Aanchir

Yeah. Also, how people feel about the specific meaning something has to them isn't always affected by the reality of what it actually means. When big Technic sets get revealed it's not unusual to see comments about how Technic sets aren't "real LEGO" (at least in the case of the primarily studless Technic sets that have been the norm since the early 2000s). I also have seen plenty of people claim that licensed themes aren't real LEGO, or that Belville isn't real LEGO, or that mini-dolls aren't real LEGO, or whatever.

These could definitely be used on differently shaped MOCs, just not necessarily to create the same fish shape they're designed for. Much like how plenty of MOCists use other cloth, paper, or plastic sheet pieces for stuff other than what they were intended for. And if they made more of these? It's still, what, two new elements per set? And much like a sticker sheet, they pretty much only have to be machine printed and cut, rather than needing expensive and mechanically intricate steel molds like many more traditional parts. Even if LEGO weren't doing these as such a limited run, I don't see any way that they'd end up losing a lot of money on them. I think comments like this really betray how easy it is to incorrectly assume our own experience is universal. Everybody finds different stuff creatively stimulating, and there's no reason to think that minifigure-based play is something everybody would enjoy, particularly all adults. If the adults who stuff like LEGO Forma is trying to appeal to were interested in existing LEGO themes they'd already be buying those themes. But it's possible that they find those themes uninteresting, the same as how many of us find themes WITHOUT minifigures uninteresting. But in most cases, AFOLs like us who enjoy LEGO sets as much as kids do by far the minority on both a global and a local level. There are a lot of adults out there who presently have no compelling interest in LEGO, but who might change their tune if a LEGO theme came about that was more tailored to their creative interests. Small, low-risk product initiatives like this are a pretty decent way of testing out ideas for stuff that might help capture at least part of that wider adult demographic.

Sure, but not much more than other parts that come in the form of a paper/plastic/cloth sheet like pirate ship sails, tents, some dragon wings, etc. And because each set of skins comes on just two sheets, it's not a huge number of new elements from a production standpoint, compared to stuff like Jack Stone, Galidor, or even Fabuland that had huge numbers of new elements that weren't shared extensively with other themes. I mean, I agree that this is aimed at a demographic that might not be interested in the conventional "play themes", but the same can be said to an extent about other existing themes that skew towards an older audience like Technic or Architecture. What sets this theme apart, IMO, is that it's being framed less as something serious, sophisticated, and focusing on the great works of human achievement, and more as a relaxing, calming building experience resulting in a product that celebrates the harmonious, rhythmic beauty of the natural world. In general it's a much less masculine-coded product, which extends to the marketing and lifestyle photos. Architecture sets are marketed via motifs like bold, minimalist layouts and references to the models' relevance to world history, geography, and famous people. Technic sets are marketed with rugged outdoor or garage backdrops, intense fonts, and an emphasis on speed and mechanical power. This product, on the other hand, showed up on Indiegogo with a logo made from colorful bubble letters, layouts featuring artsy and whimsical patterns, and lifestyle photos focusing on contented adults in a cozy home setting.

Kitsune is just the Japanese word for "fox", including normal wild foxes. Being able to live an extraordinarily long time and gaining extra tails and supernatural abilities as they get older is just a characteristic that foxes in general were believed to have in Japanese folklore… sort of like Western animal folklore and superstitions like cats having multiple lives. In modern pop culture, kitsune and related spirits have been interpreted in numerous ways, including creatures like this or Liska the Earth Fox from LEGO Elves that are much larger than a fox would be in real life.

I'm puzzled about why you include LEGO Dacta in that list, considering that it's pretty much remained a stable and long-lasting success, just under a different name for the past decade or two (LEGO Education). And Forma is definitely not going to be the next Jack Stone or Galidor, considering that what made those a failure wasn't just their limited appeal, but the fact that LEGO staked unreasonably high expectations on them right from the start — whereas with this, they are clearly approaching it as the kind of niche, experimental product that it is. Not to mention, a big part of both the reason AFOLs hated those themes and the reason they cost LEGO so much money was their almost complete reliance on big, highly specialized parts not shared with other themes. By comparison, this set is primarily made up of generic LEGO Technic pieces, other than the new skins and pins.

I also think a lot of BrickLink sellers avoid stocking much in the way of constraction parts/sets, since as a lot of kids who enjoyed Bionicle G1 moved on from it, the aftermarket got flooded with those kinds of parts and sets, killing a lot of their value. Many of these BrickLink sellers were already biased against constraction sets and parts due to them and most of their AFOL customers being old-school AFOLs who didn't consider Bionicle "real LEGO". By the time large numbers of Bionicle fans became adults and stopped being able to get the types or quantities of parts or sets they wanted on the primary market, constraction had something of a reputation among sellers as a risky investment that would move slowly, clog their inventory, and often fail to accrue lasting value. From my experience, many Hero Factory sets and parts on BrickLink were often pretty rare and priced pretty highly in their own right. This really became apparent when the limited-release Bat-Pod suddenly got a lot of AFOLs who didn't care at all about Hero Factory interested in the most common color of part 92222, and many sellers' stocks of the part and sets containing it were either quickly cleared out or bumped up considerably in price. Only a couple years earlier that part had even been available from the LEGO Group's online Pick-A-Brick service, but evidently not so many builders or sellers cared at that time.

Frankly, if there were a new train set intended for release in 2019, I'd hope and somewhat expect it to be a new station, rather than a new freight train. It's true that in the past, the set that came out after the main wave was USUALLY a freight train, but then, in the past a station was usually INCLUDED in the main wave, whereas last year that wasn't the case. There is also precedent for a station coming out a year after the main wave: 7997, released in 2007 after the initial 2006 wave of LEGO City trains. Notably, both the 2006 and 2018 waves represented the launch of a new control system for the trains (the 2006 LEGO City trains were the first to use infrared remote control instead of 9V electrified rails, while the 2018 LEGO City trains introduced the Bluetooth controlled Powered Up system). So perhaps a situation like that is enough to motivate LEGO to emphasize the trains themselves in the main wave and save the station for later?

With original, non-media-supported themes, there’s oftennot as much of the same incentive to redesign specific sets, because kids usually won’t have any familiarity with those exact subjects unless they already obtained the set second-hand. Ninjago and Star Wars are different in that even after the sets are retired, the popularity and widespread availability of past movies or TV seasons keeps the older stuff relevant even to fans who weren’t around when it first came out. That’s not to say that repetition isn’t as frequent in the non-licensed themes, but it’s usually in the form of LEGO revisiting the general concepts buyers continue to respond well to… e.g. revisiting CONCEPT of a police station or a castle or a pirate ship or a space shuttle or a drilling vehicle lor a Technic race car or a Creator dinosaur, rather than redesigning specific previous versions of those things from past sets. Additionally, themes that get massive numbers of new sets every year like Star Wars and Ninjago have a lot more room to include both redesigns AND new stuff than themes that get smaller numbers of sets per year, get new sets on a less frequent basis, or both. As for the idea that I should try to sound like a LEGO employee, I’m not sure what that would entail. Like, it seems counterproductive to be LESS honest about what stuff I like/dislike/know/don’t know because some people think they don’t sound like honest perspectives a “real fan” would have. And despite the impression people seem to be getting, I don’t just go around telling anyone who expresses negative feelings about LEGO that they’re wrong. I usually only even bother commenting when I feel like there’s actually something for me to contribute, whether it’s a hypothesis about why something is the way that it is, or a link to relevant info or quotes, or an explanation of why I agree or disagree.

