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OK, I went ahead and purchased a digital copy of that (and some other issues that seemed like they had interviews I might be interested in, which I'll read through in more detail later). The Europa image actually isn't from the Daniel Krentz/Niels Milan Pedersen interview on pages 32–36 (though that does have some other neat details about Castle, Pirates, and Space sets and prototypes those two created, as well as their general experiences as LEGO designers in those early years), but rather a single-page "From the Designers' Desk" feature by Mark Stafford on page 78. Here is the text that accompanies the photo: So there's a little bit more info there, such as a more complete theme name ("Europa 1700", not just "Europa"), and a more detailed description of ideas proposed for inclusion in this theme that aren't obviously apparent in the photo. It's neat to see that even if a theme with this particular setting was not pursued further, some of the ideas brainstormed did make their way into other sets — like vampires and witches, which first made their "official" LEGO debut via Willa the Witch/Hubble Bubble and Basil the Bat Lord/Count Batlord in the 1997 Fright Knights sets, or hot air balloons, which would eventually appear in the 1998 Adventurers sets. The other content on this page is not prototype content, just photos and descriptions of some small MOCs some of Mark's coworkers (William Thorogood and Luis Castaneda) had built and displayed in their work space. But I do encourage others interested in LEGO history and behind-the-scenes info about the work of LEGO designers to think about getting a digital copy of this issue as well as some other favorite issues of mine: BrickJournal Issue 6: Has an interview with minifigure inventor Jens Nygaard Knudstorp and designer Niels Milan Pedersen about their experiences designing LEGO Space sets from the 70s onward, an interview with several designers about their more recent work developing Space Police 3, and an interview with LEGO technology product manager Gaute Munch about the development of LEGO Power Functions, with a particular emphasis on the process of collaborating with AFOLs to ensure the new system would meet the needs of long-time LEGO Trains fans and builders. BrickJournal Issue 7: Has an interview with Jamie Berard about developing the Cafe Corner (including photos of sketch models considered for if the model ended up with a higher or lower price point) and another interview with the development team behind the LEGO Factory Hobby Train. BrickJournal Issue 10: Has an interview with several of the LEGO Atlantis designers. This one is actually free! BrickJournal Issue 17: Has an interview with Mark Stafford about the development of LEGO Alien Conquest, as well as a cool interview with Henk Holsheimer who designed the "LEGO shape system" — the system of curved slope, wedge, windscreen, and cockpit elements that debuted in the early 2000s. BrickJournal Issue 28: Has an interview with VP of design Matthew Ashton about coming up with character and model designs for The LEGO Movie. Sorry if that sounds like a sales pitch; I have no affiliation with BrickJournal aside from occasionally chatting with its editor-in-chief on Facebook or when I see him at conventions. But really, there's some really enlightening and often surprising info in some of these interviews.

Do you have the full magazine (physical/digital)? I just checked the preview pages on the listing you linked, and I feel like the interview with Niels Milan Pedersen and Daniel Krentz is the most likely place that info and the accompanying images could have come from, but the preview pages only include the first couple pages of the interview in question, then skips ahead four pages to the following article. I might go ahead and purchase the digital edition myself, since whether or not it has the info y'all are looking for, interviews with LEGO designers like that are some of my favorite things to read in LEGO fan publications and my main motivation when I have ended up buying them in the past. If/when I do so I'll let you know what it says about the Europa theme.

This is a really neat question and one that I find pretty challenging. I think in general, a lot of what I've loved most in LEGO Space themes is when they have a really clear defining concept that is apparent in their appearance, play features, or both: Space Police has had detachable prison pods as a defining feature in EVERY generation. Space Police 3 added a release trigger so that Black Hole Gang members could bust fellow crooks out of containment, but this still built upon that core concept rather than taking its place. By comparison, Blacktron hasn't had quite as obvious a consistent play pattern associated with its sets, but I think that both the interchangeable/transformable ships of Blacktron 1 and the bubble-like escape craft of Blacktron 2 both help to reinforce their sneakiness that allows them to slip away when their attempts at espionage and subterfuge are detected. Spyrius was primarily a spy faction that specialized in robots and flying saucers, but the bigger models in particular generally employed grabber arms and the ability to deploy a hidden rocket, rover, or escape craft. M:Tron was perhaps one of the weaker factions at using its aesthetics and play features to clearly express their central concept (a rescue and transport focused faction, essentially the space equivalent of a towing or roadside assistance company), judging from how many AFOLs came up with their own explanations of M:Tron's role in the galaxy like extraterrestrial mining. That said, there are some sets that make more sense in that light, particularly looking at some of their European set names: 6923 is a rescue helicopter with a crane arm to deploy a tool kit, 6896 is a space tow truck ("wrecker"), 6877 is a search plane, and 6989 is a crane truck. …Etc. So that leads me to wonder: what type of play features should a space racing theme have? Some possibilities: A lot of more conventional racing sets over the years have employed features that give the models physical movement, like "slammer" launchers, pull-back or RC motors, etc. But it's harder to figure how you'd make that work for racing vehicles that are intended to fly or hover, since that basically requires "hand of god" style control. Other Racers and Technic sets in the past have provided another potential play feature: a crash function that makes a vehicle break apart, eject its driver or engine, etc. when it gets in a frontal collision with an obstacle. That would work even with "hand of god" style play scenarios, and would be a good reflection of the dangerously high stakes that a lot of space racing stories (including the F:Zero and podracing comparisons made by others above) use to create a sense of tension and urgency. Dick Dastardly or Sebulba style features for sabotaging other racers, similar to the World Racers theme, might be some of the easiest and most flexible features to employ, though they might undermine some people's hopes that a theme like this could be less violent than a theme focused on faction vs. faction combat like so many space themes of the past decade and a half. I also think that some different sorts of racetrack settings should be employed, much like World Racers and Drome Racers or video games like F:Zero and Star Wars: Episode I Racer. So some sets could have an asteroid field based racetrack, others could have a racetrack on an icy planet or moon, others on an acid planet, etc. Any biome works as long as it pushes things in more intense and otherworldly directions than we'd expect to see in an Earth setting — otherwise it risks feeling like just "Drome Racers/World Racers but in space". If it's a swamp, desert, or city racetrack, it has to feel like an ALIEN swamp, desert, or city. The box art of the late 90s Slizer and Roboriders sets provides some good, if fantastical, examples of how to make different environments feel more hazardous or extreme than even their most perilous Earthling equivalents. There's no reason the settings couldn't also be given play features suited to them, like eruption features to act as course hazards in a volcanic setting, or asteroids that are attached to a turntable using parts like 49546 to function as moving collision hazards. Some type of app integration could also potentially be used to introduce the sort of more skill-based or competitive racing play which might be too difficult to effectively create with flying or hovering toy vehicles. That way the more intense type of competitive racing play that motorized or slammer racers offer is still available as part of the experience you get with each set, even if the sets stick to more of the kind of storytelling focused play where kids' creativity, not their skill or luck, dictates the outcome of each race.

Brickipedia does list BrickJournal magazine as a source for what little info it has, though it doesn't specify what issue. I suspect that the info and image in question were originally revealed in a designer interview from one of their back issues. That would be the main place I'd suggest trying to find more detail, but to be honest this is about all the info I've ever seen out there, and if there were a whole lot more detail in the BrickJournal article in question I'd suspect that somebody who owns that issue would have shared additional details by now.

