"Castle lines never die" or "what made me change my mind and believe in new exciting castle lines".

[MAB]

9 hours ago, gedren_y said:

Some time ago, in another thread, I suggested a Fables theme....

 

 

It may even be that they continue to do regional sets - so things like The Journey to the West could be released in Asia, much like they have done with the Year of the ... sets.

Although Journey to the West would be an interesting one, as a couple of different Chinese companies have already made minifigures based on this story. I have some JLB ones, I cannot remember the other company. If Lego makes something that they have already made, then it may well reinforce arguments that they should be able to make what Lego has made.

[Digger of Bricks]

On 11/6/2017 at 12:57 PM, MAB said:

I guess the question then is does LEGO need to do it. Not viable for a full theme sounds a bit like "we cannot be bothered to develop a whole theme". Do they really need to pump out lots of clearance ideas? I imagine they have enough full theme ideas not to.

By "not viable for a whole theme", I don't mean standalone playsets that couldn't be expanded into a whole theme, just playsets based upon a theme or genre that there wouldn't be interest in for a whole theme lineup currently, just like traditional Space and Castle. But, the playsets would be standalone in the sense that they wouldn't be incomplete without supporting sets and a storyline. Being Creator subtheme sets, their selling point would be more about the star build (castle, spaceship, fighter plane, rocketship, etc.) as opposed to its self explanatory storyline and characters. And, like non-Expert Creator sets, their other selling point  would be that they would feature multiple alternate builds and/or inspiration models.

[Oederland]

On 11/7/2017 at 11:14 AM, MAB said:

Although Journey to the West would be an interesting one, as a couple of different Chinese companies have already made minifigures based on this story. I have some JLB ones, I cannot remember the other company. If Lego makes something that they have already made, then it may well reinforce arguments that they should be able to make what Lego has made.

A brand called Winner has released several sets, small ones and large ones, around the "Journey to the West" legend / novel. Then there is a Enlighten minifig series focusing on the "Three Kingdoms" era, which has also been done by JIESTAR and some of their subbrands before (those are really very "basic" though), a whole Enlighten theme interpreting "The Creation of the Gods", a recent Enlighten minifig series focusing on another very famous novel, "Water Margin". Finally, there are dozens of minifig sets by different brands about the "King of Glory" online game, which includes various historic characters (although most of these are really very modern interpretations, e. g. a poet appears as a rock star ;) ). In any case, these legends are very famous in China, also the main characters. Thus there's no reason why a company like Lego should not be able to focus on one of those stories, as they are really part of the culture.

For Lego, it could be useful to release similar sets when focusing on the Chinese market (like Oxford has done with its themes on Korean history / legends), but it would be difficult to sell those in other regions. In principle, they could try to market the theme differently in non-Asian countries. E.g. the Winner "Journey to the West" sets mainly consist of animal minifigs, thus in principle similar to Chima. People in Western countries wouldn't have to know what the minifigs represent as long as the theme is attractive. But still, it might be much easier for an international company to more or less market the same sets the same way world-wide. And with themes not directly linked to certain legends they are much more flexible. In case they run well, add another wave with e.g. "ice age" animals or give them certain upgrades. It would be difficult if one had to take into account another market in which the sets have to have a specific cultural meaning. Finally, there's also always the danger of cultural insult. E.g. in some of the Oxford sets, historic Korean warriors (the set names refer to certain commanders) fight against what turns out to be Japanese invaders. This works well as these Oxford sets are basically restricted to the Korean market (I've tried to order some of those sets via Chinese shopping sets, turns out to be impossible). Now imagine Lego releases something similar by accident, some minifig actually represents a stereotyped stranger, maybe some Western guy traveling to the East. As another example, Enlighten has released a Teutonic Knight, including a body printing of the Cross of the Teutonic Order (which seems to have been that famous that it was copied by another Chinese brand ;) ). If Lego were to release anything similar they might have huge problems. This is probably also the reason why TLC's historic themes never really refer to history directly or in a way where there is no real conflict (like the conquistador minifig, which did not have any counterpart within the series), but interpretations of knights, pirates with arbitrary fractions. I mean, there really is a difference between e.g. Chinese thinking of their historic culture and e.g. Europeans. It's no issue to have toys that represent certain commanders from eras in which thousands and thousands of people were killed. Now think of a TLC kingdoms theme maybe focusing on the wars between England and France. Very unlikely to survive the first weeks.

