Lego David

Themes LEGO should discontinue

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6 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

This also isn't a LEGO-specific trend by a longshot. Manufacturers of licensed DC and Marvel superhero merchandise in general, as with the companies actually publishing the comics and producing the movies, have long found that Batman and Spider-Man are some of their most popular characters/series/brands, especially among the younger segments of their audience. I don't think it's any accident that LEGO's first superhero licenses were Spider-Man and Batman, nor that they're some of the only superheroes who have so many sets devoted to them on a routine basis whether or not there's a current or recent theatrical movie that those sets are specifically based on or branded with.

Like, I am for sure with a lot of y'all in wishing that more superheroes and supervillains got more of a chance in the spotlight, but I also fully understand that usually no matter how cool they are as characters, Batman and Spider-Man are pretty much unshakably cemented in the pop culture consciousness in a way that hardly any other superheroes, even other well-known and popular ones like Superman or Iron Man, can hope to compete with.

This is true. But, if LEGO continues to focus primarlily on Batman and Spider-Man, I simply want good sets and figures.

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7 hours ago, Lego David said:
 
On 2/11/2019 at 1:49 PM, leafan said:

@Henry BrickliderBricklideBrickliderBrBrickliderBricklideBrickrickliderBricklideBrickliderBrBrickliderBricklid

@Lego David said:

I agree with Henry here. LEGO is obviously focusing on Batman much more than they really should. You can clearly tell that LEGO has a certain fatigue for the specific character of Batman. Can't tell if that applies to Spider Man too, but definitely with Batman.

And I too would rather see a Star Wars ship that was not remade very much than another X-Wing or Falcon.

I don't remember saying that!? I mean, I think Henry is cool but to repeat his name over and over.... well :grin:

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3 hours ago, leafan said:

I don't remember saying that!? I mean, I think Henry is cool but to repeat his name over and over.... well :grin:

Thanks. I wouldn’t repeat my name over and over either :laugh:

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15 hours ago, leafan said:

I don't remember saying that!? I mean, I think Henry is cool but to repeat his name over and over.... well :grin:

That false quote remained stuck and I couldn't get rid of it.

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18 hours ago, Henry Bricklider said:

This is true. But, if LEGO continues to focus primarlily on Batman and Spider-Man, I simply want good sets and figures.

I think we get a decent number of those, though it definitely varies a lot, particularly depending on the sets' target age. The Web Warriors Ultimate Bridge Battle and Jokerland sets are good examples of standout sets even compared to some more adult-targeted builds, since even without any TV or movie tie-in to strictly inform their content, they were the biggest non-D2C sets for the Marvel and DC Super Heroes themes at their time of release.

Doc Ock's Tentacle Trap, Spider-Man's Spider Crawler, Ghost Rider Team-Up, Carnage's SHIELD Sky Attack, Doc Ock Truck Heist, and Daily Bugle Showdown also stand out to me as pretty strong designs in their own right. Same with Arkham Asylum Breakout, Scarecrow Harvest of Fear, Black Manta Deep Sea Strike, Batman Mech vs. Poison Ivy Mech (I mean, most of the criticism around it has had more to do with how many mechs there've been in so many themes lately, not faults of that set in particular), and Gorilla Grodd Goes Bananas. Not to mention the outstanding designs of many of the LEGO Batman Movie sets!

Many of these sets and others also seemed to leverage Batman and Spider-Man's popularity to give us minifigures and builds for heroes and villains who might not make much of an impression with kids on their own in lieu of their own starring role in a new movie or TV cartoon. I mean, if it weren't for The LEGO Batman Movie, I can't imagine LEGO going out of their way to give us so many Super Friends characters. And even the non-movie-based Justice League sets that gave us the first non-convention-exclusive figures of characters like Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Darkseid, Hawkman, Brainiac, Black Manta, and The Flash seemed partly designed as tie-ins with the video game LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham.

Edited by Aanchir

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Even small sets such as this one

76010-1.png

were pretty decent for the number of bricks they contain. They are simple, but the Penguin's duck-boat is great.

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5 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I think we get a decent number of those, though it definitely varies a lot, particularly depending on the sets' target age. The Web Warriors Ultimate Bridge Battle and Jokerland sets are good examples of standout sets even compared to some more adult-targeted builds, since even without any TV or movie tie-in to strictly inform their content, they were the biggest non-D2C sets for the Marvel and DC Super Heroes themes at their time of release.

Doc Ock's Tentacle Trap, Spider-Man's Spider Crawler, Ghost Rider Team-Up, Carnage's SHIELD Sky Attack, Doc Ock Truck Heist, and Daily Bugle Showdown also stand out to me as pretty strong designs in their own right. Same with Arkham Asylum Breakout, Scarecrow Harvest of Fear, Black Manta Deep Sea Strike, Batman Mech vs. Poison Ivy Mech (I mean, most of the criticism around it has had more to do with how many mechs there've been in so many themes lately, not faults of that set in particular), and Gorilla Grodd Goes Bananas. Not to mention the outstanding designs of many of the LEGO Batman Movie sets!

