Robianco

The heads have been in the tower for a little while now... it was only recently that the torsos appeared. I looked if there was any of the hair recently and there wasn't any in the unit... then when I popped in yesterday all the elements were there to make the figure... lots of the torsos... not many of the hair pieces (I may have sourced the only 3 there) and I saw one more of the flesh heads. As they've been appearing at different times it doesn't look like they were just dropped in from display models or monthly club meetings. I did notice that the tower has been stocked much lower recently... I think that's more down to the fact that it was packed at one point which just caused massive mess around the tower as kids built their figures. Now it's easier to browse without knocking piles of heads, legs etc onto the tray around the tower. The appearance of young Boba Fett torsos as well as Monster Fighters tells me that they just have different stock to populate the tower at different times. I'm not sure how this is supplied by TLG and what direction each shop has to put it in the bins. I always look out for fleshies in the tower though just in case.

I don't think Lego would list 3 figures of exactly the same design as 3 new figures... so I'm assuming that if those figures do relate to the Cantina that there will be another figure... Probably Greedo or Ponda Baba (whoever the character to the right is). I also think that the existing Greedo is a pretty good figure... especially as it's from the old yellow days... it certainly doesn't look old at all. For that reason I hope it's Ponda Baba. If it is then it makes me wish I'd bought a Dr Evazan from Christo when I had the chance!

Hi all, After visiting my local Lego store recently I was quite surprised to be able to build 3 complete Lois Lane figures from the recent Man of Steel sets. I know this isn't the most exciting figure but it is at least a licensed figure and as such not the kind of thing I thought I could put together outside of a set. There are also Young Boba Fett torsos available as well as a couple of other flesh pieces.... Not too long ago they had a lot of Padme torsos from the Geonosis Arena figure. There seems to be a lot of Monster Fighter torso's available at the moment too including Chauffeur, Swamp Thing and Frankenstein. I'm just interested to see what kind of things Lego put in there and whether things change drastically from region to region.

There are actually 7 band members but only 6 playing during Luke & Ben's visit. If we say there are 3 band members, Han, Luke, Sandtrooper and Greedo I don't see there being many more... maybe 1. The fact that we get a Dewback, Speeder and the Cantina itself tells me there won't be many more figures. The photo above does seem to show 5 members playing... who knows... ask Lucas... I'm sure he'd say there was 10 of them if he could sell you the figures!

Or at least half of the 6 that were playing... that wouldn't surprise me. The Mirkwood Elf Army currently available has been designed for multiple purchase to be used together so having 2 of these to make up a more complete Cantina would work. Very glad I bought the Droid Escape set now. I've just enlarged the photo in photoshop and there's definitely a third of those Squidward figures there so that would indeed give us half of the band at least.

Buying more than one would make more sense anyway to complete the Modal Nodes and get more than one Dewback. I'm sure the extra speeder can be converted into some kind of moisture evaporator. Well there's definitely going to be a Cantina but as far as a UCS AT-AT that's a long way off I think...

As much as Momaw Nadon (Hammerhead) is famous in the cantina scene I would say that Ponda Baba would be a better choice. Having a mould for an Ithorian head does indicate that we may get him in an OT set at some point. I'm not 100% convinced Greedo is there as we already have a Rodian head for several characters and that could easily have been used as a placeholder. Maybe the 2 new characters are Figrin D'an and Ponda Baba. That being said... now I've looked at it again the figure has an orange 'waistcoat' rather than an orange jacket... and they've used an Old Republic trooper torso on the Sandtrooper for some reason so I don't think we can look too much into the placeholders for those! If they have the graphic of the Ithorian on the next set there's no real reason just to put a grey placeholder on the cantina one if that is indeed the figure they were putting in. I agree... it's nice that there will now be an almost complete range of Imperials although I'm not totally convinced by the sudden need to print headsets on the new heads!

That's exactly my thoughts. We already have Luke and Dak from the last 2 waves in snow speeder pilot form.