I can name several and often have on this site, contrary to your misrepresentation of me. I never liked the Disney Princess Palace Pets sets. I disliked that LEGO ditched the cool and iconic 2D animation style from the Bionicle 2016 webisodes in favor of a grittier looking 3D style. I was disappointed that Farran from LEGO Elves never got a cape, hood, or cloak. I was pretty disappointed with the Ninjago Movie’s pacing and lack of a really strong narrative arc for most of the main cast, bummed that a lot of the classic themes have been so slow to introduce sets with really complete, livable interiors compared to themes like Friends or Elves, sad that LEGO Elves: Secrets of Elvendale didn’t get a second season, frustrated that there’s no new action figure themes in sight, underwhelmed by the second and third years of Nexo Knights vehicles and monsters, kind of frustrated that female characters in so many of the themes I enjoyed as a kid got the short end of the stick, impatient that LEGO themes are still so weak when it comes to LGBT rep compared to lots of other kid-targeted brands like Transformers or Steven Universe, etc. Now, all that said, I don’t tend to get angry/bitter about these disappointments, assume LEGO owes me better, or talk disparagingly about themes I don’t care for (whether or not they are getting attention I’d prefer my own favorite themes to get). It’s always funny when people think I’m glowingly positive about everything LEGO just because… I find ways to express my disappointments without getting angry or acting as though LEGO is making some huge mistake any time they fail to prioritize my tastes over other people’s? I know my posts tend to be long and tedious. I’m bad at expressing my thoughts concisely and I’m not the least bit proud of it. It’d intensely frustrating to lapse into hyper-focus while writing a single post and lose track of time, only to realize after I’m finished that I accidentally spent a huge chunk of my free time on it. But that said, I usually at least try to contribute facts and/or opinions that are relevant to the topic. Whereas your post, best I can tell, is just singling me out and treating me like I have no thoughts of my own because I don’t get as angry about toys as you think I should, and think that creating threads just to complain about themes I’m not a fan of is counter-productive.

