Lego and other brick toys

[wonko the sane?]

So I was getting geared up, set up to start sorting and was making a list of supplies I would need and research I had to do...

and I just took some pictures of the mess, the instructions and posted it to kijiji and slapped a price on it. I honestly cannot be bothered for all that. I'll probably do it to the megablox stuff, which is less than a 20th of the lego, and mostly still intact as kits anyway.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Welp, took two weeks, but I sold it.

 

[Haywire]

Lego Space! Ice Planet! Blacktron! M-Tron!

So many awesome figures! The Ice Planet figure is my favorite, but the pink suit Spacebaby and their robo-nanny is great, and I'm loving the robo-butler; those legs look like they might be good for a classic Lost in Space Robot figure?

EDIT: As of this series, the QR code on the boxes can be scanned (though my scanner had some issues reading some of them) to produce a code which will tell you what figure is inside. Codes vary by region, so you might need to search for the codes that apply for your area, but there is at least a way to verify what is inside the box before you buy them!

 

[DefaultOption]

As someone who absolutely loved Lego Space growing up, it bums me out a bit that I'm only excited by fewer than half of the figs in this series, and even then neither the M-Tron or the Blacktron II figures feature any trans neon green, even though those sub-themes are where the color debuted in Lego.

At least the Ice Planet woman has the Orange Transparent Chainsaw. And the Xenomorph (you can give it 'berries' and call it a "Beetlezoid" all you want, Lego, you're not fooling anyone) looks good and the EVA astronaut is great.

 

[Axaday]

As someone who absolutely loved Lego Space growing up, it bums me out a bit that I'm only excited by fewer than half of the figs in this series, and even then neither the M-Tron or the Blacktron II figures feature any trans neon green, even though those sub-themes are where the color debuted in Lego.

At least the Ice Planet woman has the Orange Transparent Chainsaw. And the Xenomorph (you can give it 'berries' and call it a "Beetlezoid" all you want, Lego, you're not fooling anyone) looks good and the EVA astronaut is great.

Lego stopped making trans-neon green a few years ago.

 

[Haywire]

As someone who absolutely loved Lego Space growing up, it bums me out a bit that I'm only excited by fewer than half of the figs in this series, and even then neither the M-Tron or the Blacktron II figures feature any trans neon green, even though those sub-themes are where the color debuted in Lego.

At least the Ice Planet woman has the Orange Transparent Chainsaw. And the Xenomorph (you can give it 'berries' and call it a "Beetlezoid" all you want, Lego, you're not fooling anyone) looks good and the EVA astronaut is great.

The checklist doesn't show it, but the M-Tron power lifter has an alternate face with the green visor, which is probably the best they could do with the helmet they used. I agree, it would be great if they brought back the full palette of trans-colored elements for this, but limiting the variety of colors is one cost-cutting measure Lego uses.

The Beetlezoid has a wing/shell element that does make it look more beetle-like, so I'm planning on adding it to the Buggoid legions from Galaxy Squad, but it could definitely be a Lego interpretation of a Xenomorph as well.

For me, I would have loved to see Spyrius, Futuron, and Unitron represented, but the only figures that don't super-excite me are Orion and the UFO costume dude. The alien figures are hilarious, the robots push all the right buttons for me, and even the Retro Space Gal goes with a previous figure AND comes with a robot bulldog!

It's not a 100% homerun, but it has a lot more figures that I'm excited for than the last series of Minifigures.

 

[MEDdMI]

I got the Robo-chef dude. Didn't know about the QR code thing. I want #2 for the tiny figures alone.

I am loving the Animal Crossing sets. Got some of the smaller ones, now I have all of them (but haven't built one yet). The modular nature and ease of swapping things around is great. Plus, all the hidey holes in the trees/under rocks. I'm going to have to clear a shelf so I can combine them into a mini town.

 

[Big Show]

I have to say, this was definitely a choice.

$160 Cal Kestis with bonus Star Destroyer and 6 Minifigs!

 

[Haywire]

Kinda Standard Operating Procedure for Lego Star Wars sets. (Still pretty salty about Lego Zuckuss being attached to a high-end Boba Fett's Starship, mostly because I waited for it to go to clearance and missed it.)

 

[Big Show]

Yeah...I'm just going to stick with my custom. Maybe it isn't "official", but at least MINE actually has BD-1.

 

[Axaday]

Is the issue that you have to buy a $160 set when you just want Cal? You will get him cheaper on Bricklink, but maybe not too cheap.