Just my two cents, as I think this is an interesting aspect.

[ProvenceTristram]

I, for one, cannot stand Nexo Knights, and the sooner it dies and gives us a real castle theme again (particularly for new minifigures), the better. I know others feel differently, and that's fine, but it's a line that has absolutely zero appeal for me (and I'm tired of the 'it's meant for kids argument.' Classic castle was 'meant for kids,' too, as was classic pirates - both had plenty of adult appeal. NK has none.

[CedBricks]

Now that Lego is really delivering exceptional advanced models from many different lines (including Ninjago with the huge Ninjago City set, that is in my opinion both for the parents to build and the kids to play with), I would not be surprised if in the near future, after the retirement of Nexo Knights, Lego gets back to the castle theme with a huge expert line castle for the parents to build, and waves of smaller play sets for the children to play with, and use the castle as main base. Why not, that would be awesome!

[MAB]

17 hours ago, ProvenceTristram said:

I, for one, cannot stand Nexo Knights, and the sooner it dies and gives us a real castle theme again (particularly for new minifigures), the better.

1

And what if NK goes away and they decide not to do a real Castle theme again for a bit longer? Castle is having a break, it is not NK fault. It is probably down to sales of the previous Castle sets.

[ElectroDiva]

On 13/11/2017 at 5:49 PM, CedBricks said:

I would not be surprised if in the near future, after the retirement of Nexo Knights, Lego gets back to the castle theme with a huge expert line castle for the parents to build, and waves of smaller play sets for the children to play with, and use the castle as main base. Why not, that would be awesome!

 

I think that's wishful thinking (I wish it were otherwise though)

[x105Black]

14 hours ago, MAB said:

And what if NK goes away and they decide not to do a real Castle theme again for a bit longer? Castle is having a break, it is not NK fault. It is probably down to sales of the previous Castle sets.

But it is the fault of Nexo Knights.  LEGO is trying something new with the Castle genre, and LEGO designers have said that they internally consider Nexo Knights to be a Castle theme (although you'd really have to stretch your imagination to see it that way).  So yes, Nexo Knights is taking the slot that would ordinarily be a Castle theme.

[thetang22]

To take it a step further, there's a lot of rationale that could be applied to why previous Castle lines might have faltered from a sales perspective, from competing with similar concurrent lines (LotR/Hobbit), as well as a Castle iteration that felt uninspired (2013 Castle).  When you figure in those sorts of things, Lego wasn't exactly doing the Castle brand any favors with the set of circumstances they put the traditional theme in.

[BrickJagger]

2 hours ago, x105Black said:

But it is the fault of Nexo Knights.  LEGO is trying something new with the Castle genre, and LEGO designers have said that they internally consider Nexo Knights to be a Castle theme (although you'd really have to stretch your imagination to see it that way).  So yes, Nexo Knights is taking the slot that would ordinarily be a Castle theme.

...likely due to the down sales of the recent "Castle" themes. I get the indication that neither Kingdoms nor Castle 2013 did particularly well, though the latter was doomed from the start. NK was originally developed in 2009, but was resuscitated several years later, probably to fill the gap while Lego took "Castle" back to the drawing board. When Castle comes back, it will probably be drastically different from past themes, but it a good way.

[MAB]

9 hours ago, x105Black said:

But it is the fault of Nexo Knights.  LEGO is trying something new with the Castle genre, and LEGO designers have said that they internally consider Nexo Knights to be a Castle theme (although you'd really have to stretch your imagination to see it that way).  So yes, Nexo Knights is taking the slot that would ordinarily be a Castle theme.

