Aanchir

I'm not sure I agree with this rationale. I mean, if you follow it to its eventual conclusion, then a LOT of past Collectible Minifigures (even popular ones among historic or sci-fi builders) could have been omitted on the same grounds: the Spaceman, Robot, Space Alien, Space Villain, Alien Villainess, Evil Robot, Battle Mech, and Evil Mech could have appeared in then-current Space sets the Forestman, Elf Warrior, Evil Dwarf, Frightening Knight, Heroic Knight, Forest Maiden could have appeared in then-current Castle sets the Zombie Pirate could have appeared in then-current Pirates sets the Mummy could have appeared in then-current Pharaoh's Quest sets the Samurai Warrior, Kimono Girl, Samurai, and Evil Wizard could have appeared in then-current Ninjago sets the Vampire Bat could have appeared in then-current Monster Fighters sets Santa Claus, the Gingerbread Man, and the Holiday Elf could have appeared in then-current Winter Village or Seasonal sets. But would fans of these themes have been any better off if these figures HADN'T shown up in the blind bags? After all, just because they COULD have appeared in regular playsets doesn't mean they WOULD have. Most of those themes those figures could have hypothetically fit into presumably already had as many unique new figures as their assigned budgets, price points, and new element allowances could cover. And just because the figures fit in with those theme concepts as a whole didn't mean they fit in with then-current sets, waves, or subthemes. It's also possible that in some cases, the ability to use a new mold in the collectible minifigures is the only way that mold gets made, since its "parent theme" might not be able to budget it into enough sets on its own to justify the development molding costs. The same applies to LEGO City. Even if the modern-day figs from this series could hypothetically appear in future sets — particularly sets in the general-purpose "Town" subtheme such as the people packs — there might not be a set in question that's suited to AND has the budget for many these particular figure designs for years. Plus, I suspect that the perennial popularity of modern-day subject matter — as evidenced by the perennial best-selling status of themes like City, Friends, and Creator which depict primarily modern-day scenarios — probably helps to boost the overall popularity and sales of the blind bags. And that may what allows LEGO to continue releasing minifigures from more uncommon categories that might not have the same proven popularity with kids or have full themes of their own, like Ancient Roman, Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian, Western, etc. The bare torso here seems to have a different physique than most of those we've had in sets before, which might make it useful for some purposes that the others might not have been. The rubber duck and brush never came in these colors before. The facial expression, with big grin and closed eyes, has only appeared on four figures: an Emmet Brickowski minifigure that has no eyebrows, a Crayon Girl minifigure that has lipstick, an Aaron Fox minifigure that has freckles and dark orange eyebrows, and a Queenie Goldstein minifigure that has lipstick, reddish brown eyebrows, and light nougat skin. A minifig head like this with black eyebrows and no lipstick has not previously existed. And of course, these blind bags are not designed specifically for AFOLs who can purchase whatever parts they want on BrickLink even if they haven't been available in sets for years. They're also intended for kids and adults who might be more casual collectors. If the ability to build a particular subject yourself using retired parts were reason enough not to release it as a new set/figure, then we wouldn't see nearly so many people yearning for LEGO to bring back Castle, Forestmen, Classic Space, Blacktron, Adventurers, Pirates, Islanders, Wild West, etc. Since… I dunno, at least as long as I've been alive? I mean, it's a mascot costume, not a real pizza slice, so it looking a little stylized is to be expected. This is about as accurate as I'd imagine a pizza slice costume to look in real life. Besides, I don't see why it's worth wishing for a mold to be LESS versatile. By using a mold without molded toppings, LEGO could potentially reuse it as a gift-with-purchase depicting a pizza costume with different toppings (like, say, shrimp and green peppers, How are the colors wrong? Tan crust, yellow cheese, red sauce and pepperoni, black olives… none of that is the least bit unusual in either real life or LEGO. Not all real pizzas or LEGO pizzas will have those exact same ingredients in those same colors, but some certainly do. Language is descriptive, not prescriptive. If enough people use a word with a particular meaning, it becomes a meaning of that word in their language even if it's not a meaning of that word in the language they derived it from. Just look at how many medical and scientific terms come from Latin or Greek, but have different meanings in medicine and science than they did to the original speakers of those languages. "Coccyx" in Greek meant "cuckoo", but in medicine refers to the tailbone. "Bicps" in Latin meant "two headed", but in medicine it refers to an arm muscle. Words gaining new and different meanings as they are adopted by new groups of speakers, new languages, or new contexts is not only normal but common, and has been happening constantly and throughout history. It's not a big deal.

