Lack of original themes

[MAB]

1 hour ago, danth said:

Uh, do you know what thread you're in? The whole point is there aren't non-licensed evergreen themes (other than City) available. 

 

So now not only do the themes need to be original, they need to be evergreen too? Personally, I would much prefer to see original themes that last a single year, back to the days of Atlantis, Pharoah's Quest, Alien Conquest, Monster Fighters, etc. They come and go before they get too stale.

 

But what are Creator, Modulars / Creator Expert, Architecture, Friends, Technic? They are all non-licensed (maybe pushing the definition slightly with the architecture range) and evergreen. Then there are original but not necessarily evergreen themes like NK and Elves. And when a theme like Ninjago becomes so popular to get a movie, people complain it is now licensed and not original.
 

There are plenty of original non-licensed themes. The problem seems to be not that they don't make original sets, but that they no longer make specific themes from the past.

[Lyichir]

6 hours ago, danth said:

Uh, do you know what thread you're in? The whole point is there aren't non-licensed evergreen themes (other than City) available. 

Ninjago and Friends would like a word (as would Nexo Knights, since as far as Lego's concerned it's yet another iteration on the overarching Castle theme). You might want to amend your statement to "there aren't non-licensed evergreen themes that I personally like (other than City) available," since that seems to be where you're drawing the line.

[danth]

Has the definition of evergreen changed to whatever is currently on the shelves? Is Nexo Nights evergreen? I thought it was canceled? 

Anyway, what I meant by evergreen was regular old themes like City, Castle, Pirates, and Space. Themes with no stories, no named characters, no cartoons and video games. Themes where nothing is thrust upon you except a very basic/generic setting archetype. The old Ninja sets met this criteria. Ninjago does not. Now, don't jump to conclusions here -- I'm not saying Ninja was awesome and Ninjago sucks. I actually think Ninjago sets are pretty cool. But they are different and they satisfy different styles of play.

Edited March 6, 2018 by danth

[KotZ]

19 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Whenever I read comments like this I can't help but think about how many people made similar jokes about other movie series like Jaws and Rambo. This has never been purely a Disney thing, this is what Hollywood does with successful IPs, and they've had that reputation for many decades.

Exactly. Look at all of the monster movie remakes from Black Lagoon to Invisible Man. And those were before Star Wars and Jaws created the blockbuster.

And LEGO Space can run concurrently with Star Wars. It's happened before.

[danth]

1 hour ago, KotZ said:

And LEGO Space can run concurrently with Star Wars. It's happened before

Demonstrably not true.

[Digger of Bricks]

9 hours ago, MAB said:

Personally, I would much prefer to see original themes that last a single year, back to the days of Atlantis, Pharoah's Quest, Alien Conquest, Monster Fighters, etc. They come and go before they get too stale.

I long for the days of themes like that too, but, do they necessarily need to be one-hit-wonders? Just broaden any of those themes' focus a little bit, and you can get a whole lot more longevity out of them. For instance, why did Pharaoh's Quest need to be just that? The theme had already set itself up as a dead end by its very name, whereas it simply could have literally broadened its horizons with a name either alike or akin to Adventurers.

9 hours ago, MAB said:

But what are Creator, Modulars / Creator Expert, Architecture, Friends, Technic? They are all non-licensed (maybe pushing the definition slightly with the architecture range) and evergreen.

So, with lines like those as examples, couldn't Lego simply cook up a broadly encompassing evergreen Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi/Historical/Fantasy theme? If that couldn't work, how about slotting them into Creator as annual subthemes?

1 hour ago, danth said:

Anyway, what I meant by evergreen was regular old themes like City, Castle, Pirates, and Space. Themes with no stories, no named characters, no cartoons and video games. Themes where nothing is thrust upon you except a very basic/generic setting archetype. The old Ninja sets met this criteria. Ninjago does not. Now, don't jump to conclusions here -- I'm not saying Ninja was awesome and Ninjago sucks. I actually think Ninjago sets are pretty cool. But they are different and they satisfy different styles of play.

That's how City rolls, so how would other archetypical genres/settings fail if they were to follow the same path? 

[KotZ]

1 hour ago, danth said:

Demonstrably not true.

Yet there were Star Wars sets released during all those times, based off of movies, games and tv series that were being released. Space Police was active at the time.

