Top 10 Retired Lego Sets I’d Love To Own

10. Droid Escape

This is a very small set that is actually pretty reasonable to pick-up. And it is over 20 years old. Lego only had it out for a single year, but it wasn’t an expensive set then so it isn’t too expensive now. I am sure with it being Star Wars that a good number of them sold.

What is it about this set that I like? It is an iconic scene for me from Star Wars. You start out A New Hope with that great scene on the spaceship, but you quickly go to the droids on Tatooine. And this is just the escape pod and the two droids. But I think that is enough for the set because it just shows you what you want from that scene. Everyone is going to know where this is from in Star Wars by just looking at it.

9. The SHIELD Helicarrier

This is a huge set so definitely not one I will track down. But I really like the set. The Helicarrier looks great, and it is an iconic element of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I wonder if Lego will every make one again? Maybe, I guess, if it shows up again in another movie. But the set is now $425. That is a lot, though, it started out at $350, so it isn’t a set that has gone up a ton in price.

I suspect that people like the set, but it is one where the minifigs are a bit more limited. And I believe that sets often times go up more in price if they have a rare minifig to go with them. But for a big set, it just looks cool and it is very detailed which is important for me as a nerdy Marvel and Lego fan. Though, it is hard to find Lego sets that I really want for Marvel because so many of them just kind of feel normal.

8. Iron Man Hall of Armor

This is an interesting one to have on the list. But it is one that feels less normal when it comes to Marvel Lego sets. It is not the biggest set, but for Iron Man it is pretty iconic. You get a number of different Iron Man armors, and you get the base that Tony Stark uses to get in and out of some of the armors I believe in Iron Man 3.

This set is one that is reasonable to get. It is more reasonable than a lot on the list for two reasons. Firstly, it is not super expensive. Used it is $43. In fact, the price is lower for it now even new than when it came out. But also it is reasonable because it is not a massive set. As much as I like the Helicarrier on the list, that is hard to display. This is going to be easy to display if I get it.

7. Kylo Ren’s Shuttle

The only Lego set from the sequels that I found to put on the list. This is one that I do think I want to try and track down. We own Poe’s black X-Wing, found a good deal on that. So if I can find a good deal on Kylo Ren’s Shuffle, that would be great. The detail is nice on it, and it comes with a good number of minifigs.

I don’t think it is the hardest to find as well. So while it is a not a super cheap set, it is not super expensive either as compared to some of the other sets on the list. I did a good job of not picking too many expensive sets, I think, this time around. Though, there are definitely some that are a long ways up there.

6. The Black Pearl

I think this one is pretty easy to say why I’d like it. This is from The Pirates of the Caribbean, a series of films that I’ve enjoyed really for the most part. Though, I think I’ve only seen four, are there five now, I don’t know. But The Black Pearl is an major part of those films. And this is a nice looking version of it and very black.

There are so many different pirate ships out there to pick as well. I know there are a lot of classic ones which could make the list. But not having a pirate ship Lego set growing up, it is something that I don’t have as much nostalgia for. So The Black Pearl is more fun for me than some of the other older ones.

5. Ahsoka’s Starfighter and Vulture Droid

I like Star Wars Lego sets. I think that much is obvious by this point. This one i like because it gives you that Clone Wars feel with it with an iconic character is Ahsoka. Yes, there are a lot of new sets with her from the Ahsoka show, but I need to watch that still. I’ve been watching the Clone Wars because my kid has been, and she is great in that.

This is a set that is expensive, though. Some of it is because she’s a popular character and Star Wars. Some also because this is apparently a Wal-Mart exclusive that was out for a single year. So it is going to be more limited in how many people picked it up, I’d think. Still, a set that I’d love to get my hands on, especially if I can find a nice used copy of it.

4. The Battle of Helms Deep

This is a massive castle set in a lot of ways. And it is not cheap to pick up used. I think that it goes for about $400 used and only about $100 more new. I’m sure if you get lucky you can find it cheaper used, but you would need to get lucky. But this set just looks great. And it really is a big set with so much going on in it and so many characters that we like. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas all are part of the set.

