This is my first post for 2015 and it's already April; time is going by way too fast!
Toy Fair was two months ago, and as such Lego showed off its newest products for the summer wave, of which Star Wars interested me most (with one "minor" exception).
So for summer Star Wars, I am all about some Naboo Starfighter. I know a lot of people that have been in the hobby for a while lamented yet another system scale iteration of this thing, and I can't say I blame them. Even so, the last one was released in 2011, not too long before I actively started buying Lego sets again and thus it passed me by, so I'm happy to see this one released. It also will have the first young Anakin and Padawan Kenobi that I will own, and the pilot at least looks pretty different from the one I got with the Naboo planet set when I found it on clearance a year ago. The Starfighter itself looks really nice, if not overly different from the 2011 set; I do like the incorporation of the newer green spring loaded missiles and some clear blue pieces on the rear of the engines to give the impression of propulsion. I also appreciate the pilot's ladder leading up to the cockpit; none of my other starfighter sets have included something like that. More destroyer droids are nice, too.
The other SW set I'm most intrigued by is another Phantom Menace set, albeit one that yet to be fully revealed - the newest iteration of the Sith Infoltrator Scimitar! Again, I know there are a ton of fans who who lament the fact that we are getting another of these so "soon" after 2011, but again I'm happy that I get the chance since I missed out on that release. I'll be particularly happy to get a normal, non-CW Darth Maul to add to my Black Council, and this set also includes Qui-Gon Jinn (between this set and the new N-1, last year's MTT has been all but rendered obsolote in terms of minifigs), another young Anakin (I would have preferred Padme a la the 2011 set), Anakin's owner and an umpteenth R2-D2. We haven't seen a good pic of the Scimitar itself yet, but I'm hoping that it avoids a lot of the things that made people complain about the 2011 set.
Most of the other new sets I'm not really interested in:
- Flash Speeder: no thanks. Just nothing interesting here.
- Final Duel: in theory is like this a lot, but it's a bit similar to Palpatine's arrest, and I'm not too fond to the updates they have made to both Vader and Sidious. Love those windows, though.
- Tydirium shuttle: again, another set I should really like, but it's too expensive and doesn't come with a single imperial character. I get that it's the stolen shuttle from Ep VI, but come on - one of the rebels could have been dropped in favor of an imperial pilot or officer.
- UCS TIE: I love me some TIE series ships, but man this looks awful. There is no reason why my 2012 TIE fighter should look better than s UCS set. It's prohibitively expensive anyway, so at least I won't be uselessly pining over it.
- Imperial Assault Carrier: an interesting but flawed and ultimately overly expensive set. Interesting because it's anew imperial craft that is basically the poor man's Star destroyer (it only carries four TIEs, and on the exterior, at that!) and includes a helmeted Sabine, a helmetless Kallus, and some sweet evil astromech. Flawed because, basically, I don't care for starships that are supposed to be huge but have a system-scaled interior. Yuck. I know it's not new - the latest iteration of the Star Destroyer does the same thing - but I just don't like it. Too bad this is the only new Rebels set for the summer.
advent Calendar: I've never gotten one of the Advent sets, so I'm not exactly worried about getting repeat builds in this set, but I do like this year's version due to the diversity of models. Cool models: probe droid, Sandcrawler, Sarlacc, Sail Barge, AT-AT, A-Wing, etc. Also, I'm pretty sure that all the minifigs (aside from the doofy Christmas-themed droids) are new to me: Jawa, Hoth Rebel Trooper, new Stormtrooper design, Ewok, etc. I'll probably get this one, but it won't be easy sharing it with the kids!
Ok, what about that "minor" exception? It's the Ant-Man set! I've only recently become interested in the Ant-Man movie (having never really cared about the character before), but man does this look like a neat set. 3 different sci-if looking dudes (Old Ant-Man, Paul Rudd, and bad guy YellowJacket). The kicker is that the rat of the set is Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-style giant versions of tiny things! Naturally, it comes with a nice, brick-built flying ant for Ant-Dooter to ride, abut also some screws, "giant" Lego bricks, etc. it's just a neat idea for a set that allows it to work within the gimmick concept of the movie/character but having normal minifigs doesn't prevent you from having them hang out in normal size with other Avenger minifigs. Plus, it's only a $20 set, so not too bad for some pretty cool stuff!
