Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[Agent Kallus]

14 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

 

Here’s my unpopular opinion: Castle, Space, and Pirates are the three most overrated themes in TLG’s history. There, I said it  None of them hold a candle to Adventurers, Rock Raiders/Power Miners, Ninjago, or any licensed theme for that matter  Feel free to burn me at the stake for my heresy

I mean you are wrong but not in a harmful or dangerous way so I don't think we need to burn you at the stake.

18 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

 

A lot of AFOLs seem to be under the impression that what they liked as kids will also automatically appeal to kids nowadays, and that simply isn’t true!

See I personally don't care if it's true or not. I just want them to make the products I want ( Lego Doctor Who is the top of that list), I really don't care if that's reasonable or not. I mean my desires aren't my expectations so I need not temper them. 

[danth]

32 minutes ago, Agent Kallus said:

See I personally don't care if it's true or not. I just want them to make the products I want ( Lego Doctor Who is the top of that list), I really don't care if that's reasonable or not. I mean my desires aren't my expectations so I need not temper them. 

Right?

And let's face it, a huge portion of Lego sets are directly aimed at adults. So it's not like they can't or won't make sets just for us.

[MAB]

6 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Nowadays they have so many bright people working there that it would be possible to design proper sets from scratch instead of relying on IP from movies.

Licensed sets ARE proper sets. 

[SpacePolice89]

13 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

And I couldn´t call the last waves of Space or Pirate bad either.

I agree with you but they they weren't consistent enough. They were released for a very short time and didn't get any follow up sets or wave two the next year. Some of those sets were very good but didn't get enough visibility due to a lack of marketing efforts and a short lifespan. 

[SpacePolice89]

21 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Shouldn’t the 18+ sets appeal to that exact demographic? Kids “too old” to play with colourful playsets, but already in the right age range to build the more challenging, impressive-looking display models?

I think that the classic themes had a broader appeal when it comes to kids. A 10-14 year old as well as younger children could easily be interested in sets like the 6285 Black Seas Barracuda but few kids over the age of 9 would be interested in a set like 71453 Izzie and Bunchu the Bunny. I know that the 18+ sets are also suitable for people younger than 18 but they are often very big and expensive and not readily available. Most modern in house sets are not suitable for 8-12 years olds while older sets from the classic themes had a great appeal to that age group.

Edited August 17, 2023 by SpacePolice89

[SpacePolice89]

21 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

A Space theme would never outsell Star Wars though, just to name an example. Among nostalgia-focussed AFOLs perhaps, but certainly not among kids. LSW has even become its own brand of sorts in the meantime 

A well designed in house space theme could easily sell at least 70-80 percent of what Lego Star Wars is selling and you wouldn't have to pay any license fees. With no such fees the sets would be cheaper and more people would buy them. If they were given the same budget as the Lego Star Wars design team we would most certainly see similar if not better sales figures. Star Wars is actually not so popular among kids today, spaceships always sell so it's completely unnecessary to pay for the license when the the spaceships could be Futuron or Blacktron instead.

[BrickBob Studpants]

7 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

A well designed in house space theme could easily sell at least 70-80 percent of what Lego Star Wars is selling and you wouldn't have to pay any license fees.

Um, what are these estimates based on, exactly? Sorry, but the notion that Blacktron could reach 80% of the sales figures that SW generates is downright laughable  

[Karalora]

I hate it as much as anyone, but the unfortunate fact is that children's narrative imaginations have come to be dominated by the characters they see in movies and TV shows. Nowadays when kids play "let's pretend," they almost always pretend to be the characters from their favorite movies and shows, rather than unique characters that they make up. Toys that feature recognizable named characters and familiar scenarios are going to attract more attention and interest than toys that just present a basic unformed idea.

[Lion King]

I don’t like Star Wars that much but I only care for molded alien species from that theme so i can add them to non-licensed scenes with yellow minifigures. And I only care for ONE certain set - Obi-WAN’s Jedi starship set. Period. Obi-wan is my favorite character AND that starship is also my favorite. 

