Aanchir

If I had to guess they might be a promo item for the Chinese market (either for all the LEGO stores in China or a particular flagship store)? I know there's a cute "woman in Asian dress" keychain that was at the People's Square store in Shanghai, though it was a different style than the two floral dress designs that were leaked on Instagram.

Gorgeous build! Loved this set as a kid. You did an amazing job capturing so many of its most iconic attributes in microscale and in actually increasing the sense of realism in some ways (like putting it on a base that's far less flat and square. Love the colors!

Are you concerned at all about price? That could have an impact on whether to go for older or newer castles. Also, based on the idea of wanting two castles that are enemies… is it important what sorts of figures they come with (like, would a castle with mini-dolls and a castle with minifigs, or a castle with flesh-colored minifigs and a castle with traditional yellow minifigs be a deal-breaker)? Or are you planning to repopulate them with new armies anyhow? My personal favorite castle is 41180 Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle. Lots of gorgeous interior details that you don't tend to get in traditional castles (even though I've always been bothered by the lack of them). That said… it is not ideally suited for housing an army. Most of the interior features are tailored to the needs of an individual witch or sorceress, not a monarch and their entire court of knights and subjects. To remake it for an army, you'd have to basically refit the whole interior, which strips it a lot of what makes it unique compared to other castles anyhow. If you are to go to that effort, it loses some of its advances over other castles that have fewer interior details to begin with. 70323 Jestro's Volcano Lair is another nice evil castle, and when you strip away some of the more theme-specific stickers and the Technic bits elevating the turret and throne it feels very purely medieval fantasy. It also has a really wonderful interior (bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, and a very spacious dungeon). But of course, as a counterpoint to both examples, they are somewhat "dollhouse style" (open in the back), while I know some people feel a "real" LEGO castle should be enclosed on all sides. In any case, probably good to bear in mind that these two examples are perhaps some of the biggest "evil" castles you are likely to find besides the much older and less detailed 8877 Vladek's Dark Fortress. I did not get Vladek's fortress (I made the mistake of narrowing my interest in Knights' Kingdom II to the buildable figure sets only right when the playsets actually started to get good), so I can't speak at length to its quality. I do know that it's big and can be made even bigger and more complete by combining it with 8802 Dark Fortress Landing. Again. though, the mid-2000s were a kind of a transitional period from the heavily simplified designs of the early 2000s and a steady increase in complexity that people really began to notice around 2007. With Vladek's Dark Fortress you see some relics of the simplified, gimmicky, late 90s/early 2000s design (3x4x6 tower bricks, 1x8x6 stone-textured doorframes from the earliest Harry Potter sets, 4x6x6 sloped wall panels, 3x8x6 wall/window patterns, somewhat conspicuous use of mountain bricks, etc). That said, the overall appearance is fairly strong as far as colors go, and it's disavowed itself of some of the worst trends of the 90s and 2000s like extremely gappy walls or reliance on ginormous raised baseplates for a substantial portion of its implied size. Interior-wise, from what I can see in the instructions, it has stairs, a forge, a dungeon (albeit with few walls or bars) with a fireplace/furnace and several scorpions (maybe more of a torture chamber?), and a crystal ball. Pretty sparse compared to what we're used to even in today's sets, where at the least a throne room and enclosed dungeon are expected As a bonus, Vladek and his shadow knights have clearly defined scorpion heraldry that shouldn't be too difficult to accumulate since Knights' Kingdom sets in general are in low demand among army builders except for those creating their own custom armies. The original price per piece is very respectable compared to more recent castle sets, at least before accounting for inflation. Today's aftermarket price to get these sets new has grown considerably, but the price of used ones on BrickLink sans box and/or instructions seem extremely reasonable considering their age (caveat emptor, of course). Overall I get the sense that for a more generic Castle layout without heavy fantasy elements like witches or monsters this may be your best bet. Finding a contrasting "good" castle should not be hard — most of the biggest castles in more recent Castle/Kingdoms waves are "good" castles with grey walls that will contrast well with Vladek's black ones regardless of their roof or accent colors. I think as far as use without major modifications goes, I'd soonest recommend the 70404 King's Castle. While it's often spurned by AFOLs for its similarities to the previous 7946, it has some strengths that its predecessor lacks. Namely, it has a slightly larger perimeter, its stickers (abut the same in number as its predecessor) play a less defining role in its appearance, The introduction of Sand Yellow foundation bricks and more Warm Gold accents brings a bit more color variety without heavily infringing on its historical plausibility. It has a taller gatehouse, a more detailed throne, and a more enclosed throne room (although consequently, one that allows less light in… one of the perils of realism in LEGO castle designs). And perhaps best of all, it can be easily expanded with the modular elements of either the original King's Castle (though you would have to make some color substitutions) or 70402 The Gatehouse Raid. In this case, though, AFOLs' initial distaste for this set may not be as much to your benefit as with the much-maligned Knights' Kingdom. Because this is one of the most recent "King's Castle" sets it is also one of many people's first choices in a new castle (also, even many who hated the sets had fonder feelings for the heraldry associated with them). It's perhaps for this reason, or perhaps because a lot of resellers didn't jump on it, that there are not so many copies on BrickLink and most tend to be considerably pricier than Vladek's castle. But I guess it's your call how much you'd be willing to pay. Hope these suggestions help! I'm sure people with more experience with the older LEGO Castles will have valuable suggestions as well, even if more of those might need to be souped up with stuff like a throne room that they initially lacked.

