Venkefedo

I don't think a preliminary figure automatically means it's a new figure; they may not have had the intended repack figure on hand for the photo shoot. "Maybe these are not finished?" that goes with the "preliminary" status... That's one big reason why these are supposed to be confidential, not for public viewing. They're just rough ideas of what they'll be selling to retailers. Also, re: Rob1321's complaints about the shooting guns, lots of places on BrickLink have had SW pistols/rifles for very reasonable prices lately... stock up!

So long as people remember what "preliminary" means, I say bring it on! (Too many "why is a stormtrooper in a Clone Wars set?"-type remarks in the SW 2015 thread)

That Mace episode was amazing... but totally over-the-top for Star Wars (much of the action of the Microseries, sadly, was like that... but holy crap were there some fun action sequences in that! I still love the battle on top of the train... some great choreography between the Jedi and the droids/Grievous, and the ARC troopers in the first 'season' were terrific.

He did say "TimeWarner or Disney" in the very message you quoted... I'd love a couple CMF series of Muppets... Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo (purple tux), Scooter, Animal, Rowlf, Floyd, Dr. Teeth, Janice, Zoot, Lips, Statler, Waldorf, Beauregard, Pepe, Bunsen, Beaker, Swedish Chef, Walter, Rizzo, Camilla, the Pigs In Space crew (with Piggy in her space suit), Robin, Uncle Deadly, Gonzo the Great (cape!), Sweetums, Lew Zealand, Crazy Harry, Pops... that's at least 2 full series right there, and there's still plenty more they can tackle (variants included)!

Two speeder bikes and 3 figures does seem pretty small for a $27-ish set... That Anakin fighter is mind-boggling. The Microseries, really? I guess someone at TLG must have really, really wanted to make it, and got the OK from Lucasfilm... I hope they'll push that hard for Grand Admiral Thrawn/Mara Jade set, a Kyle Katarn set, and a Zayne Carrick KOTOR set of some sort! I like the new bent-arm-blaster-holding BD droid arms. Finally! Not a big fan of the BDs, but this is a welcome change from the straight-arm "Kenner Stormtrooper" look when holding weapons (still doesn't mean I want TWO of them stinking up 1/3 of the 2015 Microfighters assortment, tho) Speaking of which... Everyone realizes that, but what else do you expect them to do? Microfighters need pilots. Sets need minifigures. As adorable as a cute, self-piloting chibi Vulture would be, for $10 I better see at least one minifigure in there. I just wish it was the Neimoidian Warrior instead of a BD. Too many 'prelims' in the others to really make sound judgements. Shame the Senate Commando set was canned, tho I'd only have been interested if it was commandos like in the Cad Bane's Speeder set, not the blue guys from Jek-14's E-wing set. Hopefully the ITT will have OT Stormies (hopefully the latest & greatest)... I'd rather the Ghost's stormie be a one-off stylized one, left alone along with the black-haired/goateed Kanan as special little snowflakes never to be seen again. Nobody else in the Rebels line features stylization like the stormie, so they should just be OT-style to better blend. If Rebels was treated like Clone Wars, and everyone had that stylization, I'd be fine with it. Disappointed the 'womp rat' in the T-16 set appears--for now--to just be a regular Lego rat, but really...nose to tail, they're about as long as a minifigure is tall, and '2 meters' is about as tall as many people (unless they're a little short for a stormtrooper... or that short stormtrooper's much-shorter sister) Hopefully the red-garbed stand-in in the Ezra set is Sabine--equally hopeful she'll have her helmet as well, and pistols more like Jango's (in dark bley, perhaps?) rather than a single Small Pistol, or maybe a couple DC-17s (seriously, Lego, dust off the DC-17 mold and use it! Not everyone in SW needs scopes on their blasters!)

I'm still gonna try to swing Haarits' rifle as a (not entirely reliable) piece of Gnomish engineering, using gears & catches & springs to throw bolts, quicker to load than a crossbow (when it works properly). Bouncing around ideas for a little build to try to show that off somewhat, just to get across that it's not a pellet- or bullet-firing combustion weapon. But, there's always other weapons to fall back on. I'm obviously leaning toward dwarves...tho there may not be just one dwarvish side to this!

With Star Wars or Superheroes, there are far more potential minifigures than there are sets. TLG can populate multiple series of CMFs from SW, Marvel, or DC and still have plenty of desirable options to populate sets, especially if they plan things carefully... The 75052 Cantina is missing tons of characters that alone could probably fill a CMF series. When are they likely to revisit the Cantina? 4 years? 8 years? Longer? What better way to get Dr Evazan, Ponda Baba, Hrchek Kal Fas, Ellors Madak, etc? Same goes for Superheroes as I mentioned in another post in this thread; CMFs could fill out teams, scenes, sets that TLG otherwise couldn't/wouldn't normally get to, as well as deliver characters that might never be included in sets for whatever reason. That wouldn't undercut sets at all.

He shangheyes the unwilling donors.

Lando possibly being in Rebels doesn't necessarily mean Cloud City will be; it's 5 years before ANH, 8 years before ESB when he's running Cloud City. He could still be a few years away from being Baron Administrator of the city, and could be anywhere in the galaxy. If the Lothal rebels wind up on Cloud City, they probably won't have any Imperials on their tail, since that'd kinda conflict with the whole "Cloud City's beneath the Empire's notice" thing. Harboring some rebel fugitives, or even allowing them safe passage, would probably cause Kallus or the Inquisitor to note that Cloud City needs to be kept in line.

