75159 - UCS: Death Star (2016)

[gregpj]

This one is for you LEGO, inspired by @BrickLegacy and brought to you by Brickpickers everywhere.

[xxgatorzxx]

19 minutes ago, Furious_george said:

Gandalf actually says "flee , you fools.". Always thought he said run.

i believe he actually says "Fly, you fools" which was supposed to be a clue for them to go to the land of the eagles, instead they missed it and took the other way.

 

[Ed Mack]

Time to move on people.  The Death Star still lives.  Obviously it was such a great seller, why get rid of it?  Why are people so surprised?  It had the longest production run of any set ever and there are new STAR WARS movies coming out with the Death Star in it.  Chalk it up as a push and look at all the other top notch sets being released.  A few bad sets like the new DS or AOH don't affect my view of LEGO designers.  The new Porsche and Technic sets are amazing.  Disney Castle...stunning.  Slave I...wonderful.  Honestly, the 10188 was and is an iconic set and I have a few, but I will never build it.  I really don't like it...Looks like a kid's set.  The $500 price on the new one is a joke.  Sorry.  I will buy one to have it.  I have wasted enough time and resources on this set. 

The silver lining is that the 10143 just went up in value...

[fossilrock]

I personally think this was the worst, and least creative year for Lego in the last 5 years.  So many ideas are lackluster, or rehashed.  There's only so much longer they can milk rehashes, refreshes, and partial re-dos before it starts to turn sour.  

Also, this set stinks of absolute laziness. Ok, so they have a new movie coming out, so why not make this a "Rogue One" release version, even if most of the exterior is the same.  But, nope.. it's just a lazy rehash, and another boring cash grab.  I ain't buying this one at all.  I'm willing to bet, this one doesn't come with many exclusive figures, and like I said, it's a lazy, uninspired cash grab.  BORING.  LAZY... rehash!  They can only keep this going for so much longer till people start skipping the lego aisle.

[Furious_george]

9 minutes ago, xxgatorzxx said:

i believe he actually says "Fly, you fools" which was supposed to be a clue for them to go to the land of the eagles, instead they missed it and took the other way.

 

Fly?? Man I was way off with run then.

[Ciglione]

 

I am still stubbernly waiting for the (leaked) pictures. However, trusting all the stories and rumours are true. And usually they are.

 

*** Hereby I will throw the towell in the ring. I will sell my remaining stash (except my three DS's!!!) and call it a day. ***

 

Will be a pain moving these big boxes when I change house later this year. Yuck!

How much does plastic do on the scrapyard these days?

 

 

Edited August 16, 2016 by Ciglione

[fossilrock]

Just now, Ciglione said:

 

I am still stubbernly waiting for the (leaked) pictures. However, trusting all the stories and rumours are true. And usually they are.

 

*** Hereby I will throw the towell in the ring. I will sell my remaining stash (except my three DS's!!!) and call it a day. ***

 

Will be a pain moving these big boxes when I change house later this year. Yuck!

How much does plastic on the scrapyard these days?

 

 

Maybe lego will start up a buy-back program, where they will buyback still sealed sets, and bagged parts for 1.00 per pound.  That way within a few months, they'll have enough parts through the buy-back program to where they can close factories. It's sort of a win-win for them.  All these years they didn't have to pay for warehouse costs, since they had resellers doing that for them for free!

[Ciglione]

1 minute ago, fossilrock said:

Maybe lego will start up a buy-back program, where they will buyback still sealed sets, and bagged parts for 1.00 per pound.  That way within a few months, they'll have enough parts through the buy-back program to where they can close factories. It's sort of a win-win for them.  All these years they didn't have to pay for warehouse costs, since they had resellers doing that for them for free!

Yeah... they can use the parts of the DS. Just put it in the new box.

[KShine]

Some are trying to be optimistic and sugarcoat things, but there are good events, and bad events.

This event is significantly bad (for reasons well beyond the DS), and it has the potential to leave a permanent effect on LEGO investing.

[Ciglione]

1 minute ago, KShine said:

Some are trying to be optimistic and sugarcoat things, but there are good events, and bad events.

This event is significantly bad (for reasons well beyond the DS), and it has the potential to leave a permanent effect on LEGO investing.

Let's be honoust and realistic here. There is no reason for being optimistic. DS was a high-profile set. The WTS-remake was bad. But it was not important as such. DS was iconic. This event will also have a significant impact on other high-profile sets like Town Hall. 

[Bold-Arrow]

1 minute ago, Ciglione said:

Let's be honoust and realistic here. There is no reason for being optimistic. DS was a high-profile set. The WTS-remake was bad. But it was not important as such. DS was iconic. This event will also have a significant impact on other high-profile sets like Town Hall. 

why TH?

