Aanchir

The trickiest thing about building a "space train" similar to the old monorail sets using the roller coaster track (from my experience, at least) is that the roller coaster track pieces have much tighter turns and sharper inclines than the monorail track pieces did, which can present issues for carriages that are substantially taller or longer than the default 4x5 roller coaster carriage element. But I definitely think it can be done, and in all honesty, I think a lot of the appeal of that style of build can be maintained whether it uses one rail or two. It's definitely something I'm gonna continue to experiment with on stud.io! For my part, I voted for Bionicle in the second round. It's the theme that was most impactful and formative for me as a child, as well as the one that first got me involved in the online LEGO fan community. Moreover, it's had a huge influence on my subsequent favorite themes like Ninjago and Elves, and on a lot of my favorite sorts of MOCs to build like posable characters and creatures. But judging from recent sets like Barracuda Bay, I'm sure that LEGO will be able to come up with an amazing anniversary set no matter WHICH theme they end up selecting!

What gives you the idea that City cars have been getting "bigger and bigger"? All in all, the scale of City cars and trucks has stayed pretty consistent for about eight years now: four or five studs wide for quad bikes and small cars or trucks (e.g. 3177) six or seven studs wide for large/high-performance cars, SUVs, mid-size trucks, and buses (e.g. 7245, 7635, and 60007) eight studs wide for heavy-duty trucks (e.g. 7900, 4205 , and 60025) Moreover, the width of the new road system can easily be adjusted to accommodate larger vehicles by adding basic tiles along the sides, or potentially even doubled for airport runways or for roads in themes like Agents, Ninjago, and World Racers that have a more exaggerated scale. By comparison, the only way to change the width of roads in the previous system could only be expanded widened by introducing a new baseplate mold, thereby newer road baseplates incompatible with older ones. LEGO did this three times: in 1986, 1997, and 2002.

That could be true, but the named characters were still a big step forward. Aside from Fabuland, previous themes almost never had named characters, and even the named characters created for ancillary media like the Jim Spaceborn or Castle Kids comics published in Europe only vaguely corresponded to actual minifigures. I also believe I've seen adverts for the Pirates comic and/or picture books in some European catalog and/or magazine scans from the late 80s and early 90s, so it may not be accurate to say they weren't advertised anywhere, In my early KFOL years in the 90s, I didn't have any idea that those LEGO Pirates comic books and picture books had even existed in earlier years and/or other countries, but I still was able to identify Captain Redbeard and King Kahuka by name (after all, several of the actual set names included the names of those characters!), as well as indulge in the more jokey, less continuity-oriented comic stories and character bios from the LEGO Mania Magazines. Plus, it's well recognized that Pirates was the first theme to take the then-groundbreakings step of giving minifigures specific printed facial features (such as facial hair, eyepatches, bangs, or lipstick) rather than just a neutral smile with no other distinguishing facial features. So I'd definitely consider the Pirates theme a major turning point, marking when the company began to take a more character-driven approach in both their product designs and marketing. A fair number of the old aircraft pieces (or at least, slightly-updated versions of them) like 4856, 4861, 6153, 13349, 50373, and 93348 actually HAVE remained in use as recently as last year, with several showing up particularly often in 4+ sets. Moreover, even in cases where certain parts HAVE been discontinued (like 3474 or 3933) it's often still possible to at least approximate that classic geometric look using current parts, sort of like how the designer of the LEGO Trains 40th Anniversary Set approximated the original set's wheels, windows, and buffers. The limited color palettes of old-school sets are also fairly easy to recreate in most cases, since most of those colors are either still on the LEGO color palette or have been replaced with a fairly close equivalent (like Reddish Brown and Medium Stone Grey). Honestly, color palettes might be a much a bigger obstacle to recreating certain sets of the late 90s and early 2000s, since by that time LEGO was using a bunch of rare colors like Sand Red, Royal Blue, Medium Green, and Lemon Metallic which the current LEGO color palette DOESN'T have any close equivalent for! I don't think it's very fair to act like having three East Asia inspired themes and a few stand-alone sets based on Asian animals is somehow "not diverse". After all, you could just as easily argue that many of the Town, Trains, Castle, Pirates, Fabuland, and Seasonal sets of the 80s were overwhelmingly European-inspired. But all those themes being based on the cultural traditions of a broadly-defined geographic area hardly outweighs the differences between all those themes. The same applies to the current themes that you mentioned. Also, for clarification, Monkie Kid has nothing to do with ninja. Rather, it is based on characters and stories from the Chinese novel Journey to the West, which was first published in full in 1592, and was based on both historical events of the 7th century and associated legends/folklore which date back to at least the 13th century. By comparison, ninja only began to emerge as a Japanese literary and theatrical stock character in the 17th or 18th century, inspired by historical figures from the 15th century and later. Really, the only major similarity between Monkey King stories and ninja stories is that both tend to involve martial arts and supernatural abilities. But acting like that's enough to ake them basically the same thing is like saying Robin Hood stories and pirate stories are basically the same thing since they both tend to involve swordfights and bands of thieves/outlaws. Well, the Friends theme is rapidly approaching that benchmark! Previously, Belville also lasted 15 consecutive years, though unlike Friends, Bionicle, or Ninjago, that was not because of any outstanding success, but rather because it was modestly successful with an audience that no other themes (not even other girl-targeted themes like Paradisa or Scala) were reaching anywhere near as effectively at that time. The Racers theme lasted 12 consecutive years, although its designs, concepts, and scale varied quite dramatically during that span of time (the 2001 Racers sets had almost nothing in common with the 2010 Racers sets besides being toy cars at fairly modest price points). It can sort of be compared to the Creator theme in that regard, since the 2001 Creator sets were basic multicolored brick assortments for early builders, along the same lines as themes like Basic/FreeStyle/Classic, while later ones were more like the "Designer Sets" of the early 2000s, with more advanced and detailed designs, and less emphasis on abstract, all-ages freeform building. And even before LEGO Pirates, the Fabuland managed to last ten consecutive years on account of great success in Europe, although it never really caught on to that extent among American children. As much nostalgia as there is for Fabuland among AFOLs of a certain age, it often seems to get overlooked in discussions of long-running themes or LEGO's early ventures in multimedia, character-driven storytelling.

Honestly, I wouldn't even assume that kids today aren't interestsed in Pirates and Castle just because specific themes based on those categories have been scarce lately. I mean, plenty of kids in the 80s and 90s were interested in ninjas, space aliens, dinosaurs, globetrotting adventurers, superheroes, or secret agents, but it wasn't until the late 90s that sets based around any of that sort of stuff started coming out. Even then, a lot of those sorts of themes tended to spring up intermittently and only last for a short stretch of time before being discontinued. And honestly, I think there's a strong argument to be made that the prevalence of the Town, Space, and Castle themes in the 80s and 90s (and the Pirates theme to a lesser extent) has less to do with those themes being uniquely universal and timeless than with LEGO simply having an easier time turning those settings/genres into compelling, shelf-ready, fan-favorite product lines than other settings/genres which took longer for them to figure out. I suspect that the Castle and Pirates themes will probably continue to show up in the future, much like the other categories we've seen LEGO revisit at various points over the years. But they are no longer LEGO's most reliable themes like they were back in their early years — rather, that honor is currently held by themes like City, Creator, Friends, Ninjago, and Star Wars, along with the year-after-year mainstay status which comes with it. Whether Castle or Pirates might rise to that sort of prominence again in the future is anyone's guess. But needless to say, themes like Nexo Knights and Elves would not have been created at all (let alone invested in so heavily) if LEGO really believed kids were no longer interested in medieval stuff, nor would they have had successful three-year or four-year runs if there were any truth to that sort of assumption. I mean, it's not like LEGO created themes like Ninjago or Legends of Chima or Hidden Side thinking that kids needed to be persuaded to care about ninja or wild animals or ghosts — rather, kids already had enough obvious interest in those sorts of things for LEGO to see them as promising starting points for new themes. The same can be said for castles, knights, and medieval fantasy in general. Even if that stuff isn't LEGO's main focus right now, it's probably pretty high on their list of prospective theme concepts to revisit in the future.

Well, some kids certainly are (and probably were back then, also). In some cases, girls seem to care more about these sorts of features than boys do. This article about the development of the LEGO Friends theme gives an example: Mind you, I don't mean to suggest that this is some innate or biologically wired gender difference, either. After all, a lot more girls grow up playing with dollhouses and similar toys than boys do, and that probably helps to shape their expectations for other types of play experiences, just as growing up playing with toy cars could impact a child's expectations for what features a LEGO car ought to have. In my own childhood, my interests in these sorts of features might have been impacted by experiences with "dollhouse play" (for instance, at my grandparents' house, I would often play with the dollhouse and dolls that my mom and her sisters enjoyed while growing up). But I think some of the more significant influences for me included: Fictional portrayals of medieval life (movies, picture books, fairy tales, etc) in which lavish banquets and other medieval luxuries featured prominently. After all, what is King Arthur without his Round Table? What is Sleeping Beauty without a bed to sleep in? Reference books like David Macaulay's Castle or the Eyewitness: Castle guide book, which focused every bit as much on the role of a castle in the lifestyles of its inhabitants as on its strategic/tactical significance in armed conflicts. Other non-LEGO medieval toys like Playmobil castles or the Mega Bloks Legend "Lion Kingdom" set. Despite having much less building value than LEGO, these sorts of toys were sometimes better at including lifestyle-oriented features like banquet halls, bedchambers, libraries, stables, and smithies, in addition to the sorts of features that were common in LEGO castles like dungeons and throne rooms. Bear in mind also that my childhood love of LEGO began in the 90s: a time when LEGO Castle interior details were at least making some slight positive strides. For instance, the Royal Knights theme (as maligned as its minifigures were for their "cartoonishness") gave us the first minifigure with recognizably "kingly" regalia like a fur-trimmed cape and golden crown, as well as the first castle with a recognizable "throne room". Likewise, Fright Knights, to its credit, gave Basil the Bat Lord a dining table and fireplace in his own throne room/great hall, in keeping with the Gothic literary tradition of vampires and other aristocratic evildoers living lives of luxurious indulgence. The increasing prevalence of named characters and tie-in media in 90s and 2000s LEGO themes (like the wizard Majisto from Dragon Masters or King Leo, Queen Leonora, and Princess Storm from Knights' Kingdom) also helped make it easier to think of LEGO minifigures as people whose lives extended beyond whatever scenario they happened to be dressed for in a particular set. I suspect this character-driven element is a big part of why today, even themes like Ninjago, Nexo Knights, and Monkie Kid that are largely boy-targeted and have a heavy emphasis on action play still manage at times to include many more "lifestyle features" than traditional Space, Castle, or Pirates sets. Mind you, I totally recognize that for many buyers, standard sorts of Castle sets with standard sorts of features (like the 2010 and 2013 product lines) might be plenty adequate. That said, plenty of AFOLs in this thread and others have already brought up how frustrating it is not to get more sets like Medieval Market Village and Mill Village Raid which focus on everyday medieval people living everyday medieval lives, rather than just on armed conflicts between different knight factions. Furthermore, the Elves theme has demonstrated at various points that it's possible to include lifestyle-oriented features AND conflict/action play features in the same theme or even the same set, even while keeping to about the same price range as Castle sets. As such, I don't see any reason to think that more lifestyle-oriented features in the Castle theme would be a bad thing, nor that it's any less realistic to hope for than the various other wishes for the future of the Castle theme that have been brought up in this thread.

