Blondie-Wan

Congratulations!

While I'd agree all the minifigure-scale snowspeeders from all the sets that feature them can be improved upon, they definitely have changed since the original 7130 back in 1999. All the later ones, from set 4500 in 2004 on up to now, are pretty similar to each other, but 7130 is quite different.

It's a no-go, right out of the gate. Hasbro already has the current rights to make Star Trek construction toys with its KRE-O line, and in fact there are several KRE-O Star Trek sets available now, including multiple sets (in different scales) of the Enterprise from the J. J. Abrams movies. I'd dearly love it if our favorite Danish toymaker had the Star Trek rights (especially if they were using them to make sets based on the pre-Abrams movies and TV series), but for now it won't happen, no matter how many votes something gets on CUUSOO.

I should probably keep closer track of what I've gotten when, if I'm going to be in this thread at all... oh, well. Here's what I think I've gotten since the last time I posted in it (that is, I know I've gotten these items, but I don't remember whether I got them all after making my previous post, and I don't know if this is all the things I've gotten since then): Han Solo (Hoth) Boba Fett Watch 9495 Y-wing Starfighter 75003 A-Wing Starfighter 9496 Desert Skiff 9677 X-wing Starfighter & Yavin 4 9678 Twin-Pod Cloud Car & Bespin 9679 AT-ST & Endor (x2)

Well, nicely done, then.

Well, given that the license will last for several more years, I think it's virtually inevitable that there'll be at least one more AT-ST eventually. I think the only real question is whether or not the next AT-ST set will come out during the lifetime of the new Ewok Village, so that they're available simultaneously (much the same way we currently have multiple sets available simultaneously for the Jabba-related Tatooine scenes from earlier in the movie). I personally think it seems likely; I wouldn't be surprised to see a new AT-ST set in, say, the summer of 2014, perhaps.

I'm just pleased that they put two people and a shark into such a small set. I'll have to get this one, I think.

Your points are mirrored by the "Scott" who posted a reply to the article yesterday (comment 43066). Was that you?

While I'm a little disappointed like others here over that stepped hood, I think it's something that we can mod to our liking easily enough, and the overall set is still quite desirable, both for parts and for most aspects of the build, even with the minifigures aside. With them, I think it'll be a must-have. :) It'd be truly delightful if there were other sets to go with it, but if not, there's always the silver lining that LEGO Back to the Future will be one easy theme to collect in its entirety if it consists of a single set...

Well, wow - my girlfriend just gave me this amazing set for my birthday! I now have my very first Modular set. If I'd bought a Modular myself I would have gone for one of the earlier ones that's likely to be discontinued soon, but since this was to be a gift it really had to be something "special" that pertains to my interests, which are dominated by the cinema, so this was really the ideal choice. I can't believe how lucky I am to have such a generous and perceptive girlfriend. Now to make room for it...

I wonder whether there'll be a way to get a copy of the poster, aside from scoring one of the ones used at the theater.

This trailer tickles me, for all the reasons I'm sure everyone here understands, and I'm very much looking forward to the movie. Yes, the animation here is CG, done in such a way as to evoke stop-motion with actual bricks, while not being completely subject to its limitations. I'm not sure, but I think there might in fact be some actual stop-motion in the movie; also, IIRC, some of the early announcements pertaining to this project indicated a portion of it would be live-action, though I don't know whether they're still going with that (there's no sign of it in this teaser, obviously). Either way, though, the movie looks like it'll be delightful. :) (It's strange to me that LEGO-related productions like this one get lumped in with any old random music, movies, etc. here in the Culture & Multimedia, segregated away from all the forums devoted to physical sets. One would think EB would have a dedicated forum for LEGO videos, videogames, etc. if they absolutely had to have discussion of all that stuff separated from forums where we talk about actual physical sets. But anyway...)

Well, Mister Phes wins the Award for the Most Prescient Comment of 2005, I'd say. ____________________ Looking back on this set now, with a few additional years of LEGO development, the noses on the minifigures look a little more peculiar to me than they once did (since noses have been absent again for so long now), but while I know they bother some folks here I have to say I still like the minifigures.

Hey, welcome aboard! ________________________________ For most of the time this thread's been running I've been focusing my attention elsewhere (just too many LEGO themes I'm interested in to be able to follow most of them as closely as I'd like!), and I've just spent the past few days reading it from the beginning up to now. For some reason, this new Castle theme has really grabbed my attention. Oh, like many here I liked the previous Castle castle (i.e., "Fantasy Era") and Kingdoms even more (especially that absolutely wonderful second year of Kingdoms), but I've never been able to really get nearly as many sets as I'd like from any castle-type theme (or most other themes, alas), but now I'm finding myself contemplating getting this one in its entirety. I may actually just meld it with the earlier "Fantasy" Castle stuff I do own, since it actually strikes me as a spiritual successor to that in many ways, and my initial impression is that the heraldry for the good guys is actually fairly compatible, though I haven't seen them together yet. We'll see... At any rate, while I do lament the premature passing of Kingdoms, I think the future of LEGO Castle is pretty well assured.

