JVM

I agree on the penny pinching. I wonder if the sets are making less money so the budget has been cut drastically? I know some of the less popular films resulting shelf-warming sets (although a couple of them were IMO great sets regardless) The thing is a lot of the earlier sets that had lower quality builds made up for it by either being packed with play features (several) or new character minifigures. The older Daily Bugle is overshadowed by its big cousin but it had Dr. Doom, Beetle and J. Jonah Jameson who remained exclusive for some years. Two of those characters are still exclusive to the set. It feels today the set would lose a play feature or two, have a smaller secondary building that would help increase the total price, a reused Venom to go with reused Spidey and probably swap Beetle and Dr. Doom for better-known Spider villains that have been done before. I don't mean to sound bitter, but this is how it feels as of late.

I absolutely love this. This is what I've always wanted if TLG actually made some kind of UCS Invisible Hand!

I'll always feel a nostalgia for the older designs (1998 - 2007) as it felt like everything fit together fairly consistently and they retained the simple LEGO charm. I used to mix and match my licensed and non-licensed characters a lot in the yellow skin era, too. Customization was really peak in this era as the less detailed designs could more easily be reused and switch around without feeling jarring besides the flesh change. The lack of detail also allowed for some cool LEGO-ifying of things - ninja hood Dengar was one of my favorite minifigures as a kid. LEGO SW: TVG worked in some ways because it acted as a love letter to the entire line as it existed at that point and brought everything together. There was no questions about using outdated minifigures etc. The transition period is a low point. Some figures had TCW designs which didn't gel with everything else, OT figures were the original pupilless look but in flesh - lacking the vintage charm of their older counterparts but also not really updated enough to feel fresh and different - and then newer, detailed figures only just starting to trickle in, so you have a lot of style clash between what feels like three simultaneous competing styles of mini-figure. This is also when OT sets started getting feeling a bit more recycled and feeling samey; a lot of vehicles saw huge leaps between their first and second variations and then the third would be 80% the same as the second. PT sets that weren't TCW-based also really dropped off for a while since they used the same rough crop of characters. Now there is a very solid roster of detailed modern minifigure designs so style clash is no longer an issue, although it does still feel like some changes are being done pointlessly at times (adding lines to faces, changing the shading of pockets, that stuff) while other appropriate changes are not made. The level of detail has improved considerably but it has harmed customization and smart reuse. Obi-Wan and Anakin got Mustfar detail for an appropriate set but then those designs were reused and felt out of place for example ,and you wouldn't reuse those to make new Jedi. It does feel like 'style creep' is becoming a problem. I've never felt like most character needed back, leg and arm printing, but it feels like some people think every character needs all of them.

Re: Thunderbolts, just want to register that I really wish we had a John Walker minifig. I don't feel beat up about Sentry for some reason but it feels weird to not have him for some reason. I guess because he was an existing character while Sentry was new for the movie. I kinda think LEGO should give us a Thunderbolts set even if it's late for it but also It's good for my wallet that there haven't been a lot of must buy sets this year (Fantastic Four vs. Galactus was the one) but also really miss being excited for the theme and new releases. A lot of it for me is that it feels LEGO isn't really doing all-new characters or really distinctive outfits on the level of previous years, but it's new characters that usually pull me in more than the existing ones getting tweaked endlessly. I also kind of miss the more comic book-y sets. I don't want to address the movies except that I liked all three of this year's releases enough, including Captain America 4.

Late to the party but the Barge is such a tough one for me. It took me ages to drop the money for the Cantina which was way more up my alley. I'd really like the skiff guards and Max Rebo to add to my 2013 Barge but seems like the aftermarket might stay high for ol' Max after all...

The mansion looks good for my taste, but my wallet isn't so sure yet - if not, eager to bricklink some of the minifigs at least. I'd say Xavier is a disappointing minifigure though. He deserved a new face print. I'm not the biggest X-Men fan, but I really hope they do more sets, or an X-Men focused CMF lineup. There's so many characters that would be fun to have (everyone wants Nightcrawler and Jubilee for a start) or could use improvement. (new Xavier, new hair for Rogue, green Phoenix, classic Storm with tiara...)

Yes and no. To clarify, I'm not opposed to the idea by any means and happy for anyone who wants it! It was just never a super interesting location to me to begin with on a personal level - but I've not seen the prelim and it's not uncommon for sets like this to impress me when I see the reveal! I didn't have high hopes for Gringotts and now I really wish I'd gone for it. I totally don't blame you. I still feel like the 2021-23 system stopped a little short of it's full potential - the lack of a Potions class or house common rooms really bugged me. The former was represented in the 2018-21 sets and is in the new system, too, while the latter were in the House Banners but have not been offered in a castle set since the revival. (I don't count the Dormitory sets.) Both previous systems could have gone for at least one more set, imo

Not wild about a UCS Burrow. I'd more likely grab one of the play scale versions instead tbh I've been filling in some of the holes in my collection via bricklink lately -- goblins, minifigs from sets I missed, more Hogwarts pieces. Of the new releases most looking forward to the Potions class but the new Great Hall includes the troll scene I've waited so long to see re-imagined!

