Lego System Petition

[Peppermint_M]

Goodness, was there a fire sale at the rose tinted lense shop?

Lego is amazing today! There are so many lovely colours (mmm Dark Tan) and clever designs in sets. The minifigures are fantastic, instead of having a land of little staring smiling clones with strange almost unreal hair we have everything from a shark man to a rather concerned looking bloke in a hazmat suit. Not to mention the huge array of printed torso and leg parts.

Then we move on to the themes: Brilliant designs this year Pharaoh's Quest being a spiritua successor to the old system Adventurers. Atlantis continuing the trend of under water action started in the early 90s. Alien Conquest giving as a great B-Movie style theme. City keeps on getting better, and Hero Factory is freshening up the buildable action figures (masterfully salvaged from that mess of Galidor back in the system days). Ninja Go is opening a new market that was certainly taking away some purchasers of Lego. The only issue I have with themes these days is the price of Licensed sets, I liked the Toy Story sets and PotC has a few nice features but too high a price. The only theme really retreading itself is Star Wars and that has been running over a decade and the repetition is more a fault of the source material.

Design these days is much much better than ever before. The earliest sets looked unfinished and very very basic then in the 80s the sets look ok but the most design innovation was in Technic. 90s sets were still not quite as good and then became even more simplified in an attempt to attract more children (it had been well noticed that many children were moving past toys very early in life, even more so today). The issues they faced then forced them to focus on the brick and since the early 2000s, things have been getting better and better.

The designers grew up with Lego and aren't afraid to include the difficult building techniques they know. Economic issues around the world are getting parents too look at the longievity of a toy over the current faddish wow factor of most kids toys. Also their nostalgia appeal.

If Lego were to go back to System branding, the box would look so retro... If they were to go back to the system style a lot of the market would be unimpressed save a handful of belligerent AFOLs... until they realise what a load of rosey nostalgia they were speaking when they demanded a return.

I like where Lego is today and I want them to keep

[Nikola Bathory]

The best LEGO sets are from the '80s and early '90s - the design is a bit simplistic by today's standarts, but actually the structures looked more finished, not like a wall of several bricks being described as a castle or something like that.

'80s Castle, Pirates, Classic Space - great themes. I do miss the old times, but these old sets are still in my room

And btw back in the day, LEGO had more printed pieces and fewer stickers!

Yes, I love the new colours we have today, of course that's important.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Nikola Bathory

[legomaniac83]

Some great responses here. I wont sign the petition as I believe it is beating a dead horse. I am happy with what TLG is producing now - more diverse range of products with greater detail. However, I think a great idea for a petition would be asking TLG to re-release more older sets, like the "Legends" line, even if it is just 1 or 2 a year. From what I've notcied, people go nuts for Limited Edition sets!

[Legoist]

Also, a bottom line about the nostalgic feeling of "the world is not as nice as it used to be"...

Past the young age, everyone has its own version of this feeling. It could be focusing on toys/hobbies or the look of your old alley/suburbs/town/country, or the TV shows or the icecreams and the snacks, and so on...

Truth is, everything changes but what we really miss is not the stuff, it's ourselves. The stuff was not really better then, but we were. Because we were kids, and there's no way to get that back.