It's amazing how many recolors of this particular part we've gotten via superhero-related licensed sets. Tr. Fluor. Reddish-Orange (Trans-Neon Orange) via 76027, Tr. Bright Bluish Violet (Trans-Dark Purple) via 41232, and now Tr. Bright Orange in this one! I think sets like this are also a nice counterexample to the notion that licensed themes lack or stifle creativity. After all, not only did designers have to make this up from whole cloth (presumably since they weren't supplied with great detail about what would actually happen or appear in the movie), but they're certainly not expecting kids to just recreate movie, cartoon, or comic book scenes with stuff that hasn't been in any movies, cartoons, or comic books. So it stands to reason that designers found kids they tested it with enjoyed the set on its own merits, not as a mere recreation of a subject they were already familiar with.

Ooh, I was just looking at some of the online instruction manuals for the LEGO City Mars Expedition sets, and I love that they have an actual magnifying glass in the space telescope build: https://www.lego.com/biassets/bi/6282423.pdf Sure, it's not a real telescopic effect (which would require multiple lenses or mirrors), but it's still cool that they made it so you can look through it and see things BIGGER! The new piece used to link the rocket stages is also really cool and will be great for stuff like modular moonbases or undersea bases, etc. Sort of like the arches from the Life on Mars sets but without so many insanely specialized textures or such a huge size. Also some BRILLIANT play features in the mission control building: https://www.lego.com/biassets/bi/6282435.pdf There's a removable screen made using stickered transparent panels with spinny or slidey bits mounted behind them. But I've read you can also remove that and put a smartphone in its place, and that they'll have videos online or in one of their apps that you can use while playing with the set to add real video and audio. This is the type of stuff that I think really shows how many ways that the advent of smartphones/tablets can add to authentically LEGO play experiences. In the 80s and 90s, including "light and sound" features in sets required expensive electronic components and designing sets with room for a bulky battery box — in the 2000s, LEGO made more compact light and sound bricks with their own "button batteries" that saved space, but they were still pricy compared to regular bricks. And including a working video screen? Out of the question. But nowadays, video and web capable mobile devices (including smartphones but also other devices like iPod Touch and Samsung Galaxy Player) are so ubiquitous that LEGO can introduce optional play features using devices that many kids can simply borrow from a parent during a play session, and thus enhance their play scenarios without needing to drive up the cost of the set by actually including that sort of advanced hardware in the box. Even without the required tech, a set like this or https://brickset.com/sets/41349-1/Drifting-Diner still offers just as great or greater a building and play experience when compared to an equivalent set would have back when this type of tech wasn't possible. And even though it's not a true monorail, the elevated rail system astronauts use to get from mission control to the launch site is the sort of thing that will be fantastic in future space related sets and MOCs. After all, it ends up looking more like a real monorail or even many sci-fi "space train" concepts in how it wraps around the track than the old monorail sets that just sat on top of the track. It will be interesting to see if in the future either LEGO themselves or fans come up with additions to this rail system like track switches that conserve momentum (as opposed to the style in the Creator Expert Roller Coaster set that only moves stopped trains on and off of a particular track — usable for track switches, but not quite the same effect). All this stuff is genuinely a massive step forward for space exploration sets, not just compared to the ones I grew up with in themes like Space Port/Launch Command but also compared to other space exploration focused City sets in 2011 and 2015! It even feels innovative compared to many of the types of play features in more futuristic, sci-fi inspired Space sets!

Ooh, I was just looking at some of the online instruction manuals for the LEGO City Mars Expedition sets, and I love that they have an actual magnifying glass in the space telescope build: https://www.lego.com/biassets/bi/6282423.pdf Sure, it's not a real telescopic effect (which would require multiple lenses or mirrors), but it's still cool that they made it so you can look through it and see things BIGGER! The new piece used to link the rocket stages is also really cool and will be great for stuff like modular moonbases or undersea bases, etc. Sort of like the arches from the Life on Mars sets but without so many insanely specialized textures or such a huge size. Also some BRILLIANT play features in the mission control building: https://www.lego.com/biassets/bi/6282435.pdf There's a removable screen made using stickered transparent panels with spinny or slidey bits mounted behind them. But I've read you can also remove that and put a smartphone in its place, and that they'll have videos online or in one of their apps that you can use while playing with the set to add real video and audio. This is the type of stuff that I think really shows how many ways that the advent of smartphones/tablets can add to authentically LEGO play experiences. In the 80s and 90s, including "light and sound" features in sets required expensive electronic components and designing sets with room for a bulky battery box — in the 2000s, LEGO made more compact light and sound bricks with their own "button batteries" that saved space, but they were still pricy compared to regular bricks. And including a working video screen? Out of the question. But nowadays, video and web capable mobile devices (including smartphones but also other devices like iPod Touch and Samsung Galaxy Player) are so ubiquitous that LEGO can introduce optional play features using devices that many kids can simply borrow from a parent during a play session, and thus enhance their play scenarios without needing to drive up the cost of the set by actually including that sort of advanced hardware in the box. Even without the required tech, a set like this or https://brickset.com/sets/41349-1/Drifting-Diner still offers just as great or greater a building and play experience when compared to an equivalent set would have back when this type of tech wasn't possible. And even though it's not a true monorail, the elevated rail system astronauts use to get from mission control to the launch site is the sort of thing that will be fantastic in future space related sets and MOCs. After all, it ends up looking more like a real monorail or even many sci-fi "space train" concepts in how it wraps around the track than the old monorail sets that just sat on top of the track. It will be interesting to see if in the future either LEGO themselves or fans come up with additions to this rail system like track switches that conserve momentum (as opposed to the style in the Creator Expert Roller Coaster set that only moves stopped trains on and off of a particular track — usable for track switches, but not quite the same effect). All this stuff is genuinely a massive step forward for space exploration sets, not just compared to the ones I grew up with in themes like Space Port/Launch Command but also compared to other space exploration focused City sets in 2011 and 2015! It even feels innovative compared to many of the types of play features in more futuristic, sci-fi inspired Space sets!

