As you may or may not have known by now, the upcoming promotion for the LEGO Star Wars Darth Vader Pod (5005376) has been officially cancelled. I’ve gotten some clearer information about what will be replacing it for customers here in the US. They are as follows:
– In US and Canada, we will be offering 100 bonus VIP points on all Star Wars sets purchased through LEGO Brand Retail stores or on shop.LEGO.com
– The promotion is only valid on LEGO Star Wars sets and excludes items from our extended line such as keychains, magnets, books, etc.
– Offer is valid December 15th-24th
– Europe is running a 10% discount on Star Wars sets (excluding the UCS Falcon) during the same time.
The cancellation of the Darth Vader Pod is a bummer since fans have been waiting for it to complete their collection of Pods that have been released this year. The 100 VIP bonus point is basically a $5 discount and is probably valued at the same price so it’s an even promo although I would’ve preferred something tangible.
Thanks to Jesse for clearing this up.
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Have to wonder what the story was behind the scenes. Personally, I would have liked a more obscure character to get the spotlight. Maybe TLG figured that it wouldn’t be worth it, since Vader is probably already in so many collectors’ hands?
How many sets have more or less the same basic version of TLBM Batman? Did that stop them from releasing a polybag that was half-Batman, half-security drone? The only thing that matters is if Vader would sell. Collectors aren’t the primary market, though we are confirmed to account for a heavily disproportionate (but still minority) amount of product sold. And collectors will often buy it for no other reason than that they don’t have it. Kids who might not have Vader (or at least not the new one, which is still relatively scarce) might find it a better alternative to buying a set that actually comes with him.
What they said about this is that they found this specific pod didn’t meet their “strict standards”. They didn’t specify whether it was quality or safety standards, but mentioned that both are important to them. Quality concerns led them to create an entirely new department to perform stress- and play-testing on every set prior to sending it on for mass production. They don’t always catch every issue up front, so they’ve also been known to make running changes, and sometimes issue free rebuild packs to allow early purchasers to update their models with the same improved design.
In this case, people have noted that the parts used inside the pod look pretty standard and aren’t likely to be the reason it was cancelled (if they ran a bad batch of parts, they’d just scrap them, run new parts, and write it off as a cost of doing business. The pod is a different matter. Batman’s black pod, Ninjago’s red pod, and Nexo Knights’ dark-blue pod have both shipped and I don’t recall hearing about any issues with any of them. The SW pod was going to be “metallized” in some manner. These pods have stickers on the outside of the front and the inside of the back. They have plates glued into the inside of both halves. They have a hinge and a clasp that are contact points, both of which are likely to receive a fair amount of abuse. Any of these three could be having problems due to the metallized coating. The stickers could be peeling off of it, the glue for the plates could tear it loose, and the hinge and clasp could cause it to flake off.
Fair points here. I hadn’t heard about the “metalization.” Yeah, I could see that causing some potential issues. I like the idea of these minifig “pods.” TLG giving more than just a polybag with a character inside.
There’s at least one other pod in the pipeline, I believe (Friends?). If they continue to ship, but are all plain ABS like the previous three, it’ll be a strong indicator that the coating was causing problems. If the Vader pod eventually ships _without_ the coating, that’ll pretty much clinch it. And if they issue recalls for any of the other three, then it’s got to be a problem with the pod itself.
so in Europe they get 10% off the Death Star, in the US we get $5 to spend on a future purchase, or buy 100 battle packs and get the Death Star for free… sounds good to me 😛