When Should City be Cancelled?

[The Island Chronicles]

42 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Tell me, did this contact of yours give any insight into why Lego chose to "shoehorn" those subject matters into the City theme? 

For me, the kind of "Rescue" subtheme I'd hope to see from City is one centered around post-natural disaster search & rescue, similar to 1998's Res-Q subtheme. 

Probably for money....and I think coast guard practically took over that judging from the scenery on promos. 

[Digger of Bricks]

10 minutes ago, pooda said:

Probably for money....and I think coast guard practically took over that judging from the scenery on promos. 

Well, of course any product they put out is for the sake of money (I mean, duh... ); but, I'd specifically like to know if he perhaps had any knowledge as to why those subject matters were slotted into City rather than a theme of their own (i.e. Adventurers 2.0). 

[The Island Chronicles]

1 minute ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Well, of course any product they put out is for the sake of money (I mean, duh... ); but, I'd specifically like to know if he perhaps had any knowledge as to why those subject matters were slotted into City rather than a theme of their own (i.e. Adventurers 2.0). 

Considering that he works st the division in Enfield..... he wouldn't really know much. Denmark is where the magic happens. 

[Digger of Bricks]

Just now, pooda said:

Considering that he works st the division in Enfield..... he wouldn't really know much. Denmark is where the magic happens. 

Well, if I were to speak for this year's "Mars Mission" wave of sets out of the many exploration subthemes we've seen from City in recent years, it's hypothesized by some that Space-themed lines outside of Star Wars currently haven't a way to gain a foothold within Lego's product portfolio due to such (i.e. Disney's Star Wars). Even to lesser extent, it could be theorized that in-house exploration-based playthemes within the vein of Adventurers/ Pharaoh's Quest/Atlantis/Dino/Power Miners/etc. are in a similar position due to the Jurassic World theme's possible monopolization of such. So, my point being, in-house takes on those subject matters may be able to coexist with such under the immunity umbrella that the City theme could be providing, hence keeping such themes available to kids who aren't as keen on City's typical offerings.

[Aanchir]

2 hours ago, corasaur said:

City just seems to be the brand for "kid's playsets set in approximately the contemporary real world." I guess lego believes this is a useful marketing umbrella. Maybe they'd feel pressured to ratchet up the wackiness if they made standalone exploration themes, and that someone believes they can only get away with making realistic scientist types under the city branding.

This is my perception as well. There are a lot of theme names that are "brand names" rather than literal descriptions of their scope. It's the same as how there have been "Castle" sets that don't depict castles or areas inside them, how there were "Town" sets not set in towns, how there were "Ninja" sets with no ninjas, how there are "Pirates" sets with no pirates, Harry Potter sets that don't include Harry Potter, etc.

In this case, the main defining factors that set City apart from themes like Castle, Space, Agents, Adventurers, Pirates, or Ninjago isn't that City sets all take place within to happen within city limits — rather, it's that the sets generally exist in a modern-day, low-fantasy, low-conflict world. If the only rule about what a City set was is that it had to happen IN a city… I mean, that would open the door to far-future cities like in the Ultra Agents theme, or fantasy universe cities like in the Ninjago theme! And that would dilute the theme's meaning WAY more than sets that happen to take place in the larger world that surrounds LEGO City proper.

3 hours ago, icm said:

1 - For many people who live in inland areas, concepts like "forest police," "swamp police," "forest fire," "mountain police", etc., are a lot closer to home than concepts like "coast guard", while for people who live in port cities, "coast guard" is closer to home.  For instance, I live in a metropolis of two million people that's nine hundred miles from the closest coast, but only ten minutes from the nearest national forest.  Smoke from forest fires frequently obscures the air in the summer, and sometimes people I know have to drive through burning canyons on their commutes.  Why should "coast guard" then be more valid as a subtheme of "City" than "forest fire" or "mountain police"?

2 - From a perspective of development and marketing, it's a lot more practical for Lego to include these modern-day playsets with aspirational careers for little kids (fire, police, medical, explorers) under the City brand than to develop a new logo, branding and marketing strategy, and set of unique characters for each one.  The "City" brand tells parents that a set is based in the real world, features happy people doing their jobs, and is mildly educational and aspirational for a kid who wants to grow up to be a police officer, firefighter, doctor, pilot, bus driver, race car driver, engineer, astronaut, naturalist, scientist, etc.  Take away that branding and parents will start to think these sets need more gimmicks to justify themselves - as an example, the 2007 Aqua Raiders theme is basically "Divers, but with lots of weapons and giant mutant sea creatures," while Friends is basically "City, but with variations that market research suggests will help it be more successful with young girls."  Exploration subthemes may not take place inside the metropolis, but as "real-world stuff that your kid may grow up to do for a living" they fit just fine with the City brand.

