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I guess it’s time for a lurker on .castle to finally say something.
There’s a lot to be said about Lego’s choices for what 2004
holds in store for
the company, it’s true. The color change
had many in a frenzy, and there’s
still some sour feelings
among members of the AFOL community. The only traces
now of any of the original Legoland lines are what’s left of
the Legends and
“My-Own-Creation” lines, and even now
those are kinda being skewed with the
color change in mind.
And now, Castle fans, who are probably more desperate
than ever to finally get a theme where castles and vast armies
can be built
once again have...well, at least there are the two
aforementioned lines to help
them out.
Now it seems like Lego is trying to continue having children
as its target audience, and with so much competition not just
with action
figures, but with other building toy companies
(first time that’s probably
happened since Tinkertoys and
Lincoln Logs were all the rage) as well, they
need to stay on
top and appealing, with all sorts of new gimmicks and moving
parts and the like. Y’know, “pizzazz”. But with this comes
some
sacrifice...granted, a lot of kids who’ll stay involved in
Lego would much
rather build exquisite castles or detailed
spaceships than “action scenes”, but
a lot more kids would
get into Lego for the “action scene” sets. Bigger market,
although, as any writer (cough) or artist will tell you, the artist
is the one
to suffer as a result. And this also means there
needs to be a bright colour
palette used to draw attention
and keep interest--hence the “Roy G. Biv”
knights. So as a
result of trying to compete and make a few bucks, you lose
out on getting a hold of some solid, perhaps needed
structures and some
easy-on-the-eyes figures.
So what can you do? Yeah, these sets are visually
unappealing, but they’re
popular and Lego isn’t exactly in
dire need to recall them and replace them
with something
different. I guess that leaves two options: boycott, maybe
even
going so far as to give up the hobby, or...try to make
the best of it and think
up some news ways to apply the
creative juices to these sets and the figures.
Someone
suggested painting the armors and such, but maybe with
enough of the
knights, entire factions can be created. The
violet? Use the old Gungan shields
and make them into elves
or a “night” theme. The red? Maybe mix with another
colour
and use them as mercenaries or a mountain clan. The green
could
probably easily be used for a forest/woodsy-type
army. Even the light blue
could be some group of knights in
the frozen wastes (at least that was my
impression when I
first saw a picture of them). As for the pieces from the
sets,
those could be use to help create landscapes or even ruins.
All it takes
is a little imagination.
Yes, these news sets aren’t going to be as appealing to the
AFOL crew as a
massive re-release of the tiny “Black
Knight” kit in the original colour
scheme, but inside them
contain a massive amount of possibility. Maybe not for
castles or shops...but for little details that may otherwise
evade our minds.
One hell of a stand to take given that this is my .castle
de-lurk, but...figure it might at least provoke some thought.
R.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Knights’ Kingdom™ is ugly.
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| Okay, I know I'm not saying anything new here. But give me a moment before you pass this off as another rant: I realize there are things going on at the company we AFOLs don't know about. I realize there is probably a certain piece-to-play ratio (...) (20 years ago, 2-Jul-04, to lugnet.dear-lego, lugnet.castle, FTX) !
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