Kit Figsto

I'm referring more to the stuff that is display-only, as in the buildable statue of Chewbacca or the Disney camera and things - stuff that doesn't contain any inherent play value beyond just building it. There are certainly unlicensed examples here (botanicals, for example), but City or Friends doesn't have dioramas the same way that a lot of the major licensed themes currently do. I agree completely with all of your points, and I think you put it better than I could've - it seems harder these days to amass a collection of basic bricks to build most anything with. I'm not saying it's bad that we have a larger palate of colors and shapes, but there's certain bricks that just don't feel...entirely necessary, sometimes? It's okay to me to have a build where it's not 100% accurate to the source material, and have studs exposed or wing shapes that may not be totally the same as the real thing. Do I want a build to be super blocky? Not necessarily, but I also don't need everything to look 100% sleek and polished.

This is a fair take, and I want to make it clear that my original post wasn't meant to say that people are in the wrong for buying/enjoying the one-off 18+ display stuff, or that you're only a "true fan" if you disassemble and rebuild your stuff. I've had the MBS Mos Eisley Cantina on display since it came out (which included transporting it intact while moving, which was...interesting, to say the least), and I've had plenty of sets that I've built, put back in the box, and don't really rebuild every time I want to get it out and mess with it. I think the crux of my argument is that I personally feel like LEGO has leaned into the 18+ market too much, and in doing so, has moved away from the ethos that made them great in the first place. The 80s, 90s, 2000s, and even early 2010s get romanticized a lot among LEGO fans (depending on your generation) and I think part of that is because it felt like, even after they went away from alternate models or leaned more into licensed themes, there was still this element of creativity that permeated throughout the sets and themes. I just don't see that anymore when every set is made up of more and more specialized parts, there's zero exposed studs, and we're in the territory where things outside of the "core" play themes is dominated by larger price point sets or more display-oriented models. Target stores in the US now usually have 2 LEGO aisles - from what I see, it's usually one full aisle on both sides, and then another half aisle, and I would say usually the entire half aisle is black-box stuff. That's around one third of the product line on shelves devoted to stuff that's $100 and up. Then, you take out the Duplo/4+ stuff, as well as the display pieces in stuff like Harry Potter, Star Wars, or other licensed themes, and you're left with around half of the line that's focused more on the "creative" side, in my opinion - playability, rebuilding being encouraged, etc. Just not my cup of tea, but of course, it's just my take. If someone enjoys the 18+ statues, by all means, buy it and enjoy it! I agree here, like I said, I grew up playing with Star Wars or Indiana Jones, and I remember having a ton of fun building scenes from the movies that weren't represented in sets yet, or putting together a huge clone base or whatever. It just feels like now, the licensed stuff is more focused on it being a display piece that there's barely any sets left where kids can have that same experience. Heck, most of the Star Wars stuff available other than battle packs are like $40-$60 minimum for a small/medium sized ship, but that's a separate issue altogether.

I don't know if this is even that unpopular, but I think LEGO as a company feels completely different in the post-COVID world than it did for most of my childhood (2000s + 2010s). To be clear, I think that the actual designs of sets is generally pretty top-notch - accurate to the source material, usually some creative/well-thought out play features, and structurally sound. There are exceptions to this for sure (sometimes I think just because the source material doesn't translate well to LEGO, and sometimes just because of the fiasco that was the Juggernaut last summer), but for the most part, I think that the designers do a great job. Where I find myself feeling more and more disinterested is that it feels like LEGO currently is just "Thing - but LEGO! (and it costs $400)" for, like, 50% of their sets. I just don't see any of the creativity, outside of stuff like City or some of the in-house themes anymore. I'm not even talking about this as a licensed vs. unlicensed debate - I grew up playing with LEGO Star Wars, Prince of Persia (perhaps this is an actual unpopular, opinion but that wave of sets was truly fantastic and is heavily overlooked these days) and Indiana Jones (and I still do!) just as much as I played with Aqua Raiders, Exo-Force, or Castle. My problem mostly lies in that all of these sets, whether licensed or unlicensed, felt like I was getting a box of pieces that could build the main model, but could also be rebuilt into whatever I wanted. If I bought a fire truck, I could use those to make another kind of fire truck, or an ambulance, or some other vehicle. If I bought a TIE Fighter, I could build another spaceship, or some sort of Imperial command post out of it. This sort of hit me as I was looking at the Pokemon starter set. I've never been a Pokemon guy, so I don't have any attachment to the property or the sets, but I was, and still am, just shocked that it's $650 for essentially 3 6-inch figurines and a large base. Even if they were $150 each, I don't see the value at all. This is partially because the size (I feel like we just get less and less "stuff" in sets these days, even if the price/piece ratio has remained somewhat consistent), but partially because I don't see these sets are any different from just buying an action figure or plastic model of the same thing. I'm finding Charizard statues for $50-60 online that look to be around the same size. Do you get to build it? No, but is that even the point anymore? I would bet 95% of people that are buying the black-box sets are building them once and displaying them - perhaps only taking it apart to put it in storage or move or whatever. This isn't me saying customers are wrong - what has LEGO done that would make you want to rebuild it? It's now hundreds/thousands of small plates or bits, many of which are new specialized parts that can't really easily be reused outside of the context that they're created for. I remember when putting out a new part was a big deal (to me, a 1x2 cheese slope is still a new-ish part), now it seems like I'll buy a $30 set and it's got like 5 parts that I've never seen before, only for me to find out that they've been around for two years. Call me cynical, but that's a lot different than dumping out the pieces from a police station and trying to make something new out of it. Another example of what I'm talking about was the Foosball table - it was like $300, when I can get an actual, working table for $150. The Polaroid camera is like $70, and it looks like I can get a new one on sale at Best Buy for $80. Why do these sets need to be so expensive? Has anyone honestly asked for some of this stuff? Obviously it's selling well enough if they're making it, but at what point does the novelty wear off and people get sick of shelling out thousands and thousands on plastic display pieces. Anyway, I saw a comment the other day regarding the new Star Wars set reveals, and they were saying that in the 80s/90s/2000s, LEGO sets/themes felt like they were creating worlds, whereas now, it feels like simply a medium, and that sums up my feelings.

I was just at Target today and was in the LEGO aisle looking at the post-Christmas carnage. What was really interesting is that at both the location I was at, as well as another location that I visited two days ago, the aisles were completely bare save for some of the black-box 18+ stuff and a few random sets here and there. The main exception that I saw today? The 2025 Star Wars wave. They had probably 15 of the Hot Rod Snowspeeder, 2-3 each of the MTT and CTT, about 8 V-19s, and a handful of Jango ships. My hope is that this is due to people not buying because of insane pricing. I've said many times, I'm not against downscaling (the 2021 X-Wing/TIE were great in that regard) but we can't also be jacking the prices up to insane values and still expect customers to buy it.

Knowing how these things usually go, we’ll go the DC route and get a Brickheadz two pack, a $400 Krusty Krab (gotta tap into the nostalgia bait market), a brick-built Spongebob statue (not a remake of the Build-A-Bob, though), and a 4+ Spongebob’s house that’s the best set in the wave. (Can you tell I’ve become a bit cynical about LEGO in recent months? ) In all seriousness, I’d love a return to the playsets. I think a black-box Krusty Krab has been pretty much inevitable at some point, but I’m hoping if they did bring back Spongebob, that we’d get at least a 3-4 set wave of playsets.

I would agree. I've noticed a lot of people on Instagram/YouTube/Reddit (especially LSW collectors) have started to not fully attach the torsos to the legs to prevent cracking. I just think the idea of using this toy as an investment that you have to preserve is, well, a bit silly. Why not enjoy it as it's meant to be enjoyed? I've been collecting LEGO for about 20 years now and I've only come across two torsos that have cracked - one was from a set from 2005 that I've owned for 20 years, and the other was a late 90s Arctic set that I bought sealed last year on eBay and was probably stored in a hot attic/garage, because the tires were very goopy, one of the minifigures' arms basically exploded when I tried to move it, and one of the 1x2 grill tiles also had the middle bar piece snap. It's unfortunate when that happens, but at the end of the day, it is what it is.

I'm guessing 2007, as it shows the two flagship sets from the first wave of Fantasy Era which would've been from that year. I also noticed just now that there's trolls in the top right, which use the exact same design as the trolls that we did get. So, I think it's probable that an elf (maybe forestmen inspired?) wave was planned but scrapped, for whatever reason.

