Karalora

When I look up the Classic Pirates sets on Bricklink, there doesn't seem to be much variety in the builds--just a handful of ships, rafts, and chunks of tropical island. Likewise Castle--the factions and their heraldry come and go, but the sets don't vary much wave to wave--we get a large castle, a gatehouse, some sort of cart or wagon, a tower, etc., and the strictures on historical castle design mean that the shapes remain basically the same. Space should be much more expansive, but "Classic Space" apparently means something very specific to AFOLs, such that new sets would have to look basically just like the old ones in order to scratch the itch, and if that's the case why not just reconstruct the old ones?

Very much this. Some people seem to want LEGO to be perpetually frozen in the state it was in the 80s and early to mid 90s. I question how much more creative utility could be gotten out of those very well-explored themes and aesthetics. And after the original designers retired, their replacements would want to contribute their own ideas, not be shackled to the creativity of their predecessors.

I don't know if "too many" licensed themes is the problem, but certainly some of the specific IPs they license is a little puzzling to me. Like...Wednesday and Wicked? Were they that hard up for "girl" franchises to partner with?

If we do get playsets in synergy with the movie, I hope they're not based directly on the movie. I would love to see some Zelda sets based on vibes and recurring elements rather than specific game-accurate scenes (as if the LEGO version were its own game, which it kinda would be!), but I worry that giving the movie a bunch of specific merch would imply that it was the "real" LoZ.

Fingers crossed. I know Nintendo announced a March 2027 release date for the movie adaptation, so I can see some brand synergy if the sets are planned for late 2026.

You're a kind soul.

For whatever it's worth, I only consider a minifig head to be "male"(-presenting) if it has visible facial hair/stubble. Eyelashes and lips get the "female-presenting" designation, and if the head has neither, I consider it gender-neutral and will use it for either if I think it fits the personality I have in mind. And all this talk of muscles and bikini tops has me wishing there were some female bodybuilder torsos with both!

I didn't discover the CMFs until...series 3, I want to say (still pretty early in the game). I was never in it to collect everything, but to build a stock of interesting characters for the themes I was into and various specialty projects. I never traded any because I don't know any other AFOLs IRL. But even with that, the more recent waves have felt like more of a crapshoot as to whether it will be worth buying a handful of blind boxes to see if I get something I like. People scanning all the boxes (or before last year, feeling all the bags) to get the figure(s) they want, leaving less variety in what remains, only exacerbates the problem.

Going from 16 figures per wave to 12 was a downgrade, to be sure. I think we've all more-or-less gotten used to it, but in conjunction with the increasing reliance on licensed waves and the price increases, it does seem like TLG is much less invested in giving us fans of "vanilla" CMFs a good collecting experience than they were when the concept launched.

I mean...I guess another potential "solution" would be for LEGO to stop putting nostalgic and other really cool figures in the CMF waves, but does anyone really want that either?

With no quantity limitations in place, a scalper will just show up at opening time on Day 1 while the rest of us are at work and buy all 100 minifigures. In combination with the no-returns policy, they will then amortize the cost of their purchase by jacking up the resale price even further on the highly desired figures, and we'll have to pay it if we want them since they've cornered the entire market. In any case, it's hardly unheard of for LEGO to place limitations on purchases of CMFs when they are first released. Good point...but see above. But gross. I always hated having to rummage through half a box of pre-creased bags (especially knowing that the creases likely signified the unavailability of certain figures). So you agree with me that there's not really a perfect solution to this problem.

This goes back to something I keep saying, which is that any method ordinary folks like us could use to get the figures we want, scalpers could use to hoard the figures we want so that we only get them on the scalpers' terms. You want this to be fair, and to keep the would-be scalpers on our level? It has to be truly blind packaging. No bags to feel or codes to scan, no ultrasound devices or microgram scales. The packages are kept behind the register, even the clerks don't know which minifigs are in which packages, and there are strict limitations on how many you can buy. Then at least you have a fair shake at getting your Wolfpack guy or whatever the army-builder du jour is, secure in the knowledge that he hasn't been preemptively snapped up along with all his brothers by an unscrupulous secondary market dealer. There's no way to have both certainty of your purchase and integrity of the process at the same time. But people don't like hearing that.

