Blondie-Wan

I'm all for that! I'd certainly hope for more than three Ewoks in a $200 Ewok Village, myself (then again, I'd also hope for more than three Jawas in a $140 Sandcrawler)...

Thanks for the info. And yes, I do still plan to update the list; I just want to add your info plus every additional bit I can get from looking at the parts (I do have each of the figures from all five series now). I'm debating whether to make a further distinction for parts such as the raygun and the pie that are debuting in this theme but being reused in others. What do you think?

I know the Licensed forum is generally used for discussing themes and sets based on licensed characters and narratives, but TLG also incorporates real-world corporate brands into its sets, which presumably have to be licensed as well, and I guess this is as good a place as any... Anyway, in the past they've had a lot of sets with elements printed with names, logos, trademarks, etc. of other real-world companies, such as Shell, Exxon and so on, but my understanding was that several years ago they adopted a new policy of not printing other companies' marks on their trademark bricks, and so went to using exclusively stickers for all instances of other, outside real-world brands that would be referenced in sets (such as Shell again, VW, Toys 'R' Us, Panagra, etc.). However, in the last couple years there have been a few other elements printed or even molded with trademarked names / logos of other companies - Toys 'R' Us (on one of the 2009 "Bricktober" promo bricks), Target (printed on bricks in the Target gift card sets from both last year and this one), and VW (actually molded into the front of the Fillmore figure / vehicle in one of the DUPLO Cars sets). Has the policy fallen by the wayside? If not, why do we have these exceptions?

Each figure will always have some value as a minifigure, regardless of how rare it is. I'd personally prefer all the minifigures to be reasonably plentiful enough that everyone is able to get all the ones he or she wants. I'm sure it'll work out more along your own hopes, though.

This long after my post I'm not sure what I was thinking when I said that, but I imagine I meant the minifigures from those sets, and perhaps aspects of the rest of the sets as well, and/or the rumored "XXX Quest" sets from future successors to these (sets set in India, etc.). A little imaginative building could easily enough make some "jungle adventure" creations, and the Jungle Boy (or whatever he'll be called) and Pharaohs Quest minifigures could complete them nicely enough, I think.

I think it's likely that as long as the theme runs a while, we'll probably get multiple iterations of a lot of these characters, just as we did with the previous Batman line (to say nothing of what we've seen in super-long-running licensed themes like Star Wars and Harry Potter). In time, we might see a Riddler with a green bowler (as well as perhaps other versions still, perhaps even including ones from future new designs for the character in the comics).

Er... yes, that was my point. Sony had (and still has) the movie rights for Spider-Man, and so was handling the licensing for products based upon those movies; Marvel retained the other, non-movie-specific rights, and thus handled the licensing for products based upon the original comics incarnation. Different toy companies got the construction toy rights for the respective iterations of the properties. That's exactly what I was talking about. Now, the new deal discussed in the original post would appear to put a new wrinkle on things. Although Sony is still the studio making Spider-Man movies, Disney is apparently handling the licensing for the movies now (and of course is also Marvel's parent company, as well). Mind you, that doesn't necessarily mean we couldn't have different companies making movie-based and comics-based toys again; they could easily award MB the license for movie toys even while letting TLG have the comics ones (so that we'd have a reversal of the 2004 scenario), for example. But I suspect - I really don't know, mind you, and have no expertise in the area, but I suspect - that they might want to go with a single licensee for all products of the same kind, whether movie or comics related, so that we could see TLG making a variety of Spider-Man sets, some of them modeled upon the new movie reboot and some based more directly on the classic comics that are part of the larger Marvel universe.

It is, but that's for sets based on the comics (and/or the character mythos in general), not the movies specifically. The LEGO line as announced covers the Marvel comics universe in general - that is, sets based on the characters and stories told in the comics - as well as next year's Avengers movie (and presumably the other movies that tie into it, like the Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, etc. movies we've been getting so far), since Marvel owns and controls those movies. Certain other movies based on Marvel properties - for example, 20th Century Fox's Fantastic Four and X-Men movies, and Sony's Spider-Man movies - are based on deals signed with Marvel before Marvel decided to actively produce and control its own adaptations of its various properties. You might remember that back in 2004, LEGO was making its own Spider-Man sets based on the two movies that then existed in the live-action movie series, while at the same time Mega Bloks was making its own sets based on the original comics.

Are the six tags shown for the movie builds each assigned to a specific episode, meaning that one would have to have participated in either the Episode IV or Episode V build to get one of the Rebel Alliance insignias? If so, does that mean the chance to get one of those two is forever gone, or might there be later new community builds revisiting those episodes in the future (and if so, would they get the same tags)?

