Unpopular LEGO Opinions

CCC

Phoenixio said:

I also share the unpopular opinion of disliking NIB collectors, more like as a sad realization that our hobby turned partly into a speculation game due to poor distribution or bad evaluation of demand.  The limited shelf life doesn't help either.

What is  NIB collector?

Is it a collector of NIB sets, or someone that buys sets with the fear of missing out worrying that they won't have one in future even though they don't want to build the set right now, or something else?

I don't think the former is an issue at all. Whether someone builds a set or keeps it new or opens it and dumps it in a parts bin, it is nobody's business. That they want it is all that is important. They were going to get one no matter what they do with it and it makes no difference to availability for everyone else. The second maybe slightly worse (although personally I don't care) as they take sets from the market when they don't really know if they want one or not.

Marshallmario

    I really like this thread. It starts out with both Unpopular and Opinions in the title. Makes it a lot easier to read things you don’t agree with and to not take opinions personally. Also widens your outlook on different points of view That works great for Lego sets, Lego marketing, different Lego systems etc. It doesn’t work so well for me when you’re picking on people. There are all kinds of AFOL who come here for all kinds of reasons. Information, sharing, news etc. Some buy to build, some for parts, for Bricklink stores, for reselling on eBay, for trading or for collecting sets MISB. Judging people without actually knowing anything about them is always a mistake.
   This is not a direct reply to Phoenixio as there are many thread discussions about scalpers or collectors who clear out the sale isles and don’t forget about poor Timmy!

SumoLego

So, I saw this story earlier today:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lego-to-remove-gender-bias-toys-marketing/

Maybe I'm an optimist, but I was heartened to see that the vast majority of kids and parents don't appear to have gender bias when it comes to 'boy' or 'girl' toys, or 'boy' or 'girl' activities, and the fact there is only a 10% differential between parents choices when it comes to LEGO.

More strange is that only 60% of parents would suggest LEGO for boys and 50% of parents would suggest LEGO for girls.  Who are these 40% and 50%?  

I'd imagine similar survey results even 20 years ago would be vastly different.

(10% of Americans don't think the Moon Landing is authentic - so expecting 100% on any issue is unrealistic.)

I get the point of the story is to promote a gender-neutral approach, but the statistics are not as dire as they're being analyzed.

SumoLego

Side note, I think LEGO ought to be proud that they stuck with the Friends line (and their market research) to open a new market that other toy manufacturers underserved and ignored.

CCC

SumoLego said:

More strange is that only 60% of parents would suggest LEGO for boys and 50% of parents would suggest LEGO for girls.  Who are these 40% and 50%? 

Without knowing the actual question asked, it is difficult to know what their statement means. I suggest LEGO for some of my kids' presents, and I suggest they play with their LEGO some of the time. Have I ever suggested LEGO as a present? Yes. Did I suggest LEGO last time someone asked me about a present? No.

I can imagine some of the people that don't (ever) suggest LEGO are lower income families as LEGO is an expensive toy compared to others, or parents of kids that don't tend to sit and play but prefer more action based hobbies or sports.

SumoLego said:

Maybe I'm an optimist, but I was heartened to see that the vast majority of kids and parents don't appear to have gender bias when it comes to 'boy' or 'girl' toys, or 'boy' or 'girl' activities, and the fact there is only a 10% differential between parents choices when it comes to LEGO.

I think I am biased. And I think much of society is too. And I don't think LEGO will change that. In the past LEGO have clearly indicated that Friends is aimed at girls. Would I buy a Friends set for my son (if he was much younger)? No. If he was after a Friends boat, I'd buy a City one instead. If he was after a vehicle, again I'd get him City. Friends is clearly a girls' toy and his friends would make fun of him if he had a lot of female minidolls and not minifigures. But the other way around, would I buy City or Technic for my daughter? Yes. If Friends had more male minidolls, and also had a wider range of colours in the advertising, I might change. But then Friends would just be City, with some brighter colours and minidolls.

LEGO can and have started putting boys in the advertising for Friends, but the colour schemes and the five girls on the box - it is still obviously a girls' toy.

