LEGO Ideas Discussion

[Vindicare]

6 minutes ago, Blondie-Wan said:

It varies widely, including by region. In the US, the Curiosity Rover was barely available - sold only via phone and online orders (not in stores), and even then it sold out in a couple days; it became briefly available again several months later, but sold out again about as quickly as before. I think its total availability was less than a week, split into two periods of two or three days a few months apart. However, it was sold in stores (not even just LEGO Stores, but ordinary stores) overseas, and was available for months.

On the other hand, the Ghostbusters Ectomobile was around for roughly two years (with a few stores keeping it available a while after LEGO itself ran out). It came out in June 2014 (just in time for the movie’s 30th anniversary) and remained available long enough for its availability to overlap a few months with that of the firehouse headquarters, released early 2016.

I don’t have lots of hard data, but I will say it appears to me the Ideas sets based on licensed pop-culture entertainment properties tend to stick around longer than the other ones, which bodes well for the TRON set, I’m happy to say (since I want it but haven’t gotten it yet myself). But I wouldn’t count on it remaining a full year - IIRC, the Doctor Who, WALL•E, and The Big Bang Theory sets all were discontinued a little less than a year after release, though one could still get them at other stores for a while longer - so it’d probably be good to pick up the TRON set before too much longer.

Yeah, after I posted I took a look over at Brickset & the current stuff has had a decent shelf life. Since Tron has only been out for 4 months, I imagine Sept. 1st is safe. But still, keeping my fingers crossed. 

[Lyichir]

20 hours ago, figura said:

It is never too late for compliment, so thank you! I just updated the project, so there are now more image of the inside. Is there anything in particular you are interested in?

Thank you so much! These detail pictures are great. I would also appreciate better views of the interior upper floors if possible (what looks to be the living room and the twins' room in the attic), since they're too covered in shadow to make out a lot of details in the pics you have so far.

[x105Black]

On 8/15/2018 at 7:30 AM, Digger of Bricks said:

By the way, LEGO Ideas has just announced a new Voltron themed contest that they're hosting:

LEGO Ideas - Form your most imaginative Voltron scene! 

 

That sounds like a fantastic opportunity!  Good luck to anyone who decides to enter!

[Blondie-Wan]

A week ago yesterday they posted the 10k Club interview with the creator of SR-71A The Final Flight, and yesterday that with the creator of the Treehouse.

Between the two they also posted a notice about minor revisions to the Data Privacy portion of the Terms of Service.

[parsom]

I posted it in another EB forum, but I want to share it here also (I hope that I don't break any rules). What do you think? Should I change work and start doing carpentry?

Movie:

 

Some pictures:

 

More pictures on my flickr

Lego Ideas: link

Edited August 24, 2018 by parsom

[Bricked1980]

33 minutes ago, parsom said:

I posted it in another EB forum, but I want to share it here also (I hope that I don't break any rules). What do you think? Should I change work and start doing carpentry?

Very nice model. I'm your 213th supporter! 

[parsom]

@Bricked1980

Thank you!

[Robert8]

The deadline for the next review phase should be around the corner. Does anyone know the exact date? I couldn't find it

[figura]

2 hours ago, Robert8 said:

The deadline for the next review phase should be around the corner. Does anyone know the exact date? I couldn't find it

September 3rd, unfortunately my project is not going to make it until then.

https://ideas.lego.com/blogs/a4ae09b6-0d4c-4307-9da8-3ee9f3d368d6/post/28377743-3288-4ef0-a932-a267cc6ff27f

[Robert8]

Ok, thanks

That's next monday.... I wonder if the Friends and the Mexico projects will reach the 10k before the deadline  

[Digger of Bricks]

Perhaps this has been asked before by others here or elsewhere, but, how should one go about researching terms of licensing agreement and ownership of particular franchises/intellectual properties for an Ideas project? Can legal documents outlining the finer details be found about online? 

[Blondie-Wan]

45 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Perhaps this has been asked before by others here or elsewhere, but, how should one go about researching terms of licensing agreement and ownership of particular franchises/intellectual properties for an Ideas project? Can legal documents outlining the finer details be found about online? 

In some cases, it’s easy enough - if somebody is already making some sort of construction toy based on a particular property, it’s safe to assume the rights aren’t available. I guess if that’s not the case, then I guess one could contact the owner of the IP to inquire whether construction toy licenses are available.

____________________

The latest 10k Club Interview is up, featuring the creator of the Stitch project currently in review.

