Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[danth]

You know what's stupid? This thread may have convinced me to buy some of these ridiculous Remix sets. Because they are cheeeap when you look at the price per piece, and the sheer amount of stuff you get. $60 for 874 pieces, three good sized vehicles that all look pretty good, and from what I can, all printed logos! You can just consider the weird modularity a bonus that you can ignore.

Edited January 27 by danth

[Lyichir]

4 hours ago, danth said:

You know what's stupid? This thread may have convinced me to buy some of these ridiculous Remix sets. Because they are cheeeap when you look at the price per piece, and the sheer amount of stuff you get. $60 for 874 pieces, three good sized vehicles that all look pretty good, and from what I can, all printed logos! You can just consider the weird modularity a bonus that you can ignore.

That's one of the reasons I don't particularly mind it even when it doesn't contribute all that much or make all that much sense. A lot of Lego sets tend to be assembled in sections anyway (to make them easier for kids to build, especially with medium-to-large sets that they might not want to do in one sitting), so having sets where those sections are designed with compatible connection points so that you can swap them around between sets if you so choose doesn't detract that much overall.
 

[The Reader]

On 1/27/2026 at 6:39 PM, danth said:

that "It's for kids" is used all the time as an excuse for something being nonsensical

Yesterday, the annual Toy Fair in Nuremberg/Germany started. See this press release dealing with "toys for kidults": https://www.spielwarenmesse.de/fileadmin/SWM_Dateien/PDF/Presse/Pressemappe/Press_Release_Spielwarenmesse_2026_Toys_for_Kidults_en.pdf

Quote (bold by me): 

Quote

(...) Current market research results confirm the enormous potential: in the US, around $13.4 billion was spent on toys for recipients aged 12 and over between October 2024 and September 2025 – an increase of 12 percent over the previous year and already 30.2 percent of the total toy market. In the five largest European markets (Germany, the UK, Italy, Spain, and France), sales for this age group also rose by 14 percent to 5.7 billion euros, which corresponds to a 32 percent share of the total market. These figures clearly show that kidults are no longer a niche trend and offer retailers new sales opportunities and a wide range of possibilities for expanding their product ranges. (...)

So almost one third of the toy market is for (young) adults.

Edited January 28 by The Reader

[JesseNight]

On 1/27/2026 at 10:53 PM, MAB said:

Having them modular also means it is quick and easy to switch bits out or add extra sections in, without needing to totally take the model apart then rebuild. So good for kids that prefer the play to the building side.

I guess... That just makes it sound like rebuilding is a chore. Wasn't that the whole point of toys that are building bricks once? I have a hard time understanding modern youth and their constant rushing. I'm starting to sound like my dad now

[Karalora]

5 hours ago, JesseNight said:

I guess... That just makes it sound like rebuilding is a chore. Wasn't that the whole point of toys that are building bricks once? I have a hard time understanding modern youth and their constant rushing. I'm starting to sound like my dad now

In the case of the modular vehicles or Dreamzzz, I think the intent is that the builds should be modular within the fiction that kids might be playing. Having to completely take apart and rebuild something would bring the game to a grinding halt, but modular constructions could be altered within the flow of play.

[MAB]

11 hours ago, JesseNight said:

I guess... That just makes it sound like rebuilding is a chore. Wasn't that the whole point of toys that are building bricks once? I have a hard time understanding modern youth and their constant rushing. I'm starting to sound like my dad now

Kids are different, as are adults. At one extreme, some like to build but then don't really play whereas at the other extreme some like to play but don't like to build as much. If a kid wants to dismantle these sets into basic parts to rebuild into something else, nothing is stopping them, just like a normal set. But this also gives kids that prefer play over rebuilding a chance to quickly mashup their set into something else.

[jimmynick]

On 1/27/2026 at 10:18 PM, danth said:

You know what's stupid? This thread may have convinced me to buy some of these ridiculous Remix sets. Because they are cheeeap when you look at the price per piece, and the sheer amount of stuff you get. $60 for 874 pieces, three good sized vehicles that all look pretty good, and from what I can, all printed logos! You can just consider the weird modularity a bonus that you can ignore.

