Every individual person has its own LEGO preferences. Some people only buy licensed themes because all they want is just to get those “iconic” characters in minifigure form, and that’s it. Others have just one theme they are attached to like Ninjago or Bionicle and that’s all they care about. Others like me just simply like seeing all the creativity and imagination that goes into all their original themes in general, and want to see more of that.
Some of those interest groups may be larger than others, sure, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t people interested in the original stuff too.
And for the record, I grew up not caring about licensed themes whatsoever. I was completely unfamiliar with most of those franchises at the time I was growing up, and far preferred all the original stuff LEGO had to offer. And I am pretty sure I ain’t alone o that.
Creative and imaginative themes, creative and imaginative themes, creative and imaginative themes…okay… What creative and imaginative themes do you recommend? And, no, rebooting a previous original theme doesn’t count.
What do you mean? You mean what ideas I would have for potential new original themes? Or which pre-existing original themes I think are the most imaginative?
I already made a full on pitch for a new theme called Pirates of Arvodia if you haven’t seen it. But, since I lost confidence in the World Builder platform, I decided to repurpose the story I created for that into a full-on novel of my own.
Velika would have been a really interesting villain if he had been expanded upon. Like, the idea that a great being snuck aboard the GSR, if handled correctly, could have created a great story.
I like the idea that this would lead to a civil war of the great beings between him and Angonce over conflicting ideologies in how to approach Spherus Magna. Velika could bring up that the core war began because they gave too much power to the element Lords so they could work on inventions in peace, which is why he feels that the great beings should be much more involved in governing their people. The idea came from here:
Oh yeah, of course, since we’re “nOt ThE taRgET DeMOgRaPHiC,” it’s wrong for us to give critique or have our own opinions. [insert an eyeroll here]
I mostly agree with @LegoDavid . While I genuinely enjoy Lego Star Wars, Ninjago, Harry Potter, and a good amount of the superhero stuff they’ve put out in recent years, I do wish they’d try to put out more original stuff every now and then. Castle, Classic Space, Adventurers, underwater themes…anything new and imaginative would be welcome. That’s why I still follow themes like Ninjago and Monkie Kid-they’re the only “original” IPs Lego has right now, and they’re frankly not that bad. I’m not asking for absolute perfection-just something enjoyable.
No. You’re most definitely not alone.
And besides, Lego sets may be made for kids, but the people who make them are adults-adults that are older than me, or…well, I don’t know the average age of TTV Message Board users, but you probably get what I’m trying to say. Lego is elligible for criticism just as much as any other form of art that is made by adults.
You seem to be saying that it’s a fact of life that Lego is what it is right now, and therefore we shouldn’t criticize it. Well, it’s a fact of life that is the Star Wars prequel and sequel trilogies have quite a few flaws to them, but does that prevent people from making a buttload of videos tearing them apart? No. No, it doesn’t.
Just because Lego is heavily reliant on licenses and niche 18+ sets, doesn’t mean we have to like it. We have every right to criticize Lego for a lack of originality.
Sure, I think Winger has maybe moved on from LEGO and original sets, but that’s Winger’s choice. But all I see here is a pointing out that, depending on the perspective, what was once considered “staple” or “core” to LEGO simply isn’t the same anymore, and that, based on financial success, LEGO isn’t likely to revert to former “staple” or “core” practices.
And personally speaking, I find this hard to argue against. Brand identity changes immensely over time. LEGO was originally a wooden toy company. Then it became a general toy company. Then it transitioned to exclusively plastic bricks. Were any of these things once considered “staple” or “core” to LEGO’s identity at one time or another? I’m absolutely sure of it. But, their identity changed regardless, and they followed where success led them.
But that doesn’t mean (and nowhere does Winger insinuate) that people aren’t allowed to criticize LEGO’s business practices. Success is objective, but enjoyment is not.
I am going to be very frank, and not subtle, and a little bit rude.
It’s dumb. I’m saying these kinds of criticisms are dumb. They are toys, and we’re old enough that complaining about them is childish, let alone criticizing LEGO for not having originality: it’s like criticizing Indiana Jones for not having deeper meaning, or Lord of the Rings for not having good enough sci-fi beats, or Star Wars for not having realistic levels of swearing. That’s what I’m saying.