There are a lot more than that. In Ninjago alone, both enemy factions from the 2018 sets (the eponymous biker gang of the "Sons of Garmadon" sets and the Dragon Hunters from the "Hunted" sets) were human, albeit with creepy-looking features like red eyes, scars, tattoos, and/or war paint to help set them apart from the Ninja. Same with Master Chen and his army of Anacondrai Warriors from the 2015's "Tournament of Elements" sets (besides the Chop'rai and Kapau'rai minifigures, which depict magically transformed Serpentine versions of the characters Chope and Kapau). Three of the Sky Pirate characters from Ninjago's "Skybound" sets (Bucky, Sqiffy, and Cyren) were ordinary humans, although the same faction included other non-human characters. And the main villains of the 2017 "Hands of Time" sets (the Time Twins Krux and Acronix) were human Elemental Masters just like Master Wu and most of the Ninja, despite commanding the monstrous Vermillion army. Also, if you consider Kingdoms "recent", then World Racers definitely qualifies as well. After all, even if that conflict was in the context of an organized sport without life-or-death stakes, I think firing dynamite at one another still qualifies as violent conflict! In light of all these counter-examples, I've come to suspect that the number of non-human enemy factions over the past decade or two probably has less to do with toning down the violence in those themes than the fact that monsters, aliens, robots, and the like are popular villainous archetypes among kids, and also help to create more visual contrast between a theme's "good guys" and "bad guys". Conversely, I think the relative scarcity of non-human factions in the 80s and 90s probably had to do with the company's general aversion at that time to subject matter which might be seen as scary, morbid, or occult. I mean, consider that Godfred Kirk Christiansen once threatened to fire designer Niels Milan Pedersen for even jokingly putting a rudimentary LEGO skeleton into a prototype Castle set's dungeon! While various types of monster minifigs might seem pretty innocuous to most of us today, in previous decades the "horror" genre in general was often considered highly inappropriate for kids, and so were many of the types of monsters or other supernatural entities associated with that genre. Even during my own childhood in the 90s, the "Goosebumps" and "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" books (two popular and fairly tame kid-targeted horror series, consisting of chapter books and short story anthologies, respectively) were frequent targets of censorship efforts in American schools and public libraries.

No, I’m arguing that cartoonishness is not a reliable indicator of target age. Themes like Bionicle, Ninjago, Legends of Chima, and Nexo Knights are extremely unrealistic, colorful, and cartoonish, but aimed at older kids than themes like City and Castle which tend to more closely resemble their familiar, real-life counterparts. The reason this strategy is effective is that younger kids tend to be much more excited about subject matter which represents the real world, many aspects of which are still fairly new to them. As they get older, their interests often begin to gravitate towards toys that combine the various concepts they’ve come to in new or unconventional ways. It’s the same sort of thing that has helped to fuel other non-LEGO crazes among schoolkids (short-lived fads and enduring favorites alike) such as Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Pokémon. No matter how blatantly cartoonish these series are, they’re the sort of stuff that a lot of preteen and early teenage kids are crazy about. In some cases, adults ALSO tend to prefer more realistic, grounded stuff with subdued colors over cartoonish, brightly-colored fantasy stuff. But this is hardly universal. Just look at how many old-school AFOLs there are who crave a revival of Classic Space, with its bright blue and yellow spaceships and candy-colored spacesuits with flashy logos, but are not the slightest bit sated by either the Star Wars theme’s gritty, utilitarian “used future” aesthetics, nor by City, Creator, and Ideas sets that draw direct inspiration from real-life space exploration technologies of the past, present, and projections for the near future. Moreover, a preference for realism among adults can sometimes steer older kids AWAY from that sort of subject matter, since preteen kids and teenagers are at an age where they often begin craving more independence from their parents’ influence and seeking our interests that are uniquely theirs — even if it’s stuff the adults in their life “don’t get”, like Pokémon and Bionicle were for my parents and teachers when I was growing up. You’re right that the 2013 wave felt very “by the book”, but I think that speaks more to its similarities to the Kingdoms theme than its differences. Almost every set in the 2013 wave had a fairly direct counterpart in 2010: a big “good guy” castle, a mid-size “bad guy” prison tower, a smaller “good guy” fortification under siege by a “bad guy” catapult, a “bad guy” prison carriage, and a tiny battle scene with knights from both factions and a small siege engine. For that matter, all but the smaller “good guy” fortification had a similar counterpart in the first wave of Fantasy Era sets as well! Also, even if the 2013 sets didn’t really introduce many new ideas/concepts, that Kingdoms had lacked, they certainly made some nice strides in terms of complexity. The Gatehouse Raid set was substantially more detailed than the Outpost Attack, with more brick-built detail, less reliance on large panels or stickers to suggest authentic textures/materials, and even a modular design that could combine with the King’s Castle. The Gold Getaway set is likewise a considerable improvement over Prison Carriage Rescue, not just in size but also the articulated carriage shafts. The small brick-built outpost is also a respectable secondary build for its size. And even the 2013 King’s Castle has a more detailed two-tiered gatehouse build with more complex mechanisms for the drawbridge and portcullis than the 2010 version (even if I have a great respect for the efficiency of the earlier portcullis mechanism, given that tying knots is by far my least favorite part of LEGO building). Mind you, no LEGO Castle wave has yet satisfied a lot of my expectations for the details I would like a Castle theme to include, such as amenities that reflect the lifestyles of castle denizens like a stable, banquet table, and royal bedchamber. And it’s especially frustrating to me now that we’ve seen much less realistic themes like Elves and Nexo Knights that do better at including practical stuff like dining and sleeping arrangements in their castles, even while maintaining more “traditional”, action-play-oriented Castle design features like traps, weapon emplacements, secret entrances/exits, drawbridges, thrones, and dungeons. So by no means am I trying to insinuate that the 2013 Castle sets were somehow flawless, or that they shouldn’t be criticized — just that a formulaic approach like this doesn’t really mesh with the idea that the theme’s faults are due to an underlying strategic change like a younger audience. If anything, that sense of repetition suggests a LACK of major strategic changes or deviations from earlier precedent during the development process.

I'm curious what your benchmark is for "marketed at younger builders", because honestly the 2013 Castle sets seemed to be aimed at pretty much the same age range as usual. They had a minimum recommended age of 5 years for the smallest sets (Forest Ambush) and 7 years for the largest set (King's Castle). The same was true of Kingdoms and Fantasy Era sets, excluding direct-to-consumer exclusives like Medieval Market Village and Kingdoms Joust. The upper recommended age of Castle themes has fluctuated erratically between 12 years and 14 years, but whatever the reason for that, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the sets' size, complexity, or level of realism — for instance, King's Castle Siege was marked 7–12, but Skeleton Ship Attack and Troll Warship were marked 7–14. These days LEGO has largely stopped including any sort of upper boundary on their recommended age range markings, perhaps because of how confusing and arbitrary these fluctuations could seem to buyers. I know a lot of folks tend to assume that even when sets have the same recommended age range in writing, ones with brighter colors and more cartoony graphic design can be assumed to be aimed at younger builders. But I have yet to see much compelling evidence for this, particularly considering that Ninjago, Elves, and Nexo Knights sets frequently have a HIGHER target age range than any non-D2C Castle sets. In these themes, even many of the SMALLEST sets like Spinjitzu Kai, Emily Jones & the Eagle Getaway, and Chaos Catapult tend to be marked for ages 7+, while larger ones like Empire Temple of Madness, Queen Dragon's Rescue, and The Fortrex are frequently marked for age ranges as high as 9+. For that matter, the last non-D2C Castle set with even an 8+ age range was… Vladek's Dark Fortress from Knights' Kingdom II. Even if its size is quite impressive and its colors are a lot more subdued than AFOLs tend to associate with that theme's "Jellybean Knights", its heraldry, play features, and exaggeratedly sinister design language are every bit as cartoonish and unrealistic as the 2013 Castle sets. I don't mean to suggest that there's no excuse for not liking the 2013 Castle sets. But I think especially in AFOL circles there's often a tendency to think that builders' tastes in themes or play features or color schemes are intricately tied to their maturity. And I'm sure some of that is based on our own firsthand experience of how our views of that type of stuff has changed over the course of our own lives. But most of the time these sorts of tastes vary on an individual basis among both kids AND adults, and it's probably both more accurate AND more respectful to other builders just to say that "the bright blue didn't work for me" or "I think there were too many catapults" or "I preferred the older lion and dragon heraldry" than to try and attribute those preferences to your age/maturity or the age/maturity of the intended audience. After all, even if two sets are aimed at the same demographic, that doesn't guarantee that they're going to successfully appeal to all the same buyers! It's fine just to dislike stuff for personal reasons without needing to try and come up with market-based explanations for it. After all, there's plenty of adult-oriented sets that don't interest me, but it's not as though that somehow means I'm not part of the age range they're targeted at. Just that they're not really catered to my personal interests.

In the future, it might be a good idea to break your finale idea into paragraphs so it's easier to read! I don't have much to say about your finale concept itself, though, because I feel like whenever the time DOES come for the show to have a "grand finale", I feel like it would be best for it to draw on plot elements from whichever seasons happen to precede it, so that it feels like a satisfying and natural direction for the story to take, rather than feeling like veering abruptly away from recent story elements in order to focus on "old school" ones. For comparison, consider how prominent a role the lore about the First Spinjitzu Master's Oni and Dragon heritage presented in Season 8 and 9 ended up playing in Season 10. It would have been strange if instead of that very linear sort of progression, the Season 10 story arc went in a completely unrelated direction, and brought back the Skulkins, Serpentine, or Stone Warriors as the main enemy faction — it would have resulted in those bits of Oni lore and foreshadowing feeling like loose ends or missed opportunities. As such, I don't think it's really possible to speculate about what Ninjago's final story arc should entail until we're much closer to that point — and while I understand that you might prefer for the theme to wrap up soonish, I don't feel nearly that same sense of urgency. You may feel that "they've basically done everything", but I honestly disagree. After all, it took until last year for the theme to get a full "underground" story arc, as well as a skeleton dragon — an idea that seemed like a pretty obvious future direction for the theme to take even in its very first year, which introduced both dragons and skeletons to the theme's lore. And it's only this year that it's going to be getting a full "underwater" story arc and wave of sets (two possibilities I'd been contemplating for years). There are quite a few ideas for future directions the series could take which have already occurred to me: Recently, while re-watching Season 3 with my wife, who hadn't seen it previously, she and I both started thinking about how cool it could be if Ninjago got a full story arc set in outer space, rather than just one or two episodes like we got back in 2014. Even if the only "alien life" we've seen evidence of in the series is a metal-eating pest residing on a particular comet, the mere EXISTENCE of alien life seems like the sort of revelation which could have much wider-reaching implications — after all, who's to say that INTELLIGENT alien species couldn't exist as well, or that the ninja would never wind up crossing paths with them? I've also been thinking a lot about the possibility for future sets that introduce actual elemental creatures based on the Ninja's elemental animal emblems (Kai's lion emblem, Zane's wolf emblem, Cole's gorilla emblem, Jay's octopus emblem, Lloyd's dragon emblem, and Nya's crane emblem). While plenty of other LEGO themes have had similar supernatural creatures as a plot device (like the elemental creatures in Bionicle G2 and Elves, or the Legend Beasts in Legends of Chima), it seems like something that would make a lot of sense for Ninjago as well, since those animal symbols have been part of the theme from the beginning, and their significance has never been addressed. While Ninjago has had a few "kaiju"/"giant monster" style threats over the years like the Grundal, Great Devourer, or Preeminent. But imagine the possibility of a story arc where the core conflict revolves around protecting Ninjago from an invasion of huge, ferocious creatures with mysterious origins that emerge to threaten Ninjago, similar to franchises like Godzilla, Pacific Rim, Monster Hunter, etc. Sets like the Hero Factory Invasion from Below sets, the Marvel Eternals sets, and arguably even the Vikings sets do a good job showing how "giant monster attacks" like these can work even across a range of higher and lower price points. Another cool possibility for future sets would be a series of ninja vehicles or mechs that can connect together in different multi-element combinations, drawing inspiration from "combining mecha" from the sorts of anime, manga, and tokusatsu series that have long influenced the Ninjago sets and storyline in other ways. Ninjago has had transforming vehicles and mechs before, but not a lot of combining ones — despite that being a very classic sort of LEGO gimmick in the context of Space themes like Blacktron and Life on Mars. These are just a few ideas of future directions the theme could take based on the sorts of subject matter that that the theme has previously approached or touched on briefly without delving in more thoroughly. But the theme has shown us on many occasions that its range is broad enough to encompass ideas even more far-flung than this while still deftly weaving them into the existing narrative. I mean, it's not like "Mad Max style dieselpunk/post-apoc faction" or "fiery snake mummies" or "frozen samurai zombie empire" would have likely been on anybody's Ninjago bingo cards prior to the seasons those factions debuted in, but they still ended up feeling like a fairly natural fit for the tone and aesthetics of the theme. For all we know, future story arcs could revolve around something just as unpredictable. Regardless, even if none of us are quiet sure just HOW long the theme might continue to run from here on out, I don't think we have to worry about the writers or designers running out of new ideas for sets and story arcs any time soon.

I think that in the very least the idea for those would have been SOME sort of throwback style. There's a lot more ways of making a set look 'retro' than just reducing the level of detail. I think a good comparison is the Pirates of Barracuda Bay set. Certainly, it has a lot of modernized, parts, colors, graphics, and building techniques. But compared to Brickbeard's Bounty from 2009 or The Brick Bounty from 2015, it's a much more direct homage to old-school Pirates sets like Black Seas Barracuda. It very carefully recreates the Barracuda's color scheme, general structure, and even several of its specific decorative elements. Similarly, if Town or Trains had won, it wouldn't be too hard for the designers to create a set that specifically called back to the aesthetics of those old-school Town and Train sets, even while maintaining the higher standards of complexity, detail, and authenticity that would be expected in a modern, AFOL-targeted set. For instance, for Trains, they could create a much more detailed passenger train that retains the 1990s Amtrak-inspired style and livery of the Metroliner and Railroad Club Car, or a train station in the ornate early 20th century style of Metro Station. And for Town, it would not be too hard to create a modernized version of sets like Big Rig Truck Stop or Sail & Fly Marina, maintaining familiar aspects of the structure, color schemes, and graphics, but with much more detailed and modernized parts and building techniques. Some of these sorts of builds that would be highly unlikely in a theme like City, which typically tends to focus on much more modern vehicles and architecture that kids of the 21st century are likely to be familiar with. And even in cases where City sets DO recreate the same sort of subject matter as Town or Trains sets of the 80s and 90s, it tends to end up looking very different from earlier renditions of that subject matter, not just more detailed. The mere intent of creating a modernized rendition of an older set or theme (not just a new set which happens to depict similar subject matter) makes a big difference to the eventual outcome. Also, with regard to your comments about the Crocodile Locomotive and Barracuda Bay, keep in mind that whatever set we get as a result of this poll would come out in 2022. It's not weird at all to get AFOL-targeted exclusives from the same theme just two years apart — after all, the Emerald Night, Maersk Train, and Horizon Express came out in 2009, 2011, and 2013, respectively. The only reason this feels any different is that using a public poll to help decide on a 2022 anniversary set has got us thinking much further ahead than we're used to as fans, and so exclusive sets from 2020 still seem a lot more recent than they will by the time any sets based on this poll actually get released.

As much as I understand this frustration, there's no way of knowing if Castle themes would have gotten as many votes in the first place if it were presented as a singular category rather than broken down into subthemes. I mean, in my own responses, I voted for Forestmen in addition to Bionicle. If "Castle" had been the choice, I might have ended up voting for a totally different theme like Adventurers in its place. After all, we've had new Castle sets in general much more recently than new Forestmen sets in particular, and I would feel kind of bummed if I voted for Castle and the resulting set ended up being a drab-looking gray castle based on one of the more conventional knight factions. Moreover, if you're referring to this StoneWars.de article, take note that even in the versions of the preliminary and final tallies where they combined the results for all the different Castle, Space, and Pirates subthemes, Bionicle STILL made it into the top 3. So I can't see any legitimate reason to think Bionicle "should not even be there". It's true that Space and Castle would have ranked above Bionicle if they'd been listed as singular categories and not broken down into separate factions. But even then, the percentage of users who voted for Bionicle STILL surpasses the number of votes for other "third place" contenders like Pirates, Trains, and Adventurers. And that should be a good indication that the theme remains a lot more popular among adults than you seem to believe.

This actually gets me thinking about the complaints I sometimes see waxing nostalgic about how much more clearly sets stood out against those old-school, diorama-style backdrops from classic themes compared to the more elaborate illustrated backdrops of many current themes — even on beautifully photographed and illustrated boxes like the ones for Barracuda Bay or the Temple of Airjitzu. A lot of the time these comments attribute the difference to the way the sets used to be photographed within a physically constructed scene, rather than the backdrop being added via digital editing after the fact. But I have to wonder how much of this might also be a matter of the limited color palettes sets used back in those days compared to the more realistic and nuanced tones of the surrounding scenery. I mean, Bright Yellow sand, Bright Blue water, or Dark Green (classic green) grass are never going to come close to matching a more naturalistic painted/sculpted rendition of those same environments — but Medium Azur water, Brick Yellow (tan) sand, Sand Yellow (dark tan) soil, and vegetation in more variegated green colors would probably blend in a little better against a more naturalistic backdrop, whether you construct that backdrop around the set or edit it in after photographing or rendering the set on a more neutral backdrop.

I don't think this is really a very fair assessment. First of all, the storytelling appeal of Bionicle extended well beyond the comics — its story was also told through movies, chapter books, online games, guide books, and web animations. In that respect, it was not very unlike more recent story-driven themes like Ninjago, Legends of Chima, or Nexo Knights (although those themes have gotten a lot better at conveying the "core" storyline in a single medium, instead of having to immerse yourself in ALL of those formats to fully keep up with the storyline). That's no coincidence, since Bionicle heavily influenced both the development process of pretty much themes that followed it, and the narrative approaches taken by subsequent story-driven and media-supported themes in particular. In its ninth chapter, the book "Brick by Brick" by David C. Robertson goes into very specific details about Bionicle's strategic innovations that made it so successful and influential. And Bionicle is hardly the only theme (or even the first) to have parts tailored to very specific uses, or an emphasis on character-driven storytelling. More than a decade, the Fabuland theme was very similar in BOTH those respects, even if it was tailored to a decidedly different audience, and told its story through picture books and videocassettes rather than the formats that Bionicle employed. Even the Technic theme has a heavy emphasis on building machines and vehicles — perhaps you could rebuild a Technic car into a house or castle, just as you could rebuild a Bionicle set into a boat or airplane, but either way that would be very far from the use those parts were designed for. Likewise, a lot of traditional Castle and Pirates sets rely heavily upon parts that are just as specific to building castles or boats/ships as Bionicle parts are to building posable sci-fi characters and creatures. Sure, these themes also make extensive use of basic System elements, but similarly, many Bionicle sets and other "constraction" sets (especially larger ones) made extensive use of more basic Technic elements like beams, pins, axles, and angle connectors. If the Bionicle design philosophy really did represent some far-flung departure from the creative spirit of the LEGO brand, it'd be hard to imagine why it would have so many fans who have also been passionate about other LEGO themes before, during, and/or since its heyday. A lot of my own attraction to Bionicle in the first place, besides its story, was my love of building sci-fi robots and mechanical creatures, which had likewise drawn me to System themes like Spyrius, Aquazone, Roboforce, Mindstorms, Throwbots, and Life on Mars at various points in my childhood. As it turned out, Bionicle offered a building system which offered lifelike articulation, proportions, and functions, which made it far more conducive to the sort of creative building I enjoyed than its System and Technic predecessors, in which any articulation or movement tended to be slow, stiff, lumbering, and awkward compared to Bionicle's highly flexible ball-and-socket hinges and swift, energetic gear functions. By comparison, I'd grown up with basically zero interest in more conventional "action figures" (or in comic books, for that matter — the only ones I'd enjoyed up to that point were stuff like Asterix or The Adventures of Tintin, which weren't the least bit Bionicle-ish). It was only from seeing it in the LEGO catalogs and LEGO Mania Magazines that I first gained awareness of and interest in it, and it was the creative potential that ended up getting me hooked, despite` how far-removed some of the parts like the masks were from the LEGO design language I was familiar with. The mysterious and creatively inspiring storyline was just the icing on the cake, and helped it retain my interest through the entirety of my teen years, when other LEGO fans might have been more likely to experience a "dark age" that pulled them away from LEGO entirely. Moreover the wide variety of Bionicle MOCs that fans have created over the years should certainly show that to us, having parts tailored to sci-fi character and creature building is the opposite of a "limitation". My own constraction MOC output over the years has probably far exceeded my System MOC output, despite having been a System fan for much longer!

Depends on the set. For example, some like Miles Morales Mech Armor have MORE articulation than most constraction sets, since they have three points of articulation per limb, plus four more points of articulation per hand (although since the "heads" are just minifig heads, they have just a single axis of rotation, not three like a ball-jointed head piece would). And unlike most mechs its size, Zane's Titan Mech has three points of articulation per leg, four per hand, AND a ball jointed neck. By comparison, most large System mechs like the Monkey King Warrior Mech tend to have considerably more limited articulation (especially in their legs) because of the sheer weight those hinges need to support. Articulation is also sometimes sacrificed in order to "bulk up" joint areas that might look bony or gappy if they included a hinge. I definitely understand how the building style of System mechs and creatures can feel more intimidating than constraction, though, since at larger scales generally have to be built up in a very solid manner, with cosmetic elements woven into the overall structure, whereas constraction models even in the pre-CCBS days often had a lot of their most decorative elements attached ON TOP of a more utilitarian "frame", making it easier to customize existing designs, swap limb designs between different models, or create several varied builds that all have a similar core structure. As such, I can't fault you one bit for sticking with that very familiar building style for your own MOCs as opposed to trying to learn System mech building — it definitely can have a pretty steep learning curve, and I'm far from as skilled at it as I'd like to be. I'm pretty confident that System builds would be able to do the theme justice, but based on my own experience, coming up with designs of this caliber would be well beyond my OWN creative skills.

I think another big difference (besides the size of the individual pieces) is how spread out the Scorpion Palace is, with HUGE openings and heavy use of columns and arches so that it would take up a lot of space even without a whole lot of volume. And I feel like this is something I remember a lot of people criticizing about sets of the 90s and early naughts — not only were the parts large and the piece counts low, but the builds themselves often felt very gappy and insubstantial, especially without a backdrop behind them. But for that matter, I wouldn't downplay the inflation rates between 2003 and today — I mean, $50 back then would be the equivalent of around $70 in 2020. By comparison, Garmadon's Volcano Lair cost just $50 in 2017, but was even wider than the Scorpion Palace and nearly as tall. Enter the Serpent from 2015, Temple of Resurrection from 2018, and The Lighthouse of Darkness from last year are also all pretty substantial in their own right, while keeping to a $50 or $60 price point.

20 centimeters? You mean like a 25 stud by 25 stud circular footprint? That's one big bottle cap! Also, you didn't specify, but is it important that the underside be hollow like a real bottle cap, or can it be solid?

Interesting analysis. While I definitely respect and understand people's frustration about the Castle, Space, and Pirates themes being "split", it's interesting to me that the biggest change to the "top 3" if you aggregate the outcomes of the various subthemes is that Castle takes the place of Pirates. Bionicle and Space would easily take the other two slots either way. That outcome would not have been surprising, given that Castle and Space are much longer-running themes than Pirates, so they tend to be popular among a wider age range. For that matter, even Bionicle has shown more "staying power" than Pirates in terms of how many consecutive years it's lasted in both its first and second generations before being discontinued. Interestingly, if LEGO did end up aggregating the results the way StoneWars has in their hypothetical scenario, it probably would have resulted in a much tighter race. Bionicle already got the votes of nearly a third of the votes in the first phase — if all those same users were to vote for Bionicle in the second phase, and the remaining 68% of users who voted in the first phase were split between the similarly popular Space and Castle themes, then the final outcome would likely be decided by a single-digit percentage of voters. Whereas in a runoff between Bionicle, Classic Space, and Pirates, it seems like it will be much easier for Classic Space to command a majority of non-Bionicle voters. Regardless, in either of these two runoff scenarios, I will probably end up voting for Bionicle in the final phase. Howecer, I suspect that the set we end up getting will be a wonder to behold no matter WHAT theme it ends up being based on, so I'm not going to be too sore if my preference doesn't end up winning. Hopefully we can all resolve to try and keep things friendly no matter the outcome — I'd hate to see the sort of antipathy between fans of different themes that I've seen in comments on social media take root here on Eurobricks as well.

I can think of several good reasons they wouldn't make an announcement like that: First of all, it helps them to be secretive about that stuff so they're not just giving other toy companies a free head start on coming up with competing products (like, say, giving Hasbro time to develop a new pack of 501st Legion action figures in hopes of beating the LEGO equivalent onto shelves). Second, announcing sets closer to release is better marketing, since it helps keep the set fresh in fans' minds up until it's available for them to purchase, rather than fans quickly running out of stuff to discuss about it. Whereas announcing sets long before they're available just pulls attention AWAY from the ones that are already out and available to purchase, and even can motivate fans to buy FEWER sets in order to save up for stuff that won't be available for months or years. Third, announcing a set before specific details like prices, pictures, and features are firmly decided can potentially result in fans' hopes becoming inflated during the run-up to the set release, creating discontent if the eventual reveal falls short of the ideal version fans have already begun to picture in their heads. This already happens to some extent in discussion of LEGO Ideas sets, which LEGO has to be uncharacteristically open about, since fans are involved in the selection process and have inevitably already seen the initial "sketch models" in the form of the projects themselves. Fourth, companies like Disney/Lucasfilm often prefer to have a say in when their licensing partners make new product announcements, even when it DOESN'T include stuff related to future movies or shows. Disney in particular often likes highly desirable toys related to their brands to be announced either events that get major press coverage, like Toy Fair or Comic Con style events, or even their OWN brand-specific events like Star Wars Celebration and D23. For LEGO to maintain licensing partnerships with other companies, they have to be cooperative about keeping secrets on behalf of those companies. And fifth — when people on social media are talking so much about their desire for a particular LEGO Star Wars set, why would it benefit LEGO to shut that chatter down early? It's practically free word-of-mouth marketing. And again, letting the demands and memes and petitions and so forth continue until closer to the time of release ensures that those discussions keep the idea of a 501st Legion battle pack at the top of fans minds right up until those fans have the option to spend money on the product itself.

