Lego Ideas 90th Anniversary Fan Vote

[Fuppylodders]

7 minutes ago, Stuartn said:

Same goes for trains, even though I will be voting for trains, it doesn't really need it because unlike space, trains has an almost certain prospect of getting new sets over the next few years and already has a set available.

I was going to mention trains too, but given they kinda seem to only get 1 set a year, 2 at most, I can understand (although still disagree) with the sentiment of wanting a trains iteration. I personally feel this vote should only be applied to themes that were stopped. SW doesn't count for classic space 

Edited January 18, 2021 by Fuppylodders

[Kit Figsto]

I agree that Bionicle is deserving of recognition, since it was probably one of the most innovative themes LEGO ever made and arguably saved the company from folding entirely.  I never got into them, but I can totally understand the appeal, and I absolutely don't think people are wrong for liking them.  However, I don't think that it should be in a poll running against traditional system sets.  They're just too different to really be compared with the classic themes.  

Bionicle has a big fanbase, but those that were never into it probably aren't going to be very interested in a one-off anniversary set of it.  I feel like it's one of those themes where you either "got it" or you didn't.  With Castle or Space or whatever, I think that the model has appeal even if someone isn't inherently a Space/Castle collector, but I don't really know if that's as much of the case with Bionicle. 

I also would hazard a guess that it probably wouldn't have as much appeal to those that were never around for the original run of it, considering it was heavily story-based and they can't exactly delve super deep into that with one set, plus, recent iterations of action figures (Bionicle reboot, Hero Factory, Star Wars constraction, etc) all didn't seem to do as well as the original Bionicle did.  

The other thing is that the article says the set will be part of the "Adult Portfolio" which I assume means a large, 18+ set, probably similar in size to most Ideas sets.  How would that work for Bionicle?  There were larger Bionicle sets, but looking at brickset, I count only ten that were over $50 and three of those were the minifigure sets, which I seriously doubt they would bring back, since the large figures were the more well-known ones.  

Realistically, I think they should've done an "anniversary wave" of the top handful of vote-getting themes.  That way, fewer people are disappointed and they could do themes are are more conducive to small sets (like Bionicle) as well as themes like Adventurers or Castle where people would want a large, $100+ set.

Edited January 19, 2021 by Kit Figsto

[Pulp Detective]

20 minutes ago, Kit Figsto said:

 Realistically, I think they should've done an "anniversary wave" of the top handful of vote-getting themes.

Exactly,either way whatever theme wins many are going to be disappointed no matter what. 

An anniversary theme with remakes of old sets would be perfect.

Edited January 19, 2021 by LOTR34

[Stuartn]

18 minutes ago, Kit Figsto said:

Realistically, I think they should've done an "anniversary wave" of the top handful of vote-getting themes.

They could have done, say five small sets, for around US$50 each, to represent town, trains, space, castle and pirates, maybe a sixth for bionicle, and everyone could've gotten a set they wanted.

I didn't realise the important role bionicle played in TLG business wise, it might be good to do it now for the 90th anniversary, saving a system set for the 100th in 2031.

[PacificDuck]

Forestmen, Black Knights, and Wolfpack for me.

An updated Forestmen set has the potential to be epic

[Bob De Quatre]

I voted M-Tron, Space Police and Ice Planet.

But I'm pretty sure that a castle theme will win...

[astral brick]

19 hours ago, Lego David said:

This whole poll is kind of broken to be honest. Why split all the Castle and Space subthemes when you could unify the fans of those lines together under one single poll choice?

Free market survey.

19 hours ago, Lego David said:

On top of that, most of the choices in the poll feel really random to be honest. Time Cruisers? Studios? 

Give voice to all (and free market survey)

19 hours ago, Lego David said:

 Why can't they just release a series of multiple sets based off popular classic themes?

Maybe they will

[MAB]

9 hours ago, Stuartn said:

 

I am dumbfounded as to why bionicle is on the list, I think the bionicle pieces are no less an important part of Lego than system sets, but the last bionicle sets come out  5 YEARS AGO!! It started 20 years ago, earlier than some other options, and there was a break between 2010 and 2016, but it seems so modern compared with other choices, and you must wonder why Hero Factory was not included.

