Could LEGO remake Fright Knights?

[Aanchir]

8 hours ago, MAB said:

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. 

Fair enough! I'd also forgotten that the boxes in Great Britain at that time no longer had the actual names of the sets on them like the American boxes or earlier British boxes from the 1980s did, presumably so they could use the same box design across all of Europe (including in non-English-speaking countries). So this means that even when character names WERE featured in the names of the sets (like "Hubble Bubble's Dragonair", released as Witch's Windship in the US), that was not always apparent to buyers or gift recipients

That said, Hubble Bubble's name was mentioned several times in the 1997 British catalog and the March 1997 issue of Bricks and Pieces magazine, so I figure at least some British kids would have been aware of it! Certainly as an American kid, most of my knowledge of US character names in the 90s came from LEGO Mania Magazine (as our version of the LEGO Club magazine was called at the time).

Admittedly, I have no idea how much the subscriber base for those magazines might've varied between the two countries — nearly all North American sets when I was growing up were packaged with little leaflets telling you how you could "Join the LEGO Club FREE", but I have no idea whether there were any similar ad campaigns for club magazine subscriptions in the UK.

As I understand it, LEGO went extra hard on merchandising and marketing in the US in the 90s. At the time, they still didn't have quite as strong a foothold here as they did in Europe (where LEGO had long been a household name), and competition from the US-based K'nex and Canada-based Mega Bloks brand was particularly intense on this side of the pond. I believe this is also why so many 90s product lines (like Unitron, Aquaraiders, Roboforce, Dark Forest, and even the 1997 LEGO Pirates range) were mostly limited to North America at the time: maximizing their sheer variety of products and their shelf presence at toy stores/department stores was meant to help LEGO stand out from other building toy brands, even at steeper prices than what those other brands were able to offer.

[Alexandrina]

25 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

Admittedly, I have no idea how much the subscriber base for those magazines might've varied between the two countries — nearly all North American sets when I was growing up were packaged with little leaflets telling you how you could "Join the LEGO Club FREE", but I have no idea whether there were any similar ad campaigns for club magazine subscriptions in the UK.

It's before my time but I know for a fact that they were advertising the Lego club here at least by 1998 - I have a Pharaoh Hotep leaflet extolling the virtues of the Lego Club (just £3.99!) from one of the many joblots I've acquired over the years.

I've also found leaflets from earlier in the 90s but a lot of these appear to be foldout catalogues rather than adverts for the Lego club.

[Rjbricks]

Am I the only one who went and ordered an original Basil the Bat?

Would never have done it without CMF25 coming out. 

[GeoBrick]

21 minutes ago, Rjbricks said:

Am I the only one who went and ordered an original Basil the Bat?

Would never have done it without CMF25 coming out. 

Well, a couple months ago I found one of those fancy horse saddle-covers in a nearby bricklink store. Looks like it came from an old Batlord sets, so once CMF25 comes out he's good to ride into the sunset. 

[jstarscomm]

fright knights were not a very popular set, and i see why, it seems so out of place in lego

[jodawill]

34 minutes ago, jstarscomm said:

fright knights were not a very popular set, and i see why, it seems so out of place in lego

They weren't popular because the sets were so poorly designed. But the idea itself has a lot of potential. A modern take could be awesome.

[MrLegoBlitz]

LEGO's knows what's hot in the market and what fans are into. So, if we make some noise and let them know we're itching for a comeback of the Fright Knights theme, who knows, they might just give us the remake we've been wishing for? 

[MAB]

6 hours ago, MrLegoBlitz said:

LEGO's knows what's hot in the market and what fans are into. So, if we make some noise and let them know we're itching for a comeback of the Fright Knights theme, who knows, they might just give us the remake we've been wishing for? 

There is a lot more I'd put in front of Fright Knights. That's the problem with what "we" want. "I" and "we" often want very different things.

[Alexandrina]

7 hours ago, MrLegoBlitz said:

LEGO's knows what's hot in the market and what fans are into. So, if we make some noise and let them know we're itching for a comeback of the Fright Knights theme, who knows, they might just give us the remake we've been wishing for? 

The problem with this is that there are really three groups of AFOLs here:

1. Those who want Fright Knights to return.
2. Those who want <insert other classic theme> to return.
3. Those who actively don't want Fright Knights to return.

