Indiana Jones 2023 - Rumors & Discussion

[BrickBob Studpants]

I wonder when the return of the theme might get announced (if it does return in the first place). There’s hardly any pattern to that  

Trolls got announced with a big press release like 9-10 months before the sets actually hit shelves, while other licensed themes barely get any fanfare, especially returning ones. There was no big announcement when Toy Story, Jurassic World, or POTC came back from hibernation, right? Then again, Harry Potter got a pretty significant one, so it could go either way 

[Kit Figsto]

It looks like shooting has officially begun as of last week, so the film will be coming for sure!  I've heard either a summer 2022 release, apparently July.  If that were the case, I would assume spring 2022 would be when we could see sets at the earliest, maybe a wave in the spring and a wave in the summer, if we're lucky?  No idea if we'd get an official announcement, but if we did, I wouldn't be surprised if we got a teaser in the winter/spring.  I could for sure see a silhouette of an Indy figure, or maybe a closeup of a minifigure hand holding a brown fedora being a social media post as a way to tease the release of the theme.

Edited June 17, 2021 by Kit Figsto

[Jack Sassy]

From pictures of the movie set we can understand that clearly there will be a flashback (though it could be similar to Last Crusade). This is a field that Lego could experiment with, few sets with old Indy and few with younger one. (I don't want any exclusives or promotional polybags, just a normal wave.)

[Alexandrina]

Is Indiana Jones the first film franchise to return after a long absence, where Lego have previously produced sets but are not actively producing sets right now? I know there was a gap between the Star Wars prequels and the sequels but they never stopped the sets, so that doesn't work as a precedent imo.

[1234567892022]

My and my dad will be so happy! Even though he's VERY unhappy Spielberg is gone. 

[BrickBob Studpants]

2 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Is Indiana Jones the first film franchise to return after a long absence, where Lego have previously produced sets but are not actively producing sets right now? I know there was a gap between the Star Wars prequels and the sequels but they never stopped the sets, so that doesn't work as a precedent imo.

There are a few examples:

• Toy Story (2010-2019)
• Harry Potter (2011-2018)
• Pirates of the Caribbean (2011-2017)
• Jurassic World (2015-2018)

Technically, there are three other examples than don't really count in my opinion 

• Jurassic Park/World (2001-2015)
• Marvel (2004-2012)
• DC (2008-2012)

Indy would definitely break Toy Story's record with an impressive 13-year gap 

[Alexandrina]

2 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

There are a few examples:

• Toy Story (2010-2019)
• Harry Potter (2011-2018)
• Pirates of the Caribbean (2011-2017)
• Jurassic World (2015-2018)

Honestly, I thought Pirates of the Caribbean films finished in about 2007  Shows how much attention I paid to the franchise!

It does seem likely then that the return of Indy to the cinema screens will lead to the return of Indy to the Lego stores. I suspect they'll plump for something similar to the first wave of the original theme - with the main scenes from the new film and a couple of iconic 'classic' scenes - and then fill in the gaps in subsequent waves if the theme endures.

[BrickBob Studpants]

9 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

I suspect they'll plump for something similar to the first wave of the original theme - with the main scenes from the new film and a couple of iconic 'classic' scenes -

I really hope that’s what they end up doing  Something like this would be great:

• A remake of the temple escape set at a smaller scale (the old one was a cool playset, but pretty tricky to display) with the idol and Belloq
• A set with the Ark included (so either  a remake of the well of souls or the truck chase sets)
• A set based on the temple of doom with the Sankara stones and Mola Ram
• A set based on the Grail Temple with the grail and Donovan
• A set with the Crystal Skull and Spalko
• 3-4 sets based on the new film

Basically, what I want most is for all McGuffins and main villains to be represented  The 2008-09 sets and moulds (fedora, whip, idol, skull, Siafu ant, Mola Ram’s headdress) all hold up very well and so the latter should definitely return, but the faceprints seriously require some updates  

I didn’t think much of it back in the day, but in hindsight it’s very weird that almost every theme before 2010 had its own minifig style. Star Wars still had the beady, pupil-less full-black eyes (concurrent with the TCW style), Harry Potter’s looked like they tried to make them “realistic” (or drunk), and Indy was pretty inconsistent with the women having coloured eyes.

Edited June 18, 2021 by BrickBob Studpants

[Kit Figsto]

Note: this is all just me speculating, no rumors in here.

I'm now curious how the original sets were handled so I looked it up.  Turns out, were split into three waves.

Wave 1 was January of 2008 and contained the Motorcycle Chase, Well of Souls, Truck Chase, and Temple Escape.

