What imagination is needed to buy a specific kit and follow the instructions to make eg a Death Star?
“Here’s a box of bits, build something” v “Here’s some instructions, follow them”

you realise the kits like that aren’t being bought for children…

Got a few 40-something friends who buy those expensive kits. I think their kids might “assist” in the building, but they’re not bought for them 😀

30 something here, we (mrstomhowardtobe and i) buy them for ourselves. No outside assistance from kids, that we don’t have…

You don’t think they’re playing well?

IGMC then.

Aha!

I thought the thing about special parts was shown to be a myth, outside of the collectors kits anyway, the average amount of special parts per kit’s been pretty stable since the first space kits

BigButSlimmerBloke – Member

What imagination is needed to buy a specific kit and follow the instructions to make eg a Death Star?
“Here’s a box of bits, build something” v “Here’s some instructions, follow them”

It’s what you do with it next.

It’s quite interesting though, I’ve seen some really excellent knock off kits on aliexpress, but I wouldn’t buy a Lepin kit because… it’s bloody lego, man, you don’t **** with that. But then I think, these layoffs seem like a dick move…

My kids have loads of the stuff but they aren’t really interested. They prefer Minecraft.

I seem to remember that Lego is the world biggest tyre manufacturer, producing significantly more tyres that Pirel;i, Michelin etc

Not really relevant to this thread but hey, this is STW. Get over it

/\ one of my fave bits of pub quiz trivia

While there are many complex pieces these days it’s uncommon for there to be pieces that are exclusive to a single set. Lego’s designers are fairly clever at making extensive use of what may appear to be very specialised pieces.

BigButSlimmerBloke – Member
What imagination is needed to buy a specific kit and follow the instructions to make eg a Death Star?
“Here’s a box of bits, build something” v “Here’s some instructions, follow them”

What imagination is needed to buy a specific kit and follow the instructions to make, for example a Galaxy Explorer (kit 928, from 1979), a Castle (kit 375, from 1978), etc.? If you think that Lego has gotten worse because it sells sets with instructions then you must have been complaining about if for pushing 40 years!

Or, a child may build the kit according to the instructions but see the potential to change it, possibly in small ways at first then in larger ways and eventually breaking it down entirely and use it to build something else. While having the reassurance that if they end up wanting to play with the original construction again, the instructions will allow them to recreate it.

Even if a set is built once and never changed then a child will have exercised their hand-eye co-ordination, learnt a bit about following (relatively) technical instructions and will still end up with a toy that requires some imagination to play with.

I am willing to consider the point that a set for a specific licensed thing (like a Batmobile or a Millennium Falcon) may be less good for encouraging the building of alternative creations, but that’s probably because they’re wanted because of what they are, not what they’re made from in the first place. If Lego wasn’t making Star Wars toys then more regular Star Wars toys and less Lego would probably be sold, and in that case there’d be no chance that such toys could be dismantled and rebuilt into something else… With Star Wars (or Batman or whatever) Lego that’s still a chance.

Er, I’m 48 and still ‘play’, as opposed to just following instructions.

All my LOTR/Hobbit stuff gets mixed up with the nephew’s and the grand-daughter’s Doc McStuffins/City/Star Wars/Marvel stuff.
It’s all good.

I bought them solely as display pieces, but then remembered that they’re designed to be played with too.
Glad I did.

This is the first time I have posted on a Lego thread!

May I offer my unreserved apologies. I had you confused with someone else (and irritatingly I can’t remember who now).

It’s what you do with it next.

It’s quite interesting though, I’ve seen some really excellent knock off kits on aliexpress, but I wouldn’t buy a Lepin kit because… it’s bloody lego, man, you don’t **** with that. But then I think, these layoffs seem like a dick move…

Never heard of this stuff, just looked it up, bloody hell, they’re not really trying to hide away are they: 😯

I received that Lego set for Christmas, the way it builds is nothing short of brilliant. The use of pieces to give it the articulation in the head is genius. It’s great to build as it doesn’t come together until the last few pages of the instructions.

I’m pretty sure that’s a dick move right there.

What imagination is needed to buy a specific kit and follow the instructions to make, for example a Galaxy Explorer (kit 928, from 1979), a Castle (kit 375, from 1978), etc.? If you think that Lego has gotten worse because it sells sets with instructions then you must have been complaining about if for pushing 40 years!

I had technical lego as a kid. I had two different sets to build a big car and a small car. I followed the instructions and by dinner time Christmas day I had built the car…

…by boxing day I had created a V7* engine and suspension**.

*V7 because I only had 7 piston heads between the two sets of lego so it was more accurately a V6 with a single vertical cylinder at the end.

**Suspension was created by nicking the springs out of 4 pens and actually worked. 3 years latter Lego brought out a car with almost exactly the same system, bastards!

Even as I kid I thought lego was crap, don’t really get the fascination with it. Always preferred a pencil and paper as a creative outlet.

One change that does disappoint me is that the boxes that Lego sets came in used to have pictures not just of what was covered by the instructions but also some other things that could be built with the set’s contents. That may have helped kick-start some young imaginations and it’s a pity it doesn’t seem to happen anymore.

It does happen, at least with the cheaper sets. The more expensive (build a London Bus or whatever) sets don’t offer this, at least not in the instructions. Nothing to stop you doing so, of course, and once the bus is broken down and just a set of pieces in the big Lego Box (you do have one, of course) you build what you like with it.

Even as I kid I thought lego was crap, don’t really get the fascination with it. Always preferred a pencil and paper as a creative outlet.

You’re certainly quids in then, shops selling pencils and paper are everywhere. But you’re on your own with “lego is crap”, it is (somewhat self-evidently going by success and variety and whatnot) the best at what it does.

My kids love it, it doesn’t break & the Star Wars/ Superhero minifigures are x1000 more fun to play with than normal “action figures”.

it doesn’t break

Loved that they gave a nod to the spaceman’s broken chinstrap in the film

By the time that the blue spacemen like Benny were available, they’d fixed the helmet design and the chinstraps didn’t break!

But still, Benny was basically put into the movie for people like me and I got his Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP!!! as soon as it was available. (And I’ve left it built up as such. Some Lego I rebuild but others I treat more like regular toys/display things. That spaceship has definitely been wooshed around my living room!)