This is the end ... of Exo-Force

[Holodoc]

Bad news for all the Exo-Force guys around here.

Jan Beyer officially stated that Exo-Force is going to be discontinued in 2009.

The reason is, that 2006 selled well, but 2007 didn

[Hotshot]

NOOOoOO

:'-( WHY WHY

THIS madness

[Deinonychus]

Yeah, I kinda saw this coming when no Exo-Force listings or images were appearing for anything past the current sets.

It

[Vader]

This might upset some but i'm happy to see it go..... Sorry just my opinion.

[Jipay]

Cool new figs, manga designs. That's all what exo force was to me. The line was good but I only have bought one set. I'll try to get my hands on one or two more before the line is gone. I hope that something even better is in the pipe to replace them

[Vader]

I hope that something even better is in the pipe to replace them

Agents....... 8-

[UniqueBuilder]

Cool new figs, manga designs. That's all what exo force was to me.

I'll second that. Myself I've only gotten two promo sets from the Donald Duck magazine for those lovely figs. *wub* I hope I'll be able to get my hands on the Golden Tower (Hitomi *wub* ) when it goes on sale.

It's sad that we didn't get to see any more cool figs before the line ended, though. :-(

Oh, and I'm glad you said manga and not anime, JP. :-P

[Hinckley]

Well, why would someone buy the 2007 sets when they were designed horribly? Why should they be surprised that 2007 didn't sell well if they were basically piles of crap in a box? This year's sets are great and the whole theme has a lot of potential. Oh well, bring us Romans, Greeks or Pirates then please.

[Nyundi]

Cool new figs, manga designs. That's all what exo force was to me. The line was good but I only have bought one set. I'll try to get my hands on one or two more before the line is gone. I hope that something even better is in the pipe to replace them

This is how I feel. I have one of the smaller sets just for the manga hair :)

I'll certainly pick up one or two more before they are gone tho!

[Fistach]

At last! They will be able to focus more on new cityand castle themes.

but I also feel sorry to Ef - fans, but imho EF was a weak theme and I was almost sure TLC would have withdraw these from shops in 2008.

[Starwars4J]

That's sad, the reason being they had some of the best torsos I've ever seen :'-( They were also GREAT parts packs...and the 08 mechs were such an improvement over the old ones.

That being said I hope this means I can pick a bunch of them up on clearance X-D

[Asuka]

EF was a really interesting theme with some cool and original mecha designs and fancy characters.

But this was also one of the main limitations to that line, and perhaps something TLC failed

a little. Seriously, how many mechas with always the same characters in only new dresses

could someone stand before it

[Wout]

I agree with Asuka, the sets of 2007 looked for me almost the same as the sets from 2006. I bought one little sets with the purple guy and one with the blue haired guy and maybe I buy the little set with the red headed guy. The figs were nice especially the wigs, great for Carnaval or clowns or something like that.

[Brainbox]

Interesting. I mean, it was never my favourite theme, but I did quite enjoy the '06 stuff, and this year's looks quite nice. It's a pity to see a good theme with lots of potential go, and it's certainly done a lot for mech-building, introducing the concept to a new generation.

But, with '08 like it is, '09 should be even better, so it almost makes up for it.

[Johnny 5]

I was never really into this theme so I am not torn up about it going. It had good aspects of course like the minifigs and some of the color schemes, but it just wasn't good enough for me to justify me collecting them. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one to feel this way what with sales lagging. Of course I feel for the fans whose favorite was EF , and hopefully they continue to buy and collect Lego, but the bright side of all this is that there's room for another theme now (unless Agents really is replacing EF, but I doubt that for some reason).

Please, please let it be pirates!! :'-)

[Siegfried]

Well it looks like ~VBBN~ was right! :-P Here I was thinking it was too early...

Well, why would someone buy the 2007 sets when they were designed horribly? Why should they be surprised that 2007 didn't sell well if they were basically piles of crap in a box? This year's sets are great and the whole theme has a lot of potential.

Yes, that is how I felt. I bought all but three of the first range (Thunder Fury, Sentry and Super Nova), and I still have Bridge Walker and Silent Strike on display. *wub* But last years offerings were so un-interesting. I ended up buying most of them as well... but I only paid full price for 2. (Aero Booster and Shadow Crawler). Many I found for under half price! However all of them are now scrapped as the designs were either un-interesting of too fragile. (Aero Booster I loved but I was always fixing it!) This years like is brilliant however and I think that Lego is making a bit of a Crusade decision here. I agree with Vader that Agents is the replacement... which could be a good thing as they do seem to have many of the same parts that I liked Exo-Force for.

