Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[Toastie]

1 hour ago, DBlegonerd7 said:

Same here, dude.

It's a "(-1) x (-1) - 1 = 0 " thing.

Best,
Thorsten

[danth]

43 minutes ago, MAB said:

What's wrong with it? Would those people prefer that LEGO didn't make sets that are popular with other people, and only make things that are not licensed. It's not like all unlicensed sets are popular with people that class themselves as the "real" LEGO fans.

Did you really come into an unpopular opinion thread to argue against an unpopular opinion?

(I've probably done it too, to be fair)

 

"What's wrong with it" is that it comes at the expense of Classic Themes. Because it's in the license agreements. Disney isn't going to allow competing space ship sets while Lego has the license for Star Wars. That's just how it works.

[Murdoch17]

13 minutes ago, Toastie said:

It's a "(-1) x (-1) - 1 = 0 " thing.

Best,
Thorsten

Math may be the universal language, but that doesn't mean I speak it. 

[Feuer Zug]

46 minutes ago, MAB said:

What's wrong with it? Would those people prefer that LEGO didn't make sets that are popular with other people, and only make things that are not licensed. It's not like all unlicensed sets are popular with people that class themselves as the "real" LEGO fans.

Please don't put words in my mouth. What I like and what others like are often different and I respect that. I'm not saying licensed themes are bad either. The nearest LEGO store to me is rather small, and over half the space is dedicated to Ideas, Star Wars, and other licensed themes. If it wasn't for the PAB wall, it would almost not be worth visiting. Even then, I have had to special request large, non-IP sets with them that are perpetually sold out online because they wouldn't ever get it otherwise. I do understand many like the licensed sets and have nothing against that. As mentioned, I also recognize LEGO is chasing the majority. It's where the money is. If they didn't do that, we might be back in the Jack Stone era of potential bankruptcy. If IPs keep LEGO making record profits, what does one person's opinion really matter?

3 hours ago, williejm said:

I’m confused if it’s popular or not, then 😜

 

2 hours ago, DBlegonerd7 said:

Same here, dude. 

There is a vocal minority that decries the concentration on licensed properties. I normally wouldn't count myself amongst them because I rarely comment about them. I do enjoy it when kids enter their dark ages and sell their collection of Star Wars for pennies on the dollar. The parts alone are a gold mine for my MOCs, with or without minifigs. Licensed IPs have their place and I can be a vulture on the back end. For that reason alone, I don't mind them.

Patience my precious, it shall be mine (in a proper Gollum voice)

[Lion King]

47 minutes ago, Toastie said:

It's a "(-1) x (-1) - 1 = 0 " thing.

Best,
Thorsten

I will admit - I suck at math….

[Alexandrina]

34 minutes ago, danth said:

Because it's in the license agreements. Disney isn't going to allow competing space ship sets while Lego has the license for Star Wars. That's just how it works.

Have Lego not released multiple spaceships since the Disney acquisition of Star Wars?

Just like the notion that Lego weren't doing castles while Harry Potter was active (a notion dispelled by the Knights Kingdom I sets coexisting with the first Harry Potter run, the Kingdoms sets coexisting with the second Harry Potter run, and the series of sets starting with the Blacksmith coexisting with the current Harry Potter run) this seems more like trying to find an explanation for the lack of the theme. After all, Pirates sets have been all but non-existent for the last seven years, and it's not exactly down to a licensed pirate theme taking up real-estate.

[Toastie]

58 minutes ago, DBlegonerd7 said:

I will admit - I suck at math….

Don't worry - it was meant to just add to the confusion.

Now, just to briefly unravel that equation: When you multiply minus one with minus one (the minuses and the ones are bracketed) you get (plus) one. And as the order of operations is multiplication first then subtraction, one (the result of the multiplication) minus one equals zero.

What does that have to do with what @Feuer Zug said? Dunno, the equation "just popped in there" (citing Dr. Ray Stanz, when they had to choose the destructor - in Ghostbusters).

