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Subject: 
Re: LEGO General/Harry Potter Rant (Was - Re: Harry Potter Creator box art)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.harrypotter, lugnet.general, lugnet.dear-lego
Date: 
Sun, 27 May 2001 06:48:31 GMT
Viewed: 
2451 times
  
In lugnet.harrypotter, Jeff Thompson writes:
In lugnet.harrypotter, Matthew Gerber writes:
Hey all,
4) General - Hagrid is a brick. You thought the Creatorfigs were bad? At
least they are mobile! This dumbing-down (juniorization) is really getting
out of hand.

I have mixed feelings about this.

a.  Yes, he's a brick.  Uck.

   However . . .

b.  He is no more immobile than the LEGO Ghost figure, though,
   whose ghostly body prevented the minifig legs from moving,
   if the set bothered to include legs at all.  From this point
   of view, the figure is no more limited in terms of play value
   than a well-established figure that's been out for a decade or
   so.

c.  I hope that the beard fits normal minifigs as well!  I will
   love that hairpiece element if it does, and I will hate it if
   it doesn't.

d.  At least he's just a brick.  If LEGO had bothered to retool
   the minifig completely to make an adult-proportioned minifig, we
   would have even more cause to be concerned that minifigs were
   being phased out entirely.  At least this "just-a-brick" concept
   doesn't threaten the idea of minifigs completely, the way that Creator
   minifigs do.

5) General - Looking at the hair pieces as rendered in 3D on the box cover,
my thought is that LEGO is moving towards blobby chunks of plastic meant to
be "more realistic", instead of well sculpted and detailed elements, to
represent hair. Case in point: The Alpha Team Buzz Cut. An admireable idea,
poorly developed/executed. Every instance of this piece I have seen is flat
in the back left quadrant. Not mis-molded...mis-sculpted. In this age of
computer-aided design and rapid prototyping, there is no reason for this
poor level of element to be produced. And the rounded detail leaves much to
be desired, as the deeply defined hair elements of the past worked much
better to get the point across. BTW: Harry's got a 'fro!

e. I didn't notice any significant sculpting flaw in the buzz-cut
  hairpiece.  Assuming that by "back left quadrant you mean the
  "southwest" portion of the hair (if viewed from the top, with
  the face of the minifig pointing north) I don't see anything
  wrong at all.  Certainly nothing I wouldn't have noticed on
  my own, and nothing that bothers me now that you have
  directed my attention to this portion of the hairpiece.

f.  I don't mind the "smooth" appearance of the buzz-cut.  I
   think that if it was more deeply carved, it might be distracting.
   I like this element.  Comparing it to the "hippy hair" element from
   years ago, I don't notice much difference in the level of detail.

g.  I am thrilled with the hair pieces that we see on the cover of
   this Harry Potter software!  The female hair and the wizard
   hair-and-beard look fantastic (praying, of course, that the
   beard will work on normal minifigs).

6) General - Like some of the other new LEGO product, the faces as
represented on the minifigs on the game box are rendered with very thin
lines. I assume that this is meant to express more detail and realism. While
this is all well and good, the fact that even on different sets in the same
theme, different styles are being used shows a seriously poor coherent whole
across the entire LEGO line. While some face elements use such thin lines
that some are almost non-existent (e.g. Young Anakin), others use similar
line weights to the classic head elements of the past (e.g. Han Solo). Why?

h.  In general, faces with thin lines seem to be pitched at an
   older age, and figs with thick lines seem to be pitched at a
   younger age.

   The thick-lined faces look messy to me.  I'd rather just see a classic
   smiley-face than a face with thick sloppy printing on it.

   I have no complaints about the faces of the Harry Potter figures.
   They look great to me!

   They do wander far afield of the classic smiley, but that is the
   norm for figure faces nowadays.  The thin-lined details appeal to
   me more than the thick-lined details we have seen on some faces in
   the past few years, and look to be on par with the level of detail
   we've seen on some of the best Star Wars faces (Anakin and Qui-gon
   Jinn).

   I do hope that whatever bad-guys there may be in the Harry Potter
   universe don't come with ugly faces.  I'm very tired of LEGO
   promoting the idea that an unattractive person is an evil person, as
   they do in almost any themes with sides that are in conflict with
   each other (example - the 2000 castle sets, with the hideous faces
   of the 'bull' figures, or the scarred faces of the Adventurer bad
   guys, or the snarling faces of the western bad guys).

--

Jeff <jthompson@esker.com>   "Float on a river, forever and ever, Emily"
The entertainment industry has portrayed the good guys as young and
handsome, while the bad guys are old, fat, ugly, ect. It has been ingrained
into us from birth. Just check out those soap operas that women watch and
you'll see. And the only way an old or ugly person can be attractive is if
they're wealthy.-Harvey
p.s. And by the way Jeff, "See Emily Play!!"



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: LEGO General/Harry Potter Rant (Was - Re: Harry Potter Creator box art)
 
(...) I have mixed feelings about this. a. Yes, he's a brick. Uck. However . . . b. He is no more immobile than the LEGO Ghost figure, though, whose ghostly body prevented the minifig legs from moving, if the set bothered to include legs at all. (...) (24 years ago, 21-May-01, to lugnet.harrypotter, lugnet.general, lugnet.dear-lego)

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