An even bigger test - would I buy a Friends set for another person's 8 year old boy if he wanted some LEGO. No. The parents would think I am mocking their son.

CCC

SumoLego said:

Side note, I think LEGO ought to be proud that they stuck with the Friends line (and their market research) to open a new market that other toy manufacturers underserved and ignored.

Yes, I also think they should be proud of it. However, I think they should be proud of it as a girls' toy and that it targets mainly girls that don't like the more traditional City range. It has got (some more) girls into LEGO and building sets when they might have lost them even though for some time DUPLO has had a number of more girl friendly sets that were very similar to the DUPLO sets aimed at boys.

To me, LEGO is a toy for boys and girls. But Friends is a product for girls. If boys want to play with it, that's fine. But I don't think LEGO should go as far as to try to claim that it is for all or not a girls' toy. It used to be that their gift finder would find Friends if you said you were buying for a girl but not find Friends if you were buying for a boy. I don't think they can deny Friends is a girls' range. I doubt they will change society, in that boys seeing another boy playing with a girls' toy, be it Friends or Barbie or My Little Pony, will make fun of them.

Of course, it could be compared to LEGO for adults and how LEGO have changed views there. It used to be that adults that played with LEGO were seen as a bit weird, especially if it was just kids' sets that they played with. Have LEGO shown that LEGO is for adults to recently? Yes. Yet they have changed their products to do that. A lot of the sets in the 18+ range are clearly not kids' toys any more. They haven't just said that it is OK for adults to play with LEGO without changing anything else, they have massively changed the products offered to change views. If an adult plays with a 5-12 set now, they are probably still seen as a bit weird and maybe even more so now that there is an adult LEGO range.

LEGO have shown that LEGO is for boys and girls and men and women. Yet that doesn't mean every set is for everybody. Which is just as well, as otherwise it would be rather boring.

SumoLego

CCC said:
In the past LEGO have clearly indicated that Friends is aimed at girls.

The funny thing is - and I very much appreciate your response - is that LEGO doesn't seem to know what to do.  Friends is clearly marketed to girls, and it took a considerable amount of time for LEGO to develop that market.  Given the present political climate, it appears they've made a decision to retreat from that success and take a more gender-neutral approach.  An approach that may end up reducing that market share that they fought so hard to cultivate.

SumoLego

I also get the sense that the story is looking to satisfy a political agenda, rather than a neutral analysis of arguably questionable survey data.  (An agenda that is ultimately unintelligible in many areas, but well-intentioned.)

And if you're the world's premium and largest toy maker, you've got to try and put out fires before they happen.  I'm not sure why LEGO is concerned about branding or marketing toys to girls, but whatever.

This is the same company that dissolvmarketing rting relationship with Shell.  (A company that makes PLASTIC toys.)

Brickchap

@SumoLego Thanks for bringing this up! It was on some other news sites as well.

Personally I do not understand this 'gender bias' business in regards to Lego. Now I cant comment on their workplace culture or how many women are in higher ranking roles etc., if there is a problem there then it should definitely be fixed.

But as far as the actual toys themselves, where is this gender bias?? There are some themes that may be targeted more towards boys and others more towards girls, but I see nothing wrong with that. I dont recall any sets or themes that are actually sexist.

City and Friends is an interesting one given that the original Lego Town sets had both boys and girls together and the theme was more or less intended for either gender. It has only been in the last decade or so that Lego has really gone down the path of themes specifically aimed at boys or girls, notably Friends, Elves, Disney Princesses etc.

Personally I would argue City is a gender 'neutral' theme, although Lego does clearly focus on the more male subject fields like police and fire (not saying girls cant be interested in those but I think its fair to say big trucks, cops and robbers and all that tend to be a boy thing). The new 'regular City' sets with the roadplates, houses and so forth seem to be pretty neutral to me, although it is confusing given that Friends often comes across as the 'girl version of City'. I dont understand as to why vehicles and buildings have to be pink or other pastel colours, and as Jangbricks often points out, the animals have to have mascara. I guess you could call that gender bias, I just call it stupid.