You're never going to get the AFOLs in group 3 to take up the call for Fright Knights, but I'd wager most people in group 1 also belong to group 2 - and that most people in group 2 don't have Fright Knights as their number one most wished for theme.

If Lego did a Fright Knights wave next year, I'd buy all the sets I could afford. I bet a lot of people on these forums would, tbh, both for the nostalgia and the fact that it's a Castle theme. But how many of those people are going to devote their 'voice' to calling for Fright Knights over Crusaders or Forestmen or Wolfpack? Or even Knights' Kingdom I? I'd personally prefer to see Western sets again - in a fantasy world where Lego called me, personally, and asked me what theme they should bring back, I'm going Western over Fright Knights every time. Getting a groundswell of vocal support for a theme which is, let's say, divisive is going to be a tall order.

[Aanchir]

On 11/7/2023 at 12:19 PM, Alexandrina said:

It's before my time but I know for a fact that they were advertising the Lego club here at least by 1998 - I have a Pharaoh Hotep leaflet extolling the virtues of the Lego Club (just £3.99!) from one of the many joblots I've acquired over the years.

I've also found leaflets from earlier in the 90s but a lot of these appear to be foldout catalogues rather than adverts for the Lego club.

The club memberships/subscriptions cost MONEY over there? In that case I definitely understand why a lot of British kids might not have gotten them, particularly since in the KFOL years I imagine it'd usually be parents making the final decision about that sort of thing instead of kids themselves…

On 11/15/2023 at 5:00 AM, Alexandrina said:

The problem with this is that there are really three groups of AFOLs here:

1. Those who want Fright Knights to return.
2. Those who want <insert other classic theme> to return.
3. Those who actively don't want Fright Knights to return.

You're never going to get the AFOLs in group 3 to take up the call for Fright Knights, but I'd wager most people in group 1 also belong to group 2 - and that most people in group 2 don't have Fright Knights as their number one most wished for theme.

If Lego did a Fright Knights wave next year, I'd buy all the sets I could afford. I bet a lot of people on these forums would, tbh, both for the nostalgia and the fact that it's a Castle theme. But how many of those people are going to devote their 'voice' to calling for Fright Knights over Crusaders or Forestmen or Wolfpack? Or even Knights' Kingdom I? I'd personally prefer to see Western sets again - in a fantasy world where Lego called me, personally, and asked me what theme they should bring back, I'm going Western over Fright Knights every time. Getting a groundswell of vocal support for a theme which is, let's say, divisive is going to be a tall order.

Yeah. I mean, I have a fair amount of childhood nostalgia for Fright Knights myself, but a lot of that is more for the characters or for the general spooky vibe than for the actual sets. And that's the sort of thing LEGO can easily satisfy either through the Collectible Minifigures (as Minifigures Series 25 is doing with its new version of Basil the Bat Lord) or with stand-alone figs in more general-purpose Castle sets like they did with Majisto in 10305, without needing any sort of full-blown revival.

Honestly, Fright Knights wasn't even the theme/subtheme I mostly enjoyed back in the 90s, let alone the one that I have the most fondness for in hindsight. In the former category, themes/subthemes like Islanders, Exploriens, Aquazone, Adventurers, and Rock Raiders come out far ahead, while in the latter I think Spyrius easily leads the pack — as an adult, I have an even greater appreciation for its embrace of "retro" sci-fi imagery and themes like robots, flying saucers, and intergalactic espionage than I had as a kid.

And besides that, I've been extremely impressed and inspired by a lot of the throwback sets we've seen recently that hearken back to sets or subthemes that preceded my own KFOL years, like Forest Hideout, Lion Knights' Castle, Galaxy Explorer, Blacktron Cruiser, Barracuda Bay, and Eldorado Fortress. In light of that, a lot of my current wishes for future throwback sets (and also a lot of my MOC ideas) have more to do with which classic sets/subthemes/characters might best accompany those sets than with which sets/subthemes/characters I actually have the strongest childhood memories of.

Apologies if I sound like sort of a debbie downer here. Make no mistake — I'd love to get a new version of Willa the Witch as a rival for Majisto, and maybe even a brick-built re-imagining of the classic dragon which was so iconic to the subthemes they originated in! But I can't really muster up that same sort of enthusiasm for a full reboot/revival of either subtheme.

