Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[Agent Kallus]

Yeah current city space might feel like mislabeling ( but so does anything that wouldn't be in the average city like farms, polar expeditions, volcano scientists, etc) but it's also one of the most interesting unlicensed things Lego has started this decade.

The aliens are cute and I like that they're not just using them as a hostile force ( especially as humans would be the invaders in this case!)

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Agent Kallus said:

Yeah current city space might feel like mislabeling ( but so does anything that wouldn't be in the average city like farms, polar expeditions, volcano scientists, etc) but it's also one of the most interesting unlicensed things Lego has started this decade.

The aliens are cute and I like that they're not just using them as a hostile force ( especially as humans would be the invaders in this case!)

To me, LEGO CITY equates to the more exciting bits of semi-realistic life in LEGO form, without meaning to represent a realistic city. It would be incredibly boring if it was, as we'd get endless similar but slightly different houses, apartment blocks and cars, with the occasional bus and store. But not much else. Even when they don't do volcanoes, space, farms, etc, CITY is not exactly representative of a real city or even just a city centre / CBD / downtown, and once you have a couple of police cars and a firetruck, you don't really need many more and so it is understandable that they portray other exciting bits of semi-realistic life in CITY. But I don't think I'd want them to rebrand CITY as LEGO LIFE.

[KotZ]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

To me, LEGO CITY equates to the more exciting bits of semi-realistic life in LEGO form, without meaning to represent a realistic city. It would be incredibly boring if it was, as we'd get endless similar but slightly different houses, apartment blocks and cars, with the occasional bus and store. But not much else. Even when they don't do volcanoes, space, farms, etc, CITY is not exactly representative of a real city or even just a city centre / CBD / downtown, and once you have a couple of police cars and a firetruck, you don't really need many more and so it is understandable that they portray other exciting bits of semi-realistic life in CITY. But I don't think I'd want them to rebrand CITY as LEGO LIFE.

CITY feels like a TV show or soap opera. It's semi-realistic in the sense like those shows and movies in that things can and do happen, but not as frequently as they do in real life.

[Toastie]

7 hours ago, MAB said:

as we'd get endless similar but slightly different houses, apartment blocks and cars, with the occasional bus and store.

As they pump out ... even less different StarWars sets - yes, I know, the StarWars theme is perpetual, as the incoming LEGO build force wants Millenium Falcons, version XYZ, as well.

Hmm, in Technic they do that also - at least regarding their super cars. Even the cranes fade out. And many other things ...

But wait: Could it be that when it comes to popular, i.e., best-selling themes (rather than the ever propagated unlimited ways of connecting bricks and plates) that the "stage" narrows quite a bit? Could it be that "themes" simply have far less popular brick-realizations? When "slightly different" becomes close to boring - or better: Less selling? What to expect from a theme?

I don't know. There are so many - new themes, no, rather individual sets: Shoes, flowers, a type-writer, a camera, Nintendo box, ... etc. pp. They apparently sell well, at least judged from them being there, for a short time. Themes however, I don't know, but are bound to what is currently hot = license.

That is all good with me. But the entire LEGO idea is fading more and more into oblivion. Also fine with me. Used LEGO is good LEGO.

Just my weird thoughts.

All the best,
Thorsten     

[MAB]

11 hours ago, Toastie said:

As they pump out ... even less different StarWars sets - yes, I know, the StarWars theme is perpetual, as the incoming LEGO build force wants Millenium Falcons, version XYZ, as well.

 

Variation in Star Wars is higher than that in City. Count the number of police cars vs X-Wings, or the number of fire trucks vs Millennium Falcons. But yes, it is the same argument,  new buyers expect to be able to buy the exciting sets when they enter the store whether that is a police car or X-Wing.

11 hours ago, Toastie said:

Hmm, in Technic they do that also - at least regarding their super cars. Even the cranes fade out. And many other things ...

But wait: Could it be that when it comes to popular, i.e., best-selling themes (rather than the ever propagated unlimited ways of connecting bricks and plates) that the "stage" narrows quite a bit? Could it be that "themes" simply have far less popular brick-realizations? When "slightly different" becomes close to boring - or better: Less selling? What to expect from a theme?