Edited March 6, 2018 by KotZ

[koalayummies]

21 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Whenever I read comments like this I can't help but think about how many people made similar jokes about other movie series like Jaws and Rambo. This has never been purely a Disney thing, this is what Hollywood does with successful IPs, and they've had that reputation for many decades.

All in all, as long as kids continue to love Star Wars, then Star Wars toys will continue to sell. And what's this about a theme going for "too long"? For an eight or nine year old LEGO fan it isn't going to make a huge difference whether their favorite theme has been around ten, twenty, or thirty years. Also, I don't think many of the AFOLs in this thread would be complaining if LEGO kept LEGO Castle or Space running uninterrupted since they began and released updated versions of the most popular sets every five or six years. What's the sense in saying a 20-year-old theme you don't like has been going "too long" and asking LEGO to bring back themes that have been floating around with only a few brief interruptions for ten to twenty years longer?

What post did you read and which one did you actually intend to issue that response to because you've grossly and mistakenly confused and conflated a very simple joke about a particular media conglomerate's modus operandi with many other things not contained within the post you're quoting and responding. No where in that post is a statement about disliking Star Wars, or uninterrupted castle or space themes nor "complaining" to bring those themes back (in fact I've regularly poked fun at that repetitious opine as well; the constant 'bring back classic castle, classic space, classic pirates' attitude). Nowhere is it mentioned in that post that Lego Star Wars has been running too long (I basically said that they (the mouse and co.) will continue to milk it as long as it bleeds cash which you then said as much in response) however your mentioning that its been going on for ~20 years brings up an excellent point; a 20-year old Lego theme tied to a 41 year old franchise isn't exactly oozing with originality as per the thread title "lack of original themes".

Yes a lot of Hollyweird does merchandising but none more perverse and prolific than Disney. And it was an unnecessary reiteration to say 'they will continue to do it as long as it sells' when the post that you're responding to contained numerous repetitious uses of various financial terms for "profit". Yes, obviously Mr Mouse will continue to do it as long as there are 'yields, its grossing, ever lucrative, much proceeds, still bankable' which is a barely subtle way to say 'they will continue to milk it until it's bled dry' or your "as long as kids like ___ then ___ will continue to sell". How are we debating and agreeing at the same time, its very weird, Hollyweird.

If you've heard many jokes about it then perhaps there is some truth and substance to it, similar to how if this thread gets several times more responses and feedback than many other [better] threads then perhaps there is substance to the numerous agreeing opinions being remarked. Or maybe just take it as a joke and don't read too far into it. I bought some Lego Star Wars yesterday, though the purchase was for the pieces within and not the content pictured on the box.

Edited March 6, 2018 by koalayummies

[Aanchir]

5 hours ago, danth said:

Anyway, what I meant by evergreen was regular old themes like City, Castle, Pirates, and Space. Themes with no stories, no named characters, no cartoons and video games. Themes where nothing is thrust upon you except a very basic/generic setting archetype. The old Ninja sets met this criteria. Ninjago does not. Now, don't jump to conclusions here -- I'm not saying Ninja was awesome and Ninjago sucks. I actually think Ninjago sets are pretty cool. But they are different and they satisfy different styles of play.

For what it's worth, when I played with Space or Castle or Pirates or Western sets as a kid, many of the characters DID have names, by way of the LEGO Mania Magazines (and in some cases, even the names of the sets). Not every background knight or pirate was named, and of course I later learned that the character names people grew up with in other countries were sometimes totally different, but Majisto, Captain Redbeard, King Kahuka, Thresher, Scavenger Sam, Ann Droid, Alpha Draconis, Basil the Bat Lord, Willa the Witch, and so on figured into my stories, as did whatever backstories or character traits they were given in official material.

Of course, I also did stuff not prescribed in "official" media, like turning my pirates and Aquasharks into mermaids. And I've seen kids build similarly creative stories with Ninjago sets and characters. The existence of an official story is not a mandate for kids to act out those stories exactly, let alone a prohibition on creating their own stories.