Wave 2 was in May of 2008 and contained all of the KoTCS sets except Peril in Peru, which was a July release and I believe was a Toys R Us exclusive in the US, and the Cemetery Battle, which was a 2009 release.

Wave 3 wasn't until over a year later, in June of 2009, when we got all of the ToD sets, Cemetery Battle, Plane Chase, Boat Chase, Cairo Market, and Flying Wing.

I think the question is, assuming we do get a re-boot of the theme, how many waves will we get?  I think if they want to do stuff from the first four films, it'll be at least two, because they would have to do a wave heavily dedicated to the new film (similar to Wave 2 in 2008).  Three would be great, but I don't think much from KoTCS is really going to even be in consideration for a remake, if we did get any set I could see either some adaptation of the jungle chase (maybe the amphibious car plus a Jeep) or the car chase around Marshall College near the start of the movie.  

I would say most everything from the original 3 films has been covered, too.  The biggest things are the Grail Temple, maybe the Map Room, the Bridge Battle from ToD, the plane from ToD, and that's about it.  The Tank Chase is pretty much out of question, which is why I didn't even include it, and while the Circus Train would be awesome, I don't know if it's realistic either.  I'd say of the sets that were previously made, the Truck Chase, Temple Escape, Temple of Doom, and probably Motorcycle Chase are most crucial to remake, just in terms of minifigures included (I think you could probably put Sallah and Marion in the Truck Chase even if they weren't technically part of it).  Then, 6-8 sets from the new film, maybe the Grail Temple, and one or two more remakes/new stuff, and that would be a really solid pair of waves.

[BrickBob Studpants]

2 minutes ago, Kit Figsto said:

Wave 3 wasn't until over a year later, in June of 2009, when we got all of the ToD sets, Cemetery Battle, Plane Chase, Boat Chase, Cairo Market, and Flying Wing.

There were 4 waves actually, the Shanghai set and the Flying Wing were released in January of 2019, the rest in June 

[Kit Figsto]

1 hour ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

There were 4 waves actually, the Shanghai set and the Flying Wing were released in January of 2019, the rest in June 

Man, these were some strange release schedules.  Two waves that were 4 and 2 sets each (I guess at the time of the January 2009 wave, there would've still been all of the stuff from 2008 on shelves, though) and then two fairly sizeable waves.  

[BrickBob Studpants]

Maybe we should look at it from another perspective: instead of thinking about which themes returned after a hiatus, we should check out which themes didn’t 

The only ones I can think of are Spider-man (Raimi trilogy) and Angry Birds. The latter sold pretty terribly from what I’ve heard and the former probably didn’t do extremely well either. So unless the 2008-9 range was a huge flop, which it surely wasn’t, there’s no way it won’t make a comeback 

[Graupensuppe]

Here's what I'm expecting:

- A remake of the RotLA Temple Escape, because it was a great playset
- A small ToD set that makes use of the new elephant molds
- The grail temple from LC, as it was an obvious omission
- Jungle cutter & amphibious vehicle from KotCS, including some Soviet antagonists and the Crystal Skull

Edited June 19, 2021 by Graupensuppe

[williejm]

26 minutes ago, Graupensuppe said:

Here's what I'm expecting:

- A remake of the RotLA Temple Escape, because it was a great playset
- A small ToD set that makes use of the new elephant molds
- The grail temple from LC, as it was an obvious omission
- Jungle cutter & amphibious vehicle from KotCS, including some Soviet antagonists and the Crystal Skull

They’d need a new elephant head mould of ToD, but it’s possible.

I was just speculating on another thread about the introductory scene in LC, where River Phoenix plays a teenage Indy - how’s about a circus train set, using the new lion, lots of snakes, and maybe a new giraffe or rhino? Trains in licensed themes seem to be popular, and would offer some fun play features. 🤗

[Karalora]

The circus train would be an epic set! The original Indy theme really did LC dirty by only having the one small and fairly generic set while the other classic trilogy films got 2-3 each.

[williejm]

20 minutes ago, Karalora said:

The circus train would be an epic set! The original Indy theme really did LC dirty by only having the one small and fairly generic set while the other classic trilogy films got 2-3 each.

Might be something I made up - but I recall some chat about a final challenge Grail Temple set, which somehow didn’t happen, and ended up being kinda converted into the 7572 temple set from Prince of Persia.

[Lego David]

I've got mixed feelings on the prospect of Indiana Jones returning in LEGO. First off, there is the issue of including Nazis/Communists in the set, which as others have pointed out, could very easily blow up in LEGO's face if not handled properly. Add to that the recent stream of sets they cancelled due to "not keeping with the brand values" such as the Ofsprey, and they wouldn't even be able to make any sets based of military vehicles in the first place, even if they are fine with including German or Russian soldiers. 