I’m very excited for Space-themed sets! 

[SpacePolice89]

5 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Um, what are these estimates based on, exactly? Sorry, but the notion that Blacktron could reach 80% of the sales figures that SW generates is downright laughable  

Same as your assumption that Space could never outsell Star Wars, just my opinion. We can agree to disagree. I believe there is room for both Space and Star Wars to be sold concurrently but then a certain degree of sales cannibalization has to be tolerated.

[BrickBob Studpants]

14 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Same as your assumption that Space could never outsell Star Wars, just my opinion. 

How about the fact LSW celebrates its 25th anniversary next year, whereas all space themes bite the dust after a few short years  And do you seriously suggest random generic spaceman #4 can hold a candle to merchandise juggernauts like Darth Vader or Grogu?

[SpacePolice89]

2 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

How about the fact LSW celebrates its 25th anniversary next year, whereas all space themes bite the dust after a few short years  And do you seriously suggest random generic spaceman #4 can hold a candle to merchandise juggernauts like Darth Vader or Grogu?

Never underestimate the power of generic spacemen!

[danth]

2 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

How about the fact LSW celebrates its 25th anniversary next year, whereas all space themes bite the dust after a few short years  And do you seriously suggest random generic spaceman #4 can hold a candle to merchandise juggernauts like Darth Vader or Grogu?

Space lasted from 1978 to 1999 uninterrupted, and had various themes after that too.

Lego Space also doesn't have all the baggage of 6 truly terrible movies. And isn't restricted to old designs and boring gray spaceships.

8 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Star Wars is actually not so popular among kids today

This is 100% true and I don't get how more people don't see it. Fortnite? Sure. Roblox? Minecraft? Sure. Star Wars? Lol.

https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/kids-interested-star-wars-anymore/

Hell even SW fans, more than anyone, have to admit the last 6 movies sucked. Nobody likes them.

Edited August 17, 2023 by danth

[Black Falcon]

Well, I agree that Space and SW could easily coexist. But honestly. there would be no way that Space would even get close to what SW is selling. I mean just look at the number of sets they are releasing each year for SW.

1 hour ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

How about the fact LSW celebrates its 25th anniversary next year, whereas all space themes bite the dust after a few short years  And do you seriously suggest random generic spaceman #4 can hold a candle to merchandise juggernauts like Darth Vader or Grogu?

They made classic Space Sets for ten years, before they started right away with the next theme. And since then there were also Classic Space Sets (well GWPs, the CMF Minifigure and the renewed Galaxy Explorer) So you can´t exactly say it is dead, although, obviosly they won´t ressurect it as an own theme again (which it actually never was IMO).

After Classic Space they had many different Space Series, but I don´t think they were discontinued because they were not going well, but more like Lego thought some new Ideas would sell better than new Sets from an more or less same looking other Space vehicle ;).

And when Star Wars came out, they might have thought well, which Space theme could we do next, lets try SW.

[Lyichir]

4 hours ago, Karalora said:

I hate it as much as anyone, but the unfortunate fact is that children's narrative imaginations have come to be dominated by the characters they see in movies and TV shows. Nowadays when kids play "let's pretend," they almost always pretend to be the characters from their favorite movies and shows, rather than unique characters that they make up. Toys that feature recognizable named characters and familiar scenarios are going to attract more attention and interest than toys that just present a basic unformed idea.

I'm gonna be honest... even non-licensed themes (and that includes Classic Space) have no guarantee of matching or gelling with kids' own unique characters that they make up. Maybe the chances are better with something more archetypical like Pirates or Castle (by riffing on popular historical genres established not by licences but by public domain works like Treasure Island or Robin Hood) or Town/City (by representing the real, modern world as kids learn to experience it), but space themes have always (by their nature as speculative instead of based on historical fiction) had to present their own distinct "vision" of what the future would look like.