Will do, and I apologize for not keeping up with it the last few months. Darn real life seems to get in the way of my LEGO time... I'm actually posting at work right now and updating the first post with the IDs in numerical order and all will probably take just an eensy bit more time than I can snatch for myself here and there while I'm working, so I'll do it a little later, but I will do it shortly (I swear!). Whoa, that's interesting - it's the first official confirmation I've seen of any of the core, standard minifigure elements (head, torso assembly, hips/legs assembly) having new design IDs for this line. I wonder if it'll eventually be used outside the line (perhaps if they want to introduce the slight texturing into figures in "regular" sets?). It's perhaps an interesting bit of trivia, if nothing else. (EDIT:) Wait - is that for "standard" torsos, the "prosthetic arm" variation introduced for Agents villains and reused for the Series 1 Robot, or the new torso with boxing gloves for the Series 5 Boxer?

Ok, I thought it might be something along those lines, but I just figured there must be more to it than that. Thanks for the reply!

Oh, I know we could post MOCs from any of the movies at any time; I was saying that obviously that's not what it meant, but that I didn't understand what it did mean. I mean, this is a community, so isn't everything we would normally post in here a "community build"? I don't know what the conceptual distinction is between a build for these projects and just a "regular" build someone would post in here at some other time. (Oh, and apologies for the query about the tags; I'd inadvertently overlooked your statement in your initial post that the CBs weren't just about getting them.)

Actually, that's not quite the case; some of the physical, brick-and-mortar LEGO Stores still have copies, or at least they did as of a few days ago. If you can order from a store that still has them, you should be able to get one (but act quickly!).

What's this about, and what's with the cutoff dates? Surely the end of one of these doesn't mean no one can ever post a MOC in here again from a particular movie... Is this just about getting the tags? If so, I take it I missed out...

Perhaps my calendar is out of whack, but isn't it still 2011? I'd consider something less than a year old "new," myself...

That's pretty much what happened to me - "I'll just get a few, just enough to have a representative sample of the Star Wars universe in LEGO, not a whole lot"... and then man, did it ever spiral away from there. It's not even remotely limited to Star Wars these days, either - I'd always liked LEGO in general, but had been in my own dark ages since sometime in my teens. I was finally pulled out by this theme. It took a couple years of admiring the first sets before I finally took the plunge, though; I didn't get any sets until 2002, I think, and they were 7200 and 7201, Final Duel I & II.

In fairness, there's a lot of stuff beyond the taste offered by free play, though perhaps not enough. More has been added every so often, and I'm sure that more would be added still if the game continued (I think there may be a little more added even in the short time before it closes), though it would probably never have as expansive a world as, say, World of Warcraft. But still... I think TLG is already rolling in dough as it is; it's just that none of it comes from LEGO Universe (quite the opposite, as LU is undoubtedly a drain on TLG's profits, hence the shutting-down). I don't know that it would ever be a huge moneymaker, though, given how much so many MMOGs struggle (at least if they're not from Blizzard, say), but I do think it might have done a lot better if there were associated sets (beyond the promotional astronaut and rocketship polybags). Anyway, I don't think it was/is particularly expensive, at least compared to other MMOGs in general; the pricing seems pretty much in-line with other games of that type. I do think the pricing has been off-putting to some parents, though, who might not be familiar with the subscription model typically associated with MMOGs. I imagine a lot of the people TLG expected to pay for the game (i.e., the parents of the people who'd actually play the game) weren't/aren't necessarily acquainted with the form or aware of the ongoing costs of running such games, and thus inclined to consider subscription-based games a "rip-off."

Oh, right, I forgot about that one! That's a total of eight official versions of the Millennium Falcon we need to think about: minifigure scale: 7190 4504 7965 10179 (UCS) ... and smaller: midi-scale mini Advent Calendar mini bag charm Oh, and perhaps we should also include the one in the Star Wars Miniland at LEGOLAND California. KDM, would you be so kind as to acquire all eight released versions of the Millennium Falcon, take them to LLCA, build them next to the Miniland Falcon, and get a picture of all nine together so we can more readily compare and contrast them? Thanks so much.

It doesn't have to have absolute, 100% slavish fidelity to the movie to be a tie-in. Any big summer tentpole movie is accompanied by scads of merchandise these days, some of which may have only fairly tenuous connections to the narrative specifics of the movie, but that doesn't mean it's not a tie-in. TLG's approach to Batman (and now, we may assume, the DC Universe in general) was/is a holistic one, encompassing aspects of the overall Batman mythos drawn from a variety of media and incarnations, not limited to but certainly including the then- and now-current movie series (as well as previous movies, animated television, the original comics, etc.). Note that beyond specific aspects of sets such as the Tumbler in the last Joker set (and the armored Batsuit on Batman in every set of that wave, designed principally after the Nolan & Bale Batman even if it deviated from it), that entire final wave also used box art / logos clearly drawn from that of The Dark Knight. It doesn't have to be solely a tie-in with a movie for it to be a tie-in at all.