Or if they decide not to include any of those whatsoever, then what would even be the point of releasing more Indy sets in the first place? If they do end up releasing those villains though, I'm hoping for some updated military outfits that could be used for purist solider minifigures. 

Secondly, LEGO has changed a lot since the last time they made Indy sets, Nowdays, it seems like their focus is mainly on iconic locations and vehicles, which Indy has none of. Unlike Star Wars or Harry Potter, Indy doesn't have any instantly recognizable locations or vehicles, so there isn't much they can do if they wanna go the D2C route. Not to mention how there has been a noticeable decline in straight-up playsets within LEGO lately, so even if we do get a fully-fledged line of sets, I'd imagine they would look nothing like the original ones. Besides maybe a Temple of the Grail, I can't think of any other location-based sets they could do.

Third, unless they do one massive D2C to capitalize on nostalgia, I honestly can't picture a full line of sets even selling that well. Unlike Star Wars, the Indy franchise has had a very limited presence in pop culture outside the original three films. The fourth movie was very poorly received, and didn't really help boost the franchise's popularity or bring in new fans in any meaningful way. I'd imagine the same would happen with this fifth movie, given its long development hell. Kids who are currently into LEGO will most likely have no prior exposure to the series, unless maybe their parents showed the movies to them or something like that. 

So honestly, as much as I would still prefer a fully-fledged theme, still I feel like it might be more profitable on LEGO's part if they just released one single large D2C set and tried luring in the nostalgic adults (even though I still am not very convinced that any of the locations in the movies are iconic enough to deserve a D2C). This has worked very well with those one-off nostalgic properties from LEGO Ideas, and honestly, I feel like Indy might fall into the same category at this point. 

Edited June 19, 2021 by Lego David

[Kit Figsto]

1 hour ago, Karalora said:

The circus train would be an epic set! The original Indy theme really did LC dirty by only having the one small and fairly generic set while the other classic trilogy films got 2-3 each.

We did get the Venice canal chase and plane chase, in addition to the motorcycle chase (which I assume you're referring to), but I agree that both the Circus Train and Grail Temple would've been amazing sets.  I wonder if they felt the Grail Temple was too similar to the Raiders temple set?  

3 hours ago, williejm said:

I was just speculating on another thread about the introductory scene in LC, where River Phoenix plays a teenage Indy - how’s about a circus train set, using the new lion, lots of snakes, and maybe a new giraffe or rhino? Trains in licensed themes seem to be popular, and would offer some fun play features. 🤗

I was thinking of this and initially deemed it too unrealistic, but then I remembered that Toy Story 3 did get the train chase set, which wasn't really that major of a scene in that film, whereas I think the circus train both had more of a role in Indy and could have a TON of cool playability.  They could do maybe 4-5 cars, with the locomotive/tender, the car with the snakes and alligator in them, the car with a lion in it, and then the caboose with the magic tricks and stuff in it.  That'd be a pretty awesome $100-120 set.

[Metanoios]

44 minutes ago, Lego David said:

So honestly, as much as I would still prefer a fully-fledged theme, still I feel like it might be more profitable on LEGO's part if they just released one single large D2C set and tried luring in the nostalgic adults (even though I still am not very convinced that any of the locations in the movies are iconic enough to deserve a D2C). This has worked very well with those one-off nostalgic properties from LEGO Ideas, and honestly, I feel like Indy might fall into the same category at this point. 

Actually Indiana Jones has lots of remarkable locations because most of the exterior scenes (and a few of the interior scenes) were shot at real places (although the actual location in-movie and real life differ drastically). The most iconic is in my eyes the Al-Khazneh temple in Petra, Jordan. It was the exterior for the "Temple of the sun" which housed the holy grail. They could easily do a system-scale UCS set in the style of the Jurassic Park entrance door, where the main building would be the rock and temple facade and the backside would host traps and scenes from the crail trials. The minifig selection could be Indy, Elsa, Henry Jones Sr., Grail Knight, Brody, Sallah and the villain Ernst Vogel. This set would be perfect for Indiana Jones fans (would give us some new characters and newer renditions of the ones we already have) and it would also attract fans of historic architecture as the front would also make a great display piece.

A UCS Batman cave styled Temple of Doom remake or the the peruvian temple at the start of Raiders of the lost Ark, or even the egyptian underground temple of Ra at the dig site can also be adapted into modern large 18+ sets.