Ideas I like for future Castle themes: Forestmen vs Black Falcons, updates of all involved (the shield and breastplate were nice starts, but the Falcon knight in the Kingdoms Joust set was still too "Green Dragon" for my taste) Fantasy Revisited, expanding dwarves & trolls particularly while introducing Elves and perhaps some other humanoid faction, like goblins or kobolds or something Kingdoms revisited; the Forestmen/Falcons could fit in there, too (or Wolfpack, or any number of others), hopefully with plenty of civilians... one of my biggest disappointments with Kingdoms was that there was, really, only one kingdom: the Lions. The Green Dragons seemed to be a rogue bunch of knights and their soldiers, and a wizard, nothing more. They had a few that could potentially be lords armed for battle, ostensibly fighting to conquer the Lions' kingdom or carve out their own kingdom within it, but I'd love to have seen more factions emerge, along with nobles not garbed for battle, other royals, merchants, peasants, etc.

If Mega Bloks lost the WoW license, that might explain why there haven't been any new sets since the creature sets awhile back... kind of a shame. I love WoW, and had high hopes for the line continuing (even if the sets were MBs, and thus didn't have the right feel and would fall apart at a slight breeze). Sindragosa, Deathwing... fun creatures. Fun vehicles, too. The minifigs were a bit awkward, and the weapon selection extremely limited... but my biggest disappointment is they never finished off the races/genders. No dwarves, trolls, Forsaken, draenei... no females at all, as I recall. I would love for TLG to have a crack at Azeroth, but there's so much I know they'd never get to even if they had the license (I'd love a dwarven inn, a human inn, stuff like that)... and the minifigs would understandably not feature the 'swappable armor' feature of the Mega Bloks (aside from usual Lego accessories) and thus would lack the Big Shoulders many WoW characters are known for. But a little Lego Thrall, Varian Wrynn, Jaina Proudmoore, Magni Bronzebeard, etc... that stuff would be a joy to see (and at least we'd get some neat weapons, prints, and hair/helmets out of it!) But I'd be happy enough with a return to Fantasy, expanding it even more... the CMF Elf Warrior needs some friends, and the old trolls could use their own Market Village!

My wife grew up in upper Michigan... a little snow on the ground doesn't mean it's not tank-top and shorts weather ...besides, it's a beer garden! The drink will keep them warm (well, they'll FEEL warm, anyway) Fun build! That tree is great!

That's exactly what it is, just like the cartoons The Partridge Family 2200AD and Gilligan's Planet! Take a contemporary theme, launch it into space/the future, profit.

...and a non-minifig sigfig would make it difficult to share in the story with others (tho I suppose folks can create a minifig representation of the micro-doll, and vice-versa)

Bit of both it is! #GOTG You misunderstand... Mccoyed was referring to "50 Shades of Greybeards", the tale of the rise and fall of one of Mitgardia's oldest dwarf clans.

I think the orange works fairly well; it's a path, after all, and should stand out from the surrounding landscape at least somewhat.

I think SMC had it right; LOTR needs it more, and would need a Gondor helmet and a Witch King helmet, maybe a Dernhelm helmet. A Hobbit one would need an Iron Hills Dwarf helmet (maybe), and... What? Orcrist, finally? A molded ram for the dwarves? Too early for my brain to recall other possibilities for new Hobbit molds (a Bolg head?).

The differences are too small and too purely stylistic to be intended as "different versions"; it's not like Phase I & Phase II clones, so it's a safe assumption to say they're meant to be the same. It's not like the Empire's gonna say "Well, we used to have pronounced frowns on stormtrooper helmets, but found that was sending the wrong message and made citizens think our troopers needed cheering up, so we changed the helmets to look less grumpy."

I think it's safe to say the BP version won't be nearly that big... It'll probably look like a Microfighter version of the ITT.

He's an older orc, and realized the error of his ways ...or he had a falling out with the HoC and is fleeing for his life?

TFOLs and AFOLs don't rely on Christmas lists... they rely on Christmas money/gift cards! So in that respect, a holiday release for it, even if it's actually on January 1st, makes some sense.

I gotta get to making some Drow! Very exciting!

I already mentioned how there were differences in the helmets between the three films... just as Luke's hilt in ESB is different from the one in ANH. They're still all meant to be the same things. Vader changes his attire a little, but it's still meant to be the same suit and helmet; same with the stormtroopers. And to further illustrate this, Lego doesn't distinguish between ANH, ESB, or ROTJ stormies (or Vader, really, tho an ANH-only version is conceivable since the costume differences are more apparent). The TIE pilot seen in the Ezra short obviously looks like an OT pilot, so why would the stormies be any different? It may not be officially stated yet, but it will be: REBELS stormies are no different than OT stormies. Minor. Not like how the Ghost's stormie looks. Not enough to warrant separate representations in minifigure form. See above regarding the differences between stormies over the 4-year span of the OT.

I wasn't talking about merchandizing, I was talking about the movie. That was the whole point of my comment! 75003 is Green Leader Arvel Crynyd's A-wing; it's red. I love the green A-wings, the blue ones, yellow.... But in the movies we only saw red. Squadron color/ship color was only correlated in ANH.

As General Magma already noted, REBELS stormies are not meant to be an evolutionary stage of stormies at all; the show takes place 5 years before the OT, the stormies outfits shouldn't really change at all. And I think it's safe to say MOST fans would want more OT stormies for their armies, but Rebels stormies will stand out with their frowny-faces. It's not a "phase I/phase II" thing, it's more an "ANH/ROTJ" thing. Even if there are differences in the costume armor of stormies between those two films, they're minor and not intended to indicate "the military has upgraded its armor". Just as stormies throughout the OT are supposed to be the same, so too are the ones in Rebels supposed to be the same as the OT. That's part of the point of Rebels: going back to the OT look and feeling.