Future Castle Sets?

[Alexandrina]

54 minutes ago, MAB said:

I think the simple answer is yes.

I really don't think the matter is as cut and dry as all that. I may be forgetting something, but I'm not aware of a post-Lego Movie original theme not backed up by a cartoon/tie-in. If there is one, please correct me.

(Obviously I'm excluding themes such as Basic, Creator, Architecture, since they're not really relevant to the issue at hand).

It could well be the case that Lego have stuck to cartoon-backed themes because their market research suggests other themes won't sell. The truth is, though, that unless and until there have been a few themes in succession to come out without any media tie-in and fail it's simply not possible to say definitively that themes without cartoons will not sell well. (I say a couple because themes fail for a multitude of reasons, so one theme not doing well won't be evidence that themes need a cartoon - it could have been that the sets were lacklustre, that they got the wrong target audience, anything. Several themes would indicate a common issue, though).

Now, if you don't believe it would succeed, that's fair enough; if you think a series would be weaker without having a cartoon, also fair enough. I'm just not sure it's fair to tout something as fact when (as far as I know) there is literally no solid evidence to take it beyond supposition.

[gedren_y]

The current problem is that too many IPs overlap Castle at different points (and to a lesser extent Pirates) for an in-house theme to penetrate, even if it had a media tie-in.

Ninjago has eaten up a lot of space by how quickly it has changed directions. The cyberpunk sets are still around, so the medieval sets might still be around at Christmas. The upcoming island and underwater sets won't help matters either. Some of the Legacy sets could also overlap, but that would probably be less of an issue for a mostly realistic Castle theme as opposed to something like Fantasy Era.

Harry Potter isn't going away anytime soon either, but it can exist alongside Castle by simply focusing on other parts of the story.

But now we have a Disney movie IP contending for space too. While it looks like Raya and the Last Dragon will only get a small wave of sets, depending on how Disney's release schedule pans out, these could be produced for quite some time too.

Edited February 25, 2021 by gedren_y

[Roebuck]

3 hours ago, DaleDVM said:

2013 castle not so much.  Lesson... Don't dumb down print designs for kids. 

I think it was dumbed down because of LOTR was on shelf and that backfired on Castle fans. LOTR did not sell enough to kids and 2013 Castle probably not enough to older kids and adult so Lego most likely concluded that normal Castle sets do not sell any more period. If they had skipped 2013 Castle and continued where 2011-12 stopped after LOTR had died instead I think things could be different today 

We got the Blacksmith this year, the 90th anniversary vote had a massive support for castle themes and if we keep the pressure up they soon will bring back the goat so there is light in the tunnel for Castle fans I would say

[DaleDVM]

I just ventured over to Bricklink to see what the peasant figs are going for right now.  OMG!!!  I am sitting on a gold mine.  If only I had the stones to sell my collection.  Especially the female figures!  The latest kingdoms peasants are going for over $20 each. 

But wait a tick...  The medieval market ones are going for a lot less and they are the older figs.  Weird!  

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

I really don't think the matter is as cut and dry as all that.

My answer of yes was to the last question about have things changed much in toy world. I think toys, especially lego, have changed significantly in the past 15 years. As have kids. Tablets, apps and tech are now integrated into many higher end toys, kids think nothing of getting their media from youtube/Internet rather than broadcast TV and paper catalogues and especially after TLM, a lot of advertising is now through tie-in media rather than traditional advertising. The cartoons are 20 minutes or so of advertising. Why do 30 secs of advertising when the show can be the advertising. Any theme without media has to go up against such themes with media. That is why I think it s likely to lose the shelf space battle.

7 minutes ago, DaleDVM said:

I just ventured over to Bricklink to see what the peasant figs are going for right now.  OMG!!!  I am sitting on a gold mine.  If only I had the stones to sell my collection.  Especially the female figures!  The latest kingdoms peasants are going for over $20 each. 

But wait a tick...  The medieval market ones are going for a lot less and they are the older figs.  Weird!  

The problem with the Fantasy Era male peasants is that they are all very similar torsos, which has probably held their value back. Whereas Kingdoms ones introduced a bit more variation. Although all have been selling very well recently. Kingdoms soldiers in particular have done well for me recently.

[Alexandrina]

3 minutes ago, MAB said:

The cartoons are 20 minutes or so of advertising. Why do 30 secs of advertising when the show can be the advertising. Any theme without media has to go up against such themes with media

But do kids, when they're actually in a shop, want the cool looking set with specific characters they don't know because they don't watch the cartoon or the cool looking set with useful army builders?

To take it one further, what do kids do when all the themes are based on TV series, but the series have been running long enough that most of the associated sets have been discontinued? The Ninjago TV series has been running for a decade now, and while I don't doubt that it's an outlier in terms of length, Lego aren't going to set out to make a new theme explicitly hoping it gets cut short. There are kids now who are ten years old - almost ready to leave primary school, not far off entering their Dark Ages or going off Lego altogether, who weren't alive for the beginning of the series. There are kids just getting into Lego who have about nine seasons worth of Lego Ninjago content that no longer has associated sets on the shelves. The percentage is only going to increase as long as the series is running, unless Lego extend the shelf life of sets in general or resurrect old sets.