 

[Karalora]

52 minutes ago, Kit Figsto said:

We did get the Venice canal chase and plane chase, in addition to the motorcycle chase (which I assume you're referring to),

You're right, we did, I'd forgotten somehow. Maybe I'm just biased because Crusade is my favorite Indy movie and I think it deserves ALL THE SETS.

As regards the dicey prospects of including military vehicles, I feel that can be worked around by focusing more on temple/artifact retrieval scenes and building the play features around those. I know TLG loves their vehicles, but surely not every theme needs so many of them? We've got City for cars and trucks and planes, Pirates for pre-industrial watercraft, Space for space vehicles, and Ninjago and Monkie Kid for funky mechas, to say nothing of all the licensed superhero sets that have signature vehicles. The chase scenes in the Indy movies are fun, but I've never thought they were the most important scenes compared to Indy puzzling out boobie traps to retrieve treasure and then fist-fighting the bad guys over it.

[Lego David]

1 hour ago, Metanoios91 said:

A UCS Batman cave styled Temple of Doom remake or the the peruvian temple at the start of Raiders of the lost Ark, or even the egyptian underground temple of Ra at the dig site can also be adapted into modern large 18+ sets.

 

I do think a UCS style Petra could work decently, but I am not so sure about a Peruvian Temple or Temple of Doom. Those two don't even have any recognizable "faces" that you could put in a set (to prove my point, just try searching those locations on Google, and see what the results are), and given how they are a mixture of different scenes in the movies, it would be hard to make them in any other way besides glorified playsets (which LEGO wouldn't do for a D2C set). 

[icm]

1 hour ago, Metanoios91 said:

The most iconic is in my eyes the Al-Khazneh temple in Petra, Jordan. It was the exterior for the "Temple of the sun" which housed the holy grail. They could easily do a system-scale UCS set in the style of the Jurassic Park entrance door, where the main building would be the rock and temple facade and the backside would host traps and scenes from the crail trials. The minifig selection could be Indy, Elsa, Henry Jones Sr., Grail Knight, Brody, Sallah and the villain Ernst Vogel. This set would be perfect for Indiana Jones fans (would give us some new characters and newer renditions of the ones we already have) and it would also attract fans of historic architecture as the front would also make a great display piece.

That sounds good to me, but for Petra I think it's more likely that Lego would do a $120 facade in the Architecture line, possibly in partnership with UNESCO or a similar NGO.

Edited June 19, 2021 by icm

[BitByBrick]

5 hours ago, williejm said:

I was just speculating on another thread about the introductory scene in LC, where River Phoenix plays a teenage Indy - how’s about a circus train set, using the new lion, lots of snakes, and maybe a new giraffe or rhino? Trains in licensed themes seem to be popular, and would offer some fun play features. 🤗

That is an absolutely awesome idea for a set! Already thinking on how to make a MOC of it. But an actual LEGO set with a new animal mold (or two) would be even better! Please forward this idea to LEGO now so they can get on it... 

[The Stud]

I’ve been keeping up with the set pictures for the new movie and I have to say that I’m feeling very excited for it. There’s some real talent involved and I feel like they are all going to do their best to make this a fitting finale for Indiana Jones rather than the fourth one. That being said, a huge part of the reason why I’ve been excited for this film is the potential Lego sets we could get out of it. I was young when the original sets came out, so I passed on most of them in favor of City sets and only ended up getting three Indiana Jones sets (and two of them were from KotCS.) I’m just eagerly awaiting for confirmation of the theme’s return, which this upcoming Lego Con would be a perfect place to make such an announcement even though my expectations for that are low and still think it would be highly unlikely.

The conundrum of including Nazi and Soviet soldiers is a tough one, and I hope they aren’t excluded as that would be very disappointing in my opinion. As long as they don’t specify their faction, I don’t see what the problem would be. It wouldn’t be based on the real world soldiers themselves technically, just fictional versions of them, though that distinction is minimal. I mean, Disney themselves have “watered down” versions of the Nazis at their Indiana Jones stunt show in the parks and sell merchandise there, so doing Lego sets like that shouldn’t be much different.

Worst case, Lego just makes the theme “18+” and maybe only puts them out at Lego Stores and online, kinda like what they did with Monkie Kid. I hope they don’t do the same approach they went with for Pirates of the Caribbean where they just put out a D2C and some Brickheadz, but I could see that being the case unfortunately.

[wesker]

If they decide to leave out the generic German and Russian soldiers I'd be completely okay with it. The primary characters of the films are what matter. As long as they can deliver on all the major players then that's good enough for me.