In fairness, 155 of the "helmet SW" listings on BrickLink are just alternate prints for the same molds (which is more obvious when you sort the search results by item number), five more are buildable action figure heads, four are accessories for star wars helmets (e.g. chin guards and rangefinders), and one is a stickered tile with a picture of a helmet. So that's really just 72 actual helmet molds, one of which is simply the generic crash helmet mold also used in Castle. And as you point out, there are a lot of ways that medieval or historic helmets on BrickLink don't turn up in a "helmet, castle" search. Stuff that doesn't turn up in that search includes: seven Castle visor molds used to turn generic crash helmets into Castle headgear The CMF Flying Warrior, Hun Warrior, Spartan Warrior, Roman Soldier, Gladiator, Viking Woman, and Battle Goddess helmets (some of which you brought up) The Fright Knights Bat Lord helmet The Royal Knights crown The Fantasy Era dwarf helmet with wings The Viking helmet The LotR/The Hobbit Lake-Town Guard and Mouth of Sauron helmets Star Wars still has more helmet molds overall, but I think that mostly comes down to it being a established at a time when LEGO was becoming a lot less hesitant about introducing new molds, and with a stable presence in all the years since, and based on a licensed IP with few non-helmet headgear molds and many characters whose helmet shapes aren't really negotiable. Castle, on the other hand, came about decades before LEGO was comfortable introducing lots of variety in helmets, hats, or hair. It's had a couple hiatuses over the period that LEGO Star Wars has been around, represents a setting in which a lot of people wore hats and hoods instead of more protective headgear, and since it's non-licensed (aside from LotR/The Hobbit), has far fewer cases where a particular figure CAN'T simply use an existing headgear shape in either a new or existing color. Don't get me wrong — I far prefer non-license-specific headgear over the alternative, and love when new molds like that (e.g. hair+headgear molds like the CMF Classic King, or many minifig and mini-doll hairstyles) are introduced, as it opens up worlds of possibilities for custom minifigs that headgear based on a particular licensed IP might not. But at the same time, I understand why licensed themes might get more dedicated new headgear molds than non-licensed themes. And it's important to remember they aren't getting those at no cost — in a lot of cases extremely complex and specific new molds seem to have a far more obvious correlation with prices that seem inflated than whether or not a theme is licensed. I wouldn't mind higher prices on Castle sets since they've been stagnant for a while now, while other themes like Ninjago, City, and Friends have achieved super impressive builds by not limiting their price points so much. But I'd rather if any price hikes went mostly towards improved builds, and not just towards overly specific new molds. Particularly when so many great historic molds have shown up in the CMF series, but have not yet been repurposed to a wider extent in mainstream historic and fantasy themes. I feel like perhaps I'd feel more warmly about customizers filling the void if THEIR customs tended to be as versatile as a lot of official LEGO headgear is. But a lot of it is similar to LEGO's licensed theme headgear in that it doesn't really fire up my imagination for more varied applications beyond the particular uses the designer had in mind. Because of their greater ability (and greater sales incentive) from producing wide varieties of parts, they tend to make a lot of them far more specific to one real-world equivalent than official LEGO parts. In a more 20th/21st-century context, compare how BrickArms' firearm pieces are often specific to ONE real-world firearm model — whereas even in a licensed theme like Star Wars, LEGO takes care to "genericize" their blaster pieces somewhat so that they can be equally well-suited to representing the weapons of multiple characters from multiple periods of that fictional universe's history. BrickWarriors runs into the same issue with a lot of their 20th century army helmets (making them specifically accurate to one country's helmets when a middle ground might be able to serve just as well for several different countries), and with unnecessarily detailed versions of headgear types LEGO already has had more generic versions of for decades like a shako, bicorne, tricorne, wizard, or cowboy hat. That's where a lot of custom parts manufacturers lose my interest.

I'm a little confused by the assumption that themes related to this sort of content couldn't stand on their own. I mean, Power Miners did well as a self-contained mining theme. Atlantis did well as a self-contained underwater theme. We've seen numerous self-contained Space themes, licensed and non-licensed alike. And while I'm not sure we've had anything that could be called a self-contained Jungle, Volcano, Mountain, or Arctic theme (since most themes featuring those settings have a much broader premise than just their setting), we have seen those environments in all sorts of themes besides City, such as Adventurers, Alpha Team, Bionicle, Exo-Force, Agents, Power Miners, Ninjago, Friends, Elves, Nexo Knights, etc. But at the same time, many of these themes with more of a fantasy flavor have been criticized even right here on Eurobricks because people feel frustrated about NOT being able to use them as part of their modern-day "LEGO cities" or "tabletowns". Power Miners was said to be too cartoonish, Atlantis was said to be too whimsical, Friends was said to be too "girly", Agents was too sci-fi heavy (boy, THAT was a one that riled a lot of people up, particularly since Eurobricks originally stuck it into the Town forum), etc. And anyway, why would mining, mountains, or volcanoes not be a natural fit for the City theme on principle? Entire cities are BUILT because of volcanoes, mountains, forests, mining, swamps, etc, depending on what type of business opportunities wound up motivating large numbers of people to make their homes there. Volcanoes are a great place to find hot springs or fertile farmland. Mountains are a great place to find mineral resources (i.e. mining) or to serve travelers trying to cross mountain ranges. Forests were historically a land of plenty for the fur trading industry and the timber industry (which in turn provided for the shipbuilding, lumber, and paper industries). Swamps and wetlands frequently occur on river deltas, which make places in their vicinity fantastic hubs for traders and farmers hoping to transport their wares up and down the river. While urban and suburban sprawl can sometimes result in these cities' populations driving away or destroying the natural environments that brought them there, that hardly means that the City theme is an unnatural fit for them, particularly considering how many of them are more or less just variations on the types of sets that already appear in other City subthemes. Why have a bunch of totally separate themes like Swamp, Forest, Mountain, Sky, etc. when many of the sets included feature the same types of vehicles, the same target age, and the same play patterns — and when certain sets like trucks or cars with no scenery included would be equally relevant to every one of those locations? Truthfully, the fact that "Sky Police" is one of the ones that has resulted in such fierce objections to City losing its sense of direction seems ESPECIALLY silly, since it's not as though cities aren't known to have skies!

In the same vein I've thought for a while that a future variation on LEGO City Police they haven't yet done that would be far from implausible would be "Desert Police". After all, there are plenty of major cities in or near deserts in real life, such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dubai, Riyadh, Cairo, Juárez, Jodhpur, etc.

In general, besides the usual annual subthemes (Town and Great Vehicles), the triennial Classic Police subtheme, the things I think we might be able to expect include: a subtheme in the "exploration" category. Not sure what to expect here. While LEGO has recently revisited Arctic from 2014 and Space from 2015, I'm not sure if just two years of repeats like that is enough to infer a trend in which they follow up by revisiting Volcano Explorers from 2016. For all we know, they might even come up with some new category like Desert Explorers with stuff like archaeological dig sites, cacti, and lizards or coyotes. The strongest possibility might be a new take on Deep Sea Explorers from 2015, though that might just as easily take the place of my next prediction: a subtheme in the "nautical" category. The last examples we had are Coast Guard in 2017 and Deep Sea Explorers in 2015, so that category's had a decent break. And this could potentially use a recolor of the marine life accessory pack from this year's Sea Life Rescue subtheme of LEGO Friends in a new color, since nothing about those designs seems specific to the LEGO Friends or mini-doll aesthetic. a new subtheme in the flight category, most likely (if it's a revisiting of an older subtheme) Cargo. We've seen the Cargo subtheme twice before, but not since 2013. And the last flight subtheme (last year's stand-alone Juniors airport notwithstanding) was Airport in 2016. more sets inspired by the LEGO City Adventures TV series, as Lyi brought up. But those wouldn't need to be specific to any one subtheme. perhaps, if not a full Trains subtheme since those tend to come on a three-year cycle, at least some stand-alone Train-related sets. A new station might be due since Winter Village Station has retired, and a new station or other new train sets may be opportunities to reuse new parts that are making their debut in Hidden Side's Ghost Train Express.