With past modulars I typically got the feeling that it was a bigger priority for the designers that the designs stand out from their predecessors rather than fitting in. Not just in terms of colors but also architectural styles. Cafe Corner was very different from Market Street, which was very different from Green Grocer, which was very different from Fire Brigade, and so on. There were probably SOME guidelines to ensure continuity, but overall I think we AFOLs often fall prey to the human tendency for pattern recognition and to ascribe greater meaning/significance to those patterns than they actually have (consider the old rumor/urban legend that there was always a hint in each modular building to the next one, even though most of the time these were post-hoc connections drawn between minor details of the sets and never enabled anybody to reliably predict what would come next). While the architectural style and content of Downtown Diner are more suggestive of a 50s setting than we've ever seen before, pushing the boundaries of what eras and styles a modular building can represent, that's not to say that future modulars will also be pushed forward in history by the same amount. And even if they go with another architectural style and subject associated with the same era as Downtown Diner, I think it's pretty safe to say it won't be another Streamline Moderne building, as that was one of Downtown Diner's signature features, and immediately following that building with another in the same style would diminish both buildings' sense of uniqueness/novelty. Also, I feel like the better way to make all modular buildings fit in together would be to stay true to the idea that they're not supposed to be pinned firmly to any one time or place and represent a cosmopolitan "world culture" condensed into one neighborhood, rather than to just establish new guidelines just as strict as ever for the next however-many years.

Personally I would say that the Bionicle story changes between 2010 and 2015 would constitute a reboot. While many major elements of the story certainly were changed, the designs and personalities of the core characters were definitely informed by certain aspects of the previous versions of the characters who shared their names, and a lot of the other core elements like mask collecting quests, elemental powers, and tropical island settings with tribal societies were also maintained. In a lot of ways it can be compared with how many superhero TV or movie reboots will change major aspects of the characters' backstories and supporting cast while keeping other core elements like the main characters' powers/designs/motivations more similar. While the Bionicle reboot certainly made more profound changes than the Friends reboot, I suspect this was largely informed by the Friends reboot launching after the previous sets/storyline with no interruption so needing to maintain a stronger sense of thematic continuity based on the expectations established fans had of the world and characters. By contrast, the Bionicle reboot came after a 4–5 year hiatus and so many of the buyers it was targeting had limited knowledge or exposure to the original sets and story. The stories are also very different in that Friends tends towards episodic, slice-of-life storytelling, whereas Bionicle's original story was very heavily driven by big ongoing mysteries and universe-altering changes in the status quo — it would have been difficult if not impossible to either start over from the beginning without the previous generation spoiling the events to come, or to create follow-up stories that didn't depend as heavily on the daunting surplus of detail and backstory that had already been created. Weirdly, I have yet to hear much about the supporting media for the Friends reboot here in the United States — whether online or in print advertising materials like the LEGO Life app and magazines. I suspect that as with many reboots, characters from the previous canon may be reintroduced or re-imagined as needed in the story. The choice not to establish a presence for them in the new story right away may be to keep designers' options open for, say, the next time they want to create a pop star line. The name Dr. Alva amuses me a bit because this was also the name of the (male) villain in the superhero cartoon series Static Shock, based on characters from Milestone Comics. But of course the naming inspiration makes sense in either case because they are both ethically compromised scientists/inventors (it's safe to assume both are named after real-world inventor Thomas Alva Edison).

Cute! I'm often intrigued by your decision to use a lighter blue color for the water than either the classic or recent Pirates sets. It definitely helps give the sets a bit more of a sunny, tropical look.

This is a good point as well… most of the time, media tie-ins for themes are much like any marketing in that they help expand the reach of the products in question, but for these themes to succeed the core concept typically has to be pretty strong in and of itself. A comparison I make sometimes is the classic Pirates theme, which in a lot of ways was incredibly media-driven for its time, with comics, picture books, named characters, etc. The mobile game and TV show tie-ins for themes like Nexo Knights and Ninjago are in a lot of ways just an evolution of that concept. But just as back then, Ninjago sets aren't aimed only at people who partake in the supporting media. In a lot of ways, the media and sets are just meant to supplement each other, with the shows, books, games, etc. reinforcing kids' interests in the products and the products reinforcing kids' interests in the sets and vice-versa. As an aside, this is also why I tend to be fairly cynical about some Bionicle fans' suggestions for that theme's story to be revived somehow (like as books/comics/movies) without the supposed "burden" of having to promote building sets to kids. It's true that the need to promote toys can sometimes put constraints on the direction and tone a merchandise-driven IP takes. But in a lot of ways the Bionicle story can be unappealing if not downright alienating without the toys to contextualize it, and some of the online Bionicle side stories which weren't as closely tied in with the current toys had a tendency to feel rather directionless. Critical reviews of Bionicle media such as the comics, video games, and movies tend to be far more negative than the perspectives of people who are already fans of the sets. I very strongly doubt that the Bionicle franchise would have lasted ten years with 30+ books, 4 movies, and numerous video games and online games if it hadn't been for its strengths as a toy line. Let alone that a current series like Ninjago with no toy tie-ins would have lasted 9 seasons, 8 years, and over 90 episodes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_grooming maybe? It’d be neat to see another snow/winter themed City set. We don’t see many of those outside the Arctic theme.

