Let's talk about: Divers!

[highlandcattle]

Wow, looking at that playmobil site kinda makes me jealous. Playmobil still looks cool after all these years... not changed a bit. Does it still sell well? Anybody now anything about that?

[Asuka]

I agree with Hobbes. As a young child i was playing a lot with this one. *wub* It was fun using it in the bath tub or on vacation at the waterfront.

Of course this hulls are not very practical for MOCing, but maybe there is some way for TLC to redesign it in an interesting way....

The playability of sets like this is still high i guess. Especially with the new underwater motor.

[xwingyoda]

ahhhh, those do bring back loads of memories !!

Asuka, I used to place two motors under the hull of those ships loool (same motor as today but attached by suction cups) ;-) And that was like 20 years ago loool

*yoda*

[Asuka]

I remember this non-lego motors too.... Very funny but not very powerful. Maybe i should have a closer look to 7899 Police Boat.

25,-

[alex54]

Asuka, on this boat, all the "potentialy printed things" are stickers.

[Jipay]

Playmobil do they sell well. I recall an article about toys company that were still sucessfull with their original products. Playmobil was shown as an example. Their CEO just said they kept the original spirit, only adding new details, but all in all it was almost the same sets.

LEGO was on the contrary shown as the bad student, with some waste efforts to go on the video games industry. But that was 2 years ago, before the major improvments that we have seen lately !

[highlandcattle]

Playmobil do they sell well. I recall an article about toys company that were still sucessfull with their original products. Playmobil was shown as an example. Their CEO just said they kept the original spirit, only adding new details, but all in all it was almost the same sets.

LEGO was on the contrary shown as the bad student, with some waste efforts to go on the video games industry. But that was 2 years ago, before the major improvments that we have seen lately !

Man today I went to a toystore and I got to say those playobil toys look damn nice. Sadly it's only figurines and stuff no actual building. Lego is improving but there is still so much to do before the get back to that original spirit

[Asuka]

Asuka, on this boat, all the "potentialy printed things" are stickers.

Thank you for the information, alex54. It seems like stickers could be an advantage sometimes.... in terms of MOCing.

[snefroe]

Playmobil do they sell well. I recall an article about toys company that were still sucessfull with their original products. Playmobil was shown as an example. Their CEO just said they kept the original spirit, only adding new details, but all in all it was almost the same sets.

LEGO was on the contrary shown as the bad student, with some waste efforts to go on the video games industry. But that was 2 years ago, before the major improvments that we have seen lately !

Man today I went to a toystore and I got to say those playobil toys look damn nice. Sadly it's only figurines and stuff no actual building. Lego is improving but there is still so much to do before the get back to that original spirit

playmo is still the hottest toy in town! they're also having an exibition for their 30th aniversary here in belgian's museum for toys.. g... these things look great and have hardly changed thru out the years... most of all, contrary to lego , they succeeded in getting girls to love the toy as well. it seems the explenation is that kids want to copy their parent's lives when they're playing with these toys, so they need a mom and dad and a few kids... stuff lego hardly explores...

[Jipay]

just remember "kids want vehicules". And that's it. Sorry, I just can't stop laughing at this brand dumb thing that is stuck into their minds. So you might get a lego family set, but only the car, maybe a mobilehome (for netherlands only :-P ) but nothing more. And parents have never been hunting colorfull masks around toa nui, so it wouldn't sale well !

[Section8]

We really are fed up with those police, firemen (...) sub city themes !! I don't want my city to be a ghetto with numerous police cars

I agree, it's hard to play Rescue when all you have are Police and Fire Stations. The police station can catch fire only so often. ;-) We need more everyday buildings: houses, stores, and cool sublines (Race and Divers, etc). I just picked up 6689 Post Office, it's a simple, small model, but it's a model of a building that nearly every town in the industrialized world has at least one of. And it's a model that most kids can identify with. I used to love getting mail as a small child, it was kind of magical how something came to you out of basically nowhere.

I must admit, I am somewhat pleased with Lego's 2006 town lineup. They made a hospital for the first time in a very long time. For a long time though, the only non-rescue or construction sets lego made were the Legends or Promotional sets not available in the US (1254/1255/1256 are a few example of sets I wish I had the chance to buy).

Now that I think about it, divers might not have stopped selling because they are not popular, but because lego only intended them to last for a year or two. I noticed that while Race sets were produced continuously, the big sets with many similiar designed small sets came out sporadically, chiefly 1988 (#6395 and friends) and 1996 (6335 and 6337). So perhaps Divers was to be a once-every-several-years line that unfortunately got cut when lego town went off the deep end (pun intended) in 1998/1999.

[Hobbes]

Here's the reason "Divers" ended:

USA Today Article

In the box to the left of the article, below the picture, the paragraph titled "Legos". The year's about right, too ;-)

[oo7]

X-O 1997 was the year my beloved pirate theme ended!!! The pirate theme ended because a ship's booty fell overboard!?!

