Aanchir

The modular buildings may not be dominated by bright colors, but the use of bright colors in a lot of the modular buildings is easily just as extensive as in Pirates of Barracuda Bay. Cafe Corner had vivid White and Bright Yellow awnings. Market Street used Medium Blue prominently for its upper stories, and Detective's Office added Light Royal Blue/Bright Light Blue for good measure. Fire Brigade had a prominent Bright Red door. Downtown Diner and Bookshop both make extensive use of Bright Bluish Green/Dark Turquoise, with additional Light Purple/Bright Pink accents in the diner's case! And even many of the more subdued or desaturated colors that are used prominently in a lot of these sets like Brick Yellow/Tan, Sand Green, Medium Nougat , Sand Blue, Olive Green, and Dark Orange are still far less subdued than the original Pirate Bay project's color scheme, and provide far more contrast. The final design of Pirates of Barracuda Bay is dominated by black, brown, and tan, with more limited use of red, white, and yellow. To me, that sort of color scheme doesn't seem much more vibrant than a lot of the Modular Buildings at all. In fact, most adult-targeted sets that DO feature fewer bright colors than this one are ones based on licensed properties like Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lord of the Rings, Avengers, or Batman — and the same can be said for many kid-targeted sets from the same themes like last year's 7+ Batmobile and 6+ Clone Scout Walker. I agree that 80s and 90s color schemes were pretty limited, and I don't have much nostalgia for them, so I can't say I'd mind at all if changes like you're suggesting had appeared in the officially released design! But the only change of that sort that I feel like I'd overtly PREFER would be replacing the Bright Yellow with Warm Gold. After all, I have a strong feeling that features like the Bright Yellow railings and figurehead in this set (or other similar ornamental uses of Bright Yellow in 80s and 90s Castle and Pirates sets) were probably meant to represent gold-colored ornamentation in the first place. By contrast, this set's use of Bright Red, Medium Azur, or Bright Green don't really seem the slightest bit outdated or childish to me — particularly as the latter two appear in contexts where they're fairly realistic. Back in the 80s, most sets used darker colors for water and foliage regardless of their target age range, but nowadays, Medium Azur and Bright Green are widely used in these contexts.

The opinions he's expressed about the final set go way beyond "liking it". For starters, he gave the designers his approval to go ahead with the version they came up with that turns into a ship long before any of us had seen the final design. The significance of that shouldn't be discounted. Additionally, here are some excerpts of specific things he said during the Zusammengebaut livestream — first, about his decisions with the original model: Second, about his feelings about how he feels about the the changes in the final model: It's not as though for this video was painstakingly scripted or edited to ensure all the comments that viewers heard from him suited LEGO's preferred narrative. It was a live video that Pablo appeared on remotely from his own home. What we heard from him were his immediate, unscripted responses to the questions asked of him by his host, Andres Lehmann. And truth be told, it seems pretty brazen to insinuate that a fellow AFOL — whose creations you openly admire — is so lacking in creative integrity that he'd lie about his feelings about one of his own creations as soon as he's been guaranteed a royalty check. After all, LEGO is under contract to pay him his 1% royalties for the use of his idea regardless of any misgivings he expresses about the changes to his design. Perhaps you WOULD be willing to feign approval of a set you consider a perversion of your own creative vision as some kind of unforced flattery. But that doesn't make it at all fair to assume all builders are that unprincipled. As for the concern about who's goiing to buy this — we've heard that sort of thing about basically every Creator Expert fairground set, every Minecraft D2C set, every Ninjago/Ninjago Movie D2C set, every LEGO Movie or LEGO Movie 2 D2C set, and so on. The reality is that most of these worries are based in unfounded generalizations about what kids and adults like or dislike, or how they enjoy the LEGO experience. Plenty of adults enjoy bright colors, either for their own sake or for the non-specific feelings of childhood nostalgia they elicit. A lot of the recent Modular Buildings are a testament to that. If this new set maintained the same extremely limited color palette as classic LEGO Pirates sets, its colors might be a bigger issue — but instead, it has lots of other colors like Warm Gold, Bright Green, Medium Azur, Dark Brown, Reddish Brown, Medium Nougat, and Brick Yellow (Tan) to round it out. Plenty of kids enjoy pirate forts and other pirate-themed models that don't include a pirate ship. Certainly it might be tough to get kids excited for a pirate fort if it's a choice BETWEEN a fort and a ship. But we've seen plenty of kid-targeted, pirate-inspired sets without a pirate ship main model in LEGO Friends, LEGO Ninjago, and LEGO Creator 3-in-1 — needless to say, LEGO doesn't seem to have a lot of misgivings about their potential appeal. Plenty of people can relate to or feel a nostalgic connection to exaggeratedly colorful pirate ships even if they didn't grow up enjoying classic LEGO Pirates sets — after all, those sorts of aesthetics are ubiquitous in theme park attractions, toys, cartoons, video games, comics, and stage plays. LEGO didn't give their classic pirate ships striped sails, vivid yellow accents, and bold white stripes along the sides of the hull for no reason! And plenty of big exclusive sets aren't bought just for an adult OR a kid, but rather as something for families to enjoy together — a lot of the popularity of the Winter Village sets, Fairground sets, and D2C sets in otherwise KFOL-oriented play themes like Monster Fighters and Ninjago is driven by that sort of family bonding potential. You clearly don't see much appeal in this set, but that's no reason to project your own preconceptions about what qualities make a set "childish" or "grown-up" onto LEGO fans more generally!