Sometimes some of these wacky sets have a great price per part. I think some of the complaints have to do with the theme. There were those Star Wars sets a few years ago that let you swap wings and fuselages of a few different vehicles: that's OK. If it's City, apparently it's not.

The remix feature doesn't appeal to me particularly to be honest, but the builds themselves look solid. That's a sick submarine!

[Erik Leppen]

 

On 1/27/2026 at 6:24 PM, LegendaryArticuno said:

On 12/29/2025 at 5:55 PM, Parrot said:

I prefer stickers over printed pieces.

I like my bricks free of any imagery. With stickers, I can simply choose not to apply them.

This is unpopular opinions, not illogical opinions.

I fully agree with @Parrot on this one. I see Lego as a system of bricks, and I just find that decals (of any kind) don't fit in this system. Using decals feels like cheating (by the designers).

[danth]

2 hours ago, Erik Leppen said:

I fully agree with @Parrot on this one. I see Lego as a system of bricks, and I just find that decals (of any kind) don't fit in this system. Using decals feels like cheating (by the designers).

You're preference is totally valid.

For designs that are large enough, I prefer them to be brick-built over using either a print or sticker. Or even for some smaller stuff, you can use textured pieces instead of prints/stickers. Like, I'd much rather a set use masonry bricks than some brickwork print. 

But if you consider prints as "cheating", wouldn't a sticker be even worse "cheating"? A printed brick is still a brick in your "system of bricks", but a sticker isn't. 

Are you mostly a MOCer? What about prints in a set like this?

If someone gifted you this set, would you prefer the printed eyes were stickers instead, so you could leave the creature eyeless? Or would you not care because you'd replace the printed piece with some small tile or something to create your own eye? Or would you not bother with the set at all out of disinterest?

What do you think of minifigures? Do they fit into the "system of bricks"? Should they have unprinted faces and torsos?

None of these are rhetorical questions. I'm seriously curious. 

[ShaydDeGrai]

2 minutes ago, danth said:

For designs that are large enough, I prefer them to be brick-built over using either a print or sticker.

Couldn't agree more on that front.  I'm a major fan of form language (and have lived through multiple eras where overly simplistic designs relied way too much on stickers and printed parts to convey to the user what the model was actually supposed to be).   A good design should let the shape and textures of the parts speak for themselves.

Failing that, I prefer printed parts over stickers, but those parts should be few in number and essential for the overall design.  For my own MOC-ing purposes, printed parts are far less versatile than a plain brick so I don't want to clutter up my collection with a lot of "limited use" parts.

Ironically, the one theme where I don't actually mind the stickers is Speed Champions.  The switch to 8-wide (and introduction of a fair number of new molds in recent years)  has allowed that line to really embrace quality form language and brick-built detail but it still uses some of the most complicated sticker sheets around; but I'm okay with that precisely because the models are race cars and if you real NASCAR vehicles, you quickly realize they are covered in stickers too so, in this one, exceptional, case the presence of stickers (at least philosophically) adds to the realism (even if correctly placing and aligning them is a pain in the neck).

[JesseNight]

12 hours ago, MAB said:

Kids are different, as are adults. At one extreme, some like to build but then don't really play whereas at the other extreme some like to play but don't like to build as much. If a kid wants to dismantle these sets into basic parts to rebuild into something else, nothing is stopping them, just like a normal set. But this also gives kids that prefer play over rebuilding a chance to quickly mashup their set into something else.

Very true. I was a builder with Lego as a kid. For playing I had other toys that I just liked better for it. I did use Lego to build missing things from other toy lines though
 

9 hours ago, jimmynick said:

Sometimes some of these wacky sets have a great price per part. I think some of the complaints have to do with the theme. There were those Star Wars sets a few years ago that let you swap wings and fuselages of a few different vehicles: that's OK. If it's City, apparently it's not.

