Karalora

Gonna be honest: This series feels a bit...I think perfunctory is the right word. Like TLG felt obligated to produce an unthemed CMF series, rather than enthusiastic. I would not be surprised to learn that most of these figures were planned for actual sets, could not be included for one reason or another, and got chucked into the CMFs instead. Then again, I'm more of a fan of fantastical and historical characters than modern City people, and I think this is the highest concentration of City minifigs in any unlicensed series.

HYPE

So do you work on an indefinite number of them at once and then decide which to include in a given series?

Whatever it is, I just hope it's at a price point that I can justify spending on this year. I have been thinking, though, that it might be interesting if they went in more of a fantasy direction every so often. I know people weren't crazy about Santa's Workshop, but I'm not sure whether it was the premise that bugged them or the actual design of the set. In any case, there are a lot more winter holiday fantasy concepts that could be explored--a gingerbread village, peppermint forest, ice palace populated by snowmen, etc.

I'm still holding out hope for a theme based in Greek mythology. They could have a hero team composed of legendary characters from the era, each taking on a role congruent with their most famous attributes, such as: Hercules: The notional main character, known primarily for his strength but fairly well-rounded. Perseus: The hotshot kid and the gadgeteer, with his winged sandals and mirror-shield. Achilles: The most skilled with weapons, as well as being invulnerable. Atalanta: The fastest runner in Greece, talks to animals. Odysseus: The strategist/older mentor/team dad. Also the sniper, with his famous bow that no one else can wield properly. Each set could feature one or more members of the team playing out a specific mythical adventure/encountering a monster.

In my concept, subthemes exist, but more to help people find the kind of models they like, as opposed to the kind of scenarios they can create with them. Do you like building cars and trucks? Go for Highway. Do you prefer simple, easily reworkable structures? Construction. Do you want more trees? City Park. I guess in this one, police and fire personnel would be more like "guest stars." A police chase scenario would be part of Highway since it would involve cars. A trash fire with firefighters would be in Downtown, since that's where you get the big trash containers. A paramedic rescue scene could be framed as a building accident, hence Construction. And I suppose that this would leave room for Coast Guard as a subtheme of its own since it could focus on boats. But maybe instead make it Harbor or Port, so you can have civilian boats as well.

Oh yeah, Public Transit would be a great City subtheme! Buses, commuter trains, even airport shuttles! Or here something that's started happening in my own city within the last few years: public-use bicycles and scooters, rentable by the hour. A bus stop set could include a few of those for variety. One thing I'm coming to realize as I brainstorm is that in an ideal City overtheme, there will be some overlap of subthemes. I mentioned airport shuttles above, and Airport would be another awesome subtheme which would then overlap with Public Transit because of the shuttles. Construction easily overlaps with Downtown. Firefighters can overlap with almost anything because a fire can start anywhere. And that's perfect, because a real city isn't a collection of discrete ideas that happen to share space, but a kind of ecosystem. And maybe that's what you meant by eliminating subthemes? Eliminating the artificial divide between different urban activities? Anyway, here are some more ideas I came up with. These would not necessarily be evergreen, but "one-off" or experimental lines: Carnival: Rides like the ones in Creator, game booths, etc. The draw: Mostly the novelty. Visiting a carnival is its own kind of fun. City Park: Open outdoor spaces with trees, fountains, playground equipment, etc. The draw: all those lovely plant elements and small feature builds like benches which can be easily transplanted into other sets and scenes. Could also segue into a Campground concept. Airport, as mentioned above--big and small planes, helicopters, radar towers, luggage carts, multilevel terminal builds made primarily of windows!