Many of these sets and others also seemed to leverage Batman and Spider-Man's popularity to give us minifigures and builds for heroes and villains who might not make much of an impression with kids on their own in lieu of their own starring role in a new movie or TV cartoon. I mean, if it weren't for The LEGO Batman Movie, I can't imagine LEGO going out of their way to give us so many Super Friends characters. And even the non-movie-based Justice League sets that gave us the first non-convention-exclusive figures of characters like Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Darkseid, Hawkman, Brainiac, Black Manta, and The Flash seemed partly designed as tie-ins with the video game LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham.

Thank you for reminding me of all the good that has come out of the Super Heroes line. I get blindsided by my own wishes for the theme and forget all the good that does come out of the lines. The LEGO Batman Movie sets were solid and they did give us some great figures, which reminds me I still want to get the Black Canary figure and 70919. The Batman team-up format for the sets does work, and gives it a “Brave and the Bold” feel to the sets.

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The first few Batman sets were good, but those we get now are the problem.

76110-1.jpg?201807240822

This looks like a 12$ set a max. The thing is... this set is costs 30$ in my country. 30$?!?!!? For this?!?!!? The build isn't anything great, and the minifigs are bland. If this set was 12$ it might be worth it, but for 30$ it's an overpriced cash-gab. You could argue "But it's only 20$ in the US..." Thing is I don't care about how cheap a set is other countries, as long as it's overpriced in my country.

Edited by Lego David

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How much do the other $20US sets cost in Romania? Do they all tend to be $30 or do they vary?

This is a four character set, with 155 parts that make a reasonably substantial build compared to, say, a SW battle pack  which tend to have 4 minifigs pls about 100-110 parts for $15 in the US. So I don't really see how you can claim it should be $12 max. You are getting 40-50 more parts (so about $4-5 on the US price at 10c per part) compared to a SW battle pack. So $20 for the US set makes sense. Of course, US headline prices don't include taxes, whereas your $30 price does.

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1 hour ago, Lego David said:

The first few Batman sets were good, but those we get now are the problem.

 

This looks like a 12$ set a max. The thing is... this set is costs 30$ in my country. 30$?!?!!? For this?!?!!? The build isn't anything great, and the minifigs are bland. If this set was 12$ it might be worth it, but for 30$ it's an overpriced cash-gab. You could argue "But it's only 20$ in the US..." Thing is I don't care about how cheap a set is other countries, as long as it's overpriced in my country.

Yep I was going to skip that set, it was one of the few that just doesn't appeal to me, I saw it at Target on sale though for $14.99 so I grabbed it and I am glad I did. It  has some good parts that I needed and was the first set I got with the new Bat accessories (gold), so for me anyway it turned out to be a pretty good set. I think it has many useful pieces and I wanted the dog, so to me it was a good set. You do realize other people might actually like some of these sets you don't right? 

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1 hour ago, Johnny1360 said:

Yep I was going to skip that set, it was one of the few that just doesn't appeal to me, I saw it at Target on sale though for $14.99 so I grabbed it and I am glad I did. It  has some good parts that I needed and was the first set I got with the new Bat accessories (gold), so for me anyway it turned out to be a pretty good set. I think it has many useful pieces and I wanted the dog, so to me it was a good set. You do realize other people might actually like some of these sets you don't right? 

The set itself is Ok, and for the 14$ you got it on sale is a better price. But in my opinion is not worth the full price...

Edited by Lego David

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12 hours ago, Lego David said:

The first few Batman sets were good, but those we get now are the problem.

 

This looks like a 12$ set a max. The thing is... this set is costs 30$ in my country. 30$?!?!!? For this?!?!!? The build isn't anything great, and the minifigs are bland. If this set was 12$ it might be worth it, but for 30$ it's an overpriced cash-gab. You could argue "But it's only 20$ in the US..." Thing is I don't care about how cheap a set is other countries, as long as it's overpriced in my country.

I partly agree. The vehicle is definitely a strange one...my opinion of it did get a little better once I built it. But the minifigs are fantastic. That bat variant is a highlight & the Talons, while not outstanding in details, are a great addition to the DC line up.

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On 2/15/2019 at 12:12 PM, MAB said:

. So $20 for the US set makes sense. Of course, US headline prices don't include taxes, whereas your $30 price does.

Some City sets in US are $30 while €20 in my country.

While some Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Batman for $20 are €30 in my country.

The Hoth medical chamber was even €50, while $30 in US.

License fees might play a bigger role then Taxes somewhere but still it's a weird situation.

Batman sets in TLM2 don't seem affected by this.

Overall, I don't collect Star Wars, Superheroes, or Harry Potter sets, part of the reason is the higher price, but still doesn't mean they should be discontinued going back to the original topic.

Edited by TeriXeri

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Something I think a lot of people are confused by, is the thinking that if they don't like a particular theme it should be discontinued. To me this isn't a valid reason, I mean there are many themes I don't care for but I don't feel like they should be discontinued. I think generally speaking any theme that is stagnant, or eating up valuable resources and just not making the company any money, should be eliminated. Which themes those are only LEGO knows for sure. We as consumers can only speculate, without factual information, exactly which themes those are. 

