[OFFICIAL] 10320 Eldorado Fortress - Available NOW

[dimc]

7 minutes ago, jodawill said:

I don't have the box either, unfortunately. It's hard to read, but here's a photo I found with a quick search. It talks about Governor Broadside. De Martinet appeared in the comic, the Ladybird books, and the cassette tapes, which are all rather obscure today, so I wouldn't fault anyone for not knowing him. The governor and Redbeard are the most obvious ones though. They were in many set descriptions, magazine comics, etc. I can understand them not bringing back Redbeard because they already did in PoBB. I think the exclusion of Governor Broadside was just a complete oversight, which doesn't bother me, but I think it's sloppy work.

If I'm being more kind, though, we could just say that since we know PoBB takes place years later, everyone who worked in Eldorado Fortress has long since moved on, even the governor. You can't go home. Right? 

As a vintage fan, I've never even heard of the Ladybird books or cassette tapes. The governor is mentioned, though rarely by name from what I saw, and Redbeard is of course everywhere in set descriptions. As you noted, that box pretty much guarantees that governor = Broadside, and I'm OK with that.

Perhaps this is another generation of crew at EF, and the French are having a hard time recruiting men due to battles back home, so it's women or nothing. Time (and/or cannonballs) come for us all.

[_R_R_]

3 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

This is true (and it's always good to see new female pirates) but it's not - or shouldn't be - a zero-sum game. Minifigures of any gender shouldn't be loaded heavily onto one 'side' of a theme; there's room for female pirates but there can and should also be female soldiers. Eldorado as a set doesn't have lots of pirates full stop, though - which makes sense because it's a soldiers' base. Hopefully we'll get another set soon with more pirates, both male and female.

I just think female soldiers make for boring minifigures, I don't care if it's progressive or not I want GOOD female minifigures, not soldiers with female heads or another girl with lipstick and a corsette, this is what I want.

[Lyichir]

Gonna chime in here as a Lego fan who grew up in the 90s that I agree that the original "named" cast of Lego Pirates is obscure. As a kid, the only named Pirate character I remembered was Captain Redbeard, who was named repeatedly in the Lego Mania Magazines—I had never seen nor heard of the Pirates comic that named and characterized the other minifigures until a couple of years ago as an adult. And it's not uncommon for me to see older fans lamenting modern themes' tendency to name and characterize their core characters, suggesting that many fans of that era similarly didn't know of the other characters in the theme, or at least didn't consider that information important or essential.

[jodawill]

1 minute ago, _R_R_ said:

As far as the set itself I'm surprised to see so many people turning on it, I think it looks great, sure some things could be better like the simple black docks, the gates and docks, and the palm trees could be better but overall I think it still looks like a great build and I love the modular aspect and the having the ability to assemble in different combinations. I'm also glad with how they designed the ramp, it looks like stone and there's studs to put the minifigures on, they could've easily replaced it with stairs or something else like a lot of MOCs do but I think they made the right choice. The crane is the only thing I really don't like, it's kind of too big and a waste of pieces plus it's all black which just looks dull if you imagine the docks and the cranes with some brown pieces it really improves the look of the set so I definitely plan on changing those up.

I'm also really surprised by the negativity. (It may look like I was being negative about the minifigures -- that's really not what I meant. It's only a minor critique in my opinion, easily explained by the fact this takes place years later and everyone we knew is gone.) I'm especially surprised by how much people hate the palm trees.

I would definitely prefer to see them bring back the jointed trees. It would definitely require some type of redesign because the originals wore out very easily. I get frustrated with them because I often end up with a palm tree falling over and I don't know if it's the male or female end of the connector that's the problem, and they're not cheap to replace.

I never saw the beach until I was in my mid 20s. When I was growing up, the Lego palm trees were pretty much the only way I knew of palm trees, except for the palm branches we had on Easter morning, which also looked like the Lego ones. So to me, even now, the Lego palm tree is what palm trees look like. I'm probably not alone in this. We grew up without the internet and trees in movies were too small and fuzzy on the old CRT televisions to get a good look at what real palm trees looked like.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to accept a Lego palm tree that doesn't look like the original. It's just so integral to the Lego aesthetics, it's like proposing an alternative to the minifigure. (Oh, wait... they did do that! )

9 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

The people arguing that Lego including female soldiers is a bad thing because it's taking the place of the original minifigures from 6276 are indirectly arguing for only using original minifigures.

I can't speak for them, but this isn't what I inferred from the posts I've read.

