Venkefedo

In the carbon freeze chamber image, the structures in the background feature illegal connections; the way the bars or hoses are held in the droid-arm clips would be extremely flimsy. I'm not sure what you're getting at... In the show, they stylized the stormies to honor the McQuarrie concepts, as I said. In the Ghost set, Lego just altered the print on the existing stormie helmet mold (and the torso print), which was a waste of time and effort IMO, since other Rebels figures fit in with movie figures. It would've been cheaper to just use existing stormie prints, and far more preferable to fans. There are other McQuarrie concepts that'll be used in the show that would result in better unique figures for Lego to make. What they did in the Ghost, and probably in the ITT battlepack, was just unnecessary. Disappointing to hear the ITT is a tiny "dropship"-style thing.

The original Bespin Luke had leg printing. Don't put too much stock in those images, tho; the face-off in the carbon freeze chamber features illegal connections TLG wouldn't feature in a set, and the pic of Bespin Luke falling is clearly digitally enhanced (the expression, for one, and it'd be simple to switch the yellow collar area to flesh). A new Bespin Luke figure needs dark tan hair like the Ewok Village Luke, too, so it doesn't blend with his outfit too much (Hamill's hair was never that light to begin with!). The platform the "reveal" takes place on looks like an awesome little build and might turn out to be a legitimate teaser, I suppose... but Luke needs to be better.

Because it's obviously R2-B1, but they can't call him that because R2-B1 died in TPM Just like they don't want to give a name to the Ithorian Jedi because they know people will use him as Momaw Nadon in the Cantina set, and Momaw is clearly not a Jedi.

Green Squadron A-wings are red, tho... didn't you watch ROTJ? Awesome microfighter A-wing! Hopefully the official version (whenever they make one; they need two waves of these per year!) will look as good!

The rareness of Rieekan?! What nonsense is that? So what if the advent calendar makes him less rare? That isn't the point of any of this! I love rare figures for the characters/deco/etc, not because they're something few others have. I see the appeal of having something many others don't, but I tend to reject it. I'd love it if everyone had a Rieekan, or Malgus, or Kid Boba. I didn't get the Battle of Hoth, so I don't have a Rieekan and am glad to have another way of getting him that'll also get me a silly Santa Vader and a body for my R2-X2's head, plus another snowtrooper, TIE pilot, etc.

Then it's gotta be an "Uruk-Hai Army" battle pack (or bigger), since there's no way they can do the ITT justice, even Kenner-style with the troops' upper bodies hanging out of the sides, in a traditional BP style... It'd be a stretch even in a Battle of Naboo/Saleucami size set, right? Edit: the grief the "Rebels ITT" idea is getting is less due to Rebels and more due to the idea that the stormies will be frowny-faced "Rebels-style" like the one from the Ghost... In the show they're stylized a bit to honor the McQuarrie concepts, but still obviously meant to be regular OT-style stormies. TLG shouldn't even bother with the McQuarrie homage for them, particularly with the rest of the figures fitting in with movie-style figs, letting TLG focus on McQuarrie-style elements that turn up in other character outfits (like the different bike troopers in the sneak preview clip). That would enable any regular stormies in Rebels sets fit in with all our OT stormies, instead of looking frowny with curved belts.

Finally got the Z-95 Headhunter! Can't wait to get an Episode VII X-wing to set alongside it and my 9493. Also got a 2nd Republic vs Sith Troopers.

I'd rather see multiple Cloud City sets... It makes some amount of sense to do the carbon freeze chamber separate from the other areas Luke & Vader fight. Trying to combine them into one set would make the whole design suffer, but modularly building different scenes would allow more variety; the trick is to have enough playability in each set to balance the lack of swooshable vehicles (aside from a Cloud Car set, of course) ...but this should probably be discussed in the Future Sets thread, since there are zero rumors of Cloud City next year. We're just predicting based on this year's Slave I.

I hope they do more Legend Beasts, too... they're fun!

"Still"? Give it some time!

