I am done with Lego. And no, it's not because I stepped on a brick in the middle of the night last night, suffering what can only be described as the worst pain in the world, although yes, that's a permanent source of rage for every parent, really. No, I'm done with Lego because that sacred cow of millions of geeks who grew up happily constructing elaborate vehicles, castles, cities, and imaginary lands, is no longer the Lego of our childhood. It's time to face the hard truth: Lego is evil now. On the one hand, the story of Lego's resurgence in the past few years is a remarkable tale of innovation and canny survivalism. The patents on Lego's brick design began expiring in the early 2000s; the original patent expired in 2011, and despite many attempts by Lego to get its patents extended indefinitely and then to trademark the design, the company was eventually forced to admit that innovation was its only road to continued success. Enter the new saga. Lego 2: The Licensing. It started with "Lego: Star Wars," of course, and the library of licensed Lego goodness now includes, to name just a few, Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Batman, Speed Racer, Indiana Jones, Toy Story, Cars, The Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, Super Heroes (including figures from Marvel and DC Universe), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and even, heaven help us
, a set based on the new "Lone Ranger" movie. Here's a list, if you're in the mood. Things really got genius in 2011, when Lego went ahead and created its own original series, Lego Ninjago. The premise is brilliant, from a merchandising and sales perspective. There are six main characters, five of them ninjas who have to go through various stages of training and ninja accomplishments -- meaning multiple permutations of minifigures from just the primary cast. Then there's a different set of villains for each season, each set of villains has its own vehicles, weaponry, and mechs, as do the ninjas, and virtually no single minifigure is available for sale all by its little lonesome -- only as part of a set that ranges from $10 if you're lucky to $100 and up if you're the parent of a fanatical 3-, 4-, 5-, or 6-year-old child. Now there's "Chima," a show that aired once, near as I can tell, but which has still spawned a million minifigs. Plus, many of the themes also now have companion character encyclopedias, which are little more than catalogs for greedy, brand-obsessed children.
The hype around the must-have toys is so intense it's even led to full-on Lego fraud rings, and I myself bought a sketchy standalone minifigure on eBay that arrived wrapped in tissue in a Ziploc bag, just to avoid spending $30 or $40 on yet another ridiculous "set." My biggest complaint about the licensed sets, other than their always increasing cost, is that they're basically the antithesis of the Lego model: where I remember building and learning to build with the Lego blocks of my youth, these new sets simply require children to follow somewhere between 100 and 300 steps to build a very specific, one-time use vehicle or environs. Then, 2 to 7 hours later, they're done, moved on to the next shiny branded toy. Yes, of course, you can deconstruct the sets and build something else out of the blocks, but many of these new pieces are specialty parts that hardly fit anywhere else: wings, bolts, circular attachments, pointy triangle blocks. They're less interchangeable than they've ever been.
Plus, with all the emphasis on characters, the minifigures are the focus of most of the attention: kids will beg their parents to buy a $40 set, mine the minifigures, and toss the rest into a separately sold, branded storage bin. And do not get me started on the Lego for girls sets that have started to spring up in the last year or so. After all, once Lego is no longer even remotely about creativity, problem solving, or imaginative thought, why not go all the way toward pandering to ludicrous gender stereotypes and producing a bunch of pink crap. I'm hardly the first to complain about Lego moving to a licensing model that costs a lot, turns our kids into brand slaves, and dampens their creativity -- but what really gets my goat is that the company is simultaneously trying to cling to its creative roots by releasing imagination-oriented sets and products for adults. Take the newest release from the Lego Architecture Studio line, which, wonder of wonders, consists of a box of bricks, no instructions, and "a world of endless creative possibilities."
As a parent and a consumer, I am exercising my right not to fill my child's life with Yet Another Piece of Plastic, and I'm sorry to report that Lego is included in the "your grandparents can get that for you" list. I bought him a good old-fashioned box of bricks for $30, and someday soon I am going to get a 3D printer and some decent CAD software and you are going down! We're reviewing quite a few LEGO® summer sets over the next few weeks and several are from Legends of Chima, as they offer many new parts and colours of elements. Kicking things off today with 70135 Cragger's Fire Striker is builder extraordinaire and actual real scientist guy Tim Goddard, who also tells us of his special relationship with Chima... When I first saw the Fire and Ice Chima sets it was a bit of an assault on the senses: crazy colours and shapes everywhere, but now that I’m used to it I think it’s rather clever. There are plenty of new bits to get excited about and it gives a nice clear divide between factions, reminiscent of Space themes past.
The larger sets in this wave have obviously been built around a large play feature somewhat to the detriment of appearance, especially the Fire sets. This might not be how adults would like to see them but it certainly makes them exciting to play with. I’ll talk about how this affects this set a bit more later on. Before I get into the nitty gritty of the review I’d like to indulge myself a little and let you know why Legends of Chima is a line I’m particularly interested in, and hopefully pass on some behind the scenes information you might find interesting. Early in 2011 I got an email from Adrian ‘Olog’ Florea. Famous for his MOCs as an AFOL, he had recently become a LEGO Designer and had been tasked with recruiting four AFOLs to take part in a development workshop. How could I say no? In what seemed like no time at all I was on a flight to Billund, the holy ground of LEGO HQ. Once there I met up with the other three AFOLs and we soon started speculating about what we were going to be doing and just how excited we were to be doing it.