3 - If we concede that it's fine for subthemes to overlap with each other, and we're more concerned with "eliminating the artificial divide" between subthemes than with actually changing what gets released when, then what's the point in continuing this conversation at all?  Brickset classifies sets according to subtheme for convenience in the database.  Lego releases waves of City sets with similar content at the same time because it's more efficient from a production, marketing, and sales standpoint to design, produce, and sell a group of related sets at the same time than to release those same sets at intervals over several years or to design, produce, and sell more widely varied groups of sets at the same time.  But you won't find any distinction between "subthemes" in the sales page at Shop at Home, for example.  So what's the big deal?

These are all very good points! And honestly I've pointed this out myself in the past… I mean, cities can even be right next to jungles or volcanoes in some parts of the world.

If, say, LEGO were to make a "Desert Police" subtheme… well, why not? It's not like deserts are some remote place that nobody builds cities in or near. Even Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert!

What's more, I also think there's an issue many people don't consider, which is that stuff inside of cities doesn't always stay there. Launching platforms for spacecraft first showed up in the Flight subtheme of Town, same as airplane or airport sets — they didn't get their own separate subtheme (Launch Command) until 1995. And there are a lot of parallels that can be drawn between those type of sets.

After all, if you're going to argue that space exploration doesn't belong in City… well, the same argument can just as easily be applied to cargo ship, jet aircraft, and train sets, which might begin and end their journeys in cities, but spend lots of their time far outside of them!

17 hours ago, pooda said:

Do you work for Lego? If not, I wouldn't jump the gun. I'll keep hope alive as long as I live and when I start my career with Lego (it's a plan of mine), I'm going to fix the city theme up good. That way everyone is happy. So yeah.  

I do not work for LEGO. Closest I've gotten was getting invited to a recruitment workshop in Billund in 2015, but I wasn't one of the candidates selected that time around. That said, I find it odd that "do you work for LEGO?" seems to be people's go-to question when I make a case for why LEGO does things the way they do, as if being an employee there is the only reason that anybody ought to presume basic competence on their part.

Furthermore, I think it's ridiculously arrogant of you to believe that the strategies that have made LEGO City one of LEGO's most successful themes over the course of pretty much their most successful decade in history somehow fall short of your baseless assumptions about what it should be doing.

It's one thing to say that you want LEGO to change a few things, but it's another to bloviate about how during your tenure as a designer (which, mind you, is still no more than a dream/goal of yours), you will be the one to "fix" a theme that hasn't even been credibly shown to be "broken"!

I hope to be a LEGO designer one day as well, but I'm not so cocky as to think that I already have what it takes to not only get the job, but also do it BETTER than the people already working there, before even putting in an application for a current job opening.

1 hour ago, pooda said:

Probably for money....and I think coast guard practically took over that judging from the scenery on promos. 

For most intents and purposes, Res-Q was basically just an edgy 90s re-imagining of the Coastguard subtheme that had already been introduced nearly a decade earlier. It had scarier-looking packaging than today's City Coast Guard sets, but the core idea of responding to coastal emergencies was pretty much the same.

Also, if including the exploration sets in City is as bad an idea as you seem to think then it's kind of ridiculous to suggest LEGO keeps doing it "for money". If the sets would really be more popular as their own separate theme, then there'd be more money to be earned from releasing them that way.

On a related note, I'm not sure why people seem so confident about the idea that the City theme was imposed on the Exploration subthemes to boost their popularity, rather than that Exploration subthemes have helped to boost the City theme's popularity.

Careers in science are trendy these days, and I think that's probably the reason behind why we've seen an increasing focus on scientific research or ecological expeditions in SEVERAL themes — not just in LEGO City, but also Jungle Rescue/Sea Life Rescue sets from LEGO Friends, NASA sets from LEGO Ideas and LEGO Creator Expert

A lot of folks seem to be thinking about the LEGO City exploration sets as somehow taking the place of themes like Adventurers, Aqua Raiders, Aqua Raiders, and Pharaoh's Quest. But there's a much bigger difference between the subthemes in question and those retired themes than branding — Adventurers and the like are high-fantasy, high-conflict themes featuring undead mummies, tribal spirits, sea monsters, and in Adventurers' case, even a villainous human faction.

The City exploration subthemes, on the other hand are low-fantasy, low-conflict themes. Their biggest difference from the real-life scientific efforts that inspire them is that the explorers are hunting for eye-catching stuff like shiny (but not necessarily magical) crystals or preserved ice-age animals, not just collecting mundane-looking rock, soil, or ice samples for chemical analysis as real researchers in these environments might spend a lot of their time doing.

And the main reason for this inaccuracy isn't as much about Adventurers-style fantasy flair than making sure kids receiving a set can instantly recognize what it is that the explorers might be trying to obtain. It's the same as why LEGO City miners mine for gold and not some more commonly-mined but plain-looking mineral like feldspar. Or why LEGO City criminals steal stuff with obvious value like money, gold, or jewels, rather than other popular targets for theft like laundry detergent or manhole covers.

