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Lego City 2019 - Rumours, Speculation and Discussion

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50 minutes ago, GrandDukeofKumquats said:

So apparently Michael Bay is a set designer now.

Everyone is awesome when you Michael Bay the sets. 

As for the parachute, I did this to my action figures and LEGO minifigures when I was a child... and I can't believe TLG took more than a decade to catch up.

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I realize that 60210 has to give much of its piece count to the plane. Even with that in mind...wow. That air base looks really bad. I think that 6332 Command Post Central from 1998 has more complexity! 60210 looks barely more than two-dimensional, with lots of big parts. I don’t use the “j-word” lightly, because it quickly became overused to mean anything that someone disliked, especially sets that were well-designed but still more kid-oriented. But I think the original meaning applies for the building.

 

I’m not a fan of the Sky Police theme overall. To me, City should be fun, stylized versions of things that could be found in real life. Sky Police could have been a fun action theme, but as it is, it’s a weird fusion of a fantastical idea and the standard Police and robbers aesthetic that had been constant over the past five years or so. I’m not a fan of the result.

 

The fire sets, on the other hand, are fantastic—perhaps the best we’ve had yet, in my opinion. I might have to pick some of those up!

Edited by Still Raindrop

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I'm quite pleased that the Sky Police base uses the UCS Millennium Falcon cockpit cone for an air control tower! I had the idea of using that part for something like that when I first got the Trans. Light Blue ones from the Ninjago Movie Ice Tank, but it looks like Lego beat me to it!

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Initial thoughts.

• Pierre Normandin is a brilliant Lego city designer, and you can see his handiwork on a lot of these sets (look for the license plates with PN).

• I can't figure out why Lego won't sell road plates in bundles of 2 straight and 2 curved without the intersection plates. Seems like a somewhat questionable way of making us buy two packs instead of one.

• I think the police line might have jumped the shark this year. New ideas are good, but this one feels a bit over the top.

• The city lineup is very large and diverse overall. Lego has come a long way from the late 90s.

People keep asking for my take on the fire sets, so here goes.

• Great to see tan firefighter turnout gear in addition to the black ones. Tan is becoming more common than black in many U.S. fire departments, and Lego was clearly inspired by this photo (note axe).

• New axe piece. Yay!

• With all the emphasis on minifig design from Lego the past five years, I'm still surprised they haven't done a single-tank air tank for firefighters. The Classic Space ones aren't correct.

• These sets are targeted at kids, which makes sense. The designs are detailed and have a lot of playability, but it should be noted that they're really not accurate for either American or European apparatus. The burger fire truck is particularly focused on playability over realism – almost to a point of being laughable. On set 60216, I'm surprised they again put the turntable for the ladder truck at the back. On a tiller truck, the correct placement is in the middle.

• The fireboat Fire Station 60215 is very nice. It would have been great to get a slightly larger fireboat instead of the jet ski.

• Lego continues to struggle with the red lights (American) vs blue lights (European) for fire trucks. I might have found a way to give consumers a red version of the light-and-sound brick in one of the sets as an option.

• Set 60216, is a nice fresh design concept. Great to see an environment vs. just a fire station.

• Lego needs to revisit the fire truck compartment door offerings. The red ones are going for a fortune on Bricklink, and fire truck builders have been asking for 3-tall and 2-tall options for years.

• Lego added sets for a younger audience, and I continue to think there's a consumer base for a more realistic level of fire truck and other city sets for older builders. Take the Speed Champions concept (realism, accuracy, complex builds) and apply it to other city vehicles.

Overall, this is a very nice and large city lineup. Kudos to Pierre and his team!

 

Edited by sasbury

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One of the best things about Lego City/Town over the years has been it’s strong basis in reality and real world equivalents.

Sky Police looks to change that, not for the best in my opinion. Terrible looking sets, looking like a rejected Agents theme. But as a plus, we still have Combine Harvesters to save the line.

 

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I think a poll needs to be set up to show the likes and dislikes of Sky Police.

Only positive thing is the helmets are cool.

That's it, helmets.....wow. PASS

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My first impression of the plane from the sky police base was "Wow, this looks a decent, fairly well designed big plane". After closer inspection though, it looks as if almost all the interior space will be taken up as storage to hold the parachute. The parachutes are nice play features I guess, but personally I'd rather have some nice interior details inside the plane.

