5 ms·

As far as themed sets go, Lego has been consistent in promoting aggressiveness in the last 30 years. Police chasing the bad guys to put them in a prison cell, p

As far as themed sets go, Lego has been consistent in promoting aggressiveness in the last 30 years. Police chasing the bad guys to put them in a prison cell, pirates wanting to plunder the treasure, ninjas riding heavily-armed aircraft.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Are you criticizing Lego for producing what sells? Aren’t they producing what our culture wants? Do you think a wokeness set would sell as well as a pirate set?
- egypturnash 4y ago
  There was a time when Lego was pretty solidly pacifist in what they chose to make. Sure, you could make a gun out of your bricks, but they didn’t make plans for them, or special parts. Over time this has changed. There is an entire page on Wikipedia dedicated to chronicling this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_and_Lego https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_and_Lego
  - NickNameNick 4y ago
    When was that time? Because classic space had rayguns, and the pirate ships had working cannons.
    - Morgawr 4y ago
      > When was that time? It's literally written in the article that the person you are responding to linked. I'd recommend reading it.
      - Xylakant 4y ago
        The article is about “realistic weapons that kids may recognize from conflict zones.” Everyone I know from the time took the various “antenna” pieces on the space craft as “laser guns.” The space police figures had weird looking pieces that can be interpreted as or such, but they easily serve as futuristic guns as well. I’m observing my kid picking up lego and assembling my old sets and they take that the same way without prompting. Using bricklink as proof that the number of weapons increased is hilarious. Many kits used and still use regular bricks in places where they can clearly be read as weapons. (1) Lego definitely has a trend to make more specialized pieces now, so it’s not surprising at all that more specialized weapons show up. (1) The cannonballs are listed as “Brick Round, 1x1 open stud”, because that’s what they originally are. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3062b&name=Brick,%20Round%201%20x%201%20Open%20Stud&category=%5BBrick,%20Round%5D#T=C https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3062...
      - gattilorenz 4y ago
        > From 1945 onwards, Lego began producing a wooden version of a toy pistol. The company then applied for a patent of the model in 1946. A plastic version of a rapid-firing pistol began to be manufactured in 1949. The first minifigure is from 1978, the first weapon is from the same year.
    - wodenokoto 4y ago
      Yeah, it's pretty weak. According to the article, they made toy guns up till 1962, and then reintroduced weapons in the 1970s, with the caveat that they would not be realistic, current weapons (so space guns and pirate guns are okay. AK47 is not, presumably). But yearning for a 12 year period in the middle of the last century and talking about it as if deviating from it is a recent sign of the company losing its way, is a little odd IMHO.
  - mmustapic 4y ago
    Police transitioned from just cops with a police station or a motor cycle directing traffic to police stations with jails and criminals inside.
    - dleslie 4y ago
      I have a Lego City police station from the mid-80s that has a jail cell.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        The very first Lego police station had a jail cell: https://blog.firestartoys.com/evolution-of-the-brick-lego-police-headquarters/ https://blog.firestartoys.com/evolution-of-the-brick-lego-po... but no criminals, I guess you had to supply your own or assume that one of the cops is a dirty rat.
- mmustapic 4y ago
  I never understand the argument of "what our culture wants". You can still be a critic even if it's the norm. Also, you can cater to a part of what the culture wants, so yeah, you can criticise Lego.
- tzmudzin 4y ago
  > Are you criticizing Lego for producing what sells? There is demand for all sorts of things the society in general considers harmful. If one chooses to offer it anyway, be prepared for the criticism.
- dleslie 4y ago
  Well, FWIW it's impossible to find a Pirate set on a brick and mortar shelf, but Lego Friends and similar are still selling reasonably well.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Pirates have never really "come back" as an official theme but pirate-themed sets have appeared on shelves now and then (Creator has one). Part of the problem is that dedicated toy stores are almost dead, so if Walmart or Target's shelf of LEGO doesn't have it, it basically doesn't exist.
ARandomerDude 4y ago
Pirates, knights, ninjas, cops and robbers, etc. are part of being a boy. Girls have Barbie.
- kergonath 4y ago
  Part of being a child. My daughter would not be seen dead with a Barbie (a doll anyway, she really enjoys the other kind).
  - stavros 4y ago
    Klaus Barbie? The Butcher of Lyon?
    - kergonath 4y ago
      Haha no, that’s Aussie slang for “barbecue”.
      - stavros 4y ago
        Ahh ok, that one :P
kergonath 4y ago
Is that it, are we back at “video games cause murders”-level pearl clutching? I’ll take a peer-reviewed cohort study before I believe that “Lego has been consistent in promoting aggressiveness”.
- kingofpandora 4y ago
  Poster said Lego has been promoting aggressiveness, not that it has caused aggressiveness. It's undeniable that Lego themes have drifted a lot more to violence (Lego City is half about Policing), plus all the Ninja and other stuff.
  - Xylakant 4y ago
    I deny Lego themes drifted towards violence. I just went through my kits from the late 80ies/early 90ies since kid is reaching Lego age. I was a big fan of Space, and like > 60% of the sets are Blacktron and Space Police. City kits always had police and my cousin mostly owned Castles/Knights. There were pirates and pirate ships with cannons that can shoot bricks (we loved those) Pirates seem to be mostly gone and replaced by Ninjago but police stuck around. No surprise, kids love police stories. On the civilian side of Lego City, a large collection of civilian space exploration has been added. Space definitely has been demilitarized.
    - usrusr 4y ago
      Yeah, the answers in this thread clearly show that I greatly overestimated whatever pacifism commitment Lego ever had. I'm genuinely surprised, apparently they were quite successful at overselling the "play good" brand to me. Pirate cannons actually throwing plastic? Before today I was convinced that this was the defining difference between Lego and Playmobil. I'm from the region that is home to playmobil and we have a joke here that by count of items identifiable as "handgun" we have the world's largest guns manufacturer at our doorsteps, given the number of pirate and wild west kits sold each year.
      - bombcar 4y ago
smcl 4y ago
The police minifigs have certainly kept up with real life US cops: https://twitter.com/aliceavizandum/status/1141547556322852864 https://twitter.com/aliceavizandum/status/114154755632285286...
- Aeolun 4y ago
  The clothes are one thing, but that face!
  - mcv 4y ago
    I do worry about the mental health of the minifigs. They used to be so happy, but more recently they're all angry.
dudul 4y ago
The switch that I really regretted was the move from "open play" to "good vs bad". When I was a kid I had a ton of castle sets. They were pretty much "neutral". Various factions doing their thing, some a bit more shady sure, but you could set up whichever story and alliance you wanted. In early 2000 it turned into humans vs ugly trolls. I felt like so much was taken away from kids by doing that.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

