Venkefedo

I'd be fine with the "exclusive minifig put in a set 6 months to a year later" practice continuing... it'd mean we'd get an actual KOTOR set with Darth Revan! Not to mention all the silly SDCC exclusives of fairly major (to comic fans!) characters like Phoenix, Bizarro, Shazam, etc. I agree about the SBDs and BDs (I'm not even sure I have any of the former, and only a handful of the latter), since they're so limited compared to standard minifigs... they always seem like "cheap" filler (not far, IMO, from some of those early TCW sets like the V-19 with a single minifig), but that's mostly on Lucas for having cheap filler baddies; I'd much rather see those Vulture Droid Neimoidian warriors or any of the non-droid Separatist forces from the comics & books as fun minifigures than BDs, SBDs, Commando Droids, or even Droidekas. That said, if they released BDs/Commandos with the new pistol-grip bent arm from the preliminary images of the AAT, I'd love to get a few. The 'straight arm' pose is one of my beefs with the regular BDs.

No Target I've visited in the last couple weeks has had any...not even any apparent space for the CMFs. Just a brief window where the short-wall 'featured' area had pegs for the CMFs and the early-bird Witch King sets.

Eh, the V-19 only 'sorta' counts, but given it only has a single clone pilot minifig, maybe it can squeak by Besides Ventress' fighter, the other major contender for a Microseries release would be the tiger-shark Gunship... but with such a recent Gunship release, that seems unlikely in the near future. None of the UCS starfighters are minifig-scaled, tho... for the Sandcrawler and Slave I, minifig-scale makes sense; for a TIE--any TIE--System-scale can be pretty close to minifig scale. "UCS-ing" it would just bring it up to a $50-$90 set, maybe, rather than the ~$200+ most UCS sets target. 9492 may not be big enough to recreate scenes in REBELS with two characters occupying the cockpit at the same time, but one in scale with the Red 5 X-wing would give them a ridiculous amount of elbow-room.

Noooooooooo! I'd rather see a wave dominated by Bespin & Dagobah scenes... a Carbon Freeze Chamber scene, a "No, I am your father" scene, maybe a Dinner Betrayal, Ugnaught Smelting Room, or Corridor Chase scene, a Cloud Car set, etc. I just worry that trying to put all of the Cloud City stuff in a single set again would be a disappointing and/or monumentally expensive effort. Yup, the old guard had dark red cuffs. Not a huge loss, but a bit of a shame when Boba looks so good and arm prints pop up all over the place. Plain arms aren't enough to knock this set off my "most wanted" list, tho!

Plo's fighter is regarded by many as the worst of the Delta sets, while the Azure Angel seems based on the build for Saesee Tiin's starfighter, which I really like. Plus, getting a new Ventress is nice, as is the astromech and Anakin. Turning it into Plo's ship is more about stripping it ofthe silly Azure Angel additions to make it a regular Delta-7B again, for use by Anakin or Plo or whoever.

I think it was Season 1 of the Microseries (set, obviously, AFTER Episode II because Clone Wars). Genndy's series was a lot of fun, but not better than the 6 seasons of the CG Clone Wars. The Microseries was extremely light on story and character development, heavy on action--especially over-the-top, 'would never work in a live action SW film' action. It was Samurai Jack with lightsabers and other Star Wars trappings, and gave us our first tastes of Obi-Wan & Anakin as friends, of a good Prequel-era starfighter battle, and well-choreographed saber duels that didn't just feel like elaborate dances endlessly rehearsed & drained of life. It also, sadly, gave us our first wildly inaccurate experience with Grievous, setting or expectations far higher than Lucas ever intended. But it cannot compete with the later Clone Wars series, which delivered a more movie-esque Grievous, good character development of Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ventress, and the clones, solid duels, great battles on both the ground and in space, etc. That trumps Mace Windu beating an army of SBDs with his fists and old-school Superman-jumping back into battle after having a Coca-Cola moment with a kid any day. I'm still a fan of it, of course, and will pick up the set... Hopefully it can easily be modded into Plo's fighter!

It's the same clone that Hasbro first made back in '05, which was pretty much just the concept art helmet deco... Took them forever to release an Oddball.

