General Ninjago Discussion

SumoLego

Cerebrusly?
- Professor X

Cerberusly?
-Hades

(I apologize for this @flord-driven rabbit hole.)

flord

See? Realously.

This one is not my fault. You started it.

benbacardi

LEGO Fan said:

Any one know when it comes out because I want to catch it if possible on TV.

Google it and it suggests 30th March: https://www.google.com/search?q=ninjago+season+10

Aanchir

LEGO Fan said:

They should make remakes from older seasons.

Of sets, you mean? That's pretty much what the current "Legacy" wave is focused on, specifically re-imagining sets and characters from the pilot and the first two seasons.

Direct re-releases are unlikely, though. For one thing, LEGO design standards and kids' expectations of sets have evolved a lot since the early years. And anyway, in most cases the older sets aren't too expensive on the aftermarket since they were produced in such large numbers. The only major exceptions I can think of are some of the spinner sets which didn't remain on shelves for as long, like NRG Jay.

SearchlightRG

Or they could give us some builds based on vehicles or creatures that have only appeared in the show, not in set form. I'm thinking Garmadon's mech, Overlord Dragon, the Preeminent; could use some decent Elemental Dragons for Kai, Nya, and Cole, and maybe a First Realm dragon for Zane.

Aanchir

LEGO Fan said:

Yeah I mostly meant that there are plenty of sets they could have done that they did not. Like they could do a modular Building type collection were there are road baseplates and they could make some buildings and the borg tower. I would lunge head first for that.

IDK about a collection with road baseplates (LEGO doesn't do much with those anymore, presumably because of their price and the amount of empty space they tend to create in a set), but I'm sure they could still do some of those older locations in future sets!

After all, it took until summer 2016 to get the lighthouse prison and Samurai X Cave in sets, even though each of those settings had shown up four seasons earlier than the "Skybound" and "Day of the Departed" subthemes they were based around. Ninjago City Docks also gave us the first set versions of Misako's tearoom and Grand Sensei Dareth's Mojo Dojo, and the Legacy wave gave us the first version of the Monastery of Spinjitzu that really reflects its design from the show.

Particularly with the number of amusement park related sets there have been since the introduction of the new roller coaster elements, part of me thinks it may only be a matter of time before we see a set inspired by Mega Monster Amusement Park, since it's showed up in the show several times now, including as recently as Season 7. Even moreso than many other places from the show, it has a design language that feels very particular and iconic to the world of Ninjago.

Borg Tower, and likewise Cyrus Borg himself, have also continued to influence the story a great deal since their introduction in Season 3, so I wouldn't be surprised to see both show up in future sets. The wheelchair piece introduced in 2016 would make it pretty easy to depict his appearance since he stopped using his spider chair.

LEGO Fan said:

And they could make A S.O.G biker pack kind of like a star wars battle pack. No they should do it so that you can get it for all kinds of bad guys.

That could be interesting if it were a way of giving us more of the unnamed but visually distinctive characters from previous villain factions like the Sky Pirates and S.O.G, but I'm not sure whether that's realistic. The Star Wars battle packs rarely introduce as many new molds and printed elements as the figures that appear in the blister-packed battle packs/accessory sets that Ninjago has had in the past, nor include characters in outfits as varied. They also rarely feature factions that haven't shown up in other current or recent sets, since they rely so heavily on parts already in production.

For instance, #75225 introduces just one new printed element and one new mold, while #75226 introduces just five new printed elements, two new recolored elements, and no new molds. Compare with #853687, which had eight unique new printed elements and two new recolored elements.

Star Wars style battle packs would certainly make it easier to "army build" characters from factions that HAVE appeared in recent sets, but I don't think they'd be as effective as a way of obtaining cool, unique enemy designs from the show that have been missing from previous sets, like some of the lower-ranking female S.O.G. bikers and sky pirates.

Bumblepants

Rumor has it a D2C Borg Tower will show up this year but word on that has been pretty cold last few months. 

Penkid11

Bumblepants said:

Rumor has it a D2C Borg Tower will show up this year but word on that has been pretty cold last few months. 

That was confirmed to be fake many months ago.

Bumblepants

Penkid11 said:

Bumblepants said:

Rumor has it a D2C Borg Tower will show up this year but word on that has been pretty cold last few months. 