Agreed, it gets a little tedious… although sometimes it's a little amusing to see how those perspectives change with time. Like, go back around ten or eleven years and you see fans of the "classic themes" complaining about how terrible and bad and useless and childish themes like Agents, Power Miners, Atlantis, World Racers, and Ninjago are, and how they were a sign that LEGO was back on the road to ruin. Nowadays it's starting to feel like a good portion of the complaints about old stuff being better than new stuff cite years like 2008–2010 as a period when LEGO had stuff figured out way better, even to the point of name-dropping many of those themes alongside Castle/Pirates/Space as reasons that those years had been a "golden age" Of course, I suppose it was just as surprising when I was just entering adulthood in the late aughts/early 2010s to see people complaining that new themes like Agents, Power Miners, Atlantis, Alien Conquest, Pharaoh's Quest, Ninjago, and Galaxy Squad paled in comparison to late 90s/early 2000s themes like Alpha Team, Rock Raiders, Aquazone, UFO, Adventurers, Ninja, and Insectoids. After all, AFOLs during that part of my childhood had been criticizing many of those "new" themes as symptoms of the ways LEGO was going off course. And at that time, regardless of the merits of any particular theme, AFOLs were at least right about LEGO being in a perilous situation and making a lot of bad business choices! Needless to say, seeing the same kinds of "LEGO was better 10 years ago" complaints in 2009 and 2019, even with LEGO doing a lot better at each of those points than they had been 10 years earlier, it's hard not to get the sense that nostalgia for a lot of AFOLs at any point in time just tends to paint a picture that the LEGO Group of ten years prior had better business sense, better themes, better prices, better storytelling, more sophisticated designs, etc, regardless of matter how well or poorly those decade-old sets and themes actually compare to current ones. To be honest, I see the idea that "LEGO puts good minifigures in bad sets to trick people into buying them" quite a bit, and I don't think it really holds much water. For one thing, no LEGO set designer EVER designs a set to be undesirable. But additionally, a lot of the time these are adult, long-term collectors opinions about sets aimed at kids and new collectors. Take for instance 76101, with a small spaceship, two good guys, and two bad guys. To a lot of AFOLs who only care about collecting and don't play with their sets, the spaceship might seem like something they're forced to pay extra for to get those characters, and will then just collect dust on a shelf, overshadowed by bigger and more interesting sets. But to a six-year-old kid who buys toys to play with and not just to put on a shelf or mark off boxes on a checklist, the spaceship is the main thing that actually makes a set this inexpensive any fun to build or play with. It turns figures that would on their own just be trinkets (or "accessories" as you put it) into a considerably more substantial building and play experience. After all, if they only cared about the movie characters and not about the building or play experience, there are plenty of non-LEGO toys with more detailed/posable versions of those characters that might be a lot cheaper to collect than LEGO sets… same as how a kid who cares more about non-branded stuff like trucks or pirates or dragons than about building could buy any number of cheaper non-LEGO toys with the same kinds of stuff in them at a higher level of detail. If anything, I'd say that a lot of the sets "back in the day" had a much greater tendency to have a rather basic, mediocre build where the figure and/or accessories were the real star. Consider, for instance, 6235. Not only is $3.25 for 20 pieces that are neither unique nor exclusive pretty pitiful by today's standards even before adjusting for inflation, but only around 6 of the parts are standard building elements, everything else is figures and accessories. Whereas as recently as last year, you could get sets like 30532 (61 pieces: 6 for the minifig+sword and 55 for a little car you can zoom around) and 30547 (63 pieces: 8 for the minifig+blaster+ammo and a 55 for a dragon with 10 points of articulation) for around $4. And weren't you and others complaining about Speed Champions in this topic earlier? Yet those sets are a pretty obvious example of modern sets where the minifigures are fairly boring accessories and the vehicles themselves are invariably the real star. Now, for you and I they might still be underwhelming, because I don't think either of us are car enthusiasts or know/care much about the little details that differentiate all those similar-sized sports cars, let alone why they matter. But there's no doubt a lot of work goes into trying to make those cars resemble the real-world ones that inspire them, often employing lots of pieces and all kinds of unconventional building techniques in order to do so. Exclusive figs being peppered throughout the sets isn't meant to punish the people who can't get them all or to compel people to buy sets they don't actually want, but to ensure that no matter which sets a person is interested in getting or how many they get, most will have at least one "special" minifigure that doesn't feel like a repeat of one that buyer already owns. Even here on Eurobricks I've seen extensive complaints from people about getting lots of duplicates of characters like Woody and Buzz in the Toy Story sets, or Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean sets, or Anakin and Ahsoka in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars sets, or any number of ninja and baddies in Ninjago sets. Even if people like and want a set on its own merits and don't buy it for the minifigures, that feeling of it coming with a figure you didn't actually want/need can leave a bad taste in people's mouths, aside from certain characters (licensed and non-licensed alike) that are well-suited to army building. Thus, rare and exclusive figures help people get more enjoyment out of sets they planned on buying anyhow. Ultimately, any business model built around "tricking" people into paying more for something than the enjoyment they'll get out of it is actually worth to them isn't going to be very sustainable in the long run. The reason why LEGO is beloved enough that people like us even continue to enjoy it into adulthood is that even after we've bought it, it still feels rewarding. The answer to "why can't we have that?" has been explained at length in this thread by Mark Stafford, an AFOL and LEGO set designer who has just as much nostalgia for Classic Space as anyone. No LEGO monorail set back then ever turned a profit, and LEGO hasn't yet found any reason to believe that there's more demand for them today than there was back in the 80s when society as a whole cared more about monorails to begin with. It's one thing to say LEGO should re-introduce something like Castle or Space sets that was highly successful for many years. That kind of stuff probably WILL continue to come out, if not every year. And even then LEGO invariably does some more comprehensive kid testing and market research to figure out how best to pull it off.But there's no sense whatsoever in acting as though LEGO has no reason not to reintroduce something like monorail that was an expensive failure that few people actually bought, and that no kids LEGO has tested monorail sets with since have ever been particularly excited about compared to other, more promising possibilities. As Nabii explains, kids don't really see much difference between a monorail and any other type of trains, and LEGO already tends to release as many trains as the market has enough demand to sustain — which these days isn't a lot! It's fairly easy in relatively tiny communities like Eurobricks (which is presently being viewed by less than 1000 people) to overestimate how much demand there is for any given product or product line. Same as how many of the Bionicle sites and groups I used to frequent could easily convey the impression that the number of people demanding more Bionicle sets, comics, movies, games, etc. was a massive force that LEGO couldn't possibly afford to ignore. As you yourself say, "the unhappiest people are usually loudest". But even so, LEGO looks into this stuff all the time. It's not as though any theme that hasn't had new sets in the past five years got to that point because the people making decisions at LEGO haven't considered the possibility, or don't realize that there's anybody who'd buy that stuff. LEGO is exploring all kinds of ideas all the time, only a fraction of which we ever get to see as sets. And stuff inspired by sets that have been successful in the past, which many of LEGO's current designers grew up with, is typically some of the first stuff designers are likely to consider when trying to come up with future product ideas. But if "only the best is good enough", then it goes without saying that stuff appealing to Classic Space fans or Classic Castle fans might be passed over in favor of stuff that appeals to those people AND other groups. For example, I think it goes without saying that Star Wars was a major childhood experience for more adults than blue and gray Classic Space sets, both because adults who weren't born yet when either Classic Space sets or Star Wars movies were new are more likely to have experienced them as kids. Being born in 1991, I never owned an actual Classic Space set, and the closest I came to experiencing it in my childhood was through older posters, comic books, and idea books obtained via yard sales and so forth. But when my dad sat me down to watch the Star Wars original trilogy I can't have been older than five. A lot of us passionate AFOLs who visit message boards like this daily can probably be counted on not to pass up a set that appeals to our childhood LEGO nostalgia in favor of stuff that appeals to our other forms of childhood nostalgia. But among the many 70s and 80s kids who enjoyed Classic Space more casually and haven't thought about it so much as adults, their choice between a Star Wars D2C set and a Neo Classic Space D2C set might opt for the former. Same goes for a Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings D2C versus a Black Falcons or Crusaders throwback… as a child I'm not even sure I knew that a Castle faction with a name as nondescript as "Crusaders" existed. A Neo-Crusaders set certainly wouldn't have been any more exciting to me than Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings sets that my parents and I can ALL enjoy on a nostalgic level (certainly, Harry Potter was not a part of THEIR childhoods, but neither was LEGO, and most of their interest in either came as a result of raising me and my siblings). Wishing for your favorite themes to return is fine. I think any of us who have enjoyed any currently retired theme might enjoy seeing it make some sort of a comeback. But how would you feel if the current slate of LEGO themes were exactly the same as in, say, 1989, and people started a thread to talk about which of those themes were boring or pointless or had run their course and should be gotten rid of to make room for new Bionicle or Ninjago or Legends of Chima sets? How would you feel if your absolute favorite incarnation of LEGO Castle ended with no revival or replacement in sight, and most of the responses were negative ones like many of those seen here in response to the end of LEGO Nexo Knights? This is the kind of self-centeredness and dismissiveness I'm talking about — not just having a preference for certain themes over others, but thinking of themes you don't care for strictly as an enemy or obstacle to the ones you do. Realistically, of COURSE not all themes can possibly exist at once, but if the idea of LEGO giving up on a particular theme that you and people who share your interests loved really hurts so much, it seems downright sadistic to wish that on others, regardless of how you personally feel about the themes that are important to them? I suspect LEGO Elves could have been a lot bigger or lasted longer if LEGO Disney weren't a thing. But I'm not here hoping for LEGO to stop making Disney sets, which I know a lot of kids and adults alike are big fans of, just so that I and people who share my interests get preferential treatment. As long as it stays limited to that, it's NOT weakening the LEGO fan community. Such comments are fine, and if I see such comments on Facebook, usually my responses tend to be sincere words of encouragement. For example, reminding people that all the past castle themes in the past decade and a half have launched the same year as new Harry Potter or Hobbit sets and movies with seemingly no issue, so the current Harry Potter sets shouldn't prevent new Castle sets either. Or that with both Nexo Knights and Elves retired, a new take on castle is likely to show up pretty soon. Sometimes I even point out that before Nexo Knights even launched, the aforementioned set designer Mark Stafford characterized it here as "a chance to rest the traditional classic castle theme for a year or two, give it a chance to breath" (sic). In other posts like this one he's brought up the fact that Nexo Knights failing would probably REDUCE the likelihood of more traditional Castle sets in the future… so if anything the fact that Nexo Knights surpassed its sales targets and lasted more than the "year or two" Mark Stafford anticipated would bode well for the future of more traditional Castle sets. Even a lot of my comments in the historic themes forum here on this very site have consisted of enthusiastically sharing useful parts for Castle MOCs or future Castle sets from themes like Ninjago and Elves that many people in that forum haven't been paying as close attention to. Not to mention sharing perspectives on what I'd like the next Castle theme to look like, including characteristics from themes like Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts, and Elves that would translate well to a more traditional medieval European theme, such as: Detailed and livable interiors (which, if anything, should be easier to manage in traditional Castle than Ninjago or Nexo Knights, with none of the budget being eaten up by mechs and flying machines and lasers and stuff) Brick-built dragons and monsters with varied sizes and shapes Curvier walls like in some Elves and Harry Potter sets, instead of everything being made out of rectangles and octagons Sets with more elaborate raised foundations like 70728 or 41180, as a way of recreating that same kind of excitement as the raised baseplates of the 90s without the ludicrously inflated prices and diminished building experiences that often came with them. The 2013 Castle wave dabbled in this with 70403 (and did so in a decidedly awesome way by having the evil wizard's lair built on top of the ruins of an older castle), but the overall impact of the set was held back by the set's low price point and need to include an expensive molded dragon. The biggest non-D2C sets getting a price hike to $120 or $130 like many Ninjago/Legends of Chima/Nexo Knights sets, instead of peaking at $100 like they have since 2005. Maybe a character-driven story? That would probably impact whether I get invested in the theme on a personal level, though I can still appreciate sets and themes from afar without those traits. But comments like I see a lot on sites like Brickset or Facebook like "Enough Star Wars crap, bring back Bionicle!" or "Bring back LEGO Castle, no more Nexo garbage!" or "Ugh, Ninjago sucks. I miss Exo-Force", along with topics like this one, tend to feel a lot more mean-spirited. And the way some people act as though a theme you like being retired is grounds to call for themes you dislike to be retired, or to celebrate when they do, feels kind of nasty, IMO. I can't really muster any sympathy for such comments. Being upset that something you like isn't still around isn't reason to take it out on stuff many other people like that is. I don't mean to lump your comments and opinions in with such vitriol, but I also hope you understand that the frustration I feel with threads like this one and the kind of useless and divisive antipathy they tend to stir up. It doesn't mean that I don't want to see a new Castle theme of some kind to take the place of Nexo Knights. I absolutely do, whether it winds up being something I actually want to buy or not, and even before Nexo Knights ended, my feeling has been that another Castle theme taking its place is practically inevitable.

