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Posted
1 hour ago, Man with beard said:

I would love to see a Western theme with non-violent sets. The problem is, Lego doesn't do any of their original themes that way anymore except City. 

Friends is not violent.

Posted
8 minutes ago, MAB said:

Friends is not violent.

Good point! Creator is another exception. I think most of what I said in my post is at least applicable to Lego's recent original play themes for boys. It would be great if Lego tried to do Western or any other historic theme as a product line marketed toward girls and boys... But for that they would really have to change their strategy.

Posted
1 hour ago, koalayummies said:

"Western" - a fictional, romanticized (bs) film genre

In what way bs? If you mean in the sense that it's not an accurate portrayal of events then that's fair, but it also applies to the stock archetypes of the Middle Ages and the Age of Sail which are embodied by the various Castle and Pirates themes. The Western - at this point - is a genre with its own expectations and stock characters that often bare little resemblance to the reality of the Old West. That doesn't make it invalid as a potential source of sets. On the contrary, it's created a set of sanitised tropes which allow for a much more child-friendly experience. As long as the Native Americans and the various frontiersman factions never directly interact, and the setting borrows from the aesthetic of the Old West but the narrative of the Western movie, a potential theme is golden. Don't forget that it's not many years ago that Red Dead Redemption 2 was one of the most anticipated games on the market - and while Red Dead's market skews towards a higher age range than Lego are likely to ever be comfortable designing sets for, the appetite for sets in that time period is definitely there imo.

Posted
2 hours ago, Man with beard said:

Of course, I'm quite sure that all the way back to the 80's, most kids who had both would make their Blacktrons fight their Classic Space guys. And nowadays, Lego acknowledges that kids want to make their minifigs fight each other.  in this 2009 New York Times article, a Lego spokesperson says, “we think kids really want to have this good-against-evil play; they want this fighting against each other.” This is why every recent original Lego theme features two conflicting factions in every set and at least one faction is nearly always non-human. The only recent examples of original Lego themes with human vs. human conflict-in-a-box I can think of are Ultra Agents, Kingdoms, and the Castle and Pirates reboots.

There are a lot more than that. In Ninjago alone, both enemy factions from the 2018 sets (the eponymous biker gang of the "Sons of Garmadon" sets and the Dragon Hunters from the "Hunted" sets) were human, albeit with creepy-looking features like red eyes, scars, tattoos, and/or war paint to help set them apart from the Ninja. Same with Master Chen and his army of Anacondrai Warriors from the 2015's "Tournament of Elements" sets (besides the Chop'rai and Kapau'rai minifigures, which depict magically transformed Serpentine versions of the characters Chope and Kapau). Three of the Sky Pirate characters from Ninjago's "Skybound" sets (Bucky, Sqiffy, and Cyren) were ordinary humans, although the same faction included other non-human characters. And the main villains of the 2017 "Hands of Time" sets (the Time Twins Krux and Acronix) were human Elemental Masters just like Master Wu and most of the Ninja, despite commanding the monstrous Vermillion army.

Also, if you consider Kingdoms "recent", then World Racers definitely qualifies as well. After all, even if that conflict was in the context of an organized sport without life-or-death stakes, I think firing dynamite at one another still qualifies as violent conflict!

In light of all these counter-examples, I've come to suspect that the number of non-human enemy factions over the past decade or two probably has less to do with toning down the violence in those themes than the fact that monsters, aliens, robots, and the like are popular villainous archetypes among kids, and also help to create more visual contrast between a theme's "good guys" and "bad guys".

Conversely, I think the relative scarcity of non-human factions in the 80s and 90s probably had to do with the company's general aversion at that time to subject matter which might be seen as scary, morbid, or occult. I mean, consider that Godfred Kirk Christiansen once threatened to fire designer Niels Milan Pedersen for even jokingly putting a rudimentary LEGO skeleton into a prototype Castle set's dungeon!

While various types of monster minifigs might seem pretty innocuous to most of us today, in previous decades the "horror" genre in general was often considered highly inappropriate for kids, and so were many of the types of monsters or other supernatural entities associated with that genre. Even during my own childhood in the 90s, the "Goosebumps" and "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" books (two popular and fairly tame kid-targeted horror series, consisting of chapter books and short story anthologies, respectively) were frequent targets of censorship efforts in American schools and public libraries.

