Subject:
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Re: More on the decline of LEGO quality.... [long]
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.year.2001
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Date:
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Fri, 5 Jan 2001 03:53:45 GMT
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Viewed:
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875 times
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In lugnet.general, Tim Culberson writes:
> ----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?
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):
http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/2001/c01am-100dpi/c01am-15.html
Or how about Life on Mars with their nice backdrop and a scene full o' action:
http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/2001/c01am-100dpi/c01am-10.html
http://www.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/2001/c01am-100dpi/c01am-11.html
Now I wouldn't say that these scenes beat all the ones you mentioned but
they're not bad. They do have a painted background but it's hard to produce
the surface of Mars with Legos (I'm sure some people in .space would agree
there). So I thought I would be a bit of the Devil's Advocate. Take no
offense to my ranting.
-Nick
(Links are from Brickshelf.com, thought I would continue the trend.)
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: More on the decline of LEGO quality.... [long]
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| (...) Okay, fair enough, I agree that the 2001 catalog has some pretty effects and pictures and stuff, but IMHO, they're still nothing compared to much of the old ones....I find the "cut and paste" nature of the pictures kind of cheap (...) (23 years ago, 5-Jan-01, to lugnet.year.2001)
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