9 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

This is just gatekeeping to an absurd degree. Just because you don't know the name of old characters doesn't mean you're not a big fan.

I'm not gatekeeping. I'm saying that if someone isn't aware of the main characters of the theme, they're casual fans - by definition. That doesn't mean those people don't have fond memories of the set and didn't spend many hours playing with it. It just means that they never bothered to read about the lore, which is fine.

9 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

(And every source I can find says that the Lieutenant was never actually included in any set. Certainly the scans of the comic bear no resemblance to the officer actually included in the original 6276).

Yeah, you're right about de Martinet. I think the person who illustrated the comic took some liberties because the red haired guy didn't really look like a Frenchman. The characters in the comics aren't always completely true to the minifigures. Anne and Will were also a bit different in minifigure form, and I don't think they ever officially said that those minifigures were indeed the characters from the comics.

[F1stzz]

29 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Islanders are never coming back for obvious reasons

Yea, I'd even go as far as saying some of those reasons are from the similar category as the "50/50" stuff we're constantly mentioning here  Thank God we're still getting something related to Islanders from CMFs once in a while  

 

16 minutes ago, jodawill said:

I haven't seen anyone arguing that they should stick to only the original female minifigures. I think we'd all like to see more women introduced, and there are actually several women from the original comics that were never produced, and a lot of us would like to see them incorporated into new sets.

Y-y-yup, I specified in the brackets that people won't mind to have any sorts of colorful minifigs for a pirate lady, governor's daughter or merchants as long as the main core of Imperial Soldiers is intact. Having some dedicated minifigures would've been a blast really, because 6276 was one of those few initial sets that started it all & the thought process behind the classic Eldorado Fortress was tremendously great.

 

41 minutes ago, jodawill said:

It feels like whoever did the marketing materials for this set is just completely ignorant of Lego Pirates lore. I just thought it was hilarious that the page says, "The gang's all here!" and not a single character from the original is present in this set, unless you count the unnamed soldiers.

It is indeed sad to see the whole world of LEGO Pirates, masterfully created with comics/stories & classic sets, being flushed down the drain so carelessly. All those cassettes with audiobooks, arts, comics, promos, the whole idea behind the launch of the theme & the endless amount of effort that's been put into it by numerous ingenious people — all should now be forgotten and buried. If general public is OK with that — well, fine for them, cuz I'm not, and won't ever be. 

[Alexandrina]

7 minutes ago, _R_R_ said:

I don't care if it's progressive or not I want GOOD female minifigures, not soldiers with female heads or another girl with lipstick and a corsette, this is what I want.

I get that totally and agree - just don't think female soldiers is a bad thing. Soldiers are essentially just the same minifig with different faces, and having them be a mix of male and female is no issue whatsoever as they're generic at their core.

2 minutes ago, F1stzz said:

It is indeed sad to see the whole world of LEGO Pirates, masterfully created with comics/stories & classic sets, being flushed down the drain so carelessly. All those cassettes with audiobooks, arts, comics, promos, the whole idea behind the launch of the theme & the endless amount of effort that's been put into it by numerous ingenious people — all should now be forgotten and buried. If general public is OK with that — well, fine for them, cuz I'm not, and won't ever be.

But this isn't happening. Not now, at least. Pirates as a classic theme has been dead for twenty-six years (the revivals don't include the same characters). Sets coming out now don't in any way negate sets released in the Golden Age, and the Eldorado Fortress rerelease isn't making this old supplemental material be forgotten any more than a quarter-century of mothballing has.

[jodawill]

12 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

Gonna chime in here as a Lego fan who grew up in the 90s that I agree that the original "named" cast of Lego Pirates is obscure. As a kid, the only named Pirate character I remembered was Captain Redbeard, who was named repeatedly in the Lego Mania Magazines—I had never seen nor heard of the Pirates comic that named and characterized the other minifigures until a couple of years ago as an adult. And it's not uncommon for me to see older fans lamenting modern themes' tendency to name and characterize their core characters, suggesting that many fans of that era similarly didn't know of the other characters in the theme, or at least didn't consider that information important or essential.

It also depends on where people grew up. In some countries, Legoredo was called Silver City, for example. In the US, we had Parma Sean Lafeet, Black Jack Hawkins, and Tattoo McGoo. The skeleton in 6232 (probably my favorite pirate set of all time, by the way) was named George. Most of these were probably not meant to be official names and just randomly added to the magazines and catalogs to make them more exciting for the kids. The 1989 characters were a rare example of a cohesive story line. I didn't grow up with the stories because they were before my time, but there were definitely some important named characters, mainly Kahuka, Broadside, and Redbeard. We also had some cohesive casts of characters in Wild West and Fright Knights.

