LEGO Star Wars 2021 Set Discussion - READ FIRST POST!!!

[Something_Awesome]

Regarding diversity, the impression I had was that front line troopers were almost exclusively male for the Imperials/empire. The premise originally was that they were “civilized.” It was far more likely to see women on the Rebels side. Sort of makes sense; if you can merely shoot a blaster, then the Rebels need you. 
 

With all that said, I prefer the blank, jet black heads under helmets for storm troopers and scout troopers. I swap them when I can. I appreciate the diverse heads because I can use them elsewhere.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Something_Awesome

[Pirean_Grammaticul]

5 minutes ago, Something_Awesome said:

Regarding diversity, the impression I had was that front line troopers were almost exclusively male for the Imperials/empire. It was far more likely to see women on the Rebels side. Sort of makes sense; if you can merely shoot a blaster, then the Rebels need you. 

yeah basically this; far as i was aware the imperials would not only prefer to hire from a whiter male caste but also have those types of people gravitate towards it, especially towards the end and into the mandalorian when their troops stayed because they'd been imbued with fascist dogma. likely the first order avoided this and just recruited by kidnapping which mitigates the racial barriers. on the subject i suppose because they're in a galactic conflict they'd try to segregate less, but just judging by lucas' own intent with the empire it would make sense thematically. 

Edited November 10, 2021 by Pirean_Grammaticul

[Brikkyy13]

3 hours ago, jdubbs said:

As we saw in the sequel trilogy,

The sequels have nothing to do with this discussion, the first order is not the empire.

3 hours ago, jdubbs said:

So I'm a bit unclear what you're defining as "accuracy". I'm sure if the added (sorry, "forced") diversity of minifig heads is such a sacrifice for you, there are plenty of Angry Clone heads other EBers will happily trade you, in exchange for the heads that come with your AT-AT...  

Again, we know that the troopers were male, truly accurate figures wouldn’t have flesh tones peaking out from under the helmet, and you’re higher than I am if you think I’m trading those heads for more angry clones!

3 hours ago, jdubbs said:

Having a hard time seeing what the "principle" is here.

5 hours ago, Brikkyy13 said:

Again, I’m about to spend $1300 on plastic, I would prefer the figures to be accurate to the source material 

3 hours ago, jdubbs said:

UCS sets have, with rare exception over the last 10+ years, come with exclusive figs. It's a fact of life, one that isn't gonna change, and one that really shouldn't be surprising, unless you just emerged from a decades-long dark age, or started collecting these sets today. 

Even so, there's nothing that says these heads won't show up elsewhere.

General Veers and the commander are exclusive enough for me, new heads that you won’t see is completely unnecessary.  I really hope that the heads turn up elsewhere because my point is that there is a clear lack of dark skin tones and female prints… we as fans have been asking for diverse prints for nearly 2 decades now, they should be in sets that are accessible to everyone who wants them, not in $1300 collector sets where they have no business being there other than to make a statement. 

 

3 hours ago, jdubbs said:

So... why is it okay for Stormtroopers in the Marauder to have diverse prints but not the Stormtroopers in the AT-AT? Black heads are appropriate for one, but diverse heads are welcome in another? Huh? What happened to "accuracy"?

 

I thought this point would’ve been obvious but alas. The marauder is a $60 system scale set with a build that isn’t accurate to begin with, and is readily available to anyone who wants it. The AT-AT is a $1300 collector’s set, built at minifigure scale with intention to be as accurate as possible 

3 hours ago, jdubbs said:

 If LEGO is putting different heads in each of their sets, that just broadens the pool of unique heads we can get... which is something you already acknowledge most everyone has been asking for.

I agree with your first point, I really do. My problem with this is that heads with darker skin tones and female prints are expensive enough as is, them being exclusive to a $1300 set is doing nobody any favours. 

3 hours ago, jdubbs said:

I don't mean to be harsh, but it seems like you are talking out of both sides of your mouth here. And when you drop phrases like "forced diversity" and "diversity for diversity sake" in reference to minifig skin tones and genders — representing unseen, almost entirely unheard Star Wars characters — well, it just smacks of all the half-wits outraged when they saw a black stormtrooper in the first TFA teaser, or who couldn't accept a female protagonist in a Star Wars trilogy. Was really hoping we had moved past this.