Posted

@Aanchir, thank you for enlightening me! I haven't closely followed Ninjago since the first year, to be honest... 

My original point was that Lego's shift to conflict within sets makes the return of the peaceful Indians subtheme extremely unlikely in a play theme.

A secondary point is that the return of Western in any form as also unlikely, for several reasons. You could be right that the violence would not be much of a problem for modern Lego. I definitely see the trend of more monsters, magic, and spooky stuff in a lot of kids' media nowadays, so I think you are absolutely right that a broad section of today's kids want that. And whatever the reason, I see the same trend towards fantasy antagonists in Lego products, which to me is a strike against the return of Western.

Posted

That's kind of a long and defensive reply to a post directed at no one in particular that was simply clarifying of a couple terms that were used repeatedly.

2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

In what way bs? If you mean in the sense that it's not an accurate portrayal of events then that's fair...

Yes. What most of what the world, including a great many in the US, knows about the American frontier are actually Hollywood inventions.

2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

The Western - at this point - is a genre with its own expectations and stock characters that often bare little resemblance to the reality of the Old West. That doesn't make it invalid as a potential source of sets.

The appeal is understandable; multimedia entertainment has done a great job of glamorizing that era, but it's just not that simple to say that its a stock character while disregarding everything else anymore. The fact that the word 'genocide' has been mentioned a few times here in the past few pages indicates a safe guess that these issues would factor into any discussion at TLG about this theme today.

2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

On the contrary, it's created a set of sanitised tropes which allow for a much more child-friendly experience. As long as the Native Americans and the various frontiersman factions never directly interact, and the setting borrows from the aesthetic of the Old West but the narrative of the Western movie, a potential theme is golden.

That's what Nick on Planet Ripples video was explaining, the sanitized versions are whitewashed. Anyone can attempt to avoid the issue but others may not and as a company TLG has to consider that.

From the linked 2018 video discussing the 1997/2002 sets:

"That's the thing about culture; things don't suddenly become weird overnight, some things have always been weird. And if you're used to ignoring the voices that have said as much since day one and we're just now listening to them that doesn't mean it just now started being a problem."

2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

Don't forget that it's not many years ago that Red Dead Redemption 2 was one of the most anticipated games on the market - and while Red Dead's market skews towards a higher age range than Lego are likely to ever be comfortable designing sets for, the appetite for sets in that time period is definitely there imo.

One of the greatest video games of all time, but RDR2 was also criticized for the Native American portrayals in the game as being cliche and insensitive. I wouldn't get any hopes up of an American frontier Lego theme just because of the popularity of a four year old (M-rated) video game. In fact Native American persecution features fairly prominently in the story which is the opposite from the as you characterized: sanitized Lego sets from the late 90's and early 00's. If anything RDR2 did a decent job of reminding and educating regarding the treatment of Native Americans by the United States and as awareness continues to rise the complexity of doing a theme like this probably does as well.

Again, I was merely clarifying terms; I'm not the one that needs be convinced about this. This is TLG's call. For this poll they made that decision, probably backed up a great number of reasons.

Posted

The issue with western is that however it is portrayed, native Americans or settlers separate, the historical events associated with these sets did happen, and there is no way to suggest that they didn't happen. Unlike fantasy castle which can be associated with stories or books or whatnot, same going for pirates, western wouldn't have any exposure without these interactions. They are the basis for most western movies and the previous western sets. Even if it is just settlers, depicting sheriffs and cowboys, it is associated with native Americans being pushed off there lands because that is what the settlers did, and that is why there were forts and whatnot.

Posted

Yeah, I think LEGO would want to go for the popular opinion, even if it wasn't right, and in this case it probably is, as you said, Stuartn. Switching to eco-friendly paper bags was one example, since for that purpose the plastic bag is the most eco-friendly. But, of course, that's not how it seems to your average parent buying err... plastic... bricks.

Posted
6 hours ago, Stuartn said:

same going for pirates,

That is actually my point: Pirates is seen as a-ok despite being rooted in pretty violent history, because the stock tropes of the Pirate genre were spun off into books and film and are now seen as parallel but separate to the true history. The same thing is true of the Western: a century of films and books have built up their own mythos regarding the Old West and its stock characters. Are a lot of these early books problematic nowadays? Absolutely. But so were many early Pirate stories. That doesn't mean that the genre is irredeemable. 