Interesting - I'd never seen this! In fairness, it's possible that an Elf wave of Fantasy Era was planned but was never made due to the theme ending, since we did get Dwarves for the second wave.

I think it has always been expensive, but I think that there was a lull in price increases from, say, 2005-2020 or so. If you look at some of the larger sets from the "glory days" of LEGO (80s-90s Castle/Pirates/Space), the price per piece ratios are awful. Flagship sets were routinely 400-500 pieces and cost the equivalent of like $120+ today. I know that some of this was because of large baseplates and things, but still, that's worse than even the most egregiously overpriced sets of this era. I think what happened, though, is that prices remained fairly steady for a while. Just using an example - a Star Wars battle pack was $10-13 up until 2017 (which was a 10 year run from their introduction until then). They bumped up to $15 by 2020, then we went a year without. Suddenly in 2022, they're $20 (with the price on the Ahsoka clone BP originally at $26.99, before they dropped it, likely due to major backlash), and now in 2025, they're $23. So we went a decade and a half with a total of a $5 price increase, and then suddenly in the span of 5 years, we go up $8. Inflation is a thing, but it's not over 50%. Star Wars UCS sets are another example, they were routinely at $150-200 for a ship, and now pretty much nothing in that is less than $350. The main issue I have is that the amount of "stuff" doesn't feel like it's increasing - as a matter of fact, at times, I feel like you're getting the same or less but it's costing a substantial amount more. We're also in an era where manufacturing is probably cheaper than it's ever been, and I know that LEGO outsources way more than they used to, which, in theory, should keep costs down. I look at competitor brands, and while often the actual brick quality isn't quite the same (though I'd say it's getting closer and closer), they include more prints/specialized pieces, sometimes lights, etc, and the overall cost is often less despite getting more "stuff" with the sets. Anyway, my point is that 2020-2025 has been on another plane as far as cost, to the point where it's kind of egregious.

It's 10 studs wide by about 24 long, so I'd say about 1.5x the size of a Speed Champions car. 12 printed parts, no stickers. I would say that the quality of the bricks are probably 80% of the way there compared to LEGO. The main difference is that the clutch power is a little bit inconsistent - you'll get some parts that snap together and hold well, whereas others feel as if the connection is a little bit flimsier. The thing isn't going to break apart by any means, but when you remove the roof, for example, some of the plates of it aren't totally held in the same way that they would be if it were LEGO parts. I get the impression that with these sets, they don't design them with the intent of reusing parts or with "rebuildability" as much of a focus, as there's at least 2 pieces that are pretty much only usable in this one set, which isn't something I can remember LEGO doing recently other than with minifigure head molds. I think it actually compares more to a model car than LEGO in terms of what they're going for here - there's zero exposed studs at all and from a distance, it looks more like a large diecast car.

On the topic of "plate stacking," coincidentally, I just picked up one of the Mega Bloks Hot Wheels sets on super clearance at Kohl's (was marked down from $29.99 to $22.49, then an additional 50% off, so I paid about $12 for it). It was my first large non-LEGO brick toy in a very long time, but I have to say, I did notice a pretty distinct difference in the build experience between LEGO and this one. There was definitely more "stacking" of plates, and despite the fact that it's a relatively blocky looking car, the model itself actually used mostly plates to put it together, save for the doors. So, I guess it's not just LEGO! For the record, I did enjoy the build, and the final model looks really good, I just wasn't expecting it to also "feel" different while putting it together.

