Could LEGO remake Fright Knights?

[MAB]

1 hour ago, SpacePolice89 said:

They should release new sets for the Royal Knights simultaneously with the Fright Knights and do a lot of marketing. I believe it would be popular with both kids and AFOLs. But unfortunately Lego seems nowadays more interested in making sets based on popular mass culture.   

Their licensed to unlicensed otuput is roughly 50:50 when it comes to numbers of sets.

However, you can now add Ninjago, City and Friends into mass culture, as all three have media through TV shows and obviously the movie as well in the case of Ninjago, plus books and comics in some regions. These TV shows are marketing for those themes. I cannot see Royal Knights vs Fright Knights ever selling anything near the range of sets that Ninjago can. Knights is essentially locked into quite a small niche, compared to Ninjago, City and Friends where just about any subject goes. And if LEGO know they cannot sell a huge range of sets, then they are not going to invest in the marketing and TV shows in the same was as for their evergreen in-house themes.

[Black Falcon]

Well, who says every Theme needs or should get an TV show. I agree it doesn´t make much sense to put to much marketing into those themes. 

Also I don´t think an theme needs to beat or come near to Ninjago or Star Wars to be successfull. But I still belive that they would sell good enough to make profit with them. 

[Triceron]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

Their licensed to unlicensed otuput is roughly 50:50 when it comes to numbers of sets.

However, you can now add Ninjago, City and Friends into mass culture, as all three have media through TV shows and obviously the movie as well in the case of Ninjago, plus books and comics in some regions. These TV shows are marketing for those themes. I cannot see Royal Knights vs Fright Knights ever selling anything near the range of sets that Ninjago can. Knights is essentially locked into quite a small niche, compared to Ninjago, City and Friends where just about any subject goes. And if LEGO know they cannot sell a huge range of sets, then they are not going to invest in the marketing and TV shows in the same was as for their evergreen in-house themes.

Yeah, I couldn't even see this happening in limited release, or even as GWP.

[Triceron]

4 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

Well, who says every Theme needs or should get an TV show. I agree it doesn´t make much sense to put to much marketing into those themes. 

Also I don´t think an theme needs to beat or come near to Ninjago or Star Wars to be successfull. But I still belive that they would sell good enough to make profit with them. 

Agreed, but I can also see Black Falcon's point because something like Castle theme is only really relevant to adult fans right now, much like bringing back Classic Pirates or Classic Space.

If anything is being marketted directly to kids, I'd imagine TLG would want to pick something that is absolutely markettable as a potential series.  Like even Jurrasic World has a Lego TV show to tie things in.

That being said, they might still profit well, but only in limited supply directed at AFOLs, and it's still quite a gamble.  It made sense for Castle's return because Lion Knights, Black Falcons and Forestmen were all part of the highest polled returning themes for the 90th anniversary poll.  I doubt Royal Knights and Fright Knights has that same clout (even if I'm a big fan of both).  I expect them to do more tangentially, and add in more classic Castle characters through CMF just like they did for the Black Falcon and Fright Knight.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Triceron

[MAB]

4 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

Well, who says every Theme needs or should get an TV show. I agree it doesn´t make much sense to put to much marketing into those themes. 

Also I don´t think an theme needs to beat or come near to Ninjago or Star Wars to be successfull. But I still belive that they would sell good enough to make profit with them. 

That is sort of the issue with the old one year themes. LEGO didn't put much behind their promotion as they were only ever going to exist for a year and were small themes. Then some people complain they failed as they aren't renewed and that it is LEGO's fault for not putting loads of advertising behind them. When they were probably as successful as they had hoped just never meant to go on and on.

Edited September 18, 2023 by MAB

[Black Falcon]

11 minutes ago, Triceron said:

Agreed, but I can also see Black Falcon's point because something like Castle theme is only really relevant to adult fans right now, much like bringing back Classic Pirates or Classic Space.

If anything is being marketted directly to kids, I'd imagine TLG would want to pick something that is absolutely markettable as a potential series.  Like even Jurrasic World has a Lego TV show to tie things in.

That being said, they might still profit well, but only in limited supply directed at AFOLs, and it's still quite a gamble.  It made sense for Castle's return because Lion Knights, Black Falcons and Forestmen were all part of the highest polled returning themes for the 90th anniversary poll.  I doubt Royal Knights and Fright Knights has that same clout (even if I'm a big fan of both).  I expect them to do more tangentially, and add in more classic Castle characters through CMF just like they did for the Black Falcon and Fright Knight.

