LEGO Ideas holds vote to remake one classic theme as a 90th anniversary set

It's been plastered all over the LEGO community, so most people here have probably already seen it, but in case not, LEGO Ideas is holding a vote to decide which classic theme will have a commemorative set produced for LEGO's 90th anniversary. Rock Raiders is one of the options too (but if everyone could please vote Studios, Adventurers, or BIONICLE, I'd very much appreciate it).

 

Link: https://ideas.lego.com/blogs/a4ae09b6-0d4c-4307-9da8-3ee9f3d368d6/post/fd5cc3b8-284f-4520-825f-7c3f5e4a50fe

Aquazone, ride or die buds.

Damn so many good choices, how are you supposed to narrow it down to just three (and then one)?!

This is really fishy for a couple of reasons....

 

Firstly, it's... got some errors.

- Typo on 'transparrent,' twice.

- The 'pretty picture' for Trains - the very first image - is a set from 2004 (10133), as opposed to actually classic trains from 1980. Wat?

- Alpha Team's picture (the final one) is of the third wave - Ogel's icy fortress, from 2004, as opposed to the actual first Alpha Team theme

- Western isn't on the list? Possibly due to guns and violence / portrayal of American-Indians.

 

Secondly, there's a bit of hidden fine print...

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We will run this fan vote of all 30 themes from today the 17th of January 2021, to the 25th of January 2021. Then on February 3rd 2021, we will launch a second fan vote of the top three themes from this fan vote which will run until February 10th 2021. One of these three themes will be what the 90th Anniversary Set will be based on, but we still want to know what the most popular of the final three is!

So the second vote doesn't actually matter: of the three most-voted themes, one of these will be voted to be the most popular, and one of these will have the set. They could be the same, but they also could be different.

I guess - since Bionicle is on the list and that's clearly going to be one of the top three - this is a handy get-out clause for Lego and means they don't have to make a Bionicle set

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To celebrate the 90th Anniversary of The LEGO Group, help us choose a classic theme to be reimagined as a single new product for the 2022 LEGO Adult Portfolio.

The set will arrive in 2022. That is still quite some time away.

 

 

Thirdly, and most importantly, I just don't get the idea behind making a single set. It's a celebration of all the history, an anniversary, and all the other fun things that have happened. Making a single set that people voted for could alienate the people that didn't vote for it, and why bother doing that when you could do something else? I kinda expect something else will happen... possibly a mashup set, or possibly an entire theme consisting of one set remastering each theme?

Lego can put all the effort in they want - they're not restricted to solely making a single set. They could make one for every theme. Why split your fanbase into those-that-got-a-set-they-voted-for and those-that-didn't-and-are-setless?

 

Hence I kinda expect the 2022 - it's still a long way away indeed! - lineup to fundamentally have more than one theme, be that a mashup set, a set that has minifigures from other themes thrown in (eg ClassicSpace, but Dash from Alpha Team and Commander Cold from Ice Planet are aboard the ship), or just multiple sets. I just... don't see things turning out as a single set as a result of this vote. It doesn't make sense to me.

 

 

 

Also, Lego Star Wars is technically a pre-2000s theme, with sets like 7180 B-Wing scraping in at late 1999 before the millennium rolled around, and I find that hilarious.

14 hours ago, aidenpons said:

The 'pretty picture' for Trains - the very first image - is a set from 2004 (10133), as opposed to actually classic trains from 1980. Wat?

Well it's the 90th anniversary of LEGO as a whole right, doesn't have to be all classic stuff. I mean a lot of them are from the 90s/early 2000s so why not Trains too? I'd wager there'd be a lot more interest for the more recent line anyway particularly as the blocky classic stuff wouldn't fit so well into a lot of modern city builds.

  

14 hours ago, aidenpons said:

Alpha Team's picture (the final one) is of the third wave - Ogel's icy fortress, from 2004, as opposed to the actual first Alpha Team theme

I don't see an issue with this, they still let you specify a sub-theme so you can easily request the first line of Alpha Team sets.

  

14 hours ago, aidenpons said:

Western isn't on the list? Possibly due to guns and violence / portrayal of American-Indians.

Maybe they're being sensitive given recent events in America if you're talking about gun violence

Also with thirty to choose from, the ones they've picked are quite iconic and I wouldn't be surprised if Western just missed the cut.

 

14 hours ago, aidenpons said:

I guess - since Bionicle is on the list and that's clearly going to be one of the top three - this is a handy get-out clause for Lego and means they don't have to make a Bionicle set

At the risk of incurring the wrath of all the Bionicle fans out there, I rather hope Bionicle doesn't make the cut. It's already been re-launched fairly recently, and of all the products to choose from, if they do something from the original run then I don't see much opportunity for creativity or having a decently large set? They'll be making something new (re-releasing Tahu wouldn't be particularly impressive of a 90th anniversary celebration) and I don't see where you can go with that.

 

14 hours ago, aidenpons said:

The set will arrive in 2022. That is still quite some time away.

Well yeah, LEGO started in 1932 And this gives them plenty of time to design a set, get it peer reviewed, produced, all that lengthy process which will presumably be made tougher during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

14 hours ago, aidenpons said:

Thirdly, and most importantly, I just don't get the idea behind making a single set. It's a celebration of all the history, an anniversary, and all the other fun things that have happened. Making a single set that people voted for could alienate the people that didn't vote for it, and why bother doing that when you could do something else? I kinda expect something else will happen... possibly a mashup set, or possibly an entire theme consisting of one set remastering each theme?

I'm sure they'll have a lot of other things planned for 2022 too - LEGO IDEAS isn't one of the more well-known parts of the company (ask anyone in the street about it and they likely won't have heard about it compared to other aspects of LEGO) so this seems to me like a nice side-project for the fans who know about it.

 

14 hours ago, aidenpons said:

Lego can put all the effort in they want - they're not restricted to solely making a single set. They could make one for every theme. Why split your fanbase into those-that-got-a-set-they-voted-for and those-that-didn't-and-are-setless?

Sure they could make one for every theme but that's a huge investment banking on people's nostalgia. This method lets them gauge how much interest there would actually be for such a thing, I'm sure all the business boffins there would have proposed an entire line of products if they thought it would be financially worthwhile.

And I really don't think this is going to split the fan base haha, it's a harmless vote. I'd hope that the LEGO fandom doesn't draw in the kind of people that will go ballistic at each other over which toy gets made. If you're that desperate just buy the original ones off Bricklink or eBay.

  

I mainly just voted for Rock Raiders.

Oh my!! This is like dreams comes true but it's not because only one of those dreams will come true. I bet that some classic set will win this but I can't help that I really want some Lego Media related win this

 

My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined

Yeah. While I'm in some way happy to see BIONICLE up there, I'd rather have seen another non-generic theme that actually has a chance in hell of being chosen, whether that be Adventurers, Rock Raiders, etc. I'm sorta just hoping for Castle now. XD

Regardless of what wins, I'm super excited to see whatever set they put out for any of the themes. It'll be awesome to see something different like any of the themes listed.