DreamWorks Dragons covers the How to Train Your Dragon movies and spin-off media, which as of right now includes three animated movies, four animated shorts and an eight season/118 episode animated series. The series is about a fantasy Viking society that does battle with but eventually makes peace with the numerous dragon species that inhabit their world. It's a really neat series! I haven't done a great job keeping up with it (I only watched the first film and some of the shorts this year, and still haven't watched the other films or the animated series), but a lot of my friends are big fans. Spirit Riding Free is a animated series on Netflix and a spin-off of the 2002 DreamWorks movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. I definitely understand not having heard of this series — I hadn't either until I saw other toys with that brand while browsing the toy department at Target one time. Wow! I'm sure having a twin brother growing up helped with that, as did having an AFOL parent (my dad, though his preference has always been for town and trains sets). That said, as a kid I also didn't quite appreciate just how wealthy my family was. Looking back at what some of the sets I owned back then actually cost, and just how many there were, it seems painfully obvious that I was probably in a much better position to become a die-hard LEGO enthusiast than a lot of my peers… I think that this benefit of hindsight is probably also part of why I tend not to be so caught up in nostalgia or wanting sets from my childhood to be re-released… as an adult, I still have a fair amount of disposable income, but I've become well aware of how much money and space this hobby entails. I feel like modern sets/themes generally tend to offer both a better value for money and better designs that utilize their contents to greater effect (in terms of detail, building experience, and playability) than ones from my childhood did. One favorite set of mine during my early childhood was 6195 Neptune Discovery Lab. But that set cost $89 even back then — the equivalent of $149.58 in today's money — for just 508 pieces (weighing 1077 grams) and four minifigures! Mind you, that high price is understandable for a set that contained two uniquely-printed raised baseplates, chrome/metalized accessory pieces, magnets, a pre-assembled crane bucket, a fancy box with window and front flap, and numerous other parts with rare printing, molding, or colors. Even so, I feel like there are many newer sets like 60200 Capital City, 60229 Rocket Transport and Assembly, 70425 Newbury Haunted High School, 70677 Land Bounty, 70839 The Rexcelsior!, and 41375 Heartlake City Amusement Pier that offer a way better building, play, display, and parts value for between $120 and $150. And I have little doubt that's possible BECAUSE they don't have to cover all the extraneous costs associated with those 90s gimmicks. Truth be told, this is definitely one of those things about newer sets that I've gotten used to and even come to appreciate — their efficient use of space. A lot of older sets had a LOT of baseplate space without anything built on it. And while this gave you space to play with the minifigures and sometimes had printed details so it wasn't entirely featureless, I don't find it that hard to use my imagination (or build my own extensions to the model) to serve as the scene surrounding the actual structure's foundation. And sets using compact foundations like that isn't even a new phenomenon! Classic Castle and Pirates sets like 6061, 6041, 6067, 6074, 6035, 6259, 6248, etc. were likewise built on plates only about as big as the foundation of their structural elements required, without a lot of empty or unused space surrounding the structural elements. Additionally, I think it bears mentioning that Soldier's Outpost was specifically designed to link up with the pier in 70412 Soldier's Fort, which would naturally give your minifigures a little more brick-built space to play around in! Larger baseplates, when they did appear in classic sets, generally came at a cost premium — just compare the price and piece count of 6260 to 6258 or 6265 to 6248— so I suspect a major reason that fewer of them appear in today's sets is to alleviate "sticker shock. After all, today's families often have less disposable income than many families in the 80s and 90s, and think of even sets at today's prices as expensive compared to many competing toy brands. And I felt like there was a lot to like about the naturalistic, brick-built, three-dimensional landscaping in some of those 2015 Pirates sets compared to how islands, coasts, and jetties had been depicted in previous Pirates sets. In a lot of ways it reminded me of the really detailed landscaping techniques in sets like 9476 The Orc Forge, which I wouldn't have previously expected to see in sets with a 5+ or 6+ target age. I guess that's just another way that even today LEGO continues to surprise me with improvements over design standards I've come to take for granted. Stuff like that helps me avoid feeling too downtrodden when themes I'm passionate about like Bionicle, Hero Factory, and Elves get discontinued. Since I tend to perceive the general trends in LEGO design as positive ones, it's easier for me to remain optimistic that there will always be sets and themes going forward that's just as exciting and impressive to me as the sets and themes I've enjoyed in the past. Especially given LEGO's persistent tendency of repeatedly circling back to concepts they've explored in the past!

There may not BE a license obstacle for selling DC characters as stand-alone figures. It all depends on how LEGO's licensing contract (and any other toy companies' licensing contracts) are written up. In a lot of cases, blind-packaged collectible figures, figures for a building toy system, and action figures are treated as separate toy categories, and licensing contracts for any of these can include clauses clarifying which other categories are or aren't covered under the terms of the agreement. So for example, the licensing agreement that allowed Hasbro to make Marvel action figures from 2007 to 2011 had an extensive section clarifying what WASN'T considered an "action figure" under the terms of the license:

For what it's worth, I was playing with LEGO as early as 1994/1995… I was a really quick learner as a kid, and that extended to LEGO as well as to stuff like reading and math. My brother and I even dressed up as an Imperial Guard and King Kahuka for Halloween 1994, and at some young age I remember having a Pirate-themed birthday party with a "volcano cake" that my parents decorated with LEGO Pirates minifigs and palm trees, so it's not as though I had no fond or nostalgic childhood memories of the Pirates theme! Some of the Pirates sets my brother and I owned included 1788, 6236, 6244, 6246, 6247, 6248, 6254, 6262, 6263, 6268, and 6280. These sets were definitely one of many LEGO themes I enjoyed thoroughly in the 90s, which also included Dragon Masters, Spyrius, Paradisa, Launch Command, Aquazone, Wild West, Time Cruisers, Exploriens, Adventurers, Ninja, Cyber-Slam, Throwbots, etc. And I never actually ended up having a "dark age", either! But I agree, I'm not an "old-age" AFOL. My point is that as the AFOL community has grown, the percentage of AFOLs who grew up with sets of the 1980s has gotten smaller. There are many AFOLs like me who grew up on sets of the 1990s or 2000s (I mean, there are some AFOLs at this point who are a decade younger than I am). There are also many who DID grow up in the 70s or 80s, but did not have those same formative experiences with classic LEGO themes, but have instead been drawn into the hobby for other reasons, like the appeal of licensed sets based on lifelong favorite movies, comics, TV shows, and automotive brands. So while the AFOL community as a whole has grown a lot since the early 2000s, I don't feel like the number of AFOLs who would be intensely excited for re-releases of 80s sets has grown at nearly the same rate. I think there's also more to it than that. Playmobil gets their money's worth out of molds by continuing to produce the same sets and themes (or variations on the same themes) year after year. As an example, the Playmobil Pirates sets 6678, 6679, 6682, 6683, and 6684 all came out in 2015, just like the latest LEGO Pirates wave, but unlike those LEGO sets, the Playmobil ones are still being sold today. The Playmobil Pirates set 7373 came out even earlier in 2014, and the sets 7006 and 7363 came out in 2012! By comparison, since LEGO is a building toy, most of their molds can be repurposed across different sets and themes, and so there's no requirement that they continue producing the same sets/themes just to offset the costs of producing those molds in the first place. And LEGO has found over the years that new products tend to drive the most sales in any given year, whereas products kept around from previous years usually end up resulting in diminishing returns. What's more, for the most part, retailers hate having to continue stocking shelves with products from years past that fewer and fewer shoppers will be excited by. After all, it means less shelf space to devote to new, exciting products that buyers haven't seen before. So LEGO has a compelling interest in NOT selling the same sets for years on end if they can avoid it. That doesn't mean that LEGO couldn't have an ongoing Pirates theme… but if they did, it would almost certainly need to be both for different reasons than Playmobil, and with a very different business model (new sets every year and most sets retiring after one or two years on shelves, instead of the same sets appearing for years on end with only occasional smaller sets coming out to supplement them). Do Spirit: Riding Free and DreamWorks Dragons not count as "major licenses"? I mean, Playmobil has more than a dozen sets for each of those, and the latter tied in with a major movie release earlier this year. Playmobil also recently announced the acquisition of a Scooby-Doo license.

