An interesting piece of news that was revealed a few days ago on the LEGO Ideas website (formerly LEGO CUUSOO) is the next fan-created LEGO set that will be officially produced by LEGO. According to the announcement the 8th LEGO Ideas/LEGO CUUSOO set is going to be the LEGO Research Institute. So let’s talk about this. 🙂
First of all, congratulations to Ellen Kooijman (a.k.a. Alatariel), who designed the LEGO Research Institute. Originally she proposed a whole range of small vignettes featuring female minifigures at various lines of work. I highly recommend checking out her LEGO Ideas page because all of her builds are fantastic. As she was gaining more votes, and based on the feedback she received both from her supporters and from the LEGO review team, she narrowed down her proposal to one set with the three of her most popular designs: the astronomer, the paleontologist, and the chemist.
This just shows you how the creator of a successful LEGO Ideas project stays open to feedback and is willing to change and morph their idea based on the response they get. Alatariel knew that LEGO won’t be approving all of her vignettes, and instead of just leaving it up to LEGO to pick whichever vignette they wanted, she took the proactive approach and choose the three most popular ones based on the feedback she received from her supporters. This way we will not get one set with not just one, but three of her vignettes! A win for her, a win for the supporters of her project, and a win for LEGO! I really respect her for that. Nicely done!
Another interesting aspect of this announcement by the LEGO Ideas review team was that Alatariel’s project was in fact not even part of this review period. Her project was left over from the previous review phase, and LEGO was still deciding if they want to produce it as a set. Here you see the LEGO review team lumping her project together with the six other sets from the current review period, and then picking hers. Which basically means that from the current review period LEGO rejected all of the projects.
This has been causing quite a bit of upset in the LEGO community. Most LEGO fans are happy about Alatariel’s project being chosen, however there are concerns that the LEGO review team gave no explanation of why no project was picked from the current review period, and why they were all rejected. This would have been very helpful for the LEGO community; especially for those who have current projects on LEGO Ideas, or planning to submit something in the future. For example this is the third time a LEGO Legends of Zelda project made it to 10,000 supporters, and each of them were rejected by the review team. This is unprecedented, and it doesn’t seem to make much sense. There are obviously plenty of fans of Legends of Zelda who want a LEGO set, and there seems to be no licensing or other conflicts. So why keep rejecting the idea? 😕
Also, there are still some confusions about how many projects LEGO may pick from a review period. From this review (and previous ones) it appears that only one project is chosen and everything else gets rejected, however LEGO has stated before that there is no such restriction. The point is that even if your LEGO project makes it to 10,000 votes, it is not in the finish line by any means. Yes, it is closer, but you may be surprised that another project that was not even in your competition takes over and runs in first… it isn’t supposed to be a contest, but it surely looks like one, with rules that only the LEGO review team knows about.
Getting back to the awesome LEGO Research Institute with the three female scientists, it is interesting to note that LEGO is systematically and consciously responding to the demand to include more female minifigures in sets. (In fact some people accuse LEGO of choosing this project only to appeal to feminists.) You already see this in pretty much all LEGO sets released in the past couple of years. I’m not just talking about the release of LEGO Friends, but even in such boy-oriented themes like LEGO Ultra Agents where there is not zero, not one, but three females: one bad-girl, a female agent, and a female researcher. Go girls! 😀
So congratulations, one more time to Alatariel and her LEGO Research Institute project! The final design, pricing and availability for this set are still being worked out, but it’s on track to be released in August of this year, which is about the same time the LEGO Ideas Exo Suit set should be available. So keep an eye out for both of them! (This is not official yet, but according to BrickPicker the price of the LEGO Research Institute is going to be $19.99 and the LEGO Exo Suit will be priced at $34.99.) In the meantime you can check out the currently available fan-created LEGO Ideas/LEGO CUUSOO sets at the Online LEGO Shop.
Also, the first 2014 LEGO Ideas review process is well underway, and you can expect results late summer/early fall. This review period includes the LEGO Bird Project, the LEGO Modular Apple Store, the LEGO BTTF – Jules Verne Train, the LEGO Big Bang Theory (also by Alatariel), and two LEGO Doctor Who projects. Let’s see which one will make it! I think it will be one of the Doctor Who projects, but you never know…
What do you think? How do you like the LEGO Research Institute? Are you happy that it was chosen as the next LEGO Ideas project? How about the rejected ones; are you disappointed about them? And which idea do you think will be picked next time? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
And you might also like to check out the following related posts:
The Legends of Zelda sets and the others that got denied probably got denied because it didn’t look like it’d be worth their time to them…
This would finally be another exciting venture into the Lego girl market and I hope it really takes off. It seems that Lego execs in the marketing Dept. have been listening to the parents cry for an extended line other than Friends. I hope this turns into some wonderful sets in the near future.
I have been looking closely at the Scientific girls project and I thought was amazing. It is a great idea to include girls in the already LEGO universe such as CITY instead of only having LEGO friends. I will definitely get those for my girl. Specially if they are smaller sets, I think they will fly off the shelves.
I’m excited about it. One of the theories as to why a Zelda set might not have made it is because Nintendo currently has an agreement with K’Nex with their Mario / Mario Kart characters, I’m sure putting another Nintendo character in a another “building” brand would probably breach some kind of contract. Hopefully though Lego will start being a little more transparent as to why they reject certain sets over the ones that have made it.
Kim, that’s a possibility, however whenever there is a licensing issue and no possibility of a project being made into a LEGO set, the LEGO Ideas team will mention that to the creator of the project. So I don’t know… it is kind of baffling… 😕
Very nice trio of models! But the Dinosaur skeleton one has to be my favourite!:D
Very nice set! I must say though, I like the Mars Rover better.