May release date for the Sandcrawler would indeed make more sense... I was more interested in the fact that the prelims in circulation to staff. At least it means being able to pick up a single item to get the £50 spend exclusive figure at the same time. Picking up larger items is also good as I can buy them as an 'office decoration' through my business.

This is just from a chat with a member of staff who said he's seen the prelims and the box art for the Sandcrawler. I asked about the release of some other sets from different themes (Super Heroes etc) and he thought they've be out later in the year and mentioned the Sandcrawler with a March date... he could be off on that but I was quite interested to know that prelims are circulating to staff so it seems quite a bit along in the process.

I picked up the 4 OT MicroFighters and the Death Star Troopers BP.

I know most of the new SW sets were in stock at my store in Liverpool before Christmas but waited until Boxing Day before hitting the shelves. I'm popping back in shortly with my daughter and I'll see how much of the range is in. Sandcrawler is apparently due on 1st March and I know they're holding off some of the items in ranges for that date (as a member if staff told me). They had the OT sets though so I was happy.

I popped into my Lego store today and picked up the 4 OT Microfighters and the Death Star Trooper BP. I actually really like the MFs and the figures are great... leg printing and revised torso and helmet printing on the Tie Fighter Pilot... and actually a new print for Han's belt and holster on his blue legs (as well as a new personalised facial print). That may not seem like much to most but I appreciate these small details in perfecting the figures. I already had 6 of the Red Ten so I just need another Battle of Hoth Luke to switch over the new head and helmet to complete my Rebel pilots upgrade. I don't know whether to be happy or disappointed but the Death Star Gunner is actually much better in my eyes than my Christo custom... the scale of the helmet is better and it's shape is just a little more rounded and obviously acts as a removable helmet over a head rather than one piece like Christo's. The torso and leg printing is nice too. But more important news... I was asking about some other releases and the guy I spoke to said he's seen the box and the image of the Sandcrawler... he couldn't confirm whether it was a UCS set or what kind of scale/figures/extras were there but it looks like a March 1st release. It seems this is pretty close to having something that may get leaked if staff are seeing prelims and box art. He just said it was a 'big brown pointy thing'. Time will tell.

HA... Mitchell Johnson is great on there as TimBurdon said... There's adverts on Sky TV here in the UK at the moment and one of the shots is him grinning with that 'tache so it's pretty spot on! Well played that man!... Now... how do you depict in Lego a broken spirited bowler who goes for 28 in one over during a test match?

Popped into my local Lego store in the UK and they've confirmed that they have the Princess items in stock but can't put them on the shelves until 26th December or 1st January. Rather annoying as two of the sets would have been Christmas presents!

I think a good Sandcrawler with the droid lineup... jawas... Luke, Owen, Aunt Beru, hopefully a worn looking R2 and 3PO would be a pretty good display... especially with a homestead to go next to it. The Royal Guard's arms really should be dark red as they are in the movies. If anything they should be entirely dark red with a front and back cape / cloak in red along with the red helmet.

I'll try and put something together and upload it. A few of the helmets were reused... so although the pilot that wore a helmet in the original Death Star attack may have died the helmet has reappeared in ESB and ROTJ... Wes Janson's helmet is a good example. I know that Red Leader's helmet was also reused by a pilot in the later films. As well as the Red Squadron helmets we also have Gold Leader (Y-Wing) (x 2 versions) and Zev Zenesca (Snowspeeder) along with the generic Blue Rebel emblem that was used on quite a few helmets and is a good filler. It may just be easier for me to photograph my rebel pilots actually... I'll photograph them and upload it to show the helmets.

