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durazno33

Lego 90 year set voting split and throughts

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I saw an article with preliminary voting counts for the 90 year Lego anniversary set poll estimating that Bionicle was the top pick followed by Classic Space and then Pirates.  That seems incredibly ridiculous and obviously rigged.  Bionicle wasn't split into 4-5 different sub-themes so obviously it was going to get a higher single chunk of the votes.  And Bionicle isn't really even a classic theme having come out in the 2000's whereas most of the other themes were before the year 2000.  

And to hear that classic space would be in the top is also a bit sad because we already got a classic space remake with Benny's spaceship from the Lego movie just a couple years ago.  Though for castle, we are getting the Lego Ideas Blacksmith set and for Pirate there was the Pirates of Barracuda Bay so we've been getting some vintage style sets for sure.  I'm hoping that the folks behind the poles realize how rigged the voting was with split voting and implement a fair resolution but who knows.

What do people think, do Pirates, Space, and/or castle deserve another re-imagined set or should Bionicle get this one?

Edited by durazno33

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I think it's Classic Space's turn. The last Benny's spaceship was 7 years ago and we didn't really get anything related to Classic Space recently (except for Benny's Space Squad). It also looks like the general space theme got more voters than bionicle (when counting Space Police & Blacktron as space).

Edited by JintaiZ

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Lego Ideas 90th Anniversary Fan Vote - Page 14 - General LEGO Discussion - Eurobricks Forums

 

There is already a long discussion about this in the general forum.

Bionicle is Classic, in that it was the origin of buildable jointed figures. Classic is applied to Space and Castle, even though other themes came before those so why not also apply it to Bionicle?

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1 hour ago, MAB said:

Lego Ideas 90th Anniversary Fan Vote - Page 14 - General LEGO Discussion - Eurobricks Forums

 

There is already a long discussion about this in the general forum.

Bionicle is Classic, in that it was the origin of buildable jointed figures. Classic is applied to Space and Castle, even though other themes came before those so why not also apply it to Bionicle?

Yeah, that discussion is a mess with so many sub conversations.

With Castle (1978), Pirates (1989), and Space (1978), Bionicle's classic theme from 2001 makes it a very young classic.  Since it is also not a system theme, it doesn't fit as a very apt 90 year representation of the core of what Lego is or was.  

Edited by durazno33

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1 hour ago, JintaiZ said:

I think it's Classic Space's turn. The last Benny's spaceship was 7 years ago and we didn't really get anything related to Classic Space recently (except for Benny's Space Squad). It also looks like the general space theme got more voters than bionicle (when counting Space Police & Blacktron as space).

I totally agree! But I'm super biased. Space is my favorite. And boy am I thirsty for more Space.

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It has indeed been said quite a lot. About the awful job someone did organising the vote. All sorts of incorrectness of the vote:

Starting by split of space and castle not into 4-5 but to 6 subthemes each and pirates in two.

Awful picture bio got to represent itself

Missing some other themes

And obviously questioning the decision to make just one set.

I personally believe there are 4 classic themes: castle, space, pirates and town. Just look at old catalogues. All 40+ years old. And only town being still produced under city name. So choice here should be between castle, space and pirates. Sorry or not but bio does not represent Lego for majority of the fans. So the best solution would have been imo to make set for each of the great 3. It is noone's turn. No theme is greater than the other. 

So organizers should do a real good math and thinking considering aggregation of themes and counting the unique users after aggregation. We will soon find out what they might come out with. As any decision should have reasoning which organisation totally lacks.

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37 minutes ago, Old-mf said:

It has indeed been said quite a lot. About the awful job someone did organising the vote. All sorts of incorrectness of the vote:

Starting by split of space and castle not into 4-5 but to 6 subthemes each and pirates in two.

Awful picture bio got to represent itself

Missing some other themes

And obviously questioning the decision to make just one set.

I personally believe there are 4 classic themes: castle, space, pirates and town. Just look at old catalogues. All 40+ years old. And only town being still produced under city name. So choice here should be between castle, space and pirates. Sorry or not but bio does not represent Lego for majority of the fans. So the best solution would have been imo to make set for each of the great 3. It is noone's turn. No theme is greater than the other. 

So organizers should do a real good math and thinking considering aggregation of themes and counting the unique users after aggregation. We will soon find out what they might come out with. As any decision should have reasoning which organisation totally lacks.