While Lego might be able to get away with Zuckuss & 4-LOM sharing a head mold, they really SHOULD be different molds... all they really share in common are large compount eyes and a weird circular mechanical 'mouth' thing more or less in the center of their faces... but as any image shows, the compound eyes are different shapes/sizes, the circular mechanical 'mouth' is wildly different in details and is placed differently on each, and while Zuckuss has a couple things on his 'chin' to connect those tubes to, 4-LOM has droid-y stuff on the lower part of his face. But yeah, it'd be great to get those two as figures. Zuckuss' gun should probably be the ADU pistol in black (ala Slave I Boba's gun) with either two black saber hilts attached to the front (I don't know if that's physically possible) or black binoculars. 4-LOM can have a regular rifle, maybe modified with a saber-hilt on the muzzle. And I wouldn't say no to IG-88, Bossk, and Dengar being part of the set, too...

Ugh! Yeah, Gimli's in "pearl dark grey" would've been wonderful (printed or not). Of course, it'd still be a big expensive set and thus not practical for buying multiples to outfit a bunch of custom Iron Hill Dwarves with the helmet...

Mmm...mugs. Still need a good beer mug/stein for our little Lego pals. I get that TLG may not be keen on it, but 3rd party guys need to get going with that! My dwarves, orcs, vikings, goblins, hobbits, etc are thirsty...

Minifigs may help sets sell, but IMO stormtroopers shouldn't be one of those figures, not in large/UCS sets anyway. People want MULTIPLE stormtroopers, and BPs with stormies will outsell $80+ sets with single stormies in 'em any day, which is much better for everyone involved (including TLG). Or, if they must throw them in heavy sets, at least do it more like 7264 where there were four stormtroopers in the set... having one or two measly troopers in a $100+ set isn't gonna lure too many folks (except those who part out the sets) into buying multiple copies. Lego does make some odd choices in their figures... "Vader sells! Let's only put him in $100+ sets." "Anakin sells! Let's put him in every $20+ set we can."

I prefer Brickwarriors' aesthetics overall, tho I've got several BrickForge pieces including a couple Dwarf helmets & Dwarf beards. The helmets aren't great, style-wise, but still useful (my first GoH non-creature build features a dwarf sporting a BF Dwarf helmet... I like the steel/charcoal/whatever color better than their bronze, tho; the former looks more 'authentic Lego' than the latter, like Pearl Dark Grey). The beards are a little bland, but I'm glad to have a few in the mix. If BW tackled some, they'd probably offer up a little more detail in the sculpts, which would be great to see in a variety of colors (faster than Lego can turn out variations on the Hobbit's dwarf beards, anyway). If BW did their own dwarf helmets, too, I'd jump all over them. One item BF doesn't restock enough is the hatchet... it's a great little hand-axe for dwarves! I've got two 'pearl light grey' ones in the hand of a heroic dwarf, and two 'pearl dark grey' ones in the hands of one of my CMF Evil Dwarves. A nice change from the large-bladed Lego axes (I have other dwarves dual-wielding those, too, of course). A hornless Viking Chieftain helmet could be amazing... BF's Viking helmet covers too much of the face for something that seems like it's supposed to be so minimal, while BW's Viking helm is a little too fantastical (and has horn-holes). I think one of the companies can get away with a Witch King helmet with some minor changes... maybe having the main spike on the top be a separate piece for sale, and the helmet itself is only advertised with Lego plumes in the spot, while the spike is advertised being plugged into other helmets. Or maybe one of the companies is based out of China, where copyright laws are lax and it's more trouble than it's worth for WB/New Line/TLG to go after them (the 3rd Party Transformer industry thrives off that, and makes fans very, very happy--and very very broke!--by delivering stuff Hasbro/Takara cannot/will not...and for the most part Hasbro/Takara seem okay with that). There's definitely a market out there for a Witch King Lego-compatible helmet... if Lego won't deliver, why not a 3rd party? It's not a traditional 'army builder', but for MOCs and fantasy/post-apoc armies, the helmet could be really useful, even if it's immediately identifiable as "the Witch King".