I want cheap realistic minifigure parts for MOCs and I want accurate figures in $1300 sets, how is this so hard to understand?? I explained my point twice before this reply, it really seems like you’re refusing to see my point for an excuse to fling megablocks. Really thought we were past the days of Star Wars “fans” wrongly insisting someone must be racist or sexist because they disagree with a decision. 

Edited November 10, 2021 by Brikkyy13

[THELEGOBATMAN]

That set is absolutely fantastic. Love everything about the build 

[Kdapt-Preacher]

Oh boy, here we go. This is the can of worms that I didn't want to open, but we're here and we're doing it, so let's do it before this thread gets locked, LMAO. Multiquoting four posts here, so hopefully everything lines up; if I lambast somebody I didn't intend to I apologize.

3 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

I'm not objecting to them in the marauder, a cheaper set based off recent media, and I dislike your implication. In ESB, the snowtroopers were, in both cast and intention, men. And that's not even the main point I'm trying to make, my point is that they went out of the way to do this rather then to just do, say, some angry clones, the fo officer helmet, we'll even say like leia's head or something. That would have been fine with me, but they made new exclusive prints focused on stuff that you A: won't really see and B: is inaccurate, rather than new prints for the interior, or updated torso prints, or any other use of the budget. It's not even that big of a deal, but I maintain that I disagree with the decision.

I mean, I should hope you dislike that implication, as it's quite a nasty one. If you liked it that would be a whole other issue. What I'm saying here is that, canonically, it's not the case that all the snowtroopers at the Battle of Hoth were male. I have no idea whether all the extras in ESB were because there's literally no way to tell, but George Lucas himself said in 1977 that he intended that some of the stormtroopers be female. LEGO didn't go out of the way to be less accurate because this is accurate. I understand the point about faces for stormtroopers not being a good use of new prints in general when there are plenty of existing face prints that're perfectly serviceable for figures that wear helmets most of the time anyway, but I don't think that the budget issue is really a significant concern here.

3 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

Not to get even further on a tangent but battlefront two's had canonicity issues for forever, ESPECIALLY regarding skins. (mustard 327th, the various jumptroopers, etc). Like, ewoks were not present at the battle of hoth, there wasn't a large battle on yavin, heck, vader doesn't fight bb-8, grievous never fights rey, etc.

There are parts of BF2 that aren't canon, like obviously fights between Vader and BB-8, but I meant specifically that there are female stormtroopers in the campaign, and that absolutely unambiguously is a canon source.

1 hour ago, Pirean_Grammaticul said:

the diversity present with the stormies is fine but honestly, when did the space fascists get so inclusive? just because they don't let aliens in doesn't necessarily mean they've lightened up that much on other people too. not to mention all the unique entries on bricklink but i'm sure that's not a problem.

 

1 hour ago, Something_Awesome said:

Regarding diversity, the impression I had was that front line troopers were almost exclusively male for the Imperials/empire. The premise originally was that they were “civilized.” It was far more likely to see women on the Rebels side. Sort of makes sense; if you can merely shoot a blaster, then the Rebels need you. 

For both of the two people above, there's actually a specific answer to this: the Empire got more inclusive when the reset the EU in 2014. The idea that the Empire is racist and sexist against humans was an after-the-fact justification for why all the Imperial officers in the OT are white men, but in the current canon they've dropped that thread in favor of introducing more diverse Imperials and just ignoring the fact that the older media doesn't have them (the same way they've always just kinda ignored the fact that the OT shows only white humans in the Rebellion, and almost exclusively men there too). Disney made the decision that the Empire is cartoonishly evil enough already that making them explicitly racist as well wasn't worth it (they do still hate aliens though). In some sense it's an inconsistency with older material, sure, but it's like Rogue One showing the Rebel pilots wearing actual flight suits instead of boiler suits crudely dyed orange; it's not a meaningful change so much as just what the OT would look like if it was made this decade.

29 minutes ago, Brikkyy13 said:

Again, we know that the troopers were male, truly accurate figures wouldn’t have flesh tones peaking out from under the helmet, and you’re higher than I am if you think I’m trading those heads for more angry clones!

Again, I’m about to spend $1300 on plastic, I would prefer the figures to be accurate to the source material

That comment wasn't aimed at you; it's Mandalorianknight who would prefer angry clones. But, again, this is accurate. There are female stormtroopers and they were on Hoth.

29 minutes ago, Brikkyy13 said:

I agree with your first point, I really do. My problem with this is that heads with darker skin tones and female prints are expensive enough as is, them being exclusive to a $1300 set is doing nobody any favours. 