In this wave, they made several minifigs of characters that people would like, but they didn't have a set for and just stuck them as bonuses. You can view it from either side. Certainly they wanted it to make the sets sell better, but they also wanted to do some figures that fans wanted.

 

[Big Show]

Is the issue that you have to buy a $160 set when you just want Cal? You will get him cheaper on Bricklink, but maybe not too cheap.

In this wave, they made several minifigs of characters that people would like, but they didn't have a set for and just stuck them as bonuses. You can view it from either side. Certainly they wanted it to make the sets sell better, but they also wanted to do some figures that fans wanted.

Yeah, the concern is that people are going to primarily want the minifigure, which could drive up the price. I'm just happy that I don't have to worry about it.

 

[Haywire]

Is the issue that you have to buy a $160 set when you just want Cal? You will get him cheaper on Bricklink, but maybe not too cheap.

Yes?

Spoiler

I mean, on the one hand, it's great that Lego is making some of these characters at all, and there are ways to buy parts or minifigures separately on secondary markets, so yay? But on the other hand, Lego has so many avenues to release figures, it feels like kind of a cheap trick to lock some figures behind a $100-$160 pay wall. Between polybags, the collectible minifigure series (which has its own issues, but still...), microfighters, mech fighters, troop builder sets, and regular mid-priced sets, there are lots of avenues to release even niche characters without attaching them to premium priced sets.

I wasn't able to find Cal on Bricklink, but in the case of Zuckuss, the CHEAPEST one before shipping was $30. Now, the only set it came in was originally $119 USD, Zuckuss was the only minifig that I didn't already have a satisfactory version of, and the ship didn't do anything significantly better than the Slave-1 I already had. So, had I bought it new, I would have been spending $119 +tax to acquire one minifigure. Even $30 is too much to justify for one minifigure, especially when you consider that the other ESB Bounty Hunters were all released in one Battle Pack that retailed for $14.99 USD just 2 years earlier. 5 years later, that one $119 set is still the only time a Lego Zuckuss has ever been released (which seems like a waste of a unique tooling, as well...).

If Lego wants to premiere a character in a high-end set, or release a premium/unique deco version that way, sure, that's a practice I don't mind (particularly if they require unique tooling), but when that is the ONLY way to ever get that character in minifigure form, it starts to get frustrating. <end rant>

tldr: Lego has all kinds of fans with all kinds of budgets, and attaching figures of specific desired characters to high-priced sets kind of ignores those fans on the lower end of the budget spectrum.

 

[DefaultOption]

I wasn't able to find Cal on Bricklink

The ISD set was just revealed today. It won't officially be available at retail until August 1st. Of course there aren't any on BL yet.

 

[Axaday]

tldr: Lego has all kinds of fans with all kinds of budgets, and attaching figures of specific desired characters to high-priced sets kind of ignores those fans on the lower end of the budget spectrum.

I don't think that is really fair or looking at honest economics of running a toy company. They have polybags and $10 sets to make sure they aren't overlooking customers on the lower budget, but they're never going to accommodate "customers on the lower budget who want to get every character". Because then they'd actually be throwing away the opportunity presented by the customers on the high budgets.

I mean, I don't even think Cal is a super great example for this, because he's actually, on LEGO's business scale, not going to be that hot of an item. I am a big Star Wars fan and I have no interest in him whatsoever. A broad swath of adult fans have no awareness of him. No little kids want him and they are the bulk of the market. He's a pretty niche item. So is a young Saw Gererra who is in another of the sets this year as an extra. These are minifigs that they wouldn't make at all if they weren't doing it like this.

If it had been Thrawn getting his only release in that set, I would say "Lego knows he's valuable and they aren't making their decisions according what is the most efficient way to fill your collection. They are leveraging his value to sell a valuable set." Because what they are trying to do is make money.

 

[Haywire]

I don't think that is really fair or looking at honest economics of running a toy company. they're never going to accommodate "customers on the lower budget who want to get every character". Because then they'd actually be throwing away the opportunity presented by the customers on the high budgets.

I mean, I don't even think Cal is a super great example for this, because he's actually, on LEGO's business scale, not going to be that hot of an item.

These are minifigs that they wouldn't make at all if they weren't doing it like this.

Because what they are trying to do is make money.

I'm not disagreeing with your overall point, because I agree, Lego has to make money to stay in business.