Part of me suspects that Medium Azur water was probably chosen in imitation of the lighter color of the water on classic Pirates box art and in classic Pirates comics and picture books. The slight touch of green definitely conveys a very authentic tropical beach vibe — just compare with the sort of results you get for a Google search for "tropical ocean" or "tropical coastline". By comparison, the Bright Blue water in classic Pirates sets or the Earth Blue water in the original Ideas project would be more suited to a portrayal of the open ocean than of coastal shallows — as accurately depicted by the microscale Command Module splashdown in the LEGO Ideas Saturn V set. I suspect the project creator chose that color instead to represent a dark nighttime scene, but that sort of setting was incongruous with the more "true to life" colors used for details like the beaches and trees. Do you genuinely believe that anything less than resentment amounts to "fanboyish euphoria"? Because honestly, I feel like negative attitudes towards LEGO's recent creative decisions tend to be more the norm here on Eurobricks than the exception. Even the very post you quoted clarifies further down that there's nothing wrong with feeling let down about how the final set differs from the original project. The actual criticism in that post is directed at the way some of the negative comments in this thread go far beyond expressing "understandable disappointment", and instead treat the changes in the final model as some sort of wholesale rejection of the original project and the majority of people who supported it. When even the project creator has described the final set as an elevated or refined version of his project in interviews, arguing that any unnecessary changes to an Ideas project are automatic weaknesses starts to feel a tad bit overblown. I mean, the changes here are nowhere near as extensive as the ones between the Pop-Up Book project project and the final set. But I don't think I've ever seen ANYBODY treat those changes as a rejection of the project's supporters, let alone insinuate that those sorts of creative liberties render it pointless to continue supporting projects on LEGO Ideas in the future.

I've held off on joining this discussion cuz I don't wanna get sucked into this sort of debate to the point that it eats up all my time and emotional energy, but I find this comment puzzling. First of all, I have no idea what barely even a 'Bay' is supposed to mean. A bay is not a name for a particular type of structure. It is a body of water, or a settlement built alongside that body of water. There's nothing that makes the final set any more or less of a 'Bay' than the original project by either of those definitions. Both sets depict a body of water, and both sets depict settlements built alongside them. And in general, I don't understand why so many criticisms of the redesign seem to insinuate that the structure and color scheme of the original project have been radically altered or corrupted by the subtle angles and curves added to some of the walls, or the occasional bits of yellow or white trim. When I look at a pic like this, I see a hideout or shantytown cobbled together from assorted wreckage, much like that in the original project. Even the little splashes of yellow, white, and red are introduced as mere accents on a structure dominated by earth tones like black, dark brown, reddish brown, and dark tan. It's only when you clear away the overgrowth and separate the buildings into their component modules that the clear and unmistakable form of a ship begins to emerge. It's not unusual for LEGO to make these sorts of superficial changes, or even much more extensive ones, when redesigning their OWN past products. I mean, just look at the extent of the differences between 9446 Destiny's Bounty and 70738 Final Flight of Destiny's Bounty, or between 9449 Ultra Sonic Raider and 70595 Ultra Stealth Raider, or between the 9450 Epic Dragon Battle and 70679 The Ultra Dragon! Yet I've never seen anybody try to argue that the updated takes on those subjects are "nothing like" the originals. In fact, I feel like it's more common to see new takes on a similar category of product (e.g. stages and riding stables in LEGO Friends, motorbikes and airplanes in LEGO Creator 3-in-1, or dragons and mechs in LEGO Ninjago) criticized for being repeats/rehashes of older sets, even in cases where the new set isn't based on a specific earlier one at all! So it's a bit strange to see all so much sudden insistence that superficial color changes or slight adjustments in the angle of walls are enough to totally cancel out any other resemblance between two models. In any case, modding this set to INCREASE the amount of repeated colors and textures or replace unusual hinge techniques with normal flat walls is hardly a tall order for people who'd rather stick closer to the original set's "big brown box" shape.

I was just chiming in cuz I checked in and saw a post about classic Bionicle marketing, and wanted to share my perspective as somebody else who grew up back then but has seen how a lot of stuff's been shifting across the web (not just LEGO.com). Not gonna lie, I struggle to adapt to it myself sometimes. But please don't get the wrong idea — I haven't been checking back here all that regularly, and have been way too busy with non-LEGO-related stuff to feel comfortable getting back in that habit. The sort of posts I'm so prone to making take a long time and I often end up posting them only to realize it hasn't felt worth all the time, effort, and emotional energy I put into them.

I feel like in most key respects, the marketing strategy LEGO uses for Ninjago is not really unlike the one they used for Bionicle G1, just modernized to focus on different sorts of media. After all, licensed online games, downloadable screen savers, CD-ROMs, comic books, and pro skateboarder endorsements are no longer anywhere near as popular among kids as they were in the early 2000s. Instead, stuff like YouTube videos, mobile apps, and TV and digital streaming services have displaced that earlier stuff as the most reliable ways for marketers to reach kids. I am as nostalgic as anyone for stuff like the Mata Nui Online Game, but you have to keep in mind that it came out at a time when basically EVERY website aimed at kids had "downloads" and "games" and "videos" sections, and when kids came to expect websites to have that type of stuff. Nowadays, that's not the case. Kids looking for free video games to play aren't as likely to start by typing in the web address of a favorite toy brand — they're going to go to the App Store or whatever the equivalent on their devices happens to be. Likewise, kids looking for videos to watch typically head straight to YouTube or Twitch or some other dedicated video hosting app/website. All in all, even if kids continue to love LEGO as much as ever, that doesn't mean that they're always arriving at and pursuing that love of LEGO by following the same pathways as previous generations of LEGO fans. Bionicle certainly wouldn't have risen to such success in the early 2000s if LEGO had marketed it with the same approaches they'd used in the early 80s. And chances are that today's top ways of advertising to kids won't be as effective 20 years from now, either!