Selling individual figures and selling randomized blind-bag figures are entirely different things. Playmobil only began doing the latter after LEGO did. And while Dr. Who may be popular with kids, do you really think a vinyl figurine of the Fourth Doctor is aimed primarily at a child audience? Particularly from a company like Funko that is so intensely focused on an adult collectors' market? Whether or not the Spider-Man sets are as popular in Europe as in the United States, there's no mistaking the fact that they're primarily aimed at kids and aren't banking on adult nostalgia for portrayals of the character from the 80s or earlier. As for the PR stuff, both companies may be willing to spin the facts in their favor, but it's ridiculous to think they would straight-up LIE about whether their sales in a particular region are growing or shrinking. What's more, if they WERE going to lie to make their sales in Europe sound better than they actually are, then why would they not do the same for the US instead of admitting to flat or declining sales figures? It's definitely smart to try and read between the lines in a press release and figure out what the company is NOT saying, but that's not the same as doubting anything and everything that comes from a press release just because the company is inevitably going to try and phrase it in a way that casts them in a positive light. I entirely agree with you that abandoning non-licensed stuff would be a bad move, let alone giving up entirely on categories like Castle, Pirates, and Space. But I don't think that Playmobil is a particularly astute model for how they should handle their non-licensed properties, nor that LEGO's current strategies with regard to non-licensed themes are as disastrous as you make them sound. Even just in Germany, LEGO's share of the toy market is greater than Playmobil's, and I don't think that's likely to change for some time.

I don't see why it's nonsense and not the obvious truth. ALL popular themes tend to periodically revisit or reinvent their most popular and iconic subjects, and it's neither a recent phenomenon nor one specific to licensed themes or even recent ones. Just look at the frequency of… Royal castles, evil prison towers, prison carriages, etc. in LEGO Castle Pirate ships, Imperial forts/outposts, rafts, shipwrecks, and treasure caves in LEGO Pirates. Police cars, fire trucks, police stations, fire stations, helicopters, dump trucks, front loaders, passenger trains, freight trains, train stations, etc. in LEGO Town/City/World City/Trains Spaceships, planetary rovers, planetary bases, and robots/mechs in LEGO Space Mobile cranes Motorcycle chases, temples, dragons, mechs, and flying boats in LEGO Ninjago/The LEGO Ninjago Movie Houses, performance stages, horse stables, swimming pools, convertibles, and restaurants in LEGO Friends Motorcycles, mobile cranes, front loaders, helicopters, bulldozers, and race cars in LEGO Technic. The Batcave, Batmobile, Batwing, etc. in LEGO Batman/LEGO DC Super Heroes/the LEGO Batman Movie The Millennium Falcon, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Jedi Starfighters in LEGO Star Wars And so on… In licensed themes, granted, the popular subjects are a lot more clearly defined — LEGO doesn't have the same liberty to spontaneously change the shape of a new X-Wing or TIE fighter that they have with a new police station or Ninjago motorcycle chase, for example. Licensed themes can also exert a bit more pressure on WHEN previously depicted subjects get re-released if, for instance, that subject is hugely significant to a new movie (like the TIE Fighter and Millennium Falcon in Solo, or the X-Wings and TIE Fighters in The Force Awakens). That said, the frequency with which these iconic subjects are repeated in these themes is hardly any more than in other themes. Like, the 2012 X-Wing set came SIX YEARS after the previous minifigure-scale X-Wing. Can you imagine how frustrated LEGO City fans would get if they had to wait six years between new passenger trains? Even six years between new clinics/hospitals in LEGO City/Town is often said to be too long a wait, and that's about as frequent as hospital/clinic sets have ever been in those themes! Here's the thing, though… yes, castles are iconic. There's no questioning that, and I don't think that's a strictly European thing either. I certainly loved reading books about castles and knights and dragons as a kid. But LEGO has loads of opportunities to release new castles even outside the context of European military history. There have been more sets since 2010 with castles as their primary subject than in the 80s and 90s COMBINED. What's more, there's hardly any indication that LEGO has given up on non-licensed Castle themes, considering that they tend to be reinvented every 3–4 years almost like clockwork, and the only reason that AFOLs have been disgruntled with the past cycle is because out of the TWO non-licensed Castle themes during that time (how often has THAT ever happened?), one was a sci-fi mashup and the other was I guess too girly and not militaristic enough. Furthermore, I keep hearing this perspective that LEGO's recent policies have somehow been focusing excessively on the American market at the expense of European buyers, and the facts don't really seem to bear credence to that. Even from 2016 to today (the years that the previous decade of LEGO sales growth more or less plateaued), most of the interim and annual results more frequently point to American sales underperforming compared to European sales most of the time: 2016 interim result: "Regionally, sales growth was particularly strong in both Europe and Asia with both regions achieving high double-digit growth, while sales development in the Americas region was flat year over year." 2016 annual result: "We were encouraged by our performance in mature markets in Europe and continue to see strong potential in China, which represents an attractive growth opportunity.… In the US, consumer sales were flat year-on-year despite a significant increase in marketing spend in the second half of the year." 2017 interim result: "Performance across the market regions was mixed. In established markets such as the United States and in parts of Europe revenue declined, while in a growing market, such as China, revenue grew by double digit." 2017 annual result: "While revenue in established markets in North America and Europe declined in 2017, total consumer sales across a number of these markets improved, particularly in the final months of the year.… The Group also sees strong potential in China, where revenue grew high double-digits in 2017." 2018 interim result: "Performance in established markets was stable compared with the same period in 2017. In constant currency, revenue in western Europe grew low single digits, while revenue in North America declined slightly, in part due to the changes in the retail landscape. China continues to perform strongly, with revenue growing double-digits in the first six months of the year." So all in all, I don't really get the sense that European buyers have felt collectively neglected by recent sets and themes. In general I find comparisons to Playmobil rather unconvincing… not only are they nowhere near as big a company as LEGO, but more often than not, they seem to try and follow LEGO's lead rather than the other way around — for example, creating CMF-style blind-bag figure packs, Hero Factory-style foil zip pouches, licensed themes based on 80s movies, app-integrated products, an Asian-inspired product line with an emphasis on dragons, and adding dark magic and dragons to their fairy tale line, and even launching a genre-mashing theme called Super 4 shortly after LEGO found success with similar initiatives. If Playmobil were more reliably successful in their Europe-focused market than LEGO, you wouldn't think Playmobil would be the company playing follow-the-leader. Even in Germany, LEGO still commanded a larger share of the toy market than Playmobil. Andf Playmobil's most recent press release back in January put a huge emphasis on the importance of licensing, digital tech integration, and diversification to the company's ongoing growth strategy. So I don't get the impression that Playmobil has any sort of profound wisdom indicating that these types of brand extensions would lead them and other toy companies astray. What Playmobil DOES seem to have that LEGO does not is a business model that depends on product categories staying relevant year after year, since their products use far more specific molds than LEGO at a similar standard of quality, and thus require more sales of products in those particular genres to offset manufacturing costs (whereas most LEGO parts in sets from any theme are neither set– nor genre-specific). Your idea of where LEGO's strategy has been leading them (or that there exists some "LEGO graveyard of failed series" that is expanding uncontrollably) seems at odds with the present reality, considering that the number of current LEGO themes that have sold well enough to stick around anywhere from three to twelve years straight (Architecture, City, Classic, Creator, Disney, Duplo, Elves, Friends, Ideas, Juniors, Minecraft, Minifigures, Ninjago, Speed Champions, Star Wars, Super Heroes, and Technic) far exceeds the number that are new or have been around a shorter time (BrickHeadz, Fantastic Beasts, Harry Potter, Jurassic World, Nexo Knights, The Powerpuff Girls, Unikitty, and last year's two LEGO movies). What's more, the number of new-for-2018 sets across those long-running themes (316) far exceeds the number for newer or more short-lived ones (87). "Keeping as many doors open as possible" doesn't mean having a finger in every pie or launching new product lines willy-nilly regardless of their anticipated potential, it just means keeping a little room open for experimentation while putting continued emphasis on proven product lines, and not planning all new product launches as if any performance short of becoming a long-running mega hit on the level of City, Creator, Friends, and Ninjago ought to be regarded as an abject failure. As much as AFOLs like to talk about Legends of Chima and Nexo Knights as if they were huge disasters, the truth is that BOTH themes exceeded the LEGO Group's sales targets and lasted as long or longer than Ninjago's original timetable. If this tells us anything it's that LEGO is through with the kind of unearned faith in unproven innovations that got them in so much trouble in the late 90s and early 2000s. Themes these days tend to be retired not because they've stopped being successful, but to free up resources for new products. And yes, this includes stuff like Castle and Pirates which so many AFOLs assume would have to fail miserably for LEGO to ever turn their back on them. After all, this is the same company that had fully intended to cut Ninjago short even when it had achieved the strongest first-year sales of any new LEGO product line in history, had set TV viewership records on Cartoon Network, and had put multiple books on the New York Times best sellers list. How, then, is it that people get the impression that the impermanence of three-year product lines like Chima and Nexo Knights, let alone one-year product lines like the latest incarnations of Castle and Pirates, somehow indicate that those product lines have failed or that LEGO has given up on them? EDIT: You… you realize they are literally doing exactly this? They've made sets based on not just the first two Ghostbusters movies, but also the preposterous ghosts, gadgets, and vehicles of the much less well-known "The Real Ghostbusters" cartoon from the late 80s: https://www.playmobil.us/shop-online/shop/ghostbusters™. They've also partnered with Funko — yes, THAT Funko — to produce large-scale Playmobil-style figures based on equally dated film and TV properties like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Back to the Future, and Doctor Who: https://nerdist.com/playmobil-joins-funko-with-ghostbusters-back-to-the-future-doctor-who/