Yeah, I dunno why everybody started out calling it an ice zombie or frozen knight or white walker or whatnot… For me, seeing the picture, it seemed like the obvious intent was "ghost knight/haunted suit of armor". In fact, I just did a Google Image search for "ghost knight" and a good portion of the results show similar fiery blue specters in dark-colored armor. The "one that looks like a Chima character" is almost unmistakably based on Sun Wukong/The Monkey King from the classic 16th century Chinese novel "Journey to the West". It's a tremendously influential work of literature in Asia, on par with or potentially even surpassing the cultural significance that Robin Hood folklore or Arthurian legend have in Europe. He even carries Sun Wukong's signature weapon, the golden-banded staff. While "Journey to the West" is not nearly as well known in Europe and the Americas as in Asia, it's far from obscure in the context of Chinese cultural history — to the point that the Monkey King was considered as a potential plot element for both the second AND third Indiana Jones films before development took both those films in a different direction. https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Monkey_King

Playmobil is a radically different situation from any knock-off or clone brand. In their case, taking cues from LEGO's successful ventures doesn't violate any type of law or even any type of IP — after all, Playmobil playsets are not even a construction toy, much less a brick-based one. So them taking similar concepts to what LEGO's done and adapting them to their own toy system is really no different from how LEGO has adapted pre-existing concepts from other parts of the toy industry like dollhouses, train sets, pullback racing cars, finger skateboards, action figures to their own toy system. LEGO might not be super pleased with it — after all, Playmobil IS still a competitor — but they've come to terms with the fact that imitation by competing toy companies is inevitable, and that it's just the nature of the business. Particularly as long as LEGO remains as successful as they are, they serve as a useful indicator to other companies of what concepts are trendy or appealing to today's kids. So it's not a concern they worry themselves with to the extent of stuff like IP theft or corporate espionage. And anyhow, I don't think Playmobil would serve as a great role model for nonviolent, conflict-free play when you consider that the Police subtheme of Playmobil's City Action theme includes FAR more violent weapons and scenario than anything that's ever appeared in LEGO City sets! To say nothing of the controversy that erupted over their City Action Bank Robbery playset a few years ago…

I'm not so sure that the case for re-releases like the LEGO Legends would be that much stronger today. Many AFOLs who have joined the AFOL community more recently have not been attracted to the hobby by some nostalgia for LEGO themes of the 1980s and early 1990s, but rather for entirely different reasons. Some are hooked by the appeal of licensed sets based on non-LEGO entertainment media they're passionate about. Others might not have had any significant experiences with LEGO growing up, but are drawn in by the appeal of newer themes like LEGO City, Friends, Creator, or Ninjago that they are introduced to via their kids. And still others grew up on sets of the late 90s and beyond: stuff that many AFOLs at the time have scoffed at or dismissed as kiddie stuff like Rock Raiders, Bionicle, Alpha Team, Exo-Force, Power Miners, Hero Factory, and even Ninjago! After all, a kid who was 10 years old when LEGO Ninjago first came out in January 2011 is 18 years old now. So while there are far more adult LEGO fans today than in the early 2000s, they are not unified by some shared nostalgia for an imagined LEGO "golden age" in the 1980s like so many of the early AFOL communities of the late 90s and early 2000s were. Even to an AFOL like me who was born in 1991, the appeal of stuff like Classic Space mostly stand out as kitschy, retro nods to the company's past. A reissue of actual Classic Space, Classic Castle, or Classic Pirates sets (other than as a small, quirky gift-with-purchase or impulse set like these two) would have pretty much zero appeal to me. I've had years to seek out some of the bigger sets from those themes if I thought of them as some kind of timeless masterpiece or "holy grail". But even today I can't imagine any of that stuff earning a place on my wish list when there are newer sets with more detail, sophistication, and originality occupying much of my wish list. For that matter, most of the sets from my OWN childhood that I have the fondest memories of are either the ones that I already have or the ones I've long since made peace with not owning. And in either case, I don't harbor any illusions that they somehow surpass the kind of stuff I have to choose from today. It's not that sets like 6376 Breezeway Café, 4563 Load 'n' Haul Railroad, 6989 Mega Core Magnetizer, or 6278 Enchanted Island don't awaken feelings of charm and nostalgia in me even today. But it's not enough that I'd prefer them over sets of comparable size and price like 41379 Heartlake City Restaurant, 60198 Cargo Train, 70677 Land Bounty, or 70678 Castle of the Forsaken Emperor all these years later.

