Aanchir

(copying and pasting this comment from Brickset with some minor editing for context) A fire station is perhaps more holiday-relevant than it might seem at first glance — in the United States, Christmas and Christmas Eve are the two most common days for home fires, primarily involving cooking and heating sources but also other causes like candles, electrical fires from Christmas lights, the flammability of live Christmas trees when they dry out, and people's general tendency to overlook risks after drinking alcohol. That said, I get why some people feel like this is a unusual kind of subject matter compared to previous fare. Other Winter Village sets have generally been tied to much cheerier and more festive things people associate with the holiday season, like toys, presents, caroling, skiing, ice skating, Santa Claus, Christmas markets, Christmas cards, Christmas cookies, Christmas vacations, I'm sure part of the reason so many house fires DO happen on Christmas Eve and Christmas is that they're the sort of thing a lot of people prefer NOT to think too much about when planning for or celebrating the holidays. All in all, a fire station certainly is the kind of building that helps towards any city or village feel more complete. It will be interesting to see if kids' and parents' well-documented enthusiasm towards LEGO fire stations gives this set a boost. Even though a lot of us think of Creator Expert as sets that are for us AFOLs first and foremost, I've come to understand that a lot of adults who might not be involved in LEGO fan communities also love the Creator Expert sets and other D2C exclusives as something that brings them together with their kids (who in many cases might not be old enough to get as rewarding a building experience from sets like this on their own). Let's not forget, the Fire Brigade was a controversial addition to the Modular Buildings series among AFOLs, especially with its overtly American design alienating those who preferred to pretend that the three previous buildings in the series were European-based. But on the Inside Tour, Jamie Berard mentioned to me that it actually sold a lot better than the previous buildings. The number of people who have marked down owning the Fire Brigade here on Brickset compared to the numbers who did so for the previous buildings appears to back this up, though I'm sure those sales numbers were both an effect and a cause of the Fire Brigade not being discontinued nearly as quickly as its predecessors. Anyhow, my thoughts: this definitely fits the quaint and nostalgic aesthetic of the Winter Village sets. I love the snow and ice hanging from the stairways and overhangs (though it's a bit surprising from a safety perspective that a staircase outside a firehouse doesn't have any railings). I love that this not only stands out from the colors architecture of other LEGO fire houses, but also from the colors and architecture of other winter village sets. The interior of the station is picturesque, yet compact like other Winter Village sets. So I was very interested to see how much livable detail the designers were able to incorporate. On the plus side it has a cute little kitchenette, so the firefighters don't have to rely on ordering delivery and bringing any leftovers home with them when their shift is done. On the minus side, due to the limited space it has fewer beds than the latest LEGO City fire station or the converted firehouse the LEGO Friends are living in now. But I suppose since this is located in a village rather than a city, it's probably OK if on a more average night only one firefighter sleeps at the station in case a call comes in, and the others live close by. As for the other fire station essentials, it's good that there's a staircase to get up to the top floor and a fire