I thought it would have been castle but i’m actually surprised it wasn’t the yellow castle. huh. needles to say, i won’t be buying that set because it’s really expensive.
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sigh
if only…
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Since I never pointed it out over a year ago, I might as well make it now as the Castle set is all but official confirmed now. While I understand the reasoning for people to generally conclude Castle, Space, etc. as being better choices for 90 years of Lego…They aren’t.
In the bigger picture, all those lines are young to the company’s history. Castle, Space; all they came out first in 1978. The Lego most people think of are just from the 80s. Which means that for, at minimum, 46 years of the company’s history does not include any of those themes. Even if you just started at the point they made interlocking plastic bricks, that’s almost a whole thirty years of history before they started making dedicated themes. Even then, they had the LEGOLAND theme/line before any of those that ran for a decade. And while that did have a single castle set, it was a promotional* item for a cereal company.
So I disagree with Lego’s choice of a castle being their representative. Perhaps they’re letting it slide because it’s only the 90th and the truly deserving line of the anniversary production will get it the following decade. But if not Castle, and for some reason we’re still arbitrarily forced to a single line to make a set, what do I think is the most representative?
Town Plan.
For those not aware, Town Plan is classified as a subtheme by fans under Lego’s System I Leg (1955-1970) era, what could be considered the true start of the modern era. It is where System gets its name, it’s where the idea of a system of play is born and promoted. And a large portion of its products under that time were for planning and making miniature towns. Roads, buildings, street signs, a bunch of cars for traffic, etc. Planning and designing an urban environment. Even the line that replaces it, the LEGOLAND branding, largely continues its focus with town/city structures and vehicles. Then evolving into the dedicated theme Town once LEGOLAND is done and eventually into City.
If there is to be only one massive set for a Lego anniversary to compass most of their history, it should be a town. Nothing else, aside from the bricks themselves, has been as staple to the company than that.
*As a quick aside, if you never went through the entire history of the LEGO Group’s products, you’ll be shocked to learn that licensed products have been a staple of the company’s lineup for most of its history. Be they promotional items or directly licensed, a lot of the LEGO Group’s stuff hasn’t been original or generic IPs. In its larger history, themes like UFO, Fright Knights, Rock Raiders, Slizers, and so forth are the weird artistic era of the company. The domination of license themes today is just a return to form.
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Well…Lego did already do a “Town Plan” tribute set in 2008.
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Yes, but that was for 50 years of the brick, not for 90 years of the company. They should have done something else in celebration of the brick. Look, all I’m saying is the LEGO Group is terrible at picking proper representation.
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I’m really game to see how modern LEGO designs a classic designed LEGO castle. 80’s-90’s Lego Castle had my favorite aesthetic for the theme (to the point where I go out of my way to get sets from that era when collecting) and I hope the new set is in a similar design.
The reason for the aesthetic preference is that I found 80-90’s Lego Castle to have a perfect blend of fantasy and historic designs. I also enjoy the simplicity, it was very colorful and felt like it represented the medieval era better than later themes with the multiple knight and kingdom factions.
Also Ninjago makes so MANY fantastical creatures that would be great for a medieval theme, considering how many dragons they constantly make! And would make them stop making so many knee-less mechs since there were no mechs in the middle ages.
One thing I’d love for LEGO to include is a historic sense of the LEGO castle theme with the Viking Age. I know they don’t wanna do anything political but the Viking Age ended nearly a thousand years ago. (Plus designing historic castles would be really cool.)
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I’ve got kind of a mix of disappointment and apathy toward this. I wasn’t expecting them to go for Bionicle, as Vox put it well:
I think that’s at least a component, though economic factors like G2’s failing (as others have said, likely from being released too early, when the target audience still weren’t/aren’t economically able to support the line, and Lego taking that as confirmation it’s not viable anytime soon if ever) are probably still the main reason.
On the other hand, I was kinda hoping that with the poll results, they’d have gone for a trio or quartet of sets representing the top winners, rather than one big one for the top spot. Personally, as a Bionicle fan, I don’t think it alone would make a good 90th anniversary set to represent the entirety of Lego’s run, but I think if it had been more than just the one it would absolutely deserve a spot at the table.
(It doesn’t help that the weirdness around the split subthemes makes it very easy to wonder if it was a legitimate mistake or an intentional effort to skew the results, and call into question the point of having a poll to begin with. Or it might be a bit of both, with contesting groups within Lego trying to compromise… but such thinking quickly devolves into the realm of conspiracy theories and isn’t really productive or helpful.)
At any rate, in general I’m just not a fan of the decision to make a singular, massively overpriced set, rather than a whole anniversary line representing a sort of “greatest hits” lineup so that people can choose what they want and each set is still reasonably affordable. The confirmation that it’s $300+ would have turned me away for anything other than Bionicle, and even then the price tag would probably have given me pause. It’s a lot to ask for, and while I would have saved up for it anyway, it’s not ideal.
Still, the set we’re getting isn’t a set for me anyway, so I at least hope it’s amazingly splendiferous enough to satisfy the castle fans.
So on the whole, am I bitter? Not really. Am I disappointed? Yeah.
Again, I don’t think conspiracy theories or the “Lego hates Bionicle” mindset are really gonna get us anywhere good or useful, but I’ll admit it’s kind of frustrating that between the Lego ideas selection, the Bricklink Designer Program vote being so mishandled and rushed, and then the weirdness around the 90th anniversary vote, whenever we as a fandom get the chance to express our support in a meaningful way, something external winds up happening to undercut it. I think that consistent trend more than this specific result is what gets under my skin.
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you know, that sounds like a good idea. pitch it to lego or something
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How would you suggest I do that? There is Ideas, but that’s pointed more at specific set concepts than broad-strokes concepts like this.
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hmmmmm…
yeah I got nothing. It was just kind of a heat of the moment thing
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This really sucks especially with recent events. I thought we’d at least have a few more mouths to recover from Greg getting fired. But when it rains it pours I guess.
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Guys, I just realized something. There’s still the 90th anniversary Gift With Purchase set, right? Considering how small those tend to be, maybe it could be Bionicle? Though I will admit, even that’s a stretch…
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There’s also rumours that there will be a Collectible Minifigure Series based on the 90th Anniversary. If these rumours are true, I suspect we’ll see minifigures from a lot of the themes that were on the original 90th Anniversary voting list (including Bionicle, of course).
Between the Gift With Purchase, the rumoured minifigure series, and any Easter Eggs that will likely occur in such a large castle set, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is at least some reference to Bionicle, as well as many other iconic Lego themes.
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bionicle minifigs pray 
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With Greg gone, who will we pray to now?
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Mata Nui.
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Is praying to an ex-Klingon the best idea?
Maybe
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bionicle minifigs pray
Nick Bluetooth with detachable wings.
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Faber
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