Mister Phes

You are a very good dragon, Darkdragon!

Then yers better relate this thread back to LEGO (I.e. what creations this may game inspire) or yer'll be fed to the kraken. We got a new kraken the other day in fact...

The Hanging of a LEGO Man! Not sure who the artist is but it originated from 4chan.

Are you able to take photos of the items you purchased and post them in this thread?

Lasse, you and your mother have been quite thorough in incorporating aspects of ancient Greece into this creation. You've even gone so far as to include a Trojan Horse - I am in complete AWE of this MOC!

T'would be awesome if we could get someone 100% fluent in German to assist with this great initiative!

Larger image sourced:

Most notable changes from the preview images are: Revolutionary Soldier now has legs and a flintlock musket Native American has a mohawk and tomahawk instead of a spear. Sea Captain appears to be holding a pair of binoculars.

It's not big enough! Get ZCerberus in here to show you how its done.

No... It usually takes 18-24 months for a LEGO theme to go from conception to distribution. As the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie will be released in mid 2015, the LEGO Group is more likely to release sets relating to that franchise. So anything at present which may stimulate "pirate hype" wouldn't be released until the third quarter of 2014, in which case the LEGO Group may well release more sets from the first four PotC films in the lead up to the fifth. Although nothing has been confirmed and my comments are merely speculative.

There was this one as well...

We did... but somehow they magically keep disappearing offline...

That is an interesting direction for that series to take... A while back another video game franchise called Tropic had a pirate sequel. If you're not familiar with Tropic, it's a simulation game like Sim City, only the objective is to manage an island in the Caribbean during the late twentieth century. I.e. a dictator governing an island banana republic... For whatever reason the developers decided Tropico 2 (released in 2003 around the time of the first Pirate of the Caribbean film) would be set back in time and the task was to manage a successful pirate haven. So whether that helped permeate Pirates of the Caribbean into popular culture I'm not sure, but for Tropic 3 or 4 they returned to a modern Caribbean setting... much to my disappointment!

Due to my failure in realising the Grenadier Guard and the Royal Guard are the same minifigure. The official LEGO website refers to this minifigure as "Royal Guard" so to prevent confusion we too should refer to him as such. So is that nominations for both Mime and Samurai?

Yes, you are indeed correct, we have strayed from the topic. Nonetheless, it was an interesting retrospective which may or may not have relevance to the release of future LEGO Pirate sets.

Fortune Teller is now at 3 votes. Flamenco Dancer has been suggested by Brig Brick and locked in! Grenadier Guard receives a vote from Grimm Beard taking the total to 2 votes.

As usual TalonCard, you're a gem because of the information you provide!

Obviously I've understated the number of pirate films released throughout the 1980's which is a blatant error on my behalf. However, I was a child during that period so drawing from my subjective experiences the only pirate/swashbuckling films aimed at children which stood out were The Goonies and The Princess Bride. It wasn't until Hook in 1991 that I recall a film having any real influence over pirate themed merchandise. The pirate movie that most stood out when I was a child was Disney's 1950 version of Treasure Island, but I think that's just me and not common to children of the 80's.

Going on a slight tangent... Are you old enough to remember the late 80's?

We're talking pre-1989 here as any film released after the introduction of pirates doesn't constitute as an influence... and "big name, big screen" movies? Aside from the 1983 version of Pirates of Penzance the rest were just TV movies (there were two). The 1985 version of Treasure Island (L'île au trésor) was Chilean-French production and only had success on the festival circuit, while the 1988 version was a Soviet animated film. So yeah, it would be unlikely either of those films reached a wide English speaking audience let alone became popular enough with children to influence major toy manufacturers into producing pirate themed products. Were they the films you were referring to?

There is probably more than one reason why Europa wasn't released, but pirates, specifically buccaneers seem more fun and adventurous due to being a romanticized genre, whereas Napoleonic Wars fiction is usually depicted in a more serious done. Although, pirates may not have enjoyed the popularity in the late 1980's which they have now. There were no major pirate film franchises or product lines, at best there was the 1986 films "The Goonies" and "Pirates" starring Walter Matthau, Sid Meier's Pirates released in 1987 and maybe Playmobil Pirates. However, I can't seem to find any decent Playmobil pirate fansites to research whether their pirate theme influenced the LEGO Pirates theme.

OK, the problem is you're using "historical" in a vague context. What you're actually referring to are sets based on real world historical events, while I was referring to themes inspired by historic events. Outside of exclusives, the LEGO Group hasn't released thematic sets based on real world events, but that doesn't mean they will never produce a theme inspired by Napoleonic wars. Why does a LEGO set/theme need to be based on real life history anyway? While the LEGO Group produces historically themed elements, the builder can determine whether their creation is based on fact or pure fiction. Like, Faefrost mentioned, the "Europa" theme entered a prototype phase but eventually became LEGO Pirates. Nonetheless, the blue-coat soldiers are now used both as an opposing pirate faction and for Napoleonic war creations. While it has never been confirmed why Europa wasn't released, it's most likely wasn't the reason you're assuming.