Posted
21 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

That is actually my point: Pirates is seen as a-ok despite being rooted in pretty violent history, because the stock tropes of the Pirate genre were spun off into books and film and are now seen as parallel but separate to the true history. The same thing is true of the Western: a century of films and books have built up their own mythos regarding the Old West and its stock characters. Are a lot of these early books problematic nowadays? Absolutely. But so were many early Pirate stories. That doesn't mean that the genre is irredeemable. 

I don't think it's a question of whether a theme is completely irredeemable or not. Most things are somewhere in the middle.

The classic age of piracy was at least twice as long ago as the classic wild west period and a lovable rogue is a bit different to a lovable war criminal.

There's mythos around WWII and books and films with comical nazi soldiers but that doesn't mean lego wants to make a system theme based upon it.

Some people would be fine if lego did do that but do you honestly not see the difference?

I imagine wild west probably sits somewhere between pirates and nazis in terms of scope for controversy.  Personally I'm fine with lego "cowboys and indians" but I can see why it's more controversial than pirates with some people.

I think it's fine for you to think its okay but surely you can contemplate other people might not? There's no obobjective and definitive "right" or "wrong" for the subject of toys.

Personally, I think if there was enough good reason for lego to pick "wild west" over something else then they would do so again.  However, when they have other good options, I can see why it might be less risky to pick something else.

Posted
53 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

That is actually my point: Pirates is seen as a-ok despite being rooted in pretty violent history, because the stock tropes of the Pirate genre were spun off into books and film and are now seen as parallel but separate to the true history. The same thing is true of the Western: a century of films and books have built up their own mythos regarding the Old West and its stock characters. Are a lot of these early books problematic nowadays? Absolutely. But so were many early Pirate stories. That doesn't mean that the genre is irredeemable. 

A big issue is that there are still Native Americans around today, with the same belief systems and traditions, whereas there are not people that identify as 15th or 16th century pirates.

 

15 hours ago, koalayummies said:

"Cowboy"- rancher: animal herder, cattle wrangler; raises livestock

It can also be used to refer to the soldiers / cavalry too (as at LEGO's Bricklink).

Posted
1 hour ago, Weil said:

surely you can contemplate other people might not?

Of course? My understanding was that this was a message board where people were free to posit their opinions, and respond to other people's. I'm not trying to insist that 'my view is the right view' (quotations for emphasis, not trying to imply that anybody's said that) - I'm merely engaging in discourse regarding the topic, and offering my view on the matter.

Posted
3 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Of course? My understanding was that this was a message board where people were free to posit their opinions, and respond to other people's. I'm not trying to insist that 'my view is the right view' (quotations for emphasis, not trying to imply that anybody's said that) - I'm merely engaging in discourse regarding the topic, and offering my view on the matter.

Sorry.  I probably came in too strong and unfairly presented things in too "matter of fact" sort of way.

I've enjoyed reading your points and opinions.  I guess I just wanted to try and get to the crux of things, which is essentially that some people disagree but thats understandable.

I guess to move things back on topic, I think a reason lego may not have included western as a theme in the vote could conceivably be because they now think it is too controversial, or it could be something else.  We simply don't know.  So we can speculate about other reasons, but we also can't rule this one out.  And without inside knowledge, I'm not sure how much we can really say about liklihood either way.

Posted

Uh, we have sort of drifted from topic here. You are welcome to continue to discuss the issues surrounding a Western theme elsewhere, I can even transplant the posts. 

However, the topic has detached from the subject of the thread.

 

Thanks

Posted
21 hours ago, Man with beard said:

Personally, I interpret the most recent very short-lived reboots of Pirates and Castle as Lego testing the waters to see whether there is really as much demand for those themes as the AFOLs say there is. Based on how small those themes were, I'm guessing the demand wasn't there. 

Maybe the kids today do not want pirates or castle, I do not know. However AFOLs definitely do, so if Lego makes more sets like Barracuda Bay aimed at adults I am sure they will sell like hot cakes (and probably a lot of kids will want them as well) :wink:
In addition the reboots are not very recent, it been what 8 and 6 years ago? Just look what happen to Harry Potter 7 years after the last wave; in 2018 it had 4 times as many top10 best selling sets as any other theme:wacko:

Posted (edited)
On 1/31/2021 at 12:03 PM, Man with beard said:

Personally, I interpret the most recent very short-lived reboots of Pirates and Castle as Lego testing the waters to see whether there is really as much demand for those themes as the AFOLs say there is. Based on how small those themes were, I'm guessing the demand wasn't there. 

