Beagle

Could just be nostalgia at work.... ;)

This set is such a Frankenstein's monster.... bits and pieces of lots of ideas (some good, some bad) that never seem to gel. Like the little dune-buggy-type car. How many hospitals have something like that? Better to either go all the way and make a proper ambulance, or skip the car entirely and use the pieces to put more detail into the hospital. And the yucca/cactus-type plants scattered around the baseplate. Is this a desert hospital? The minimal shrubbery (especially combined with the awful baseplate) just make it look rustic and desolate. It almost feels like this was supposed to be another set originally but was quickly retro-fitted to be a hospital. |-/ Great review, though! Not your fault it is a somewhat disappointing set! :-D

Vikings = *sick* Bleah. Gaudy, unattractive ships and bionicle-style monsters. I was all prepared to like them, but when they came out it was just disappointing. I ended up voting for Star Wars, but City would probably be my runner-up.

Okay, eight days left in the auction, and it's at $24,000 U.S. Who are these rich AFOLS out there? Or are they just uber-StarWars-fans? Either way, it's pretty mind-blowing. So, should we start taking bets on how high this thing will climb? I predict it will keep going up for now, but slow a little near the end and sell for around $40,000. Any other predictions?

Yes, thank you for posting this! That's a relief for us U.S. folks.

For $9000, that thing better actually fly.

Hey, I didn't know this was THAT kind of website! :-D

Okay, this is gonna sound weird, since I said a few posts ago that I think the ship is somewhat weak.... but I actually like the cockpit. I like those angled plates on either side of it, it gives it a wedge-shaped look that seems very unique to me. Though I will probably swap out that little vent tile with a decorated control-panel tile. Thanks for the additional pics!

Wow.... I'm not really much of a City/Town guy (not because of lack of interest, just lack of funding.... gotta draw the line somewhere), but that crane is really fantastic. Love the little cockpit right near the top, and of course the toilets. :) I live in the San Francisco area, and I see cranes like this all the time as I'm driving over the bridges. It looks just right, really captures the immense feeling of scale in one of those things. Man, City fans must be just giddy! I'm jealous! :-D

Holy cow that's a lot of brown slopes.

Yes, from what we've seen this definitely seems to be the weakest of the news SW sets. Ah well, if one had to be weak, I'm glad it's the prequel ship. At least it's cheap. :/ Thanks for the great review, though! :-D

Yeah, boooooooo to the missile launcher. Dumb idea. And the cockpit could use some more instrumentation, but that's easy enough to add. The rest looks cool, though. I really like that they have designed the platform to hold the ship upright.... they're acknowledging that the B-Wing is a really tough ship to display properly. Thanks for the great review! :)

Huh, funny, I love IG-88! I love the simplicity of him, and the neat shiny gunmetal grey color. To me he totally evokes the character.... though I do intend to take the great suggestion that someone made a few months ago (can't remember who, sorry!) and sling a little Technic rubberband over his shoulder as an ammo belt. Dengar I could take or leave. He's not great, but he's not terrible. Just kinda bland.

Yikes, with this replacement, Obi-Wan's starfighter might be in danger of becoming a very rare and hard-to-obtain set! Get 'em while you can! If they wanted to do a V-Wing Battle (which doesn't make any sense to begin with) they really should have created a new, EP3 Imperial Shuttle set and released it with two V-Wings. |:|

Ha ha, just out of curiosity I went back and checked my Bricklink order records, and sure enough I have bought stuff from Bartering the Brick. I bought a Wookie Warrior minifig from him a while back, as well as some other sundry pieces. Wow, it makes me think differently about my collection, knowing that some of it is probably HOT! :-D He gave me good feedback, though. I'm glad.... after all, it is important to me what criminals think of me. :P

After my earlier post, I went and found some pics of the A-wing with those little grey corners on the fins... Again, this really is a nice new re-creation of this ship in lego. :) Though looking at these pics, I almost wish they had done something a little different with the cannons on the side. Maybe a two-tone thing using lightsaber blades, or a spear gun piece, or something.