Some girls in Australia (I dont know how old they were) made a song about everything being pink for girls and I think we should go back to the days of just selling a regular white hospital for example where boys, girls or both can play 'doctors and nurses' and all that. Chances are boys will probably go for the ambulance and rescue helicopter while girls may be more inclined towards the interior details and putting patients in bed, that sort of thing but either way its just a hospital. No need for it to be explicably a 'girly' hospital or 'boys' hospital. 

If Lego did amalgamate City and Friends back into one theme with regular realistic buildings and vehicles and perhaps more emphasis on 'regular' City things which can be for anyone, like restaurants, offices, public transport etc. then I would be happy. Yet Lego is not getting rid of Friends so Im not sure as to what else they are supposed to do?

The majority of City sets already include roughly 50% male, female characters depending on the set. Personally I dont think it matters what the percentage is as long as the torsos for occupations are kept gender neutral (again a weird modern choice where randomly a few years back they started adding 'Barbie doll figures' to female torsos despite not needing to). Kids should be able to swap the heads around as they please. I would question the belief that if a kid sees a little Lego person wearing a uniform and that minifig is a different gender to the child then the child will think they cant be that occupation. Again, the main reason that problem came about was because lego started doing these female specific torsos which all of a sudden implied that any torso without a small waist and obvious bosom were male, therefore all those 'regular' police or fire torsos for example were male specific and left out females which was never the intention. After all, in the Classic days prior to Pirates I believe it was, male and female minifigs were pretty much the same unless wearing specific hair or a dress or something. All those police and firefighter minifigs with a dot dot and smile could have been female if that was what one wanted.

Some people seem to think that lead characters MUST be the same as the audience otherwise those who arent the same 'identity' as the main character will feel left out. That is silly and wrong. I enjoy the Miss Marple character equally as I do Hercule Poirot, and of course I have nothing much in common with an elderly English lady living in a village, or a Belgian detective living in England either for that matter. Here in Australia people complain about The Wiggles because the original cast were all male (they were the fellows who thought it up so...) but heaps of kids, boys and girls, liked the Wiggles and in my experience it was more often girls who liked the Wiggles then boys, probably because of the music maybe. People forget that kids are innocent and have imaginations. They arent worried about politics.

Some themes have lead characters which may be male or female depending on the target audience. I tend to see them as whoever the child wants the lead to be, like Kai in Ninjago is mentioned a lot but then so is Lloyd and Nya, or even Zane or Wu could be the 'main' or 'lead' character. There are for example plenty of female fans of Batman and it doesnt really matter whether its Batman, Robin or Batgirl who is the 'lead', everyone still likes the theme.

Brickchap

@SumoLego Very true. Given how Lego got attacked by Greenpeace for its relationship with Shell, resulting in it ending the said partnership, do you think some lobby group has complained that there's gender bias in Lego (which there isnt as Ive outlined above), therefore Lego feels it 'has to' address the problem? (that doesnt exist)

CCC

SumoLego said:

CCC said:
In the past LEGO have clearly indicated that Friends is aimed at girls.

The funny thing is - and I very much appreciate your response - is that LEGO doesn't seem to know what to do.  Friends is clearly marketed to girls, and it took a considerable amount of time for LEGO to develop that market.  Given the present political climate, it appears they've made a decision to retreat from that success and take a more gender-neutral approach.  An approach that may end up reducing that market share that they fought so hard to cultivate.

It is a bit bizarre. They have a range that is clearly for girls that has done well at getting (some) girls into lego and building. Yet now they are almost denying it is aimed at girls. I've bought male minidolls to add to my daughter's collection but they tend to be left in the toy box unless she runs out of girls. Hopefully the just leave Friends as is, if they start changing it too much (Friends fire engine and lighthouse) they may put off the girls that like it.

It is stereotypical in that it continually does things like horses and stables, and shops. But then that is what (some) girls like. No more stereotypical than fire and police in City.

Brickchap

@CCC Completely agree. Its interesting how no one would argue that City is 'stereotyping boys' by having everything police and fire, yet its 'stereotyping girls' if they do horses and animals. (adding mascara to all Friends animals on the other hand is a tad odd to say the least...)

Ive actually been surprised at some of the Friends subthemes like go karting, racing, even some of the 'outdoors adventure' sets since some would argue these would tend to be more male stereotyped themes and I certainly dont see as to why City shouldnt have go karts or racing, those are definitely as, if not more, popular with boys then girls.

Lego always makes strange decisions 'lets make a very stereotypical 'girly' theme with lots of 'girly' colours but we dont like stereotypes or gender bias! We must have gender equality and make sure every girl knows that they can be a scientist or firefighter or astronaut or whatever they want to be, but lets also add rather sexualised bodies to female minifigs therefore designating which roles each gender can be.

Just on scientists by the way, every Lego scientist minifig thesedays is a young woman (apart from a middle aged lady in the Space minifig pack). Plus we've had both Research Institute, and Women of NASA. What few male scientists we get are always nerdy looking fellows or 'mad' scientists. (there were a couple of regular male scientists in the City Arctic theme from 2014 I believe it was but they had Arctic specific prints).

I dont have any problem with encouraging more females into STEM roles. But it would be best if Lego just gave us gender neutral torsos so that anyone can be a scientist. I also find it interesting how people complain if there aren't enough female knights or construction workers, but its still perfectly okay to always present any man with intelligence as a weird, nerdy, crazy guy?

I can only speak from personal experience which is of course a male one, but I would say that girls these days are strongly encouraged in STEM roles at an educational level i.e school and in toys. In saying that, there is definitely still inequality within actual STEM workplaces which needs to be addressed.

Personally I'd like to see encouragement and recognition of non sporty chaps emphasised as well, at least in my country Australia, where people think a boy is mentally delayed or just plain weird if he prefers to read books instead of bashing up other kids on the rugby field. The arts (music, art, dance, theatre etc.) are strongly ridiculed and unsupported, for both males and females. Maybe if quiet, intelligent, gentlemen instead of overpaid, drunken boofheads were supported and presented as male rolemodels, we would see a better attitude towards women by the male populace both within, and outside of the workplace.

jnscoelho

I know I'm an exception, but I very much prefer Friends (and especially Elves) to City, for ex., because of the colours and originality of the builds. And Friends does have more diversity of buildings and shops than City.
But the theme is obviously targeted to girls. And I've never had to deny any City set to my girls, as they just don't ask for them, they only ask for Friends, NINJAGO (I got into NINJAGO because of them) and DOTS.
And NINJAGO is not very girl-oriented, but still they like it. No problem with that.

I just tell them they can like and do whatever they want. And often they go for things that are considered "girl things", but I guess that's because the bias starts at birth.

daewoo

My youngest daughter has a pretty sizable Friends collection but will not touch anything else Lego.  So yes, Friends is oriented toward girls and it worked to sell sets to my daughter.  Take Friends away and Lego loses a Customer.

hTristan

I think 'city' should be about structures and machines, and 'friends' or whatever the line gets called should be about life's little vignettes. I think in its current incarnation friends is a bit of a fever dream aesthetically, but I'm not 9 years old.

SumoLego

Perhaps all of this is just window dressing and there will still be some (less obvious) differentiation between Friends and City.

Ultimately, LEGO is in business to sell product, so sales will continue to be the primary motivational factor.  LEGO still makes product made from petroleum, and the environmental activist bunch has seemed to have left LEGO alone.  (The irony of a wind turbine set made from decayed and refined dinosaurs still makes me smile.)

hTristan

The plant range is made with less plastic-y plastic I think, but yeah they'll obviously be hard at work looking for new brick materials.

Phoenixio

SumoLego said:

Perhaps all of this is just window dressing and there will still be some (less obvious) differentiation between Friends and City.

Ultimately, LEGO is in business to sell product, so sales will continue to be the primary motivational factor.  LEGO still makes product made from petroleum, and the environmental activist bunch has seemed to have left LEGO alone.  (The irony of a wind turbine set made from decayed and refined dinosaurs still makes me smile.)

