Blondie-Wan

It's back! Hooray, hooray, calloo, callay, huzzah, hurrah, Green Grocer is back!

NOOOOOOOOooooooo!!!

Yes, that's exactly what I was wondering / thinking. Some of the early images of these minifigures showed the magician either with his top hat on and with a male hair element lying at his feet next to the base tile, or with his hat off and with the hair in place on his head. Based on this, I think lots of us assumed the magician came with the hair (it would make sense for this fig, since one might expect he'd frequently be shown holding his hat, as though in the middle of performing a trick with it).

CopMike, this might sound like an odd question, but did you receive this one in a retail bag like the first one or two you reviewed, or did you get it the way ZeeK got his/hers (already opened and assembled)?

Excellent!

Fabulous minifig, even if back printing would\'ve been nice. It looks as if none of the minifigs in this series have back printing, which might be helping to keep them affordable despite the limited production runs with one-time-only accessories and prints. I take it this one doesn\'t have an accessory beyond the cape, right? (Edit: 6 pieces? Head, torso, hips/legs, cape, base tile, and... ???) As far as the usefulness goes, this one would obviously be most useful if they ever do any more, but I presume some folks will also do some head-swapping and the like to create some additional luchadores to fill out their arenas.

I so desperately wish I could've gotten this one.

Thanks, much obliged!

Indeed, that's... strange. My understanding is that a countertop display box will contain 60 figures, and there are two boxes to a case, so 120 figures per case. I don't know what this "Master Case" would be; the numbers don't match - it sounds like 3 1/3 boxes. They also talk about a "bag" of 40 figures, which aside from not matching the other info just doesn't make sense (I mean, it's not like retail stores are going to have a bag on the shelf from which kids pull these things). I think this BigBadToyShop.com outfit either has bad information or is planning on breaking up the cases and boxes to put together their own bulk packages. And the retail price is indeed supposed to be $1.99 per figure, from what I've read. I plan to visit Walt Disney World (and the LEGO Store at Downtown Disney there) in late May. I know these minifigs are officially set for launch in June, but IIRC, that store has sometimes gotten new products a month or two before their official release months (getting the '09 Pirates sets in November or December '08, for example). I'm therefore hoping these minifigs make it there by the time I'm there, so that perhaps I can buy a bunch of them then.

Swanky, CopMike! Like others here I'm curious about the lack of the hairpiece I seem to remember seeing in some of the preliminary images. Also, is the wand indeed the same piece as the beam from the spaceman's ray gun (save for being in a different color and printed, of course)? And given what you said / showed regarding the cheerleader's hair earlier, am I safe in assuming the top hat is the same as the regular top hat we know and love?

Marvelous, ZeeK, and thanks for the early word! If I may make a request (again), any chance we could get a comparison shot (or two, or three) of this guy's club with the Castle Troll one?

Thanks for that. So no apparent difference, then? Hm. I guess they're allowing some existing elements besides basic heads, torsos and hip/leg assemblies (which makes sense, considering some of the accessories like the crash test dummy's license plate are just regular bricks, plates and/or tiles, albeit with unique prints - say, could that mean they simply don't intend to ever produce this hair element in this color again?)...

Congrats, CopMike! I have a request. If it's not too much trouble, would you mind doing a comparison between her hair and the similar hair found on other recent figs (Agent Trace, the female pirate from Shipwreck Hideout and the Advent Calendar, etc.)? I was curious about how similar the headgear / accessory elements are, since it was my understanding all the "accessory" items in this line are unique (so that all those elements that do already have versions in general use are at least slightly resculpted here). Is the hair the same, or is it indeed a slightly different mold?

It is indeed a nifty little set, and the first set I acquired myself from the PM theme. I must admit that while I knew it had some action feature pertaining to the large drill bit on the front (as was clear from the set photos showing the elastic element near the front), I didn't really give much thought to it until I actually got the set and put it together. It's a nifty feature, but I actually like most of the rest of the set even more. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the use of stickers for the decorated elements instead of prints, but I went ahead and applied the stickers anyway as I feel they really do add to the look of the model. Unfortunately, the set has pretty much disappeared from stores here now. The Toys 'R' Us near where I live had one remaining copy until a couple weeks ago or so, but now it's gone. I'm glad I got one while I could, but I wish it were still readily available.

Very swanky, and I'm really looking forward to these sets. I may even see the movie, though honestly the sets based on it are by far the greatest reason for my interest. (Actually, I should note the original videogames in the game series the movie is based on are classics in their own right, though I don't know about the later games). I'm sure I'll enjoy putting together and playing with displaying all the official sets at least once, and then having the parts for use in Indy MOCs and other creations. This review does a great job of showing off what's notable about the set, so thumbs up there. I do have one question concerning this portion: What uproar was this? Were people upset about another minifig whip design? If so, why?

At least one of the Targets near me sold out of the Star Wars ones but then got some more, so clearly they are indeed being restocked, at least to a point. I have no idea how many will ultimately be allotted to each store, though. Going by the quantities I've seen of the various sets over repeated visits, it appears the Star Wars ones are definitely the most popular (no surprise there), but the City ones are almost as popular. I haven't been able to tell whether the Duplo Farm ones are selling at all, though I imagine they are, and will probably go more quickly as Easter gets closer. I've gotten one Republic Attack Shuttle and two X-Wing Fighters, and I think I'd like one of the firefighters eventually.

