Subject:
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Re: LEGO Group and Disney Consumer Products Announce Building Sets Inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.mediawatch, lugnet.pirates
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Date:
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Mon, 22 Nov 2010 08:32:02 GMT
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In lugnet.mediawatch, John P. Henderson wrote:
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I’m torn about this announcement. On one hand, I am not a fan
of the licensed Lego products. IMO, they limit the imaginary story and
characters, and thus influence creative building. Star Wars, though a movie
series that I love, is no exception, and I would much rather see Lego produce
more “generic” space themed sets. For PIRATES, my feelings are similar - I
fear that a licensed POTC theme would limit some creative potential.
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What I always saw as a core problem with the Pirates theme is that you basically
get small ships, large ships, forts, and the occassional island. That’s pretty
much it. Ships are ships are ships are ships, and where the Space subthemes had
some very distinct hull designs, tall ships almost always used the same large
hull pieces, and it all basically boiled down to how they trimmed the model.
PotC might force a change in that regard, as the Flying Dutchmen would require a
very different look than anything they’ve ever done before, and there’s the
possibility of seeing a large non-Western hull design (namely junks, as seen in
PotC3). We might also see some of the fishy types from PotC2 and PotC3, where
previously every minifig fell into five distinct factions (only three of which
got any serious coverage). Oh, and the skeletal pirates, which was only hinted
at with that half-ship from the recent Castle theme.
Another thing to consider is that licensed themes, contrary to popular griping,
almost certainly keep costs down. The release of the first Star Wars sets is
what catapulted the US into the largest single consumer-nation of LEGO sets,
which means they’re selling a LOT more sets than they were in 1998, which in
turn means the theme should have no problem covering the licensing fees and
still turn a nice profit without having to jack the prices up. If you go back
through the last ten years and do a price/piece comparison, you’ll find that
Star Wars sets are no more expensive than any interal IPs, but people are always
crying about how expensive the sets are. Well, compared to a bulk bucket that
requires very little product development and even less in terms of part
selection, yes, they’re expensive. So are City sets, so that argument doesn’t
hold up no matter how you look at it. Now, look back a few years to when TLC
posted not one, but two annual losses in a fairly short period of time.
BIONICLE was the top theme coming out of that period, and Star Wars was right
behind it. Harry Potter was another strong seller in those days, so a huge
chunk of the sales that were keeping the company solvent and allowing it to make
a comeback were from three themes that hardcore traditionalists have regularly
held up as what’s wrong with the company. To me that says that they either
don’t know what they’re talking about, or what they’re really trying to say is
that they regret the passage of time taking the primary market in a direction
that’s different from what they’d prefer to see.
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