Some Possibly Forgotten Themes and Sub-Themes

bobabricks

I was browsing through the data base last night (bored out of my mind ;P) and I found some themes that may have been completely forgotten because nobody ever talks about them anymore or they were just never popular to begin with. If you have found other "unknown" themes please list them below ;)

#1 Prince of Persia

This theme was released in 2010 and was another one of those one wave wonders. It was pretty popular when it was around but disappeared in Lego history after it retired and none of the sets went up in value.

#2 Galidor

I don't even want to talk about this XD

#3 Znap

This theme was kind of like a cross between K'nex and Technic, it's just wierd...

#4 Avatar The Last Airbender

This theme was made during the cartoon show and the sets are pretty cool and they did go up in value, they are just never talked about.

#5 Life On Mars

This is one of the more colorful space themes with a wide assortment of weird space vehicles. The backgrounds are also obviously those cheesy early 2000's back drops.

Those are the only ones that really stood out to me but please do tell us about other weird forgotten themes :)

CCC

I don't know what you mean by forgotten. POP sets still change hands and contain useful part. Minifigs provide fleshie bare chest and some very nice armour parts for fleshies.

bobabricks

I just mean that people don't really talk about them anymore and maybe some of the parts are useful but the sets and themes as a whole are not extremely thought about if you get what I'm trying to say ;)

CCC

It's natural that people stop talking about any retired theme or at least slow done. Dino 2010, AC, PQ, all pretty good themes but rarely talked about. No doubt GS is going that way too. There's not much talk about Ninjago, even after the reboot. IJ another got licensed theme, but little chat about it.

Even some of the less thought if ranges are still in demand. A couple of months ago I tried to buy a few different large Galidor figure part lots to make some custom action figures. I didn't get any of them as the prices went crazy. So someone still likes them.

roxio

Speed Racers
Jack Stone

Oldfan

^We'd all do well to forget about Jack Stone...

Lego_Lord_Mayorca

Oldfan said:

^We'd all do well to forget about Jack Stone...

Agreed. One of the most ridiculous Christmas gifts I ever received was in 2001 from my cousin. He knew I liked Lego, so as a joke, got me a Jack Stone set. I did my best to laugh and sound grateful, but I was furious inside. To my shame, I did build the set just to see how horrible it really was. And yes, it can be found when one looks up my collection on Brickset.

(oh, the shame!)

CCC

I bought a load of old Jack Stone figures when my kids were younger. They still occasionally play with them, although they have been relegated to the sand pit this year. They've had tons of fun with them, for 15 or 20p each.

So while they are not an afol favourite, kids still like them.

akunthita

For customizers Jack Stone figures are excellent. In fact their heads look great on regular minifigs. I'm glad people hate them and sell them dirt-cheap, because I use them all the time. Here is a tutorial on how they fit: http://thebrickblogger.com/2011/02/lego-4-juniors-minifig-customization/

Aanchir

I still feel like Galidor was pretty good for what it was (high-quality action figures with interchangeable parts). The problem was that there simply wasn't an audience for what it was.

LEGO fans would obviously prefer sets with more customization potential (even if they wanted action figures, BIONICLE would probably seem like a preferable alternative). A lot of people forget that it wasn't really being targeted at LEGO fans — like most BIONICLE sets, the LEGO logo was shunted to a humble position in the bottom-right corner of the packages while the Galidor logo took a prominent place on the masthead. The LEGO brand back then didn't have the power it does today. In some cases, it might have even been seen as a liability, with some kids thinking of it as childish or old-fashioned. So it makes sense that the LEGO Group might have wanted to distance certain product lines from their own brand's weakening reputation.

The sets were probably aimed more at the sorts of kids who would normally buy non-LEGO action figures. But casual action figure fans would want cheaper figures that wouldn't cost LEGO prices, while dedicated action figure collectors would only want to pay "deluxe" prices for familiar comic book and movie characters, not characters from a new and unfamiliar kids' show with lots of weird rubber aliens. It seems like a no-win situation.

I really do want to rewatch the Galidor TV show sometime, though. It didn't seem too bad to me back then, though I never watched much of it because it aired on a channel (Fox Kids) I didn't really watch as a kid — most of my TV time was spent either watching educational shows on PBS or cartoons on Cartoon Network and Kids WB. In hindsight, it shares several design attributes with Doctor Who, so it wouldn't surprise me one bit if that were a source of inspiration for some of the creators.

