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----Note: FUT: lugnet.year.2001 (I figure this is probably the best
place but feel free to change :)----
...Sorry if this has been discussed but I was pondering today on the
subject of the LEGO catalogs.
We've all yakked lots about how LEGO designs are becoming juniorized,
cheap, smaller, less interesting, blah blah blah...but what about the
LEGO catalogs? Although I was certainly younger at the time, I remember
being just fascinated looking at the catalogs of the lat 80's and early
90's themselves because of all the inspiring and interesting scenes that
were created. They gave meaning and purpose to all of the various sets
in a particular theme such that the sets belonged together!
Lets take a walk back in time and observe....starting with the most
recent years.
Well, myself being a town fan the 2001 catalog is the most
dissappointing of course, but for the sake of this argument lets look at
a closely related theme such as trains for this year:
http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/2001/c01am-100dpi/c01am-19.html
...wow a train in no particular place or situation (again, for the
purpose of this discussion let's ignore the fact that the train looks
like something from a really bad sci-fi flick)....now lets look at a
train from 1995:
http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/1995/c95uk/c95uk-37.html
Holy cow! Talk about making the train appealing and inspiring hours of
play here! We have a whole scenario with details left up to the
reader's imagination. Like a good novel we become involved in what's
going on adding our own ideas and thoughts. "...hmm....I'm going to
have to build an ambulance out of my existing LEGO to help that poor
dude with the 1x1 plates falling on him.....and what about that cargo
being unloaded - it has to go somewhere - guess I'll need to build some
trucks.....and so forth...."
We can see a progression from so-so to good to awesome to worse again
and finally to just plain pathetic....just take a look at the below pics
in order:
1979 http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/1995/c95uk/c95uk-37.html A
Nice friendly town scene - perhaps a bit too much chaos with police and
fire and ambulance all racing around not to mention the darned crane in
the middle of the street! :)
Let's jump ahead 8 years to 1987 now
http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/1987/c87eu/c87eu-08.html Once
again, stuff is happening in this town! There's an emergency
here...police, fire, and even news team are on the scene.
Two years later....
http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/1989/c89nl/c89nl-23.html
I start making up stories about the minifigs within 10 seconds of seeing
this photo.
In 1991...
http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/1991/c91eu/c91eu-07.html
This is probably my favorite LEGO catalog scene of all time - correct me
if I'm wrong but this is also only 1/2 of the full scene if I'm not
mistaken. I distinctly remeber looking at this particular picture for
hours!
1996 http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/1996/c96eu/c96eu-04.html
Yeah, we're still doing pretty good here!
1998 however...
http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/1998/c98na/c98na-18.html
...still has some action happening, but those individual set photos
pasted on the hand-drawn background are a far cry from the real photos
of the past...
And by 2000....
http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/2000/c00am-100dpi/c00am-27.html
We're right down the poop-hole if you ask me.
Any thoughts?
--
-TiM
NB, CA
http://echofx.itgo.com
t_c_c@yahoo.com
3ch0fx
(Note: As if anyone didn't know already anyways I feel it's important
that you're aware these scans are credit brickshelf.com - thanks Kevin!)
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Message has 6 Replies:
 | | Re: More on the decline of LEGO quality.... [long]
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| (...) I tend to agree with you for the most part but I do have some complaints. The 2001 catalog has some nice scenes. Take for example the Alpha Team, the heir to the town throne (or so it seems): (URL) how about Life on Mars with their nice (...) (23 years ago, 5-Jan-01, to lugnet.year.2001)
| | | Re: More on the decline of LEGO quality.... [long]
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| (...) EXACTLY. This ought to go in dear LEGO, don't you think. The catalogs have gotten plain BORING. I scan through my collection of catalogs (catalogs mean TOYS!) at least once every three days and find myself WISHING that I could go back to 1991! (...) (23 years ago, 5-Jan-01, to lugnet.year.2001)
| | | Re: More on the decline of LEGO quality.... [long]
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| wow, I never noticed that before, but yeah it seems like the catalogs have gone way down in quality too. Jeeze I remeber buying sets just to try and recreate the scenes in the catalogs. That harbor scene is like the coolest one though. Matt Marshall (...) (23 years ago, 5-Jan-01, to lugnet.year.2001)
| | | Re: More on the decline of LEGO quality.... [long]
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| (...) I know this has little to do with the original message, of which I fully agree with, but I must mention something. In the only magazine example I didn't remove, I believe I can see Captain Ahnee! Yes, this is strange, but I really think the (...) (23 years ago, 7-Jan-01, to lugnet.year.2001)
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