xboxtravis7992

I dunno. We had the German Toy Fair today which explains a lot of the reveals. I don't think they always put retail exclusives on display at the toy fair. Guess we will just find out in due time!

Yes that was weird today. Seeing a major set forum locked due to the actions of two members last night while most of us were away; thus locking it on the day of the German Toy Fair... It seemed so bizarre; especially since the toy fair has brought up some information on the sets (no pictures, but a confirmation of some rumors about which sets correspond to a certain film in the franchise...). I like the analogy Quicksilver used about school; punishing a group as a whole for the actions of one or two people was one of the disciplinary actions I HATED when I was a child myself. I remember countless times were I was being punished because of something a classmate did. Rather than teach me a lesson, it just made me resent the teachers for it. I don't want to start feeling resentment to the moderators here, so I recommend avoiding this group punishment method because it leaves a very bad taste in the mouth of those who are following the rules and got punished alongside the perpetrators.

In defense of my earlier statement; I still think the price point does affect spending. Yes it is comparable to all those other things (if not cheaper in many regards). But what are the chances a kid is going to be getting more than a couple hundred dollars of gifts each year? So if the parents buy them something like a video game console the same year; how much money are they then willing to spend on Lego? Sort of a reference to when I was younger, it seemed every year my parents limited their Lego spending for me to about $100-$200 dollars. Out of the Lego train sets I own; the only ones they bought for me were the original Hogwarts Express (which had those ugly faux wheels); and the 2014 City blue train which they got me while I was living out of the country. All the rest of my Lego trains (the first three Creator Expert trains) I had to save up for and pay for myself as a teenager. I really only could expect my parents buying me one or two sets normally out of my price reach; when I was a kid those were the Star Wars large sets, as a teenager and adult it was the Modular Buildings (and I expect the older I get, that while they will continue to buy me Lego I feel they are reaching the end of spending so much money on Christmas for their adult son! ) So yes, price is an issue. Now if a kid is really into Lego trains, maybe their parents could get them once a year then. But if a kid only has a passing interest in trains, their parents will probably just buy them their one train set; then just continue focusing on buying Lego sets the kid has an interest in. Lego trains are pricey in the world of Lego. Of course in the world of model railroading... Lego trains are actually a decent price. But what a serious HO scale/N scale/O scale/Proto48 or even an AFOL Lego collector considers "cheap and affordable" is far different from what a KFOL or their parents would define!

Oh my gosh, that reminds me of the last time I saw Beauty and the Beast on stage. The actor for Beast was a bit scrawny, and had sort of a high-pitched voice. It was very hard to feel like he was scary at all during the play .

He also killed Quasi's mother... But anyways, the only Disney Villain without a sidekick I can think of you didn't mention was Mother Gothel from Tangled. (Maybe Hans from Frozen counts too?) Of course if we start to expand our Disney list to include Marvel and Star Wars we could find a lot more examples of villains without sidekicks (and a ton of examples of villains with dozens of sidekicks or henchmen!)

This right here. It scared me as a child. But when I was older and realized he was basically singing about forcing Esmeralda into a relationship with him it became %1000 spookier. The fact it is paired with Quasimodo's loving song about Esmeralda just beforehand is the perfect contrast. Really dark stuff for a Disney movie. What makes Frollo frightening is he isn't a villain with magic powers, or space alien strength, or humorous sidekicks, or vain ambition. No, he is a normal mortal human being whose lust leads him to BURN DOWN ALL OF PARIS, COMMIT MASS GENOCIDE, AND ATTEMPT TO MURDER WHAT IS BASICALLY HIS ADOPTED SON. If that ain't real evil, I don't know what is.

