just2good

2013 LEGO Pirates rumors and discussion.

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There were a ton of big name big screen Pirate movies between 1981 and 1991. 2 versions of Pirates of Penzance, 3 of Treasure Island

We're talking pre-1989 here as any film released after the introduction of pirates doesn't constitute as an influence... and "big name, big screen" movies?

Aside from the 1983 version of Pirates of Penzance the rest were just TV movies (there were two).

The 1985 version of Treasure Island (L'île au trésor) was Chilean-French production and only had success on the festival circuit, while the 1988 version was a Soviet animated film.

So yeah, it would be unlikely either of those films reached a wide English speaking audience let alone became popular enough with children to influence major toy manufacturers into producing pirate themed products.

Were they the films you were referring to?

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We're talking pre-1989 here as any film released after the introduction of pirates doesn't constitute as an influence... and "big name, big screen" movies?

Aside from the 1983 version of Pirates of Penzance the rest were just TV movies (there were two).

The 1985 version of Treasure Island (L'île au trésor) was Chilean-French production and only had success on the festival circuit, while the 1988 version was a Soviet animated film.

So yeah, it would be unlikely either of those films reached a wide English speaking audience let alone became popular enough with children to influence major toy manufacturers into producing pirate themed products.

Were they the films you were referring to?

There was a big release "The Pirate Movie" with Kristy McNichol and the dude from the Blue Lagoon, (it was awful), There was a Tommy Lee Jones Pirate movie (Nate and Hayes?) which all but killed the genre. There was Yellowbeard from some of the Monty Python crew, There was the Kevin Kline Linda Ronstadt Pirates of Penzance, And there was the Roman Polanski Pirates, all within the front half of the 80's and all big lush budget theatrical releases (granted all were pretty awful in one way or another. The most watchable of them was Yellowbeard,a nd even then I recomend much rum).

But the point is, that there was something triggering 2 or 3 big budget Pirate movies a year back then. Something had Hollywood looking that way, and in return that caught the toymakers eye. Part of it might have been the success of Pirates of Penzance on the stage. Hollywood as always being completely incapable of an original idea, and this being two decades before they discovered comic books.

I think a lot of it wasn't so much an interest in "Pirates" per se, as an interest in "Swashbuckling Adventure". This was on the heels of Raiders of the Lost Arc recapturing the legacy of Erol Flynn and similar. Pirate themes were just an attemot to spawn off that desire for pure action type movies and play.

Edited by Faefrost

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But the point is, that there was something triggering 2 or 3 big budget Pirate movies a year back then.

Going on a slight tangent... Are you old enough to remember the late 80's?

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Going on a slight tangent... Are you old enough to remember the late 80's?

Well I know I'm not! :laugh:

Anyway, I just wanted to say that you, Governor, know your stuff I am learning a lot of info from reading your posts on in this topic. Keep being smart, please. :thumbup::grin:

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Anyway, I just wanted to say that you, Governor, know your stuff I am learning a lot of info from reading your posts on in this topic. Keep being smart, please. :thumbup::grin:

Obviously I've understated the number of pirate films released throughout the 1980's which is a blatant error on my behalf.

However, I was a child during that period so drawing from my subjective experiences the only pirate/swashbuckling films aimed at children which stood out were The Goonies and The Princess Bride. It wasn't until Hook in 1991 that I recall a film having any real influence over pirate themed merchandise.

The pirate movie that most stood out when I was a child was Disney's 1950 version of Treasure Island, but I think that's just me and not common to children of the 80's.

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Going on a slight tangent... Are you old enough to remember the late 80's?

Sadly yes. I'm old enough to remember the early 80's and most of the 70's.

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Obviously I've understated the number of pirate films released throughout the 1980's which is a blatant error on my behalf.

However, I was a child during that period so drawing from my subjective experiences the only pirate/swashbuckling films aimed at children which stood out were The Goonies and The Princess Bride. It wasn't until Hook in 1991 that I recall a film having any real influence over pirate themed merchandise.

The pirate movie that most stood out when I was a child was Disney's 1950 version of Treasure Island, but I think that's just me and not common to children of the 80's.

You are partly correct. There weren't a huge number of Pirate movies back then, and what there was was mostly awful. But even today, with some highly succesful ones, straight up Pirate movies are still not that common. But it wasn't just big budget movies feeding into that spark of interest back in the early 80's. Pirates were weird. They never did real well as a stand alone property. But they found themselves insinuated into so many other genres and subjects, mostly on TV, that they had a very strong pop culture undercurrent that continues to some extent to this day. Saturday Morning cartoons in the US were notorious for this. Pirates in space, Scooby Doo, Ghost Pirates, Robot Pirates. It went on and on. Plus a lot of the stuff that kids were being subjected to then was re runs of classic 50's and 60's shows that once again leveraged Pirates with enough frequency to keep the concept out there. Back then Blackbeard was having more TV guest appearances than Milton Berle or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. It really was a very very strange decade.

The whole Ghost Pirate thing on TV was pretty common, in large part because it was cheap to pull off. Real Pirate movies or shows were expensive to make. But dress a guy up in a Blackbeard costume and have him scream at somebody on Fantasy Island. Dirt Cheap. It went on for decades. (Over on the cartoon side of things Hanna Barbera and Filmation both seemed rather enamored with Pirate themes and space/ghost/old man wilkins dressed as Pirates as well)

But I think we are getting off course from 2013 rumors etc, so I'll be good and shut up now :blush:

Edited by Faefrost

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Yes, you are indeed correct, we have strayed from the topic. Nonetheless, it was an interesting retrospective which may or may not have relevance to the release of future LEGO Pirate sets.

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That is an interesting direction for that series to take...

