Faefrost

Honestly, the only Negative to the ssS is a few stickers (alongside some nice classic style printed parts). The stickers are not worth skipping such a good set over.

But Coke is one of the key examples of genericizing. When you go to a restaurant you tend to order a "diet coke" without thinking. You certainly never check to see what the actual blank on tap is, and I have never heard anyone say "diet cola".

Ian McKellen said somewhere that Radagast's staff in the Hobbit is the same one that Gandalf had in FotR. Plus

And you illustrate part of the problem that Hollywood has typically had with comic book movies in general. The Directors want complete creative control. But to be successful the studio cannot give them that. Where Marvel succeeds is they finally started treating their movies exactly like comic books. What I mean by that is rather than giving the director carte Blanche to do whatever they want to bring about their vision, Marvel instead puts in place strong editorial control. Their profit and interests are in the IP. Making sure everything is presented a certain way, and that things can tie well together. Heck this is part of the reason why the two best Marvel films to date came from three directors more traditionally known for long run television and not movies. Joss Wheedon and the Russo's. Fox looks like they may be starting to understand this with the last two X Men movies (although rumors from FF cast doubt on that). Warner Brothers and DC remain clueless which is why they continue to let Goyer and Snyder run amuck. (Actually I am unfair to Snyder. Snyder can be a great comic book movie director when he has strong editorial control, without it not so much.) And with that nature to these movies you will not always see the expected results from big name directorial talent. Some directors will work well within the confines of playing in someone else's sandbox (personally I think Peter Jackson would be great for a comic movie, just based on his skill sets. He works well at adapting within confines.) whereas their are other directors that no matter how legendary just would not be able to work within the restrictions ( I think we can guess we will never see a Ridley Scott "Doctor Strange" movie, just because it isn't an environment he could work in. Although sadly his brother would have been fantastic for these types of things.)

And there is nothing wrong with what you are doing. Nobody is saying it is wrong or distorts the system to grab an occasional good deal and setting it aside for future use or sale. The system thrives on that. 5 years from now some nerdling will be ecstatic to buy that unbuilt Bag End from you. Selling off sets that you don't need or such is fine. But there is a difference between that and wholesale commodities investing in plastic. (In the name of full disclosure, I like you have a couple of sets squirreled away for posterity. helms Deep, Jabba's Palace, Bag End, Vampires Castle and the Alien Conquest EDF Mobile HQ. all bought on deep clearance discount and deals just to good to pass up. I may sell them someday. I may give some to my nephews. I probably won't part them out as I tend to limit myself to only buying extras of the stuff that I truly adore as a set. Sets that I consider in the top 10% of what they ever made. I'll tuck away an extra of what I love for later. But I don't view it as a planned investment. )

I think those are two real good guesses. Both are core ships/scenes from the OT. Both are grossly overdue for a re appearance in system scale (yeah yeah I know the UCS is technically correct scale for Minifigs. You know what I mean. An acceptable play scale.) and it would give them reasons to reuse their nice new Darth Vader, imperial Guard, and other imperial hat molds and prints. Heck a Tie Interceptor or Tie Bomber might even (with a bit of stretching mind you) be a good place to slip us a Zuckass or 4-Lom minifig mixed in with the Imperials?

I somehow can never escape the feeling that Jamie Berard is a well experienced Model Railroader, with a deep love of what is known as the "transition era". (When Steam transitioned to Diesel. Covering roughly the 1930's up through the mid 50's. And with a lot of variation by region.)

Not completely true. Speculators artificially inflate demand. Which does cause changes in production numbers. And which can cause long term harm for the producers if they are not very very careful. Ideally producers want to produce what the end point consumer market will bear, and not much more. They want their product to effectively go through and off the market. They want their product to reach the point of use. But speculators interfere with this. They are an untraceable time sink for new product. If 30-40% of your production run is not reaching a use state! and is instead being warehoused to be returned to the market at a later date! then you as the producer have some huge problems. The bubble creates two major issues, it causes the producers to over capitalize his production capabilities and overextend their resources seeking to placate an artificial demand. And then that stockpiled artificial demand product turns around and directly competes in the market with their newer product. They will draw a short term gain from the spike in sales and multiple single customer sales. But at the end of it all. It really burns them. This is very different from the non speculative aftermarket. Most Bricklink sellers. Those who part out sets. Someone just selling off their old sets. Those are all natural or synergistic things that have no real impact on the producer. They aren't damning up the product stream to dump it into reservoirs for another day. In most cases those type of activities are considered a "value add." Whereas speculative behavior? Not so much.

I find your lack of faith... disturbing Seriously some nice modifications. I would tend to agree that there are limitations to what one can do with the BP set. Although many of the modifications you would have done with the QAR should be more or less valid for the BP? I mean at heart they are the same ship outside of paint and some detail dressing. (That's why we barely saw the BP in On Stranger Tides. The BP and the QAR sets are built on the same hull.)

Definitely go with the Star Destroyer. The Malevolence is about as "meh" as a SW set tends to go. Few real figs, too many droids, most of the figs are available in better cheaper sets. Most of the figs are the generally disliked Clone Wars style faces with the overly large colorful eyes and to much in the way of cheek bones. The set itself while not horrid is kind of uninspiring. It did very poorly in sales, it was the item that Lego themselves blew out at 50% discount on May 4th, just to get rid of it. If you are just starting a SW collection the absolute best "entry" type set, if you have a budget for a larger set, is the 7965 Millenium Falcon. Or if you are more of a PT fan look at the Republic Gunship.