Other brands are also selling Castle themes and if they wouldn´t sell they wouldn´t produce them anymore. So that can´t be the reason. I mean sure in the Legoverse Castle isn´t a thing right now because there are simply no sets. Some surely play with the creator castle but there the avaiability is just bad - so most likely don´t even know that that castle exists. 

If there would be castle Sets Kids would play with them, I am pretty sure of that. Sure, Ninjago would still be way more popular and castle wouldn´t beat Harry Potter either, but it doesn´t need to beat either to be an success IMO. 

8 minutes ago, MAB said:

That is sort of the issue with the old one year themes. LEGO didn't put much behind their promotion as they were only ever going to exist for a year and were small themes. Then some people complain they failed as they aren't renewed and that it is LEGO's fault for not putting loads of advertising behind them. When they were probably as successful as they had hoped just never meant to go on and on.

IMO Lego doesn´t need to pull things off that go on and on in this case. I mean they can make an new Castle theme, one big Set, obviously the Castle and then one Medium sized Hideout for some Forestmen, Wolf Bandits or whatever. The Knight can be a new Faction or just the Falcon or Lion Knights, that won´t matter that much. To those two sets they add a number off smaller Sets. A carriage with a princess, a knight and two bandits for instance. So with just 5 Sets in total you could bring Castle back to life. Of course it would be nicer to have more like a second castle for another factions or so etc., but it seems kinda unlikely to me. Anyways the year after they could Switch to another theme, Space or Pirates for istance, again with one bigger Set, lets say a Star Base maybe, then a bigger and a smaller Space ship, each with an little Alien vehicle, then an medium Alien ship and an Set with Minifig and Alien ground vehicles. 

At the end of that year the Castle Sets of the former year would retire and then a new wave would come, so likely Pirates now.

That way we would always have two themes going with one new theme each year. 

[MAB]

11 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

IMO Lego doesn´t need to pull things off that go on and on in this case. I mean they can make an new Castle theme, one big Set, obviously the Castle and then one Medium sized Hideout for some Forestmen, Wolf Bandits or whatever. The Knight can be a new Faction or just the Falcon or Lion Knights, that won´t matter that much. To those two sets they add a number off smaller Sets. A carriage with a princess, a knight and two bandits for instance. So with just 5 Sets in total you could bring Castle back to life. Of course it would be nicer to have more like a second castle for another factions or so etc., but it seems kinda unlikely to me. Anyways the year after they could Switch to another theme, Space or Pirates for istance, again with one bigger Set, lets say a Star Base maybe, then a bigger and a smaller Space ship, each with an little Alien vehicle, then an medium Alien ship and an Set with Minifig and Alien ground vehicles. 

At the end of that year the Castle Sets of the former year would retire and then a new wave would come, so likely Pirates now.

That way we would always have two themes going with one new theme each year. 

If they did that, then I predict future posts would be along the lines of... "LEGO hate classic themes and this is proof. They do two big sets out of reach of most kids, and three tiny sets that don't create a theme by themselves that are pointless without other sets that kids can afford. If only they put some actual effort into designing more sets and put some money into marketing these like they do with other themes these would make millions of sales. And then they kill it after one year."

[Black Falcon]

4 minutes ago, MAB said:

If they did that, then I predict future posts would be along the lines of... "LEGO hate classic themes and this is proof. They do two big sets out of reach of most kids, and three tiny sets that don't create a theme by themselves that are pointless without other sets that kids can afford. If only they put some actual effort into designing more sets and put some money into marketing these like they do with other themes these would make millions of sales. And then they kill it after one year."

Well, with big I meant more like about 100€ with the other one more in the Range of 50€ or so. Might be that you need 120€ and 70€ for those Sets to make them in a certain size, but they shouldn´t be more expensive than that. And if the themes go well I still can see them to increase the Number of Sets.

The point in this system was not to make people think that the Themes are hated, of course I would love for the theme to get more sets the next year. But IMO it would be more likely we get the themes back like that, than that Lego would bring back 3+ Themes at once.

Of course you could increase it to two years for each set but that would also increase the time where an theme is absent and the idea kinda is that everyone can get those themes. Of course there are still years where you can´t buy a castle but it shouldn´t be to long.

