I’ll admit… this latest wave of LEGO slipped entirely under my radar, and I totally missed the reveal yesterday of the results. I wasn’t overly enthused for anything in the lineup. I would have liked the museum set, but it seems unlikely that they’d return to the same well twice in Ideas. I loved the movie Short Circuit, but it’s very niche compared to the other throwback stuff we’ve gotten (and, let’s be honest… pretty hard to watch Fisher Stevens doing the most racist caricature of an Indian guy in the past few decades; at least Apu gets some depth and variety).
At this point, we know a few basic rules about LEGO Ideas that seem to get ignored by most submissions
- Stuff in existing themes never make it through
- Stuff that’s too big never makes it through
- Seasonal stuff that can’t be sold all year never makes it through
Go through that rule, and it was down to the Museum, Old Fishing Market, and Johnny 5. And Old Fishing Market is the one that made it through this round. It’s a great model, though I expect a few changes, probably shrinking it a bit and putting a different color around the outside that matches whatever current parts are available. I do like that it’s not a license or some tie-in to other stuff, and look forward to getting my hands on this one eventually.
We also get the announcement of the next wave that’s going in for review, though we’re not going to hear anything about it until next year. We can write off the UCS Landspeeder right away (even though it’s a great model), and Large Hadron Collider is out because there was a similar thing rejected last cycle (and this one is just… ugh); probably the same for the Women of NASA. Modular Construction looks too large, Lamborghini would be competing with an existing set, and I don’t see the Addam’s Family or Little House on the Prairie moving forward. Merchant’s house would just be too similar to the fishing, so it’s likely out too.
That’d leave the Eagle II, Lovelace & Bababge, Voltron, and Observatory as possibilities. Voltron could end up being a dark horse, since there was a cartoon released by Amazon this year, but it’s by DreamWorks, and I don’t know if there’s a relationship at all. I would love to see the Eagle II show up. Sticking to that particular vehicle was smart, since it could sidestep stickiness with Star Wars by omitting Darth Helmet entirely. The other two… who knows.
That leaves us with
