Come on, since we have seen almost everything for 2012 and we have learned that the Star Wars license will be renewed for 10 years, it is time to ask the fateful question: What can we expect in the 10 years coming in the LEGO Star Wars range?

First, a few benchmarks:

The Padawan Threat has been an undisputed television success, and one has to expect more animated short films of this type, including at least one in 2012.

The Clone Wars is scheduled to run for at least 100 episodes. Season 4 launched in September 2011 and features 22 episodes like the previous seasons (season 1 2008/2009, Season 2 2009/2010 et season 3 2010/2011). Let's say season 5 has 22 more and the planned total will be met and even surpassed in 2013.

The six films of the Star Wars saga will be shown in 3D at the cinema at the rate of one episode per year. It's not me who says it, it's Rick McCallum (in 2011): ... We're doing 3D versions of all six films, one a year, starting in February of next year. We start with [episode] one and go all the way through six, totally chronological. One a year, if they work. If they don't, then there will be just one [episode converted to 3D] ...

We will say that the first opus is not a flop and that the cycle will therefore continue until 2017. The ultimate peak will be reached with the 3D release of theEpisode IV: A New Hope in 2015. So far all is well. But the license is signed until around 2022.

TV series, Arlesian of the galaxy, will probably never see the light of day, unless Georges Lucas needs money, which could be the case around 2017.

What will LEGO be able to offer us during all these years? 

1. From The Clone Wars set shovel. LEGO will undoubtedly capitalize on the animated series for as long as possible, notably with the DVD / Blu-ray releases of seasons 4 and 5.

2. Remakes of remakes. Some collectors are a little jaded to see, even better, sets that have already been seen and reviewed. But we must think of the new generations of fans who are currently discovering the Star Wars universe thanks to Jar Jar or to Lux Bonteri and Cad Bane ...

3. Sets based on the game world The Old Republic, if the game works and lasts 2 years or even 3. Inevitably, we will be entitled to SWTOR II: A New Era or something like that. And why not SWTOR: The Animated Series, nothing is impossible. The universe of the game is already available in comics for the general public by specialists in the genre Dark Horse. The thing also exists online with webcomics Threat of Peace et Blood of the empire.

4. Something to satisfy AFOLs thirties with UCS like for example a C-3PO (at least a bust to go with R2-D2), Cloud City (because it's enough to wait), an AT-AT (it will eventually happen), a Slave I, etc .... And probably also some UCS to ruin the new AFOLs of the Clone Wars era with a nice UCS from Malevolence for example ...

What else ? I don't know, but I tell myself that LEGO and Georges Lucas will find something to make us spend our money ...

And you in 10 years, will you still want to spend your money on LEGO Star Wars?

Might as well warn you right away, if I like LEGOs, it is above all for Star Wars and not the other way around. And this second wave of sets is convincing. It brings everything a fan can hope for: beautiful new or updated minifigs, more detailed and able to compete with competing products like action figures Hasbro for example, while keeping the codes of the minifigure as we know it. We can, however, discuss the figurine turn taken by the LEGO characters and regret certain finishes that make the purists of the yellow-headed man cry blasphemy.

On this new wave of sets, I applaud with both hands the boldness of LEGO, which some will call opportunism, to offer sets based on the universe of The Old Republic. I don't care about the game itself, I don't have time to devote to MMORPGs at the moment, it's its universe that interests me, this temporal space filled by the imagination of the writers as it is also the case with The Clone Wars and which allows us to discover new characters and new machines. It must be recognized that the Sith Fury-Class Interceptor of the set 9500 has a good face. He is totally in the spirit of the Imperial Fleet, just like the Republic Striker Starfighter of the set 9497 is an obvious parent of the future X-Wing. A single glance at these two ships is enough to identify them as from the Star Wars universe.

Le Pre Vizla's Mandalorian Fighter of the set 9525 is a little less charismatic, he will join the T-6 Jedi Shuttle from set 7931 within the radius of the Clone Wars ships which are not really related to the canonical devices. Special mention for the Malevolence of the set 9515, beautiful playful compromise of more than 1000 pieces without any notion of scale or proportions but which will join the fleet of all these LEGO ships designed for the game and which make the happiness of the youngest. 

I'm more skeptical of the remakes of Gungan Sub (9499) Of the Desert Skiff (9496) or Jabba's Palace (9516). Obviously, the machines and buildings have evolved from their versions over 10 years ago, but not enough to cry genius for a palace the size of a half-hut or a submarine with problems of finishes. I am speechless when I see AFOLs choking with joy in front of the trap door of Jabba's palace which opens onto .... nothing.  

These remakes are of course intelligent pretexts for new minifigs, each more sublime than the next, so much so that we rightly wonder what Queen Amidala is doing in the set 9499 ... These sets will above all allow for the youngest or AFOLs rediscovering the LEGO Star Wars universe to treat themselves to key characters who have become unaffordable in their original, somewhat outdated version.

I hope that LEGO will persist in creating sets that incorporate new ships and unseen characters. And since it's gone again for 10 years, I still prefer to be entitled to minifigs from the extended universe than to an Obi-Wan every six months or a 237th Boba Fett ... you?

If you are a fanboy absolute ready to go into raptures permanently and without restraint on what LEGO offers us, do not read on, there are other sites which serve soup better than me and which have made the use of laudatory superlatives their business.

