Venkefedo

<sigh> So disappointing when he flipped to the droids page and said R2 is "definitely the Clone Wars model". That's clearly false. His hatches & detailing are movie-style, not TCW-style. The horizontal blue panels give it away immediately! But I'm interested in a Wookiee cruiser, AT-DP, etc. Can't wait to see what Lego has in store for us!

Yup. Makes sense considering Rocket Raccoon's Warbird is a Micro Fighter as well. It probably has around 50 more pieces than a standard MF, as does the Warbird, which should put it at $15-$20. But, exclusive-tax! So it's $40 instead. Ugh.

The Collector could've easily been placed in any GOTG-themed set. I suppose it depends on how large a role he has in the film, but if they made more I think he'd be able to find a home easily. Just because nobody was "missing" him beforehand (when there was always the potential of GOTG being revisited, if only in a sequel), doesn't mean we wouldn't want to have a minifig of him. Small themes like this are fairly easy to collect completely. As an exclusive, there's no way to do that without paying hundreds of dollars, and that's ridiculous. Gunther, I think you're right that a white version of the CMF Mechanic/Daredevil hair would be far more appropriate! KingPixels, technically they DO have a mohawk hair piece, just not the short stubby one appropriate to Movie Yondu (yet it's also not tall/'finny' enough for Comic Yondu)

You pretty much nailed it there… Balrog, Gandalf, Moria Orc archer with a new helmet, $20? Golden. Bump it up a notch or three to include a bridge build, it'd probably still do very well. Sauron w/ Woody arms & legs would be excellent… I'd like to see them do that more often. Give us a Groot mini figure from GOTG with that; and for cryin' out loud, how about Chewbacca with those limbs already? Seriously, dude's the tallest guy among the main cast and is barely bigger than an Ewok in Lego form.

And releasing all the other SDCC figures from earlier years to the general public would be bad because…? Seems like everyone would love it!

Makoban is just demonstrating that the Sith need not be so monochromatic & dreary with everything black, black, and more black… she worries that if they keep it up, every Sith Lord in the Sith Empire and beyond, for thousands of years, will just do everything in black! That's a fun little ship! Given the colors, it could easily work as a Jedi/Republic fighter, too… but the Republic could stand to mix up its colors as well!

That'a good! That way the only thing 'exclusive' is the packaging and that particular grouping of pieces… the best kind of exclusive!

…and several lucky special scalpers, who'll be haha-ing all the way to the bank.

It's been "known" (i.e. educated guess) since the first Age of Ultron teaser from SDCC last year where an Iron Man helmet was shown on screen, and it basically starts contorting as if being battered from within, and as it completes its 360 turn it becomes Ultron's head, followed by the title "Age of Ultron". After Iron Man 3 & the Ultron reveal, Tony building Ultron makes the most sense. He's already got an AI system capable of controlling any suits he makes with JARVIS… doing up another one dedicated to superheroics makes good sense, so he can continue his evolution from IM3 (i.e. not being the guy in the suit all the time, so he can enjoy life with Pepper and whatnot). It just makes more sense in the MCU, rather than introducing Old Man Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) who invented these things that let you grow or shrink and a helmet to communicate with insects and then, oh, by the way, also invented a super intelligent evil robot. …but there's still a chance for Ant-Man when that movie comes out, or they could always throw Hank (or Scott) into one of the comic-themed sets. Glad to see the Batman TLM set is gonna be a wide release… a shame the two-faced Unikitty's exclusive, since those expressions are adorable, but I'm kinda okay with just having Regular Unikitty from Cloud Cuckoo. EDIT: given past 'stunts', I fully expect Thor to reclaim his 'title' (really? His name is now a title?) from the new lady Thor in time for Avengers 2, and Steve to get a rejuvenation of super-soldier formula so Falcon can hand the mantle & shield back to him just as Bucky did 'conveniently' around movie-time a couple years ago. I expect "Lady Thor" to get some new identity and possibly a Stormbringer-like weapon of her own, if she survives, and for Falcon to maybe adopt a new codename or get his own book once Steve returns (I'm also kinda wondering if they'll fix Steve by finally cracking the super-soldier formula, curing him but unleashing a ton of new super-soldiers for some big event or shift in the status quo, akin to the influx of Inhumans over the last year)

Unless you mean from the video game, I don't think that's possible… we haven't seen LEGO Smaug yet (and there's no guarantee the game version will match the LEGO version)