[Bricked1980]

Just checking... is anyone else having problems logging in to Lego Ideas this morning? When I try to sign in on my PC I enter my username and password, but as soon as I hit enter the page just refreshes and wont sign me in. 

Seems to work ok on the mobile version of the site but not on my PC.

EDIT: Problem is now fixed. 

Edited August 28, 2018 by Bricked1980

[Digger of Bricks]

9 hours ago, Blondie-Wan said:

In some cases, it’s easy enough - if somebody is already making some sort of construction toy based on a particular property, it’s safe to assume the rights aren’t available. I guess if that’s not the case, then I guess one could contact the owner of the IP to inquire whether construction toy licenses are available.

Particularly, I was wondering about the ownership of the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise and it's characters. Even though Mega Construx has the construction toy license due to Mattel flat-out OWNING the franchise, I've been trying to find legal documents (or something) that outline how much say the family of the characters' creator have in distributing the license. Thomas, as you may perhaps know, was not created as a franchise to sell toys, but merely first started out as a series of British children's books.

[parsom]

Info from Lego Ideas website: We'll be offline Wednesday, August 29th from 9 am EDT (1 pm UTC) for about 12 hours.

Seriously? 21st century, even fridges are connected to the Internet, and they are closing website for 12 hours...

[Bricked1980]

1 minute ago, parsom said:

Info from Lego Ideas website: We'll be offline Wednesday, August 29th from 9 am EDT (1 pm UTC) for about 12 hours.

Seriously? 21st century, even fridges are connected to the Internet, and they are closing website for 12 hours...

That's quite a while for the site to be out of action so hopefully they will be making some good improvements and ironing out some of the bugs that appeared after the last major update. There was talk about the Lego Rebrick stuff being fully integrated in to Lego Ideas from September so I bet they will be doing this during the update too.

27 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Particularly, I was wondering about the ownership of the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise and it's characters. Even though Mega Construx has the construction toy license due to Mattel flat-out OWNING the franchise, I've been trying to find legal documents (or something) that outline how much say the family of the characters' creator have in distributing the license. Thomas, as you may perhaps know, was not created as a franchise to sell toys, but merely first started out as a series of British children's books.

Thomas and Friends would be such an awesome franchise for potential Lego sets. I assume this couldn't happen as long as Mega Construx (MegaBlocks in the UK) are producing them though? I know we're not supposed to discuss competitor brands here but in my opinion some of the older Mega construx Thomas models weren't too bad. Recently though I bought a set for my 2 year old son and was pretty shocked to see the quality was not as good as it used to be. The old style engines seem to have been replaced with bigger and much simpler designed models made up from huge block pieces.  On a similar note, what the heck have Mattel done to Thomas Wooden Railway series toys!

Whilst we're on the subject of Thomas the Tank Engine, I haven't shared these on Eurobricks before but here are a couple of pics I produced a few weeks ago of my Lego Ideas project, modified with a face to resemble Trevor The Traction Engine. 

 

[Blondie-Wan]

2 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Particularly, I was wondering about the ownership of the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise and it's characters. Even though Mega Construx has the construction toy license due to Mattel flat-out OWNING the franchise, I've been trying to find legal documents (or something) that outline how much say the family of the characters' creator have in distributing the license. Thomas, as you may perhaps know, was not created as a franchise to sell toys, but merely first started out as a series of British children's books.

Huh; I actually did not know that. Thanks for the info! But my guess is that means LEGO won’t be touching that franchise again (at least, unless and until Mattel sells off HiT, the production company through which it owns Thomas).

But there’s really no telling; these things can get quite complicated. And IANAL.

[Bricked1980]

23 hours ago, parsom said:

We'll be offline Wednesday, August 29th from 9 am EDT (1 pm UTC) for about 12 hours.

Well according to the message that appeared on Ideas yesterday, the site should have gone offline about 10 minutes ago. It hasn't though, and the message has been taken off the site too. So maybe they've changed their minds and re-scheduled whatever it was they'd had planned.

[Robert8]

55 minutes ago, Bricked1980 said:

Well according to the message that appeared on Ideas yesterday, the site should have gone offline about 10 minutes ago. It hasn't though, and the message has been taken off the site too. So maybe they've changed their minds and re-scheduled whatever it was they'd had planned.

The deadline is next monday and there 2 projects close to reach the 10k supporters. Maybe they'll do it next week

[Bricked1980]

4 hours ago, Robert8 said:

The deadline is next monday and there 2 projects close to reach the 10k supporters. Maybe they'll do it next week

Good point. That makes sense as it would seem a bit unfair to shut the site down for 12 hours when we are just days away from the next review deadline.

