jdubbs

R2's leg rockets were used in TROS? Must have missed that. Or do you mean the second instance of the Holdo maneuver? To which I would say... desperate times, desperate measures? Fine, whatever, 20 years. but... the Organas couldn't afford replacement parts? No other droids in the galaxy had these? etc. etc. etc. The point is, whatever explanation you devise for it, it's still something that — if you are the sort that gets hung up on these kinds of details, which the OP clearly is — might make one go, hmm. Along with countless other things introduced in each successive Star Wars movie/show/comic/etc. Force lightning! Purple lightsabers! Double-bladed lightsabers! Lifting rocks! Force telepathy! Solar sails! Lightsaber-proof beskar! Hand-held laser shields! To speak nothing of every single new droid/ship/alien/planet that shows up in the prequels/sequels/shows/etc. but was not seen in the preceding releases. I personally can accept these things — all of these things — because I recognize that these are movies, and there is, again, suspension of disbelief required whenever creative license is employed. But if you insist on getting hung up on questions of "why haven't we seen X before" then you probably should have just stopped watching Star Wars in 1977 and never ever think about the franchise again. And, not to belabor the point, but if you put pretty much anything hard and solid into a gun and fire it point-blank at, well, pretty much anything else, it's going to do damage —this is how people like Brandon Lee and Jon-Erik Hexum died from blanks being fired on set. I'm no physicist, but propelling a giant metal capital ship at light speed through another giant metal capital ship doesn't seem like it would be all that different. That is, to me, a good enough explanation for a fantasy space opera... emphasis on fantasy.

The Holdo maneuver isn't seen all the time because... I dunno... most people aren't suicidal? As for the Haulcraft, the show seems to leave the door open for any number of explanations... it's clear Luthen has tricked this ship out to the max, so perhaps they are prohibitively expensive? Or some kind of experimental tech? Or their range is so short that their possible uses are severely limited? In any event, not everything needs to be explained to the nth degree. It is a work of fiction... there is such thing as suspension of disbelief. And, in defense of Disney, there was a little matter of R2's leg rockets, present in Episode 2 and 3, never to be seen again... I think George's explanation was that they had, conveniently... a 10 year warranty?

This is a stretch. Those characters emote only the basest, most rudimentary emotions. Happy! Sad. Befuddled? Angry! In other words, emoticons, not emotions. No mask or CGI overlay is going to do justice to the complexity of these characters' motivations and responses... FWIW Gilroy has acknowledged the lack of aliens in his latest batch of interviews, and it sounds like it will be addressed to some extent in season 2.

Promobricks does seem to intercept a lot of intel, don’t they?

Especially considering the Hasbro version was a) for sale two years ago, well before inflation took off and both Hasbro and LEGO started raising their prices like mad, and b) sold exclusively through Hasbro's HasLab crowdfunding site, which meant that it did not need to factor third-party retail markup into its price. LEGO's pricing does factor this in (given it will be available via third-party retailers 3 months after LEGO releases it) and is also priced for a 2 year lifespan, building in future inflation over that term. I'd guess that had Hasbro's Razor Crest been released today through regular retailers, it would be a lot closer to LEGO's price.

Though I don't necessarily want any of the January/April sets to be replaced by them, I too would welcome more ST sets, so long as they aren't rehashes of OT sets like the ones that dominated the lineup over the ST run. There are plenty of compelling designs from TROS, and even a few from TLJ that would make good sets (skimmer, the other Pasana speeder, Exegol of course, the Resistance lander, Kylo's TIE, Death Star ruins, and so on), and loads of minifigs we have yet to get.. Leia appeared in several distinct outfits and yet we only ever got one ST version of her, for instance.

I said "umm" because whoever it was I was quoting had listed it as among the "3 best" sets we are getting this year... which, given it's a 4+ set, just seemed sort of funny to me...

And let's be clear. All three will leak before they are officially revealed, which will prompt lots of griping that LEGOCON didn't include any meaningful reveals. Umm.

https://www.stonewars.de/news/lego-preiserhoehung-september-2022/

If you've only seen 10 minutes of clips then I'd say you're not really in a position to judge the show. And, they literally worked on the scripts for years. First as a feature film, then as a series. Having watched the first two episodes several times myself, I'm not really seeing anything that merits this level of disdain... you're entitled to your opinion of course (though, again... maybe watch the show before you form that opinion?), but to me at least this series is a long step up from Book of Boba, and even some of the lesser episodes of Mando. 3... 2... 1 minutes before a mod says "back on topic, please".

You're melting Aunt Beru?!? Hasn't she been through enough?

Identical list for the US. Slim pickens, if you bother to look them all up.

The deluxe physical edition appears to be sold out pretty much everywhere, for all platforms.

Because there aren't rules. What people think are rules are just patterns, which inevitably someday get broken. People here love to imagine all sorts of rules that LEGO must certainly be living by, but the reality is, LEGO can and will do whatever it wants, if and when the need suits them. How many times has someone here proclaimed that there is some rule that UCS sets or Ideas sets or super cheap sets or whatever absolutely positively cannot include new molds or new prints or new figs or this or that... all because it hasn't happened before... until someday, it happens. LEGO is constantly experimenting with a bazillion variables in all their products... minifig selection in UCS sets being just one of them. Some have 2 figs, some have 1, some have 7 or 24 or whatever. Some are desirable, some are not... all of which is incredibly subjective. Maybe wait a hot second to confirm whether this is actually the case. And again, getting better versions of figs in cheaper sets just makes them more accessible for those who want them (especially those of us that want multiples of figs). Locking super-desirable figs into super-expensive sets doesn't benefit anyone other than LEGO and some opportunistic scalpers on BrickLink.