I think what makes deaths meaningful in Ninjago is less about their impact on us, the fans, and more about their impact on the characters. Most of the time, they have no way of knowing whether their friends and loved ones are going to come back, let alone knowing whether they will somehow come back from life-threatening situations they find themselves in. What's more, even when characters come back from the dead, it's not necessarily without a price… as was particularly apparent with Garmadon's most recent resurrection. Even from year one of Ninjago, it's been obvious that death in Ninjago isn't as permanent as it is in real life, based solely on the existence of an Underworld populated by undead skeletons. As the show has gone on we've seen more and more ways that death is not anywhere near as inescapable or permanent as it would be in a more realistic setting, from various forms of reality warping (the Mega-Weapon in Season 2, the Cloud Kingdom in Season 5, Djinn in Season 6) to time manipulation (the Mega-Weapon in Season 2, the Time Blades in Season 7) to realms representing other types of "afterlife" (the Cursed Realm in Season 5, the Departed Realm in Day of the Departed). I agree, though, that a lot of fans get WAY too hung up on character deaths, as I think has been particularly apparent with the level of urgency in Twitter debates over I think it would be a lot healthier if fans would let the story happen at its own pace and understand that particularly in a show like this with long hiatuses between seasons, the long-term outcomes of a character death won't necessarily be spelled out right away, and that even the writers can't necessarily anticipate what types of scenarios might arise in the future where bringing a character back from the dead will make sense for the story. Back on the topic of sets, the new Ninjago minifigures look pretty neat! The emphasis on the dragon motifs reminds me of the DX costumes but not anywhere near as plain or "samey" as those were (even for their time, it was strange how little texture those outfits had compared to the ninja's normal suits). It's nice to see dragons as such a prominent motif since I don't think they have been on any of the post-DX ninja suits. My feelings about the new headgear are mixed, but aesthetically I don't have any problems with it. I'm also pleased with the new Samurai X figure bringing back Nya's phoenix emblem, since it's the first indication we've seen all year that LEGO hasn't decided to completely do away with the animal emblems that the Ninjago characters had on so many of their suits prior to the movie. To be honest, I don't care too much what the significance of the new suits is in the story. For all we know they might not even appear in the show. There's certainly been no shortage of examples of that before: Lloyd DX, Tournament Zane, the Samurai X Phoenix Suit (which, to me, seems almost like an attempt to make up for the lack of a 2013 Nya fig), the Airjitzu suits, the Spinjitzu Masters suits, the Dragon Master suits… even Sensei Wu's outfit from the 2012 and 2013 sets. But if the new outfits do show up in the new episodes of the show (which, outside of the possibility of another costume change in the sets that takes priority over these, they probably will), it won't necessarily be in the same context as in the sets.

