Beagle

what was the last real gray set |-/ Maybe the Imperial Star Destroyer? The AT-TE? Or the UCS Snowspeeder.... there's still old grey on that. The new bley isn't all bad... for some sets, like the TIE fighters, I think it's actually better to have a cooler-tone, blue-grey. But yeah, the sailbarge would definitely look better in old grey. My personal pet peeve (going off-topic here) is that the Sandcrawler was done in new red-brown. The old brown would have been perfect for it.... as it is it just looks too red.

Yeah, I don't think Lego "missed the boat" by not releasing a Hoth set.... they know full-well people want one, but it makes good business sense to hold back on some of those more desirable items so that they still have the chance for some killer sets in the future. Just like they did with the TIE Interceptor... they know people have been hankering for that, and they whetted appetites with the UCS and Mini versions, but they held back on releasing a System one for years.

I agree with everything that folks above said. I'd also add: 1. Re-issue of AT-ST (with a proper AT-ST driver, not Chewie) 2. Trash Compactor (probably part of the Death Star playset suggested above) 3. Grievous' Fighter from EPIII (possibly containing Grievous' Magnaguards) 4. Emperor's Shuttle from EPIII 5. More accurate re-issue of Jabba's throne room (with Salacious Crumb, Oola, and the band) 6. RANCOR PIT! 7. Probe Droid from Empire (would make sense to include this with a Tauntaun set) 8. Obiwan's green starfighter from EPIII 9. The Skywalker moisture farm on Tatooine (with Aunt Beru!) 10. Some sort of Jedi Council pack with lots of the prequel Jedi (Shaak Ti, Plo-Kloon, Ki-Adi Mundi, non-LULS Mace and Luminara, etc.) 11. Ewok tree city (with Leia and Han in speederbike gear) 12. Z-95 Headhunter (if Lego wants to continue down the slippery slope of Expanded Universe ships that they started with the TIE-D) 13. Re-re-issue of X-Wing (non-swamp edition, maybe with Wedge or, ha, Porkins!) and re-issue of Y-Wing Not to mention all the UCS/Technic sets they still could do: UCS A-Wing, B-Wing, Falcon, Speederbike, AT-ST, Tie Fighters, Slave 1, Executor SD, Venator SD, Jedi Starfighters, R2-D2 Model, Technic Grievous and Magnaguard, etc.... And probably lots of other stuff I haven't thought of. So, in short, I agree that it'll be a long time till they run out of potential sets. People's interest will run out long before the sets do. ;)

The ONLY thing going against Spongebob and Avatar, in my humble opinion, is that they are licenses. And some folks, understandably, don't like licenses. Personally I don't mind them, as long as they are licenses that are fun/cool/interesting. I think both of these fit this category. Spongebob is a nice, light-hearted license with potential for fun characters and eccentric new pieces....... Avatar is an anime/fantasy license that I bet will have GREAT minifigs and pieces for Castle fans..... and then of course there is Batman, on the flipside of Spongebob. Seems like a good range to me. Maybe some folks think Spongebob is too kid-oriented. But, well, Lego IS a toy, after all, and most of its consumer base is kids.... it's easy for us AFOLs to forget that sometimes, I think. Besides, Spongebob, while silly, is a clever and creative show.... right in line with the Lego philosophy.

All we need is Geogre.W.Bush and the set will be complete. This post made my morning. Thank you, MattZitron, you rock! :-D

Well.... you make a good point, Sweden. I guess it depends on your definition of "<insert that tiresome argument>". I tend to think of it as the use of large, custom-molded specialty pieces that have little building potential outside of their sets of origin. Or excessive use of stickers. But if you are just talking about a lack of accuracy or a discrepancy of scale, then yeah, the Sandcrawler was <insert that tiresome argument>. But so is almost every other large-ish lego Star Wars set: the AT-AT, the Clone Turbo Tank, the Imperial Shuttle, the Falcon, etc. They're all "too small" compared to the scale of the minifigs. It doesn't bother me, though.... if they were to scale they'd be expensive and unwieldy. And it would take way more minifigs to populate them. As it is they still give the sense of being big, and they capture the spirit of the original. Not arguing with you at all, just clarifying my earlier post. :)

Nah, the appeal is too limited. Halo is popular, but not near as popular as Spiderman, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. Plus it's too violent for them.... while it's true that those other licenses have their violent moments, they are not primarily ABOUT violence. But Halo is a violence-centric first-person shooter with little else going for it. But who knows, stranger things have happened!

First off, this is great news.... the sail barge is one of the few remaining voids in the Lego SW universe. And the fact that it'll come with a Sarlacc is just the icing on the cake. As for the set itself, I too worry that it'll be a bit <insert that tiresome argument> (though I don't agree with Sweden that the Sandcrawler was <insert that tiresome argument>... quite the contrary, I thought it exhibited a nice reverse trend towards brick-based construction). Though I agree that the "playability" features of the Sandcrawler were lame... I would have preferred a "diorama-style," multi-tiered interior that could be accessed by opening the side panels. I hope the barge tends more toward long and narrow than short and stout... one thing I dislike about the Sandcrawler is that it seems too wide. I sure hope it comes with another (disguised) Lando. It'll seem a little... weird to have a flesh-toned slave Leia. A bit racy for Lego. It would also be great if they re-molded Jabba in tan.... he never seemed right in green (though I realize this is unlikely). Oh, and Snefroe1, I'm assuming that when people mention a "minifig-scale Super Star Destroyer," they're referring to a Cloud-City-style playset of just the bridge or something. A minifig-scale SSD would be as long as a football field! As for Spongebob, this really isn't so strange... it'll probably be the same kind of stuff they currently produce for "Dora the Explorer," aimed at the same demographic. Spongebob is hugely popular here in the U.S. right now, even though they haven't been producing the show for years and all that exist are re-runs.