Compare that to a theme like Castle, not backed by a TV series. I'm going to use the 1990s subthemes as an example, purely because that was a pretty much unbroken streak of Castle sets. A kid who's born in 1995, either an only child or an eldest child, will start getting into Lego in a big way in around 2000. They've got the Knights Kingdom sets on the shelves, possibly the lingering remnants of latter-day Ninja/Fright Knights. They might also have one or two older sets bought as gifts when they were younger, likely tiny sets if they've only been casually into Lego before. And that's enough. They're not tuning into a cartoon that starts with the adventurers of the Crusaders, Black Knights and Forestmen of 1990, so they're not disappointed to be missing out on those sets. They'll still get into Castle.

How many kids are unable to get into Ninjago because what they're watching on TV no longer fully correlates with what's on the shelves? I bet it's at least a few.

[MAB]

9 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

But do kids, when they're actually in a shop, want the cool looking set with specific characters they don't know because they don't watch the cartoon or the cool looking set with useful army builders?

I don't think kids care too much about army builders. When my kids play, it doesn't really matter what theme the figures came from,  they all get included. If they had to choose in a store though, I imagine they would go for the more dynamic looking action based one.

14 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

There are kids just getting into Lego who have about nine seasons worth of Lego Ninjago content that no longer has associated sets on the shelves. The percentage is only going to increase as long as the series is running, unless Lego extend the shelf life of sets in general or resurrect old sets.

 

I don't think that matters. They still know Ninjago and they know the main characters. Any current Ninjago sets are still recognizable as Ninjago and will have an advantage over something they do not know.

[Poco Lypso]

16 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

But do kids, when they're actually in a shop, want the cool looking set with specific characters they don't know because they don't watch the cartoon or the cool looking set with useful army builders?

To take it one further, what do kids do when all the themes are based on TV series, but the series have been running long enough that most of the associated sets have been discontinued? The Ninjago TV series has been running for a decade now, and while I don't doubt that it's an outlier in terms of length, Lego aren't going to set out to make a new theme explicitly hoping it gets cut short. There are kids now who are ten years old - almost ready to leave primary school, not far off entering their Dark Ages or going off Lego altogether, who weren't alive for the beginning of the series. There are kids just getting into Lego who have about nine seasons worth of Lego Ninjago content that no longer has associated sets on the shelves. The percentage is only going to increase as long as the series is running, unless Lego extend the shelf life of sets in general or resurrect old sets.

Compare that to a theme like Castle, not backed by a TV series. I'm going to use the 1990s subthemes as an example, purely because that was a pretty much unbroken streak of Castle sets. A kid who's born in 1995, either an only child or an eldest child, will start getting into Lego in a big way in around 2000. They've got the Knights Kingdom sets on the shelves, possibly the lingering remnants of latter-day Ninja/Fright Knights. They might also have one or two older sets bought as gifts when they were younger, likely tiny sets if they've only been casually into Lego before. And that's enough. They're not tuning into a cartoon that starts with the adventurers of the Crusaders, Black Knights and Forestmen of 1990, so they're not disappointed to be missing out on those sets. They'll still get into Castle.

How many kids are unable to get into Ninjago because what they're watching on TV no longer fully correlates with what's on the shelves? I bet it's at least a few.

You are overthinking it imo! Kids don't need to watch a show like Ninjago from the very first episode to get into it nor do they need the early sets. The new sets will be more than sufficient. They protagonists are featured multiple times per year - which apparently never gets old.

 

 

 

[Lego David]

26 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

How many kids are unable to get into Ninjago because what they're watching on TV no longer fully correlates with what's on the shelves? I bet it's at least a few.

Tommy Anderson, one of the leading people working on Ninjago said in an interview that they work under a strict policy of not referencing any major story material from older seasons into the new seasons, so new viewers won't get confused. So kids can still get into the Ninjago show even if they weren't even born when it first started, and even if they haven't seen the older seasons. That's part of the secret of Ninjago's enduring success. 

 

[MAB]

To illustrate the point, here is Kai from 2011, 2016, 2020 and even in Minecraft ..

 

It doesn't really matter which episodes of Ninjago a kid has watched, or whether they have old or new sets, they will instantly recognise their heroes.

 

[Alexandrina]

29 minutes ago, MAB said:

Any current Ninjago sets are still recognizable as Ninjago and will have an advantage over something they do not know.

But the issue of whether Castle should be backed by a media tie-in or not is separate, and Ninjago is being referenced here simply as a comparison. There's a good chance a Castle theme - whether with a TV series or not - does worse than Ninjago in the first year or so it's out, but that doesn't mean a Castle theme would do worse than a new theme. Ninjago has a decade's worth of brand recognition to go by, so of course it's going to be more popular than a new theme.

Out of interest, where is Ninjago aired? I've not gone looking for it, but I've also never seen it on any channel listings.

18 minutes ago, Lego David said:

Tommy Anderson, one of the leading people working on Ninjago said in an interview that they work under a strict policy of not referencing any major story material from older seasons into the new seasons,

To be honest, that's even worse. It's bad enough that you have to make the time investment of watching a cartoon to fully appreciate the Ninjago sets (note I say fully appreciate, I'm aware that you can enjoy them well enough without watching the cartoon). To then turn around and say that the time investment you've made is basically worthless because what you've seen will have no consequences later on in the series is essentially to admit that it's an exercise in marketing. If your programme is having major story events - which isn't necessary, especially for kids' TV - those events need to have some repercussions, otherwise what's the point? Why should the audience care?

Let's briefly transfer the hypothetical to a new, non-Lego TV series with the same audience as Ninjago - aimed primarily at older kids but with something for the adults too. Imagine there's a main-adjacent character - an agéd mentor, perhaps, or the woman who runs the local dive bar that the protagonists frequent - who you really like. Every time they're in a scene you're interested, even if they're not the hero, because they're well-written. And then, let's say in the Season Three finale, there's a major story event. This character you like dies. It's heartbreaking.