I still feel like Jack Stone gets a bad rap. The sets were simplistic, cartoony, and heavily stylized, but the same is true of Fabuland, which for some reason gets a lot more respect from the AFOL community. The main difference is that Jack Stone went for a futuristic look while Fabuland went for more of a quaint, old-fashioned look.

@CCC, if you don't think there's a lot of Ninjago discussion going on, perhaps you're just not looking in the right places. Conversation of the theme is still going strong on deviantART, the LEGO Message Boards, and even certain AFOL forums like Eurobricks. There's not quite as much discussion as there was in 2012, but there's also not nearly as much to discuss. This year boasts just eight new TV episodes and nine new sets, rather than 26 new TV episodes and over 40 sets in 2012.

CCC

That's my point. There isn't much to discuss once it has all been discussed. Without new sets coming out, any theme slowly becomes forgotten as there are other things to talk about.

Lego_Lord_Mayorca

Aanchir said:

The sets were simplistic, cartoony, and heavily stylized, but the same is true of Fabuland, which for some reason gets a lot more respect from the AFOL community. The main difference is that Jack Stone went for a futuristic look while Fabuland went for more of a quaint, old-fashioned look.

I completely understand you, here! The Fabuland love is likely just the old AFOL generation who remember it from their preteen years in the 80s, so I don't understand it, naturally. I suppose if you and I had been born at the end of the 90s, we would've had Jack Stone at a pivotal point in our early Lego fandoms, and in about 5 years from now on Brickset, we'd be waxing nostalgic over how great Jack Stone and all his friends were (or we'd be on Eurobricks with various Jack Stone figs as our avatars and raving about how awesome those sets were at every possible instance).

fenderbender336

For some reason I have been thinking about the Explorien sub theme for the past week. Looking back on those sets, I personally feel like they aged pretty well!

rancorbait

Unfortunately, I don't think Galidor is forgotten. Sure, its not really talked about, but its not forgotten.

What has been seen cannot be unseen! 8oX

fenderbender336

Galidor was around when I was still collecting as a kid (right before my dark ages), and I really have no recollection of that theme haha!

Aanchir

fenderbender336 said:

For some reason I have been thinking about the Explorien sub theme for the past week. Looking back on those sets, I personally feel like they aged pretty well!

I dunno, Exploriens was one of my favorite themes as a kid (and one of the ones I collected most extensively), but I don't like it nearly as much in hindsight. A lot of the models didn't feel very solid, and there were some downright awful parts like the sloped wedge that appears three times in #6982. Granted, maybe not as bad as U.F.O, but not as good as, say, Spyrius. I love me some giant robots and flying saucers! Not to mention the Spyrius robot fig, who remains one of my favorite old-school Space figs.

fenderbender336

I sadly missed out on Spyrius. My first true Lego System set was the Nebula Outpost from Exploriens, hence why I'm so fond of the sub theme.

Pitfall69

Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:

Oldfan said:

^We'd all do well to forget about Jack Stone...

Agreed. One of the most ridiculous Christmas gifts I ever received was in 2001 from my cousin. He knew I liked Lego, so as a joke, got me a Jack Stone set. I did my best to laugh and sound grateful, but I was furious inside. To my shame, I did build the set just to see how horrible it really was. And yes, it can be found when one looks up my collection on Brickset.

(oh, the shame!)

I have a ton of Jack Stone. I hear ya. Although, I don't think I would be as grateful to get a Jack Stone set for a gift. I would think it was some sort of joke :)

plasmodium

Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:

Aanchir said:

The sets were simplistic, cartoony, and heavily stylized, but the same is true of Fabuland, which for some reason gets a lot more respect from the AFOL community. The main difference is that Jack Stone went for a futuristic look while Fabuland went for more of a quaint, old-fashioned look.

I completely understand you, here! The Fabuland love is likely just the old AFOL generation who remember it from their preteen years in the 80s, so I don't understand it, naturally. I suppose if you and I had been born at the end of the 90s, we would've had Jack Stone at a pivotal point in our early Lego fandoms, and in about 5 years from now on Brickset, we'd be waxing nostalgic over how great Jack Stone and all his friends were (or we'd be on Eurobricks with various Jack Stone figs as our avatars and raving about how awesome those sets were at every possible instance).

This would be my little brother in 5-10 years. ;-)
Oh, the fun he had with Jack Stone as a wee child.