And if you read my other list, you know that I like the Lord of the Rings sets a lot. So this is one that feels even more of a bummer to have missed on. It is such an iconic scene and probably my favorite scene from the movies, I love the battle at Helm’s Deep, that it is a set that I would just love to own.

3. The Upside Down

There has only been one Stranger Things Lego set. I am not too shocked by that. It is something that people love, but is it going to give us a ton of iconic locations? No. It is just the US in the 1980’s. And while people love the 80’s, they aren’t going to buy Lego sets for it.

This set, however, I like because it combines not only the house from season one but also the upside down. So you get to see both elements that are pretty iconic for the show. And you need the upside down in there, I think, to really make it feel different than just being a normal house set of some sort.

2. Mos Espa Podrace

I know that people don’t love Episode 1 of Star Wars. Want to know something, it is my favorite of the prequels, even with Jar-Jar Binks playing such a major role in the film. And the podracing scene is awesome. I own the diorama set that they came out for adults not too long ago, and it is great. But this one is the podracers themselves all big and awesome looking. And it has Sebulba and Anakin’s podracers.

This is a set I think I could see myself getting. It has gone up in value, but it is not a crazy price used. Yes, it is more expensive than it was on release, but only by fifty more dollars. I know that I won’t buy this one used, though because that is about $400.

1. Gandalf Arrives

Why is this one at the top of my list? I’m not 100% sure. There are amazing bigger sets, but this one is just that starting moment of The Lord of the Rings. Gandalf is arriving and it’s going to be time for Bilbo’s 111th birthday. The set is simple but it looks great. And it has Frodo and Gandalf in the set along with some great looking fireworks in the back of the wagon.

I think this is also high on the list because it’s slightly more accessible. It is small so that point of being good value isn’t there, but it’s only around $50 used for a really nice looking set. And while you can grab it new, it almost doubles in price to get it in the box. This is really one where I wish I’d been more into collection Lego when it came out.

Final Thoughts

One of the great things about Lego is all the sets that they have put out before. And you can try and track them down. And you see my list, I do plan on tracking some of them down at some point in time. Especially #10 and #1 I think I might try and find both of them.

But Lego is always coming out with so many new sets that are amazing. So if you miss a set, I don’t think it is that big a deal. Yes, you might never be able to get another one of Kylo Ren’s Shuttles. That might be gone forever, but there is going to be new Star Wars sets. In fact, we are a few days away from May the 4th, and Lego is going to announce and drop more sets then. So you always are able to find new awesome sets, and I know I will find more that I would love to get.

What is a set that you are really glad you have because it’s old and hard to find? Or is there a set that you wish you had?

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Let’s talk about how fairly often a trilogy happens, and we can delve into some of the issues based off of that. The creator of the story has an idea for one story, maybe more, but one that they know they can get published or produced. So they go to the publisher or producer and sell them on this story and they get it made. Now, it’s a huge success and the publisher or producer comes back to them and asks for more and not just one more, two more of the story or film or whatever it might be. So the creator creates another story picking a spot in the middle for a cliffhanger between both stories and then those are published or produced. However, the second and third don’t do as well. What went wrong?

Now, it could be that there just wasn’t anymore story to tell surrounding certain characters or ideas or even worlds. That can happen, but probably isn’t going to be the biggest issue. Probably as often it happens that the creator didn’t have any more stories to put in that setting and to get something a little bit more out there published or produced, they agree to a multi-thing deal which includes what they are actually interested in creating as well as two things that will be more successful for the company that they signed the deal with. Both of those examples, there really shouldn’t have been a second thing created at all, because there really wasn’t anywhere to go.

But, I think there’s another issue that often befalls trilogies, and that’s their ability to tell a complete story. Pirates of the Caribbean is a great example of this. In the first movie, we get a complete story, we get Jack going from being a pirate down on his luck, getting what he thought he wanted, realizing it wasn’t what he wanted, and overcoming everything in the end. Same with Star Wars: A New Hope, we get a complete story including third act metal ceremony. Then comes along the second film, in particular in Pirates of the Caribbean, less so in the original trilogy (Star Wars). You get the creators knowing that there will be a third film, so they tell part of a story. You get some build, maybe even some change, but in the end, the biggest issue still hasn’t be resolved. Instead, you have to wait for the third film. And that’s fine, if you can watch both films back to back, but most of the time if it’s something you’re really excited about, you’re seeing the film or reading the book when it comes out, not when both are out. So you get the second part which is the start of a story and ends with a small resolution, and the third part which is the continuation of the second part and then the final resolution. So combined you are telling a single story, but both parts are going to leave you feeling a little wanting, unless they are masterfully crafted.