I doubt much of the stuff that Playmobil has made that LEGO hasn't is stuff that LEGO has never thought of. But both companies do their own research and development to figure out which concepts will have the best business case for developing them into products. And seeing as they're different companies in different product categories, I don't think it's surprising they might arrive at different decisions. I also don't know whether it makes too much sense for a market leader like LEGO to look to a much smaller competitor for inspiration when so often (as you mention) it's Playmobil that is seemingly following the LEGO brand's lead. But I'm with you in your frustration that so many of LEGO's historic themes tend to focus myopically on conflict and battle rather than on other parts of the lifestyles of people in those places and time periods… it's still pretty bewildering to me that we've never had a traditional Castle set featuring a "Great Hall" for banquets (a pretty iconic medieval scene), a castle kitchen/pantry/larder, or a royal bedchamber. That sort of thing was a big part of my appreciation for the Elves theme, which did seem to put more effort into making their world feel "lived in". I do think LEGO is generally getting better about that sort of thing, but it's been a long, slow road so far and there's still a lot of improvements I'd love to see going forward.

Re: unique pieces, I think you're severely underestimating just how many retired parts they include that couldn't just be swapped with a current equivalent without any more major changes to the appearance and build. Eldorado Fortress alone has all of these long-retired parts: 2345 2536 2552 2554 2563 3581 4071 4275 4444 4531 4611 But yeah, re-imaginings of some of this type of stuff are hardly out of the question! And truthfully, that's a lot of what the "back to basics" approach of the 2009 and 2015 waves seemed to be aiming for, even if their ability to measure up to some of that classic stuff in terms of size was stifled by low price points. And yeah, my feeling is that if themes like Castle and Pirates are ever going to truly measure up to their former glory, price points have to go up. Even if LEGO in general tends to offer way better value for money today than it did in the late 80s and early 90s, it's still futile to expect a $100 pirate ship or $50 soldier fort to measure up to the Black Seas Barracuda after 30 years of inflation. Just to compare: Summer 2015 Ninjago playset price points: $20, $30, $40, $40, $50, $60, $70, $100, $120 Summer 2015 Friends playset price points: $10, $15, $20, $25, $30, $30, $40, $40, $50, $60, $90, $130 2015 Pirates playset price points: $13, $20, $20, $30, $100 Summer 2013 City playset price points: $7, $20, $20, $30, $30, $30, $40, $40, $45, $45, $80, $100, $120 2013 Castle playset price points: $12, $20, $30, $50, $100 2009 Pirates playset price points: $6, $10, $20, $40, $50, $100 Now, I'll grant that it's possible to come up with awesome sets at a similar price range to recent Castle and Pirates waves — the Elves theme wowed me on a regular basis, even with only one set at the $100 price point over the theme's entire four-year run, and many waves only having five or six sets. But it's obvious to me that not only have the "flagship" price points for Castle and Pirates remained stagnant for over a decade at this point (and the overall number of sets per waves and waves per iteration remained small), but there's generally been a HUGE gulf between the price points of the largest and second-largest sets, whereas in other themes it's more typical to see price points distributed somewhat more evenly between the highest and lowest price points. So if these themes are ever going to come close to what nostalgic AFOLs want to see from them, then we need to get over the sense that any price over $100 is exorbitant for anything short of a Creator Expert level masterpiece… and that gulf in between the "flagship" set of a wave and the next highest price point needs to be narrowed. I may have been reading too much into it since he doesn't mention sales figures specifically so much as general fan disappointment, but I was referring to this comment by Jamie Berard: https://forum.brickset.com/discussion/comment/57672/#Comment_57672 There's also comments in various places from Dave Eaton (an AFOL who tends to be pretty knowledgeable about this sort of stuff from my experience and has been active in the community for a long time) that suggest the same: https://forum.brickset.com/discussion/comment/3640/#Comment_3640 https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-LEGO-reissue-their-old-sets-as-many-folk-feel-they-were-better In general, that was one of the big lessons that LEGO took from the LEGO Legends… that just because fans SAY they want something doesn't mean they'll buy it. That's also a big part of why during review the LEGO Ideas team has to look at a lot more factors than just how many people supported a particular project (like how much buzz there is about it on social media, how quickly it reached its 10,000 supporter goal, etc). Another thing to point out is that Kim's job is interacting with the fan community, listening to feedback, and responding to questions or concerns, so it seems plausible that "Why don't you re-release classic sets?" is a question he's gotten a LOT. It's not implausible that the answer to that question is something he would have committed to memory by this point. But honestly, even if you dismiss any number of statements from knowledgeable LEGO fans and employees as unreliable, I think it remains pretty telling that LEGO hasn't re-released any 80s/90s throwback sets since the mid-2000s when they went through and reviewed which of their products and other initiatives were making/losing money. So I strongly suspect that the LEGO Legends didn't fare well during that review process.

