Should Lego bring back the green dragon in its original form?

[Aanchir]

This is definitely a no from me. Mind you, I would have no objection to a modernized version of the old dragon mold.

For starters, I would DEFINITELY want any minifig-scale molded dragon to have printed eyes— minifigures and molded horses have always had printed eyes, and nowadays so do even many smaller and simpler LEGO animals like mice, squirrels, and songbirds, so I greatly appreciate keeping things consistent by adding eye printing to other LEGO animals. That said, for minifig themes I do still prefer simple dot eyes like those of minifigures over elaborate multicolored eyes like the modern crocodile or fantasy-era dragons, because again, I like seeing that sort of consistency.

I don't think the classic dragon's articulation would really need any improvements — it was already very impressive for a molded animal its size, even by modern standards. Making the legs separate pieces with Technic pin connections could maybe be nice, especially if it allowed builders to swap them with some of the current dinosaur leg molds to create varying dragon designs, but wouldn't really be necessary for playability in my opinion. The connection point in the mouth would definitely need to be be updated, though, so that modern flame pieces can be attached securely.

I would also expect a revised version of the classic dragon to add at least slightly more organic contours to the face sort of like the modern LEGO shark, horse, and crocodile, which replace a lot of the sharper right angles from the original design with beveled edges. Some 90s LEGO animal molds like the octopus and dragon already employed beveled edges to great effect, but sharp right angles of the dragon's head and tail were considerably less organic-looking than the torso, arms, and legs — perhaps in part because they had to double as components of the much blockier classic LEGO crocodile. By contrast, the LEGO minifigure always had a very smooth and curvy surface compared to its body. It's possible that a modernized version of the classic dragon could even use the same face and tail molds as the modern crocodile — besides the beveled edges and somewhat smoother face, I really love that the modern crocodile's tail ridges are now truncated cylinders instead of sharp triangular points, so as to better match the texture of the studs on its back!

Bear in mind, this balance between angular and curvy shapes on modern LEGO animals isn't simply a case of making all animal molds curvier or more organic-looking than their predecessors! The modern LEGO cat, rat, owl, mouse, dolphin, and stingray have considerably more geometric and angular forms than their predecessors from the 90s and early 2000s (many of which were used both in minifig sets and Belville sets, which may account for their much more organic design language). Likewise, the modern LEGO parrot replaces the smooth dome-like chest of the original with a body shape that has hard edges separating the front and side surfaces (though I still feel it is way overdue for printed eyes!). Overall, I feel like this current "house style" for minifig animals, using beveled edges in place of either right angles OR seamless rounded surfaces, does a great job creating greater consistency across the board, rather than having some animals extremely blocky and others extremely curvy.

In short, the classic LEGO dragon has definitely aged a lot better than some other classic animals, but I it'd need at least a few improvements for me to really accept it in a modern set. Ideally, the end result could be as well-liked even among old-school AFOLs as the modern horse design!

[Doddsino]

Not only should they bring back the dragon, but they should rerelease every single Lego set from 1987 to 1998. Then I'll stop complaining! 

[Yperio_Bricks]

2 hours ago, Doddsino said:

Not only should they bring back the dragon, but they should rerelease every single Lego set from 1987 to 1998. Then I'll stop complaining! 

So you wish Lego to go bakrupt?  Because that is what would happen when they bring back these outdated sets and negate ~30 years of improvement

Although it would be an interesting experiment.

I mean, I was born 1983 and had a lot castle and pirates sets, city of course, even some space sets, but everything (techniques, parts, colors, printing (if we get it)) we have nowadays is so much better imo!

 

[Doddsino]

13 minutes ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

So you wish Lego to go bakrupt?  Because that is what would happen when they bring back these outdated sets and negate ~30 years of improvement

Although it would be an interesting experiment.

I mean, I was born 1983 and had a lot castle and pirates sets, city of course, even some space sets, but everything (techniques, parts, colors, printing (if we get it)) we have nowadays is so much better imo!

 

I was mostly being sarcastic, but if I started seeing those old sets pop up in stores, I'd probably be needlessly emptying out savings account. 

[Yperio_Bricks]

7 minutes ago, Doddsino said:

I was mostly being sarcastic, but if I started seeing those old sets pop up in stores, I'd probably be needlessly emptying out savings account. 

As I have said, it would be a interesting social experiment that I would like to witness. And i am not sarcastic here. It would be interesting to see what really will happen when:

The world's biggest toy company going full retro, dismissing all licensed themes, turning back the time 30 years and re-releasing all the blocky sets from the past. Will 90% of the customers turn to other brick companies while Lego has to rely on the nostalgia of middle-aged people. Will this turn out ot be a golden future for the Lego company?

[SpacePolice89]

4 hours ago, Doddsino said:

Not only should they bring back the dragon, but they should rerelease every single Lego set from 1987 to 1998. Then I'll stop complaining! 

If they did that I would apply for all the overtime I could get until I had all of them. It would be a dream coming true. But more realistically they could do something similar to the BDP but with rereleases of old sets. For example with x amount of preorders they would manufacture a set.

[MAB]

15 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

As I have said, it would be a interesting social experiment that I would like to witness. And i am not sarcastic here. It would be interesting to see what really will happen when:

The world's biggest toy company going full retro, dismissing all licensed themes, turning back the time 30 years and re-releasing all the blocky sets from the past. Will 90% of the customers turn to other brick companies while Lego has to rely on the nostalgia of middle-aged people. Will this turn out ot be a golden future for the Lego company?

If they only did retro LEGO sets, they'd lose most of their adult audience too. 

I don't mind the odd throwback set being produced, but I tend to buy new sets for new parts.