They need to go back to school, then, cuz they still need some learnin'. Exclusive characters are a bad idea, even if it's just a redeco of one if it's something many fans might conceivably want (like a black-suit Superman, movie Spidey, team-colors Rocket). I gave up on SDCC a few years ago; it's just too bloated, and I always hated the majority of the exclusives--particularly the 'raffle' ones. Too many of the exclusives are just scalper-bait, and often vanish before the show even opens. Oh, sure, companies/booths may claim to put limits on things, but I know for many years vendors would just line up at HasbroToyShop's booth and scoop up cases of exclusives to sell later that day for a giant markup. Even tho it'd be incredibly easy to care about the fans, they don't. They care solely about the money, and why sell 80 items to 40-80 people, many of whom will be fans that will enjoy the item, when you can sell all 80 at once before the the con opens for the day to a guy who only cares about turning his own profit? You're not gonna see a dime from his 200-400% markup, but…I guess your boss will be pleased to have sold so many, so early in the day? The limited sales outside the con can be frustrating, since they often give no notice when the item will be up (MattyCollector's generally good about it, but screw them; their other business practices seem exceptionally shady), so you basically have to have the site open 24/7 after the convention and keep refreshing…even so, the items tend to sell out in well under half an hour. The best exclusives, to my mind, are packaging. Or silly stuff that most folks won't really worry about, like Matty's translucent Orko from MOTUC several years ago. The only thing I kinda wanted from the SDCC version was the book with the logo; that was a nifty accessory. But I was otherwise perfectly happy buying the 'regular' version online after the show, since it wasn't translucent! If you're getting it because it's exclusive, odds are you're not gonna open it; if that's the case, then packaging should be more than enough to make it 'exclusive', allowing fans who couldn't make it out there for whatever reason to be able to get the item and free it from its non-exclusive plastic/cardboard prison. Having the Collector be exclusive seems too (sadly) appropriate to be a coincidence… bet someone had a good laugh about it. Still, there's always hope for Decool & others.

Yeah, in my experience TRU generally gets things first. Ultra Agents & GOTG are the most recent examples I can recall. I'm shocked whenever I see a new set at TRU and then spot it at Target in the same week, which is a rarity (Simpsons figures, I think, hit all the stores about the same time, when usually Target's weeks/MONTHS behind in CMF waves.

Yikes! I forgot about Zuckuss & 4-LOM. Shae Vizla would also have been nice to get since we got so many other TOR characters… Hasbro made a figure of her, and despite the tiny helmet-head & wonky proportions she looked pretty good. I'd also love Nico Okarr, good reason to reuse the Cad Bane hat.

Yup! So much this! I agree with Wesker's ideas, too… would love to see the Qui-Gon hairpiece more often (hopefully with better clutch than the ones I've got; I didn't get the latest Bongo, so I don't know how the most recent Qui-Gon's hair has done). Also, TLG needs to move away from Bright Yellow for his hair; comic-version, fine, but movie-version should be Tan at the lightest. I replaced mine with the same piece in Dark Tan, looks fine (and matches his beard!). Sidenote: Luke Skywalker's hair needs to stop being so light, too; Dark Tan is the best of the existing colors for him, and it'd be great to see the "Luke" hairpiece from the Falcon/Echo Base sets in Dark Tan instead of Tan. Look at any photo of Luke from the movies; his hair in Tan is as bad as the old Kenner figure's bright yellow hair.

No, it's been mentioned several times. The ship's a glorified polybag minibuild, the kind with no minifig (Batmobile, Bat-tumbler, most SW polys). EDIT: D'oh! I think you're right. Didn't notice there was what seems to be a 1x2 (at least) gap between the 'windshield' and the orange curved slop in the back… not big enough for a regular mini to sit, but perhaps big enough for a tail-less mini w/ short legs to stand? Good eye. …I'd be totally fine if TLG introduced a "Micro-Fighters" sub-line into the Super Heroes line, provided the SW MF line continues, and the first wave of SH features some new characters.

Yup… and everyone else is wearing a dark red outfit visible in shots with better lighting that the crotch-scratch one No reason for TLG to create a brand-new color for this.

