I really like the figure selection with the throne, so I'll be picking that up. Thanks for the pics!

$60 for the N-1? Yikes!

Though if I am to critique the design: I already wasn't a fan of how unarmored the N-1 in the show was, but I thought it was still cool. This looks even less armored, though mostly still acceptable. The one part that I have an issue with: WHAT IS WITH THAT TAIL?!? Sure, there is that unarmored portion of the tail on the show's N-1, but at least it keeps narrowing down! This set narrows down the tail, then jumps back to massive proportions! Definitely gonna be seeing what I can do to make the tail thinner.

The box art shows Fennec Shand carrying her helmet so I'm hoping there's another Book of Boba Fett (hopefully more affordable) set that will include that. I thought 75315 was too uninspiring to shell out $160 just for the Minifigs of Shand, Moff Gideon, and a Dark Trooper.

40€ and 66€ (2/3 of the offical price aprox) respectively, will be the discount minimum to buy them. They are nice sets, but not spectacular sets, of course. Waiting for the upcoming new rancor set...;-)

@Zoniax said:
"Mando's N1 should have a LOT more shiny silver pieces...

And Peli Motto should've gotten a different hair mould.

And can we can an accurate Darksaber hilt/blade?!"

I'm not sure if there's any existing parts that would work for the Darksaber's hilt, but if they could find something (or make a new mold), that in conjunction with the black katana blade piece from Ninjago would work really well. At the very least they could use the black katana blade with the existing lightsaber hilt, because right now it doesn't look anything like the Darksaber.

@lynels said:
"Man, I'm starting to believe that 2022 is indeed the last year of the Star Wars theme. Only explanation for these ridiculous prices. Not to mention the few sets revealed so far, with most of them being helmets...

To think it used to be my favorite theme, but now it is one of the most disappointing. The reveal of the Horizon Forbidden West set was a lot better than this."

I hadn’t even seen the Horizon reveal yet, you are right that set looks so good compared to these

At this point I'd tolerate a Microfighter of the N-1.

Man, that Horizon set with 1400 pieces and a great price, looks sooooo much better than this. You need to be a hardcore SW to spend such money on this sets.

The 75325 is the first StarWars set I'm ready to buy since the Gungan Sub.

... Just need to wait for a 70% discount!

@kolaxanthe said:
"Haven't watched Boba Fett yet, but do you mind if I have a yellow N-1 Starfighter instead please :)"

If you watched the show you would know that wouldn't make any sense

Is fennec's hair a new mold? If so what a waste. It's awful for her and there are much better ones

I really like both sets, though I do agree I’d like them more with lower prices. Still, I might order one or both for May the Fourth.

Do we know for certain yet that Fennec Shand doesn’t have her helmet in 75326?

Regarding the sets, I dislike those prices. Ugly license fee. And the throne room set doesn’t appeal to me. Something about it I don’t like. But, that N-1 Starfighter is mighty fine. What a craft!

Those prices are pretty bad. Quite a stark contrast with the Tallneck set revealed earlier today.

these sets that come with major characters without their helmets annoy me. i'm thinking of fennec in the throne room set, but also multiple sabines and only 1 had her helmet. it can't be hard to just out them in every set. they're just creating an artificial scarcity.

Echoing the room, yeah for the sets, sigh for the prices.

@monkyby87 said:
" @Padmewan said:
"The Book of Boba Fett scene is the one where our hero walks into someone's home and shoots them dead in cold blood, right?

Great choice for a Lego set."
Considering every episode involves people being shot or killed in some fashion, let’s be adult and stop acting like they’ve offended people.
"

I disagree. I think this set goes one step further than most other Star Wars LEGO sets and, in my opinion, it's a step too far. This is a 9+ children's toy that specifically depicts a moment in which Boba Fett shoots an unarmed person in cold blood. The toy even has a play feature so his dead body topples over. I would not buy this for a child under any circumstances.

@ogel_chicago:
During the original HP run, they dropped down to a single Hogwarts Castle set for Year 5, skipped Year 6 and Year 7a completely, and when they came back for Year 7b, they still balked at it by making the final wave mostly tie in to earlier movies with I think a single Year 7 vignette. At the time, though, sets based on IP like Stranger Things and James Bone would have seemed impossible.

