None. I think Lego should stay away from licensed themes. Licenses only makes Lego more expensive and doesn't require any imagination when most of the themes are based on Hollywood movies.
The downside to Lego licensed themes is that in my opinion it forces creators to be put in a corner when designing sets. Instead of letting designers run rampant and wild with imagination they are forced to recreate scenes and such from the licensed media.
My point exactley. If you have a pile of legos from classic space your imagination would probley takeoff and build allot of spaseships and scenes like stations that just pop out of your minde. With starwars youl probley be ships and scenes from the movies or books. X wing' ties' tatoine. Even when you think outside the theme you'l still be sticking to some desing features to make it fit the theme. It's easy to create and recognizeable to buyers so they keep doing licenced but I realy wish more creative stuff came out. With ninjago' monkey kid and dreams the non lisence action themes seam to still be trying to standup to marvel and starwars but I wish something like agents and classic space came back.
Glad I'm not alone, Se. I talk about unlicensed themes a lot on this channel, they're part of what made me a LEGO superfan. Feel free to stick around and check out those other vids, would love to hear your input on those topics.
That troll is legos best bigfig. I remember when I finally found one at a Lego convention my parents took me to it was like 12 bucks and at the time I remember acting like it was the biggest purchase of my life. Man those were good times.
When I was a kid I remember the only licensed themes being Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Spider-Man which were all great to have because it was a decent mix between those themes and original themes. Now when I go into a Lego store there's almost exclusively licensed sets with the exception of City. Miss when I could flip through the catalog and see Rock Raiders, Alpha Team, Adventurers, and more. As much as I hate to admit, we're never going to see so many original themes again with just how much money these licensed sets generate.
I remember years ago, about 2009 or so with Toy Story 3, realizing that LEGO likes to chase properties that have been successful in the past and now have a new chapter (Indiana Jones, Toy Story 3, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and so on). It's like a marketing strategy to suggest some security investing merchandise into that license. But just because it's a reliable brand, doesn't make the new installment as successful as its contemporaries.
the dino theme was a continuation of the adventurers dino island theme, one of the characters is even called Josh thunder. Meanwhile another descendant of Johnny thunder sharing the name is now a wildlife/jungle photographer in lego city.
5:15 in brick form, yes, but there was a Wooden toy of Pluto released by LEGO in the 1940's, mostly a short-term license but fascinating they collaborated that far back nonetheless.
i just like the figures, way goofier than Lego IJ. They also feel like lego people, I don't know what it is, but some characters and figures feel.. off? when they aren't the yellow skintone, and the IJ figures were one of them, they were kinda too pink and too bright for my taste. all in all, the Adventurers theme figures just feel, better. they look and feel like a cartoon imitating and making fun of IJ at the same time.
I hardley ever aply stickers. You can't always get them on rite and they were out. I have manny printed bricks and figures from years ago that still looks fine and alot of stuff I order used like off ebay have stickers aplyed and even if put on good they start pealing off on moste surfaces. Too manny stickers have obvious theme designs and that can limit building for something else. I realy dislike it when stickers are placed over multiple pieces. Whether it's used to hold the set together or cause the sticker detail is too small and must be mixxed in with uther detail it means you can't seperate the bricks and that goes against what lego bricks are suposed to be. Take apart and rebuild and create new builds
LEGO Dino was likely a test run to see whether there would be appeal for such a line-up among their fans and to test the viability of the large molds required for the dinosaur figures.
Unlicensed themes are the heart and soul of Lego. I'm building my own lore and I don't need figures with fleshy skin. Wait, am I some kind of racist now?!
Very good analysis! After watching this, it becomes so obvious that the Dino theme was just a test run for Jurassic World. It's unfortunate, because it just shows how important Licensed themes are to Lego, that they're willing to throw a bunch of sets out, get the fans hyped, and then immediately cancel the whole thing.