That was confirmed to be fake many months ago.

Ah too bad. Could have been interesting.

SumoLego

Can one confirm or disprove an unsubstantiated rumour?  Anyway, that tower seems a bit of a stretch.

Bumblepants

I would love it if they made another Ninjago City compatible set but I am not holding my breath.

CaptainRogers

Bumblepants said:

I would love it if they made another Ninjago City compatible set but I am not holding my breath.

This. I adore both sets so far, and would eagerly purchase any more they made. But I don't see it having the lifespan of the modular building line.

Briking

^ and ^^. It just feels incomplete at the moment!

SumoLego

Agree - another 'corner' would complete the set.

VorpalRyu

Still kind of disappointed that TLG didn't release a reddish brown Sensei Wu minifigure with wood grain texture prints in any of the Lego Ninjago Movie sets, or even as a polybag...

flord

^ Yeah, what is happening with Ninjago? Are they trying to run it into the ground?

SumoLego

VorpalRyu said:

...Sensei Wu minifigure...

We all know there's box of those prop wood Wu figures sitting somewhere.  Or at Jackie Chan's house.  

(Or at @samiam391's secret compound in the mountains.)

Penkid11

LEGO Fan said:

so is season 10 really just a full run time film instead of ten episodes?

Season 10 is a 4 episode season that will be run as a TV movie whenever it's going to premiere.

Penkid11

LEGO Fan said:

^ I had heard it will happen on March 30th.

Nah, that was fan speculation, as far as I can recall.

Aanchir

flord said:

^ Yeah, what is happening with Ninjago? Are they trying to run it into the ground?

Not sure what you mean by that… perhaps you're tired of it by now, but it was still among LEGO's best-selling themes as recently as 2018, so I see no reason to think the LEGO Group's plans for it to remain an evergreen product line like LEGO City (as stated in the 2016 annual report) have changed.

LEGO Fan said:

does anybody know when it shall end? I mean when I saw the images they are copying the last chima season which is not a good sign

It's not really unusual for LEGO to revisit concepts they've used in previous themes. For example:

• Slizer, Roboriders, Bionicle, Hero Factory, Ninjago, and Elves have all featured element themed heroes, villains, creatures, dragons, and/or weapons
• Insectoids, Rock Raiders, Life on Mars, Bionicle, Mars Mission, Power Miners, and Legends of Chima have all featured energy crystals
• Bionicle, Atlantis, Ninjago, and Legends of Chima have all featured animal themed bad guys
  
• Rock Raiders, Power Miners, and Nexo Knights have all featured rock and/or lava themed bad guys
  
• Castle, Alpha Team, Bionicle, Ninjago, and The LEGO Movie have all featured skeleton themed bad guys
• Hero Factory and Ultra Agents have both featured hazard themed bad guys (acid, radiation, explosives, earthquakes, poison gas, etc)
  

I don't see Ninjago doing a "Fire vs. Ice" wave as a sign that it's retracing Chima's steps in particular, especially since in Chima's case it was a fairly clear "fire heroes/ice villains" dynamic, whereas in this case both the fire and ice factions appear to be coded as villains, with no indication of the ninja being allied with either.

That said, Tommy Andreasen has dropped some hints about Legends of Chima being referenced in future Ninjago storylines, so I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming Ninjago wave utilized CHI crystals or something as the plot device that revives both these new undead factions. After all, if the writers were OK creating entire parallel realms as a plot device, surely it's even easier to pull existing plot devices from an already established parallel realm!

LEGO Fan said:

so is season 10 really just a full run time film instead of ten episodes?

Correct. It was originally broken up into four separate episodes that would culminate in the series' 100th episode (technically episode number 98, but that's because the episode numbering restarted at Episode 1 in the first season instead of including the two-episode pilot from 2011). I believe it's already aired in that format in some places. But Tommy Andreasen announced earlier this year that it would also be released as a TV movie that compiled all four episodes.