1 hour ago, pooda said:

Considering that he works st the division in Enfield..... he wouldn't really know much. Denmark is where the magic happens. 

So… why did you even bother to bring him up? It's not as though having one random LEGO designer with no insights into why LEGO City subthemes get chosen really elevates your argument. All it tells us is that there are other people with personal opinions about what LEGO City designers should/shouldn't do but no evidence to back them up.

2 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Well, if I were to speak for this year's "Mars Mission" wave of sets out of the many exploration subthemes we've seen from City in recent years, it's hypothesized by some that Space-themed lines outside of Star Wars currently haven't a way to gain a foothold within Lego's product portfolio due to such (i.e. Disney's Star Wars). Even to lesser extent, it could be theorized that in-house exploration-based playthemes within the vein of Adventurers/ Pharaoh's Quest/Atlantis/Dino/Power Miners/etc. are in a similar position due to the Jurassic World theme's possible monopolization of such.

To be honest, all of these explanations are a bit of a stretch to find out-of-the-ordinary explanations for ordinary occurrences. As I've brought up several times, LEGO didn't need any movie licensed themes as justification for making Launch Command, Divers, Space Port, and Arctic sets in the late 90s. So why would they need that kind of justification now?

I'm especially bewildered by the idea that Jurassic World would be any obstacle at all to a new fantasy ocean or underground adventure theme. Just because Jurassic Park/Jurassic World are 20th/21st century fantasy licenses doesn't mean that any and all 20th/21st century fantasy themes would be "too similar". Frankly, many of those themes you just mentioned have way more in common with other "big bang" themes like Ninjago and Nexo Knights, as well as retired licenses like Indiana Jones and Prince of Persia (which WERE able to exist alongside some of the themes you named), than with any of LEGO's current licenses.

In general, all this stuff comes down to the same baffling assumption that "the only reason LEGO would make themes/subthemes I don't like is because something's STOPPING them from bringing back themes/subthemes I do want." It's the same as the bonkers idea that LEGO would only make a theme like Nexo Knights or Knights' Kingdom II if they couldn't make Castle sets, or that LEGO would only make girl-oriented Elves sets because they couldn't make boy-oriented ones.

The core of all these assumptions is the idea that the stuff AFOLs (either as a group or individually) want LEGO to make is implicitly superior to the stuff they actually end up doing, and that LEGO knows and believes this to be true, but has to settle for an inferior option. Which is absurd. In truth, there's no reason to believe that fantasy or sci-fi submarine/mining/jungle/space sets are implicitly superior to realistic ones, any more than there is to believe that realistic castle or pirate or ninja sets are implicitly superior to fantasy or sci-fi ones. It's just personal preference.

And because LEGO can't possibly make every theme concept they've ever come up with at all times, that means that sometimes they might do something different than what AFOLs want or suspect, for no other reason than that it seems like it's something a large number of potential buyers will like.

I'm not denying that licensed themes (AND non-licensed themes) can influence new theme development, of course. For instance, sometimes choosing a color scheme for a theme like Power Miners or Atlantis is influenced in part by a desire to make them stand out from whatever other sets are likely to be on shelves at the same time. And of course, there's no doubt that LEGO might prefer to avoid having too many themes with a similar concept out at the same time.

But it's not really for us to say that the themes which are similar to but not quite what we want to see are just a "plan B" when the ones we do want to see don't pan out. Because even here on Eurobricks, it's normal for different people to enjoy different themes — I remember plenty of comments when Pharaoh's Quest was around complaining that they'd prefer a historical Egyptian theme over a 20th century fantasy undead mummy theme, and plenty of comments when Atlantis was around from people who said they'd prefer to see a more realistic underwater theme.

We're ALWAYS going to have people who have different preferences, and LEGO just has to try their best to make informed decisions about which preferences have a stronger case for catering to them in any given year.

[The Island Chronicles]

7 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

This is my perception as well. There are a lot of theme names that are "brand names" rather than literal descriptions of their scope. It's the same as how there have been "Castle" sets that don't depict castles or areas inside them, how there were "Town" sets not set in towns, how there were "Ninja" sets with no ninjas, how there are "Pirates" sets with no pirates, Harry Potter sets that don't include Harry Potter, etc.

In this case, the main defining factors that set City apart from themes like Castle, Space, Agents, Adventurers, Pirates, or Ninjago isn't that City sets all take place within to happen within city limits — rather, it's that the sets generally exist in a modern-day, low-fantasy, low-conflict world. If the only rule about what a City set was is that it had to happen IN a city… I mean, that would open the door to far-future cities like in the Ultra Agents theme, or fantasy universe cities like in the Ninjago theme! And that would dilute the theme's meaning WAY more than sets that happen to take place in the larger world that surrounds LEGO City proper.

These are all very good points! And honestly I've pointed this out myself in the past… I mean, cities can even be right next to jungles or volcanoes in some parts of the world.

