astral brick

Rotfl! The charme of forums, the heterogeneity of thinking. Anyway now I better understand why, according to another message, Lego pr dont participate to this forum anymore.

I totally agree with you. Very interesting comparison.

Quite paradoxical, considering Tlc flaunted interest towards afols.

Rotfl! Such a great image, but aren't we allowed to pretend we are in Tlg board of directors? I mean, there is a topic about it, this is the fun part of writing in a forum.

Everytime I accept a terms of service agreement I think of a certain South Park episode :-)

I don't understand why many people keep talking about "peanuts" or "pocket money". Pocket money is still money. And there are no small markets, only markets that are yet to be discovered.

Inspired by a very interesting article on Brickset – “Reduced Focus Upon Traditional Themes”, Capnrex101, 22 November 2019 – I would like to share a thought that crossed my mind. What if political correctness was the main responsible of the situation depicted in the article? Let’s analyse the so-called traditional themes. Space: guns, laser cannons, missiles or, better said, conflicts. Blacktron against Futuron and then Space Police, that is human people fighting. Castle: swords, spears, catapults, sieges and clashes between Crusaders and Black Falcons. Pirates: not loveable rogues but, historically, killers and thieves, battled by the Imperial Guard, with the use of sabers pistols and bombards. Objection! The traditional topics were simply taken over by similar conflict-based ones, such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars. However, overlooking the (intriguing) considerations regarding licenses prevalence over in-house production, the main difference with past themes is the fantasy element. Therefore, in order to be acceptable by today’s standards, current sets can’t show any realistic dispute or, at least, there should be some imaginary factor to tone it down, thus the replacement function of the aforementioned themes, and maybe the reason why the recent Blacktron minifigure from Series 19 has become an alien and the pirates of the upcoming Pirate Bay are defending themselves against an invisible enemy (the progress?). Please think of the children! Hence only politically correct wars have the green light in Lego universe, parents would be happy, sales and marketing even happier. Unfortunately this reasoning implies a relevant heterogony of ends, which arises when a child may think that a battle between human beings is wrong, but it is legitimate to fight an alien, who is, etymologically, someone different than him, in terms of race, nationality, beliefs, orientations, census. Tolerated side-effects of this policy, as long as the profits increase.

I think that you are naif, or perhaps just very optimistic. I disagree, in fact I believe that supporting the design and the sale of new (and nice) sets was probably the point of no return for Bricklink. Thanks to the use of true Lego parts, they became - on a minuscule scale of course - a legitimate competitor of Tlc itself. Paradoxically, a "reseller" which paid much more attention to their customers than the original company did.

Julia Goldin: "[...] From that perspective, you would not see BrickArms and guns and things that are potentially particularly connected to things like warfare and violence, which is something that we decided as the LEGO Group we would never support. [...]" Excerpt from Julia Goldin interview, The Brothers Brick, 26 November 2019.

Julia Goldin: "[...] From that perspective, you would not see BrickArms and guns and things that are potentially particularly connected to things like warfare and violence, which is something that we decided as the LEGO Group we would never support. [...]" (extract from Julia Goldin interview, 26 November 2019)

I think you are very naif I disagree, I think that when Bricklink started to support the design and then the sale of mocs it was the point of no return.

Unexpected bad news - For Customers: data analysis? - For Sellers: fees? - For Mocers: copyright and censorship? And let's not forget the acquisition of Sohobricks, a clear message towards custom bricks manufactures. Overall, as a customer, I don't feel very comfortable at the moment. What would it be the next step? The acquisition of Brickset? Or maybe of Eurobricks? Anyway, I can foresee a large migration to Brick Owl, provided that Lego doesn't buy it as well.

Considering the amount of western licenses that Lego is managing, I am wondering how difficult and expensive it would be to acquire Japanese ones. The potential profits could be huge, in relation to both high number and dedication of manga and anime enthusiasts. City and sci-fi sets for Dragon Ball, pirates ones for One Piece, ninja style ones for Naruto. Personally I would like to see Macross and some classic Go Nagai robots. Anyway the dream - and perhaps most profitable - partnership would be with Nintendo and the endless possibilities offered by its IPs lore. I think of a Mario kart theme, a Zelda castles-fantasy line, a Pokemon one on the model of Brickheadz. Remembering the Amiibo crazy collecting phenomenon, a hypothetical Nintendo license would probably pay for itself in a short time with a handful of minifigures series. Lego if you are reading, please think about it!

I certainly don't forget it but, considering how slowly the people are giving their support, I begin to fear that this masterpiece is not going to reach the next milestone. If there is this lack of interest then maybe Lego could be right in ignoring the Space theme, pretending it never existed or not celebrating its anniversary.