The robbers aircraft from 60209 looks like a bit like something out of Paw Patrol! :laugh:

latest?cb=20160210012755

 

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1 hour ago, ChrisW said:

One of the best things about Lego City/Town over the years has been it’s strong basis in reality and real world equivalents.

Sky Police looks to change that, not for the best in my opinion. Terrible looking sets, looking like a rejected Agents theme. But as a plus, we still have Combine Harvesters to save the line.

 

Yeah, there have been kind of fanciful sets here and there, maybe some things that stretched believability for the sake of fun—but never an entire subtheme based on no real-world equivalent. I think Sky Police could have been a cool action theme, but the City cops-and-robbers aesthetic doesn’t fit it. It’s like if Space Police 3 had modern City minifigure designs and tried to fit into the City theme; it wouldn’t have had nearly the same character.

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I say it again, but I really miss a Fire and Police Starter set.

The only 2019 Police set I think is good is the patrol car , but that's because I only just started collecting Police.

The rest of the sets could have been easily split into smaller ones, especially Air Base + huge airplane, but that's from an adult perspective of budget.

I like some elements in the sets like the golden firemen statue, the burger bar, the construction site, but then there's a lot of extras in the sets too.

It's been a trend with City sets for a long time now, in my opinion, usually if there's a nice location/building, there's also a vehicle or multiple taking a large part of the parts/price.

I know kids love vehicles/play and I did as a kid too, but maybe I am a different demographic now.

I know this isn't related to City but just how I feel about 2019 so far: Creator doesn't have much to offer this Winter in terms of buildings, the best minifig "building" set so far is Emmet's Dream House. And the best "starter set" is Benny's Space Squad.

 

Of course I am looking forward to the 2019 Minfigure big pack, and Summer sub-theme, whatever it is:

2015 had Construction + Divers + Space (+Swamp Police)

2016 had Airport + Volcano Research (+ Prison Island Police + Fire)

2017 had Coast Guard + Jungle ( + City Police)

2018 had Mining + Arctic ( + Mountain Police) 

1H 2019  Fire+ Sky Police  (no city subtheme yet?)

 

 

Edited by TeriXeri

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Can somebody point point out the difference between the old and the new roadplates?
For instance; besides the different combination, is there a change in color or design? :wacko:

(See spoiler tag for old vs. new pictures)

 

Lego 60236 & 60237 (New roadplates)

 

lego-city-60237-0001.jpglego-city-60236-0001.jpg

Lego 7280 & 7281 (Old roadplates)df6f3db4-1268-406c-9025-52b847f83fab_1.2

 

Edited by Doge

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17 minutes ago, Doge said:

Can somebody point point out the difference between the old and the new roadplates?
For instance; besides the different combination, is there a change in color or design? :wacko:

(See spoiler tag for old vs. new pictures)

It's just a combination change

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Seems like the main complaint is about the Sky Police and some of the fire sets being fantasy based and not realistic. However, Lego doesn't care as long as they are profitable, and I'm guessing many kids will like them.

The problem is we're expecting sets for a 6-year-old to also appeal to an adult collector.

The solution is to have a secondary line of city sets for the 8+ audience. More REALISTIC, more complex, and more detailed. It would appease the adult buyer, and I'm guessing many kids would like a more realistic model as well. 

Again, take the Speed Champions concept and apply it to other vehicles.

Lego has an ages 4+ city set (clearly aimed at a limited demographic). Why not have an ages 8+ city set?

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25 minutes ago, sasbury said:

 

Lego has an ages 4+ city set (clearly aimed at a limited demographic). Why not have an ages 8+ city set?

Creator 3-in-1 sets are over 6-12 usually, and sets like the Pirate Rollercoaster even 9-14, they just really lack any significant "City" stuff beside the Race Plane and Houseboat sets this year (some smaller sets are still great however)

I loved the Sweet Surprises shop too (8-12)

 

Basicly all the non fire/police 2019 buildings are found on Friends and that's just entirely different from minifig imo.

Edited by TeriXeri

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20 hours ago, makoy said:

 

As for the parachute, I did this to my action figures and LEGO minifigures when I was a child... and I can't believe TLG took more than a decade to catch up.

Me too, only I had to use rocks. 

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8 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

1H 2019  Fire+ Sky Police  (no city subtheme yet?)