So, how can you get around this in a trilogy? Sometimes you just plan on it being a trilogy. Lord of the Rings is a prime example of this, Fellowship of the Ring doesn’t tell a complete story, Frodo is still going to Mordor, the same with The Two Towers, Frodo is still going to Mordor, and that’s the end of the story (kind of, there are a lot of third acts) when he throws the ring into Mount Doom in Return of the King. However, in each of those, we know there’s the through story line going on with Frodo getting the ring to Mount Doom in Mordor, but we also have other characters getting a story as well and there’s story, especially in Return of the King and The Two Towers that gets told apart from Frodo’s journey that has groundwork laid in earlier books, but finishes up and tells a story there. We have the massive battle between the forces of good and evil in Return of the King which sees Aragorn become King. We have in The Two Towers multiple stories that are told and wrap with Merry, Pippin, and the Ents and the battle of Helms Deep.

Lord of the Rings does two things that should be pointed out. It has a through line so it doesn’t feel like the parts of the trilogy are disconnected. This is the Frodo and Sam story line that they need to get the ring to Mordor and Mount Doom. It’s the key piece of the story and in fact, if they fail, the whole thing fails and that runs throughout all of the books. At the same time with have Gandalf, Aragorn, Merry, Pippin, Gimli, and Legolas doing there own things, making a difference in another part of the world. And even though they aren’t carrying the end game thing, the ring, they still have an important part to play. So we get complete story arcs, from beginning to end, for them in the books and not across all the books, but in each book there is a beginning and ending point.

This varies from my Pirates of the Caribbean example because it has a through line throughout the whole thing, Pirates has characters who repeat but the first movie stands separate from the last two of the original Pirates trilogy. And Lord of the Rings has a beginning, middle and end to each book, versus Pirates 2 & 3 where you have a beginning and middle and a middle and end split respectively.

What does this mean as a creator?

First, a trilogy isn’t the end all for writing, you don’t need it to be a trilogy. The Dresden Files, a series that I love, is on book 17. So you can clearly go longer if you have more story to tell, so don’t let a trilogy limit you. And don’t let the idea of it needing to be a trilogy or anything like that force over complexity and bloat into your stories.

However, if you are going to write a trilogy, or even if you are writing something that you have a bigger idea for, but you just need to get one written and published first, think about through line and think about a complete story. Now, it’s hard if you think that you are only going to get a single shot at creating your idea, but give yourself room. Don’t bloat your idea to fit everything in to a single thing, instead, tell a nice complete story and leave room in the world for there to be even more story. Star Wars, the original trilogy, does this well. You have them blow up the Death Star, that by itself could end the story in A New Hope, however, Vader isn’t killed, so the villain is still out there. If nothing ever came after A New Hope, it wouldn’t feel like it’s missing anything, but it’s natural that we pick back up again with Darth Vader and the Empire. So create a first story, even if you don’t know that you’ll get more like that. Give the main characters a big win but leave a villain out there defeated but not destroyed. That way, you can come back and pick up with the same characters and continue a story.

Also leave plenty of your world unexplored after your first story, especially if you don’t know if there will be more. Lord of the Rings, we get through some mountains, but we know that Mordor is still out there, but we’re not there yet, and there are other lands to explore as well that we haven’t seen or gone to. Star Wars: A New Hope, they really aren’t that many locations and then they have a ton of other planets that they can create and use in future films because they didn’t have them hop from planet to planet all the time. This gives you room to create more mystery and more adventures in which to tell your complete adventure. Pirates of the Caribbean really feels like it hits up so many locations in the first film, even though it’s somewhat limited, so you don’t feel like there are a lot of players left to join the story in this small world they’ve created, as compare to Lord of the Rings and Star Wars where who knows what new enemies or allies might be out there.

