LEGO Collectable Minifigures Series 19 Rumors, Speculation and Discussion

[MAB]

57 minutes ago, Masked Mini said:

I sure hope that the city enthusiasts will be able to find their own silver linings if/when we ever get a wave that is largely castle/pirate/space/oddballs.
 

It did already happen with Series 14. There were a couple that could just about fit into City builds - the trick or treat skeleton boy and the cat costume girl. The gargoyle body was also useful for old style buildings. Other than that, they were pretty much useless as complete figures outside of the horror/scary theme as presumably intended. But there were some nice parts for other themes - I used the fly ones as aliens for example.

I think past series have had a better balance of figures. Pick almost any other series and there are at least 1 or 2 historical, 1 or 2 fantasy, 1 or 2 space / aliens, 3-4 modern day, and often more than this. I quite liked the previous job type civilians - painter, plumber, carpenter, mechanics, animal control, waiter, janitor, diner waitress, librarian, etc. as more often than not these have a uniform or something similar to define the role and were not just "a random person". There are plenty of torsos available through City sets and packs that can be made into random people with no specific role, which is why I'm not a fan of receiving too many bland ones in the CMF.

Even though I think I've owned every regular CMF ever produced (just not all at the same time), I'm glad I gave up collecting them all for the sake of collecting a long time ago, somewhere between series 10 and 13.

 

[MAB]

I still can't quite work it out - is the dog person male or female? The lips look a bit red but the face is kind of squashed, maybe turning the nose up at the smell. But the torso doesn't have the usual hips/curves, so could be usable for a man too.

We have already had the zoo keeper, the vet, the animal controller - all female. Do we have any male animal workers through CMF? I guess there was the dog show winner, although that is a bit off theme. I'd like to see more male workers there, and female workers in jobs such as plumber and mechanic. I guess a female mechanic will be off the menu for a while due to Corner Garage.

[Robert8]

15 minutes ago, MAB said:

I still can't quite work it out - is the dog person male or female? The lips look a bit red but the face is kind of squashed, maybe turning the nose up at the smell. But the torso doesn't have the usual hips/curves, so could be usable for a man too.

Its a girl without a doubt

There pics of the actual minifigure on social media.

She doesn't have the hips and breasts printing

Edited July 29, 2019 by Robert8

[leafan]

10 hours ago, Itaria No Shintaku said:

[snip]

To end it:
If we had three waves per year, I would have been quite less bothered. Now it's clear they plan to do only 1 per year.
So when in January I get the new catalog and I hear that no castle/adventurers/pirates theme this year, all my hopes go on the only unlicensed CMF line.
So, you and people who are fond of themes like city or friends, should understand if we have some rants when it all goes wrong for us.
It's a form of respect from who gets all to who gets nothing (or nearly).
 

Hear, hear! Esattamente.

[Itaria No Shintaku]

4 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I don't see what's odd about it. As I brought up earlier, modern day figures making up a hefty portion of each non-themed series has been pretty normal from the start. Of the ordinary numbered series, ten of the 18 so far have had eight or more modern-day figs (including ALL the first five series). And when I say "modern day", I'm strictly excluding categories like historic/fantasy, sci-fi, horror, costume, and "object" (the last of which would include stuff like the Lawn Gnome, Statue of Liberty, Gingerbread Man, Clockwork Robot, Lady Robot, and Gargoyle, which represent toys, foods, or statues rather than "people").

It's possible part of this has to do with the popularity of modern-day sets, but I think both factors might also owe themselves to the fact that people in general tend to have a profound awareness of the modern day, whereas awareness of 

So all in all I suspect there's just a lot more stuff LEGO can DO with modern day figures than with a lot of historical genres without venturing too far outside of what buyers will be able to recognize and relate to. I don't think it's any kind of worrying trend among modern kids or modern LEGO designers or whatnot. Even in the early days of the minifigure it was pretty normal for sets from modern-day themes like Town, Trains, and Boats to far outnumber sets from historic themes like Castle or Pirates. So I don't think it's all that surprising to see the same trend today.

There will probably always be a place for historic themes (and truthfully, the Ghost Knight in this series is definitely one of my favorites!), but I don't think that can be expected to rise to the point of all genres getting the same amount of representation in sets/minifigs that modern-day realism does.

I rarely have agreed less.