Except it's not, because you know the series has no long-term consequences. You know that within two years not only will your favourite character's death no longer have repercussions; it won't even be referenced. There will be no acknowledgement that the character even existed.

 

But I'm straying way off topic here, and to be honest probably projecting my own expectations of narrative television onto a series that's not aimed my way, so I'm going to try and hit the brakes on Ninjago talk now.

[Poco Lypso]

43 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

To be honest, that's even worse. It's bad enough that you have to make the time investment of watching a cartoon to fully appreciate the Ninjago sets (note I say fully appreciate, I'm aware that you can enjoy them well enough without watching the cartoon). To then turn around and say that the time investment you've made is basically worthless because what you've seen will have no consequences later on in the series is essentially to admit that it's an exercise in marketing. If your programme is having major story events - which isn't necessary, especially for kids' TV - those events need to have some repercussions, otherwise what's the point? Why should the audience care?

We are still talking about a kids show, arent we?

Its like playing a super mario game - you don't need to have played all games that came before you can jump right in with the latest outing.

And of course, the ninjago show is basically marketing, what else would it be?

 

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

Out of interest, where is Ninjago aired? I've not gone looking for it, but I've also never seen it on any channel listings.

 

Cartoon Network, Netflix, amazon prime and probably other streaming services.

 

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

To be honest, that's even worse. It's bad enough that you have to make the time investment of watching a cartoon to fully appreciate the Ninjago sets (note I say fully appreciate, I'm aware that you can enjoy them well enough without watching the cartoon). To then turn around and say that the time investment you've made is basically worthless because what you've seen will have no consequences later on in the series is essentially to admit that it's an exercise in marketing. If your programme is having major story events - which isn't necessary, especially for kids' TV - those events need to have some repercussions, otherwise what's the point? Why should the audience care?.

Kids TV doesn't really work like that. I don't think kids feel they are having to invest their  time in watching cartoons. Time watching something fun is not worthless if you enjoy it. They are a pleasure, not a chore. Storylines move very slowly throughout a series and most episodes are a fairly well contained story on their own, in that you can watch one in isolation.  I haven't seen Ninjago for a long time, but I have seen Chima and NK with my kids and they follow that sort of pattern. In most episodes something happens and then it is resolved while progressing the bigger story only a small amount. You could easily miss an episode and still know what is happening. 

[Alexandrina]

44 minutes ago, MAB said:

Cartoon Network, Netflix, amazon prime and probably other streaming services.

I'm surprised there's no free-to-air channels. There's probably still a big chunk of UK kids who can't watch it anywhere.

45 minutes ago, MAB said:

Storylines move very slowly throughout a series and most episodes are a fairly well contained story on their own, in that you can watch one in isolation.

That's one thing - and not something I'm opposed to, in kids' TV or otherwise. If that's what the other poster meant by major story events, then I'll retract what I said, because it's not an issue. I was under the impression that it was a long-form narrative á la Game of Thrones (though obviously for a different audience) where each episode is the continuation of a larger story.

[Aanchir]

On 2/22/2021 at 11:30 AM, Brick_Rattlehead said:

This is true and to me its stupid when everytime I try to discuss about this issue, someone will just pointing how today's kids aint into that kind of stuff and Lego will always go with what's popular. That's saddest part  with today's Lego company mindset and mentallity. Intsead of becoming trend setter, they ended up just following the trend. 

A brand as big as Lego should have become TREND SETTER instead of just following trend and relying on licensed themes! 

Also, there's no such thing as "people aint into medieval/castle themes anymore" .  Well,Tolkien stuff always remains popular in pop culture and in recent years, Game of thrones has been the biggest TV series.

City theme has been coming up with similar stuff over and over with similar colour scheme and design and they still never stop doing it.

I mean, LEGO doesn't really rely too heavily on licensed themes — other than LEGO Star Wars, most of their top-selling themes tend to be non-licensed ones like City, Friends, Ninjago, Creator, Technic, and Duplo.

Moreover, I think LEGO has pretty effectively become a "trend-setter" with many of their original themes of the past decade. For instance, Ninjago's massive success seems to have been an influence on Ionix's Tenkai Knights brand which launched in 2013. Likewise, shortly after LEGO Friends launched, companies like Mega Bloks, Lite Brix, and Best-Lock began trying to ride that bandwagon by rolling out their own imitations. And of course, the success of The LEGO Movie franchise ended up prompting other companies to roll out their own sub-par imitations of that concept like "The Emoji Movie" or "Playmobil: The Movie". Enlighten Bricks has likewise been playing follow-the-leader with themes like "Creation of the God" and "The War of Glory", which take extensive cues from LEGO themes like Ninjago, Legends of Chima, Elves, and Nexo Knights. And that's without getting into the more direct knock-offs/bootlegs of these sorts of themes!

Furrthermore, as cool as new Castle sets stuff could be, I don't see how a revival of a decades-old theme would be any more "trend-setting" than the many new non-licensed themes that LEGO has been investing in as of late. And it's just as confusing to condemn LEGO for "going with what's popular", when old-school themes like Town, Castle, Space, and Pirates came about specifically because LEGO knew these were popular concepts among kids and chose to "go with what's popular" even back then.

