The Brick Connection – A novice Lego fan explores the great brick world of LEGO

Olympics!! That’s my greeting for this week.

Is everyone enjoying the Olympics? I love the Olympics! The greatest athletes from around the world coming together to compete in some hardcore, but mostly friendly competition. Woooo! It really gets my patriotic blood flowing. U-S-A! U-S-A!

Okay, I’ll stop now because the Olympics actually have nothing to do with today’s topic: LEGO Ideas!

Yes, like I said last week, we are revisiting LEGO Ideas for a more general look at the different projects that have come and gone on this site. We’ll look at the projects that have made it to the shelves and the ones that are waiting for LEGO's approval.

If you missed last week, we talked about the Women of NASA idea that gained the 10,000 supporters needed in just over two weeks. Read all about the potential LEGO set and its creator Maia Weinstock here.

As I alluded to last week, the process of getting a LEGO Idea to a LEGO shelf is long and grueling. And those are the ones with a happy ending. Most ideas submitted don’t receive enough support to even be reviewed by LEGO. And then for the lucky few that do get reviewed by LEGO, most of them don’t get approved.

Although LEGO CUUSOO started into 2008, the first LEGO CUUSOO set was released in February 2011, but only to Japan where CUUSOO was originally based. Since then, 12 other sets have been produced from what is now the LEGO Ideas theme, with four more sets currently in production.

Of the 13 sets that have made it to stores, 8 have already been retired. It seems LEGO does not keep these sets around for long, but then again, many of their regular sets are retired over time so I guess LEGO just doesn’t like the status quo.

There are 5 sets currently being sold, although according to LEGO’s website one is temporarily sold out. The 5 sets are (click on the names to be taken to their page on LEGO.com):

21304 Doctor Who

21305 Maze

21302 The Big Bang Theory

21108 Ghostbusters™ Ecto-1

21303 WALL•E (temporarily sold out on LEGO.com)

As you can see, 4 of the 5 are based on a movie or TV show. Maze is literally just a maze, but a maze that you can complete using balls and a wheel-operated tilt mechanism.

You can go to the LEGO Ideas Wikipedia page to see the list of the 13 sets from the LEGO Ideas theme and the 4 that have yet to be released: LEGO Ideas Sets

One of the really cool retired LEGO Ideas sets was 21103 The DeLorean time machine. It was released in 2013 when the theme was still called LEGO CUUSOO. It included a Marty McFly and Doc Brown minifigure.

It also included extra engines and wheels so you could recreate the different variants of the time-traveling car featured in the movies. This looks like it would have been a really fun set to play with. Do any of you own it?

Another interesting retired set from this theme is 21102 Minecraft. Now, I’m not into video games so I don’t know much about Minecraft, but it involves placing blocks. That seems like a perfect game to combine with LEGO.

And it was extremely popular. So popular in fact that a whole Minecraft theme was created. This is also impressive since LEGO had to go out and get a license with Minecraft in order to do it. I’m not sure how many companies would turn to down a collaboration with LEGO, but it’s still cool that it all started with a fan-submitted idea. 

The newest set from LEGO Ideas will be released on January 1, 2017. It is 21308 Adventure Time. There are 495 pieces and it will retail for $49.99.

The LEGO Ideas website just announced the details for the set a few weeks ago in the Ideas blog. Here is a brief description: Build LEGO® brick versions of eight of your favorite Adventure Time characters and role-play scenes from the awesome Cartoon Network show.

Also, the LEGO Ideas team did a little interview with the fan who submitted the idea, Ludovic Piraud so we get a cool insight into what it’s like to have your idea approved to become an official LEGO set:

When asked how it felt once he learned his project had gained 10,000 supporters and later was selected to become one of the next official LEGO Ideas sets, Ludovic explained "It felt unreal. I didn't think at first that what started as a fun little challenging pet project would receive so much support so fast. I was even afraid at some point that I would not have the time to submit the last update before the 10000th vote hit! That was really thrilling and I started to think that I may have a chance to tell my kids one day "See this LEGO set? Your dad made it!". Now that it's passed the LEGO review we know it's going to happen and that makes me very, very happy."

Now let’s take a look at the sets that recently completed the review process. There were nine projects that achieved 10,000 supporters between September 2015 and early January 2016. They were all reviewed at the same time and only two of the nine were approved by LEGO.

That’s really heartbreaking. It’s hard enough to get 10,000 supporters and then when you do, LEGO still doesn’t want it. All of these sets look really amazing, especially the Victorian London Christmas one. The detail looks amazing and I’m a sucker for historical architecture. The two that were approved, The Beatles Yellow Submarine and Apollo 11 Saturn V both look really amazing. I mean who would have thought to LEGO-ize The Beatles?! That will be a fun gift for any Beatles fan, whether they are a LEGO fan or not.

And now we can take a look at the projects that are currently being reviewed. They received the necessary support between January and May of this year. Once again there are nine projects being reviewed. I’m not sure if that’s a coincidence or not.

Another great batch of ideas, but the rolling LEGO BB-8 is just amazing. Please, LEGO review board! Make this set happen! 

Since it seems LEGO only approves a couple sets at a time, from this group I will take BB-8 and……………..I don’t know! This is a tough choice.

I think I’m going to have to go with the Jurassic Park Visitor Center. The set looks huge and that dino is awesome. Although the Particle Accelerator one looks really neat too. I just started watching The Flash TV show a couple months ago and I really like it. I’m not sure if LEGO will be that interested in the set though.

Finally, there are currently eight projects that have achieved support in the current cycle, including the Women of Nasa project I talked about last week. These eight and any others that reach the support threshold in the next month will be reviewed starting in late September. That’s probably around the time that we will find out which of the projects currently being reviewed have been approved.

I’m really impressed with the current group waiting to be reviewed. The Addams Family Mansion and LEGO Observatory really stand out for me.

I really hope both of those and the Women of NASA set get approved by LEGO

I was trying to get some rough stats on how rare it is to get a LEGO Idea project approved. Well like I said in the last blog, the Women of NASA set was the 106^th and most recent project to achieve the necessary support. And yet there are only 17 sets that have been or are in production.

Currently on the LEGO Ideas site, which doesn’t necessarily include all the projects from the LEGO CUUSOO site there are over 5500 projects currently gathering support. And there are over 12,600 that have expired, meaning they did not achieve the necessary support in the time allotted.

So that should really give you an idea of what a rare feat it is to get a LEGO Ideas set made. Since the LEGO Ideas site as it currently is didn’t start until 2014, I think we’ll see going forward that more sets get produced than before. But it will still be a great achievement for whichever fan can accomplish it.

There are three cycles of review each year and if two get approved each cycle, then we’re looking at six new sets every year.

And FYI, there is more than just bragging rights earned when your submission gets turned into a set. According to the LEGO Ideas Wikipedia page, “users that have their projects produced receive ten copies of the final set, as well as a 1% royalty of the product's net sales.”

Now that’s pretty awesome. I would take 1% royalty of any set’s sales. LEGO doesn’t produce many clunkers.

Alright, as always I have blabbered on too long. I wanted to talk about sets currently gathering support on the LEGO Ideas site, but I will save that discussion for next week.

Let me know if you have bought any of the sets released under the LEGO Ideas theme. Are there any potential ones that I mentioned that you would be interested in owning?

Until next time….MICHAEL PHELPS!!! Sorry, I’m back in Olympic pandemonium mode again. 

*Compliments, general feedback, and constructive criticism are welcome. Any haters that are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate can go step on some Lego with their bare feet.*