Ok, hello again; now before I get too into this I would first like to
apologise for my long absence (you don’t need reasons, just the knowledge that I
am sorry for it), secondly I would like to state that in NO way am I belittling
the modern sets of today. I love modern LEGO (seriously come to my house sometime
and look at the shelves, I have them packed full of the stuff). That being said
there are a couple of things about them that makes me somewhat nostalgic for
the classic's.
5) Theme/
Faction Definition (or the Lack of it)
Now my first gripe is somewhat difficult to explain but I
will try the best I can. Back in the day LEGO didn’t really care too much on defining
the characteristics of a set, for example check this out.
Are they fighting? Are they friends? LEGO didn’t make you
choose it simply said ‘here are a bunch of knights and a castle, now get to it
kid and have some fun!’
Sure they had some definition (the Pirates looked badass for
example) but that wasn’t what defined the theme and that wasn’t the focus of
the sets. In the glory days the main focus was on ‘the build’ and the variety of
possibilities that build offered. Why do you think the old sets gave variant builds
on the back of their boxes?
What I am trying ‘inexpertly’ to
say is that nowadays in the majority of themes we are told the names of
the figures, what their motivation is and who they are fighting against as well
as an overriding story arch for the entire theme.
It’s disappointing because it’s
making children lazier why imagine some wonderful story when you can just watch
Lord of the Rings and then act out that exact seen from Helms Deep. Yes I am
being a little unfair here, but my point is no less valid. My ten year old brain
had some amazing times (far better than any movie could ever get) me but now
days that’s not the case. Shockingly enough I have even seen kids refusing to mix
their LEGO sets because they don’t want to mix SpongeBob bricks with their city
stuff! That’s not the way an eight year old should treat their LEGO.
4) Packaging
The packaging
of my youth had some magic to them, the big sets had fold up flaps were you
could see all the LEGO, the back of every set had alternative builds and
everything looked amazing as there was no digital images in the background .
Now a modern
set looks good (if not a little focused on the action).
But the classic
sets had an actual painting in the background and a constructed world beneath
the figures feet. It felt like I could also achieve such perfection (simply by
taking the set outside and losing most of it); whereas the cover of the modern set
is an unobtainable fantasy.
I have a
problem with modern packaging but I can understand why they put less effort into
them. When I was a child I would visit the toy store every week, look at all
the sets, shake every box and lift up every flap, it was exciting for me because
that was how I saw what was new and available. Today finding a Toy Store is
difficult enough and then even if you do, why go to all the trouble of leaving
the house when you can simply order the thing online? (And probably pay less for
it, ‘all hail the blessed Amazon’).
Nowadays there
is no motivation for a child to leave the house, his universe starts and ends
on a keyboard, everything he needs is there. I honestly don’t know any child
aged below eight who doesn’t know how Amazon works or how to operate windows.
Ok so this gripe is also against the modern world, things were better in my
day, I like napping, mumble, mumble, mumble, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
3) Baseplates
Most classic sets had Baseplates, even the smaller sets;
they would get a smaller Baseplate. Baseplates are awesome they give you so much
freedom to do what you want and build what you like. Nowadays most sets (even
big £80+ sets) don’t have Baseplates. This sucks.
I think I made my case quite elegantly there.
2)
Now I know this gripe will be the one that causes the most
anger, there are a lot of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Harry Potter’ nuts out there and
they are about to be equalled by a similar number of ‘Lord of the Rings’ fanatics,
so firstly I will state it again.
I like these sets; I
love ‘Star Wars’; I love all Licensed LEGO magic and I understand that the sets
are an important revenue stream for LEGO and some are released to co-inside with movies. Ok now that’s out of the way, as a
reward I give you the below image.
My problem with the licensed themes comes in three forms.
My first problem with
it is the lack of imagination it gives to children (I mentioned it above read
number five to remind yourself if you have no idea what I’m saying now).
My second problem with it is the cost, yes I know they have
to pay for the licence but the sets are so much more and for a child with limited
pocket money it just starts looking unfair. We all want Darth Vader and Chewy minifigs
but this sort of purchase is at least 20% more than the cost of a non-licensed
set (and can go even higher).
Average that out over the five years a child will
normally collect LEGO (6-11ish) and they will have a much smaller collection.
This smaller collection will again be tailor made to their theme and will allow
little in the way of original building (wait I'm going back to point one again,
sorry). It’s just that a child’s pocket money is special and to charge the most
for the sets he (or she) is most likely to want seems a bit miserly.
My final and biggest problem with the licensed themes is the
sheer number of them and the question of what could have been build instead. We
have so many licensed themes that last a short while and then disappear; why go
to all the trouble to release a theme when it lasts such a short amount of
time?
Instead of having designers working on ‘Prince of Persia’, 'Toy Story' and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ sets for a year why not have a range that is
worth something and doesn’t leave the collector felling like a jilted lover
dumped halfway through their fourth date (the date just after they had put out)?
Imagine what LEGO could have designed without their overreliance
on licensed themes?
1) Instructions
Instructions I hear you cry (its ok cheer up) we still have
them, that’s not something to miss. Well actually the old style instructions
were very different to the modern ones of today, they knew how to challenge a
kid, and they gave the whole building process fun. Once when I was four years
old they made my dad sit for five hours on Christmas day trying desperately to
build the Kings Mountain Fortress rather than engage in his more traditional activity
of getting hammered.
Seriously these old instructions were the boss; they even
required you to build parts of the set without actually seeing were the brick
needed to go and as for a piece call out for each step you can forget it. You show the instructions how clever you are, not the other way
around.
I remember that building a bigger set felt like a real achievement.
For example the 1989 Black Sea Barracuda (6285) required 28 steps to be built whereas
the 2009 Brickbeards Bounty (6243) requires 57 and comes with two manuals; their
respective piece counts are 909 for the Barracuda and 592 for the Bounty.
Seriously can we stop dummying things down for the kids;
every generation before them didn’t start basing their heads against the wall
when the received a challenge, these ones won’t either. You never know what
could happen if they feel a little inspired.
As always thank you so much for taking the time to read this and I promise the wait will not be as long next time.
Cheers all
