Aanchir

I disagree about the idea that having a fictional story/world "forces" children to just recreate the stories that other people have told in that world. After all, a fictional world is hardly spelled out in more detail than the real world that a generic Pirate theme is ostensibly inspired by. Furthermore, telling kids stories supplies them with the tools and techniques to tell better stories of their own, the same way giving kids building instructions supplies them with the tools and techniques that they can use to make better creations of their own. This idea that kids' creativity is best encouraged by depriving them of outside influences doesn't in any way reflect how the creative process actually works. New ideas aren't generated from a vacuum, they are created by putting together the various ideas you've picked up from different sources. Furthermore, over the years I've seen WAY more fan art and fan fiction of themes like LEGO Bionicle and LEGO Ninjago than I've ever seen of more open-ended themes like City, Pirates, and Castle. Rather than stifling creativity, themes with more engaging stories have demonstrated great capacity for inspiring creative works — even outside MOCs, the category that traditional LEGO fans community seem to rather narrowly focus their creative energy toward. As far as MOCs go, I haven't seen kids limit themselves by what they'd seen either, at least not any more than LEGO fans have always recreated things they recognize from other people's stories and media. Last year there was a LEGO exhibition at a museum near my college, mostly featuring kids' creations (I submitted a creation, but I was the only adult to enter on his own and the exhibition was broken down by age so nobody's entries were competing against much older or younger builders). One thing I observed on opening night was that the kids building things for this contest usually weren't just recreating scenes from stories they liked. Many kids mixed Minecraft parts with Nexo Knights parts with Star Wars parts to create their own original stories, universes, and characters. Some kids, however, DID build creations meant to fit in an existing universe like the Ninjago or Friends or Star Wars universes, and even those kids were creating new subjects, stories, and scenarios, not just ones they had seen before. I was quite impressed with a kid who created new vehicles for the Ninjago ninja and typed out out an entire backstory for them about how when Cole was a ghost he used his ghost powers to transform ordinary vehicles into these new ninja vehicles. The Ninjago story had obviously inspired these creations — we'd seen Cole become a ghost, and seen other ghosts demonstrate the power to transform things into enhanced ghostly versions, and of COURSE seen the ninja get new vehicles each season through one plot device or another — but those ideas had never been put together in that exact way, and for this kid the synthesis of those ideas served as inspiration for his own wholly original creations! Even after watching the same Ninjago episodes he did, I'd never had the idea to take those ideas and put them together in quite that way. Even if I had, it never would have resulted in those same creations, because we'd also each be bringing in our other influences and experiences as individuals. I'm not sure I entirely see how the 2009 and 2015 waves were considerably different from past waves in this regard. The figures had more detailed facial expressions but not in a way that made either the pirates or the soldiers seem more or less competent than in 80s and 90s sets. I also think it's… quite interesting to read this perspective, since it differs greatly from what I'm used to hearing from fans of the older classic themes like Castle and Space. This kind of directed conflict is itself often presented by fans of those themes as a corruption of a more open-ended play pattern. LEGO shouldn't be setting up specific factions as adversaries, they should be creating those factions without any specific relationship or motivations to each other and let kids have the freedom to choose whether their stories are conflict-based or non-conflict-based. I think this illustrates how even the sets LEGO fans consider "classics" span a wide range of years and design philosophies. Consider that the launch of LEGO Pirates was actually just as close to the launch of the "proto-Bionicle" theme Slizers/Throwbots ten years later as to the launch of Castle and Space ten years earlier. To a Pirates fan, firing projectiles and sets spelling out an adversarial relationship between factions are not viewed cynically as a way of pandering to kids with violent imaginations and low attention spans, they are a familiar part of the theme that adds to the play value of individual sets and the theme as a whole. A Pirates theme without these conflict elements would probably seem sub-par. But Castle and Space fans might feel differently since those themes did NOT always have those attributes. EDIT: this is unrelated to the preceding post, but the thought occurs to me… do you think LEGO would ever try a fantasy seafaring theme taking inspiration from (though not necessarily directly based on) the voyages of Sinbad? How well it’d gel with a classic Pirates collection would depend on when exactly you set it, but besides the novelty a fantasy seafaring theme would bring, it’d be neat to see one inspired by non-Western cultures.

