Old monkey vs new monkey

[zinnn]

   vs  

 

 

What will be your go-to monkey for your Pirate sets?

[evancelt]

The new one looks better, but it's way less useful because the arms/legs don't move. Still, it can hang from its tail taunting passersby!

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

The good thing with monkeys is that you can always have many different ones. Old horses next to new ones look weird to me.

But like the old elephant: some printing and molding doesn't make a bad figure good. Lego really tosses a ball with some animal molds. They should always have the most or more posability compared to old figs.

Old monkeys were so cool. You could do so many things with them! The new one can stand on a stud, be cliped onto something and that's it.

Like with big-figs I really hope Lego goes in direction of a minifig-style or even compatible system.

[PxChris]

The new monkeys are very cute and really well produced (dual molding). But the lack of pose-ability on them is certainly a downside.

However, for me it is a moot point. The classic monkey will always be my favorite! I've put some of the new monkeys in POBB, but even still I've decided I need to buy a reddish brown version (all of the others I have in my collection are old brown of course since that's the only brown I'll use in my classic display) of the old monkey to add to it as well.

[Jack Sassy]

New mould might make for a better Jack the Monkey. I'm yet to obtain one, but it'll have its own uses, aye.

[Darkdragon]

Definitely different uses, different types of monkey and all. Wish the new ones had some articulation but they are adorable.

[Mister Phes]

But as with any monkey, you've got to spank it to ensure it behaves....

[dr_spock]

I like the old monkey.  They seem to be better at alligator wrestling.

[Merlo]

Wha... arms and legs were the most fun part about the old monkey.

[Mister Phes]

15 hours ago, zinnn said:

What will be your go-to monkey for your Pirate sets?

I will breed the monkeys and see what hybrid(s) they produce!

4 hours ago, dr_spock said:

I like the old monkey.  They seem to be better at alligator wrestling.

[Tezclatipoca]

I finally got one of those new monkeys and that's a nice mold.

The design is cute but this new monkey is less playable as it hasn't moving arms. I will probably keep the old ones but I am not excluding using the new ones in some MOCs too. Diversity is always a good thing ! 

[zinnn]

I'm really bummed that the new monkey has unmovable arms, if it did, it'd be a winner for me, but at the moment I'm also sticking to the old one

[blackdeathgr]

5 hours ago, Faladrin said:

I finally got one of those new monkeys and that's a nice mold.

The design is cute but this new monkey is less playable as it hasn't moving arms. I will probably keep the old ones but I am not excluding using the new ones in some MOCs too. Diversity is always a good thing ! 

THAT!

[jan kusters]

On 7/19/2021 at 9:51 PM, dr_spock said:

I like the old monkey.  They seem to be better at alligator wrestling.

And they make great alligator riding messengers too...

The Briney Brick 66 (a): you've got mail... by Jan Kusters, on Flickr

 

I do like the new monkeys too, and can easily see them worshipping at the Great Ape Shrine too...

(I even liked the Brick build Ape from the 3 in 1 set, but I prefer it as statue)

The Briney Brick 15 (b): meanwhile, not so far away... by Jan Kusters, on Flickr

Edited July 29, 2021 by Darkdragon
Please don't quote images

[Generaltrons bricks]

Just cant beat the pose ability of the old monkey imho.

[Lion King]

I don’t think I have that old monkey figure before. But at the glance, I think I like the new monkey mold because of its shape and coloration. 

However, there are a few minuses for the cutie monkey. Obviously, no movable arms or legs. But there is one thing I was disappointed slightly. When I get a new monkey mold, I tried to put a poop piece in its hand, it repeatedly fails. I guess it only can hold bananas and any bars/staffs.

Why not using a minifigure hand for new monkey so it’s little easier to hold poop and other pieces? Why not use minifigure-like arms for new monkey so they can move up and down? 

And we have a new adult elephant mold and it’s not possible much too. But I like the desgins of elephant and monkey. 

[zinnn]

6 minutes ago, DBlegonerd7 said:

Why not using a minifigure hand for new monkey so it’s little easier to hold poop

Question of the year

[Lion King]

27 minutes ago, zinnn said:

Question of the year

LOL, probably it is! :)

[Aanchir]

I certainly have a lot of nostalgia for the old monkey, but the new one is a much better scale relative to minifigures and other animals (such as cats, dogs, pigs, parrots, etc). Other than being on all fours, the old monkey was close to the size of a full-grown minifig!