The other two LEGO City "People Packs" there have been since that series started in 2016 are 60153 People Pack - Fun at the Beach (released summer 2017)and 60202 People Pack - Outdoor Adventures (released summer 2018). These types of sets will get you about the most numerous, varied, and detailed modern-day minifigures in a single purchase of any sets in recent years. Another modern-day minifigure pack with fewer figures but still a more or less reasonable value are 40344 Summer Celebration Minifigure Pack (released summer 2019). This type of blister pack style minifig pack is new for this year. While there have been earlier styles with 3–5 minifigs for a similar price, very few of them were generic modern-day minifigs other than police or fire figs. The main two exceptions are 850486 Rock Band Minifigure Accessory Set and 850449 Luau Minifigure Accessory Pack, which reused figures from the blind-bag minifigure series (sometimes with differently colored parts or printing). But of course, since they're long-retired, the price you'd probably have to pay for them now is probably far higher than you might like to spend for just three figures each. The LEGO Education theme has had "Community Minifigure Sets" for a long time. The latest of these is 45022, which has a decent value as a figure pack, and as a bonus has figures representing a very wide variety of careers, archetypes, or subcultures with no unifying theme besides representing people within modern-day society. Of course, unlike City sets, Education sets like this tend to consist entirely of reused parts from other sets and themes, and so sometimes can have more of a "mix-and-match" look without the same refinement of minifigures designed more for fans than for educators and more for play and collecting than for encouraging social/cognitive development. Previous examples include 9348, 9247-1, and 9247-2. But the aftermarket prices are again kinda high, both because they're retired and because not a whole lot of people buy education sets who aren't educators. I dunno if this helps but that's all I can think of. Good luck finding some options for populating your city!

Awesome build! Love it! It's the sort of alternate model that almost feels as refined as if it had been the original set design the parts were chosen for, rather than the alternate model of the set! It's also neat how much it stands out from most official LEGO mechs, with more of a utilitarian, Western-style design like many of those in series like Star Wars or MechWarrior, as opposed to a more humanoid, Eastern-style design like many of those in series like Gundam or Transformers.

While this be interesting, I think if LEGO were to actually create any theme like this they'd probably avoid any reference to Lovecraft by name and make a point of distancing it from him since he was mega-racist even beyond what was normal for his place and time..

My guess is that the theme these are most likely replacing is Toy Story 4. If that's the case, then just as with the Incredibles 2 and Cars 3 sets from previous years, we can probably expect a small-ish single wave of 4+ sets, rather than a replacement of any of the sorts of themes that AFOLs tend to be drawn to. Needless to say The LEGO Movie 2 set will probably be getting few or even no new sets in 2020, so that leaves a LOT of room for LEGO to introduce other new themes without retiring anything that wasn't already on its way to retirement anyhow. It might be that you're right to worry, but I think those of us who are less concerned about this see it less as some startling new trend and more as just the same sort of "animated movie sequel theme" that we've seen so many of from 2010 to 2019. If there's any big change here, it's that LEGO is expanding that category beyond Disney/Pixar movies. I would honestly have expected that news to be received a little more favorably, particularly considering all the worries I've seen about whether LEGO is becoming too dependent on Disney in the wake of their many IP acquisitions (which has some seriously concerning implications well beyond the scope of the LEGO brand). I think what has a lot of folks who have been on sites like Eurobricks and Brickset for a long time a little surprised or concerned about the negative trends we've been seeing in comments is not the negative opinions or feelings themselves, but how more and more we see disappointment framed as tantamount to a "slap in the face" or insult to fans, and mild disagreements treated as attempts to silence dissenting opinions. One of the comments on Brickset's post about the Jurassic World T. Rex Rampage announcement went so far as to insist that "you sycophantic LEGO reviewers and fanboys can rationalize and believe anything LEGO tells you like it’s scripture, but for the rest of us that have eyes, LEGO obviously ripped this from the Ideas site", and that "LEGO should FIRE THE ENTIRE MARKETING DEPARTMENT IMMEDIATELY!" — not only insulting anybody who wasn't outraged over an imagined injustice that even the Ideas project creator in question didn't believe or feel bothered about, but also expecting LEGO to put well over 1000 people out of work over a set and announcement that many of them may have had nothing to do with. The reactions in this thread are nowhere NEAR as awful, but a lot of us who have been in communities like Eurobricks or Brickset for a long time are worried about whether civil online LEGO communities like this one can be sustained if we can't somehow encourage a stronger ethos of patience/open-mindedness in how we express negative and positive feelings alike before tensions escalate to that point.

Another advantage of LEGO's old capes over some of the third-party molded ones is that their smaller size makes it so that they won't obstruct backwards arm movement (a weakness of many wider minifig neck accessories whether third-party or official). And they make a nice apron when put on the front of the figure, which I believe was done in some official sets for blacksmiths. They can even be used over top of epaulettes or other neck accessories that don't cover the back. By comparison, the BrickWarriors version shown above would not fit as neatly in combination wtih other neck acessories. It is still OK for the sorts of uses it was designed for (i.e. as a minifig's ONLY neck accessory), but for other uses it will be more limited Overall, though, I think the cloth capes tend to generally remain my favorite from a utility standpoint, since their flexibility makes it easier to use them in conjunction with other neck accessories like armor that molded capes might be more likely to collide with. And on the flip side, certain fabric capes can often more effectively be used UNDERNEATH certain neck accessories, hair pieces, beard pieces, or headgear pieces that cover part of a figure's back. For a plastic cape to be used over or under another neck accessory it generally needs to be designed for that, like how Wyldstyle's scarf in The LEGO Movie 2 sets is designed to fit snugly over her quiver. A handful of examples of official minifigs that would have the sorts of collision issues I'm describing: https://brickset.com/minifigs/cas332/fantasy-era-crown-king-with-cape (cape over armor) https://brickset.com/minifigs/loc023/crominus-tattered-cape (cape over armor) https://brickset.com/minifigs/tlm071/vitruvius-with-medallion-and-black-eyes-with-pupils (cape under long hair) https://brickset.com/minifigs/tlm092/vitruvius-ghost-shroud (cape under long headgear) https://brickset.com/minifigs/tlm029/lord-business (cape under armor) https://brickset.com/minifigs/coltlbm11/red-hood-minifigure-only-entry (cape under armor)

We had one in the 2011 LEGO City Space range as well! I wouldn't be surprised if LEGO specifically chose what type of spacecraft to include in their main launch platform set each time around based on what they thought would stand out from the previous time around. Yeah… I think that in particular, the standardization of LEGO train tracks can make it really impractical to expect everything in a City layout to work at the same scale. Those are about 1:38 scale based on the size of "L-gauge" track pieces compared to real-world standard-gauge tracks, but at that scale a space shuttle orbiter (the space plane portion, without booster rockets) would be about 98 centimeters (122.5 studs) long with a 62.6 centimeter (78.25 stud) wingspan. That said, thinking about this and the way sets like the Apollo 11 Saturn V set from LEGO Ideas dealt with this by using trophy-style microfigs (which are about 1/3 the height of a minifigure if you ignore the pedestal), I can't help but wonder whether there would ever be interest in a theme using that scale as its default and being more geared towards scale modeling than play. It would almost, in some respects, function as a revival of the style embraced by so many sets prior to the introduction of the minifigure such as 354 Police Heliport and 355 Town Center Set with Roadways, or the even earlier Town Plan range. That of course wouldn't allow for the kind of flexibility of today's themes like Creator, City, or even Architecture, which opt for whichever scale is most conducive to play value, affordability, and authenticity to the subject in question. But if LEGO continues to grow in popularity and expand its capacity for targeting less traditional audiences than kids ages 6–12, then I wonder if it's something that they'd see as something worth at least experimenting with at least in a slightly broader capacity (rather than merely on a case-by-case basis as they successfully managed with the Saturn V set).