Everything was looking so good, then I noticed you didn't give Mara any sleeves. How can she hide a blaster up her sleeve if she doesn't have sleeves? It's her one defining gimmick in the entire trilogy!

Yep, same here! Didn't matter that they weren't in the movies; I could imagine they were. Kids won't care that they done know to who Thrawn is; if the set is cool enough, they'll be just fine getting a blue guy in a white Imperial officer uniform, since they'd also be getting another Luke Skywalker or something with him. Better to tackle more diverse elements of SW than just keep cranking out clones and Battle Droids. And KOTOR is no older than the Microseries, and fans would flip over an HK-47 minifig

Padawan Anakin makes perfect sense with the Azure Angel, tho, as he wasn't yet a Knight when he flew it against Ventress... Unless you mean "regular" Padawan Anakin as opposed to "battle-damaged Microseries" Anakin. Others mentioned a gold hand... Easy enough to fix ourselves, but really it's Genndy's team that goofed, not Lego... Anakin probably shouldn't have been going into battle with a bare mechanical hand anyway.

Doubtful. A striped Gunship with a team of ARCs might be nice, but pricey (and too soon after the last Gunship); a BP with 3 Blurr ARCs and Fordo would be better, there. I don't much fancy an armored Obi-Wan in a bike joust set with another black IG droid. I'd rather they tackle another area of the EU; something with Thrawn & Mara, or Kyle Katarn's Moldy Crow, or more KOTOR to go with Revan. If they're even allowed to do more of the non-canon stuff, that is. Tons more potential there than from the Microseries.

I'd love a bartender if only to get a tankard; I think I mentioned in another post a bartender could work if they also have a bottle that signified it as root beer or soda. I just want a tankard!

With the DisneyXD app, you can see next week's episode early. It's technically "episode 4", since Spark is an hour... earlier in the week the channel finally split "Spark" into two parts, airing Part 1 on Tuesday and Part 2 on Wednesday, which my DVR interpreted as new episodes. The tan-tunicked officers were in Spark, too, in at least one scene.

It's officially set 5 years before ANH, yes (thus Ezra is the same age as Luke & Leia--but you're correct in thinking Luke should stay on Tatooine, still living his boring life; even a cameo by him would feel cheap--Beggar's Canyon is about the most exciting thing he ever experienced until getting attacked by Tuskens & meeting Ben!) I also think Bail's investigating other groups; it's important to remember the Alliance's first victory against the Empire is the mission that saw them steal the Death Star plans, which probably only happened hours at most before ANH began. Many have argued over "first victory"... I tend to think of it as "first pitched battle", while in the months/years prior to that the Alliance lost every major engagement with the Empire, and only "won" in missions that weren't meant to be battles, hit-and-fade attacks, harrying shipping convoys, basically larger-scale versions of what the Ghost crew did in the premiere with the stolen blasters & food. For all we know, Dantooine was the first Alliance base, abandoned for several weeks/months before they moved to Yavin. They can get a base set up (and abandoned) pretty quickly, as we saw in ESB (Hoth was such a new base for them, they hadn't adapted the T-47 speeders to the cold when Han asked! And they were also still scouting for life around their base, not something that would've happened had they been there for months). The Alliance only really has to be around long enough for word to spread to the boonies, which should happen pretty quickly. Gossip travels faster than light! And for teens hating the Empire and wanting to do something about it, any word indicating resistance would be pounced upon. I think it's entirely realistic for the Rebellion to have only been in existence, in its Alliance form, for about a year, maybe two. As such, I think it's plausible for Rebels to end with the formation of the Alliance--tho it's also possible they'll keep it running right up to the beginning of ANH, in which case I fully expect the Ghost and any surviving crew to be involved in the theft of the Death Star plans... it's an obvious and cheesy end for them, whether they survive or not, but it would then tie the crew's exploits very closely to the movies. I don't know if it's Kanan that's got Bail's interest, I'm thinking it's more just the fact that they're a small but, so far, incredibly successful group.

Great MOC! As to why we haven't been going back for decades, the answer's obvious: there's not much there worth retrieving. While a moon base and/or repeated moon visits would likely be excellent for research, there's not much worth bringing back. No oil, no gas, possibly not even any rare/valuable minerals.

