Alexandrina

I always thought the main thrust of Lego's famous quality standards was the precision of the moulding - needed so that every one of their millions of bricks is compatible with one another, so the tolerance is tiny. As I believe @MAB said earlier in the thread, Playmobil has a lesser construction element and so the tolerances aren't quite as narrow as a larger amount of the set is made in-factory.

I can honestly say I've never seen Playmobil cmfs - though admittedly that's because I tend to be either browsing a supermarket aisle or the Lego Store. Do they have a smaller reach than Lego, perhaps?

In 2006, the only PT sets were a re-release of the Clone Turbo Tank without the light-up minifigure, and the V-Wing Fighter. First wave 2007 had the two battle packs and Grievous' fighter, and then the second wave of 2007 was pretty much entirely Prequels. And then the Clone Wars came out, so there was new content for Lego to focus on

If you have a specific design in mind already, I'd recommend making it in Stud.io or something first - so you know exactly which bricks you need, and don't waste money on bricks you won't use. The best way to source specific parts is Bricklink, but that can be expensive especially in bulk. For getting large quantities of Lego at a relatively low price, check second-hand marketplaces. Ebay can be good, especially if you don't mind not getting many or any minifigures - but in my experience the best bang for your buck will come from Facebook Marketplace. Not always, especially if you live in a smaller area; often there's no good Lego lots for sale, or the seller is asking for more than is a good deal to spend, but if you're patient and check regularly, you'll spot plenty of bargains. Avoid any listing that has specific set numbers in it, unless you're actively looking for those sets - if they know what sets are in the lot, it means they've done their research and probably know how much those sets are worth. But on Facebook a lot of the lots for sale are people just wanting their house clear, and they'll charge a price based on how much bulk there is rather than what the parts are. Going one step further, you can resell pieces you don't want - for instance, if you got a joblot with loads of horses, it might not fit in with what you wanted, but the money those horses might raise you could go towards bricks that ARE useful to you. Given long enough, and with enough diligence, you could theoretically get all the parts you need for a net profit - but that wouldn't get you bulk Lego quickly. My recommendations: - Try Facebook Marketplace first - Try eBay second - Look in local charity shops, just in case - if you have a retired relative, you might want to consider strategically getting them employed on a voluntary basis at the local charity shop. My nan did a year at one a while back, and let's just say any time Lego came in she bought it before it ever hit the shop floor ;)

I suspect there's a lot of factors that go into it, but remember that not all pieces are created equal. 200 white 1x2 bricks are gonna cost less than 200 uncommon parts in a smorgasbord of colour

Yes, that is exactly the point. It's silly to criticise Lego for not having explicitly trans minifigures in their in-house sets, when doing so would require them to create a backstory that includes the fact - when the whole point of Lego is to make up one's own story. Lego have shown no reticence to make minifigures of LGBTQ+ characters from their licenses, so there's no reason to think they wouldn't do trans characters - but none of their licenses have a trans character, to my knowledge (except Birdo from Mario, but they haven't done minifigures at all for Mario yet and Birdo's not exactly the most famous character). In the absence of this, the best they can really do is sets like Everyone Is Awesome for representation - the only other option I can think of is the trans flag somewhere in a set.