Doubtful. It's probably more just an attempt to keep on the cutting edge of real-world developments in space travel, so I wouldn't expect any actual aliens to show up whether as friends or enemies. I suspect there will still be some fantasy/sci-fi elements, but based on the set names it'll once again be the type we see all the time in City/Town mining and exploration sets, where the researchers are hunting for mysterious and sparkly crystals rather than stuff like rocks/minerals/ice samples that, to kids without background knowledge in that field, wouldn't really stand out as anything special or important.

For what it's worth, the designs for Ash and Shade in the elemental masters pack had some considerable updates from the way the characters looked in Tournament of Elements. Shade's updated design didn't make its TV debut until Season 9/Hunted, while I don't think Ash's updated design has shown up in the show yet at all. On a side note, although Skylor's costume change made its TV debut in Season 6/Skybound, the differently colored sleeves and hood as well as the more classic-looking gi and belt always struck me as more equivalent to the Ninja's Honor robes from the 2016 Day of the Departed sets and Halloween special, and I wouldn't be surprised if that resemblance was intended by the designer. The sky pirate pack was arguably even less connected with recent events in the show. Tournament Zane was clearly based on the other ninja's Tournament robes from the 2015/Season 4/Tournament of Elements sets, even though Zane never had his own equivalent of this costume in the show, nor would he have had opportunity to need it since he was captured well before the Tournament of Elements. It is possible, though, that it might be intended to represent a version of Zane between his resurrection at the end of 2013 and awakening in Master Chen's underground prison in Season 4. After all, putting Zane through a similar ruse to the Tournament of Elements to give him some kind of false hope of reuniting with his friends before robbing him of his elemental powers and imprisoning him DOES seem like something Master Chen would do. The Samurai X Phoenix Suit was largely a recolor/palette swap of the Samurai X minifigure from the 2012 Season 1 sets, but had different armor and added the goggles Samurai X wore in Season 1 of the show. But to my knowledge it doesn't directly reflect any costume that's been in the show, unless perhaps it appears as a prop in one of the many scenes set in the Samurai X cave. Personally, I have always interpreted this figure as an attempt to make up for a lack of a new Nya minifigure in the 2013/Season 2 sets, particularly since the color changes between it and the 2012 version it's based on closely resemble the color changes between the ninja's 2012 and 2013 costumes. Overall, the Oni pack definitely does stand out in terms of being the first Ninjago accessory set of this kind where all the contents are inspired by the current season's character designs… and stands out even further in that it's the first where none of the other sets from the current wave correspond directly to the corresponding season's premise and conflict. I definitely get the sense that in general, the graphic designers have taken to using these packs as an opportunity to release characters who wouldn't fit in so well with the latest wave of sets, whether that means they are more or less based on the current season than the other sets. Also, as I've noted in this BrickList, the amount of reused vs. new figures and parts in these accessory sets has been far from consistent, but Ninjago was definitely something of a leader when it came to having figures with entirely new graphic designs. Before Ninjago, the only unique minifigure elements in these sets were palette swapped collectible minifigure elements in two of the 2012 accessory sets.

That doesn't entirely surprise me. Here in the United States, we usually don't think of stores like Walmart and Target as "supermarkets", though some (not all) include a supermarket/grocery department. The stores we more typically call supermarkets are ones like Kroger, Hannaford, Food Lion, and Stop & Shop that focus primarily on grocery-type products. While many of these do have a toy department, most stick primarily to a small selection of low-priced toys — if you ever see LEGO at a supermarket to begin with, it's rarely anything priced higher than $15. Bigger sets more often tend to be sold at toy stores, department stores (e.g. Walmart, Target, Kohls, Meijer, BJ's Wholesale, Sam's Club, or Costco), book stores, or online retailers like Amazon. That last category has been gaining considerable market share recently, particularly as so many massive toy store chains (e.g. Toys "R" Us), book store chains (e.g. Borders), and department store chains (e.g. Sears and Kmart) have declared bankruptcy. Those big chains had spent decades crowding out smaller chains and independent stores, so after their collapse companies like Amazon have been picking up the pieces. I can't say I'm particularly comfortable with these sorts of changes in the retail landscape, particularly with the kind of ethically questionable business practices Amazon has engaged in to become and remain a market leader.

It's interesting to me that you assume the retailers, who interact more directly with consumers than LEGO generally does, can't be trusted to make good decisions about what sets consumers are most interested in. Back in the early 2000s, one of the big mistakes LEGO was making was NOT listening to feedback from retailers about what kinds of products buyers wanted or what they were actually buying. Many retailers made a purposeful decision NOT to stock large quantities of 2003 products due to massive amounts of unsold 2002 products. And even the success of Bionicle in 2003 that kept LEGO out of bankruptcy that year was somewhat sabotaged by LEGO's failure to produce adequate quantities of some of the Bionicle products that were most highly in demand in the run-up to the holiday season, even though retailers were well aware that customers wanted more of these products than LEGO was able to supply to them. LEGO putting more faith in retailers' insights into their own consumer base was one of many components of the LEGO Group's subsequent recovery process (see Brick by Brick chapter 4, page 105 under the header "First the Stores, Then the Kids" for more details). I have no doubt that retailers might be prone to excessive hype about entirely new product lines, but when that happens they generally respond by NOT ordering as much of those products in subsequent waves, and LEGO responds by not producing as much of them in subsequent waves. The idea that LEGO keeps making huge numbers of Star Wars, Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Friends, and City products because retailers are obtuse enough to order excessive amounts of poorly-selling products OVER and OVER again doesn't really appear to hold water. For that matter, I also think it's peculiar that you see LEGO's recent approach to themes as too volatile and risk-prone, when compared to years like 2009 that fans of classic themes often hearken back to, LEGO's current approach seems a lot more conservative and risk-averse. After all, a lot of the themes in 2009 that people have waxed nostalgic for in this and other threads (such as Pirates, Fantasy Era Castle, Space Police 3, Agents, Power Miners, Indiana Jones) were at that time either brand new or in only their second or third year, and most only had a short one to three year run before being retired/replaced. Whereas many of the things people are complaining about LEGO focusing excessively on in this very thread like Minecraft, Ninjago, Speed Champions, Star Wars, Technic vehicles, etc. are currently in anywhere from their fifth to their twentieth consecutive year. Cancelling or reducing emphasis on these sorts of safe, proven sets because AFOLs are bored/tired of them, just to make room for themes like Pirates that haven't proven capable of maintaining reliable, year-after-year, high-volume sales in over 20 years is exactly the kind of "short term revenue maximization at the cost of perhaps a less sexy, but stable longterm income" that you are afraid of LEGO engaging in. I'm not sure that LEGO following the example of a small, niche model company whose average customer is in their 60s and whose most recent annual report announced global revenues of €108 million is a really compelling argument, considering LEGO's own annual report from the same year reported revenues equivalent to €4.689 billion, and by most accounts they remain the world's most valuable and highest rated toy brand. Whether or not "cold sales numbers" are everything, it seems laughable to think that companies like Märklin and Roco are anywhere close to exceeding LEGO's overall success by any metric, except perhaps if you're only measuring popularity among senior citizens. Unlike Märklin, not only was LEGO able to successfully AVOID having to declare bankruptcy thanks to the strength of the Bionicle theme, but also seems to have done a far better job bouncing back from their lowest point even if you compare only how the two companies did within the nine or ten years after that point.

Interesting! Given the previous "beach" rumor I wonder if this will be more of a boardwalk-style amusement park (Coney Island, etc) rather than a more fairground-style amusement park like the earlier subtheme. That certainly seems to be what the packaging art for Emma's Bumper Cars would suggest! And on a side note, that polybag now makes more sense in the broader context of this year's sets.