I hope that's not the case. I don't think of the Pirate sets as a "short lived reboot" so much as standalone sets that were successful enough that they were repeated in 2021 but with Castle; i.e. the Blacksmith Shop and the 2021 Creator Castle sets. And I wouldn't be surprised if 2022 was Space.

EDIT: I'm dumb and totally misunderstood you. Thanks @icm for setting me straight.

4 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Maybe the kids today do not want pirates or castle, I do not know. However AFOLs definitely do, so if Lego makes more sets like Barracuda Bay aimed at adults I am sure they will sell like hot cakes (and probably a lot of kids will want them as well) :wink:

CLASSIC. THEMED. CREATOR. SETS.

:laugh:

Edited by danth
Posted

@danth, I think @Man with beard is referring to the 2009 and 2015 Pirates lines and the 2013 Castle line, not to the 2020 combo of the 3-in-1 Pirate Ship and Barracuda Bay.  I agree with you that that combo is a pair of successful standalone sets, not a "short-lived reboot."

Posted
3 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Maybe the kids today do not want pirates or castle, I do not know. However AFOLs definitely do, so if Lego makes more sets like Barracuda Bay aimed at adults I am sure they will sell like hot cakes (and probably a lot of kids will want them as well) :wink:

Honestly, I wouldn't even assume that kids today aren't interestsed in Pirates and Castle just because specific themes based on those categories have been scarce lately. I mean, plenty of kids in the 80s and 90s were interested in ninjas, space aliens, dinosaurs, globetrotting adventurers, superheroes, or secret agents, but it wasn't until the late 90s that sets based around any of that sort of stuff started coming out. Even then, a lot of those sorts of themes tended to spring up intermittently and only last for a short stretch of time before being discontinued.

And honestly, I think there's a strong argument to be made that the prevalence of the Town, Space, and Castle themes in the 80s and 90s (and the Pirates theme to a lesser extent) has less to do with those themes being uniquely universal and timeless than with LEGO simply having an easier time turning those settings/genres into compelling, shelf-ready, fan-favorite product lines than other settings/genres which took longer for them to figure out.

I suspect that the Castle and Pirates themes will probably continue to show up in the future, much like the other categories we've seen LEGO revisit at various points over the years. But they are no longer LEGO's most reliable themes like they were back in their early years — rather, that honor is currently held by themes like City, Creator, Friends, Ninjago, and Star Wars, along with the year-after-year mainstay status which comes with it.

Whether Castle or Pirates might rise to that sort of prominence again in the future is anyone's guess. But needless to say, themes like Nexo Knights and Elves would not have been created at all (let alone invested in so heavily) if LEGO really believed kids were no longer interested in medieval stuff, nor would they have had successful three-year or four-year runs if there were any truth to that sort of assumption.

I mean, it's not like LEGO created themes like Ninjago or Legends of Chima or Hidden Side thinking that kids needed to be persuaded to care about ninja or wild animals or ghosts — rather, kids already had enough obvious interest in those sorts of things for LEGO to see them as promising starting points for new themes. The same can be said for castles, knights, and medieval fantasy in general. Even if that stuff isn't LEGO's main focus right now, it's probably pretty high on their list of prospective theme concepts to revisit in the future.

Posted
1 hour ago, icm said:

@danth, I think @Man with beard is referring to the 2009 and 2015 Pirates lines and the 2013 Castle line, not to the 2020 combo of the 3-in-1 Pirate Ship and Barracuda Bay.

Of course! I should have understood. My bad, and thanks. I edited my post above.

Posted

What I will say, then, is I don't get this common idea we always see on Eurobricks, where a short lived theme is seen as a failure. Almost every theme in the history of Lego is short lived. Futuron, Blacktron, M-Tron, Forrest Men, Wolf Pack, Dragon Knights, Monster Fighters, Arctic Explorers, etc etc. I mean, besides overarching main themes (like Space or Town or Creator), what themes have ever lasted more than a few years? Licenses like Star Wars and Marvel. But for in-house? Ninjago is like the only one. I don't think a theme has to be the next Ninjago to be considered a success.

