My thoughts on the LEGO UCS Star Destroyer 75252

Today marked the public release of the second LEGO Ultimate Collector Series Imperial Star Destroyer, the hollow, but beautiful 4,784 piece behemoth.  If you have any interest in it whatsoever, you've surely already been soaked in news announcements and "analyses" in addition to full-fledged (and fully positive) reviews since LEGO shipped pallets of them out for free to generate praise.  As much as I used to wish I had the original mega-model from 2002, I won't be buying the new one.  At $700 USD, it costs too much and more importantly, at over 2 feet wide and 3.5 feet long, it's too dang big.  I do rather like it, though...

LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series Y-Wing Starship build & review videos

This second "Ultimate" version of the Y-Wing does not have the sort of across-the-room visual punch of some of the other entries in the series, even completely ignoring the record-holding Falcon.  However, if you actually build this model, or just spend some quality time up close, it's easy to objectively understand & justify the price tag.  The question is whether that's enough, though; less tangible & calculable factors are still at play.

Videos:

• LEGO Star Wars UCS Y-Wing Starship set review! 75181
• Time-Lapse BUILD: LEGO Star Wars UCS Y-Wing Starfighter 75181

LEGO Star Wars Han Solo Landspeeder de-aged Mod

I had planned to make a (mostly) symmetrical "original" version of Han Solo's M68 (Ford Falcon reference) Landspeeder, but then I started looking at more realistic toys as well as official renders and one of the full-scale movie props.  As explained in this video, I realized this vehicle was likely never intended to have been symmetrical in its factory-stock form.  So, I built upon what the evidence suggested.

• Video - LEGO Star Wars Han Solo Landspeeder MOD: Original appearance?

Two more new LEGO Star Wars sets reviewed

The end of another medium-sized release wave draws to a close for me with the coverage of the last wave 1 Solo movie set plus a nice small ESB Dagobah build.

Videos: 

• LEGO Star Wars Moloch's Landspeeder reviewed! 75210
• LEGO Star Wars Yoda's Hut (2018) review! 75208

Jurassic World sets will be covered once they're officially supposed to be released.  Stores in my area are all honoring the embargo dates.

LEGO Star Wars Kessel Run Millennium Falcon review! 75212

Here's the flagship set for the Solo: A Star Wars Story movie, based around the modified-to-sell-fresh-merch Falcon of 40+ year fame.  As a LEGO model, it's sensibly an evolutionary iteration on the most recent designs.  It does a few things better than the last, but also a few worse.

• Video: LEGO Star Wars Kessel Run Millennium Falcon review! 75212

New LEGO Star Wars Jedi & Clone Trooper and Solo Movie Imperial Patrol Battle Packs

Two more small sets with long names!  One of these seems to prove that no matter what LEGO does, they just can't win in the court of Internet (TFOL/AFOL) opinion.

Videos:

• LEGO Star Wars Imperial Patrol Battle Pack review! 75207 (Solo movie)
• LEGO Star Wars Jedi & Clone Troopers Battle Pack review! 75206

LEGO Star Wars Solo movie Imperial TIE Fighter & Han's Landspeeder reviews

I bought my first few Solo movie sets and, as a special message to LEGO Brand/IP Protection via the company MarkMonitor which falsely and illegally threatened me the last time I reviewed Star Wars sets quickly after they hit the market (resulting in the need for a public apology from The LEGO Group itself), I am reviewing these sets as a consumer who purchased the products and is using 100% of his/her own exclusively owned & produced images & video footage, as protected under Title 17 US Code section 107 and by the First Amendment.

Videos: 

• LEGO Star Wars (Solo) Imperial TIE Fighter review! 75211
• LEGO Star Wars Han Solo's Landspeeder review! 75209

Star Wars The Last Jedi set collection summaries

With the second wave of TLJ sets in the books, I've gone back to take a look at the entire lot together, first checking out the (brick-based) builds, then the series of minifigs that so far number far less than we got for TFA.

Videos:

• All LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi sets: A Retrospective [SPOILERS!]
• All LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi minifigs: 2017 summary [SPOILERS!]

LEGO Star Wars BrickHeadz Finn & Capt. Phasma review

Yep I got a couple more of these little things and I'm not particularly proud of it.  I felt like they had limited potential early on, and the situation hasn't particularly improved with time.  They're not bad, I just think they're not particularly great.