While I'm still unsure whether a poll like this was a good idea, given the overall effect it's had on the organized fan community... why SHOULDN'T Bionicle get a chance alongside those others? We've had more Classic Castle, Space, Pirates and Town tributes than I can count over the years. And I don't think anniversary celebrations should have to continue celebrating the same limited conception of what "Lego" consisted of in the '70s and '80s alone. At this point, Bionicle as a theme is older than the Guarded Inn and Black Seas Barracuda were when they were rereleased in the "Lego Legends" theme in the early 2000s. At what point does it get to join the ranks of other "classics"?

If the winner weren't Bionicle, I would have probably preferred a different theme that I grew up with in the '90s (like Aquazone, Adventurers, Ice Planet, or Royal Knights) over yet another Classic Space or Castle or Pirates tribute that only acknowledges the very earliest iterations of those themes. Don't get me wrong, I love those themes too, but Lego has been about more than just those four themes you listed for a long, long time, and it's high time people came to terms with Lego's broader history.

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I look at it this way..if I don't like it, I won't buy. Money saved to spend on other expensive LEGO sets...

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During the 2000's Lego strayed away from smaller pieced sets with many pieces toward sets with huge pieces with limited reusability.  That trend also correlated with a decline in sales and near bankruptcy as a company.  Bionicle as a theme is the only theme of that large bulky brick era that actually worked with fans and had a large success base.

I'm curious if the reason Bionicle had such a group following is because they had a series of comic books written about them.  To me, Bionicle doesn't represent the core of what classic Lego is, but is more a deviation into another fan base... the fan base of comic books.  

Bionicle is a stray from the core of what Lego is, building and rebuilding into whatever the user could imagine because of the building limitations caused by the pieces. (a Bionicle character parts are highly specialized to be made into Bionicle characters and not houses, cars, boats, airplanes and all the other things that Lego is)  It wasn't until Lego returned to smaller pieces, with more reusability that they have really seen an uptick in sales and revitalization.  This is why, although a popular theme, Bionicle doesn't represent the core of what Lego is and more represents a gained fan group during a period when Lego strayed from it's classic legacy.  

 

Edited by durazno33

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3 hours ago, durazno33 said:

 

With Castle (1978), Pirates (1989), and Space (1978), Bionicle's classic theme from 2001 makes it a very young classic.  Since it is also not a system theme, it doesn't fit as a very apt 90 year representation of the core of what Lego is or was.  

Those themes were all new though compared to non-Classic Town or Homemaker, so it is not just age that defines Classic. It is not quality either, as they aren't that great. 

Also considering LEGO did just celebrate 60 years of the system brick, I don't think it would matter too much if they chose to go non-system this time. 

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30 minutes ago, durazno33 said:

During the 2000's Lego strayed away from smaller pieced sets with many pieces toward sets with huge pieces with limited reusability.  That trend also correlated with a decline in sales and near bankruptcy as a company.  Bionicle as a theme is the only theme of that large bulky brick era that actually worked with fans and had a large success base.

I'm curious if the reason Bionicle had such a group following is because they had a series of comic books written about them.  To me, Bionicle doesn't represent the core of what classic Lego is, but is more a deviation into another fan base... the fan base of comic books.   

Bionicle is a stray from the core of what Lego is, building and rebuilding into whatever the user could imagine because of the building limitations caused by the pieces. (a Bionicle character parts are highly specialized to be made into Bionicle characters and not houses, cars, boats, airplanes and all the other things that Lego is)  It wasn't until Lego returned to smaller pieces, with more reusability that they have really seen an uptick in sales and revitalization.  This is why, although a popular theme, Bionicle doesn't represent the core of what Lego is and more represents a gained fan group during a period when Lego strayed from it's classic legacy. 

I don't think this is really a very fair assessment. First of all, the storytelling appeal of Bionicle extended well beyond the comics — its story was also told through movies, chapter books, online games, guide books, and web animations. In that respect, it was not very unlike more recent story-driven themes like Ninjago, Legends of Chima, or Nexo Knights (although those themes have gotten a lot better at conveying the "core" storyline in a single medium, instead of having to immerse yourself in ALL of those formats to fully keep up with the storyline).

That's no coincidence, since Bionicle heavily influenced both the development process of pretty much themes that followed it, and the narrative approaches taken by subsequent story-driven and media-supported themes in particular. In its ninth chapter, the book "Brick by Brick" by David C. Robertson goes into very specific details about Bionicle's strategic innovations that made it so successful and influential.

