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Lego Millennium Falcon Goes On Sale
An anonymous reader writes "Lego just released its ultimate Millennium Falcon model for pre-order. This item should make any SW fan jump with joy. Some of its features include; over 5,000 pieces, 33" long, 22" wide and 8" tall, and it includes 5 minifigures: Han Solo, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa."
Me, I'd rather spend that $500 on something that looks movie-accurate, like a ship from (now defunct) Code 3 Collectibles or (no longer holding the Star Wars license) Master Replicas, since to me Legos are kind of like a modern art...it looks like the Falcon but it still always looks like Legos. But that said I've spent several thousand on Lego sets for Star Wars and will eventually pick this one up. Someday. Hopefully for under $500
...it's just a really large toy!
It doesn't even come assembled. The price of all those mass produced pieces can't even cost half that, let alone the price you'd pay with unlimited virginity were you to actually assemble that.
Perhaps if the price weren't completely laughable.
OK, to be on topic, I'd say this thing is a work of art. Extremely cool, but extremely expensive. Holy shit, I never realized Lego stuff could sell for that much ($499.99).
Now, slightly off-topic, one thing that bugged me about the Star Wars prequels (among many many things) was the ships. They were all polished, aerodynamic, made of what seemed like crazy materials, etc. Yes I know they were going out of their way to show off the design capabilities and to add something fresh, but it made the ships all look so cheesy and fake. I mean, I remember one ship, though I don't know what it's name is, that looked like it was dipped in chrome. Not just parts of the ship, THE WHOLE THING. But it wasn't just that ship, it was almost all of them.
That irritated me because these were movies that were *supposed* to be about the past, the past in the Star Wars universe, PRIOR to IV, V and VI. And almost ALL of the ships in IV, V and VI all had rough edges, weird, not-always-symmetrical geometry, etc. They looked real, like real physical objects (yes I know they were, or were models), they looked like something someone would put together.... not some draftsmans proto-type look-alike for the latest rehash of super slick, polished turds that were the ships of I, II and III. In other words, we're expected to believe (in the Star Wars Universe) that designers and engineers decided that all these super polished and aerodynamic ships weren't up to snuff, so they scrapped and took 4 steps backwards design-wise to create the ships in IV, V and VI.
OK, I'm done ranting....
Legos in sets have always gone for between 8 to 12 cents a piece. 5,000 pieces at 10c a piece is $500, which is about right.
Remember, a 200 piece set goes for between 18-22. The generic boxes of blocks are usually cheaper, running as low as 5c an element.
If you wanted to build a Falcon, this is probably the cheapest way to go. And you get 5000 elements that would work great on other spaceship projects, like the infamous Serenity.
Others have pretty much hit on the "canon" explanation, but I'll add my own 2 bits.
Your idea of a progression of technology is not what they were really going for. The stuff you see in all the movies (blasters, ftl travel, whatever) were invented a couple thousand years before any of the movies, and haven't changed a whole lot since, or have been evolutionary changes. In fact, if you go into some of the expanded universe stuff, you see some cyclical things or "long lost" technology - a concept you find in a lot of other science fiction. A progression from Golden Age -> War -> Dark Age -> Rediscovery.
So, to bowl it down: The reason all the stuff in the prequel looked nice, was because it was "The Golden Age" in the Star Wars universe. People with lots of money were flying around in fancy ships. It was the roaring twenties, and then there was 30 years of war and most people went more utilitarian. Hell, maybe there were still some rich people flying around after that, but nobody the camera was following around in Eps 4-6 were in that group.
In Eps 4-6 they talked about how great the old republic was (ie. the "more civilized age" quote) and the prequels were supposed to show this "golden age" and then show it fall apart. Now whether anyone thinks the movies suck or not (I was not super hot on them) is a seperate issue, but the reasoning behind the "nicer stuff in the past" is perfectly sound imo.
The Old Republic was more prosperous and stable, the civil war years less so.
Why, yes I have been touched by His noodly appendage. And I plan to sue.
They must been using Excel 2007 to calculate their exchange rates... here are some of their international costs:
Based on actual exchange rates, converting from USD$499.99 those prices should be:
Nice way to gouge your international customers...