Are you REALLY implying that nowadays you have more stereotypes than in the WHOLE HUMAN HISTORY AND FICTION?

Come on. I probably am not getting your point this time because I cannot Think about a smart person like you said this.

[Roebuck]

Since this series gave me all those fabulous animals I am a happy camper So I will not complain, but rather say it was odd that the series did not include a pirate-related fig this year because of the 30 year anniversary..

E.g. I really like the native American figs, but since they have made a chief, 2 warriors and a female with a baby already I do not have much hope they will make more figs any-time soon (still is a possibility of a medicine man and some kids I guess )..
Pirates on the other hand have only one captain (over the top), a pirate and a islander if I remember correctly. So here it is plenty of possibility for new figs:

• female pirate
• pirate officer
• islander female
• blu- or redcoat soldier
• blu- or redcoat officer
• blu or redcoat admiral
• etc

So strange Lego did not take advantage of that this year

[K_Tiger]

45 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

Since this series gave me all those fabulous animals I am a happy camper So I will not complain, but rather say it was odd that the series did not include a pirate-related fig this year because of the 30 year anniversary..

E.g. I really like the native American figs, but since they have made a chief, 2 warriors and a female with a baby already I do not have much hope they will make more figs any-time soon (still is a possibility of a medicine man and some kids I guess )..
Pirates on the other hand have only one captain (over the top), a pirate and a islander if I remember correctly. So here it is plenty of possibility for new figs:

• female pirate
• pirate officer
• islander female
• blu- or redcoat soldier
• blu- or redcoat officer
• blu or redcoat admiral
• etc

So strange Lego did not take advantage of that this year

They should really pull out the buffalo headdress they did for Red Knee in the The Lone Ranger line and give us a medicine man. Maybe even cast it in white or tan? Yes to all that other stuff you mentioned as well. S.11's Island Warrior is due a female counterpart, and there are two pirate captains, if you count S.14's zombie pirate captain.

I was going some of the older set pamphlets (pre-S.14), and there did, at least seemingly, appear to be a better mix of themes. A lot of series skewed towards City-compatible figures, but even those figures usually seemed to favor the more niche city uses rather than the mundane. One point I definitely agree with Itaria on is that these occasional City-heavy series wouldn't be such a drag if there were more than just one regular CMF series released in a year. Winter series a bust on space figures? No problem, tough it out four months and try again in the spring, and if THAT didn't work out (which rarely happened) there was always the fall series. These last couple of years that hasn't worked out, as between themed and licensed series we haven't had a regular numbered series since spring 2017. All I'm saying is I get where some of y'all are coming from.

Maybe the 10th anniversary series will manage to be all things to everyone?

Edited July 29, 2019 by K_Tiger

[Anonknee Muss]

4 hours ago, ToaIruini said:

That’s exactly what I was thinking. Share some for me. As a collector as long as the minifigures are fun and interesting I like them, and I buy a full set anyway. I see some appeal to both sides, I feel sorry for the people who are disappointed (series 17 was a miss for me). Don’t get me wrong I have opinions about these, but I’m just thankful we can get cmf at all. 

Yeah man 2 years since the last proper series  Some nice characters at least this time though 

#8 & #9 definitely shouldn’t be in this series, both of them would have easily been placed in city sets especially with the rumours of more city fire sets next year!

[notpennysboat]

9 hours ago, J4ck said:

Completely agree with you @Itaria No Shintaku!

I remember when I saw the whole leaflet for the first time I was disappointed that the rest of the figures were city minifigures. Oh well, I guess there’s next year.

Same here and I couldn't be more agree with @Itaria No Shintaku too. That City thing in the CMF begins to be too easy. I am more excited by @Robert8 new series !

About that bear, I didn't read everything but it looks like a LEGO version of a Care Bear, the color, the rainbow and heart on the chest + in pieces, everything is here to be a Care Bear. (Plus I've just seen on Wiki a 2019 relaunch of the show, maybe it's all about that?)
The Pizza guy is also easy, a pie would have been great, with the poop piece as cream. It's nice to see that LEGO continues the couple, this time we have the female mummy that responde to the series 3 male mummy. But it's not nice to see a new game player, we are waiting for the Player 2, not a green haired new one.

