Karalora

Pain in the a--*is shot*

I use the patronuses as ice sculptures in my winter village.

I mean, I don't need a flying phoenix if it's going to be a PITA to get. It would just be a cool addition to the mythological collection.

That flying phoenix is rad. I hope it's not too expensive on BL, because I ain't contributing money to the primary market on Harry Potter products.

Could it have been a spare that came with Train Kid? They don't usually give us spares of 1 x 2 parts but it's not impossible.

Per Bricklink, the black 1x2 tile is used in the Train Kid. I didn't find a CMF mentioned for either the regular blue or dark blue of this part.

Sven is surprisingly accurate to the look of an actual reindeer, for a cartoon. They could probably reuse it with different printing to downplay the cartoony face.

I saw that and immediately thought "The folks at EB are gonna love this!" Of course I don't know if it's more or less frustrating to get thrown a bone every now and again. It goes to show that they clearly know how to produce non-licensed sets in the Classic themes, that skill hasn't been lost...so why don't they more often?

I don't know about anyone else, but I usually think of deer/elk (as opposed to reindeer) as an autumnal animal rather than a winter/Christmas one. To be perfectly honest, the LEGO stag doesn't look very much like a real reindeer, and was probably used as one because the actual reindeer mold (for Sven from Frozen) was locked to that license.

Wow.

Yes.

You might be surprised. A full-grown raven can have a wingspan as big as five feet/1.5 meters. The real problem with the Dreamzzz raven, from a realism standpoint, is the transparent magenta edge to the feathers.

"Trying too hard" seems probable. I looked up when the Western line was active, and the bulk of the Indians sets seem to have come out in 1997--two years after Disney's Pocahontas, which was also a case of "trying too hard" (and ending up vaguely unsatisfying as a result). By 1997, everyone knew what a "Legoman" looked like--dot eyes, no nose, and the mouth and eyebrows doing all the work of the facial expression. Putting extra details on the Indians made them look weird in context, and I have to wonder what went into that decision. You know what? I like the audacity of this. *sigh*...they're not. No one* is literally "looking for things to get offended about," as is sometimes accused. But some things in popular media--like "cannibal natives" and other such ignorant stereotypes--leave a bad taste in the mouth and people would rather they were avoided. I ask again--would hypothetical revivals of the Classic themes be worse if they portrayed their respective indigenous peoples more thoughtfully? * Or very few people--obviously in a population of 8 billion, you can find instances of almost any behavior you can imagine.

Apparently, it is also an unpopular opinion that any hypothetical Western or Pirates revival would be just as good if the indigenous people were not depicted as weird caricatures. Seriously, why would you defend that? Skimming back over the thread, I heartily agree that we could use more sets--Icons or otherwise--at affordable price points. But maybe especially Icons, since those tend to be one-off concepts to entice people who might not otherwise have been interested in LEGO. They could attract so many more people to the hobby if the bar for entry weren't raised so high. I also unironically love the idea of "City Castle." I'm imagining something like a Renaissance Faire or SCA chapter that holds events at a local castle or castle-themed tourist attraction. You could get literal castle structures (in various states of repair if it's an historical castle), a marketplace with lots of fun medieval-style booths and merchandise, knights with unique heraldry and horses with barding for the joust event, the works! City Pirates is harder to parse. Something with a theme park-y vibe is certainly possible, but seems more forced than it does with Castle.

Wow, who knew "If it sucks, hit da brickz!" would turn out to be a genuinely unpopular opinion? I was aiming for wry and apparently hit condescension by mistake, and for that I apologize. And no, I was not trying to set up a situation where I would tell people they should quit. It was more of a rhetorical question--if all you do here is complain about the state of the hobby, are you even having fun with LEGO anymore? And if you're not, why are you still doing it? The obvious corollary is that if you are still having fun and you just need to vent about stuff here, then the previous questions do not apply. I unironically think there should be a therapy specialty for people leaving hobbies that they've had for a long time because it no longer brings them joy. It can be as much of a gut-punch as a relationship breakup, and considering the importance of hobbies for overall mental health, it's no trivial thing. This is a pretty bold claim. What are you basing it on? Back to a less polarized topic... Yeah, this. Obviously we would all love it if TLG would cater to our individual tastes until we had our fill, but a global brand has to aim for mass-market appeal and try to please as many segments as possible while avoiding obvious controversies to the greatest extent feasible. A recurring statement I see around here is "I think kids would love [X Classic Theme] if they brought it back, because I would love it/I loved it when I was a kid/I know some kids who like the idea." That's a very small sample to generalize from, you know? We kind of have to assume that TLG makes decisions based on up-to-date market research, and that said research therefore counter-indicates the viability of Classic themes except as occasional one-off sets to appeal to adult collectors who can drop $300 on a set. And no--market research isn't infallible. Sometimes the research says "This is a hot trend, get in on it" and then the trend drops just before the new product goes to market. (This is why smart companies experiment on multiple fronts while also maintaining some evergreen products.) I want to circle back to a question I asked earlier and then kind of rephrased in a way that led a conversation which upset everyone: Assuming LEGO is not going to revive the Classic themes in the foreseeable future, what would be the next best route they could take?