[fossilrock]

13 minutes ago, Ciglione said:

Yeah... they can use the parts of the DS. Just put it in the new box.

This is just a stupid move on Lego's behalf.  I don't even have enough stock of DS's to where this is going to effect me.  I have 2 - both bought at enough of a discount where this isn't going to kill me.  I can just give one to my son for christmas and call it good.  

What does irk me about this is how much of an uninspiring move this is.  As I read through these threads, I thought to myself, "Yeah a lego death star that looks complete from the outside, but you open it in half and it's a playset sounds FREAKING AWESOME and such an upgrade over the old one.  That will be worth it!". 

But nope, we aren't getting anything better.  Nothing improved.  Nothing new.  It's just a boring redo.  It's a reset.

This also makes me realize one other thing.  Why would I ever pay 2x or 3x on ANY set!  Definitely not anything in the creator line, because there is a chance they will come back.  The UCS line is the same deal.  New x-wing, new snowspeeder on the way.  I'm sure there will be a new imperials star desrtoyer, millennium falcon, etc.  

I don't have green grocer, and there's days where i seriously consider pulling the trigger on buying one.  Especially during days i'll wake up and find I sold three of my sets that I had in stock and made 3x profit on it, so I think to myself if I just shuffle it around and use the profit on the set, it will almost be like buying it for a touch more than RRP, and in the end it's a wash when I factor in my profit and subtract what I paid for retail.  But, why bother ?  Why waste the money, why blow my current profits...because there's a chance if I wait it out, they'll bring it back and i'll be able to get one at of course 199.99, since lego will continue to serve up the same thing, but just jack up the price every year..  

So, in the end.. lazy, boring, uninspired rehashes like this does have much further implications.  It affects the reseller market, and it also affects my opinion on lego as a collectible.  There's only so many times where they can serve up the same dish where you start getting bored from it.  And i'm not alone in those thoughts.  

Edited August 16, 2016 by fossilrock

[trekgate502]

3 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

why TH?

 

 

Why not ? lol

I had 20 ds and took it down to 10 a month ago

I will keep them and use them as a fort

[Ciglione]

4 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

why TH?

Cause people will start to think it will be replicated in the future as well.

 

[biking_tiger]

What's old is new again. Let's party!

[scrappyJedi]

That is a SWEET MOC!

[Anomander]

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

 

 

[biking_tiger]

The best part? It's from this blog post dated 2006... two years before the 10188. These guys are still blogging, from what I can tell. 

http://jjpandemonium.blogspot.com/2006/02/its-death-star-party-who-could-ask-for_16.html

[jstodda]

3 hours ago, Bold-Arrow said:

Hide 

LMAO... more like READ.... 

[jstodda]

48 minutes ago, biking_tiger said:

The best part? It's from this blog post dated 2006... two years before the 10188. These guys are still blogging, from what I can tell. 

http://jjpandemonium.blogspot.com/2006/02/its-death-star-party-who-could-ask-for_16.html

I've enjoyed going back on forums before the remake of the remake of older sets to see what people say (Example Sandcrawler and Slave 1 remake). I see all the folks crying about how its going to destroy profit and trend. I personally encourage remakes. They don't always get it right but then there is brilliance (Slave 1) that has the appearance of its former self in such a better way. How will we ever get a "better" something without a remake. DS is 8 years old, you would think an update of ANY kind is past due and it will ALWAYS be around.

As AFOL and investors we are wanting shiny and new, and sometimes that's a good thing, but most often than not (especially with Star Wars) new content is hard to come by and doesn't have the iconic pull it once did. Remakes are the way to make "old" content fun and attractive to the "new" crowd who is younger...

Hell if you are really a fan of lego whether old or young, we should be excited for playsets. Boring YES. Reduce the luster of our current fleet YES. But it puts LEGO and STAR WARS in the hands of younger fans who will grow up and like us, Complain that there is no 10,000 piece Falcon for $499 available this year......

[scrappyJedi]

And don't forget that there are some AFOLs who (cough, cough) like playsets.

[terrymc4677]

5 hours ago, Val-E said:

Time for Emazers to step in and steady the ship?

He's too busy returning all of his 10188's right now. 

[JeffProbst]

Every day there are children across the globe having a LEGO set put into their hands for the first time. It stands to reason that LEGO will want the biggest Star Wars play set available to as many kids as possible, just like the Police and Fire station sets which are refreshed every few years.

This is just the rare case where nerds, AFOLs and speculators also have a vested interest because it's Star Wars and huge.

 

 

 

 

[Deadfraggle]

19 minutes ago, jstodda said:

I've enjoyed going back on forums before the remake of the remake of older sets to see what people say (Example Sandcrawler and Slave 1 remake). I see all the folks crying about how its going to destroy profit and trend. I personally encourage remakes. They don't always get it right but then there is brilliance (Slave 1) that has the appearance of its former self in such a better way. How will we ever get a "better" something without a remake. DS is 8 years old, you would think an update of ANY kind is past due and it will ALWAYS be around.

