Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[Ajf350d]

15 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Yep! That last little S just sounds silly to my dialect, locally no one at all says it, I can't vouch for the rest of the UK, as we cant even agree on what to call a bread roll.

The contents of the box could be Lego Bricks, or Minifigures, or Technic. But the product is Lego, the contents will never be Legos. (I shudder to type it ). Maybe it is the fact that there were few to no competitor brands for a long time, as my parents generation had Lego, what you could call their Babysitters (two lovely "aunties" I have, who were about ten to 13 years older than them) had Lego. The first easily available competitor brands were of very low quality or a very different thing (Betta Builder was very different in aspects. Best Lock was noticeably poor quality with weird figures) so people don't lump all bricks into one "Legos" but want a quality product.

That’s easy, cobs are crusty, baps are soft😁😜

I agree it should always be Lego, no ‘s’, or maybe LEGO?

other opinions, they need to sort out their shipping lead times! For a company their size I find it amazing it takes them 4+ days to just get to shipping an order. I guess first world problems and all that, but a bit frustrating at times - my Home Alone hasn’t shipped yet from Monday!😩

[MAB]

6 hours ago, Ajf350d said:

other opinions, they need to sort out their shipping lead times! For a company their size I find it amazing it takes them 4+ days to just get to shipping an order. I guess first world problems and all that, but a bit frustrating at times - my Home Alone hasn’t shipped yet from Monday!😩

It might have shipped. Their order tracking isn't the best. I once had an "in warehouse" status order delivered.

[BrickG]

LEGO Batman the Movie figures were the best designed and produced Batman minifugres by far. Going back to the classics is a major step backwards. I fear that we won't get LEGO Batman figures as good as the movie ones were for a looooong looooooong time.

Especially for some of them like Poison Ivy. It's just NO CONTEST.

 

We got the best versions of Poison Ivy, Penguin, Riddler, etc. Some really good versions of Harley Quinn (quite good but not in her classic style, but still an amazing figure), Alfred, etc.

 

I'm guessing the line had more resources put into the designs since it was going to be for a movie too but they were just amazing.

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

6 hours ago, BrickG said:

LEGO Batman the Movie figures were the best designed and produced Batman minifugres by far. Going back to the classics is a major step backwards. I fear that we won't get LEGO Batman figures as good as the movie ones were for a looooong looooooong time.

It is hard to conceive of better designs for those figs than the ones they got in that theme. Those minifigs are pretty much as detailed as it gets without getting into custom fig territory. The selection range and quality of designs for TLBM has been unmatched among any other Batman minifigure waves. I doubt we'll see any improvement on those for the foreseeable future, asides from the possible inclusion of a couple of minor villains (ventriloquist) and a minifig-sized Clayface.

[Sansy]

On 11/6/2021 at 9:00 AM, Peppermint_M said:

It sounds weird to UK ears. Legos just sounds, well, not to mince words. Stupid. Like saying Sheeps. 

 

 

Or saying Fishes or Foods.

[MAB]

8 hours ago, Sansy said:

Or saying Fishes or Foods.

Fishes is often used as a plural if you are describing multiple species at once.

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

17 hours ago, BrickG said:

LEGO Batman the Movie figures were the best designed and produced Batman minifugres by far. Going back to the classics is a major step backwards. I fear that we won't get LEGO Batman figures as good as the movie ones were for a looooong looooooong time.

 

I'm guessing the line had more resources put into the designs since it was going to be for a movie too but they were just amazing.

I have no idea why it turned out this way - maybe their financial issues, warehouse issues or they just don't see the sales with them high quality figures - but for me the decline in quality for figs other than CMF's is one of the biggest reasons why I decreased my Lego spending like 5 times (my wallet is thankful though!).