I could see them re-imagining them, but not re-releasing them. There are several major obstacles I can see with that: For starters, LEGO already tried re-releasing older sets in the early 2000s "LEGO Legends" range (specifically, 6290, 6291, 6292, and 10040) but sales tended to be lackluster across the entire range. Re-releasing sets like those now would be even more cost-prohibitive, since many more elements from back then have been retired than had been the case in the early 2000s. A lot of stuff from back then is simply sub-par by current standards: simplistic graphic designs bricks in extremely limited colors flimsy building techniques for features such as the rigging and bowsprits chunky, overspecialized pieces like Forbidden Island's rope bridge and stairs, Eldorado Fortress's raised baseplate and Fabuland-scale jail cell, etc. abysmal value for money even at their time of release. For instance, Forbidden Island cost $37.50/£22.00 —the equivalent of $77.46/£54.28 after 30 years of inflation — for a mere 182 pieces weighing less than 490 grams! How many people are really going to pay that much (or possibly even more, depending on how much it takes to bring the old masts, rigging, etc) for such a simplistic, awkward-looking build like that, when nowadays $69.99/£54.99 can buy you a set like 21316, 41379, 41380, or 70831 with 600+ pieces weighing 550+ grams? People who actually remember those sets from back then and who put a lot of value in nostalgia MIGHT be willing to give all these drawbacks a pass, but other LEGO fans (even adults of similar age) who are more used to modern design standards might easily perceive it as laziness, cheapness, or shoddy quality. I definitely remember seeing Facebook comments to that effect about the Modular Buildings back before LEGO started using face prints that were up to date with modern standards. All in all, I think it makes much more sense to continue to hope for LEGO to make NEW pirate sets. After all, if there's a big enough market to support a Pirates wave encompassing stuff like the classics you mentioned, that should also be a big enough market to support Pirates sets of comparable size that don't fall so dismally short of current design standards.

Kind of off-topic, but I'm pretty sure the Zombie Driver's brown hand was meant to represent a driving glove, in accordance with the old-fashioned style of their chauffeur outfit. I don't think their design is meant to have any meaning particular to the Zombie Graveyard set, since I'm pretty sure that figure was designed mainly as the driver for The Vampyre Hearse set. Genuinely puzzled — what about the Ninjago ghost designs makes you think they look comical? Other than the Skreemers, most of the 2015 Ninjago ghost designs look pretty creepy to me, certainly much more so than any ghost minifigures that preceded them. I don't see anything really humorous about figures like Bansha, Soul Archer, Wrayth, Ghoultar, Ming, Cowler, or Morro. They hit pretty much all the details I might expect from evil warrior spirits… tattered clothing, ectoplasmic bodies that blaze like eerie green fire, like a flame sharp pointed teeth, chains, exposed bones, etc. Honestly, I feel like the Fantasy Era skeletons were a lot closer to looking "comical", since with their drawn-on smirking mouths, furrowed brow, and raised left "eyebrow" they're pretty much making the Dreamworks face… in spite of the fact that a skull made of rigid bone should ostensibly not be able to convey such an expression. That's before even getting into more particular skeleton variants like the Skeleton Ship Captain or the downright cartoonish design of their "home base*, the Skeleton Tower. Awesome! Love these sorts of easter eggs, especially seeing more and more referencing major themes or media from my childhood like LEGO Racers, Junkbot, Rock Raiders, and Bionicle. Definitely one of the perks of more AFOLs of my generation becoming LEGO designers!

As somebody who's usually collaborated with my brother @Lyichir on most of our best MOCs, the idea of a building competition designed for teams of two sounds perfect… but to be totally honest, I've been under a lot of anxiety this year between politics, gender transition, academics, and just general challenges keeping on top of my personal responsibilities. And that's really stifled my creative energy — I haven't finished a new MOC in nearly a year. I don't think going on national TV for the first time at this point in my life would make matters any better, no matter what opportunities, rewards, and prestige I would stand to gain from it. Here's the site where you can put in an application even without a direct invitation from the casting agency, if that's of interest to anyone! https://www.legomasters.tv/

Wow, this is an old topic. My answer has definitely changed since I responded to this question back in 2010! The six-barrel stud shooter from the Bionicle G2 sets definitely takes the cake, what with its versatile (and customizable) ammo, its effectiveness at firing compared to stuff like the Cordak Blaster and Squid Launcher, and its compact size and basic connection points which make it easy to integrate into custom weapons or use for things besides weapons.

I don't think there's any reason to think they won't. "Gamer's Market" and "Empire Temple of Madness" both definitely sound like location-focused sets, and it's also not uncommon to see sets focusing on other sorts of vehicles like boats or aircraft at least once every couple of years. Suffice to say that while Ninjago continues to revisit a lot of the same sorts of subject matter it has in the past (as most long-running themes do), it's not lacking for versatility in the slightest, and it certainly hasn't been any less varied in the past few waves than it was towards the start.

Truthfully, if you wanted to find a way to make laser-equipped spaceships suitable for a peaceful setting, you could simply make them non-weaponized lasers for clearing away space debris… That was definitely how I interpreted at least some of the "lasers" in space themes of my childhood like Exploriens — tools for excavation and/or debris clearing. Not that I was opposed to more violent conflicts in the stories my brother and I played out (our LEGO pirates and Wild West soldiers had guns, swords, and cannons, after all!), but the Exploriens in particular didn't have any obvious reason to fight anyone, since they were presented as fossil-hunters and I didn't see anything about what they were up to in deep space that the Spyrians would care much about except maybe stealing their droids.

Arguably even toy shops, bakeries, fairgrounds, and post offices can be "city buildings"… I'm not sure how that would be any type of strike against the possibility of something appearing in the Winter Village theme one way or another as long as it's something that can be adapted to a quaint, nostalgic, small-town holiday aesthetic rather than a big urban playset aesthetic. I definitely agree that's hardly a worst case scenario. Even from the perspective of including stuff together in a modern-day layout, I think it can work. In the United States, at least, there are a lot of properties even in rural areas or small towns that comparable to Christmas-themed amusement parks or tourist attractions, with fanciful decorations meant to resemble kids' Christmas dreams brought to life. Some people might consider them tacky, but for many people they're just as big a Christmas traditions as Christmas markets are in central Europe. And they're hardly some phenomenon that's too modern-day, too uniquely American, or too "big city" to work in a quaint little Winter Village layout… just look at Santa's Land, in the tiny, sparsely-populated, rural town of Putney where I go to school, the Santa's Village theme park franchise that was founded in the late 1950s, or even the Santa Claus Village in Finland! Other people all over the country simply go all-out decorating their private homes to resemble something out of a Christmas card, which can easily become a tourist attraction and tradition in their own right if the owners put up signs or advertisements encouraging people to drive or stroll through their driveways and/or neighborhoods. The idea of somebody decorating their house resemble a gingerbread house, including full-size gingerbread people, is not far fetched at all!