But look at the movies critically. I can think of a few scenes that might have warranted sets from 7a, but 7b sees more main characters die than the previous seven movies combined, and features several combat scenes that would be hard to render as more than just a minifig bulk pack on generic scenery. Even excluding discussion of the much darker tone of the film, I don’t know what really warrants a set from that film.

For SW, two key changes they made to retain PG ratings for Ep4:SE and Ep6:SE hint at one of the advantages it has over HP. They recut scenes in both the DS detention center and the Endor bunker to avoid showing Han’s blaster bolts hitting the chests of two Imperial officers because you could see their faces. Fully armored troopers and robots aren’t treated the same as obviously-human characters when receiving MPAA ratings, and alien species are probably lumped in with them as we still see Greedo and several of Jabba’s goons get shot on-screen without pushing into PG-13 territory. If a human had been sitting on the throne with a visible face, it might have been excluded.

The other thing at play is that HP and SW have different design teams. They both answer to a common corporate chain of command, but one team may have different ideas on how far they should push things before they’ve gone too far, as evidenced by the Osprey set only being cancelled after they’d shipped copies to outside retailers, or the cancellation of the dynamite hideout before it shipped. Both obviously got cleared by their lead designers, only to get quashed once people higher up the food chain learned about them.

Easy pass. Stopped collecting lego sets several years ago, with a few exceptions. Would only get modulars that is at most once per year. Don't even get all of them.

@ResIpsaLoquitur:
This version or something more like 75223?

@BulbaNerd4000:
Still canon from Ep1, and one of the more iconic PT vehicles. And a lot of people would still like to see a really accurate minifig version with the yellow livery, even if there’s no chrome.

@illennium:
As one individual, true, you have very little ability to influence change by either boycotting or supporting a given company. But masses of like-minded consumers do hold sway, for good or bad. What never has any influence is just throwing out all the stuff you’ve already bought. They got paid when you bought it, and short of flooding the market with used copies that siphon sales away from the manufacturer, getting rid of it isn’t going to really draw their notice.

Everything is going up in price. LEGO SW is always higher than it should be (IMO), but people still buy them so they keep doing what works. They are a business, they want to make money. Like everywhere else that raises their prices even amid large record breaking quarters. Typical corporate greed for part of it. The other part, the extra profit might allow them extra investment into the product and branch out into some other agreements, etc.

But the long and short comes down to money and LEGO being a high dollar toy.

the shape on the n1 is so bad it's embarrassing. no idea how lego got away with both making this set and pricing it at $60; you could easily get a more comprehensive model at $50 in the slave 1

palace looks terrible too although arguably better than the original, in that the details are at least slightly heightened. hilarious how many parts are squashed and juniorized to avoid comparison to the hagia sophia tho, and even better that every function doubles as a way to make boba fett a complete klutz. congrats to lego for making 2 sets roughly as bad as the show they're in

The Quarren head is literally the only interesting thing for me here. I'm hoping he'll be in this year's Advent calendar..

With every passing year, I'm more thankful for the Star Wars continuity reboot of 2014, making a lot of new sets automatically uninteresting to me. Here's to hoping Lego makes a LOTR comeback so I can continue to transform Orcs into Yuuzhan Vong.

@NatureBricks said:
"How many billions does LEGO need to make to stop price gauging the fans? $50 ship, $70-$80 for for the throne. The designers did an amazing job with these but the prices are insane."

I agree but at least it’s cheaper than the General Grievous Ship that was released a few years ago, with an RRP of £74.99!

I don’t know who they thought they were kidding when they priced that set.

I’ll probably pick this set up later in the year, when it’s half price. I don’t think the Boba Fett show was anywhere near as popular as The Mandalorian was (especially with kids). So this should fall in price quite quickly.

That N1 is a must buy for me…. however not at the price,
$100 in Australia.
With chrome painted pieces it would have taken that price from ridiculous to very expensive.
As with others will get this when the 20%+ discounts kick in late this year.