When the first dual molded legs and regular arm printing for Wonder Woman with the Zack Znyder Batman movie came out I thought "if we can just get printing on them, it'll be perfect! I thought this will be the future of figures - but no. We got a lot better with the Lego movie 2 and of course the Batman movie - probably the best printing quality and detail ever. But afterwards I guess that buget for detail just dissapeared. We see some dual molding and arm printing here and there but if you don't get one specific set like the queer eyes apartement - the quantity of sets are a huge step back in terms of printing quality and dual molding.

[leafan]

On 11/2/2021 at 9:42 PM, Aanchir said:

Honestly calling the minifigures the "key selling points" of Castle/historical products sort of rubs me the wrong way… I feel like that sort of talk that makes those sorts of themes sound like a poor fit for the LEGO brand's very nature as a building toy. I realize that right NOW, more figures are what castle fans want/need most, since building elements for Castle models can be found in numerous other themes. But even so, I still think the builds are just as much of a "key selling point" for Castle sets as the figures.

From what I recall, the 2013 Castle sets got a lot of criticism from Castle fans for their builds, despite having about as many minifigures per set as the Kingdoms sets that preceded them. Whereas I feel that the Blacksmith Shop and 3-in-1 Medieval Castle have gotten a much more positive reception from Castle fans, in spite of having far fewer minifigs relative to their size.

And needless to say, the builds are even MORE of a "key selling point" for Creator 3-in-1 sets than for "play themes" like Castle, since alternate builds provide the core of that theme's identity, not just an optional "bonus feature" like the back-of-the-box builds in the 80s and 90s.

Now, I haven't seen the 3-in-1 Viking Ship, but to me a brick-built dragon or sea serpent tends to add a lot more play value and building value than increasing the number of minifigures. I know that in my childhood, those sorts of fantasy creatures were a big part of what made themes like Castle and Vikings so interesting to me in the first place! I recognize that I might be an outlier among AFOL Castle fans in that regard, but I don't think it's too far-fetched to think many of today's kids enjoy these sorts of "side builds", given the popularity of fantasy creatures in other themes like Elves, Ninjago, and Harry Potter.

Make no mistake — I'm not saying you shouldn't want more minifigures in these sets. I mean, I can tell you with certainty that I'd prefer if the 3-in-1 Medieval Castle included a king, queen, 2–4 knights/guards, a blacksmith, and maybe even a wizard (after all, wizards and witches were another part of what made the Castle theme so appealing to me as a kid). It's certainly a big enough build to accommodate them!

But I think it's shortsighted to treat secondary builds like dragons and fantasy creatures like extraneous "filler" that gets in the way of including more figures. After all, it's quite possible that the enduring success of Creator 3-in-1 dragon sets over the years was part of what gave LEGO the confidence to begin introducing other medieval-inspired 3-in-1 sets! And with any luck, the Medieval Castle won't be the last set we see along those lines in the near future.

Jesus h christ. Nitpicking at it's finest.

If you don't believe that the minifigures are key selling points, I don't know what to tell you. Tell that to the people selling rare Castle minifigs at stupid prices on Bricklink or any other platform right now.

Rare minifigs are in demand; and I'm not getting into a essay war with you again.

[TeriXeri]

1 hour ago, leafan said:

If you don't believe that the minifigures are key selling points, I don't know what to tell you. Tell that to the people selling rare Castle minifigs at stupid prices on Bricklink or any other platform right now.

Rare minifigs are in demand; and I'm not getting into a essay war with you again.

I agree 2021 Castle has been lacking figures for sure, 2 sets (totaling at €270 in NL) with only 7 figures, 4 of which are knights, 1 archer, 1 smith and a "Pirate" ? (I'm not complaining about the builds/pieces here fyi, and the 6 included figs + horse were good, the pirate/peasant torso is a bit of debate)

Now, for me, I collected a lot of Nexo Knight figs (and also got some old figs from the 90s), but see people who just got into LEGO have no real means but to go expensive ways like CMF, Bricks and Pieces or secondary market.

Minifig Horses have been on a shortage for a while as well and now slowly start to make it back into sets again.

