Today, LEGO Ideas reveals the results of the most recent review. In case you missed it, the Review Board had to evaluate a whopping 57 projects, including ideas based on sitcoms, fairy tales, and even some unusual concepts. According to the announcement published on the blog, there is great news about three projects, one from each of the mentioned categories.
The first project to be approved is Jazz Quartet by Hsinwei Chi.
Next, The Office, the iconic sitcom is finally getting a LEGO rendition based on the project by Jaijai Lewis.
Finally, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs project by Harry Finkel is still under review. We will have to wait for another update to learn the future of the project.
Here are the results of the review in one picture:
What does need further review actually mean? Hopefully Snow White will most likely still become a set.
Love love love that the Jazz Quartet made it, such a wonderful new set, we are definitely buying it.
So dissapointed that Office made it over other cool sets (BUGATTI!), dull repititious twaddle rendering of yet another sitcom
People might buy the Snow White, but hardly anyone will buy the other two. Lego needs to get it’s head out of it’s ass and get REAL people to review the sets not pretentious art snobs.
I am getting very tired of all these tv show sets that only appeal to the fans of the show and maybe some other people for parts. There were a few way better sets in this lineup that would appeal to WAY MORE fans.
Ah, yes, “real people.” The only people whose tastes count. People who only find worthwhile the same things I do.
I’m not a fan myself, but I don’t think TLG has to worry about selling “The Office.” There is a shitton of “Office” merch out there. Someone is buying it.
Pretty dull picks with the Jazz Quartet and Office. I guess they are safe choices but uninspired. Won’t be purchasing either. Was hoping for something bolder like the Steampunk Airship.
Someone said they are tired of TV show sets getting approved that only appeal to fans of the show. Yes, part of how they judge a set is how popular it will be. Look up what was the most streamed show of 2020. The Office is one of the most popular shows and still has a cult following whether you like it or not.
Thane, I agree. And as someone who respects music (I own the Yellow Submarine from Ideas, thank you for that!), I think a generic brick built band is really questionable creative. For that kind of stuff people get real moulded/painted figures for recognisability. And a generic office… Oh well.
These tv show sets sell well, that’s why they keep making them. Y’all may not like them (I’m not particularly interested either…) but hey, it ain’t for you.
I suspect the Snow White set requires more review because of the Disney involvement.
The jazz quartet is easily the coolest amongst these three, but will probably be least popular with the general public.
The Office set is going to sell like crazy. I’ll buy one for sure (I have the Friends apartment but no other sitcom sets).
I sort of hope the Jazz Quartet comes with a saxophone player rather than trumpet so I can make them the Dave Brubeck Quartet (and also because I play saxophone). Should be easy to customize though, the beauty of Lego!
I’d love a Ricky Gervais minifigure! Oh wait, it’s the american version -.-
If Lego goes with generic dwarves than no reason to involve Disney. Glad the Lego sitcom sets make money but not for me. What’s next “Married with Children” or “Golden Girls?” I would buy MwC actually. I like seeing more interesting City (or ones that fit in with City like Ninjago) sets. That and NASA of course.
Instead of having sitcom-based sets using up Ideas spaces, why hasn’t LEGO made that it’s own theme? LEGO SItcoms! We’ve had Big Bang Theory, FRIENDS twice, Seinfeld, and now The Office (US)?!
I think part of the issue with the sitcom sets is that a lot of us don’t only not buy them, we don’t know anyone that bought them or saw them bought. Nick here in the comments is the first time I have noticed someone saying they bought one. So I think what might be happening is sort of like those soccer stadia, the bulk of the sales are people outside the hobby ordering online. Which might be a good thing for lego, they drop a lure into another fan base and then that person goes from a Seinfeld fan that bought a single lego set to an AFOL.
The only TV show set I would buy would be the original Addams Family — but they would have to release a dozen new colors, all grays, to do it. Which would be cool, but not a lego direction.
But then again, lego makes odd excuses and moves in odd ways — just because they could do a lot better, does not mean they have to because they are fine as they are. Like how they said they could not make the UCS A-wing for years because of the canopy. That canopy in a ton of colors would probably be one of the most useful pieces in modern lego from architectural windows, a new naboo starfighter, sluice mixers in city sets, all sorts of windows and farings in planes and starships, bullet train front ends, helicopter butts… I mean compared to some of the weird parts that got through with less effort, it’s a massively flexible part.
But I admit that even if the sitcom sets sell well, they could sell a lot better. You have these sets that lego sees could make a modestly better profit whilst overlooking sets that could make a good deal more. As I said, they are probably fishing for more customers, but sometimes it might be better to sell 4 or 5 sets to an established customer than one set to someone who will never buy lego again.
With lego gobbling up parts of the resale market, they hold onto even the parting out elements. If lego paid more attention, they’d probably see that if a weird part sells a lot on bricklink, putting a couple of that part in a set would sell the set — that’s entire sets sold by putting a couple light purple grills or something in it. Lego could probably get a three-fold profit increase from that over these sitcom sets without any licensing or legal headaches.
Overall, I think that the ideas sets have been undermined in general. They have slid from lego learning about their customers and interacting in a way that grows the brand and support of the community to lego formulating pure interest zones for market expansion. They’ll bring in more customers, but ideas is not going to be a strong reflection of the lego community’s desires. And then when the actually good sets do get through the ideas process and do not sell well — because they were chosen on a fluke of beauty and not community desire like the piano or this jazz quartet — lego does not have a clear path forward for choosing good sets outside those that will do market expansion.
My solution would be to weight the ideas voting process. General people get one vote ideas vote. People with lego shop accounts get one ideas vote and one hidden, purchaser vote. People who buy a certain amount of lego per year get one ideas vote and two hidden, purchaser votes. The ideas votes stack up and show the same on ideas as normal and have to reach the same threshold, but the hidden votes count up in the background. This would then tell lego the difference between sets’ actual impacts — i.e.; you have two sets with 10,000 votes; the one with 560 purchaser votes is wanted by those outside the community, the one with 9,730 purchaser votes is wanted mostly by those inside the community, and the one with a purchaser vote count upwards to 20,000 would be huge amongst the big spenders. Outwardly, we would see nothing, but it would give lego actual feedback that might help even out the distribution between garbage lures and popular sets for everyone.
As Robert points out (Oct 15th, 11:59), do Disney have to be involved. It was, atfter all, written down by the Brothers Grimm (presumably from oral stories), first filmed by others (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White ) – it’s not a Disney invention.
Unlike others, I like the Jazz Musicians, because they’re *not* a particular band – you can make the who you want them to be.
Probably won’t get the office, as I’ve never watched it that much & when I do, it’s the UK version. There are others on that list I’d have personally gone for.
Disney have to be involved, because they have managed to copyright most of what we now visually think of as “Snow white”. Lego could work around that by avoiding these elements and making a generic set, but why do that when a Disney licensed set would presumably sell better and one of their biggest license partner would probably be really pissed off otherwise ?
The fraction of Ideas sets that are licensed themes is extremely disappointing. There are market reasons I can imagine for this, but this is essentially the only avenue for amateurs to create a design and have it officially adopted. It seems antithetical to both the brand and the idea of the line that so many completely original ideas and expansions of existing lines (modulars and castles, particularly) get ignored for this stuff. It wouldn’t hurt if people stopped putting every license in existence into the system, but it is a lot easier to adapt something into LEGO than to come up with a doable, really creative MOC.
The jazz quartet strikes me as a pretty nifty looking set, both attractive in appearance, original, and showcasing different building techniques than some of us might typically use (I don’t do figures on that scale, but it makes it look fun). I hope they trim the stage down, though, since it looks like it might double the price of the set.
I feel bad for the person who submitted the OTHER “The Office” entry. Kinds seems like they should have acknowledged both creators here. The 2nd design was simpler, but seems a lot more charming. Hard to believe the final product won’t reflect anything from that submission.