@BulbaNerd4000 said:
"Is fennec's hair a new mold? If so what a waste. It's awful for her and there are much better ones"

It's not new, it was used for Makkari in the Eternals sets.

is Lego setting whatever price they want or is the licensing fee playing a part. have a look at what fans of the Disney theme parks are currently complaining about.

I like both sets, but not at those prices. But I'm sure there's plenty of people willing to pay this or even more. While we're getting mad, Lego's getting rich. Hopefully, I can pick them up on discount.

Cool Set but......
$80.00 CDN OUCH !!!

@PurpleDave

Good points as always with a good dose of positivity and without the histrionics. It will be interesting to see what happens. So far, Lego has found a way to get me to obtain far more than I thought. I even bought that way over-priced Grevious ship at 50% at a thrift store because it had a badly-damged box (which is still silly because I own the 2 previous iterations). I buy Lego for the same reason I think most people do- because it makes me happy. I will do so as long as that holds true. I hope they don't price their cool designs to the point where I'm no longer happy to get them.

Looks like this will have the first solid colour for the Hedwig's eye 79850 4x4 half sphere brick

@StyleCounselor:
I also own every version of the Soulless One, but I think I paid MSRP for the most recent large version. Then again, I spent more adding two slender towers to the sides of my Home Alone house than I spent on the actual set (I started with a full second copy of the set, and had to buy a few pieces to finish off the roof, but I have a ton of leftover parts from the set). And I still have to design the garage, which will require further investment in roof parts...

Anyways, I started paying attention to the price per piece on SW sets over two decades ago, the first time people started freaking out about the “licensing tax”, without ever bothering to run the actual numbers, and I later read an article that did a more comprehensive look into the same sort of numbers, while also pointing out how both the quantity and size of sets has ballooned during those two decades. It really comes down to people feeling like sets got more expensive because they’re buying significantly more sets, and significantly larger sets, each year. To those people, I can just point out what it’s like building MOCs on the side. Besides looking at topping $600 to flesh out a $250 set, I have four projects on the back burner that will run a minimum of $400 each, and I’ve already completed at least four that did cost around $400 each. I spent at least $100 to make a 6-wide MOC of Mater from Cars (to be fair, he’s almost 380pcs, including some old-brown parts that are in limited supply). And I’m a member of a LUG whose members have built more than ten skyscrapers that are taller than I am, so some of those probably hit four figure price tags. I’ve seen a MOC of a scene from The 300 that actually incorporated a full 300 S2 Spartans (it was displayed in an enclosed case, or he might have been lucky to go home with 3 of those Spartans. And given some of the things I’ve seen, it wouldn’t surprise me if at least one of them hit a five figure price tag.

I thought that Lego had revised their pricing last year when they released the very affordable X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Imperial Shuttle. I really enjoyed the simpler more affordable sets that still looked just as good as previous models. It is rather disappointing to see that Lego is going back to its old ways of producing incredibly overpriced sets. Yes, I get that inflation has been massive, but this seems excessive.

Although I do find the palace a little pricey, it was surprising when I looked up Jabba’s palace from 2012. It was $120 for a similar piece count. Although it is larger than the current offering, it does seem like this one hasn’t jumped in price as much as one might think.

Another interesting thing is how much the new set started with the previous one and got paired down. Just look at pictures from the back side (or exterior front?).

All in all, the value seems like a mixed bag but maybe not as bad as some think. It comes down to the look for me person. If they do end up releasing a set that sits atop this one, I’m definitely getting both.

The ship is $80 and the Throne Room is $140 (!) in Sweden, haha, never seen anything so ridiculous.

TLG sized down sets like the Tie Fighter and X-Wing to make them more affordable. Now we have sized down sets but because these are new types of sets the downpricing went out the window. The palace is a super dumb build. Only the figs sort of justify the price. Sort of.