Lisenced themes are lego's way to make easy sets we relate to and cause they can just recreate scenes and charecters that already exsist. Even when we get more creative sets that are pretty creative and don't actually apear in movies or comics and such it's still lisence acurate in some ways. I like to get lisence themes and take the figures and sets apart for custom desings. I built a couple ice castles based a bit off frozen but created my owne charecters called the ice faries and thier strugle with a human sepremessy movemant called the monster hunters bent on anililating all non humans.
@@TheOmegazerox That makes sense, but, to me, it's the same as Hollywood and their reboots - a cash grab. It may be easier for us to relate to and access, but that's only because someone else put in the work to build that franchise from the ground up. Your Frozen-esque idea sounds cool, though!
@@Onewa Yes I agrey on your point. Entertainment like hollywood and such at large have lost creativity and see reboots and such as easy money. It works part of the time but can realy be lazy and bad at times.
My story on my ice casttle builds. Queen Alizza of the ice faries lost her husband and daughter to the monster hunters as well as her human son inlaw when he risked his life to protect his half human ice fairy daughter Rinna and bring her to her grandmother. Rinna growsup in her grandmother's casttle. Alizza never hides the fact Rina is half human but encurages her to embrace her ice fairy side. One day a young man named Collin rides into the mountians on a slegh colecting firewood but is ambushed by wolves. Rinna drives the wolves off with her ice magic and brings Collin to the casttle. Alizza is not vengfull to humans about her losses but a bit woried having a human around. After a few days she sees Collin poses no threat in fact Collin and Rinna fall jn love. Alizza will not let them marry out of fear Rinna could suffer her mother's fate. Collin understands and will not put Rinna in danger. The monster hunters capture Rinna leading Alizza into a trap. Alizza and Rinna are trapped in a room with a magic stone that dulls thier ice magic. Collin fights thru the building and smashes the stone. Alizza could have killed the monster hunters but does not wish them to fear and hate her. When King William hears what happened he forces the monster hunters to disban and publicley apologizes to Alizza as he feals it should have bin his responcibillty as king to avoid this especially cause he thout the monster hunters wer ment to protect people not on some evil crusade. Collin and Rinna merry and have a daughter Alora.
I always prefered Adventurers to Indiana Jones. But that might also be due to my nostalgia for their search of Marco Polo's treasure, one of the longest treasure hunts in any Lego Theme.
This was a very fun video and a cool concept to consider. I think Adventurers (Johnny Thunder) is the one most draw closest to Indiana Jones inspiration, as well as Jurassic Park in the Dino Island sub-theme. I can now see the inspiration for the Fantasy Era castle theme, in relation to Lord of the Rings.
It was inspired more by Warhammer Fantasy than LOTR, that's why orcs are green and dwarfs share a lot of design traits with GW's Dawi. And necromancer's skeleton army is just a straight up rip-off of Heinrich Kemmler's army from Terror of the Lichemaster campaign.
With the potential issues and controversies that the Indiana Jones Lego sets have had to deal with (i.e. the Temple of Doom set), Lego should just bring back the Adventurers theme imo, scratching the I.J. itch without dealing with the headache that IP seems to bring.
While I would love to see Adventurers return, I'm not sure if it would survive as a theme in today's world. Between Indiana Jones underperforming at the box office and the release of 3 sets, none based on the new movie, I think it's safe to say that an adventure like theme may not see great success. That being said, I do think an Adventurers GWP or small LEGO retro remake would be a hit. It wouldn't be a theme, but hey, it would be better than nothing.
So the any old themes that can make a comeback without competing with any licensed theme would be Western (as there is no big western movie to license with at the moment) Castle (sort of as there are still more LOTR media being developed and can be used to continue the License with Lego) I wish Divers or Aquazone would make a comeback but I think the Avatar license takes that genre for now...