Was a long day - don't take anything seriously here. Sorry for derailing the unpopularity of unpopular opinions theme with unpopular math.

Cheers,
Thorsten 

 

[danth]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

Have Lego not released multiple spaceships since the Disney acquisition of Star Wars? 

They have not, correct.

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

Just like the notion that Lego weren't doing castles while Harry Potter was active

That's not an apt comparison.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

Have Lego not released multiple spaceships since the Disney acquisition of Star Wars?

 

They are just spaceships not Spaceships. 

2 hours ago, Feuer Zug said:

There is a vocal minority that decries the concentration on licensed properties.

What do you mean by concentration? LEGO make many unlicensed sets too. Whenever I go into a LEGO store, I see about half and half. That is,  they cater for people that like (some) licenses and they also cater for people that like unlicensed themes. They don't concentrate on one or the other. They don't cover every license possible and so some fans will complain their favourite franchise is not covered, just like they cannot cover every unlicensed idea that some fans want them to do. I think there is way more variation and choice in unlicensed sets now than there was 30 or 40 years ago. And if they suddenly stop doing licenses, would there be even more unlicensed sets in the long term? I doubt it. As the fans (and hence sales volume) they lose when they stop doing licenses will instead be buying MegaConstrux Star Wars, Disney, Marvel, Harry Potter, etc sets. Cutting out licenses would be like cutting off a leg. Just like cutting out unlicensed sets would be. Modern LEGO is both and needs both.

[icm]

Here's my count of Spaceships released since 2014, when Disney acquired Lucasfilm, not counting anything that is disqualified by any of the following reasons:

• City theme
• Star Wars theme
• Super Heroes theme
• Other licensed theme
• Lego movie theme (because that's a license too)
• Action-adventure theme not set in SPACE!
• Not shown in SPACE on the box art (ie the Creator 3-in-1 Cyber Drone that's shown over a futuristic city)
• Jet or other aerial vehicle not described as going to SPACE!
• NASA-licensed
• Heavily inspired by NASA (ie the Creator 3-in-1 rover)
• Space shuttle
• No seating/standing room for a minifig to be at the controls

Remaining Spaceships that might qualify:

• 80032 Chang'e Moon Cake Factory (2) - Rabbit mech, streaming platform
• 80035 Monkie Kid's Galactic Explorer (1) - the whole big spaceship

but Danth doesn't count the Monkie Kid Galactic Explorer as a Spaceship! because it's shown launching vertically like a rocket on the box art.

So yes, using that very restrictive set of criteria, which I believe is more or less the set of criteria used by Danth, Lego has not released multiple spaceships since the Disney acquisition of Star Wars.  My own criteria for what makes a satisfactory spaceship are much looser, so I'm happy with non-Star Wars spaceship offerings since 2014.  But I can respect Danth's choice to dismiss all the other spaceships and jets and flying machines and stuff, as a financial strategy.  The more restrictive your requirements, the less sets you're going to buy, the more pennies saved, the more pennies earned.

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by icm

[Toastie]

12 minutes ago, icm said:

My own criteria for what makes a satisfactory spaceship are much looser, so I'm happy with non-Star Wars spaceship offerings since 2014.

And what would be the outcome of that more loose treatment? I am curious.

Best,
Thorsten

[Peppermint_M]

Personally, I enjoy the more "realistic" spacecraft that have come from City and Creator. If you add the Chris Foss influenced Guardians of the Galaxy ships to the list, there is some nice alternatives to the Star Wars hegemony in the last few years. 

[icm]

@Toastie - Oh, I'm not picky.  Here's what's scratched my Space itch since 2014, not counting Star Wars (though I buy a lot of Star Wars spaceships too).  I haven't actually bought everything in this list, but it's all Space! to me.