As above, it is about churn of the fanbase. However, if they remove the exciting sets and replaced them with boring ones in the correct ratios, the theme would probably die. If they only did houses in City until they get the civilian to emergency services ratio to a realistic level, new fans would not join in the same way as if they did Vader, Luke and Han then only made sets containing stormtroopers and anonymous rebels for 20 years to get the ratios the same as those in the movies. They pick the exciting bits of the stories and are not aiming to be realistic reproductions of life or movies.

16 hours ago, KotZ said:

CITY feels like a TV show or soap opera. It's semi-realistic in the sense like those shows and movies in that things can and do happen, but not as frequently as they do in real life.

Indeed.

11 hours ago, Toastie said:

I don't know. There are so many - new themes, no, rather individual sets: Shoes, flowers, a type-writer, a camera, Nintendo box, ... etc. pp. They apparently sell well, at least judged from them being there, for a short time. Themes however, I don't know, but are bound to what is currently hot = license.

Yes, there are. LEGO has changed. They have learnt that adults will buy a few expensive sets for themselves if they build into objects they will display. So there is not one audience forbthose sets. The people buying the shoe will be different to those buying the flowers or the camera or the consoles. Those are sales they would not have made if they didn't produce that type of set.

11 hours ago, Toastie said:

That is all good with me. But the entire LEGO idea is fading more and more into oblivion. Also fine with me. Used LEGO is good LEGO.

Their financial reports suggest otherwise.  LEGO might well be fading into oblivion for those fans that want their output to remain similar to what it was in the 80s or 90s, but those days are gone. LEGO wants to maximise their sales by having some individual sets that appeal to small groups but overall appeal to many more people rather than just a very small demographic. LEGO making an adult aimed shoe or a theme of flowers sets does not stop today's children enjoying the 100s of unlicensed playsets they still release every year.

[Toastie]

44 minutes ago, MAB said:

LEGO might well be fading into oblivion

I said the original LEGO idea, not LEGO. Just the "you can arrange four 4x2 bricks in sheer endless combinations" thing they like to advertise when it fits. Everything else is OK with me - I am with you. 

All the best,
Thorsten

[MAB]

48 minutes ago, Toastie said:

I said the original LEGO idea, not LEGO. Just the "you can arrange four 4x2 bricks in sheer endless combinations" thing they like to advertise when it fits. Everything else is OK with me - I am with you. 

All the best,
Thorsten

Yet the number of MOCs shown at fairs and online (here, rebrickable, Flickr, and many other sites) suggests the idea of building what you like out of LEGO parts is alive and well and probably more popular than ever.

[SpacePolice89]

There are too many specialized pieces nowadays. There are also too many different colors. In the late 80s and early 90s there was a good ratio between specialized pieces and more generic pieces in sets. Too many colors and too many specialized pieces makes it difficult to build large MOCs with pieces from your own collection. With the introduction of tan, pink, purple and orange in the 90s there were enough colors, anything more than that is unnecessary.

[Toastie]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

Yet the number of MOCs shown at fairs and online (here, rebrickable, Flickr, and many other sites)

Well, this like going into an old school library and claiming that reading books is more popular than before.

Best,
Thorsten 

30 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

anything more than that is unnecessary.

Particularly, when you are color-blind, like I am

Best,
Thorsten

[KotZ]

2 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

There are too many specialized pieces nowadays. There are also too many different colors. In the late 80s and early 90s there was a good ratio between specialized pieces and more generic pieces in sets. Too many colors and too many specialized pieces makes it difficult to build large MOCs with pieces from your own collection. With the introduction of tan, pink, purple and orange in the 90s there were enough colors, anything more than that is unnecessary.

Agree on the specialized pieces but absolutely disagree on the colors. All the new colors make great builds pop and ultimately were necesssry with all the licenses to make more accurate sets. That doesn’t mean we need all the specialized pieces. 
 

But even then, a piece is a piece and I think even with all the specialized parts, you probably can use 90% of pieces made in different ways than their original intended use. 
 

As for building collections, it’s way easier to build up large collections now with pieces. People are selling sets all over Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, bricklink, etc. LEGO has PaB both on store and on their site. If you want to find something (or things) to bulk up a collection for MOCs it’s way easier now due to accessibility. 

[Aanchir]

5 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

There are too many specialized pieces nowadays. There are also too many different colors. In the late 80s and early 90s there was a good ratio between specialized pieces and more generic pieces in sets. Too many colors and too many specialized pieces makes it difficult to build large MOCs with pieces from your own collection. With the introduction of tan, pink, purple and orange in the 90s there were enough colors, anything more than that is unnecessary.