Wasn't the point of City (and classic Town) to display scenes from real life? Like jobs, emergency services, realistic vehicles we see in daily life, houses? So I can in fact understand why it'd be more accepted in a fictional theme, even if it may not always make sense in every franchise there either.

Edited January 29 by JesseNight

[Toastie]

5 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

 A good design should let the shape and textures of the parts speak for themselves.

I could not agree more.

However, the good design judgment of the individual listening to the parts speaking, is governed by the individual's willingness or capability to let imagination, transfer thoughts, extrapolation, memory (...) run freely, without limits.

Best
Thorsten

     

[Lyichir]

Even as an adult, I find that modular swapping is a nice feature compared to rebuilding from scratch if for no other reason than it being less of a commitment. It's the difference between trying out a new combination in a matter of moments versus committing hours to disassembling a set fully and then reassembling it as an alternate model. And the former can still encourage creativity, since those connection points for add-ons work just as well with small custom modules as they do with the ones that come with the set by default.

Dreamzzz actually tends to have a nice combination of all of these approaches—a base model that typically stays consistent between builds, alternate builds that involve disassembling the rest of the set (instead of having to fully disassemble it all), and occasionally modular weapons or accessories that can work with either build or mixed and matched with other sets. 

Edited January 29 by Lyichir

[JesseNight]

5 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

Failing that, I prefer printed parts over stickers, but those parts should be few in number and essential for the overall design.  For my own MOC-ing purposes, printed parts are far less versatile than a plain brick so I don't want to clutter up my collection with a lot of "limited use" parts.

Couldn't agree more.
For example, if I look back at my childhood, a 1980s Police car (cars being 4 studs wide at the time) needed either printed parts or stickers to put "POLICE" on the vehicle, no way doing that in another way in that scale. Looking back at my collection from those days, the printed parts are still holding while many of the stickers are either gone or loose.

[LegendaryArticuno]

If you dislike prints because you cant "reuse" the piece. Then you lack basic engineering and design thought process to simply invert the printed piece or hide it within the build so its a non-issue.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, LegendaryArticuno said:

If you dislike prints because you cant "reuse" the piece. Then you lack basic engineering and design thought process to simply invert the printed piece or hide it within the build so its a non-issue.

Unless you want the unprinted piece on show. If you are hiding it inside, chances are you can use a different part or colour anyway.

[danth]

59 minutes ago, MAB said:

Unless you want the unprinted piece on show. If you are hiding it inside, chances are you can use a different part or colour anyway.

Regardless, the vast majority of printed/stickered pieces are tiles or (curved) slopes of some kind, and these are plentiful pieces that almost always exist unprinted, so you can easily get them if needed.

If you're buying sets for MOCs and want undecorated parts you might prefer stickers, but buying sets for a specific MOC doesn't really make a whole lot of sense when Bricklink and PAB exist, and buying sets for general MOCing is always going to give you loads of parts you never use anyway, and you can always buy Classic style sets if you want to avoid decorations. 

So while the preference for undecorated parts is valid, sets with printed parts is not much of a problem -- just don't buy them. Get your undecorated parts easily in other sets, or by buying them individually.

And really the people who "prefer stickers because you can leave them off" don't prefer stickers to prints, they prefer undecorated parts to decorated parts, and don't actually want stickers or prints.

People who want decorated parts always prefer prints because...stickers really have no upside if you actually use them. I guess there might be weirdos out there who like thumbprints and bubbles in their decorations and lint and hair stuck around the edges...

Edited January 30 by danth

[MAB]

With the official reveal of Blue Scaled-Up Astronaut Minifigure today, I have already seen a couple of comments wishing the CS panel was done with a clear sticker instead of printed so that it would be possible to do scaled-up CS minifigures in other colours. The printed blue panel will no doubt be ideal for creating bases or ships, but if someone wants other colour large figures then it is useless. It shows there are often two sides wanting different things.