Are you criticizing Lego for producing what sells? Aren’t they producing what our culture wants? Do you think a wokeness set would sell as well as a pirate set?

egypturnash 4y ago
There was a time when Lego was pretty solidly pacifist in what they chose to make. Sure, you could make a gun out of your bricks, but they didn’t make plans for them, or special parts. Over time this has changed. There is an entire page on Wikipedia dedicated to chronicling this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_and_Lego https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_and_Lego
- NickNameNick 4y ago
  When was that time? Because classic space had rayguns, and the pirate ships had working cannons.
  - Morgawr 4y ago
    > When was that time? It's literally written in the article that the person you are responding to linked. I'd recommend reading it.
    - Xylakant 4y ago
      The article is about “realistic weapons that kids may recognize from conflict zones.” Everyone I know from the time took the various “antenna” pieces on the space craft as “laser guns.” The space police figures had weird looking pieces that can be interpreted as or such, but they easily serve as futuristic guns as well. I’m observing my kid picking up lego and assembling my old sets and they take that the same way without prompting. Using bricklink as proof that the number of weapons increased is hilarious. Many kits used and still use regular bricks in places where they can clearly be read as weapons. (1) Lego definitely has a trend to make more specialized pieces now, so it’s not surprising at all that more specialized weapons show up. (1) The cannonballs are listed as “Brick Round, 1x1 open stud”, because that’s what they originally are. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3062b&name=Brick,%20Round%201%20x%201%20Open%20Stud&category=%5BBrick,%20Round%5D#T=C https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3062...
    - gattilorenz 4y ago
      > From 1945 onwards, Lego began producing a wooden version of a toy pistol. The company then applied for a patent of the model in 1946. A plastic version of a rapid-firing pistol began to be manufactured in 1949. The first minifigure is from 1978, the first weapon is from the same year.
  - wodenokoto 4y ago
    Yeah, it's pretty weak. According to the article, they made toy guns up till 1962, and then reintroduced weapons in the 1970s, with the caveat that they would not be realistic, current weapons (so space guns and pirate guns are okay. AK47 is not, presumably). But yearning for a 12 year period in the middle of the last century and talking about it as if deviating from it is a recent sign of the company losing its way, is a little odd IMHO.
- mmustapic 4y ago
  Police transitioned from just cops with a police station or a motor cycle directing traffic to police stations with jails and criminals inside.
  - dleslie 4y ago
    I have a Lego City police station from the mid-80s that has a jail cell.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      The very first Lego police station had a jail cell: https://blog.firestartoys.com/evolution-of-the-brick-lego-police-headquarters/ https://blog.firestartoys.com/evolution-of-the-brick-lego-po... but no criminals, I guess you had to supply your own or assume that one of the cops is a dirty rat.
mmustapic 4y ago
I never understand the argument of "what our culture wants". You can still be a critic even if it's the norm. Also, you can cater to a part of what the culture wants, so yeah, you can criticise Lego.
tzmudzin 4y ago
> Are you criticizing Lego for producing what sells? There is demand for all sorts of things the society in general considers harmful. If one chooses to offer it anyway, be prepared for the criticism.
dleslie 4y ago
Well, FWIW it's impossible to find a Pirate set on a brick and mortar shelf, but Lego Friends and similar are still selling reasonably well.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Pirates have never really "come back" as an official theme but pirate-themed sets have appeared on shelves now and then (Creator has one). Part of the problem is that dedicated toy stores are almost dead, so if Walmart or Target's shelf of LEGO doesn't have it, it basically doesn't exist.