How many waves these themes each got doesn't make as much of a difference as you might think, because my post that you quoted only described the number of new molds that themes like LotR and Toy Story got in their first year. If they continued for additional waves, then they got substantially more new molds in those waves: In addition to the 20 new molds from the first wave of LotR sets in 2012, it also got 7 additional molds in its 2013 wave. The Hobbit got 16 new molds in its 2012 launch wave (18 you break down the pre-assembled Warg and Goblin King torsos into their separate components). But it also got 7 more in its 2013 wave, and 12 more in its 2014 wave (15 if you break down the pre-assembled Smaug neck, head, and torso). Toy Story got at least 18 new molds in its first wave in 2010, but probably at least 26 when you break down pre-assembled elements into their component molds. The subsequent Toy Story 3 wave in May 2010 had 17 MORE molds — at least 23 when you break down pre-assembled elements. I don't think the number of new molds in any of those themes can be considered "low effort". And this doesn't even account for how designers could potentially introduce several new prints or recolors for the same price as a new mold, and may be consciously making that choice in licenses that require large numbers of characters, like Super Heroes or The Lord of the Rings. Similarly, I think it's a mistake to think that this theme is going above and beyond the norm for licensed themes in terms of character-accurate molding. From what I've seen, the shape of the characters' faces, ears, and hairstyles are a lot more varied in the movies than the minifigures. Since neither of us have seen either of the Trolls movies, it's tricky for us to recognize from first glance where the designers have cut corners on accuracy to make the most of this theme's molding and printing budgets. But from a bit of googling, the mohawked character Barb should have pointier right ear and a big bite taken out of her left ear, Branch's ears are supposed to be wavier than Poppy's perky, round ones, and Cooper's ears should be droopier almost like goat ears. And Guy Diamond's hair should be tall and pointy, not flat-topped like Branch's hair, which appears on both their minifigs. And even if Trolls: World Tour only gets one wave, there's no guarantee LEGO won't pick the license back up for a future movie, just like they did for Pirates of the Caribbean or Toy Story — or even for spin-offs, as they have done with the Frozen and Jurassic World licenses in recent non-movie years. In that case, LEGO could get much more use out of these molds. Either way, neither the number nor the specificity of molds in this theme seem super remarkable to me. If anything, I feel like they're just getting a disproportionate reaction on account of being different than what we're used to. It's sort of reminiscent of how many AFOLs hated the Iron Man helmet molds when they first came out, and complained that LEGO should've just printed a minifig head like they had always done with Spider-Man, or like they had done with the New York Toy Fair exclusive Iron Man minifigure. It's not as though the number of molds in the first wave of Marvel Super Heroes sets was in any way excessive. After all, neither Captain America or Wolverine got a molded mask/helmet that year, and stuff like Loki's staff, the Chitauri's blasters, and the hairstyles of Black Widow, Thor, and Hawkeye all made use of existing pieces that scarcely resembled their on-screen counterparts — all places we've seen improvement on some level in the years since. But even so, the helmet pieces introduced for Iron Man were bigger, more detailed, and more character-specific than what fans at that time had come to expect as the default, and so led to people worrying that they were wasteful or unnecessary.

Anything fun details in issue 10's interview with Niels Milan Pedersen? I met him during the LEGO Inside Tour several years back… he has so many amazing stories to share from over the course of his many years working at LEGO! EDIT: Never mind, just saw the other topic about issue 10!

No preference on my part, really! Mostly just a matter of what's most suitable for the set or theme in question (depending on genre, size of ship, etc). Same with other stuff that we've seen done nicely in a varied range of materials over the years, like dragon wings, flags, or awnings. As far as strengths go, plastic film is better than either cloth OR brick-built in most cases where you want a detailed pattern (e.g. more than just stripes) that matches front and back or has semi-transparent sections. Cloth is usually best for realistically depicting the billowy shape of fabrics. Brick-built is a good choice in cases where you want a heavily stylized look, like the Rogue Knight Battleship or Metalbeard's Sea Cow, and also for microscale models or other small models like rafts where the scale might not allow (or necessitate) securing a cloth or film sail in the correct shape.