Hidden Side is not a "big bang" theme simply because it's not LEGO's most major promotional and merchandising investment of the year across basically all their departments — The LEGO Movie 2 is. And that's generally how "big bang" themes are defined, not how long they're expected to last or whether they have their own TV show. Power Miners was a "big bang" theme for that reason — if you remember the marketing from early 2009, Power Miners was a huge deal that year, and things only continued ramping up with subsequent "big bang" themes like Atlantis, Ninjago, and Legends of Chima. Hidden Side is far more analogous to Ultra Agents, which also launched later in the same year that a LEGO Movie was released, and had a storyline largely developed with a mobile app format in mind (even before it introduced the "app bricks" that added an integrated play element, there was an Ultra Agents app communicating the first year's story via interactive comics and minigames). Also, ten new Hidden Side sets slated for release next year is a big enough wave that I'd hardly consider a 14-set wave presumably intended for release at close to the same time a "successor" to Hidden Side. I mean, that's a far cry from the four Power Miners sets that overlapped with the huge first year of Atlantis, the four Atlantis sets that overlapped with the even bigger first year of Ninjago, or the five Ninjago sets that overlapped with the downright massive first year of Legends of Chima. In fairness, the ten new Hidden Side sets (along with all the other set numbers recently leaked) are not at all meant to be "available to the public" at this point. Also, not sure where you're seeing any similarities to Time Cruisers with this stuff? Let alone what you expect a "real" LEGO ghost to look like, considering that you just expressed displeasure with basically every LEGO ghost except for the old-school sheet ghosts and the library ghost from the Ghostbusters HQ — never mind that ghosts aren't real. Honestly, it's kind of baffling to me how many people think the ghosts in the app and illustrations look better than the ones in the sets. Other than the boss ghosts (or "boosses"), most of the ghosts we've seen that aren't actively possessing a target look pretty bland, with every one having a pretty much identical build, a uniform color and gloppy texture, and not even any headgear to set them apart from one another. By contrast, the possessed civilians/objects/vehicles/buildings are extremely varied, elaborate, and distinctive, with designs and features tailored to whoever or whatever they happen to be possessing. The app definitely adds an additional layer to the experience of playing with the sets by bringing them to life (or, er, undeath?) with animated visuals and a "gamified" play pattern that echoes the theme's premise of kids hunting invisible specters using special camera technology. But I hardly see how that renders the sets redundant or unnecessary, particularly when the main thing making this game unique compared to what you could expect with a non-LEGO ghost hunting app is how the sets themselves are one of the main parts of the game's user interface. Solving puzzles and finding ghosts in the game is done via spatial and tactile interaction with the scene you've constructed using actual bricks, not just via conventional screen or button tapping like most previous LEGO games. Even setting aside the aesthetics of the sets or whether you think they look "real" or "scary", there's some downright brilliant action features in a lot of the sets such as the train and school. That's a big part of what previously drew me to themes like LEGO Agents, Ninjago, and Elves, even if each of those themes had an entirely different core premise. There's something super fun about building ordinary-looking vehicles or scenes with cleverly constructed functions that unveil all kinds of hidden secrets with just a few smooth movements.

Different things scare different people. Blood or not, the first vampire minifigure had a goofy grin and cartoonish pointy hair, hardly the kind of stuff likely to spook kids quite quite like ghosts with melty faces, moaning expressions and powerful claws that could be lurking anywhere and can possess anything. I doubt I'm the only kid of my generation who had nightmares from seeing even just a brief snippet of the Gooey Gus episode of "GhostWriter", a children's show that was otherwise fairly mundane. Context is also important. A tiny dribble of blood is hardly as scary as blood as huge pools of blood or smeared bloody handprints would be. Some people have a phobia of blood in general, but that's far from universal. What's more, the main accompanying media for those Studios sets were silly comics and that short film (which I'd honestly never seen, but hardly seems that scary watching it now). And I hardly see what's scary about the Temple of Doom set. The scene in the actual MOVIE was very frightening, but the set is basically a wacky, exciting chase scene with some mildly spooky-looking bad guys and some traps that are hardly unlike what you'd see in 90s Castle sets. The elements that actually made the movie scenes scary, point-of-view shots showing a perilous drop, or the gory scene of a man's heart being pulled out of his body, were absent from the miniaturized playset version. With more extensive animated media like cartoons or video games it's much easier to create a sense of terror, suspense, and foreboding just in terms of cinematography, dramatic timing, and sound design. There's a reason that a lot of horror movie enthusiasts and filmmakers believe the most terrifying movies are the ones that show very little clear footage of the actual "monster" and instead lett your mind fill in the blanks. Often, we can imagine or visualize far greater horrors than any designer could create by showing us animated footage of even the most vicious-looking monster. Since Tommy works a lot on the media aspect of LEGO themes, not just on the character designs for the sets themselves, it's fair to say that the tweet in question might be heavily informed by what media/storytelling elements we still have yet to see (beyond the snippets of gameplay and animation we've been shown so far). I'm sure any scares in store are still going to be tempered by it being a brand primarily directed at kids — it's hardly going to be stuff AFOLs like us would have nightmares about or that would leave us jumpy for hours afterward. But as you point out, with how tame LEGO's approach to horror in general has been up to this point, it's hardly far-fetched that they might have some more serious scares in store for this theme… I can very easily imagine the kinds of possessed objects and interactive gameplay formats in the Hidden Side theme resulting in experiences similar to the "Mad Piano" jumpscare from Super Mario 64 that was so terrifying to me as a kid!