I also think this definition of evergreen falls into question when you consider some post-2000 Space and Castle themes that had not only named characters but, for their time, pretty detailed stories (Life on Mars and Knights' Kingdom II in particular). Are you saying if LEGO brought out a theme like those it would still leave a gaping void? Heck, what if they literally brought back Classic Space and Blacktron but tied them to a Jim Spaceborn TV show? After all, back in the 80s LEGO did discuss plans for a Jim Spaceborn TV series, video game, and animated series! The lack of LEGO-branded TV shows, movies, and video games back then was more a matter of what LEGO was confident in their ability to do at that time than a sense that themes derived some advantage from not having those things.

2 hours ago, koalayummies said:

What post did you read and which one did you actually intend to issue that response to because you've grossly and mistakenly confused and conflated a very simple joke about a particular media conglomerate's modus operandi with many other things not contained within the post you're quoting and responding.

Only the first paragraph about endless Hollywood sequels was directed at you specifically. The rest was more directed at the idea expressed by other members (here and elsewhere) that LEGO Star Wars has gone on too long or is getting old. I apologize if that wasn't 100% clear.

For what it's worth, though, I don't really think themes like City, Kingdoms, or Pirates based on a simplified version of OUR world are that much more original than themes based on another company's fictional world. Of the evergreen play themes of the 80s and 90s, only LEGO Space regularly conjured entire worlds and the people and technology that existed in them the way Aquazone or Elves or Ninjago or Nexo Knights do. Those are the themes that I think could most accurately be described as "original".

Edited March 7, 2018 by Aanchir

[x105Black]

On 3/5/2018 at 6:43 PM, Aanchir said:

Whenever I read comments like this I can't help but think about how many people made similar jokes about other movie series like Jaws and Rambo.

Yes, but both of those ended...

Now I fully expect an announcement that one or both of these is being rebooted.

15 hours ago, danth said:

Not only do I not want to buy them, I want to complain about them online with other people who feel the same. If that bothers you, you can option your right to not read my posts.

Yes.

[KotZ]

1 minute ago, x105Black said:

Yes, but both of those ended...

There actually is another Rambo in development, for what it's worth.

[x105Black]

13 minutes ago, KotZ said:

There actually is another Rambo in development, for what it's worth.

Well there you go...

[danth]

5 hours ago, KotZ said:

Yet there were Star Wars sets released during all those times, based off of movies, games and tv series that were being released. Space Police was active at the time.

Yes, Star Wars sets were release at all times during the last 20 years. But non-licensed Space sets were only released while Star Wars movies were not in theaters. Except for the sole year of 2001 which was in between Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.

[MAB]

22 hours ago, danth said:

Demonstrably not true.

 

16 hours ago, danth said:

Yes, Star Wars sets were release at all times during the last 20 years. But non-licensed Space sets were only released while Star Wars movies were not in theaters. Except for the sole year of 2001 which was in between Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.

Galaxy Squad is Space. Alien Conquest is Space. Both out at the same time as SW sets were, if not when in theatres. Some people may choose not to see them as Space, but they are. There is more to non-licensed Lego Space sets than just pre-2000 Space sets.

22 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

So, with lines like those as examples, couldn't Lego simply cook up a broadly encompassing evergreen Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi/Historical/Fantasy theme? If that couldn't work, how about slotting them into Creator as annual subthemes?

 

That sounds like Nexo Knights. It was action / adventure/ sci-fi / historical / fantasy all in one. But it doesn't need to be evergreen, if something else similar takes its place and the genre / style still has a good business case.

22 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

I long for the days of themes like that too, but, do they necessarily need to be one-hit-wonders? Just broaden any of those themes' focus a little bit, and you can get a whole lot more longevity out of them. For instance, why did Pharaoh's Quest need to be just that? The theme had already set itself up as a dead end by its very name, whereas it simply could have literally broadened its horizons with a name either alike or akin to Adventurers.

 

What is the problem with them being one-hit wonders? Every year, something new and exciting, that is "owned" by the kids of that year. More sets sell as the kids want the new theme, and don't see their older brother's sets from a different theme as good substitutes.

 

On 06/03/2018 at 6:58 PM, danth said:

Has the definition of evergreen changed to whatever is currently on the shelves? Is Nexo Nights evergreen? I thought it was canceled? 

Anyway, what I meant by evergreen was regular old themes like City, Castle, Pirates, and Space.

1

It means recurrent, ongoing, etc. (Classic) Castle, Pirates and Space are clearly not evergreen as they haven't been on the shelves for many years.

