The Future of Ninjago

[LEGOman273]

That's fine, most of my comments weren't directed at you anyway. But I do agree the theme has its flaws, just that they are not so large as some of us may want us to believe. And trust me, it's a small Target, so Ninjago doesn't have much shelf space to begin with.

My avatar is the official LEGO Aragorn, yes. There's a link to the poster that I'm using in the LEGO Historic Themes forum, in the thread "Lord of the Rings 2012". I'm so totally in love with that figure. I'm even using it as a screensaver on my computer.

I really don't need to be hearing this. There are some things that you should keep to yourself.

[Darth Nihilus]

I really don't need to be hearing this. There are some things that you should keep to yourself.

What? I really, really love that figure!

[LEGOman273]

What? I really, really love that figure!

What you do alone is your business; and noone else's.

[turtleman2020]

I think that A. Ninjago is epic and B. they should have the snakes make a war against eachother and have the ninjas caught in the middle with a group of elder snakes trying to unite the snakes. The leader of the elders kills Garmadon showing his power and then ruling the snakes

[LegoBrickSteve]

I like a battle for the golden Venomari staff at the Venomari Shrine!

I avoid the 2 mini-snakes and toxic slime inside of the Venomari Shrine as I use Zane to retrieve the golden Venomari staff and anti-venom!

[Perry the Platypus]

I'm really leaning towards the Pirates as the 2013 storyline. As odd an twisted as Ninjago is, I do love pirates.

[Matej_Emperor]

This whole ninjago line is quite big fail for TLC.

First, I don't understand what age of kids should play with this? It's not suitable for younger boys 'cause it have a lot of inapropriate creatures, stories about killing etc. It has gone too far from LEGO main idea of creative playing. This Ninjago theme couldn't be placed anywhere in human history (maybe some SF Post-apoc, but..), it has no eductional purpose and those vehicles and creatures are quite stupid, even they are builded from lego basic bricks. Story is just taken form TMNT and similar cartoons...

For AFOLs this theme is great, because it comes with lot of interesting and useful parts in different colours, new minifigs etc. But I think TLC Designer Team made this theme for younger players, not MOC builders.

Previous Ninja theme was much better, even bulidings and vehicles weren't so complicated. But they did have playability and eductional purpose.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Matej_Emperor

[LegoBrickSteve]

This whole ninjago line is quite big fail for TLC.

First, I don't understand what age of kids should play with this? It's not suitable for younger boys 'cause it have a lot of inapropriate creatures, stories about killing etc. It has gone too far from LEGO main idea of creative playing. This Ninjago theme couldn't be placed anywhere in human history (maybe some SF Post-apoc, but..), it has no eductional purpose and those vehicles and creatures are quite stupid, even they are builded from lego basic bricks. Story is just taken form TMNT and similar cartoons...

For AFOLs this theme is great, because it comes with lot of interesting and useful parts in different colours, new minifigs etc. But I think TLC Designer Team made this theme for younger players, not MOC builders.

Previous Ninja theme was much better, even bulidings and vehicles weren't so complicated. But they did have playability and eductional purpose.

This man raises some good arguments and points and things to think about and debate over and let mull over in our minds.

However, I think some people may be critical of his view point and possibly mean about the thing and the statements.

[King of Nynrah]

A stone statue army fighting the ninjas would be good fun, and would make for some interesting models and minifigs.

[Play With Fire]

This whole ninjago line is quite big fail for TLC.

First, I don't understand what age of kids should play with this? It's not suitable for younger boys 'cause it have a lot of inapropriate creatures, stories about killing etc. It has gone too far from LEGO main idea of creative playing. This Ninjago theme couldn't be placed anywhere in human history (maybe some SF Post-apoc, but..), it has no eductional purpose and those vehicles and creatures are quite stupid, even they are builded from lego basic bricks. Story is just taken form TMNT and similar cartoons...

For AFOLs this theme is great, because it comes with lot of interesting and useful parts in different colours, new minifigs etc. But I think TLC Designer Team made this theme for younger players, not MOC builders.

Previous Ninja theme was much better, even bulidings and vehicles weren't so complicated. But they did have playability and eductional purpose.

This is definitely aimed at kids. It follows the same formula as all the other popular modern children's toys like Bakugan... anime-inspired themes that have toys that are used in a game that involves cards. The kids love 'em, that's why Ninjago sells so well.

There have been absolutely no "on-screen" deaths in Ninjago, only a couple mentioned, like how Kai's father passed away naturally. I think the skeleton characters have always been dead, it's been said that their homeland is the Underworld, so I assume they were made there. So they weren't people that were killed as far as I know.