I still am very apprehensive about the new Beauty and the Beast in a few ways. On the plus side, I do think it is perfectly casted and looks extremely well done. On the other hand though, the original film is indisputably one of Disney's greats. How could a retelling of that story be any better than the original? I fear that the new film will end up a lot like the stage play version; we will see some new stuff in the journey; but in the end it will all just be a bit to familiar. Unless they all of a sudden decide to go all "Hunchback of Notre Dame stage play ending" on the live action Beauty and the Beast, where they take the happy ending of the original Disney film, and twist it into a much darker ending closer to the original source material... AKA, the Beast dies and Gaston wins type of stuff goin' on. Now a little off topic, my sister was absolutely obsessed with the stage play version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame a few months ago (she is a musical theater student after all, so she is into that kind of stuff). Both of us agree that the original film is criminally ignored by many Disney fans; the music is some of the best ever made for a Disney film; and Frollo is the only Disney villain who scares us more as adults than he scared us when we were children!

Um, they gave him money? Lots of money. He has been doing a lot of off beat commercials lately too. Maybe since he really hasn't had a job in Star Trek in years, and only does work on X-Men occasionally he was happy for the chance to make quick money! Who am I kidding, still looks like an awful movie...

Beautiful. Absolutely stunning work!

Yes it seems adult collectors are more into Lego trains then kids are. I think the price point of many Lego trains makes it so the average kid will be lucky to just get one; hence the reason City sets come out with trains every few years; and the sets stay on the shelves a long time. That way kids can get their "one" train, to ad to their other sets. Of course for adult collectors this is frustrating. There are over a dozen trains I wish Lego would do as an official set; yet I doubt they will ever touch those ideas. Thank goodness we have a large MOC community to keep things interesting; while those who really want to collect the trains themselves also have the option of going with other modeling mediums.

I own the two flagship sets of that of that wave (Krennic's Shuttle and the U-Wing). To be honest, my favorite of the two is the U-Wing. It looks ungainly, but that fits the same style of ships we saw in the OT such as the X, B, and Y wings. The figures are excellent with the U-Wing, being the only set from 2016 where we get the two main lead characters (Jyn and Cassian). The only issue it has, the troop compartment isn't really big enough to fit more figures in there. You can get two sitting down in the seats, but then to close the doors you need to remove the stud shooters to make it all fit. You can kind of get one or two more figures in there standing, but it is still a very tight squeeze. As for Krennic's Shuttle, while it isn't my favorite of the two it is all the same a very impressive set! We get three main characters; Krennic the lead villain, and two heroes; K-2SO and Bodhi. The two Death Troopers are also a great addition to the figure line up. It looks great on display, but is a little bit harder to "swoosh" around in one hand due to its size and shape. My biggest disappointment is again in seating capacity, as we only get three seats to place figures inside the shuttle. It is also a chore to open up and close the side panels everytime I try and get to the minifigures seated inside. What I will say is this, both of them are rather well done sets with only a few minor flaws. I hope to save up to at least get the Hovertank and AT-ST in a few months too, to complete the entire main cast of Rogue One. Heck, I might even get that Tie-Striker (which is a great set, but my least favorite in this wave because it has such a minor role in the film).

Disney XD is also carried on less cable/satellite plans as Cartoon Network. I was able to watch every single The Clone Wars episode when they aired since Cartoon Network was easily accessible. My parents downgraded the satellite plan just before I could start watching Rebels, so now without Disney XD; I have to wait for the DVD release. Honestly I am surprised Disney didn't put Rebels on Disney Channel, which is included in more plans than XD is. Then again it seems Disney is trying to "demographically segregate" their two channels; making XD the 'boys' channel and Disney Channel the 'girls' channel. It's rather stupid marketing in my opinion. Especially since Disney Channel is stuffed with so much junky pre-teen sitcoms it has zero appeal to anyone in my family anymore. My Dad still reminesses about the days when Disney Channel played actual DISNEY movies and features about the Disney Parks and behind the scenes stuff. Disney has magically sucked out all the Disney in Disney Channel and replaced it with soulless fluff. While Disney XD has some more interesting shows which seem more in the spirit of Disney, they aren't showing them on Disney Channel due to fear of alienating their demographic. Uggghhh. Sorry, rants over now. Move along now, move along.