[legogirl221]

On 11/15/2023 at 6:00 PM, Alexandrina said:

The problem with this is that there are really three groups of AFOLs here:

1. Those who want Fright Knights to return.
2. Those who want <insert other classic theme> to return.
3. Those who actively don't want Fright Knights to return.

You're never going to get the AFOLs in group 3 to take up the call for Fright Knights, but I'd wager most people in group 1 also belong to group 2 - and that most people in group 2 don't have Fright Knights as their number one most wished for theme.

If Lego did a Fright Knights wave next year, I'd buy all the sets I could afford. I bet a lot of people on these forums would, tbh, both for the nostalgia and the fact that it's a Castle theme. But how many of those people are going to devote their 'voice' to calling for Fright Knights over Crusaders or Forestmen or Wolfpack? Or even Knights' Kingdom I? I'd personally prefer to see Western sets again - in a fantasy world where Lego called me, personally, and asked me what theme they should bring back, I'm going Western over Fright Knights every time. Getting a groundswell of vocal support for a theme which is, let's say, divisive is going to be a tall order.

That’s a good look way to explain how the same brand can have different markets. More often than not, we’re the minority in this regard so there’s no winning.

On 11/15/2023 at 4:44 PM, MAB said:

There is a lot more I'd put in front of Fright Knights. That's the problem with what "we" want. "I" and "we" often want very different things.

There’s also the fact that a lot of people who buy LEGO aren’t really into LEGO itself. They’re there for the partner like Star Wars. Fright Knight LEGO is and has us as its market but Fright Knight in of itself doesn’t exist so it doesn’t get its own isolated fanbase.

[MAB]

On 11/20/2023 at 12:44 AM, legogirl221 said:

There’s also the fact that a lot of people who buy LEGO aren’t really into LEGO itself. They’re there for the partner like Star Wars. Fright Knight LEGO is and has us as its market but Fright Knight in of itself doesn’t exist so it doesn’t get its own isolated fanbase.

This is an unlicensed topic, so I'm comparing Castle factions with other Castle factons and not licensed themes.

[Follows Closely]

First non leak image:

 

https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-sends-unreleased-2024-minifigure-early?fbclid=IwAR1WySj_7AftifWi3us1RF5wtn9wz3bFNie-qGLfoMTmlTapcMCJfn-3dv0

[Lyichir]

6 hours ago, Follows Closely said:

First non leak image:

 

 

https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-sends-unreleased-2024-minifigure-early?fbclid=IwAR1WySj_7AftifWi3us1RF5wtn9wz3bFNie-qGLfoMTmlTapcMCJfn-3dv0

Amazing looking update!

I see a lot of complaints about modern Lego prints (esp. things like white printing on dark colors), and not to say those aren't valid, but a comparison like this really brings home how much farther printing has come than it had back in those days! So much crisper and better aligned than the retro torso.

[BrickJagger]

On 11/27/2023 at 4:46 AM, Follows Closely said:

First non leak image:

 

https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-sends-unreleased-2024-minifigure-early?fbclid=IwAR1WySj_7AftifWi3us1RF5wtn9wz3bFNie-qGLfoMTmlTapcMCJfn-3dv0

This is a nice upgrade! It looks tidier and is realistic enough to be used elsewhere. Maybe two Fright Knights figures in just a few years are a sign?

[Triceron]

I still hate the concept of boxes.

How are you guys planning to deal with the CMF blindbox?

[Follows Closely]

I will bricklink the figs I want, as I have been. I am extreemly dissapointed in LEGO for doing blind bags period. It encourages gambeling and such. LEGO should be above these marketing gimmicks.

[CallMeCarbiz]

Not sure where to post this, but a retailer has posted the new CMF series online. Basil is one beautiful Bat Lord.

As to how I'm going to find him? I'm hoping someone will post the weights of the individual minifigs and I can find some in person. If not then I'll have to try the second hand market. I hate giving my money to scalpers, but it's that or gamble myself. I could care less about 2/3 of the minifigs.

 

 

 

https://www.jb-spielwaren.de/lego-minifiguren-serie-25-als-ganze-box-mit-36-minifiguren/a-648660436/

[Mr Maniac]

Love Basil's new weapon; it's absolutely a better fit for him than that chrome greatsword he originally had. While I wish they found a way to redesign his scepter, I've seen plenty of fun reinventions of that accessory that this axe (blood-axe?) is definitely an improvement.