These sorts of naming discrepancies were very common back in the 80s and 90s! My understanding is that back then, the separate regional marketing departments got a lot of leeway in how they named the sets, characters, and factions. It wasn't until the 2000s that these names started to become more standardized, probably mostly because of the Internet. I've actually spent quite a bit of time looking this stuff up in old catalog scans just to satisfy my own curiosity. Here's what I've found so far in reference to the Castle theme specifically: The category named Lion Knights in the US was named Ritter vom Löwenorden (Knights of the Lion Order) in Germany, Leeuwenhart Ridders (Lionheart Knights) in the Netherlands, Rytíři znaku Lva (Knights of the Lion Emblem) in the Czech Republic, and Le Château du Seigneur (The Lord's Castle) in France. The category named Royal Knights in the US and UK was translated verbatim as Konïgliche Ritter (Royal Knights) in Germany, but in the Netherlands they were ALSO called Leeuwenhart Ridders (Lionheart Knights). As you mention, the category named Black Falcons in the US was named Black Knights in the UK. However, the category named Black Knights in the US also uses that name in the UK catalogs I've seen. It is translated verbatim as Schwarze Ritter in Germany, Zwarte Ridders in the Netherlands, Černí rytíři in the Czech Republic, and Les Chevaliers Noirs in France. The category named Dragon Masters in the US was called Dragon Knights in the UK, was translated verbatim as Draken Ridders in the Netherlands and Drači rytíři in the Czech Republic, and was named Ritter vom Drachenorden (Knights of the Dragon Order) in Germany. The category named Forestmen in the US and UK was named Robin Hood in Germany, Vreijbuiters (Freebooters) in the Netherlands, Lesní Lidé (Forest People) in the Czech Republic, and Les Hommes de la Forêt (Men of the Forest) in France. The category named Fright Knights in the US and UK was named Verwunschenen Rittern (Cursed Knights) in Germany. I realize there's a lot of translations I'm missing, so if anybody has old catalogs from other countries, I'd definitely appreciate hearing about whatever you can find in them!

I suspect that quite a few would, especially those who also enjoy System themes. It's important to keep in mind that for a lot of Bionicle fans, the lasting appeal of the brand had just as much or more to do with the world, story, and characters as with the sets themselves. Frankly, a lot of the iconic imagery associated with the brand was stuff that did not even appear in the sets, like the Island of Mata Nui, the Nuva Cube, and the Great Spirit Mata Nui's true form. That's not to say that I think a tribute set should necessarily focus on that type of stuff — after all, a tribute to the actual Bionicle characters/figures would probably be more fitting for an anniversary set celebrating the theme within the context of the LEGO brand. But it helps to illustrate why a lot of Bionicle fans don't mind seeing the theme interpreted with a certain amount of creative license. It's not at all unusual for official Bionicle media and fan art alike to stylize the characters to such an extent that they no longer resemble the plastic components originally used to build them, and many Bionicle MOCs over the years have likewise employed very different parts and building techniques to give the characters less of a toy-like or robotic look than the Technic-based sets. So there's no reason to think System-based re-imaginings would be categorically out of the question, as long as they maintain the essentials that make them recognizable as Bionicle characters: stuff like metal armor, decorative masks, intricate tools/weapons, elemental color-coding, and miscellaneous mechanical-looking details like pistons. Plus, if the resulting set is well enough designed to appeal to people who don't even consider themselves Bionicle fans — like how the Ninjago City sets appeal to people who don't consider themselves Ninjago fans, or how Barracuda Bay and Benny's Spaceship have appealed to people who don't consider themselves Classic Pirates or Classic Space fans — then that would probably go a long way to compensate for any bitterness or disinterest from more aggrieved segments of the fanbase. Because while there certainly ARE some fans who might react to a System-based Bionicle tribute set as an "insult" or "slap in the face", it's best that we resist the temptation to judge ANY theme's fanbase by its most ornery members. I know I've made that mistake embarrassingly often in the past… Even if Faber had an interest in taking over the entire Bionicle franchise, I can't say that would necessarily hold any more promise for the theme than keeping it in LEGO's control, given that his pet project "Rebel Nature" has languished in the concept development/teaser phase for well over a decade (the first post about it on his blog, back in 2012, described it as a story "7 years in the making"), with little to no finished storytelling media to show for it. Not only could Bionicle's development in the hands of a single individual be just as sluggish, without a clearly defined product release schedule to set the pace or an organized development team to share the work, but there's also no more reason to think that Faber would put his other projects aside for Bionicle's sake than that LEGO would do the same.

