Lego David

Adults alone can't carry a theme. Without a new generation of kids being introduced to it, the line isn't gonna last. They should design it for kids first, but also make it appealing for adults at the same time. Trying to make it 100% for adults and hoping that will attract kids too is a dumb strategy in my opinion.

This is the only Elves set I would personally classify as a vehicle. This Steampunk-style Airship. Yes, mostly vehicle-based playthemes have been a thing long before Ninjago came to the scene, but at that time, vehicles weren't the only focus, and the vehicles weren't exactly in the same style as what we get today. Ninjago introduced a trend of giving the good guys an entire arsenal of four specific types of vehicles: Bikes, Mechs, Jets, and Cars. Those vehicles mostly stay the same throughout the theme's run, with the only thing that changes usually being only the villains. That trend continued with Chima, Nexo Knights, Monkie Kid, and it has even made its way into licensed themes like DC and Marvel Superheroes (most of the time, those vehicles are entirely LEGO's fabrication and appear nowhere in the source matrial). I suspect this trend may have contributed more or less to the decline in more traditional non-vehicle based themes such as Castle.

Here is a video in which me and @DuckBricks analyzed a couple of unreleased LEGO themes.

A lot of location-based sets also tend to be very play-oriented though. With lots of play features and that kind of stuff.

Elves was more of an exception, because it was an Action-Adventure theme aimed a girls. I assume vehicles don't appeal to girls as much as they do to boys, so I am guessing that was the reason why they made Elves be almost entirely location-based (there was only one set in that line that could be considered a vehicle). Atlantis and Monster Fighters were released before LEGO realized how profitable Ninjago-style vehicles can be, so I find it unlikely that they'll do it in the style of those themes either. I have no idea what LEGO's focus test groups have told them, but there seems to have been a great shift towards almost entirely vehicle-based themes ever since Ninjago came to the scene. And that doesn't just apply to LEGO's original themes, but also with many licensed themes, such as Marvel and DC Superheroes.

On paper, I don't have any problem with LEGO experimenting and trying out new things, digital or otherwise. But here is my problem: They have no idea on how to create digital products. They are toy makers, not a video game company. That's why those digital experiments feel more like them just trying to tap into a market in which they have no staying power in, rather than genuine innovations. They just keep the app/gimmick around for as long as the sets are on shelves, and after that they just walk away. I'm sorry, but if you wanna create an app that will be engaging with kids, you should commit to it. On top of that, all those LEGO apps are notorious for barely working and being very glitchy. How do they expect kids to be engaged in this "new play experience" for more than 5 minutes before they go back to playing a game that actually works? Again, there is nothing wrong with trying put new things, but if they continue to persist with the digital market, they should hire a team of experienced app developers and create an app that works well and is fun and engaging. Not something that people will get completely bored of 5 minutes after trying it out.

I would like to point out though, that even if LEGO did decide to make this sort of themes (unlikely IMO), they would be altered so much for kids' sake to the point where they barely resemble the source material. Case in point, Monkie Kid. The line is supposedly based off Jounrey to the West, a classic Buddist story dating back to the 16th century. Yet the line sees more focus on Ninjago-style vehicles rather than actual mythological aspects. I can bet if LEGO were to say, attampt a theme based off Greek Mythology, they will be tempted to do the same thing by making it seem more "modern" for the current generation. Then we'll get stuff like the Hercules Bike, Hades Mech, Zeus thunder Jet or other stupid vehicles like that. I know I may sound a bit pessimistic here, but this is the sad reality. I am not suggesting kids won't be interested at all in actual faithful mythological sets (but then again, I have no idea how much interest kids have in that in the first place), but I am afriad LEGO is gonna turn it into a vehicle based modern theme regardless, becuase from their perspective, "that's what sells to kids".

There is no way LEGO is gonna do any of those as fully fledged themes. Because let's face it, kids are most likely not gonna be interested in those kinds of historical themes. You can get away with Castle, Pirates or Western because those are genres are more sterotypical rather than based on actual history, but Ancient Greek, Roman or Egyptian? The only way to get that sort of stuff in LEGO is only through the CMFs, sadly.

Oh, good to know. Its still a pretty rare piece though. I was so lucky to have found it in a random bulk of Bionicle parts.

I own a white recolor of the part 32567 Bionicle Mask Ruru. Where exactly this recolor came from is unknown, but it is believed to be a rare factory misprint of sorts. Its current resell value according to Bricklink is around 20$, which surely is something for just a single piece.

I first got into LEGO in 2010, and the first set I ever got was the 8086 Droid Tri-Fighter: After this set, I was immediately hooked into LEGO, and got several other of the sets that were available that year. My second set I think was 8059 Seabed Scavenger After that, me and my brothers also got several of the Hero Factory sets from that year. I specifically recall us getting this three guys: Those things sparked such a big passion for LEGO in me that has never really stopped, and continues strong to this day. Unlike many people, I never experienced any sort of dark age of any kind.

A few more updates, we've got two more Pirates in the crew: We've also got an artwork for one of the locations, the Temple of the Heart, where the main McGuffin of our story is being held:

I wouldn't say so. More like, those themes just need to be re-invented in a way that can draw in a new generation of kids. How exactly that will be done, I can't say for certain, but I do firmly believe that the potential is there.

Why they don't ship those sets worldwide is beyond me. They only have a list of like, 30 specific countries they will ship those sets to. My country is not among them .

Awesome work, you should probably submit this to LEGO Ideas!

The same thing happened with Bionicle back in 2010 when that theme was originally cancelled. LEGO received tons of angry emails and petitions from fans to continue the line, but that didn't change their decision. Eventually, we did get Bionicle back for a brief time in 2015-2016, but honestly, that was probably more of an experiment than anything else, as it offered the Bionicle fans very little of what they loved about the original line. Probably the same thing would happen if Castle fans were to suddenly rally together and spam LEGO with emails and petitions. Either they just wouldn't care at all, or best case scenario they release a lazy one-off Castle wave just to make people shut up, and obviously that would still live a lot of people disappointed. Yes, there are decades worth of sets that barely changed much with the exception of introducing new factions. Castle has barely even scratched the surface of what can be done with it, and its up to us to explore new ways to re-invent the theme. Nexo Knights took the "New" aspect a bit too extreme, to the point that it didn't feel like an actual Castle theme. However, something in between Nexo Knights and Traditional Castle has the potential to work wonders if done right.

They specifically said in that World Builder guidelines that new creative twists on already existing LEGO themes are allowed. That implies to me that they are still interested in reviving their classic themes in some form, but only if they have a very unique new twist that will make it stand out from previous iterations of those themes. Sending emails to LEGO isn't going to do anything, trust me. Do you think they even bother reading all the emails they get from LEGO nerds asking for their favorite themes to come back? I can bet they have a lot more important things to focus on. Creating new unique ideas for Castle themes on World Builder is much more constrictive than spamming emails at LEGO in my humble opinion.

From reading the interview, I get the vibe that one of the main reasons they feel hesitant about bringing back Castle or Pirates as fully fledged themes is because usually a single set overshadows the entirety of the line (at least that seems to be the case with the Pirate Ships overshadowing the other Pirate sets in a wave, as stated by Samuel Johnson) so in their minds combing all the typical Pirate builds into a single Creator 3 in 1 set is a good idea. But, as we all know, those lines can't properly live on just through the occasional Creator set, unless they plan on significantly increasing the Creator's sets budget, which we all know they'll never do. Also in Samuel Johnson's interview words, they seem to believe that " LEGO has evolved a lot" and they consider a theme like Nexo Knights to be more "a modern play theme". You can interpret that however you want.

Any LEGO Cloth elements or sails shouldn't cause any pain whatsoever.

Imagine stepping on this Bionicle weapon piece...

Wow, just wow. Great revamp of the Insectoids sets!

I would like to point out though, that realistically speaking, LEGO won't include more than one major female character in the cast of their original themes, due to the perceived idea that everything except for Mini-Doll themes is aimed at boys. On the flipside, Mini-Doll themes aimed specifically at girls never include more than one major male character, so you can clearly start to see a pattern there. Depending on who the target audience is, they won't include a whole lot of characters of mixed genders. I know theoretically a LEGO theme could be aimed at both boys and girls, but LEGO doesn't seem to believe that.

After looking at the pictures myself, a project from the LEGO World Builder platform (posted before Mythica was announced) instantly came to my mind: Is this just a bizarre coincidence, or did this theme idea inspire them to create this new Mythica thing?

Castle was among the top selling themes of 2008, because of the Fantasy Castle subtheme. After that, Castle sales slowly started to drop, until we got to the very poor sales of Castle 2013 which was the final nail in the coffin for the theme.

For me, Castle is not a general term, but a specific theme focused on stereotypical stuff from the Medieval period: Castles, Knights, Robin Hood, Crusades, etc. The stuff @MAB describes would fit more as subthemes of Pirates rather than Castle, too be honest. Fun fact, we almost got a theme set in the time period MAB describes called Europa, but it was never released for unknown reasons. Thy they decided not to release such a cool theme is beyond me.