@alfred_the_buttler said:
"I thought that Lego had revised their pricing last year when they released the very affordable X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Imperial Shuttle. I really enjoyed the simpler more affordable sets that still looked just as good as previous models. It is rather disappointing to see that Lego is going back to its old ways of producing incredibly overpriced sets. Yes, I get that inflation has been massive, but this seems excessive. "

Yup, they seemed to do it with the super (in my opinion) and affordable TIE fighter (75300) and X-Wing (75301), despite nay-sayers complaining about inconsistent proportions etc, which let's be honest most kids wouldn't notice or care about. They even did this affordable downsizing to the Batman Tumbler (76239) last year, and that was excellent! It does seem a bit of a step back to having needlessly large sets like that N1 fighter, even if it does come with a BD droid mold (although I would have preferred a brick built one, accurate sizing be damned)

@bobaphat107 said:
"Why do people ALWAYS bring up price-per-piece-ratio? Yes, some sets have a great ppp, but look at the modern pieces! A lot of 1x1s, like corner tiles etc. My kid's biggest complaint over the years has been he can't even built a normal house because he lacks big (2x4 bricks) pieces (evendo he has some big costly sets). Maybe my childhood sets had bad ppp, but I had a huge amount of stuff to built houses, airports, castles etc."

Maybe the big costly set is the source of the problem, these ones are usually crafted to the finest and therefore with lots of tiny pieces instead of big ones. I think the answer might be to buy a big Lego Classic box full of colourful pieces in order to buld the classic stuff you mention, just like in the old time

... I actually thought the prices weren't too bad. If you want a cheap hobby, try litterpicking.

@PurpleDave
I just love that you made Mater. Cars is one of those films people will spit on without bothering to watch, which is a real waste.

2 Guards needed, so it's a no from me on Jabbas palace :)
But, I'm gong to agree with the other comments, prices are getting silly, so discounts needed on any of these. And, lets call it what it is, it's a Disney greed tax, it's no longer proper SW IMO and the book of boba fett has proved that

Can't complain about the design. But the spaceship looks like a 30€ set and the palace like a 60€ set.

@PurpleDave

That really puts things in perspective! I bet that Mater is awesome. I love getting sets. But, my last 2 big buys from Lego.com were pieces (especially since they qualify for the GWPs). I'm trying to collect enough gold and silver to MOC a decent horde for Smaug.

@AustinPowers

He's BACK! He's back! The hiatus is over. My favorite sassy German is back.

@StyleCounselor said:
" @AustinPowers

He's BACK!"
Well, in many ways, I never left, sir. I've always offered the same high-quality comments at competitive prices.
;-)

So, I'm curious if any of y'all read the news outside of LEGO websites?

Inflation was ~7% in the United States year over year. Crude oil prices have increased from ~$66 a barrel pre-pandemic to ~$92 now. Other plastic products have increased significantly in price as well (Akro-Mils storage bins have gone from ~$30 to ~$70. Shipping costs have gone up. Everything is a bit more expensive than it used to be.

I still remember getting the original N1 in 1999 for $30, but I also remember in 2015 when an X-wing was around $90. As with everyone else, I'll wait until Amazon puts these sets at 20% off to buy them, but I don't think it's unreasonable for LEGO prices to increase with everything else in the market--gotta love Capitalism :)

@NatureBricks said:
"How many billions does LEGO need to make to stop price gauging the fans? $50 ship, $70-$80 for for the throne. The designers did an amazing job with these but the prices are insane."

Seems like TLG is struggling to find the proper mix of accuracy and price point. This ship is oversized to include as much detail as possible, but in doing so, has driven the price outrageously high. Reminds me of $80 X-Wings and the like.

As others have mentioned, prices are increasing on everything - so I get why Lego products are getting pricier too - but the prices on these 2022 sets have increased well beyond what can be accounted for with inflation.

@lost_scotsman:
Except for all the endless complaints about being downsized, 75301 is the first X-Wing to be accurately scaled, and 76239 is still massively oversized compared to the much more accurately scaled 76001.

@AustinPowers:
I’m having a hard time thinking of when you’ve gone more than two weeks without getting worked up about something.

@MisterBrickster:
https://24hoursoflemons.com/2021-concours-dlemons-michigan-pics-and-winners/?mc_cid=4c2fd3f75c&mc_eid=7fd414e151

Not my photos, but about 1/3 of the way down the page are two shots, and again about 2/3 of the way down there’s three more photos. On display were my Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story 1; Todd (Pizza Planet trick), Lightning, and Mater from Cars; driving and flying versions of Holley Shiftwell, Rod “Torque” Redline, Acer the Pacer, and Grem the Gremlin from Cars 2; and I am...Batmobile, and Harley David’s Quinn (Cars-ified versions of Batman and Harley Quinn) from my own imagination (as well as the die-cast cars I used as reference material for all the Cars/Cars 2 characters). Also displayed but not seen in any of the photos was my 1960’s Ford Good Humor truck...and my dad’s actual 1987 Toyota pickup. He wasn’t thrilled that I got posted five times and he didn’t even get one.