1

You don't know that. Nexo Knights could equally well be taking a slot that would otherwise be taken by some other theme, with (real) Castle on a long leave of absence.

[thetang22]

7 hours ago, MAB said:

You don't know that. Nexo Knights could equally well be taking a slot that would otherwise be taken by some other theme, with (real) Castle on a long leave of absence.

I'm not in a place at the moment to be able to source this, but I'm almost positive Lego has said that Nexo IS the current "castle" theme...to which the logical conclusion would be that yes, it is taking the place of a more traditional castle iteration.

[x105Black]

15 hours ago, thetang22 said:

To take it a step further, there's a lot of rationale that could be applied to why previous Castle lines might have faltered from a sales perspective, from competing with similar concurrent lines (LotR/Hobbit), as well as a Castle iteration that felt uninspired (2013 Castle).  When you figure in those sorts of things, Lego wasn't exactly doing the Castle brand any favors with the set of circumstances they put the traditional theme in.

Agreed.  Can't complain that Castle failed if you released a rather uninspired and maligned wave.  Although I liked it, so what do I know?

Just now, thetang22 said:

I'm not in a place at the moment to be able to source this, but I'm almost positive Lego has said that Nexo IS the current "castle" theme...to which the logical conclusion would be that yes, it is taking the place of a more traditional castle iteration.

Exactly this.

[rodiziorobs]

3 hours ago, thetang22 said:

Nexo IS the current "castle" theme

Wasn't it confirmed here on EB? I thought Mark Stafford had stated as much when he chimed in one of the anti-Nexo threads.

Frankly, I think classic Castle needed to take a break--MOCers now create things that make official builds look fairly bland by comparison. In other themes, official sets manage to still wow and impress, but Castle had grown...stale. (Personally, I think much of the tumble-down style that is popular in MOCs is a little over-wrought, but at least there are interesting things to be seen.) Simply put, aside from bigger sets like MMV or Kingdom's Joust, Castle as a theme was disappointing.

I hope when we do see a more traditional Castle theme, that it can impress. In the meantime, I appreciate that we will soon get Space Police and Blacktron sets, even if in Nexo form.

[MAB]

4 hours ago, thetang22 said:

I'm not in a place at the moment to be able to source this, but I'm almost positive Lego has said that Nexo IS the current "castle" theme...to which the logical conclusion would be that yes, it is taking the place of a more traditional castle iteration.

I'm not saying that NK isn't Castle, it is. I'm saying there is no indication that NK is taking the place of another different Castle theme as another possibility is that if we didn't currently have NK then we wouldn't have any Castle at all.

[gedren_y]

The feeling that Castle, as it had been before NK, was a bit stale seems to be a common sentiment. That's why I think getting away from medieval Europe for a historic theme would be a good thing. There are existing part designs that would make a Classical Era theme easy to produce.

[Artanis I]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

I'm saying there is no indication that NK is taking the place of another different Castle theme as another possibility is that if we didn't currently have NK then we wouldn't have any Castle at all.

But the point is, that while there is a NK "castle" theme, there can not also be a "real" Castle theme, regardless of whether there ever will be again.

 

 

Mark has basically said (but my words) that normal Castle doesn't playtest well, it has to have wacky features, ridiculous colours and every minifig must be some specific character with a backstory. So blame those kids' taste for why we'll never again see Castles like this:

 

but rather this:

 

He considers NK to be Castle. I do not. Bricklink does not. Doesn't matter. Other than potential one-offs and Creator type releases, it's over - end of story. No more Castle themes likely, sad to say.

Elvis is dead, Lennon is dead, Hendrix is dead, Jackson is dead. The kids want Bieber, Pink, Nickelcrap etc

[MAB]

8 hours ago, Artanis I said:

But the point is, that while there is a NK "castle" theme, there can not also be a "real" Castle theme, regardless of whether there ever will be again.