As much as I would lose my s*** to have a Discworld LEGO theme, I don't think it would quite scratch these itches we're talking about, largely due to the satirical nature of the series. The Discworld gods tend to be based on Earth mythology, but with comical twists that take them pretty far "off-model," so to speak. Blind Io isn't Zeus and he isn't Odin--he's a dude in a toga with a blindfold and a bunch of eyeballs orbiting his head. Offler is a dead ringer for Sobek, at least visually, but he's also on the niche end of things even within the series--most of the gods are, if we're being honest. The only one I would consider an important character is Om, who is a tortoise. On the witch side of things, while the Lancre witches are definitely good witches, the minifig designs would do little to distinguish them from typical Halloween witches (except for Magrat, who doesn't look like a witch at all). When I talk about an archetypal "good witch" minifigure, I'm picturing a friendly middle-aged lady in a kirtle or other old-fashioned peasant costume, with a pointy hat on, but all in shades of brown or blue or green rather than black.

Hence why I mentioned reconstructionists--people doing their best to revive ancient religions based on the fragmentary evidence that has survived. I'm a Neopagan myself, though not a reconstructionist. On the whole, we don't get too bothered by pop-culture depictions of our gods, and we're not out to convert anyone. So yes please to more minifigures of deities and other characters from world mythology! And while we're at it, I'm surprised LEGO has not yet given us a "good witch" aside from named characters from fantasy IPs. All the archetypal witch minifigures are Halloween-style caricatures. Where's the nice old lady who lives alone in a cottage in the forest and can definitely take that curse off you?

Yeah, I think what TLG wants to avoid is appearing to promote, or offending the followers of, current major world religions. Ancient mythology/religion not practiced by anyone today (except reconstructionists), should be fair game.

I think most medieval civilians would be recognizable more by their accessories than their attire. The goatherd's fleece vest is an exception. A wider variety of medieval garb would be welcome in any case.

I don't record the specific catalog numbers, but I have a few spreadsheets listing official names (or my own names in the case of BAM and custom minifigs that don't have official ones), quantities in my possession, origin set/source, and--crucially--which compartment of the storage containers they live in so I can find them when it's time to use them in a display or MOC! And I don't do this for all my minifigs, just the "loose" ones (CMFs, etc.) that I don't store with the sets they originally came with.

Utterly fantastic! I'm loving all the details and Easter eggs!

If your local LEGO Store has the parts...

Don't get me wrong; I love the varied palette. But I fully acknowledge, and have experienced for myself, how difficult it can be to build an assortment of pieces when there is so much variation.

I suspect that a lot of the specialty colors are driven by licensing and the desire of either TLG to "accurately" represent the IP or the licensee to be "accurately" represented. The entire reason "Maersk blue" is a thing is that the Maersk logo uses a specific shade of blue which is part of their trademark.

I've long thought it would be fun to have a Renaissance Faire, either as a standalone big set or a small theme, mixing modern minifigures with ones in period costume and leaning in to the anachronisms.

I think people tend to consider themed CMFs (licensed or unlicensed) as adjuncts to the theme more than as CMFs. We might also consider the BAM station minifigs in this calculation, which often amount to CMF mini-waves and have added a handful of witches and wizards to the collection.

Apart from Harry Potter characters, minifigure "witches" are all Halloween caricatures and "wizards" are storybook stereotypes. It wouldn't be hard at all to come up with new design concepts that differentiate a "sorceress" and an "alchemist" from that baseline. (Why you included the plague doctor in this list I don't know--that's a very distinctive image already!)

Yes please, I'll take six! I realize that the list I posted earlier looks more like the minifigures you'd get in an actual Castle set theme focusing on inter-faction battle scenarios. I'd actually prefer a wider variety of medieval/Renaissace and fantasy/fairy tale archetypes.