I think that for the most part, what Bionicle lacked in "traditional" LEGO parts, it made up for by staying true to the LEGO design philosophy, what with its emphasis on building lots of different models with a shared parts palette. Galidor, by comparison, fell short in this regard, with many sets made up mostly of parts specific to one or two characters. That said, the book "Brick By Brick" reveals some interesting details about how Galidor's building system (which could also be said to include the robot arms in the Alpha Team: Mission Deep Sea sets the same year) originated as a concept for a product line with the working title of "LEGO Beings". That product line would have been less action-figure-like in its premise and more of a free-building system for creating wacky otherworldly creatures, kind of like Zolo or Bonz. While I suspect that still would've had serious issues with out-of-control costs (as many new-element-intensive product lines at the time did) if it had been released in that sort of form, it does help explain how LEGO ended up working on a product line that felt so far removed from their more general focus on creative building. Galidor was only developed hastily into a character-driven, media-supported action figure line with a 2002 launch date once early feedback for the Bionicle theme from test audiences gave LEGO's higher-ups an unrealistically inflated sense of confidence in how much potential they could squeeze out of that toy category. Many folks who had been at LEGO during that time believed for years afterward that Galidor might have been less of a disaster if it hadn't come about through such a reckless, rushed approach with limited time put into testing and planning. By contrast, Ninjago was originally developed beginning in 2008 with an intended 2010 release date, and actually had that development schedule extended by a year in efforts to optimize its overall launch strategy. Sometimes a little more patience and a bigger investment of time like that can make a big difference in foreseeing all the potential opportunities or potential risks that might need to be considered and addressed by a new product launch. On this note, I think LEGO has helped to make the police and fire sets more exciting as of late by including other types of buildings and scenery to contextualize them — for instance: the pier in 60213 the burger restaurant in 60214 the under-construction building and construction site in 60216 the monument in 60207 the tree and armored truck in 60175 the pontoon raft in 60176 (which reminds me fondly of my very FIRST System set, 6665) True as it may be that nothing about these sets would compel me to get them even if I were still an avid City collector, there's something really heartwarming about knowing that kids buying these sets today are likely getting more out of them that will help them to flesh out their cities than they could have gotten from police or fire sets in my KFOL and TFOL years (1994–2009). In fact, even though the City theme launched as early as 2005, it wasn't until this type of cross-pollination began to occur in the police and fire themes that the City theme got its first bank, museum, bear, crocodile, hot air balloon, and mountain lion. In fact, LEGO City police and fire sets supplied the City theme's first forest, wetland, and mountain areas in general, all three of which have been an intrinsic part of cities where I've lived or visited with family during my childhood. Even if they're not sets I'd necessarily seek out today, many of them are sets I can be certain I would've loved as a kid. And that makes it hard to have any sort of antipathy towards them. Coast Guard sets have likewise become an extremely generous source for civilian boats, lighthouses, and other coastal scenery, animals, and civilian characters. Not only does this stronger presence of civilian characters and general subject matter in these themes make them feel less wholly redundant than if only the same few types of builds got repeated each time these subthemes were due for a new wave, but it also helps to emphasize the relationships that the emergency services have with the communities they're a part of which selling the same builds separately would not communicate in nearly the same way. Apologies. I didn't intend to get so personal, but I felt a little pressured to defend myself after getting ad-hominem responses singling me out (demanding to know if I work for LEGO, calling me "shorty" for whatever bizarre reason, etc). Like Lyi explained above, I definitely haven't been following pooda around to other threads. For the most part I just check topics I've been following and reply to whichever comments I see that I feel like I particularly disagree with, want to add to, or want to ask about. But that type of pursuant behavior is something other people have accused me of or even blocked/ignored me over in the past, even if in some of those cases I never even realized I'd been replying to the same person across all those different threads until they accused me of hounding them on purpose. Seeing as both you and pooda seem to have gotten this impression, I suspect I do owe them an apology for not being more mindful of their feelings… though now that they've put me on their ignore list I suppose I missed my chance to apologize directly. I think one of the big reasons for that discrepancy is that there's a huge gulf in the target age range for these themes. City has generally started at 5+ (though now included 4+ since the Juniors theme has been split up across the different themes that were previously treated as its own subthemes), while Modular Buildings are 16+, about as high as LEGO target age tends to get. With that in mind, it's not surprising that they would look jarring side-by-side, although I sometimes feel like their level of detail has more to do with that effect than their size. In terms of their street-facing width, a lot of the modular buildings aren't really all that large compared to many City or Friends buildings, and even the foot prints of buildings that take up nearly the full baseplate for one property (e.g. Grand Emporium, Fire Brigade, Palace Cinema, etc) can feel small compared to some other expert-level builds that are not as heavily condensed in scale, such as the Simpsons House, Ghostbusters Firehouse Headquarters, or Kwik-E-Mart. That said, some Creator 3-in-1 buildings like 31097, 31065, 31050, and 31026 could serve as sort of a middle ground.

