TeriXeri

Nice Review, this was my first Speed Champion set (for use in City/3-in-1 scale), along with the white 911, main thing that attracted me was them being sold as single cars and using actual headlight pieces instead of stickers. I mainly wanted 2 sports car that could be seen at the road as well. As for 8-wides, I think they are a bit too large next to City / 3-in-1 scale, but they do look better shaped, but that comes also at an increased cost.

Predictions for 3-in-1 : - Likely some return of a Beach House (last one from 2017 retired) - Hopefully a Family House (all standalone House sets from 2017-2018 retired) We got a Cabin in 2019, and the 2018 Tree House isn't Retired yet. Maybe some Holiday related set (think of 2016 Vacation Getaways, which could be turned into a House and Boat as well, and the 2018 Cruising Adventures Yacht/House/Helipad)

Creator 3-in-1 has some nice interiors but the amount of buildings seems to vary a lot per year, so far 2020 hoping for at least a regular Family House set again. Thing with City is that most of it's buildings are often overshadowed by so many included vehicles while Creator and Friends often have just the building as a set, or a tiny car/bike included at most. Personally I still see 3-in-1 as an extension to City, City has stopped making houses 10 years ago, and most buildings are in those mega vehicle sets like Capital City/Ski Resort/Donut Shop etc. I would be more likely to buy those City buildings if they were sold seperately (best example would be something like the Hotel in Capital City, or the Ski Shop in Ski Resort) Even Jangbricks has said something similar for those larger sets to be seperated in his reviews of sets like Capital City / Ski Resort.

My only experiences were 1 crater plate and 1 river/mountain plate from Enchanted Island (1994) I loved the Enchanted Island baseplates for sure, with the included rope bridge, and animals like crocs and sharks below. Also surely increased the overall size of the set as it only had ~ 440 pieces. Crater plate, while nice looking, felt a bit limited in actual use for building.

Where am I challenging you?

Nowhere am I saying or assuming that the average kid or parent will know as much about the current and past product lines as a LEGO Focused AFOL. I can even say that something like the official LEGO youtube is a bit of a mess when it comes to finding product videos, so the average kid/paren't won't look at it the same way as a Catalog. Hope that clears things up, I mean it well In my situation before the 2000s, I knew sets just from paper media, and visiting actual (toy)shops, so in that aspect, the internet certainly made it easier to look up actual sets. I even experienced a period with very little info myself, after 2000 I stopped visiting toy-shops or buying LEGO. Took me 16 years to rediscover LEGO in 2016, mostly due to rebuilding old sets (which also were at a different location) and gaining interest again. I know how it is to be outside the AFOL bubble, and I do agree about the average buyer being far less informed , marketing could certainly improve a lot still. I do notice a lot more regular LEGO shop news e-mails in the past months since the 2nd half of 2019, I guess that's a start. Also catalogs seem to vary per country, in design and layout, US/UK catalogs look completely different from the NL one. NL just gets those half-year square ones, while US/UK gets them more regularly (Seasonal) https://www.lego.com/en-us/page/static/catalogues https://www.lego.com/en-gb/page/static/catalogues Also the US/UK LEGO.com site have Request Catalog button, while the NL site does not. But Catalogs still exist and I'm sure many people still pick them up and read them, however many physical toyshops have closed here. But while many other toyshops are closing, LEGO did just open 2 stores in NL however, so at least there they might have gained some more publicity, and soon a LEGOLAND Discovery Centre also is opening. Paper version of the LEGO LIFE magazine (the followup to LEGO Club) also restricted to 5-9 year olds Hope I didn't go too far off-topic here but wanted to clear things up.

I do support like 10+ Castle IDEAS that are ongoing right now. Especially lately there's been a lot of smaller to medium sized designs that are great. But there also have been multiple IDEAS that are simply too huge imo, I prefer set-sized builds, up to like larger sets like Medieval Market Village.

First sets : 2x Sabre Island, 1x Castaway's Raft, 1x Buried Treasure (1989 sets) Then some smaller sets like , 2x Renegade's Raft (1991) & 1x Pirate Lookout (1992) Overall by far the biggest set being the 1994 Enchanted Island Last Pirate set being Skeleton Crew 1996. I came back to LEGO in 2016, but didn't get any of the 2015 Pirate sets, but certainly interested now if they come back again.

I still think it's complicated to fully name each Subtheme properly when even big fansites like Brickset have some weird sorting. Even over there some City "subthemes" are all over the place, with Great Vehicles, Traffic, Town and General : 2007 and 2016 Service Station are under Traffic, 2020 set under General 2009 Garage under Traffic , 2019 4+ Garage under Town, 2020 Tuning Workshop under General 2020 vehicles are all listed under Traffic while 2019 listed them under Great Vehicles 2017 Bus Station listed under Town, 2010 Public Transport Station under Traffic Unless they haven't sorted the 2020 sets yet, it's a bit weird atm.

I think that City is just City. Even with it's sets outside of the actual City, for example, 2019 Desert Rally Racer, or 2020 Safari Off-Roader. While I know subthemes exist, I don't see a need to split City up further. Back in the 80s/90s , themes like Trains, (floating) Boats, Res-Q, or Divers could be either seen as their own themes, or part of Town (Brickset even lists them under Town), even while they were listed seperately in catalogs, now generally we see such things under City. Right now they show a minifig in the topright corner of the box, generally directing to the "subtheme". But even back during Town, they often had some icon in the corner of the box as well. Videos like this don't care about "subthemes" at all, as you see Fire, Police, People Pack, Donut Shop, Space sets all in 1 same timeline/location.

I personally don't see it as cutting corner, but rather moving their more involved dioramas to other media outside of catalogs. Product Videos, Books, Theme Magazines , LEGO Club Magazine etc still have some form of diorama-style layouts but come out AFTER the sets are on shelves, while catalogs showed sets months in advance. In the past there was only 1 catalog for a whole year so some themes could take months to hit shelves but were known in advance, now, like you said, there's a lot more secrecy and those copycats might be part of the cause. Another example of a City mini-movie showing a lot of 2019 City products: Fire, Police, Space, Donut Shop, People Pack etc. In my opinion, videos like this could be seen as a modern-style replacement of a static diorama, while the catalog was rather showing the individual products instead.

Some pics of the "City" Fair 4-people pack here : https://www.promobricks.de/neue-lego-minifiguren-packs-40373-40374/92852/ The girl figure certainly looks unique with the torso/face prints and different colored arms.

It looks like that Drag Racer set has no regular head for the Dwayne person

I think the internet plays a big role. Paper Catalogs right now might still reach a lot of people but compared to the 80s and 90s it's certainly not one of the main media outlets for LEGO sets anymore, back then they even included smaller versions of catalogs/product paper in sets. I know the "Paper" catalogs can be viewed online but those aren't usually advertised a lot unless it's a LEGO specific webshop/fansite. (talking about the localized ones) A lot of scenes for sets also moved to short product videos, designer videos and TV shows for some themes. Example :

Europe did have Year of the Rat early on , but was already gone at the 16th. Meanwhile, US site has the opposite problem, where the Chinese New Year sets are Out of stock/backorder while still having Rat sets.

While I agree the "simplicity" of some buildings been there for a long time (not just City), vehicles were the weakest part of that town.jr era imo, and 4+ sets come closest to that. Right now ,I just don't like those 1-brick thick chassis parts and the way they do printed headlights (I don't like headlight stickers on Speed Champions either) Just from personal experience: I had this Fire set in 2000 (still have it built with my old LEGO), one of my last sets before my 16 year no-new-lego period from 2001-2016 20 years later I see this as a 4+ style set that I wouldn't buy now. But I did get the 2019 Downtown Fire as an AFOL. Example for 2020, I still really do prefer the polybag car over the 4+ one. vs

LEGO.com , type in set numbers in the shop.

Nexo Knights was announced a few months in advance, so was Hidden Side, not at London Toy Fair, but still at least 3+ months before being sold. Hopeful for February news but April at the latest.

853990-1: Easter Bunny House will be a directly purchaseable set from February 1st. So not a Gift With Purchase ( €7.99 / $7.99 US / £6.99 UK) Also a new 1500 part Classic Box available at the same time 11011-1: Bricks and Animals , I know it's not animal moulds but didn't want to make a seperate topic for Classic set.

I'd love to see the original 4-handed monkey return into Sets or Xtra. Nowadays they can use so many colors for different types of monkeys even if it uses the same old design. 2015 Pirates didn't even have 1 monkey, so the last time they made one in brown was 2009. (and orange/silver in Ninjago 2016) IDEAS Pirate Bay set has one in it's original design so maybe there's a chance to see it come back.

Agreed, more farm sets/animals would be nice. I picked up 40261: Thanksgiving Harvest (2017) a few months ago when it re-appeared on Lego.com , and even with the brick-built animals, it still makes me miss those €10 seasonal minifig sets. Brickheadz just aren't the same. Edit : https://brickset.com/sets/853990-1/Easter-Bunny-House won't be a GWP but a directly purchaseable set ! (€7.99 in NL) Fingers crossed for future seasonal minifig sets again.

Nice little build , reminds me of those small builds that were used in the Creator Board game, and then some Aquasharks/Iceplanet/Nexo Knight inspiration on top of that. Board game had builds like this :

I agree those sets are very good, changed my mind last monday with the Rat promo and got both sets (EU), now the sets are still sold, but unlike US, the rat promo sold out before the sets. Too bad the dinner wasn't released in EU.

Rebrickable.com does exactly that.

Some re-release of the Monkey would be nice either via Xtra (standard reddish brown) or BAM (different colors) Monkey hasn't been seen since 2011 in regular color, or 2016 in Ninjago Sky Pirates, and there are so many more suitable colors now.