Subject:
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Re: End of Year Thoughts
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 30 Nov 2001 00:15:43 GMT
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Viewed:
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679 times
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In lugnet.general, Richie Dulin writes:
> > Without some sort of Town or City sets designed for an older age
> > bracket (6-12), then they have simply designed a way to go nowhere.
> No, they've designed a way to go somewhere other than town.
True, in that they don't have to bridge to Town, or at least not Town as we
think of it. But I fail to see the "bridge" from Jack Stone to anywhere
else either. I still do not see how these themes-for-younger-children
somehow lead into collecting later themes. How do themes like Jack Stone
bridge a gap between Duplo and, say, Harry Potter? To Star Wars? To LoM ?
To Studios? To Soccer? To Adventurers? ...I'm not seeing it...
Okay, maybe I can see that Creator sets (which are similar to old Basic
sets) could bridge from Duplo years to Soccer or Studios. But even those
seem speciallized to me.
> LEGO doesn't have to be town.
Also true! But do these junior-themes bridge a gap between Duplo and any
senior-theme? I'd be just as happy to see a large selection of classic
inspired general Space sets, or general Castle sets, or even something new
-but with breadth of concept -Romans, Martime (non-piratical,
non-Gilligan's- Island-Native Age-of-Sail stuff), heck Neolithic Age,
anything. But *open-ended* in concept would be good. I digress. My point
is, I fail to see how junior-themes bridge to anything, Town or otherwise.
I might point out that I am on the fence about junior-themes. I agree they
may have a place. Just as did Fabuland, Homemaker, and a range of other
themes geared toward the pre-mini-figure age groups. But I still sense that
TLC has developed such new things at the expense of others. It's like they
are saying, "Okay kids, you can be creative until you are six years old.
After that you must succumb to over-marketing of fad-driven product that has
no relation to your earlier experience. Ha Ha Ha." (Okay, I exaggerate a
tad!) 8-)
I grew up on LEGO that evolved through the age groups...
Primo-> Duplo-> JuniorTypeStuff-> EasySystem/Legoland->
ComplexSystem/Trains-> Technic/Mindstorms.
Of course, in my case I jumped straight to System and stayed there, but I
sensed all along where the other themes fit in the program. Today's themes,
junior ones included, seem to just be thrown about with no sense of purpose
or relation, despite the previous few posts that argue otherwise.
This lack of focus is *very* evident in the brochures and catalogues of
late. I remember the brochures of about 1984-1985. On every page there was
a progression exactly following that above format. The layout went even
further, grouping Basic between the junior-themes and System. They also
grouped the System by Theme and then by Sub-Theme, very neatly and in a
logical order. ....Quite the contrast from the last few catalogues I have
seen. Both the in-box brochures and the S@H books seem to almost randomly
toss various, often unrelated set in your face. Sure it looks like some hip
marketing and all, but it requires some extra looking through to see what's
what -and isn't the idea to tell the consumer everthing in only one glance??
I also prefered that old organized look of the brochures if for no other
reason than that it beautifully mirrored the toys themselves -LEGO by nature
has an ordered straight-line look to it.
Also interesting, remember all those junior-themes I hinted at in the last
few paragraphs? Nope, me neither. Point is, TLC has always struggled to
produce and market to that pre-system age group. Children like me just
skipped it and started with mini-figures too early. The result was children
like me matured a little faster, learned how to work with LEGO younger, and
thus developed the creativity and conceptualization that so many AFOLs have
today. ...And wasn't that what TLC wanted to be good at in the first place
(well, aside from the making money from it part) ?
Wooo, more digression.... Sorry..... =)
-H.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: End of Year Thoughts
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| (...) Playing devil's advocate here: kids like to feel artificially "big". Switching from Town Jr. to Star Wars is a "big kid" kind of thing. Switching from Town Jr. to regular Town sets doesn't have that kind of prestige. A smooth transition (...) (23 years ago, 30-Nov-01, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: End of Year Thoughts
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| "Hendo (John P. Henderson)" <hendo@valyance.com> skrev i meddelandet news:GnL7E7.K3D@lugnet.com... (...) By being 'in between' when it comes to complexity, dexterity, patience and concentration needed for building the sets, maybe? (...) Ha." Or (...) (23 years ago, 30-Nov-01, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: End of Year Thoughts
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| (...) To a myriad of other LEGO products. (...) No, they've designed a way to go somewhere other than town. LEGO doesn't have to be town. Cheers Richie Dulin (23 years ago, 29-Nov-01, to lugnet.general)
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