 

I know 3-in-1 is supposedly the main means to revisit Classic themes, but with a rumoured Viking Ship set (3 figures?), I do hope there will be more smaller Castle/Pirate/Viking type sets in the near future afterward if they don't do themes anymore.

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Vindicare]

On 11/5/2021 at 1:11 PM, metalgeekzy said:

I am American and I guess it just kina makes sense to me? 

 

Like if I go to the store. I did not buy Lego. I bought Legos. Cause. You know. More then 1 Lego comes in a set. If I dumped out all my bricks in a pile I would not have a pile of Lego. I would have a pile of Legos. Because there would be more then 1. If I started sorting my collection. I would be sorting my Legos. Lego bricks seems redundant to me. So....I have Legos.

When you buy Kleenex, do you say you bought of a box of Kleenexes... 

[Johnny1360]

Simply put LEGO is the brand on the box, not the name of the contents of the box, those would be bricks or elements. Not sure why that is so hard to understand, lol.

I do catch myself occasionally saying Legos though and I don't correct others any more either. 

I don't say teethpaste or feetpowder or underarms deodorant either.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Johnny1360

[Toastie]

4 hours ago, Johnny1360 said:

I do catch myself occasionally saying Legos

Hah! That's what this is all about! Believe me, I got the LEGO bit. And the English language thing. The feets and foots, and good, better, even better, best, bestest. Or sheeps. Not the point: It was about what do people call their Legos ;) and that will be - of course - diverse. As in "LEGO bricks" or "Legos".

Uhm the bricks of course.

It is not about "why don't you folks not get it". I just googled (term is OK because I used Google and not Bing; then it would be: I binged Legos) "Legos" (don't forget the quotation marks) and selected "Pictures" ... well ... there are at least some hits. "Legos" all over the place

Best
Thorsten

[koalayummies]

1 hour ago, Toastie said:

 I just googled (term is OK because I used Google and not Bing; then it would be: I binged Legos) "Legos" (don't forget the quotation marks) and selected "Pictures" ... well ... there are at least some hits. "Legos" all over the place

LOL binged. Ok I try. Googleing legos now. Yep, 645,000,000 results. All of them legos! There's even several direct links to Lego.com US and Ideas. In fact when searching images I can't find a single non-lego result.

Also duckduckgo'd it. Its still loading cause duckduckgo is slooooooooooooow.

[RichardGoring]

8 hours ago, Vindicare said:

When you buy Kleenex, do you say you bought of a box of Kleenexes... 

I buy a box of tissues. Kleenex is the brand. Although again, might be a UK thing to use the product not the brand. It happens, but might be less common than in the US. Same with BandAids vs plasters, Saran wrap vs cling film, Tylenol vs paracetomol, Motrin vs ibuprofen. But there are some brand names that have become generic in the UK too, like Velcro.

It still sounds so odd to me to hear LEGOs. LEGO all the way.

[Sansy]

On 11/8/2021 at 8:54 PM, MAB said:

Fishes is often used as a plural if you are describing multiple species at once.

Wow. I actually didn't know that. My science teacher always says "species of fish", that's why I didn't know it had a plural use.

[MAB]

On 11/9/2021 at 4:55 PM, leafan said:

Rare minifigs are in demand; and I'm not getting into a essay war with you again.

When it comes to Castle, common figures are in demand too, possibly more than for rare figures. Common ones typically make good army builders so while supply is high, demand is also high. Prices are only high because supply is currently quite low. A lot of Kingdoms figures were dirt cheap when the sets were current. I know as I bought loads on BL at the time. Those peasants and soldiers sell nicely now. But demand and price would drop if current sets had similar ones.

Edited November 10, 2021 by MAB

[leafan]

15 hours ago, MAB said:

When it comes to Castle, common figures are in demand too, possibly more than for rare figures. Common ones typically make good army builders so while supply is high, demand is also high. Prices are only high because supply is currently quite low. A lot of Kingdoms figures were dirt cheap when the sets were current. I know as I bought loads on BL at the time. Those peasants and soldiers sell nicely now. But demand and price would drop if current sets had similar ones.