The 2 counterpoints I would like to make are:

1) I know that I am likely wrong (minifig completionists are an interesting group, after all), but I would hope no collector is buying a $160 Star Destroyer set just for the exclusive minifigure. I would hope that any high-end set like that is being bought for the model and build complexity itself. So, I'm not sure I entirely agree that Lego would be throwing an opportunity away by not including an exclusive figure. Maybe the chance to "sweeten the deal", but as you pointed out, Cal may not be the best character choice for even that.

2) Are these really minifigures that wouldn't be made at all if it wasn't done this way?

Spoiler

Lego is somewhat unique among toylines, in that the standard minifig design hasn't significantly changed in years. Particularly with a figure like Cal, or even Saw Gererra, the figures are built entirely with existing parts. The engineering is already done, the tooling for the molds already exists. All that has to be done is picking the colors from LEGO's current palette to mold the pieces, design the printing applications for the printed bricks, and choose a set that can handle the parts count while staying at a designated price point. Presumably, the person or persons responsible for this are already on LEGO's payroll, and going to be paid whether they design a particular figure or not. There's licensing, but unless Lego has to get an individual license for every single character they use, i would assume it would fall under a blanket Star Wars license. In other words, there should be very little in the manufacturing process that makes a Cal Kestis figure any more expensive than any other Lego Star Wars minifigure.
So, what prevents a designer from making Cal Kestis a "minifigure #3" in a mid-priced ($50-$70) "Jedi Starfighter" set or some such, rather than an exclusive add-on to a $160 set?(and there's really no reason it couldn't happen in the future, unless Lego wants to protect the exclusivity of the upcoming figure)

Ultimately, if this were a character like Moff Tarkin (or any of the parade of Imperial Admirals that Vader force-chokes in ESB) coming with a $100+ Star Destroyer or $300+ Death Star, I wouldn't be nearly as bothered. Cal isn't even a figure I want or need, either. It just seems like a really expensive pairing for those that do.

 

[Axaday]

The incremental cost of designing the Cal minifig is irrelevant, yes. But Lego has a hard limit on how many sets they can manufacture at a time and an inflexible limit on how many they can market at a time. They have a lot of bases to cover and maybe some restrictions on the Star Wars license as well. So they're going to put out a handful of Star Wars sets in January and another handful of them in May every year and maybe a few at other parts of the year. Too many sets out there and they are just digging it out of sales of their other Star Wars sets and also limiting their output for people who only want Friends or only want Minecraft and so on. So making a set based on a scene in a video game that kids don't play and most grownups don't play either is probably out of the question. To sell Cal, they have to somehow shoehorn him into another context.

They could arrange a Star Wars CMF series. They never have, but presumably it could be done. I don't know if it is a good idea. But he could fit there. Or they can put him in as a bonus in a set like this. They COULD have put him in a smaller set, certainly, but I think there is a bonus figure in every set in this wave and the others are all in smaller sets. He'd be getting someone else's spot. I can't remember who all is involved at the moment. Saw is in a smaller set, but I think Saw is better known than Cal, having been featured in a movie and a Disney+ show and will be featured again on a Disney+ show later this year. They really may have put the least popular character (among their target market) in the biggest set and in doing so put a character that is only interesting to grownups in a price-class that is easier for a grownup to get than a kid. It doesn't even seem very cutthroat.

As for whether he will cause sets to sell, he will. Remember that LEGO owns Bricklink. Bricklink sellers are definitely going to get this set. Cal will be worth $10-20 right away and eventually worth $100.

 

[DefaultOption]

They could arrange a Star Wars CMF series. They never have, but presumably it could be done.

Way back in the early days (like year two or three) of LSW, they released several 'minifigure packs', which were just three minifigs with stands and trading cards (I bought one of them because it had the first Palpatine minifig), but this kind of set was never revisited. Some people in the fandom posited that just selling minifigs may have come close to crossing the line into Hasbro's 'action figure' market, but we've never heard anything official from either company one way or the other afaik.

 

[Haywire]

I do think it odd that there's never been a Star Wars CMF wave. There were just recently 2 CMF series of Marvel figures , so I would think it's a possibility, at the very least. But, as Axaday pointed out, they would still have to fit within the manufacturing and release schedules already established. So, maybe it's something we'll see in the future?

 

[Axaday]

I was really surprised and disappointed that they didn't make a line of Star Wars minidolls back when they were doing the girls of Star Wars marketing push with other toys.

Lego's use of the Star Wars license is pretty tame. Maybe they are really boxed in since Hasbro is so entrenched.