rollermonkey

Everyone should edit their numbers to not include black pins. ;)

Really? Can we see the raw numbers on the poll you conducted about LSW Bounty Hunters?

Wow. This is going to be an EXTREMELY cheap year in Technic for me. I just bought the BWE, and it might be the only set I buy all year.

Huh? Is that a list for outside the US? I thought that Target and Toys r Us each got separate retailer exclusives most years? Or is that a winter/summer thing?

Nah. Clone Wars was still rolling when Disney bought in. They immediately cancelled it, which is why the final season wasn't shown in all markets. They started development of Rebels to get the property off of Cartoon Network in the US and onto the Disney Channel, it just landed on XD instead of the main channel.

Are you actually a Star Wars fan, or are you just trolling? Rebels didn't exist before Disney bought the Star Wars property.

I've somewhat recently discovered something interesting: Japan is having a bit of a heavy metal renaissance. Any sub-genre you want, they've got a scene for it. Most interesting to me is that there's a significant number of all-female groups. I'm not talking about Babymetal, either. Actual, bonafide bands that play their own instruments.

But it was listed on the UCS poster? http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/UCS_Promotional_Poster

Really? Who needs a specialty mold for a tentacled ball of goo when we still don't have Banthas?

Can always count on Sariel for a few things: Great reviews that end up making you want more of the sets than you thought originally At least a few laughs Bravo, sir. Bravo.

I have a strong feeling that the Rathtar Escape set may look a lot like this with a Star Wars vibe instead of Dr. Strange:

I've got a Marina Bay Sands on my shelf that was only sold in Asia in 2015. It does happen, just not often. I think theTelehandler was one of the sets my local LEGO store had before Christmas.

Just finished Chicago this morning. I actually prefer this Sears Tower to the first, but even though I lived there, and googled it, I never heard of 'Big Red' and google didn't find it. I ended up using google Maps in 3D mode to find it! I guess they didn't want to provide any sort of advertising to Trump. ;) Did you also notice that they have the instruction page on how to use the LEGO Brick Separator tool, but the sets don't actually have it? Odd, because the Architecture line is part of why I have more than 50 of them. They've all had one, or nearly so. I'm certainly fine waiting until the March releases for the Guggenheim. Hopefully it doesn't fall to August or September, though.

I can think of a member who might think you insufficiently motivated if that's preventing you from building. ;)

Just built Sydney. The instruction book was maddening. The first 29 steps add a single piece or occasionally two. Then step 30 comes along and has you add 33 pieces at once? These instructions that treat people like idiots are getting OLD. It looks nice, but this is my 3rd Sydney Opera House now. :/ Ready for something actually new.

Oh, I forgot to mention: It's getting kind of old that they keep on using the Death Star(s)/Starkiller Base... The best Star Wars movie ever made didn't need to have a massive superweapon, why can't they get away from it? Are they unable to fathom another way to demonstrate the evil nature of the Empire without one?

Second viewing of Rogue One. I hoped that my opinion might improve after another viewing, it did not. Things that bothered me: Jyn seems to spend a large portion of the film on the verge of tears. She was a stranger to the Rebel Alliance and a few minutes later she's giving a big motivational speech in front of the entire Rebel Council, huh? Then she leads a mission group comprised of the Alliance's assassins, saboteurs and whatnot? My suspension of disbelief doesn't stretch that far. Why is she limping on top of the communications tower? She was fine two seconds earlier when she levitated through the bizarre, video game inspired hatch. Cassias should be limping, not her. The presence of Ponda and Evazhan on Jedda makes no sense. In the canonical timeline, they are suddenly on Tatooine like 2 days later? I don't buy it. Artoo & Threepio's appearance bothered me less this time. But it's still hokey as heck. Knowing where and how the film must end really becomes problematic. Everything becomes shielded in plot armor and deus ex machina. Why not just: Mustafar that would have been in the same style as the rest. None mentioned anything but the planet name.

Rogue One

I love how you thought that present was for you, but Santa was all "Psych!"

Wasn't it weird that every other planet, even Yavin IV got its name flashed on the screen momentarily, but not at the beginning of the one for Vader's castle?

The biggest reason why heavy metal got crushed by the alternative/grunge wave in the early 90's was ATTITUDE. Metal heads all decided that their favorite band was so special, they needed to have a special genre just for them. Next thing I knew, everyone was bashing on all the new 'genres' except for the one or two that they liked. Thrashers dissed on death metal, Doomsters bagged on prog metal, everyone piled on Christian metal. Glam vs Speed, and on and on. Prog, Gothic, Black, Funk, Nu, Rap, Avant-garde, Stoner, Speed, Power, Stoner, Symphonic, Alternative, Pagan, Christian, Pirate, Extreme, Death, Viking, Glam, Metalcore, Thrash, Groove, Industrial, Kraut, and dozens more. This essentially killed Heavy Metal as a mainstream art form. Where once the biggest metal acts ruled arenas, sheds and even stadiums, across the nation, now those once titans of music are often relegated to the club scene for tours unless they can gather several of the remaining stars together for an arena show that struggles to fill seats and make money. Sure, you can point to some bands that continue to fill stadiums in South America, like Metallica, but where did the rest of it go? For the most part, to the underground. So when someone says that they are a 'metal elitist' or 'metal snob', you make me want to hurl. It's that $#!+3 attitude that ruined it, thank you very much.

Just finished watching the two new reviews, when YouTube offered up someone else's reviews of the last set (the ship)... I clicked on them, and after 10 seconds decided I'll just wait for Sariel's review of that one, too. :)

Um, pretty sure it shares a LOT less than 95% with the 75150 A-Wing... . I mean, the sliding mechanism is half the ship in that set, and it's gone in this one.

Besides the occasional battle pack, the Star Wars Cantina is the only one I doubled up on.