Didn't someone say the Anakin ship & Hailfire Droid were on it, tho? If so, it's worth posting if you find the time since so many folks are chomping at the bit to see final images of those two

Yep. In the EU, Nien had a sister named Aril Nunb who joined Rogue Squadron for a time after Endor--and survived the experience!--but that's all Legends now.

I did some more tests, and my Princess' hat is more to blame than her head, while it's definitely the Hun's head that's the problem for me, tho his helmet and the princess hat are the worst offenders on his head.

Indeed! I may use some when I get around to my farm phases... I love the use of those technic gears for the underside of the mushrooms. I've got some extras of those kicking around... Also love the Farmer Maggot reference; are there halflings lurking about in Historica? I don't recall seeing any, but I may have just forgotten or not read the appropriate posts containing reference to 'em. I only recently made some yellow-skinned halflings and have been looking for something to do with them besides sit on the shelf...

Putting those Friends colors to good use! Fantastic!

The Empire isn't new, tho... it's been in charge for 14 years. The only "new" thing is it's extending its reach across the galaxy, taking more direct control of various systems. Part of that is explained in A New Dawn, with Kanan heading further & further away from the Galactic Core as the Empire extends its reach. It's a fairly recent arrival at Lothal in the show, it seems, tho its effects had been felt for awhile (hence Tarkintown). I'm sure we'll see more of that ship... Ezra's 14, Leia's 14, it's bound to happen, having two Ahsokas involved in a mission with hormones & tempers raging (I imagine Ezra might echo Luke's first reactions to Leia in the hologram, only there's no danger of Lucas deciding a few years later to make them siblings... but his personality probably will have her reacting to him more like she initially does to Han). The Rebel Alliance isn't even a thing yet, and while I'm not really in favor of the Ghost crew being the main inspiration for it (could be worse... it could be Galen Marek forming the Alliance at the Emperor's behest!), being an inspiration/influence for it isn't a bad thing. I loved R2's decision to join them, and Chopper's fairly downplayed acceptance of him (ie, Chopper stopped being curmudgeonly toward him). I hope they ease up on the "large groups of stormtroopers firing at the heroes with zero cover and missing all the time" stuff. It's tough enough arguing with folks that the stormies' aim in the movies isn't as bad as most people claim, but so far Rebels has gone above & beyond the entirety of the OT. One can only use "they're heroes, they can't get killed by enemy grunts" excuse so many times before it looks ridiculous... and it's already crossing that line. I hope they explain the Imperial Academy more...and especially that they introduce another non-Imp Academy for pilots/crew somewhere in the Outer Rim. They've got the opportunity to return "the Academy" to what it was before the EU came along, into a flight school training aspiring spacefarers in the ways of piloting & running ships. That's one bit of the deleted Anchorhead scene I loved, it firmly established the Academy as a non-Imperial place--since the idea that Biggs or Luke would join the Imperial Navy just to get off Tatooine was so ridiculous. People gave high praise to Dark Horse's "Darklighter", but that whole story hinged on the fact that they left out the one part of the deleted scene that pointed to the Academy being non-Imperial (ie Biggs planning to jump ship & join the Rebellion rather than waiting around to get drafted into the military), just so they could have Biggs in an Imp uniform (with a cape!) and flying TIEs before joining the Rebellion. Sorry, that's my pet peeve and the mention of "the Imperial Academy" in this episode got me thinking about it again.

But are the hats the problem, or the heads?

It's a collapsible Magnaguard staff combined with a stormtrooper E-11 blaster and (on Kallus' bo-rifle) the blade end of a skiff guard vibro-pike. That's a terrible visual description, but sorta covers the Frankenstein's-monster mishmash of what the weapon is.

Hopefully they make a rifle version and a staff version (with hollow studs at the end to put jewels or whatever we want to indicate the stun energy)... I nabbed several Scout Pistols from BF recently; they're still on sale for under $0.25 each, along with the "Robot Blaster" aka Battle Droid gun. Now I've got several short Lego blasters available for my non-Scout Trooper minifigs!

The Conquistador is still listed in the "My Collection" section for Series 8, however...