I also know first hand as I've seen the kids in my life gravitate directly to the minifigs in sets, not just in Castle, but across the board.

I don't think it's just kids either. At a certain point, you have enough Lego - but the minifigs are mostly unique and remain collectible.

[Alexandrina]

12 minutes ago, leafan said:

I also know first hand as I've seen the kids in my life gravitate directly to the minifigs in sets, not just in Castle, but across the board.

Without a full study being done, it's hard to look at your own experiences and extrapolate that to kids in general, though. There are plenty of kids who don't care about minifigures at all (someone has to be buying all the small Creator sets that come out every year, after all!) My personal experience is counter to yours - all the kids I've known who like Lego either don't care about minifigures at all or have one or two they like and aren't really fussed about others. Most of my friends when I was growing up had one or two favourites that they always used for play, and the rest of their figures stayed forever in their Lego tub. Personally speaking, my collection started with a tub containing two basic minifigs that were the only figures I owned for about six years. Didn't bother me. I had plenty of fun doing other things - didn't even particularly care for the other figures I got, to begin with. It wasn't until I started brickfilming and wanted specific minifigure parts for characters that I cared a jot what minifigures a set included.

And I won't say that's universal. But everyone has different views on the subject.

Interestingly, as an adult I've found that I wanted figures first UP TO A CERTAIN POINT. But after two years of trawling second hand markets, I have classic castle knights, I have lion knights and crown knights, black falcons and fright knights, a forestman with a cowl and a maiden with a hennin. And now that I've got the basics I'm not so fussed about the figures any more. If Lego released a Castle theme next year, I'd probably buy it and the figures would be a nice bonus, but I'd be mainly after the castle-specific bricks. (This, incidentally, is the reason I haven't personally bought the 3-in-1 Castle - it doesn't have the sort of Castle parts I want, and I can take or leave the minifigures)

[Aanchir]

Yeah, just speaking for myself, I'm a big fan of minifigures (and other LEGO figures), and they play a big part in my enjoyment of my favorite themes like Elves, Ninjago, etc… but for me, the builds in these themes are just as big a draw if not more! Moreover, even if brick-built figures like dragons they aren't "minifigures" strictly speaking, they are still "characters" in their own right, so perform a similar role to minifigures when either playing with the sets or setting them up on display.

I can't really speak for kids' tastes myself — I am 30 years old at this point, have no kids of my own, and do not have a whole lot of direct interaction with my relatives' kids these days due to the pandemic. But LEGO regularly releases 3-in-1 sets with brick-built dragons and fantasy creatures, often with no minifigures to accompany them. And clearly SOMEBODY is buying those sets.

I'm not any more interested in an "essay war" than you are, so if you'd rather "agree to disagree" (or even disregard my post entirely), I'm perfectly fine with that. I just wanted to share my perspective.

[TeriXeri]

2 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I can't really speak for kids' tastes myself — I am 30 years old at this point, have no kids of my own, and do not have a whole lot of direct interaction with my relatives' kids these days due to the pandemic. But LEGO regularly releases 3-in-1 sets with brick-built dragons and fantasy creatures, often with no minifigures to accompany them. And clearly SOMEBODY is buying those sets.

3-in-1 Castle is a very good build by itself imo, I can see how there are still knights vs opponents, just not in the traditional sense of knight vs knight.

Of course people can put the included extra armor/sword/shield on the skeleton and have him fight, or knight vs dragon, or even skeleton+trebuchet vs Tower in the alternate build, but since it has been such a long time since the last regular Castle theme (2014 if we count the minifig pack / LEGO Movie 70806: Castle Cavalry) I think people expected more.

However if we count Nexo and Ninjago Season 13 as Castle waves, it's actually not that terribly long ago, I suppose it's a matter of perspective.

Also let's not forget Season 13 Ninjago is still being sold until the end of this year.