Do you have specific plans in use for Goblin's legs? I acquired a second set of 2001 Goblin legs, but the slightly lighter shade of green makes me keep re thinking it... also hope we get black short sleeve reddish brown arms sometime to add to Electro someday. I had planned to bricklink those parts, had no idea they didn't exist. Also agreed on the sticker portal!

Yeah, it might make up for the NWH omission if they gave us a different set with Lizard for example, we could still really use comic Electro, here's no Kingpin, no Chameleon... still lots of room to get creative with the subtheme if we're inevitably getting more Spider anyhow.

My big want now is a Stegosaurus. That and a hadrosaur mold would seal us pretty much every major herbivore group and most classic herbivorous dinosaurs. That'd give us room for more new dinos -- Triceratops with a new head for Sinoceratops and maybe for Nasutoceratops and Parasaurlophus with new head for Corythosaurus. The carnivore molds get complicated faster. The small carns... I honestly prefer the older Raptor approach, the articulation is so nice, but I'm also just disappointed the Atrociraptors are small but Velociraptor still big. They don't look right together. A decision really needs to be made there and stuck with - scale accuracy with less articulation or full articulation at cost to scale. We're still really left wanting for the midsize carnivore category. The Indoraptor molds haven't been working great, but the Carnotaurus mold is Rex-sized! We need a good medium carnivore mold. I think arms and tail could be reused but new body and legs would be a must. As for large, I definitely want to see Spinosaurus, for one thing... I actually really like what they did with Giganotosaurus' body, making it noticeably longer than the Indominus or Rex, and it gives me a lot of hope for the large carns. I'd also really like to see Gallimimus return in a set that works better for flock building! ... Focusing on vehicles a moment though, the Mobile Command Center from TLW could make an incredible set and I hope it's in the pipeline. I can't think of much from JP3 I'd want to build.

I've just run through the movies for the first time in the last two weeks, and suddenly can place a lot of the old sets into more proper context. (mostly the Crystal Skull stuff.) I think Kig Fisto's reading is fairly accurate -- in general, a lot of Hollywood film franchise marketing I've heard is based around slightly longer-term success now, and it's often the sequel to the reboot that is most judged for merchandising purposes. Notice for example that while LEGO made Jurassic World sets in 2015, the line didn't graduate to "evergreen" until Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom -- this is in line with some of Universal's strategizing behind the scenes. Indiana Jones is especially hurt by this because we know there isn't going to be a sixth film; or rather if there ever is, it probably won't be a sequel to Dial of Destiny but something entirely different. I'm hopeful that LEGO may revisit the theme if DoD performs well. I don't expect it much, but hey, if we get three great sets like the ones we did this year, even just once more, I think it'd still be pretty spiffy. I'd be partial to them getting a Temple of Doom-based set out somewhere...

I thought the Batmobile set looked cool and then saw the pricetag. Yeeowch. I'll bricklink the new figs and call it a day.

I was thinking the same thing regarding Electro, and assumed that was an inevitability. I imagine it's possible they reasoned they couldn't do hair and a 'helmet' but it also chills my sense we may ever see a comic Electro, which is unfortunate as every other movie Spiderman villain we don't have a comic variant for... .except for Lizard, who we still have no representation for in the line. I realized he wasn't going to be in this set but I'm still disappointed. I hope LEGO has both of these characters in the pipeline if they ever do more mcu Spiderman sets or comic Spiderman sets. They could do a follow-up set with the FEAST truck and include Lizard, Sandman, movie Aunt May and an unsuited Spiderman or something. Maybe Jameson? Almost no overlap with the larger NWH set and completes the scenes and villain roster. Bonus if they can include a dumpster and a Goblin mask, haha. Pretty sure there's no way we see unmasked Garfield or Maguire Spideys at this stage. EDIT: I like the A-Force set in concept but I won't buy it for that. I really would've switched out Shuri for Wasp, given she's widely available in the BP2 sets. I'll probably bricklink Wanda and maybe Valkyrie, maybe the Thanos head? It's a odd set. Will definitely pick up the mini Hulkbuster and Iron Man, probably off bricklink, and make some modifications to the buster.

I don't keep track of enough themes consistently to answer this reasonably. I'm going to expect future waves and if they don't come, I'll be fine.