• City space - all of it!
• NASA space - all of it!
• Buzz Lightyear spaceship
• Monkie Kid spaceships
• the Watchpoint: Gibraltar spaceship from the Overwatch line (2019) and the smaller set that went with it
• there are lots of spaceships in Super Heroes, but I especially like the Milano (2014), the Starblaster (2014), the Milano (2017), the little Ravager ship (2017), the Commodore (2017), the Benatar and Pod (2018), and the Benatar (2021)
• the Arrowhead from the Freemaker Adventures (branded Star Wars, but non-canon) together with one set of new City road plates and the Wonder Woman 1984 satellite dish makes a great updated Galaxy Explorer ship/landing pad/satellite dish combo if you think of it as "Galaxy Explorers: The Next Generation"
• the TLM/TLM2 Benny spaceships, of course
• the Creator 3-in-1 Cyber Drone
• the Creator 3-in-1 Rover
• the Creator 3-in-1 space shuttles
• I don't really like any of the other spaceships from TLM2, but there sure are a lot of them
• Here's where I really go out on a limb and hold an opinion that's unpopular with the likes of Danth and other hard-core Lego Space enthusiasts: most flying machines or jets in action/adventure themes that aren't clearly distorted versions of realistic airplanes count as Spaceships!  That includes, for example, most of the good-guy aerial vehicles from Nexo Knights, the Lightning Jet from TLNM, the Ultrasonic Showdown jet from Ultra Agents, the Red Son jet and White Horse Dragon Jet from Monkie Kid, some things from Chima, some things from Ninjago, etc.  Also a number of flying machines from Super Heroes that are totally unrealistic as airplanes: the 2015 Quinjet (Hulk even flies it to the Jeff Goldblum planet, so it's totally a spaceship), the 2018 Black Panther Talon jet, the 2021 Black Panther dragonfly jet.  (BTW, that Avengers compound? Totally a Space base.) Maybe even the Flying Fox from Justice League (2017).
• Basically, if it relies on magic to stay up instead of aerodynamics,  I have every right to juice it up with more powerful magic and send it into SPAAAACE. 
  • "Lego - Just Imagine", right?  That was the advertising tagline in the early 2000s.
• Oh, and just today I took delivery of the Type F and Type G shuttles from the Bluebrixx Star Trek line.  But that's not really Lego, is it?

So if Danth is at one extreme in accepting only a very small, tightly defined group of spaceships as being what they want, I'm at the other extreme in accepting just about anything.  You've probably seen this dynamic play out between me and Danth a number of times on the forum, and I apologize to Danth if it gets a bit annoying.

Edited March 31, 2022 by icm

[Toastie]

1 minute ago, icm said:

You've probably seen this dynamic play out between me and Danth a number of times on the forum, and I apologize to Danth if it gets a bit annoying.

First of: Thank you for that elaborate answer - I really appreciate that! Thanks a lot.

Now, with regard to discussions on the forum (I like very much to follow but don't reply, because I don't have knowledge in this regard):

Please go on and discuss - there is nothing better than a dynamic play out - which simply resembles an engaged discussion. We all - OK - I - do learn from, a lot.

No cursing, no I know it better than you, but more along the lines: "That is what I think". That makes such a difference, and you know it.

As long as personal judgement is not elevated to general proclamations, these discussions become a source for seeking for orientation. And that is what I like so much.

All the best,
Thorsten 

[icm]

Oh, I have a title now! "Spaceship Specific." Sure, that fits!  Thanks, mods!

[Toastie]

Just now, icm said:

Spaceship Specific

Per-fect! Congratulations!!!

All the best,
Thorsten

[danth]

1 hour ago, icm said:

but Danth doesn't count the Monkie Kid Galactic Explorer as a Spaceship! because it's shown launching vertically like a rocket on the box art.

So yes, using that very restrictive set of criteria, which I believe is more or less the set of criteria used by Danth, Lego has not released multiple spaceships since the Disney acquisition of Star Wars. 

Yes, I think you've more or less described my criteria pretty accurately. Probably because I complain about it so loudly/often... I'm glad someone understands me though!

I should say that I've considered all the Lego Movie Classic Space sets as true Space (Benny's Spaceship/Space Squad/Fix-it Shop) and bought multiples of them.