I seem to remember seeing a picture of the "real" (that is, the model from the film) A-Wing and it did have little grey corners on the fins like that. I think that's why TLC put them there... and I actually like them, it brings some interest to the fins. No offense, Yoda, I think they look a little drab in all white. Thanks for the great review! I love this set. Can't wait till it hits the U.S. Oh, and regarding Deinonychus' lament for a re-designed Y-Wing.... I still think they will do this. I have this theory that sometime near the end of next year they will release a re-designed Y-Wing and, though it may sound crazy, a re-designed X-Wing. Here's my thinking: 1. They seem to incorporate UCS innovations into re-designed System Sets (i.e. the newer X-Wing is like a mini version of the UCS X-wing, with many of the same building techniques, and the newer Snowspeeder echoes the UCS version as well). So, since there is now a beautiful UCS Y-Wing (possibly my favorite SW set ever), I wouldn't be surprised if they took some of those ideas and made a new System Set. 2. The re-issue System X-Wing was never really a standalone set... it was sold in conjunction with Yoda's hut, and was originally intended to be covered in vines (yeah, how many of us left those vines on there?). But all the other "starfighter" sets have standalone releases that emphasize their space-faring nature. I think we'll see a new, minorly-modified X-Wing (maybe with a flesh-toned pilot Luke) sometime in the future, and the box with show it flying through space. 3. The X-Wing and Y-Wing are probably the two most popular, recognizable Rebel ships in the SW Universe, and so they could be pretty sure that a market would exist for them. People might not be willing to buy four versions of a B-Wing, but they would gladly buy another version of the beloved X-Wing. Just my $.02. Mind you, this is all totally speculative, I have no info to back any of this up. Just hopeful hypothesizing. :)

Man, I would have LOVED this set as a kid. I think the original airport and planes still rank as my favorite Lego set (mostly for nostalgia value), but it always bothered me that the plane just had a single column of seats. I love that this one has two columns and an aisle between between them. And with the carry-on compartment, the drink cart, and all the other little details this seems like a set with immense playability. Sure, AFOLs may decry the juniorization, but if it really bothers someone they could always MOC up a less <insert that tiresome argument> version of the cockpit and the wings. After all, there are two kinds of imagination that take place in building lego... the one most AFOLs employ is the imagination that says "what new structures can I make with these pieces?" Kids do that too, but they also think "what stories can I act out using these sets?" That's where the playability comes in, and I think this set nailed that. So even with the unfortunate juniorization, I think this is a great set for TLC's core consumer group: kids. :)

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they re-used the Ninja helmet. It's fairly close in shape. Of course I would much rather them mold a new one.... along with some of those Imperial helmets with the neck guards (like the AT-ST drivers wear).

D'oh! Wish I'd known they were gonna do that before I spent a bundle for it on Bricklink a while back. Ah well, it's definitely good for folks who didn't pick it up the first time around. Must just be back stock, though.... unless they're reviving old grey just to re-issue that set.

I wouldn't mind a new Gamorian Guard or two, especially if they were nicely painted (fat chance). But yeah, ideally I'd wish for a new Lando, some other aliens, and a Salacious Crumb.

Maybe he was working at an offshore oil rig and fell in. :D

Good idea. :-D

Okay, sorry, I know this is a bit off-topic for a Lego forum, but I have to respond to this statement. I'm an animator, so statements like this get to me. Saying anime is overrated is like saying "movies are overrated" or "books are overrated." Anime is a medium, not a genre. There is a tremendous bulk of anime out there, some good, some bad, some great, some terrible. I'm not sure where Avatar falls in that continuum, I've only seen 1/2 of one episode. But please don't dismiss the entire anime world so casually. Also, to folks saying that Avatar is "fake" anime because it is done in the U.S., that's doing a disservice to the animation industry in general. Art influences art, and as long as it's not outright stealing ideas or selling itself as being from Japan (which it may be doing, I don't know) I don't think it's fair to automatically dismiss it as some sort of imposter. Okay, sorry, stepping down off my soap box now. :$ And I promise to only talk about lego in my next few posts!

Funny, I actually much prefer the new Falcon in new grey. When I look at in next to the old one (or sitting on the Cloud City landing platform, where I have it displayed) the old grey just looks drab and dingy. Overall I like the new greys. But you're right that they really can't be mixed with the old ones.... it just clashes.