Probably because they wanted them to have costumes more specific to the characters and theme. Like a lot of secondary characters in the early seasons of Ninjago, Ed and Edna's original costumes were just palette swaps of outfits from other themes — Edna just wears a recolor of the Minifigures Series 3 Pilot torso, and Ed wears a recolor of this generic LEGO City torso. The chance to create physical minifigures of Ed and Edna gave the designers an excuse to put a little more time and effort into their designs. We saw something similar with Ash and Shade in last year's battle pack. Shade's torso in the show was just a recolor of the Minifigures Series 10 Roman Commander torso with the belts removed, so it was updated to a more detailed armor style. Ash's armor in the show was unique as far as I can tell, but pretty low in detail, so it was updated with more of an armor texture instead of intersecting lines that could just as easily be interpreted as a plaid shirt. All in all, I don't think there's any reason that LEGO designers should refrain from putting the same care and attention into the costumes of supporting characters as they do into the costumes of main characters when the opportunity finally presents itself — even if that means making changes. Anyway, my personal top 5 I'd like to see minifigures of? After a bit of thinking… Nya's plainclothes/teaching outfit from Seasons 3–5. Chamille Jacob Pevsner Captain Soto in his full pirate garb (the prison version was nice but not super versatile) Cyrus Borg

Beautiful painting! These characters all have so much personality!

In a post Nexo Knights world I wouldn't mind seeing the designers start exploring different sorts of shapes and techniques than they've used in the past, even if they stick to a lot of the same iconic subject matter. Maybe the new castle could have curved towers instead of square or octagonal ones? On another 2013-related note, I do think expecting a new Castle theme not to use a lot of wall panels may be setting ourselves up for disappointment, since wall panels have been integral to Castle themes for about as long as there have been wall panels and nearly as long as there have been Castle themes. And to be honest, from my memories as a kid, I quite liked it that way. It's much easier to build your OWN castles when you can quickly rearrange the walls to your liking than when you have to strip them down to the foundation layer by layer. I also wouldn't mind seeing a new Castle theme do some creative stuff with terrain. There's a lot of nostalgia for raised baseplates in the AFOL community which I generally don't share, but lately in the City theme LEGO has had some neat builds with a similarly vertical structure… think Prison Island or the new Mountain Police Headquarters. The variety of mountain bricks has increased a bit since they were last used in the Castle theme, and I'd very much like to see what new building possibilities that could lead to. The one thing that makes me question whether LEGO would do this, though, is that over the past few Castle incarnations the footprint of LEGO castles has been increasing moreso than the height, and also the recent emphasis on modularity might be harder to execute if basically every module has to be raised by a uniform amount. Back in the day, the era of castles on raised baseplates brought about an end to the earlier trend of separate sets that could be linked together to create a bigger castle. And reducing castle sets back to a smaller 32x32 footprint like most castles on raised baseplates had may make them taller and more imposing, but could diminish their interior play value, as it would be harder to reach inside and access the interior space (a struggle I distinctly remember with sets like Fire Breathing Fortress).

Arguably, Medieval Market Village and Kingdoms Joust are about as analogous to the Creator Expert as the Disney Castle was. 12+ age range, D2C release pattern, etc. But I agree that it would be cool to see an actual, complete, non-licensed castle (not just a castle-themed set) at that building level. Maybe then it could work in more of the type of livable details that I like so much instead of being as purely action-focused as the regular $100 castles tend to be. In general, I still have my fingers crossed that we'll see more of these types of features in the next castle theme, because after sets like Knighton Castle, Jestro's Volcano Lair, and Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle, I don't think there's really any excuse for main-line Castle sets not including basics like a bedroom or dining room. It's not as though including places for people to go and things for them to do when they weren't fighting somehow forced LEGO to make those sets any less action-packed than what we're used to. Arguably, Jestro's Volcano Lair managed to feel more aggressive and action-packed than any LEGO Castle sets we've seen, and yet still made room for a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom — heck, they even managed to stick a basic wooden cot in the dungeon, and most LEGO Castle sets don't even manage THAT level of hospitality. I'm well aware that two of these three sets were at a higher price point than most recent Castle/Kingdoms castles have been, but maybe it's time for that to change as well. "Traditional" castles have been idling at the $100 price point since 2005, even though $100 back then equates to nearly $130 (the price point of Knighton Castle) today. LEGO could at least bump the peak non-D2C price point in themes like Castle and Pirates up to $120, as has been the peak price point for Ninjago in most years since its inception.