This series is better on accessories than for the minifigs. With my medieval fantasy theme, I should take 4 minifigs, but it's gonna be more with all the animals or accessories. That flamingo lady, a pair of fairy wings and she will be the 17th fairies (4 fairies in TLM2 CMF)

 

[gedren_y]

A good look at the "Florida retiree" has shown up online. She has tan eyebrows, and her glasses are situated as if she is looking over them.

[Digger of Bricks]

1 hour ago, K_Tiger said:

1 hour ago, Roebuck said:

E.g. I really like the native American figs, but since they have made a chief, 2 warriors and a female with a baby already I do not have much hope they will make more figs any-time soon (still is a possibility of a medicine man and some kids I guess )..

They should really pull out the buffalo headdress they did for Red Knee in the The Lone Ranger line and give us a medicine man. Maybe even cast it in white or tan?

Kinda like @Robert8's design for his Series G?  

 

[K_Tiger]

Yup!

[Aanchir]

52 minutes ago, Itaria No Shintaku said:

I rarely have agreed less.

Are you REALLY implying that nowadays you have more stereotypes than in the WHOLE HUMAN HISTORY AND FICTION?

Come on. I probably am not getting your point this time because I cannot Think about a smart person like you said this.

No, I'm just saying that people today (especially kids) tend to be more keenly aware of more archetypes of the present day than archetypes of yesteryear. Why do you think that from the very beginning, themes like Castle and Pirates have typically focused on exciting conflicts from the very beginning, rather than civilian life? It's because that's the part that kids tend to hear stories about and want to tell their own stories about.

And believe me, the lack of emphasis on the more everyday parts of people's lives in Castle sets has been a major point of frustration for me for a long time. Castles with horses, but no stables; with soldiers but no barracks; with a king and queen but no royal bedchamber; with a throne room but no great hall; etc.

But at the same time, I understand that a lot of kids wouldn't feel the same disappointment that I do about NOT seeing that stuff, considering how many of them besides the most hungry for knowledge even wonder a whole lot about the more mundane parts of pre-modern life to begin with.

A salesperson, farmer, writer, artist, janitor, teacher or chef in ancient Rome, ancient Egypt, ancient China, or even the medieval era might be hard to really visualize in your head if you haven't gone out of your way to learn about how people dressed for different kinds of jobs back then. But it's no trouble for even young kids to picture how people with all those types of jobs might look or dress in real life, because they're all around us.

Even for building my own historic creations, it's often hard finding detailed info about that sort of "everyday" stuff from bygone eras, let alone committing it to memory! Particularly when so many visual depictions of this era in pop culture are inaccurate depictions created much later which try to force that stuff to conform to contemporary people's preconceived notions about society.

The many blatantly whitewashed depictions of ancient Mediterranean cultures like the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, and Judeans created by artists working in the Renaissance or later are great evidence of that. As are the buckle-wearing, tall-hatted mainstream depictions of the Pilgrims who colonized America, despite that being far more recent history than much of the history of Europe and Asia!

1 hour ago, Roebuck said:

Since this series gave me all those fabulous animals I am a happy camper So I will not complain, but rather say it was odd that the series did not include a pirate-related fig this year because of the 30 year anniversary..

E.g. I really like the native American figs, but since they have made a chief, 2 warriors and a female with a baby already I do not have much hope they will make more figs any-time soon (still is a possibility of a medicine man and some kids I guess )..
Pirates on the other hand have only one captain (over the top), a pirate and a islander if I remember correctly. So here it is plenty of possibility for new figs:

• female pirate
• pirate officer
• islander female
• blu- or redcoat soldier
• blu- or redcoat officer
• blu or redcoat admiral
• etc

So strange Lego did not take advantage of that this year

I definitely would love to see a lot of this type of stuff going forward! Particularly some of the female historic archetypes.

With all the bickering there's been about this series not having enough for people with different interests or tastes, it's surprising that gender ratios in this series haven't come up. It's at 6 or 7 female characters and 9 or 10 male characters, depending on the gender of the bounty hunter (if they have one — for all I know they could be a robot or alien without any gender signifiers underneath that helmet).

In that regard stuff has definitely improved from the early series, but it's still frustrating that the LEGO Movie 2 and Unikitty series have been the only blind bag series to be more than 40% female. If the bounty hunter isn't female, then that means that both Disney Series 2 and Series 19 have reverted to having no more than six female characters in a series, regardless of how many characters there were in total. And that's means a whole lot of potential character designs we're not seeing REGARDLESS of what genre or era of history they come from.