[Lyichir]

This whole ninjago line is quite big fail for TLC.

First, I don't understand what age of kids should play with this? It's not suitable for younger boys 'cause it have a lot of inapropriate creatures, stories about killing etc. It has gone too far from LEGO main idea of creative playing. This Ninjago theme couldn't be placed anywhere in human history (maybe some SF Post-apoc, but..), it has no eductional purpose and those vehicles and creatures are quite stupid, even they are builded from lego basic bricks. Story is just taken form TMNT and similar cartoons...

For AFOLs this theme is great, because it comes with lot of interesting and useful parts in different colours, new minifigs etc. But I think TLC Designer Team made this theme for younger players, not MOC builders.

Previous Ninja theme was much better, even bulidings and vehicles weren't so complicated. But they did have playability and eductional purpose.

How exactly is it a fail? In terms of sales, it's definitely not: it was one of the top-selling themes this Christmas.

I don't see how death is an untouchable topic for kids, and Ninjago is almost never about killing. In Ninjago the line between the Underworld and the real world is blurred, but nonetheless there is rarely a case of a character "dying" (any dead characters usually died before the story started, no different from Harry's parents in Harry Potter, or the Air Nomads in Avatar: the Last Airbender).

I don't see how it goes too far from the idea of creative playing (in fact, it's closer to the idea of creative play than any previous theme with a game mechanic, IMO). The Ninjago theme is not placed anywhere in human history, because it doesn't take place on Earth. It exists in a fictional, anachronistic world where seemingly anything goes in terms of technology, which allows kids to use their creativity however they want. If they want the ninjas to use paper gliders, that's okay. If they want the ninjas to ride jets, that's okay too.

I don't see how a theme needs an educational purpose to be legitimate. Personally, I cringed every time the Fantasy Castle or Knights Kingdom II lines appeared in a magazine with facts about real medieval tech. I appreciated it as fantasy, and hated when it tried to pretend to be something it wasn't.

The vehicles and creatures may seem stupid to you, but I see them as something else: CRAZY AWESOME. It doesn't make much sense for a ninja to ride a motorcycle, it's true. But ninjas are awesome, and motorcycles are awesome. Surely the compound awesomeness when these things are combined more than makes up for the lack of realism.

The story is a heck of a lot deeper than you give it credit for. The main story lead is Greg Farshtey, who previously wove an intricate story for BIONICLE, but I think he's even more in his element writing for the zany world of Ninjago. I don't know much about TMNT, so I can't vouch for how similar or different it is from that. But in Ninjago you are presented with deep, relatable characters, and a rich mythology, but these don't restrict the creativity of the theme because of the anything-goes attitude I mentioned before.

You say the theme is good for AFOLs because of the parts and minifigs. But I like the theme because it reminds me of how kids play. They don't care if their X-Wing is movie-accurate or if their trains don't match any real-world models. Ninjago is the kind of zany fun they can appreciate for what it is, rather than something to criticize for not matching a narrow idea of what does/doesn't make sense.

The previous Ninja theme was good, I agree. But that doesn't mean that realism is the only way to create a theme. There's always a place for fantasy in the minds of children. A stodgy insistence on what is logical, or plausible, has never been what LEGO is about.

[LegoBrickSteve]

This is a wildly complicated issue with smart and good people on both sides of the argument. It seems like a line has been drawn where some people feel like Ninjago isn't a super great theme and some other people think it is super great. It gets confusing.

The point is, it is awesome that we have a forum like this to enjoy the lively debate. That is my whole point. To summarize my point, the issue of Ninjago is complicated and complex with a little bit mysterious to it too.

[LEGOman273]

This is definitely aimed at kids. It follows the same formula as all the other popular modern children's toys like Bakugan... anime-inspired themes that have toys that are used in a game that involves cards. The kids love 'em, that's why Ninjago sells so well.

There have been absolutely no "on-screen" deaths in Ninjago, only a couple mentioned, like how Kai's father passed away naturally. I think the skeleton characters have always been dead, it's been said that their homeland is the Underworld, so I assume they were made there. So they weren't people that were killed as far as I know.

The "First Spinjitsu Master" (Wu and Garmadon's father) died too, but you are right, there have been no "on-screen" deaths.

And those who died, did so naturally.

[Aanchir]

This whole ninjago line is quite big fail for TLC.

First, I don't understand what age of kids should play with this? It's not suitable for younger boys 'cause it have a lot of inapropriate creatures, stories about killing etc. It has gone too far from LEGO main idea of creative playing. This Ninjago theme couldn't be placed anywhere in human history (maybe some SF Post-apoc, but..), it has no eductional purpose and those vehicles and creatures are quite stupid, even they are builded from lego basic bricks. Story is just taken form TMNT and similar cartoons...