No, LEGO are less complicit now that their company culture is explicitly inclusive of LGBT+ identities. Sets are only a small part of it - and the most visible, especially for those not in the community - but let's not forget that Lego are also partnered with multiple organisations including Stonewall specifically to ensure a safer and more inclusive work environment for their LGBTQ+ employees. I may be mistaken as I can't find it any more, but I have a memory of reading somewhere that Lego offer assistance to trans employees who are transitioning, something which is pretty much non-existent among corporations, at least in the UK (the only other companies who I know for a fact include transition care in their health benefits are Boots and Starbucks) - when the alternative for trans people is either waiting multiple decades for treatment (current estimates reckon the NHS is 27 years behind on the waiting lists) or paying thousands out of pocket, this is an incredible boon. Even if I'm mistaken on Lego including this, I know for a fact that Lego do employee trans people on the same merits as cis people, and that in itself is highly commendable when something like 40% of surveyed bosses in the UK explicitly said they would not hire a trans person. I'm not super familiar with the City line, I'll be honest, but if there have been no same-sex couples shown that is a shame. Regarding trans people, though, it's difficult - especially in Lego form - to portray trans people who aren't established characters from other media. The method you suggest - a male head on a female body, or vice versa - represents a small subset of trans people, and runs the risk of being seen as offensive if it were to be the only portrayal of trans people Lego did, as it would lean into harmful stereotypes of trans women as "men in dresses". I know that if Lego were to make a minifigure of me, it would be indistinguishable from any other female minifigure, since the parts of my body that are masculine are not portrayed in Lego form anyway. It's a tough job for Lego, especially since - to my knowledge - there aren't any trans characters in any of their licenses. That said, there is the argument that Robin Loot from Barracuda Bay is a trans woman - every other figure in the set is a modernisation of a classic Pirates figure, and the only figure from the ship Robin Loot is said to be on who wears a green waistcoat like her is a male-presenting figure. And further, what difference would it make if one of their in-house characters - Freya McCloud, for instance - were trans? The minifigure would be no different.

You realise Everyone Is Awesome couldn't legally be sold in some countries because of those countries' attitudes towards LGBTQ+ people, right? Even in Western countries, mistreatment of LGBTQ+ people is not 'grossly exaggerated', and in fact as recently at last week a UK appeals court overturned a ruling - much celebrated in our national media - on the basis that it actively denied trans people the same rights as everybody else. When the status quo is mistreatment of a group, choosing to stay out of the subject is choosing the status quo, and thus the mistreatment of that group. Making that choice makes you complicit. On top of that, representation in products aimed at kids is vital for visibility. I was born in the tail end of the 1990s, and growing up literally every single character in books and on TV was straight (apart from odd token individuals). It meant that for a long long time I literally did not know LGBTQ+ people existed, because I didn't get any exposure to the community's existence. Yes, Lego is a toy of imagination - but I didn't have the capacity to imagine my Lego minifigures as anything other than cis-straight. The consequence of this lack of exposure is that I didn't realise I was trans for far too long, and instead spent over a decade thoroughly miserable convinced I was a "weirdo who wants to be a girl". I'm still not able to access medical care (and if wanting major medical care to be accessible in less than twenty-seven years is privilege, then I guess I am privileged...) and have had permanent, unwanted changes to my body that will open me up to bigotry for the rest of my life and that could have been avoided had I only known what trans people were when I was young. There are NO negative consequences for anyone from Lego releasing Everyone Is Awesome and similar sets, excluding them doing so in areas where possessing the set exposes people to physical harm. If you're not LGBTQ+, and you don't want the set, it's easy enough to not buy it, or to buy it and disassemble it for parts - people rarely get so vexed about the existence of other sets that don't interest them. If you are LGBTQ+, it tells you you're seen. If you're a kid, struggling with your sexuality or your gender identity or anything else, it tells you that there are options available. This reflects a wider trend towards inclusion in media - a few years ago, a major network broadcast She-Ra, a kids' cartoon with a wide variety of characters. Things like that, unthinkable even a decade ago, are the way of the future. It would be foolish of Lego to remain silent.

Does that mean Hasbro's attitude has changed? It's been a while since I was super-active in the Star Wars theme, but last I remember the consensus was that Lego got in trouble when they released the figure sets back in 2000, and they had an agreement with Hasbro not to do just-figure sets. I'm excited if this is the case. Hopefully some good minifigures.

Dumbledore famously has never been made in minifigure form...

Honestly just this part of your idea alone would be enough for me!

I'd love to know where you got this impression from. Lego have certainly never made any statement to this effect. The Everyone Is Awesome set was two things. First, it was a monofigs set (yay! rare minifigure parts!) and second, it was Lego voicing their support for the LGBTQ+ community. That's no more political than Captain America, you just think it is because it doesn't line up with your innate political viewpoints. It makes no commentary on straight white males whatsoever, but it's not exclusionary - not unless you also want to argue that sets featuring a national flag are exclusionary to people who aren't from that country. It would literally be illegal. Source And honestly, that only goes to show why Lego taking a political stance is sometimes necessary. Being LGBTQ+, or being a woman, or being any ethnicity other than white, is not political. Lego not taking a stance would be Lego being complicit in the mistreatment of these groups that is the reason they're controversial in the first place.