I think I'm starting to stray off topic though.

[_R_R_]

22 minutes ago, jodawill said:

I'm also really surprised by the negativity. (It may look like I was being negative about the minifigures -- that's really not what I meant. It's only a minor critique in my opinion, easily explained by the fact this takes place years later and everyone we knew is gone.) I'm especially surprised by how much people hate the palm trees.

I would definitely prefer to see them bring back the jointed trees. It would definitely require some type of redesign because the originals wore out very easily. I get frustrated with them because I often end up with a palm tree falling over and I don't know if it's the male or female end of the connector that's the problem, and they're not cheap to replace.

I never saw the beach until I was in my mid 20s. When I was growing up, the Lego palm trees were pretty much the only way I knew of palm trees, except for the palm branches we had on Easter morning, which also looked like the Lego ones. So to me, even now, the Lego palm tree is what palm trees look like. I'm probably not alone in this. We grew up without the internet and trees in movies were too small and fuzzy on the old CRT televisions to get a good look at what real palm trees looked like.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to accept a Lego palm tree that doesn't look like the original. It's just so integral to the Lego aesthetics, it's like proposing an alternative to the minifigure. (Oh, wait... they did do that! )

I can look at the beach and the ocean outside my window from where I live, and there's a huge palm tree planted in the park outside right near my house, I still don't really have a big issue with the palm trees in the set haha 

19 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

I get that totally and agree - just don't think female soldiers is a bad thing. Soldiers are essentially just the same minifig with different faces, and having them be a mix of male and female is no issue whatsoever as they're generic at their core.

And there lies the problem for me, blue coats, red coats and soliders in general are just redshirts for me and victims for pirates to plunder, sure there is no problem with just switching out the heads but I would swap out those female soldiers for proper female pirates with new hat/hair combos and badass outfits in a heartbeat unfortunately I don't think we'll ever see anything like that any time soon if ever, the only hope we'd have would be for the long rumored female led PoTC spin-off to get made but the whole franchise is still messy.

[jodawill]

In case anyone is interested, here's the text from the box flap on the original set:

 

                THE ADVENTURES
                    OF THE
               LEGOLAND PIRATES
                 OF THE SEA

               ELDORADO FORTRESS
	Sometime during the 18th century, a
peaceful colony of settlers enjoying the island
treasures they discovered, suddenly had their
serenity interrupted. The invaders were those
who called themselves the LEGOLAND® Pirates
of the Sea! For years, the Pirates had been
searching for the same buried treasures that the
settlers were now claiming as their own. This, of
course, disturbed the Pirates as they knew the
doubloons (Spanish gold coins) the settlers found
had belonged to their ancestors.

	Knowing that the Pirates would come
looking for the gold, Governor Broadside,
governor of the settler colony, sent a message to
all of his men to meet him at the Eldorado Fortress.

	It was at the Fortress that the Governor
made plans to protect the setlers' fortunes.
Beneath the Fortress floor was a secret hideaway.
It was there that the Governor decided the gold
should be kept so that it would be safe from the
Pirates. Part of his task was to unload the gold
from the ship, the Caribbean Clipper, and move
it to the Fortress. He wondered what adventures
lay ahead.

	Use your imagination to continue
The Adventures of the LEGOLAND® Pirates
of the Sea!

 

[F1stzz]

15 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

(the revivals don't include the same characters)

2015 wave brought Captain Redbeard back. Minifigure designs were also pretty much picture-by-picture reskins of the classic ones, even tho some of the characters got new names & a couple of new ones were introduced.

18 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Sets coming out now don't in any way negate sets released in the Golden Age

PoBB didn't (there was a moment of confusion with a Robin Loot character tho, but it's not that big of a deal) — 10320 (considering the circumstance of it being promoted as a direct copy of the classic Eldorado Fortress), unfortunately, does. But in the end of the day that's my standpoint coming from certain things not meeting my expectations as well as those of others who share my view, it's not meant to be necessarily universally agreed with.

[dimc]

The dumb part of all of this is that $3 worth of heads and hats will solve this issue for anyone who cares (and doesn't have an entire drawer of spare heads/hats). The torsos are exactly the same so you can make them whatever gender you want.

I'm happy that we get some hat/hair combos, so if I choose to make them into pirates, they still have a good hat.

