rollermonkey

Because LEGO is already expensive for many people. Making the lowest price sets more expensive by default including the highest cost figures helps nobody but minifig collectors. It's not 'better for everyone in the end'.

You guys are complaining about not knowing where the New Republic came from? That's all we knew before the Blockade Runner showed up on screen, and we had about 5 seconds to think about it. Talk about not knowing what the heck was going on!

Episode 1 was crushed by critics because it's frankly a poor film. The acting and dialogue are atrocious. The acting is bad largely because it's a bunch of people standing around on green screens, trying to interact with things that aren't there. The dialogue certainly doesn't help, and the delivery is largely stilted and unnatural. The plot about trade federations is by turns boring and confusing, especially for kids. The special effects looked good at the time, but are sitting squarely in the middle of the uncanny valley, even at the time of release. The podracing scene is held out as a good part. Here's the problem with that: Classic Star Wars scenes like the Cantina, Hoth Battle, etc. felt huge and had massive impact, but if you go back and check, they are surprisingly short, often less than 5 minutes. Certainly far shorter than they seemed when staring up at the big screen in 1977. The podracing is cool, but is stretched out for twenty minutes, and doesn't start for nearly an hour into the film. The other good part is of course, Duel of the Fates. As good as it is, it's broken up into little pieces by the palace incursion (good), battle over Naboo (ok) and Gungan/droid combat (oh, so horribly bad). Watch the SW Saga in Machete Order someday. Skipping The Phantom Menace actually makes the rest of the series STRONGER as a whole, and that's certainly not a positive indication of its importance to the story or the quality of the film. ...and I didn't even have to mention Jar Jar. Maybe the German version is somehow better, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it's bad in its original language. Episodes II and III are decent but I gets trashed for legitimate reasons.

Shame that they cancelled the Planets Series, now that we have a bunch more candidates for inclusion.

Frankly, if someone comes into a thread that is geared for people to comment on sets after having seen the film, then complains about spoilers, whose fault is that? Nobody is spoiling plot by saying that the landing gear on Ren's Shuttle is completely wrong, and even my saying that the falcon looks lighter for having been on Jakku a while doesn't spoil anything important either... ...and actual plot discussion should be down in the media forum.

I never had any issues with my keels falling off, but as a 6-year-old playing with LEGO boats in the bathtub, I was more concerned with tidal waves and whatnot. I was as much asking to find out if the new hulls had any connection points below the waterline like the old ones did. Shame that they didn't keep that bit of functionality.

How about a boat keel? I had a few of these as a kid, they worked great at keeping those old narrow hulls right-side-up. Do the new hulls not have antistuds on the bottom?

It IS a deliberate downgrade, and that has been the answer you have gotten here and in SW. Exclusive figures, particularly with more details, are included in high priced sets, for the reasons of increased desirability of the set and the figure that way, and because lower profit sets can't justify the higher costs associated with increased manufacturing steps on newer machines with lower volume capabilities. You can always buy the figures separately on Bricklink at a premium, and sometimes for much cheaper on Bricks and Pieces. In other words, just because they CAN make figures with greater detail, does not automatically mean that they will, even if you want them to. If you want more detail, other companies more consistently provide that in non-superdeformed formats. Minifigs are supposed to be representations, not hyper-realistic recreations.

I was just comparing onscreen appearance with the set, which is what I thought the thread was about. Whatever Han did before, it's virtually snow white when it takes off from Jakku.

If they UCS the TFA snowspeeder, there will be a disturbance in the Force like TLG has never seen before.