pole to get back down to the garage (both City fire stations and other Winter Village buildings like the cottage sometimes have no obvious way to get upstairs). And it's nice to see space for various firefighting equipment in the garage, The old-timey fire truck doesn't wow me as much since even the newer-looking one from the Fire Brigade had much the same before-my-time nostalgia. That said, unlike City vehicles and other Winter Village vehicles, this one does have a feature common to vehicles from Friends and Modular Buildings sets that I enjoy seeing: the ability to seat two figures side-by-side. It's something I've pretty much always strove for in my own real-world-based MOCs, so it makes me happy any time it shows up in a set. This fire truck also makes good use of parts like the 1x2 curved wedge slopes that weren't around when the Fire Brigade set came out. The Christmas tree here is a new design for the series, but that said I quickly realized it wasn't much different from a design I'd seen before — the LEGO Creator "How to build a holiday tree" video uploaded last year! https://youtu.be/SMIxE4UZDRg Looking at that video again, I kind of have to admit I like that tree design more. I think it's the more consistent staggering of the wedge plates (unlike this one where the wedge on the second-innermost plate on each side sticks out further than the one below it), the classic Dark Green plates being more visible against the Earth Green ones than on this one where they're mostly covered up, the transparent ornaments, and the spots of snow that offset all the more heavily saturated colors. Even though that tree was a couple modules shorter than this one and certainly couldn't have used such a giant star without looking silly, I almost would have preferred if LEGO had gone with that design or one more like it. The ice skating rink is simple but still really elegant, with beautiful curved steps in the corners and a nice smooth sheet of ice. One thing puzzles me about the statue — what is the firefighter holding? I guess it's a fire hose, but in the summer is it supposed to function as a fountain? Because in real life it's usually not advisable to keep a fountain running in weather cold enough that it freezes! As for the snowman, its size compared to a minifigure is decent, and it's a good use of the big top hat from The Penguin/Iron Baron, but it feels rather inelegant (but in fairness, I'm not sure there's ever been a minifig-scale snowman I've been perfectly satisfied with). As far as minifigs go, I like the new baby's moose sweater, the reuse of Jay's scarf from The LEGO Ninjago Movie, and the old-timey uniforms of the firefighters and fire chief — although what I've really long been waiting for in a LEGO firefighter is a modern-looking fire suit in a color like Sand Yellow, and I recently saw some hints I may not have to wait much longer). It's nice to see both hair and helmets for the firefighters, though I suppose the chief is stuck wearing his hat. Slight pet peeve: I really wish LEGO would come out with a dog mold more suitable for use as a dalmatian than this one, which works fine in other colors/patterns as a German Shepherd but doesn't at all have the droopy ears of real Dalmatians. Cookie, Livi's Dalmatian puppy from the LEGO Friends sets, managed to feel a lot more authentic. In minifig-based themes, a full-sized dog mold like this with droopier ears could have lasting usefulness as all kinds of iconic dog breeds, from Dalmatians to Golden and Labrador Retrievers. Overall, though, I'd say this is another great showing from the Creator Expert designers! Value for money seems good, it meets most of the usual expectations of the Winter Village series or of an other LEGO firehouse, and it's something the Winter Village series has never had before.