Oh my gosh I saw a preview of the new Scout Trooper and Speeder Bike set. So beautiful! The brickbuilt speeder could very well be a UCS display piece, but the CCBS figure on top of it is icing on the cake. Don't be surprised if I put a Bionicle figure on that bike for fun... :)

This conversation has made me feel like if anything the handling of Star Wars video games the last few years has been pretty lackluster. Since Disney has bought Star Wars in 2012; I have had little to complain about. I enjoy the two new films, Rebels has been fun, the decision to overhaul the expanded universe was wise, the new comic books are high caliber, and the theme park plans Disney has for Star Wars look AWESOME. However, Disney's handling of the Star Wars video game side has been pretty mediocre at best; and awful at worst. Shutting down both LucasArts and Disney Interactive were clear signs that Disney had little interest in devoting the same care to the video games that they were going to devote to other aspects of the Star Wars franchise. While I do think DICE was a clear choice for making Battlefront (due to the similarities to Battlefield games); and maybe BioWare could do an RPG game (but they seem busy focusing on keeping The Old Republic MMO game going indefinitely instead of creating a new game sadly), I think EA isn't really qualified to handle anything else in the Star Wars video game franchise arena. Is there any part of EA qualified to make us a good RTS? Are we ever going to get a space simulator such as the old X-Wing games from EA? Does EA have the vision to tread new ground with Star Wars; such as what LucasArts seemed to be considering with 1313 or the unnamed Darth Maul game project? Heck forget Star Wars for a second, and mourn the loss of the LucasArts which could do things other than Star Wars in its innovative era of the mid 1990's. The only thing that seems to be in the pipeline for Star Wars video games other than more EA Battlefront games; is more mobile freemium games. Freemium games can be fun for some brief diversion; but they lack the depth a Console or PC game could really give. Its sad really. I miss the LucasArts of the early 2000's; which was making Star Wars games left and right, and with the studios they worked with; created some brilliant stuff such as the original Battlefront games, Republic Commando, KOTOR, etc. So yeah, Star Wars video games feel like they are a bit dead in the water. At the very least, even if it is shallow gameplay; Battlefront looks great graphically.

Yes I think Halo 5 handled it's multiplayer rather well (the campaign was mediocre though, so the game is far from perfect). Now as for Star Wars games, sadly EA has a reputation for finding ways to squeeze money out of its players. I have yet to buy Battlefront. I had fun the times I played it, but I think the original $60 game with only three worlds, no campaign, and online only multiplayer; was highway robbery at that asking price. The recently released Deluxe Edition (all DLC plus the base game at $50) sounds to me like that should have been what the game was at launch. I will buy the deluxe edition eventually, I just hope there is still a player base on it by the time I buy it. Also speaking of games I watched Rogue One again last night. You know what the final battle made me want? A new Star Wars space RTS. Empire of War is looking pretty dated now, it's time for a new one. Sadly seeing how the RTS genre hasn't been on stable ground for years, I doubt EA would invest in it for a future Star Wars game.

I am surprised more shooters aren't adapting the method Halo 5 took for its multiplayer DLC. All Halo 5 map packs are free and automatically added to the playlist of every player, which has kept its player base rather decent long after release. Instead they use a system of micro-transactions to unlock armor, skins, announcers, etc to make profit. I hope they adapt that in more games.

Wow, those old figures bring out a lot of retro nostalgia feel-goods. Especially Jedi Bob! I had that figure, but I lost it somehow. Sort of a Lego classic.

The only thefts I have seen in person are the CMF ones and the DK books ones. Those are pretty easy to spot fortunately, and I have never had issue with any of my purchases since I am on the look out. I have never checked stuff like the seals or the tape either, and I have never had a problem with those sets when I got home to build them. All the contents were in the bag. Only time I even checked the seals was due to the Wall-E recall last year, which had nothing to do with preventing theft.