[Erik Leppen]

17 hours ago, danth said:

None of these are rhetorical questions. I'm seriously curious. 

• if you consider prints as "cheating", wouldn't a sticker be even worse "cheating"? -> Sure. I don't apply stickers, of course. But at least with stickers I have the choice.
• Are you mostly a MOCer? -> Yes. Sets, for me, are build experiences + parts packs.
• What about prints in a set like this? [image] The pattern on the back of the crocodile is unnecessary. Using the same parts unprinted would work just as well. You have to leave some things to the imagination. That's what Lego design is about, for me. Also, there are those 'rocky slopes' for texture now. The eye could (and for me, should) have been a bright light orange 1x1 round plate with open stud with a black bar in it, or something else but at least it should be pieces, not prints. I don't see any other decals in the model that it couldn't go without.
• If someone gifted you this set, would you prefer the printed eyes were stickers instead, so you could leave the creature eyeless? Or would you not care because you'd replace the printed piece with some small tile or something to create your own eye? Or would you not bother with the set at all out of disinterest? --> I would build it as instructed (but without stickers), leave it assembled for a while, and then it goes to the parts collections, and the eyes end up in a 'not usable' bin.
• What do you think of minifigures? Do they fit into the "system of bricks"? Should they have unprinted faces and torsos? -> I have no interest in minifigures; I don't build 'minifig-scale things'. But yeah, I udnerstand that figures need some kind of printing. I'm not really into all the different faces or torso/leg prints. I loved the Everyone is awesome set because of the unprinted minifigs. They have a particular abstractness that I like in Lego.

 

4 hours ago, LegendaryArticuno said:

If you dislike prints because you cant "reuse" the piece. Then you lack basic engineering and design thought process to simply invert the printed piece or hide it within the build so its a non-issue.

Using a piece is not a goal. The goal is building a particular thing, and I want to have as many different pieces in my collection to achieve that particular thing. A piece having a print decreases these options for me.

 

2 hours ago, danth said:

And really the people who "prefer stickers because you can leave them off" don't prefer stickers to prints, they prefer undecorated parts to decorated parts, and don't actually want stickers or prints.

People who want decorated parts always prefer prints because...stickers really have no upside if you actually use them.

I think this nails it.

[danth]

5 hours ago, Erik Leppen said:

• if you consider prints as "cheating", wouldn't a sticker be even worse "cheating"? -> Sure. I don't apply stickers, of course. But at least with stickers I have the choice.
• Are you mostly a MOCer? -> Yes. Sets, for me, are build experiences + parts packs.
• What about prints in a set like this? [image] The pattern on the back of the crocodile is unnecessary. Using the same parts unprinted would work just as well. You have to leave some things to the imagination. That's what Lego design is about, for me. Also, there are those 'rocky slopes' for texture now. The eye could (and for me, should) have been a bright light orange 1x1 round plate with open stud with a black bar in it, or something else but at least it should be pieces, not prints. I don't see any other decals in the model that it couldn't go without.
• If someone gifted you this set, would you prefer the printed eyes were stickers instead, so you could leave the creature eyeless? Or would you not care because you'd replace the printed piece with some small tile or something to create your own eye? Or would you not bother with the set at all out of disinterest? --> I would build it as instructed (but without stickers), leave it assembled for a while, and then it goes to the parts collections, and the eyes end up in a 'not usable' bin.
• What do you think of minifigures? Do they fit into the "system of bricks"? Should they have unprinted faces and torsos? -> I have no interest in minifigures; I don't build 'minifig-scale things'. But yeah, I udnerstand that figures need some kind of printing. I'm not really into all the different faces or torso/leg prints. I loved the Everyone is awesome set because of the unprinted minifigs. They have a particular abstractness that I like in Lego.

Thanks for taking the time to answer! Really puts some perspective on large scale MOCer vs. minifig scale set builder. 

5 hours ago, Erik Leppen said:

Using a piece is not a goal. The goal is building a particular thing, and I want to have as many different pieces in my collection to achieve that particular thing. A piece having a print decreases these options for me.

