blueandwhite

And they are 60-90% higher in Canada. Honestly, I don't see the big deal. LEGO is always going to price items disproportionately in weaker (read: non-US) markets. There has been a noticeable jump in LEGO prices this year. It simply hasn't affected the US. No biggie.

Yes, but you can't fault LEGO for the VAT. That alone is a 15-20% difference in price. It also goes a long way to explaining the difference between European and Canadian prices. I've had far too many discussions where I've been told I should be happy that I don't have to pay European prices, when in most cases I do. This issue always irritates me because whenever a Canadian suggests that pricing is high, we're told that we have it good, yet at the same time European fans constantly rant about pricing, we're told that its unfair. Truth is, the pricing is what it is, and I very much doubt that LEGO is going to do anything to change it in the near future.

That's true. US and Canadian prices don't include taxes, whereas most other jurisdictions are priced with tax included. If you remove the VAT from the European pricing, then the difference (while significant) isn't as great as many buyers preceive it to be.

Considering that LEGO has been in financial trouble for the past several years, is this even feasible? I'm all for lower prices, but I'm pretty sure their marketing department has thuroughly researched what regional prices make sense for them. Remember, EVERYTHING is cheaper in America. For Americans, LEGO is still an expensive toy, simply because other lines are also cheap.

Is it that European prices are high, or that US prices are low? Almost every region outside of the US pays similar mark-ups, and as I've recently learned, many regions that aren't serviced by shop-at-home pay even more. Heck, in Canada we pay nearly as much as you Europeans, despite sharing the world's largest unprotected border with the good ol' US of A.

Exactly. Its the term "juniorization" that was coined in the community to describe not only this line, but a generalized trend towards the oversimplification of sets. Allthough Town Jr. expressly targeted a younger audience, other lines were implicitly following this trend. Fortunately, LEGO seems to have done something of a 180 turn with some lines (noteably, Creator and Star Wars), producing some fairly challenging builds. Other lines like KKII and Exo-Force, catoring to a younger audience continue to be more <insert that tiresome argument>, however they don't really compare to the simple designs of the 90s.

Untrue. Juiorization has been a term used by AFOLs since the late 90s. If you do a search on Lugnet, you will find that the term begins appearing as early as 1998. It has absolutely nothing to do with LEGO's 4+ line, as its use predates that line by several years. Juniorization has EVERYTHING to do with the perspective of the AFOL. The term was created by AFOLs who were concerned with the dumbing down of the LEGO product line in the mid to late 1990s. During that time, sets became incredibly simple, allowing for easy play, but limited building. A noticeable trend in themes like Adventures was the introduction of colour-coded building. That is to say, bricks that were similar, but not the same were coloured differently to simplify building (for a great example, look at the orginal Millennium Falcon). A 1x3 brick might be blue, whereas a 1x4 brick would be red. This meant that young kids wouldn't mix up the instructions, inserting the wrong brick in the wrong place. Another more obvious trend was the move towards specialized elements in the place of basic bricks. It was the reaction to these and other trends that resulted in the AFOL term "<insert that tiresome argument>". Now, most fans use the word to describe a set or line that has a disproportionate number of specialized single-use bricks. These sets simply lack a decent ratio of special-to-basic bricks. Anything MOCed out of these sets has an aesthetic that is largely determined by the limited nature and over abundance of specialized single-purpose elements. Needless to say, these l"<insert that tiresome argument>" sets have proven to be somewhat less popular among adult collectors who are looking for greater building challenges and better materials for MOCing.

Well, as this IS the best set LEGO has ever produced, one might expect demand amongst AFOLs to be pretty high, if only for the building experience a model like this provides. Casually, this thing should take the average fan several weeks to finnish! I figure that this is one model where you snooze: you lose.

My biggest problem is that LEGO is releasing TOO MANY sets in any given year, many of which simply don't have enough of a following. I mean, this year we've got Castle, Space, Town, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Sponge Bob, Batman, Aqua Raiders, Racers, and Exo-Force as themes (plus other lines like Creator, Technic and Bionicle). With so many products on the market, LEGO seems to be competing with themselves. Honestly, I think LEGO needs to focus on having fewer high-quality lines, rather than a bunch of one or two year lines that fail to grab buyer interest. I know somebody's favorite is inevitably nixed, but there are times when too much is TOO MUCH!

The first 3 are definitely on my 2007 wanted list. I'll probably pick up the maiden from Bricklink. The castle is a likely pass. Still, a pretty good year.