It was literally one of the top-selling themes globally from 2014 to 2016, the period when the company reached the most kids and achieved their highest revenues in company history. Heck, even in 2012 when it had just launched, Olivia’s House was the top-selling set from ANY theme. The Friends theme’s success is extremely well-documented. But sure, keep on pretending your opinions and anecdotal experiences are gospel truth. It’s not my problem if you choose to make a fool of yourself. And c’mon, it’s more than proven by now that the mini-doll has been a huge hit with girls who could never manage to relate to the minifigure the same way, and has been a major factor in the Friends theme’s groundbreaking success getting more girls into LEGO — are you seriously so out-of-touch that you can’t recognize that?

The current Ninjago figs are "not quite the same as the old ones" either. Let's assign points for the changes that can't be chalked up to facial expression (because every character's facial expression changed at least slightly across both themes) Kai's hairstyle and insignia changed, his left eye scar was replaced with a right eye scar, his eyebrow color changed, and he now has a bandage on his forehead. (5 points) Jay's hairstyle, hair color, and insignia changed, he gained freckles, his eyebrow color changed, and he lost the little scar in his left eyebrow. (6 points) Zane's hairstyle, hair color, and insignia changed, and his eyebrows and mouth both became more robotic in shape (5 points) Nya's hairstyle and insignia changed, she gained a beauty mark, lost her dimples, and now has one eyelash per eye instead of three. (5 points) Lloyd's hairstyle, insignia, eye color, and eyebrow color changed, and his eyebrows became a thicker and more angular shape. (5 points) Cole's hairstyle and insignia changed, he lost his ghostly forehead scar and his eyebrows changed shape, but only subtly. (4 points) 30 points/changes total, 5 per character on average. Whereas with LEGO Friends mini-dolls: Olivia's hairstyle, insignia, and lip color changed, she got glasses, and her skin tone became one shade darker* (5 points) Emma's insignia and eye color changed and her eyes became more almond-shaped (3 points) Nothing changed about Stephanie except her expression (0 points) Mia's insignia, eye color, and lip color changed. (3 points) Andrea's hairstyle, eye color, and lip color changed (3 points) 14 points/changes total, 2.8 on average per character Some people have articulated that they feel less mutable facial features like skin color, hair color, eye color, eye shape, eyebrow color, eyebrow shape, scars, and freckles/blemishes might count more than things like hairstyle, lipstick color, glasses/bandages, and insignias which can be thought of as just a costume update like the ones the characters in both themes have already been through plenty of times. In that case, Ninjago had 15 points/changes, or 2.5 per character and Friends had… err… just five points/changes, or just one per character. So yeah… whichever way you slice it, the Ninjago characters went through more design changes. A bit of clarification on the change to Olivia's skin color, which seems to be the change most people get hung up on. Olivia's old skin color was the same as System Poe Dameron, System Buzz Lightyear, System Woody, or System Jessie. Her new skin color was the same as buildable figure Poe Dameron, Duplo Buzz Lightyear, Duplo Woody, or Duplo Jessie. GASP. Look at how vastly different the races/ethnicities of the characters on that first list are from the characters on that second list… Just kidding! They're the same exact characters. So it's a mystery why people noticing a change in a character's skin color gets them so hot and bothered… Oops! Kidding again! The reasons are obvious. In any case, if the redesigns for the Ninjago characters outweigh the ones for the Friends characters, yet Ninjago got back on the interim result's top sellers list while Friends fell off it, I don't think this apparent dip in the Friends theme's popularity can be attributed to the characters looking "not quite the same".

Not really the best example because even here in the states I think you’d find loads of people who have never heard of that movie. Frankly the Oscars are a lot different even from even typical critics because they tend to be a hoity-toity affair and the judges are notoriously biased against anything they consider “lowbrow” — which includes animated films, the entire horror genre, superhero movies, and anything they perceive as commercialized. Note that this overlaps with a lot of the types of licenses LEGO seeks out and the types of movies kids tend to like (Disney and Pixar movies do often win Oscars, but that’s mostly because a lot of the judges don’t even care enough about animated movies to watch them and just vote for Disney flicks based on the studio’s prestigious reputation). And even if a lot of the popularity of superhero movies is centered in the US, not only is that a massive market in and of itself, but American pop culture has a wide enough reach that these themes certainly don’t ONLY make money in North America.

Now hang on a sec. Obviously I know quality is subjective, but there’s no disputing that The Last Jedi has been massively successful, both in theaters and on DVD/Blu-Ray. If anything, my understanding is that toy sales for The Last Jedi floundered more than the movie itself due to market oversaturation.

Wings as separate pieces sounds like it'd make the planes rather fragile, since you'd only have about 10 studs on each side supporting the weight of the entire wing — and those are not small wings! A single piece wing lets them share their connection points to the fuselage and balances the weight. I suppose individual wings MIGHT work if you used a different connection style like Technic, though I would like to see more LEGO planes with working flaps, though! And windows on the doors could be cool if LEGO could figure out a good place to put the door connectors that they wouldn't block the view! The plane from Heartlake City Airport had more detailed and comfier-looking seats, but as a result it had a lot fewer of them (just three seats). It also had a bathroom, a TV, and a flight attendant work station. I wouldn't mind City planes incorporating at least some of these sorts of amenities even if it came at the expense of some of the seating. It might help that minifigs require less leg room when seated than mini-dolls, so you could pack them in tighter — just like real airlines are doing with real people these days! One thing I wouldn't mind seeing is a tail piece that separates into top and bottom sections the way the 6-wide airplane/helicopter tails do. It would allow for a lot more usable space in the fuselage, and also more versatility for other types of model (like how some speedboat sets have used the bottom part of the helicopter nose and the top part of the tail as the front of a speedboat). In general I love using curved pieces in my MOCs so the more uses they have, the better!