• Video: LEGO Star Wars BrickHeadz Finn & Capt. Phasma review

Ultimate LEGO Star Wars book by DK

In an uncharacteristic move, I bought a LEGO-related book with no bundled physical LEGO parts, but oh, was it worth it.

• Video: Ultimate LEGO Star Wars book by DK!

The best thing that could have happened to me today?

If you haven't heard by now, today was the launch of the biggest & biggest-deal LEGO set of all time, the second UCS Millennium Falcon.  It was also another frustrating day for countless fans who experienced outages & errors on Shop at Home (as on every. single. major release day) and ludicrous shortages at brick & mortar locations.  I encountered exceptionally bad traffic on my way to my nearest LEGO Store this morning, arriving 1.5 hours after I departed, just in time to see one of the $800 sets rolling out to the parking lot with its new owner (who had staked out the store since a little after 5am).  Before it, I would soon learn, had departed only two others.   To reinforce the arithmetic, I've just accounted for a total of three UCS Millennium Falcons leaving this site.

Three.  Also known as "a few."  That is the total number of sellable copies of the single largest & most-anticipated toy that were available at this brand storefront of the largest toy brand in the entire world.  You might think I have a run-down, forsaken LEGO brand store in a particularly poor retail location.  However, in the parking lot right outside was a Maserati, a Bentley, and more Teslas, Benzes & Bimmers than I cared to count.  Also, from what I've since heard, there were other LEGO stores that received the identical allocation of "a few."  The largest numbers I've heard of so far were in the mid-teens.

Nearly three hours after I left my house, I had returned, disappointed, but pondering whether to venture back out the following day per the store manager's suggestion that additional stock might arrive overnight.  Once again I considered the long drive and how early I'd need to embark.  I mapped out an updated best-case schedule in my mind with at least 4 hours of near-zero productivity just to buy the thing and put up a quick "look I got it, I'm going to build it, it's as big as you know it is, please be patient" video.  Then would come an estimated 2 days for building, publishing the time-lapse build, and prepping the studio for the review.  A proper review would take at least another full day to create.

After all of the dust settled, I would then need to figure out what to do with the completed monstrosity.  I have no place to display it.  I have no interest in re-arranging any major part of my house to create a space to display it.  I personally have little interest in owning this thing. Meanwhile, sponsored media outlets received the product a week ago and some have already completed their builds.  What am I doing?!  This is madness!  I'm pressuring myself to spend nearly $900 USD (tax is a thing) on one single LEGO set, that I don't personally want, to then spend a further 3-4 days building & filming it (with no time for anything else), to publish a review video that will provide little to no value to potential buyers (who've already bought it or at least tried), and be left with a huge burden of an object I don't know what to do with.

No!

I'm confident it would be a huge waste to proceed, probably the dumbest decision I'd have made with respect to any hobby ever, and certainly a bad choice for you viewers.  The amount of original content I can create with that outrageous sum of money and/or that shocking number of hours makes the option of toiling to publish one of 30 or 40 UCS Falcon YouTube reviews (all showing the exact same things) seem... inadvisable.

Of course not everyone will agree, but my decision is not up for debate.  I will not be returning to the LEGO store tomorrow.  Will I ever buy the mega-Falcon?  I won't rule it out 100%, but I'm looking forward to doing a lot of better things with my money & time before I even begin to consider it again.

Talk about a blessing in disguise.

LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi & TFA minifigs so far!

A quick look at the sequel trilogy minifigs & droids that have accumulated up to this point, as well as a comparison between the TFA & TLJ collections as things currently stand.  Expect a lot more to come for the latter, and not much more for the former.

• Video: LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi & TFA minifigs so far!

LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi full wave mini-review

With the legal threat expired and LEGO having apologized, I'm able to get back to normal content, including stuff related to The Last Jedi.  For Force Friday II I've tried something new, with a single video not only bringing all of the sets together on-screen at once, but re-reviewing them rapid-fire style.  For folks who haven't seen my long-form reviews and who don't want to spend the time, this allows me to still provide a decent in-person overview of features along with my thoughts.

• Video: LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi full wave mini-review!