For others, here is what I think of this LEGO Lord of the Rings range, after having seen what is undoubtedly the almost final rendering of the sets that will be marketed. First of all, I would like to point out that I am not an unconditional and fundamentalist fan of the Lord of the Rings universe. I really like the Peter Jackson movies, but I've always considered Tolkien's books to be boring and off-putting, and I'm not alone ... Obviously LEGO has a range based on the film version of this work, as will be the case for The Hobbit elsewhere.

Upon reflection, I think there is nothing to cry genius with this range as some do. Of Castle mixed with kingdoms, and sold with a bunch of characters carefully distributed to get you to buy the bundle, that's great marketing. The minifigs are successful, the animals too. I have never been a fan of ends of wall, wagons, rocks, etc ...

Only the MOCeurs will find their account in these varied inventories, the others will have to be satisfied with rickety reconstructions which make me think of movie sets: pretty on the front, but without depth. How LEGO could have titled the set 9474: The Battle Of Helm's Deep ? Haven't they seen the movie? What credible battle can we reconstitute with this set, the price of which will probably exceed 100 € ???

The problem with Lord of the Rings is that it is an epic epic populated by thousands of characters, and LEGO, which clings to its minifigs as if they were gold nuggets that you should not distribute too much under penalty of seeing the price drop, has a hard time restoring this grandiose side in these sets.

There are still beautiful minifigs, to line up in a display case or to stage in a diorama as desired. No one is going to play with these sets, they're not even designed for that. In the best case, they will please collectors, happy to be able to combine two of their passions, to speculators who already know that this range will be of the same ilk as a Pirates of the Caribbean or a Prince of Persia and will quickly become sought after by all. those who waited for the ultimate promo in vain, and to the MOCeurs who will give it their all to stage the emblematic characters of a cinematographic saga which some do not even know is taken from a literary epic.

For my part, this once again confirms the current trend for licenses that do not integrate any vessel, or rolling or floating devices: LEGO sells minifigs with parts around, to fill the box. This is not necessarily a criticism, but it is an important marketing turning point and it will take some getting used to.

If you don't agree with anything written above, feel free to say so in your comments, but be polite. Everyone may have a different opinion depending on their relationship with LEGOs. The debate remains preferable to unconditional ecstasy on the pretext that it is fashionable to bow down and open your wallet indiscriminately as soon as we talk about LEGO.

I will wrote my skepticism about the Friends range a few days ago. I was probably not the only one to think that this line intended for girls would raise a serious problem: Is LEGO showing sexism? sectarianism? condescending to little girls who want to play with LEGOs?

In A press release fallen like a hair on the soup in full commercial launch of the Friends range, LEGO explains that it is important to clarify a few points about this range that I summarize here: The Friends sets are designed like those of the other LEGO ranges, they are just as constructible, packaged like the others, with instructions and parts in bags like the others, that the pink bricks are not a novelty and that the marketing plan for this range is the same as for the others ...

LEGO then defends itself against offering girls only the Friends range, and that they can play, because they are obviously capable of it even if they are girls, with the other range of the manufacturer ...

In short, it smacks of the emergency rescue attempt of a product whose brand image has tilted to the wrong side in a few weeks ... But LEGO boasts of having tested the product with thousands of girls and their parents. for 4 years, and therefore to have largely covered the issue ...

I think that LEGO has forgotten some basic principles: If this product was not intended for a particular audience and in any case different from the one usually targeted by LEGO, why did you turn the minifig into a mini-doll? Because once again, the whole problem is there and not in the candy pink or the still dubious marketing choice to sectorize the products according to the sex of the customer.

In France, we are less sensitive to the problem of sexism in our daily lives, but I tell myself that there must be an American feminist association that risks asking this obvious question: Why do girls have the right to a different toy from the one for boys for whom the rest of the LEGO range seems reserved?

How can a little girl who sees her brother, her cousin, playing with LEGOs and classic minifigs, hope to share this activity when she does not have the same toy in her hands?

One would have thought that LEGO had learned the lessons of the Belville range. Apparently not, LEGO continues to want to offer a product intended only for girls and significantly different from the rest of the range that made it successful. The LEGO minifig as we know it remains the yardstick of this construction toy, not the brick which is declined by many other manufacturers.

Until proven otherwise, for LEGO, boys create and build and girls therefore play with dolls ...

 Find the official press release at this address.

Received today the January / February 2012 issue of LEGO Magazine. Nothing very exciting for AFOLs, but we are not the target of this support.

However, I note the presence of a short but nice 4-page comic strip on the Star Wars theme (of which I put a photo above) and in which we find the X-Wing of the set 9493 X-Wing Starfighter, the Tie Fighter of the set 9492 Tie Fighter as well as the minifigs of Luke and Jek Porkins.

This allows me to bounce back on the news of brick set about the release of a specific LEGO Magazine for girls highlighting the new range LEGO Friends.

I'm not sure what to think of this new range, but LEGO's strategic choice to divide the communication media according to the type of target does not seem to me to be wise. Bringing girls into the world of LEGO involves integration into the community of children who are LEGO fans, not by sectoring them into a pink universe populated by ice cream, puppies and pretty sports coupes.

You will tell me that the border between the two universes is porous and that the girls will be able to interact with the boys in the City universe for example. But I don't believe it, and the choice to design minifigs that are completely different from the ones we know may frustrate girls who show interest in classic LEGOs.

The future will tell if LEGO made the right choice, but as we have seen with other projects in fields such as video games, for example, LEGO is testing many concepts and will ultimately only keep those that are prove profitable over time.

The Friends range comes up against Petshops, PollyPockets, Zhu Zhu Pets and other Barbie dolls in a market that has its own codes and trends. The success of the range will largely depend on the possible contagion effect in schoolyards.