I’m certain that my childhood love for Bionicle was fueled by its creativity, uniqueness, and intriguing mystery. It allowed me the freedom to create my own stories and express my ideas. I believe that many kids often prefer clear definitions of their characters and storylines, which may not necessarily encourage creativity. Bionicle, on the other hand, inspired a different kind of imaginative exploration.
I actually do that. At first - like some- I did not like skin tone cause it looked too pale next to yellow. But it grew on me and I custimize figures off lisenced themes. I made a castle wizard with a lightning staff and he has Thor's head with the reversable head showing his eyes lit up. I do the same with stsr wars jedi and such creating my owne idias.
Licenced themes we're the worst thing to happen to Lego. When I was a kid, the toys had their own lore, and you could add to it in so many creative ways. Now everything is just based on a movie.
I love Lego Jurassic world. I remember as a kid I painstakingly down all of the sets. I think I actually returned the Lego tea Rex one from Jurassic World and I’m pretty upset about that now. Lol. That said, Lego Dino was better
The only few licensed set that I ever had for myself was some Prince of Persia or whatever set, (That set had ostriches that were cool.) and The Lego Movie. But othervise licenced sets are just boring.
I personally feel that Dino had potential but Lego was to lazy to create a story. Like you said it was to test the water for Jurassic world. It could also be argue that it was a reamp of Dino island. I personally would like to see Dino given a proper story. But I know Lego lacks creativity
You know mate, I don't wanna toot my own horn too much, but what I like about my own sets is that they allow for much more creative freedom and originality, whereas those sets from (that stinky amateur!) Indiana Jones are far more constrained: they have to look like what the movie looks like and can be played with in only one way: that what happened in the movie. And it's not just my own sets, I like Lego's Pirates far better than Lego's Pirates of the Carribean, Lego's Space theme far better than Lego's Star Wars, and so on.
What is your favorite licensed theme that replaced an unlicensed property?
Lotr no contest
I'd have to say LotR, too. Those sets were awesome.
Since optimus prime sets release theres possible that Lego transformers will replace bionicle I mean there both robots
None. I think Lego should stay away from licensed themes. Licenses only makes Lego more expensive and doesn't require any imagination when most of the themes are based on Hollywood movies.
@@joeywelander1833 Thanks for sharing your thoughts Joey. Nice to see someone else that recognizes the importance and value of unlicensed themes.
i just hate that these licensed properties have taken away what made lego so amazing, original themes. I miss pirates and castle
Same here. I love a good licensed set but without unlicensed themes I doubt I’d be a LEGO super fan today. Thanks for the support Ivan!
The downside to Lego licensed themes is that in my opinion it forces creators to be put in a corner when designing sets. Instead of letting designers run rampant and wild with imagination they are forced to recreate scenes and such from the licensed media.
I mean that's just how it is
My point exactley. If you have a pile of legos from classic space your imagination would probley takeoff and build allot of spaseships and scenes like stations that just pop out of your minde. With starwars youl probley be ships and scenes from the movies or books. X wing' ties' tatoine. Even when you think outside the theme you'l still be sticking to some desing features to make it fit the theme. It's easy to create and recognizeable to buyers so they keep doing licenced but I realy wish more creative stuff came out. With ninjago' monkey kid and dreams the non lisence action themes seam to still be trying to standup to marvel and starwars but I wish something like agents and classic space came back.
Thats pretty obvious
@@criminalmind27 Okay man...
I prefer the unlicensed themes honestly
Glad I'm not alone, Se. I talk about unlicensed themes a lot on this channel, they're part of what made me a LEGO superfan. Feel free to stick around and check out those other vids, would love to hear your input on those topics.
That troll is legos best bigfig. I remember when I finally found one at a Lego convention my parents took me to it was like 12 bucks and at the time I remember acting like it was the biggest purchase of my life. Man those were good times.
When I was a kid I remember the only licensed themes being Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Spider-Man which were all great to have because it was a decent mix between those themes and original themes.