[Hobbes]

X-O 1997 was the year my beloved pirate theme ended!!! The pirate theme ended because a ship's booty fell overboard!?!

We're talking "Divers" here, and the pieces don't really sound "Pirates" related, either ;-)

[Section8]

Ironic how the undersea exploration and salvage theme might have ended when the container it's in sinks to the bottom of the sea. Imagine finding that container, the boxes, stickers and instructions would be ruined but the parts should be somewhat in good shape (anyone done any experiments on Lego pieces submerged in seawater?)

I don't think that's the real reason divers died. Lego on a whole went downhill in 1998, look at the juniorization that happened to the town years during the years that happened after 1997. Pirates ended too, Castle went from classic factions to Fright Knights (*n*) and other changes were made. It was like a mass extinction for Lego. Some lines died out (pirates), some survived intact (trains from that time were not too altered or terrible in design), some survived in a new form (town became <insert that tiresome argument>) and new lines arose (Star Wars came out in 1999)

[Hobbes]

I don't think that's the real reason divers died.

Hence my " ;-) "

;-)

[highlandcattle]

I don't think that's the real reason divers died. Lego on a whole went downhill in 1998, look at the juniorization that happened to the town years during the years that happened after 1997. Pirates ended too, Castle went from classic factions to Fright Knights (*n*) and other changes were made. It was like a mass extinction for Lego. Some lines died out (pirates), some survived intact (trains from that time were not too altered or terrible in design), some survived in a new form (town became <insert that tiresome argument>) and new lines arose (Star Wars came out in 1999)

I completely disagree with this. Were fright knights any worse then those silly dragons released in 1993. I don't think so,if you say classic castle I say it died in 1993. Yes town was <insert that tiresome argument> but the sets still looked better then what yoou get know, at least there was a racing set, a bank, and that cool set with the two street plates and the four cars. I agree with trains looking butt-ugly but that already happened in 1995. 1997 saw the release of two great and detailed lines divers and Indians. Sure they bought were shortlived but that's the marketings department fault not the designers. Overall I think 1997 was a way better year then 2006. (Oh UFO and insectiods were horrible)

[Jipay]

I might be the only one but I plainly love UFOs. They somehow remind me of predator, and I also like those cool optic fibers so muucch

[snefroe]

I might be the only one but I plainly love UFOs. They somehow remind me of predator, and I also like those cool optic fibers so muucch

yeah you're right! you are the only one who loves UfO! :-P i hate the huge and terribly printed parts and the minifigs were dreadful as well, even though i remember seeing them on display at the shopping mall and looked awesume... but in reality, they're not special at all, you couldn't even build a real big saucer with these models...

[natelite]

my opinion of ufo is the same. too many printed parts and not as menacing. they should be made larger than normal mf, perhaps out of bricks. but the con of using bricks is that the mf will be very fragile and break easily. the martians though are way hedious compared to the ufo.

my thoughts are, they should design a new minifig frame. right now we have a semi-android frame and the normal minfig. the android came from the lom and star wars 1 droid figures. but the legs are hedious. they should at least bulk it up a little, much like the exo-force robots. but the exo-force robots are hunched and look inferior. they should make it stand taller, more menacing, maybe like a terminator model or something.

also the minifigs are not compatible with each other. i cannot exchange the normal minifig heads with the exoforce robot head, etc. imagine the possibilities if only TLC make 2 or 3 mf versions and they are compatible with each other.

[Hobbes]

Alright, that's enough Space in here, back to topic *sing*

I received my 6559 today and am going to build it right now :-P

[xwingyoda]

I received my 6559 today and am going to build it right now :-P

Excellent & Enjoy 8-

[Hobbes]

Would you be so kind and offer us a great review of that great set pleeeeease ;-) That would be great 8-

[xwingyoda]

Would you be so kind and offer us a great review of that great set pleeeeease ;-) That would be great 8-

[JINZONINGEN73]

As for the colours, I think its great that TLC sticks more to reality than before. However, having said that, TLC should bring back the colourfull and joyfull world of Paradisa or other beach resort theme ;-)

A little colour creativity can't hurt !! Far fom it ;-)

Dive On !!

*yoda*

I think getting away from reality is good. I never thought yellow = exploration... more like construction.

Now lime neon green... NICE. If there were 2 subs, both identical, I'm sure the yellow one would make it to the clearance bin.

Speaking of colors, it'd be nice to see some of the trans colors like in those fairy castle Bellevue girly sets migrate away and into boy's sets.

What better way to revive a diver type line than to have watery looking pieces?

You know... the idea of an underwater playset mirrors ideas I've had for an UNDERGROUND playset (lit with ultraviolet blacklights, no less, to illuminate clear, UV-reactive "gems").

I see them both like this: