Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[Darth_Bane13]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

That isn't really how they do Star Wars though. New material or TV series tend to get a few sets but the majority of the range is still based on old source material. They wouldn't come back stronger, they'd come back the same. If, that is, Disney haven't already switched Star Wars and their other franchises to Mega as LEGO dumped one of their flagship franchises.

 

What is wrong with the winter 2026 sets? Or to put it another way, what could they do in three years time that you would buy then that you wouldn't buy next year. If what you would buy is based only on new material then it suggests you wouldn’t buy anything for two years anyways so you can sit out while other fans, especially new fans, can buy what they missed in all the tears you have been collecting.  

1 hour ago, icm said:

Would the hype be crazy? This sounds to me like a classic case of "the grass is greener on the other side"-type thinking, or spinning castles in the air. It's easy to talk about a hypothetical scenario that would be so great and so exciting, but the reality usually is that when our dreams come true they're ... pretty mundane, or worse, they don't turn out like we want them to. Remember how quickly the hype for the Prequel Trilogy turned to hate when it didn't meet people's expectations! Ditto for the Sequel Trilogy!

Chances are, any hypothetical rebooted Lego Star Wars theme after a two-year hiatus would start strong for a year or two (Lego seems to give new themes higher budgets in their first year or two), then quickly be more remakes and overpriced sets. You would wonder, why did they make this ship instead of that one, why did they price it this high instead of this much lower, what even is this other character or vehicle from new media that I haven't seen yet?

When Pirates took six years off between 2009 and 2015 (or four years off between 2011 and 2015, if you count PotC), the hype was there for a new Pirates theme but the Lego community found the sets disappointing and they were more or less a flop.

When Bionicle took five years off between 2010 and 2015 (with Hero Factory taking its place in between), the hype was strong for its return, but G2 Bionicle was a major flop and is not remembered fondly.

Just taking time off between release years to build hype is far from a surefire move to bring back excitement for a fresh start to a newly sustainable theme.

Fair points here perhaps I just didn't think this all the way through, this isn't really a hill I care to die on.

[SpacePolice89]

6 hours ago, DonQuixote said:

I would like to see a Space police 1 remake set 

Yes, I would like to see one too. It would also be logical since we have had two Blacktron 1 remakes and all the colors are still in production.

[MAB]

9 hours ago, icm said:

Chances are, any hypothetical rebooted Lego Star Wars theme after a two-year hiatus would start strong for a year or two (Lego seems to give new themes higher budgets in their first year or two), then quickly be more remakes and overpriced sets. You would wonder, why did they make this ship instead of that one, why did they price it this high instead of this much lower, what even is this other character or vehicle from new media that I haven't seen yet?

Not only that, but if they are going to reboot with an exciting new style then why wait two years? It is not like this would build up demand. Not supplying a product when there is demand just drives people elsewhere and they lose customers if there is no alternative.

Star Wars is also wide enough they can build up demand for some parts of the range without stopping supply of the rest of the theme. For example, right now they have the UCS MF, the midi version and the Dark Falcon. But no minifig playset of the Ep IV-VI MF. But there is an X-Wing and Tie fighter set. In a few years, a minifig based normal MF will be available again.

[Kit Figsto]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FS_tgRxW6k

I found this video interesting.  The guy seems to be semi-knowledgeable about LEGO - not a hardcore fan of the brand, but a casual collector and grew up as a fan of it, so it's interesting to hear this take on the current state of things from someone in that position.  I've been starting to feel the same way as this video in some respects - while I don't agree 100% (especially some of his points about pricing - there's no way the 2001 Hogwarts would only cost $100 today, that's $150 minimum), I agreed with the overall message that I don't think LEGO should be primarily targeting me as an adult.  His point about the entire message of the LEGO Movie being seemingly ignored with such a focus on 18+ stuff was something that I've never really considered either.

Anyway, not sure if this was really an unpopular opinion, but I didn't know where else to share.

