Kit Figsto

I've thought about this myself and I would generally agree, though there are certainly some exceptions. I think that some later-90s themes fit in more spiritually with late 80s/early 90s stuff - Western, the desert and jungle waves of Adventurers, Rock Raiders, UFO, Insectoids, and Aquazone, to me, feel more early 90s, even though they came later I don't think that there is one objective "best" year of LEGO, as it depends a lot on your own personal preferences, but I think that the most common answer for this, at least among AFOLs (when I say AFOL here, I'm referring more to those that see it as a hobby versus a more casual collector) would probably either lay sometime in the 80s/90s or in the late 00s/early 2010s. A few that jump to mind for me personally are 1993 (some legendary Pirates sets, Dragon Masters, great Town offerings, and Ice Planet 2002), 2007 (Fantasy Era Castle, Mars Mission, Exo-Force, a bunch of great City, Racers, and Star Wars sets, Aqua Raiders), and 2008 (continuation of most of the previous year's themes, plus Indiana Jones, Agents, and a great Batman wave). For me, I think the run from about 2006-2011 was my personal "golden age" of LEGO. That was when I really caught the bug as a kid, and seemingly EVERY big birthday/Christmas gift was the large LEGO set that I'd been wanting, all of my allowance money went towards LEGO, and most of the time I spent at friends' houses was building/playing with LEGO. Thankfully, I still own a good amount of my sets from this era, though I've had to re-buy a few over the years as some of my childhood originals were lost/donated/parted out at various points. To me, that 2000s/early 2010s era had the best of both worlds - imaginative themes and worlds, but the design language was also a lot sleeker without being TOO much in that smooth/realistic direction, which I find that a lot of sets today are for me. Again, just my personal preference, though!

Wow, the Bionicle torso and legs look really good - I'm anxious to see how they did the mask, but they nailed it from my perspective. I was never a big Bionicle guy, but I think I'll pick one of those up if the head looks as good as the rest of it does. As a Halloween/spooky stuff fan, the pumpkin piece is awesome, and I think that the Monster Hunter figure it awesome - seems like she'd fit right in with the Monster Fighters aesthetic! I'm guessing the pumpkin and a weapon are her accessories?

I didn't think about this until you said it, but I agree. I think that it feels like several of these sets were designed with the mindset of "we have this set, how can we integrate the smart brick into it?" versus "what sets would benefit from smart brick integration?" In some instances, it makes perfect sense - a ship making laser/engine noises is perfect. However, stuff like Yoda's hut or the Cantina feel a lot more like "Well, we need to hit a certain number of slots, so let's just throw a smart brick into this location" without really considering what makes sense. I get that they wanted a big launch, but I think from what I've seen out of the promo material and unveiling, if I were in charge of the Smart Brick link, I would've done something like this: X-Wing, TIE, Millennium Falcon, Luke's Landspeeder, and AT-ST, and then swap the playsets with a Death Star playset with turbolaser (interacts with X-Wing both in shooting noises and allowing the X-Wing to blow up parts of the DS) and then I would've probably put in some sort of Endor battle playset so that there's interaction with the AT-ST.

That's kind of my take as well. The sets themselves don't look too bad - some of them are obviously way more kid-oriented, which is totally fine. I think it's great to experiment and figure out different ways to appeal to kids. The problem is that the price/"stuff" ratio still stinks, IMO (I also have no idea how that Falcon is almost 900 pieces - where are half of the parts even going in that set?). Okay, if you're going to downscale and kid-ify some of the sets, that's a-okay, but you can't also charge a premium price and expect it to work.