I saw this video as well (I think Slugger's definitely the best LEGO YouTuber at the moment - I don't always agree 100% with his opinions on sets and themes, but he puts out really fun, creative, and unique content and I enjoy the way that he presents his ideas/reviews). Like you said, I don't think that plate based construction is inherently bad, just different. Yes, they're still using bricks, obviously, but larger pieces are, without a doubt, being phased out. I think that there's something to be said about sets from the late 90s and especially the early 2000s being too "<insert that tiresome argument>" in that they relied heavily on very large and specific pieces - this isn't necessarily bad either, but I think that these also don't lend themselves to be reused very well (however, I do always think it's SUPER cool whenever someone posts a MOC using a piece that's just totally not at all what it was originally meant for - stuff like the games dice block or train pieces being utilized in innovative ways perfectly encapsulates what makes LEGO great to me). My ideal construction is somewhere in between - I'd rather have a wall piece or a pillar than have to stack 6 1x8 bricks on top of each other to achieve the same thing. Raised baseplates definitely lost points for versatility, but they also increased a set's footprint tremendously without bumping up the part count too much. I don't think every set should be built like a 4+ set, but I also don't think every set should rely heavily on "plate stacking" (if you want to call it that). Of course, that's just my own personal opinion. There's benefits and drawbacks to each, but I do feel like this goes hand-in-hand with one critique I have of many recent sets, which is the part count vs. actual value/size of the model/amount of "stuff" that you get.

I've found that, whenever I'm in the LEGO aisles at Target, there is almost always at least one 20-30 year old in the aisle as well. I'm not paying close attention to what they're looking at, but it often seems like they are looking for themselves and not for a gift for a kid or something. Anyway, I think another thing that the video inadvertently touched on, which I've been noticing, is the attention to detail also bringing about a shrinking in set sizes. This is mostly apparent with licensed sets, but there's been a lot of sets recently where the price/piece ratio inherently isn't bad, but the actual size of the model is way smaller than previous iterations, even if the piece count is roughly the same. Including a bunch of 1x1 corner tiles doesn't really do much for me, I'd rather see larger pieces in there. The Star Wars ARC-170 is a great example - the current one retails for $70 and has just under 500 pieces. The previous version had 100 fewer pieces and is much larger. Now, this is an instance where, from my understanding, the smaller scale is more accurate, but it feels like we're getting less value when the increased part count, which also leads to a big price increase, doesn't lead to a feeling of more "stuff." And I'm okay with not 100% accurate proportions or detail. One of my favorite LSW sets was the 2017 U-Wing, which scale-wise, is way off from the 2025 version, but as a TOY, I think is far superior. It was also like $10 more, came with 1.5 more minifigure, and is quite a bit beefier. Is the new one more accurate? Yeah, probably, but I can also stand like 5 minifigures in the troop bay, whereas the new one can maybe fit two, and if we're talking accuracy, the doors are more accurate on the old one. I didn't mean for that to become a bit of a LSW rant, but hopefully my point comes across

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FS_tgRxW6k I found this video interesting. The guy seems to be semi-knowledgeable about LEGO - not a hardcore fan of the brand, but a casual collector and grew up as a fan of it, so it's interesting to hear this take on the current state of things from someone in that position. I've been starting to feel the same way as this video in some respects - while I don't agree 100% (especially some of his points about pricing - there's no way the 2001 Hogwarts would only cost $100 today, that's $150 minimum), I agreed with the overall message that I don't think LEGO should be primarily targeting me as an adult. His point about the entire message of the LEGO Movie being seemingly ignored with such a focus on 18+ stuff was something that I've never really considered either. Anyway, not sure if this was really an unpopular opinion, but I didn't know where else to share.

My personal thought? I think they just caught lightning in a bottle. I've heard a lot of people say that Ninjago was never supposed to be an evergreen theme, which is probably true, to an extent. Remember, Ninjago was sandwiched between stuff like Power Miners, Agents, Aqua Raiders, Space Police III, Pharaoh's Quest, Monster Fighters, Atlantis, World Racers, and some of the other late 2000s/early 2010s in-house themes which I am forgetting, all of which lasted for 1-2 years before retiring (which I think was always the plan with those). Given that Ninjago had a TV show attached, I think it's safe to say that they planned for it to go more than 1-2 years, but I also highly doubt that they ever expected it to go for 15+ years and result in multiple movies. Ninjas were popular at the time - just remembering Internet/YouTube culture around that same period, parkour/ninja stuff was all over the place, so that probably contributed to part of the success, but I think it's just as plausible that if another theme had the exact same fanfare/launch, it could've done just as well. I think the reason that Chima and Nexo Knights failed were because Ninjago had already captured that niche of a story-based action/adventure theme. Ninjago also had a bit more crossover appeal, I think, in that it had a "gimmick" (the spinners) but they were mostly separate from the sets.