I'll also list the "Space-itch-scratching" sets that I've bought:

• Lego Movie "Space" sets obviously
• Lego Movie 2 Pop Up Party Bus (big purple windscreens + it's just cool)
• Lego Movie 2 Wyld-Mayhem Star Fighter (Spaceship! And cool MOC potential)
• Creator Underwater Robot
• Creator Cyber Drone (bought multiples, interesting colors and cool minifig)
• A few Star Wars sets (begrudgingly)
• Creator Space Mining Mech (not that great IMO, didn't bother to build it; raided for parts)
• Overwatch Watchpoint: Gibralter (arguably a shuttle but still cool)
• Overwatch D.Va and Reinhardt (Cool pink mech with trans dark green windscreen)
• Various Nexo Nights sets (colored windscreens + sci-fi vehicles)
• Monkie Kid Moon Cake Factory (very "Space" like, colored windscreen, cool mech)

I'll pretty much buy anything with a colored windscreen (light blue doesn't count) that is space-shippy unless there's something else I don't like about it.

For instance; the Monkie Kid White Horse Dragon Jet is probably something I should just buy already. However the Monkie Kid Galactic Explorer is a bit too weird for my taste and for the price.

I'm on the fence with the new City Space sets. They're pretty darn cool but the light blue windscreens annoy me.

The new Lightyear space ship -- you had better believe I'm buying multiples of that.

Edited March 31, 2022 by danth

[MAB]

12 hours ago, icm said:

I don't really like any of the other spaceships from TLM2, but there sure are a lot of them

 

I liked Rex's ships, the dark blue was a nice change. Also the shapes of Sweet Mayhem's and Wyldstyle's ships were nice although I wasn't a fan of the colour scheme there.

[Aanchir]

On 3/30/2022 at 7:10 PM, Bob said:

Probably a very unpopular opinion:

I dislike the amount of licensed IPs that LEGO has now. I went into a LEGO store for the first time in awhile recently and I feel like over half of the store is comprised of licensed products, a majority of which comes from the IDEAs. LEGO used to be very good at coming up with their own counterparts to popular intellectual properties, i.e. Adventurers taking the place of Indiana Jones.  

It's lost its charm a little bit, but maybe I'm just nostalgic for a different era. I feel as though most of LEGO's big original themes (Space, Pirates, Town, Castle) are gone, with only Town/City remaining. When I look through the various themes on their webside, the majority of them are intellectual properties.

You're right that we're in a very different era than many of us grew up in, but LEGO does have a lot of great in-house themes that weren't around back in those days, like Ninjago, Monkie Kid, Friends, Creator, Dots, BrickHeadz, etc. I often feel like a lot of AFOLs don't give these sorts of themes enough credit for their originality, particularly in the case of those that don't revolve around the classic minifigure.

Also, even before LEGO really got heavily into pop culture licensing in the late 90s and early 2000s, they've never really shied away from automotive licenses like we now see in themes like Creator Expert and Speed Champions. Some "vintage" examples include the Town Plan sets and 1:87 vehicles of the 1960s, as well as the Hobby Sets of the 1970s.

On 3/31/2022 at 6:45 AM, Feuer Zug said:

You'd be surprised how popular the dislike of licensed IPs with LEGO is.

Yeah, AFOLs have been complaining about licensed themes for as long as I've been a part of the AFOL community. Granted, on the flip side, there are also loads of AFOLs whose primary interest is in licensed themes, including a number who only got into LEGO as an adult hobby due to particular licensed sets or themes that particularly appealed to them. So I don't think there is really any consensus among AFOLs one way or another about whether licensed themes are good or bad.

On this note, another thing I've observed is that just as many AFOLs prefer in-house themes of the 80s over more modern ones, a lot of AFOLs also have a similar bias towards licenses from the 80s and 90s compared to more more modern ones. I see loads of celebration pretty much any time LEGO announces sets or themes based on "classic" IPs like Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Doctor Who, The Lord of the Rings, Scooby-Doo, TMNT, Jurassic Park, etc.