I wonder if the so called subtheme are not the Fire sets, as if you look closely there are multiple variable fire units, from water, city and forests been mixed. Aslo note that we have different uniform between the sets. 

As TLG has surprised us with the Sky Police, maybe they are changing the main pattern with main and sub themes?

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17 hours ago, sasbury said:

I can't figure out why Lego won't sell road plates in bundles of 2 straight and 2 curved without the intersection plates. Seems like a somewhat questionable way of making us buy two packs instead of one.

From what I've heard it's more about not having as many discrete sets/SKUs. If LEGO made four different road plate packs, there's no reason to think stores would necessarily be interested in stocking all four of them.

17 hours ago, sasbury said:

Lego added sets for a younger audience, and I continue to think there's a consumer base for a more realistic level of fire truck and other city sets for older builders. Take the Speed Champions concept (realism, accuracy, complex builds) and apply it to other city vehicles.

I think the big challenge there is that the intense popularity of fire trucks with younger kids may make them seem "less cool" to older kids, because it gives them a reputation for being "little kid stuff" that they need to avoid so that their peers will respect their maturity. I've also heard about this happening with regard to trains, hence why LEGO has a hard time selling more than a few City trains every few years despite how reliably popular Thomas the Tank Engine is with preschoolers.

Also, there's the issue of there being so many sets and themes aimed at 7+ or 8+ builders anyhow, so it can be tough to justify adding even more that are so very close to subject matter City already covers so thoroughly. Even within City there are already 7+ and 8+ targeted sets, they just tend to be some of the larger/more elaborate sets from existing subthemes, rather than a discrete category like Juniors.

And anyhow, I think y'all are kind of missing the point with the assumption that little kids crave fantasy and older kids crave realism, considering that many of the sorts of more fantasy-heavy themes that people frequently complain about City becoming too much like (Agents, Power Miners, Ninjago, Super Heroes, etc) are themes that are generally aimed at older audiences than City to begin with. In fact, I think a stronger argument could be made that it tends to be younger kids who prefer to build familiar subjects they recognize from real life (which, at that age, is often still pretty new to them) and older kids who are more drawn to seeing those kinds of subjects combined or re-imagined in ways that feel like an entirely new, cutting-edge experience.

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On 11/26/2018 at 2:08 PM, Yeow said:

Gotta say, I'm really disappointed in 60239 Police Car. I was hoping to at least use the stickers to make my own 4 wide variant, but that hood sticker is just so large... I don't necessarily hate 6 wide builds, because Speed Champions has some amazing designs, but City 6 wide cars just don't have the budget to be good or unique. At least some of the Fire Trucks this year are really well done.

I agree, 6 wide city cars just don’t look right to me and personally I think that they’re ugly. If it were a 4 wide police car which was what I was hoping for I definitely would buy it. But 6 wide cars look great for Speed Champions sets but not for City in my opinion.

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I think that in City line we should have 6 wide trucks, SUV , 4x4 and 4 wide all other cars that would make logic in my opinion. Now all the 6 wide standard cars for me look too big for the City theme..

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I don't get why everyone complains so much about 6-wide cars. 

The roads that Lego currently make are 10-wide on both sides. Therefore, I'm comfortable with anything up to 8- or 9-wide on my roads. I'll even make exceptions in special cases for full 10-wide vehicles. 

6 is fine. Even if it would be nice if Lego could make more cars that seat multiple minifigs. Hint, hint, designers?

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I'll comment on the final sets (pictures) later, but already noticed something strange:

The numbers on top of the fire engines say 1 for the one in the fire station, 4 for the one in the burger bar set and 7 for the one in the downtown fire brigade. So 2, 3, 5 and 6 are missing. Even if the fire engine in the fire fighting plane set got a number on top, that would mean that there are still three another fire engines planned for release in 2019.

What are your thoughts?

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8 hours ago, Feng-huang0296 said:

The roads that Lego currently make are 10-wide on both sides.

Lego should however think about making wider roller-doors, though. The current ones don't even allow for mirrors on 6-wide trucks. It's weird having firetrucks without mirrors... ;-)

 

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1 hour ago, jfbat said:

Lego should however think about making wider roller-doors, though. The current ones don't even allow for mirrors on 6-wide trucks. It's weird having firetrucks without mirrors... ;-)

 

I LOVE this idea! And while they’re at it, they should make them have the ability to make the taller too!

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