 

The last sets / books with Classic Space parts were ... well, currently on shelves (orange spaceman) and Benny's squad is newer than recent Bionicle. Same with Pirates. Similar with Castle. If Bionicle had a few sets on the shelves five years ago and get excluded due to that, then the same could be said for other themes.

[MAB]

4 hours ago, Bob De Quatre said:

I voted M-Tron, Space Police and Ice Planet.

But I'm pretty sure that a castle theme will win...

I guess every theme's fans think another theme will win. It is a shame that LEGO chooses to split the community like this honouring a single theme only rather than releasing an anniversary item that celebrates the history of the company.

PS. Why does Space get to keep its 90th anniversary thread, while other forums have had them merged into the one in the general topics?

[Bob De Quatre]

Just now, MAB said:

PS. Why does Space get to keep its 90th anniversary thread, while other forums have had them merged into the one in the general topics?

Because I'm lazzy, and no other mod saw this topic ? 

[Fuppylodders]

Feel free to merge, I made it before I saw the posting in the 'general' thread here. Although once that vote is over, it doesn't leave the general thread clogged with disappointment if classic space loses out and this thread will drop off into the abyss 

Perhaps ice planet (or actual classic space-blue/yellow/gray) has a chance to win, but yeah, I get the feeling it'll be something like city/castle/trains that wins it  

[Bob De Quatre]

Please comment this subject in this topic:

https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/182701-lego-ideas-90th-anniversary-fan-vote/

 

[Lego David]

13 hours ago, Stuartn said:

I am dumbfounded as to why bionicle is on the list, I think the bionicle pieces are no less an important part of Lego than system sets, but the last bionicle sets come out  5 YEARS AGO!!

I mean, Pirates also got another wave of sets in 2015, at the same time the Bionicle reboot came out. So with that mentality Pirates should have been excluded as well. 

12 hours ago, Kit Figsto said:

The other thing is that the article says the set will be part of the "Adult Portfolio" which I assume means a large, 18+ set, probably similar in size to most Ideas sets.  How would that work for Bionicle?  There were larger Bionicle sets, but looking at brickset, I count only ten that were over $50 and three of those were the minifigure sets, which I seriously doubt they would bring back, since the large figures were the more well-known ones.  

In the Bionicle story, there is this thing called the Great Spirt Robot (look it up online, there were plenty of images with him) that never got represented as an official LEGO set. They could very easily just create a large Voltron-style robot set for it, and a lot of Bionicle fans would be more than happy. Here is a custom set idea that someone created, in order to get a better idea of what I mean:

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Lego David

[JJ Tong (zfogshooterz)]

Voted for two themes - 

Adventurers - Aside from slightly being a sucker for Egyptian themed stuffs, it's specifically more on me really liking Pharaoh Hotep. He looks to be a really dark and cool villain for that time so it would be real nice to have a modern version of the minifigure. Even better, would be really nice too to have a darker reimagining of a build surrounding the pharaoh. It's unlikely, but one can dream.

And...

Bionicle - Because why not. To be honest, an 18+ Bionicle set has never appealed to me. What drew me to the theme back then was the figures and the waves of new stuffs so this alley is not my cup of tea. But hey, there's always the possibility that I might be pleasantly surprised.

Too bad there wasn't UFO anywhere, I would've voted the heck out of that!

Edited January 19, 2021 by JJ Tong (zfogshooterz)

[The_Fiery_Rooster]

I haven't voted yet, but in terms of what I will most likely vote for, I'm thinking classic space, adventurers and... I'll see about a third option. The only reason I'm unsure about bionicle is that every single piece the theme introduced is pretty much out of production. I know lego could still make something good, but I'm certain that many fans will dislike the set for being system when there's no other choice lego can make. The same is also true for ice planet, the trans neon orange is coming out of production so there's no way fans would be happy with whatever lego would use instead. I also won't vote for castle or pirates because they've both had good years recently (Last year for pirates, and this year for castle) so I feel like sci-fi space needs some love from lego, and despite being way to young to have ever seen them, classic space still resonates strongly with me.