[Digger of Bricks]

At the time of this post, Mric76's The Central Perk Coffee of Friends and LegoFan_506's Mexico City & LEGO = ♥ have four and twenty-four supporters to go in reaching the 10K threshold respectively. Plus, the staff at Ideas announced this:

LEGO Ideas - LEGO® Ideas x LEGO House - A Display Of Past 10K Models 

Quote

To celebrate 10 years of crowdsourcing and collaboration between LEGO® Ideas (called LEGO CUUSOO until 2014) and LEGO fans around the world, we’re proud to display a selection of the incredible fan-designed models, which have been a part of this creative journey through the years. 

The display, featuring 18 awesome 10K Club models, will run from the 17th September to the 8th October 2018 and will be open to everyone in the free-to-access LEGO Square of the LEGO House in Billund, Denmark.

 

On 8/28/2018 at 8:31 AM, Bricked1980 said:

I know we're not supposed to discuss competitor brands here but in my opinion some of the older Mega construx Thomas models weren't too bad.

Even clone brands have touched upon the franchise too, which include LOZ Blocks' line of Creator Expert-esque Thomas and Friends models.

LOZ Blocks - Thomas and Friends 

On 8/28/2018 at 8:31 AM, Bricked1980 said:

On a similar note, what the heck have Mattel done to Thomas Wooden Railway series toys!

I only learned about the fate of that line myself just a little while ago, and was quite upset too! That line was an early cornerstone of my childhood so to speak... 

On 8/28/2018 at 10:29 AM, Blondie-Wan said:

But my guess is that means LEGO won’t be touching that franchise again (at least, unless and until Mattel sells off HiT, the production company through which it owns Thomas).

Unless, maybe Lego could brand their own sets based upon the characters after the original books rather than their TV show adaptation? Mattel, by the way, owns the franchise through their 2011 acquisition of the show's production company (HIT Entertainment) rather than through Awdry's books.

[Robert8]

"The Central Perk Coffee of Friends", by Mric76, just reached the 10k supporters 

[Blondie-Wan]

1 hour ago, Digger of Bricks said:

At the time of this post, Mric76's The Central Perk Coffee of Friends and LegoFan_506's Mexico City & LEGO = ♥ have four and twenty-four supporters to go in reaching the 10K threshold respectively. Plus, the staff at Ideas announced this:

LEGO Ideas - LEGO® Ideas x LEGO House - A Display Of Past 10K Models 

 

Even clone brands have touched upon the franchise too, which include LOZ Blocks' line of Creator Expert-esque Thomas and Friends models.

LOZ Blocks - Thomas and Friends 

I only learned about the fate of that line myself just a little while ago, and was quite upset too! That line was an early cornerstone of my childhood so to speak... 

Unless, maybe Lego could brand their own sets based upon the characters after the original books rather than their TV show adaptation? Mattel, by the way, owns the franchise through their 2011 acquisition of the show's production company (HIT Entertainment) rather than through Awdry's books.

I guessed as much  from my brief internet research after your post, but it would be kind of unusual for LEGO to do a license based solely on print media. They do have a couple major comics licenses, of course, but they’re both built principally around the various movies and shows based on those comics franchises, and not so much around the comics themselves. I think the only times they’ve done themes based solely on stories specifically in their print versions have been the handful of sets based on Hans Christian Andersen (the recent promo, plus a mid-2000s Belville subtheme). I might be wrong, though; are there any others?

They have held the rights to a franchise in a particular medium at the same time a competitor had the same franchise in a different medium at least once before, with Spider-Man sets in the early-to-mid-2000s, but that time things were the other way around - LEGO was doing sets based on the first couple movies in the Raimi / Maguire live-action Spidey Movie trilogy, while Mega Bloks did sets based on the actual classic comics. I feel like if LEGO were going to split another franchise with a competitor the same way again, they’d be willing only if once again they got the higher-profile iteration (i.e., a movie over either TV or print, and TV over print). I’m not sure they’d do a book series with another company doing a show based on the book.

But goodness knows I’ve been wrong a lot about what they will and won’t do...

[Robert8]

"Mexico City & LEGO = ♥", by LegoFan_506, achieved the 10k supporters

[Blondie-Wan]

That brings the count for this batch up to a full ten! That’s never a guarantee - after all, batches with as many as 13 projects have had none approved, while one with a mere 6 projects ultimately yielded 3 sets - but I think it’s likely we’ll get at least one set from these ten.