Maybe the title of this thread should be what are your least favorite themes. 

Edited by Johnny1360

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Lego should discontinue themes that are poor sellers, or where the sales do not match the investment (a theme could sell ok, but if it had extra money put into for a cartoon series, etc, it could still lose money).  

Sorry if you are tired of Star Wars or whatever, but if it sells, it should stay.

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On 2/23/2019 at 6:23 AM, IzzyLEGOFreak said:

Thank heavens Nexo Knights was discontinued tho...

I don't  get why people  hate Nexo Knights so much. It was a solid line, it sold well, and introduced a lot of cool pieces. I  would  rather have more Nexo Knights than OverWatch.

Edited by Lego David

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31 minutes ago, Lego David said:

I don't  get why people  hate Nexo Knights so much. It was a solid line, it sold well, and introduced a lot of cool pieces. I  would  rather have more Nexo Knights than OverWatch.

Well based on what I've observed from the discussion if I'm not mistaken, The castle fans thinks that the futuristic aspect went overboard to the point where the theme doesn't even feel or looked to be a castle theme. I mean in general it is a castle theme but again, the traditional aspect was so deviated that the castle fans just doesn't want to consider it one.

Also it sells well at first, then it doesn't. That's why we only got one wave for 2018 and no season 5.

Edited by JJ Tong (zfogshooterz)

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On 2/23/2019 at 4:47 AM, Johnny1360 said:

Something I think a lot of people are confused by, is the thinking that if they don't like a particular theme it should be discontinued. To me this isn't a valid reason, I mean there are many themes I don't care for but I don't feel like they should be discontinued.

1

I agree, as think about this the other way around. If enough people don't like the themes you like, they could be cancelled. I would prefer to have a wide distribution of themes, each of which some people like, than to try to have one overall theme that is designed to not offend anyone. There are typically over 500 sets a year. You don't need to like them all.

It would be like banning music or TV shows or movies if you didn't like them. People like different things, and it is good that LEGO reflects that.

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Sooooo.........

 

Back to the ban hammer, (or axe or whatever)

Getting rid of Nexo Knights has so far allowed for 0 new Castle and/or Space themes. But we still keep dreaming of course. I feel that all of the space ships / sci-fi jets in Ninjago, DC, Marvel & Star Wars are a saturation block for a full Space theme happening (regardless of what play-testing results would say anyway). Not sure about castles and knights though.

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7 hours ago, JJ Tong (zfogshooterz) said:

Also it sells well at first, then it doesn't.

This describes almost every original Lego theme. A strong debut, followed by a steady decline culminating in the theme's conclusion. The themes that break free of that pattern are few in number—Ninjago and Friends are the only two that come to mind in the past decade that have bucked the trend, the former by continually reinventing and reimagining itself to stay fresh for years on end and the latter by filling a key niche in Lego's portfolio that is as consistently relevant as the older Lego City theme.

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1 hour ago, Lyichir said:

This describes almost every original Lego theme. A strong debut, followed by a steady decline culminating in the theme's conclusion. The themes that break free of that pattern are few in number—Ninjago and Friends are the only two that come to mind in the past decade that have bucked the trend, the former by continually reinventing and reimagining itself to stay fresh for years on end and the latter by filling a key niche in Lego's portfolio that is as consistently relevant as the older Lego City theme.

Indeed. That's also why I find Friends quite fresh with it's various sub-themes too. (I personally dig the reboot though. It's probably because I started exploring that theme around there. :wink:)

And for example, Nexo Knight again, that theme's pretty cool but in the next two years, I (and I'm sure a lot more do) find the more villains interesting as they are different every year. The knights are great in the first year, not so much in the next two. (But I'll admit that some of the knight vehicles are pretty darn cool in '17 summer wave)

Edited by JJ Tong (zfogshooterz)

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16 hours ago, JJ Tong (zfogshooterz) said:

Well based on what I've observed from the discussion if I'm not mistaken, The castle fans thinks that the futuristic aspect went overboard to the point where the theme doesn't even feel or looked to be a castle theme. I mean in general it is a castle theme but again, the traditional aspect was so deviated that the castle fans just doesn't want to consider it one

Well, for the most part Nexo Knights is no way a Castle theme, so I don't think people can really complain about that. Nexo Knights clearly relates more with Ninjago and Chima rather than Castle.

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4 minutes ago, Lego David said:

Well, for the most part Nexo Knights is no way a Castle theme, so I don't think people can really complain about that. Nexo Knights clearly relates more with Ninjago and Chima rather than Castle.

Well, even though it's a big bang theme and whether it's coincidence or not, the theme still follows the timeline of every three years or so for castle themes. And I just checked that the wiki didn't include Nexo Knight in the castle category.

Either way, that theme didn't fufill the wants of the castle fans. Just some observation here.

Edited by JJ Tong (zfogshooterz)

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