A brick too far???

[furie]

Sorry, I'm sure the title should have been something like "how do you love to press together", or "do you stick your penis into a woman's ladies bits" or some other (not) subtle innuendo.

This is about the direction Lego is taking though...

LEgo has always had it's own "product ranges". That's fine and dandy, original IP and all that.

However, we've seen a few attempts to creep into other IP and "cash in". There's been Star Wars Lego, Harry Potter, Spiderman and Indiana Jones over the years now.

This is about Lego's attempt to use that IP rather than going their own way.

You can see why they'd use such high profile, popular things. It's a dead cert you'll be able to sell to fans AND Lego fans.

I think it's suddenly gone a bit too far though.

Yesterday we got the Club Magazine, and all of a sudden there are three new IP's getting the block treatment.

Toy Story:
http://www.lego.com/ToyStory/en-us/default.aspx

Ben 10:
http://ben10.lego.com/en-us/default.aspx

and...
Prince of Persia????
(can't find a direct link, but it's in the mag, honest)

Now Toy Story I can understand the move there, especially with the new film - fair enough. Ben 10 though is the latest "fad". It's on eof those quick burn boys things which vanish as quickly as they rise, and it rose about 12 month's ago.

Prince of Persia though??? A Lego franchise, of a film, which is the franchise of an ever diminishing game series???

So, have Lego gone a brick too far? Are they mad suddenly hooking up with tenuous and flash in the pan IP?

Opinions on the new toys too, especially the Toy Story range (my reactions ranged from abject horror to "how cute!" ).

 

[nealbie]

Meh, stop complaining furie - just 'ooh' and 'ahh' at the 3D glasses

 

[Pierre]

Maybe its because I've grown up but associating themselves with high profile names isn't generating any interest at all from me. I played the Batman Lego demo once and wasn't impressed. However I do understand the company probably needed to do this to keep generating interest in the future generations.

I think its good for the company - I think you're maybe looking at it as if they're 'selling out' but sadly I feel its the only way for them to keep generating interest.
Lego or Xbox for christmas kids? You know what 99.9% of kids would say...

Just another thing though... I'm loving the old school Lego advert which is on TV at the moment.
I used to have a Lego technics set with which you could either make a car or a motorbike with... I loved it - definitely one of my most memorable toys.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a Doctor Who lego yet (or has there???)

Phil I think you should stop being so old school and Lego of the old traditions... :roll:

 

[Hixee]

Hate it.

I never liked all this heavily branded LEGO. I think it detracts from the true fun of it. Gone are the days when you opened a new box of LEGO (and yes, Technic counts) and were faced with hundreds, even thousands, so pieces that all looked rather similar, and after a few solid hours work were left with a fully functioning car/crane/tank/etc...

Nowadays it seems as if there are only about ten pieces in the kit, they're all overly pre-shaped and no actual challenge to put together.

Another huge benefit of LEGO over most other toys is the freedom. You've made your vehicle, but decide it'd be cooler to have a different one. Well, you used to be able to just take it all apart, get your thinking cap on, and make a new model. That doesn't seem to be the case with the new kits where each piece only fits a certain role.

Don't like all this new LEGO stuff, it's lost its feel. I was more of a LEGO Technic boy, which gives more capabilities than the standard LEGO (not that epic creations couldn't be done with standard LEGO), but all this new stuff seems a bit pointless.

To summarise, yes, a brick too far!

 

[nealbie]

Yes there is Doctor Who lego, sort of - well there's Dalek's and a TARDIS in miniland

 

[Ian]

Me and a childhood mate Wayne Tatum (no longer a close mate, we grew apart as some people do) used to use basic and technics Lego to build death trap mazes for Pakis and Plymouth Brethrens to walk through.

They were great. They'd feature slippery floors using the flat bits which slid down into some spikes (made from the aerials), guillotines made from the flags and the 90 degrees bendy bits and all other wonderfully ways to eradicate Lego Paki's and Plymouth Brethrens. Yes, we would even paint the Legomen brown and put hankies on their heads. It was proper LOL!

And that was as far as my Lego enjoyment went. Sometimes we'd make a Chinese Takeaway, complete with fruit machine and gruesome kitchens; the food would be a Legoman's hand.

So yeah, I never had or was ever interested in "product range" Lego tie-ins.

