Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[BrickBob Studpants]

2 hours ago, Siroco said:

Wathever the theme fleshies are the most useless of all.

How so? You may prefer yellow minifigs for aesthetic reasons or nostalgia, but that doesn‘t make minifigs with realistic skintones useless  Unless you have a giant LEGO city on display where a mix of minifigs would look weird, of course.

Also, I haven‘t heard the term „fleshie“ in a while. After more than 20 years, they‘ve been normalised to a degree it‘s weird for me to think back to the times before they existed   I still remember the heated discussions back in the day.

Speaking of which: Time for a (potentially) unpopular opinion of mine! I despise the old greys and brown because they look as if they came pre-yellowed. Their post-2003 counterparts are so much better in my eyes

[Siroco]

36 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

How so? You may prefer yellow minifigs for aesthetic reasons or nostalgia, but that doesn‘t make minifigs with realistic skintones useless  Unless you have a giant LEGO city on display where a mix of minifigs would look weird, of course.

That is the only thing worse than fleshies, mixing lemon heads with fleshies. 

But this is the unpopular opinions topic, so anything goes and I wouldn't dare to say that your opinion is more unpopular than mine.

[Toastie]

41 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

I despise the old greys

What? Old gray and new bley go so nicely along with each other - as they mix to give a feeling of slightly “weathered” walls etc. I mix them all the time, on purpose.  Here is to the new and old!

All the best
Thorsten

P.S.: Old brown and new brown - That is my expertise! As being a lill or lill more color-blind, brown is one of my favorite screw-ups! Along with "tan" - pink, lime, ... heck, everything that is not black, old gray, white, blue, green, yellow, red  I am actually good on the gray-scale - that is why I mix old and new gray pieces with some fun.

1 hour ago, Murdoch17 said:

I'm sick of people dismissing others for no reason beyond their own personal bias or experiences, despite evidence said dismissive people are wrong. This goes beyond being just a LEGO fandom issue and goes into every facet of modern life.

Very nicely said! Same here.

Sidenote: I am always a bit careful with summoning "evidence", particularly in "modern life", as this life has become so unbelievably diverse (and sure, always was), fast and immediate, as modern information technologies simply render it such. Old life was much more ... "confined" - back in the days, I never knew what happened in the village 6 km away from my own in Northern Germany.

So, "I'm sick of people dismissing others for no reason beyond their own personal bias or experiences."

All the best and Happy New Year
Thorsten    

[SpacePolice89]

2 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

How so? You may prefer yellow minifigs for aesthetic reasons or nostalgia, but that doesn‘t make minifigs with realistic skintones useless  Unless you have a giant LEGO city on display where a mix of minifigs would look weird, of course.

Also, I haven‘t heard the term „fleshie“ in a while. After more than 20 years, they‘ve been normalised to a degree it‘s weird for me to think back to the times before they existed   I still remember the heated discussions back in the day.

Speaking of which: Time for a (potentially) unpopular opinion of mine! I despise the old greys and brown because they look as if they came pre-yellowed. Their post-2003 counterparts are so much better in my eyes

They can be useless for someone (like me) who can't stand the fleshies at all. I very seldom buy licensed sets but when I do I always change the heads to yellow ones. I most recently did so with the subway Spider Man set which I bought because I wanted the train.

[danth]

5 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

Audiobooks, The Cursed Child play / book, the upcoming TV show, Fantastic Beasts prequel films prove otherwise. The Wizarding World is still relevant, for better or worse. The MULTIPLE theme parks and studio tours across the globe prove this....

Huh? Audio books, plays, and theme parks don't sell toys. The Fantastic Beasts movies aren't well liked by HP fans beyond the first one. The TV series doesn't exist yet so it can't prove anything. 

I'm not saying Harry Potter isn't big; it's supposedly the 11th highest grossing franchise in history according to one source, but its heyday is in the past, and everyone around for its heyday are adults now.

[Black Falcon]

8 minutes ago, danth said:

Huh? Audio books, plays, and theme parks don't sell toys. The Fantastic Beasts movies aren't well liked by HP fans beyond the first one.

Well, personally I never really understood what they were trying with those, but there are several people out there that would tell you the third failed only because they replaced Depp. 

8 minutes ago, danth said:

The TV series doesn't exist yet so it can't prove anything. 

If there wouldn´t be a fanbase that is big enough they wouldn´t even make a series. And that despite the fact that the films are still quite fresh and many of the adult fans say they don´t need a series because they are happy with the films.