I half-thought TLG (or WB, or whoever handles the distribution of the physical game materials to stores) might recall the game packages and 1-month game time cards that are still out there, but the big-box stores (Target, Walmart, etc.) I've been to since the announcement broke still have the cards for sale, and I even just saw a few copies of the game itself still on the shelves at Walmart - not even for the $9.99 or thereabouts that the price had dropped to months ago from S@H, but $19.99 or thereabouts. Even if the game weren't closing in a little under three months, that would probably be a bit high, since the game can currently now be installed entirely from a download thanks to the addition of a free-to-play option some months ago, and the game time included with the physical disc package is just a month, for which one would normally pay ten bucks; for the game purchase to be worth twenty bucks, one would have to value having the physical disc, manual and package at at least ten bucks for themselves, and I don't know if many would (though I'm sure a few people would). If anyone buys those remaining copies soon, I hope they know in advance about the forthcoming closing and all. I'd hate to think of someone buying that for a child for Christmas, only to find out they've got around a month or so to enjoy it (or even less, if they wait too long to try the game). (Really, I just wish the game would continue, but I know that won't happen. Alas.)

They're still collectible (with a small "c"). First of all, "collectible" doesn't necessarily mean "limited" (although it can imply it); it simply means something has some appeal to collectors. Regular sets can be considered "collectible," even ones that remain in production for years. Secondly, the line isn't actually called "Collectible Minifig(ure)s," anyway; that's just how we refer to them - the actual, official name of the theme is simply "Minifigures," and TLG doesn't even use the word "collectible" in most (any?) of the product descriptions and other marketing for them - it just says you can collect them (there may be some official notice somewhere that does highlight their "collectibility" and/or limited-production status, but if there is, it's not particularly prominent on either the Minifigures theme site or the Shop at Home product page). And finally, the minifigures available with these speech bubbles and the calendar (and through the LEGO Store Build-A-Minifigure kiosks) don't fully duplicate the Minifigures minifigures, anyway - the ones with the calendar and so on lack the packaging, 3x4 base tile/plate and "collector's leaflet" (TLG's term for the little poster-like checklist/instruction sheet). Oh, I've seen these on store shelves, now (at my local TRU), and I should note the figure included in the final shipping product - the copies I've seen, anyway - isn't the race car driver after all, anyway. The images must have been preliminary. That said, the figures included in these packages aren't all the same - they're all "generic" minifigures (with plain torsos and legs), like the ones that come with the display cases, but unlike those, there are differently-colored ones from one package to another - one package comes with a minifigure with white legs, for example, another with blue ones, and so on. Aside from that odd bit of variation from package to package, though, they're very basic, ordinary minifigures. Come to think of it, the one way in which they do resemble the 'collectible' minifigures from the Minifigures line is that there are different, random minifigures from package to package.

Great! Now what about the bag charm?

The set is part of a Target gift card. You can't just walk in and pick it up and walk out; you need to put a minimum of $5 on it, but then you can use that towards whatever other Target merchandise you like (such as other LEGO sets, for example). The result is that you'll have paid whatever the price is for the other merchandise, and you'll have gotten that merchandise plus this set, hence it's essentially free (or rather, free with purchase of $5 or more of anything else you want from Target).

Well, I guess now we know, alas. Sadly, they've decided that the game indeed just isn't successful enough; I'm guessing that given the steps they took that were discussed earlier in this thread, months ago, the gulf between the number of paid subscribers they were actually getting and the number they'd need for the game to be sustainable must have been greater than anyone outside the company realized. It's a real shame - the game is quite fun, and has an awful lot of potential. I'm personally pretty frustrated, as I've only just recently been able to get around the computer issues that were keeping me from playing it regularly for a year after it opened, and just days after I finally got back into the game, they announced it would close. Blast. Such a shame. I really wish there were something that could be done to keep it going, but apparently any solution would have to boil down to getting a huge number of people to sign up for it in a very short time, and that's almost certainly just so unlikely that it's not worth bothering to try, or at least the powers-that-be behind LU have decided as much. I don't think they're even accepting new subscribers now that they've publicly announced their intention to close it, alas. It's truly a shame. How many of the people who got those free copies ever gave the game a shot, I wonder?

Oh, and I should have noted earlier - I guess at least now we know JackJonespaw's scenario of someone in this forum not recognizing a scene from Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was perhaps not so farfetched after all...