Twice? I only saw the snowspeeder outside the door when they arrived at the second location of the base/planet. Was it in an interior shot and I missed it? Rey's Speeder: Looks good, scale is a little off, but not horribly so. I'd like to see if I can mod mine to include the damage hers showed. Had to think about it to realize that the second figure character was in the film! He's not really seen with the speeder, so that's a bit weird. Snow Speeder: Appearance of the Hasbro version is better, simply because the stud-shooters are too big, but the shape of the vehicle seems accurate enough. The set is a little large, too. It's a very 'blink and you'll miss it vehicle'. Also, the figures included... could have been VERY different characters, that's for sure! FO Transporter: Set is too short in length, but otherwise, the shape is about perfect. I didn't notice anything about if the play feature and missiles in the set make any sense at all. Figure selection is perfect, though. Poe's X-wing: Still looks great. Yeah, the wing-split isn't perfect, but it's a great set nonetheless. Fig selection is just fine, no need for changes. FO TIE: It's system scale, so the antistud wing insides aren't going anywhere, but apart from that, it's typical TIE accuracy and figures are perfectly chosen since they didn't go with the other option for figures. Kolo Ren's Shuttle: This has the most glaring inaccuracies. Wings ought to tilt and the landing gear/lower winglets are wrong. Color choice isn't as good as it could be. Figures are great, though. Falcon: Oddly, the ship we know best is the one with the biggest color flaw. She's been sitting under the hot Jakku sun long enough that she's noticeably lighter in color onscreen, but they've darkened the color palette in the set for whatever unknown reason. The figure selection absolutely makes sense, though. (this is the only one I don't have)

Very, VERY good. On a par with ep. IV, but not quite as good as V. Are there problems? Yes, of course, there are things to nitpick. Do they make the film unenjoyable? No, I didn't even think of / notice any problems until after it was over.

In the movie, the fold-down of the upper wings looked like the Terminator 2000... Liquid metal in motion... No way that TLG will be able to get the motion THAT smooth! The wings tilt in and out so many times in the movie, though. It's really got to be fixed/modded in our sets. Oh, and the landing gear / lower wings. Totally needs to be fixed, too. I'd like to make the wings tilt with worm and rack gears in a UCS version, just for my own enjoyment. I fit all six figures without too much trouble. Female officer in the pilot seat, two crewmen standing on either side facing out towards the back of the front part, Stormtrooper standing on the exit ramp, and Hux and Kylo standing in the back, facing each other. The stupid 'weapon rack' doesn't like to stay in place that way with Ren's big hood, but after a few tries I got everything closed with everyone in and the rack in place.

I think all the speculation about needing a bigfig for Snoke was silly considering it turned out to just be Watto. Just kidding.

Wow! That's really nice! I really like the contrast of black and white portions of the house. In the first image I thought you'd custom printed a tile along the pool's edge, but I guess it's just a reflection. :)

Is freehand building using one hand to operate the mouse and the other to... build a LEGO model?

Um. Put these two together, and you've answered your own question. Aside from that, what SW figure desperately needs dual molded limbs?

The Star Wars review index is long out of date, too. I'm sure it's a lot of work, but it seems weird that if they aren't going to be kept up, that they are left stickied anyways.

Looks like the $0.10 ppp number is starting to go away. :/

Wow. The PPP on the Architecture sets are kind of steep for Burj and Venice. Berlin 289 pieces - 29.99 Venice 212 pieces - 29.99 NYC 598 pieces - 59.99 Burj 333 Pieces - 39.99

Great review of a HUGE set. Did you actually have two #6 bags? The instructions make it look like we were supposed to get two bags, but all the parts for both wing tops were in the same bag in mine... Weird. Also, on the very first list of minifigs, you need to swap the order of the Hux and Stormtrooper names in the text to match your image. :)

While the review is nice, this game, like Skylanders and Disney Infinity before it, represents the absolute WORST of what video games have become: A way to release an incomplete gaming experience, then nickel-and-dime the customer to death with horribly overpriced expansions. If someone bought my daughter this as a gift, I would know that person hated me. ...and it would get exchanged for almost anything else.

Now that we have better images of it, the arm looks to be the same, just painted red.

I'll be seeing it in a brand new theater. Not IMAX, but it's only been open for about 2 weeks. ...and it serves booze and food to your seats before the show starts.

Oh, interesting. I'd always just thought those grooves were for reducing the friction between the axle and the various joints.