There are quite a few LEGO Friends sets on the Target.com LEGO best sellers list. And the Smythstoys.com LEGO best sellers list. And the Amazon.com building toys best sellers list . Anecdotal accounts of clearance sales are hardly ever a reliable way of knowing how well the theme is doing, and I can't tell you how many clueless comments I've read from people who thought Ninjago was in its death throes because they always saw Ninjago sets on clearance. That said, I'm wasn't even using "big" to refer to popularity, but rather to the sheer number of sets in each of these themes. If a theme has 20 to 30 new sets per year it's no big deal if 10 of them resemble stuff from 3 to 5 years ago. Whereas if there are ten or fewer new sets per year and five or more of them are repeats, there's less new stuff to keep older fans (or fans with hand-me-downs from older siblings) invested. Of course, I'd agree that Friends isn't saving LEGO's butt, but that's because they're not in a situation where they need saving. Even with growth stalled they're still one of the most successful toy companies out there, far from the situation in 2003 where they were losing money on the vast majority of their products and needed major successes like Bionicle to make up the difference. When the company as a whole is financially stable, none of their themes can be said to be "saving" them — they're just pieces that make up the larger success strategy.

Another thing to keep in mind about Super Heroes is that instead of treating it like one big theme like LEGO Star Wars, LEGO often treats it more like two separate, smaller themes since it includes both the DC and Marvel licenses. There are only like 12 (non-promo, non-polybag) Marvel sets this year and 10 (non-promo, non-polybag) DC sets this year. It's not too surprising that either of those themes individually doesn't sell as well as themes that get 20 or more new sets per year like City, Star Wars, and Ninjago.

People say the same thing about City, Star Wars, Ninjago, etc. when they have sets that feel repetitive, but the reality is that they remain some of the top sellers. From our perspective as AFOLs, repeats of stuff we've already had a chance to buy can feel boring and pointless. But for a theme to be successful it has to keep bringing in new fans (especially kids), and a lot of the sets potential new fans get most excited for are the same sorts of sets that kids in the past have been most excited for… like police stations and fire trucks in LEGO City, or X-Wings and Millennium Falcons in LEGO Star Wars, or dragons and motorcycle duels in LEGO Ninjago, or cafes and houses in LEGO Friends. In other words, it's not really a matter of "running out of ideas", it's that even ideas that have been done before can sometimes remain some of the most popular ones to choose from. And anyhow, another thing unifying themes like City, Star Wars, Ninjago, and Friends is that they're BIG. Most people are never going to buy every set that comes out in a particular year from any of these themes. And that means that it doesn't take a whole lot of "new and different" sets to keep long-time fans engaged. There's more than enough room to have the "new and different" stuff AND the "old reliable" stuff. I suspect there are a lot of Friends sets for next year that we have yet to hear about, and after the variety we saw this year I'm excited to learn more about what's in store!

Happy to see that Ninjago is still a strong seller. Surprised not to see Friends mentioned, since it's typically been a strong seller in past years. In general, with the shake-up that the death of Toys 'R' Us brings to the entire industry it's nice to know that for now, at least, things are remaining fairly stable. It'll be interesting to see how things hold up during the holiday shopping season since that's such a big part of any toy company's overall annual revenue.

Gorgeous display! I love that you were able to keep some of the iconic Fright Knights design characteristics, namely the concave red roofs! I love seeing nostalgic MOCs and layouts but it sometimes can be a bummer when a re-imagining of a classic space or castle theme only keeps the original theme's color scheme and logos rather than other defining motifs. The autumn leaves definitely add to the distinctive spooky character of the layout, as does the craggy, barren plateau on which the tower is constructed. Great work!