Sorry, what sort of logic is this? OF COURSE somebody whose job is to design Lego sets has a higher chance of getting their set made than a fan via the Ideas programme (which is already a million times more fan involvement than most companies' product lines). Nobody moans that Spongebob or Avatar or Stranger Things got sets made, even though none of them are Ideas sets. 99% of all Lego's sets are someone at the company 'forcing' their stuff through rather than fans voting on products. This is a whole chain of assumptions. Firstly, that mothers of young children won't ever spend money on their own stuff - sure, if they're struggling to make ends meet they'll prioritise their kid, but that's not a demographic that's affording £100 sets anyway. When I was growing up, I had to make do with sets of £20 or less, and my mum spent plenty of money on things for her too. Secondly, that women who watch reality TV are likely to be mothers. Why? Plenty of women aren't mothers. Thirdly, that Queer Eye viewers only casually watch the programme. Casual viewers who have it on in the background aren't going to be the target, any more than Star Wars sets are aimed at people who only casually put Star Wars on in the background. There'll be plenty of fans who don't just casually watch it, and that's who Lego will be targeting. I'm willing to met you've misread @williejm there, and that he was referring to this forum being unwelcoming when discussing representation. And it is, which is why the Everyone Is Awesome threads got locked. What is unwelcoming is the attitude that Lego having released a set from a licence you don't know/enjoy somehow means that Lego are kowtowing to one designer's agenda (my words, but inferred from your implication that Queer Eye is a bad licence only picked because of Mr Ashton's fandom, and that if he was a fan of The Office there'd be an Office set). We don't all like the same things. I've never watched Queer Eye, much like I've never watched Seinfeld, or the DC films, or many other licenses Lego have taken out. I won't decry Lego taking those licenses, because I'm just one girl, and I'm not the arbiter of what is or isn't a valid license. (What is also unwelcoming for me personally, as a trans woman, is the phrase 'LGB' - because now I'm wondering why exactly you've chosen to remove the 'T', especially given that 'LGB' already has well-known anti-trans connotations. But this isn't Lego, so I'll say no more on the matter)

An example of this taken to the extreme is Lando in the early years of the Star Wars line - in the first ten years of the theme he was only released in two sets, both expensive sets and one in which he was explicitly disguised. If Lego were to return to the practice of including fan favourites in recognisable form in only one $100 exclusive set over the course of the decade, they should rightly be criticised for it. That said, I've been out of the loop with Star Wars since about 2012 so I have no idea if there are any popular characters that are rarely featured in any form at all.

Yeah, the AAT is definitely an apt comparison!

The Turbo Tank is a big model though, isn't it? I'd feel short-changed if Lego came out with a Turbo Tank (regular scale, not mini) that was Landspeeder size. Besides that, is the Turbo Tank really an iconic vehicle? To me personally it's iconic, but that's entirely because the original set had that cool sand green scout trooper that I really wanted and never managed to get. But it probably has what? Twenty seconds' screen time, in the background of the battle of Kashyyk. For years I thought the set was a made-up vehicle like the TIE Crawler because it's so much in the background of the films. Not to mention that the A-Wing is also in the sequels, whereas the Interceptor (iirc) isn't.

Oh, agreed! I'm not the sort who tends to want big conversations with the sales staff normally. There's no Lego store local to me, so when I visit it's because I'm in town and so I've already decided what I'm after, and I'll just go straight to it. But the staff always engage me in a friendly way, help as much as I need help. Plus, Lego Stores are retail, and in retail you're expected not to ignore people. I work in a shop which has some absolutely vile regulars, but unless and until they're actively rude to me, I'll still greet them with a smile and help them out as they need it.

I'm not being funny here, but why would you expect the staff to go over to you if, as you say, you regularly go to the shop but never spend, enough so that they recognise you? Lego shops are usually busy - I've never been in one that had less customers than staff - so they can't physically go over to every single customer right away. It's a better use of everybody's time if they prioritise customers who are actually looking to purchase over someone who's just there to price-check. As an aside, I'm not sure why you'd need to go to the physical store to price-check. Lego Shops charge the same as Shop@Home, right?