[Tohst]

Oh well, I liked Exo-Force.

I think it gave us good pieces in a good range of colors. The system to ball joint connectors were brilliant. And unlike other themes *cough Bionicle cough* having different colors every year provided diversity.

That said, there really were some stinkers design wise. The 2007 mechs just rehashing the 2006 mechs. (Admittedly, the 2008 mechs, especially the little spider one did a good job of taking the basic concept and mixing it up a bit). The non-mech sets were usually uninspired. The tank this year, for instance, is pretty bad.

I'm sure the pieces and some influences will make it into other lines and thats good enough for me.

It may be the end of Exo-force but there is no end to Lego.

-Tohst

[Pate-keetongu]

hmm. hmm. hmm.

I never liked this theme. only good thing is parts. I really wish that new theme comes to exo-force's place.

so, not really awful news to me.

[M'Kyuun]

Shame they're discontinuing the theme. I think they were just starting to hit their stride with this year's lineup and I was looking forward to where they were going with it. I love mecha, and this theme had a lot of potential; I just think some design aesthetics were sacrificed to include more playability elements, i.e. large firing weapons, or melee. While I'm not adverse to projectile or melee weapons per se, if they are retractable, foldable, or otherwise unobtrusive, a cleaner looking mech results. The use of Bionicle parts and huge weapon arms turned me off to alot of sets in this theme. No offense to TLC's design team, but I think TLC would have done themselves credit had they contracted one of Japan's premier mecha designers to produce this line, or a line in the future. My own pick would be Shoji Kawamori, who created the transforming mecha for Macross, as well as the mecha for the Armored Kore games. He's also the creator of the "VAN-Force", a transformable mech created from several of the first EF sets.

For me, the best things about this theme were that TLC tried something new and unique from anything else they've ever done, and in the process, introduced alot of great new pieces, esp the ratheting and brick ball and socket joints. For mecha moc builders, this line was the answer to many a prayer.

I was really hoping that this theme would eventually evolve into a transforming mecha line. Perhaps that's down the road...after all, it'd be a shame to have all these new joint pieces and not use them. If the sets continue to improve and sell better through '08 and '09, perhaps the theme will get a new lease, and maybe a new direction.

Edited February 7, 2008 by M'Kyuun

[Zzz]

Also I was never interested in the "bad robots", I really liked the first wave and I thought that 2008 looks really nice! The bionicle parts always made me shiver, but the mechs and minifigs were really cool!

I would have prefered a more darker look overall, with grey mechs and not too freaky additions, but I liked them enough to have the Stealth Hunter and Uplink still on display - I just love those simple designs and anime-look.

I will get River Dragon now, it looks wonderful! And on sale I will add a few others, plus I will get Supernova and Sentry! EF lives!

:-)

[gylman]

The sets seemed exciting at first, but quickly got repetitive. With so many useless parts (at least for the way I build), I could never buy them as parts packs. I never even bought them at 50% off. I'm not surprised this happened, but I do feel bad for the many enthusiastic EF fans out there.

Rest In Peace Exo Force. We hardly knew ye.

[Kahgarak]

!!!!TINMAD DOG

People, I am officially heartbroken.

I even had an entire Expanded Universe based on Exo Force. The advantage is that it gives me more freedom in the story, but the downside is that interest is lost over time :-(.

[Lasse D]

As an "otaku" I should have been much more enthusiastic about this line, but I think the sets were poorly designed.

The mechs follow the standard recipe with a flat rigid back, ball jointed arms and legs while the pilot is put into the chest like an afterthought. It is fine to keep that design to a couple of mechs, but try to do something original with the others, please!

Another big problem with the line is the emptyness of the models. They are all big because of long appendages sticking out in all directions. Even the big green devastator was pretty much a Technic case with some over sized wheels being the main attraction (and I will make some good use of those *sweet* ). This might not seem like a big problem, but take a look at the thumbnails used in S@H and you will see where it breaks down. Most of the sets don't look impressive when shown like that. You can hardly make up that some of them are mechs!

I think this line could have been much better had LEGO allied itself with one of the Anime studios.

I'm frustrated so don't try to argue with me using logics!

[legomilk]

Bad news for all the Exo-Force guys around here.

Jan Beyer officially stated that Exo-Force is going to be discontinued in 2009.

The reason is, that 2006 selled well, but 2007 didn

[meschepers]

I was more or less indifferent to the line. I had three of the smallest sets. I like the torsos but hate the heads and hair. If losing Exo-Force means gaining Pirates, then I am all aboard. I'm not too sad to see it go but I agree that another theme *ahem pirates* needs to fill that void.