9516 - Jabba's Palace

[Darth Lego]

I think this quote is the only thing on this site that has ever made me laugh.

I laughed at this one too. (: Haha.

[sadowsk1]

As a displaced Alderaanian refugee, I find the 10188 Death Star to be in extremely poor taste. I've sent a letter to Lego asking them to pull this set from the shelves by the end of the year.

They have not written back.

Thumbs up to that.

I think Lego may have created a memorial for you in the series four planet sets.

[srm_520]

http://austrianindependent.com/news/General_News/2013-03-31/13575/Lego_backs_down_over_Jabba_Palace_

The Turkish Cultural Association of Austria claims that Lego will discontinue this set "from 2014" due to complaints that it is culturally offensive.

It isn't clear from the article whether this decision will affect Austria only or if the set will cease to be available worldwide. Nor is it clear that "from 2014" means a January EOL.

I can't say I'm pleased that Lego is yielding to this sort of unfair criticism, but the silver lining is that 9516 may NOT become another "Live Star."

My apologies on my ignorance, but what is Live Star?

[stephen_rockefeller]

lol thats what we have named the 10188 set here because it wont die...it has been available for 5 years now.

[JoshTX]

That article is so horribly written, it is almost hard to believe it isn't some kind of April fools joke.

[Talon]

Sorry for the late comment but I just noticed this article and it is beyond ridiculous. I do have a little knowledge of the Hagia Sophia. 'Turkish cultural leaders had claimed that Jabba's palace had been modelled closely on a real life Muslim Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul.' Just to provide some context the Hagia Sophia was an Orthodox Patriarchal Basilica (Christian!) for over a thousand years and later a mosque for almost 500 years. In 1935 it was transformed into a museum and religious worship prohibited. It is not a mosque and hasn't been one for 78 years! Its original and longest use was not as a mosque! Seems like mosques are modeled after Christian buildings? Really the Eastern Orthodox Church (Christian) should be upset if it was modeled after the Hagia Sophia. And these are Turkish cultural leaders in Austria? Austria has about 8.5 million people and about 2.3% speak Turkish or maybe 200,000. From the article it seems like a couple of community leaders had a problem with this set. 'They said Asian and oriental figures included in the set had been portrayed as "deceitful" and criminal" characters like slave masters, gun runners and terrorists.' I see no Asian or Oriental figures in this set (Jabba, Salacious Crumb, Bib Fortuna, Gamorrean Guard, Oola, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca and B'omarr Monk), someone correct me if I'm wrong? And, yes bad guys do bad things like have slaves, run guns and are terrorists. I am just aghast at what people can get away with complaining about, I thought this going to extremes was part of American culture, but it seems to be everywhere! Of course, ending the set in 2014 is not much of a victory at all. It will be interesting to see if Jabba's Palace EVER gets a remake. If it doesn't that might be a victory for them and for investors! lol

[chihuahualawyer]

Ridiculous! LOL.

[gregpj]

The Daily Mail in the UK appears to have the inside track on a Lego set going EOL:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2302312/Muslims-declare-victory-fight-anti-Islamic-lego-Denmark-promises-axe-Jabba-s-Palace-toy.html

Hurry, hurry! You only have just under 2 years to pick one up!

Although I think I like Brickset's headline best:

http://www.brickset.com/news/article/?ID=6146

Maybe they can look into the Death Star and SSD for us?

[kerrmando]

I'm going to figure out a way to make the Death Star Racist and Sexist.... then we will be able to actually make some money on the ones in our closets >_

[srm_520]

lol thats what we have named the 10188 set here because it wont die...it has been available for 5 years now.

Ahh.... thank you.

[jaisonline]

at least we sorta now have a retail lifespan duration (18-24 months on store shelves). this should be a winner. BTW, here is an article with comparison pics. http://rt.com/news/jabba-lego-anti-islamic-138/

[pickleboy]

My guess is it had less to do with complaints from these organizations to the company but more to do with this... While I doubt the queen and Pm discussed it, they have large delegations that discuss all sorts of issues between companies. My guess is someone from Turkish govt said something to someone in the Danish govt and it was passed along to LEGO who decided to take one for the greater good of Denmark (See what they did there General Electric?) Just a guess but I doubt this is coincidence... http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=383429 http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=383466

[Ed Mack]

LEGO is just mocking them by saying they are going to stop making the set in 2014, that is when they would stop

making the set anyway. It they were really giving in to them they would have ceased production immediately. That would have been hilarious watching everyone here try to scoop one up if they stopped producing it.

Bingo.

[Huskers1236]

I got a good laugh from all the comments saying that Lego backed down and such. We know who got the last laugh. Sales of the set will go up because of the controversy and Lego will look good by saying they did the right thing by pulling it off the shelves when in reality, it was coming off the shelves at that date anyway. It does give us a good reference of how much time we have to pick them up though.

[agp548]

As a displaced Alderaanian refugee, I find the 10188 Death Star to be in extremely poor taste. I've sent a letter to Lego asking them to pull this set from the shelves by the end of the year.

They have not written back.

We should all write letters to lego claiming that the Death Star is offensive and traumatizing because it has the word death in it and we demand for them to stop production immediately.