[SpacePolice89]

On 9/18/2023 at 10:32 PM, Black Falcon said:

IMO Lego doesn´t need to pull things off that go on and on in this case. I mean they can make an new Castle theme, one big Set, obviously the Castle and then one Medium sized Hideout for some Forestmen, Wolf Bandits or whatever. The Knight can be a new Faction or just the Falcon or Lion Knights, that won´t matter that much. To those two sets they add a number off smaller Sets. A carriage with a princess, a knight and two bandits for instance. So with just 5 Sets in total you could bring Castle back to life. Of course it would be nicer to have more like a second castle for another factions or so etc., but it seems kinda unlikely to me. Anyways the year after they could Switch to another theme, Space or Pirates for istance, again with one bigger Set, lets say a Star Base maybe, then a bigger and a smaller Space ship, each with an little Alien vehicle, then an medium Alien ship and an Set with Minifig and Alien ground vehicles. 

At the end of that year the Castle Sets of the former year would retire and then a new wave would come, so likely Pirates now.

That way we would always have two themes going with one new theme each year.

That is an excellent idea! There is a similar discussion in "Is it possible to reintroduce old sets". If that would go on for years we would get Fright Knights sooner or later.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

That is an excellent idea! There is a similar discussion in "Is it possible to reintroduce old sets". If that would go on for years we would get Fright Knights sooner or later.

Or they would just revolve the more popular sub-themes.

[Triceron]

What I think could be interesting is if they revisited some of these old themes in the same cameo style as they did with bringing Clutch Powers into Ninjago, or how the Lego Movie brought back a bunch of remixed old themes like Benny's Spaceship or Metalbeard's ship.

Dreamzzz could be an open book for that, like having a season deal with the Nightmare King bringing back classic characters like Vladek, Basil the Bat lord, Ogel etc in Dream Villain form.  And they could get mini sets that fit their former themes, with some new modern day emblems for the sake of nostalgia.  I'm not sure why they don't do more crossover, really.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Triceron

[jodawill]

On 9/18/2023 at 2:55 PM, MAB said:

That is sort of the issue with the old one year themes. LEGO didn't put much behind their promotion as they were only ever going to exist for a year and were small themes. Then some people complain they failed as they aren't renewed and that it is LEGO's fault for not putting loads of advertising behind them. When they were probably as successful as they had hoped just never meant to go on and on.

This is a good point because they did push Pirates heavily in 1989 with animation, a comic book, four children's books, and more, and judging by what I've always found in bulk lots, that seems to be the most successful year for Pirates by far.

[Sir Dano]

You kinda got your wish, next Minifig series has a remake of Basil.

[jodawill]

Fright Knights was always an amazing idea that was poorly executed. I don't want to see them redesign any of the original sets, but I LOVE the idea of making a completely new theme based on the idea. Imagine a proper Bat Lord's castle in gothic style.

[hatchpattern]

For those of you who spent time building lion knight's castle 10305, there is significant evidence inside that booklet that suggests that fright knights and black knights will come back.
The authors make reference to Lord Basil's signature on the letter inside the keep.
The authors make reference to the rampart wall holding steady just incase the black knights make an attempt at the wall.
I was stocked/excited when i read those notes. Little teasers for us.

[Classic_Spaceman]

11 minutes ago, hatchpattern said:

For those of you who spent time building lion knight's castle 10305, there is significant evidence inside that booklet that suggests that fright knights and black knights will come back.
The authors make reference to Lord Basil's signature on the letter inside the keep.
The authors make reference to the rampart wall holding steady just incase the black knights make an attempt at the wall.
I was stocked/excited when i read those notes. Little teasers for us.

Those notes make references to all classic Castle themes, so I doubt that they were intended to be hints towards future sets. 
 

[MAB]

1 hour ago, hatchpattern said:

For those of you who spent time building lion knight's castle 10305, there is significant evidence inside that booklet that suggests that fright knights and black knights will come back.
The authors make reference to Lord Basil's signature on the letter inside the keep.
The authors make reference to the rampart wall holding steady just incase the black knights make an attempt at the wall.
I was stocked/excited when i read those notes. Little teasers for us.

Basil is coming back in the CMF series.

[Alexandrina]

5 hours ago, hatchpattern said:

For those of you who spent time building lion knight's castle 10305, there is significant evidence inside that booklet that suggests that fright knights and black knights will come back.
The authors make reference to Lord Basil's signature on the letter inside the keep.
The authors make reference to the rampart wall holding steady just incase the black knights make an attempt at the wall.
I was stocked/excited when i read those notes. Little teasers for us.

This seems to be Lego almost taking steps to formalise the existence of all these factions as part of the same world - just in little nods, of course, so the specifics are still up to the FOL's imagination.