By comparison, sets based on newer IPs like Minecraft, Adventure Time, Angry Birds, Minions, Trolls World Tour, Overwatch, Horizon: Zero Dawn, etc. tend to be met with a lot more derisive comments ("nobody asked for this", etc) or treated as proof that LEGO licensing has gotten out of control — even when some of those licensing partnerships originated as fan-created, fan-supported projects from LEGO Ideas.

And of course, a similar discrepancy often occurs depending on whether the themes in question use traditional minifigures or not. A lot of celebratory reactions to the Super Mario theme or new Super Mario set announcements immediately turned to scorn when it became clear that those sets used big electronic figures for player characters and brick-built figures for NPCs. The Adventure Time set from LEGO Ideas got a lot of criticism on both these fronts, as you can see in the Brickset news article comments.

I'm not claiming any of this is universal, of course, or that everybody should be expected to approve of every theme. But it's a trend I've often noticed among a lot of AFOL reactions to both licensed and non-licensed themes.

On 3/31/2022 at 1:37 PM, Alexandrina said:

Have Lego not released multiple spaceships since the Disney acquisition of Star Wars?

Just like the notion that Lego weren't doing castles while Harry Potter was active (a notion dispelled by the Knights Kingdom I sets coexisting with the first Harry Potter run, the Kingdoms sets coexisting with the second Harry Potter run, and the series of sets starting with the Blacksmith coexisting with the current Harry Potter run) this seems more like trying to find an explanation for the lack of the theme. After all, Pirates sets have been all but non-existent for the last seven years, and it's not exactly down to a licensed pirate theme taking up real-estate.

Even "Fantasy Era" Castle came out the same year as a new Hogwarts Castle set! Between Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit, there hasn't been a single Castle theme in the 21st century that DIDN'T coincide with a new wave of sets from a castle-adjacent licensed theme. And yeah, in the case of Space, we've seen various spaceships (whether realistic or fantastical) from all sorts of non-Disney themes even in recent years — City, Creator, Monkie Kid, Nexo Knights, The LEGO Movie 2, DC Comics Super Heroes, Overwatch, Dimensions, etc.

While the terms of a licensing agreement can definitely be revised when it comes time to renew the license (which in the case of the Star Wars theme last happened in 2015, I believe), there's way too many conflicting examples for me to believe any of the current licensed themes have a non-compete clause THAT broad. After all, why write a non-compete clause in such weirdly specific terms that it would allow for so many easily exploitable loopholes?

I suppose it's plausible that LEGO may presently be choosing to focus on in-house themes in categories that don't overlap much with ongoing licensed themes. But if so, it'd have to be either a very recent strategic change on their part or an approach they're willing to compromise on, considering that Elves (which had a solid four-year run ending in 2018) often featured very similar fairy-tale subject matter and aesthetics to the ongoing Disney Princess license.

Edited April 1, 2022 by Aanchir

[zoth33]

On 3/31/2022 at 4:46 PM, icm said:

Here's my count of Spaceships released since 2014, when Disney acquired Lucasfilm, not counting anything that is disqualified by any of the following reasons:

• City theme
• Star Wars theme
• Super Heroes theme
• Other licensed theme
• Lego movie theme (because that's a license too)
• Action-adventure theme not set in SPACE!
• Not shown in SPACE on the box art (ie the Creator 3-in-1 Cyber Drone that's shown over a futuristic city)
• Jet or other aerial vehicle not described as going to SPACE!
• NASA-licensed
• Heavily inspired by NASA (ie the Creator 3-in-1 rover)
• Space shuttle
• No seating/standing room for a minifig to be at the controls

Remaining Spaceships that might qualify:

• 80032 Chang'e Moon Cake Factory (2) - Rabbit mech, streaming platform
• 80035 Monkie Kid's Galactic Explorer (1) - the whole big spaceship

but Danth doesn't count the Monkie Kid Galactic Explorer as a Spaceship! because it's shown launching vertically like a rocket on the box art.