Jan Dodonna is a must somewhere along the line but Garvin Dreis for me is the one pilot they need to put out there. I'm really surprised they put Theron Nett as Red Ten before Red Leader. I'm not complaining about Red Ten... a new helmet design is great... and the whole body print on that figure is immaculate. We've got Red Two, Three, Five, Six and Ten. I know Red Leader, Four, Seven & Twelve had hero helmets but I'm not sure if any of the others had anything other than the regular blue Insignia? Red Eleven definitely had a regular blue one so we can already make him! A full set of the 12 would be great. Red Twelve's helmet is also Wes Janson's helmet design so that would kill 2 rebels with one shot so to speak...

That looks great... really nice alternate build! Good work!

For me, the Red Five UCS is a good example of putting out a very good product at a decent enough time frame away form the earlier release. I can understand the frustrations of those that collected the older version and are maybe still waiting for a UCS TIE to accompany it... just to have a newer X-Wing come along before it. I think mini figures should be included if things are roughly mini fig scale.. otherwise it seems a little pointless... hence no pilots for the B-Wing or Red Five. I seem to remember seeing the Snowspeeder was actually closer to action figure scale. Once the Cuusoo Sandcrawler didn't happen I didn't think they'd be looking to put that out just yet... especially when there's things like Slave 1, AT-AT, Cloud City, TIE Fighter etc that haven't been done in this way before. Any of those OT items would be great for me... and hell for my missus... and my bank account. But I'd get them. The Death Star has never really interested me... the B-Wing has never been my favourite ship design (it's probably my least favourite in the rebel fleet) but the Shuttle looked lovely. The mini figures on the SSD looked pointless as they're huge in the scale of things... I also thought the actually design of that was quite dull... the only interesting thing for me was the propulsion on the underside... the scaling was tiny (as it needed to be as the Executor is so huge) so it looked like just lots of very small parts in different greys trying to create a texture rather than a particularly good ship build. For me the standard TIE Fighter that was released is a far better looking build... but that's just my opinion. I feel a tad cheated though that there isn't a 4-Lom and Zuckuss to complete the Bounty Hunter pack from the bridge of the Executor. On the subject of product cycles... I must admit I'm glad I don't collect the PT stuff... those continual Jedi Starfighters would just annoy me!! And I'm not sure we ever need another non-film element of Hoth to try and make up some kind of Echo base or outpost.

As much as it's appearance in the PT was fleeting the Falcon is probably the most important ship in the SW universe. It's been owned by 2 of the main characters and has a history longer than that... I think it will definitely be part of the next trilogy and possibly Rebels. I have no problem with what TLG decide to put out and whether they decide to modify and release things in a 6 or 7 year cycle... as long as the releases are done well. I'm assuming the people that would be most against a Falcon UCS release are those that like the resale value of their current one staying where it is.

I don't think I can add anything to just how wonderful the build itself is but the one thing I really liked is the miserable audience member looking grumpily at the chap next to him as if to say.. "Do you honestly think that's funny?".

I think the Falcon outlives any particular character and is an essential part of the SW universe. It appeared in the PT and it'll almost definitely appear in the next trilogy. Whether TLG decide to make another model is up to them.

When I read something like this I just automatically think someone is trying to justify some funding by putting out a paper or 'research' material. Look at it... well respected scientist wants gender neutral Lego heads. Because that's what well respected scientists are all eager to create the solution for. No hydrogen fuel cell or anything as unimportant for this scientist. CHANGE THE BLOODY HEAD TO A FEMALE ONE!!!!! Aisles and aisles of toys... games, books, action figures, dolls... none of them 'editable' or buildable yet the one toy out there that is genuinely buildable and customisable needs to change? Get over yourself.

I remember reading in one of the expanded universe books that the Falcon was fixed up to perfect condition once Han was royalty and the Rebel Alliance was essentially in power... the Falcon was white in that I seem to remember... rather than a dirty grey. I actually think a reworking of the 7965 would be more pointless than a new UCS version. Then again I'm not sure of the cycle of revamped models. Snowspeeders are tweaked all the time... 7965 is only 2 years old? Mind you... a ROTJ falcon with Lando and Nien Numb wouldn't be out of the question... Any call for a size between 7965 and UCS?