Side note, but I do think there's probably room for more Native American figures if LEGO were interested in pursuing that. Besides medicine man/woman (which is a great suggestion) I also can imagine possibilities for:

• minifigs of non-infant Native American children
• a wider range of Aztec, Inuit, and Mohawk inspired minifigures like the Aztec Warrior, Ice Fisherman, and Mohawk Warrior
• some minifigs inspired by other tribes like the Inca of Peru or the Puebloan peoples of southwestern United States
• …and so on

Unfortunately, Native Americans are a profound example of just how many parts of history have been erased or misrepresented in the mainstream consciousness to the point that a lot of people wouldn't even be able to differentiate many of these societies from one another. The Wild West theme demonstrated an intense carelessness in this regard, combining tepees and buffalo fur headdresses that were used by the Plains peoples with totem poles used by the Pacific Northwest peoples, all in an Southwestern desert setting where if anything you'd expect to see the Puebloan peoples.

I think that the Collectible Minifigures have done a MUCH better job with cultural sensitivity for the most part, even if they don't provide as heavy an emphasis on Native American life as a dedicated theme like the Wild West sets of the 90s did. But sadly, I'm kind of doubtful that we'll a full theme like that but with more respectful representation any time soon, given how much the Western genre and "Cowboys and Indians" play have diminished over the years, and how even today a lot of global society's image of Native American culture is informed by those outdated and disrespectful Hollywood stereotypes.

[Robert8]

There are already 7 confirmed females: BMX Biker, Firefighter, Retiree, Mummy Lady, Fox Suit Girl, Programmer Woman and Dog Sitter.

With the Bounty Hunter there would be 8 overall. That would be a 50/50 gender ratio

I feel the Bounty might be female cause we already had a Blacktron villain dude in the Series 3 Space Villain. And they love these gender swaps

Edited July 29, 2019 by Robert8

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Since this series gave me all those fabulous animals I am a happy camper So I will not complain, but rather say it was odd that the series did not include a pirate-related fig this year because of the 30 year anniversary..

E.g. I really like the native American figs, but since they have made a chief, 2 warriors and a female with a baby already I do not have much hope they will make more figs any-time soon (still is a possibility of a medicine man and some kids I guess )..
Pirates on the other hand have only one captain (over the top), a pirate and a islander if I remember correctly. So here it is plenty of possibility for new figs:

• female pirate
• pirate officer
• islander female
• blu- or redcoat soldier
• blu- or redcoat officer
• blu or redcoat admiral
• etc

So strange Lego did not take advantage of that this year

There was also the Aztec and the conquistadors that can sort of fit in to a pirate like setting, even if a few years out. Also the wrong era, but the hula girl has some good parts for female islanders.

[K_Tiger]

27 minutes ago, gedren_y said:

A good look at the "Florida retiree" has shown up online. She has tan eyebrows, and her glasses are situated as if she is looking over them.

It's a good looking head. For some reason it reminds me of Amy Hill. I guess the eyelash printing gives it a vaguely Asian look.

[Itaria No Shintaku]

26 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

(Cut)

Sorry... but no.

To a person living in 2500 AD we Will look all the same in the very way you are naively saying this about your ancestors.

Your opinion lacks knowledge of basic history.

A 1500 artisan looked like another in the very same way an office worker today looks like any other even if their offices revolve about entirely different fields. Or most of factory workers. Or a lawyer and a politician and a salesman.

Etc

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

1 hour ago, Robert8 said:

There are already 7 confirmed females: BMX Biker, Firefighter, Retiree, Mummy Lady, Fox Suit Girl, Programmer Woman and Dog Sitter.

With the Bounty Hunter there would be 8 overall. That would be a 50/50 gender ratio

I feel the Bounty might be female cause we already had a Blacktron villain dude in the Series 3 Space Villain. And they love these gender swaps

I'd very much like that. Not enough female space figs exist!

[Brother From Another Brick]

Thanks for watching my review, I really appreciate @Aurore

Thanks for watching the review @ToaIruini

[Anonknee Muss]

@Aanchir The only person bickering is you, everyone else is in agreement. Slots 8 & 9 are a waste (they’re good minifigures but should have been placed in city sets). 

