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2012 Friends Discussion Thread

Pandora

By Pandora
in LEGO Town

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Oky Grand Master

Oky

Posted
Posted

Well, apparently it was only "technically cancelled" (whatever that means), and as this catalog proves, it will still be released. :wink: Thanks for the link!

  • 3 weeks later...
nana Enthusiast

nana

Posted
Posted (edited)

If yes, could it be in the spring of 2013?

Personally, I am a little disappointed with the new summer friends sets, because most of them are related to farm life.

I can see more possible sets on the map of the Heartlake City, the map you can find in the booklets of any friends set. I was wondering if there would be more to release in the future as it was shown there. :tongue:

Edited by nana
Multiverse Collaborator

Multiverse

Posted
Posted (edited)

With all the commercial material TLC have done for the theme, as well as the theme's high ambition of scooping up a whole new audience, and on top of that the sheer number of sets included in the first two waves, I would be utterly surprised to see Lego end the line there. I'm almost certain there'll be more waves of this theme.

EDIT: In case anyone is wondering, I wrote this post in response to a thread which was later merged with this one. :wink:

Edited by Multiverse
The Blue Brick Rising Star

The Blue Brick

Posted
Posted (edited)

I definitely agree there will be more sets for the next years. The line is great and IMO, kids love them. I really would like more civilian type buildings that are fun. I haven't really liked the newer sets, but have more enjoyed the first wave with the different shops and buildings. Anyways, I can see a lot of potential for this theme in the future.

Edited by The Blue Brick
SheepEater Proficient

SheepEater

Posted
Posted

Lego needs to include more male minidolls. Currently there´s only 1 male and there´s already 2 waves out.

And he's from the largest set of the 1st wave.

peterab Mentor

peterab

Posted
Posted

Yep, everywhere I go the sets are always sold out. Heck, I've seen more Winter 2012 Star Wars than Winter 2012 Friends. *oh2*

Here in Australia all the larger sets of the first wave sold out within a few months and LEGO Australia had to restock from Denmark. Sales were clearly better than expected. That's the US, UK and Australia. As long as mainland Europe sales (particularly Germany) are good I can't see any reason Friends wouldn't become an evergreen theme like town.

BrettBrick Collaborator

BrettBrick

Posted
Posted

Oh that is great news. I am loving the Friends range and am waiting patiently for the summer wave to hit our shelves.

But I agree, we need more male minidolls.

I imported the latest sets from Germany and my daughter recieved them for her birthday a couple of weeks ago.

We have built a few of the new sets and they are great, nice detail and plenty for her to play with. The older sets are a litle better as there is wider vaiety in their content.

There could be some boys in the mix as that is how society is.

She would like to see a coule of shops, like retail stores and a grocery store too and a big swimming pool

All the little hair clips, lipstick etc that come in the little bag are the parts that add to the detail of the sets and she loves them.

Hope this series stays around for a few years like Belville, but is updated more reguarly,

Oky Grand Master

Oky

Posted
Posted

Looking at the clips from the Friends animated series, one has to wonder: WHERE ARE ALL THE MALES? :wacko: There are more males than females in some of those shots, so why have we only gotten Olivia's dad in these two giant waves? I guess TLG wanted to make sure that you first collect all the main characters before they release more of the secondary/male characters. Let's hope that we get some of those soon.

badboytje88 Veteran

badboytje88

Posted
Posted

Looking at the clips from the Friends animated series, one has to wonder: WHERE ARE ALL THE MALES? :wacko: There are more males than females in some of those shots, so why have we only gotten Olivia's dad in these two giant waves? I guess TLG wanted to make sure that you first collect all the main characters before they release more of the secondary/male characters. Let's hope that we get some of those soon.

Agreed, the girls need at least one guy to fight over and one gay best friend. :laugh:

Aanchir Grand Master

Aanchir

Posted
Posted

It should be considered that one of the big observations about girls' play patterns which the LEGO Friends theme is founded upon is that they really project themselves onto the characters they are playing with, hence why the theme is grounded in real life, why the figures are made more realistic than the more stylized design of classic minifigures, and presumably why there are fewer male and adult characters in the theme than ambiguously-youngish girls.

Anyway, at Brickfair we were given a real treat in the form of a LEGO Friends panel by set designers Astrid Graabaek and Fenella Holden. I learned a lot of things I hadn't known about the theme previously. For instance, I had known that Olivia's dad Peter had a different torso mold than the girls and I believe I had also seen that he had different arms, but I hadn't realized that Olivia's mom Anna also has a different torso from the rest of the girls (slightly bustier and probably some other, subtler distinctions). Bricklink doesn't make this distinction since it can more easily differentiate between the torsos by their decorations, and I have no LEGO Friends sets of my own, so I never noticed the difference. Peter also has a uniquely-shaped face, which other people had probably noticed earlier.

The LEGO Friends line has about a 50/50 gender ratio on its design team, which in some respects doesn't match up with its keenly gender-oriented design but still probably stands out from most LEGO themes' design teams.

LEGO Friends was in development for four years, and was originally expected to be a standard minifigure theme, but the testing and research done by TLG quickly showed that many girls just didn't identify with the minifigure, and some even considered its blocky design kind of ugly. So at that point redesigning the minifigure became a goal for the theme. The LEGO Friends figure had many concepts including a couple more Belville-like face sculpts, which were simplified into the smoother and more iconic final design, and arms with rotating hands and molded fingers, which were likewise smoothed out when girls felt the chunky arms and skinny wrists weren't appealing and when designers decided that the simple, U-shaped hands of LEGO minifigures were an iconic way of making the figures instantly stand out as LEGO. The designers of the Hagrid figure could have learned a thing or two from this design process!

Apparently LEGO Friends was also originally expected to be a much smaller theme, but reactions from retailers and play testers motivated TLG to expand it into the massive launch it received.

Regarding the number of handbags in the theme, I forget whether it was Astrid or Fenella who made this comment, but apparently it was challenged by some of the male designers in the department. But the female designers observed that there are no more handbags in Friends than there are swords in certain more boy-oriented fantasy/historical themes. :laugh:

There were other things I didn't get an answer about, of course. After the panel I asked Astrid and Fenella if they knew whether the robot in Olivia's Invention Workshop was based on Alpha Rex from LEGO Mindstorms, and neither of them knew (they weren't involved in that set's design as far as I'm aware). I think it's still pretty likely, though!

purpleparadox Proficient

purpleparadox

Posted
Posted (edited)

Thanks for that, Aanchir! Talks with Lego's design teams are always interesting. It's neat to learn a little bit more about the Friends theme. :thumbup: I kinda do wish they had gone with standard minifigs, because a small part of me is terrified that they'll eventually change all themes to include minidolls. :laugh:

Edited by purpleparadox
  • 4 weeks later...
Oky Grand Master

Oky

Posted
Posted

Well, the City and Star Wars advent calendars are now officially available, so where's the Friends advent calendar? :cry_sad: There are listings for it on ebay, plus I received some of the light-aqua accessories from it from Pandora for winning the Friendsify your Avatar contest, so it must be available somewhere. Anybody know more about this?

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