The LEGO Ideas Thread

[BrickBob Studpants]

14 minutes ago, danth said:

Edward Scissorhands Ideas set. CHRISTMAS MOVIE HOUSE FROM 1990. 

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but in what universe is that an Xmas movie house?   It’s a gothic castle, and it doesn’t look like the story is even set in December  Or do you classify it as such because the movie came out in December? That’s a stretch and you know it

[danth]

https://www.google.com/search?&q=Is+edward+scissorhands+a+christmas+movie

 

31 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

I didn’t say I was revelling in other people’s dissatisfaction, only that the constant bashing makes me less sympathetic to their cause.

Still seems like you're making it personal and holding a grudge against people for having a preference. You haven't made any real distinction between preferring unlicensed sets and "OMG LITERALLY MURDERING LICENSED THEMES AND DESECRATING THEIR BODIES". Everyone always demands that fans of unlicensed themes justify their preference, and then when they do it's always "OMG WHY DO YOU HATE LICENSED THEMES AND THEIR FANS AND THE POOR SET DESIGNERS" when we say nothing even close to that.

[danth]

Part of preferring X over Y is not liking some things about Y. And if you list what you don't like about Y, because people demand you explain your preference, you get accused of "tearing Y down" and then "see, you deserve to be unhappy because you tear others down".

Fans of classic themes literally can't win. 

[GameyRaccoon]

1 hour ago, danth said:

(The situation is reversed with non-licensed sets; the original designs are often amazing because they have to be, and the official released sets are always worse because they have to be -- the budget people require sacrifices to reduce cost.)

Keep spitting, Danth. I'm almost looking forward to the Amsterdam Canal Houses set because I'm a total sucker for all things Dutch, but judging by the Italian Riviera/Pirates of Barracuda Bay, it'll be shrunken down yet overpriced. 

Why spend parts budget on bricks and plates when you could spend it on tiny 1x1 tiles and a big black display pad? 

[icm]

33 minutes ago, GameyRaccoon said:

I'm almost looking forward to the Amsterdam Canal Houses set because I'm a total sucker for all things Dutch, but judging by the Italian Riviera/Pirates of Barracuda Bay, it'll be shrunken down yet overpriced. 

I'm going to stay out of the licensed/unlicensed debate this time, but I'd just like to comment and say that PoBB was fantastic value. It had over 2500 pieces and 10 minifigs for $200, and they were big pieces: one lower bow segment, one upper bow segment, four center hull segments, three mast parts, a rowboat, a shark, six big fabric sails, two big pirate flags, four big rigging shrouds, lots of big curved tan round bricks for sand, enough big aqua-blue plates and wedge plates for a roughly 32x64 base area, three firing cannons ... PoBB didn't have the big raised baseplate of the original submission, but it was still incredibly good value for money, and a heck of a lot better value than anything else at the $200-$250 price range since then.

Edit - eight true minifigures, two skeletons, and the upper half of a minifig in the figurehead

Edited 15 hours ago by icm

[Siroco]

1 hour ago, icm said:

I'm going to stay out of the licensed/unlicensed debate this time, but I'd just like to comment and say that PoBB was fantastic value. It had over 2500 pieces and 10 minifigs for $200, and they were big pieces: one lower bow segment, one upper bow segment, four center hull segments, three mast parts, a rowboat, a shark, six big fabric sails, two big pirate flags, four big rigging shrouds, lots of big curved tan round bricks for sand, enough big aqua-blue plates and wedge plates for a roughly 32x64 base area, three firing cannons ... PoBB didn't have the big raised baseplate of the original submission, but it was still incredibly good value for money, and a heck of a lot better value than anything else at the $200-$250 price range since then.

Edit - eight true minifigures, two skeletons, and the upper half of a minifig in the figurehead

So true, better than the original submission, best lego set I've ever bought, and I've been buying lego for some decades now.