On 2/24/2021 at 11:34 AM, MAB said:

I cannot see LEGO having both a TV cartoon based Castle theme at the same time as having sets aimed at AFOLs in the same theme. The two don't link together. What one group tends to want, the other doesn't. Of course, there are always some AFOLs that like particular kids' themes, which is fine. However, what most kids and most adults would want for a specific theme are quite different.

I mean, Ninjago has had several TFOL/AFOL-oriented sets (Temple of Airjitzu, Ninjago City, Ninjago City Docks, and Ninjago City Gardens), and they've generally earned high praise from AFOLs — even those who otherwise have no interest in Ninjago.

Plus, even if they didn't have their own TV cartoons, themes like Fantasy Era Castle, Kingdoms, and Monster Fighters were all still aimed at KFOLs (and often even at younger KFOLs than themes like Ninjago, Nexo Knights, and Monkie Kid which target the preteen/tween demographic). Despite that young target audience, all those themes ended up with their own TFOL/AFOL targeted exclusives, which are remembered fondly even to this day.

6 hours ago, MAB said:

I think the simple answer is yes. Since the massive growth in LEGO after The LEGO Movie, so much of the output for kids is now backed up by other media/cartoons and that has become the new format for themes. Castle may have sold OK more than a decade ago, when it was not competing against media driven advertising for the other in-house themes. That is no longer the situation though. Put Castle with no media up against Ninjago and Monkie Kid, and I doubt it will do very well in sales to kids.

Personally, I see the trend towards media-supported themes less as a sign that those are the only types of themes that can sell, and more as a sign that LEGO's has become capable of creating tie-in media like apps or animated series for their themes that might've had to rely on more low-tech marketing strategies in years past.

Even just looking at "big bang" themes, the evolution of media tie-ins can be traced pretty clearly. LEGO Power Miners had named characters, but its storyline was pretty basic, and the most high-tech its tie-in media got was a slapstick-heavy, three-minute animated short. The following year, LEGO Atlantis took things a bit further, establishing backstory for its characters and presenting the first year's story as a half-hour animated TV special.

After that theme's successful launch, LEGO set their sights even higher with LEGO Ninjago, airing an hour-long TV special to coincide with its launch, and releasing various other tie-ins like chapter books, guide books, and a handheld video game over the course of the year. However, even Ninjago wasn't greenlit for a full TV series (focusing on the following year's story)until after that TV special/pilot proved successful. But after Ninjago proved capable of supporting a full series and drawing massive numbers of viewers, it gave LEGO (and presumably, broadcast networks) enough confidence to launch subsequent "big bang" themes like Legends of Chima and Nexo Knights with TV series of their own.
 

I don't think it's implausible to say that if LEGO had this kind of track record for successful animated media and broadcast network/animation studio partnerships decades earlier, themes like Classic Space, Pirates, Adventurers, Alpha Team, Bionicle, Knights' Kingdom, Exo-Force, and Agents could've easily gotten animated TV series or TV specials of their own. And it's not as though LEGO didn't have those sorts of aspirations — in 1986, LEGO and their partners at the ad agency Advance A/S (which later helped manage the Bionicle theme's successful marketing and media strategy) had hopes of creating an animated series, animated movie, and computer game starring Jim Spaceborn (a hero created for the LEGO Space theme's tie-in comic books).

However, none of these plans aside from the comics ended up coming to fruition, and the Jim Spaceborn series as a whole came to an abrupt end in 1987 when LEGO shut down their in-house publishing division. In 2002, the failure of the Galidor theme and the TV series created to promote it further discouraged LEGO from investing in TV series for many years. As such, prior to 2010, even a lot of the most story- and character-driven LEGO themes had to rely on tie-in media that LEGO had more confidence investing in — stuff like short comics (either in print or online), picture books, middle-grade chapter books, board games, handheld video games, and Flash-based online games and animations.
 

Even today, LEGO doesn't have a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy for their in-house themes. After all, themes like LEGO Dots, Creator, and Technic would have little to gain from story-driven media tie-ins like comics, chapter books, or animated series. And while in recent years we've seen an increase in sets and themes designed to tie in with app-based play experiences (like Nexo Knights, Boost, Technic Control+, Hidden Side, Super Mario, and Vidiyo), we've also seen considerably fewer new mobile apps for other story-driven/media-supported LEGO themes.

For instance, although both LEGO Ninjago and LEGO Friends remain popular media-supported themes with their own animated series (either on TV or online), neither theme has had a new mobile app or video game since 2018. By contrast, from 2011 to 2016, story-driven themes like Ninjago, Legends of Chima, Elves, Hero Factory, and Bionicle got new mobile apps practically every year. So I think it's safe to say that LEGO has become considerably more selective about which themes might actually benefit from those sorts of digital tie-ins, with a particular focus on ones that involve interactions between the mobile app and the physical toys.

All in all, I think the scripted story media approach would suit a future Castle theme better than the app/game approach, but that's just my personal feeling (after all, LEGO Elves is still by far the medieval fantasy theme that I've enjoyed the most, and its mobile apps were never really central to its concept or marketing in the way that they tend to be for LEGO's more recent app-supported themes). However, LEGO could always surprise me with some sort of media strategy I'd never have anticipated (and that goes for any new theme, Castle or otherwise). Certainly there have been a wide enough range of media strategies over the past decade to convince me that the current norms for LEGO themes are not set in stone.

4 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

But do kids, when they're actually in a shop, want the cool looking set with specific characters they don't know because they don't watch the cartoon or the cool looking set with useful army builders?