If there's a demand for it, then why shouldn't Lego meet that demand and fleece bewildered parents out of a few more quid? That's capitalism for you! <3

And for the record, I was young, nieve and sheltered during my childhood. Nowadays, I respect everybody regardless of their race, religion or fast-food establishment.

 

[Ollie]

Me and my brother used to make cars out of lego and smashed them against each other till one broke. And you could put spikes and stuff on it. I always won and made an invincible one.

 

[Pokemaniac]

I've grown up with LEGO. And, to be honest, it used to be worse. You see, I used to collect their product catalogues.

Around 2003-05-ish, LEGO was all brands. You could buy Bionicle, LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Star Wars, some mining things, dinosaurs... but that was it. I'll go back to those days later.

Back in the days, the late 90's, LEGO System was the thing. You could buy anything to fit in a Lego city (I'm capitulating on the all caps). My first boxes of bricks were intended to be assembled into a pizzeria, I had a street cleaning thing, a fire station, a small police station, a plane with a small air control tower, etc. The best thing was, on the back of the box were suggestions showing what else you could build with the bricks in the box. You had plenty of possibilities, and a creative builder could make anything from any bricks. I built my own Lego city in a drawer under my bed (later moved to the basement as it grew).

Then Lego System and later Lego Technic were discontinued. Lego split their product range into rigid, specific categories. The submarine base was still fun to build, but it looked out of place in my Lego city. The alien things were even worse. Then Lego started to add stories themselves. You couldn't give the little men their own names and characteristics anymore, all their personalia was stated on the back of the box (where the alternative building suggestions had mysteriously vanished). I got a nice set featuring an adventurer of sorts (can't be bothered to check his name), but his car didn't fit in the streets of my city at all. I got more problems with the large mining truck I got from an aunt, and when Bionicles were introduced, I just gave it up. I had more bricks than ever, but almost all the newest ones could only be used in specific ways and required many of the non-specific bricks to form buildings. The result was that I had to use a few square bricks and lots of specific bricks in every building I made, causing the lot of them to be deformed and strange. The car range in the city was nothing to yell hooray at either. What's worse, Lego started to add a "good" and an "evil" team to every franchise.

For a child visiting Legoland, the product line was pure depressing. Where could you get bricks to build your own city by the sea, like the one you saw in the park? Or those fancy windmills? Oh, nowhere. Legoland displayed the creative potential in their bricks, but you couldn't get anywhere that amount of bricks in the stores. However, you could get Harry Potter, or Batman or Spiderman. Woohoo. Yes, you could build scenes from the films, but what more? Pretty much nothing.

As you might have noticed, the company started to struggle financially. Kids didn't want Lego anymore, there was no point in collecting, as all the franchises just collided with each other, and the bricks couldn't be used for anything but their specific models. The demand plunged, and the parks had to be sold. Ole Kirk Kristiansen would have cried.

It's getting brighter now, though. With the introduction of the Creator line, you can once again buy a bucket of bricks, a booklet of suggestions, but you have to make the story yourself. What you use the bricks to build, is entirely your choice. And if you get three identical boxes for Christmas, no problem at all. You can just build bigger. However, Lego continues to spew out Legofications of new franchises. But at least, there are alternatives again. I think I'll buy myself a Creator set for the money I got for Christmas, dig the box with the oldest bricks from my early years out from the closet, and build something. Just for fun, like in the old days.

 

[thx]

Hate it.

I never liked all this heavily branded LEGO. I think it detracts from the true fun of it. Gone are the days when you opened a new box of LEGO (and yes, Technic counts) and were faced with hundreds, even thousands, so pieces that all looked rather similar, and after a few solid hours work were left with a fully functioning car/crane/tank/etc...

Nowadays it seems as if there are only about ten pieces in the kit, they're all overly pre-shaped and no actual challenge to put together.

Another huge benefit of LEGO over most other toys is the freedom. You've made your vehicle, but decide it'd be cooler to have a different one. Well, you used to be able to just take it all apart, get your thinking cap on, and make a new model. That doesn't seem to be the case with the new kits where each piece only fits a certain role.

Couldn't have said it better.
It was still nice when they had like themed lego like "egypt", marine etc., but once the first Star Wars came out, I just thought it was stupid (well I was not really anymore of "Lego age" at the time, but still..), not to mention a Lego Star Wars 2 videogame!, who in their right mind, or even sick one, lol ... really buys stuff like that??
:? :lol: