Blondie-Wan

Oh, I’d dearly have loved that, too. And Condorman!

Marvel-DC interactions in general might have been fun, and I’m sure they’d have been a draw for many people. Disney Infinity ended before they ever brought Indiana Jones to it, but my understanding is that it was considered, and at the very least it’s another Disney property via Lucasfilm, so Disney Infinity was always the primary obstacle to it being in LEGO Dimensions. As long as we’re already imagining an alternate universe in which LD ran long enough to get one or more additional years and some Disney properties, I’d like to further imagine we also saw the addition of more of LEGO’s homegrown themes, so that Indy and company might meet Johnny Thunder and co. That would have been fun. In fact, with the preponderance of sci-fi / fantasy franchises from the 1980s in general in LD, it’d be neat to have more done with that. Perhaps the inclusion of TRON in LD could have brought some of that.

I’d have thought it’d be fine to include simply as one theme out of many being discussed in a thread, and that it simply wouldn’t get any threads devoted specifically and entirely to it, myself, but... hey, it’s your poll; don’t let me tell you what to do! :)

I voted for Adventurers and Alpha Team, two of the first themes I began exploring as I was branching out beyond Star Wars after emerging from my dark ages, and Exo-Force and Power Miners, two other themes I enjoy and picked up several sets from. Truth be told, lots of these appeal to me, but several of them I just didn’t collect much (or at all), simply for lack of resources, and too many themes to spread my meager funds around on. That said, my hands-down favorite action-adventure theme in this timeframe would be Indiana Jones; I gather it’s excluded from the poll due to being an entertainment license and not a LEGO original, right? If that were here, it’d be my clear top pick.

The score in general. I was unaware until your post that there actually is a discrete score release, something I hadn’t expected for this movie and had overlooked seeing in the credits (assuming it’s mentioned, which may not be the case). Thanks for the heads-up!

It’s a darn shame the movie isn’t doing as well at the box office as it deserves (IMO, of course). I have to confess I haven’t seen it nearly as many times so far as I saw the first, but I still plan to see it more before it leaves theaters. I’m really looking forward to getting the soundtrack album, though I gather it’s missing a lot of the music I love in the movie.

Did anyone here ever get to do this? If so, what was it like?

Of extant themes? Maybe a really big City set (or anything City-adjacent, like the Creator Expert modular buildings or trains). And even speaking as someone who loves the current Star Wars UCS Millennium Falcon and hopes to get it, I’d dearly love to see one more, truly ultimate version done in 2027 for the saga’s 50th anniversary, one with 10k+ pieces and every feature imaginable - full interior, working lights inside and out, retractable landing gear, buildable in multiple configurations representing every major appearance in the internal chronology from Solo to Episode IX or whatever follows, and dozens of minifigures representing basically everybody ever seen aboard her (and perhaps near her, in all the dramatic confrontations that take place in proximity to her when she’s landed) in that entire timeframe. A truly awesome Castle set would be, well, awesome (just imagine an 8,000+ piece Castle official set!). But of other themes? Ermmm... I have a few ideas, but I’m quixotically hoping I can get certain new themes going first via new Ideas sets, which could then yield bigger sets than could ever happen through Ideas, and while it’s unlikely to happen, why reveal those hopes now?

Agreed, but their conceptual similarities aren’t as important as the fact they represent different shows. Nobody is buying them because of the engaging builds; they buy them because the sets represent TV shows they love. And while I’m sure there’s some overlap between the viewerships and fandoms of The Big Bang Theory and Friends, nobody’s desire for one of these two is going to be satisfied by the other. Somebody who is a big fan of Friends, who’s seen every episode multiple times and buys merchandise from it and so on, isn’t necessarily going to want a Big Bang Theory set, and even if they do it’s not going to satisfy any desire they have for a Friends set, and vice versa. This contrasts with someone who’s a fan of LEGO but not particularly interested in either of these TV shows, and might find the sets pretty equivalent - equally interesting or uninteresting as sets of fleshtoned minifigures sitting around on furniture in a room. Certainly from the standpoint of the creativity in the builds, sure. But they do have an advantage over them from LEGO’s (the company’s) point of view: they appeal to people outside the established LEGO fan base. The Pop-up book might have some appeal to people who are fans of folktales and/or pop-up books, and the Ship in a Bottle might have some to fans of maritime stuff, but I suspect both principally sell to LEGO fans. A set based on one of these shows, OTOH, might sell to people who aren’t normally into LEGO but who are fans of the show. It’s a chance for TLG to make a sale to people who don’t normally buy LEGO. This is the second time a project based on The Office has made it this far. I wouldn’t expect this one to be the one that makes it (certainly not at around 2500 pieces), but if more such projects get to review, who knows?

Agreed, but there’s a pretty significant gulf between it being absolutely, completely off the cultural radar and merely not being at the peak of its popularity. There are any number of once-popular gaming franchises that are way less popular right now than Minecraft still is - Lode Runner, Zork, Myth, Marathon, Prince of Persia, etc. If Minecraft is still more popular than lots of other franchises, it’s not exactly dead, is it? Note Minecraft is quite a bit different from all the pop-culture licenses that have gotten a single wave, usually though not always tied to a movie release - Speed Racer, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Lone Ranger, Avatar: The Last Airbender, etc. Each of them had a single wave of sets, released to capitalize on the new movie release or the launch of the show, and didn’t stay around; most of them were probably never intended to become ongoing, recurring themes. Minecraft made its LEGO debut way back in 2012 with what we’d now call a LEGO Ideas set, back when it was still LEGO CUUSOO. Not only do lots of licensed themes exist as single-wave themes, but most licenses picked up via CUUSOO / Ideas are for single sets, and don’t even get full themes, even single-wave ones. Minecraft was different, though, right off the bat - it was the first CUUSOO / Ideas set to launch a whole theme, and what’s more, it has stayed around more or less continuously since that 2012 set. Consider that for a moment. Even those pop-culture licenses that do get more than one wave don’t usually stick around forever. Indiana Jones got four waves. Toy Story got two, followed by a couple figures in the Disney Minifigures series a few years later, and is now getting another wave of sets years later still with the new movie. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings got five waves of sets over three years, followed by the inclusion of a few packs in LEGO Dimensions. These are big, blue-chip licenses, and even they don’t stick around forever. Aside from Minecraft, just about only pop-culture properties with LEGO themes that last continuously for several years are major franchises with ongoing media support (regular and frequent movie releases, ongoing TV series, etc.) What’s more, LEGO tends to produce on the conservative side with most of its licensed properties; very very few does it ever fully exploit as much as its fans would like. Consider all the stuff from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that fans of LEGO Middle-Earth still yearn for. There’s tons of stuff in the source material of Indiana Jones, Toy Story, The Incredibles, and countless others that LEGO has barely scratched the surface of, or even ignored altogether. Look at Doctor Who - an absolutely massive franchise with several hundred episodes produced over more than half a century, multiple spinoff series, a central character with incarnations played by over a dozen actors, etc., and yet LEGO’s entire offerings for it to date consist of a single Ideas set and two Dimensions packs. Even Harry Potter and the Wizarding World, one of the largest and most long-lived of licensed LEGO themes, has had multiple stretches of multiple years in which few or no new LEGO items were offered - even sometimes when there were new movies! Fans of licensed themes are forever lamenting various properties that LEGO touched and then abandoned without ever exploiting their full potential. All this, and yet Minecraft has been produced continuously since 2012; it is now 2019. Given LEGO’s oft-demonstrated propensity for dropping licensed themes before they’ve done everything with them that they can, I have to assume they would never have kept Minecraft going for seven years straight (!) if it wasn’t steadily profitable. Not to look bad, per se, but to look like the source material (and that happens to look... crude, which some would take to look bad).

I’ve seen Avatar brought up a number of times as one of the franchises they hoped to have in Year 3, and multiple people have asked various times which Avatar that meant - the James Cameron movie(s) about the Na’Vi, or the animated series subtitled The Last Airbender - and I think there still hasn’t really been any clarification. Did I miss it? Does anyone know? (I do of course know the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender did in fact get a couple LEGO sets already, back in 2006; they’re actually how I first learned of the show’s existence, as I’d never heard of it before seeing the sets on the shelves at Toys ‘R’ Us, and wondering what they were about.)