I note that this set is coming under a lot of fire from various Lego communities, but I can’t understand why. 😕 It’s a great set with female minifigs, and some nice parts (note the Greivous legs on the dino. I love dinosaurs! 😀 )
Oh, and the Series 2 Mixels are all back in stock in the US! 😀
Oh, thanks for mentioning that! I have been wanting to write a review about them, but didn’t want to disappoint readers by saying that these are great sets, and sorry you can’t get them. 😕
The model is under fire because LEGO fans feel that LEGO only choose it as a political tactic to throw some bones to rabid feminists. This may be true – at least to some extent – and, frankly, I think it is a smart move from LEGO. The disappointment mainly comes not even from this, but from the fact that this project was favored over the other ones, and it was not even from this review period. Anyhow, political move or not, this is a very nice set on its own merits and I agree that dino is awesome. I’m definitely getting the set because I like it, and some other people will get it to make a statement. In either way LEGO is going to sell a lot of these. The timings is just perfect.
I don’t think it was necessarily favored over. I read on the lego ideas site comments that the Lego Ideas projects aren’t in competition with each other. So there could potentially be more than one “winner” or “no winners” based on the their review of each set. That I believe came from someone directly at Lego.
I do remember reading something like that too, but I couldn’t find the reference.
Yeah, me too. And “multiple projects could be picked from one review period” or something like that. I think I read that on the Brickset Forum. 😕
Unfortunately I have also read contradictory information to this, also from LEGO, so I’m really not sure. It is possible that they are still working it out. It really doesn’t make sense for them to say how many they will pick because there could be a review period where none of the projects make sense, and some where more than one is a good idea. It would be just nice to know why they reject projects. They could give a brief explanation of why for example they didn’t pick the Zelda project – they actually really owe us an explanation on that one because it has been already upvoted by the community three times. They either should say that there are licensing issues, or what they didn’t like about the project, so LEGO fans could submit a better one. It would help the LEGO community prepare better both with submissions and what they vote for.
I’m just thrilled that they are making more actual female minifigures and not the Friends style “dolls”. My daughter was so excited when we first heard about the possibilities of Friends sets but that excitement was short lived once we saw that they weren’t minifigures. Not sure why Lego thinks that girls need the “dolls” rather than regular minifigures.
Heather, yes, a lot of people are really excited about this set, so I’m glad your daughter likes it. As far as why LEGO choose the mini-dolls, they were actually choosen not by LEGO but by little girls themselves. LEGO did extensive testing with children, especially with little girls who previously showed no interest in LEGO and the company tried to reach. Their preference was more doll-like figures, rather than the standard LEGO minifigures. Thus the little LEGO dolls were born. 😉
Yay! I’m really happy this project passed, and I can’t wait to see how it looks as an official set!
I am slightly disappointed that the Adventure Time project didn’t pass, though. I wanted to see that license play out . . .
Even though I’m a guy, I love this set and will be buying it (especially if it indeed is only $20). However, I do think Lego is crossing dangerous ground by passing this. Whether or not they did it to appease a feminist group (which, like you said, is something LEGO has (and needed to!) been addressing more and more), they crossed into political territory, which is something I don’t think is right for their company. I also find it interesting that this “bumped” the other projects from the review period, especially since Zelda has come back for a THIRD time. Even if license was an issue, there were still two non-licensed themes. And while I know people will disagree with me, I want to see LEGO Ideas be more for original ideas, not sets based on movies, TV shows, or video games. It seems more licensed sets come from Cuusoo/Ideas that original projects.
Ryan, that’s a really good point about LEGO getting into a political territory. It is one thing to just add more female minifigures to regular LEGO sets, and a totally different thing to come out with sets that seems to be a direct response to feminist campaigns. It is best if LEGO just stays out of that arena.
Interestingly, LEGO has actually done this; they have been quietly but steadily adding more and more female minifigures to regular LEGO sets as well as placing them in stronger leaderhip roles. However feminists completely ignore this and still attack the company. And that is what LEGO is missing; they think they can appeal to a political group by doing what they say they want, but that’s not what political groups are about.
What feminists want is controversy and publicity. So they pick some innocent but popular person, organization or company and start a smear campaign against them. The mob laps up whatever they say and start gathering pitchforks and stones, which forces the person or company to respond to and endorse the feminist organization just to get them off their back. And the feminists happily take this as another victory, not caring that they just destroyed another person’s or organization’s life, business, family.
Feminists started out fighting for a good cause and real unjustice decades ago. They were a respectful and respectable organization with people who were really helping others. However these days they turned into a powerful and terrifying machine of desruction on a witch-hunt, all for their own selfish gains. Leaving behind entire generations of men and women who are completely confused about their gender, their identity and their role in life. Just do a search of feminism’s effect on society. Really scary stuff… 😕
Oh, forgot to mention that a lot of people share your view that they would like to see more non-licensed sets coming out of LEGO Ideas. The challenge with this is to gather enough supporters. It is easy to gether 10,000 votes for a licensed set that has a large non-LEGO fan-base. Just go to their website or forum, ask them to vote and they will. So it is really up to the LEGO community to help non-licensed projects to become LEGO sets. LEGO blogs, forums, communities need to stand behind and support (and vote for!) the non-licensed projects they want LEGO to produce. Otherwise it is not going to happen.
Doctor Who needs to happen here… but these sets are nice little builds. Not my thing, and I won’t get into a, “sexist,” conversation, but the creator did good work.
Lots of chatter on this post O.o xd