If, say, LEGO were to make a "Desert Police" subtheme… well, why not? It's not like deserts are some remote place that nobody builds cities in or near. Even Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert!

What's more, I also think there's an issue many people don't consider, which is that stuff inside of cities doesn't always stay there. Launching platforms for spacecraft first showed up in the Flight subtheme of Town, same as airplane or airport sets — they didn't get their own separate subtheme (Launch Command) until 1995. And there are a lot of parallels that can be drawn between those type of sets.

After all, if you're going to argue that space exploration doesn't belong in City… well, the same argument can just as easily be applied to cargo ship, jet aircraft, and train sets, which might begin and end their journeys in cities, but spend lots of their time far outside of them!

I do not work for LEGO. Closest I've gotten was getting invited to a recruitment workshop in Billund in 2015, but I wasn't one of the candidates selected that time around. That said, I find it odd that "do you work for LEGO?" seems to be people's go-to question when I make a case for why LEGO does things the way they do, as if being an employee there is the only reason that anybody ought to presume basic competence on their part.

Furthermore, I think it's ridiculously arrogant of you to believe that the strategies that have made LEGO City one of LEGO's most successful themes over the course of pretty much their most successful decade in history somehow fall short of your baseless assumptions about what it should be doing.

It's one thing to say that you want LEGO to change a few things, but it's another to bloviate about how during your tenure as a designer (which, mind you, is still no more than a dream/goal of yours), you will be the one to "fix" a theme that hasn't even been credibly shown to be "broken"!

I hope to be a LEGO designer one day as well, but I'm not so cocky as to think that I already have what it takes to not only get the job, but also do it BETTER than the people already working there, before even putting in an application for a current job opening.

For most intents and purposes, Res-Q was basically just an edgy 90s re-imagining of the Coastguard subtheme that had already been introduced nearly a decade earlier. It had scarier-looking packaging than today's City Coast Guard sets, but the core idea of responding to coastal emergencies was pretty much the same.

Also, if including the exploration sets in City is as bad an idea as you seem to think then it's kind of ridiculous to suggest LEGO keeps doing it "for money". If the sets would really be more popular as their own separate theme, then there'd be more money to be earned from releasing them that way.

On a related note, I'm not sure why people seem so confident about the idea that the City theme was imposed on the Exploration subthemes to boost their popularity, rather than that Exploration subthemes have helped to boost the City theme's popularity.

Careers in science are trendy these days, and I think that's probably the reason behind why we've seen an increasing focus on scientific research or ecological expeditions in SEVERAL themes — not just in LEGO City, but also Jungle Rescue/Sea Life Rescue sets from LEGO Friends, NASA sets from LEGO Ideas and LEGO Creator Expert

A lot of folks seem to be thinking about the LEGO City exploration sets as somehow taking the place of themes like Adventurers, Aqua Raiders, Aqua Raiders, and Pharaoh's Quest. But there's a much bigger difference between the subthemes in question and those retired themes than branding — Adventurers and the like are high-fantasy, high-conflict themes featuring undead mummies, tribal spirits, sea monsters, and in Adventurers' case, even a villainous human faction.

The City exploration subthemes, on the other hand are low-fantasy, low-conflict themes. Their biggest difference from the real-life scientific efforts that inspire them is that the explorers are hunting for eye-catching stuff like shiny (but not necessarily magical) crystals or preserved ice-age animals, not just collecting mundane-looking rock, soil, or ice samples for chemical analysis as real researchers in these environments might spend a lot of their time doing.

And the main reason for this inaccuracy isn't as much about Adventurers-style fantasy flair than making sure kids receiving a set can instantly recognize what it is that the explorers might be trying to obtain. It's the same as why LEGO City miners mine for gold and not some more commonly-mined but plain-looking mineral like feldspar. Or why LEGO City criminals steal stuff with obvious value like money, gold, or jewels, rather than other popular targets for theft like laundry detergent or manhole covers.

So… why did you even bother to bring him up? It's not as though having one random LEGO designer with no insights into why LEGO City subthemes get chosen really elevates your argument. All it tells us is that there are other people with personal opinions about what LEGO City designers should/shouldn't do but no evidence to back them up.

To be honest, all of these explanations are a bit of a stretch to find out-of-the-ordinary explanations for ordinary occurrences. As I've brought up several times, LEGO didn't need any movie licensed themes as justification for making Launch Command, Divers, Space Port, and Arctic sets in the late 90s. So why would they need that kind of justification now?

I'm especially bewildered by the idea that Jurassic World would be any obstacle at all to a new fantasy ocean or underground adventure theme. Just because Jurassic Park/Jurassic World are 20th/21st century fantasy licenses doesn't mean that any and all 20th/21st century fantasy themes would be "too similar". Frankly, many of those themes you just mentioned have way more in common with other "big bang" themes like Ninjago and Nexo Knights, as well as retired licenses like Indiana Jones and Prince of Persia (which WERE able to exist alongside some of the themes you named), than with any of LEGO's current licenses.