So yes, using that very restrictive set of criteria, which I believe is more or less the set of criteria used by Danth, Lego has not released multiple spaceships since the Disney acquisition of Star Wars.  My own criteria for what makes a satisfactory spaceship are much looser, so I'm happy with non-Star Wars spaceship offerings since 2014.  But I can respect Danth's choice to dismiss all the other spaceships and jets and flying machines and stuff, as a financial strategy.  The more restrictive your requirements, the less sets you're going to buy, the more pennies saved, the more pennies earned.

 

So your not counting anything like Benny's spaceship from the Lego movies?  Or like @Aanchir mentioned Overwatch  I mean by that standard you might as well just forget it because that would discount Ninjago too as it's technically a lego intheme license.  I mean if your going to not count the lego movie stuff or Ninjago then you might as well not count anything.  

Edited April 3, 2022 by zoth33

[icm]

Read what I posted after the post you quoted.

[danth]

On 4/1/2022 at 12:43 PM, Aanchir said:

You're right that we're in a very different era than many of us grew up in, but LEGO does have a lot of great in-house themes that weren't around back in those days, like Ninjago, Monkie Kid, Friends, Creator, Dots, BrickHeadz, etc. I often feel like a lot of AFOLs don't give these sorts of themes enough credit for their originality, particularly in the case of those that don't revolve around the classic minifigure.

Yes, Aanchir, that's it, us AFOLs are all so stupid with our dumb opinions that we don't consider these things until you come and grace us with your thoughts. Are you kidding me?

I mean, you're right, we should be happy that LEGO took away our glorious Classic Space sets, and Castle, Pirate, etc, because they gave us freaking Dots.

Dots.

Are you serious?

You also fail to mention that many Brickhead sets are licensed.

But anyway, you brought up minifigure themes. So let's look at minifigure themes, and let's take 2021 as an example. I'm not counting minidolls for this or themes that have a mix of minifig and non-minifig scale (like Creator).

Here are the non-licensed minifig themes for 2021:

1. City
2. Monkie Kid
3. Ninjago
4. Vidiyo

Here are the licensed minifig themes:

1. DC
2. Harry Potter
3. Jurassic World
4. Marvel
5. Minecraft
6. Minions
7. Speed Champions
8. Star Wars
9. Super Mario

Do you see the difference there Aanchir? I know I know -- Dots -- but still, do you see it? Look hard.

Now go count up the set counts on Brickset. Licensed sets dominate -- even more so if you consider that most Vidiyo sets are just a single figure with some tiles and should probably be lumped in with CMFs.

Speaking of CMFs, 2 of the 3 CMF series were licensed. Heck, Creator Expert and Ideas and also dominated by license sets.

Instead of trying to distract and blow smoke and acting like a cyborg constructed in some Lego PR lab, why don't you lay off with these ridiculous arguments that "lol dumb AFOLs don't appreciate Dots".

The fact is, we went from about 0% licensed sets in our childhoods, to around 50% now. No amount of sneaky words will change that fact. And we don't have our beloved childhood themes. Dots is not a replacement for them. 

On 4/1/2022 at 12:43 PM, Aanchir said:

Also, even before LEGO really got heavily into pop culture licensing in the late 90s and early 2000s, they've never really shied away from automotive licenses like we now see in themes like Creator Expert and Speed Champions. Some "vintage" examples include the Town Plan sets and 1:87 vehicles of the 1960s, as well as the Hobby Sets of the 1970s.

"Lego made wooden VWs once so what are AFOLs complaining about Lol"

🙄

OK dude you got us.

On 4/1/2022 at 12:43 PM, Aanchir said:

On this note, another thing I've observed is that just as many AFOLs prefer in-house themes of the 80s over more modern ones, a lot of AFOLs also have a similar bias towards licenses from the 80s and 90s compared to more more modern ones. I see loads of celebration pretty much any time LEGO announces sets or themes based on "classic" IPs like Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Doctor Who, The Lord of the Rings, Scooby-Doo, TMNT, Jurassic Park, etc.