[danth]

2 minutes ago, Black Falcon said:

If there wouldn´t be a fanbase that is big enough they wouldn´t even make a series.

There are plenty of new TV shows not based on any existing franchise that get made...

I'm not sure how to tell you this, but HBO TV series are where franchises go to die. 

5 minutes ago, Black Falcon said:

And that despite the fact that the films are still quite fresh and many of the adult fans say they don´t need a series because they are happy with the films.

No argument there. I think these adults are the ones buying HP Lego sets. 

[Black Falcon]

1 minute ago, danth said:

There are plenty of new TV shows not based on any existing franchise that get made...

I'm not sure how to tell you this, but HBO TV series are where franchises go to die. 

You mean like Game of Thrones?

Eitherway there is just not any proof around that HP would be almost dead or unpopular by kids nowadays. Actually quite the oposite, when you look in local shops/bookstores nowadays.

[danth]

7 minutes ago, Black Falcon said:

You mean like Game of Thrones?

Excellent counter example. 

If the HP TV series gets as big as Game of Thrones, then yeah, that'll turn things around. As it is now, Wizarding World is in decline, as far as I can tell. My guess is the show won't compare well to the movies, but time will tell. 

[RichardGoring]

2 hours ago, danth said:

Huh? Audio books, plays, and theme parks don't sell toys. The Fantastic Beasts movies aren't well liked by HP fans beyond the first one. The TV series doesn't exist yet so it can't prove anything. 

I'm not saying Harry Potter isn't big; it's supposedly the 11th highest grossing franchise in history according to one source, but its heyday is in the past, and everyone around for its heyday are adults now.

Past its heyday perhaps, but still immensely popular as each new school year brings thousands of children into it, often read to kids in school as a class book. Which is a shame, because a lot of it (especially the later books are really poorly written). The LEGO sets produced are from a fairly narrow source material so you get the same things repeated every few years, but for the majority of buyers (children) that doesn't matter, as they are at peak interest for a few years at most.

And so many of Disney's properties are decades old, but they still churn out merchandise for children as they watch the classic movies frequently.

Having said that, I still maintain that Friends is the best LEGO theme overall for the combination of aesthetics, build experience, and play value. And the variety of sets (size, price, location, style, function, build) is amazing. And I think as a result, when children see these sets, they get very excited by them, and it holds their interest long-term.

[Dreamweb]

12 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Also, I haven‘t heard the term „fleshie“ in a while. After more than 20 years, they‘ve been normalised to a degree it‘s weird for me to think back to the times before they existed   I still remember the heated discussions back in the day.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if LEGO had reversed the order: introduced the fleshies first all those decades ago, and then added the yellow heads all of a sudden at some point. Just imagine the outrage. 

12 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

I despise the old greys and brown because they look as if they came pre-yellowed. Their post-2003 counterparts are so much better in my eyes

Well this is kind of similar to the fleshie situation. I remember how hated those new colours were back when it was still a fresh thing. Nowadays people actually prefer the new ones (we discussed this in our LUG some time ago and almost everyone confirmed this). This is because they are easy to get, people have gathered sufficient collections of those to stop caring about the old ones, and everyone simply got used to the new colours.

Reminds me of this big LEGO event in Olomouc in Czechia which I attended a few times. There were literally hundreds of MOCs there and I think I only saw two people with the old colours. One was a Classic Space diorama with the monorail etc. The other one was me  (pirate ships with old brown hulls and some old light grey too). Besides, a lot of current MOCers and AFOLs got into LEGO when the old colours had been long gone.

 

Edited January 2 by Dreamweb

[BrickBob Studpants]

7 hours ago, Dreamweb said:

I remember how hated those new colours were back when it was still a fresh thing.

I distinctly remember that too. Fun times  Kinda funny how there are now AFOLs that never even knew the old shades of grey and brown from their childhoods. Feel old yet?

[Dreamweb]

20 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Kinda funny how there are now AFOLs that never even knew the old shades of grey and brown from their childhoods. Feel old yet?

My thoughts exactly. 

13 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

Having said that, I still maintain that Friends is the best LEGO theme overall for the combination of aesthetics, build experience, and play value.

I agree. Friends is like City but better.

Here's an unpopular opinion then: If LEGO abandoned their minifigures altogether and just stuck to the minidolls, I think I could live with that.  Provided there would be greater diversity of prints and gear: Pirate minidolls, Castle minidolls, etc. Not gonna happen though. 