@colay:
There’s no proof that Disney has anything to do with the rising prices. Certainly they aren’t pushing City prices to keep pace with SW, and they wouldn’t get the keys until nearly two years after 10221 released, so Lucas probably hadn’t even decided to sell to them when that set launched.

@PurpleDave said:
" @AustinPowers:
I’m having a hard time thinking of when you’ve gone more than two weeks without getting worked up about something."
That might have been old me. The new me has commented on Brickset a total of 15 times in 2022, and the majority of those comments were either some tongue in cheek or humorous remark or some neutral comment about some RSOTD from the 80s.
The only comment this year that had anything to do with being "worked up" was the very first in early January, when I disliked Huw's usage of the word "soiling" in the context of competing brands.

60 dollars for the N-1?! I think I’ll pass.

Can we have pictures of the "real thing" from the Film/TV Series/Videogame/Whatever that this is from, please. (And the very cool Giraffe-Robot thing as well).
I know I could Google it, but it'd save me the bother and, actually, I'm not that interested. Not saying I won't buy it- it looks like a good build and I do have most of those yellow Anakin- Spaceships.

In other news; Global inflation strikes Lego

I think this set is worth $40. The last starfigher was $50 and came with side builds. I also think Boba Fett's palace is worth only $70. I won't be buying either until they hit those prices.

Good thing Peli Motto is MOC-able. Only reason why I would even consider getting the Naboo Starfighter. Throw in a couple more figs, and maybe you’ll catch my attention. Them prices...pff

I just was going to check to see how overpriced 75326 was compared to the 2012 Jabba's Palace. Turns out that somehow the old one was way worse! It cost $20 more and had less pieces! The new one actually has a better ppp. I don't know why no one else checked the old price, but this revelation invalidates the sentiment that these new prices are somehow the most egregious SW prices yet.

I just picked-up the Throne Room today at Costco in Denver for $80. Go get one while they last!

Inflation is a real thing. A set that cost $40 in 2018 would cost $44.79 today according to the CPI, but Lego doesn't precisely track the CPI because the ABS for bricks is a petroleum product and the CPI is heavily based on food. WTI crude oil was $70/bbl in 2018 and $89.7 today.

@NatureBricks said:
" @KingTyrannos said:
"I had heard of the prices in leaks beforehand, so I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed. The value just isn’t there, even if the sets look nice, and for kids, especially, I can’t really say there’s comparable value in these sets compared to say, Ninjago, which has an amazing PPP ratio. Same with the Tallneck that was revealed today; 1,200 pieces for 79.99, compared to 700 pieces for $100? Insane! Especially when the palace will almost certainly also have a bacta room and maybe Rancor pit sets, and so if you want the full thing, you’ll probably need ~$200."

Well you are paying for a lot more minifigures with new molds in the Throne set, so price per part is 100% but yes very pathetic pricing.

And people blame the Star Wars tax. So City has a tax too? LEGO just realizes they can charge whatever they want."

LEGO Star Wars is making Marvel look good with these prices

I think the Starfighter is barely worth $40, LEGO has thrown the price per piece ratio out the window

@Norikins:
@TillyTheCat:
9516 had a brand-new sculpt for Jabba, which has only been reused in 75020 (both sculpts have been used in one Palace and one Sail Barge, and that’s it). It had the sculpted carbonite slab (2nd of 6 uses). It also had six regular minifigs, compared to six in this set. Han and Chewie are nothing unique. Bib reused the original “hat” from 2003. The Gamorrean was a new sculpt that has so far only reappeared in 75005 until now. Oola is unique, but her lekku have been used five times across four minifigs and three characters, and she wasn’t the first. Boushh, and that helmet, are unique to this one set, as is Crumb.