[TheNerdyOne_]

Just my two cents and something I think people should keep in mind, this isn't just a poll for this one specific set.  It's very likely market research.  Almost any "fan vote" by a company is ultimately market research.

LEGO's obviously been pushing for the adult market pretty hard recently.  Now, they'll have a near-definitive popularity ranking of all of their old themes among older fans.  This is likely a big part of the reason why themes like Castle and Space are split up like they are, among reasons others have already spoken to.  With the votes split between different subthemes, LEGO can then ask themselves "okay why was this Castle/Space theme more popular than the others, and what can we take away from that to help drive our success in the future."  The results are likely going to influence future 18+ sets for a long while.  Not in the form of specific sets for each theme, but in more subtle ways.  Like if the Castle themes do well across the board, LEGO knows they should be making 18+ Castle sets.  Same thing if the Space themes do well, and for example the comparison between Exploriens and Spyrius in terms of popularity might tell LEGO whether or not fans want exploration-oriented space sets or conflict-oriented space sets.  If Bionicle does really well, maybe that tells LEGO their 18+ audience might be interested in expansive universes with their own lore, which has already worked really well for them in the younger crowd with Ninjago.  So if you're thinking "well it's really weird they included this theme, but not this other one," perhaps this list is curated to give LEGO the most useful information without overwhelming voters with too many options.  Like the Model Team line was likely included to help gauge interest in similar sets for the 18+ line, not because LEGO thinks it could win.

Think about LEGO Ideas.  I would very much make the argument that the Ideas platform has definitely influenced LEGO sets as a whole, far beyond the individual sets.  I'd even argue that all of the video game Ideas projects (especially the huge success of the Minecraft line, and the many Legend of Zelda projects) has led to LEGO lowering their barriers about video game licensing, resulting in the Overwatch and Super Mario themes.  And that's just one example, Ideas has always been about market research above all.

It's a limited data set, the average consumer isn't going to be participating in this, but it's still incredibly useful data.  Especially if the 90th anniversary set sells well, that could even tell them that directly investing in their historic themes pays off.  While the adult market has existed for a long time, LEGO's recent attempt to tap into it with the 18+ sets is pretty fresh, and they need all of the information they can get.

Edited January 19, 2021 by TheNerdyOne_

[Robert8]

1 hour ago, JJ Tong (zfogshooterz) said:

 

Too bad there wasn't UFO anywhere, I would've voted the heck out of that!

Oh that's true!

UFO is missing! And heck I loved that subtheme. Probably my fav SciFi theme. Can't believe I didnt even notice it was missing

[Kit Figsto]

6 hours ago, Lego David said:

In the Bionicle story, there is this thing called the Great Spirt Robot (look it up online, there were plenty of images with him) that never got represented as an official LEGO set. They could very easily just create a large Voltron-style robot set for it, and a lot of Bionicle fans would be more than happy. Here is a custom set idea that someone created, in order to get a better idea of what I mean:l

Thanks for educating me!  I do think that would work quite well as an 18+ set, not my cup of tea but that does seem like a very viable type of set if Bionicle were to win.

I still stand by my suggestion that they needed to do multiple sets based on several themes, though!

[ProfSrlojohn]

Maybe I'm an absolute madman, but I have a sneaking suspicion myself that the whole reason the second round of voting is blind is mainly because of Bionicle.

Trying to make something that will satisfy the several different groups of people will be much harder for Bionicle than maybe any other theme on the list. I'm fairly certain it was on the list to throw the Bionicle fans like myself a bone, rather than have any real plans. Not to mention, why in the world did they use that mediocre picture of the canister when plenty of high-quality images exist of the canister art. It's baffling. It just suggests to me Bionicle was either A) A last minute addition so people wouldn't complain, or B) they want to discourage it from winning. (Which, to be honest, I can't blame them)

[sahidko]

I understand that we got some Pirates sets recently but still reading through the 5 page made me kind of sad with the lack of love for Imperials. Anyway, interesting idea, weird picks and groupings from Lego, let's see what comes out of it. :)

[MAB]

1 hour ago, ProfSrlojohn said:

Maybe I'm an absolute madman, but I have a sneaking suspicion myself that the whole reason the second round of voting is blind is mainly because of Bionicle.