I want cheap realistic minifigure parts for MOCs and I want accurate figures in $1300 sets, how is this so hard to understand??

You think that these parts will be too expensive to be accessible to you... so you'd rather they not have been made at all? That doesn't seem very reasonable. The cheaper sets will presumably continue to have diverse stormtroopers, just as the last several have; surely it's better that the expensive sets do as well.

29 minutes ago, Brikkyy13 said:

 I explained my point twice before this reply, it really seems like you’re refusing to see my point for an excuse to fling megablocks. Really thought we were past the days of Star Wars “fans” wrongly insisting someone must be racist or sexist because they disagree with a decision. 

For the first sentence, the problem isn't that we don't understand you point, it's that it's apalling and we don't agree with it. For the second sentence, LMAO.

 

[Bobbtom]

Are we really going to give a corporation the benefit of the doubt here. Just because they make children's toys doesn't mean they're any different. Stop defending them. You gain nothing doing so and only harm yourself and others. Golden rule and primary consideration is they priced the AT-AT based on what they think people are willing to pay for it. And it looks like people are

Edited November 10, 2021 by Bobbtom

[T21Typhoon]

I highly doubt that the new face prints will stay price-locked behind an $800 set, why would Lego do that? If they represent specialised character variants then sure (and even with that, Lego often play fast and loose), but these are just general use prints at the end of the day.

The 2022 Snowtrooper BP will have similarly diverse heads I’m sure.

Edited November 10, 2021 by T21Typhoon

[1340cc]

13 minutes ago, T21Typhoon said:

I highly doubt that the new face prints will stay price-locked behind an $800 set, why would Lego do that? If they represent specialised character variants then sure (and even with that, Lego often play fast and loose), but these are just general use prints at the end of the day.

The 2022 Snowtrooper BP will have similarly diverse heads I’m sure.

I think there's a pretty good chance of that happening. Most of the faces in the UCS AT-AT are reused from either last years playscale version or the Armoured Marauder from a few months ago. Only 2 of the face prints appear to be completely new, the female driver and the black female snowtrooper. So while I can understand Brikkyy13's concern about useful face prints for MOCs being locked behind a UCS pricetag, they are unlikely to be exclusive to this set for more than a couple of months.

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

sometimes it's weird and they just reuse the same 7 prints while 1-2 are staying almost exclusive, even though they'd fit better instead of having 2 different characters in the same universe with the same face print. But for the most part one print will appear in at least 1-2 sets again.

[BrickWild]

71313 has 'Land Rover Defender' rims in light bluish grey! I might order four of those when they became available on BL.
In addition, those motorcycle rims (to form the neck) and many other parts should go down in value.

[MKJoshA]

Due to many factors, the internet is rife with dumpster fires just waiting to be lit. Let's not let this topic be one of those.

I'll say my bit once, and if you all can't drop it shortly then I'll lock the topic for awhile.

The Empire was based off of the Nazi regime. Hilter's vision for the world was based on Caucasian male's being the epitome of humanity. It's not unreasonable for @Brikkyy13 to assume that most Snowtroopers would be white males. Even if Lucas intended some troopers to be female, the very foundation of how he designed the Empire says most would be male.

With the expansion of Star Wars into other media such as books and video games. And with new takes on the Empire we've seen the original design for the Imperials get replaced with a more diverse credo. I think it's great that Lego has included other skin tones and prints for the Troopers in the AT-AT. It may not be 100% accurate. Or it might. They wear helmets so we can't say for sure. It would be a shame for Lego to keep the prints exclusive. But recent trends make me think that won't be the case.

This is a fair topic for this thread, but because it's too easy to devolve into online shouting matches I'm going to say we need to lay it to rest.

[BrickBob Studpants]

… we finally got rid of Angry Clone and people are still complaining?  Please explain how this is an issue of “accuracy” if we never ever see Snowtroopers without their helmets. How is a featureless black head supposed to be more accurate? Didn’t know Snowtroopers really look like Ringwraiths under there 

And what gender the extras had during filming is a non-argument, because by that logic, stunt doubles should also be represented, meaning that Din Djarin for instance should have three different heads depending on the scene 

[gherkin]

not wanting to stir it up, but does it really matter?  Does it matter if pieces of plastic are white, brown, black, yellow, male, female etc etc, at the end of the day they are minifigs with helmets on.  Most if not all of the time being a display piece (i'm certainly not letting my kids play with an $800 set) its going to be set in one position with the minifigs in the AT-AT or displayed at the bottom.

