the PT). A nicely detailed UCS Luke's Landspeeder would be cool, although figures may be a deal killer. The B Wing didn't have sales issues because of its subject. It had them because its price was too high, its piece count too low, and the most rabid fans didn't care for the cockpit design. As we saw, as soon as the price dropped it flew off the shelves and sold out the worldwide supply in about an hour.

Wasn't Battlefront basically one of the regular WW2 combat games that they flipped over into the SW universe to great success? I can't see Battlefront 3 being built on Battlefield 4's engine as a bad thing? I think the team that gave us Dead Space could probably do justice to a Dark Forces / Jedi Knight / Force Unleashed type game. And I have no complaints if Bioware does another KotoR. Lets not be fooling ourselves. Lucasarts produced some of the best games ever, over a decade ago. But they have been deep in the Bantha Poodoo in recent years. And I can see why Disney didn't want the games unit in house. Their own in house video game division bled out $50 million last year, and that was a good or vastly improved year! The year before they lost $70 million. So I can see where contracting it out to one of the big players would look to be the best approach. That pretty much means EA, Activision, Ubisoft or Square Enix. Square is weird, broke, and problematic these days. Most if heir dealings with Ubisoft have been with Disney themed kids games (see $70 million loss), Disney has a current direct rivalry and competition with Activision (Skylanders vs Disney Infinite) and few direct business dealings, and they already have pre existing deals with EA regarding SW subjects. You can kinda see how or why they went with EA.

Have you ever read "Lord of the Flies"? The community is kinda 'Lord of the Flies Online". (Granted I am not sure that it is actually as bad as XBox [/quote] channels...)

Soooo... The Chi is in fact some sort of hallucinogenic narcotic? Cause I'm thinking there's a bit of a "bad trip" going on there somewhere?

It looks like the Batman Tumbler will probably cross the threshold this week. And I am guessing the League of Legends project pretty soon after. I'm curious, for the video game projects do you think the reviewers actually play the games? Because I'm thinking the League of legends project will look great on paper, and via screenshots. But I would love to be a fly on the wall when the reviewers actually login to the game and meet the LoL Community. That should be quite the learning experience. I'm betting a few of those nice unassuming Lego people that we see in the videos will need therapy afterwards.

According to one of the managers at my local Lego store, that will never happen with licensed sets. The street dates on licensed sets are part of the contracts, and they mainly come out when the licensor wants them out. Some of them, such as Lucasfilms can throw a fit to Lego when they get broken. It's one thing if a store breaks the street date on an internal line such as Galaxy Squad or Castle. That's really just an issue between TLG and the vendor. But breaking it on the licensed sets gets the license holder involved, which gets painful. I think TRU caught some flak last year for breaking the street date on the summer wave Star Wars sets.