LEGO Monkie Kid 2022

[Pulp Detective]

3 hours ago, Lego David said:

Not gonna lie, this feels like a super lame choice of a set to me. We started out as "a modern retelling of a classic Chinse novel" and now we get to go in Space? 

That's what I though when I saw this set.If this set is anything to by for what is next for this theme then by 2023 this theme won't have anything to do with it's original source material.

[Maple]

Oh yes because LEGO was being so faithful with the source material. 

[Pulp Detective]

2 minutes ago, Maple said:

Oh yes because LEGO was being so faithful with the source material. 

God I hate this excuse "I never said I was going to be 100% faithful to the source material therefore it gives me the right to bastardize it all I want"

The Journey to the West is a cultural treasure for the Chinese so if Lego wants to cash in on it at the very least they should be respectful towards it.

[Maple]

5 minutes ago, LOTR34 said:

God I hate this excuse "I never said I was going to be 100% faithful to the source material therefore it gives me the right to bastardize it all I want"

The Journey to the West is a cultural treasure for the Chinese so if Lego wants to cash in on it at the very least they should be respectful towards it.

God. I hate that LEGO fanboys are so blind. My point is why would LEGO start now? They have never been close to following it, and 'respectful' is laughable too.

[Pulp Detective]

2 minutes ago, Maple said:

God. I hate that LEGO fanboys are so blind. My point is why would LEGO start now? They have never been close to following it, and 'respectful' is laughable too.

So my point flew over your head,can't say I didn't expect that.

Laughable huh?Yea because respecting other peoples culture is a laughable matter.

[Lego David]

3 hours ago, Maple said:

God. I hate that LEGO fanboys are so blind. My point is why would LEGO start now? They have never been close to following it, and 'respectful' is laughable too.

Our boy @LOTR34 is from Greece, so for the sake of the argument let's pretend LEGO wants to produce a theme based on Greek Myths in order to appeal to his country's culture. Since they want it also to be "modern" they decide to give Hercules a bunch of big motorcycles, so he can fight the evil Hades Underworld Mech. Ok, fair enough. It is super inaccurate, but at least it somewhat keeps the spirit of the original source material. But then, next thing you know, they decide to also give our hero Hercules a big rocket so he can travel all the way to the moon despite the fact that traveling into the space wasn't even in the human imagination at the time those stories were written. 

This is basically what Monkie Kid does right now. I am not gonna pretend like past adaptations of Greek myths from been particularly accurate (cough cough Disney's Hercules) but going as far as including rockets traveling to space is really pushing it IMO. 

There is nothing inheritingly wrong about adding your own unique twist to a classic story, but when a big selling point of your product is "this is based on your country's culture" you gotta stay at least partially true to the source material. If not, you're basically just disrespecting the very culture you're trying to appeal to.

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2021 by Lego David

[icm]

Given that China is now a major space power and that the Monkey stories have always involved traveling at incredible speeds and heights to distant lands via cloud, a Monkey Kid rocket doesn't strike me as too much more of a stretch than, say, a mobile base in the form of a gigantic mechanical spider.

[mrfang2]

Honestly this isn’t bastardizing anything, sure the means to get there are different but the original stories and other Chinese myths have included the moon goddess chang’e, who lives in a temple on the moon and has connections to pigsy’s equivalent in the original story.

They showed the moon and chang’es jade rabbit companion on the map of locations they need to go to in the last season’s finale, so I don’t know why this surprises anyone. Sure sending Hercules off into space would be going against source material, but journey to the west already has precedent for a moon adventure.

[Maple]

59 minutes ago, icm said:

Given that China is now a major space power and that the Monkey stories have always involved traveling at incredible speeds and heights to distant lands via cloud, a Monkey Kid rocket doesn't strike me as too much more of a stretch than, say, a mobile base in the form of a gigantic mechanical spider.

EXACTLY!

The whole theme was never really based on the book. The theme is called Monkie Kid, not Journey to the West, they just took a few characters to SELL A TOY in the biggest country in the world. Getting upset because there is a rocket when this year there was a fighter jet is ridiculous. 

Journey to the West is real easy when you have jets and motorcycles, which also weren't a thing when the book was written hundreds of year ago.