[JesseNight]

13 hours ago, Dreamweb said:

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if LEGO had reversed the order: introduced the fleshies first all those decades ago, and then added the yellow heads all of a sudden at some point. Just imagine the outrage. 

People don't like change enforced upon them, especially if it's changing something that was good as it was. It takes getting used to, and many always seem to jump the gun when such things are announced.

Fleshies had much more going on than being just a change. How long in human life have differences in skin color been at the base of conflict?
Personally I never liked the old yellow heads, despite it being the norm at my peak of my active Lego years in the mid to late 1980s. I really like the fleshies, but with the different skintones I gotta pay attention to keeping heads and hands sorted per color, and pay attention to chest pieces with an open collar that show some skin.
 

5 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

I distinctly remember that too. Fun times  Kinda funny how there are now AFOLs that never even knew the old shades of grey and brown from their childhoods. Feel old yet?

I do. Brown was barely even used in my prime days, it was just coming up with the first barrels, treasure chests, tree trunks, and pirate ship hulls. Same with green, just baseplates, flower stems, and trees. There were only 6 building colors in those days. And still I'd never have enough of any of them for bigger projects
 

5 hours ago, Dreamweb said:

I agree. Friends is like City but better.

Friends focusses way more on the fun parts of life. Playgrounds, vacation homes, party settings, leisure activities.
City/Town seems to focus more on daily life stuff like various work environments, various emergency services, some racing, and trains.
I think Friends has a more laid back fun coverage for sure. I don't know how it is nowadays with kids, but in my time the Friends themes would probably have appealed mostly to girls (majority of Friends figures are girls too), where City/Town would attract more boys.

Edited January 2 by JesseNight

[Dreamweb]

1 hour ago, JesseNight said:

pay attention to chest pieces with an open collar that show some skin

Whose shade usually doesn't match the head of the same minifigure (applies equally to yellow and fleshtones). 

[MAB]

7 hours ago, Dreamweb said:

Here's an unpopular opinion then: If LEGO abandoned their minifigures altogether and just stuck to the minidolls, I think I could live with that.  Provided there would be greater diversity of prints and gear: Pirate minidolls, Castle minidolls, etc. Not gonna happen though. 

The problems I have with them are (1) not being able to switch arms, (2) not being able to pose legs and (3) even worse not be able to move wrists. Every castle soldier having to hold a sword or bow at the same angle is not good.

[Dreamweb]

9 hours ago, MAB said:

The problems I have with them are (1) not being able to switch arms, (2) not being able to pose legs and (3) even worse not be able to move wrists.

I'm aware of the limitations. On the other hand, the body proportions are much closer to an actual human. Well, I guess a trade-off of sorts is always inevitable.

Actually, I have one knockoff minidoll bought a few years ago near a beach out of curiosity, and it's very similar to LEGO but the legs are posable. So this can be done. Who knows, maybe one day LEGO will fix this, like they made short posable minifig legs.

12 hours ago, JesseNight said:

Brown was barely even used in my prime days, it was just coming up with the first barrels, treasure chests, tree trunks, and pirate ship hulls.

And the smaller rowboats with oars, and castle doors. That was it.  I remember how frustrating it was not being able to add any brown bricks to my brown hull of the Caribbean Clipper.

12 hours ago, JesseNight said:

Same with green, just baseplates, flower stems, and trees.

I remember the time when literally my ONLY green thing in LEGO was the vest on Captain Redbeard's torso. I did not even have any trees or flowers back then. 

[JesseNight]

11 hours ago, Dreamweb said:

And the smaller rowboats with oars, and castle doors. That was it.  I remember how frustrating it was not being able to add any brown bricks to my brown hull of the Caribbean Clipper.

I actually remember I had some small rowboats from the Pirate theme that were red, but the oars were definitely brown. Guess the rowboat must have existed in more colors.
 

11 hours ago, Dreamweb said:

I remember the time when literally my ONLY green thing in LEGO was the vest on Captain Redbeard's torso. I did not even have any trees or flowers back then. 

Really? Because flowers and trees were included with so many things in about every theme. Except Space, probably

Here's another unpopular opinion following up the minifigs & minidolls discussion: I kinda hate minifigs, and I always have.
As a kid, the bad proportions always annoyed the hell outta me. And nowadays I hate them for being way too expensive for what they really are (older figs from late 80s and early 90s themes).

Edited January 3 by JesseNight

[DonQuixote]

6 hours ago, JesseNight said:

 

Here's another unpopular opinion following up the minifigs & minidolls discussion: I kinda hate minifigs, and I always have.
As a kid, the bad proportions always annoyed the hell outta me. And nowadays I hate them for being way too expensive for what they really are (older figs from late 80s and early 90s themes).