I suspect a lot of the wider awareness on science and exploration sets in recent years is just tied to general increasing interest in toys that relate to or encourage STEM learning. Not just in the LEGO City exploration subthemes, but also LEGO Friends, LEGO Ideas, LEGO Creator, LEGO Duplo, or LEGO Boost. Even some "ordinary" City subthemes are tilting in this direction: for instance, the geologists in last year's LEGO City Mining Experts sets or the ROVs/drones in this year's LEGO City Fire and LEGO Sky Police sets. The world has changed when Ole and Godtfred ran the company, and nowadays people's lives are affected by things far outside their hometowns. For instance, satellite-based mapping and navigation tools have become an intrinsic part of traveling (even for those who prefer printed maps, most maps of that sort are made using satellite data). So learning about satellites, and by extension the spaceflight technologies we use to send them into space, would have just as much educational value to kids learning about their everyday worlds as police stations, and arguably a lot MORE educational value than coast guard stations, which were a part of LEGO Town from the very beginning (or from BEFORE if you count the European edition, which used the earlier proto-minifigs). Learning about the importance of studying and protecting nature is also an inherently valuable childhood lesson, particularly in a world where many major societal problems have resulted from a disregard for the natural world around us (air and water pollution, deforestation, invasive species, etc). What's more, it's not as though the popularity of Police sets is some newfangled phenomenon that Godtfred would've been surprised by… there were certainly far more police sets even in the Town theme during the 70s and 80s than there were buses, banks, shops, restaurants, or medical sets in general, and plenty of police-related sets even BEFORE the Town theme. Literally every LEGO theme that was near and dear to me as a child has changed in enormous ways since my childhood. Do you want to know some of my favorite sets from back then? 6958 Android Base 6949 Robo Guardian 6493 Flying Time Vessel 6082 Fire Breathing Fortress 6339 Shuttle Launch Pad 4011 Cabin Cruiser 6350 Pizza to Go 6414 Dolphin Point Why on Earth would I have preferred for LEGO to keep things the same when today's nearest equivalents to those sets are so vastly superior? Just compare the sets above with sets from this year alone, like: 70838 Queen Watevra's 'So-Not-Evil' Space Palace 70676 Lloyd's Titan Mech 70677 Land Bounty 70678 Castle of the Forsaken Emperor 60228 Deep Space Rocket and Launch Control 60221 Diving Yacht 41379 Heartlake City Restaurant 41094 Lighthouse Rescue Center Of course, there are also things I loved as a kid that there aren't such direct equivalents to right now. The Aquazone, Cyber-Slam, and Bionicle themes, for instance, don't really have many close parallels in the current range of sets and themes. I would love if LEGO created new sets inspired by that sort of stuff in the future, but I don't fault them for making sets or themes that DON'T feel like the ones from my childhood, or complain that they should get rid of them to make things more like they were before. After all, loads of the sets and themes that I've gotten excited for over the years were ones that felt new and different in ways I'd never seen or imagined before, but which felt like the type of sets I might have loved just as much (or more!) as a kid than the ones that were actually available back then: We didn't really have much in the way of fairground or amusement park sets back then, for instance, but now we have loads of them across several different themes. Given how much I enjoyed the LEGOLAND park builder computer game back then, I'm sure I'd have been just as thrilled to build amusement park rides and attractions using real bricks! I loved spooky stories like I'd find in series like "Goosebumps" or "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark". But supernatural stuff back then typically came in the form of cartoonish ghosts, skeletons, dragons, witches, and wizards — nothing nearly as eerie as the ghosts and monsters from themes like Hidden Side or Ninjago. I was captivated for a long time by fairy tales, fantasy stories, and world mythology, and delighted in stories about magical heroes, heroines, creatures, and villains in series like "The Chronicles of Narnia", "The Prydain Chronicles", "The Lord of the Rings", and "Harry Potter". I didn't have to wait too long to enjoy Harry Potter sets, even if they were not all that great by today's standards. But I would have been DELIGHTED by the gorgeous, otherworldly magical adventures in the Elves theme! I don't know what you must think of me to think you can call me "shorty" or act as though I'm somehow out-of-line for disagreeing with you. But you seem to be getting kind of snippy with other people too, which makes me think you may want to step back and question whether other people having different likes or dislikes than you is worth getting this upset about. After all, the whole point of discussion forums is for people to share their points of view and opinions, even when they differ — and they ALWAYS differ. I'm certainly not too young to know what it's like to see the world move on from the stuff I enjoyed as a child. But I'm also not too young to recognize that the stuff of my childhood sometimes wasn't all that great in hindsight. That's why it's so exciting to me whenever I'm reminded of just how much things have evolved since then — not only in LEGO, but also in many other parts of my life, from video games to cartoons to movies to societal values to my own growth as a person. How is LEGO City not doing well? It's been one of LEGO's best selling themes for at least a decade at this point. The reason that LEGO City has developed the patterns you're describing is because they have done so much to boost the theme's popularity. Whereas in the late 90s and early 2000s, LEGO was losing money AND losing credibility among buyers by taking lots of expensive risks without doing enough market research or managing their costs well enough to back them up. When you see LEGO entering into a repetitive pattern, like creating similar sets every year, that's generally a sign that buyers are continuing to show strong interest in those types of sets. After all, LEGO pays close attention to what sets are selling well for them in any given year, and tend to axe or radically overhaul any product lines that are declining in popularity, LONG before they actually stop being profitable.

Claiming it didn't sell well at this point is a bit premature, isn't it? I mean, the biggest months of the year for toy sales are still a ways off. Also, why are you quoting a rumor post from nearly a year ago?