To clarify, are you saying the 90s color palette was fine as-is, or that 90s sets should have ONLY introduced those four colors? Because even in the 90s there were a lot more colors than these introduced: medium red, dark orange, light yellow, bright yellowish green, medium green, bright bluish green, medium blue, medium reddish violet, etc. To say nothing of even older colors like Nougat, Light Orange Brown, Red Orange, Brick Red, and Pastel Green that had already been around for years by the time the 90s rolled around, despite being mostly limited to themes like Duplo, Fabuland, or Modulex.

I've long felt that one of the best things about the LEGO color palette from around 2012 onward is that there are way fewer colors like these that are used far too sparingly to actually build anything of consequence with them. Like, sure, there might be many more shades of blue and green today than there were in the 90s, but all of them are used widely enough to actually be useful when creating your own builds. Which I suppose is part of why these colors have had more staying power than many of those older colors from themes like Fabuland or Scala did.

Also, for consideration Tr. Fluorescent Green Tr. Fluorescent Reddish Orange both came out in the 90s, and many LEGO Space fans in particular are incensed that they've been retired, even though other transparent green and orange colors are still widely in use. So clearly, even among older LEGO fans, there's a huge difference between having a color that's "just right" for a certain subject and one that's a rough approximation of the desired color. 'Cuz sometimes you want a green that's lighter or darker or more yellowish or bluish, not just one that's sort of in the middle.

[SpacePolice89]

58 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

To clarify, are you saying the 90s color palette was fine as-is, or that 90s sets should have ONLY introduced those four colors? Because even in the 90s there were a lot more colors than these introduced: medium red, dark orange, light yellow, bright yellowish green, medium green, bright bluish green, medium blue, medium reddish violet, etc. To say nothing of even older colors like Nougat, Light Orange Brown, Red Orange, Brick Red, and Pastel Green that had already been around for years by the time the 90s rolled around, despite being mostly limited to themes like Duplo, Fabuland, or Modulex.

I've long felt that one of the best things about the LEGO color palette from around 2012 onward is that there are way fewer colors like these that are used far too sparingly to actually build anything of consequence with them. Like, sure, there might be many more shades of blue and green today than there were in the 90s, but all of them are used widely enough to actually be useful when creating your own builds. Which I suppose is part of why these colors have had more staying power than many of those older colors from themes like Fabuland or Scala did.

Also, for consideration Tr. Fluorescent Green Tr. Fluorescent Reddish Orange both came out in the 90s, and many LEGO Space fans in particular are incensed that they've been retired, even though other transparent green and orange colors are still widely in use. So clearly, even among older LEGO fans, there's a huge difference between having a color that's "just right" for a certain subject and one that's a rough approximation of the desired color. 'Cuz sometimes you want a green that's lighter or darker or more yellowish or bluish, not just one that's sort of in the middle.

To clarify, I meant that an early 90s color palette (including trans neon orange and green) plus the colors I mentioned would be ideal. I don't mind some extra colors for special occasions like Maersk blue but the permanent colors should be kept to a minimum.

[Lyichir]

31 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

To clarify, I meant that an early 90s color palette (including trans neon orange and green) plus the colors I mentioned would be ideal. I don't mind some extra colors for special occasions like Maersk blue but the permanent colors should be kept to a minimum.

See, I think temporary colors are a much worse scenario than widespread ones, because they're rare enough to be near-useless—very much the opposite of modern colors like azures, lavenders, or "light" and "dark" shades of colors. Having multiple shades all with a wide variety of parts available means you can much more easily make unique and harmonious color schemes—things like a monochrome color scheme with multiple shades of a single color, or a dark and moody color scheme with pops of bright color, or other sorts of things. Some of my favorite Lego themes (such as Friends or Elves) would look garish and ugly with a '90s-esque color palette, partly because that limited color palette was shaped during an era when the idea of what Lego could be was similarly limited. The broadening of Lego's color palette has accompanied a broadening of what kinds of themes Lego has, what kinds of audiences it caters to, and what kinds of people are designing sets. I don't think you could pare back the palette that much without similarly paring back all the progress and improvement Lego has made in all those decades since.