Now, I’m sure there are more things out there that you can do when creating a trilogy. I do want to wrap up with that I’m not trying to bash on trilogies. I think fairly often they can work. The original Star Wars trilogy and Lord of the Rings are great examples of this. Even The Hunger Games, which I didn’t talk about much, does a good job of making the 1st and the 3rd stand separate as their own stories. But don’t limit yourself to that if you want to create an epic, and tell a complete story each time, those are just my rules for writing a series or trilogy.

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What I am talking about is how series are crafted and issues that can be ran into when creating a series. Like most of these topics, it’s come about because I read a book, watched a show, heard something about a game, or something along those lines that I thought is important and could be done better than it is often or sometimes anyways. I also want to get out of the way, I don’t think this book, Arsenal (Full Metal Superhero Book 1) was a bad story and poorly written and not worth anyone’s time, I just have some issues with the fact that to get a full books worth of story, you’re going to have to continue the series, Arsenal felt like an opening act.

Let’s start out this article with wondering if you should even be writing a series. I do think there are multiple reasons to write a series and I think there are some that do it fantastically. For example, Harry Potter, that makes perfect sense to be a series and not just tell Harry and Voldemort’s story in a single book. It would have felt rushed and there is a lot to explore in the world that Rowling does a good job doing in that series, no comments about the other stuff she’s doing now. She had a clear vision for each book and a clear story to tell in each book as well as clear elements of the over arcing story that she was telling. The Dresden Files does the same thing very well with clear stories but after the first book or so, a clear plot running through all of the books. Maybe you just have to have a main character named Harry who is a wizard to write good series (if there’s any piece of advice to take, this is it, I’m sure).

However, in Arsenal, it didn’t feel like that was the case. The first book was the opening act of a larger story with no real tension to the story. You had an idea of what the overall story for the series is going to be, but the first book fell flat on delivering it’s own contained story. One could argue that it’s Arsenal’s story of her joining the superhero team, but there isn’t tension surrounding that part of the story as it’s resolved quite quickly in the book and her probationary period doesn’t seem like a situation where she’s ever not going to become a full member of the team.

Beyond having a number of self contained stories, it could also be that your story is just too epic to tell in a single book. There’s a danger with telling a single epic story like this, though, you have to have some sort of plot to drive the story for each book in the series. Again, Harry Potter and The Dresden Files do a good job of that. That’s actually one of the non-trope based knocks I have on The Warded Man as the first book of the Demon Cycle. While there is some plot that drives the book throughout that seems like it is the main plot of the first book, it falls into the trap of not having much of a plot for the book and focusing only on series plot instead. I think that is some of why it had so much exposition and backstory for all the characters that felt like it was overdone.

I’ve already talked about it some, but when you’ve decided to do a series, trilogy or longer really, there is one huge thing that you have to do to make sure that each book feels like a complete book. This is the part I really want to drive home. Even though you have the most epic story for your series, each book in the series is going to have it’s own complete story as well. An obvious example of something that most people know about that fails to do this completely is Pirates of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, after a smashing success with the first movie, they planned on several more of them and decided with Dead Man’s Chest that they didn’t need tell a complete story because they were going to wrap it up in At World’s End. Viewed together, they make a good complete story, however, when you were spending money to get see Dead Man’s Chest in the theaters you felt like you were ripped off because you had to come and see the next one to fully get the whole story.

This is actually why I haven’t continued Arsenal (Full Metal Superhero) yet, because I don’t know that I want to spend Audible credits to continue a story that I know I might have to listen to all of them to get the full story. It’s the idea that I have to do something to really get the story and that there is a very specific amount that I have to spend on the story. If you were to stop after book three of Harry Potter, sure you wouldn’t have the full story of everything that happens in that magical world, but you’d have had a good experience with those stories. It’s the same with the Dresden Files, now obviously, you’ll get more out of reading the whole story, and the same was true with Pirates of the Caribbean, but as an creator, it isn’t your job to force people to give you money to get a whole story. They should be getting a whole story every time, because that’s what they’ve paid for. Then if you’ve written your story well, people are going to want to come back and people are going to recommend your story to others. While I am mentioning Arsenal and that might get some of you interested in reading it, I’m not going to recommend it, because it fails at this tenant of creating a good series and I can’t with good conscience recommend that people spend their money on the whole series to get a whole story.