Lore, sure, if you care about that, I can see it being sad that it (apparently) doesn't come with a story. I don't think they do the opening boxes anymore, so it's unlikely there is one, but hey, that frees us all to make our own stories! We're not lacking for imagination, are we? Right?

[RichardGoring]

21 minutes ago, dimc said:

Lore, sure, if you care about that, I can see it being sad that it (apparently) doesn't come with a story. I don't think they do the opening boxes anymore, so it's unlikely there is one, but hey, that frees us all to make our own stories! We're not lacking for imagination, are we? Right?

Totally agree!

In a month or two my version of this set will likely contain soldiers with pirate wooden legs, pirates with the governor's hat, a couple of Ninjago figures, some Disney princesses, and some Friends minidolls driving their car up the ramp. Probably a load of multi-coloured bricks added to the tops of the walls, and any bar holed filled with ice creams, cherries, and microphones. In my household it will be a great LEGO set.

For many others, heads will be swapped and perfect positioning of all the elements will be achieved. For them, it will be a great LEGO set.

I hope everyone has fun. And if fun is achieved through critical review and discussion, then that's OK too. But do please remember that there is no one right answer on this kind of topic (other than there is no one right answer).

Edited June 15, 2023 by RichardGoring

[Alexandrina]

40 minutes ago, dimc said:

The dumb part of all of this is that $3 worth of heads and hats will solve this issue for anyone who cares (and doesn't have an entire drawer of spare heads/hats). The torsos are exactly the same so you can make them whatever gender you want.

Plus it's not like we aren't all going to spend stupid amounts on PaB buying more soldiers anyway. My pirates will probably be outnumbered 20 to 1 by the end of the year, so they'll have no chance!

[CaptainMoore]

26 minutes ago, RichardGoring said:

Totally agree!

In a month or two my version of this set will likely contain soldiers with pirate wooden legs, pirates with the governor's hat, a couple of Ninjago figures, some Disney princesses, and some Friends minidolls driving their car up the ramp. Probably a load of multi-coloured bricks added to the tops of the walls, and any bar holed filled with ice creams, cherries, and microphones.

 

Please, share a picture in some months, it sounds incredible!

[jodawill]

4 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Plus it's not like we aren't all going to spend stupid amounts on PaB buying more soldiers anyway. My pirates will probably be outnumbered 20 to 1 by the end of the year, so they'll have no chance!

I think it's a lot easier to focus on the negatives when we're waiting for a set to be released because we have no control over the images we see. Once we all have the set, we'll be able to make it however we want, and people will stop complaining as much.

[dimc]

13 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Plus it's not like we aren't all going to spend stupid amounts on PaB buying more soldiers anyway. My pirates will probably be outnumbered 20 to 1 by the end of the year, so they'll have no chance!

I currently have 24 original bluecoats on display, not to mention the blue shirted crew on various ships and bases. And this doesn't include multiple Brigs or the Lagoon Lockup and who knows how many more Harbour Sentries that have been disassembled and packed up for future scene building.

I don't have a lot of redcoats out right now, but 2 Bounty Boats, a recolored Harbour Sentry and 4 more redcoats that I suspect are from a pair of Bounty Boats is still a lot. And the little campfire from Barnacle Bay. Plus the one walking the plank on Red Beard Runner. And two ITPs in storage.

The pirates have Red Beard Runner, Renegade Runner, the rest of Barnacle Bay, plus Renegades Raft. And a Redbeard body with Willas face forcing a poor sailor to row to treasure. I have a couple of Forbidden Islands hidden away, as well as some other small and medium sets and a PoBB waiting to be built. It truly will be a battle for the ages!

Back to the civilian discussion, this would also be a good choice.

Actually, most of the torsos from Red Beard Runner are good for it. *ponders selling RBR without minifigs...*

Edited June 15, 2023 by dimc

[Arjo]

Thanks for the script from the old box!

re. Swapping head/hair to change gender… in my imagination some males wore wiggs/long hair back then (might not be history accurate for all soldiers but to each one’s own) so I think the hat hair combo is in fact versatile enough.

[dimc]

11 minutes ago, Arjo said:

Thanks for the script from the old box!

re. Swapping head/hair to change gender… in my imagination some males wore wiggs/long hair back then (might not be history accurate for all soldiers but to each one’s own) so I think the hat hair combo is in fact versatile enough.

Good point! I just checked Pirates of the Caribbean and both of the comic-relief redcoats have long hair with a ponytail. Skipping through a few more scenes notes that some of the bluecoated soldiers also have them. So all you need is a faceswap, not even a hatswap.