I think your argument goes way too far in generalizing the types of things kids are interested in. For one thing, it disregards differences in demographics. Most of LEGO's more story-driven themes (particularly non-licensed ones, but also many licensed ones) tend towards a 7+ target age range. The success of themes like City and Friends, on the other hand, has typically been with a 5+ target age, and this also tends to be the target demographic for Castle and Pirates sets. Duplo has also had great success with non-licensed play scenarios even outside of modern-day settings. Younger kids often don't tend to have as high demand for the kind of genre-defying, gimmick-heavy novelty expressed in themes like Ninjago or Legends of Chima or Nexo Knights, nor as much impulse to rebel against the types of interests their parents enjoy and want to instill in them. To these sorts of younger kids who are only just beginning to learn and hear stories about medieval history and pirates and space travel and so forth, those sorts of things are just as new and fascinating as any wacky movie or cartoon. In fact, if anything that sense of familiarity helps keep them engaged. What's more, both "big bang" themes and licensed themes have costs associated with them that themes without any kind of royalty agreements or enormous media campaigns do not. A lot of people here are complaining that recent Castle and Pirates themes have been short-lived and not heavily promoted, but the counter-argument is that there are many ways LEGO probably benefits from having occasional themes like this which are NOT expensive, long-term investments. In fact, releasing themes like this briefly, sporadically, and on a small scale probably boosts the sense of novelty that helps them stand out to kids who might have never had a LEGO pirate ship or medieval castle before. Another thing you're not accounting for is that LEGO's preferred strategy at any given time is heavily informed by their context. Right now, we're seeing fewer new themes than we were used to between 2005 and 2015 or so, but that's in part because the sheer number of returning themes is currently so high. With themes like Elves, Nexo Knights, The LEGO Batman Movie, and The LEGO Ninjago Movie not expected to continue next year, who's to say the situation will still be the same? Another thing setting the past few years apart from the decade or so leading up to them is that from 2005 to 2015, the LEGO Group experienced near-constant growth which probably incentivized greater amounts of experimentation with themes that might not have had long-term potential. From 2016 onward that growth has stalled out, which has probably caused the company to become a little bit more conservative about launching those types of themes. We're also seeing considerable shifts in LEGO's global reach, as they continue to expand rapidly in Asia. It's not yet clear what kind of changes that might result in for the types of new product lines LEGO develops. Overall, I don't think we're really in a position to forecast what kinds of themes will be in LEGO's best interest in the future, but I imagine they probably want to keep as many doors open as possible, and that includes many of the more traditional sorts of non-licensed themes.

Televisions might not have been as common in the early 20th century as today, but the first television stations were founded in 1928, and television sets were first sold commercially in the UK that same year. CRT television sets also came about pre-WWII. Also, in general, I'm not too fond of the idea that the Modular Buildings represent a highly specific point in time. After all, the computer in Town Hall is not the only or even the first thing that would have been anachronistic with the idea of a pre-WWII setting that many AFOLs envision for their modular streets. A small grocery store like the Green Grocer would not have had the style of refrigerated coolers with huge glass doors seen in that set back in the 1930s. The Fender Stratocaster style electric guitar in Assembly Square would not have existed pre-WWII, nor would the style of motor scooter in Parisian Restaurant. Never mind how unlikely it would be in a pre-WWII setting for women to wear trousers, for girls to wear halter tops (as seen in Town Hall), or for anyone to wear printed T-shirts as outerwear (as seen in Grand Emporium, Town Hall, and Assembly Square), particularly with an astronaut pattern (as seen in Town Hall)!

It's weird to hear the early days of LEGO City referred to as "golden years" because in hindsight I think those years, LEGO was still sort of coming out of their late 90s/early 2000s doldrums. Lots of huge chunky pieces including TWO types of huge prefab dump truck tipper beds, vehicles that dwarfed many LEGO buildings even for their time, lots of stand-alone vehicles without any accompanying scenery to turn them into more complete play experiences, and a lot of minifigure faces that were kinda ugly. Really, I feel as though City Construction sets didn't really begin to hit their stride until 2009 or so, and that the heavy machinery in other subthemes has only continued to push design standards further.