Sure, but even the number of themes can be misleading if most of those themes are small and don't last long or make a big impact on sales for the year. It's also a number that can change considerably depending on how themes are defined and labeled. After all, this year the format for LEGO Super Heroes boxes changed, so they are now labeled "LEGO Shazam", "LEGO Batman", "LEGO Spider-Man", "LEGO Spider-Man: Far from Home", "LEGO Avengers", and "LEGO Captain Marvel". But that doesn't mean that the number of superhero themes abruptly tripled between last year and this year, just that LEGO decided to brand them differently on their packaging. Even in a tally mark situation, the number of licensed themes with new sets this year (Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Disney, Toy Story 4, Jurassic World, Harry Potter, Overwatch, Speed Champions, and Stranger Things) is less than the number of original themes with new sets this year (Duplo, Classic, Creator, Technic, City, Friends, Ninjago, Hidden Side, Architecture, BrickHeadz, Powered Up, and Xtra), regardless of which list you decide to include The LEGO Movie 2 in. Back on the topic of speculation about the future of LEGO Pirates: not to set anybody up for disappointment, but at least a dozen LEGO designers in Billund coordinated their Halloween costumes for the work day to become a fantasy pirate crew: https://www.instagram.com/p/B4Su4JMD0Cw/ https://www.instagram.com/p/B4SmimlJ-Ub/ Maybe they just all thought it sounded like a fun idea? Maybe they're running a pirate role-playing campaign outside of work, since that's a non-LEGO hobby many of them share? Or maybe they had pirates on the brain for some more work-related reason? Regardless, it's neat to see some more pirate-y parts of their creative repertoire on triumphant display, and raises exciting possibilities for what imaginative contributions they might have to offer if they WERE assigned to a pirate theme in the future!

I don't feel like licensed products "dominate" to the extent that's often imagined… while LEGO has had a lot of licensed themes in recent years, the majority tend to be small and short-lived compared to in-house mainstays like City, Ninjago, Friends, Creator, Technic, or Duplo. Those also tend to make up most of the yearly best-selling themes, with LEGO Star Wars as the only licensed theme that tends to get anywhere near the top of that list. On a lot of levels I think one of the main functions of licensing for LEGO is as a recruitment tool… introducing fans of brands other than LEGO a tie-in to something they already like as an incentive to take a chance on the LEGO building and play experience and hopefully get hooked. That said, most of the non-licensed themes that were mainstays in the 80s and early 90s are no longer a near-constant presence in the LEGO brand portfolio like they once were. Instead they tend to show up on a more cyclical basis, not unlike how underwater themes, underground themes, secret agent themes, dinosaur themes, spooky themes, ruins explorer themes, etc. have typically come and go more periodically.

I never said you were wrong. But to be honest, this sort of adversarial attitude isn't really helpful to you or anyone. There's no reason that being a bigger fan of Chase McCain means you have to insult other LEGO characters — it's not like this is any sort of contest or competition where only one LEGO police officer character can have legitimate value. It reminds me of the many times I've seen Ninjago fans on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram getting in a huge huff about how Ninjago is better than Legends of Chima or Nexo Knights, and treating fans of those themes like they're the enemy or the existence of those themes as some kind of threat or challenge to Ninjago. Of those three themes, I definitely prefer Ninjago… but framing them as enemies in some make-believe feud where only one can emerge victorious only makes interacting with other LEGO fans on those sites a less enjoyable and friendly experience for fans of ALL of those themes. On some levels it's also reminiscent of the bizarre "DC vs. Marvel" or "Star Wars vs. Star Trek" or "Nintendo vs. Sega" feuds that kept superhero and sci-fi fan communities bitterly divided for a long time. But eventually, most people in those fan communities realized there was more that united them than divided them, and that they were all better off by having alternatives to choose between, and gained a shared appreciation for what value even the brands/franchises they had once looked down on had to offer. I hope that eventually LEGO fans can arrive at a similar sense of solidarity, rather than so many fans having condescending or even outright hostile attitudes towards themes, subthemes, or characters that don't align with their own preferences. To some extent, I feel like these kinds of divisions HAVE diminished. At least in mainstream AFOL websites and fan events, it's nowhere near as common as it once was to hear people speak about themes like Bionicle or Ninjago with the same level of derision that you might hear towards themes like Galidor or Clikits today. But I think there's still some pretty widespread feelings of division beneath the surface that occasionally manage to bubble up in rather ugly ways.

I'm not sure where you're getting that idea. I mean, Chase McCain was showing up in sets just last year (both in LEGO Dimensions and in City as a tie-in with the multiplatform release of LEGO City Undercover). For that matter, he starred in at least two easy-to-read LEGO City picture books that name dropped him in their titles. Needless to say, those weren't aimed at adults! The fact that LEGO has introduced another named police officer in City sets hardly means that kids don't like Chase McCain. It's probably just that the creators of the LEGO City Adventures TV show wanted more of a blank slate to tell new stories around, rather than a character who already had established personality traits, motivations, fears, strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, relationships, etc. But if LEGO City Undercover ever gets another prequel, spin-off, or sequel I have little doubt that Chase McCain will make a comeback! And who knows? For a long time now, I've felt that one of the biggest changes we might see in a future LEGO City video game compared to LEGO City Undercover was co-op gameplay, which is a staple of most other LEGO video games. It's also the perfect setup for a "buddy cop" premise, with Chase having to work alongside a new partner who he struggles to get along with. Maybe a reckless hothead like Duke Detain is exactly the sort of co-star Chase needs to create the tension that a compelling "buddy cop" story is built around! On that note, if they did make a sequel or spin-off to LEGO City Undercover in the future, I'm sure that the City Police "spin-offs" like Mountain Police, Swamp Police, etc. would provide useful connective tissue between the crime-fighting premise and a bunch of possible new areas to keep the gameplay and story from feeling too much like the first one! Sort of like how the Forest Police sets helped connect the crime-fighting premise of the original game with the areas and missions inspired by the more rural mining and farm subthemes. Honestly, that's a big part of what I like about LEGO City not just showing stuff that's "in the city". It helps to illustrate how the things that happen in the city and the things that happen outside of it are all connected. Even in sets, we see numerous examples of that: how the food that keeps LEGO City denizens fed originates with farms or fisheries and then travels by ship, truck, or train into the city. how civilians who live in the city go on vacation to campgrounds in more remote locations. how loggers and miners outside the city provide the resources that construction workers in the city depend on. how explorers set out on expeditions from the city and bring back finds that can be exhibited at museums, space centers, and — perhaps one day — zoos or aquariums (although I understand how many obstacles might stand in the way in that regard). In terms of non-subtheme-related stuff I'm curious about for 2020, I wonder if we'll see any further use of some of the brands we've seen alluded to in recent sets, most notably the "City Food Market" brand that showed up in the Xtra sticker sheet pack 853921.