Now when I go into a Lego store there's almost exclusively licensed sets with the exception of City.
Miss when I could flip through the catalog and see Rock Raiders, Alpha Team, Adventurers, and more. As much as I hate to admit, we're never going to see so many original themes again with just how much money these licensed sets generate.
I remember years ago, about 2009 or so with Toy Story 3, realizing that LEGO likes to chase properties that have been successful in the past and now have a new chapter (Indiana Jones, Toy Story 3, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and so on). It's like a marketing strategy to suggest some security investing merchandise into that license. But just because it's a reliable brand, doesn't make the new installment as successful as its contemporaries.
the dino theme was a continuation of the adventurers dino island theme, one of the characters is even called Josh thunder.
Meanwhile another descendant of Johnny thunder sharing the name is now a wildlife/jungle photographer in lego city.
Great video. But I would like to point out that another example of this is Speed Champions, a theme with real cars, replacing Lego Racers.
Wish they would bring back their own space theme's again
Absolutely! Feel free to watch my video “What Happened to LEGO Space?” Where I attempt to talk about these missing space themes
My childhood was Adventures, Mars Mission, Alpha Team, Racers and Basketball/Soccer.
Sad to see I had it so good back then.
5:15 in brick form, yes, but there was a Wooden toy of Pluto released by LEGO in the 1940's, mostly a short-term license but fascinating they collaborated that far back nonetheless.
Johnny Thunder was way cooler than Indiana Jones, loved the adventures theme
I’d have to agree. That line was littered with amazing sets. What’s your favorite subtheme of Adventurers?
@OurToyWorld I loved the Egypt theme the most overall, but favorite set was the T-Rex transport
@@kunu1990 That’s a banger! I love Orient Expedition. Such a great lineup IMO
i just like the figures, way goofier than Lego IJ. They also feel like lego people, I don't know what it is, but some characters and figures feel.. off? when they aren't the yellow skintone, and the IJ figures were one of them, they were kinda too pink and too bright for my taste. all in all, the Adventurers theme figures just feel, better. they look and feel like a cartoon imitating and making fun of IJ at the same time.
After LEGO introduced Stickers it is a big mumbo-jumbo for me!
"Destined for generations" is just empty words now
I hardley ever aply stickers. You can't always get them on rite and they were out. I have manny printed bricks and figures from years ago that still looks fine and alot of stuff I order used like off ebay have stickers aplyed and even if put on good they start pealing off on moste surfaces. Too manny stickers have obvious theme designs and that can limit building for something else. I realy dislike it when stickers are placed over multiple pieces. Whether it's used to hold the set together or cause the sticker detail is too small and must be mixxed in with uther detail it means you can't seperate the bricks and that goes against what lego bricks are suposed to be. Take apart and rebuild and create new builds
LEGO Dino was likely a test run to see whether there would be appeal for such a line-up among their fans and to test the viability of the large molds required for the dinosaur figures.
Unlicensed themes are the heart and soul of Lego. I'm building my own lore and I don't need figures with fleshy skin. Wait, am I some kind of racist now?!
Very good analysis! After watching this, it becomes so obvious that the Dino theme was just a test run for Jurassic World. It's unfortunate, because it just shows how important Licensed themes are to Lego, that they're willing to throw a bunch of sets out, get the fans hyped, and then immediately cancel the whole thing.
Lisenced themes are lego's way to make easy sets we relate to and cause they can just recreate scenes and charecters that already exsist. Even when we get more creative sets that are pretty creative and don't actually apear in movies or comics and such it's still lisence acurate in some ways. I like to get lisence themes and take the figures and sets apart for custom desings. I built a couple ice castles based a bit off frozen but created my owne charecters called the ice faries and thier strugle with a human sepremessy movemant called the monster hunters bent on anililating all non humans.
@@TheOmegazerox That makes sense, but, to me, it's the same as Hollywood and their reboots - a cash grab. It may be easier for us to relate to and access, but that's only because someone else put in the work to build that franchise from the ground up.