I doubt the prices of a non-licensed Dino theme would be much cheaper than those of the Jurassic World sets unless they went for primarily brick-built dinosaurs (more like the Ninjago or Elves dragons) rather than molded ones. So much of the cost of the recent dino themes has been based on the number of large, specially molded, printed, and/or pre-assembled elements, rather than on whether or not they are licensed. Overall, in the US, the 2012 Dino sets averaged 14.7 cents per piece and 6.5 cents per gram. The 2015 Jurassic World sets averaged 12.3 cents per piece and 6.3 cents per gram. And this year's Jurassic World sets (not counting Juniors and Duplo) averaged 12.8 cents per piece and 7.1 cents per gram. The Jurassic World theme as a whole comes to 12.6 cents per piece and 6.7 cents per gram — the former being considerably better than the Dino theme, the latter being only slightly worse. Granted, some of this probably just comes from the fact that the Dino theme had to do a lot more of the heavy lifting in terms of subsidizing the cost of new molds, while the Jurassic World sets have generally needed fewer new molds thanks to having so many existing ones to pull from. 2012 Dino sets introduced a whopping 30 new molds across just 7 sets (about 4.3 per set on average), while 2015 Jurassic World sets introduced just 12 new molds across 6 sets (2 per set on average) and 2018 Jurassic World sets introduced 13 molds across 8 sets (1.6 per set on average). Unless it were trying to completely reinvent the style of molded dinosaurs (which it may very well have to do if it is going for scientific accuracy), a new dino theme like you describe would probably be able to keep its costs down in a similar way. But the sheer size, complexity, and specificity of both the new molds it might introduce and the existing dino molds it might reuse would still probably result in prices more similar to the Jurassic World sets than to the "10 cents per piece" benchmark that AFOLs tend to prefer. I also don't know that I'd say the money for Jurassic World isn't coming from the brand. As much of a mess as the movies are from a critical standpoint, since their inception the Jurassic World and Jurassic Park movies have had a HUGE influence in both the popularity of dinosaur toys in any given year and the way the public tends to think about dinosaurs. And both Jurassic World movies have been massive successes at the box office. As far as LEGO sets go, the fact that the Jurassic World sets have been as popular as they are says a lot when you consider that the original Dino theme in 2012 didn't really seem to command nearly as much attention. Having said all this — I would certainly appreciate if LEGO made an in-house dino theme with a greater variety of species, particularly if it featured dinosaurs more accurate to (or at least recognizably inspired by) current science, and even more so if the dinosaurs were primarily brick-built like the LEGO Elves and LEGO Ninjago dragons. I saw the original Jurassic Park movie as an adult and enjoyed it, but otherwise I have no real love for the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World brand, particularly considering how its once groundbreaking approach to scientific accuracy has stagnated and the premises of the individual movies have become increasingly absurd.

Some of the Creator vehicles are very similar to Model Team in terms of size and functionality. Creator vehicles I'd consider relatively "Model Team-ish" include 4893, 4896, 6747, 6753, 5892, 5893, 5767, 7291, 31011, 31018, 31022, 31030, 31039, and 31059. All these sets have a high level of detail/authenticity, working steering (for cars/trucks/motorbikes) or adjustable flaps (for aircraft), and a scale larger than that associated with appearances of the same types of vehicles in "play themes" like City or Ninjago. Plus, like Model Team, many of these sets have more than one build that can also be described in this way (though some of the smaller ones sacrifice things like scale and steering in their alternate builds). But granted, things like working steering for Creator cars and trucks have been in decline for a while, and in general the trend in the past few years has been towards making Creator 3-in-1 vehicles closer to minifigure scale, much as has long been the norm for Creator 3-in-1 buildings. And while the scale of Model Team vehicles has always varied somewhat (while the upper limit of what can be considered "minifig scale" has grown considerably since back in the 80s and 90s), I don't think the minifig-scale Creator 3-in-1 vehicles tend to have many of the sorts of characteristics I associate with Model Team sets.

I don't see how the other themes "coming across as spin-offs" would have been an issue considering that most of the target audience would have had little to no awareness of the original themes that inspired them. And anyhow, Space Police 3 was by far my favorite 21st century space theme. I would say that Space Police 3 was a very faithful re-imagining. Even though it did change a number of things like the color scheme and antagonists, it maintained both the Space Police theme's defining purpose/goals (fight crime… in SPACE!), core gimmicks/play patterns (futuristic criminal containment pods that can be loaded onto ships or dropped off at HQ), and even a lot of old-school LEGO Space design cues in general like massive flagships with an onboard lab and rover, planetary bases with huge domed windows, etc). Not to mention the extensive allusions to LEGO Space themes of the past. Considering that no other Space Police or Blacktron revival ever kept any meaningful aspects of the color scheme, design language, or logos consistent with the previous incarnation, and even the Classic Space design language did not remain anywhere near as consistent as AFOLs prefer to remember it, I think purpose/goals and gimmicks/play patterns are a bigger part of conceptually defining each faction than the colors, shapes, and insignias. Like, if LEGO brought back Exploriens and it had all the same colors as classic Exploriens but DIDN'T have the "researching alien fossils" concept, holographic stickers, or an "X-Ray" gimmick, I don't think I'd call that a faithful re-imagining at all. Likewise, I can't tell you how many times I've been bummed out by fan-created or proposed M:Tron re-imaginings and reboots that fail to evoke both the emergency response role of the original theme and the magnetic transport gimmick (even as aware as I am that magnet gimmicks are probably never coming back due to changes in toy safety standards, you can't really have M:Tron without magnets, or at least implied ones)!

It recently occurred to me how odd it is that while one of the modular buildings has had a computer, I think we have yet to have any Creator Expert modular building with a TV. They're a fairly common trait in LEGO houses and buildings from other themes, after all.

