Medium Legs --- are they gonna be in wide uses?

[Dorayaki]

I'm not really a follower of this board. If there have been similar discussion before, if so please inform below.

 

(photo provided by Brickset)

The medium short legs were recently introduced in the relaunch of Harry Potter series. But since this is unlikely considered an icon feature of Wizard World (duh, Rowling didn't invent the concept of "adolescent" after all), the medium-short legs are supposed to be non-licensed and that means TLG can use them in more various uses. But the qeustion is, how are they gonna use it, and secondly, where to use?, 

Well,  just based on the actual ages of HP characters, the wizard schools allow students from 11~18 to attend. As the minifigures of first-year wizard students still use typical short legs, we may assume that abit older students of 13~16 year old adolescents may fall into the category of medium leg users.

Cedric, who passed away in his last year of Hogwarts already uses full-length regular legs, so the minifigure adults are supposed to be over 18yo while the kids are supposed to be under 13yo.

 

But lets take a look at which past LEGO characters are supposed to use medium short legs, and they don't:

Ninjago heroes:

While their ages are not specified in the main series, the movie canon seems to set them in a highschool frame, so we may sure assume that their movie alteregos all fall into the range of medium legs. But the difficulty is, given that they already use regular legs in their debut, it might be hard to change that in the future unless this series is gonna be totally rebooted.

Avatar the last airbender:

Well I'm just saying it, knowning this franchise will never be rebooted, but the characters are obviously adolescents.

Ninja Turtles

In the cartoon canon April was still an adolescent... well she will unlikely be back as well.

Adventure Time

Finn and Marceline pretty much fall into the age range.

Incredibles:

Violet. while age wasn't clearly given, we can know that she is still under 15yo as the prologue shows. She is pretty much supposed to be shorter than her parents....

The LEGO Batman Movie

Specifically in this canon, Dick was still raised in the orphanage before adopted by Bruce in the opening, In most DC canons it shows that Dick was also adpoted in the very early age of addolescence. He seems to be a very appropriate user of medium legs if it was invented abit earlier.

DC Teen Titans / GO

This one is arguable. It seems like the canons do not specify their ages. Just in the cartoon versions they might have chances to be adolescents?

Disney franchises

(added by Robert8) Potential users include Alice and Peter Pan.

 

While all the stated examples are all given characters other issue is, in a generic scenario of non-licensed LEGO themes, who would use the medium legs, or more literally, how will adolescents fit in?

In LEGO City, police and construction works are still assumed to be adults, this only leaves common citizens for the potential users. So perhaps only in a Creator street scene or a NInjago City set could we see some generic teenage characters. On the other hand, not sure if well see "teenage crimes" like pickpockets if TLG might think this won't fit their guidelines.

As for CMF series, some of the past characters seem to show traits of teenages (skate boarders, swimmers etc) but they were already given regular legs. Maybe we will see some teenagers with medium legs in future CMF series?

Edited October 26, 2018 by Dorayaki

[x105Black]

I sure hope they use the medium legs more.  I prefer them to the short legs.

[Robert8]

TLBM Robin totally needed those legs. He is kind of creepy cause he acts like a child but is an adult size Robin, like Chris O'Donnell.

Disney totally needed them for Alice and Peter Pan and also Violet in the Incredibles 2 line.

I think there they will be reused in the next wave of City. The next "Fun at the..." set is also a safe bet. 

TLM2 line and CMF Series 19 are also strong contenders.

Oddly enough, they are releasing soon a Miles Morales Spiderman minifigure, and they gave him long legs, despite being a teenager

Edited October 22, 2018 by Robert8

[Mylenium]

1 hour ago, Dorayaki said:

But the qeustion is, how are they gonna use it, and secondly, where to use?