"Anyone who complains is actually a hypocrite"

Cool Aanchir thanks for insulting all of us. 👍

You're right, all us AFOLs who want classic unlicensed themes are just evil hypocrites who secretly want 80's licensed sets, and everything LEGO has ever done has been perfect in every way, and we should all be happy with our Dots bracelets.

Thanks for letting me know how I should feel.

Edited April 4, 2022 by danth

[Alexandrina]

2 hours ago, danth said:

"Anyone who complains is actually a hypocrite"

I'm not sure anyone called anyone a hypocrite. My reading of Aanchir's comment was that there's a spectrum of opinion among AFOLs; certainly she never said that it's wrong to want unlicensed themes.

2 hours ago, danth said:

But anyway, you brought up minifigure themes. So let's look at minifigure themes, and let's take 2021 as an example. I'm not counting minidolls for this or themes that have a mix of minifig and non-minifig scale (like Creator).

Here are the non-licensed minifig themes for 2021:

1. City
2. Monkie Kid
3. Ninjago
4. Vidiyo

Here are the licensed minifig themes:

1. DC
2. Harry Potter
3. Jurassic World
4. Marvel
5. Minecraft
6. Minions
7. Speed Champions
8. Star Wars
9. Super Mario

It's a bit deceptive to not count certain themes (Creator Expert, Chinese New Year) that contain minifigures, or (Friends) contain an equivalent of minifigures - while counting Super Mario, which has never included proper minifigures. If you count all the core themes without regard to whether they include a specific definition of minifigure, you actually get a pretty equal balance, with a slight edge to Licensed themes: to your list we can add Friends, Creator, CNY and Technic to the unlicensed themes and Disney Princess to the Licensed themes - for a total of 9-8 in favour of the Licensed themes.

In the case of Speed Champions, is it really a Licensed theme in the traditional sense any way? It uses yellowhead minifigures and as far as I can tell the only license is for the brand name of the car - which is no different to the old Esso/Shell sets from back in the day.

3 hours ago, danth said:

The fact is, we went from about 0% licensed sets in our childhoods, to around 50% now. 

Star Wars was first produced in 1999. A lot of AFOLs, myself included, have never known a time when Licensed themes did not exist - so it's not something new.

Even so, I appreciate your view because it's true that the proportion has increased - I'm not sure why, but it seems like there are fewer action themes as well as fewer classic themes. In my childhood, there was Knights Kingdom, Space, Sports, but also Alpha Team, Drome Racers and latter-day Adventurers (not that I ever got any of those sets as a child; my first Dark Age hit early, so I missed a lot of Silver Age sets through childhood apathy!)

3 hours ago, danth said:

Instead of trying to distract and blow smoke and acting like a cyborg constructed in some Lego PR lab, why don't you lay off with these ridiculous arguments that "lol dumb AFOLs don't appreciate Dots".

Why does this read to me like you're saying Aanchir's opinion - which dissents from yours, in terms of what themes she enjoys - is invalid? Is it "acting like a cyborg constructed in some Lego PR lab" to enjoy a theme Lego produce? To be satisfied with the lineup as a whole?

Nobody was insulted by Aanchir's comment. Nobody was told how to think. It was just one individual sharing her view on a forum for Lego fans, in a thread specifically devoted to sharing views.

[Aanchir]

3 hours ago, danth said:

Yes, Aanchir, that's it, us AFOLs are all so stupid with our dumb opinions that we don't consider these things until you come and grace us with your thoughts. Are you kidding me? 

I mean, you're right, we should be happy that LEGO took away our glorious Classic Space sets, and Castle, Pirate, etc, because they gave us freaking Dots.

Dots.

Are you serious?

I'm not saying anybody should be perfectly happy with the current slate of themes, and I don't know where you get off putting words in my mouth like this or framing my comment like some kind of personal attack against fans of classic themes.

Like, I love Dots, and I genuinely do think it's just as good a theme as any of the ones I grew up with in the 90s and 2000s! But does it perfectly fill the void left behind by specific now-retired themes that remain among my all-time favorites, like Bionicle or Elves? Of course not! It's a fundamentally different sort of theme, and no matter how enjoyable it is, it can't possibly appeal to me in all the same ways that those themes did. I wouldn't expect anything different for those who feel a similar (or for that matter, stronger) yearning for themes like Castle or Space.