I've moved two MBS Star Wars sets before and had them remain pretty intact, though I will say that this was a local move. I was able to access both my new and old houses at the same time, so I just transported the sets myself in the back seat of my car, and did it on a day when I wasn't moving any other furniture or boxes over. All that I did was just take a large garbage bag, remove any loose/delicate areas from the sets (one of them was Cloud City, so I removed the carbon freezing chamber and the dueling scaffolding, while the other was the Cantina, so I removed the moisture vaporators and some of the random antennas) and then put the set into the bag. I literally just carried the set out as though I were moving it from one area of my house to another, except it was in a bag, so if any loose bits fell off, they were contained. Set it carefully on the seat of the car, buckled it in, and then drove it to the new place, carried it in, and re-assembled anything that fell apart. If you can't do that exact method, my two suggestions would just be to make sure that the sets are contained in some way (whether in a large plastic bin, a suitcase stuffed with foam/bubble wrap/newspaper) so that any loose bits don't get lost, and that I would, if at all possible, move them yourself rather than having someone else handling them.

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'm curious about the Bounty Hunter Pursuit - at $60, I wouldn't be super surprised if it included a 4th minifigure, Jango would make sense, but given that we just got two of him, I also wouldn't be surprised if we got an Ep II Padme, which would be nice. Of course, I also saw someone on Reddit suggest that, given the way things have gone with this theme recently, "Bounty Hunter Pursuit" refers to a microscale diorama of the Obi-Wan vs. Jango Fett asteroid field chase from AOTC, so I suppose we still have to consider that possibility

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.

Ah, I got a few of those years wrong - in my defense, I was going off the top of my head, rather than actually checking Brickset But yes, I own the MBS version, as well as both the 2014 and 2018 versions, because the scene is one of my favorites (perhaps my favorite) from the entire franchise. While I don't know if I'd shell out $70 or whatever is being charged for the new one for just one new minifigure, I think I'd be very tempted to buy the set and sell off the repeat figs or something.

I pretty much agree. Unless I'm forgetting one, I think we've had 4 versions of the Cantina. The 2003 version was definitely the weakest as far as the actual building - I'm pretty sure that the Landspeeder took up more of the piece count, but for the era and size, it was fine. The 2014 version pretty much set the standard for a large playset version, and I think it still holds up completely fine. The only new thing we got was the band, but it was also a much larger cantina, so I think it worked perfectly for he price and scale. The 2019 version, while smaller, was totally fine for the price point. It got the point across, and we got a new Wuher and speeder. I look at that one as a spiritual successor to the 2003 version, while the MBS version is more of a successor to the 2014 version. Obviously that one can't really be classified in the same way, but I believe it had 7 new characters plus a new speeder. I definitely agree on the new one - I'm surprised that there's not something new (Snaggletooth!) coming here to incentivize those with the MBS set or other previous versions to put down the money for a new one. At the very least, they could throw in Ponda Baba, because I don't think he should be locked behind a $350 (retired) paywall.

This is kind of my take on it as well. I'm pretty sure that I own a total of one classic Space/Castle/Pirates set (it was before my time), but there is a LOT from that era that I'd love to own, I just can't justify the price in most cases. This problem presents itself again when most of the remake sets have been $200+, the exceptions being the two space sets, both of which looked nice to me, but not enough to spend $100. I am a little bummed that I missed the Black Friday Amazon deal for the Renegade, as $54 would've been more than okay with me, but oh well. The Eldorado Fortress and Lion Knight's Castle both are/were of interest to me, but I have neither the space nor the disposable income to buy something that's, say, a 6/10 on the "interest" scale for me. I feel as if there's a bit of a paradox here - more people would be interested in the classic remakes/classic style sets if they put out waves of smaller sets (like the 2013 Castle or 2015 Pirates), but the interest level in those waves appears to be too low to justify actually making them - with the amount of new sets and licenses that LEGO's pumping out these days, I can pretty much guarantee that they'd have done a Castle/Pirates theme if it was profitable, and I'm, sure there's no shortage of designers in the company that would jump at the chance to work on a project like that. I've actually really enjoyed bot h the Forest Hideout and Blacktron Cruiser GWP (though I know a lot of people had mixed feelings on them), and I think that size is great. I got the Cruiser for like $30, which felt fair, and I got the Forest Hideout as the GWP when I bought a couple of sets that I'd been waiting on purchasing, though again, I'd have been okay buying that for $20-25.

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.