[jdubbs]

47 minutes ago, MKJoshA said:

The Empire was based off of the Nazi regime. Hilter's vision for the world was based on Caucasian male's being the epitome of humanity. ... Even if Lucas intended some troopers to be female, the very foundation of how he designed the Empire says most would be male.

Umm, not so much. Certainly there is the element of fascism in both the Empire and the Nazi regime, but that and the term "stormtroopers" is about as far as the comparison goes. Lucas has said repeatedly— and others around him when he was writing Star Wars have reiterated — that the Vietnam War was the model for Star Wars. The Rebels were the Viet Cong (underdogs, woefully outmatched and underfunded, yet somehow still triumphant), the Empire was America (all-powerful invading force bent on expanding their global reach), the Emperor was Nixon (never mind that the war began long before he took office).

People don't like to acknowledge this because of the controversy of the Vietnam War, and honestly no one in the US wants to imagine themselves an evil empire, but it is what it is.

Edited November 10, 2021 by jdubbs

[Something_Awesome]

In case this needs to be said, the overwhelming majority of women in our world want to be excluded from combat. Some people struggle with suspending disbelief when reading books or watching movies of fictional worlds when an army/force has very high female representation. Obviously this becomes more believable though if men and women are left with only two choices; fight, or die. This is sort of the situation the rebel “scum” find themselves in. 

[ginja]

53 minutes ago, jdubbs said:

Umm, not so much. Certainly there is the element of fascism in both the Empire and the Nazi regime, but that and the term "stormtroopers" is about as far as the comparison goes. Lucas has said repeatedly— and others around him when he was writing Star Wars have reiterated — that the Vietnam War was the model for Star Wars. The Rebels were the Viet Cong (underdogs, woefully outmatched and underfunded, yet somehow still triumphant), the Empire was America (all-powerful invading force bent on expanding their global reach), the Emperor was Nixon (never mind that the war began long before he took office).

People don't like to acknowledge this because of the controversy of the Vietnam War, and honestly no one in the US wants to imagine themselves an evil empire, but it is what it is.

That's all true (and a fact I love) but the aesthetics were definitely nazi Germany. But with the mainly British actors, comparisons have been made with the British empire. So in essence they become an general stand in for imperialism.

But anyway. The subject should be dropped.

[MKJoshA]

1 hour ago, jdubbs said:

Umm, not so much. Certainly there is the element of fascism in both the Empire and the Nazi regime, but that and the term "stormtroopers" is about as far as the comparison goes. Lucas has said repeatedly— and others around him when he was writing Star Wars have reiterated — that the Vietnam War was the model for Star Wars. The Rebels were the Viet Cong (underdogs, woefully outmatched and underfunded, yet somehow still triumphant), the Empire was America (all-powerful invading force bent on expanding their global reach), the Emperor was Nixon (never mind that the war began long before he took office).

People don't like to acknowledge this because of the controversy of the Vietnam War, and honestly no one in the US wants to imagine themselves an evil empire, but it is what it is.

That's a fair point.

And I think we could have some genuinely positive debate among the forum members about it. But this is not the time or place for it right now. Points have been stated. You can agree with one side or the other. But for now the topic needs to be dropped.

[Pirean_Grammaticul]

13 hours ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

For both of the two people above, there's actually a specific answer to this: the Empire got more inclusive when the reset the EU in 2014. The idea that the Empire is racist and sexist against humans was an after-the-fact justification for why all the Imperial officers in the OT are white men, but in the current canon they've dropped that thread in favor of introducing more diverse Imperials and just ignoring the fact that the older media doesn't have them (the same way they've always just kinda ignored the fact that the OT shows only white humans in the Rebellion, and almost exclusively men there too). Disney made the decision that the Empire is cartoonishly evil enough already that making them explicitly racist as well wasn't worth it (they do still hate aliens though). In some sense it's an inconsistency with older material, sure, but it's like Rogue One showing the Rebel pilots wearing actual flight suits instead of boiler suits crudely dyed orange; it's not a meaningful change so much as just what the OT would look like if it was made this decade.

thanks for the clarification; glad to hear it! i do value diversity and in all accounts it seems like they've made the right move in more ways than one; when you're in an empire galaxy wide you've gotta let go of your gripes and promote species over race. glad to get an in-depth and thorough response on this and hoping not to continue this discussion too long further than a compliment on your cordiality 