But a rocket is too much? 

Edited November 7, 2021 by Maple

[neithan]

In "Journey to the West", the Monkey King had his own flying cloud, which he used several times to fly to the heaven and across the whole land. So if he wanted, the journey would have been a matter of hours, not years.

 

So yeah, why no space rocket? Abd maybe this will be the only space-related set, we dont know yet.

[Lego David]

1 hour ago, Maple said:

But a rocket is too much? 

I don't know, I guess I am just upset that Monkie Kid is going to space because that means we won't be getting anymore original themed sci-fi space sets for a while because of it. .

 

 

[Lyichir]

2 hours ago, Lego David said:

I don't know, I guess I am just upset that Monkie Kid is going to space because that means we won't be getting anymore original themed sci-fi space sets for a while because of it. .

 

 

To be honest I don't think this is that much more of a barrier to that than anything else. At this point we can't even tell whether the whole wave is space-themed or not (I'd wager that it most likely isn't). And there'd really be nothing stopping Lego from releasing a dedicated space theme alongside this—any more than there's anything specific that's stopped Lego from being able to release a Space theme in the past few years when there HASN'T been an ongoing theme set in space.

I mean, a few days ago the predominant narrative in here was about Lego scaling this theme back in markets like Europe—if that sort of thing is taking place, it's pretty unrealistic to assume this theme makes up a big enough part of Lego's portfolio globally to stand in the way of something as broadly appealing as space! If anything, you'd probably have a stronger case that the twin titans of Star Wars and City would be more of a barrier to that than a single Monkie Kid spaceship.

Anyway, can't wait until we have bigger and better pictures of this set! I can tell there's all sorts of fun building techniques used for this ship's shaping, and I'd love to get a better look at things like the interior.

[JJ Tong (zfogshooterz)]

I really like the look of the rocket there, especially the red cockpit windows. I'm not too bothered with the theme going to space. To me, Monkie Kid has established itself as a very tech-based theme so this isn't too far of a stretch. Ninjago has stretched far more than this. (Looking at Seabound)

Now, what did bother me is that the characters are wearing astronaut-like suits. I personally would rather have the characters wear their own unique spacesuit (with unique design and colors) instead of a uniform. I would be completely fine too if the character just use their regular suits.

Edited November 8, 2021 by JJ Tong (zfogshooterz)

[Lyichir]

7 hours ago, JJ Tong (zfogshooterz) said:

I really like the look of the rocket there, especially the red cockpit windows. I'm not too bothered with the theme going to space. To me, Monkie Kid has established itself as a very tech-based theme so this isn't too far of a stretch. Ninjago has stretched far more than this. (Looking at Seabound)

Now, what did bother me is that the characters are wearing astronaut-like suits. I personally would rather have the characters wear their own unique spacesuit (with unique design and colors) instead of a uniform. I would be completely fine too if the character just use their regular suits.

I do generally prefer individualized outfits, but a uniform spacesuit design works for me, especially if not all of the sets are space-focused and the characters still get different updated outfits in some of the other sets (which I suspect is likely to be the case, given the quest narrative teased at the end of the most recent season of the show). Matching outfits for a one-off mission seems fine to me, considering that the same tends to be the case with real-world space missions.

It's a little bit of a shame that this set doesn't include Pigsy (who even with matching spacesuits would need a different printed leg piece since he's shorter), but I suppose the fact that his head wouldn't fit in a helmet would also pose an issue.

[BrickBob Studpants]

Do you think the new hairpiece that just leaked could belong to a Monkie Kid character? Ninjago would be another option, but we‘ve known about the upcoming minifig selection for a while now whereas the 1HY MK sets are still a mystery 

[Classic_Spaceman]

17 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Do you think the new hairpiece that just leaked could belong to a Monkie Kid character? Ninjago would be another option, but we‘ve known about the upcoming minifig selection for a while now whereas the 1HY MK sets are still a mystery 

I just saw this; MK is a possibility, but so is Friends (the hole in the back suggests that it may be paired with a bow), and also possibly Star Wars (as it looks like a mix of Padmé’s, Leia’s, and Kaydel Connix’s various hairstyles). 
 