While the lack of articulation is certainly a bummer, it seems to be pretty much an unavoidable side effect of how much the size has been reduced. I am also generally a big fan of printed animal faces in LEGO, since it helps them feel more "alive" like minifigs (or other modern LEGO animals), and less like dead-eyed statues. And I think the designers made a good call by using an anti-stud instead of a clip for the feet (so it can be secured to a flat surface without needing some extra part to clip it to).

From a set design standpoint, the new monkey's smaller size and simpler single-piece design seem to make it a lot more affordable, which enables the designers to include multiple monkeys even in very small sets like 60300 — something we never saw with the old design. Given that there were no monkeys in either the 2015 Pirates range or the Pirates of Barracuda Bay set, I feel like anything that boosts the likelihood of seeing monkeys in future pirate-related sets is a Good Thing.

For MOC purposes, the new monkey is better scaled to "hitch a ride" atop a minifig or another mid-size animal, although just as with LEGO parrots, you'd likely need to rig up some kind of neck bracket or backpack assembly to get them to perch on a pirate's shoulder the way they often would in movies.

Likewise, just think of how much easier it will be to build a "cage" that an exotic animal merchant could use to hold the new monkey before the pirates arrive to heroically liberate it (and "liberate" some of that merchant's wealth in the process)!

[Alexandrina]

I suspect I'll continue to use the old monkey for the time being, for the simple reason that I'm not about to rush out and get the new monkey. There's a strange sort of nostalgia around the old monkey (which I also have for the one Paradisa head with the open red lips) because I saw it prominently in several Brickfilms long before I owned one myself - my younger days were limited to a small amount of Lego, so I lived vicariously through these animations. As such, there's a sort of "potential" that the old monkey has, which I haven't fulfilled yet - having actually never used one in a MOC!

[Robert8]

Interesting that the new monkey is a "fleshie". I guess we won't see it in minifigure yellow

 

The old monkey totally wins. Not only the posability, but also the proportions of the old one are better. In the new one, the size of the head is too small compared to the limbs

[Aanchir]

22 hours ago, Robert8 said:

Interesting that the new monkey is a "fleshie". I guess we won't see it in minifigure yellow

I'm not really surprised by that, to be honest — unlike actual minifigs, it's normal for animals in non-licensed themes to resemble the actual skin or fur color of their real-life counterparts. "Fleshie" colors are also used for the furless/featherless portions of the LEGO ostrich (24689pb01c01), LEGO chimpanzee (95327pb01/95327pb02), LEGO mouse (35757c01pb01), and older versions of the LEGO pig (87621pb01/87621pb02/87621pb03).

Also, since it hasn't been mentioned yet in this thread, there are actually TWO colors/patterns for the new monkey. The version pictured at the top of this thread (Sand Yellow/Dark Tan one with a Light Nougat face), which appears in 30570, 60300, and 60302, is the more common of the two. But there's also a Brick Yellow/Tan version with a Dark Stone Grey/Dark Bluish Gray face in 60304 — which, needless to say, doesn't match "human" skin tones in either licensed OR non-licensed themes!

[eldiano]

When was the last time they released jack the monkey in a lego set?

[Jack Sassy]

1 hour ago, eldiano said:

When was the last time they released jack the monkey in a lego set?

They never did release him as a character, but if you are referring to the classic mould as Jack the Monkey, that would be 2016 Ninjago Skybound line (makes me think, why couldn't they release him for the 2015 Pirates wave), last time he showed up in reddish brown was in 2011 board game 3853 Banana Balance. While the new one was an update we needed for a long time, the original will forever live in our hearts.  

[eldiano]

2 hours ago, Jack Sassy said:

They never did release him as a character, but if you are referring to the classic mould as Jack the Monkey, that would be 2016 Ninjago Skybound line (makes me think, why couldn't they release him for the 2015 Pirates wave), last time he showed up in reddish brown was in 2011 board game 3853 Banana Balance. While the new one was an update we needed for a long time, the original will forever live in our hearts.  

Ohhhhhh gotcha, I mean I almost bought this monkey from Bricks and pieces but then realized and hope that lego will give us the pirate monkey we deserve, at the end of the day we did get an “updated” bricked pirate on 31109 hahaha, i completely forgot about it lolol