[MAB]

I went into a LEGO store yesterday, it was absolutely packed with kids. More to the pont, there were significant queues at the tills, and it was all families with kids. As a BL seller, I like to see what people are buying, so I look quite closely. There were some people buying large sets that could well be a 'whole family' purchase but by far the majority of people were buying smaller sets which the kid was holding. And they seemed to be purchasing everything, City and Friends, Creator, Disney,  One Piece, all the licenses. BAM was incredibly busy, PAB less so. And plenty of people willing to pay full price. There was one kid, probably 12-13, wanting the "adult set" Star Wars logo. I told his mum that it was on sale at a store less than five minutes walk away for 25% off but just got a profanity back.

I don't buy the view that LEGO isn't for kids. I totally agree that LEGO is marketing itself towards adults and has done incredibly well in doing that, but kids are still cramming into stores and buying their product. 

[danth]

17 hours ago, Kit Figsto said:

Anyway, not sure if this was really an unpopular opinion, but I didn't know where else to share.

Thank you for sharing! I thought it was a great video. I agree with it, for the most part. 

8 hours ago, MAB said:

I went into a LEGO store yesterday, it was absolutely packed with kids. 

I don't buy the view that LEGO isn't for kids. I totally agree that LEGO is marketing itself towards adults and has done incredibly well in doing that, but kids are still cramming into stores and buying their product. 

I'm sure depends greatly on geographic location, but the Lego store I frequent seems to be about 50% adults with no kids. To me, that's massive. I think it's a pretty open secret in the toy industry that adults are a huge part of their market now, with kids mostly obsessed with video games and phone apps. 

"LEGO isn't for kids" certainly isn't literally true. It's just a click-baity way of saying that their focus has shifted so far towards the adult market that it affects everything they do, including their more kid focused sets, and I think the video argues that point pretty convincingly. 

[Kit Figsto]

14 minutes ago, danth said:

I'm sure depends greatly on geographic location, but the Lego store I frequent seems to be about 50% adults with no kids. To me, that's massive. I think it's a pretty open secret in the toy industry that adults are a huge part of their market now, with kids mostly obsessed with video games and phone apps. 

I've found that, whenever I'm in the LEGO aisles at Target, there is almost always at least one 20-30 year old in the aisle as well.  I'm not paying close attention to what they're looking at, but it often seems like they are looking for themselves and not for a gift for a kid or something.

Anyway, I think another thing that the video inadvertently touched on, which I've been noticing, is the attention to detail also bringing about a shrinking in set sizes.  This is mostly apparent with licensed sets, but there's been a lot of sets recently where the price/piece ratio inherently isn't bad, but the actual size of the model is way smaller than previous iterations, even if the piece count is roughly the same.  Including a bunch of 1x1 corner tiles doesn't really do much for me, I'd rather see larger pieces in there.  The Star Wars ARC-170 is a great example - the current one retails for $70 and has just under 500 pieces.  The previous version had 100 fewer pieces and is much larger.  Now, this is an instance where, from my understanding, the smaller scale is more accurate, but it feels like we're getting less value when the increased part count, which also leads to a big price increase, doesn't lead to a feeling of more "stuff." 

And I'm okay with not 100% accurate proportions or detail.  One of my favorite LSW sets was the 2017 U-Wing, which scale-wise, is way off from the 2025 version, but as a TOY, I think is far superior.  It was also like $10 more, came with 1.5 more minifigure, and is quite a bit beefier.  Is the new one more accurate?  Yeah, probably, but I can also stand like 5 minifigures in the troop bay, whereas the new one can maybe fit two, and if we're talking accuracy, the doors are more accurate on the old one.

I didn't mean for that to become a bit of a LSW rant, but hopefully my point comes across 

[danth]

Here's a video by RR Slugger (who I greatly recommend) where he drops this bomb: Lego has moved from brick-based construction to plate-based construction.