I don't doubt the Balrog or Witch King would've sold better… much as I liked getting some Elven architecture and Elrond & Arwen figures (plus more Elven swords! Love those), I didn't like how puny it felt. I understood the Black Gate being one you have to double (I can imagine it starting off as a full gate, then gradually getting whittled down to the half-a-gate it became over the development process), but while I might wanna get more Council sets to build more of Rivendell, I don't much fancy having to do that just to have decent room for the council area itself (as-is, you bring in any other minifigs who were there, and they'd have nowhere to sit!). More Gimlis & Frodos mean more nice pieces for dwarf and hobbit customs, I guess, but… I dunno. Gimli & Frodo seemed like overkill. I totally get why they were in the set, but they're a deterrent to me getting any copies of the set. The Balrog could've had a couple orcs in addition to Gandalf (a spiky helmet for those Moria orcs would be amazing!), and copies would be good for building armies & using Balrog pieces for MOCing other creatures. Witch-King & Fel Beast would almost certainly have great selling potential for getting more Nazgul as well as Fel Beasts for them to ride, and more Rohirrim via the Eowyn figure (if she had a helmet, too). And more Merrys and Theodens, if included, could also be used for beefing up the army. A Sauron akin to the Sentinel or Groot could be a lot of fun…tho perhaps a bit too big

954, according to a post quoted on this very page

I mentioned it before… a week or three ago, pretty sure I posted somewhere around here that I'd like to try to get an extra Milano-Star-Lord torso to use with the regular Rocket head & a set of dark-red short legs (I bought several off Bricklink months ago for dwarves & goblins), since I figured everyone else had a red suit, he must, too! (and it's visible in the trailers--not much, but definitely in the scene w/ them all walking forward in their uniforms, Rocket's tugging at the crotch of his pants, in the red suit). I don't really care that other toys are focusing on his orange outfit… I prefer the team look for the Guardians, be in the navy/red uniforms they got at the modern team's launch or the dark red outfits they get in the movie. I heard of Rocket Raccoon before the movie was ever announced. Heard about him many years ago. Fans of Hellboy probably know of him, since Mike Mignola drew a Rocket Raccoon miniseries in the '80s. GOTG fans know of him since he was part of the modern-age team when it launched after the whole Annihilation/Conquest epic many moons ago. Video game fans probably know of him from Marvel Vs Capcom. Just because you didn't know of him doesn't mean nobody else knew. Any comic fan worth his salt has known about Rocket for at least the last 8 years, if not the last 29-ish years. Just because you think he's lame doesn't mean anyone else does.

Short of an actual fairytale theme, or spreading the 3LP over 3 waves of CMFs (probably not even consecutive waves, so it'd likely take more than a year to get 'em all!), I think the only way of getting that is if Chima introduces a pig tribe (tho more likely it's be boars… but either could be interesting, as B- and P-names could still be plentiful (only bats, I think, have claimed anything there) …regarding Alexandre's artwork, I still really, REALLY want his goblin with the tall pointy hood, and his halfling adventurer. And the elves. Even the undead warrior, tho maybe without the flail.

The only grapes they've made are printed. BrickWarriors made an actual grapes accessory, tho!

I demand pics of an Exo-Suit carrying new lengths of track to expand or repair your monorail!

Um…Lego isn't really making "prison-suit Rocket" at all. In the prison, they all wear plain yellow jumpsuits; outside prison but before they get the red team gear, Rocket wears a different mostly-yellowish suit with shoulder pads. I don't think they're the same thing at all, judging by screenshots. I think we're justified in being upset by this announcement, tho hopefully he'll turn up as a S@H promo or (better!) a polybag we may have a chance at getting. Hell, the ship in this set is practically an oversized poly vehicle as it is! The thing to be most upset about is the price. $40 for a 145-piece set?! With a vehicle the minifig can't even drive? That kind of 'Con exclusive' tax might even make the highest Toys'R'Us-tax locations blush. Exclusives should be variants we can live without (Battle-Damaged Spidey or something similar), or preview figures… hopefully this is the latter. About the only thing that might be worse is if they put Rocket in this outfit… of course, maybe it'd be slightly better, since we'd likely never get the rest of the team in those outfits so he'd be an oddball, instead of the last piece of an otherwise-incomplete team 'look'.

No yellow?! I actually lucked out & got a 2nd red guy at Target of all places a couple weeks ago (Zorch; only got Vulk back when they were readily available, and now kinda regret not getting Flain or the yellows). These guys are a lot of fun, tho I haven't mixed up any except the Cragsters). Gonna have to try some robot-ish builds with them after seeing this series!

...that's why I favor a mix! Like I said earlier, maybe a 'good' faction of aliens can look to CS for protection, or simply be allies or integrated into CS, and the enemies can be a mix of aliens & humans as well (I don't think SPIII had any human crooks either, did it?)