Lego Set 7672

Weighing in at 482 pieces, this product marks Lego's first foray into what I call the non linear star wars universe. To me it marks a great uncharted territory for the product lines of the future. It is obvious to me that for the most part they have run out of viable options with the movie universe tie ins. Especially considering the majority of the items are simply retreads. Great for a new generation of builders but for those of us who have been around since the sets first started to arrive I can only bring myself to buy so many "new" models of things I already have (i.e. Falcon ver 2.0, Slave I ver 2.0 or 3.0, Y-wing ver 2.0, etc).
Obviously the developers both at Lego and who control product at Skywalker Ranch realize to move the universe along and control its money making (and with no more movies)scheme needs to move into this non-linear product line. For years the video games have run rampant in developing back stories and creating new villains and spacecraft. So here is the first attempt at dipping into this untapped market. The Rogue Shadow which is the name of this Imperial Ship has three included figures. The first is an obvious tie-in to the linear Star Wars and is Darth Vader. The second two are mysterious characters called Juno Eclipse and the Secret Apprentice. Okay well that's interesting but so? No package indications and no writeup with the instructions, just 3 characters and a mystery ship. But on the cover is a tie into something called "Force Unleashed". Again nothing to me? Well obviously being more than a casual fan I decided to do a little research and what I found was an amazing new mega event being "unleashed". From what I can tell the gist of the new scheme is tied to a whole new video game coming out in the Fall of 2008. A platform wide game launch (probably like "Halo") allowing you to play this new secret apprentice which presently has no name (it's supposed to be secret and thus Lego's silly naming on the package). Obviously for the uninitiated Sith can't have multiple apprentice so it appears that Anakin is being sneaky. Well the game is only the beginning...a new book, a comic graphic novel, and toys mark a mass marketing ploy to try and get it to feel like a movie premier. Interesting to see if this works...if it does expect every 2-3 years to have a new "something". Personally from the Lego standpoint I hope this works as it would be nice to get new models every so often. Anyway great new model. Joy to build and not something hastly thrown together...interesting to actually see it in action...PSP is to have the game too.