This IPs search engine is gold. In relation to music enquiries, among the quoted bands: Not allowed: Megadeth Motorhead Nirvana Black Sabbath Allowed: The White Stripes Green Day Metallica: rotfl!

Macross is allowed, I would have never imagined it. The sadness is increasing now. Miyazaki IPs: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Future Boy Conan not even mentioned, Laputa Castle in the Sky, Totoro, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke allowed; Howl's Moving Castle and Ponyo not included in the list, Spirited Away allowed (!). Grendizer, Mazinger Z, Daitarn 3, Voltes V and Gundam are surprisingly allowed; Evangelion not allowed. Hokuto No Ken (Fist of the North Star) no, Saint Seya yes. Akira not allowed, Ghost in the Shell not mentioned. Dragon Ball Z and One Piece not allowed, Naruto admitted. Captain Tsubasa and Astro Boy not on the list. Lupin III not allowed. Leiji Matsumoto IPs: Space Battleship Yamato and Galaxy Express 999 not on the list, Captain Harlock allowed (!). Gatchaman allowed (!), Yattaman not mentioned. M.a.s.k. not allowed, Starcom not mentioned. Mario Bros no (?), The Legend of Zelda yes. Street Fighter no, The King of Fighter not present, Metal Slug allowed. League of Legends and Starcraft yes, Warcraft not mentioned. Final Fantasy and The Witcher not allowed. Tetris, Pac Man, Mega Man, Sonic, Metroid, Bomberman, Myst (!) allowed Tony Hawk and Gran Turismo allowed. Monument Valley allowed (!).

In the meantime Leandro Tayag (len_d69) Macross Valkyrie has sadly expired.

Mindstorms, the natural evolution of Technic and the way to get out of its stagnant dichotomy heavy equipment and vehicles. Underestimated by Lego itself, which never truly pushed the project, guiltily relegating it to a niche, or better said to various niches, more and more confusing and therefore smaller (Boost? Spike?). Always overpriced, somehow understandable in the age of its ancestor Control Center, unacceptable today in the era of Raspberry, whose appreciated integration with Lego was irresponsibly left to third undertakings.

About the Japanese Tea Garden I am afraid that the answer is very simple, Lego is already planning to release a similar set, therefore they want to avoid the polemics that occurred with the Jurassic Park set. Anyway, I can't imagine how frustrating and disheartening should be to reach the ten thousand votes only then to get the Idea rejected like this. As I said in another thread, a new voting procedure should be adopted urgently.

I am in agreement with you, it was a quite impolite exhortation.

Great idea! Moreover the related afols' polemics could be so fun: and the snout shape is wrong, and it is too tall, too short, too big, too small, and the colour doesn't match, why not the mecha version, where is the aircraft carrier for playability, where is Tokyo Tower, where is Rodan... Gundam would be so interesting, and Evangelion peculiar form so challenging to design.

It is light sci-fi because we were not able to get back to the moon in over 50 years, imagine going to Mars. My curiosity of what exactly? As I said the last Lego City sets show nice models that, with some modifications, could be - or, better said, should be - part of a new Space line, their natural positioning. However Space fans are supposed to be happy with some Ninjago and Super Heroes aircrafts or Lego Movie spacecrafts and, of course, umpteenth replicas of Star Wars vehicles. Nothing wrong with those sets - actually, for instance, I love the fist shaped spaceship - however leftovers, weak echos of Space themes' former glories. Maybe because these themes represent the backbone of Lego? Perhaps, on a business perspective, because they should always be available on store shelves in order to be potentially bought both by newcomers and old customers, thus doubling the incomes? Please see the previous reply. But this is not the case that we are discussing, due to the fact that Star Wars line is actually preventing the release of another Space theme. Because flying towards the stars, preferably not while fighting a war, has always been the ultimate mankind dream. Lego could possibly... if such a theme... could take... could continue... I find so disheartening that, given all those hypotheses, we basically have to wait an interlude between Star Wars movies, in order to have a release of a new Space theme. But only maybe, let's not fantasize too much, heaven forbid.

Science over fiction, that is the lack of the ability to dream that I feared.

You may look at Shiptember challenges and countless of space-themed mocs or neoclassic remakes to have an idea. It would be interesting to see a fraction of these techniques applied to official sets. Given that I don't understand what is wrong with space opera, how many iterations have we seen of police or fire stations/trucks/cars? Anyway, past space themes have proved to be able to go beyond the dicotomy good guys/criminals and have shown multiple color schemes. So yes, there is life beyond blue, grey and yellow bricks. I don't think that it can be classified as sci-fi, Nasa sets are based on real models. However the point of no return is seeing that even Lego Town/City went from reality - space shuttle sets - to light sci-fi designs. Considering the current catalogue's situation, I am afraid that you would land, at most, in a galaxy far, far away.