He considers NK to be Castle. I do not. Bricklink does not. Doesn't matter. Other than potential one-offs and Creator type releases, it's over - end of story. No more Castle themes likely, sad to say.

1

That may be true, but it doesn't mean NK was responsible for killing off Castle. If Castle was dead anyway (for the foreseeable future), then NK has just taken an empty slot.

Lego doesn't brand it as Castle, so BL follows suit. Personally, I don't think Castle is dead forever. But it was getting a bit stale and if sales were dropping I completely understand why it was put on hiatus and something else has come along (whether in its place or not, if it doesn't have a place in the current line up then NK cannot take its place).

8 hours ago, Artanis I said:

Elvis is dead, Lennon is dead, Hendrix is dead, Jackson is dead. The kids want Bieber, Pink, Nickelcrap etc

 

50 years ago ... Cole Porter is dead, George Gershwin is dead, Oscar Hammerstein is dead. The kids want Elvis, Lennon, Hendrix ...

No doubt in years to come the kids of today will complaining about the loss of NK-type themes due to what their kids want.

[thetang22]

5 hours ago, MAB said:

I don't think Castle is dead forever. But it was getting a bit stale and if sales were dropping I completely understand why it was put on hiatus and something else has come along

I don't think it is either.  It will come back, but in the meantime, we have to tolerate Nexo.  We have a limited time on this earth, and an even more limited time in which we are "in" to Legos.  I don't like that during this time, I'm presented with new blah stuff such as Nexo, when themes such as Fantasy Era were alive and kicking when I was in my dark ages.  (yes, yes...I know I can still collect out of print sets, but we all know it just isn't the same as being part of the excitement of a new theme that is actually compelling).

And again - to the comment about the sales dropping -> there's some rational reasoning (mentioned in above posts) why sales dropping very well could have been Legos own fault, and should not necessarily be used as a definitive gauge about the potential financial success of a theme.

[Blakstone]

While Nexo Knights may not be the reason that Castle is gone, we know that we won't get a new Castle theme until it is gone for a while. That part is not in doubt as we had a designer flatly state it.

There was a couple quick jokes in the last LEGO Movie with Castle. Hopefully the kid will play with Kingdom's minifigs in the next one. Beyond that, I took forward to each CMF series for a chance for great Castle minifigs.

[Legochaek]

Did anybody do the survey on the Disney castle when it first came out? I know on the box it said Disney; but on the survey it said Castles! 

More Disney castles (D2C from other princesses) Or other castles in general? Or just a mistake? 

[ElectroDiva]

8 hours ago, MAB said:

No doubt in years to come the kids of today will complaining about the loss of NK-type themes due to what their kids want.

 

Who are these mythical kids that will mourn the loss of Nexo Knights? I have 6 nephews and nieces under the age of 11 - none of whom like NK. Their friends don't like NK either.

They all love Ninjago though...

[Aanchir]

On 11/13/2017 at 12:08 PM, ProvenceTristram said:

I, for one, cannot stand Nexo Knights, and the sooner it dies and gives us a real castle theme again (particularly for new minifigures), the better. I know others feel differently, and that's fine, but it's a line that has absolutely zero appeal for me (and I'm tired of the 'it's meant for kids argument.' Classic castle was 'meant for kids,' too, as was classic pirates - both had plenty of adult appeal. NK has none.

The number of adults on this very forum who enjoy Nexo Knights, and the number who have made Nexo Knights MOCs of their own, are proof it has adult appeal. It's quite exhausting to put up with fans of classic themes close-mindedly asserting that if they don't like a theme then there's nothing in it for adults to like. People said the same thing about Bionicle, Ninjago, etc.

9 hours ago, MAB said:

50 years ago ... Cole Porter is dead, George Gershwin is dead, Oscar Hammerstein is dead. The kids want Elvis, Lennon, Hendrix ...

