Nine go in, how many will come out? The 2015 3rd Review period is near a close so the question on thousands of supporters and at least 9 designers minds is which ideas will make it to actual production. All of these have something going against them and some things in their possible favor. Select the two that you think have the best chance:
I can’t say that I know who is going to make it through to production, but here are a few thoughts on each submission:
- Jurassic Park Car – JP is a current lego theme and they do have plenty of sets, but mostly from the newer movie. This car is neat, but almost seems like the designer was factoring the success of other Ideas Movie Car sets such as Ghostbusters and Back to the Future.
- Nautilus – Likely to be a bit on the pricey side, but not the most expensive in the bunch, this set has a great look to it. The movie it hails from is not going to be as big of a draw as more current movies, especially when the kids going down the isles have all been raised with Pixar and Computer animation. The classic nature of this will have to target an older audience.
- Landcruiser – I’m sorry, I don’t get it. Its just a regular production car…wouldn’t this only appeal to people that own the car or wish they owned it? Why not make a Corolla or Civic, at least then you’d capture a much bigger population of car owners.
- Yellow Submarine – You might say Beatles licensing is hard to get, but McFarlan toys has done it so its not impossible. This set looks to be a reasonable size, so the cost shouldn’t be insane. Its colorful, unique to other Lego sets, and comes with the fab 4 figs. Not much room for expansion and it is yet again another Famous vehicle with figs entry (recal Ghostbusters and BTTF).
- HMS Beagle – “She’s a lovely ship, its a shame you’ll have to go down with her.” Interesting that this bunch of 9 has such classic and vintage motifs. I doubt Lego will opt for brick built sails rather than cloth but they do state in the competition no custom cloths so that might be why the designer went with bricks. Its neat, but they do have a lot of pirate ships that are similar in previous sets. This also hits one of my peeves, virtual built.
- Appollo 11 – Coming with the lander and other components is the redeemer of what looks like a pretty mundane set. In that reguard, there could be some play value in simulating a launch, orbit, and landing. Also virtual built – boo.
- Concorde – A retired airplane for the elite? Do Europeans really like this plane still?
- National Parks – By far the most simple, and I’m not sure, would this only appeal to North Americans? In the sense that it would be inexpensive, simple, and license free, this one is possible, but a little dull as it currently stands. You see a lot of vignette sets on Ideas like Science girls and fig displays, maybe that’s what they were going for.
- Victorian London – This is obviously a set that people supported because it looks awesome and not because they would be willing to pony up the cash to buy it. Would this thing be 500$, 800$ More??? Its incredible looking, but its more of a store display than a set a lot of people will get. I don’t think we’ll be seeing this one in stores any time soon. Designers should post their part count when they post their idea I think.
Why do I dog on virtual built sets? – So many of the virtual built sets are enormous proposals that would cost 100 to 20000$ in stores. I think its weird that someone will think others will want to buy their $100 Lego set idea when they themselves didn’t even buy the parts to build it. Also, I’ve once designed a set in virtual bricks and thought ya, this looks good, all the right colors. Then I built in off-color bricks and found out that design had fatal structural flaws and needed a lot of redesign to make it hold up. Virtual bricks may be good to post your title picture and show what colors you think it should have, but I think all ideas sets should be built in real bricks to show that its a good design and that the creator is actually serious about it.
Which one do I want to win? – The Yellow Submarine. Mainly because of all 9, the only one I would actually consider buying is the sub. The rest are either going to be too expensive or not of my particular interest.