It's sort of weird how it works out like that sometimes, particularly since it doesn't seem to be a general rule even within any given theme. For example, with a lot of sets and themes, it's normal for the numerical price in GBP is lower than the numerical price in USD or EUR, which is understandable since £1 is equal to €1.15 or US$1.32. But a $10 USD Great Vehicles set like 60240 costs £10 in the UK and €10 in Germany. With bigger City sets, though, I agree that the American prices sometimes seem downright exorbitant compared to the British or German prices, perhaps most egregiously in the case of 60080.

The idea that there's a hunger among AFOLs for classic themes is undeniable. But then again, the same thing can be said for monorail sets, every single one of which LEGO lost money on. Demand doesn't always equate to a good business case. Also, the AFOLs hungering for classic Castle sets are not always the same as those hungering for classic Pirates or classic Space — as such, the demand among AFOLs for each one of these product categories individually is smaller than demand for "classic products" broadly speaking. And AFOLs in general already represent a fairly small fraction of the overall audience for LEGO products, and those who would prefer classic themes over current ones a fraction of that fraction, so AFOL demand for LEGO to bring back classic Castle in particular amount to a fraction of a fraction of a fraction. Then you throw in the fact that many of the people who are supposedly united in their desire for new Castle sets don't even agree on what they want to see in Castle sets! Some want 2007-2009 style fantasy factions, some want strict realism. Some want big AFOL-targeted exclusives that exceed the level of size, detail, and complexity we've seen in past Castle sets, while others want sets at a more KFOL-targeted building level that will excite Castle-loving kids in their family or community. A lot of people have suggested that if LEGO were to release new Castle and Pirates sets they'd be a guaranteed hit. Would they? Because I seem to remember that the 2013 Castle sets and 2015 Pirates sets were pretty extensively panned by many even on this very site because they were "too simple" or "too small" or "too overpriced", or because the flags/heraldry didn't look right, or because they were too similar to stuff that had already been released, or because they were too different from the kinds of past sets somebody wanted, or because they weren't realistic enough, or because they weren't fantastical/imaginative enough, etc. I suspect they sold alright overall, but they didn't seem to make AFOLs all that happy. Honestly, with Bionicle (which is more my generation's thing), I've seen the same thing: fans complaining that the rebooted sets from 2015–2016 were too lifelike, or not lifelike enough. Too varied, or not varied enough. Too small, or too large. Too simple, or too complex. The parts were either too generic, or too specific. The scale and building style either too different from other LEGO themes, or not different enough. The marketing and design too focused on adults, or too focused on kids. Everything too old-fashioned, or too newfangled. Too many collectible masks, or not enough. Too much emphasis on familiar characters, or not enough emphasis on new characters. The story too beholden to the previous generation, or too disconnected from the previous generation. The only consensus is that the theme ended and that it's LEGO's fault for not handling it right… but pretty much no Bionicle fans before, during, or after the theme's revival have been able to reach any kind of consensus about what "handling it right" even means… other than more sets, more characters, more media, more marketing, more new pieces, bigger sets, bigger budgets, lower prices… can you see the contradictions in play here? And contrary to all conspiracy theories, I'm fairly confident that LEGO worked hard on making all three of these themes as enticing as they could, particularly for kids but also for nostalgic adults. Why else, for instance, would they make several of the Pirates characters' designs clearly allude to past LEGO Pirates minifigures and picture book characters that KFOLs would be far too young to remember from their own childhoods? Sometimes it seems like much as with the LEGO Legends sets, no re-release of existing sets or reboot of an existing theme will ever be able to measure up to the originals for the themes' nostalgic adult audiences, because no matter how faithful or original it is, it's not going to be able to recreate the feeling of discovering those themes as a kid for the very first time. If this is in fact the case, then perhaps LEGO has entirely the right approach by focusing primarily on sets and themes that will draw in new buyers of all ages, and treating appeal to the existing AFOL community with its myriad tastes as a secondary consideration. At least that way, potential buyers haven't had as many decades to build up highly specific expectations that can't all possibly be met. That said, Löwenstein Castle is a work of art. I absolutely love it. It checks a lot of the boxes that I never felt like Castle sets ever managed to as well as Elves/Harry Potter/Nexo Knights sets did (like having livable interior spaces and emphasizing the castle's place as a home and not just a military fortification). Truly, it surpasses a lot of my expectations of what kind of product ideas the BrickLink AFOL Designer Program would generate, and is closer to MY personal dream of what I'd like to see in a future Castle theme. So maybe I should be a little less cynical about the AFOL community's inability to rally around product designs that they can agree upon and love. But after around a decade of seeing fellow AFOLs complain about basically anything new, I think at least some of that cynicism is warranted. The LEGO Ideas platform has its faults, but I don't know if it's fair to blame the userbase's struggles at rallying behind classic Castle/Space/Pirates projects on the platform itself, particularly when most of the successful projects (whether licensed or non-licensed, classic or non-classic) have been pretty well received in their own right. If anything, I think it's another indication of the fact that perhaps not as many people are passionate about these classic themes or agree on how they should look than people give them credit for. That said, it probably doesn't help that many of the Castle and Pirates projects on LEGO Ideas have been massive or excessively fiddly MOCs with limited play value, which is part of why I was caught off guard by the AFOL Designer Program on BrickLink resulting in anything with a design as compact, sturdy, efficient, and playable as Löwenstein Castle. For what it's worth, one Classic Space project actually DID get produced via LEGO Ideas. And yet, that project (the Exo-Suit) is, aside from its minifigure and branding, bears scarcely any resemblance to actual Classic Space sets, even compared to many of the Classic Space inspired sets that LEGO has released WITHOUT outside input from AFOLs. As such, I suspect its success was driven not only by AFOL interest in themes which LEGO has supposedly been neglecting, but also mainstream interest in "mecha" sets which have maintained a ubitquitous presence among LEGO products for well over a decade, to the point that fans of classic themes have lately taken to COMPLAINING about how many there are. Castle's been gone for… what, 6 years now? LEGO Pirates has been on hiatus that long at LEAST twice. For that matter, when LEGO Ninjago came out, it had been over a decade since there had been ANY ninja-related theme (save for one collectible minifigure the year before). Also, one of the big "classic themes" of my childhood was Aquazone, from 1995 to 1998. Back then, there was no indication to me that "underwater sci-fi" was any less of a staple of the LEGO System than Town, Space, Castle, or Pirates (after all, if Pirates could join that club around a decade after the rest, why not Aquazone six years later?). But after 1998? Well, there was Alpha Team: Mission Deep Sea in 2002, and then Aqua Raiders in 2007, and then Atlantis in 2010–2011… and in the seven years since then? *crickets* But I'm not taking that as an indication that such themes are never coming back, or that LEGO's given up on them, or that it's some kind of injustice to keep fans of such themes waiting so long. I know it might seem like heresy in some circles, but the idea that Town, Castle, Space, and Pirates are any more essential than ninja themes or underwater themes or dollhouse themes is an entirely artificial hierarchy. I respect the heritage of the 80s play themes, and I respect the formative impact their 90s incarnations had on me and my future tastes in sets. But as a child born in '91 who first started building LEGO System sets in '94 or '95, at no point in my experience as a LEGO fan were they the be-all and end-all of LEGO. Perhaps for that reason, I never get the sense that the futuristic mechs and all-terrain vehicles in today's themes are unworthy successors to the beloved Spyrius, Exploriens, Roboforce, or Life on Mars sets of my childhood because they're not depicted in outer space. I never feel like the fantasy castles, evil lairs, and magical creatures of the past decade's many fantasy themes have usurped the rightful place of Dragon Masters, Royal Knights, Fright Knights, or Vikings because they don't fit neatly into medieval history. And the gorgeous sailing ships, airships, and tropical aesthetics that show up in many of my favorite themes of recent years don't somehow dishonor the heritage of the classic Pirates, Islanders, and Imperial Guards sets because they aren't drawn from the rather fraught historical context of the Age of Exploration (and of European colonialism). Most of the themes I loved as a kid are long gone by now, but their fingerprints continue to show up again and again in new and surprising forms that I never really get tired of seeing. Wishing for a theme other people like to end because you don't like it, let alone celebrating when that theme ends, is inherently spiteful and dismissive. And I'm not just referring to stuff I've seen on this site, but also on Brickset, in AFOL groups on Facebook, and at conventions. There are a lot of toxic elements in our community and while the worst of that takes the form of prejudice against actual people, a lot also shows up in how self-centered some people can be about their theme preferences. I don't mean to imply it's only fans of the classic themes who can be that way either. I've seen plenty of my fellow Bionicle fans hating on Hero Factory, Ninjago, Friends, Legends of Chima, Mixels, Nexo Knights, Elves, or basically anything that isn't Bionicle. Ninjago fans aren't immune to this themselves, particularly due to the kind of suspicious rivalries that spring up with basically every other media-driven theme after the news broke in 2012 that LEGO was going to end the theme with the 2013 sets. I feel like these attitudes greatly weaken LEGO fans as a community, because it means we CAN'T count on each other supporting one another's interests, and only care about news that's seen as a good thing for other fans within our own bubble. It's the same kind of nonsense as when fans argue about Star Wars vs. Star Trek or Marvel vs. DC or Disney vs. DreamWorks — despite most of the things these groups enjoy being more similar than they are different, these kinds of petty rivalries result in an environment where spaces dedicated to those common interests become needlessly hostile. Frankly, the better LEGO does as a whole, the more sets and themes they will be able to maintain… just as the more successful media within a particular genre becomes, the more stuff will be produced within that genre. But as long as folks approach things from the mindset that "stuff I like=good" and "stuff I dislike=bad", then not only do we lose the ability to get excited for each other's victories and milestones (both large and small), we wind up with AFOL communities being a place where news that you'd think we could all be excited about like The LEGO Movie's release in 2014, or LEGO's momentous sales in 2015, or the minifigure's 40th anniversary/the brick's 60th anniversary in 2018, or Ninjago's upcoming 100th TV episode in 2019, or pretty much every AFOL-generated LEGO Ideas set released, results in a bunch of sour grapes because LEGO isn't giving such-and-such theme enough attention, or is "selling their soul" by making sets of a particular license, or is "pandering" to *insert demographic here*, or whatever else the gripe of the day happens to be. Also, literally none of my posts here (nor, I'm pretty sure, any of my posts elsewhere)have implied that people shouldn't want a new Castle theme, or that a new Castle theme is unlikely to happen. Again, for whatever bizarre reason, it seems to be Castle fans who jumped to the conclusion that themes like Elves and Nexo Knights mean LEGO has stopped caring about Castle sets or Castle fans entirely. Now that both those oh-so-offensive themes have ended after successful but predictably brief 3 or 4 year runs, it's kind of strange that people are now jumping to "LEGO has stopped caring about ALL their non-licensed themes" and not "LEGO themes ending after a few years is normal, whether they're traditional or not, and it shouldn't be seen as a sign that LEGO's given up on the philosophy that brought them about in the first place". Sorry, I guess I didn't make it clear in that paragraph that I was referring to the same Brickset owned/wanted data as I had been in the paragraph before. Which is, of course, an extremely metric of how many people bought a set, but at least gives a decent taste of how receptive the AFOL community has been to sets created with adult builders in mind. It still costs money to create and run a crowdfunding campaign like that, and I feel like LEGO has demonstrated plenty of more efficient ways of getting product-related insights that are more tailored to the tastes of AFOLs. The value of these campaigns to the companies running them is for getting consumer insights/feedback that would be harder to get in other ways, not just as a preorder system. And also, BrickLink's AFOL Designer Program is already being run with the LEGO Group's cooperation, and is more or less the exact thing you're describing… except that instead of through a more general purpose site like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, or even a more general LEGO fan oriented site like LEGO Ideas, it's being done through a partnership with BrickLink, a site with close and direct ties and significance to the AFOL community specifically. And from the sound of it, you and I are both pretty impressed with the results so far. So what would be gained from doing something more like the LEGO Forma approach, in which AFOLs themselves had way less creative input, and decision by a dyed-in-the-wool AFOL about whether or not to pre-order would have the same weight as a decision by an opportunistic scalper with no idea about into what kinds of sets LEGO fans like, or an adult who's had no prior interest in LEGO? Err… have you… even seen the latest few seasons of Ninjago and the sets that came with them? If anything they're among the darkest and most serious yet. Frankly, the "campy and kiddy" elements of the movie had a lot more in common with the show from the pilot through season two (which aired in 2011–2012 and corresponded to the 2011–2013 sets) than with the Season 7–9 stories and sets from 2017–2018.