I don't think it's fair to attribute the Bionicle votes to sockpuppet accounts — speaking as somebody of the "Bionicle generation", my social media is PACKED with genuine Bionicle fans enthusiastically "signal boosting" the poll to bring it to other fans' attention. And many have been creating Bionicle-themed memes or fan art to garner further attention. Even some actual LEGO designers like Nick Vas and Niek van Slagmaat have been voicing their support for Bionicle in this poll on social media. So have some prominent AFOL bloggers, fan artists, and YouTubers who usually tend to focus more on news, reviews, and interviews of more current themes. Keep in mind that Bionicle was effectively the closest thing to a Ninjago-level hit among kids of my own generation, and while some of those kids drifted away from LEGO after that, there are plenty like me who didn't — especially since many of us enjoyed other LEGO themes long before getting into Bionicle, or even became aware of it in the first place through the LEGO catalogs, magazines, or website. For my part, I've long felt that Bionicle was a considerable factor in why I didn't have a "dark age" like many other AFOLs did before rediscovering the joy of building later in life. Certainly there were several System sets and themes of the 2000s that I took interest in at least partly because they included pieces that seemed potentially useful for Bionicle MOCs. There is certainly toxicity within the Bionicle fan community I don't care for which definitely impacted how long it took me to decide what to vote on, despite the tremendous importance the theme had to me growing up. Some Bionicle fans can act every bit as entitled about the special attention it "deserves", bitter about LEGO cancelling it, and dismissive of newer LEGO themes as older AFOLS can often be about Castle, Space, or Pirates. And it's been genuinely frustrating seeing this poll bring some of those dormant negative energies and long-simmering rivalries back out of the woodwork. But I ended up voting for Bionicle (in addition to Forestmen and Spyrius) not only on a nostalgia basis, but also because I'm confident that a System-based tribute to that theme could be genuinely amazing — especially if it's handled by some of these LEGO designers I mentioned who both grew up with the Bionicle theme and have demonstrated an extraordinary talent for designing highly detailed System mechs, characters, and creatures. Just look at some of the recent $10 mechs in the Marvel Super Heroes theme — if LEGO can make builds MORE posable than a typical Bionicle figure for a price that low even at a KFOL building level, imagine the sort of amazing Bionicle-inspired figures they could create for an 18+ set at a higher price point! This MOC series by LEGO Masters contestant Aaron Newman (@Nuju Metru) offers just one example of what a modern, System-based Bionicle tribute set could potentially look like! But there are any number of ways that LEGO could create a Bionicle tribute set depending on what they felt would be most exciting to buyers — including ones that might even offer some crossover appeal for fans of other themes. I'm not super invested in whether or not Bionicle wins, but I certainly can imagine plenty of tantalizing possibilities if it does.

Thank you so much for scanning and sharing these! I often enjoy looking through LEGO publications from different countries to compare the different ways that LEGO characters and sets were named and described from one country to the next, back before that stuff started to become more standardized in the early 2000s… but despite being from the US and having grown up in the 90s and 2000s, a lot of my own family's catalogs haven't remained in the greatest condition over the years. So it's great to have this sort of stuff archived online for anybody in any part of the world to look up whenever they please! Please know that your efforts are appreciated!

Nice find! Not sure which sets exactly all these new prints go to, but here are my best guesses: 41932 Extra Dots - Series 5 White Circle Tiles with: Neon Flamingo Neon Lightning Bolt "+1" Heart "Hi!" Speech Bubble Peace Sign Yellow # Sign Relaxed Avocado Smiling Lightbulb Grinning Globe Smiling Pencil Black Zebra Stripes Tricolor Leopard Stripes Palm Tree Wave Rainbow Wi-Fi Rainbow Star 41939 Dragon Bag Tag: Cool Yellow Circle Tile with Narrow Black Eye and Straight Eyelid Lavender Semicircle Tile with Smiling Dragon Mouth Lavender Semicircle Tile with Fiery Dragon Mouth White Square Tile with Dragon Wing Pattern 41940 Unicorn Bag Tag Aqua Circle Tile with Closed Eyelid and Rainbow Eyelashes White Semicircle Tile with Grinning Horse Mouth White Semicircle Tile with Rainbow-Vomiting Horse Mouth BTW, the fruit, number, and crown patterns are all from 41926 Creative Party Kit, although in the actual set they are 2x2 stickers applied to white tiles, not 1x1 prints on matching-color tiles as they are in the online design minigame. I'm not sure what the square tiles with blue and yellow dog patterns might be from, though. They seem more like the sort of patterns that commonly appear in individual bracelet sets, not larger ones like the summer sets that we've seen names and numbers for. And the fact that some of the other square tiles listed are missing their correct colors makes it hard to know if they'll even be on a white base like they are in the online designer. Note also that all the patterns that resemble ones from the Creativity Box (like the Rainbow Wedge, "+1" Heart, and Peace Sign) are printed in different colors than they were in that set — similar to the Penguin pattern in the Mega Pack and Heart-Eyed Skull pattern from Extra Dots Series 1. So it's definitely possible that some of the other Creativity Box patterns could show up with slight alterations in future sets as well.

The Friends panda wasn't new — it had shown up in 2014 with alternate printing in both the previous Jungle Rescue Base and the Panda's Bamboo animal pack. The only new-for-2020 animal molds in the 2020 Jungle Rescue sets were the mother and baby elephants, the sloth, and the alpaca (although that one technically debuted a few months earlier in Emma's Toy Store Play Cube). So really not much more than the three new molds in the City Ocean Explorers sets (stingray, hammerhead shark, and anglerfish), and actually LESS than than the 2018 City Arctic sets (rat, sabretooth head, and mammoth head, trunk, and body).

My expectation is that it would be somewhat similar to the LEGO Friends Jungle Rescue sets from last year, sort of like how the LEGO City Ocean Explorers subtheme came out a year after LEGO Friends had its own Sea Life Rescue subtheme. That way, it could present a good opportunity to both continue the National Geographic partnership that LEGO City and LEGO Friends had last year, and to reuse some of the foliage-building pieces that those Friends sets used like the "finger leaf" and 3x3x5 round panel with arches. Of course, it's also possible that with a name as broad as "wildlife rescue" it could also encompass multiple biomes, rather than being strictly jungle-based. But I wouldn't expect ocean animals to be a major part of it since they were such a big part of the Ocean Explorers subtheme, and LEGO would probably want this new subtheme to stand out from that one as much as possible. And if the biomes vary too sharply (like, say, some sets being arctic-inspired and others being rainforest-inspired), it could reduce the incentive for buyers to collect multiples and use them together in the same display or play scenarios. Chances are that some of the animal molds in this subtheme would be totally new for novelty's sake, but there are also plenty of exotic animal molds that could be reused as-is or with new colors/decorations. For example, the chameleon from the Collectible MInifigures and Bookshop modular building has yet to appear in any City sets, so it would be a fantastic candidate for a Wildlife Rescue subtheme. And there are plenty of big cat species or color variants that could be reused using the existing big cat molds, like a white tiger or snow mold — and potentially even more by introducing a new body part mold that can be combined with the existing ones, like a maned head piece to represent an adult male lion. Likewise, with new head and body molds, the mammoth trunk could be a great start to a new LEGO elephant. Lots of possibilities to consider!