I've got to say, everything claimed about Bricklink in this thread rings 100% true both to my personal experience and the site's reputation, with the exception of your experiences. What false/inaccurate claims are you warding against?

I mean, not everyone is in a position to do that. It's only in the last two years that I've had consistent disposable income to spend on sets, and even then not enough to buy literally every set I want. 'Wise' has nothing to do with it. If I'm buying retired sets, it's because either I wasn't in a position to afford them when they came out or because I wasn't even alive when they were taken off sale. Honestly it's beginning to read as though you actively have an issue with Bricklink and so don't want to listen to people's arguments. Nobody has ever said that Bricklink is the cheapest way to buy brand new sets. As for second-hand, let me go back to my previous example of Dobby's Release, which as established is cheaper on Bricklink with postage than on Amazon without. The CHEAPEST listing on eBay for the same set, sealed, is £13.00 - and that's a new listing that's got nine days of auction, so it'll almost certainly end up going for more. The cheapest Buy It Now listing I can find is £39.99 with free postage. Postage on Bricklink isn't going to be more than a couple of quid (unless you're buying lots from the same seller, in which case you can amortise the postage fee across all the items you're buying to make your price comparisons valid) so Bricklink is by far the cheapest place. And what about individual parts? For anything that's not on Pick A Brick, where can you get it cheaper than Bricklink?

But let's face it, there's a lot of Lego not available on Amazon, certainly not for anything like a reasonable price. If I really wanted set 4731, Dobby's Release, I'd be looking at £49 on Amazon. The same set goes for about £12 on Bricklink, so any wise customer would eat the cost of postage unless they were specifically trying to prove some point. I can't speak for others, but I don't tend to use Bricklink for purchases of currently-available stuff. I use Bricklink when I'm after specific parts or sets, especially long-retired parts or sets, and a few quid's postage for my bricks is better than paying several times over the odds on Amazon

Not to mention, with each passing year there are less characters/variants to be made that the average person has ever heard of. Much as we fans would eat up a series full of obscure characters, I can't imagine a series with (for instance) Ernie Macmillan, the Carrows, Reg Cattermole and Scabior would be a huge seller. It's telling that a LOT of the missing characters appear in Deathly Hallows - we may not get any sets from the films next year or even the year after, but just one wave from the film would almost certainly check off a lot of the wanted figures. What's left outside the Deathly Hallows is mainly obscure students and teachers that can be put in any Hogwarts set, plus a handful of set-dressing wizards and book-only characters. I'd be very surprised if a Harry Potter S3 came out, and I think there's no chance a S4 comes out unless the Harry Potter range runs for so long that a whole generation of kids won't have had a chance to get the early characters.

Is it useless? Your bricks are still there, still making the same model, and other than Gringotts pretty much every significant location exists. Plus, it's Lego - I guarantee somebody will have a Stud.io design before long for any missing locations, and the instructions/parts list widely available online, if the demand is there. In any case, it's hardly the OG collection when it came out nearly twenty years after the original, and I don't remember people complaining that their sets from older iterations of the theme are wasted money. When I was young, I saved for months to be able to buy the 2010 Quidditch set. That version of the range ended, but I can still build the set any time (I actually just dismantled it after a year on display, in point of fact). On top of that, nobody's ignoring Lego's decision to move to a new design of Hogwarts. But it's now September, and the discussion is just going to go in circles forever - especially since there will be people now who didn't get the 2018-20 sets (or only caught the tail end) and have the current iteration as their main range.

I suspect I'll continue to use the old monkey for the time being, for the simple reason that I'm not about to rush out and get the new monkey. There's a strange sort of nostalgia around the old monkey (which I also have for the one Paradisa head with the open red lips) because I saw it prominently in several Brickfilms long before I owned one myself - my younger days were limited to a small amount of Lego, so I lived vicariously through these animations. As such, there's a sort of "potential" that the old monkey has, which I haven't fulfilled yet - having actually never used one in a MOC!

It's Part 2877