The ironic thing about this statement to me is that Destiny's Bounty, arguably Ninjago's single most iconic vehicle, has usually been depicted as an ship with thrusters slapped on in a tacky manner. I suppose I get your point, though. Side note, this conversation's got me reminiscing about the awesome space pirate ship that Bret Harris exhibited at BrickFair Virginia a few years back!

I can certainly respect people's wish for something they could use with their more traditional fleets, and honestly even having never been a huge pirate ship collector I've been really into boats and ships lately. But I have to admit I would totally dig a "space pirate" series in the same vein as Treasure Planet! (There's a movie I really need to watch again sometime…) I wouldn't say story-driven themes being "short-lived" is a huge problem to worry about. To put things in perspective, Exo-Force and Nexo Knights each lasted five waves, Atlantis and Power Miners each lasted three waves (four waves in North America, where the final wave of each was split in two), Ninjago was meant to last five waves and ended up lasting much longer, and Elves is now in its seventh wave and gearing up for its eighth. By comparison, the last two non-licensed incarnations of Pirates basically lasted one wave each. You can't get any more short-lived than that, and a two or three year run with two waves per year would be a pretty substantial improvement. Also, isn't Pirates "heavily vehicle based" by default? It's just that the vehicles are ships and boats rather than, say, mechs or aircraft or motorcycles. But the vehicle play potential is already there. I wouldn't say that buildings and landscapes are totally lackluster in these sorts of themes, either. Maybe in some themes like Power Miners or Nexo Knights that is the case, but the Elves theme is positively brimming with detailed settings, and while Ninjago usually only gets one to three location-based sets per wave, a lot of those tend to be pretty detailed and varied in their own right. Compare Tiger Widow Island, The Lighthouse Siege, Kryptarium Prison Breakout, Airjitzu Battle Grounds, Samurai X Cave Chaos, and Dragon's Forge, and realize those sets all came out within a year and a half of one another. A big wish I have for the next Pirates theme is the same wish I keep expressing for new Castle sets (and which Nexo Knights and Elves have both done a better job delivering on than most traditional themes): make it feel livable! The Destiny's Bounty from The LEGO Ninjago Movie is a good example — it has very nice details to make it feel livable like a bedroom and a toilet. A typical pirate ship or naval vessel obviously wouldn't need to feel quite as modern or cozy, but in the very least I think it ought to be built for play scenarios that extend beyond ship-to-ship combat. Give it some hammocks, a galley kitchen, etc! Anything to make it feel like its inhabitants' lives aren't just one big fight after the next. Again, this seems to be something that story-driven themes do quite well… perhaps because kids grow to care enough about the characters enough that they're interested in the stuff they do beyond what's "archetypical" of a character in that role. A kid might not care what a generic knight or ninja or pirate gets up to when he's not out fighting, but give that knight or ninja or pirate a story and motivations and suddenly their leisure time, their personal interests, and their relationships with their teammates/crewmates start to matter a great deal more.

Here's the timeline of how things went for Ninjago: August 2012: Fourth wave released. TLG community team member Kevin Hinkle announces at BrickFair that Ninjago will be ending in 2013. November 2012: Season 2 finishes airing on Cartoon Network. Final episode of Season 2 seems to bring the overarching story to a close. December 2012: In light of the huge uproar over Ninjago ending, LEGO announces that Ninjago will be continuing "through 2013 and beyond" and begins releasing teasers for Season 3 January 2013: Fifth wave ("The Final Battle") released. January 2014: Sixth wave ("Rebooted") released. January 2014–November 2014: Season 3 "Rebooted" airs on Cartoon Network in four one-hour blocks spread throughout the year. Suffice it to say, there's a lot different between how things went for Ninjago and how they've gone for Nexo Knights. The TV season corresponding to what was meant to be the final wave of sets finished airing before those sets came out, and shortly thereafter LEGO announced that the upcoming wave of sets would NOT in fact be the final wave. Whereas today, what's currently planned to be the final wave of Nexo Knights sets is already out, we're still waiting on the announcement of whether there will be TV episodes to go with them, and there has certainly been no announcement of new Nexo Knights sets and story for 2019.

Yes, my feeling is that Nexo Knights was probably never expected to last into 2019 — if this current wave hadn't been the final one, then the summer wave probably would have been. Even if the first wave's sets sold well, they didn't have the kind of incredible impact of Ninjago (which outsold any past theme's launch year) or Friends (which performed twice as well as expected for its launch year). Also, just based on precedent, we tend to get a new take on LEGO Castle every three years regardless of whether the incarnation before makes it the full three years, so even if Nexo Knights had ended sooner, 2019 would probably have been the earliest we could expect a new Castle theme. Between the Disney Castle and the various Castle and Kingdoms D2C sets, there's certainly been plenty of precedent indicating there's a market for something along those lines. It's probably just a matter of when the best time is. The past Castle D2C sets all came out around the end of a given incarnation of LEGO Castle, much like how Imperial Flagship came out shortly after the 2009 Pirates wave. This is probably a strategic choice so that kids and teens who were aged out of or on the verge of aging out of the target audience for the previous wave can "graduate" immediately to a related product that will offer them a greater building challenge. LEGO also took a similar approach with the release schedule of some other D2C sets like Imperial Flagship, Haunted House, and Diagon Alley — all released alongside or shortly after the final wave of their respective themes.

If the LEGO higher-ups didn't think that Ninjago and Ninja Turtles were incompatible, I doubt they'd harbor any such illusions about Castle and Minecraft. Especially since so many of the Minecraft sets cover stuff like farms and houses that AFOLs love in Castle themes but the themes themselves usually treat as a secondary consideration. Only a select few Minecraft sets depict things that could actually be described as castles or dragons, and hardly any depict things like siege engines, prison towers, and prison carriages that LEGO tends to give high priority in their castle themes. If we do get a new Castle theme it'll be interesting to see if the sets do in fact outsell Nexo Knights sets or not. I've seen a lot of people suggest that a traditional castle theme would have outsold Nexo Knights, but I've seen far less actual evidence to suggest that — at best, it tends to be backed by a combination of conventional wisdom and wishful thinking.

Most of those things could indicate just one or two planned sets that were cancelled, not necessarily a full wave. Furthermore, I don't know why anyone expected a human Monstrox after he became digital this year? Seems to me like by the theme's logic, with so much of the world computerized and much of the Knights' strength originating from Merlok's Nexo Powers, a physical body for Monstrox would be a downgrade. The only way I might have anticipated a human Monstrox at this point would have been as a promotional item like the human Merlok figure, because taking the same form as the knights' trusted ally to turn all the forces they've come to rely on against them seems like the ideal scenario for Monstrox's final attack.

Unfortunately, I think that change is more due to factors the LEGO Group has limited control over like production capacity and pressure from retailers than any discarded policies they could return to on a whim. Considering LEGO still has trouble meeting demand on certain products and product lines over the holidays, it’s unlikely that they could keep older sets in production very long without struggling to keep retailers supplied with the new stuff — the stuff buyers are inevitably most excited for.

I agree that a theme doesn't have to last or be planned for a long time to be a success. However, I also don't think it makes any sense to suggest a theme that starts with high expectations and falls slightly short of them is inherently less successful than a theme that starts with low expectations and meets them. Furthermore, we also have no idea whether themes like Kingdoms had planned sets or waves cut. All we know is what we actually ended up getting. And "what LEGO wanted to release" tells us a lot about how the theme did in its early waves. LEGO doesn't keep giving a theme large numbers of sets, wave after wave, if the first wave performs abysmally. We've seen other "big bang" themes like Atlantis and Power Miners where the number of new sets has been reduced much more sharply from one wave to the next than with Nexo Knights, so it's not as though by starting with a large initial wave LEGO is locked into keeping the theme that size for as long as they did in this case. That was entirely my point — that calling a theme a failure for not lasting longer than five waves/two and a half years, or arguing that a Castle theme would have maintained stronger, more consistent sales over the same span, contradicts any sort of evidence or precedent.

Okay, but taking the argument further, wouldn't Kingdoms also qualify as a failure? Nexo Knights lasted two and a half years with five consecutive waves and around 56 sets (not counting polybags and extended line products). Kingdoms lasted about two years (first wave in second half 2010, final set in first half 2012), with two non-consecutive waves and only twelve sets. That's not to say that these themes were ACTUALLY failures, but they would not qualify as successes according to the absurd standard people are holding Nexo Knights to. Also, things like AFOL appeal and aftermarket value usually aren't a good reflection of whether a kid-targeted theme is successful or not. The Avatar: The Last Airbender sets were decidedly unsuccessful but on BrickLink they currently cost three times their original RRP used or six times their original RRP new. Also, like almost all themes in 2003, the Orient Expedition sets were not successful, but the aftermarket prices are quite high, especially for complete sets. In many cases, a MORE successful theme will actually have LOWER aftermarket prices and vice-versa, just because with successful themes, so many kids will have bought sets in the first place and then flooded the market with their used sets once they got older and moved on to other interests. Bionicle is a key example — it was one of the LEGO Group's biggest successes in the early 2000s and one of their ONLY successes in 2003, but today there are way more people selling old Bionicle sets and parts than there are buying them.