As AFOL and investors we are wanting shiny and new, and sometimes that's a good thing, but most often than not (especially with Star Wars) new content is hard to come by and doesn't have the iconic pull it once did. Remakes are the way to make "old" content fun and attractive to the "new" crowd who is younger...

Hell if you are really a fan of lego whether old or young, we should be excited for playsets. Boring YES. Reduce the luster of our current fleet YES. But it puts LEGO and STAR WARS in the hands of younger fans who will grow up and like us, Complain that there is no 10,000 piece Falcon for $499 available this year......

 

10 minutes ago, JeffProbst said:

Every day there are children across the globe having a LEGO set put into their hands for the first time. It stands to reason that LEGO will want the biggest Star Wars play set available to as many kids as possible, just like the Police and Fire station sets which are refreshed every few years.

This is just the rare case where nerds, AFOLs and speculators also have a vested interest because it's Star Wars and huge.

 

 

 

 

Honestly, most everyone here expected a remake. Remakes generally go over with only small gripes and complaints. If early reports hold true though, this is essentially 10188 with minor changes. No one liked it when they released the 2nd Winter Toy Shop with no changes, and this is potentially the same situation. It's all well and good to release another DS, even another DS playset, but at least make it different enough that I'm excited to go buy the new copy. They at least attempt to make each fire and police station look a bit different and fresh.

[zskid00]

He's too busy returning all of his 10188's right now. 

Emazers will do just fine. I think he bought a bunch of his stock for 25-35% off at Barnes and Noble. Not to mention all of those TRU BOGO half off deals back in the day.

[fossilrock]

29 minutes ago, Deadfraggle said:

 

Honestly, most everyone here expected a remake. Remakes generally go over with only small gripes and complaints. If early reports hold true though, this is essentially 10188 with minor changes. No one liked it when they released the 2nd Winter Toy Shop with no changes, and this is potentially the same situation. It's all well and good to release another DS, even another DS playset, but at least make it different enough that I'm excited to go buy the new copy. They at least attempt to make each fire and police station look a bit different and fresh.

Exactly.  Like I stated earlier.  It's one thing if this was such a step ahead of the original.  Some were saying this was going to be a fully realized sphere that looked just like the Death Star, and you would open it up and it wold have various compartments that were scenes from the movie.  That would have been awesome. 

A re-release that's basically the same set with just regurgitated figures that are also just updated... well that is almost unacceptable.   But it's becoming too prevalent in the Star Wars theme. 

I'm going to give you another example, and it's the fact they released two Poe Dameron x-wings this year.   Why?  If these same fleet of xwings appear later on in Ep8, or Ep9, why not wait until then to release the blue version?  They released a microfighter of the blue version with a mini of Snap Wexley... Couldn't they have just kept with Poe's Black one this year?  They basically created the same exact set a few months earlier, but just put in 2 exclusive minifigures.  If you want those minis, you have to buy the entire xwing (which is the same design just with differenet colors) all over again.  Another example this year was the Homing Spider Droid - only a change in pins and minis seperate two sets put out a year and a half apart. 

 I'm a collector of lego star wars, but that's starting to hit a point where i'm not going to just buy re-releases just to get new minis when the sets are so close to each other.  Minus what we know for the rogue one sets, next year's lines are looking unexpiring, as well.  Another jedi interceptor but instead of Anakin, and Obi- we get Yoda.  Another phantom, which was just released a year and a half ago - but I guarantee the only difference will be if you want Thrawn, you got to buy the entire set!  This is where this BS is going.  At that point, just put out a collectible line of minifigures and just produce less sets, and make them more spectacular.

If Episode 8's sets just regurgitate half of the Force Awakens sets with just a box change and a few minifigures updates related to the current movie, I really would at that point just stop collecting complete themes. But, I wouldn't doubt 3 or 4 of those sets could get regurgitated, and I almost guarantee that will happen with the Millennium Falcon for the Han Solo film.  

No point in being a completist at that point, and even though the minifigures are a key driving force behind getting sets, they shouldn't be the only reason. If Lego ups the game, and each set was a substantial evolution from a previous set that is one thing.  The Sandcrawler you listed, was a case in point.  The Slave 1 was another.   More than likely the UCS Snowspeeder will also be a step ahead of the previous one.  But, anymore that's not the norm, it seems.  The rehashes are becoming too quick in the release cycle, and almost always they are uninspiring and a simple re-release with just new box art, a couple change in pieces, and a couple new minifigures to try and get one to bite.

Edited August 16, 2016 by fossilrock