This is my perception as well. There are a lot of theme names that are "brand names" rather than literal descriptions of their scope. It's the same as how there have been "Castle" sets that don't depict castles or areas inside them, how there were "Town" sets not set in towns, how there were "Ninja" sets with no ninjas, how there are "Pirates" sets with no pirates, Harry Potter sets that don't include Harry Potter, etc. In this case, the main defining factors that set City apart from themes like Castle, Space, Agents, Adventurers, Pirates, or Ninjago isn't that City sets all take place within to happen within city limits — rather, it's that the sets generally exist in a modern-day, low-fantasy, low-conflict world. If the only rule about what a City set was is that it had to happen IN a city… I mean, that would open the door to far-future cities like in the Ultra Agents theme, or fantasy universe cities like in the Ninjago theme! And that would dilute the theme's meaning WAY more than sets that happen to take place in the larger world that surrounds LEGO City proper. These are all very good points! And honestly I've pointed this out myself in the past… I mean, cities can even be right next to jungles or volcanoes in some parts of the world. If, say, LEGO were to make a "Desert Police" subtheme… well, why not? It's not like deserts are some remote place that nobody builds cities in or near. Even Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert! What's more, I also think there's an issue many people don't consider, which is that stuff inside of cities doesn't always stay there. Launching platforms for spacecraft first showed up in the Flight subtheme of Town, same as airplane or airport sets — they didn't get their own separate subtheme (Launch Command) until 1995. And there are a lot of parallels that can be drawn between those type of sets. After all, if you're going to argue that space exploration doesn't belong in City… well, the same argument can just as easily be applied to cargo ship, jet aircraft, and train sets, which might begin and end their journeys in cities, but spend lots of their time far outside of them! I do not work for LEGO. Closest I've gotten was getting invited to a recruitment workshop in Billund in 2015, but I wasn't one of the candidates selected that time around. That said, I find it odd that "do you work for LEGO?" seems to be people's go-to question when I make a case for why LEGO does things the way they do, as if being an employee there is the only reason that anybody ought to presume basic competence on their part. Furthermore, I think it's ridiculously arrogant of you to believe that the strategies that have made LEGO City one of LEGO's most successful themes over the course of pretty much their most successful decade in history somehow fall short of your baseless assumptions about what it should be doing. It's one thing to say that you want LEGO to change a few things, but it's another to bloviate about how during your tenure as a designer (which, mind you, is still no more than a dream/goal of yours), you will be the one to "fix" a theme that hasn't even been credibly shown to be "broken"! I hope to be a LEGO designer one day as well, but I'm not so cocky as to think that I already have what it takes to not only get the job, but also do it BETTER than the people already working there, before even putting in an application for a current job opening. For most intents and purposes, Res-Q was basically just an edgy 90s re-imagining of the Coastguard subtheme that had already been introduced nearly a decade earlier. It had scarier-looking packaging than today's City Coast Guard sets, but the core idea of responding to coastal emergencies was pretty much the same. Also, if including the exploration sets in City is as bad an idea as you seem to think then it's kind of ridiculous to suggest LEGO keeps doing it "for money". If the sets would really be more popular as their own separate theme, then there'd be more money to be earned from releasing them that way. On a related note, I'm not sure why people seem so confident about the idea that the City theme was imposed on the Exploration subthemes to boost their popularity, rather than that Exploration subthemes have helped to boost the City theme's popularity. Careers in science are trendy these days, and I think that's probably the reason behind why we've seen an increasing focus on scientific research or ecological expeditions in SEVERAL themes — not just in LEGO City, but also Jungle Rescue/Sea Life Rescue sets from LEGO Friends, NASA sets from LEGO Ideas and LEGO Creator Expert A lot of folks seem to be thinking about the LEGO City exploration sets as somehow taking the place of themes like Adventurers, Aqua Raiders, Aqua Raiders, and Pharaoh's Quest. But there's a much bigger difference between the subthemes in question and those retired themes than branding — Adventurers and the like are high-fantasy, high-conflict themes featuring undead mummies, tribal spirits, sea monsters, and in Adventurers' case, even a villainous human faction. The City exploration subthemes, on the other hand are low-fantasy, low-conflict themes. Their biggest difference from the real-life scientific efforts that inspire them is that the explorers are hunting for eye-catching stuff like shiny (but not necessarily magical) crystals or preserved ice-age animals, not just collecting mundane-looking rock, soil, or ice samples for chemical analysis as real researchers in these environments might spend a lot of their time doing. And the main reason for this inaccuracy isn't as much about Adventurers-style fantasy flair than making sure kids receiving a set can instantly recognize what it is that the explorers might be trying to obtain. It's the same as why LEGO City miners mine for gold and not some more commonly-mined but plain-looking mineral like feldspar. Or why LEGO City criminals steal stuff with obvious value like money, gold, or jewels, rather than other popular targets for theft like laundry detergent or manhole covers. So… why did you even bother to bring him up? It's not as though having one random LEGO designer with no insights into why LEGO City subthemes get chosen really elevates your argument. All it tells us is that there are other people with personal opinions about what LEGO City designers should/shouldn't do but no evidence to back them up. To be honest, all of these explanations are a bit of a stretch to find out-of-the-ordinary explanations for ordinary occurrences. As I've brought up several times, LEGO didn't need any movie licensed themes as justification for making Launch Command, Divers, Space Port, and Arctic sets in the late 90s. So why would they need that kind of justification now? I'm especially bewildered by the idea that Jurassic World would be any obstacle at all to a new fantasy ocean or underground adventure theme. Just because Jurassic Park/Jurassic World are 20th/21st century fantasy licenses doesn't mean that any and all 20th/21st century fantasy themes would be "too similar". Frankly, many of those themes you just mentioned have way more in common with other "big bang" themes like Ninjago and Nexo Knights, as well as retired licenses like Indiana Jones and Prince of Persia (which WERE able to exist alongside some of the themes you named), than with any of LEGO's current licenses. In general, all this stuff comes down to the same baffling assumption that "the only reason LEGO would make themes/subthemes I don't like is because something's STOPPING them from bringing back themes/subthemes I do want." It's the same as the bonkers idea that LEGO would only make a theme like Nexo Knights or Knights' Kingdom II if they couldn't make Castle sets, or that LEGO would only make girl-oriented Elves sets because they couldn't make boy-oriented ones. The core of all these assumptions is the idea that the stuff AFOLs (either as a group or individually) want LEGO to make is implicitly superior to the stuff they actually end up doing, and that LEGO knows and believes this to be true, but has to settle for an inferior option. Which is absurd. In truth, there's no reason to believe that fantasy or sci-fi submarine/mining/jungle/space sets are implicitly superior to realistic ones, any more than there is to believe that realistic castle or pirate or ninja sets are implicitly superior to fantasy or sci-fi ones. It's just personal preference. And because LEGO can't possibly make every theme concept they've ever come up with at all times, that means that sometimes they might do something different than what AFOLs want or suspect, for no other reason than that it seems like it's something a large number of potential buyers will like. I'm not denying that licensed themes (AND non-licensed themes) can influence new theme development, of course. For instance, sometimes choosing a color scheme for a theme like Power Miners or Atlantis is influenced in part by a desire to make them stand out from whatever other sets are likely to be on shelves at the same time. And of course, there's no doubt that LEGO might prefer to avoid having too many themes with a similar concept out at the same time. But it's not really for us to say that the themes which are similar to but not quite what we want to see are just a "plan B" when the ones we do want to see don't pan out. Because even here on Eurobricks, it's normal for different people to enjoy different themes — I remember plenty of comments when Pharaoh's Quest was around complaining that they'd prefer a historical Egyptian theme over a 20th century fantasy undead mummy theme, and plenty of comments when Atlantis was around from people who said they'd prefer to see a more realistic underwater theme. We're ALWAYS going to have people who have different preferences, and LEGO just has to try their best to make informed decisions about which preferences have a stronger case for catering to them in any given year.

Changing up a core product line with no idea whatsoever whether it would result in "high demands" or "chaos" is not how any competent business operates… LEGO doesn't make any decision that big without enough research and testing to have at least moderate confidence that it will result in a positive outcome. For all we know, they might have already done some research and testing into what the outcomes of a year of sets like you're describing would be like, and the results of that research and testing are what convinced them not to move forward with that strategy. And mind you, all these suggestions are solutions to what from all appearances is a non-issue. From a financial standpoint, LEGO City is still the massive success it's been for over a decade now. And in terms of variety of subject matter, it's true that there are complaints about LEGO City not having enough hospitals, ambulances, banks, civilian boat docks, farms, shops, schools, parking garages, restaurants, train stations, grocery stores, etc. But in fact, none of those things have EVER been any less frequent in the City theme than in the other modern-day, minifig-scale themes like Town or World City that preceded it! As such, the idea that LEGO City should focus less on X and more on Y generally boils down to a mere "gut feeling" that the types of "variety" that the person speaking ISN'T interested in — e.g. space centers, arctic expeditions, coast guard helicopters, fire stations, helicopter transport vehicles, police stations in unusual environments, off-road racing vehicles, private jets, train stations, etc. — can't POSSIBLY be as popular as the sorts of sets they'd prefer to see from the list above. Maybe, instead, when LEGO seems to make the same decision again and again in their most popular themes, it's because those strategies have proven reliably successful. And maybe when they change strategies and the new way "sticks" for years to follow — for example, switching to a focus on complete train sets instead of individual train cars, introducing "people packs", introducing variants on the Police subtheme in the years between Classic Police waves, introducing exploration-based subthemes, introducing subthemes like Mining and Demolition to intermittently take the place of Construction when it's due for a new wave, introducing $100+ Town sets with a varied range of buildings and vehicles all in one box, etc — it's because when they DID take a risk on a new strategy that looked promising based on initial research/testing, it not only paid off at the time, but has continued to do so ever since.