The Battlepack choices have bothered me for years, too... IMO the best were some of the earliest, like the Rebel Scout Speeder pack (4 RFTs! No muss, no fuss!) and the Imperial Drop Ship (3 Stormies and a Shadow Stormie!). After that, they started going off the rails (here, have some random extra AT-AT Drivers in your Snowspeeder pack! What's that, you want to army build Rogue 2? Well guess what, you'll get one in every Hoth Rebel set!). I always felt disappointed in BPs with Battle Droid-types since they're fairly weak as figures... and even the Endor BP, which I rather liked, was unbalanced as an "army builder" since Han's team was rather small, while you really should have more stormies & scouts. Better would've been 1 stormie, 1 scout, 1 Endor Rebel, and 1 Ewok (whatever color scheme would be best for 'generics'...maybe dark bley hood on dark tan face/body?). There have been some gems, like the TOR Republic/Sith Trooper pack. Balanced, 4 unique faces, and even if the black Sith Troopers are more common, at least there's plenty of precedent for reds being reasonably common, too. I wouldn't have minded a different color scheme on one of the Republic troopers, tho, for a bit more variety... I really like the DST BP's figures, I just hate that they're included there. Had it been 2 black tunic DSTs and 2 black jumpsuit DSTs, I'd have scooped up a few. Had it been 2 tunic DSTs and the DS Gunners we got, I'd still have nabbed a couple. With the guards, excellent tho they are, I don't feel the draw to get multiple packs (tho I rather liked the gun build and dig the DSGs' heads). Another option that would've been great was 1 DSG, 2 DSTs, and 1 Royal Guard... still a lot of drawing power and better representing the BP's title. Re: the Shadow Troopers set coming up, it's most likely from Rebels, so it's not veering off into random parts of the EU... Shadowtroopers were in the Blackhole storyline and Crimson Empire, both fairly popular. Slightly different Shadowtroopers also popped up in the Jedi Outcast game (saber-wielders with green gems in their chests and different helmets/armor, but still somewhat similar). They may not have been ultra-common, but having multiple black-armored stormies as a special squad/legion is something many fans would probably quite enjoy, and TFU fans might dig having Shadow Guards (tho who knows how closely these will resemble the TFU ones... if it is indeed from Rebels, it's possible they changed the design quite a bit aside from maybe the helmet). As long as the designs are cool, I'm fine with them tapping into the EU as often as possible... but I agree it'd be a great business decision for them to do up some new sets more like the early ones with the new stormies and maybe 1 DST (in place of a Shadow Stormie). What will net more sales for Lego? A $12 set with 3 or 4 great-looking stormtroopers, or a $100 set with one stormtrooper? Can't wait to see pics so we'll know exactly what we're getting with that Shadow Stormie set (and the ITT; still kinda hoping the stormie in the Ghost set is a one-off, as there are much better character options to reflect the McQuarrie inspiration in Rebels than their stylized stormie features--everyone would enjoy it more if the regular stormies, TIE pilots, etc blended in with our OT figures) Not only that, but it's an ESB Boba Fett, while the Desert Skiff one is ROTJ. A subtle distinction in Lego minifigures, due to printing limitations, but it does make a difference. Hasbro fans know well the differences between ESB, ROTJ, Prototype, Prototype White, etc... now we need a new ROTJ Fett with arm printing to show off the dark red gauntlets!

I'm actually quite looking forward to that, to go with the CW Z-95 (since both, at one point or another, were/are Z-95s)...but sadly we probably won't see it until (hopefully early) 2016, or perhaps December 2015. Still, it'd make a fantastic "Episode VII Preview" set in Summer 2015, given that it's been revealed already! We saw a pilot in that clip, he could be minifigurized, and by then we'll probably know what some of the cast looks like so possibly we could get a couple other figures there, too. But, that's just speculation...no rumors as of yet.

More than 16... they could easily do a few waves each of Marvel & DC. I do agree the sets will still sell, since they'd obviously use characters/costumes in the sets that aren't in the CMF waves. Like, "Okay, you can get Giant Size X-Men-style Nightcrawler & Colossus in the CMFs, but if you want Cyclops and Storm you've gotta get the Sentinel set!" It takes very little thought to come up with alternatives to populate the CMFs that'll still sell while leaving plenty of fodder for sets to draw on... oh, you can get a minifig Thing in the CMF set, but if you want bigfig Thing? Gotta buy the Fantasticar set! The Fantasticar also features the FF in their Kirby outfits; want Byrne-era white and blue? CMFs! Want white & black Future Foundation and post-Future Foundation outfits? CMFs! Want Ant-Man, Medusa, She-Hulk, and whats-her-face in their fill-in FF outfits? CMFs! Want the 5 Classic X-Men in black (or dark blue) and gold (or yellow)? CMFs! Astonishing/Professor Kitty Pryde in the CMFs, classic '80s/Excalibur Shadowcat in a set. The 5 original X-Men in their All-New X-Men uniforms in CMFs. Archangel in his X-Factor look in some set vs Apocalypse, but X-Force Archangel in CMFs. Or DC! New 52 Superman in a set, but early New 52 Action Comics t-shirt Superman in a CMF wave. There's no shortage of characters and variants they can use to populate wave after wave of both sets and CMFs (and purchasing-incentive promo figures for S@H!). Some kids & collectors might bail out after completing a particular iteration of a team, but they're in the extreme minority; it'd probably be extremely obvious at the outset that one cannot focus on JUST the CMFs in order to get every single character they desire.