One thing that's a little weird to me is how the exploration subthemes are always folded into City when, almost by definition, they don't take place there. At least the emergency services people are based in the city, even if a given year's subtheme has them traveling to the outskirts for whatever reason. It would be interesting to see LEGO try out a greater variety of City subthemes, with different "draws" that don't necessarily rely on good guys vs. bad guys. It's easy for children to spin a scenario out of cops-and-robbers or a boat crash rescue, but it's certainly not the only way that children play. Here are some ideas I came up with for new/reimagined evergreen subthemes: Highway--civilian vehicles and infrastructure that serves their drives, such as gas stations and truck stops. The draw: the vehicles themselves, especially if colorful minifig characters were included as the drivers. Sets could be things like a tractor-trailer (with transported goods inside), a sports car with a hotshot driver, a minivan with several minifigs and their vacation gear, etc. Construction--construction equipment, construction minifigs and their tools, and half-finished structures. The draw: Creator-style alternate models! Downtown--shops, cafes, and sidewalk scenes. This would be a very minifig-heavy subtheme, so the sets themselves might have to be a bit smaller, but on the bright side, they would fit right in with the Creator modulars. The draw: A wide variety of colors and shapes in the pieces used, in order to create quirky and interesting businesses. And that's just a few ideas off the top of my head!

It's all good. My point is simply that LEGO can't do without City, because City is sort of at the core of its mission statement. It's the foundation, the heart, the standard. There's a reason the hero of The LEGO Movie is a modern urban construction worker as opposed to a more fantastic character, even though the fantastic characters probably outnumber the normal citizens at this point. City--or Town or whatever you call it--is home.

We all know that of course. I'm talking about perception outside the fan community.

I'm pretty sure that City is what most people think of as "core," default LEGO. It's not even a theme, as such. It's the un-theme--just the world we know, in the modern day, with regular LEGO people doing their LEGO jobs. It ain't goin' nowhere.

It's a long shot, but I'm craving a mouse ears beanie. How rad would that be with the Disney theme park set(s)?

Easily detachable doors for realistic playability!

The hobbit hair in blond or black, as I have a use for either. Otherwise, the "boat stud" in orange, so I can round off the bottoms of my brick-built pumpkins in the fall.

That depends on how much of the train they do. In operation, the train has an engine, a (fake) timber car, about five passenger cars, and a caboose. Obviously including all five passenger cars would be redundant, but even if they just included the build for one, that's still a sizable train set. All the same, I certainly hope a station building is included also.

Judge of the Dead, too. Hence the scales. If I had this minifig for real, I would also give him a feather and the printed heart brick from the Haunted House set.

Even the name is ambiguous. "Mobile Suit Guy"--well sure, there's his mobile (phone) and he's wearing a suit; clearly this is a constantly-on-the-go businessman who needs his coffee to stay energized!

You surprised the heck out of me with the Mobile Suit Guy! I thought for sure he was just some sort of workaholic caffeine addict! (On the other hand, I totally called the Wraith.) Great use of statuettes to show the scale of the Giant! Anyway, these are all top-notch and if this were real, there's not a single one I would be disappointed to find in the bag. I would keep them all. Each and every one in some way fits into the categories of figures I like to collect.

Wouldn't it be great if you could get single-color bulk boxes? Say 100-200 basic parts (bricks, slopes, plates) of the same color?

It's a Disney line. To me, the ideal number of Pixar characters is therefore zero. If they want to do a separate Pixar line, sure, why not. But it seems like the Walt Disney Corporation is getting progressively less interested in its own animated productions.

Do minifig parts in general count? My storage boxes are getting hard to close and I don't have room to expand without another major rearrangement.

One thing they could do that would improve future series in my eyes is: lay off the Pixar. I realize I am very much in the minority on this, but it bothers me that Disney tends to treat its own in-house animated characters and Pixar characters as if they were all part of the same thing. Yes, Pixar has been working with Disney ever since it broke into feature animation, and yes Disney has owned Pixar for 12 years, but Walt Disney Animation and Pixar are still separate animation studios and they operate on different principles of storytelling and character design. Mary Poppins would be a more suitable character to include in one of these series, despite not being animated.

Hippie Chick's colors are amazing! I'm assuming the other two are Wraith and either Early Bird or Workaholic.

This is somewhat off-topic, but it amuses me and might amuse you too. Years before there was any such thing as a LEGO Movie, my music of choice for inspiration while building was the soundtrack to an early Wii game called Boom Blox. It's a game about setting up and/or knocking down towers of blocks, and the various sub-games take place in a variety of broad-strokes imaginative settings such as medieval castle-forts, the Old West, a tropical volcano, a haunted house, etc. So I got a pretty strong LEGO vibe from the music, which was composed by... Wait for it... Mark Mothersbaugh

My guess would be that it's this piece without the paw prints.