The idea that allowing a theme to "mature" will make it sell better than it does starting out seems a little dubious to me. In most cases, themes are most popular and successful towards the start, with maybe a short climb in popularity after that, before steadily declining in popularity. Bionicle's sales peaked in 2002, one year after it launched, and steadily declined for the following eight years. Ninjago's popularity, from what I can tell, was also pretty much at its most popular in its second year (2012). And it wasn't as though they reached that peak after a middling or mediocre introduction. Both of these themes were massively successful from the very start, with Ninjago in particular having stronger sales in its launch year than any theme that ever came before it! Long-term successful themes usually come about by making a big initial splash and then steadily adjusting to try and keep that momentum going. I have yet to hear of a theme (or a product/brand/IP of any kind) that got off to an underwhelming start and was able to turn that into major, lasting success simply by dragging it out longer. Even initiatives that start small usually only get bigger if the launch exceeds the expectations of its time, and follow-up launches continue to raise the bar. If you don't like to measure success by how many sets a theme is able to sell, how exactly would you define it? Because you can't just say "I like theme X more than theme Y, so theme X is more successful and deserves more attention". Really? You think if they cared more they'd launch a Castle theme now, when its marketing is most likely to get overshadowed by The LEGO Movie 2, instead of waiting until they had the time, resources, and opportunity to commit to marketing it more extensively? I mean, Ninjago's launch was delayed a year past what was initially planned in order to fine-tune it as much as possible and ensure a successful, uncompromised launch. Galidor was rushed to production and rushed to market basically as soon as LEGO saw early feedback for Bionicle and realized LEGO action figures were an untapped niche. Do you really think the people making Galidor cared more about it than the people making Ninjago? They made SEVERAL, as I mentioned in my last post. And frankly, Fantasy Era and Kingdoms each got D2C sets in their third year, while Ninjago didn't get even a single D2C set until its fifth year, well after what was originally intended as its final wave of sets. Alien Conquest is the only one I'd consider unusually short-lived, with just a single half-year wave. It's known that some prototypes for a subsequent wave wound up shelved, and some of them may have been adapted into sets for other themes. Mars Mission and Space Police 3 each lasted at least three waves over two years, and each was followed by a new Space theme after less than 12 months. Galaxy Squad lasted two waves over one year. None of that is particularly unusual for a LEGO Space theme. If anything, refreshing or rebranding a theme every one to three years used to be a key part of how LEGO kept those themes sustainable in the long term. By the time the novelty of one incarnation has worn out, development for a new one is already well underway.