While I'd love a non-human villain, the fact remains the so-called "Episode VII villain" picture screams "Yuuzhan Vong" more than anything else...and they're not gonna use the Yuuzhan Vong. Most ambitious and, perhaps, epic storyline of the EU, but the Vong themselves were among the most polarizing of EU species. They had a terrible inconsistent visual (the book covers & most artwork depicted them in such a way that the idea of ANY of them wearing an Ooglith Masquer and passing themselves off as human was laughable) that was just a mess, and felt like "Organic Borg" minus the lack of individuality. Their tech was interesting, and something largely unseen in the GFFA (which was part of the point, getting away from Dark Jedi and Imperial leftovers), but perhaps was a bit too 'out-there' as a whole; other realms of sci-fi are better suited to exploring truly alien cultures. Anyway, point being there's absolutely nothing to indicate it's a real 'leak', while the Stormie helm has some weight behind it.

Other companies like Kubrick made SW figures not all that long ago... Kubricks are practically giant minifigs already. Hasbro's lawyers need to just look the other way... It'd be a blind-bag series, and wouldn't hurt Hasbro's bottom line at all.

Remember that Fett has different guns in ESB and ROTJ... that may have been a factor in using the black ADU gun for this set. ...or they'd planned on Zuckuss, but someone noted he's nowhere near the scene, so they delayed Zuckuss but made use of the base gun they were set to use with him

I can only imagine that some of the figures you mention are in the pipeline for later in 2015... a Bespin white-suit Leia might have been nice, to look forlornly at the ship as it escapes. That'd free up a slot for a Bespin Gown Leia, perhaps; but if we get a Carbon Freeze set (and they double-dip on the jacketless Han & Carbonite Piece) then white-suit Leia, Chewie-with-3PO-on-his-back (how will THAT look, I wonder?), Lando, Vader, Bespin Luke are all possibilities, but a couple modular sets would be preferable with Leia, Chewie, Lando and an Ugnaught or two in the Carbon Freeze set perhaps, then another set for the climactic scene between Luke & Vader? There's potential there, all kinds of it... just nothing of the 'swooshable' sort, which may be why they hesitate. Hopefully we'll see some/all of that next summer, long a wait as it may be.

The thing with SW EU characters is... It's still Star Wars! Cool aliens, saber-wielders, bounty hunters, troopers, smugglers, droids, etc. That's all that really matters. The "I don't know who that is" excuse doesn't hold water when everyone has Google (and Wookieepedia) in their pockets, and TLG's own site will have bios of all 16 figures in such an assortment. People aren't gonna pass on an Imperial Knight because they never read the Legacy comic... And there are still plenty of movie characters they can throw into the mix without significantly affecting the pool of characters to populate future sets. Doctor Evazan, Ponda Baba, Hrchek Kal Fas, Tzizvvt, Kabe, Muftak... 6 Cantina denizens who weren't in the Cantina set and likely have no venue for getting released in the next couple years, for example. And that's barely scratching the surface!

You might wanna check out that scene again...

Sure! I still don't even own "a" Furty, I just jumped on getting a few torsos at a decent price on BrickLink awhile ago... Here's my "Furty Bunch": A dual-wielding sword rogue, a dwarf warrior wearing chain mail under his leather armor, a greedy highwayman, a goblin redcap, and a half-orc Wolfpack fighter Edit: whoops! I had six torsos after all! I made this guy as part of a group of space pirates several weeks ago.