It's a mixed blessing. There will always be a market for older retired products that are no longer available through first party channels. Be they classic cars, comic books, dishware, whatever. and many people have enjoyed happy and productive careers providing services that match those desiring these older products with the products themselves for a profit. In the end all benefit. It is market forces working properly. But then we get speculator bubbles. That's where rather than seeking to fill natural demand for something the speculators rush in to capitalize on a thing before there is a market desire. They grab up actual product and start to interfere with the first party merchandise flow. They distort production volumes and manufacturers planning and expectations. And when it all implodes, when the bubble bursts it does great damage to the producers the customers and the supplies of product. Comic books in the 90's are the classic example of this. Unfortunately there really aren't too many things either the manufacturer or the consumers can do to prevent or mitigate this type of behavior. For the manufacturer it behooves them to take steps to make product more widely available, but they must be cautious to prevent over production being caused by the bubble which can implode on them. For the consumer? Their best and only option is to simply drive the prices down. Don't spend 3 or 4x retail price for a set. Search carefully and accept a lovingly used set for a fraction of that. Try to avoid feeding the speculator market.

What negativity there is over the PR is actually fairly small, just a few very vocal types who feel it is too small in terms of building volume. Seemingly preferring a big box that fills the entirety of the base plate all the way up. Personally I think PR is one of the best of them with all of its eye catching details. There was probably far more negativity with the PC, just because the second floor felt a little un detailed.

Yes Lego was hit very deeply by this, particularly in the 90's when a ton of patents expired. It is still an ongoing issue, but they have taken steps to push back against it, if you will. And the steps seem to be working. Lego is growing strongly. - Licenses. I know some of the old school purists hate the licensed lines. But they are key to differentiation. When the core product becomes the generic use term they need to refocus people's attention on something only they provide. Hence Lego Star Wars. - Multimedia, things that hook people and kids before they get to the toy aisle. Ninjago, Chima, the Lego Movie, etc. - Using their power in the market to control the shelf space that their product sits on. Making sure actual Lego product is most prominent in retail stores. Clone product is not shelved with theirs and is not benefiting from their marketing.

Oddly, the pink astromech is the one that I really would not rule out. That is R2-KT. Given the story behind that particular droid I would not be surprised if it is one that Lego wants to do, but only in the absolute right way. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/R2-KT I would imagine if done the figure would be in some way tied to children's cancer research.

If that is a real Galadriel it seems to use the Maggie Simpson base with a matching 1x2 between it and the torso. Ugh! Just saw that it is fake. Not a bad way to do her however.

The CMF hard hat diver had them? (The 1x1's not the Toy Story legs.) I can see where the Woody legs could be awkward for them to use outside of a very specific purpose. They create a fig with very different flow and proportions than a regular minifig. I can think of very few characters that might work even halfway well with them? Maybe an obscure comic book villain like Stiltman?

Because BW is considered a marketing contractor, for this sort of thing. They are producing movies and videos using actual physical product. Just like whoever is making corresponding Lego commercials probably receives the materials up to a year in advance. Remember they are not keeping this stuff from us because it isn't done. It is unrevealed now to maximize its impact both from and on the next movie. Heck BW may actually be making real Lego commercials for all we know. (Now that would be marketing brilliance!)

I think the Ninja Charger and the Destructoid are the two better sets of those 4.

My Lego store has had both since around the 15th. So almost 2 weeks now. I think they came in with the Mixer's.

Smaug might be the reason we never got a Felbeast set. No matter how you would slice it Smaug would always need to be substantially bigger and more impressive than a Felbeast. Otherwise they never would have heard the end of it.

We really need to be fair to the TBW guys. They have turned their wonderful skills into some real work. Fishing for them to break an NDA is really not something we want to be doing to our friends and active members around here. Remember in this case ultimately the NDA is not Lego's. It belongs to New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers. They and they alone determine when we get info, and they want it carefully timed to their movie.

I think it unlocks stuff in the TLM game. It's mainly a difference of scale. The movie version is much larger, hence in the movie the treads are the large technic treads, those cylinders on the back are cement mixers, the shoulder cranes are actual tapered crane pieces. The wrecking balls are made from those Power Miner wheels, etc. just everything is a step up in size and complexity.

My thoughts on the next game is they had planned to originally make it more Superman centric, figuring a wave of Superman interest riding on Man of Steel. And figured on Braniac as a good Superman game villain. Then they saw the movie... Hence Batman 3.

Oh gods I hope we don't have Smaug at the Battle. PJ was actually very very good at mostly maintaining the cause and effect elements of the stories in LotR. Which is why I remain dismayed at what he has done in the Hobbit. Case in point by having the Dwarves fight Smaug he destroyed Smaug's reason for attacking and burning Laketown. Traditionally he does that because Bilbo calls himself the "barrel rider", and Smaug can't figure out quite who or what he is. He assumes he is linked to Lake Town and goes off to seek revenge. But if he has Dwarves running around his mountain, it's pretty clear what the problem is. So why fly off to burn Laketown? And by the same token, the BoFA takes place because of the unguarded hoard. Everybody wants a piece. If the dragon isn't dead yet, then the battle ain't happening. I'm not buying the Thorin not dying rumors. That's just too big a change. Plus PJ has gotten his best dramatic results from character deaths. Boromir's. Gandalf's. Theoden's. Heck he stuck a contrived one into Two Towers with Haldor. If anything I think he is going to go the other way and wipe out more than expected. I would not be surprised to see more than the expected Dwarf deaths. (Heck Rankin Bass already did that once.) Plus you can guess that there are 2 heroic characters not from the book that will not survive.

Blasphemy! How can you not want Lego Batnipples?!?