"Sticking power"? Me too. It seems ridiculous to me that Chewie is still using the same incredibly undetailed barely printed mold! He's about a half a decade overdue for a redesign. That said I like how Leia isn't using a stupid brick for her dress. "Incredibly undetailed"? Seriously? It's vastly more detailed than a regular, unadorned minifigure torso, and there's nothing really wrong with it. I sometimes think people want new versions of characters just to have new versions, not because any improvements are actually called for. However, I will say I could see them doing a taller version, using the same head/body element with the Toy Story Woody & Jessie-style torsos and legs. Someone around here posted a photo of a custom Chewie minifigure using those arms and legs (painted brown, of course), and it actually didn't look too bad. I don't think the body mold needs to be changed at all, though. It could perhaps use some more detailed printing, but I don't think it's really required. I don't think that's actually the case. I think people perceive Star Wars sets to be more expensive (or rather, to offer less in a set for a given amount of money) simply because they expect it, not so much because they actually are. This one certainly is. What are some of his other sets?

Wow. I love it. It'll have to wait until I've finally gotten the Death Star, but I definitely want this one, too. It's good to finally see a little more Ewok love from TLG. Considering the importance of the Ewoks to the final sixth episode of the film saga, and the existence of numerous additional stories revolving entirely around them (including not one but two feature-length live-action TV movies, plus an animated series with its own book and comics spin-offs), it's kind of astonishing there have been so few sets with them - just three sets prior to this one, in the entire history of the theme (!). I would have loved to have seen more Ewok characters included here, especially ones we haven't seen before, but all things considered this is still a rather generous selection of minifigures. (The Artoo fan in me also takes exception to setting Artoo apart from the other minifigures in the official description - I mean, I get why it was done, but still. But obviously this quibble with the description doesn't affect my enthusiasm for the actual set.) OTOH, I actually wish we had the older stormtrooper torsos in this set, since I'd already gotten dozens of stormtroopers over several years of collecting LEGO Star Wars prior to the release of the current 9489 Endor Rebel Trooper and Imperial Trooper Battle Pack and 9490 Droid Escape sets, and I want all my uniformed troops to be, well, uniform (I'm using the non-printed legs in the Endor battlepacks to replace the printed ones from 7264 Imperial Inspection, actually). Alternately, better still (to me) than having the older troopers in this set would be having no Imperials at all, and instead having more Ewoks in their place. There's a slew of other sets with Imperial troops, after all (and more coming all the time), but as I noted there have only been three other sets with Ewok minifigures (and most of the ones here are duplicates of characters from those other sets). Of course, having the opposing faction offers more play value, but given that this is targeted more at adult collectors one might think they could get away with omitting that in favor of other features, like more (and more varied) Ewoks. But no matter. This is still a gorgeous set, with lots to offer. I'd love to get a couple copies if possible. His hand is black in this set because he's wearing a black glove, which he puts on after leaving Tatooine (to cover the damaged area on his prosthetic hand, damaged during the very scene in which the Desert Skiff appears). He doesn't have a black hand in those earlier sets because he's not wearing the glove yet.

8038 looks the best to my eyes, though all of them have strengths and weaknesses. Of course, if we take the entire overall sets into account, I think we can all agree 8038 is the way to go by far, simply because it has so much stuff, of which the AT-ST is just a portion. 7657 is still the only one that actually has an AT-ST driver, though. (I'm kind of amazed at all the people here who didn't realize AT-STs were always in Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, even in 1980. What are they teaching kids in schools these days, anyway? :p )

Hi! Welcome to Eurobricks. :)

I like the set, though more for the parts assortment than for the overall build, I'll admit. Still, I do think it has some sufficiently nice parts to warrant my attention, and the ones I want most are hardly given any notice in the review - for me, the crab and the umbrella-printed dish are practically reason enough alone for me to get the set, as both are pieces I'd like more of but don't get in other sets often enough to satisfy me. Having both together in a single $5 set is terrific, and I'llprobably get at least a couple copies of the set, largely because of them. I also like the minifigure, even if I agree he's wearing a lot of clothes compared to most beachgoers I see (but then again, he could just be cautious about sun exposure). The torso is actually one of my favorite designs of recent years, as well; the only reason I'm not even more excited about the set because of that is because I've already gotten a couple, and it's not necessarily a design I need huge numbers of. It's still nice, though.

