G2 being a marketing campaign would be pretty strange considering that it didn’t have marketing.
Like, let’s not forget what happened to G2. The people who hated it for not being the G1 building style were always a vocal minority, and it had a huge presence here, on EuroBricks and BZP. It was always LEGO that screwed the pooch there.
They spent a silly amount of budget on those ridiculous gold masks, and a certain other theme ate the rest of it, so G2 became yet another theme to be sacrificed on the altar of Ninjago.
Sidenote, seems like this ended up coming true. Hope y’all aren’t too attached to Monkie Kid, folks.
G2 didn’t die because we hated it, because we didn’t. It definitely had flaws- the story was shallower than a kiddy pool and the villains were about as good as G1 Megatron- but the sets were great.
G2 died because LEGO kneecapped its marketing, and then expected the fanbase to sell it to people.
That being said, I do have some sympathy for the typewriter guy. His is perhaps the best set that won (Illegal techniques aside, they’ll probably fix that in the redesign phase), and the only one that’s not licensed merch based on 90s nostalgia, but it’s becoming the memetic face of everyone’s disappointment with LEGO Ideas, not just from us, but from the Zelda fans who’ve accrued something in the region of 50000 votes across multiple projects, the Futurama fans, Ratatouille fans, the aquarium supporters, etcetera.
I understand why LEGO made these choices. The previous two sitcom sets sold like gangbusters, even if they were boring builds, albeit I can confirm that both of those shows are massively more popular than Seinfeld outside of America. As someone who lives in the UK, I can guarantee that Seinfeld has zero presence here, meanwhile Friends is on at least one channel pretty much all day.
In all honesty I think there’d be less vitriol toward the Seinfeld set if it wasn’t billed as the 30th anniversary. It being labelled an anniversary set just like the Bionicle one more than likely creates the impression that LEGO considers some 90s sitcom that’s faded from relevance to be more important than the theme that saved them, and, painful as it is, from a profit perspective they might be right.
That said I think immortalising Michael Richards in minifig form is pretty poor optics, especially given the current climate with regards to the… issues that cost him his career.
The Home Alone set I find much more understandable. Still 90s nostalgia baiting, but a significantly better build with the potential for all manner of play features. My one concern there is that the sheer size, combined with it being a licensed product, is going to push the cost through the roof. Well, not a concern as such, I’m not going to open my wallet for any of these, but whatevs.
In any case, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Things like this are why the only LEGO I care for these days is Star Wars.