And no, Nexo Knights is not evergreen, but IS an original theme (as per the thread title) just as Elves is too. Then there are the evergreen original themes in addition to City such as Ninjago (apparently now evergreen until Lego decides otherwise) and Friends, one of the constant top sellers of recent years.

Edited March 7, 2018 by MAB

[danth]

32 minutes ago, MAB said:

Galaxy Squad is Space. Alien Conquest is Space.

Sure, more or less.

32 minutes ago, MAB said:

Both out at the same time as SW sets were, if not when in theatres.

"Not when in theaters" is my main point. And it's an important point when there is no end in sight for Star Wars movies.

32 minutes ago, MAB said:

It means recurrent, ongoing, etc. (Classic) Castle, Pirates and Space are clearly not evergreen as they haven't been on the shelves for many years.

Ain't that the truth...

[x105Black]

40 minutes ago, MAB said:

That sounds like Nexo Knights. It was action / adventure/ sci-fi / historical / fantasy all in one. But it doesn't need to be evergreen, if something else similar takes its place and the genre / style still has a good business case.

OK, but how about a good one?

[MAB]

6 minutes ago, x105Black said:

OK, but how about a good one?

He didn't say it had to be good ... :-) 

Not that I think NK is necessarily bad, it's just not aimed at me.

Funny enough, I bought my son some second hand Chima DVDs as they were 50p each pack, so £1 for the whole of series 1. I bought them out of curiosity more than anything as they weren't on TV here. We have played Chima together for years, he loved racing the speedorz and doing the tricks /stunts with them but only really had a couple of the regular sets compared to probably a dozen speedorz. He had never seen the media associated with Chima (no comics, annuals, cartoons, etc), although I roughly knew the storyline from here and other sites. His first reaction after watching the first couple of episodes was shock that the lions and crocs were enemies. He had always played with them as friends, making up his own stories, blissfully unaware that there was meant to be a story where they were always fighting. When I asked him what he thinks about it, he told me he preferred to keep playing his version, where they get on rather than the fighting version.

It's funny how kids play with licensed toys without necessarily knowing the media. He had a Darth Vader for a while before seeing the movie. He thought Vader was a "goodie" and had played out his own stories using him. When I asked him why he thought Vader was a goodie, he told me it was because I have a Vader T-shirt (I am your father), so he assumed he was a goodie. Yet at the same time, he thought Batman and Robin were enemies because Batman is obviously night-time and Robin is day-time.

[Digger of Bricks]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

That sounds like Nexo Knights. It was action / adventure/ sci-fi / historical / fantasy all in one. But it doesn't need to be evergreen, if something else similar takes its place and the genre / style still has a good business case.

By Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi/Historical/Fantasy, I meant a line similar to City with multiple subthemes and archetypical settings and characters, not a theme driven by only a single set storyline and named characters. Think of it as the Collectable Minifigure line of playsets.

4 hours ago, MAB said:

What is the problem with them being one-hit wonders? Every year, something new and exciting, that is "owned" by the kids of that year. More sets sell as the kids want the new theme, and don't see their older brother's sets from a different theme as good substitutes.

There's nothing at all wrong with one-hit-wonders, but why intentionally set them up that way? If a theme idea just can't work beyond that single storyline, make it a subtheme of a larger, conglomerate Action/Adventure line. Lego could have done a standalone Arctic Exploration theme back in 2014, but instead it was done as a subtheme of City, becoming part of a much more unified family as opposed to being part of an odd misfit bunch.

[Lyichir]

3 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

By Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi/Historical/Fantasy, I meant a line similar to City with multiple subthemes and archetypical settings and characters, not a theme driven by only a single set storyline and named characters. Think of it as the Collectable Minifigure line of playsets.

There's nothing at all wrong with one-hit-wonders, but why intentionally set them up that way? If a theme idea just can't work beyond that single storyline, make it a subtheme of a larger, conglomerate Action/Adventure line. Lego could have done a standalone Arctic Exploration theme back in 2014, but instead it was done as a subtheme of City, becoming part of a much more unified family as opposed to being part of an odd misfit bunch.

Because pooling themes together comes with positives and negatives. Putting Arctic into the existing, consistently popular City theme makes sense—despite the vastly different setting it has a lot in common with the City theme in terms of subject matter, representing modern day, real-world vehicles and workers at a building level targeted to the young kids who will be most interested in that sort of thing. It's a whole different story to conceptualize a brand-new theme from the ground up when the various themes have little in common.