It's an astute observation that I hadn't heard before, and it's kind of a mind-blower. People often talk about Lego using smaller parts, which is obviously true in a lot of modern sets. But calling it "plate based construction" makes you think. Plates and tiles (and small curves/slopes) are of course smaller than bricks, but they're also much harder to take apart. Which means you probably won't bother to take your sets apart ("I ain't breaking my nails, and I can't find my brick separator"). Which means you're not engaging your creativity to build your own MOCs, you're just leaving a set put together forever. Which is what a lot of people mean when they say Lego isn't about creativity anymore. 

Now, I'm not prepared to argue that it's true that Lego has shifted to more plate based construction. That's just a matter of looking at all set data from the past few decades. But it definitely feels like they have, seeing as sets keep shrinking in size while maintaining similar piece counts. 

Of course the regular Lego cheerleaders will miss the point completely, calling "plate based construction" a ridiculous charge, just because Lego sets still use bricks, while ignoring the ratio of bricks to plates changing. The more sophisticated status quo warriors will point out that many old sets were mostly plates. This still ignores the point that the overall ratio of bricks to plates across all sets might be shrinking. 

I don't think plate based construction is bad either. Just less much conducive to taking sets apart, IMO. 

29 minutes ago, Kit Figsto said:

I didn't mean for that to become a bit of a LSW rant, but hopefully my point comes across 

It does. I was working on the above comment before you responded, but it touches on a lot of what you said. 

Edited August 22 by danth

[Feuer Zug]

43 minutes ago, danth said:

"... much harder to take apart. Which means you probably won't bother to take your sets apart ("I ain't breaking my nails, and I can't find my brick separator"). Which means you're not engaging your creativity to build your own MOCs, you're just leaving a set put together forever. Which is what a lot of people mean when they say Lego isn't about creativity anymore."

This of course depends on people actually making the set. I and a few others I know aren't buying sets to build them. We buy them are parts packs for MOCs. We might be in the minority, but there are a few of us out there. Otherwise, I will agree there are more plates than bricks in most sets. We have high parts count sets, but little substance size wise. Still, if you want to be creative with LEGO, then the option is still there.

[danth]

Actually I wonder if Lego has guidelines to discourage sets from having plate connections that are hard to take apart. 

[icm]

They do - it's very common to have tiles under wide or long plates in order to make things easier to assemble or disassemble.

[icm]

I wouldn't exactly call it a "bombshell" to say that Lego sets use a lot more plates than bricks now. That's an observation I've made to myself years ago and it's a trend that dates back decades. Personally, I would date it as far back as 2004, when new wedge plates, new hinge plates, and new building styles allowed the remakes of the Snowspeeder and Millennium Falcon, and the first version of the AT-AT, to achieve their shapes mostly with wedge plates set on hinges. The first Snowspeeder, from 1999, is mostly made of bricks, while the second Snowspeeder, from 2004, is mostly made of plates. I wouldn't say it hurts rebuildability at all, and I certainly wouldn't say there's any nefarious agenda in it.

Edited August 23 by icm

[Kit Figsto]

9 hours ago, danth said:

Here's a video by RR Slugger (who I greatly recommend) where he drops this bomb: Lego has moved from brick-based construction to plate-based construction.

Of course the regular Lego cheerleaders will miss the point completely, calling "plate based construction" a ridiculous charge, just because Lego sets still use bricks, while ignoring the ratio of bricks to plates changing. The more sophisticated status quo warriors will point out that many old sets were mostly plates. This still ignores the point that the overall ratio of bricks to plates across all sets might be shrinking. 

I don't think plate based construction is bad either. Just less much conducive to taking sets apart, IMO. 

I saw this video as well (I think Slugger's definitely the best LEGO YouTuber at the moment - I don't always agree 100% with his opinions on sets and themes, but he puts out really fun, creative, and unique content and I enjoy the way that he presents his ideas/reviews). 

Like you said, I don't think that plate based construction is inherently bad, just different.  Yes, they're still using bricks, obviously, but larger pieces are, without a doubt, being phased out.  I think that there's something to be said about sets from the late 90s and especially the early 2000s being too "<insert that tiresome argument>" in that they relied heavily on very large and specific pieces - this isn't necessarily bad either, but I think that these also don't lend themselves to be reused very well (however, I do always think it's SUPER cool whenever someone posts a MOC using a piece that's just totally not at all what it was originally meant for - stuff like the games dice block or train pieces being utilized in innovative ways perfectly encapsulates what makes LEGO great to me).  