So quick recap as this wraps up. Make sure that you actually need a series to tell your story. If the over arcing story isn’t so big that you need to, don’t draw it out. You’ll end up with a lot of filler that people don’t want to read and turn people away from your series. Also, and most key, make sure that every book has a self contained story to it. Every book should feel like it’s reached a conclusion and that the consumer got their money’s worth.  And finally, if all else fails, name a wizard character Harry and go from there to see what happens.

What are some of your favorite series, either movie, books, or anything else that you think does a very good job?

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In this game, you take on the roles of different pirate crew members as you are trying to get treasure off of a burning pirate ship that is infested with skeletal pirates and deck hands. You spend you turn dealing with fires, so that the ship doesn’t burn down around you, fighting skeletal pirates and guardians to get items and treasures, keeping too many deckhands from appearing and trying not to die from exhaustion. This game has a similar feel to Pandemic where you have a ton of ways to die, but only one way to win, and it’s also cooperative.

Probably the coolest part of this game, though I do like the whole game, is the action point idea. So, with action points, it’s how many of the six of seven various actions you can do per turn. However, sometimes, it doesn’t make sense for a person to do all of their actions or maybe they can’t even do all of their actions. So what do you do with those extra actions? If you don’t use them, it makes the game harder for everyone. In Dead Men Tell No Tales, however, you have tokens for your actions, so you flip them over, but if you can’t flip them all over and use them, you pass your extra actions to the next player. So instead of having 5 actions on their next turn, they could have up to seven or eight, assuming you used a couple of actions on your turn.

So, how does this game play, it’s a pretty fast game with very well defined steps. To start each of your turns you draw a tile and add it to the ship. This is yet another way that you can lose. If you aren’t careful, you might not be able to place the tile. Each tile has a certain number of doors, and if you can’t properly connect the doors or at least not have a door connect to not a door (they can connect to nothing as long as it’s legally connected to a door), then you lose the game yet another way. Then you draw a token to put on it, it might be trap door which is where the deckhands come from, it might be a skeletal pirate who you can get grog or a cutlass off of if you can beat them in battle, or it might be a skeletal guardian who is keeping the treasure from you. Then you spend your actions to fight the fires, fight either the guardians or pirates, maybe you want to rest and recover from how you are hurt, or you are going to pick up and item that someone has dropped. But once you’ve taken as many actions as you want, then you flip over a card and something bad happens (I’ll talk about this other cool mechanic now).

When you flip a card where something bad happens, there’s always a die with a color and number on it. So, I flip a card and it has a red three on it. It tells you what fires are going to grow stronger. Each fire is a die on the room it’s in. There are two different colors, yellow and red dice, so I’ve flipped a red three, that means that any fire that is currently a red three becomes a red four meaning that the room is burning more. Now, if it gets all the way up to a six, then the room is burned and gone. If enough of these happen, then you lose the game or maybe it happens and you can no longer get to a couple of the treasures and you can’t get enough, well, that also ends the game and you lose. But wait, there is more, sometimes you don’t need the die to get to a six, there are rooms that have gunpowder next to the door. If the die gets high enough, that gunpowder explodes and you take another hit to the ship, not only that, but it raises the room that the gunpowder is sitting by to a higher die total as well. This makes all of the actions that you can take extremely important.

What I like about this game is that while it start out slow, soon you are thinking about a dozen different things. You have rooms all over the place that are getting ready to explode, you are trying to deal with the deckhands so that they don’t overrun the ship, and you’re still worried about getting the treasure that you need. The turns got quite fast, you can ask for advice, because it’s cooperative, and each pirate has a special power that is really cool to them. The games theme comes through pretty well, but you do have to lean into it a little bit, drinking a piratey rum with the sound track for a Pirates of the Caribbean movie on in the background would really help drive in the theme, but the theme is definitely there. It’s a good game where it seems like it’s going to scale well, and while the easy level if quite easy, the medium difficulty of the game is really tough, and I’d be curious to know how hard the game can end up being.

Overall Grade: B+

Casual Grade: B

Gamer Grade: B

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