Clone OPatra

Hard to say what it will end up being, but right now the gun is just that newish 'sci-fi' gun with two tan tooth pieces on it.

I think we're supposed to believe Sidious is in complete control the entire time. It wasn't on a whim that he decided to get rid of Dooku and make Anakin his apprentice. He had been manipulating them both for a long time to do so, though of course neither could see it. Take a look at the end of Episode I. Palpatine pats Anakin on the shoulder and says he'll be watching Anakin's future easily. What does that mean, other than Lucas telling us that Sidious has extreme foresight? Just look at his rise to power for evidence as well. He somehow put himself as Senator of Naboo, made the Trade Federation attack the planet in order to create sympathy for Naboo, which would in turn get him a vote for Chancellor. That's some really extreme planning right there! Clearly, over the course of the entire Clone Wars he had a plan set to make Anakin his apprentice and get rid of Dooku at the right moment. In the end, this arc was pretty clearly all about Sidious manipulating the Jedi and especially Anakin. The show writers are not that clever; when Palpatine offhandedly says he thought the mission was Anakin's idea it's clearly just a parallel to EpIII when he says he thinks Anakin should go to Utapau. The CW does this kind of parallel all the time. It's Palpatine boosting Anakin's ego and making him distrust the Jedi, plain and simple.

Personally, I find these kitties to be demonic and creepy. That doesn't detract from them, though; they are wonderful MOCs! I always love your work!

Plus, I don't see how your comparisons between new and old sets has any bearing on the Malevolence. It may be an ugly model, but it's around 74 studs long and according to FBTB 1,101 pieces. How is that at all bad for $120? That's what it's been for several years now and it hasn't kept increasing.

As long as the general makeup of the minifigure remains the same, I don't see the problem. Even with a detailed head (for Gamorrean) or helmet (Boussh), it's still a minifigure in all of its unposable goodness. The torso is the same, the legs are the same, the arms are the same, and that's what matters. In most cases, the head is the same as well. Yes, there's a high level of printed detail and in some cases moulded detail, but that doesn't turn it into an action figure. If they change the torso and arms and legs to add more points of articulation or something, that would be bad. That would be like an action figure. But more detail? That is in no way like an action figure. I personally don't like the aesthetic of the Sandtroopers, but that's fine. You don't have to like the amount of detail on some figures, but that doesn't spell doom for less crazy minifigures. Look at all of the minifigures in this summer wave that are perfectly fine in terms of detail. They overwhelm the amount that are not.

Sure they could. If they can put two Barbossas in a single $20 set and both Bruce Wayne and Batman in the Batcave, they could put two Leias in if they wanted to.

Have you been paying attention? We're getting a Comic-style Spider-Man/Doc Ock set. Mega may very well have the license for the film, but LEGO has it for the comics.

If you're including the keychain flashlight, you might want to also include the larger crank flashlights and the huge clock figures.

I'm sure at LEGO the figures are done; they just didn't bring them to Toy Fair. Since they are clearly trying to 'hide details' anyway, what with the whited out boxes and all, having the rest be preliminary as well seems to make sense. Sure, it's disappointing, but it's not like we have that long to wait before seeing the finished products. I'd bet that official product pictures will surface some time in March.

The Castle is $100 in the U.S. As for the car in the lab set, I don't think it's missing a back half; it's just stubby. It's kind of cute.

Clearly it will contain XXX parts. I find these sets to be a mixed bag. I think it's absolutely ridiculous to keep making the Jedi Starfighters bigger and more expensive. To my taste, the original Anakin one did the trick perfectly and was only $20. Now, admittedly it's nice to get part of the pain patter built in instead of all stickers, but $30 for a single Jedi Starfighter seems like way too much, and it might even be too big. I'm having the same problem with the Fury. It's a cool looking ship, and it's actually quite underscaled compared to the minifigures, but I can't see a $90 Tie-like ship that most people won't have heard of selling very well. Not that the price tag is wrong, it just doesn't seem like a good idea. The Malevolence is still pretty atrocious. That's all I have to say about that. I quite like the Gungan Sub. I never thought they would be able to actually make a good model of that ship, and though it's far from accurate, it looks appropriately curvy and pleasing.

Don't worry, LEGO often puts prototype sets in that display case that everyone can see, while they have more finalized versions inside (which will be covered by sites like FBTB). This has happened for the last few years.

