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In lugnet.starwars, Kevin Loch wrote:
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Brad spoke to this at the BrickFest Q&A session. The NBA
minifigures depict actual people. For the most realistic
effect, they were made with dark or light skin colors,
just like the real people they are modeled after.
Generic (yellow) minigures represent no specific person
or color of skin. It is up to the imagination of the
individual as to what color they are.
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The NBA situation is easy to figure out on the fact that they include not only
the first black minifigs, but also the first white ones. If people complained
that there weren’t any black minifigs in the regular sets, you could finally
point to the NBA 3-packs and show evidence that there aren’t any white ones
either. As much as I wanted a black Lando, I know this is going to cause a lot
of problems for them. Already FBTB has a few people who are cluttering their
forums with complaints that Lando isn’t “minifig colored” (i.e. yellow), and
that they don’t know if they can continue to buy SW sets because of this. On
the other end of the irrationality spectrum will be the people who argue that
since the one SW minifig who represents a black person was made with brown
plastic, and all of the SW minifigs who represent white people were made with
yellow plastic, then obviously TLC intends for yellow=white, and thus all LEGO
sets are multiracially devoid. My personal stance on it is that the “everyone
is yellow” arguement worked fine until 1999, when the SW series was first
introduced. If they had gone the same route they did with the NBA 3-packs (i.e.
generic spaceman is of indeterminate race and is produced in yellow, while Luke
Skywalker is clearly white and is produced in pink/beige), there wouldn’t be any
problem with producing Lando in brown plastic, since you could point at the SW
series and show proof that in the SW universe, yellow minifigs do not represent
white people.
My guess is that everyone at TLC is so used to thinking in terms of all minifigs
being yellow that noone even considered this eventual problem when starting up
the line in 1999. After the first wave of sets were released, they were
effectively stuck with having yellow minifigs in the SW universe, and three
equally displeasing choices on how to deal with the issue of Lando minifigs.
They could produce him in the same yellow as everyone else...and risk
disenchanting the vast majority of SW fans who collect the series only because
it’s SW. They could produce him in brown...and unintentionally create the
yellow=white association, while also disenchanting all of the LEGO
traditionalists who fully invested themselves into the yellow=everone mantra.
Or they could skip Lando entirely...and risk pissing off pretty much everyone
except white supremecists. Obviously the last choice isn’t the best way to go.
The United States became the world’s largest consumer of LEGO product about the
time that the SW sets were first released, which means that, especially where
the SW series is concerned, special attention has to be paid to how sales in the
US will be affected. And quite frankly, in a society that has been watching The
Simpsons (where yellow=white) for 16 years, the argument that yellow=everyone
doesn’t fly very well. Yes, odd as it may sound, this entire situation might
have been unknowingly decided by a moderately successful British comedienne’s
variety show.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Lando minifig picutre HERE
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| (...) Excellent idea (I wish they had done this, in fact), but I don't think the problem really revealed itself until people started begging for a "black" Lando fig. Luke and most of the main characters had already been released by then, so there (...) (21 years ago, 11-Aug-03, to lugnet.starwars, lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Lando minifig picutre HERE
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| (...) Brad spoke to this at the BrickFest Q&A session. The NBA minifigures depict actual people. For the most realistic effect, they were made with dark or light skin colors, just like the real people they are modeled after. Generic (yellow) (...) (21 years ago, 10-Aug-03, to lugnet.starwars, lugnet.general, FTX)
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