No matter how many great themes there are these days, that doesn't mean the current LEGO portfolio is faultless or without gaps. And frankly, I would LOVE for themes like Castle and Pirates and Space to make a comeback and fill some of those gaps! The point of my post wasn't to say that nobody should want those themes back — just that it frustrates me when that desire for classic themes like those is used to dismiss or disregard the OTHER original, in-house themes that LEGO has managed to come up with.

Frankly, it tires me how any time LEGO posts comments about new sets from a product line like Ninjago, Friends, Monkie Kid, Dots, or even the Botanical Collection, it ends up attracting comments like "What is this garbage? Nobody wants this. Just bring back [insert theme name here]!" And the tendency to direct that sort of ire against the in-house themes that ARE still being produced doesn't help the cause of "originality" one bit. It just fuels pointless antipathy and generational rivalries, and pushes fans of newer original themes to see fans of older themes as stubborn enemies instead of as fellow fans of creative original set designs.

Do you really want fans who first get into LEGO through today's in-house themes to feel the same bitterness towards adult Castle/Pirates/Space fans that so many Bionicle fans of my generation still feel today? Wouldn't it make more sense to make common cause with people who clearly have no trouble enjoying sets like Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle, Destiny's Bounty, or Monkie Kid's Galactic Explorer, and who might easily enjoy traditional Castle/Pirates/Space sets with that modern level of detail, complexity, and originality just as much?

Most of the time I don't care about licensed themes one way or another. I just prefer to focus on non-licensed ones, and as long as LEGO seems to be managing to keep coming out with new non-licensed sets and themes (and giving plenty of attention to the non-licensed themes that remain active at any given time), the ratio between licensed and non-licensed isn't much of my concern.

Sorry for not quoting your whole post, but it's frustrating to try to respond to all of it. The further on your comment goes, the more vicious and insulting it gets. Like… "trying to distract and blow smoke and acting like a cyborg constructed in some Lego PR lab?" Screw that garbage. Just because my perspective sounds like your mental image of what some LEGO PR bot would say doesn't mean it's not genuine and it's really ****ing hurtful that to be insulted like that every time you get irritated with an opinion of mine that doesn't line up with your perspective. I thought that you knew me better than that at this point. For that matter, I thought that I knew YOU better than that.

All I was TRYING to say in my previous post was that it's frustrating how often fans of older themes act dismissive or even outright belligerent towards newer ones, regardless of whether they prefer licensed or non-licensed themes. It seems like it'd be more constructive and more beneficial to our community as a whole to try and appreciate LEGO's current in-house themes for what they are (even when "what they are" is something that doesn't particularly appeal to us) than to resent them for what they're not. I apologize if I communicated it badly.

I'll try and wrap this up here because I also know that the further MY comment drags on, the more it'll just make you feel even more like I'm trying to berate or judge you for having different favorite themes than I do. I'm not, truly. If you don't believe me… well, there's nothing I can do to change that, nor to prove how much I DO enjoy old-school themes like Castle and Space and Pirates despite them not being my personal favorites.

Sorry if this just makes things worse… i've kinda hit my emotional limit right now. I know (think? know? feel?) that you're a good person with awesome ideas and a great and thoughtful understanding of the themes you love most, and I really do like when we can discuss that stuff together in the sci-fi forum without this sort of ire. And so I hate feeling like you still see me as little more than an obnoxious, pretentious nuisance. But I'm doing my best NOT to be one, and I hope that'll be enough. if i'm still screwing that up at this point then maybe I'm not worth your continued patience and you'd just be better off blocking me.

Edited April 3, 2022 by Aanchir

[Clone OPatra]

@danth the tone of your post is absolutely unacceptable here. Disagreement is fine of course and I get the actual points you're getting at, but couching it in such targetted hostility against another member is not ok.

Credit to Aanchir for responding with such maturity.