Subject:
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Re: what makes a legend?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego.direct
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Date:
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Sun, 21 Oct 2001 13:24:00 GMT
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Viewed:
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702 times
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In lugnet.lego.direct, John Neal writes:
> In lugnet.lego.direct, Brad Justus writes:
>
> >
> > The topic is: what makes a LEGO Legend a legend?
>
> <snip>
>
> A great question. To me, it has a lot less to do with nostalgia, and more with
> set complexity. I do understand the current catch-22 that TLC is facing these
> days with its juniorization policy of sets (feeling the need to hook younger
> kids having shorter attention spans). So maybe if the sets being produced today
> were more complex, the whole "legends" idea would be moot.
Short, sweet and to the point. You summed up the entire problem in your
last sentence.
LEGO buyers are BEGGING for good quality sets.
> Sure, it's from 1966 and a Legend, but it's mostly common bricks!
>
> Here me now and believe me later: despite juniorization, I'll take what is being
> produced today over anything produced 25 years ago. Give me tan, brown, dark
> gray (dark red;-) over the primaries of the past. The sets may have been more
> complex in the past, but who really keeps a set together anyway? (I have 1,000+
> sets and not one is together). And if one *does* keep sets together, why not
> just be a Playmobil customer?
The point that I think often gets lost here is not *keeping* the sets
together forever (you're right, this isn't what they're for) but rather
*wanting* to buy the sets in the first place. What made those old sets sell
wasn't nostalgia for what had once been, but rather it was the joy of how
great the sets were then. What is the real problem now is that the
continued lack of quality designs will eventually see the kids of today
drift away from LEGO. Not to enter a Dark Ages, as many of us adults did,
but rather to abandon the system forever. Who will look back as an adult
and want to declare themselves a fan of Bionicle? Try getting together a
convention of Adult Fans of Micronauts today and you'll find it's a tough
job. Fad toys do not produce lifelong fans.
But you're right, the best of the sets of the past were a joy to build once,
then take apart and use for other things. With all of my old sets though,
rebuilding them months later was always something that happened. There were
good as sets, and also good for parts. The best of both worlds. It *has*
happened in the past and there's no reason it can't happen again in the future.
> I hear many people applauding the older sets because of their complexity, but
> you can bring them back *and make them better*. So take a "legend" *design*
> from the past and update it in some new colors!
I can't argue with you here. This is also a good idea.
> I would advise against being
> beholden to the idea of trying to reproduce a classic so carefully-- that misses
> the whole point in my mind. *Forget* about nostalgia, it's all about the bricks
> and what we can do with them *after* the set has been torn apart and sorted into
> the collection:-)
See my comments above. The need isn't to recreate the nostalgia of past
sets, but rather to build new nostalgia for today's kids.
Regards,
Allan B.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: what makes a legend?
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| (...) <snip> A great question. To me, it has a lot less to do with nostalgia, and more with set complexity. I do understand the current catch-22 that TLC is facing these days with its juniorization policy of sets (feeling the need to hook younger (...) (23 years ago, 21-Oct-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
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