I think that depends on the kid in question. I know that in my case, I've pretty much never really cared much for spending money for a bunch of different copies of the same thing. That sort of feels like a waste to me, since I get much more enjoyment from a shelf full of different character designs (even if a lot of them are new or upgraded designs for the same characters) than from a shelf full of matching characters.

But then, I know that experience isn't universal, even among other fans of the sorts of themes I enjoy like Ninjago or Bionicle. I'm sure there are probably plenty of Bionicle fans around my age who bought multiples of each Bohrok set in 2002 to have a more believable "swarm", or multiples of each Matoran set in 2003 for a more convincing population of villagers. Likewise, there are Ninjago fans who are particularly passionate about collecting figures depicting a particular character or faction — I know at least one popular Ninjago fan artist who specifically focuses on collecting different versions of Lloyd Garmadon, since he's their particular favorite ninja.

And obviously, in some gaming-related hobbies, there are further strategic advantages to having multiples of the same wargaming figurine or trading card to use in a single session. It's not unimaginable to think that if LEGO brought the Castle theme back with a tie-in gaming element of some kind (whether a digital app game or a physical play experience), they could find a way to leverage that as a selling point for "army builder" type sets, even among kids who don't normally experience the "army building" itch. After all, if you get some kind of offensive or defensive bonus from having multiples of the same figure/"unit", are you really going to complain about a set or wave of sets having too many duplicates?

4 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

But do kids, when they're actually in a shop, want the cool looking set with specific characters they don't know because they don't watch the cartoon or the cool looking set with useful army builders?

To take it one further, what do kids do when all the themes are based on TV series, but the series have been running long enough that most of the associated sets have been discontinued? The Ninjago TV series has been running for a decade now, and while I don't doubt that it's an outlier in terms of length, Lego aren't going to set out to make a new theme explicitly hoping it gets cut short. There are kids now who are ten years old - almost ready to leave primary school, not far off entering their Dark Ages or going off Lego altogether, who weren't alive for the beginning of the series. There are kids just getting into Lego who have about nine seasons worth of Lego Ninjago content that no longer has associated sets on the shelves. The percentage is only going to increase as long as the series is running, unless Lego extend the shelf life of sets in general or resurrect old sets. 

[snip]

How many kids are unable to get into Ninjago because what they're watching on TV no longer fully correlates with what's on the shelves? I bet it's at least a few.

This is a valid concern, but for what it's worth, it's also one of the reasons LEGO introduced the "Ninjago Legacy" subtheme in 2019. This way, a lot of the most popular or memorable vehicles, creatures, characters, or locations from the early seasons can be made available to kids who weren't able to collect them when those seasons originally aired, and often even with improved designs. For example, last year's Destiny's Bounty set from the Legacy range much more closely resembles its on-screen counterpart than the original set from 2012 (when the show's first season originally aired), and the functions, aesthetics, and play features have also been refined.

Also, although the show is very continuity-driven, it's not written in such a way that you're strictly required to watch every episode in order to enjoy it. Like most TV series For comparison's sake, the first episode I ever saw of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" was "The Serpent's Pass" from midway through Season 2, but the episode was written in such a way that I could quickly get the gist of who the characters were and what their abilities, weaknesses, and goals were even without knowing the details of any of their previous adventures.

Similarly, even a kid whose first Ninjago episode is from one of the most recent seasons will probably be able to pick up on enough context clues to follow along and develop an emotional connection to the characters as they work to overcome their latest challenges. So it's not as though kids can only enjoy sets based on those newer seasons if they've already been able to catch up on the storyline from the beginning.

And anyway, most Ninjago sets are also designed in such a way that they make for an enjoyable building and play experience even if you don't know about their story context. Even in my own case, I actually haven't seen ANY of the "Master of the Mountain" episodes yet, since lately I've been focusing on watching the earlier seasons with my wife (who hadn't seen the series at all before we started dating — we're currently on Season 6, and it's become a favorite pastime on our weekly date nights ), but I was able to enjoy building the Skull Sorcerer's Dungeons and Skull Sorcerer's Dragon sets months ago without any issue. After all, even without knowing stuff like who the Skull Sorcerer is or what sort of evil plan he has that the ninja are trying to stop, it's not hard to enjoy a cool skeleton dragon, evil volcano lair, nifty fantasy creatures, and color-coded ninja heroes with awesome armor and weapons!

And given the show's erratic release schedule and my general difficulty in keeping up with live TV premieres, this has been my experience with most new waves of sets — enjoy them for their sheer "coolness", then learn the context that gives a better appreciation for some of their details later on, when I actually get a chance to watch the new episodes. Suffice to say, LEGO generally doesn't design sets in a way that forces you to be an avid follower of the corresponding TV show to properly enjoy them.

[Alexandrina]

1 minute ago, Aanchir said:

After all, even without knowing stuff like who the Skull Sorcerer is or what sort of evil plan he has that the ninja are trying to stop, it's not hard to enjoy a cool skeleton dragon, evil volcano lair, nifty fantasy creatures, and color-coded ninja heroes with awesome armor and weapons!

This I cannot disagree with. The Skull Sorceror's Dungeon is still the only Ninjago set I've deliberately sought out and bought (though I also have a few from bulk buys, newspaper promotions, etc.)

2 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

I think that depends on the kid in question. I know that in my case, I've pretty much never really cared much for spending money for a bunch of different copies of the same thing. That sort of feels like a waste to me, since I get much more enjoyment from a shelf full of different character designs (even if a lot of them are new or upgraded designs for the same characters) than from a shelf full of matching characters.