You want originality and good stories? That’s great. But you’re looking in the wrong place.
You’re free to enjoy LEGO. I enjoy children’s books. Heck, I love children’s books that are written with deeper meaning. But I don’t expect them to be something that isn’t inherent to their design. And good stories and originality isn’t inherent to children’s toys. LEGO was special for a while because it made an effort towards those things, but it’s not bad that they aren’t anymore - it’s normal.
Sure, they’re produced by adults. But they aren’t for adults. The Ramona books are by an adult. Watership Down is by and adult. Care Bears is by adults.
Something important to note is at the time Bionicle came out, it came on the tail end of every single theme and set having some kind of lore attached to it, to the point that some LEGO set storylines were downright dumb. No specific examples; if you’re really interested you can go research the deeper lore of Res-Q and Jack Stone and basically any obscure offshoot of a larger theme.
Bionicle was different because it went completely above and beyond the call of duty and made a massive, compelling lore with dozens of characters with unique personalities, motivations, and positions in the story. And the idea was incredibly unique; biomechanical robots living in tribalistic societies worshiping a great deity in the sky cast into slumber by the brother force in the universe, the manifestation of destruction and chaos, and only the chosen heroes summoned from the sky could free the island and save Mata Nui. Many people like 2001 Bionicle the best, and for many different reasons, but one of those reasons was because nothing remotely similar to it ever existed before.
That’s a really bad standard to set. From then on out, every LEGO theme that had a story was compared to Bionicle, and nothing had any hope of stacking up. It had a detailed flash game, comic books, story novels, promotional CD-ROMs, and McDonald’s toys with genuine LEGO pieces all within the first year. No other theme could or has come remotely close to that level of detailed marketing upon release. Ninjago is the biggest current theme and the longest running, and yet it started relatively small in comparison. Still bigger than other themes, but the marketing was very different.
Before long, any theme with a story that had hours of dedicated time put into it couldn’t succeed with buildable robot figures on the market. So LEGO was not motivated to spend extra resources on something that would sell just as well without a detailed lore, and themes like Alien Conquest are an excellent example of what that looks like. The flash games got lower and lower in quality, and subsequently less and less memorable, along with a lot of the television ads, marketing material, and the like.
And now LEGO has Ninjago, which essentially accomplishes the same market Bionicle did. The big, lore-heavy LEGO theme with tons of effort, except Ninjago doesn’t hold itself nearly as seriously as Bionicle. The world is still whimsical and wacky, which fails to disconnect it from the rest of LEGO’s heavily-focused markets - family-friendly buildable playsets with an emphasis on creativity and coming up with your own design. Hero Factory could have filled the Bionicle void far better if the story had been competent, but it fizzled out at the end, and the result of the singular story-heavy theme is that nothing else has that much love put into it.
Elves had a television show; does anyone remember the plot of it?
I’m actually curious; does anyone remember the plot for the Elves theme or TV show? I never learned it.
We might be seeing that carry over into set design to some degree, but it could also be argued Ninjago is getting the same treatment, so that’s likely a separate issue. The topic at hand, however, is whether or not re-running some past ideas which may seem staple to the company would be risky, and to LEGO they certainly would be. You know the market is being tested with occasional releases, especially in the Creator theme, with the excellent castle and pirate ship that released not too long ago. If they sell well enough, LEGO could consider justification into the development of a particular theme, but I haven’t heard anything about slam-bang sales of either of those sets.
I think it’d be really awesome if LEGO redid the early Castle with forestmen and Basil the Batlord in his big evil castle and all those fun designs and ideas. But a lot of older LEGO was seeing if enough people agreed with an idea, and running with it. Now LEGO is a company run 100% as a business; if it isn’t projected to be at minimum a moderate financial success which will captivate the market it isn’t worth considering how detailed the story would be or if it would even exist. As well, if an idea projected to work very well is presented, the not-as-certain idea will be ignored to focus on the more financially sure option.