It is pretty likely that we'll be getting a full ten episodes for the second half of the year, though, since last year Tommy teased around 6 hours of new content for 2019, and the season 10 "March of the Oni" episodes (about 23 minutes each) plus the "Tales from the Monastery of Spinjitzu" shorts (about 21 minutes total) add up to just 113 minutes of content (a little under two hours), leaving plenty of room for ten 23-minute TV episodes.

sonatine01

I watched a couple of episodes of season 10 a couple of weeks ago, the ones with the Oni in. I hope there’s more than 4 episodes as not a lot happened in the first two ?

flord

Aanchir said:

flord said:

^ Yeah, what is happening with Ninjago? Are they trying to run it into the ground?

Not sure what you mean by that… perhaps you're tired of it by now, but it was still among LEGO's best-selling themes as recently as 2018, so I see no reason to think the LEGO Group's plans for it to remain an evergreen product line like LEGO City (as stated in the 2016 annual report) have changed

What I mean by running it into the ground is that it doesn't seem like they care very much about what is happening to Ninjago. 

The optics have not been good. Seasons 8 and 9 were 10 episodes each instead of 20 like previous years. Why have the Tales of the monastery shorts and the Legacy wave? The Hagemans leave. Season 8 took forever to come out on DVD. Who knows when Season 10 airs?

In summary: Lego was very consistent with Ninjago year after year. And then it stopped.

SumoLego

It's on a Game of Thrones release schedule.  Kids love that!

The_Stud

flord said:

Aanchir said:

flord said:

^ Yeah, what is happening with Ninjago? Are they trying to run it into the ground?

Not sure what you mean by that… perhaps you're tired of it by now, but it was still among LEGO's best-selling themes as recently as 2018, so I see no reason to think the LEGO Group's plans for it to remain an evergreen product line like LEGO City (as stated in the 2016 annual report) have changed

What I mean by running it into the ground is that it doesn't seem like they care very much about what is happening to Ninjago. 

The optics have not been good. Seasons 8 and 9 were 10 episodes each instead of 20 like previous years. Why have the Tales of the monastery shorts and the Legacy wave? The Hagemans leave. Season 8 took forever to come out on DVD. Who knows when Season 10 airs?

In summary: Lego was very consistent with Ninjago year after year. And then it stopped.

If I remember correctly, every season since Season 4 has only been ten episodes long. This was done so they can fit two seasons/waves in a year instead of one. The Tales of the Monastery shorts were essentially just commericals for each set. The Legacy wave exists so that newer fans have the opportunity to pick up modern reinditions of popular sets they might have missed out on, no different than what Lego Star Wars does all the time.

As far as the confusion with the DVD release and when Season 10 will air, I’d blame that more on Cartoon Network’s general apathy towards Ninjago. This has been going on since like 2016. They just air Ninjago when they feel like it, when fans are usually able to watch the episodes online many months before they air in the US. I do feel that that is a problem that has been going on for far too long and broadcasting Ninjago on a different TV network, such as Nickelodeon, may be necessary.

In short, Lego does care about one of their top-selling themes and have been consistent with Ninjago year after year, but Cartoon Network have not.

Aanchir

flord said:

Aanchir said:

flord said:

^ Yeah, what is happening with Ninjago? Are they trying to run it into the ground?

Not sure what you mean by that… perhaps you're tired of it by now, but it was still among LEGO's best-selling themes as recently as 2018, so I see no reason to think the LEGO Group's plans for it to remain an evergreen product line like LEGO City (as stated in the 2016 annual report) have changed

What I mean by running it into the ground is that it doesn't seem like they care very much about what is happening to Ninjago. 

The optics have not been good. Seasons 8 and 9 were 10 episodes each instead of 20 like previous years. Why have the Tales of the monastery shorts and the Legacy wave? The Hagemans leave. Season 8 took forever to come out on DVD. Who knows when Season 10 airs?

In summary: Lego was very consistent with Ninjago year after year. And then it stopped.

I'm not sure what you mean. NONE of the Ninjago seasons have been 20 episodes, unless you're using the same weird season numbering as the Australian DVDs, which are grouped by year rather than by story arc.

• The 2011 pilot was 2 episodes long
  
• The 2012 seasons (Season 1: Rise of the Snakes and Season 2: The Green Ninja) were each 13 episodes long
• The 2014 season (Season 3: Rebooted) was 8 episodes long
  
• The 2015–2018 seasons (Season 4: Tournament of Elements, Season 5: Possession, Season 6: Skybound, Season 7: Hands of Time, Season 8: Sons of Garmadon, and Season 9: Hunted) were all 10 episodes long
• The 2019 season (Season 10: March of the Oni) is 4 episodes long).

Needless to say, 10 episodes per season is close to average for the show's entire run — after all, that's the only reason it's possible for the tenth season to end with the show's 100th episode!

Having online shorts in addition to the main series is nothing out of the ordinary, either. So far there have been:

• 6 shorts set and released between the pilot and Season 1.
• 5 Master Chen filler shorts in 2015
• 6 "Tall Tale" shorts about Nadakhan's crew
• 6 "Villain Throwback" shorts released in 2016
• 6 "Meet the Ninja" shorts released in 2016 on the LEGO Life app
• 8 "Wu Cru" shorts released in 2017
• 20 "Wu's Teas" shorts released in late 2017
• …and now these "Tales from the Monastery of Spinjitzu" shorts

Granted, some of these shorts have contained all new animation (like these new ones) while others accompany it with recycled footage from previous seasons. But regardless, they very rarely add up to as many minutes of animation as even a single 22-minute episode, and I see no reason to be concerned that they say anything negative about the theme's future prospects.

Season 8 taking a long time to come to DVD may be frustrating, but hardly all that out of the ordinary for cartoons in general. For one thing, it's ALWAYS been relatively rare for kids' animated series to get complete season/complete series DVD box sets. What's more, these days a lot of the DVD and Blu-Ray market is getting cannibalized by the increasing popularity of digital streaming and downloads.

Ninjago has never been the Hagemans' only project, and it was certainly not one they expected to be working on for eight years! They already had to hand Day of the Departed and Hands of Time over to other lead writers just to get enough free time to work on other stuff like Trollhunters and Into the Spider-Verse. Doesn't it make sense for them to put the series into the hands of a lead writer like Bragi Schut who's more reliably available to work on it? If anything, the decision to put another writer in charge of Ninjago strikes me as a a sign of just how much life the theme DOES still have in it… after all, if it only had a season or two left, sticking around to the end would only require the Hagemans to briefly put off any other job prospects.

There are ALWAYS going to be some fans who feel like recent Ninjago sets, episodes, and/or marketing don't measure up to what preceded them, and who assume this means that the theme is on its last legs. But it hasn't been true in previous years, and there's no indication so far that it's true currently.

SumoLego

I see we have a Ninjago Archivist! 

My kids stopped watching after season two.  But they did enjoy TLNM.

flord

My bad about the number of episodes per season. For some reason I had it in my head it was 20. Weird.

I appreciate Aanchir's very, very thorough info above. Wow.

Aanchir

SumoLego said:

I see we have a Ninjago Archivist! 

Lol… this is the kind of stuff I make spreadsheets about (though some of them are a little out of date). :P

Another fun fact: between the 100 episodes of the TV series and the "Day of the Departed" Halloween special from 2016 the series as a whole adds up to about 37 hours and 24 minutes, or the equivalent of 102 22-minute episodes. That's enough that with standard-length ad breaks, a marathon of the series would run two days and three hours!

richl

Thanks Aanchir - thats pretty thorough! My kids zoned out around season 7, unfortunately so I haven't had a chance to get up to date. Did I hear that season 10 was the end of the show, though? In which case, what happens to the theme?

The_Stud

richl said:

Thanks Aanchir - thats pretty thorough! My kids zoned out around season 7, unfortunately so I haven't had a chance to get up to date. Did I hear that season 10 was the end of the show, though? In which case, what happens to the theme?

There is no indication that Ninjago will be ending anytime soon. As an evergreen theme, it’ll be around for years to come.

Aanchir

richl said:

Thanks Aanchir - thats pretty thorough! My kids zoned out around season 7, unfortunately so I haven't had a chance to get up to date. Did I hear that season 10 was the end of the show, though? In which case, what happens to the theme?

I haven't heard anything conclusive about whether Season 10 is the end of the show or not — in a recent YouTube video by Brent Miller (Zane's voice actor, who frequently interviews colleagues from the entertainment industry), the theme's co-creator Tommy Andreasen makes it clear that Ninjago as a whole is not ending after Season 10, but mentions plans to announce more about the theme's future after Season 10 airs in the United States. The need for any sort of announcement like that suggests to me that there is going to be some big change coming for the theme.

If I had to guess, I'd posit that they might be ending the current TV series ("LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu") and premiering a new Ninjago TV series with a different subtitle to act as a sequel, similar to what has often happened with many other cartoon series such as:

• Justice League (replaced by Justice League Unlimited in 2004)
  
  
• Dragon Ball (replaced by Dragon Ball Z in 1989, Dragon Ball GT in 1996, Dragon Ball Kai in 2009, and Dragon Ball Super in 2015)
  
  
• Ben 10 (replaced by Ben 10: Alien Force in 2008, Ben 10: Ultimate Alien in 2010, and Ben 10: Omniverse in 2012)
  
  
• …and of course, too many Scooby-Doo series to name!

Aanchir

There are several reasons I can think of why they might prefer this approach to just creating a new season within the same series:

• It can be an opportunity to redefine the visual style in ways that might seem jarring if they happened mid-series. In a 2D series this might entail switching between thick line animation, thin line animation, the lineless animation style used in the Carmen Sandiego reboot on Netflix, or changing the show's color palette to be brighter or darker.
  
  It can also mean stylizing the characters in a different way, like sharper or rounder features, differently proportioned faces and bodies, more exaggerated movements, etc. The difference between the "Pokémon: Sun and Moon" anime and previous Pokémon anime series is a good example. In extreme cases, shows can even switch between 2D and 3D animation.
  
  In a brand like LEGO Ninjago, a certain degree of toy-accuracy is probably to be expected in terms of shapes, colors, and proportions one way or the other. But I could imagine them perhapsusing the same character models but with a different type of shading (like cel shading, which this Wikipedia article illustrates).
  
  
• Sometimes overlapping with the above, it can be an opportunity for behind-the-scenes changes within a show's staff (besides individual people joining or leaving the crew like we've seen before).
  
  A very good LEGO example is how LEGO Elves: Secrets of Elvendale was produced as a Netflix-exclusive series and animated by Studio Mir, whereas the previous LEGO Elves TV specials that it shared its continuity with were produced for distribution on both TV and YouTube, and were animated by JaFilm.
  
  
• It can be an opportunity for a fresh start for new viewers who might be intimidated by a sense of being "behind" on essential backstory. Honestly, 100 episodes is a LOT for a kids' cartoon, especially one as continuity-driven as LEGO Ninjago!
  
  For comparison, Avatar: The Last Airbender, which was extraordinarily continuity-driven compared to other kids' shows on the same network or during the same period, only had 61 episodes over 3 seasons.
  
  And most of the longest-running animated series like Rugrats, SpongeBob SquarePants, Arthur, and Fairly Odd Parents don't tell stories where the order in which you watch the episodes or being "caught up" with what's come before matters so much to being able to enjoy and follow the newer ones.
  
  Even without a total continuity reboot, it can still be helpful to create a new starting point, and introduce backstory from the previous series via flashbacks or exposition only as it becomes necessary (similar to how the current series handles backstory for newly introduced characters).
  
  
• It can even allow the creators to change the series' main characters, if they so choose! Consider, for example, how "Star Trek: The Next Generation" or "Batman Beyond" are set in the future of the shows that preceded them, so characters from the earlier series can reappear as supporting characters or guest stars, but the main focus is on a cast tailored to a new audience and a different media landscape.
  
  When LEGO Ninjago began, the only female character (Nya) was more of a supporting character or damsel in distress than a member of the main team. As the series went on she developed more agency, but it wasn't until her ninja training in Season 5 that she really stood out as equal in importance to the actual ninja.
  
  Other female characters like Skylor and Pixal have been introduced to the series over time, in part due to the show's the unanticipated number of female viewers, but character bloat has definitely weighed on the creators at times. This was one of the reasons that Pixal became a sort of "digital assistant" to Zane in Season 4 — as a way of keeping her as a major presence in the story without having to invest extra time to following where she was or what she was doing at any given point.
  