I guess I was far from a typical kid! When I was at the height of my childhood collecting, I wanted parts and figures for films. That meant anything I could use as an army - clone troopers, Toy Story green army men, knights - I wanted in abundance. Things that didn't fit in my films were useless to me, even though 2021 me hates childhood me's idiocy in picking sets (why did I only ever get the one Lord of the Rings set?) Of course, I was doing this at the height of the YouTube clones vs. droids brickfilms phase, when people like Forrestfire and Pizzamovies were putting out monthly battles with hundreds of clone troopers, which only fuelled my repetition over variety methodology.

Even today, I rarely keep something on display for a long time. I'll build a set, keep it out for a few months, then cycle it into my miscellaneous parts collection, maybe keeping out a cool minifigure for a bit longer (which doesn't explain why I have the Republic Fighter Tank with Aayla Secura still built and on display about four years after I got it, but I digress...)

I also can't really relate to most in the sense that I absolutely cannot start watching a TV series in the middle of its run. If I see something on that vaguely interests me, I'll immediately change the channel and look for the first episode to watch through in order.

That said, I don't think Castle and Ninjago are similar in this respect. Castle - by its very nature as a principally-knights-based theme with distinct factions in every run - is the sort of theme that encourages army building much more than most. It also rarely if ever tells you who the "bad guys" are of the current factions, that's up to the kids to decide in their play. Not to say that the same can't be achieved with a TV series, but it's something that's very hard to pull off, and I'm not sure a toy-tie-in kids' show is likely to have the nuance to do it well.

14 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

This is a valid concern, but for what it's worth, it's also one of the reasons LEGO introduced the "Ninjago Legacy" subtheme in 2019.

That eases my concerns considerably - if the sets are available in some form, it doesn't matter if they're not brick-for-brick the same as the originals. I didn't realise Lego did that for in-house themes like Ninjago!

[gedren_y]

@Aanchir got a few things wrong. The original run of Bionicle got at least three animated movies (my local library has two of them), a board game, and a host of small comic books. Galidor was not in-house, but a licensed theme. The show came first, which is why the parts diverged so much from the rest of what Lego was doing at the time.

[Alexandrina]

6 minutes ago, gedren_y said:

Galidor was not in-house, but a licensed theme.

I always understood it to be that Lego funded the series as a vehicle for the toy line. It's not dissimilar to Ninjago really, except live action and a failure 

[Aanchir]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

I guess I was far from a typical kid! When I was at the height of my childhood collecting, I wanted parts and figures for films. That meant anything I could use as an army - clone troopers, Toy Story green army men, knights - I wanted in abundance.

In fairness, I suspect that a lot of us who have gone on to become AFOLs were not "typical kids" — I know I certainly wasn't! That's part of why I am reluctant to assume my disinterest in "army building" was necessarily "normal" among other LEGO fans my age.

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

I also can't really relate to most in the sense that I absolutely cannot start watching a TV series in the middle of its run. If I see something on that vaguely interests me, I'll immediately change the channel and look for the first episode to watch through in order.

Oh, trust me, I totally get that. I prefer to watch stuff from the beginning when I have the option to do so as well. But I guess when I was a kid that was rarely as viable an option as it might be for kids today. Most cable TV plans didn't offer an "on demand" menu back then, streaming services like Netflix didn't exist, there were very few channels that even aired  kids' cartoons most of the time and video/DVD collections of these sorts of shows were almost never comprehensive (in some cases, the episodes that appeared together on a particular cassette weren't even sequential)! Plus, I had even less patience for looking up TV schedules and planning my personal schedule around them back then than I do as an adult today.

Honestly, typing this out, I realize I'm probably even less qualified to speak for the habits and interests of today's kids than I am for those of my own generation Guess it's a little tricky for any of us to make sense of what does or doesn't work for the kids who most LEGO sets and themes are designed for, given that pretty much ALL of us are so far removed from that demographic!

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

That said, I don't think Castle and Ninjago are similar in this respect. Castle - by its very nature as a principally-knights-based theme with distinct factions in every run - is the sort of theme that encourages army building much more than most. It also rarely if ever tells you who the "bad guys" are of the current factions, that's up to the kids to decide in their play. Not to say that the same can't be achieved with a TV series, but it's something that's very hard to pull off, and I'm not sure a toy-tie-in kids' show is likely to have the nuance to do it well.

I suppose this is fair, although I'm not sure that the idea that Castle has no clear-cut good guys or bad guys matters all that much in practice. After all, a lot of Castle factions (especially from the 90s onward) can generally be sorted into opposing "alignments", even if those don't correspond strictly to "good" and "evil". For instance, the Crusaders, Lion Knights, and Royal Knights are effectively the "light side" to the Black Knights', Dragon Masters', and Fright Knights' "dark side", just as the Imperial Soldiers/Guards/Armada are the "light side" to the Pirates' "dark side". It's up to you which side might be the "good guys" in your particular stories and play sessions (after all, in the Pirates theme, official media from pretty much every incarnation tends to favor the lawless Pirates over the lawful Imperials), but regardless, the "dark side" factions still tend towards a darker and a spookier aesthetic than the archetypical heroic imagery and lighter color schemes associated with their "light side" counterparts.