👍🏼

5 hours ago, Erik Leppen said:

I think this nails it.

Yay! That was part of what I was trying to figure out with my questions. 

6 hours ago, MAB said:

With the official reveal of Blue Scaled-Up Astronaut Minifigure today, I have already seen a couple of comments wishing the CS panel was done with a clear sticker instead of printed so that it would be possible to do scaled-up CS minifigures in other colours. The printed blue panel will no doubt be ideal for creating bases or ships, but if someone wants other colour large figures then it is useless. It shows there are often two sides wanting different things.

Clear backed stickers would be way more useful.

Because almost all Lego stickers are NOT clear-backed, I've often railed against the argument that "stickers are more useful because I can put them on another part," because the shape and backing color dictate what parts you can actually use them on. Most stickers cover an entire brick of a specific shape anyway...and if the sticker color doesn't match the brick color, it's going to look weird. You can cut a sticker down to a smaller size, maybe (if the sticker is large but the actual decoration is small), but you are still limited by the sticker's backing color. 

Clear backed stickers fix that problem of course. I usually consider it a moot point though, because almost all the Lego stickers I've ever gotten in a set are opaque. 

Clear backed stickers are going to have all kinds of downsides though -- like seeing every spec of dust, lint, or god forbid pet hair that got underneath them. And I assume worse looking bubbles and thumbprints. 

And they must be made differently, right? Like plastic instead of paper, and maybe even a different adhesive. I wonder if they are more expensive? 

Edited January 30 by danth

[danth]

One other thing: I don't think all the parts for the upscaled astronaut are going to be available in all colors anyway. So the reality is, clear backed stickers are never going to solve all your problems. Also, how are are you going to get extra stickers? 

Super last thing: If I wanted to build this in red, I'd still rather have prints than clear-backed stickers. I'd just buy the third party printed pieces that will surely be available.

[Stereo]

I used about 1/10 of the stickers on 42125.  That's about the main upside of stickers that I see.  Mix and match instead of going to fully 0 or everything that Lego decided needs a print.

[Mr Hobbles]

On 1/28/2026 at 8:53 PM, The Reader said:

Yesterday, the annual Toy Fair in Nuremberg/Germany started. See this press release dealing with "toys for kidults": https://www.spielwarenmesse.de/fileadmin/SWM_Dateien/PDF/Presse/Pressemappe/Press_Release_Spielwarenmesse_2026_Toys_for_Kidults_en.pdf

Quote (bold by me): 

So almost one third of the toy market is for (young) adults.

Just to point out, in this context share of the market is in terms of revenue, not in terms of number of participants. It could be that only 1% of the audience is kidults and 99% are children, but the kidults are spending a lot more.

This is to say that there's an argument to be made that by just focusing on where the money is, we risk forgetting our core (and arguably most morally important) demographic.

Thankfully I haven't noticed this too mucg yet with regards to Lego's products. For every $700 6,000 piece set there's an excellent looking $20 set for kids. See the latest Lego City wave. But it's a slippery slope.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Mr Hobbles said:

Just to point out, in this context share of the market is in terms of revenue, not in terms of number of participants. It could be that only 1% of the audience is kidults and 99% are children, but the kidults are spending a lot more.

Adult sets are obviously more expensive, but there are huge numbers of adults buying LEGO with very different habits. I know of adults buying one or two sets a year. I don't think the adult market is necessarily all stereotypical AFOL that spend $1000s a year. Just like there are kids that get maybe a couple of small sets a year through to the other extreme where the kid gets large numbers of sets.

1 hour ago, Mr Hobbles said:

For every $700 6,000 piece set there's an excellent looking $20 set for kids. 

 For every $700 set, there are about 400 sub-$50 sets, and about 300 of them will be aimed at 5-12 year old kids.

 

[Karalora]

Can I just say that I despise the term "kidult?" What a miserable portmanteau that is, both aesthetically and in the implied judgment against what some people choose to do with their time and money.