So, people are chattering about the new Quarren head, but the last time we saw this room in plastic, it had six new sculpts (two exclusive so far), a comparable selection of minifigs with one being equivalent to a bigfig (usually at least s $10 price bump for the set), and an additional theme-specific sculpt. And yes, throw in the large platform and roof pieces, and the price makes a lot more sense.

@CopperTablet:
It absolutely is, but they’ve been able to stave off rising MSRP for decades. Some of that was eliminating waste, like how they used to maintain inventory of retired parts for years after the set was no longer being produced, and making new molds hand over fist for themes that didn’t sell well. They spread out manufacturing of simple parts to low-cost labor markets, they tried Chines manufacturing (only to conclude that any cost savings was spent on transportation to their primary market of Europe), and they changed from pre-colored pellets to in-line coloring. They adopted rapid prototype technology, they restructured their annual release schedule, and they found ways to improve overall sales of individual sets. They’ve automated a lot of the production/sorting/storage process.

All of this combined has helped offset rising material costs, and the problem is that AFOLs have gotten used to it. Over the same period of time during which minifigs have been produced, SW 3-3/4” action figures have gone from maybe $1-2 each to around $10 each. Sure, they involve more complex sculpts, but the same can be said for LEGO minifigs (and their prints). But there’s only so long they can fight inflation before the next step would be enlisting a purely volunteer labor force.

@CopperTablet said:
"Inflation is a real thing. A set that cost $40 in 2018 would cost $44.79 today according to the CPI, but Lego doesn't precisely track the CPI because the ABS for bricks is a petroleum product and the CPI is heavily based on food. WTI crude oil was $70/bbl in 2018 and $89.7 today."

The biggest flaw in that logic is the implication that this would've cost $40 in 2018.

Whatever we think about it, clearly it is not over-priced (i.e., a price consumers are unwilling to pay). After all, the pre-orders for the N1 have closed on Lego.com. Yikes! People can't get enough of the SW Lego.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Sethro3:
Or they could be Disney-pricing their sets. Disney has certain attendance targets for their theme parks. They don’t want people to show up and see tumbleweeds rolling past, but they also don’t want people to still be lined up to enter the park when they start kicking people out for the night. As park attendance rises, they ratchet up ticket price until demand returns to their target range, while the internet explodes with wild accusations of price-gouging. By raising their prices, they ensure that those park visitors who didn’t find other things to do can still have that “magical Disney experience” in parks that aren’t busting at the seams with excessive crowds.

For TLG, their issue is production cap. They don’t want bare shelves because then everyone is upset about not being able to find any sets to buy. If they bump prices up on high-demand sets, it can shift some of that demand to themes that aren’t selling as well, or simply reduce individual demand to a smaller quantity of sets, allowing them to keep stock levels up. Someone who walks in, looks at the price, and decides to hold off is going to be less upset than someone who freaks out because they can’t ever find the set they’re looking for and are worried they’ll miss out.

@bobaphat107:
Your childhood sets, if they were from any time during the reign of the minifig, were likely at or near $0.10/pc, which is still a standard expectation over 40 years later. Those tiny pieces may help them maintain that status, but they also allow much more detailed models to be built, and by volume they can be significantly more expensive on the secondary market because there’s more desire for them than a pile of 2x4 bricks.

If large basic bricks are what your kid wants, supplement with some bulk brick packs, which tend to have a significantly lower price per piece ($0.05/pc isn’t unheard of), and be more selective about what minifig-based sets you pick out. Look up part lists before choosing sets so you both know going in what you’re getting outside of the actual model.

And remember that not everyone who complains about pricing is being fair and objective. 75827 drew wide accusations of being too expensive, even though you got about 4600pcs for $350, which is basically 1100pcs “free” over that $0.10/pc standard. 21330 had the same reaction with nearly 400pcs at $250, which is effectively 1500pcs “free” over the same standard. What many people really mean is that there’s just too many sets they want to buy, and they can’t afford them all, so the ones they most regret having to pass up are the ones that get accused of being too expensive.