The Lego minifig and licensed themes are the only things that keep Lego king of the building brick companies.  The competition has become very good. Only their minifigs suck and lack of licensing.  But MegaBloks has the Game of Thrones license and their minifigs are rather good. You can actually recognize Emilia Clarke in the Daenerys minifig. Also proportions are better. 

[MAB]

11 hours ago, JesseNight said:

And nowadays I hate them for being way too expensive for what they really are (older figs from late 80s and early 90s themes).

Modern minifigures, especially fairly generic City ones, are dirt cheap. Even for nostalgic themes many figures are still reasonably cheap, even if some hard to get ones are expensive. Vintage ones in good condition are expensive because so many nostalgic people want them so they are really collectables rather than just an old toy and so are priced differently to unwanted old stuff.

[JesseNight]

14 hours ago, MAB said:

Modern minifigures, especially fairly generic City ones, are dirt cheap. Even for nostalgic themes many figures are still reasonably cheap, even if some hard to get ones are expensive. Vintage ones in good condition are expensive because so many nostalgic people want them so they are really collectables rather than just an old toy and so are priced differently to unwanted old stuff.

I guess that's the exact problem I've been running up against. I need more figures for my 80s and early 90s space themes and I guess some are just too unique to their specific themes. And yes next to the cheap prices of common bricks, I consider a few Eur/Usd per minifig a lot when needing a good amount. The more rare colors of course get even crazier. I don't mind some minimal wear, to me that adds to realism of a scene. But of course icons on a torso do need to be recognizable as such.

[SpacePolice89]

10 hours ago, JesseNight said:

I guess that's the exact problem I've been running up against. I need more figures for my 80s and early 90s space themes and I guess some are just too unique to their specific themes. And yes next to the cheap prices of common bricks, I consider a few Eur/Usd per minifig a lot when needing a good amount. The more rare colors of course get even crazier. I don't mind some minimal wear, to me that adds to realism of a scene. But of course icons on a torso do need to be recognizable as such.

I don't mind minifigs being unique and like the variety of the 80s and 90s minifigs but I on the other hand don't like too detailed minifigs. I think that leg and helmet printing should only be used on special minifigs like officers and robots like Spyrius and Unitron did.

[Darth_Bane13]

On 1/2/2026 at 10:06 AM, BrickBob Studpants said:

Kinda funny how there are now AFOLs that never even knew the old shades of grey and brown from their childhoods. Feel old yet?

That's me, my first set was in 2007-08. I never even knew old grey and brown existed for a long time.

[ShaydDeGrai]

On 1/2/2026 at 10:06 AM, BrickBob Studpants said:

Kinda funny how there are now AFOLs that never even knew the old shades of grey and brown from their childhoods. Feel old yet?

But we must also pity those young'ins who will never know the joy of discovering a radical "new" colors like "tan"/"brick yellow"  and "sand green" for the very first time.  Speaking as someone raised on the basic white, red, and black with occasional dashes of blue and yellow with a green baseplate... it was just - wow -

The joy of "discovering" the new world of "Earth Blue", "Earth Green", "Dark Red", etc. more than makes up for the (ongoing) anguish of the grey and brown color shifts.  Sure, it's still cool to get a new color (or an old part finally available in a particular color) but after after living with a half dozen colors for decades and having to mentally justify why all the window frames and slopey roofs on every building are red then suddenly (by comparison) getting an entire palette of mature and interesting tones, that's way more excitement than I think a younger AFOL could ever must over say, finding a new shade of medium nougat.

And for the record, I'm kinda okay with old light gray, I've mixed that with new light blueish grey for weathering effects quite effectively in the past.  As for the old brown, that's becomeing less of a problem every day, as those parts are so brittle, someday I won't have any left.  Old dark grey is still a issue though, they don't blend well for my tastes and just get used as filler or prototypes.

[JesseNight]

3 hours ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

That's me, my first set was in 2007-08. I never even knew old grey and brown existed for a long time.

I'm on the opposite end. I stopped with Lego around 1995-1996, I never knew there was new grey and brown until 2 years ago. First time I heard about it was... confusing.

I'm okay with there being new colors, as well as light and dark shades. It just feels a bit too much at times, sometimes having trouble telling 2 shades apart that are really close. And I know I'm not the only one, having seen threads on this board about the exact same thing before.