Star Wars Advent Calendar - Day 12
Posted by CapnRex101,
I think this Star Wars Advent Calendar reached another remarkable peak with the exceptional Millennium Falcon yesterday. My expectations have therefore risen for today!
Let's see whether this item proves impressive...
Of the five sets which include minifigure-scale porgs, three have been created by Hans Burkhard Schlömer! This variant is unique, featuring a white 1x1 brick with studs on four sides at its centre which contrasts with the normal dark bluish grey element. Either colour works perfectly and I am pleased that some dark bluish grey plumage remains intact around the sides and back.
The printed head also looks excellent when compared with the onscreen animals and I love the orange 1x1 round plate which forms the feet. These delightful creatures are gradually becoming more widely available so their appeal is perhaps waning, although they appear in great numbers during the Sequel Trilogy and expanding the flock is therefore welcome.
Overall - 4.0 - Porgs are becoming increasingly common but they look splendid and I am pleased to receive another today.
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23 comments on this article
Although I have the holiday version from the 2019 calendar, this is my first 'regular' porg - a welcome addition for me. :)
People will be either really happy with today’s build or really unhappy.
I can hear Chewie building a campfire as we speak
Porgs... I know I've seen them before, but I can't place them.
They just feel like part of some horrible past traumatic event. A cinematic war crime.
I got 2 porgs. Did everybody get 2 porgs?
Porgs where in like one movie.
Why does every other sequel trilogy set have one it it?
In other words, Porgs are overrated.
@beanjo68 said:
"Porgs where in like one movie.
Why does every other sequel trilogy set have one it it?"
They were in 2 films and as the article says they've only been in 5 sets in the last 3 years
D-O must have stolen his Santa hat from last year.
Awesome, love to expand my pork atmy!
I got one porg and enough spare parts for half of a second porg.
Was anyone else really sad during the animated Holiday Special when the porgs ran by and they were porg-shaped instead of brick-built? I'm sure the TLJ sets were designed so quickly that they couldn't work a porg piece in time, but it's been 3 years now?
I’m very pleased with this porg. Only my second one after last year’s advent calendar. Still adorable and a like this slight color change.
“Was anyone else really sad during the animated Holiday Special when the porgs ran by and they were porg-shaped instead of brick-built? I'm sure the TLJ sets were designed so quickly that they couldn't work a porg piece in time, but it's been 3 years now?“
I think the porgs look *great* in brick-built form, and specialized porg molds would be less interesting to me. When it comes to minifig scale, Lego has never been about perfection and realism.
@WemWem:
Yup, one of those two options.
@ResIpsaLoquitur:
Chewie got a little hungry...
Still no prequels. What a shame.
Lego's never been about perfection, but the explosion of independent-mold animals over the last decade, getting us past the limits of a horse and bird, have been amazing. I'm thinking of the difference between the old brick-built penguins and the ones that finally came in the Lego Batman Movie line.
The BB porg looks fine for an older generation, but man, I would love to see a molded one.
Still waiting on the porg battlepack
@ResIpsaLoquitur:
That penguin actually came out a year earlier with the S16 Wildlife Photographer. The CMF theme is the source of a lot of new animals over the years:
S5 gave us a chimpanzee.
S6 gave us a plush bear.
S10 gave us a chihuahua.
S11 gave us a cat.
S13 gave us a cobra.
S15 gave us a skunk.
S16 gave us a terrier and a penguin.
S17 gave us a rabbit and a french bulldog.
S18 gave us a mouse.
S19 gave us the flamingo, a chameleon, a dachsund, and a rubber duck.
S20 gave us a plush rabbit and a sea turtle.
TLBM1 gave us a lobster.
TLM2 gave us a cat with a mohawk.
HP1 gave us a niffler, Scabbers, and Nagini.
HP2 gave us the best version of Fawkes.
Simpsons2 gave use Snowball II and Santa's Little Helper.
Disney1 gave us the small bird that was used as a bluebird in the Modular Police Station.
Unless I missed some, that's 26 different animals that were created for the CMF theme. A few of them are theme-locked, like the Simpsons' pets. Many of them have showed up outside of CMF sets, though.
Well, yes. Lego has a habit of getting dual use of out molds, and I'm guessing the penguin was created for Batman but then dropped into the CMF line first. (The same thing happened with Endor Leia's hair.)
Considering the Porgs "home" is close to where I live another one is always welcome!!
@Biff_Superman said:
"I got 2 porgs. Did everybody get 2 porgs?"
LOL My thoughts exactly - we should have got 2!
@ResIpsaLoquitur:
Well, S16 info started leaking in February 2016, for a September 1st release, even though it ended up stocked to shelves as early as July. The TLBM Batcave set didn't hit shelves until November 2016 (officially it was a January 2017 release, but end-of-year shortages resulted in it being one of a handful of TLBM sets that were pushed forward for the holiday shopping season). CMF gets a lot of unusual leeway in creating new molds, precisely because they would have a difficult time creating a solid range of new and interesting minifigs without them.
On the other hand, TLBM also got to create a lot of new molds (three of them for Penguin alone!), for a very similar reason. With a major motion picture release being directly tied to the theme, WB actually had a lot of influence over the design of the sets and minifigs, and it is entirely possible they would have objected to the idea of using brick-built penguins.
And they do periodically create new parts for one theme only to see them debut in unrelated themes. One of the more interesting instances I know about is that the original Toa sets didn't hit stores until mid-2001, but the Toa torso first appeared half a year earlier in the Technic Stormtrooper set, as the core of the torso. Another one is the pair of hats from the Steamboat Willie set. Because that was an Ideas set under the old rules, they couldn't create new molds at all. But CMF can, and they had also planned to salute the first appearance of Mickey Mouse by including the same two characters in their second Disney CMF wave. The only problem is that they weren't likely to give permission to reuse one of their own characters, especially not if the set was going to be on shelves at the same time (in this case, the Ideas set released before the CMF wave). Their solution was to add the silver deco, so the minifigs would be distinct.
We got two dark gray ones in the UCS Falcon
We got a dark gray/white one in Anch-to island training (Excuse me if that's spelled wrong)
We got a santa one with a new face print in last year's calendar
And finally, a white one with the new face print in this year's calendar
Consistency please?
I think the grey centre looks better, but I do like him.