I remember this very well from last year. Brickset wrote a whole series on the London toy fair and published it; only for the Lego UK team to demand it was taken down. Brickset took it down, and then a week later posted pictures of the exact same sets from the German toy fair basically pointing out how ludicrous they had to remove their photos only a week before the German ones went public. The New York and German toy fairs are far more open then the London one it seems.

Yes I am still surprised Saw or Galen didn't show up in any sets. Arguably they could have included Galen with the Y-Wing (kind of mean thought, but he was in that scene...) Saw would go well with a Partisan X-Wing. Also the newest The Clone Wars set (Yoda's Star Fighter) used modern styles and not the cartoon stuff. Arguably the Azure Angel set was also a Clone Wars inspired set too (same concept, different TV show) and Lego made no effort to mimic the cartoon faces there either. Also, no cartoon faces in sets based on Rebels in Lego. It seems Lego will stick to their traditional faces styles for the foreseeable future in Star Wars. So if we do get any more Clone Wars stuff I expect the faces to not be cartoon based. However if we do get more Clone Wars stuff, I bet Lego will have a limited focus on specifically memorable ships and characters. I could see us someday getting updated Clone Wars Asohka, Darth Maul cyborg, and Captain Rex figures at least; and maybe a few re-releases of the ships (Clone Wars Y-Wing, Mandalorian Fighter, etc.) But I doubt it would ever be as extensive as the old Clone Wars theme was. More like one set or two every two years or so, sort of mixed in with the Prequel stuff, Rebels, and Freemaker sets.

I know this is coming out of the blue. But I want an E-Wing from Legends. I know that black monstrosity they called Jek-14's fighter was supposed to be an E-Wing based model; but I didn't really like the pictures I saw of it. I want a more classic X-Wing like E-Wing ship. I always thought what made the E-Wing cool was how it seemed to have been inspired by the F-4 Phantom in both its look and deployment history (the F-4 Phantom had issues in dogfights due to its lack of machine gun, similar to how the early E-Wing's guns failed to work most of the time due to cooling issues). I also really want an R7 astromech (which I know they aren't canon either, but Disney keeps selling R7 toys in their theme parks, so...) Actually while we are on it, a whole Legends based series could be a good market for the collectors. I know that Lego has continued to make some Legends based sets ever since the new Disney canon was announced (Azure Angel, Shadowtrooper pack); so I think there would be a market for stuff like E-Wings, Republic V-Wings, Yuuzong Vohn craft, KOTOR stuff. They could release one Legends based set a year during the early winter wave so it doesn't compete with the canon stuff coming out later in the year.

With the US release date in March for Marvel and Star Wars I keep telling myself it is a good thing on my wallet. Enough time to save up for what I want. In particular with the Marvel stuff I am stoked for all of the sets except for the Hulk one. The Guardians stuff and Detroit Steel in particular grab my attention. The Captain America jet is a little silly, but I think the figures will make it worth it.

Start the Episode 8 hype train!

The Star Wars Official YouTube channel just ran a Q/A session which explained a lot of the questions people had about the film. The Death Star construction taking so long was explained simply that "the structure had been finished for years while designers experimented on how power the laser." That makes a lot of sense actually, and also explains why in Rogue One they are seen inserting the laser, while in previous sources (Revenge of the Sith) there was a laser dish in place. It seems that every iteration of the laser was slotted in and out during testing and construction, until the final laser we see in Rogue One is installed. They also explain the Dr. and Ponda Bobba escaping Jedha. While the time between film shots from when we see the two to the destruction of the city is only like 20 minutes in the film, in canon several hours have passed. It seems the two criminals might have decided to jump the city as soon as they noticed all of the Imperial ships suddenly vanishing too... EDIT: LOL just barely saw your post come in seconds before mine saying you had seen that YouTube show too. They really did a great job explaining the film didn't they?

I sure hope that we get those as as future figures. American Bat would be hilariously awesome way to pit Batman vs. Marvel's Captain America!