Now if LEGO decides to give us other updated Fright Knight torsos that mirror the older ones, I'd be all set!

2 hours ago, CallMeCarbiz said:

As to how I'm going to find him? I'm hoping someone will post the weights of the individual minifigs and I can find some in person. If not then I'll have to try the second hand market.

Unfortunately that's probably where I'm going to, since I'm not dedicated enough to buy a handheld digital scale, or whatever other strategies I've seen discussed here in terms of finding the right CMF in these boxes. Ah well, you really only need one (and depending on what I've seen elsewhere, Nu-Basil's torso might pop up again in Build-A-Minifig stations.)

Now let's talk some real turkey: Do we think a future Willa the Witch/Hubble Bubble CMF would have green skin now, to match Nu-Basil's uncanny archetypal skin tone?

Edited December 2, 2023 by Mr Maniac

[Westbrick]

3 hours ago, CallMeCarbiz said:

Basil is one beautiful Bat Lord.

Interesting that in the group shot, you can clearly see he has grey skin around his eyes, but in the individual one you can’t see any - instead, it’s all red?

[DaleDVM]

I like the harpoon piece being used for the handle of his axe.  Makes it so he can use that end as a weapon as well.  

I am certain to just buy on bricklink to deal with the boxes.  As it was I have had to resort to bricklink to build my CMF armies anyway. 
The local LEGO store never had enough of the castley figs to get me enough of what I wanted.  I would get 10-20 from the store over a month or so and resort to bricklink for the rest.  Unfortunately at a premium cost.  

I am pretty certain now that they are in boxes bricklink prices are going to be insane.  

[Black Falcon]

3 hours ago, Westbrick said:

Interesting that in the group shot, you can clearly see he has grey skin around his eyes, but in the individual one you can’t see any - instead, it’s all red?

I would guess for an rendering error, seems unlikely to me that they would make red eyes on a red head for him. 

The axe actually looks transparent now, which IMO looks better than just normal red. Also the Barbarians torso looks really good ´.

[Rjbricks]

On 11/30/2023 at 11:54 PM, Triceron said:

I still hate the concept of boxes.

How are you guys planning to deal with the CMF blindbox?

If they have them in the UK, I’ll get a 12 box and get everything. Otherwise eBay/bricklink.

with the 24 series i got a full pack and sold all the unwanted ones. But it’s such a pain getting proof of postage etc that I’m not going to bother this year.

Surely the goat herd figure will be used again a la the bard torso has been. And I’ve got a couple of OG goats, not that bothered about the new ones.

[Triceron]

On 12/3/2023 at 5:03 AM, Rjbricks said:

If they have them in the UK, I’ll get a 12 box and get everything. Otherwise eBay/bricklink.

with the 24 series i got a full pack and sold all the unwanted ones. But it’s such a pain getting proof of postage etc that I’m not going to bother this year.

Surely the goat herd figure will be used again a la the bard torso has been. And I’ve got a couple of OG goats, not that bothered about the new ones.

There is a 12-pack that has 1 of each mini?  What the crud!  Wish we had that here in Canada.  I think we're like one of the only countries that doesn't have that.  All I can do is gamble with a 6-pack.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Triceron

[Horation]

On 12/1/2023 at 10:27 PM, CallMeCarbiz said:

Not sure where to post this, but a retailer has posted the new CMF series online. Basil is one beautiful Bat Lord.

As to how I'm going to find him? I'm hoping someone will post the weights of the individual minifigs and I can find some in person. If not then I'll have to try the second hand market. I hate giving my money to scalpers, but it's that or gamble myself. I could care less about 2/3 of the minifigs.

I don't understand the hate people have for resellers, to me a scalper is someone buying more copies than they are allowed (using bots and fake accounts) or buying a lot to create a fake scarcity or buying a lot of a limited production item (ex: tickets to a play) and then reselling them for a high markup.

Meanwhile a reseller like you are describing is someone who is

a) buying the figures legitimately

b) opening and organising every single one based on its type

c) dealing with storage and shipping of all of these

d) saving a lot of money by charging a small markup (ex 6-10$ per fig vs 5$ to buy a random one, your luck would have to be immense to outdo that price for a whole series).