Is it possible to overprice a set? Sure. 10221 was $400 for about 3000pcs, in 2011. Many people choked when they saw the price, and skipped it (I got it during Brickworld Chicago when the 30% convention discount was still in effect), and prices kinda settled back into place for a while. Vidiyo is another great example, with the Beatboxes being an abysmal failure at $20 for a minifig with a carry case. But they also raised the price of the original Bionicle Toa $1 per canister, reportedly to pay for the installation of a new production line they needed to keep up with demand for Bionicle sets. When they get it wrong, they backtrack pretty quickly, but when they get it right people complain loudly even as they open their wallets."

Some good observations and I agree with this perspective. It also seems there is a premium placed on the SW theme because of its popularity, however. I don’t think this is wrong of TLG to do, but it is not always in balance with the value propositions of sets. There are a few factors to this beyond piece count — e.g., design quality/uniqueness/ingenuity, quantity and/or exclusivity of minifigures, prints vs. stickers, new or recolored elements, etc.

There’s little about this Throne Room set that would make me feel good about spending $100 on it. This is partly just because of how much more value and can get for the same money on other sets in that price range, but mo

(…cont.)
This is partly just because of how much more value and can get for the same money on other sets in that price range, but mostly it’s because the value just isn’t here. I think the building design could be greatly improved without dramatically increasing piece count, for example. The stickered rancor faces on the throne look really cheeseball…whether or not there may have been a better solution without a unique sculpt, this is one thing at the focal point of the set that just makes it feel cheap.

On the point of figures: Including characters of notable importance or at least being rare is a principle (and I would think, relatively low-impact) way of adding value, particularly within the SW theme. Here we have exclusive characters that are unique but not especially important or interesting — even within the context of the show. The torture droid 8D8 is an obvious choice. Or Black Krrsantan, or the Twi’lek majordomo. At least throw in a second Gamorrean Guard since they explicitly appear as a pair throughout the series.

The broader point is that the feel of the whole thing is lackluster relative to the price — and a few seemingly simple differences of choice in terms of where to put design/development dollars could have gone a long way toward adding value to rectify this. We obviously don’t know what all goes into such decisions behind the scenes, but its puzzling if TLG doesn’t expect this kind of response when presenting a set like this (…maybe they do, maybe it’s a blunder, who knows).

When I saw it before knowing the price, I thought, ”probably like ~$80” …overpriced even at that for what it is, but I’d go for it anyway cause it’s SW and I’m collecting the Mando sets. But $100 is really pushing it. It’s really just bizarre, given how mostly-boring the set is.

@deathmoth:
If I’m right about the Disney-pricing angle, you, and several others here, are demonstrating that the strategy is working. The perception that SW sets were more expensive per piece goes back to the theme’s launch, but the actual rise in price didn’t really happen until 7959 in 2011. That’s also notable for being when they really started introducing lots of variety in the minifig lineup, especially with alien headsculpts. Prior to that, you could expect to get Luke or Han in every OT set, and Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan/Anakin in every PT set, just like how there were barely any students besides Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco in the early HP theme. So, some of that price hike did go into increasing value, but people grow accustomed to the bevy or aliens and focus solely on piece count. Bigfigs and sculpted animals don’t register either. You could put Luke or Han on a Taun-Taun and sell it for $10, and many of us would see it as a sweet deal, while others would complain that $1/pc is evidence that Disney was taxing SW sets.

Regarding the minifigs you listed, if others are right about this being Hogwartsed, 8D8 would make more sense coming with the torture chamber, the majordomo and a second Gamorrean could be slipped in pretty much anywhere, Black Krrsantan will probably show up in at least one future set (even if it’s not part of the palace structure), and they’ll still probably slip in more background aliens. The latter are just as important as the main characters. Prior to the big cantina set, I think over half of the characters from the Cantina scenes who had minifigs left on the Falcon, but now we have a smattering or the more than a dozen background characters to help fill out the scene.

And if you want to pay $80, someone mentioned that’s it’s going for at Costco. If you don’t have a membership, you might know someone who does.

Very interesting to see a BD droid minifig! Here's hoping this paves the way for BD-1 set, in the vein of 75230 or 75318.

The N-1 Starfighter, I might pick up. But the Boba Fett's throne room is crap.

Lego finally adding those previously missing 2x4 tiles to connect your road plates into sets ;)