Edit: I have no idea how much effort Disney put into accuracy, I'm guessing around...3 efforts, but still, I see both blue and red coated soldiers on the same ship, so who knows what the relationship is between imperial guards and imperial soldiers in the brickworld.

Edited June 15, 2023 by dimc

[TalonCard]

2 hours ago, F1stzz said:

It is indeed sad to see the whole world of LEGO Pirates, masterfully created with comics/stories & classic sets, being flushed down the drain so carelessly. All those cassettes with audiobooks, arts, comics, promos, the whole idea behind the launch of the theme & the endless amount of effort that's been put into it by numerous ingenious people — all should now be forgotten and buried. If general public is OK with that — well, fine for them, cuz I'm not, and won't ever be. 

This...seems like an overreaction? I'm deeply invested in the Pirate lore, but as others have pointed out the vast majority of it is incredibly obscure and very nearly all of it outside the original comic was exclusive to certain regions:

• The detailed storyline from the set boxes was (to my knowledge) exclusively a US and later North American thing. Boxes for the European and Asian markets did not have similar text printed on them that I'm aware of. And outside of character names, this storyline didn't have a lot to do with the events of the more widely available comic book.
• The audio books were only ever produced in German, and to my knowledge the main source of knowledge about them for the wider non-German speaking internet has been the translations by Runamuck on this very forum.
• The storybooks were made for a UK audience and don't seem to have been widely available outside of that market either.
• Even the original comic book, while widely distributed, was only around for about as long as the original wave of sets. If you came into the theme in 1992, it's possible you missed it entirely.

It is pretty cool that even though all the storylines are widely distributed throughout the world, there is a remarkable degree of consistency there. But it's a consistency that has had to be teased out after the fact, and I don't think it's an overstatement to say that this forum has been ground zero for much of it. It's very very niche.

But we don't even know that there's any kind of attempt to "ignore" the rediscovered amalgamation that is the original lore with this set. We haven't seen the instruction manual. All we know is that there's an "admiral" included. Maybe the website text is incorrect in assuming the figure is an admiral. Maybe the admiral is an older De Martinet. Maybe one of the new soldiers is Camilla, all grown up. Maybe the figure is supposed to be Broadside--the Imperial leader with a fancy hat and coat from 1992 (in the US) and 2009 (in LEGO Battles) were also said to be Broadside in order to continue the story even though in the latter case it resemble him much. If anything the indication is that it's a continuation of the Barracuda Bay storyline 20 years later, which is loosly tied back to the original lore.

Edited June 15, 2023 by TalonCard

[dimc]

Also, can I just LOL at the fact that we assume a man would have the same facial hair for decades at a time?

[iragm]

21 minutes ago, Arjo said:

some males wore wiggs/long hair back then (might not be history accurate for all soldiers but to each one’s own) so I think the hat hair combo is in fact versatile enough. 

Yes.  I actually wish we could get the tricorne with white hair, it would be great for admirals and such.

And people didn't wear shakos until later.  And the new female pirate's torso doesn't have the female outline, so it also can be used on a man wearing an ascot, which should come in handy.

It's a construction toy.  Make it your own.

[Jiesdeo]

12 minutes ago, iragm said:

Yes.  I actually wish we could get the tricorne with white hair, it would be great for admirals and such.

A recolour would be nice. I would like to see it with curls on the sides, like a combination between the tricorne and this wig. That would take a new mould thought so it's more likely to get it in a CMF. Maybe a male aristocrat as a companion to the lady aristocrat?

[tom20arc]

This is a must buy for me for sure. My grandparents had this set when I was really young and have some fond memories playing with when I was a kid, I even have the original stored in a box since they gifted it to me a few years ago.

Even though it's not a masterpiece like Pobb or Lion knight's castle. I wish they maybe had done the dock differently or by including the original characters, I still like it though, definitely not a dealbreaker for me. Though I may wait till next year or when it's on discount since I recently decided to pull the trigger to buy Lion knight's castle. Gonna look nice to my Pobb :-)

[evancelt]

Looking forward to the tricorne hats w/ dual mold hair becoming available on PAB or BL. Also the admiral's bicorne!

[Piraten]

So.. 10 pages..... Before this release everbody screamed for more pirate sets... And now 10 pages off a lot of different opinions... 

Please just lets us enjoy that there is a new set and buy two each on release so LEGO can see that we want pirate sets..... 

The only thing I hate is... There is no new  pi054 figure... I have seen a new edition back in march 2020.. And there is only 25 made of that minifig... Would have loved one.... 

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Piraten