Frankly I think that Friends sets are some of the LEAST lacking in intermediate tones. In Friends, pretty much no color is "off limits". It's got one of the most extensive color palettes of any theme. Whereas in most non-girl-oriented themes (including the classics), intermediate tones between red and blue or blue and green tend to be extremely scarce. Where are the people complaining that City or classic Town are "contentious and off-putting" or "unbalanced and whacky" due to their profound lack of pinks, purples, and azures/bluish-greens?

Frankly, not a whole lot of the colors used in Friends would even qualify as pastel. Pastel typically refers to colors that are considerably lightened and desaturated. That would describe colors like Light Purple, Cool Yellow, Spring Yellowish Green, Aqua, Light Royal Blue, and Lavender. But it would NOT be a very accurate description of the many brighter or deeper colors often used in the Friends theme like Bright Reddish Violet, Bright Purple, Flame Yellowish Orange, Bright Yellowish Green, Bright Bluish Green, Medium Azur, Dark Azur, Earth Blue, Medium Lilac, or Medium Lavender. When I think "pastel", I think Paradisa — a theme that employed light colors like Light Reddish Violet, Light Yellow, Light Green, and loads and loads of White to the point of looking faded or washed out. By comparison, most Friends sets tend to use pastel colors more sparingly, with plenty of brighter or deeper colors to balance them out.

for what it's worth, I don't think 4.5 year old daughters are the best indication of what girls would be into in the age range of typical LEGO System themes. Themes like City and Friends are usually aimed at ages 5+ and themes like Ninjago and Elves are aimed more at ages 7+. If LEGO were to do a space or sci-fi theme for girls I'd expect it to be aimed more at the 7+ age range, since there'd be less chance of the Friends theme's popularity cannibalizing its sales. I think the idea that a minifig based theme would appeal more to both genders than a mini-doll based theme is a bit naive, since at this point it's pretty well understood that the classic minifig alienates a lot of girls, and that themes like Elves can appeal to both genders regardless of the type of figure they contain. The idea that either superheroes or space are inherently "boys' themes" is a misconception. Girls have always been a part of the audience for sci-fi and superhero stories… "Frankenstein" and "The Scarlet Pimpernel" come to mind as examples of classic books in those genres that not only appealed to women, but written BY women. The audiences for many recent Star Wars and Marvel superhero movies have been over 40% female, and LEGO is hardly the only company that's been putting the cliche that these genres are "boys only" to the test (besides DC Super Hero Girls, the Marvel Rising and Star Wars: Forces of Destiny brands also specifically target girls). It's true that a lot of male classic Space fans would feel let down by a space theme that wasn't aimed at their demographic, but it's worth remembering that classic Space fans are increasingly irrelevant. A person who was eight years old in 1979 will be 48 years old next year. Pandering to that shrinking audience is hardly a recipe for success. And as much as people of that generation (or even of my generation) might want to pretend nothing has changed about kids' tastes since they were kids, the folly of that assumption should be plain as day. The world is changing.

I think another factor in why LEGO prefers boxes to be fairly large is that it lets them show the product image on the box at close to actual size. Especially with a set like the aforementioned Pirate Roller Coaster, the overall size of the assembled set is much bigger than the size of box the loose parts would take up, because the model is spread out with a lot of empty space in the middle. Even among AFOLs who have a lifetime of experience with the LEGO brick and its proportions, it's quite frequent to hear "I didn't have much interest in *insert set here*, then I saw it built in real life and realized how BIG it is!" It's easy to see a small picture of a set or read its proportions in inches and still underestimate how big the genuine article will be. So besides having the assembled set on display, an actual-size image of the set is the next best way to give people an honest appraisal of how big a set they'll be getting.

Loved seeing this at BrickFair! So beautiful and colorful!

Some of the microfigs from that set could also be used for "fair folk" in more fantasy-inspired settings. And there are some lovely new window panes that seem to fit in the 1x2x2 Castle window panels. Given how many of those there are and how they're all identical I suspect those are printed, although some of the more specific decorations in the set are definitely stickers.