And Bionicle is hardly the only theme (or even the first) to have parts tailored to very specific uses, or an emphasis on character-driven storytelling. More than a decade, the Fabuland theme was very similar in BOTH those respects, even if it was tailored to a decidedly different audience, and told its story through picture books and videocassettes rather than the formats that Bionicle employed.

Even the Technic theme has a heavy emphasis on building machines and vehicles — perhaps you could rebuild a Technic car into a house or castle, just as you could rebuild a Bionicle set into a boat or airplane, but either way that would be very far from the use those parts were designed for. Likewise, a lot of traditional Castle and Pirates sets rely heavily upon parts that are just as specific to building castles or boats/ships as Bionicle parts are to building posable sci-fi characters and creatures. Sure, these themes also make extensive use of basic System elements, but similarly, many Bionicle sets and other "constraction" sets (especially larger ones) made extensive use of more basic Technic elements like beams, pins, axles, and angle connectors.

If the Bionicle design philosophy really did represent some far-flung departure from the creative spirit of the LEGO brand, it'd be hard to imagine why it would have so many fans who have also been passionate about other LEGO themes before, during, and/or since its heyday. A lot of my own attraction to Bionicle in the first place, besides its story, was my love of building sci-fi robots and mechanical creatures, which had likewise drawn me to System themes like Spyrius, Aquazone, Roboforce, Mindstorms, Throwbots, and Life on Mars at various points in my childhood.

As it turned out, Bionicle offered a building system which offered lifelike articulation, proportions, and functions, which made it far more conducive to the sort of creative building I enjoyed than its System and Technic predecessors, in which any articulation or movement tended to be slow, stiff, lumbering, and awkward compared to Bionicle's highly flexible ball-and-socket hinges and swift, energetic gear functions.

By comparison, I'd grown up with basically zero interest in more conventional "action figures" (or in comic books, for that matter — the only ones I'd enjoyed up to that point were stuff like Asterix or The Adventures of Tintin, which weren't the least bit Bionicle-ish). It was only from seeing it in the LEGO catalogs and LEGO Mania Magazines that I first gained awareness of and interest in it, and it was the creative potential that ended up getting me hooked, despite` how far-removed some of the parts like the masks were from the LEGO design language I was familiar with.

The mysterious and creatively inspiring storyline was just the icing on the cake, and helped it retain my interest through the entirety of my teen years, when other LEGO fans might have been more likely to experience a "dark age" that pulled them away from LEGO entirely. Moreover the wide variety of Bionicle MOCs that fans have created over the years should certainly show that to us, having parts tailored to sci-fi character and creature building is the opposite of a "limitation". My own constraction MOC output over the years has probably far exceeded my System MOC output, despite having been a System fan for much longer!

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If Bionicle wins will we get just one figure or more is a question I would like to know.  If it's just one figure then I think this will be a waste.  But I totally agree that themes like castle and space have been spread way to thin with several sub-themes they put on the voting list.  I wouldn't mind if Bionicle won but it better be a damn good figure worth buying otherwise they could have wasted an opportunity to do so many good things with all the other great themes that are up for voting.  

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I guess after reading all the general vore related thread, I know for sure why bio fans do not stick with system fans. 

They are like the pieces they use. It is written Lego on them, but they just cannot be attached to the regular studs of Lego blocks...

I guess Durazno33 opened this thread in historical section to discuss the level of unfairness that castle was treated with. As according to the article he refers to 27k unique users voted for at least one castle theme while bio has 17k total vote and should not even be there. 

But as all this was already covered so many times it is indeed better close this topic as duplicate. 

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1 hour ago, Old-mf said:

I guess Durazno33 opened this thread in historical section to discuss the level of unfairness that castle was treated with. As according to the article he refers to 27k unique users voted for at least one castle theme while bio has 17k total vote and should not even be there.

As much as I understand this frustration, there's no way of knowing if Castle themes would have gotten as many votes in the first place if it were presented as a singular category rather than broken down into subthemes. I mean, in my own responses, I voted for Forestmen in addition to Bionicle. If "Castle" had been the choice, I might have ended up voting for a totally different theme like Adventurers in its place. After all, we've had new Castle sets in general much more recently than new Forestmen sets in particular, and I would feel kind of bummed if I voted for Castle and the resulting set ended up being a drab-looking gray castle based on one of the more conventional knight factions.