I doubt we'd ever see a year focused ONLY on civilian-based sets. In general, LEGO tries to maintain a certain amount of variety to ensure that kids can find something they like whether they're into high-stakes action, adventure and discovery, or slice-of-life scenarios. We'll definitely continue seeing these sets, but I doubt we'd see LEGO go a whole year without any of the sort of emergency services and scientific exploration focused City subthemes that we've seen so often in recent years. After all, those have proven to be major successes for the City theme as well, and LEGO usually has five or six subthemes a year, so it's not like they're ever likely to go a year where they can't make room for that type of stuff AND for more civilian-focused sets. Making up disparaging nicknames for people who disagree with you doesn't make your points any more convincing. You might believe that exploration or police subthemes are causing some kind of harm, but you haven't provided any kind of evidence for it other than your personal feelings. The fact that I disagree with your feelings doesn't mean I want you to feel hopeless or unhappy, just as your disagreement with fans of City police or exploration subthemes doesn't mean you want THEM to feel hopeless or unhappy. Nobody is trying to crush anyone's hopes and dreams here. Plenty of the types of sets and subthemes you've suggested sound like they'd be great for the City theme — I just don't personally believe that any current subthemes need to go away for the sort of sets you want to become reality, nor do I believe that getting rid of existing subthemes would make those dreams come true any sooner.

Honestly? When users here generalize people who disagree with them as a "LEGO Apologist Corp" or anything to that effect, I've found they're usually only talking about people who defend CURRENT sets/themes/subthemes. From my experience, if you criticize retired themes or subthemes like Castle, Pirates, Islanders, Western, Space, Farm, Fabuland, etc, or even suggest that other more current themes can have similar value or appeal, then that makes people treat you like MORE of an apologist, not less. Whereas sugar-coated praise of retired themes or melodramatic lamentation that they're not around anymore is just the kind of healthy opinion that "apologists" supposedly want to silence. In reality, it's totally OK to like, dislike, or be indifferent any themes/sets/subthemes. And I don't think stereotypes and misrepresentations like "LEGO apologist corp" do anything but discourage people from sharing their perspective by making sound like there can only be two sides in any debate, and that whoever doesn't share your opinion on a LEGO theme is "the enemy". Anyway, I agree that World City isn't all that great in hindsight. Most of its strongest attributes were how it began introducing more modern and streamlined vehicles and more detailed figure designs than had been the norm in the Town theme, and all of that is stuff that LEGO City has continued to improve on since then. Also, I feel like World City had an even more excessive focus on emergency services than City does, with hardly any civilian-focused sets or subthemes. What's more, its police minifigure and vehicle designs felt more aggressive, militaristic, and invasive than I'm really comfortable with, considering that in the United States and many other countries, the militarization of police departments is a real and often deadly problem. I mean, 7035 looks downright terrifying compared to pretty much any City police station, particularly with a "police ATV" that resembles a tank. There's definitely stuff in the past that LEGO could use as inspiration for the future of the City theme, but the World City theme didn't have a whole lot of great examples IMO.

I don't think there's a strict limit. But of course, with any themes (licensed or not), it's best if there aren't too many coming out at once that are likely to appeal to the same subset of buyers and end up cannibalizing one another's sales. So I suspect LEGO avoids releasing too many new licenses for kids' animated movies unless their release dates are adequately spread out. Just as an example of movies in this category they've picked up licenses for in the past few years: 2016: The Angry Birds Movie and Moana 2017: The LEGO Batman Movie, Cars 3, and The LEGO Ninjago Movie 2018: Incredibles 2 2019: The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, Toy Story 4, and Frozen 2 2020: Trolls: World Tour and Minions: The Rise of Gru (possibly others, but these are the only ones confirmed so far)