By the "short lived == failure" metric, Lego is almost a complete failure and should be out of business by now.

Posted
On 1/31/2021 at 3:03 PM, Man with beard said:

Personally, I interpret the most recent very short-lived reboots of Pirates and Castle as Lego testing the waters to see whether there is really as much demand for those themes as the AFOLs say there is. Based on how small those themes were, I'm guessing the demand wasn't there. 

I don't agree with this at all. Since then, Pirate and Castle Ideas projects have routinely reached the review stage, and they were two of the most popular themes in this poll out of a wide variety of options. In fact, the number of unique users who voted for Castle was nearly double that of any other theme.

 I doubt AFOL attitudes to Pirates or Castle have shifted much since 2013/15. That being said, I'm not sure why Lego is so hesitant to bring those themes back full time.

Posted
10 minutes ago, BrickJagger said:

I don't agree with this at all. Since then, Pirate and Castle Ideas projects have routinely reached the review stage, and they were two of the most popular themes in this poll out of a wide variety of options. In fact, the number of unique users who voted for Castle was nearly double that of any other theme.

 I doubt AFOL attitudes to Pirates or Castle have shifted much since 2013/15. That being said, I'm not sure why Lego is so hesitant to bring those themes back full time.

Maybe not, but then, the rebooted Pirate and Castle themes were both targeted at a much broader audience than AFOLs. It's not unlikely that the older audience for Ideas sets is enough to support individual, high-dollar sets like Barracuda Bay or the Blacksmith's Shop, but not enough to collectively make up the sales to sustain a larger, ongoing theme (with most sets in a theme like that being cheaper and produced in higher numbers). For that you need a much broader kid audience—and if they don't materialize, no amount of AFOL passion would make up the difference.

This applies to Bionicle too, by the way, which is a part of what makes me hopeful that an individual tribute set like the one this contest would result in could be more likely to succeed than a full theme revival like the one that faltered back in 2016. Creating one carefully crafted Bionicle set that is targeted at the narrow but passionate demographic of longtime fans might be easier than trying to make a full theme into the kind of hit it was back in the early 2000s.

Posted (edited)

 

1 hour ago, danth said:

Ninjago is like the only one. I don't think a theme has to be the next Ninjago to be considered a success.

I agree with you on this.  Friends is another outstanding long-running success - but this shouldn't be the benchmark for "success" or "failure".

47 minutes ago, BrickJagger said:

That being said, I'm not sure why Lego is so hesitant to bring those themes back full time.

I imagine some of it is just capacity and not letting the product range at any one time get too unmanagable.  When lego is trying more new things and has some "new" full time themes I guess there's less room for as many full time classic system themes.  It doesn't neccessarily mean those themes weren't or wouldn't be successful. 

I don't know if people's assertions that Castle, Pirates and Space no longer have broad enough appeal to be successful as a full time theme is based on any evidence or just that they're not full time anymore.

The idea of the 2013 castle wave being a test seems particularly odd, when Kingdoms was like 2 years before.

Edited by Weil
Posted
3 hours ago, danth said:

What I will say, then, is I don't get this common idea we always see on Eurobricks, where a short lived theme is seen as a failure. Almost every theme in the history of Lego is short lived. Futuron, Blacktron, M-Tron, Forrest Men, Wolf Pack, Dragon Knights, Monster Fighters, Arctic Explorers, etc etc. I mean, besides overarching main themes (like Space or Town or Creator), what themes have ever lasted more than a few years? Licenses like Star Wars and Marvel. But for in-house? Ninjago is like the only one. I don't think a theme has to be the next Ninjago to be considered a success.

By the "short lived == failure" metric, Lego is almost a complete failure and should be out of business by now.

I'd say that is spot on. Someone made the point that if what Lego does is a failure, then how come TLG is a multi-billion dollar successful business. Themes are more likely short lived because TLG know there is sufficient demand, but it probably won't last that long as consumers tire of the product, and they are better off removing that theme in place a of a new theme which will sell better, and so on.

Ninjago was only meant to be a three year long theme, it was just so successful it stayed around.

Friends is probably similar to town, in the same way city has replaced town, world city and other town themes. There is always a female-oriented theme, such as paradisia, then belville, friends was the latest incarnation of a constant theme.

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