I wonder if there'll ever be any direct line drawn between the 'classic' Castle themes (up to Fright Knights) and the 'modern' ones (from Knights Kingdom I onwards) - as far as I know there wasn't any reference to any latterly subthemes in the Lion Knights' Castle.

[GeoBrick]

2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

I wonder if there'll ever be any direct line drawn between the 'classic' Castle themes (up to Fright Knights) and the 'modern' ones (from Knights Kingdom I onwards) - as far as I know there wasn't any reference to any latterly subthemes in the Lion Knights' Castle.

I kind of feel there's a difference in the era. I reckon the classic castle factions back from the 80-90ties were a couple generations to a century earlier then onwards from the Fantasy Era knights.

[Lyichir]

TBH Basil takes us halfway to where I'd want a "modernization" of Fright Knights. I was never terribly interested in the regular Fright Knights soldiers, after all—it was all about those big scary folks in charge. Now we just need a modernized version of Willa the Witch.

[Alexandrina]

43 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

Now we just need a modernized version of Willa the Witch.

I always thought she was called Winnie but turns out I was confusing her with a book series!

[Aanchir]

2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

I always thought she was called Winnie but turns out I was confusing her with a book series!

I mean, a lot of 90s LEGO character names varied from country to country. So while she was "Willa the Witch" in the US and Canada, she had a whole bunch of other names besides that!

• In Britain she was named "Hubble Bubble"
• In the Netherlands she was "Hella de Heks" ("Helga the Witch")
• In Germany she was either "Die Zauberin Buta" ("The Sorceress Buta") or "Die Hexe Izralda" ("The Witch Izralda"), depending on the publication in question.
• In Denmark she was "Heksen Hylia" ("The Witch Hylia")
• In Sweden she was "Häxan Matulda" ("The Witch Matilda")

If LEGO brings her back in a new set and they do choose to refer to her by name, I imagine they will use the name "Willa" for all regions, as they did in 10305's manual. I would say the same for Basil, but since his comeback is in the Collectible Minifigures, I imagine that they will stick with a generic description/title like "Bat Lord" for that figure, sort of like they did with the Jungle Explorer and Spy (who were clearly based on Johnny Thunder and Agent Dash Justice, respectively).

[Alexandrina]

3 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

I mean, a lot of 90s LEGO character names varied from country to country. So while she was "Willa the Witch" in the US and Canada, she had a whole bunch of other names besides that!

• In Britain she was named "Hubble Bubble"
• In the Netherlands she was "Hella de Heks" ("Helga the Witch")
• In Germany she was either "Die Zauberin Buta" ("The Sorceress Buta") or "Die Hexe Izralda" ("The Witch Izralda"), depending on the publication in question.
• In Denmark she was "Heksen Hylia" ("The Witch Hylia")
• In Sweden she was "Häxan Matulda" ("The Witch Matilda")

I genuinely love the fact that people know all this information! The wonders of the Internet.

Surprised they tried 'Hubble Bubble', would've thought that would be confused with the gum! I think I might adopt "Häxan Matilda" into my headcanon for her.

[MAB]

12 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

I genuinely love the fact that people know all this information! The wonders of the Internet.

Surprised they tried 'Hubble Bubble', would've thought that would be confused with the gum! I think I might adopt "Häxan Matilda" into my headcanon for her.

To many British kids, she would have just been 'the witch'. In an era when minifigures were not named on boxes, the names were not widely known. Unless you read magazines or books were a name was used for the characters, they were fairly generic unnamed characters.

[TeriXeri]

I only have 2 small sets from fright knights but I can see how the larger sets were somewhat suffering the start of an "dark" era of LEGO many themes were affected by, in terms of Fright Knights that was the start of chunky brick bases, further seen in the Ninja and 2000 Castle line, or early Harry Potter.

Still, looking through the instructions of the larger sets, the concept of modularity seems really cool, despite the large pieces it had, they were probably great playsets, and the more brick built style instead of layers of plates or small pieces, has its charm too. 

And as a kid I did not have issues with BURPS or wall panels to build up castles, but I can certainly image a large modern updated version of Night Lord Castle , with modular tower design, but more in the AFOL style like 10305: Lion Knights' Castle.

As far as the dragon goes, they were cool but I had the clips break from play on both my green and black dragon not long after, saddle clips also were known to be more fragile. Eventually I did add wings to the back of the dragon with clips myself.

Edited November 7, 2023 by TeriXeri