I don't think there's anything at all suspicious about Monstrox only showing up as a hologram in the last wave. For one thing, there's never been any precedent for him showing up as a more traditional minifigure. The first year he only appeared as a book, and the second as a cloud. A hologram is not exactly a downgrade from either of those things. Furthermore, the idea that his "ultimate form" would be as a physical necromancer ignores that much of the Nexo Knights' effectiveness against him in past waves has been specifically because of their advanced tech and the digital wizardry of Merlok 2.0. Him taking on a comparable form in order to turn the Nexo Knights' own strengths back against them and face down his nemesis Merlok on a level playing field seems like a much more poetic as a "final battle" scenario to me than anything that might come about from him regaining the fleshy body he hasn't had since the theme's distant backstory. And yeah, sure, Ruina's important. And perhaps she WAS meant to appear in the final wave. That doesn't in any way mean that there was intended to be another wave in addition to the current one. Maybe at some point they planned to have seven sets in the first half 2018 wave instead of six, but for some reason or another they decided six was enough (perhaps connected to the decision to have Robin share a set with Aaron and Jestro share a set with Axl). Maybe they wanted her to appear in one of the already released sets and found that the budget didn't really have room for what they had in mind. Again, the idea of important characters from previous waves being omitted from a theme's final wave is not remotely unheard of, particularly when a theme with so many characters who can be considered important and such a small final wave to fit them into.

If you’re going to have an interior, it can be nice to add some features like this that create a sense of authenticity, but how far you go with it is your call. As another example, a lot of the LEGO Friends houses are rich in detail, but even so have just one bedroom rather than separate bedrooms for different family members. And often buildings that hinge open like the Simpsons House and Haunted House IMPLY more rooms than they actually have, since the rooms on opposite sides of the hinge lack a wall to separate them when closed. And even then the Simpsons House — maybe the closest we’ve seen in any set to a realistic suburban family home — is massive enough that it probably would feel decidedly out-of-place in many more traditionally scaled LEGO Town/City displays. A nice thing if you go with a modular format of any kind is that you have complete freedom to later add more rooms and/or floors if you want the building to feel more complete. But when people are looking at or even playing with a MOC, most of the time as long as there are enough fun details it DOES have, they may not be too worried about which it doesn’t. Even in high-detail series like Friends or Elves or the modular buildings, many features that are always a delight to see like stairs and bathrooms and bedrooms and kitchens are far from universal even across the types of locations you might expect to have them in real life. And often there are even practical concerns that many viewers might overlook at a glance. It’s delightful that Grand Emporium has escalators, but since it only has one per floor it’s technically impossible for customers to go both down and up a floor on the same escalator! Knighton Castle from Nexo Knights has beds for all of the main knights as well as their younger companions Robin and Ava, but none for the actual king and queen. Many buildings in any number of themes lack fire escapes, and hardly any are wheelchair-accessible (of the Modular Buildings, Town Hall is the only one with an elevator/lift, and getting to that lift from outside whether via the front or back door requires climbing a flight of stairs). The amazingly detailed interior of the LEGO Friends Sunshine Catamaran also has an absurdly low ceiling clearance in some parts of the ship when the top deck is attached. Never mind how getting into most of Assembly Square’s upstairs businesses or its one apartment requires cutting through either one or two other businesses. One wonders how the AFOL in the third story apartment enters or leaves their home outside of business hours, since they rely on both the bakery AND the dentist’s office to reach the stairs to their apartment!

Often times my older minifigs have been “quarantined” from my newer ones but not purposefully or out of some reverence for those nostalgic themes, but because a lot of my childhood sets are in pieces and most of those sets and figs were rather mediocre compared to the ones I enjoy collecting, displaying, and MOCing today. As a result I haven’t felt too much incentive to fill in the gaps in my collection for those themes I was less thorough about collecting, nor to intermix, say, my old Ninja or Divers or Aquazone or Rock Raiders sets and figs with my more recent Ninjago or Atlantis or Power Miners ones. That said… one possible factor in having such a different attitude towards the themes of my childhood (besides the admitted weak designs associated with so many of the 90s sets, themes, and figs I grew up with compared to today’s much stronger design standards) is that I never really had a “dark age”… as such, when I was ready to move on from any particular theme, it typically had less to do with some misguided sense that LEGO wasn’t cool or grown-up enough for me anymore and more with deciding another newer theme had more to offer in terms of storytelling, design quality, play value, and inspirational value. Are there sets I regret not getting? Sure — but less in the sense that their designs still hold up as something I wish I had today, and more out of realizing that the sets I did get might not have been the best ones available to me around that time (for example, I got the U.F.O. Alien Avenger instead of the far more interesting Interstellar Starfighter, the 2004 Castle of Morcia instead of the 2005 Vladek’s Dark Fortress, etc). So many sets back then were advertised so poorly that I didn’t learn about some of their coolest features until years later.

One idea that I've had for some time (that could potentially work as either an action-adventure theme or an action figure theme) is a "cyberspace" theme, in the spirit of stories like Tron, Code Lyoko, Megaman Battle Network/Megaman NT Warrior, Digimon, Cyberchase, ReBoot, etc. There's a lot of creative freedom with how the setting could be depicted — the most specific requirement is just that it have lots of colorful lights and futuristic/tech-related imagery, much like past action-adventure themes like Nexo Knights and Ultra Agents. But there's all kinds of fun ways you can play around with computer/internet jargon to take advantage of the setting. What about computer bugs that are actually bug shaped? Firewalls that are literal walls of fire (perhaps using the angular fire elements from LEGO Hero Factory)? An Internet forum that's a literal public space? A magic-casting Installation Wizard? Etc.