Not a question at all in my opinion. This is a typical case of "Just give them time!". I also see no reason to force it down everyone's throat just because it would be correct for a given age. At this point, why should they "break" the sonsistent appearance of Ninjago figures for instance? I'm pretty sure they would only do so for a new character and if he really needs to be visually smaller next to its peers. Similarly I think this will only be used selectively in other series, again mostly when there is a direct comparison of different minifigures. So it's more likely to see this in a "family" in a city set than anywhere else. In the end it doesn't really matter that much, anyway. If you have e.g. a Disney set and your princess is the only figure, what do you care if it's 5mm shorter or taller compared to the surroundings, despite her being represented as a teenage girl? It's simply not important, least of all to children that play with these sets.

Mylenium

[MAB]

I imagine they will become more widespread, slowly eating away at the number of short fixed legs that we see.

[Dorayaki]

On 10/21/2018 at 11:40 PM, Mylenium said:

Not a question at all in my opinion. This is a typical case of "Just give them time!".

I understand this might just be a sooner or later issue, which is not big deal. But to be picky, the issues could be:

1) Why weren't non-licensed lineups or TLBM Dick able to introduce such a thing? I understand that HP, a franchise with a bunch of teenagers makes sense in timing, but of course the earlier the better to certain missed characters.

2) Would TLG apply a clear and strict standard to the use of regular legs? Like R8 mentioned, new Spiderman of ItSV just makes an exception.

[MAB]

52 minutes ago, Dorayaki said:

1) Why weren't non-licensed lineups or TLBM Dick able to introduce such a thing? I understand that HP, a franchise with a bunch of teenagers makes sense in timing, but of course the earlier the better to certain missed characters.

 

I guess any theme could have introduced them. But new molds for short legs to be introduced for TLBM might have not been possible if they had already allocated the budget for new parts, or it was decided that the new parts needed for just one figure was not worth it. Whereas for HP, the cost of the new mold is spread over many figures, that is, the new part is reused many times straight away. I imagine the cost is quite high, as it is not just a new part design but they would also need to set up the jigs necessary for printing them.

 

[Blondie-Wan]

I’m equally curious about the longer minifigure limbs (legs and arms both) created for Woody, Jessie, and (arms-only) Zurg in the 2010 Toy Story line and not used since. I’d guess these shorter legs are likelier to pop up, both because people below average adult height are more common (encompassing both short adults and children) than people substantially above average adult height (to the point of needing those much longer limbs to be truly well-represented), and also because most LEGO buildings, vehicles, etc. are already designed with an assumption of minifigures of the current “standard” height (and those can already accommodate shorter minifigures), but accommodating taller ones requires roomier vehicles and buildings (which in turn requires more larger, more expensive sets). Still, it seems strange that they’ve never been used again even once, when they’re not really theme-specific or anything like that. If nothing else, it would be cool to see an official Chewbacca figure use them in a set sometime (perhaps for the next UCS Millennium Falcon, in 2027?)...

That said, while we might wait a long time before seeing the long legs and arms outside Toy Story (forever, even), I do think we’ll eventually see these “medium short” legs show up elsewhere, most likely in City and/or Creator.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Blondie-Wan

[koalayummies]

On 10/21/2018 at 7:06 AM, Dorayaki said:

In LEGO City, police and construction works are still assumed to be adults, this only leaves common citizens for the potential users.

All of the described here has been assigning leg height based solely on age and disregarding naturally occurring differences in height. I think adult characters can use medium legs (once they make them in enough colors) as there certainly are short cops and construction workers.

On 10/22/2018 at 8:07 AM, MAB said:

I imagine they will become more widespread, slowly eating away at the number of short fixed legs that we see.

Hopefully!

[TeriXeri]

Hoping City/Creator sets will start to use medium legs more often.

Creator houses, or City people packs certainly are the most generic candidates.

 

Edited October 24, 2018 by TeriXeri

[Cylo]

Just a question, but would TLG stop making short legs since the appearance of the medium legs? I do think that they will be used widely amongst different Lego themes.

[Mylenium]

19 hours ago, Dorayaki said:

1) Why weren't non-licensed lineups or TLBM Dick able to introduce such a thing? I understand that HP, a franchise with a bunch of teenagers makes sense in timing, but of course the earlier the better to certain missed characters.