Amazing! Really expressive, and very clever part use throughout!

This set in particular seems to be in the Town subtheme due to the assortment of different subject matter — similar to https://brickset.com/sets/60200-1/Capital-City, which had a half pipe and basketball hoop in addition to stuff like food vendors, police, construction, and mass transit. I do think it'd be interesting to see if LEGO could make more specifically sports-focused sets… they've certainly shown the capability for a lot of different sports-related builds in the Friends theme, albeit usually with only a few per year as part of bigger categories, rather than a full sports-focused subtheme of sets launching in the same year.

You mean this one? https://brickset.com/parts/6167599/lattice-plate-1x4x3 It's used to attach the stairs themselves. I mean, probably not a whole lot in the City theme, but I suspect the electronics, and the large parts like train bases and tracks probably impact the price per piece in those a lot more than the axles do. What I AM curious about is if this might make it more feasible to release train stuff in 4+ sets, considering how much overlap those have with the target age range for stuff like "Thomas the Tank Engine"… with train sets having demonstrated enduring popularity in both Duplo and City, it seems like that train sets for the age group directly between those would be a no-brainer.

Here's a Wikipedia link for those who want to read more about Oni as they appear in real-world mythology and folklore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni But obviously, "demon" is a loose translation in that case, and not meant to insinuate that they are analogous to the Western definition of demons. All in all, while there's some definite spookiness in this theme, I'm kind of surprised how many extreme reactions I've seen to the scariness and/or maturity level. In terms of aesthetics and tone, it reminds me largely of the Luigi's Mansion games, which are rated E (all ages) in the United States and PEGI 7 (ages 7+) in the UK.

No way to know, particularly since the names may be code names/placeholders with no relation to the actual contents of the sets. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the Trolls 2 license were targeted primarily at girls, whether or not it uses traditional minifigures. After all, that was the case with much of the original Trolls film's merchandise, as well as much of the Trolls franchise's heritage since before the DreamWorks acquisition. But no way to really tell whether these sets in particular is likely to be for that license or something totally different.

That's the thing, though — for the most part, the sets don't depict "going to Mars", they depict preparing to go to Mars. Which is something that space agencies are already working on and have been for years now. LEGO City is a modern-day theme, and to continue focusing only on spaceflight milestones achieved decades ago like sending rockets, satellites, or shuttles into orbit would mean failing to keep pace with modern advances in human spaceflight. Plus, is it really so far-fetched to imagine achieving a goal we've been working at for so long now? Where's that proverbial "ability to dream" you were just speaking so highly of? Nobody's saying you have to be happy about this stuff. But it's extremely arrogant to act as if LEGO's "ability to dream" is contingent on whether they make YOU happy. What of the many kids and adults who have been enjoying imaginative themes like LEGO Ninjago or The LEGO Movie 2 or LEGO Nexo Knights or LEGO Elves? Does their happiness not count for anything? As @icm points out, these might have been the backbone of LEGO 20 or 30 years ago. That doesn't mean that they always will be, or that they always should be. Right now, themes like LEGO Ninjago and LEGO Friends are massively successful and popular and have been for nearly a decade. And truthfully, there's no reason to think they wouldn't have been just as popular as 80s and 90s Space, Castle, and Pirates themes if they'd been around during that time, when brands like Polly Pocket, Strawberry Shortcake, Littlest Pet Shop, Voltron, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Power Rangers were all the rage. Including Pirates among those themes which represent the "backbone of LEGO" reveals just how much this hierarchical thinking is driven by nostalgia rather than any objective sense of what LEGO's success and values were built on. LEGO managed to do just fine without a Pirates theme for over a decade after the introduction of the minifigure. And when the Pirates theme did come out, it only lasted nine consecutive years before entering a lengthy hiatus. The only reason that Pirates, Castle, Space, and Town are treated as sharing equal and unparalleled importance to the LEGO brand is that they happened to be the core System play themes for a few years in the 1990s, during the infancy of the AFOL community, and many AFOLs (and KFOLs of that generation) came to assume that was the natural state of things. But needless to say, the fact that LEGO has not only survived but THRIVED in years when one or more of these themes were absent should be enough to show that the LEGO brand and the lasting appeal of LEGO creative building and play are not as eternally dependent on these classic product lines as many of those who grew up with them wish to believe. The notion that LEGO would "double the incomes" by constantly maintaining these themes is extremely presumptuous… Let's run down all the assumptions it entails: …that adults would ever buy LEGO in the same numbers as kids, despite LEGO having ALWAYS been aimed at and preferred by kids, …that adults in general have more enthusiasm for LEGO Space, Castle, and Pirates than they do for licensed themes or even other in-house themes, …and that kids would be as anywhere near as enthusiastic for Castle, Space, and Pirates as they are for LEGO's current top themes. Frankly, just looking at history should be enough to reveal how little this claim has going for it besides wishful thinking. The last time LEGO had active Castle, Pirates, and Space themes at the same time was 2009. That year, LEGO reported DKK 11,661 million in revenue and DKK 2,204 million in profits. The full annual report for that year listed the year's most successful themes as Duplo, City, Creator, and Star Wars, with LEGO Power Miners and LEGO Games also generating "significantly higher sales than expected". Pirates and Space Police, which launched that same year, didn't even warrant a mention. Nor have any in-house Castle, Pirates, or Space themes in any of the years since. What the subsequent LEGO annual and interim reports HAVE mentioned is that: "LEGO Ninjago, which is a combination of traditional building sets and so-called spinners launched at the beginning of 2011, exceeded expectations and was the biggest product launch in company history." "During (the LEGO Friends theme's) first year on the market, the product line has proved a huge success, and in spite of a considerable increase of production capacity on this particular line during the year, the very strong demand could not fully be met." "LEGO Ninjago which was launched in 2011 continued its popularity in 2012 as the third largest product line in the portfolio." "LEGO® Friends that was launched in 2012 and LEGO® Chima that was launched at the beginning of 2013 added the most to sales growth in 2013." By comparison, last year, when neither Castle, Pirates, or Space were active (at least, not in any capacity AFOLs were willing to accept as "true" incarnations of those themes), LEGO reported DKK 36,391 million in revenue and DKK 8,076 million in profits. The most successful themes for 2018 according to the annual report were City, Technic, Star Wars, Friends, and Ninjago, with additional mention given to the strong performance of Harry Potter, Jurassic World, Classic, and Creator. And mind you, none of this is to say that I don't think there's any place for LEGO Space, Castle, or Pirates going forward. Frankly, I expect them to keep coming back again and again, and I am hopeful that when they do so it will be with huge improvements over what we've seen from them in the past. But what place there is for them in LEGO's portfolio is whatever place they are able to EARN via their actual sales performance. They are not entitled to perpetual top-tier status just because they were massively important to LEGO's bottom line many years ago, any more than other massively successful themes from years past like Bionicle and Harry Potter. It's possible that these classic themes might be able to one day make a comeback that earns them a place among the top sellers. And it would be quite exciting if they did! But they have not managed to achieve that in over a decade, let alone managed to advance the LEGO Group's overall popularity and revenues to anywhere near the same extent that the current top sellers have done. That's a fairly short-sighted viewpoint. The idea of spaceflight was scarcely treated as a serious objective or possibility prior to the middle of the 19th century. Most stories of space travel before that time were presented as fantasy, mythology, and/or satire. It would probably be more accurate to say that the "ultimate mankind dream" for the majority of recorded human history (particularly in all periods prior to the Industrial Revolution) has been conquering death/achieving immortality. I suspect that these sets are based on spaceplanes that are actively in development or testing like the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Chaser]Dream Chaser[/url], which is on schedule to make its first flight in the next couple years.