I also think that it's a bit of a mistake to assume that whether a theme is media-supported or not plays an especially big role in how much room it leaves for moral ambiguity. After all, in LEGO Legends of Chima, the Crocodile, Wolf, and Raven tribes were "enemy" factions in the theme's first year, but "hero" factions in the second and third years after resolving their differences with the Lion, Eagle, and Gorilla Tribes. In LEGO Ninjago, Season 5's Elemental Masters also initially appear as adversaries of the ninja, but they are never presented as "evil", and later end up joining forces with the Ninja as allies.

By comparison, "Fantasy Era" Castle, Kingdoms, and the 2013 Castle wave had no animated series or even named characters, but the designs and play scenarios left it pretty unambiguous which factions were "good" and which were "evil", and even some of the Kingdoms sets' descriptions blatantly referred to the Dragon Knights as "evil".

1 hour ago, gedren_y said:

@Aanchir got a few things wrong. The original run of Bionicle got at least three animated movies (my local library has two of them), a board game, and a host of small comic books. Galidor was not in-house, but a licensed theme. The show came first, which is why the parts diverged so much from the rest of what Lego was doing at the time.

I'm well aware of the Bionicle theme's four animated movies — Bionicle: Mask of Light was a memorable part of my childhood, and I still have a lot of the lines from it committed to memory from all the times I watched it! I actually wrote a sentence mentioning the Bionicle movies as a rare exception for their time (and a forerunner to the animated media that would begin to show up across a wider range of themes from 2010 onward), but cut it out because the paragraph in question was becoming too long and wordy.

And no, the Galidor brand was developed in-house by LEGO (although I believe that like the Mixels and Unikitty themes, LEGO shared ownership of the Galidor brand with the studio that they partnered with to produce the TV series). The book Brick by Brick by David C. Robertson describes the development of Galidor from pages 57–59, and its failure from pages 85–87. At least some of the pages can be read for free in the Google Books preview linked above, but if that's not available to you for some reason, here's a short excerpt from pages 58–59:

Quote

"'The driving force behind the action figure category, more than anything else, is about triggering boys' imagination through role-play,' said Jacob Kragh, who led the new toy's development effort. 'And role-play, more than anything, is about having strong characters.'

"Kragh's team dubbed the new line Galidor, a cool-sounding, nonsensical word, which they hoped would resonate powerfully with nine-year-olds. Galidor featured archetypical, kid-friendly characters from the sci-fi genre — a pair of teenage heroes, sinister but unscary villains, and a sidekick robot — that consisted of a dozen-something parts that kids could connect via pins and holes instead of studs and tubes. To boost the line's chances of becoming a runaway hit, LEGO followed a marketing script that offered a striking departure from the toy industry status quo. Instead of promoting the toy by tying it to an existing TV series, LEGO hired Hollywood producer Thomas Lynch to create its own TV series, Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension, which tied into the toy.

"'The idea was to use the TV show to build awareness for [the toy],' said Kragh. 'As ratings for the TV show increased, toy sales would follow.'"

 

Edited February 26, 2021 by Aanchir

[BrickJagger]

I don't think that giving the next Castle theme a storyline and a bunch of named characters would be in anyone's best interest. For example, the Nexo Knights model wouldn't work in a normal Castle theme because it was difficult to army build one of the factions. You ended up with as many Clays and Aarons as you did generic Knighton soldiers. I suspect that people who are into Castle themes want to create large armies, which is starkly different from a small team that battles monsters in most of Lego's current themes. If there need to be named characters, just name the king, a knight or two and the main villain and be done with it. That would open up some roleplaying that would appeal to younger kids while the named characters wouldn't be spammed in every set.

If it were up to me, the next Castle subtheme would be the last, because there wouldn't be a reason to discontinue it in favor of a similar take a few years later. Start out with two factions, ideally ones that AFOLs are familiar with but still appeal to kids as generic knights, like the Falcons and Crusaders. Over time, Lego could phase in new factions with fantasy elements and whatnot. While Lego could release 4-5 smaller sets a year to appeal to kids mostly, they could simultaneously start a modular-style series of village buildings or adult-oriented Castles to hit the older demographic as well. The CMF line could round it out by continuing to produce more loosely related figures like Romans and Vikings that wouldn't otherwise appear in the main line but are still desirable. 

It wouldn't be anywhere on the scale of a Big Bang theme, but it would be enough to keep the interest up and bring in a steady stream of fans to sustain the theme. 5-6 total sets a year with minimal design and/or branding turnover should appeal to Lego. In fact, they should feel free to take this as a pitch  

 

[Rattlebricks]

20 hours ago, The_Creator said:

Out of curiosity.... are kids these days even interested in a non-fantasy castle/medieval TV show with tie-in products? That seems to be a niche market. 

I agree with the previous posts about what happens when you have a theme based on an IP and you end up with 50 variants of the same character. That's no good to me, I hate wasted minifigures. Nothing like having a dozen Darth Vaders and Harry Potters in your collection.

Like others I too buy licenced sets (in-house or otherwise) for parts. To fill my space theme void I started buying Star Wars sets with damaged boxes and minifigures with good resale value to get cheap parts packs. I might do the same with HP sets too in the future if we don't get a proper castle/medieval theme in the next year or two.

However, I still think the best marketing strategy is for LEGO to have a castle/medieval theme with a range of sets that appeal to all FOLs. Like a Kingdoms range but with more MMV (which still seems more Kingdoms than Castle to me) and Joust sets (and Blacksmith style too) in the $100-200 range. You can get traffic from each spectrum of the theme to the other with this strategy. The KFOLs ask for expensive sets for Christmas to match with the smaller sets they got during the year, and the AFOLs buy the small sets to tie in with the large sets they purchase and to army build. Sounds like a win-win to me. No need to kiddify the designs either, lots of kids have Harry Potter and Star Wars sets with muted color scemes and detailed realistic minifigure printing - no reason castle/medieval can't do the same.