Now if you want to argue that no, it’s very safe for LEGO to consider and yes, a story-driven theme is not only possible but a lack of one existing is inexcusable, you’re welcome to do so. By all means do so, if you’re of that opinion. But please don’t begin your argument with
because that’s the surest possible evidence that you don’t care, you didn’t read the other side of the argument, and you’re just here to cause trouble. And it only leads to getting dunked on by people who did bother to read your argument and point out why it wasn’t drawn correctly.
Better to be polite and considered well-versed than rude and considered inconsequential.
now whoever decided watership down would make for a good animated feature I’m going to take out behind the shed and have a nice quiet talk with them also don’t look at the shotgun
Now then, this conversation can either move to a more appropriate topic or cease. @thewimpykid, I’d encourage you to take a break before reengaging, in any case.
Yes. The Netflix show Secrets of Elvendale was actually quite good, in my opinion.
The gist of the theme was Emily Jones, an ordinary human girl, gets transported to the magical land of Elvendale thanks to a special necklace her late grandmother left her. There she meets four elves–Azari the Fire Elf, Farran the Earth Elf, Aira the Air Elf, and Naida the Water Elf–with whom she goes on various adventures.
The first wave dealt with Emily’s first visit to Elvendale and subsequent quest to return home by finding four elemental keys to activate a portal. I believe it was at the end of this one that she learned her grandmother was, in fact, an elf, one of the five most powerful elves in Elvendale.
The second wave covered Emily’s return to Elvendale, in which she and her friends had to contend with the villainous elf Ragana, whose shadow powers (given to her when she drank from the mysterious, semi-sentient Shadow Fountain) struck fear into the hearts of most elves in Elvendale. Ragana stole the eggs of the Queen Dragon and captured said dragon, and Emily and her friends crusaded (with some help) to save them all. In the process, they met four elemental dragons and soothed over the disturbed relationship between elves and dragons in Elvendale.
In the third wave, Emily’s sister Sophie followed her (against Emily’s knowledge) on a routine visit to Elvendale and ended up being captured by the Goblin King Cronan (an elf). Cronan used a necklace similar to Emily’s to mind-control the usually peaceful goblins of Elvendale to do his bidding. His ultimate goal was to use the power of Emily’s necklace to free his mother from her imprisonment in his necklace, and he implemented numerous unsavory methods to do so. He may also have wanted to break into the human world–I don’t quite remember the specifics. Secrets of Elvendale covered this storyline in eight episodes. Cronan was a neat character and very well voice acted, mostly using manipulation to achieve his aims in place of force. He employed a mysterious and powerful shadow creature to help him for a while, which, despite its defeat, transitioned neatly to…
…the fourth wave, in which the elemental elves of Elvendale all lost their powers and Emily and her friends attempted to rejuvenate them. The cause of this dearth was the capture of the four elemental creatures by a mysterious new enemy, which, due to the interventions of Emily and Co., eventually blew up into an ultimate confrontation between Lumia, Elven Guardian of Light, and Noctura, Mistress of Shadow. The line ended here, somewhat bathetically, in my opinion, though it was a pretty satisfying end for the fourth wave.
That’s what I remember off the top of my head. I’d be happy to do a bit more research/rewatching of stuff I can find if people would like a full exposition of the Elves storyline. I found it quite interesting.
I think the problem with Elves wasn’t the story itself per say as much as how it was distributed.
In the first year of the theme, they debuted the show with one single pilot episode. Than in the second year, they had yet another pilot, consisting of two episodes this time around. It wouldn’t be until the third year that the theme got its first fully fledged TV Series… Which let’s not forget, three years is usually the common lifecycle of a LEGO theme. By the time the show first aired, the interest in the theme was already dying down.
They didn’t even continue the show with a second season, as the fourth year only got a few simplistic web shorts with a changed artstyle that was more accurate to the mini dolls.
So yeah, I guess what we can learn from that is… If you want your audience to connect with your story and characters, you might as well debut the story at the same time as the Toyline itself. If you don’t do that, you’re basically just kind of sabotaging your own success.