Your Frozen-esque idea sounds cool, though!
@@Onewa Yes I agrey on your point. Entertainment like hollywood and such at large have lost creativity and see reboots and such as easy money. It works part of the time but can realy be lazy and bad at times.
@@TheOmegazerox Exactly.
My story on my ice casttle builds. Queen Alizza of the ice faries lost her husband and daughter to the monster hunters as well as her human son inlaw when he risked his life to protect his half human ice fairy daughter Rinna and bring her to her grandmother. Rinna growsup in her grandmother's casttle. Alizza never hides the fact Rina is half human but encurages her to embrace her ice fairy side. One day a young man named Collin rides into the mountians on a slegh colecting firewood but is ambushed by wolves. Rinna drives the wolves off with her ice magic and brings Collin to the casttle. Alizza is not vengfull to humans about her losses but a bit woried having a human around. After a few days she sees Collin poses no threat in fact Collin and Rinna fall jn love. Alizza will not let them marry out of fear Rinna could suffer her mother's fate. Collin understands and will not put Rinna in danger. The monster hunters capture Rinna leading Alizza into a trap. Alizza and Rinna are trapped in a room with a magic stone that dulls thier ice magic. Collin fights thru the building and smashes the stone. Alizza could have killed the monster hunters but does not wish them to fear and hate her. When King William hears what happened he forces the monster hunters to disban and publicley apologizes to Alizza as he feals it should have bin his responcibillty as king to avoid this especially cause he thout the monster hunters wer ment to protect people not on some evil crusade. Collin and Rinna merry and have a daughter Alora.
I always prefered Adventurers to Indiana Jones.
But that might also be due to my nostalgia for their search of Marco Polo's treasure, one of the longest treasure hunts in any Lego Theme.
This was a very fun video and a cool concept to consider. I think Adventurers (Johnny Thunder) is the one most draw closest to Indiana Jones inspiration, as well as Jurassic Park in the Dino Island sub-theme.
I can now see the inspiration for the Fantasy Era castle theme, in relation to Lord of the Rings.
It was inspired more by Warhammer Fantasy than LOTR, that's why orcs are green and dwarfs share a lot of design traits with GW's Dawi. And necromancer's skeleton army is just a straight up rip-off of Heinrich Kemmler's army from Terror of the Lichemaster campaign.
Are you, by any chance, retarded?@@andreyradchenko8200
With the potential issues and controversies that the Indiana Jones Lego sets have had to deal with (i.e. the Temple of Doom set), Lego should just bring back the Adventurers theme imo, scratching the I.J. itch without dealing with the headache that IP seems to bring.
While I would love to see Adventurers return, I'm not sure if it would survive as a theme in today's world. Between Indiana Jones underperforming at the box office and the release of 3 sets, none based on the new movie, I think it's safe to say that an adventure like theme may not see great success. That being said, I do think an Adventurers GWP or small LEGO retro remake would be a hit. It wouldn't be a theme, but hey, it would be better than nothing.
“This era (Castle 2007 - 2009) finally saw Lego dip their toes into a fantasy world”, um, Harry Potter (Which began in 2001)?
In regards to Castle, lol. Should've clarified!
@@OurToyWorld Um,Harry Potter HAS a castle, eh?
@@SuperMoviemaster21 You know what I mean 😄
@@OurToyWorld Still, don’t be so ignorant about it, regardless of whether you like it or not, EH?
@@SuperMoviemaster21 Seethe more bud 😹
So the any old themes that can make a comeback without competing with any licensed theme would be Western (as there is no big western movie to license with at the moment) Castle (sort of as there are still more LOTR media being developed and can be used to continue the License with Lego) I wish Divers or Aquazone would make a comeback but I think the Avatar license takes that genre for now...
Just a heads up, “without further ADO” is the correct term. Adiue is French for Goodbye.