And I think that's a part of why modern themes, even non-licensed ones, (and including unlicensed themes stretching back to all but the most classic of classic themes) often try to establish characters (or at least factions) and scenarios that can excite kids, rather than merely hoping the toys they put out will resonate with kids' own individual imaginations. Licensed themes are a bit of a shortcut to that (since Lego doesn't have to put in as much of their own marketing work just to explain who Darth Vader or Spider-Man are), but themes like Ninjago do the same by establishing their own characters, and even themes of yesteryear had to do some of that in creating factions like Blacktron or Ice Planet with their own distinct settings and aesthetics.

That's the nature of design work, and I get a little tired of the implication that just because modern toys have more clearly established characters, modern kids are less creative or imaginative than kids in the 70s or 80s. Because, to be honest, kids back then pretended to be Darth Vader or Batman too—they just didn't have Lego sets that strongly enabled telling those stories through construction play. I think of licensed themes, and also unlicensed "story themes" like Ninjago, as something that was not only inevitable but something that Lego lagged far behind their competitors on (companies like Hasbro and Mattel were licensing popular movies or TV series, or creating their own like My Little Pony or Transformers or He-Man, long before Lego recognized the value of doing so). So it's little surprise to me that Lego has found greater success in the modern era by embracing those ways of playing instead of pretending to be above it all by sticking to only well-trod archetypes and consequently missing out on a lot of potential sales.

[BrickBob Studpants]

15 minutes ago, danth said:

Space lasted from 1978 to 1999 uninterrupted, and had various themes after that too.

Various subthemes maybe, but not as a singular theme.

16 minutes ago, danth said:

Hell even SW fans, more than anyone, have to admit the last 6 movies sucked. Nobody likes them.

Hi, I‘m nobody. Come on, that‘s just your opinion, not a fact. Plenty of people like the ST and RO is one of the most popular SW movies out there. Even Solo has a loyal fan club. If you honestly think they‘re all terrible, you desperately need to see more movies, because you‘ve never seen a truly bad movie then

[Black Falcon]

22 minutes ago, danth said:

https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/kids-interested-star-wars-anymore/

Hell even SW fans, more than anyone, have to admit the last 6 movies sucked. Nobody likes them.

Well, I wouldn´t say that, they still have many fans. But yeah, for me 4-6 were clearly the best. And I am not really a fan of the prequel ones. But I would say Rogue one and even Solo were actually not bad ;)

2 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Various subthemes maybe, but not as a singular theme.

Hi, I‘m nobody. Come on, that‘s just your opinion, not a fact. Plenty of people like the ST and RO is one of the most popular SW movies out there. Even Solo has a loyal fan club. If you honestly think they‘re all terrible, you desperately need to see more movies, because you‘ve never seen a truly bad movie then

Well I think there were some really bad decisions in the ST, one of them mainly destroying everything the OT achieved. And whoever had the idea to make Han´ and Leia´s son the main bad guy should have been fired IMO ;).

[danth]

54 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Various subthemes maybe, but not as a singular theme.

Cool, then we should count SW Lego as 13 different subthemes based on each movie, TV show, etc.

Also I think it's weird to take the fact that Lego Space was constantly refreshing itself with new and exciting themes, with different color schemes and gimmicks, and call that a BAD thing.

54 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Hi, I‘m nobody. Come on, that‘s just your opinion, not a fact. Plenty of people like the ST and RO is one of the most popular SW movies out there. Even Solo has a loyal fan club. If you honestly think they‘re all terrible, you desperately need to see more movies, because you‘ve never seen a truly bad movie then

"Nobody likes them" is just a useful figure of speech not to be taken literally. It can roughly translate into "very few people can honestly say they're any good".

I think they're truly terrible. Rise of Skywalker was one of the most outrageously awful movies I've ever seen.

33 minutes ago, Black Falcon said:

But I would say Rogue one and even Solo were actually not bad ;)

I was talking about the main movies. Prequel and Sequel trilogies.

I thought Rogue One and Solo were okay.