In general, all this stuff comes down to the same baffling assumption that "the only reason LEGO would make themes/subthemes I don't like is because something's STOPPING them from bringing back themes/subthemes I do want." It's the same as the bonkers idea that LEGO would only make a theme like Nexo Knights or Knights' Kingdom II if they couldn't make Castle sets, or that LEGO would only make girl-oriented Elves sets because they couldn't make boy-oriented ones.

The core of all these assumptions is the idea that the stuff AFOLs (either as a group or individually) want LEGO to make is implicitly superior to the stuff they actually end up doing, and that LEGO knows and believes this to be true, but has to settle for an inferior option. Which is absurd. In truth, there's no reason to believe that fantasy or sci-fi submarine/mining/jungle/space sets are implicitly superior to realistic ones, any more than there is to believe that realistic castle or pirate or ninja sets are implicitly superior to fantasy or sci-fi ones. It's just personal preference.

And because LEGO can't possibly make every theme concept they've ever come up with at all times, that means that sometimes they might do something different than what AFOLs want or suspect, for no other reason than that it seems like it's something a large number of potential buyers will like.

I'm not denying that licensed themes (AND non-licensed themes) can influence new theme development, of course. For instance, sometimes choosing a color scheme for a theme like Power Miners or Atlantis is influenced in part by a desire to make them stand out from whatever other sets are likely to be on shelves at the same time. And of course, there's no doubt that LEGO might prefer to avoid having too many themes with a similar concept out at the same time.

But it's not really for us to say that the themes which are similar to but not quite what we want to see are just a "plan B" when the ones we do want to see don't pan out. Because even here on Eurobricks, it's normal for different people to enjoy different themes — I remember plenty of comments when Pharaoh's Quest was around complaining that they'd prefer a historical Egyptian theme over a 20th century fantasy undead mummy theme, and plenty of comments when Atlantis was around from people who said they'd prefer to see a more realistic underwater theme.

We're ALWAYS going to have people who have different preferences, and LEGO just has to try their best to make informed decisions about which preferences have a stronger case for catering to them in any given year.

Well guess what shorty! Until my freedom of speech on social media has been taken away, I'll speak as I find. And considering that the disastrous outcome of the last two police themes (mountain and sky) had a hard time leaving the shelves according to sources that I'm not at liberty to speak of, I find that the theme needs improvement. 

[icm]

33 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

To be honest, all of these explanations are a bit of a stretch to find out-of-the-ordinary explanations for ordinary occurrences. As I've brought up several times, LEGO didn't need any movie licensed themes as justification for making Launch Command, Divers, Space Port, and Arctic sets in the late 90s. So why would they need that kind of justification now?

This is slightly off-topic, but while I generally agree with @Aanchir's analysis of things in nearly every particular, I do think that the exploration themes from the 1990s that Brickset retroactively classifies within "Town" were unofficially prompted, or at least nicely coincident, with wider awareness of those topics in their respective years.  For instance, Launch Command dates to 1995, the same year as the movie "Apollo 13," and Space Port dates to 1998, the same year as the movies "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact."  I'm not aware of similar movies about scuba diving or Arctic exploration in 1997 and 2000, but I do remember reading a lot about scuba diving and deep sea exploration in "National Geographic World" magazine in 1997 and reading a lot about Arctic exploration in "World" and various other magazines around the turn of the century.  Maybe there was some big anniversary?  Similarly for the exploration themes of the 2010s released under the "City" banner, the 2011 Space wave coincided with relatively wide awareness of space exploration thanks to the retirement of the Space Shuttle and the completion of the International Space Station and the 2019 Space wave is explicitly inspired by the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.  I don't know enough about the other fields covered in the exploration themes to relate them to wider events and anniversaries in Arctic exploration, deep sea exploration, jungle exploration, or volcanology, but I suspect that there may be some identifiable prompts for one or more of those themes too.

TLDR - Lego needs no external prompts to develop an exploration subtheme of City or Town, but maybe they help.

[The Island Chronicles]

3 minutes ago, icm said:

This is slightly off-topic, but while I generally agree with @Aanchir's analysis of things in nearly every particular, I do think that the exploration themes from the 1990s that Brickset retroactively classifies within "Town" were unofficially prompted, or at least nicely coincident, with wider awareness of those topics in their respective years.  For instance, Launch Command dates to 1995, the same year as the movie "Apollo 13," and Space Port dates to 1998, the same year as the movies "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact."  I'm not aware of similar movies about scuba diving or Arctic exploration in 1997 and 2000, but I do remember reading a lot about scuba diving and deep sea exploration in "National Geographic World" magazine in 1997 and reading a lot about Arctic exploration in "World" and various other magazines around the turn of the century.  Maybe there was some big anniversary?  Similarly for the exploration themes of the 2010s released under the "City" banner, the 2011 Space wave coincided with relatively wide awareness of space exploration thanks to the retirement of the Space Shuttle and the completion of the International Space Station and the 2019 Space wave is explicitly inspired by the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.  I don't know enough about the other fields covered in the exploration themes to relate them to wider events and anniversaries in Arctic exploration, deep sea exploration, jungle exploration, or volcanology, but I suspect that there may be some identifiable prompts for one or more of those themes too.