For U.S. residents, I just found this set on the shelves of my local Target yesterday (even though it is still showing "2 to 6 weeks" on target.com). Price was the same as online, $49.99. One pleasant surprise while putting it together: the lightsaber hilts are chrome again (not light bley)! Maybe they're just getting rid of old stock, but it was still nice to see.

All the attention to detail is amazing, but I think my favorite one is the microscope! So simple and effective.

Hmmm, although in those cases you might be able to negotiate a good discount with the stores because of the missing figs.

On a COMPLETELY unrelated note, I have lots of LULS minifigs for sale if anyone wants 'em! Yessiree, I've got HUNDREDS of Maces, Luminaras, Darths, Obiwans..... heck, I think I even have some white clone troopers. Five bucks each, much cheaper than Bricklink! Just kidding. ;)

Totally, Yoda, you are absolutely right! I know, they're not true UCS sets. My impression was that legoman was curious why they were being sold under that link on S@H, that's all. Sorry for the miscommunication. :) I think if pressed TLC would admit they're not UCS sets, too. They just like to put 'em NEXT to the UCS sets 'cause they know that credit-card-totin' AFOLS like us are likely to buy them. And, sadly, it works... at least on me. :$

Actually, Yoda, if you go to lego.com, Cloud City and the Millenium Falcon ARE listed under the "Ultimate Collectors Series" link, along with other System-Scale sets like the Sandcrawler and (even more puzzlingly) the Tie Collection. I'm not saying they ARE really UCS sets, but they are listed there on the website. I would imagine it has something to do with the demographic at which the sets are targeted: they probably figure that the more expensive sets, be they System or true UCS, would appeal more to "collectors" (versus the average nine-year-old who just wants something to play around with and probably ultimately lose). As for the specific definition of a UCS set.... well, I wouldn't say it's only sets that are "too big for minifigs," because obviously the Death Star and Star Destroyer are far LESS than minifig scale. But they are clearly still collectors' sets. I would equate it with detail and cost. UCS are highly detailed, generally fairly expensive sets that are meant more for display than playability. Hence the built-in display stands. I would also agree with Yoda that the Naboo "UCS" set is kind of the exception... they obviously wanted to do it on the cheap, so they cranked out a tiny, cheap set with a display stand and no minifigs and called it UCS. What's kind of funny/sad is that the UCS Naboo fighter, if designed to fit a minifig, would have been a REALLY GOOD System set. Instead, we had a substandard System version of the ship and a substandard UCS version of it. Boooo! :-D

I'm sure it's just a cost issue.... stickers are probably cheaper than printing. On the up-side, if you really want those round tiles on the upper wings not to be stickers, you could just order a round orange tile off Bricklink and swap 'em out. It wouldn't be identical, i.e. it wouldn't have a grey rim around it.... but it would be pretty similar. Alas, no such luck with the orange dots on the main wing. Don't get me wrong, though... I hate stickers too. ;)

Maybe I'm just mentally ill, but this makes me happy. It's more fun when you have to root through parts for a while, and totally zen out on the building process. A while back I bought a used UCS Blockade Runner over eBay, and the seller sent it to me fully assembled. As a favor, I asked some of my co-workers to smash the thing apart for me (before I saw it, of course) so that I could put it back together myself. They had a good time smashing, and I had a good time re-assembling.... so everybody won! :-D

Wolf Pack.... a great little "mercenary" theme that added much more dimension to the Lego Castle universe.

Sigh.... maybe Dagmar is right, I AM having a midlife crisis.

That's a great idea, to bring back Blacktron.... think of all the new pieces (especially windshields) that have been created since then, and all the great stuff that could be created now in that theme. Another neat idea would be doing re-imaginings of some of the OLD Classic space sets (pre-Blacktron, even). Bring back the little multi-colored spacemen and the big blue and grey ships and bases, but update them.

I just found out, this sale is also available online at toysrus.com. Which is great since the online selection is much bigger than what is on the shelves in most stores. 33% off everything if you play it right.... might be time for me to do some stocking up!

For the handful of Americans out there.... Just saw today that my local TRU is having a "Buy 2 sets, get a third free" sale on all Lego. I live in Nortern California, but I'm not sure if this is nationwide. They also had a good selection of both the Viking and Dino lines. It was the first time I had seen the Viking stuff in person.... pretty exciting! :)

Clipper all the way! Don't like those silly logos on the sails of the Imperial flagship, it diminishes the realism. And while I think the Spanish Armada minifigs are some of the coolest ever, I'm just not a fan of the white hull of their ship.

"I wonder if they can tell I'm not wearing anything under this cape?"

"Um, okay.... but where do you put the sail?"

Phew! Good! I mean, I'd like it either way, but dark red is definitely preferable. Thanks for clearing that up, Yoda! And thanks for the great pics! :) I can't wait for this one to become available over here in the U.S. Although, hmmm, perhaps I should put the money towards a new pair of glasses instead...... :-D