Making things out of petroleum isn't even the issue, so if there really were environmental activists throwing stones at LEGO for that, they really need to go back and learn what the actual problems with oil and plastics are.  Like you know, burning oil which makes tons of CO2, or throwing away plastics which can't biodegrade...  LEGO certainly isn't part of that problem, not through the bricks at least.

CCC

hTristan said:

The plant range is made with less plastic-y plastic I think, but yeah they'll obviously be hard at work looking for new brick materials.

They are both as plastic-y as each other. The difference is the source of the chemicals used to make the plastic, not the actual plastic itself.

SumoLego

I don't want to start a new rabbit-hole discussion, but I'm always puzzled when people arbitrarily pick discreet sections of an industry and levee all sorts of criticism, but wholly ignore other areas that are actually more destructive.

i.e. - electric cars are great - until you factor in the energy and environmental issues that batteries cause.  

As a child, I remember wondering why we don't just launch our plastic garbage at the sun.  Until you factor in the energy to launch anything into space, it becomes quote obvious...

(It took humanity 50 years to get Captain Kirk into space.)

Phoenixio

SumoLego said:

i.e. - electric cars are great - until you factor in the energy and environmental issues that batteries cause.  

Interesting tidbit: once you electrify the whole mining/extraction/fabrication of batteries, the impact really isn't as big as it is now.  It's one of those weird circles where batteries need to be used for their own production to become greener.  As long as we rely on heavy machinery that uses oil/coal, then yeah, environmental issues.

lowlead

....

Eh, nevermind.  *deletes draft, backs slowly away*

Brickchap

@lowlead Looks like you had an opinion? Oh Jesus, a personal opinion! You're not allowed have an opinion. Someone else might disagree! Good thing you didn't say anything.

That's sarcasm btw. ^

lowlead

HA!

I did have an opinion, I did.  But it doesn't really belong in a LEGO forum, and I didn't want to reem that rabbit hole...not my kink. 

hTristan

Electric cars seem to be 'great' in the sense that if we actually taxed all the various resource extraction activities at their social cost, we'd end up with roads full of electric cars. Well. Probably electric buses and light rail. But yanno.

WesterBricks

I have no idea how unpopular this opinion will be….

I love recolors.

If I had a million dollars, I would have a whole wall full of classic Model Team sets in every color I could possibly make them with available parts.

SumoLego

hTristan said:

But yanno.

Anyone participating in modern society ought to be in favor of a long-term effort to eliminate emissions and minimize negative effects of accelerated or augmented climate change.  I can only image the overall cost of protecting existing assets from minor rises in sea level.

For instance, resources should be put into making the overland trucking industry electric-viable.  I appreciate wind and solar research, etc, but with the tons of emission pumped into the atmosphere, progress won't be made unless a maximizing your efficiency comes first.

But I'll move on.  There's nothing less interesting than discussing theorhetic environmental politics.

SumoLego

WesterBricks said:

I love recolors.

Especially Friends-inspired Star Wars vehicles.

The_Rancor

I would call them Star Wars inspired Friends vehicles, but horse for courses and all that

EGRoberts

WesterBricks said:

I have no idea how unpopular this opinion will be….

I love recolors.

If I had a million dollars, I would have a whole wall full of classic Model Team sets in every color I could possibly make them with available parts.

I just started a re-color of some x-wings to have a blue squadron with my red so can't argue with that comment!  

Marshallmario

I think a picture of the two squadrons is required!

Astrobricks

The person on here who did recolors of the classic space ship needs to repost it. I can’t find it using search.

Mr_Cross

That was me 😁
The thread/post if you want to read about how stupidly expensive it was:
https://forum.brickset.com/discussion/32874/odyssey-no-918
...the start of it in my flickr stream here, if you just want photos.

All I'll say is, "If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny!"

KungFuKenny

Mr_Cross said:

That was me 😁

@Mr_Cross - that pic warms my heart (Both now and when you posted originally!)