First of all, you have to establish success in a theme before you broaden out too far. I certainly doubt Lego would have included subthemes like Arctic or Jungle Explorers in the City theme when it was first starting out and before it had established its reliable sales, because the theme would have looked totally incoherent if they had done so. It's only by building such a strong foundation with mainstays like Fire, Police, and Construction sets that the City theme has become capable of branching out so far without totally losing its focus. I wouldn't necessarily even assume that Lego hasn't hoped to replicate this success with other themes—it's entirely possible that, if, say, Fantasy Castle had been a consistent success on the level of City, it would have continued on with that consistent branding and possibly eventually moved on to new factions. But that theme's initial success, like the success of previous and later Castle themes, petered out, and in those sorts of events rebranding from scratch is a safer strategy than trying to fight the downward inertia of a decline in popularity. And when that's happening consistently with a certain type of theme, it only makes sense to start planning for that sort of thing in advance—the chances that any one Castle theme will suddenly make the theme as a whole into a phenomenon on the level of City or Ninjago is far from guaranteed, and it's always good to have another idea waiting in the wings.

Secondly, the whole point of having "themes" in the first place is to establish a sense of consistency. It makes no sense to brand sets based on, say, Vikings, the same as they would brand sets based on the Wild West, because the two subjects have substantially different appeal and aren't linked in any direct way. If you were to make a theme like, say, Time Cruisers, that created some sort of direct through line you might have a better bet of something like that working—but that's going to be a tough nut to crack given the substantial disadvantage you're starting from in terms of a consistent brand identity. So why do the hard thing and try to make some sort of overarching theme work when you could take the far safer path and create individual, internally consistent themes instead? After all, there already is an overarching brand for all these disparate themes—it's the one the company is named for. An intermediate level of categorization might make sense for fansites like this, but in terms of creating strong, popular themes, there's really no need to bother categorizing that broadly.

Edited March 8, 2018 by Lyichir

[MAB]

I won't bother replying, as ^ @Lyichir has said exactly what I would have replied. Thanks! :-)

I will add though - sets like arctic were clearly branded as a theme inside of City, not in name but in style and colour. It was easy for people to collect the arctic theme even if they don't collect City but at the same time appeal to City fans. That might work with some components of action / adventure / sci-fi / history / fantasy, but history doesn't necessarily sit that well next to sci-fi, for example. That might lead to restrictions in what can be done within the combined theme, when there would be more freedom with a single theme.

[Digger of Bricks]

9 hours ago, Lyichir said:

First of all, you have to establish success in a theme before you broaden out too far. I certainly doubt Lego would have included subthemes like Arctic or Jungle Explorers in the City theme when it was first starting out and before it had established its reliable sales, because the theme would have looked totally incoherent if they had done so. It's only by building such a strong foundation with mainstays like Fire, Police, and Construction sets that the City theme has become capable of branching out so far without totally losing its focus.

Well perhaps we already do have such a successful, multifaceted theme on hand, one that isn't limited by a particular setting in time. Next to City, one of Lego's most consistent best selling lines is Creator, a theme that has no foundational obligation to be tied to any time, place, or narrative; so with enough eventual evolution, Creator can be a home for many homeless themes and misfit ideas. I'm not saying that the theme should lose its creative reconstruction focus, only that it should branch out to subjects other than houses, dinosaurs, cars, robots, etc. 

9 hours ago, Lyichir said:

So why do the hard thing and try to make some sort of overarching theme work when you could take the far safer path and create individual, internally consistent themes instead?

You can, but why box them in with too specific of a focus as so to to leave them as a one-and-done fate? As opposed to loosely interconnected Space themes that all sit under this vague umbrella, why not do a line like City, perhaps named something along the lines of LEGO Galaxy? Why did 2011's Pharaoh's Quest have to be named as such, where instead it could have broadened its horizons just by simply taking the name of its spiritual predecessor?