[JoshTX]

I don't know if anyone noticed, but this set is suddenly a "#1 Bestseller" on Amazon and is sold out except for third party sellers, and the 87.99 Jabba's palace is sold out on Target.com also. It looks like some Non-Lego collectors probably paid attention to that article and swooped in to grab these sets hoping to make a few bucks.

[jaisonline]

I wonder if another sensitive group / country will accuse Lego of something with regards to the Rancor set.

Anyway...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/9965665/Lego-denies-discontinuing-Jabbas-Palace-over-race-claims.html

But Lego said the demise of "Jabba's Palace" had nothing to do with the racism claims and meetings with Turks, and all to do with the natural lifecycle of the product.

Katharina Sasse, a public relations manager working on behalf of Lego, told The Daily Telegraph that the Palace or product number 9516 in Lego-speak was due to be phased out at the end of 2013.

[jaisonline]

http://www.brickpicker.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/3052/P34/

[legopocalypse]

I don't know if anyone noticed, but this set is suddenly a "#1 Bestseller" on Amazon and is sold out except for third party sellers, and the 87.99 Jabba's palace is sold out on Target.com also. It looks like some Non-Lego collectors probably paid attention to that article and swooped in to grab these sets hoping to make a few bucks.

Do you think Amazon will restock it? or do you think Lego stopped other retailers from selling it?

It's still available on Lego.com but it is odd that as soon as that article appeared the other day Amazon, Target, etc. are sold out.

[hxckid88]

I don't think amazon is getting more just a hunch. Will be fun to see what happens with this. Almost seems that if lego repackaged item without darts maul on box it may curve some. Outcry. Btw this is ridiculous and sad and hilarious at same time.

[Polar_Beast]

Do you think Amazon will restock it? or do you think Lego stopped other retailers from selling it?

It's still available on Lego.com but it is odd that as soon as that article appeared the other day Amazon, Target, etc. are sold out.

I don't know, and I wasn't taking any chances... I have 3 copies of this set, but they are all opened and sans minifigures, and I definitely wanted at least 1 NIB for my collection. Buying into the hype, I went to my local Target store today and they were cool enough to price match the last two they had for the online price of $87.99 (even though they were marked full retail price on the shelf, a whopping $119.99)! After tax and my 5% off from the Red Card, they were just over $91 each. Not, let's hope they disappear off the shelves forever!

[TheOrcKing]

It's still available on Lego.com but it is odd that as soon as that article appeared the other day Amazon, Target, etc. are sold out.

Not quite odd, ever hear the phrase "Even bad publicity is good publicity"?

Remember the debacle around GTA: San Andreas? As if it wasn't selling out like mad already, that whole thing about the 'Hot Coffee' game caused a severe uproar and EVERYBODY was covering the story, which in turn made GTA: SA sell out even quicker if that was possible. There have been other instances throughout history where one persons complaint just made the very thing they were protesting against go over.

Plus, I think those people that went out and immediately bought up all of Jabba's palace believe it's going to be a real hot commodity!

I'm afraid to go and see all the eBay listings for it now.

[TheOrcKing]

You know, when I let myself have a chance to think about it and after reading the article from different sources, in truth there wasn't any kind of backing down by Lego at all. Not one bit. Lego responded to the claims with:

We regret that the product has caused the members of the Turkish cultural community to come to a wrong interpretation, but point out that when designing the product only the fictional content of the Star Wars saga were referred to.

Apparently that wasn't enough. So they had a meeting between Turkish community leaders and Lego executives and who really knows what was actually said there at all. For all we know Lego could have basically said "It's not racist and we're not pulling it from the shelves until it's time to retire. F*** you!". ....Basically.

Okay, I did find a couple of actual qoutes from a Lego spokesperson on a few of the sources.

We see no reason to take it off the market, we have simply followed the film.

Jabba's Palace 9516 was planned from beginning to only be in the assortment until the end of 2013.

But Birol Killic has to go and interpret it in his own way apparently.

We are very grateful and congratulate Lego on the decision to take Jabba

[Darth Lego]

Not quite odd, ever hear the phrase "Even bad publicity is good publicity"?

Remember the debacle around GTA: San Andreas? As if it wasn't selling out like mad already, that whole thing about the 'Hot Coffee' game caused a severe uproar and EVERYBODY was covering the story, which in turn made GTA: SA sell out even quicker if that was possible. There have been other instances throughout history where one persons complaint just made the very thing they were protesting against go over.

Plus, I think those people that went out and immediately bought up all of Jabba's palace believe it's going to be a real hot commodity!

I'm afraid to go and see all the eBay listings for it now.

Some people are claiming it is out of production and it is now rare. Most of the prices now are around $135 to $160 dollars for a new and sealed set. (TRU has a price cut from $149.99 to $119.99 dollars so it is actually one of the cheapest new Jabba's Palace on eBay.) I wonder how long these inflated prices will stay before they go back to retail? (If ever.)

[JoshTX]

My girlfriend picked this story out of the headlines as she was reading the news yesterday and informed me of it, believing that I hadn't already known. I told her I needed to "hurry up and go buy one then" as a result of what's going on. Funny thing is she doesn't know I actually already had 1 hidden and sealed away. But since I was planning on building that one, maybe I should get another.