Trying to make something that will satisfy the several different groups of people will be much harder for Bionicle than maybe any other theme on the list. I'm fairly certain it was on the list to throw the Bionicle fans like myself a bone, rather than have any real plans. Not to mention, why in the world did they use that mediocre picture of the canister when plenty of high-quality images exist of the canister art. It's baffling. It just suggests to me Bionicle was either A) A last minute addition so people wouldn't complain, or B) they want to discourage it from winning. (Which, to be honest, I can't blame them)

I imagine fans of every theme think lego are gerrymandering it against "their" theme. I think it is quite sad lego has done the poll, creating division when the anniversary should have been celebration. I would have preferred they did something not expected or tied to any one theme, so maybe a buildable wooden elephant or something else a bit more historical, rather than favour just one chosen theme at the expense of all others. 

[JJ Tong (zfogshooterz)]

19 hours ago, Robert8 said:

Oh that's true!

UFO is missing! And heck I loved that subtheme. Probably my fav SciFi theme. Can't believe I didnt even notice it was missing

Definitely same here too. Out of all the 80s - 90s space themes, UFO is also by far my favorite. Pretty much what got me started into discovering a lot of pre-2000s castle and space themes.

[ProfSrlojohn]

36 minutes ago, MAB said:

I imagine fans of every theme think lego are gerrymandering it against "their" theme. I think it is quite sad lego has done the poll, creating division when the anniversary should have been celebration. I would have preferred they did something not expected or tied to any one theme, so maybe a buildable wooden elephant or something else a bit more historical, rather than favour just one chosen theme at the expense of all others. 

I'm not say they've anything against Bionicle in particular, I just think they know that if they didn't include it, people would complain, but if it won, people would complain, including decent sized portions of the very group they're trying to satisfy by it's inclusion, because it would not be what one would expect. It couldn't be traditional Bionicle pieces, and while they might be able to CCBS that has it's own problems. If they go system, while I think a decent portion of Bionicle's fan-base would be fine with that, there's quite a few that wouldn't like that. It was a no win situation.

Though again, the picture of the whole canister, as opposed to the box art is still odd to me.

Edited January 19, 2021 by ProfSrlojohn

[Stuartn]

13 hours ago, MAB said:

The last sets / books with Classic Space parts were ... well, currently on shelves (orange spaceman) and Benny's squad is newer than recent Bionicle. Same with Pirates. Similar with Castle. If Bionicle had a few sets on the shelves five years ago and get excluded due to that, then the same could be said for other themes.

 

10 hours ago, Lego David said:

mean, Pirates also got another wave of sets in 2015, at the same time the Bionicle reboot came out. So with that mentality Pirates should have been excluded as well. 

I agree with both these points, I simply said bionicle as an example, which I could have said more clearly I'll admit. Unlike the other themes which have recently had sets, or whole themes, later than the last bionicle sets, bionicle, is well, bionicle, whereas other themes, such as arctic, paradisia, divers, town and train, are now part off other themes, such as City. Because of the divisions between different parts of themes such as space and castle in this survey, it is difficult to ascertain whether recent themes, such as the 2015 pirates theme, are technically the same theme. Bionicle was just the most poignant and inarguable example.

If bionicle does win, I won't be disappointed because it is no less deserving than some other themes, and I think that the inclusion of bionicle, the most recent theme, should justify the inclusion of other constraction and system themes up until 2016.

I actually think town, trains, paradisia, arctic, divers and model team are probably less deserving than bionicle, that said I will vote for trains.

In bionicle's defence, there is also a misconception that bionicle is only large constraction sets. There were many large system scale sets throughout the theme which should appeal to many other consumers.

[ProfSrlojohn]

2 minutes ago, Stuartn said:

In bionicle's defence, there is also a misconception that bionicle is only large constraction sets. There were many large system scale sets throughout the theme which should appeal to many other consumers.

I mean, it was 11 sets, none of which were that good. Not to mention, the figures look nothing like the characters barring a few exceptions, or are just odd. See the 2005 figures. So they're not exactly the best reflection of Bionicle.