Aside from the point I brought up earlier about our not really knowing exactly how well those themes sold or whether they were profitable, I don’t think the fact they each had one wave means anything. LEGO does single-wave themes all the time, both licensed and unlicensed, and for unproven new movie properties, it’s pretty much their standard operating procedure. Presumably if any of those themes had done unusually well, vastly surpassing expectations, they might have done additional waves for the second year, but I don’t think there’s any evidence any of them were planned to have second waves.

Minecraft is only eight years old. That’s much newer than the Wizarding World, Star Wars, Marvel, and DC, and no one’s saying they’re not relevant to kids.

Well, right now my #1 wish for LEGO Dimensions would be for the game to continue. Going beyond that to specific franchises, I’ll reiterate what I said earlier with wishes for Adventurers, Elves, Alien, Buckaroo Banzai, Indiana Jones, My Little Pony, Star Trek, and Star Wars (though I’d add way more packs for Star Trek in particular; also the pack descriptions would change a bit, since Year 2 made Story Packs a thing, and some of my specific pack wishes would change a bit based on that). A few more I’d like to have seen: Babylon 5 Big Trouble in Little China Bionicle The Dark Crystal Forbidden Planet Labyrinth LEGO Universe Marvel Mixels Monster Fighters Monty Python and the Holy Grail The Neverending Story Power Miners Toy Story Willow Wreck-it Ralph There, that ought to do it. :D

The way it’s worded there (“formally”, as opposed to “formerly”) seems to indicate the official title is still The Billion Brick Race, and “The LEGO Brick Race” is just a descriptive informal title, like how the Beatles’ ninth studio album is usually referred to as “The White Album” rather than its actual official title of simply The Beatles. If the article is intended to mean the movie was going to be “The Billion Brick Race” but is now supposed to be called The LEGO Brick Race, it should say “formerly” rather than “formally”. Given the similarity of the words, it could very easily be meant that way and just be a bit of sloppy writing / proofreading, but it also seems possible that it really is officially still The Billion Brick Race and yet everyone involved is referring to it as “The LEGO Brick Race” (since it just seems weird to have a LEGO movie without “LEGO” in the title).

Do we even actually have definitive hard data establishing that single-movie, single-wave licenses like Prince of Persia and The Lone Ranger actually performed badly for LEGO, or is it all assumed based on the disappointing box-office of the movies? My perhaps-flawed understanding has been that a license from even a flop movie can provide enough of a strong (if brief) sales boost to justify the theme’s existence, and they do seem to pursue a diverse mix of themes (both licensed and not) of varying durations (from single-wave, one-and-done themes intended that way at the outset, to ongoing, multi-year themes with endless products). I do notice when some of these go on clearance - I picked up the entire Prince of Persia line that way myself - but lots of sets from lots of themes go on clearance eventually, and It doesn’t necessarily mean that they didn’t have enough initial popularity and sales to warrant being considered successful. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t exactly be surprised to learn Speed Racer and Angry Birds and so on lost money, but I wouldn’t just assume it as a given.

Oh, I’d just like to correct something I noted (incorrectly!) a while back: As has been pointed out, the vagaries and nuances of licensing might break down different parts of a license differently, and it’s possible the existing Disney licenses just didn’t preclude a”Steamboat Willie”-specific set in the way the extant Star Wars license (for one example) has presumably complicated or outright negated any possibility of a Star Wars thing getting through Ideas. Nevertheless, it’s still notable as the first (and likely only) Ideas project to be approved that’s based on an existing license. When I was speaking earlier of the Acclamator Class Assault Ship as the last chance for such a project to get approved (not a Star Wars thing specifically, but any Ideas idea based on an outside property for which LEGO already has a publicly-known active license at the time of review), I was looking at certain big major franchises (Star Wars, Marvel, DC, the Wizarding World, etc.), but somehow overlooked or forgot about this Mickey Mouse idea, despite having supported it. Interestingly, while “Steamboat Willie” is the first Ideas project approved based on an already-active licensed theme, it won’t be the first one released; the Doctor Who set was, as that set was officially released shortly after the Doctor Who Level Pack for LEGO Dimensions was released. But that set wasn’t the first one approved from a known active license, since it was approved and announced months before it was even known LEGO Dimensions was happening, never mind Doctor Who being a part of it. Doctor Who is therefore the first LEGO Ideas set released from an active licensed property (and Adventure Time is the second), while “Steamboat Willie” is the first set approved from one.