My ideal construction is somewhere in between - I'd rather have a wall piece or a pillar than have to stack 6 1x8 bricks on top of each other to achieve the same thing.  Raised baseplates definitely lost points for versatility, but they also increased a set's footprint tremendously without bumping up the part count too much.  I don't think every set should be built like a 4+ set, but I also don't think every set should rely heavily on "plate stacking" (if you want to call it that).  Of course, that's just my own personal opinion.  There's benefits and drawbacks to each, but I do feel like this goes hand-in-hand with one critique I have of many recent sets, which is the part count vs. actual value/size of the model/amount of "stuff" that you get.

[MAB]

4 hours ago, Kit Figsto said:

Raised baseplates definitely lost points for versatility, but they also increased a set's footprint tremendously without bumping up the part count too much.

Raised base plates were from an era when people didn't care about numbers of parts or price per part ratios. While OK for a toy, I don't think I'd want them as an adult. There is no customisation possible with them. They take up a lot of space. They break quite easily then the whole thing looks bad.

[SpacePolice89]

3 hours ago, MAB said:

Raised base plates were from an era when people didn't care about numbers of parts or price per part ratios. While OK for a toy, I don't think I'd want them as an adult. There is no customisation possible with them. They take up a lot of space. They break quite easily then the whole thing looks bad.

I wouldn't agree that they take up a lot of space. I you have several of the same type they can be stacked on top of each other. 

[TeriXeri]

20 hours ago, danth said:

Of course the regular Lego cheerleaders will miss the point completely, calling "plate based construction" a ridiculous charge, just because Lego sets still use bricks, while ignoring the ratio of bricks to plates changing. The more sophisticated status quo warriors will point out that many old sets were mostly plates. This still ignores the point that the overall ratio of bricks to plates across all sets might be shrinking. 

Totally agree that regular sets shifted to plates, and tiles a whole lot, and some sets main brick parts are the SNOT bricks used to build sideways, or texture bricks.

LEGO buildings with sloped roof bricks mostly got phased out in favour of plates (exception is something like 42669 Beekeepers' House and Flower Garden but that's a tiny build that chooses detail small pieces/tiles over size)

Also pretty much most modern LEGO sets that aren't part of some City street system use rounded plates as a base, which works for display, but less so for rebuilding it into something else.

Classic theme did get a bit better in recent years , with more brick focused sets and better colour balances, and I hope 2026 will offer another set like 11030 Lots of Bricks with pure bricks, for the years before that one, pure 100% brick sets have been absent for a while.

19 hours ago, icm said:

They do - it's very common to have tiles under wide or long plates in order to make things easier to assemble or disassemble.

Yeah, I have been noticed this a lot with City vehicles, instead of stacking multiple 2x16 plates, they have shorter plates and tiles under/between it, partly I can imagine it's to reduce stress of bending plates, as long-plates coulde bend or micro-crack if connected with too many studs over time, also found alternate part usage like using a 2x4x2/3 old style "Town" car fender instead of 2 2x4 plates.

 

Edited August 23 by TeriXeri

[danth]

54 minutes ago, TeriXeri said:

also found alternate part usage like using a 2x4x2/3 old style "Town" car fender instead of 2 2x4 plates

You mean these? Because I saw that once in a build where I was like "What the what? Why?" I would just assume that's a money saving/inventory utilization thing but if it's really to prevent stress on parts, that's another mind blower for me!

[icm]

If it's embedded in a build and reduces the number of stacked stud connections in that part of the build compared to a regular plate or brick, it's probably intended to reduce stress on parts.

[Lyichir]

30 minutes ago, icm said:

If it's embedded in a build and reduces the number of stacked stud connections in that part of the build compared to a regular plate or brick, it's probably intended to reduce stress on parts.