Edited August 17, 2023 by danth

[Horation]

12 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

 Sorry, but the notion that Blacktron could reach 80% of the sales figures that SW generates is laughable

Nobod said it had to be blacktron, Ninjago achieved such a percentage, I believe.

 

3 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Various subthemes maybe, but not as a singular theme.

I‘m nobody. Come on, that‘s just your opinion, not a fact. Plenty of people like the ST and RO is one of the most popular SW movies out there. Even Solo has a loyal fan club. If you honestly think they‘re all terrible, you desperately need to see more movies, because you‘ve never seen a truly bad movie then

  Hi nobody, please stop taking literally everything you read literally and interpreting things whichever way best fits your desired narrative, it's mildly annoying at best and frustrating at worst. By the way, the rise of skywalker was given the worst rating of any live action star wars movie to date, so...

And while I'm at it, how is releasing new iterations of an existing idea (spaceships and the likes) to keep up with youth's changing interests not proof that it was one large theme, are you saying castle was never around for long because the original crusaders were replaced by lion knights?

By that logic star wars as a united movie franchise hasn't existed for any time. Various subthemes maybe (prequels, sequels, etc...), but not as a singular theme of stories set in the same time period.

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Horation

[Karalora]

6 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I'm gonna be honest... even non-licensed themes (and that includes Classic Space) have no guarantee of matching or gelling with kids' own unique characters that they make up. Maybe the chances are better with something more archetypical like Pirates or Castle (by riffing on popular historical genres established not by licences but by public domain works like Treasure Island or Robin Hood) or Town/City (by representing the real, modern world as kids learn to experience it), but space themes have always (by their nature as speculative instead of based on historical fiction) had to present their own distinct "vision" of what the future would look like.

And I think that's a part of why modern themes, even non-licensed ones, (and including unlicensed themes stretching back to all but the most classic of classic themes) often try to establish characters (or at least factions) and scenarios that can excite kids, rather than merely hoping the toys they put out will resonate with kids' own individual imaginations. Licensed themes are a bit of a shortcut to that (since Lego doesn't have to put in as much of their own marketing work just to explain who Darth Vader or Spider-Man are), but themes like Ninjago do the same by establishing their own characters, and even themes of yesteryear had to do some of that in creating factions like Blacktron or Ice Planet with their own distinct settings and aesthetics.

That's the nature of design work, and I get a little tired of the implication that just because modern toys have more clearly established characters, modern kids are less creative or imaginative than kids in the 70s or 80s. Because, to be honest, kids back then pretended to be Darth Vader or Batman too—they just didn't have Lego sets that strongly enabled telling those stories through construction play. I think of licensed themes, and also unlicensed "story themes" like Ninjago, as something that was not only inevitable but something that Lego lagged far behind their competitors on (companies like Hasbro and Mattel were licensing popular movies or TV series, or creating their own like My Little Pony or Transformers or He-Man, long before Lego recognized the value of doing so). So it's little surprise to me that Lego has found greater success in the modern era by embracing those ways of playing instead of pretending to be above it all by sticking to only well-trod archetypes and consequently missing out on a lot of potential sales.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to disparage the imaginations of modern kids, I just get the impression that the focus of play has shifted in the past few decades. It used to be that let's-pretend games were described in terms of a genre or broad category--Cops & Robbers, say, or Ninjas, or Fairy Princesses. Nowadays I think kids are more likely to go straight to a specific media franchise--they don't just play Superheroes, they play Avengers. They may then of course spin a wild scenario the likes of which has never been seen in any piece of Avengers media. (I think little girls are especially notorious for doing that sort of thing with their dolls.)

It's not that "licensed character play" is itself anything new, it's that it seems to have ousted the alternatives from the landscape of children's common make-believe games. And maybe that's mainly because there's so much media to draw on, that anything a child might be interested in will have a full stable of established characters to pick from and project into.