Edited November 10, 2021 by Pirean_Grammaticul

[Something_Awesome]

I think I understand the complaints now. I just learned from a Youtuber that, while the Stormtroopers were overwhelmingly non-clone, the snowtroopers under Vader at Hoth, which I think includes the snowtroopers under Veers' AT-AT, were actually all clones, also known as the 501st, also know as "Vader's Fist." The issue is then if accuracy was sacrificed for the sake of inclusion. Accuracy has primacy when it comes to these $800 UCS sets (or even the $200 ones like the Slave 1). Did LEGO deviate from that the line is set to do for the sake of inclusion? Probably. Though I am actually not  worried about it. Just expressing the gripes of others in hopefully better words.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Something_Awesome

[Kdapt-Preacher]

32 minutes ago, Something_Awesome said:

I think I understand the complaints now. I just learned from a Youtuber that, while the Stormtroopers were overwhelmingly non-clone, the snowtroopers under Vader at Hoth, which I think includes the snowtroopers under Veers' AT-AT, were actually all clones, also known as the 501st, also know as "Vader's Fist." The issue is then if accuracy was sacrificed for the sake of inclusion. Accuracy has primacy when it comes to these $800 UCS sets (or even the $200 ones like the Slave 1). Did LEGO deviate from that the line is set to do for the sake of inclusion? Probably. Though I am actually not  worried about it. Just expressing the gripes of others in hopefully better words.

The Youtuber was wrong. The clone troopers were biologically in their 70s by the Battle of Hoth; there were still a handful of them around (Captain Rex, for example), but the 501st and every other Imperial Army unit had transitioned to human recruits decades earlier. I don't know whether you've seen The Bad Batch yet, but the switch from clone to human units is a major plot point there.

[ginja]

38 minutes ago, Something_Awesome said:

I think I understand the complaints now. I just learned from a Youtuber that, while the Stormtroopers were overwhelmingly non-clone, the snowtroopers under Vader at Hoth, which I think includes the snowtroopers under Veers' AT-AT, were actually all clones, also known as the 501st, also know as "Vader's Fist." The issue is then if accuracy was sacrificed for the sake of inclusion. Accuracy has primacy when it comes to these $800 UCS sets (or even the $200 ones like the Slave 1). Did LEGO deviate from that the line is set to do for the sake of inclusion? Probably. Though I am actually not  worried about it. Just expressing the gripes of others in hopefully better words.

Wookieepedia 'With the end of the Republic Era, the 501st transitioned from clone troopers to stormtroopers[51] and continued to utilize several variant units, including the elite Storm Commandos[34] and cold weather assault stormtroopers.[1] With the Republic's transformation into the Empire,[42] the Kaminoan cloning production was shut down[52] and the Imperial Military replaced clones with human conscripts.[51] Such changes applied to the 501st as well. By 0 BBY,[43] human[53] Soldiers such as TK-7624, TK-8332, and Commander TK-9091 served in the 501st.[5]'

 

And the existence of veers kinda shows they weren't clones.

[Mandalorianknight]

Whether or not making those faceprints was a good use of the budget. (Which the mods have said we've got to stop arguing about, so we might want to do it before the thread gets locked), it's still a great set overall. The interior looks incredible, the exterior looks phenomenal, and it appears to not only be stable but articulatable. That tool is a genius method.

[Tariq j]

49 minutes ago, Mandalorianknight said:

That tool is a genius method.

The tool is one of my favourite parts. It really is genius to create your own Lego screwdriver to adjust the legs.

[CodeNameGoldMember]

Everyone here arguing about the face prints and I'm just over here sad that they no longer have cloth kamas and are sticking with the printed ones. Other than that I'm in absolute awe of the set. Everything I  expected it to be and more and with the rumored sets that seem to be tagging along with this, it definitely gives me hope that we might see something similar to future UCS sets as well.

[Archer]

30 minutes ago, CodeNameGoldMember said:

Everyone here arguing about the face prints and I'm just over here sad that they no longer have cloth kamas and are sticking with the printed ones. Other than that I'm in absolute awe of the set. Everything I  expected it to be and more and with the rumored sets that seem to be tagging along with this, it definitely gives me hope that we might see something similar to future UCS sets as well.

I’m with you on preferring the Kama, but, I care most about consistency so I’m just glad that there’s a commander to match these new snowbiddies.