TLDR - Lego needs no external prompts to develop an exploration subtheme of City or Town, but maybe they help.

Another recommendation I made on Fscebook was LEGO buying the NOVA license. Then selling explorers sets under that theme. 

[icm]

5 minutes ago, pooda said:

Another recommendation I made on Fscebook was LEGO buying the NOVA license. Then selling explorers sets under that theme. 

Imagine all the complaints from the many people who prefer in-house themes to external intellectual property!  I think Lego does just fine developing NOVA-type sets without a license.  That's what the exploration themes are, right? 

Besides, the Discovery sets from 2003 (which are basically what you're proposing, just extended to other topics besides space exploration) were frankly pretty boring.  I wanted them when I was a kid simply because they were real-world rockets, but I hardly ever played with them because they weren't minifig-compatible.  In that regard, City does much better!

Finally, one of the main reasons I can think of for acquiring a NOVA or Smithsonian license would be to gain special access to museum gift shops.  That's what Cobi does, among other brands - they sell an Apollo Lunar Lander and a USS Constitution sailing ship under the Smithsonian license.  But Lego sets of appropriate content sell just fine in museum gift shops.  I've seen the City space line in the gift shop at Kennedy Space Center, the 2019 Creator shark, Creator underwater robot, and City diving boat at the local aquarium (quite a large modern facility), etc.  They seem to sell just fine, so Lego doesn't need to acquire an additional license to enter those markets.

Edited June 23, 2019 by icm

[The Island Chronicles]

Just now, icm said:

Imagine all the complaints from the many people who prefer in-house themes to external intellectual property!  I think Lego does just fine developing NOVA-type sets without a license.  That's what the exploration themes are, right?

I don't think they'll complain. Why? Because if children want a planet explorers set, they won't care if its badged under NOVA. They're going to say "Mommy, can we get this!". I'm not saying axe the explorers themes entirely. I'm just saying don't make them under City. It may cost a handful of dollars but as a  business student, I can tell you that most big investments are worth the trouble and the pain in the end. 

[icm]

3 minutes ago, pooda said:

I don't think they'll complain. Why? Because if children want a planet explorers set, they won't care if its badged under NOVA. They're going to say "Mommy, can we get this!". I'm not saying axe the explorers themes entirely. I'm just saying don't make them under City. It may cost a handful of dollars but as a  business student, I can tell you that most big investments are worth the trouble and the pain in the end. 

Then why will they care if it's badged under City?

[The Island Chronicles]

12 minutes ago, icm said:

Then why will they care if it's badged under City?

Good question. I've also worked with children before and one thing I know about children is that they ask questions. Children are a lot more advanced now than they were back then. Say they start asking "Mommy! Daddy! Are there arctics in the city? Are there jungles in the city? Are there volcanoes in the city?". No would be the logical answer. So then they'd say "But it says City! Why does it say City if they're not in the city?" See how easy it is. Little details like that will cause confusion. So to cut that confusion, what do we do? Send those themes somewhere else. 

I hope that clears it up. 

[Digger of Bricks]

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

I'm especially bewildered by the idea that Jurassic World would be any obstacle at all to a new fantasy ocean or underground adventure theme. Just because Jurassic Park/Jurassic World are 20th/21st century fantasy licenses doesn't mean that any and all 20th/21st century fantasy themes would be "too similar". Frankly, many of those themes you just mentioned have way more in common with other "big bang" themes like Ninjago and Nexo Knights, as well as retired licenses like Indiana Jones and Prince of Persia (which WERE able to exist alongside some of the themes you named), than with any of LEGO's current licenses.

Well, Jurassic World isn't just a fantasy theme; more specifically, it's a fantastical exploration theme that has more in common with those in-house themes I mentioned than with "good-vs-evil" saga themes such as Ninjago, Chima, and Nexo Knights. Sure, maybe it is quite likely I'm barking up the wrong tree; but the way I'm seeing it, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to hypothesize that Jurassic World's relation to those themes is what Star Wars' relation to in-house Sci-Fi Space themes may be. 

[The Island Chronicles]

1 minute ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Well, Jurassic World isn't just a fantasy theme; more specifically, it's a fantastical exploration theme that has more in common with those in-house themes I mentioned than with "good-vs-evil" saga themes such as Ninjago, Chima, and Nexo Knights. Sure, maybe it is quite likely I'm barking up the wrong tree; but the way I'm seeing it, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to hypothesize that Jurassic World's relation to those themes is what Star Wars' relation to in-house Sci-Fi Space themes may be. 