Having tiles interspersed can indeed reduce stress on parts but I do think icm's original point about making it easier to take parts apart is important too. The more studs parts are connected with, the harder it can be to separate (especially by hand instead of with a separator, an important consideration for smaller sets that don't include one). This can also be a reason why combinations of smaller plates are sometimes used instead of stacking large plates—it's easier to separate four 2x4 plates stacked in a 4x4x2/3 square than it would be to separate two 4x4 plates, for instance.

[SpacePolice89]

I really dislike the black boxes that they use for the 18+ sets. They look so boring, like they are meant for car parts or something like that.

[danth]

On 8/23/2025 at 1:28 AM, MAB said:

Raised base plates were from an era when people didn't care about numbers of parts or price per part ratios. While OK for a toy, I don't think I'd want them as an adult. There is no customisation possible with them. They take up a lot of space. They break quite easily then the whole thing looks bad.

I do love me some raised base plates. As an adult, I can be careful enough not to break them, and I can factor in large parts when considering PPP...but the space they take up is a concern for me. It's the one thing I'm running out of. I guess it doesn't matter if you're displaying the built set anyway. If you break down and store the set, you can stuff the parts in the hollows of the base plate as well. 

[Kit Figsto]

On the topic of "plate stacking," coincidentally, I just picked up one of the Mega Bloks Hot Wheels sets on super clearance at Kohl's (was marked down from $29.99 to $22.49, then an additional 50% off, so I paid about $12 for it).  It was my first large non-LEGO brick toy in a very long time, but I have to say, I did notice a pretty distinct difference in the build experience between LEGO and this one.  There was definitely more "stacking" of plates, and despite the fact that it's a relatively blocky looking car, the model itself actually used mostly plates to put it together, save for the doors.  

So, I guess it's not just LEGO!  For the record, I did enjoy the build, and the final model looks really good, I just wasn't expecting it to also "feel" different while putting it together.

Edited August 28 by Kit Figsto

[danth]

32 minutes ago, Kit Figsto said:

On the topic of "plate stacking," coincidentally, I just picked up one of the Mega Bloks Hot Wheels sets on super clearance at Kohl's (was marked down from $29.99 to $22.49, then an additional 50% off, so I paid about $12 for it).  It was my first large non-LEGO brick toy in a very long time, but I have to say, I did notice a pretty distinct difference in the build experience between LEGO and this one.  There was definitely more "stacking" of plates, and despite the fact that it's a relatively blocky looking car, the model itself actually used mostly plates to put it together, save for the doors.  

So, I guess it's not just LEGO!  For the record, I did enjoy the build, and the final model looks really good, I just wasn't expecting it to also "feel" different while putting it together.

When you say large, does that mean bigger than minifig scale? How did it compare to Lego in terms of sticker usage?

[Kit Figsto]

15 hours ago, danth said:

When you say large, does that mean bigger than minifig scale? How did it compare to Lego in terms of sticker usage?

It's 10 studs wide by about 24 long, so I'd say about 1.5x the size of a Speed Champions car.  12 printed parts, no stickers.  I would say that the quality of the bricks are probably 80% of the way there compared to LEGO.  The main difference is that the clutch power is a little bit inconsistent - you'll get some parts that snap together and hold well, whereas others feel as if the connection is a little bit flimsier.  The thing isn't going to break apart by any means, but when you remove the roof, for example, some of the plates of it aren't totally held in the same way that they would be if it were LEGO parts.  

I get the impression that with these sets, they don't design them with the intent of reusing parts or with "rebuildability" as much of a focus, as there's at least 2 pieces that are pretty much only usable in this one set, which isn't something I can remember LEGO doing recently other than with minifigure head molds.  I think it actually compares more to a model car than LEGO in terms of what they're going for here - there's zero exposed studs at all and from a distance, it looks more like a large diecast car.

[jimmynick]

I may have expressed this opinion before - but clicking on a MOC thread that just had a link to LEGO Ideas inside - not every MOC has to be an Idea! Build things because you find it fun, not because you want the prestige of TLG turning your MOC into a real set.

For crying out loud.