I dunno, I think that these manage to feel a lot more LEGO-like than a lot of previous molded heads in that the facial features (eyes, mouths, and noses) are printed rather than molded. Also as @LuigiBobLegoPants (that's one incredible screenname!) points out, the hair seems to be interchangeable. Look at the character in the cowboy hat… his hat isn't pressed on tightly and you can see what look to be four studs underneath, almost like the head of Mojo Jojo in the Powerpuff Girls sets. Even the "bigfig" type character not only appears to have hair that attaches by studs just like the rest, but his design has a lot in common with the 2018 version of Hagrid: short legs, standard minifig hands, and the same bulked-up but otherwise plain looking arm mold. Was Angry Birds even a disaster, or is that just confirmation bias from people who expected it to fail in the first place? According to designer Samuel Johnson, Angry Birds did very well. And I trust his word a lot more than anecdotes about how it did in individual stores, considering that I've seen plenty of people try and cite similar anecdotes to claim that long-running themes like Star Wars, Ninjago, Friends, Super Heroes, Minecraft, or any number of other successful themes sell poorly. Why is the number of new molds here "insane"? I've watched the video a few times and I can count 20 or so new molds among these ten characters. That's no more than the number of new molds from the 2011 Pirates of the Caribbean sets or 2012 Lord of the Rings sets. And it's a lot less than the over 40 new molds for the 2010 Toy Story sets, many of which were far less customization-friendly. I might even be overcounting some of them, since I suspect several the decorative parts we see here like sunglasses or flowers probably come as an accessory pack with several different shapes produced by a single mold, like 35032, 36083, 37720, 40598, and 50018 from LEGO Super Heroes or 92355, 93080, 93081, 93082, 98393, and 49595 from LEGO Friends. To you, the molds might seem "absolutely useless", but a lot of people might argue the same thing about IP-locked helmets, alien/droid pieces, etc. created for other licenses like Super Heroes and Star Wars. One way or another, with seven sets currently rumored, it shouldn't be hard for LEGO to get their money's worth out of a lot of these molds even just within this theme, as they have with IP-locked molds in so many other themes by this point.

While I'm sure there ARE insider sources like you describe who would get in trouble for sharing info that LEGO hasn't made public, I think you should also be wary that sometimes hoaxers also request anonymity to keep others from proving they aren't who they say they are. This has been a big issue in the past with "leaks" from people claiming to be designers, store managers, etc. and convincing other fans to spread fake rumors on their behalf. But if you already considered that risk and did what you need to verify that your source is legit, then I'll trust you. I definitely know a lot of people at LEGO, including designers like @Nabii, DO believe that the percentage of adults in the LEGO fandom has grown since the number obtained and reported in 2009… but 40% still seems higher than most of the estimates I've heard. Then again, it might've been a few years since the last post I saw from a LEGO employee speculating on that matter, so maybe it's now higher than those estimates? Regardless, it's probably best for us in the long run that LEGO continues to focus mostly on kids, even as more sets and themes start to acknowledge their older buyers. After all, a lot of us became AFOLs in part because we had so many valuable childhood experiences as KFOLs… and if LEGO did begin focusing on our grown-up tastes to the point that we became a majority of their audience, then that could mean fewer people 20 years later who enjoyed LEGO enough as kids to maintain that same enthusiasm into adulthood. Sounds like we're on the same page! I definitely feel like one thing that has helped to ensure that even kid-focused sets or themes can still appeal with adults is the number of AFOLs who have become LEGO designers. Even if the themes they work on are mostly aimed at kids, these designers generally have enough insight into the tastes of LEGO collectors and builders of their generation to know what kinds of parts, techniques, or subject matter they typically find exciting. No amount of focus testing or market research aimed our way can really replace the kind of firsthand experience a designer gets from being PART of our communities and sharing our perspectives on such a personal level. In fact, on some levels, it's not unlike how when creating LEGO City or LEGO Friends, a key step in the process was actually talking with and observing the way kids played with LEGO and other toys in their homes, so that they had an authentic inside look into what those kids sought in a play experience. And the amount of useful insight that can be gotten out of more conventional methods like focus groups, surveys, or sales analysis is a lot less hit-or-miss when designers have those much more extensive and personal forms of background knowledge that they can refer to for context. It's also worth noting that not all sales are intended for clearance on items that aren't selling at full price. Especially as the winter holidays get closer and people begin to think about holiday gift shopping, it's normal for a lot of retailers to run lots of sales and deals aimed at making sure you buy popular wish list items (like the latest toys, clothes, and video games) from THEM rather than from competing retailers. With LEGO in general being a perennial holiday favorite, and LEGO Hidden Side being particularly new and cutting-edge in terms of the types of play experience it has to offer, I can imagine it getting a lot of promotional emphasis from retailers, just like various other trendy "tech toys" have in past years.