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Well perhaps we already do have such a successful, multifaceted theme on hand, one that isn't limited by a particular setting in time. Next to City, one of Lego's most consistent best selling lines is Creator, a theme that has no foundational obligation to be tied to any time, place, or narrative; so with enough eventual evolution, Creator can be a home for many homeless themes and misfit ideas. I'm not saying that the theme should lose its creative reconstruction focus, only that it should branch out to subjects other than houses, dinosaurs, cars, robots, etc. 

 

3

Creator can and does encompass many subjects. But most sets tend to be minifigure less, so the set is more about the brick-built creation than the minifigures. When there are minifigures, they tend to be very generic, plain ones. Whereas if creator went down the more themed route, having say Egyptian minifigures for the creator equivalent of PQ, it would not feel like creator any more. Or it could have plain figures, but people would complain about the lack of detail.

1 hour ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Why did 2011's Pharaoh's Quest have to be named as such, where instead it could have broadened its horizons just by simply taking the name of its spiritual predecessor?

 

To make it stand out as a new theme, not a continuation of an older one.

Edited March 8, 2018 by MAB

[Digger of Bricks]

2 minutes ago, MAB said:

Creator can and does encompass many subjects. But most sets tend to be minifigure less, so the set is more about the brick-built creation than the minifigures. When there are minifigures, they tend to be very generic, plain ones. Whereas if creator went down the more themed route, having say Egyptian minifigures for the creator equivalent of PQ, it would not feel like creator any more. Or it could have plain figures, but people would complain about the lack of detail.

That can change though can it? I believe that the theme can evolve to encompass many more genres and settings, introducing much more detailed figures and builds, without losing its reconstruction focus.

6 minutes ago, MAB said:

To make it stand out as a new theme, not a continuation of an older one.

Nah, it was just a reboot/rehash of the first year of Adventurers, but much more boxed in.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

That can change though can it? I believe that the theme can evolve to encompass many more genres and settings, introducing much more detailed figures and builds, without losing its reconstruction focus.

 

Sure, but one of the nice things about Creator sets is that they are very plain and generic compared to the licensed or in-house themes. I'm not really sure why they'd need to bring things under one umbrella-like name if they are not that similar. Why use more detailed figures when they are representative of the named themes.

 

2 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Nah, it was just a reboot/rehash of the first year of Adventurers, but much more boxed in.

 

To people with the old sets, sure it was a continuation / reboot / re-imagining / whatever. But that was a decade before and probably wouldn't have happened for families with kids of popular lego-age. The kids wouldn't have been born and the parents too old for it. Why hark back to an old theme when they can start afresh with new branding, new characters, etc? They'd have to either re-use Johnny Thunder (was he out of favour at the time?, with the need to introduce the all new Jake Raines who is essentially the same), or explain his absence. Starting again removes that.

They could have easily called PQ "The Adventurers" or "The Adventurers: Egypt", but I guess if this was planned to be one and done, there was no need to theme it as a bigger series. Although they could have started it a year earlier, with The Adventurers: Atlantis, as that was essentially the same just underwater. And followed by The Adventurers: Dino Hunters and The Adventurers: Galaxy Squad. But the problem here is what happens if one of them bombs. Tying them together means that if one is unpopular, the theme is tarnished. Keeping Atlantis separate from PQ, separate from Dino, separate from  GS avoids that issue. The only real difference is separate themes under their own discrete names, or an overarching name with the themes within. The contents could have been exactly the same.

[danth]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

Creator can and does encompass many subjects. But most sets tend to be minifigure less, so the set is more about the brick-built creation than the minifigures. When there are minifigures, they tend to be very generic, plain ones. Whereas if creator went down the more themed route, having say Egyptian minifigures for the creator equivalent of PQ, it would not feel like creator any more. Or it could have plain figures, but people would complain about the lack of detail.

Many Creator sets have no minifigs but many do. The Space Shuttle and Island Adventures are two recent examples. And all the houses/modulars. Plain or generic figs are perfect for any kind of themed sets we are suggesting here. For instance a generic Knight or Spaceman.

1 hour ago, MAB said:

Sure, but one of the nice things about Creator sets is that they are very plain and generic compared to the licensed or in-house themes. I'm not really sure why they'd need to bring things under one umbrella-like name if they are not that similar. Why use more detailed figures when they are representative of the named themes.

I totally agree that being generic is one of the nice things about Creator. Which is why we're suggesting it expand into generic, archetypal settings like "space" or "castle" where generic minifigs would make sense.