The Hogwarts Castle is by far the most 'essential' set to someone getting into Harry Potter. It has all of the most important adults, as well as the primary villain, Harry, and Hermione. I personally do not care for vehicles, but the Hogwarts Express play a key recurring part int he books and films, and it comes with the rest of the most important characters not included in the Castle (besides for Hagrid, alas). Besides for these, it is hard to say what else is essential. The Burrow is my personal favorite set from the entire LEGO Harry Potter theme, but it is not totally key for somebody getting into Harry Potter. The smaller $50 Hogwarts set might be the third-most essential set because it will help beef up the Castle even more, and it includes some other important characters (namely, Lucius and Neville). Diagon Alley I do not find to be essential. It is beautifully designed and certainly plays a roll in the story, but it's an expensive set and doesn't come with any truly key components or figures that would not be attained in the larger Castle and Hogwarts Express.

That is a very strange poster. Anakin has his old torso and a face that is reminiscent of his older one. Obi-Wan's face is nonexistent in LEGO form and his torso is entirely new. Qui-Gon's torso is similar to the one he and Obi-Wan had in the summer wave, but all of the lines are sharp black and the belt section is different. At first, it led me to believe that this is a preview of what the Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan figures in the Sub will look like, but since Anakin is just completely off, I think it's just a cg poster that clue us into nothing.

Honestly, they've been doing this for a long time and it hasn't seemed to affect anything. Did the fact that ads for the first wave of Bionicle showed the figures bending at their moulded joints kill Bionicle? No, it lasted quite some time. I think you overestimate how much kids' expectations are based on ads. I really don't believe that most kids get into LEGO because they've seen a commercial or watched an episode of the NinjaGo show, so it's not like they had their 'hopes up' about what minifigures could do. The classic minifigure is a novelty, and is in shape very simple, which is nice. These figures in competing brands with tiny joints all over the place just look fragmented and ugly, especially the ones with extreme molded detail (like most Mega figures nowadays).

I always watch FBTB and SirStevesGuide. Both have excellent coverage every year.

Was it George that came up with that? There's a lot of things we've 'known' before (Ventress' origin story, Darth Maul's coloring was tattoos not natural) that were redone in the Clone Wars show. Filoni also said that there was more to Order 66 that they would explore than just the above explanation.

We've posted our review here, and I can't say we're altogether pleased about the episode. I thought this was a pretty lame episode in a lot of ways, but I won't get into that again. It's in the review!

Yes. Aesthetically, black looks much better, which is probably why LEGO does it. With all of the black on the torso, a significant amount of black below is needed for balance, and the black hips do just this.

While I do really like these, upon first glance I thought something seemed off. Then I figured it out: the hips should be black. All of LEGO's Clones that have leg printing still have black hips. I know it would be an easy MOD for anybody to do, but to make a perfect product I think you should have it be white legs with black hips

It's tempting to assume that this is a 'new strategy' and bemoan the fact that the grass was greener on the other side (in this case, the past), but that's not really the case. There are more themes new in general, and so it seems that there are more 1-wave themes, which is true. However, 1-wave themes did not just start existing in the last few years. Here are some examples: Arctic (2000), Dino Attack/2010 (2005), X-Treme Team (1998), Ice Planet 2002 (1993), Island XTreme Stunts (2002), Rock Raiders (1999). Now, if you think that a promotional polybag counts as a separate wave, you will not agree with me that most of these themes had only one wave. However, I do not really think that branded-promo sets, minifigure sets, or re-released sets count as separate waves. You could also argue that Arctic was a part of 'Town' (as Bricklink lists it to be), but it wasn't packaged as such and so it seems like a separate thing to me. In my mind, all of these themes listed had just one wave.

Except for the time LEGO surprised us with the AT-OT and Dropship, which they revealed at Toy Fair. I am not exactly sure which category that falls under, though, since that was a set exclusively available from LEGO, while Palpatine's Arrest may be (in the U.S.) exclusive to a single retailer, and sets of that nature have never been at the N.Y. Toy Fair.

This is just a theory, but perhaps under heat the joints of the legs would soften a bit and the model would collapse. With the piece underneath, the model will certainly not collapse.

I'm feeling that since Iron Man appears to wear both suits in the film, it's possible we will get both variants of him. After all, in Iron Man 2 it seemed as though the triangle suit was a more portable one, while the circle suit was bigger, bulkier, and unable to be broken down. It makes sense then why he would wear both. Although the trailer also showed Hulk to not be wearing beige pants, so that's confusing.

I disagree that it's being phased out. It's still being used in City sets. That doesn't mean he won't get a new hairpiece, but the classic one isn't going away. Perhaps he will get a different face with a 'blind' look. That would make sense to me.