If it is in the $200–$250 price range, then plenty of motorized/electronic sets have been as expensive or more, such as monorails, Mindstorms, and the Technic Bucket Wheel Excavator and All-Terrain Tow Truck. Plus, just because the movie didn't do well doesn't mean the merchandise didn't. If Destiny's Bounty sold well enough at the $160 price point and Ninjago City at the $300 price point, that could certainly give LEGO the confidence to release a set that falls somewhere in between.

In fairness, I don't think there are a lot of Castle fans who believe Castle 2013 was a rousing success… That said, in the grand scheme of things, it's very rare for ANY Castle, Space, or Pirates series to last more than five consecutive waves.

There's no rule that each theme gets exactly one "replacement". Usually, it's more a case of LEGO introducing themes when they think the time is right and retiring themes when they think the time is right. So, 2019 could potentially be the right time for a new "big bang" theme AND a new Castle theme, not just one or the other. Or LEGO might hold off on one or the other so they can focus on The LEGO Movie Sequel, who knows? I definitely don't get the sense that Ninjago is on its last legs. It was one of the top-selling themes as recently as two years ago, and while the movie didn't do well, I don't feel like it made the brand as a whole LESS popular with kids (though the reduced TV presence over the past two years has probably been holding it back somewhat, something that can hopefully be corrected this year).

Well, I wouldn't say this is the back… when it's on its own. However, there are examples of sets where the front and back of two connected sets are on opposite sides, like how the front of Dark Fortress Landing is the back of Vladek's Dark Fortress. This could be sort of the same way except connected side-to-side rather than back-to-back. Anyway, looks pretty good from what I can see! I wonder when we can expect finalized images. There are definitely a lot of parts of this that still look preliminary. Do we even actually know the price, or is it just being assumed it'll cost the same as Ninjago City did? There's no reason every set in the series would have to be the same price. Even the Creator Expert Modular Buildings don't all cost the same price, although most do.

It's super confusing to read things about "classic castle" here because compared to Classic Space (which is usually used to refer to a specific aesthetic and design philosophy), I'm never sure when people say "classic castle" whether they mean something with specific throwbacks to the original LEGO Castle set designs, or just castle in the generic sense which encompasses such wide-ranging aesthetics as Dragon Masters, Royal Knights, Fantasy Era, Kingdoms, Forestmen, etc. But anyway, if new Castle sets were anything like past Castle themes, then your concern about following up Nexo Knights shouldn't be too pertinent, because most Castle themes are aimed younger than Nexo Knights, not older. Also, part of why themes run their course is because over time they no longer have as much novelty. So I think Nexo Knights ending means audiences are probably ready for something different. As for whether "different" means "more traditional", it certainly can (though it doesn't have to — cyber-knights are far from the only non-traditional direction that a Castle theme could take). Since 2004, Castle has been "refreshed" every three years pretty much like clockwork. By that argument, it's not unrealistic to expect a new Castle theme in 2019. But of course, like any tradition, that renewal cycle isn't necessarily binding, and LEGO could delay a new Castle theme if they don't think the time is right. I'm personally anticipating new castle sets of some kind in 2019, but not necessarily at the beginning of the year.