That's often the idea behind it, I suppose, but I don't know whether it's always realistic. You might be astonished at the number of themes I've seen blamed for each time Bionicle has been retired or why it hasn't been brought back: Star Wars, Ben 10, Minifigures, Hero Factory, Ninjago, Friends, Legends of Chima, Super Heroes, Dimensions, Minecraft, Disney, Elves, Nexo Knights, Forma, Overwatch… Nobody ever wants to believe that a particular theme, on its own merits, might not be as interesting to today's kids as it was at its peak. If its presence even so much as diminishes, it's generally assumed to be SOME other theme's fault. Bonus points if: there's a persistent conspiracy theory that LEGO purposely designed a terrible reboot or final wave of a commenter's favorite theme as an excuse to "kill it off" once the theme comes back, fans remain suspicious that any other new theme it overlaps with might be an attempt to "kill it off" again fans reach the point of actively hoping for LEGO sales to plummet just to create a scenario where their favorite theme can swoop in like a hero and save the day fans blame the theme's retirement on LEGO excessively pandering to some particular demographic at the expense of their "core audience"… I kid you not, I've seen literal white supremacist posts on social media blaming black and/or Asian people for Bionicle ending, and the contents of those posts are somehow even more disgusting and alarming than that description might sound. I'm not sure I can agree that it's reasonable. Sometimes? Sure. For example, I think most people agree that a new wave of Wild West sets has not been in the cards for a long time, whether they miss such sets or not. But it's downright ludicrous how many people saw Elves and Nexo Knights as proof that LEGO had entirely given up on traditional Castle sets, as if they've never heard of LEGO taking a break from a theme or category for a few years and coming back to it later. Or even taking an existing theme in a weirder direction for a few years and then bringing it back to basics, as Castle fans already experienced between 2004 and 2006. It's not as though when Atlantis ended people like me who enjoyed it were like "welp, guess LEGO doesn't care about underwater themes anymore". Even with many of my most beloved themes like Bionicle, Hero Factory, Ninjago, and Elves, I've generally taken their cancellation (or in Ninjago's case, presumed cancellation) in stride because I know it's probably only a matter of time before something else comes along that appeals to me on a similar level. Feeling bummed that the themes you like don't exist in a form you like for the time being is perfectly valid. But feeling like those themes are being shunned because you dislike the latest form they've taken? I think that's overkill. And it's weird to me that it was always the people who DISLIKED stuff like Elves and Nexo Knights and Minecraft who were convinced that those themes could be read as a summation of LEGO's entire philosophy towards future Castle sets in the long term. I also think that it's perfectly OK to miss a theme you enjoyed and want it to come back as soon as possible, without hating on or calling for the demise of a theme that other people enjoy and you don't. Ultimately, that kind of spiteful, dismissive attitude is what erodes a lot of my sympathy for pleas to bring back classic themes. Like, there are all kinds of themes that I am indifferent to or even dislike, and in many cases I wouldn't mind at all if LEGO retired them. But I don't rant bitterly about these themes being garbage, because I recognize that they have strengths/merits whether or not they're ones I value, and plenty of fans of their own who enjoy them on those merits. Right now, I suspect that the Disney theme would be one of the themes most likely to get in the way of a LEGO Elves revival. But I'm certainly not going to plead for LEGO to stop making Disney sets, which I know plenty of people thoroughly enjoy, so that a theme I've thoroughly enjoyed has less competition. I think with regard to Castle D2C sets, it's important to look at their history, because it's not as though LEGO has never tried releasing such sets before. There's been 10000 Guarded Inn in 2001, 10039 Black Falcon's Fortress in 2002, 10176 King's Castle in 2006, 10193 Medieval Market Village in 2009, and 10223 Kingdoms Joust in 2012. Throw in Castle-adjacent licenses and you can add 10217 Diagon Alley from 2011 and 10237 Tower of Orthanc from 2013, and 71040 Disney Castle in 2016. That said, all of these sets but the first couple from the largely unpopular "LEGO Legends" series were released close to the same time as a lower-priced retail product or product line. It's not as though subsequent Castle D2C sets didn't sell, and I'm sure LEGO would be open to the idea of releasing similar D2C castle sets in the future if the time seemed right. In fact, thinking about it, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the most successful of these (MMV) were this year's "Out of the Vault" re-release! It's got a lot of stuff going for it… few retired elements that aren't easily replaceable, subject matter that doesn't closely resemble other current sets/themes, and an extremely popular design both for its time and in hindsight. I hadn't previously considered it as a candidate since I was only looking at sets that had the pre-2013 equivalent of Creator Expert branding, but I doubt that would be a major obstacle. That said, MMV is the only Castle D2C set so far that ever sold in the same kind of numbers as Winter Village sets, and none have sold in the same kind of numbers as the Modular Buildings. I think it would probably take a success on a similar level for LEGO to take the plunge on a yearly series of Castle D2C sets. Otherwise, I think they'll try and keep most of their "themed" D2C sets tied to current or recent mass retail products and product lines, whether those are licensed ones like Star Wars and Minecraft or non-licensed ones like Ninjago, Monster Fighters, and yes, even Castle. As for Kickstarter, I don't particularly anticipate LEGO using that for any sort of "conventional" sets aimed at existing LEGO fans in any age group. It seems pretty obvious to me that Forma was done through Kickstarter (a non-LEGO site/service) specifically because it was aimed primarily at adults who DON'T already buy or play with LEGO, and who LEGO therefore has a harder time getting feedback from in other ways. When it comes to getting feedback from us, LEGO has plenty of stuff to analyze to figure out what we'll buy: quarterly LAN surveys, direct feedback from LEGO Ambassadors, user activity on LEGO.com and LEGO Ideas, our buying patterns and the resulting sales data, their customer service site and call center, their social media channels, the Nielsen surveys included on the back of all instruction manuals, etc. LEGO's production resources are never just lying dormant. Either they are producing parts/sets, or they are in the process of being changed over from producing one thing to producing another. Obviously we can never assume that all those resources are being used optimally, because LEGO doesn't have any kind of precognition. So at any given time there's the possibility that they could be making more money by producing less of one thing and more of another. But invariably, they're going to have a lot more evidence to back up their decisions on how many of each set to produce than any AFOL or community of AFOLs on the planet, just because they have access to all the aforementioned forms of data and consumer feedback that we lack (as well as all kinds of internal information on exactly what kind of resource commitments the requests they hear from us would even entail).

I’m assuming it’s a way they’ll be branding packs of assorted 1x1 tiles for decorating the bigger sets, like the upcoming 1x1 round tiles in many transparent glitter colors, or the variously shaped 1x1 tiles with rainbow and unicorn patterns (previously leaked at https://www.brickinside.com/ but since taken down).

Tbh, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an answer to this question that wasn’t just fans being dismissive of themes outside their personal bubble, but that were generally still popular with others. The reality is that all LEGO themes’ success hinges on how many people enjoy them, and it doesn’t matter in the slightest how many people don’t. I suspect many of us don’t have any interest in Duplo whatsoever, but we tolerate its existence as one of LEGO’s biggest and most successful themes because we recognize that it’s aimed at people besides us. For whatever reason, people have a harder time extending the same courtesy to other themes like Friends, BrickHeadz, Star Wars, Super Heroes, Minecraft, Ninjago, or what-have-you. I think most of us know from experience that LEGO tends to retire less important/successful themes with very little hesitation, often to our frustration as AFOLs, since these often turn out to be themes that are popular in some segment of our communities like Castle, Pirates, Bionicle, The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc. And as soon as they end, we see a whole bunch of panicking that “LEGO has given up on X/Y/Z” and hoping desperately for LEGO to give these themes or categories of themes a second chance. If LEGO did decide to retire, say, LEGO Star Wars or Super Heroes, I think it’d become immediately apparent just how much more massive an outcry there’d be than for the sorts of themes AFOLs presently wax nostalgic for.