Moreover, if you're referring to this StoneWars.de article, take note that even in the versions of the preliminary and final tallies where they combined the results for all the different Castle, Space, and Pirates subthemes, Bionicle STILL made it into the top 3. So I can't see any legitimate reason to think Bionicle "should not even be there". It's true that Space and Castle would have ranked above Bionicle if they'd been listed as singular categories and not broken down into separate factions. But even then, the percentage of users who voted for Bionicle STILL surpasses the number of votes for other "third place" contenders like Pirates, Trains, and Adventurers. And that should be a good indication that the theme remains a lot more popular among adults than you seem to believe.

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6 hours ago, Lyichir said:

We've had more Classic Castle, Space, Pirates and Town tributes than I can count over the years

I'm pretty sure you can count past, like, 4 dude.

Remember that Bionicle got a whole THEME during 2015-2016 and a whopping 42 sets.

Since then, Space got, what half a Junior set and a battle pack, both under the LM2 theme? Big whoop.

Biiiig whoop I say.

Castle's had it even worse, until this year, which is a freakin' banner year for Castle with a whopping 2 sets, and I'm not even sure if the Creator castle is going to be anything like what Castle fans would hope for.

And yes I used "whopping" seriously the first time and sarcastically the second time.

 

EDIT: And to be clear I'm not arguing AT ALL against Bionicle being a legitimate "classic". Just against the idea that Space and Castle have gotten, well, even close to "countless" homages in recent times.

Edited by danth

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1 hour ago, danth said:

Castle's had it even worse, until this year, which is a freakin' banner year for Castle with a whopping 2 sets, and I'm not even sure if the Creator castle is going to be anything like what Castle fans would hope for.

But we had Nexo Knights! :roflmao:

For real, though, as much as I'd love to see a classic castle or classic space line, and I am using the larger terms here, since I agree with the way that @Old-mf has grouped the sub themes, I am kind of hoping that it's Bionicle since my wallet is already hurting and I have no interest in that.  Let the Bio fans have their fun now and give us a real castle line later (or space, but with SW out, I'm not going to hold my breath on that one).

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I don´t like this voting, because there were LEGO themes and subthemes mixed together. There should be only themes (Castle, Space, Bionicle...) or subthemes (Black Falcons, Forestmen, Blacktron, M-Tron, Agori, Barraki...). They mixed them together and that doesn´t make sense and it is not fair, because most votes from castle fans were split between subthemes.

But...they have now information which subthemes are the most preferred, so maybe in future we will see some CMF figure based on some of the old factions.

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Let me put Bionicle's problem another way. When I was in the Lego resale market, Lego system parts would sell for $10 a pound (0.45 kg) and Bionicle parts would sell for $10 for a big bin.  The only other stuff I sold at such a low price per volume were the Mega blocks I would find mixed in with the Legos.

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1 hour ago, durazno33 said:

Let me put Bionicle's problem another way. When I was in the Lego resale market, Lego system parts would sell for $10 a pound (0.45 kg) and Bionicle parts would sell for $10 for a big bin.  The only other stuff I sold at such a low price per volume were the Mega blocks I would find mixed in with the Legos.

I've seen this brought up a lot but more than anything else, this seems to be because of how immensely popular Bionicle was in its heyday. Because so many kids bought Bionicle, the used/secondhand market ended up positively glut with it as kids grew out of it, depressing the cost of bulk parts severely. By contrast, new in box Bionicle sets (especially limited edition/store exclusive sets) tend to perform better on the aftermarket. This is one reason why sales on the secondhand market can be such a poor way to judge the popularity of a set or theme, because sets produced and sold in high quantities generally underperform on the aftermarket compared to sets that are produced or sold in lower quantities, sometimes including outright flops.

In any case, a Bionicle tribute set is unlikely to be faced with this issue because it's unlikely to use classic Bionicle parts in the first place (since most if not all of those are long retired), meaning that the inventory is likely to be composed of newer System or Technic parts, potentially including new printed parts or recolors that could become valuable or sought after over time.

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12 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

I've seen this brought up a lot but more than anything else, this seems to be because of how immensely popular Bionicle was in its heyday. Because so many kids bought Bionicle, the used/secondhand market ended up positively glut with it as kids grew out of it, depressing the cost of bulk parts severely. By contrast, new in box Bionicle sets (especially limited edition/store exclusive sets) tend to perform better on the aftermarket. This is one reason why sales on the secondhand market can be such a poor way to judge the popularity of a set or theme, because sets produced and sold in high quantities generally underperform on the aftermarket compared to sets that are produced or sold in lower quantities, sometimes including outright flops.

