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Saturday, December 28, 2013

So it seems people like the LEGO Movie sets...


Between the evenings of the 26th & 27th I published twelve LEGO Movie set- and figure-related videos.  For the full day of the 27th, YouTube reports that my account received 3x the norm (and 2x the previous records) in comments, likes, and favorites added.  Y'all really like the Movie sets!!  I guess it's a good thing that I do too!

This theme does a phenomenal job of combining some of the most fun things that can be captured within the world of LEGO.  It has humor, drama, action & fighting, cutesiness (not a real word, I know), interesting vehicles & settings, and characters we can connect with. Most importantly in my opinion, the theme encourages creativity in the most blunt ways possible.  Most LEGO sets reward you for building exactly what's shown on the box and the instructions, and then they leave you with a whisper-like hint of, "Maybe you could do other things with these parts... maybe... just saying..."  In the movie theme, you are told right to your face, "Take apart the LEGO sets you have, and make something cooler! Do it do it!"

I hope LEGO learns from this massive win and engages in more of this overt creative encouragement in the future.  Hero Factory moved in this direction with their 2.0 series, but they didn't go far enough, and actually took creative tools away from us in 3.0 & beyond by reverting to one-piece heads that instantly turned any custom creation into just another version of Rocka or Stormer or Furno.  Technic and Creator both encourage part reuse by offering multiple official builds.  However, the City and other System-based, minifig-supporting themes that have always been the core of the LEGO business and fan community alike, tell young builders to follow the instructions and then stop and play.

I hope that in early 2015 (since everything through the end of 2014 is already designed) we will begin to see a page of photos of alternate build possibilities included in the instruction sheets for some City sets like we used to a couple decades ago.  Eventually, the 2- or 3-in-1 concept could be worked into a percentage of sets in every single System sub-theme.  It would go a long way towards fulfilling LEGO's mission of actively inspiring creativity in kids, and as the Movie theme is already showing before its official release, it can be a profitable undertaking for the company as well.

2 comments:

  1. drgpolaris (URC member)December 29, 2013 at 7:36 AM

    Truer words have never been spoken! Thank you for all the work you do, JANG! As a ~40-old father whose twin boys are just starting to discover the joys of LEGO as I did 35 years ago, I can attest to the joys of tearing apart an official set they just built to see what else they can make! (you always have the instructions if you want to rebuild it, right?!) Keep up the excellent work!

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  2. I totally agree with you. nowadays, the backs of lego boxes show the functions of the sets, which is great and all, but i do remember the old sets that show pictures on alternate builds, and I would think: "hey, that looks cool! I wanna try and build that!" the only problem with that is that i would lose pieces that i wasn't using so i wouldn't be to rebuild the sets to their full form, hence why all of my old sets are still in a million pieces, and now my newer sets are still together, and I want them to stay that way (Huh... I sound like Lord Business...)

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