That's more of a movie theme though. Not really a generic theme. 

[Digger of Bricks]

Just now, pooda said:

3 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Well, Jurassic World isn't just a fantasy theme; more specifically, it's a fantastical exploration theme that has more in common with those in-house themes I mentioned than with "good-vs-evil" saga themes such as Ninjago, Chima, and Nexo Knights. Sure, maybe it is quite likely I'm barking up the wrong tree; but the way I'm seeing it, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to hypothesize that Jurassic World's relation to those themes is what Star Wars' relation to in-house Sci-Fi Space themes may be. 

That's more of a movie theme though. Not really a generic theme. 

Movie licenses though may (or may not) inhibit their in-house, generic counterparts from coexisting alongside each other at times. 

[Lyichir]

39 minutes ago, pooda said:

Good question. I've also worked with children before and one thing I know about children is that they ask questions. Children are a lot more advanced now than they were back then. Say they start asking "Mommy! Daddy! Are there arctics in the city? Are there jungles in the city? Are there volcanoes in the city?". No would be the logical answer. So then they'd say "But it says City! Why does it say City if they're not in the city?" See how easy it is. Little details like that will cause confusion. So to cut that confusion, what do we do? Send those themes somewhere else. 

I hope that clears it up. 

I would point out that while there aren't "arctics" and jungles and volcanoes in the city, there ARE cities in the arctic and in jungles and on volcanoes. In fact those are probably more common features of cities than, say, a space center (of which there are relatively few worldwide). Lego City doesn't quite represent any one real-world city, so they pick and choose exciting subject matter and situate it as part of the City theme.

[The Island Chronicles]

12 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

I would point out that while there aren't "arctics" and jungles and volcanoes in the city, there ARE cities in the arctic and in jungles and on volcanoes. In fact those are probably more common features of cities than, say, a space center (of which there are relatively few worldwide). Lego City doesn't quite represent any one real-world city, so they pick and choose exciting subject matter and situate it as part of the City theme.

Well....if you look at the mini movies (which are cannon to the sets), you'll see that those aren't the cities that Lego are trying to push. The city that they have are similar to like...Los Angeles or San Francisco. Not cities in the arctic or jungle or volcano. 

[Lyichir]

2 minutes ago, pooda said:

Well....if you look at the mini movies (which are cannon to the sets), you'll see that those aren't the cities that Lego are trying to push. The city that they have are similar to like...Los Angeles or San Francisco. Not cities in the arctic or jungle or volcano. 

And Lego City Undercover features buildings and landmarks inspired by ones all around the world. Like I said, they pick and choose features to create a sort of archetypal city, rather than basing it specifically on any one city or geographical region.

Also, trying to debate Lego City "canon" is a little silly. The media is crafted to complement the sets (less so the other way around) and as such the features and layout of the city change as necessary to contextualize new sets and subthemes.

[The Island Chronicles]

Now I understand you guys disagree with me and all. Quite frankly I don't give a flying brick. Pun intended. 

I was born in the late 90s and grew up during the time of the first stages of City and at that time, there were only 6 subthemes; Medical, Airport, Police, Fire, Construction and Trains. Then Cargo and Harbor were added. Then that Roadside Assistance subtheme. Then farm. Those were all good. But then forest and arctic sets had to come. I was hoping those would just be one-offs. But they ended up being a major part of City. Much to my dismay along with the overwhelming amount of police sets. 

But let me ask you something, @Aanchir

If you grew up during a certain time and there was something very near and dear to you as a child, wouldn't you be angry if they made senseless changes to it?

Edited June 24, 2019 by pooda

[icm]

1 hour ago, pooda said:

If you grew up during a certain time and there was something very near and dear to you as a child, wouldn't you be angry if they made senseless changes to it?

You didn't ask me, but I'll answer your question anyway.  The answer is - perhaps.  Depends on what it was.  Some senseless changes in my family, at work, or in the economy and government might be worth getting angry about (but not on this forum).  Changes to an ongoing toy line, or any ongoing piece of pop culture, aren't worth getting angry about, even if I don't like the changes that have been made.  Also, before getting angry over "senseless changes" to something, it's generally well worth your while to think over the changes and see whether or not they make sense to other people, even if not to you.  That's a general principle of life.

I don't mean to lecture or talk about things "back in my day," because by many standards I'm really quite young.  But I'm just enough older than you to have grown up during the "crisis period", such that my childhood Legos were from the late 1990s and early 2000s.  During that period Lego went through a tremendous amount of change - the building styles and parts libraries changed radically on timescales of just two years or so, which is much faster than they've changed in the succeeding years.  I followed Lego online and even posted (underage) in the BZPower forums, so I was aware of the bankruptcy crisis.  Many of Lego's decisions in that time made me mad, because I hated most of their newer products and was shocked by their violence compared to the late-1990s sets that I was first acquainted with.  I had my own ideas, too, for what would sell well and what would save the company - surely if they just went all-in on a Thunderbirds license those sets would sell like hotcakes!  Or perhaps if they would release my dream Space line, a bunch of realistic near-future space fighters with extremely detailed builds and lots of functions, based on my own "Interplanetary Patrol" set of stories and patterned off of my favorite MOC (here), that would revive their fortunes because it would be such a contrast from the preceding Space lines.  - - - But then I grew up, and I realized that changes in Lego product lines are small potatoes compared to getting an education, finding a job, and worrying about the proverbial "wars and rumors of wars in far places."  I learned that other people have different opinions than I do, and that's OK, and that Lego has no responsibility whatsoever to do anything I want.  And that's OK too.

So, I understand your perspective.  You got a certain idea of "what Lego City is supposed to be" during your formative years, and it hasn't stayed in that box.  That can be hard to take, just like a lot of people found Rian Johnson's direction of The Last Jedi to be hard to take.  (That's just an example, let's not get into that topic.  I think it's great.)  It's a different picture than mine, and I got angry when my formative idea of "what Lego is supposed to be" wasn't matched by events for some years.  From my perspective, I think the subthemes of City that venture outside the metropolis are great.  I grew up with Divers, Outback, Arctic, and Adventurers as listed on Brickset, and so I think that the Deep Sea, Forest/Mountain/Swamp, Arctic, and Jungle subthemes of City are pretty cool revivals of that content (or similar content, anyway) with modern parts and techniques.  You see differently.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯    Neither of us gets to define the direction Lego takes, nor do we get to define our experiences and impressions of Lego during our formative years as any more important than those of anyone else - and that's A-OK.   

[Lyichir]

10 hours ago, pooda said:

Now I understand you guys disagree with me and all. Quite frankly I don't give a flying brick. Pun intended. 

I was born in the late 90s and grew up during the time of the first stages of City and at that time, there were only 6 subthemes; Medical, Airport, Police, Fire, Construction and Trains. Then Cargo and Harbor were added. Then that Roadside Assistance subtheme. Then farm. Those were all good. But then forest and arctic sets had to come. I was hoping those would just be one-offs. But they ended up being a major part of City. Much to my dismay along with the overwhelming amount of police sets. 

But let me ask you something, @Aanchir

If you grew up during a certain time and there was something very near and dear to you as a child, wouldn't you be angry if they made senseless changes to it?

I'm not Aanchir, but as her twin I think I can give you a similar response.

We were both born in the early '90s. The City theme as it exists today wasn't even around then; we lived through Town, "Town Jr.", World City, and eventually, the entirety of the City theme. Compared to those themes, the increased variety of subthemes in the modern City theme barely registers as a change compared to those earlier paradigm shifts.

But of course, City has never been either of our favorite themes. As far as "childhood favorite themes", the one that lasted longest was Bionicle, which changed dramatically over the course of its run. And while there were both changes I liked and changes I disliked, I can't think of many that seemed "senseless", let alone made me "angry". When Bionicle came back in recent years it was dramatically different from the version of it I grew up with, yet I loved the new take on it and was disappointed when it got cut short.

[The Island Chronicles]

2 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

I'm not Aanchir, but as her twin I think I can give you a similar response.

We were both born in the early '90s. The City theme as it exists today wasn't even around then; we lived through Town, "Town Jr.", World City, and eventually, the entirety of the City theme. Compared to those themes, the increased variety of subthemes in the modern City theme barely registers as a change compared to those earlier paradigm shifts.

But of course, City has never been either of our favorite themes. As far as "childhood favorite themes", the one that lasted longest was Bionicle, which changed dramatically over the course of its run. And while there were both changes I liked and changes I disliked, I can't think of many that seemed "senseless", let alone made me "angry". When Bionicle came back in recent years it was dramatically different from the version of it I grew up with, yet I loved the new take on it and was disappointed when it got cut short.

Yeah. But there is only one problem. Those changes weren't senseless. They still stuck to their origins. 

City is the only Lego theme that doesn't make sense anymore. The Town and City sets have always sold well. Back then, City would surprise you with new things. It's not doing well now because Cchildren are now getting bored with it. They pretty much see the same thing every year and are tired of it.  Winter comes and you see police sets and vehicles. Summer comes and there is an explorers theme. That gets boring every once in a while. 

[TeriXeri]

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Edited June 24, 2019 by TeriXeri

[The Island Chronicles]

History lesson. 

When the Christensen family invented the town theme, which is now City. His goal was not only to make an enjoyable toy. But to educate children on different aspects of urban life. I wonder what Ole Kirk Christensen and Godfred would say if they were to see that their prize theme has been turned into a police state/nature theme? 

As long as I love...I'm holding my own on this and standing with its heritage. 

Edited June 24, 2019 by pooda

[TeriXeri]

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Edited June 24, 2019 by TeriXeri