Want to buy any of these and also help support the channel? You can use my Amazon affiliate link to the most recent LEGO Star Wars sets (or browse/search for anything after clicking). Everything will be the standard price for you (when in stock), but I may get a very small commission.  Completely optional though and please don't buy anything you don't want :)

Why I took down my Star Wars The Last Jedi reviews (for a bit)

Update: On Aug. 31 LEGO posted an apology as comment on YouTube and explained that the takedown notice was a mistake.


Earlier this past day I abruptly took all of my LEGO SW:TLJ reviews offline in response to an email from "The LEGO Group Brand Protection" demanding the same.  This email carefully listed each relevant post on this blog and each YouTube video individually and closed with a very clear threat:

"Further legal action may be pursued if this situation cannot be resolved."

After meticulously evaluating every word of the nearly screen-sized message and investigating its source, I chose to comply first, question later, and question later I did with a reply (to which no follow-up response has been received as of this writing, though in fairness it hasn't been very long).  Within less than one minute of taking my videos down, though, there were fan questions as well as theories about the disappearances being posted on multiple videos.  Obviously I needed to make an explanation to viewers, and fast, so I put together a brief, but very carefully crafted, text-only message on my channel:

• Video - Threatened by LEGO legal team: Star Wars TLJ reviews offline

As noted there, I do not believe LEGO is the original source of this threat, though they delivered it fully under their banner (via an agency they employ).  As noted there, I am confident this threat is erroneous and unfounded and that I have committed absolutely no wrongdoing in the matter.

I will not lose any sleep over this.  I will not be calling for a boycott of LEGO or Disney over this.  I will not make a video of me smashing LEGO Star Wars sets with a sledgehammer over this.  I will not stop reviewing LEGO sets or building my LEGO city over this.  Heck, I have not lost any of my passion and love for LEGO products over this.  

Believe it or not, I have not even lost any of my feeling that LEGO is one of the most very most ethical of the money-minting big corporations in the world.  One mistake, how ever aggravating, does not change everything for me just because I was wronged personally.  There's a much bigger picture in life in general, and over-reaction based upon personal emotion is nearly always 100% detrimental and non-constructive.

Star Wars The Last Jedi products from LEGO and other companies have been appearing on shelves with no checkout restriction at ever more major chain stores across the United States over the past couple of weeks, coast to coast, and are now in the UK & Australia* as well (and even official LEGOLAND stores!!!?!!).  In just two short days, these things will be released at even more locations, at which point this whole ordeal will become fully moot and I will bring my videos back from the dead.

* As of Aug. 30 evening, user "Black-Key Productions" on YouTube reports that Myers in Australia has pulled TLJ sets from shelves and Melbourne's LEGOLAND Discovery Center has none out.  It's good to hear that some attention is being pointed in the correct direction, towards the actual problem.  I hope the significant social media buzz about the issue following by my decision to comply with the demands rather than quietly defy them will help reduce the mess of the next big release.

LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi Kylo Ren's TIE Fighter review! 75179

Introducing: Darth Ball.  Oh, and his ridiculously sleek & evil TIE Interceptor mk. II, a.k.a. the Silencer.

• Video: LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi Kylo Ren's TIE Fighter review! 75179

LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi Resistance Bomber review! 75188

The Resistance is winning my heart with their first entries in the LEGO lineup!

• Video: LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi Resistance Bomber review! 75188

LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi Resistance Transport Pod review 75176

Here's one of the littler sets of the first wave of TLJ releases, and I think it may be one of the better.

• Video: LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi Resistance Transport Pod review! 75176

LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi First Order Heavy Scout Walker review! 75177

Funky!  What a bizarre design to bring to the Empire.  Er, I mean First Order.  I would expect this Jansen walker-inspired form of locomotion to be associated with a non-human fighting force.  It just looks all sorts of weird to me.

• Video: LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi First Order Heavy Scout Walker review! 75177

LEGO Star Wars BB-8 large scale model review! 75187

This isn't overtly branded "Ultimate Collector Series," but it's essentially a UCS BB-8, scaled similar to the previous large R2-D2 build.  It's not particularly large in person, but the features are pretty sweet.

• Video: LEGO Star Wars BB-8 large scale model review! 75187

LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi First Order Heavy Assault Walker review 75189

Hot on the heels of the official revelation of the AT-M6 walker, here's my first Episode VIII set review.

• Video: LEGO Star Wars The Last Jedi First Order Heavy Assault Walker review! 75189