I mean, what parts of the current City Space stuff would you consider "light sci-fi"? Because for the most part they just seem like slightly simplified or stylized versions of real-world technologies that have either already been developed or are currently being developed for the future. The new wave of LEGO City Space sets' most futuristic subject matter consists of stuff like… …robots (Robonaut 1, Robonaut 2, R5/Valkyrie, CIMON, Int-Ball, etc)… …rovers (Manned Mars Exploration Rover, Space Exploration Vehicle, 2030 Mars Rover Concept, etc)… …spaceplanes (HL-20, X-38, Prometheus, and Dream Chaser)… …and space stations (Mir, International Space Station, and the now-in-development Lunar Gateway). But notably, most of its sets depict launch or testing scenarios for this tech (much of which is already being tested on Earth), rather than depictions of an actual Mars setting. This is indicated not only by the presence of non-helmeted ground crew technicians in almost every set, but also by the box art of sets like 60225 which very plainly shows the LEGO City skyline in the background. If the links above don't sate your curiosity, LEGO themselves put pictures of the technology that inspired these sets in the instruction manuals, just as they did with the Arctic sets back in 2000. And they even have a downloadable LEGO City Explorers app which, among other things, includes NASA videos showcasing some of the technologies that they are presently working on. In general, a lot of this stuff that might seem futuristic is just LEGO keeping pace with the times. The space shuttle and Atlas V Rocket depicted in previous waves of LEGO City Space sets are no longer cutting edge — it's only logical that today's kids who have an interest in space exploration might learn more and be more excited by sets based on emerging developments in that field. There's nothing wrong with space opera — if there were then the Star Wars theme wouldn't still be around. But it's kind of annoying how often LEGO fans treat themes in the space opera, medieval fantasy, and pirate genres as though they have unique importance which mandates that that they must always be available on store shelves. That concern rarely seems to extend to other science fiction or fantasy themes like Exo-Force, Agents, Power Miners, Atlantis, and Ninjago. Those themes are generally regarded by older AFOLs as frivolous or nonsensical kiddy stuff, and are only begrudgingly accepted as long as Pirates, Castle, and Space themes all actively exist alongside them. It's telling that when the LEGO Pirates theme didn't get new sets in 2010, a lot of disparaging comments in topics like this and this were directed at themes like Power Miners, Atlantis, and Space Police. Not because anybody had any reason to think they were somehow PREVENTING designers from making new Pirates sets, but because in the eyes of Pirates fans no sci-fi or "action theme" could POSSIBLY be worth keeping around or introducing if the Pirates theme was not getting a second wave. It lends the impression that any LEGO theme that didn't exist in the 80s is inherently inferior to those that did. As, might I add, do comments like this one: How exactly is LEGO lacking in "fiction" or "ability to dream" in its current lineup? The LEGO Movie 2 has numerous wild and whimsical spaceships, wacky talking animals/food products, post apocalyptic settings, alien "plantimals", etc. Ninjago continues to expand in imaginative new directions with stuff like an all-terrain land ship, fiery mummified snakes, and frozen samurai zombies. Hidden Side shows a mundane, aging town haunted by otherworldly horrors that only a few heroic teenagers and their science professor can fight back against using cutting-edge technology. Giant mecha continue to show up across so many different themes that people have started to believe that LEGO is obsessed with them. None of this is stuff that's comfortably situated in the scope of real-world science or technology. So why are you acting like the lack of an unambiguous space theme is some indication that LEGO designers or kids lack "the ability to dream"?