Plus, throwback sets like the Blacktron Renegade prove that Lego can absolutely still pull off a retro, limited color scheme if they want to. It's just that that's no longer the ONLY thing Lego is good for.

Edited January 14 by Lyichir

[MAB]

19 hours ago, Toastie said:

Well, this like going into an old school library and claiming that reading books is more popular than before.

 

If the library was packed full of people reading books and book checkouts were increasing then yes, it would be. But libraries rarely are that busy.

If many other people are buying, building and enjoying LEGO,  both official LEGO sets and their own or others' designs, what do you mean by the LEGO idea is dead? The company is alive and well, and probably more people than ever are enjoying it whether they are collecting minifigures, collecting sets, building and displaying sets, building their own designs, displaying their designs, attending LEGO fairs, reading LEGO books or magazines, creating or viewing LEGO content online. There are many ways to enjoy and interact with LEGO and surely that is the idea of it. All that suggests the LEGO idea is alive and well.

[SpacePolice89]

14 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I don't think you could pare back the palette that much without similarly paring back all the progress and improvement Lego has made in all those decades since.

What some see as progress and improvement others see as decline in quality. This of course is a matter of opinion and preferences. Lego is still a high quality product but I believe the quality was even higher in the late 80s and early 90s, this includes the bricks themselves as well as instructions. Modern instructions are too dark and the paper is very low quality.

[Yoggington]

I know this is the unpopular opinions thread, but I can usually see where someone is coming from even if I disagree.

I don't understand that one though - paring back the palette. Whats the benefit? Why not just use the colours you prefer within the expanded palette? Do you expect the range of available bricks in the base colours to be wider if there were less colours?

Not trying to argue, I just don't understand it.

[SpacePolice89]

2 hours ago, Yoggington said:

I know this is the unpopular opinions thread, but I can usually see where someone is coming from even if I disagree.

I don't understand that one though - paring back the palette. Whats the benefit? Why not just use the colours you prefer within the expanded palette? Do you expect the range of available bricks in the base colours to be wider if there were less colours?

Not trying to argue, I just don't understand it.

When I was a kid playing with sets from the late 80s and 90s I never felt I had enough pieces in the same color for MOCs I wanted to build and back then the color options were very limited. Imagine today with all the colors how it must be for a kid owning 10-50 sets, very few of those pieces will be in the same color. Only when I discovered Bricklink in 2001 I could realize all my projects I had dreamt of for many years. Today as an AFOL with money to spend on Lego it is still expensive to have a large inventory of pieces for MOCs and sets restauration and it also takes a lot of space. Therefore I would prefer fewer colors and I only stock the colors I mentioned above for myself. I don't mind that because I also prefer the look of Lego sets from the 80s and 90s over todays sets.

[Lyichir]

5 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

What some see as progress and improvement others see as decline in quality. This of course is a matter of opinion and preferences. Lego is still a high quality product but I believe the quality was even higher in the late 80s and early 90s, this includes the bricks themselves as well as instructions. Modern instructions are too dark and the paper is very low quality.

I mean, certainly aesthetics are a subjective thing. But I think there are some objective ways Lego has made progress too, such as vastly increasing the number of girls and women playing with Lego compared to the "boys club" it was in the '90s. And it's hard to imagine that progress being made if Lego had said "this far and no further, what's good enough for our current audience is good enough for everyone ad infinitum". The reality is that if Lego had stuck to '90s colors and part variety for over 30 years, there's little doubt that it would stagnate and decline instead of expanding its audience the way it has.

[SpacePolice89]

16 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

I mean, certainly aesthetics are a subjective thing. But I think there are some objective ways Lego has made progress too, such as vastly increasing the number of girls and women playing with Lego compared to the "boys club" it was in the '90s. And it's hard to imagine that progress being made if Lego had said "this far and no further, what's good enough for our current audience is good enough for everyone ad infinitum". The reality is that if Lego had stuck to '90s colors and part variety for over 30 years, there's little doubt that it would stagnate and decline instead of expanding its audience the way it has.

I didn't say anything about not getting new parts only that too many specialized parts are not good. And I don't agree with the "boys club" argument about 90s Lego. The female friends I had when I grew up did like Lego as much as us boys. On the street I grew up on we were two boys and four girls. We all played together a lot with Lego and no one had any problems with the minifigs. The classic smiley faces could be either male or female and the female faces from Town/Paradisa and Pirates could easily be put on a male minifig if one of the girls wanted a female minifig instead. But mostly we didn't care too much about that. I think too much focus on gender or race is bad for any product even if the intentions are good. 