What I'm referring to by the infrequency of the police and exploration subthemes you suggest getting rid of to make room for the six you suggested is that each one shows up once and then typically doesn't show up again until three or four years later, if at all. You do not see the SAME police subthemes or the SAME exploration subthemes with the same frequency that existing medical/racing/roadside assistance sets do. Say, for instance, LEGO does get rid of non-Classic Police and Exploration subthemes going forward, and it does (as per your argument) free up room for sets in the subthemes you want to see instead. How much room is that, exactly? Here's what you'd be getting rid of based on the typical pattern for Police and Exploration sets: one subtheme in 2020 two subthemes in 2021 two subthemes in 2022 one subtheme in 2023 two subthemes in 2024 two subthemes in 2025 …and so on. You suggested six new subthemes, right? If you assume a 1:1 relationship between the subthemes you get rid of and the number you make room for, then it would take between three or four years to get through one wave each of all the subthemes you have in mind. So whichever you picked in 2020, it wouldn't be until 2024 that you'd have room for a second wave of that subtheme. And something the less frequent Classic Police subthemes like Forest Police and Sky Police have in common with Exploration subthemes? They're not all that big — certainly not as big as the 9–10 non-polybag Classic Police sets that show up when it's that theme's turn in the cycle. On average, each of the non-standard Police subthemes and Exploration subthemes alike tends to get about 6 non-polybag sets in a wave. How would getting about six sets for any of the subthemes you describe every three or four years be any better for buyers than getting fewer of those same type of sets more frequently, as described in my previous post? All it would mean is that people who want a medical-related set, or a racing-related set, or a towing/auto repair company related set, or a Downtown-related set, etc. might have LESS chance of one being available at that time, because there'd be a good two or three years between new waves of each of those subthemes. If the logo that appears on the boxes is genuinely the only concern you have, then again I raise the question of how changing the logo of the subthemes you dislike (but continuing to release them as their own theme) would do anything to create enough new demand or production capacity to support the subthemes you want to see in their place. Realistically, if all that's changing is labeling, then it would seem that splitting LEGO City into two separate themes would also split the demand and production capacity for LEGO City between those same two themes. Suppose you have a pizza box with six slices: four slices of cheese pizza, and two slices of pepperoni pizza. You don't like pepperoni, so you move those two slices into their own box. The first box isn't going to simply grow more slices of cheese pizza to fill the space left behind. The pieces you moved are just in a different box now, and they still have pepperoni on them. It's the same deal here. If splitting a theme into separate themes based on subject matter could magically create create more total demand across the resulting themes than there was under a shared theme, then LEGO might as well have separate themes for "LEGO Police", "LEGO Fire Brigade", "LEGO Construction", "LEGO Airport", "LEGO Coast Guard", etc, instead of bothering to have a "City" theme at all! Not sure that's a great example, considering that the current City theme is both more successful AND more popular than any of its late 90s or early 2000s counterparts ever were… Plus, this seems to contradict your earlier idea that if sets like hospitals or tow trucks or race cars are worth having, then they should each get a whole subtheme of related sets to support them instead of just appearing in an assorted categories like Town and Great Vehicles. What it sounds like you're arguing now is that ALL sets in the City theme should vary on an entirely arbitrary basis, with no shared framework besides their urban setting to connect them with the others released alongside them. Which sounds like complete chaos for a theme that large

A lot of old-school Technic fans prefer for the sets to have open spaces to show off their mechanical workings, since realistic mechanical functions have generally been one of the core selling points of the Technic theme and a lot of people think hiding them behind full body panels diminishes the impact of those. I don't think it's all that new — after all, 42069 from 2017, 42053 from 2016; 42035, 42041, and 42043 from 2015; 42030 from 2014; 42007 from 2013; 9395 and 9397 from 2012; and 8109 and 8110 from 2011 all used System rather generously, despite panels having become the norm for most structural and decorative areas of Technic sets well before then. System-based design solutions seem to be particularly common in licensed Technic models, since Technic parts and techniques which may be perfectly suited to the depiction of the same general subject (e.g. excavator, super car, etc) might not feel as authentic to that specific subject.

The explorer subthemes might not take place "in" the City, but I don't know if that's really as big a deal as people make it out to be. After all, City is more of a brand than a description of what that brand contains, same as how the Castle theme includes sets that don't contain and don't go inside a castle, and the Pirates theme contains sets primarily based on characters and factions besides pirates. Even the Town theme (which City fills more or less the same role as) contained plenty of subjects that didn't take place WITHIN a town — for example, many sets from the Launch Command, Divers, Outback, Extreme Team, Space Port, and Arctic, subthemes, as well as lots of other wilderness-oriented sets like Rocky River Retreat, Gator Landing, Derby Trotter, Additionally, I don't think it's realistic to assume that if you made the less urban CIty subthemes like Jungle Explorers or Mountain Police into their own separate theme, that would somehow "create room" for more City subthemes. After all, pretty much the only limits on the number of City sets LEGO can make in any given year are customer demand and production capacity. And if you're still producing the same number of sets, just branding them differently, you aren't creating any more demand OR any more production capacity, you're more or less just breaking the demand and production capacity for current City sets into two chunks that add up to the same amount as before. Not to mention that if these are only "taking the place" of themes we only see one or two of a year, it wouldn't make a lot of the types of sets you describe more frequent. After all, a lot of the general categories of sets you're suggesting as new subthemes have already been fairly well covered by existing subthemes in sets of the past decade: 2019: 60233 from the Town subtheme (Metro Transit, Downtown) 60232 from the Town subtheme (Roadside Assistance, Downtown) 60241 from the Fire Brigade subtheme (Downtown) 60218 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Circuit) 60203 from the Town subtheme (Paramedics) 2018: 60204 from the Town subtheme (Paramedics) 60200 from the Town subtheme (Metro Transit, Downtown) 60180 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Circuit) 60179 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Paramedics) 60178 from the Great Vehicles subthem (Octan Circuit) 2017: 60154 from the Town subtheme (Metro Transit, Downtown) 60151 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Circuit) 60146 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Circuit) 60145 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Circuit) 60148 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Circuit) 60140 from the Classic Police subtheme (Downtown) 2016: 60132 from the Town subtheme (Roadside Assistance, Downtown) 60116 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Paramedics) 60115 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Cup) 60113 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Cup) 2015: 60097 from the Town subtheme (Metro Transit, Roadside Assistance, Downtown) 60084 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Cup) 60081 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Roadside Assistance) 2014: 60056 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Roadside Assistance) 60055 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Cup) 60053 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Cup) 2013: 60031 from the Town subtheme (Metro Transit, Downtown) 60027 from the Town subtheme (Octan Cup) 60026 from the Town subtheme (Metro Transit, Roadside Assistance, Downtown) 60025 from the Town subtheme (Octan Cup) 60008 from the Elite Police subtheme (Downtown) 2012: 4433 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Octan Cup) 4431 from the Great Vehicles subtheme (Paramedics) 4429 from the Town subtheme (Paramedics) 4207 from the Town subtheme (Roadside Assistance, Downtown) 2011: 3661 from the Classic Police subtheme (Downtown) 2010: 8404 from the Town subtheme (Metro Transit, Roadside Assistance) 8403 from the Town subtheme (Neighborhood) 7848 from the Town subtheme (Downtown) All in all, the only one of the subthemes you suggest that's severely under-represented compared to in the Classic Town era is "Neighborhood", presumably because LEGO has found that house sets sell better in the Creator 3-in-1 and Friends themes. And unlike the exploration and police subthemes you wish to replace, which only tend to get a new wave every three or four years (or sometimes even less frequently), sets in categories like racing, medical care, downtown, road service, and public transit manage to show up pretty much every year or every two years under the current system — just without any guarantee of having a full wave of sets to complement them. And in many cases that would seem to work out just fine… after all, how many tow trucks or buses could you really need in a single year?