I think that in general, there's a tendency for communities like this one to perceive themes in a positive light the longer they've been gone. I definitely liked themes like Agents, Power Miners, Space Police 3, Atlantis, and Monster Fighters. But all of them were despised by a lot of AFOLs during their heyday. If you asked many people about these themes back when they were first announced or released, they'd tell you the characters were too cartoonish, the vehicles were too oversized and unrealistic, the color schemes were too bright and garish, the scenarios were too violent, the play features were too childish, the storylines were not open-ended enough, they used too many chunky, overspecialized pieces, the genres were too much of a mish-mash, and in general they paled in comparison to predecessors like Rock Raiders, Space Police 1, Space Police 2, Aquazone, or Aqua Raiders. In other words, to a lot of AFOLs they epitomized everything wrong with LEGO and/or everything wrong with the current generation of kids, and were a sign that the company was abandoning its values and/or making the same mistakes as they had in the late 90s and early 2000s. Basically, it was all the same type of reactions a lot of AFOLs have had to themes like Legends of Chima, Nexo Knights, and Hidden Side in more recent years. You can look at some of the discussion threads here on Eurobricks if you don't believe me. Keep in mind the negativity usually doesn't hit a fever pitch until however many pages in people begin discussing actual pictures of the sets… up until that point it's mostly just speculation about what people want (or don't want) the sets to be like: https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/14439-pics-of-the-agents-line/ https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/21117-power-miners-new-sets-for-2009/ https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/22997-space-police-2009/ https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/32226-atlantis-2010/ https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/62512-monster-fighters-2012/ Overall, I don't think the tendency to be wistful or nostalgic about past themes has anything to do with their length, more with how long it's been since they've been gone and/or how different they are from the current range of themes. After all, plenty of people are intensely fond of and nostalgic for like Castle, Pirates, Fabuland, Adventurers, Racers, and Bionicle that ran for a considerably longer stretch of time. And conversely, there are lots of short-lived themes or subthemes that a lot of people DON'T tend to have the same widespread nostalgia for, such as Time Cruisers/Time Twisters, Extreme Team, Cyber Slam, Slizer/Throwbots, Roboriders, LEGO Island Xtreme Stunts, Dino Attack/Dino 2010, World Racers, and Ultra Agents. In recent years there have been some folks suggesting that those older themes were so great and memorable BECAUSE they were short. But I think more often than not, the implication is really just that they want longer-running themes they dislike (e.g. Friends, Ninjago, Elves, Nexo Knights, or BrickHeadz) to go away already and make room for something different. After all, in most cases, fans of themes that only lasted a year or two don't WANT them to end so quickly, and saw that as a mistake, a missed opportunity, or a waste of the theme's potential. This explanation doesn't seem like it really holds up when you consider how many of us AFOLs don't agree on what we do or don't want to see from LEGO. Some of us love themes like LEGO Ninjago or LEGO Friends, and some of us hate them. Some of us greatly prefer non-licensed themes over licensed ones, and some of us are the opposite. Some of us love themes with compelling stories, and others think that those themes ruin the open-ended creative spirit of LEGO building and play And there are definitely a lot of ways that LEGO is arguably targeting teen and adult buyers far more extensively than in the past, whether or not all those ways appeal to all AFOLs individually: introducing licenses that are perceived as less kid-friendly like The Simpsons, The Big Bang Theory, Overwatch, and Stranger Things creating more and more high-priced exclusive sets in themes like Star Wars, Creator Expert, and Technic launching products based on non-current movies and shows like Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, The Flintstones, and Voltron producing sets in themes like Architecture, BrickHeadz, Forma, and Ideas that are more intended as display pieces than playsets. In fact, from the perspective of some AFOLs, LEGO is focusing TOO much on their older fans at the expense of children, even if there hasn't been any substantive evidence at this point that kids are losing interest in LEGO. I definitely disagree with that kind of fearmongering, but I do feel like it's a mistake to assume that all the stuff that frustrates us about LEGO would get better if the company listened to AFOLs more. After all, "listening to AFOLs more" might've meant that themes many of us have enjoyed like the ones listed in the first post would've never been introduced to begin with, since when they first came out, the majority consensus among AFOLs seemed to be that they were kiddie garbage with little to no redeeming value.

I think it's OK if I reply to something a little bit off topic as long I keep it from dragging out too much, the way my on-topic posts often end up doing! I definitely would love to own this set, but it might depend on how soon I can finish getting the other sets from my wish list, and how much they'll end up costing me! I try to stick to buying LEGO sets on sale whenever possible, and also to prioritize the sets I'm most excited for from the themes I'm most committed to collecting like Ninjago, The LEGO Movie 2, etc. It definitely would make a fun build and an amazing display piece, much like some other Ideas sets my family keeps on display year-round like the Birds set! Maybe instead of getting it for myself it might make a neat Christmas present for my dad. I also have other friends who are really into dinosaurs and would definitely enjoy getting this as a gift, if they don't buy it for themselves before Christmas arrives! Besides a museum setting, I think a square or a park would be a good place to display stuff like this. In real life you certainly wouldn't see real dinosaur fossils outside where they could be damaged, but casts of them in a sturdier material make great outdoor decorations especially if there's a museum or science center nearby that they could be helping to promote!

Looks like nobody's shared the designer video here yet: Some highlights: As suspected, the "LEGO Sapiens" skeleton is something Niels added to represent himself. However, the museum visitor was in fact based specifically on the LEGO Ideas project creator, Jonathan Brunn. So much for all the hand-wringing I've seen from people who thought Niels putting a self-referential easter egg was somehow erasing or disrespecting the original project creator… Niels apparently built around 50 different dinosaur fossils during development (some of which are visible on the shelves behind him at various points in the video). That number is given in a quote from a separate designer, Samuel Johnson, expressing his surprise when he checked in on Niels, so there may be some hyperbole there… but suffice to say, several were made and there was a thorough process of comparing them to figure out which would be best for the final set. Some of Niels' earlier dinosaur fossil builds on the shelves behind him ARE in tan, confirming that the possibility of keeping tan as the main color was also explored before settling on white. Niels mentions that the three dinosaurs in the final set are in the same scale and from the same time period. While he doesn't state outright that serendipity of scale or time period were the reason for choosing them, I suspect they probably played into the final decision in some capacity. He also has examples of some of the sets, figures, and parts he helped design over the years on the shelves behind him and the table in front of him, if you didn't already realize how long he's been working at LEGO or how many iconic stuff he's had a hand in creating! Thank you! I updated my sigfig a while back to reflect the new color my hair has been since this summer, but it took a while for me to get around to uploading it on sites like this one, and I'm still occasionally finding more sites where I still need to get it up to date! Full disclosure: the frame I used was not my own work. It was created by a fellow member of the GayFOLs group on Facebook and shared here for other LEGO fans who wanted to use it on their Facebook profile pictures.