It turned out I had a little more money than I thought, so I went back to get at least one more, since I do want multiples of the battlepacks anyway. Since I thought these might be good trading fodder, though, I really wanted a whole bunch, and of course I can always get the battlepacks slightly cheaper other places... so I decided to just buy some. As the promotion lets one get a free one for every LEGO Star Wars purchase of $12 or so ($11.99, to be precise) or more, and these themselves are LEGO Star Wars items that could also be purchased outright for $2.99 each, I asked if I could simply buy a few and get one more free, and indeed I could! I initially thought I might have to buy five, since that would put the purchase over $11.99, but they let me buy just four to get a freebie (either they didn't care about the three cents between $11.96 and $11.99, or they include the added sales tax as part of the purchase amount), so I paid for four more and got a fifth free, bringing my total up to seven. Huzzah! Hopefully they'll help me acquire one or two of the other sets and such that I've missed over the years. I was a little surprised my TRU even still had them as late as yesterday; perhaps LEGO Star Wars just isn't as hot in my area as in others.

Nice review - possibly my favorite of your reviews, Big Cam - and indeed a great set. This was among the first sets I picked up when Star Wars pulled me out of my dark ages and back into LEGO, and even though I was then and am now still more interested in the original trilogy than the prequel era (including CW), I wound up getting an awful lot of the Episode II sets, including four copies of this one. Even as I was doing so I, too, assumed there'd eventually be other sets with sandpeople sometime, yet here we are eight years down the road, and nothing. I'm very glad now I didn't focus solely on getting OT sets, but tried to grab as much of everything as I could.

Holy cats, they started at "free" but now they're three times that already?!? I've picked up a couple of these myself. I'd like to get a couple more, but money is so horribly tight for me (as usual) that I may not be able to, even getting battlepacks. We'll see, though. That said, while this is quite nifty if somewhat pointless, what I really want is a chrome gold Threepio. That's a fig that really ought to be in a regular set; alas, since TLG offered it as a special limited-edition thing, it's probably considered "off limits" for incorporation into a regular set, and the 10,000 copies really aren't enough for everyone who'd like one, surely. I never did manage to get one (that I know of - it's possible I have one somewhere in one of the few unopened sets I have from the promo period, but I know my odds aren't good), and there's just no way I can justify paying the kinds of prices they're going for on eBay.

Zounds. I got my first copy at Toys 'R' Us sometime in 2002, I think; I want to say it was on sale, but I'm not sure now, all these years later. I ordered a second from LEGO Shop at Home on January 27, 2003 (neat to be able to retrieve order info that far back) for $45.99 (it was on clearance at the time). I wish I'd been able to get a slew of additional ones, given how much they seem to go up in value on the secondary market, but I'm really more interested in having them for my own enjoyment. My second came without a set of decals for the canoe, though, and I never requested replacements.

It is indeed a nicely done tank, AC. I should have mentioned that before. I do think that if the line returns next year - a big "if," but I continue to hold out hope (and it's practically a given that if the line doesn't return for the anniversary, it'll return for the fifth movie, though that in itself is another big "if," but anyway...) - then the tank (or even a larger set of the overall scene, with other vehicles, etc.) is one of the most likely candidates. Not only would it be a cool vehicle with tons of functionality and playability, it also represents an ideal place to include several minifigures, including multiple important supporting characters who haven't been done at all yet in official sets. An official set, of course, would always be improved upon by MOCs, but it would be a great source of parts, as well as an invaluable resource for minifigs. I hope one gets done eventually.

Ahh, yes, the UCS Yoda. This set came along around the same time I was emerging from my dark ages, and I held off on it for a while, as it took me a while to get into my present mindset of "get as much as possible," and I wasn't entirely sure I wanted it at first. Eventually, though, I picked it up when it hit clearance (I think I paid $32 or so for it, new!), knowing that if nothing else I'd want all those tan and brown and dark orange and whatnot for Tatooine MOCs, and found a delightfully satisfying "old school" build, just as this review describes. I was also particularly tickled by the LEGO logo brick, for whatever reason.

The religious significance of anything in the scene is hardly anything compared to the Ark of the Covenant, and yet they did a set based on the Well of Souls. I think they didn't do the catacombs simply because there are several other scenes that they thought would simply make better sets.

Yow - I need all these! And here I am, still struggling to get all the Indy sets (plus additional copies), all the Star Wars sets (oh, if only I could!), and various other things; I haven't even gotten any of the launch wave of Toy Story sets yet, and I'm already straining to figure out how to get all the forthcoming ones. Aieee, my poor wallet... But man, I still can dream! I just hope that Toy Story Alien promo set makes it to the US somehow (Halloween or Christmas Target polybags, perhaps?)...

I don't know that being "politically correct" had anything to do with it - they've already produced a fighter plane and several other military vehicles in this theme, villains weilding everything from swords to machine guns, and the Temple of Doom. I imagine the only reason they didn't do the tank is because they were doing other sets instead, and that if the theme returns we'll probably get the tank eventually.