It's also entirely possible that LEGO's approach to minifigs in the UCS gunship is how they will handle minifigs in the Landspeeder and future UCS sets... a period of exclusivity followed by reuse in smaller sets somewhere down the line. I'd personally be very happy if the Landspeeder figs showed up in smaller sets 6 months or a year later... would allow me to upgrade all my C-3POs, which won't otherwise happen at $40 or whatever this fig will run on BL. From my perspective, PT fans get a sweet deal... I'd hope for the same in other UCS set moving forward.

This is what's known as a false choice. There is a middle ground. LEGO is inconsistent. It's as simple as that. It's not a slight against you personally (or against all PT fans) that they put a great fig in a $200 OT set that — if I had to guess — very few people here are at all eager to buy. At least they didn't put a killer Commander Cody in a $350 PT set... I'm fairly sure that would have ticked people off far more.

It must be exhausting, casting yourself the victim time and time again.

No need to…I didn’t mean to be critical. It’s just the question everyone wants to know, and unfortunately there is no good answer.

…for every time someone asked “when can we expect to see…” (Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.)

If I had a nickel...

I'm not sure what there is to understand here... Promobricks got ahold of some set names but not others.... whoever their source is gave them specifics for some sets, and vague hints about others. This is how it works year in, year out. Some set names/prices/piece counts leak before others... either because they got entered into a Target or LEGO Store computer but others didn't, or because they were included in a retailer catalog but others weren't, or because they were seen by someone with access, but others weren't. Mostly this is down to timing of the releases, but even when it's not, it doesn't really mean anything... except when a set is a store exclusive (these typically don't leak until just before they are announced, if they leak at all). Re: Disney+, yes, LEGO does try to maintain an air of secrecy around sets based on upcoming media, but these still inevitably leak well before they're intended to be announced, along with everything else... The two Boba sets were known (to some) months before they leaked publicly... they're based on a Disney+ show, and didn't have any greater secrecy associated with them than anything else. Leaks trickle out. There's not really much rhyme or reason to it.

Sorry, but, no. The movies grossed on average a billion dollars each theatrically... about half of which went to the studio. This does not include DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, rentals and purchases on iTunes, licensed runs on HBO/Netflix/FX/etc. Those will easily exceed the box office run of each movie over time, with a much higher percentage going to the studio. Disney+ brings in $5 billion a year (and growing) though obviously Star Wars amounts for only a portion of the content there. Star Wars merchandise sales are estimated to be $2-3B per year... and I wouldn't be surprised if that includes all the DVD, etc. revenue, which is really just the movies/shows earning more money for themselves, and can't really be counted as toys or whatever. And, that $2-3B of merchandise revenue does not all go to Disney... far from it... the majority of it goes to the licensee (Hasbro, LEGO, etc.). Disney takes a percentage of those sales in the form of licensing fees... this has been estimated at 18% I think? (Hasbro, probably the largest SW licensee, had $1.2B total revenue (not profit) from all licensed product last year... of which only a portion is Star Wars, and only a portion of that goes to Disney). So... most likely, the revenue earned from merch is roughly equal to the revenue earned directly from the media itself (theatrical, DVD, Disney+, etc.)... perhaps a bit more.

I believe all three sets in the fan vote were intended to be around the same price point, so I gather LEGO felt there was sufficient demand for a $300-$350 Nebulon B, and/or TIE Bomber (and yes, that's about what a UCS Bomber would run, at least if it's in scale with the UCS TIE Fighter... it's a very dense ship, and would require a metric ton of parts to pull off the twin fuselages). And, look at Mortesv's Neb-B MOC... it's 5700+ parts. So even if LEGO did one half that size, it would easily command a $350 price point. Sure, there are smaller MOCs (Rubblemaker's looks excellent, and it's 1400) but I think LEGO would want its version to hold its own with the ISD and SSD sets, being a capital ship. There are plenty of OT fans out there who would pay that much for the medical frigate... I think it's more popular than you may assume (it did come in second in the poll, after all... and the 450 part set they released of it last year sells for $100... easily twice what it's worth in parts).

Sorry, was there a Naboo Fighter released last year for $50, that I somehow missed? Last I recall the most recent N1 we got was in 2015 for that price. $10 over 7 years doesn't seem all that bad a price hike, especially when inflation is sitting at a whopping 7.5% lately. It's not like LEGO is just arbitrarily deciding to raise prices in a vacuum. Prices are rising everywhere, thanks to the supply chain issues. If it costs more for LEGO to get the materials, power the factories, and ship the products, you can bet it's going to cost us more to buy them.

The last version of Jabba's Palace was $120, ten years ago. The last version of the Naboo Fighter was $50, seven years ago. Both had similar piece counts. Not really seeing how these prices amount to LEGO being greedy...