What I do hope however, is that 3-in-1 gets some smaller Castle / Pirate / Viking themed set so it's not just limited to 1 a year, the €10 Cyber Drone set was pretty cool and had a unique figure for sci-fi / Space, I think the €30 segment is about right for a small building/boat 3-in-1 with 2-3 figs.

Big question will be, if 3-in-1 are one-off opportunities to go with the IDEAS sets (Pirates/Castle), or long-term plans for the theme.

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Another Brick In The Wall]

Betrayal at Cloud City is a great set and is a faithful representation of the subject matter. 

[MAB]

9 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Yeah, just speaking for myself, I'm a big fan of minifigures (and other LEGO figures), and they play a big part in my enjoyment of my favorite themes like Elves, Ninjago, etc… but for me, the builds in these themes are just as big a draw if not more! Moreover, even if brick-built figures like dragons they aren't "minifigures" strictly speaking, they are still "characters" in their own right, so perform a similar role to minifigures when either playing with the sets or setting them up on display.

I can't really speak for kids' tastes myself — I am 30 years old at this point, have no kids of my own, and do not have a whole lot of direct interaction with my relatives' kids these days due to the pandemic. But LEGO regularly releases 3-in-1 sets with brick-built dragons and fantasy creatures, often with no minifigures to accompany them. And clearly SOMEBODY is buying those sets.

I'm not any more interested in an "essay war" than you are, so if you'd rather "agree to disagree" (or even disregard my post entirely), I'm perfectly fine with that. I just wanted to share my perspective.

Those 3in1 dragons or robots or mechs are also characters, like dragons in Elves or Ninjago too. So if people like characters, then they are understandable. What about the others, such as vehicles. You only need to look at other toy shelves to see that diecast model cars and planes are popular toys,  and often don't have a driver or pilot. 

Also the need for minifigs is not necessarily the same across themes, especially for people that already have other lego.

When doing a City style display, the minifigs are there to fill it as it looks odd empty, but I rarely care about which minifigs they are. Of course there are specific roles need the correct type. If it is a police role, it needs to be a police minifig. If it is a civilian, just about any generic combination of minifig parts will do. And there are so many generic torsos that can be used for City. This is less true for Castle / historic. I can normally get by with plain legs, generic heads and there are many hair or helmets that can be used. It is the lack of torsos that is the problem, and not surprisingly they have high demand when they appear in other themes. Of course, there are ways around it in some cases, such as plain torsos covered up with a breastplate.

7 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Big question will be, if 3-in-1 are one-off opportunities to go with the IDEAS sets (Pirates/Castle), or long-term plans for the theme.

 

I don't think these are necessarily intended to go together, as the style of the 3 in 1 is so different to the IDEAS sets. More like an opportunity to reuse torso / figure designs and so provide something a bit more interesting than a plain torso in the 3 in 1 sets.

[The Brick Boss]

13 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I can't really speak for kids' tastes myself — I am 30 years old at this point, have no kids of my own, and do not have a whole lot of direct interaction with my relatives' kids these days due to the pandemic. But LEGO regularly releases 3-in-1 sets with brick-built dragons and fantasy creatures, often with no minifigures to accompany them. And clearly SOMEBODY is buying those sets.

I don't speak for all kids. But when I was a kid, the minifigs were what attracted me the most as I loved to roleplay. But similar to what you said though, I don't speak for ALL kids and also kids are way different nowadays than they were back when we were children - thus why we see a lot of changes to sets and themes. Children weren't as critical back then as they are now. 

[Lion King]

What’s a big deal about English lanauge itself? I mean a deaf American and English lanauge is not my primary language. I sign in American Sign Language (ASL), it’s way different from English language. I don’t follow grammar rules. I usually sign “me buy two lego today” instead of “i buy two lego sets (or legos) today”. 

[Maple]

Unpopular Opinions about LEGO....

I don't care if someone says LEGOs and the people who do need to get out more.