But clearly the demand is quite high, for the secondary market prices to be what they are. _____________ As others have said, given that they've now done the X-Wing Fighter as a UCS-type set for a second time, I think the chances of a new UCS-style version of the Millennium Falcon are excellent, with the caveat that we don't really know when it'll happen. This new X-Wing did happen, after all, but it happened more than ten years after that original UCS X-Wing, and both of those are much less expensive sets than 10179, and presumably less than what a new Falcon would be if they truly wanted to top 10179. Even so, though, I do think it's fairly likely eventually. If nothing else, I'd say that of all the Star Wars vehicles that have gotten UCS treatment already, the Millennium Falcon is by far the strongest candidate for redoing - it's an immensely iconic and popular vessel, and the existing "ultimate" set is feverishly sought after for exorbitant prices, and for all its many glories there's still tremendous opportunity for a new version to be even better... ... which of course brings up that question of what could be improved upon. Obviously, a detailed interior would be a huge difference that would make redoing the ship worthwhile all by itself, even if it retained the exact same exterior (which of course it wouldn't). A detailed interior would also allow for various internal play features (if "play" is really something one discusses with a set like this, granted), and there are any number of other things that could be done with it. Also, while 10179 is absolutely beautiful on the whole, there are still a few areas that could perhaps be improved upon, such as the cockpit tube and cockpit. How about optional alternate landing gear configurations, to allow building it in either its A New Hope form or the modified form from the next two movies? We expect certain action features, like movable dish antenna, turret cannons and entrance ramp, but how about the interior hatch behind the ramp, or the elevator and top hatch, or the concealed antipersonnel blaster cannon? Could some of this be motorized, or driven by pneumatics? What about lighting (exterior and/or interior)? How about a more substantial complement of minifigures? It could be done like the Death Star set, with a huge number of minifigures to represent all the characters who flew aboard her, in all scenes from the trilogy, in all their different outfits and "looks" - Han (in multiple outfits, from ANH to RotJ), Chewie, Lando (multiple outfits again), Leia (ditto), Luke (the same), Artoo, Threepio, Ben, Nien Nunb, the Rebel gunners from the Battle of Endor, maybe even the ill-fated Death Star scanning crew and some stormtroopers, EU characters... it could actually have dozens of minifigures. I don't pretend to know whether any or all of these might be actual considerations; I surely realize that if they actually incorporated all of this, it'd make for a very expensive MSRP. It may well be that it'd just be beyond whatever TLG considers their absolute, inviolable price ceiling for a set, but then 10179 itself was unprecedented in its pricing (and is still the set with the highest MSRP of any set released to this day), yet it apparently did well all the same. I think this might even be a reason for them to do it, if simply as a sort of market experiment to see whether they can actually offer and sell a set that sells for, oh, perhaps $600, $700 or even $800. The one thing I am certain of, though, is that TLG surely knows there is a definite, continuing market for a "deluxe" model of the Millennium Falcon, and I don't expect them to ignore that forever. How long it might be before they decide to act on it, I couldn't say, but after the new X-Wing I think it's quite likely they'll do so eventually.

The ski poles actually have appeared in set 3316, the 2012 Friends Advent Calendar (in a unique color, even), but this set was produced in quite limited quantities; the poles are probably more common from the so-called collectible Minifigures than from this one set.

I personally do count all instances of an actor playing a character made into an official minifigure, even if "only" a voice performance or a completely masked/costumed one. It's not as though minifigures are that closely modelled upon real human beings anyway - I don't recall Hamill, Ford, Molina, Lee or anyone of those other folks having heads shaped like propane tanks, for example. Only two, actually - the Cairo swordsman was played by Terry Richards, not Pat Roach. Pat Roach does play not one but two other characters in the Indiana Jones series, for a grand total of four, but only two of them got official minifigure representation.

Nothing yet, aside from one of the official Bionicle sets it came in, but I plan to try it (or them, I should say; I have two) in some Star Wars and Indy MOCs.

The Millennium Falcon in particular is an excellent candidate for redoing (I don't want to say "rerelease," since to me that implies releasing the exact same model design again, with the same parts and build and all, as opposed to doing a new version of the same ship). It's as iconic a vessel as it gets, and as glorious as 10179 is there are certainly areas where a new version could easily improve upon it (having any real interior at all being the most obvious example).

Thanks for these images. I'll have to get your DVD sometime. Those garages are enticing; I wish I had some. I'm not sure what I'd use them for, but I'd doubtless think of something if I had them at my disposal.