No doubt in years to come the kids of today will complaining about the loss of NK-type themes due to what their kids want.

Very true. A contingent of every generation's elders will hate or fail to understand what the new generation likes. To assume that your generation is the first and last to really, truly know what's good and what's bad is plumb ignorance. Today, a lot of people are already looking back at things like 1970s disco, 1980s hip-hop, and 1990s boy bands and realizing that maybe they weren't as bad as many people made them out to be at the time. It's the same with LEGO themes.

8 minutes ago, ElectroDiva said:

Who are these mythical kids that will mourn the loss of Nexo Knights? I have 6 nephews and nieces under the age of 11 - none of whom like NK. Their friends don't like NK either.

They all love Ninjago though...

Well duh. Of course kids who don't like Nexo Knights to begin with won't miss it. You could say the same thing about basically any theme. That's no reason to assume that there are no kids who like it or will miss it. Kids aren't a hivemind; their tastes can differ just as much as anybody else's. Don't forget the sheer scale of the LEGO fan community. Even a theme that isn't a top seller can still have hundreds or even thousands of kids who enjoy it. Look at how many AFOLs today have nostalgia for Orient Expedition — a theme that came out in a year when only Bionicle and Star Wars sets actually made any money.

And again, this idea that "because I and the people close to me don't like this theme, it will not be missed" is not a new argument — I saw lots of Bionicle fans/Hero Factory haters claim that nobody would ever miss Hero Factory the same way they missed Bionicle. And while it's true that the number of people who miss Hero Factory is probably much smaller than the number who missed Bionicle (due to Hero Factory never catching on as widely in the first place), plenty of the kids who did grow up enjoying Hero Factory now miss it just as much as anybody ever misses a theme they loved in their formative years that is no longer around.

[ElectroDiva]

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

Well duh. Of course kids who don't like Nexo Knights to begin with won't miss it. You could say the same thing about basically any theme. That's no reason to assume that there are no kids who like it or will miss it. Kids aren't a hivemind; their tastes can differ just as much as anybody else's. Don't forget the sheer scale of the LEGO fan community. Even a theme that isn't a top seller can still have hundreds or even thousands of kids who enjoy it. 

 

Well duh - of course kids have different tastes. That's hardly a stunning insight.

 

It was a half-joking flippant anecdote - not a serious analysis of the size of the NK fan base

 

[Aanchir]

Anyway, now that 2018 sets are starting to show up, it seems increasingly clear to me that next year is aiming to be a sort of a "grand finale" for Nexo Knights, and that a different Castle theme is likely to take its place in 2019 — unless, for some reason, the LEGO Group thinks that another Castle theme would have too much overlap with The LEGO Movie Sequel, which is coming out that same year. In general, the Castle category tends to be renewed every three years, and while Nexo Knights has been fairly successful last we heard, it doesn't seem to have been the kind of breakout hit it'd have to be to go evergreen the way Ninjago or Friends did.

I disagree with those who suspect that kids' interest in castles is so weak that there wouldn't have been any incarnation of LEGO Castle if Nexo Knights hadn't come out. The core ideas behind of LEGO Castle still hold up fairly well today, as evidenced by the many castles, dragons, etc. that have come out in the past several years, in both licensed and non-licensed themes. And cyber-knights are hardly the ONLY twist to the Castle formula that could have kept the category fresh — particularly if LEGO had chosen to relaunch Castle as an ordinary theme rather than a "big bang", since a "big bang" is generally a much bigger investment with a greater need for novelty and high-concept storytelling.

That said, I also don't think that Nexo Knights ending before its three years were up would have made Castle come back any sooner, because even new incarnations of pre-existing themes can take up to two years to develop, and in the past when a Castle theme has ended before its three years are up, it's still two and a half to three years after its launch before the next one launches. Castle 2013 only lasted a single wave, and it's not as though they rushed a new Castle series out to market the very next year.