Yeah, STAMPs suck. I suspect that in the case of the Maersk sets the main reason for it is that Maersk doesn't want LEGO mutilating their logos and trademarks by splitting them up across separate stickers and/or printed bricks. I'm not sure I agree with your reasoning about smaller production runs making printing more feasible than stickers, when in fact it more often tends to be the opposite (sets with larger production runs can offset bigger production expenses relative to their price point due to economies of scale). If only 50,000 of a particular set is being produced, then the cost of introducing each new element (whether that be a print, a mold, or a recolor) will add more to the cost of each individual set produced than if 500,000 or 1,000,000 of a set is being produced. In general, the cost of one sticker sheet is more or less the same as the cost of one printed brick. The bigger cost associated with printing is less about the amount of ink or the die cutting process but rather the logistical cost of introducing a new element to production (and thus, having to schedule manufacturing time to produce it, clear up warehouse space to store it, etc). In this day and age, a lot of "die cutters" (both in industrial and home use) are actually digital and don't require the manufacture of a physical die for each pattern they have to cut — instead, they have a moving blade that cuts out the shapes desired much like how an inkjet printer or digital embroidery machine can recreate any number of digital patterns. This is part of why it's so common for sets that need a huge number of different patterns (like Speed Champions or Ninjago City) often tend to favor sticker sheets. It also means that if a set already has a sticker sheet it's cheaper to add new patterns to the same sticker sheet than to print those patterns individually on the bricks. The latter requires a new element for each individual decorated brick, while the added cost of the former is negligible. This is also why so many of the smallest sets like Mighty Micros, Microfighters, BrickHeadz, Collectible Minifigures, City starter sets, etc. can get away with not having sticker sheets — since they typically need so few decorations to begin with, the amount that would be saved by using a sticker sheet tends to be much less than for a bigger set that might need between one and two dozen parts uniquely decorated. Also, I feel like a lot of the time people tend to overstate how many printed elements there are in Ideas sets (and Juniors sets, and BrickHeadz sets, etc, etc). And often this has to do with people looking only at the presence or absence of stickers, and not at the actual number of printed elements — as well as the tendency not to think about how many printed elements a typical set or theme might introduce for minifigures and minifigure accessories. A good example is the Saturn V Rocket set. A lot of people were astonished at its sheer number of printed bricks, and wondered why we couldn't get as many new printed elements in other big sets like it. But in many cases, we DO. The Saturn V Rocket introduced 11 uniquely printed elements. That is not at all extraordinary for a $100+ set. Even just from 2010 onward, 4195, 5887, 7327, 7964, 9450, 9516, 41180, 41239, 70596, 70816, 70909, 75021, 75094, 75104, 75157, 75188, 75219, 76035, 76057, 79008, 79010, 79111, and 79117 all introduced anywhere between 10 and 20 new printed elements. And that's not even touching on other, much more expensive types of new elements such as new or even set-specific molds. Of course, as mentioned, a lot of these printed elements were specifically for figures and figure accessories, and as such many of the other set-specific decorations had to be produced as sticker sheets. Frankly, the sheer amount of printed building elements in many sets from the 90s and earlier can probably be attributed in part to the far smaller number of uniquely printed minifigure elements in most of those sets and themes. For example, there were no printed minifigure headgear (or even printed minifigure heads besides the classic smiley) until 1989, no printed minifigure capes until 1993, no printed minifigure legs assemblies until 1994, no printed minifigure headgear accessories until 1997, no printed minifigure armor until 2004, and no printed minifigure hair until 2006. Today all of these things are fairly common, and even expected for likenesses of certain IP-based characters. In this day and age it's not unheard of for a single minifigure to introduce anywhere from four to six new printed elements — just look at Cannonball Suit Harley Quinn, who is built entirely from six entirely unique printed elements. Ideas sets which HAVE had a more extraordinary number of new printed elements are Caterham Seven 620R (14 unique new printed elements for $80), Women of NASA (15 for $25), Doctor Who (19 for $60), The Big Bang Theory (23 for $60), and The Beatles Yellow Submarine (24 for $60). But what all these sets besides the Caterham have in common is a large number of set-specific minifigure elements, often far more than comparably priced sets from larger themes. And even then, they're not alone among licensed/IP-based sets that have so many new printed elements — some other examples include 75917 (20 for $50), 75920 (17 for $40). LEGO Ideas budgets can also be partially balanced out by the fact that a good half of the sets to date have had four or fewer new printed elements, resulting in an average of about 8 new molds per set (the average has risen over time, of course, but this year's Ideas sets so far have had an average of 7 new printed elements per set, including sticker sheets — scarcely any more than the 6 new printed elements per set in this year's Nexo Knights range). Perhaps most importantly, Ideas sets don't have to worry about new/unique molds, which eat up a much bigger portion of the budget for an individual set or theme than new printed or recolored elements.

It did not. It only had five stickers all of which went on single pieces. Generally I can't think of any post-2010 sets with STAMPs except Maersk sets.

Interesting MOC! I do wish there were still more variety in the train cars, however. One of the things that made the original set feel so authentically Time Twisters was that it had design attributes expressly referencing different themes/eras — so, for instance, one car was very Wild West inspired, but another was more Castle-inspired. Here, the design is more coherent, as we'd expect an actual train to look perhaps, but at the cost of losing that wacky time machine feel. I also think it could benefit from more blue, since the blue+black+brown color palette played a big role in defining the Time Twisters visual design. Even with your train's mechanical functions and fantasy elements, it feels like it could just as easily be any other sort of steampunk or science-fantasy train, rather than specifically a Time Twisters one. I do like the patterns on the wheels, though! While not based on the original set they have a similar mind-bending feel to them! You would probably be able to get more detailed feedback and get more attention from people if you posted a video of the functions instead of just describing them!