In any case, a Bionicle tribute set is unlikely to be faced with this issue because it's unlikely to use classic Bionicle parts in the first place (since most if not all of those are long retired), meaning that the inventory is likely to be composed of newer System or Technic parts, potentially including new printed parts or recolors that could become valuable or sought after over time.

The market wasn't flooded with too many Bionicle sets any more than the market was flooded with 30 years of system parts.  When customers were offered to buy system bricks and Bionicle in bulk or in a "fill a cup with parts they wanted" lot, almost no one picked the Bionicle parts. The big bin of Bionicle parts formed from the left overs because very few people in the secondary market were wanting them.  

The Bionicle sets I could assemble from my parts barely sold if at all as a set (granted they weren't new).  It wasn't an over abundance of stock, just almost no one was interested.

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2 hours ago, durazno33 said:

The market wasn't flooded with too many Bionicle sets any more than the market was flooded with 30 years of system parts.  When customers were offered to buy system bricks and Bionicle in bulk or in a "fill a cup with parts they wanted" lot, almost no one picked the Bionicle parts. The big bin of Bionicle parts formed from the left overs because very few people in the secondary market were wanting them.  

The Bionicle sets I could assemble from my parts barely sold if at all as a set (granted they weren't new).  It wasn't an over abundance of stock, just almost no one was interested.

Okay! I've revised my post below.

3 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I've seen this brought up a lot but more than anything else, this seems to be because of how immensely popular Bionicle was in its heyday. Because so many kids bought Bionicle, the used/secondhand market ended up positively glut with it as kids grew out of it, depressing the cost of bulk parts severely. By contrast, new in box Bionicle sets (especially limited edition/store exclusive sets) tend to perform better on the aftermarket. This is one reason why sales sellers on the secondhand market can be such a poor way to judge the popularity of a set or theme, because sets produced and sold in high quantities generally underperform on the aftermarket compared to sets that are produced or sold in lower quantities, sometimes including outright flops they assume their tiny window into one small aspect of a portion of the Lego fan community is representative of the feelings of the fandom at large, even when evidence shows that not to be the case.

In any case, a Bionicle tribute set is unlikely to be faced with this issue because it's unlikely to use classic Bionicle parts in the first place (since most if not all of those are long retired), meaning that the inventory is likely to be composed of newer System or Technic parts, potentially including new printed parts or recolors that could become valuable or sought after over time.

 

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On 1/28/2021 at 10:58 PM, durazno33 said:

Bionicle is a stray from the core of what Lego is, building and rebuilding into whatever the user could imagine because of the building limitations caused by the pieces. (a Bionicle character parts are highly specialized to be made into Bionicle characters and not houses, cars, boats, airplanes and all the other things that Lego is) 

It is not limitations caused by the pieces, it is lack of knowledge (probably through a lack of willingness to learn about the pieces). There are many MOCs based on Bionicle and CCBS that are not Bionicle characters.

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Patrick+Biggs+Lego+Bionicle+elephant.jpg

 

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Edited by MAB

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20 hours ago, Lyichir said:

they assume their tiny window into one small aspect of a portion of the Lego fan community is representative of the feelings of the fandom at large, even when evidence shows that not to be the case.

What evidence though?

Didn't they bring back Bionicle in 2015, and didn't it last only until 2016, and didn't they stop making them because they didn't sell enough?

It didn't even last as long as Nexo Knights, and everyone calls Nexo Knights a "failure" for only lasting three years.

Please don't tell me some online survey is evidence of anything. If online surveys meant anything, Bernie Sanders would be POTUS right now. :tongue:

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On 1/28/2021 at 1:10 PM, JintaiZ said:

I think it's Classic Space's turn. The last Benny's spaceship was 7 years ago and we didn't really get anything related to Classic Space recently (except for Benny's Space Squad).

By this logic I think it's Ice Planet's turn as it's been nearly 30 years and the theme took place in 2022. :) 

11 minutes ago, danth said:

Please don't tell me some online survey is evidence of anything. If online surveys meant anything, Bernie Sanders would be POTUS right now. :tongue:

Online voting is FAR more fair / accurate than a democratic primary and a US election.

(Nice feature Eurobricks by combining my two separate quote posts into this one. I like it!)

Edited by Maple

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16 minutes ago, Maple said:

Online voting is FAR more fair / accurate than a democratic primary and a US election.

Ha! Touché!

Although I'm pretty sure they'd turn me away from the polls if I said my name was "SexyBernie420".

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