Oops! Thanks for the correction
Finally a REAL lego history lesson!!!!!
Thanks for the support my friend!
@@OurToyWorld I was thinking more of a viking funeral but to each their own i guess 😅🤣
I’m certain that my childhood love for Bionicle was fueled by its creativity, uniqueness, and intriguing mystery. It allowed me the freedom to create my own stories and express my ideas.
I believe that many kids often prefer clear definitions of their characters and storylines, which may not necessarily encourage creativity. Bionicle, on the other hand, inspired a different kind of imaginative exploration.
I mean, Lego "Kinda" Brought back lego Adventurers in the form of a Lego City Subtheme in 2017
imo there needs to be treasure for it to be adventurers
I think another one could def be LEGO Monster Fighters and Scooby Doo, they came out subsequently if I remember correctly
I miss when Lego would put actual effort into developing their own themes with extra material outside the sets.
I really wish I had been around to get my hands on 2012 dino sets as I WA Sharon in 2012:(
I miss the Adventure sets and especially the Alpha Team sets
I absolutely love licensed themes, however, I still favor sets that are original and creative and inspire people to create phenomenal MOCs.
I actually do that. At first - like some- I did not like skin tone cause it looked too pale next to yellow. But it grew on me and I custimize figures off lisenced themes. I made a castle wizard with a lightning staff and he has Thor's head with the reversable head showing his eyes lit up. I do the same with stsr wars jedi and such creating my owne idias.
Licenced themes we're the worst thing to happen to Lego. When I was a kid, the toys had their own lore, and you could add to it in so many creative ways. Now everything is just based on a movie.
I wish LEGO made more themes to compete with Disney
I love Lego Jurassic world. I remember as a kid I painstakingly down all of the sets. I think I actually returned the Lego tea Rex one from Jurassic World and I’m pretty upset about that now. Lol. That said, Lego Dino was better
Calling the Adventurers line a “ripoff” of Indiana Jones does sound like an insult and whatnot, but you have to admit, LEGO was taking notes.
Could Pharaoh's Quest be connected to The Mummy franchise with Brendan Fraser?
I had several adventurers themed sets and a couple mickey mouse sets
did you forget about lego time cruisers which was replaced by lego back to the future
The only few licensed set that I ever had for myself was some Prince of Persia or whatever set, (That set had ostriches that were cool.) and The Lego Movie. But othervise licenced sets are just boring.
It’s 100% justified, the only purpose of I.P.s, be it LEGO or Disney, is MONEY above and beyond all else.
keep up the good work! :D
Thank you, Andreu- I will!
Both Indiana Jones and Johnny thunder recently made reappearances
I personally feel that Dino had potential but Lego was to lazy to create a story. Like you said it was to test the water for Jurassic world. It could also be argue that it was a reamp of Dino island. I personally would like to see Dino given a proper story. But I know Lego lacks creativity
The Star Wars theme was started faaaar before Disney aquired the Rights to Lucasfilm.
Richie dropping fire content!
Thanks for the support BFAB! Means a lot
You know mate, I don't wanna toot my own horn too much, but what I like about my own sets is that they allow for much more creative freedom and originality, whereas those sets from (that stinky amateur!) Indiana Jones are far more constrained: they have to look like what the movie looks like and can be played with in only one way: that what happened in the movie. And it's not just my own sets, I like Lego's Pirates far better than Lego's Pirates of the Carribean, Lego's Space theme far better than Lego's Star Wars, and so on.
I hate the flesh colored minifigs so much, they are super cursed
Need to go back to monster fighters. Hidden side. Power miners.
Any retrospectives you'd like to see in the future? Love talking about those classic LEGO Themes.
It's further ado, not further adieu
Johnny Thunder>Indiana Jones.
Disney = Lego
Lego va empeorando cada vez mas, apenas empieza a reivindicarse
You forgot Lego kingdoms
What theme was that replaced by?