If what legoman says is true, then it sounds like Luke might be getting a new hairpiece. Could explain his absense in the photographs.

$679.99 Canadian. After tax, that works out to be $775. Alot of Bothans are going to die if I'm going to be able to save that kind of scratch.

I really hate to say it, but it looks like LEGO cheaped out on the Infiltrator. I guess that with so many high-priced SW sets in the pipeline (UCS Falcon *wub* ), LEGO felt a need to produce something that was a bit cheaper. Unfortunately, it's butt-ugly. Still, Darth Maul has become pretty expensive on BL. I guess this should ease the pain of some SW collectors who pay unreal prices for now discontiuned minifigs.

While the Doctor's is certainly larger, LBaixinho I think yours is just as nice. It is a bit unfair to compare the two as the good Doctor has one of the biggest collections of grey bricks in the AFOL community. The building techniques employed by LBaixinho are simply wonderful, and only against the might of Dr. Carney's imposing fortress does it come off as being less impressive. An awesome MOC that faithfully captures the spirit of the original. Great work LBaixinho!

Don't say such terrible things. I think most of us are already stressing over the price. The last thing we need to do is freak out over limited availability! Now, I'm just completely freaked *wacko* !

Actually, I think you either mean kidney or lung. You only have one liver, and only can donate part of that.

And yet, you know you MUST have it. Its like being hit over the head with a piano :'-( !

Given the US's tendency to receive cheaper sets, I would expect this to go for no more than $399 there. I'm hoping that Toys R' Us will be carrying this one, because I figure the Canadian Price will be more comprable to the European prices, and I absolutely must have this set. I would totally make arrangements to go Stateside for this one if I knew I could get it in Toys R' Us, rather than paying an arm and a leg on Shop@home.

Boy am I glad I skipped on the second release of the Falcon. THIS is the Falcon I've been waiting for *wub* ! I must find a way to save for this monster. Absolutely friggin crazy!

Most of the time, Bricklink IS a bargain *y* ! Only when your hunting for extremely rare bricks/minifigs does it become expensive. The basic elements themselves are generally far cheaper on Bricklink than they are when sold through LEGO. Heck, for some of you fans in Greece, it might actually be worthwhile to contact a seller you trust and see if he or she could sell you some sets. An American seller is getting his or her bricks at less than 1/2 of what you are, so they could even stand to make a profit selling to you.

You can never have enough smilies. :-)

Ouch. Those prices are pretty steep! Its too bad that some regions are forced to pay such outrageous prices for LEGO. Normally when I hear about LEGO pricing being unfair I start to roll my eyes, but this takes it to an extreme. Most jurisdictions (with the exception of the U.S. of course) pay similar prices, but those are unreal!

So what does make the male to female ratio: 100 to 1 or something thereabout :-P ? Still, its nice to have a new female minifig for the castle line. Too bad she comes with the weakest set. I want her, but almost nothing else in the set. I bet she'll be a pretty penny on bricklink too! Oh well.

Quite possibly. Personally, I suspect the majority of set collectors are in fact Star Wars obsessed adults. In my experience, most kids just can't keep any set (Star Wars or not) in one piece. The ones who like to build end up trying something different, whereas the others just leave the pieces in a bucket off in some corner. I don't think this is any different than it was when I was a child. LEGO's play value has changed considerably, with a low-point being in the late 90s (what many AFOLs refer to as their "dark age"). One-dimensional sets with little or no replay value have been around for a long time. The funny thing was, the Star Wars sets, in order to remain true to the original licenced material, ended up being far more complex than anything else LEGO was doing at the time. Ironically, it was these sets that brought me out of my dark ages. At the time, most of LEGO's products were giving Duplo a run for its money when it came to complexity. Even today, SW sets remain more complex than most of the other lines. Only the Creator line, and some of the City sets are comprable. KKII and Exo-Force, while popular with kids, are incredibly simple. I honestly believe that without the likes of Star Wars and other licences, LEGO would have gone under a few years back. I don't purchase the SW sets, but I do recognize their superior quality when compared to alot of LEGO's other lines. People can knock the SW line as much as they want, but it doesn't change the fact that these sets remain some of the best LEGO has ever produced.

I don't buy that for a second. The child who buys one Star Wars set, only to wait for the next one is also the child who would never think of building anything to go with his or her "old school" stuff to begin with. Even among adult fans, there are alot of set collectors who put very little thought into MOCing. The same child who thinks 'what next' doesn't suddenly lose his spark because the words Star Wars is on the box.