I agree with @MAB - it's most likely the sheer number of figures in the HP sets combined with the popularity of the them vs. the lack of both factors with TLBM and the sets associated with it. As I wrote in the "licensed themes" thread just a few days ago, super hero/ comic movie stuff isn't that relevant here in Germany for instance, so it would have been difficult for LEGO to justify the cost for developing a new moving part when the sales numbers of these sets predictably never reach a certain level.

Whether or not there will ever be a consistent logic in using this element now that it exists remains to be seen, but as I said I think LEGO will still decide it on a case-by-case basis if and when distinction between figures of a same series is needed. They haven't been overusing "giant" figures with extended chest and head pieces, either, which leads me to believe that the situation will be similar. I expect sets and figures to be more specifically designed with the new piece in mind, so it will slowly distribute throughout the parts portfolio no matter what and eventually there will be a sufficient supply.

Mylenium

3 hours ago, JarJarBonks said:

Just a question, but would TLG stop making short legs since the appearance of the medium legs? I do think that they will be used widely amongst different Lego themes.

I don't think so. The rigid short legs still make sense for smaller kids and in situations where poseable legs may not be required or wanted like e.g. very simple Juniors style sets...

Mylenium

[Aanchir]

I suspect that right now, like legs and arms with side printing, they're something that currently most LEGO factories don't have the molds/machines to produce (though I hear LEGO is in the process of adding more of those). As such it may take some time before they become widespread in more mainstream sets and themes. Also, I do expect that for a while, MOST of the uses will be for younger teens in themes where they need to be distinguishable from child or older teen/adult characters.

For clarity, best i can tell, the current standard for the Harry Potter theme based on the latest sets and minifigures is using short legs to represent the main characters in first/second/third year students (around ages 11/12/13/14), medium legs for fourth and fifth year students (around age 14/15/16), and full size legs for sixth and seventh year students (around ages 16/17/18).

I think on those grounds it's probably fine for the Ninjago main cast to continue using the full length legs, since with at least the main four ninja it's probably safe to assume at this point that they're 16 or older. Needless to say, the same goes for Anakin Skywalker in Episode II/The Clone Wars (18) continuing to use the full length legs and in The Phantom Menace (12) continuing to use the short legs. But the medium-sized legs might be appropriate for many "teen superhero/sidekick" characters such as the current Ms. Marvel or many incarnations of Robin.

As far as non-age-related height differences, I think both the short and medium legs should be reserved for characters who are conspicuously short in a way that might normally be associated with a character being far younger than their actual age… and not, for instance, to show the roughly 5-inch difference between an average-sized adult man and average-sized adult woman, or even more exaggerated height differences like those between characters like Tracer and Soldier 76 in the new Overwatch theme. As a general rule, I think the short legs should probably remain specific to contexts where the character is meant to be both conspicuously taller than an average (pre-teen) human child and conspicuously shorter than an average human adult.

If height differences between characters at least as tall as we might ordinarily expect from adults MUST be shown, I think it would be better to err in favor of making the tall characters taller (as with Woody vs. Buzz from LEGO Toy Story or Axl vs. Clay in LEGO Nexo Knights) rather than making the short characters shorter. And if the height difference is subtle enough, it can probably be represented as simply as using a neck accessory that slightly increases the taller character's height, provided it's one that makes sense for that character.

Edited October 25, 2018 by Aanchir

[MAB]

On 10/24/2018 at 6:33 AM, JarJarBonks said:

Just a question, but would TLG stop making short legs since the appearance of the medium legs? I do think that they will be used widely amongst different Lego themes.

Also, short legs are likely to be cheaper to produce than medium. One part vs three that need assembling.

[Kalahari134]

I hope we will see much more of the medium legs, having functional legs for the vertically challenged has been my wish for some time. Before some dismiss it as an "AFOL concern", even when I was a child I used to dislike the fact that Dobby had to stand on chairs (though in retrospect the opportunities for house elves to sit down are probably pretty few and far between).