[BrickBob Studpants]

1 hour ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

I just saw this; MK is a possibility, but so is Friends (the hole in the back suggests that it may be paired with a bow), and also possibly Star Wars (as it looks like a mix of Padmé’s, Leia’s, and Kaydel Connix’s various hairstyles). 

The accessory hole is indeed suspicious, but Friends hairpieces are usually a softer plastic, and this seems like a hard plastic type to me  Star Wars can safely be ruled out. Not only doesn't anyone have a hairstyle like that, there also isn't any set on the horizon where a character like that would fit in 

[Robert8]

That's gotta be a Monkie Kid hairpiece

Pretty neat I must say

[Classic_Spaceman]

5 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Star Wars can safely be ruled out. Not only doesn't anyone have a hairstyle like that, there also isn't any set on the horizon where a character like that would fit in 

We do have two BoBF sets coming out, but you are probably right: Someone on Instagram suggested that it may be for Nezha, who does appear in Journey to the West, and who is sometimes depicted as having hair similar to the leaked part. If this is the case, then the hole in the back is likely for a ribbon (see Hanzo and Genji). 
 

[BrickBob Studpants]

10 hours ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

We do have two BoBF sets coming out, but you are probably right:

Sure, but this hairpiece doesn’t look like it belongs to a bounty hunter, mercenary, goon, or crime lord 

10 hours ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

Someone on Instagram suggested that it may be for Nezha, who does appear in Journey to the West, and who is sometimes depicted as having hair similar to the leaked part. If this is the case, then the hole in the back is likely for a ribbon (see Hanzo and Genji). 

Yeah, that pretty much seals the deal  

[mrfang2]

Lego has revealed the set names for the January wave

Monkie kid galactic explorer
Evil macaque's mech
Chang'e moon cake factory
Mei's dragon car
The city of lanterns
Monkie kid's staff creations
Nezha's fire ring

so we’ve already seen that the explorer has a decent amount of environment to it, but to also get 2 full location sets (maybe 3? Fire ring could go either way), and what seems to be a small set in the “staff creations” one, it seems they have been listening to the feedback given about wanting more locations and cheap sets. Rumor on Instagram is that pictures may show up tomorrow since lego put the instruction listings up, so I can’t wait to see what these look like!

[Bloquerto]

Just now, mrfang2 said:

Lego has revealed the set names for the January wave

Monkie kid galactic explorer
Evil macaque's mech
Chang'e moon cake factory
Mei's dragon car
The city of lanterns
Monkie kid's staff creations
Nezha's fire ring

so we’ve already seen that the explorer has a decent amount of environment to it, but to also get 2 full location sets (maybe 3? Fire ring could go either way), and what seems to be a small set in the “staff creations” one, it seems they have been listening to the feedback given about wanting more locations and cheap sets. Rumor on Instagram is that pictures may show up tomorrow since lego put the instruction listings up, so I can’t wait to see what these look like!

I'm excited for Chang'e Moon Cake Factory, Macaque Mech and Nezha's set. 

[mrfang2]

7 minutes ago, Bloquerto said:

I'm excited for Chang'e Moon Cake Factory, Macaque Mech and Nezha's set. 

I love how the galactic explorer looks, but the city and factory are what I’m most looking forward to! Monkie kid’s buildings have always been great so getting some bigger ones rather than the pack in’s with big vehicles will be awesome.

 

also interested in seeing what the “staff creations” set will be. It could be a location set where the gang will be re-forging the staff, could be something like the queen whatevra set where you can make a bunch of different builds, could even be a tiny set with just a bunch of little alternate builds for the staff at different sizes or with different add ons… certainly the biggest unknown of the wave.

[Robert8]

All these sets sound... incohesive

Let's wait for the pictures....

[TeriXeri]

Moon Cake Factory sounds fun, and if Mei's Dragon Car uses more white + trans-bright-green , that'd be nice. (Dragon Horse Jet is my only MK set, which I think is the best non-licensed sci-fi set of 2021 as well)

City of Lanterns could be nice too if it focuses on location instead of vehicles (like the Flower Fruit Mountain shows they can do big locations without vehicle)

Edited November 26, 2021 by TeriXeri