SumoLego said:

WesterBricks said:

I love recolors.

Especially Friends-inspired Star Wars vehicles.

I made this a while back, but here you go…

lowlead

Mr_Cross said:

That was me 😁...

OH MAH GAWD how did I miss this???

The Raven, Firefinch, Grackle and Peregrin are my favorites.  Love those darker color schemes!!  What a great project!!  Jelly.

daewoo

WesterBricks said:

I have no idea how unpopular this opinion will be….

I love recolors.

If I had a million dollars, I would have a whole wall full of classic Model Team sets in every color I could possibly make them with available parts.

So, I've built every possible color combination of #3177 Small Car - well, as of two years ago.  I've got so many of them now I have no desire for more.  :D

Brickfan50

@daewoo I liked that car so much that I also built it in other colors. It’s now the most common car in my ‘city’. (And also best in scale compared to the modulars, imo)

Phoenixio

I love that car as well, got a few variations of it through different sets, but am also looking to build more.  Might not be that unpopular an opinion after all :P

Cymbeline

Funny thing...

daewoo

I do admit that some of the combinations are kind of ugly, but different strokes for different folks.  And I couldn't find the other box for the rest.  :(

pxchris

A possible unpopular opinion... 

By and large I really dislike the look of mixing old and new colors together in a MOC. It's even more egregious in a rebuilt set. I find my distaste for this especially prevalent with the old grays and the newer blueish grays. The mixing of browns isn't quite as offensive to my eyes.

Now, I have seen a couple of builders who used a mix of the grays to create a weathered look where it actually turned out fairly decent, but, for the most part every time I see them mixed together it's just very off putting to me visually. 

Bumblepants

pxchris said:

A possible unpopular opinion... 

By and large I really dislike the look of mixing old and new colors together in a MOC. It's even more egregious in a rebuilt set. I find my distaste for this especially prevalent with the old grays and the newer blueish grays. The mixing of browns isn't quite as offensive to my eyes.

Now, I have seen a couple of builders who used a mix of the grays to create a weathered look where it actually turned out fairly decent, but, for the most part every time I see them mixed together it's just very off putting to me visually. 

Yeah I agree. The old grays just look dirty next to the new ones to my eyes. 

560Heliport

But... using the pieces you have is the essence of LEGO!

Brickchap

@560Heliport Well if I only have enough bricks in colours to make a multi coloured MOC (like a child), that still doesnt make it better then a detailed MOC with realistic colours.

The old greys look a tad washed out next to the new ones, although I dont mind old brown for different types of wood.

iwybs

I do my best to avoid old gray. I think it looks dirty.

560Heliport

A multi-colored MOC is better than anything never built due to lack of parts in the right colors! 

I like the old dark grey, especially for old, weathered wood.

Astrobricks

Of course, old light gray especially tends to have the brown bromine discoloration, so it really is dirty.

tne328

I don't want more than one of any named character. One Ant-Man, one Clay from Nexo Knights, and so on. It was hard enough to head-canon that my Captain America is not the same person as onscreen Steve Rogers, just has similar appearance, tendencies, and abilities, and is associated with that character, I don't need a dozen Darth Vaders, Batmans, or Kais to parse out which one represents which facet of the character. (Exception for Rogers and Wilson versions of Captain America, because even onscreen they are clearly different people.)

Phoenixio

I think that's a fairly popular opinion here.  On the one hand, LEGO wants main characters accessible since most families/kids will buy a handful of sets from a theme, and on the other hand, us mad collectors who get whole themes get tons of duplicate characters that we'd rather exchange for other less popular ones.  It's a fine line to walk for LEGO, and they follow where the money comes from.

On that note, Vidiyo had 0 repeat characters, and yet that didn't make the theme all that popular either.  I wish City would also just be random passerby, but with the TV show, there's more and more named characters in the sets.

arathemis

I think what tne328 wants to say is: let there be a vader in 2-3 sets per year, but the minifig itself needs to be the same. I dont want 5 vaders that each have a unique print on its torso or legs.