Also worth keeping in mind that the word "Basic" has a lot of negative associations. In modern slang, a person who's "basic" is uninteresting or uncool. But even in terms of its more conventional meanings, "basic" isn't all that great a selling point when other LEGO sets and toys from other manufacturers are all trying to emphasize how unique, advanced, or otherwise remarkable they are. And within the context of LEGO, "basic" also tends to be associated with sets for beginners rather than sets that more sophisticated or experienced builders will enjoy. While most LEGO Classic sets are designed for kids as young as 4, compared to a typical 4+/Juniors set which is purposely designed as a stepping stone to other themes, there tends to be a much more concerted effort to frame LEGO Classic as an "all ages" experience that you don't really "grow out of". Calling them "LEGO Basic" risks undermining that. "Classic", on the other hand, is a very strong selling point. Whether you're talking classic cars, classic movies, or classic toys, the word "classic" implies a sense of timelessness, it suggests a long and rich heritage, and it suggests something definitive of the category it belongs to. If you refer to an older LEGO set as "basic", it can normally be assumed you're acknowledging its faults, but when you refer to it as "classic", if anything you're vindicating its faults. An adult who scoffs at modern sets and themes for being too simple or childish usually won't be questioned for enjoying sets and themes from three or four decades ago that were even simpler and aimed at even younger kids, because those sets are classic. It's perhaps for this reason that the word "classic" can mean so many different things to so many different people. It often amuses me to hear people describe stuff like the 2006 Toa Inika sets and TV commercials from Bionicle as "classics" when for their time, even within the Bionicle community, they were perceived as a fairly radical departure from the theme's roots. I doubt a person who grew up with Classic Space or Classic Castle sets would ever describe ANY Bionicle product as "classic". But nowadays, I even see people waxing nostalgic for the "classic Ninjago" sets and TV episodes of 2011 and 2012, which to most of us AFOLs probably seem extremely recent in the grand scheme of things. It's all relative.

To put it another way: the most agreed-upon definition of "classic themes" among AFOLs is those introduced from around 1979 to 1989. Sets based on open-ended building using primarily basic bricks date back as much as 30 years earlier. As such, these types of sets are more classic by definition, and any definition of "classic themes" that excludes them is a misnomer. That said, it's inaccurate to say the LEGO Classic sets have nothing to do with themes like Town/Space/Castle/Pirates. Several of the suggested builds are inspired by those themes, particularly those in the "Building Bigger Thinking" subtheme that was intended to tie in with the 60th anniversary of the LEGO Brick (specifically, the stud-and-tube patent).

This perspective is a little surprising to me, considering how often I see people complaining about the possibility that big and highly varied themes like City, Friends, and Ninjago are getting in the way of smaller and shorter-lived themes. Like, right now, as I brought up in a Racers related thread in the Special Themes subforum, most of the types of non-licensed sets that used to show up in the Racers theme now show up in other themes that you might consider "umbrella themes": realistic minifig-scale vehicles tend to show up in City, more futuristic/fantasy-influenced street vehicles tend to show up in Ninjago, brick-built vehicles at more varied scales tend to show up in Creator, and Technic-based vehicles tend to show up in Technic. I suspect all these sets are a lot more successful in these themes with other sets like them than they were in the Racers theme, considering its lack of a consistent scale or even a consistent setting/story framework. After all, most of these themes have had a stronger record as best-sellers than Racers ever was. And why take my word for it? Take a look at Brickset, where many AFOLs like us log their collections. Obviously the Brickset userbase is just a small and not especially representative sample of the overall audience for LEGO sets, but it still often gives a decent enough a taste of what sets people are buying. The non-licensed Racers set owned by the most Brickset users is 8641 Flame Glider, owned by 1732 Brickset users, and the most widely owned at minifig scale is 4585 Nitro Pulverizer, owned by 1429 Brickset users. Contrast with City: 60052 Race Car is owned by 7662 Brickset users, 60055 Monster Truck by 5855 users, 60113 Rally Car by 4769 users, 60025 Grand Prix Truck by 4613 users, 60148 ATV Race Team by 3621 users, 60146 Stunt Truck by 3121 Brickset users, 30314 Go-Kart Racer by 2736 users, etc. Likewise, in Ninjago's case, 9441 Kai's Blade Cycle is owned by 4962 Brickset users, 2259 Skull Motorbike by 3927 users, 9444 Cole's Tread Assault by 2829 users, 70722 OverBorg Attack by 2288 users, Fangpyre Truck Ambush by 2259 users, 70600 Ninja Bike Chase by 1952 users, 70755 Jungle Raider by 1933 users, etc. In the Creator theme, 6743 Street Speeder is owned by 4877 Brickset users, 31006 Highway Speedster by 4047 users, 31017 Sunset Speeder by 3743 users, 31027 Blue Racer by 3145 users, 5867 Super Speedster by 3035 users, 4939 Cool Cars by 3032 users, 6910 Mini Sports Car by 2967 users, etc. In this case, even the age of the sets can be pretty easily dismissed as a factor, as several of these sets were released when the Racers theme itself was still ongoing! And as for Technic? 42039 24 Hours Race Car is owned by 4877 Brickset users, 42000 Grand Prix Racer by 4765 users, 42036 Street Motorcycle by 3790 users, 42065 RC Tracked Racer by 3778 users, 42026 Black Champion Racer by 2967 users, 42027 Desert Racer by 2812 users, 42011 Race Car by 2768 users, etc. Why lump all racing-related sets together in one disjointed theme where a lot of the sets are hardly compatible with one another, when the same types of sets seem vastly more successful when grouped together with sets more closely related in scale, building style, and/or degree of fantasy vs. realism? Particularly when rather than abandoning their roots, this approach is a good example of the LEGO Group doing exactly the opposite. Themes like Town, Basic, and Technic were the home to racing car sets for many decades before "LEGO Racers" even existed.

Sure, but I suspect that if LEGO wanted to make a more fantasy/adventure oriented racing sets again, they would simply do like they did with World Racers and launch them under a totally new theme name. In the meantime there's nothing wrong with the more realistic sorts of racing sets being in themes like City, Creator, Technic, and Speed Champions where they fit in rather comfortably. I also suspect the I think the lack of a fantasy/adventure oriented racing theme in recent years probably has a lot to do with not wanting to infringe on Ninjago's turf, since it's become a fairly stable home for fantasy and sci-fi influenced versions of modern racing cars/bikes/boats, and much more successful at that than Racers or World Racers ever were. I don't get the sense that the City "exploration/research expedition" subthemes have ever been intended as a substitute for themes like Atlantis, Space, or Adventurers, but rather a way to appeal to parents' growing interest in encouraging STEM-related play. After all, there were plenty of adventure-oriented Town subthemes like Launch Command, Divers, and Arctic back in the 90s, often even existing alongside themes like Space and Aquazone. Other people have also raised the possibility that the City Mining sets might be intended to take the place of underground themes like Power Miners, but the bigger purpose they seem to serve is taking the place of Construction/Demolition sets every six years so popular vehicle types like excavators and tipper trucks can be released in a context that doesn't feel so repetitive. To be honest, it surprises me that so many AFOLs have been worried about City subthemes taking the place of stuff like Atlantis and Power Miners, considering how back when they were new, themes like those were attacked by many AFOLs on this very site for being too cartoonish and unrealistic.