For AFOLs this theme is great, because it comes with lot of interesting and useful parts in different colours, new minifigs etc. But I think TLC Designer Team made this theme for younger players, not MOC builders.

Previous Ninja theme was much better, even bulidings and vehicles weren't so complicated. But they did have playability and eductional purpose.

I don't understand this at all. There's nothing at all inappropriate for kids in this theme, unless you think themes with skeletons or stories involving death of any kind should be kept from kids within the target age range (7-14). Fantasy-Era Castle also had undead skeletons in it. And there are plenty of classic family films that include character deaths, and yet these are not deemed inappropriate for kids.

As for the lack of historical placement, it's a fantasy story. Being able to be placed in one time period is completely unnecessary. Harry Potter can't be placed any time in human history either because while I believe it ostensibly takes place during the 90s, most historians would agree that a thriving society of wizards and witches didn't exist within this time period, nor did fantasy creatures like dragons and trolls.

I personally think the Ninjago sets and story are excellent, and that it's possibly the best story theme since BIONICLE-- another theme I'm sure you'd scoff at, but which I enjoyed thoroughly since its debut in 2001 when I was ten years old.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike Ninjago, whether it's the fact that you think the spinners are gimmicky and too far from the building that should be the core of the LEGO play experience, or the fact that you think story themes offer less room for kids to imagine their own adventures, or the fact that you think it has too much of a focus on minifigures (we're due for a total of around 35 this year). But saying it's a bad theme because it's inappropriate somehow or because it doesn't fit real human history is a little far-fetched.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Aanchir

[SonofTheShire]

inapropriate creatures

Erm... what?

[LegoBrickSteve]

Oh, man...this debate just got HOT!

[Darth Nihilus]

This whole ninjago line is quite big fail for TLC.

First, I don't understand what age of kids should play with this? It's not suitable for younger boys 'cause it have a lot of inapropriate creatures, stories about killing etc. It has gone too far from LEGO main idea of creative playing. This Ninjago theme couldn't be placed anywhere in human history (maybe some SF Post-apoc, but..), it has no eductional purpose and those vehicles and creatures are quite stupid, even they are builded from lego basic bricks. Story is just taken form TMNT and similar cartoons...

For AFOLs this theme is great, because it comes with lot of interesting and useful parts in different colours, new minifigs etc. But I think TLC Designer Team made this theme for younger players, not MOC builders.

Previous Ninja theme was much better, even bulidings and vehicles weren't so complicated. But they did have playability and eductional purpose.

1. All kids. Age is not an issue anymore. I mean, 7 year olds play HALO and Call of Duty, both of which are made for people 17+.

2. Inappropriate creatures? What?

3. What stories aren't about killing nowadays?

4. You're contradicting yourself here. LEGO is creative play, correct? How is Ninjago not creative, hmmm?

5. I admit, some of the vehicles and creatures are somewhat ugly, but that is no reason to hate the theme.

6. No, it's not. It's actually a fairly inventive storyline, unlike some cliched themes I could mention....

7. No comment.

[LegoBrickSteve]

Oh, snap! This ish just got real!

[Siegfried]

I'm getting sick of receiving reports from this topic.

The point is, it is awesome that we have a forum like this to enjoy the lively debate. That is my whole point. To summarize my point, the issue of Ninjago is complicated and complex with a little bit mysterious to it too.

So you make a summary but then you make these posts.

Oh, man...this debate just got HOT!

Oh, snap! This ish just got real!

Now you're just being silly. I get it. We all get it. You don't like Ninjago. So unless you've got anything useful to post please stop ruining this topic. This is your final warning on this.

[Matej_Emperor]

I will not quote anyone, just will explain my opinion once more, 'cause I don't want to argue with any who has different opinion than me - De gustibus non est disputandum.

My opinion is that kids shouldn't be teached to hate someone else, and that is excluding every toy which is connected to war or something similar (like fantasy stuff etc.). It is just not good for them. We could see now that there is lot more agressive kids than 20-30 years ago, even in countries were they couldn't see any war consequences.

Every psychologist will tell you that kids become more aggressive and violent when they are playing with guns and toys which are connected to war. And that is quite logical, 'cause the kids in they early ages spent most of their time playing... especially boys.

And there is a bigger number toys in couple past years (since 90s) which are somehow connected with guns and violency.. And now LEGO does that. Ninjago is quite more "aggressive" than any other theme before, because there is a lot of scary monsters, violent story etc. It is called "fantasy", but kids imagination shouldn't be connected with some unrealistic creatures fighting each other.