ARandomerDude 4y ago

Pirates, knights, ninjas, cops and robbers, etc. are part of being a boy. Girls have Barbie.

kergonath 4y ago
Part of being a child. My daughter would not be seen dead with a Barbie (a doll anyway, she really enjoys the other kind).
- stavros 4y ago
  Klaus Barbie? The Butcher of Lyon?
  - kergonath 4y ago
    Haha no, that’s Aussie slang for “barbecue”.
    - stavros 4y ago
      Ahh ok, that one :P

kergonath 4y ago

Is that it, are we back at “video games cause murders”-level pearl clutching? I’ll take a peer-reviewed cohort study before I believe that “Lego has been consistent in promoting aggressiveness”.

kingofpandora 4y ago
Poster said Lego has been promoting aggressiveness, not that it has caused aggressiveness. It's undeniable that Lego themes have drifted a lot more to violence (Lego City is half about Policing), plus all the Ninja and other stuff.
- Xylakant 4y ago
  I deny Lego themes drifted towards violence. I just went through my kits from the late 80ies/early 90ies since kid is reaching Lego age. I was a big fan of Space, and like > 60% of the sets are Blacktron and Space Police. City kits always had police and my cousin mostly owned Castles/Knights. There were pirates and pirate ships with cannons that can shoot bricks (we loved those) Pirates seem to be mostly gone and replaced by Ninjago but police stuck around. No surprise, kids love police stories. On the civilian side of Lego City, a large collection of civilian space exploration has been added. Space definitely has been demilitarized.
  - usrusr 4y ago
    Yeah, the answers in this thread clearly show that I greatly overestimated whatever pacifism commitment Lego ever had. I'm genuinely surprised, apparently they were quite successful at overselling the "play good" brand to me. Pirate cannons actually throwing plastic? Before today I was convinced that this was the defining difference between Lego and Playmobil. I'm from the region that is home to playmobil and we have a joke here that by count of items identifiable as "handgun" we have the world's largest guns manufacturer at our doorsteps, given the number of pirate and wild west kits sold each year.
    - bombcar 4y ago

smcl 4y ago

The police minifigs have certainly kept up with real life US cops: https://twitter.com/aliceavizandum/status/1141547556322852864 https://twitter.com/aliceavizandum/status/114154755632285286...

Aeolun 4y ago
The clothes are one thing, but that face!
- mcv 4y ago
  I do worry about the mental health of the minifigs. They used to be so happy, but more recently they're all angry.

dudul 4y ago

The switch that I really regretted was the move from "open play" to "good vs bad". When I was a kid I had a ton of castle sets. They were pretty much "neutral". Various factions doing their thing, some a bit more shady sure, but you could set up whichever story and alliance you wanted. In early 2000 it turned into humans vs ugly trolls. I felt like so much was taken away from kids by doing that.