Well, as I mentioned before, ninja is never a very popular theme worldwide  , but Lego managed to make Ninjago popular and today's kids deemed that theme as Cool.

In this case , Lego becoming trend setter (which they should be) rather than following current trend.

So its  depend on how Lego wants to promote it. 

[gedren_y]

1 hour ago, BrickJagger said:

I don't think that giving the next Castle theme a storyline and a bunch of named characters would be in anyone's best interest. For example, the Nexo Knights model wouldn't work in a normal Castle theme because it was difficult to army build one of the factions. You ended up with as many Clays and Aarons as you did generic Knighton soldiers. I suspect that people who are into Castle themes want to create large armies, which is starkly different from a small team that battles monsters in most of Lego's current themes. If there need to be named characters, just name the king, a knight or two and the main villain and be done with it. That would open up some roleplaying that would appeal to younger kids while the named characters wouldn't be spammed in every set.

If it were up to me, the next Castle subtheme would be the last, because there wouldn't be a reason to discontinue it in favor of a similar take a few years later. Start out with two factions, ideally ones that AFOLs are familiar with but still appeal to kids as generic knights, like the Falcons and Crusaders. Over time, Lego could phase in new factions with fantasy elements and whatnot. While Lego could release 4-5 smaller sets a year to appeal to kids mostly, they could simultaneously start a modular-style series of village buildings or adult-oriented Castles to hit the older demographic as well. The CMF line could round it out by continuing to produce more loosely related figures like Romans and Vikings that wouldn't otherwise appear in the main line but are still desirable. 

It wouldn't be anywhere on the scale of a Big Bang theme, but it would be enough to keep the interest up and bring in a steady stream of fans to sustain the theme. 5-6 total sets a year with minimal design and/or branding turnover should appeal to Lego. In fact, they should feel free to take this as a pitch  

 

The whole team of knights aspect was the main problem with Nexo Knights, and Knights Kingdom II before it. Each knight being a leader of his/her own group outright works better. The knights, and those who serve them, could be competitors, or cooperate as needs be. Each knight should only have two looks, armored and everyday dress. The soldiers beneath them would have a standard livery, but with some variation depending on the role they fill. What the Castle theme needs to hold on to is how the feudal society worked in medieval Europe. If it leaves that framework the theme is only something else dressed up as Castle.

[Rattlebricks]

21 minutes ago, gedren_y said:

What the Castle theme needs to hold on to is how the feudal society worked in medieval Europe. If it leaves that framework the theme is only something else dressed up as Castle.

I agree

[Aanchir]

55 minutes ago, gedren_y said:

The whole team of knights aspect was the main problem with Nexo Knights, and Knights Kingdom II before it. Each knight being a leader of his/her own group outright works better. The knights, and those who serve them, could be competitors, or cooperate as needs be. Each knight should only have two looks, armored and everyday dress. The soldiers beneath them would have a standard livery, but with some variation depending on the role they fill. What the Castle theme needs to hold on to is how the feudal society worked in medieval Europe. If it leaves that framework the theme is only something else dressed up as Castle. 

I dunno, to me the "team of knights" aspect works fine for me in a medieval fantasy setting, since there are plenty of stories within the scope of that genre which focus on teams of heroes — the Knights of the Round Table in Arthurian legend, the Fellowship of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings, the Pevensie children in The Chronicles of Narnia, etc. Not to mention the "adventuring parties" that typically take center stage in tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons or video game series like Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem, and Golden Sun.

That said, this is all from my perspective as a nineties kid whose first LEGO Castle sets were from the Dragon Masters subtheme. So to me, the appeal of the Castle theme was always as a reflection of the medieval fantasy storytelling tradition in all its forms (from the legends and folklore of actual medieval times to modern medieval fantasy stories and films of the 20th century) — not necessarily as a reflection of genuine medieval history.

I can't say I'd find it too surprising if kids back in the 70s and 80s were drawn to it for different reasons, since at that time it was a lot lighter on fantasy elements like dragons, wizards, heroic kings, and beautiful princesses, and a lot heavier on more "mundane" elements like knights, soldiers, and horses. And there's nothing wrong with liking those more historical parts of the theme best! I doubt there's any one type of Castle theme LEGO could create that would make all of us equally happy.

But for my part, I've always been more of a fan of character-driven fantasy, so that's the approach to a Castle theme that I would expect to enjoy the most, and I won't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself in that regard.

[doomguy]

I agree with the many posters in this thread that mention of how difficult it is to incorporate Castle into a multi media series, especially since the "Ninjago formula" has been repeated with limited success with Chima and Nexo Knights. I think LEGO's issues with some of these themes is that not everything needs an expansive storyline behind it. When I was younger, I still gravitated to themes like Power Miners and Fantasy Castle. Those themes never had expansive stories behind them (besides cameos in promotional material like Clutch Powers) but it didn't matter to me as a kid because I'd simply just fill in the gaps by myself while playing with them.

Lego needs to scale back a bit, I think they put too much into themes with all this extra content slapped on top of it. They try to package everything together and then cut themes short before it can even make a lasting impression.. Not every theme needs an app to come bundled with it or a TV show on Cartoon Network that will probably be buried into bad timeslots.