  A new cast of characters can make it easier to correct perceived issues with the show as originally conceived, and/or make the show less dependent on actors who may at times feel like the time commitment of being on the show's cast is holding back their careers.
  
  
• Changing the cast can also help compensate for a tendency of kids' shows not to let their characters grow up. Pokémon, as mentioned above, is a particularly egregious example. Even after five sequel series, with the latest making major changes to the art style, its protagonist, Ash Ketchum, remains canonically ten years old despite having appeared in over 1,000 episodes and 19 movies!
  
  It can be difficult to allow characters in a kids' show to visibly grow up mid-series, since it can make it tricky to ensure kids just getting into the series will be able to enjoy older and newer episodes equally, even if the things they relate to about the characters change as they move on to later stages of their lives.
  
  
• Conversely, a new series can allow the creators to change the tone if they want to market the series to an older or younger audience if they so choose, without messing with parents' established sense of what ages the existing series is/isn't appropriate for.
  
  For example, "Avatar: The Last Airbender" (a coming of age story primarily involving preteen and early teen protagonists) was followed by "The Legend of Korra" (following a different cast of characters from their late teens to becoming young adults).
  
  While both series dealt with heavy subjects, had similar senses of humor, and had a TV-Y7-FV age rating (fairly standard for action cartoons), The Legend of Korra had quite a few themes that older viewers might relate to better than kids: more relationship drama, disagreements about parenting philosophies, and the main character getting a severe and traumatic injury that leaves her both physically and mentally disabled, requiring her to undergo extensive therapy before returning to her usual heroics.
  
  I kind of doubt LEGO would take this approach, though, since currently the Ninjago toy line seems like it's managed to remain successful without any major increases or decreases to its target age range, and it would probably be a bad idea if the target age ranges of the toy line and animated series didn't closely correspond. Also, shows aimed at older viewers are rarely as good at selling toys as those aimed at younger viewers.
  

Aanchir

That said… there could potentially be plans for MORE THAN ONE Ninjago TV series if LEGO thought it would help broaden their audience. After all, that's often been the case with Transformers, another merchandise-driven media franchise.

"Transformers: Rescue Bots" and its sequel "Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy" both successfully attracted viewers and customers ages 4–7 with simple toys spun off from the Playskool brand and kid-friendly, low-conflict storylines that teach life lessons parents want to impart to their kids.

But those series also overlapped with series like "Transformer: Prime" and its sequel "Transformers: Robots in Disguise" which exist in the same continuity but have high-conflict storytelling and tie in with more traditional Transformers toys aimed at older buyers.

In the past, Ninjago has had some Juniors/4+ sets as tie-ins, even though the TV series is not really written with an intended audience as young as 4. So if LEGO is aware of a substantial interest in Ninjago among younger viewers, it's possible they might wish to create multiple concurrent Ninjago TV series: one aimed at a similar 7+ audience to most previous sets and the current series, plus another that perhaps features Lloyd training a younger team of rookie ninja, tying in with future 4+ sets.

Anyway, yeesh I spent a long time on this post, and had to break it into three different posts after it turned out to be over 1900 characters too long. o_O Hope at least some of that effort was worth it!

TheOriginalSimonB

^Well worth it, thanks.

I could totally see a re-boot as a way of bringing in Friends style skin tone diversity, although not sure LEGO would want to do that.

SearchlightRG

So...are we allowed to talk about the newly revealed Summer 2019 sets?

VorpalRyu

Considering an article just went up on the site, I'd say yes...

Checked through all the box art, seems as long as you get most of the sets you can get a full set of the ninjas in normal & powered up form ( #70671 & #70672 being the unnecessary sets).

playwell

Better still you only have to get 2 sets to get all the ice people (Castle and Wolf).

Bumblepants

I really want the wolfhat girl. That might be my favorite minifig of the year so far.

SearchlightRG

Nice to get another big Ice Dragon...a pity it doesn't belong to Zane. It's kind of funny though; there was a four year gap between #2260 and #70748, and now another between that second one and #70678. Liking most of these sets, and the "Pyro Snakes" look like sweet villains. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of feeling bad for Nya: another wave with no vehicle or dragon. It's kind of depressing; she's only had about half as signature many rides (living or mechanical) as her male teammates, and most of those reflect her time as Samurai X.