And someone asked me why Ninjago isn't creative. As you can see from set boxes, the minifigs are quite aggresive and main point of sets and spinners is that creatures should fight... And that is not good.

Castle, Adventurers and Western sets weren't so violent. Minifigs weren't so aggressive, main point of sets is to build something realistic and fun, and battles there were against realistic bad guys.

I am saying all this because LEGO bricks are supposed to be educative toy, suitable for KIDS!

(sorry for my bad english, it is not my first language..)

Edited January 26, 2012 by Matej_Emperor

[horizon]

I will not quote anyone, just will explain my opinion once more, 'cause I don't want to argue with any who has different opinion than me - De gustibus non est disputandum.

My opinion is that kids shouldn't be teached to hate someone else, and that is excluding every toy which is connected to war or something similar (like fantasy stuff etc.). It is just not good for them. We could see now that there is lot more agressive kids than 20-30 years ago, even in countries were they couldn't see any war consequences.

Every psychologist will tell you that kids become more aggressive and violent when they are playing with guns and toys which are connected to war. And that is quite logical, 'cause the kids in they early ages spent most of their time playing... especially boys.

And there is a bigger number toys in couple past years (since 90s) which are somehow connected with guns and violency.. And now LEGO does that. Ninjago is quite more "aggressive" than any other theme before, because there is a lot of scary monsters, violent story etc. It is called "fantasy", but kids imagination should be connected with some unrealistic creatures fighting each other.

And someone asked me why Ninjago isn't creative. As you can see from set boxes, the minifigs are quite aggresive and main point of sets and spinners is that creatures should fight... And that is not good.

Castle, Adventurers and Western sets weren't so violent. Minifigs weren't so aggressive, main point of sets is to build something realistic and fun, and battles there were against realistic bad guys.

I am saying all this because LEGO bricks are supposed to be educative toy, suitable for KIDS!

(sorry for my bad english, it is not my first language..)

Castle sets are violent. Pirates are violent. Harry Potter has violence.

Back in the '80s everyone started equipping there space minifigs with weapons. Red vs White for example. I do not think Ninjago is any more violent then Castle or Space. LEGO, however, did connect a game to it, a game similar to bakugan, beyblade, etc, which has a competitive aspect. I play it with my son. My daughter made it so skeletons & ninja's are friends. So both imaginations go along.

With castle I had spaceships shoot eachother out of the universe. With castle the falcons attacked the lion's, etc.

[Aanchir]

I will not quote anyone, just will explain my opinion once more, 'cause I don't want to argue with any who has different opinion than me - De gustibus non est disputandum.

My opinion is that kids shouldn't be teached to hate someone else, and that is excluding every toy which is connected to war or something similar (like fantasy stuff etc.). It is just not good for them. We could see now that there is lot more agressive kids than 20-30 years ago, even in countries were they couldn't see any war consequences.

Every psychologist will tell you that kids become more aggressive and violent when they are playing with guns and toys which are connected to war. And that is quite logical, 'cause the kids in they early ages spent most of their time playing... especially boys.

And there is a bigger number toys in couple past years (since 90s) which are somehow connected with guns and violency.. And now LEGO does that. Ninjago is quite more "aggressive" than any other theme before, because there is a lot of scary monsters, violent story etc. It is called "fantasy", but kids imagination should be connected with some unrealistic creatures fighting each other.

And someone asked me why Ninjago isn't creative. As you can see from set boxes, the minifigs are quite aggresive and main point of sets and spinners is that creatures should fight... And that is not good.

Castle, Adventurers and Western sets weren't so violent. Minifigs weren't so aggressive, main point of sets is to build something realistic and fun, and battles there were against realistic bad guys.

I am saying all this because LEGO bricks are supposed to be educative toy, suitable for KIDS!

(sorry for my bad english, it is not my first language..)

Lots of good points.

Violence can be a really subjective issue, though. A lot of people might argue that the Western theme is inappropriate for children because of all the real-world violence associated with Westward Expansion and "Manifest Destiny" here in the United States. A person is welcome to play with their "Cowboy and Indian" figs and pretend that they are good friends, but in fact there was a lot of cruel violence and discrimination against the Native Americans during this period of American history.

One other thing to consider is that TLG has understood for years that kids will want to play violently with LEGO toys. The classic LEGO Space sets were designed with things like "sensor arrays" that resembled laser guns, which TLG's designers knew that kids would play with as such. The Adventurers, Western, and Castle sets all included weapons, as well as at least two groups of adversaries. The former two themes included guns, which are mostly absent from the Ninjago theme (with the exception of the cannon on the Destiny's Bounty).

TLG's designers aren't fools-- they are perfectly aware that kids will act out violent scenes with these weapons, and that the toys will facilitate this sort of mock-violence in the kids' imaginative play. Even before TV and video games exposed kids to very realistic violence, kids played games like "Cowboys and Indians" that involved imagining violent scenes. And toy soldiers are among the oldest types of toys. So I don't think that it's fair to say that kids who grow up with toys like the LEGO Castle and Western themes will grow up with healthier and less violent imaginations.

In my opinion, the "scary monsters" of Ninjago don't inherently make it more violent or aggressive than these more traditional themes, especially as most of these "monsters" (the snakes and skeletons in particular) are treated as more comical than scary. Meanwhile, the Ninjago story's violence is quite minor compared to some television shows and movies that kids are exposed to.

Enemies in Ninjago are never killed-- the closest thing is Lord Garmadon being banished to the underworld when he fought Sensei Wu, which was not done in a particularly violent fashion. Rather, he was struck by lightning and fell into a crevasse without Sensei Wu having to deliver any harmful attacks against him. The only characters who have died in the series, those being Sensei Wu's father and Kai's father, both are implied to have died of natural causes.

I would also personally take issue with the idea that violent stories promote violent and aggressive children. I read The Lord of the Rings as a child and enjoyed it a great deal, but it didn't give me any especially violent tendencies. More recently one of my favorite TV shows has been Avatar: The Last Airbender, which despite being a cartoon aimed at kids deals quite maturely with extremely heavy topics, up to and including genocide. I do not think this show is any more unhealthy for kids than a LEGO theme that includes weapons like guns and swords. In fact, I think it could be a useful tool for helping kids to understand the seriousness of these sorts of topics.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Aanchir

[Dharkan]

I'm seriously disturbed about constant tries of people trying to provoke others and start an arguement in this topic, can't some mods or admins do something about it?

[Peppermint_M]

While I can agree with certain aspects of the argument, I disagree with others. There is no less creativity inherent in Ninjago than there is in any other theme.

While there is competetive play it is not resorting to killing and death, some characters are already dead and the Skeletons are so completely fantasy that only the most coddled of children would be disturbed by it.

Now snakes, snakes have been an enemy of man since ancient times, from the very start of the Bible to countless mythologies globally and certainly in the last few centuries after the spread of Christianity and the teaching of the Old Testament reached so many cultures. Cultures left untouched by these teachings until relatively recently also ascribe villany, menace and other negative traits to snakes. Albiet, they are humaniod in Ninjago which is a flight of fantasy, snakes are a realistic enemy.

As for agression in children, that is a child's world. Certainly, healthy minded children would never dream of really inflicting such attacks on people or animals but their roleplay and story telling often tumble into combat and competition, the defined manner in which they can win by points or the fall of another contender is a reassuring boundary and teaching tool for the chaos of an inexperienced mind.

As for imagination. I recently found I had two spinners (I had packed one away after getting the figure and other parts out) and my younger brother and his friends spent a happy hour spinning different figures against each other with excited cries and shouts of enjoyment. After his friends had left we played as many "grudge matches" (Pirate vs Ninja, Luke vs Darth Vader, Punk Rocker vs Hip Hopper etc) as we could think of with comentary and chatter and imagination not to mention historical education (Highlander vs Soldier, Viking vs Farmer, etc) and a smattering of physics as to what and why would spin best/win best.

While I agree that people will disagree with this summation and opinion as I disagree with others, there is nothing inherently wrong with Ninjago.

[Hidronax]

This whole ninjago line is quite big fail for TLC.

First, I don't understand what age of kids should play with this? It's not suitable for younger boys 'cause it have a lot of inapropriate creatures, stories about killing etc. It has gone too far from LEGO main idea of creative playing. This Ninjago theme couldn't be placed anywhere in human history (maybe some SF Post-apoc, but..), it has no eductional purpose and those vehicles and creatures are quite stupid, even they are builded from lego basic bricks. Story is just taken form TMNT and similar cartoons...

For AFOLs this theme is great, because it comes with lot of interesting and useful parts in different colours, new minifigs etc. But I think TLC Designer Team made this theme for younger players, not MOC builders.

Previous Ninja theme was much better, even bulidings and vehicles weren't so complicated. But they did have playability and eductional purpose.

People like it

(Of course I couldn't reply to this topic without quiting this post).

Edited January 26, 2012 by Hidronax