Well, like Steampunk, there are a lot of varying definitions of Dieselpunk depending on how strictly you want to stick to the original "alternate history where technology evolved differently" premise. So just as with Steampunk, some Ninjago sets like 70747, 70650, 70654, 70669, and 70677 could be considered Dieselpunk or at least Dieselpunk-adjacent. As could some Monster Fighters vehicle and character designs, which for some reason I tend to see more often described as Steampunk. The same applies to Batman/DC Super Heroes/The LEGO Batman Movie sets, considering that Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film and Batman: The Animated Series are both sometimes considered Dieselpunk due to their extensive referencing of 1940s tech, fashion, and societal developments. Even in more modernized, high-tech incarnations, Batman franchise portrayals of stuff like organized crime, mental health treatment, policing, industrial settings, the lives and tastes of the mega-wealthy, etc. are often very plainly influenced by elements of the early comics of the 30s to 50s which would be far less believable in a modern-day, real-world setting. I have no doubt that designers have proposed and tested numerous ways of using dieselpunk aesthetics in sets, whether it's as the basis of a theme or as the basis of particular subthemes, factions, and sets within a larger theme. And Mark Stafford's awareness of genres like Dieselpunk, Sky-Fi, etc. is hardly a fluke, considering that he and a lot of other current designers like Marcos Bessa, Adrian Florea, Nicolaas Vas, and so on were hired from the same community of AFOL MOCists who first exposed many of us to these concepts.

A lot of the closest sets we've seen to a Steampunk design philosophy or aesthetic have been in themes that cover a wide range of genres: 9446, 70738, 70601, 70603, 70605, 70623, 70677, and 70618 from LEGO Ninjago/The LEGO Ninjago Movie all iterate on the concept of a flying ship, a popular steampunk concept. However, many also incorporate technologies that fall outside of a strict definition of "steampunk" like computers, solar panels, or rockets, as well as magical fantasy elements. 70807, 70810, 30528, 70834, 70836, and 70848 from The LEGO Movie/The LEGO Movie 2 feature different versions of Metalbeard, whose body and vehicles are generally steampunk inspired. But again, the V8 engine on his motor trike would be too modern to qualify as steampunk under a strict definition. 20215 from LEGO Master Builder Academy came perhaps the closest of any set to "true" steampunk. 41536, 41537, and 41538 from LEGO Mixels depict the Klinkers, a Steampunk-inspired tribe of Mixels. As with all Mixel tribes, the three can be combined into a larger "Max" model with a similar theme and aesthetic. 41071, 41184, 41193, and 30375 from LEGO Elves depict airships which avoid any post-19th century tech. But because elemental magic is the main power source in Elvendale, these sets lack anything resembling actual steam engines or boilers, and thus are arguably too low-tech to count as steampunk. Of licensed themes, Avatar: The Last Airbender falls most neatly under the definition steampunk, despite taking place in a fantasy world rather than an alternate-history version of Earth. The Fire Nation boats, ships, and tanks are powered using coal-powered steam engines. As for why LEGO hasn't had a full Steampunk theme, LEGO designer Mark Stafford (@Nabii) has spoken to that a few times, including here on Eurobricks. Some of his comments from this Reddit thread (caution; some foul language in some of the comments he's replying to) go into perhaps a little more detail about what he means by "the conventions/history that are being twisted": Regardless, I'd love to see a more dedicated steampunk theme as well! Granted, I'm not too picky about whether it obeys a strict definition of the term — a lot of the steampunk works I've enjoyed skew perhaps closer to the genre sometimes called "gaslamp fantasy", which combines more traditional "steampunk" technologies with fantasy and sci-fi tropes common in 19th century fiction. Some of the "gaslamp fantasy" works I follow include the webcomics Girl Genius and The Glass Scientists. Sometimes I wonder whether steampunk would be a good fit for a girl-oriented sci-fi line using mini-dolls, since they might be better equipped than minifigures to depict some of the ostentatious pseudo-Victorian fashions often associated with the Steampunk genre.

Well, one thing I've long wanted to see is a new system of road pieces that would have more of the sort of versatility we see with lego train tracks. Previous road baseplates and playmats are simply ill-equipped for building stuff like hills, bridges, overpasses, underpasses, partial curves, etc. They also lack antistud connections and have The closest we came to a more versatile system like that was in 6600 Highway Construction, and that was far from ideal, since it allowed only for 90 degree curves and a rather sharp incline. I suppose this isn't strictly a City-related request since LEGO might release it as part of a more neutral theme like Xtra if they were to take this step… but it is primarily relevant to themes like City and Friends that tend towards modern-day urban settings.

Can't say I agree about the slushie machine looking futuristic… if anything, the design reminds me of the aviation-inspired "streamline moderne" aesthetic popularized from the 1930s to the 1950s. Designers like Raymond Loewy applied to anything you could think of, including buildings, cars, trains, toasters, gas pumps, jukeboxes, radios, blenders, coffee machines, and more. Certainly by the standards of the time, variously celebrated as the "space age" or the "atomic age", that aesthetic would've felt cutting edge, like something you might see on the cover of a pulp sci-fi magazine. But appliances with that aesthetic would've been around well over a half a century before stuff like Jack and Parker's cell phones, to say nothing of all JB's weird sci-fi gadgetry! And today, appliances with that sort of aesthetic are usually designed and marketed for their "retro" appeal, such as the "Nostalgia Products" brand: https://nostalgiaproducts.com/collections/beverage