I can’t speak for the poster, but I for one do appreciate having the announcement video in the thread about the set. It’s part of our first official word from LEGO about the set. Moreover, it has some entertainment value itself, and it is relevant to the topic, after all. I just wish it were in the initial post. But it would seem strange for it not to be here somewhere.

Indeed it is. The Ghost Busters franchise consisting of the 1970s live-action TV show and its 1980s animated followup (the one in which one of the central characters is a gorilla named Tracy) is actually a completely different franchise from the more well-known Ghostbusters franchise launched with the 1984 movie; they share essentially the same title, but are otherwise unrelated.

Then The Big Bang Theory, The Flintstones, and Friends make three, which is still more than two. Hey, if we’re going down this path, I’d dearly love one from Frasier. I certainly wouldn’t expect one, though (but then again, I didn’t expect either The Big Bang Theory or Friends to happen, so what do I know...).

And now I’ve updated it again with Friends (the ‘90s sitcom, obviously, as opposed to the existing LEGO theme that introduced minidolls).

It’s very cool! Personally, I’d swap the Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom segments so that they’re in the series’ internal chronological order, expand the Raiders segment to include more than just the Peruvian prologue, and most importantly try to work in more of Indy’s adventures. But as just a sort of tribute to the three movies that kicked off the franchise, this is really nice.

They do approve things most of the time. In fact, they approve multiple things more often than they approve no things - I think there have been only two reviews in which they’ve approved no projects, but this is now the seventh time they’ve approved two at once. Six, actually: The Big Bang Theory Doctor Who Adventure Time Voltron The Flintstones Friends And that's just counting entertainment franchises that originated as TV series, not ones that originated with movies but also got TV series, like Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, and TRON.

Indeed, but it’s still surprising, given that the actual Ideas rules and guidelines stipulating that ideas don’t require new parts (found here under “How this works”, in the section marked “We accept ideas for LEGO construction toys using currently available LEGO bricks”) specifically include fabric parts along with conventional bricks: (emphasis added) That wording suggests to me that not only are submissions not allowed to call for new elements, even mere fabric ones, but that there isn’t even a possibility LEGO itself might opt after the fact to produce one for any Ideas set, though clearly The Flintstones establishes that possibility does exist after all. The terms here do specifically note, though, that new stickers are within the realm of possibility. If this textile element is indeed produced using a digital die cutter the same way stickers are, perhaps what the language here really means is that the won’t accept submissions calling for new textile elements requiring production processes specific to fabric and not shared by stickers (i.e., not just cutting for shape like a sticker, but actual sewing, gluing, etc. as has been on rare occasion for things like certain Belville dresses, the Technic Darth Vader cape, etc). Could that be it? The section I quoted from the guidelines doesn’t clearly say that, but perhaps that’s the intent... This would explain the oddity noted a while back of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World being treated as separate properties as far as Ideas is concerned.

Indeed, though it’s still a surprise to me. The characters of The Big Bang Theory are noteworthy for being geeks and nerds into the same sorts of things frequently represented in LEGO, as well as LEGO itself. The same is not nearly as true of Friends (save for Ross). Friends will also be the first TV-based property that is no longer current - The Big Bang Theory is only now in its final season, Adventure Time only just finished and was still in its original run when the set was released, Doctor Who is still running (even if only very sporadically), and while the original version of The Flintstones ran in the ‘60s, some new iteration of the franchise comes along every so many years (not unlike Scooby-Doo, which became a whole theme), and a new Flintstones series is coming soon. They’ve done many movie-originated franchises that were last active several years ago, but this is the first time they’ve done a TV-originated one. In fairness, the Saturn V likely won’t be on shelves any longer by the time one of these sets would have appeared. It has now been around over a year and a half, and has already remained available longer than nearly every previous CUUSOO / Ideas set (all except for the Ghostbusters Ectomobile, AFAICT). It’s a great seller, but won’t be around forever.