Yes, but it's not LEGO licensing, let's say, Ninjago from the other company, it's the other company licensing Ninjago from LEGO. It doesn't make sense to treat it the same as a brand LEGO is licensing from somebody else, like Star Wars. Warner Bros. licensed the LEGO Pirates, Castle, and Space brands to make the game LEGO Battles. That doesn't somehow make LEGO City, Pirates, Castle, and Space licensed themes. Hmm this post has lots of great insights into a child's play experiences during that period when story-driven themes were first beginning to emerge, I don't see anything wrong with… HOLD THE PHONE, how DARE you say Onua is boring! I'm kidding, of course. Great post! Really good to hear some more perspectives from somebody who grew up with a lot of the same sets I did. I definitely had some similar memories — for instance, I have this really peculiar memory of magically changing my Aquazone figures into mermaids by swapping the legs with slope bricks? — but I also do distinctly remember devouring the character blurbs and story tidbits from the LEGO Mania Magazines and incorporating them into my play. I was an avid reader back then, and that was a part of how I engaged with the brand. When I learned the alien Alpha Draconis was terribly ashamed of his scary alien face, that was too funny NOT to use in a play scenario and see where it might lead. And of course that didn't stop me from building my own stories around (or even contradicting) the tidbits we got in books and video games. So for me, Rock Raiders took place on the same planet as Ice Planet, only in the far future when around two thirds of the planet's ice had melted. The Throwbots had been built by the Matoran of Mata Nui to protect them while they waited for the arrival of the Toa, but the Throwbots weren't really interested in the task they'd been built for so they were sent to a distant world of their own. Etcetera, etcetera. Also, ShaydDeGray, your insights are quite interesting as well! I think the social element is particularly fascinating. My introduction into the organized LEGO fan community was definitely through my interest in Bionicle, which was one of the most structured themes of its time story-wise. Being able to find people who can relate to the same characters and worlds as you and share their own spins on them is still delightful to me, and part of why I love looking at Bionicle and Ninjago and Elves fan art and story discussions (and regret that there isn't more of that kind of stuff for other themes). The challenge of finding common ground with reference to the classic themes is also something I've noticed a lot. For instance, ask three people what kind of role M:Tron played in the Classic Space universe and you might get three totally different answers. For some people, that might be a good thing! I'm not so fond of that myself. To me, having an overall lack of common ground makes the LEGO fan experience feel more isolating.

I wouldn't rule out another in-house Vikings theme. Let's not forget that there was a ten- to twelve-year gap between Rock Raiders and Power Miners, Ninja and Ninjago, or the Studios monsters series and Monster Fighters. Plus, what with LEGO being a Danish company, it certainly feels like the type of idea they'd want to revisit. How to Train Your Dragon sets would definitely be cool. I know Ionix held the building toys license currently and Playmobil has a license for it currently (though the latter would probably not conflict with a LEGO license, since Playmobil is not a building toy). If LEGO started getting Dreamworks licenses I would also hope it could lead to Trollhunters sets, since I've been really into that series lately (though admittedly there's probably not quite so much there for Castle builders, given its modern-day setting).

I wouldn't say the Nexo Knights story is simpler than Knights' Kingdom II's. Sillier/less serious? Certainly. But I feel like there's a lot of elements that give Nexo Knights an edge on overall complexity, such as more of the villains having individual names and identities, a larger cast of supporting characters, more worldbuilding (such as the backstory of the Knights' Academy, Knighton having its own distinctive pop culture, several of the knights having named family members)… you get the picture. The more meandering, episodic nature of the Nexo Knights story, along with the large amount of supplementary media, allows it to explore aspects of the characters and setting that the tightly-focused quest narratives of Knights' Kingdom II did not.

I believe I read somewhere about the elf in the Fantasy Era magazine feature that it was just added by the artist and not based on any products currently in development. I can't remember the source for that, though. It was definitely confusing since as far as I can remember it was the only part of that map image not based on current or recent products. While Fantasy Era Castle did well, a three-year lifespan is not unusual for a successful LEGO product line, particularly one like Castle that gets refreshed/re-imagined every three years or so almost like clockwork. Ninjago itself was only planned to run for two to two and a half years, hence its momentum being interrupted in 2013 as the set designers and writers hastily developed new sets and a new story arc for 2014. I certainly think Ninjago could end at some point, but I don't feel as though we're imminently approaching that point, since LEGO acknowledged it as an evergreen product line less than three years ago. One of the strong indicators for me that LEGO has long-term plans for Ninjago is outlined in this post (which was actually the first place we saw it described as an evergreen theme): Naturally, plans can change with new developments. But I don't feel like we're at a point where Ninjago's future is in peril. It's still commanding more interest than it had been at any point in 2014. Interesting point. I knew LEGO used to translate theme names but judging from what I've seen in catalogs, I don't think they do anymore. Even so, since this is looking at search queries, it's totally possible that the people searching for these themes on the Internet are not consistently using the English names in their search terms. Yeah, that is definitely something that sets Ninjago apart from other themes. I imagine the TV show is a factor that helps spread out interest throughout the year — Ninjago definitely seems to command more search interest in years with more TV episodes (like 2012 and 2015, which each had two full seasons of episodes) than years with fewer episodes (like 2014, 2016, and 2017). Chima had a TV show as well, of course, and during the two years the show was running, although there were still December peaks, they were not as sharp a spike as we see for themes like City and Star Wars which are mainly searched for in the run-up to the holiday gift-giving season. Getting back to the discussion of story-driven vs. non-story-driven themes, I think this kind of steadier engagement with story-driven themes helps bear evidence to the fact that fans of these themes are not solely interacting with them as toys/products/gifts. The stories for these themes give fans more ways to engage not only with the brand but also with their fellow fans. People can share theories and headcanons, create fan art and fan fiction, create original characters to exist in these richly developed worlds, dress up as their favorite characters, etc. There's no reason that fans can't do this for the more traditional themes, but they don't seem to inspire those forms of creative engagement to nearly the same extent.

Hmm, no chatter in this thread since the new year, it seems? I guess the first notable development is that the blue baseplate is back. A Juniors Ninjago set has a new printed map that could work in historic contexts. Ship in a Bottle has lots of nice prints that I'm sure are already being discussed in other threads. Ariel's Royal Celebration Boat is the other major ship set I'm aware of, but doesn't seem to offer a whole lot for people building a more authentic-looking fleet that you couldn't find just as easily in other sets. Emily Jones and the Eagle Getaway has a book with a printed pattern on the cover resembling a compass rose, which could be suited to nautical creations. It's got a printed tile for the inside page with a similar compass rose pattern, though it's a glowy Tr. Light Blue so maybe more suited to fantasy creations than more realist ones. Lumia the eagle and all the other new Elves guardian creatures have a 2x2 Warm Gold tile with a more colorful compass rose pattern. Of those, Naida's turtle could provide some good parts and inspiration for making a giant turtle, for those whose creations are more whimsically inclined. The new elemental diamond pieces (which match the shape of the points on the compass rose) could be a nice new treasure for those who may or may not be already drowning in the traditional ruby/diamond pieces from Adventurers. Spiders appear in Cool Yellow and Glow White for the first time in Elves and City, respectively, which could be fun for island layouts. City also introduces raw gold nuggets which may help enhance the variety in a treasure cave.

I wouldn't read too much into that, as search interest for almost all themes declines in the months after December or after the launch of a new movie. Also, the numbers on Google Trends correspond to a percentage of the peak value on the chart. When we look at this chart showing a selection of popular themes/brands, LEGO Ninjago appears to rate second highest after LEGO Star Wars for both December and the current month (though we can also see that The LEGO Ninjago Movie didn't have anywhere near as big an impact on its search interest as the LEGO Batman Movie did on the "LEGO Batman"query). As long as it's remains up there with those other heavy hitters I would say its future is fairly secure. Compare it with searches for the classic evergreen themes and City is the only one that reliably comes close. LEGO Pirates had an interesting and pronounced spike in May 2011 when the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie and LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean video game came out, though. Note that in this post I'm looking at specific search terms and not "topics" as defined by Google Trends, mainly because for some reason Google Trends seems to depress the values for "LEGO Star Wars (topic)" and exaggerate the values for "LEGO Ninjago (product line)", possibly due to conflating their values with less and more popular related queries, respectively. I suppose all things considered, the possibility of a region-specific LEGO theme couldn't be ruled out, but I think LEGO would have to see a really pressing incentive to take that plunge. After all, it means a lower reward for what's not necessarily any less risk than they'd encounter designing products for a global market. With global products, at least, the risk is distributed — if the theme doesn't take off in one region, or economic or political factors happen to depress sales that year in that region, other regions can potentially pick up the slack. If you design a product for just one region, sure it may wind up with different design characteristics than if it had been developed for a more global market, but that's not necessarily going to translate to more reliable performance. As I've often had to remind Bionicle fans who come up with theory after theory for how LEGO could make Bionicle a success again, LEGO's motivation isn't loyalty to or some kind of debt to particular product lines or categories. It's to develop products that will generate the greatest possible demand from the greatest number of kids. Whether those product ideas come from stuff they've had great success with before or from new directions doesn't particularly affect their importance or urgency. If you were a person at LEGO trying to sell them on a reboot of a particular product line, your pitch wouldn't begin with HOW you would make it work, but WHY it's a good idea to begin with.