A while back another video game franchise called Tropic had a pirate sequel. If you're not familiar with Tropic, it's a simulation game like Sim City, only the objective is to manage an island in the Caribbean during the late twentieth century. I.e.

a dictator governing an island banana republic...

For whatever reason the developers decided Tropico 2 (released in 2003 around the time of the first Pirate of the Caribbean film) would be set back in time and the task was to manage a successful pirate haven.

So whether that helped permeate Pirates of the Caribbean into popular culture I'm not sure, but for Tropic 3 or 4 they returned to a modern Caribbean setting... much to my disappointment!

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If you want to start talking video games (why not?) there was a couple of MMORPG (multiplayer PC games) with a Pirate bent. There was a PotC one, and another one called Pirates of the Burning Sea. I played the latter one for a little while. They also like to re-do Sid Meier's Pirates! every once in a while. Same with the Monkey Island games. I also read just today that the next Assassin's Creed game might be heavily pirate-oriented, but that's just a rumor at this point. Might be some truth there though because the one that just came out (number 3) had a healthy portion of the game where you're doing naval battles. And they did those naval battles very well, probably the best part of the game. There's probably dozens of pirate related video games out there from years past.

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If you want to start talking video games (why not?) there was a couple of MMORPG (multiplayer PC games) with a Pirate bent. There was a PotC one, and another one called Pirates of the Burning Sea. I played the latter one for a little while.

I've played Pirates of the Burning Sea as well, but which PotC are you talking about? I think there's a few.

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I've played Pirates of the Burning Sea as well, but which PotC are you talking about? I think there's a few.

Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online

http://piratesonline.go.com/welcome

I didn't play it, but my friend did. I remember him saying it wasn't the best MMO ever, but he still had some fun with it. Me? I'm done with MMOs for good. Gettin' too old for that _. :imperialguard_commander1::laugh:

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Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online

http://piratesonline.go.com/welcome

I didn't play it, but my friend did. I remember him saying it wasn't the best MMO ever, but he still had some fun with it. Me? I'm done with MMOs for good. Gettin' too old for that _. :imperialguard_commander1::laugh:

Ah, ok. I played that one for a little while. Your friend was right, it wasn't the best, but wasn't bad either. I don't imagine too many people play on it anymore.

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Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online

http://piratesonline.go.com/welcome

Me? I'm done with MMOs for good. Gettin' too old for that _. :imperialguard_commander1::laugh:

BLASPHEMY! It's probably worth mentioning that Pirates of the Burning Sea is going free to play any day now.

Back onto the subject of Lego related Pirates... The new CMF Revolutionary Soldier is WONDERFUL :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub:

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BLASPHEMY! It's probably worth mentioning that Pirates of the Burning Sea is going free to play any day now.

Isn't it already free to play?

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Isn't it already free to play?

I thought they had just announced they were going FTP? But were only now getting the code and patches etc in place to actually do it? I could be wrong. Haven't looked at that game in awhile.

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I just read that Ubisoft is making Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, based around pirates. I know we won't be getting any sets around the series, but does anyone think that this game could build hype around pirates of any sort, and that LEGO would jump on the bandwagon?

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Does anyone think that this game could build hype around pirates of any sort, and that LEGO would jump on the bandwagon?

No...

It usually takes 18-24 months for a LEGO theme to go from conception to distribution. As the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie will be released in mid 2015, the LEGO Group is more likely to release sets relating to that franchise. So anything at present which may stimulate "pirate hype" wouldn't be released until the third quarter of 2014, in which case the LEGO Group may well release more sets from the first four PotC films in the lead up to the fifth.

Although nothing has been confirmed and my comments are merely speculative.

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So anything at present which may stimulate "pirate hype" wouldn't be released until the third quarter of 2014, in which case the LEGO Group may well release more sets from the first four PotC films in the lead up to the fifth.

Although nothing has been confirmed and my comments are merely speculative.

That's something worth hoping for. Especially if they could find the space to give me my Captain Teague minifig. (Awe c'mon you all know you want your very own Keith Richards fig. It's like your own personal zombie, in minifig form.)

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I just read that Ubisoft is making Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, based around pirates. I know we won't be getting any sets around the series, but does anyone think that this game could build hype around pirates of any sort, and that LEGO would jump on the bandwagon?

Based around pirates? where did you read that?

I would expect they'd pick another time period to play in, Assassins Creed 3 was pretty awesome with the ship battles but it would surprise me if they'd do it again in the next game.

At one point I was about to build the Aquila in Lego :wacko: .

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No...

It usually takes 18-24 months for a LEGO theme to go from conception to distribution. As the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie will be released in mid 2015, the LEGO Group is more likely to release sets relating to that franchise. So anything at present which may stimulate "pirate hype" wouldn't be released until the third quarter of 2014, in which case the LEGO Group may well release more sets from the first four PotC films in the lead up to the fifth.

I forgot about concept and distribution time :sceptic:

Based around pirates? where did you read that?

I would expect they'd pick another time period to play in, Assassins Creed 3 was pretty awesome with the ship battles but it would surprise me if they'd do it again in the next game.

At one point I was about to build the Aquila in Lego :wacko: .

I saw it on IGN this morning, and I believe Amazon already has box art up, apparently it comes before Connor (his grandfather), but that's for another thread, so I won't go into a lot of detail.

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Id like to point out that the announced (or still just rumored?) exclusive new Bilbo minifig looks perfect for an 18th century civilian, with his cravat and waistcoast. Though I dont suppose this will be of much value given the nature of the figs distribution. I think the Frodo and Merry torsos would work just as well, if you dont mind flesh triangles on the torsos...

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I really hope we are being teased with CMFs latley... that pirate and now armada soldier, must be somekind of a tease for 2014/2015, just like all those ancient rome figures :cry_sad:

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