After a brief introduction to the ‘fuzzy front end’ team that we were working with we were shown some artwork based around minifig animals, their tribes and vehicles, castles in the sky and power crystals. Animals riding animal-shaped machines fighting each other for energy? We could work with that! The next three days were each filled with 12 hours of building and lots of discoveries. We worked together as a team, helping each other out, so many of the models created were collaborations. Legends of Chima was still very much in development at this time; the idea of Chi was there and I remember making lists of which animals should be good or evil but we were mostly there to build. Of course LEGO Designers were there as well but I think us AFOLs were drafted in to help get new and different ideas flowing. We were encouraged to cut and spray elements which felt very wrong at first but I soon got into it. I saw stuff I still can’t reveal but most things have been released by now.
Resin versions of the ball and socket joints that would eventually end up in the Legend Beasts struck me as having all sorts of possibilities and I saw Lord of the Rings models before it was known LEGO had the license. There was also a lot of strange and new colours and these weird doll-like minifigs, what could they be? Most of the building was done from large sets of drawers on wheels sorted much like an AFOL would have. And then there was the basement. Racks and racks of every brick currently in production, many of which had yet to reach retail. I can’t say that anything I built over those three days ended up as a set but I’ve definitely seen hints of some of the things I created particularly in the first two years of release. I’d love to see those models again but of course we could not take any pictures at the time, confidentiality was strictly enforced. But I should really talk about the set I’m reviewing. To sum up, it’s a crocodile wheeled tank which shoots fireballs.
The build is very Technic-heavy as everything is designed around the ‘Fire Chi Power mode!’ Essentially the model is a hollow rectangle with a wheel on each corner and a lever mechanism that is an impressive piece of LEGO engineering. Pushing the ‘tail’ down opens the mouth and folds up side panels with the ubiquitous projectile launchers. I’m never very keen on building this type of System scale model which is dominated by pins and beams. I guess the reason this type of set doesn't appeal is because it is nothing like how I build; it uses lots of the types of pieces I use only sparingly and is really annoying to take apart again. On the plus side the unfolding mechanism is very strong and works flawlessly every time and to good effect. On the negative side it makes the model look unfinished with exposed colours and beams that take away from the overall look. There are some interesting parts and a few new ones. LEGO's recent obsession with claws continues with a new type with a clip: two White ones (Element ID 6072900 |
Design ID 16770) are exclusive to this set and there are three Trans-Orange [BL]/Tr. Br. Orange [TLG] versions (Element ID 6070057), which also appear in various other sets just released. If greens are your thing you are in luck. Six Dark Green [BL]/Earth Green [TLG] baby bows (Element ID 6055225 | Design ID 11477) are currently exclusive to the set, as are sixteen 1X2 grille tiles in swamp, sorry, Olive Green (Element ID 6071200 | There is a good selection of other Olive Green bits too, including various slopes and basic plates like four 1X1 plates, six 1X2 plates and two of the new 1X1 round tiles (Element ID 6047015 | When Tim J asked which sets I would like to review from a list, one of the reasons I chose this set was two Technic pieces. Neither are new but both are comparatively rare. The three-long Technic connector with 2 pins and centre hole in black (Element ID 6055630 | Design ID 15461) has only been in 42021 Snowmobile before, but is suddenly in loads of sets just released.
It strikes me as having all sorts of possibilities, not least a micro Star Wars frigate. The other piece is the weapon barrel in Light Bluish Gray [BL]/Medium Stone Grey [TLG] (Element ID 6039505 | First seen in the most recent UCS X-wing, I’ve been waiting to get hold of this nice textured piece for ages. Perfect for Building the Future. Does anyone collect Zamor spheres? If so you will like what I make to be the 27th colour variation so far (Element ID 6075599 | Design ID 95753), and rather nice it is too. The brand new flame piece with bar at top and bottom (Element ID 6083865 | Design ID 16768) looks rather useful and appears in seven sets in this wave and the flame-printed 1X1 round tile (Element ID 6074926 | Design ID 98138) should keep any pyromaniacs happy. Retro aviators will certainly be happy with the Dark Red [BL]/New Dark Red [TLG] engine piece (Element ID 6024071 | The little catapult looks a bit odd to me in the Light Aqua [BL]/Aqua [TLG] shade, would White not have better conveyed snow and ice?
Anyway the 75° 2X1X3 slope (Element ID 6027624 | Design ID 4460) is new. Various pieces not previously released in Trans-Light Blue [BL]/Tr. L. Blue [TLG] appear across the range and this set exclusively has two of the palm leaf with clip (Element ID 6052986 | Also noteworthy are the left leg and right arm in this icy colour. New Elementary is intrigued by these new trans limbs. We’ve had trans heads and hook hands before, but never limbs. Can we expect to see a full trans hologram/ghost figure soon? The polycarbonate used to make most transparent parts is tricky stuff, it shatters much more easily than ABS and can stick to itself which is why you should never put a trans bar in a trans round 1X1 brick, for example. But as trans limbs are a new introduction does this mean LEGO are using something new? It was time to deploy science to find out. The following spectrum is an FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) scan of a trans arm from this set and it shows that it is indeed polycarbonate.