[danth]

3 hours ago, GameyRaccoon said:

Keep spitting, Danth. I'm almost looking forward to the Amsterdam Canal Houses set because I'm a total sucker for all things Dutch, but judging by the Italian Riviera/Pirates of Barracuda Bay, it'll be shrunken down yet overpriced. 

Why spend parts budget on bricks and plates when you could spend it on tiny 1x1 tiles and a big black display pad? 

I too was excited about the Italian Riviera, but agree that it lost its wow factor after the TLG treatment. 

As for Pirates of Barracuda Bay, I was secretly glad it was redesigned to allow building of the ship. I was already tired of the "ramshackle building" copycats, so an actual pirate ship was preferable to me.

[Kit Figsto]

6 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Again, that’s an insult to everyone who puts hard work into their projects. It’s not less work just because the building/vehicle/object already has an existing design, you still need to translate it into a realistic set, and that’s still a challenge  And you can’t tell me that Ideas projects based on something more generic like the A-Frame or the Medieval Blacksmith didn’t use any reference material. The design process isn’t that different overall.

I know you weren't responding to me directly, but I did want to clarify one point, I'm not 100% against licensed Ideas submissions, but I think that there is a clear difference between "this would actually make a cool set because this thing is an interesting design" and "I want the minifigures from X movie so I'm going to make a $200 set based around it."  I myself have wanted to put in a licensed Ideas submission for a while, I just don't have the time to dedicate to actually build it (ironically, it's also a house, from Kim Possible, though I maintain that the design would lend itself to an interesting set, even though I am highly doubtful that it would pass review).  

I kind of agree with the points made about the National Lampoon's house - it's VERY similar to the Home Alone house that's already out, but I'd argue that the Home Alone house is a lot more famous of a movie location and offers more potentially interesting stuff happening on the interior.

I just have gotten bored of the meta of "take a popular licensed property, make a very large build out of it, and then spam it to Reddit/message boards for that IP" since it feels that's been going on for 5+ years now.  I own multiple licensed Ideas sets - the Cuusoo DeLorean, the original Ecto-1, the Pooh Bear house (which is a fantastic set), but I feel as if those sets coming out at a time when we weren't getting nearly as many Icons sets made the Ideas process much more interesting to me.  It felt like for a licensed property to get 10k, it had to be something really interesting, and it didn't necessarily have to be this huge thing.

We've gotten 40 licensed Ideas sets total in the 15 years that the program has been around, 23 of which came in the last 5 years.  However, of those 23, we've had 4 that were less than $100 (Sonic at $80, the Polaroid camera at $80, the Pixar lamp at $70, and Snoopy at $90).  Contrast that with the first ten years of the program, where EVERYTHING with the exception of Voltron and Sesame Street were under $100, including 4 sets that were actually under $40.  Like, even the Big Bang living room was only a $60 set, whereas all of the TV sets that we've gotten since then have been enormous, even though they're basically representing the same thing that one did.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't think licensed = bad, but it's felt really redundant to me.  That's partially a critique of some of the submissions, and partially on LEGO, because I can pretty much guarantee that if the submission had been the National Lampoon's RV instead of the house, that it wouldn't have gotten through.  They clearly want huge sets, so people are responding accordingly.  I don't fault people for wanting their favorite movie/TV show/book/comic series made in LEGO format, but sometimes it feels to me, like, do we really NEED a $200 set of this?  That part, to me, is on LEGO.

[hikouki]

16 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

Yes.

.

 

Bummer. 

I wonder if its because someone else had the license???

[BrickBob Studpants]

8 hours ago, hikouki said:

Bummer. 

I wonder if its because someone else had the license???

Or they couldn’t reach a deal with the license holder  Sometimes, they also run into issues regarding certain actor’s likenesses. Don’t quote me on that, but I believe actors can object to their likeness being used for toys and other merchandise.

I wish they’d give us more insight into their decision-making, especially why projects get removed from the parking lot, but I get why they won’t (or even can’t). It would only encourage gaming the system