[JesseNight]

38 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

I didn't say anything about not getting new parts only that too many specialized parts are not good. And I don't agree with the "boys club" argument about 90s Lego. The female friends I had when I grew up did like Lego as much as us boys. On the street I grew up on we were two boys and four girls. We all played together a lot with Lego and no one had any problems with the minifigs. The classic smiley faces could be either male or female and the female faces from Town/Paradisa and Pirates could easily be put on a male minifig if one of the girls wanted a female minifig instead. But mostly we didn't care too much about that. I think too much focus on gender or race is bad for any product even if the intentions are good. 

That's a problem of this time and age that's happening everywhere (just look at movies industry for example).
Don't get me wrong, I'm all about equality but that should just be the norm rather than requiring special attention and forced down people's throats.

I feel ya on the colors discussion. Ngl, I do like a lot of the new colors but it makes it harder to keep up with a collection. Back in the 80s we had 6 colors (not including brown and green that existed only on specific parts) and it is true that this wasn't much, and we often felt like missing some. Now we have so many available that it's easy to constantly feel like needing more bricks, knowing that special shade exists but we don't have it.
I'm all for having light and dark shades of each color, but I feel 4 or more shades of 1 color is a bit much. And I'm much against limited editions (of any kind).

(and if anyone doesn't agree... ~points at topic title~)

[Karalora]

I suspect that a lot of the specialty colors are driven by licensing and the desire of either TLG to "accurately" represent the IP or the licensee to be "accurately" represented. The entire reason "Maersk blue" is a thing is that the Maersk logo uses a specific shade of blue which is part of their trademark.

[Toastie]

Just because I finished 10 minutes ago a little 4.5V thingy (4.5V battery box, motor, old school Technic bricks and plates, rubber bands, pulleys, gears) as a gift for a very close friend, who turns 70+ tomorrow, and I am invited to join the free food/beer event tomorrow - OK, I have to lecture Friday morning, so I will behave):

I am colorblind, but I do see all shades of gray, knowing from the parts make, that they are gray. There were sooo many shades - just for old light gray. Maybe ... 6? Or more, depending on age? Some 1x16 Technic bricks had even a nice transition from lighter to darker light gray. How on Earth can you guys tell apart differently aged shades of ... uhmm ... dark tanish green? Or whatever? Don't these season as well? I am just curious - I have a box full of !standard color pieces ... neatly organized of course into bricks and plates and other things, I only use for (very privately ) trying out stuff.

Best,
Thorsten

 

[danth]

If you wanted to build a blue Lego car in the 80s, you could use all your blue bricks.

Now, you can't, because there are 6+ shades of blue that don't match. I guess you can just use whatever shades you have but it's going to look pretty bad, unless you're going for a ramshackle look.

Sure, having more colors to choose from has its advantages, but having more colors in your collection that don't match is an obvious downside should be pretty easy to understand.

[Murdoch17]

Prepare yourself for a massively unpopular opinion about LEGO colors:

Dark Blue has been around in bricks since 1961, Medium Blue since 1949, and Maersk Blue from 1954 up to 2011, as well as the VERY rare Light blue starting in 1949 and running up until 2007, which is also when regular blue came out (1949). So new colors - such as the forementioned blues - are not a new, modern thing. LEGO experiments with new colors and parts to keep fresh, as they always have done and will continue to do. If they didn't do this, or do away with licensed themes, they would have been bought by Mattel long ago, like they almost were in 2001 /  2002. This revisionist rose-tinted glasses thing about the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s being better, with less colors and less themes is total fantasy. (sorry, but it's true!) For some theme examples: LEGO was working on Vikings in 1978 but decided to go with Castle instead. Western would have come out in the 1980s, but Pirates performed slightly better in focus groups, and they only had production capacity for one new theme - and Pirates was pushed back like three years anyway for the lack of factory space / money to expand. (All this is written in the book 'The secret life of LEGO minifigures', among many other tidbits that will blow your mind.)

Edited January 16 by Murdoch17

[Karalora]

Don't get me wrong; I love the varied palette. But I fully acknowledge, and have experienced for myself, how difficult it can be to build an assortment of pieces when there is so much variation.