[SpacePolice89]

7 hours ago, Lyichir said:

That's the nature of design work, and I get a little tired of the implication that just because modern toys have more clearly established characters, modern kids are less creative or imaginative than kids in the 70s or 80s. Because, to be honest, kids back then pretended to be Darth Vader or Batman too—they just didn't have Lego sets that strongly enabled telling those stories through construction play. I think of licensed themes, and also unlicensed "story themes" like Ninjago, as something that was not only inevitable but something that Lego lagged far behind their competitors on (companies like Hasbro and Mattel were licensing popular movies or TV series, or creating their own like My Little Pony or Transformers or He-Man, long before Lego recognized the value of doing so). So it's little surprise to me that Lego has found greater success in the modern era by embracing those ways of playing instead of pretending to be above it all by sticking to only well-trod archetypes and consequently missing out on a lot of potential sales.

When I grew up I liked the original Star Wars movies very much (and I still do) but I never felt that my Lego needed to be Star Wars related, because it's very limiting when all minifigs have names and predetermined roles. It was much funnier to play with Futuron, Blacktron etc. where I could imagine myself as an astronaut or give the minifigs names and roles and play whatever I wanted with them. Lego had a unique concept that was their own and stimulated imagination and creativity but now they rely too much on commercial mass culture.

[BrickBob Studpants]

7 hours ago, danth said:

Cool, then we should count SW Lego as 13 different subthemes based on each movie, TV show, etc.

4 hours ago, Horation said:

By that logic star wars as a united movie franchise hasn't existed for any time. Various subthemes maybe (prequels, sequels, etc...), but not as a singular theme of stories set in the same time period.

That comparison doesn‘t really work. First off, the various space themes had their own branding, whereas all SW sets are branded under the same banner. Secondly, the SW subthemes all co-exist whereas the Space subthemes replaced one another with little overlap. Thirdly, remember the vote for the 90th anniversary set, where even TLG themselves considered the Space subthemes to be their own thing?  Sure, they changed it later to appease the outraged Space fans, but their first impulse was still to look at them as separate themes.

Edited August 18, 2023 by BrickBob Studpants

[Yperio_Bricks]

2 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

When I grew up I liked the original Star Wars movies very much (and I still do) but I never felt that my Lego needed to be Star Wars related, because it's very limiting when all minifigs have names and predetermined roles. It was much funnier to play with Futuron, Blacktron etc. where I could imagine myself as an astronaut or give the minifigs names and roles and play whatever I wanted with them. Lego had a unique concept that was their own and stimulated imagination and creativity but now they rely too much on commercial mass culture.

You can still do that. Just kitbash/figbarf your minifigures and create unique characters within the SW universe. I always do that for my mocs.

 

3 hours ago, Karalora said:

Nowadays I think kids are more likely to go straight to a specific media franchise--they don't just play Superheroes, they play Avengers. They may then of course spin a wild scenario the likes of which has never been seen in any piece of Avengers media. (I think little girls are especially notorious for doing that sort of thing with their dolls.)

Why should kids choose made-up noname superheroes when they can be one of the avangers or batman? Did kids ever do that? When i was a kid, playing football, whe choose Bebeto or Romario, nowadays kids choose Messi or Ronaldo. Why would i want to be a random king when i can be the mighty Richard the Lionheart of which i learned from some old movie.

[Peppermint_M]

Now to feel old: Thirty years Ago when I was first in school my little friends and I would play Superted and Fireman Sam. Then it was Power Rangers and Hero Turtles ( could not have Ninjas in 90s Britain) King Arthur and his knights and Robin Hood were also popular games of make believe. 

So while some are probably counted as more "Worthy" than others thanks to a classical association, we still identified as characters in our games. 

As for football? Tony Adams all the way for me! But a few Eric Cantona and Ryan Giggs were claimed by my peers.

 

It's a lot more dated, all this "polluted" imagination.

[SpacePolice89]

4 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

You can still do that. Just kitbash/figbarf your minifigures and create unique characters within the SW universe. I always do that for my mocs.

That's true. But as a kid I preferred toys with not too much backstory like Blacktron and Futuron. I liked it more when Lego had it's own universe but I also understand your point of view.