I would not mind one bit if the LEGO Movie 2 paves the way for a sci-fi theme featuring mini-dolls in the future! It definitely shows how much potential that would have.

Have you looked at the construction of the hull in 41073? It makes good use of curved slopes and SNOT techniques to create a hull around 10 studs wide.

How much is that in Galleons?

Sure, but I can't really think of any way to design a bespoke gown piece that would work for both standing and riding side-saddle. After all, even regular minifig legs don't have knee joints.

While Ninjago has a lot of strengths, to be honest I think sometimes which themes become huge successes and which don't can have a lot to do with how well tailored they are to kids at the particular time that they come out. It could be that specific aspects of Ninjago's storytelling and design elevate it over more short-lived themes, but we mustn't dismiss the possibility that kids today might just be more interested in ninja than in knights or aliens or spies or animal warriors — and that even Ninjago might not have had the same success if it had launched ten years earlier or later. I also think that some of Ninjago's strengths would not be able to translate well to the kind of space theme that AFOLs are nostalgic for. Like, Ninjago has a story rich in magic and legends that could certainly have a place in sci-fi, but would result in something a lot more "Star Wars-ish" than traditional space themes. It is also intensely character-driven, which I know is something many old-school AFOLs are averse to. It contains an eccentric mix of ancient and futuristic design cues, sometimes even within the same set, and it embraces "gimmick" sets like spinners and fliers. Finally, I think on some levels LEGO might not even be interested in giving other themes some "secret sauce" that made Ninjago such a mega-hit. If other themes have the same strengths as Ninjago, then they risk competing for the same audience, which may very well be part of what held Chima back. Remember, when the idea of Chima was conceived, Ninjago was not expected to last longer than three years — instead, though, Chima wound up having to share shelf space with Ninjago for its entire lifespan. It was probably not accidental that the Nexo Knights app game, the connective tissue that tied together its sets and media, was unlike anything that had been done for Ninjago. Even if there's no guarantee of achieving Ninjago-like success, it can still be more worthwhile for LEGO to keep trying new things hoping to discover a new "secret sauce" than to try and make a second Ninjago.

This is looking really rad! Can't wait to see your continued progress!

While this is true, I've never seen any M:Tron blurbs or marketing that back up the "miners" interpretation. If you are aware of any that you could show me then I'd certainly love to see them though because I am always fascinated with how themes back then were marketed differently from region to region, and story/background info on themes from back before the internet is sometimes hard to come by! I think it's a little unfair to argue that the Space theme used to be more grounded back in the day. Even in the Classic Space era it fluctuated quite a bit, with some sets depicting fairly realistic unmanned rocket launches and others depicting giant robots. Heck, M:Tron had a space helicopter with laser rotors, something that's practically hitting Nexo Knights levels of silliness. I also don't understand the argument that recent Space themes have been less distinguishable from Star Wars. After all, Star Wars has way more boxy, industrial-looking spaceships than it has 1950s-looking flying saucers or spaceships shaped like giant bugs. And it's hard to imagine that the designers of Allied Avenger and Super Nova II weren't in any way inspired by Star Wars' X-Wing Fighter. And "fewer unique pieces specific to one set"? I might need a citation on that. The sets were simpler back then, sure, but even today there are very few sets that use genuinely unique parts for things besides character and creature parts and accessories. Parts like 2336, 2409, 2426, 2464, and 2680 were just as set-specific as typical non-figure parts from Alien Conquest or Galaxy Squad. The idea that sets today are full of specialized parts that are only designed to build one thing is an ignorant cliche, not a reality.

I somewhat doubt we'd see one the same year a new castle theme launched. Judging from sets like Temple of Airjitzu, Imperial Flagship, Medieval Market Village, and Kingdoms Joust, it's more typical for non-licensed exclusives to come out a year or more after the corresponding theme launches. I suppose, though, that there is an exception in the Haunted House, which came out the same year as the Monster Fighters theme, so there's no reason that couldn't happen again.