Does it really matter how many females are in the series? No, no it doesn’t. If you want more females swap the male heads with female heads.

[Itaria No Shintaku]

1 hour ago, J4ck said:

@Aanchir The only person bickering is you, everyone else is in agreement. Slots 8 & 9 are a waste (they’re good minifigures but should have been placed in city sets). 

Does it really matter how many females are in the series? No, no it doesn’t. If you want more females swap the male heads with female heads.

However to me

Firefighter

Robot Programmer 

Fox

Biker

Old lady

Mummy

Dog Walker

Make 7 and not 6. Plus the ghost face may be either masculine or feminine so it's 7 1/2 vs 8 1/2.

Nuff said

Edited July 30, 2019 by Itaria No Shintaku

[Roebuck]

1 hour ago, J4ck said:

Slots 8 & 9 are a waste (they’re good minifigures but should have been placed in city sets). 

While I agree that 8 more or less could come strait out of a city set and the same goes for the fig in 9 I guess The dogs (and poop) would not! This goes mostly from memory so I may remember wrong

The first dog came in HP, then years later city updated the dog mould in a police set (while it is great to get a updated mould it is not as good as getting a complete new animal). In addition city has made a second dog mould so 1,5-2 new dogs in city and 1 in HP (probably more to come from that theme in the future).. CMF on the other hand now has 4!! So to me it is not as important which figs they put with the dogs as long as I get the dogs, since the dogs are the prize the fig is just a bonus I agree with those who say the accessories are the stars in series 19. Since the normal sets get better and better figs maybe we see a shift in CMF from great figs with good accessories to good figs with great accessories (since the normal sets can not give us that)

[TheNerdyOne_]

2 hours ago, J4ck said:

@Aanchir The only person bickering is you, everyone else is in agreement. Slots 8 & 9 are a waste (they’re good minifigures but should have been placed in city sets). 

Does it really matter how many females are in the series? No, no it doesn’t. If you want more females swap the male heads with female heads.

Yes it absolutely does.  Representation is vitally important.

Also, I've seen plenty of discussion regarding the more City-like figures.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Itaria No Shintaku said:

However to me

Firefighter

Robot Programmer 

Fox

Biker

Old lady

Mummy

Dog Walker

Make 7 and not 6. Plus the ghost face may be either masculine or feminine so it's 7 1/2 vs 8 1/2.

Nuff said

The bear could easily be female too. It wouldn't surprise me if more little girls like that one than little boys.

Plus the Monkey - why is this necessarily male? It seems that the default is always to assign male if there is no lipstick or curves, yet this could also be female if you ignore the original folklore. Same with the pizza mascot. Are all women in LEGO world forced to wear make-up? If someone chooses this to be a woman, this is fine too. It is easy to stick a female (as in lipstick, eyelashes) head on the gamer to make it stereotypically into a her. The opposite is not true when sticking a male head on the biker.

[Itaria No Shintaku]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

The bear could easily be female too. It wouldn't surprise me if more little girls like that one than little boys.

Plus the Monkey - why is this necessarily male? It seems that the default is always to assign male if there is no lipstick or curves, yet this could also be female if you ignore the original folklore. Same with the pizza mascot. Are all women in LEGO world forced to wear make-up? If someone chooses this to be a woman, this is fine too. It is easy to stick a female (as in lipstick, eyelashes) head on the gamer to make it stereotypically into a her. The opposite is not true when sticking a male head on the biker.

Actually you make a great point. I'm enlighted. 

Thus, associating a female to "has eyelashes / wears lipstick" becomes sexist, because actually girls aren't forced to be represented that way. I personally have two coworkers that looks what is uncorrectly defined "androgynous".
Recently (alas, too recently) women have freed themselves from the burden of always looking "feminine" or "what the white caucasic male want them to look like". 
So, you make a great point because focusing on "what is male, what is female" separating the two only by looking if there's lipstick or eyelashes becomes actually quite discriminatory.

This series has 7 females/males that like to look feminine and 9 more characters whose sex cannot be told.
And this puts a period to the vexed discussion about sex representation in minifigures.
A minifigure is the gender you want them to be. Period.
After all even breast curves can indicate a transgender minifigure.
Excellent catch @MAB.