Sagrada Família Lego set(lego.com) |
Sagrada Família Lego set(lego.com) |
And yes, for these sorts of sets you put them on display. I added LEDs to mine:
Put sets on a wishlist, they send you one of them. You build it, unbuild it and send it back. One set a month.
If people have a Lego set on display, that is surely a conversation starter for me. Especially if it's a ginormous Minas Tirith or Sagrada Familia set, or an old Technic set.
Not for everyone I suppose.
I've never had the patience to build those. I think I have PTSD from my childhood, when my dat bought us a "cheap" brand of lego-like toys (called TENTE I think) for which the bottom pieces fell as you plugged the top pieces.
When I was younger, I used to own a zoo, and a pirate ship....
Though not at the same time. We couldn't afford that much lego.
If the LEGO are truly accurate to the real thing, that might take a while!
why do Buddhists make intricate sand sculptures only to rake them over when they're done?
These days I much prefer the large Technic theme sets because they are not so repetitive and require a deeper immersion to actually complete; harder to just space out while building the set. Certainly more meditative for me.
All that is to say that if you're going to consider this set, be aware that the build experience might not be the level of fun that the part count seems to indicate.
Are you asking about the church or the lego set?
Good luck to anyone who builds a lego set and then tries to tell my kids we can't play with it or steal parts from it for another build.
LEGO has a wide audience. Some of these go to adults who build them and put them on display. Others will go to kids who build them and then take them apart to build the next thing.
I wouldn't buy this huge set for my kids because that price tag is crazy, but I like buying some of the mid-size sets for them because it's a nice injection of specialty pieces that they like to incorporate into other builds.
Very well said, and this was exactly my experience (as a child).
^ bizarre thought process tbh. Both building it and displaying it is fun. That's all.
So I kinda wonder, what is the scaling like if you account for the actual build phases. How many pieces would you have to do on each of those 200 days to match the real-life progress of the basilica.
Today when I see a Lego kit is kind of another toy: is designed to build one and only one design, compared to the generic kits that were sold and also popular many years ago.
All these new kits pieces are just to accomplish one build. The Lego spirit of ever combining and creating with same pieces over and over again is gone.
Could they make a bigger version of this set that is more closely resembling the real thing? More than likely, yeah they can; look at the displays they have at Legoland. But would that more detailed version be accessible for even the well off AFOL? Most likely not. It'd be too big, too expensive, and too unwieldy, and will probably still fail to capture some of the details of the real thing.
Older sets are offered and sold on eBay for substantially more oney that they cost when originally sold.
Would interesting to use a quest and take a tour of the insides.
(Personally, I've also enjoyed unit origami, which involves folding the same module many times over and assembling them.)
its a god damn crime what lego is getting away with
> https://bricknerd.com/home/greed-or-inflation-an-economic-an...
Inflation-adjusted price per piece has actually been declining over the years, dropping from ~$0.25 to a current $0.10 on average. This set is $0.06 per piece, so even less expensive than a median set by that metric.
Also, is this one even that expensive? It's only 6 cents per piece.
(This is how the Sagrada Família was built in case folks don't know its history)
It's like sheep. Legos is a mis--spelled City in Nigeria.
That being said, I love Lego as a company and wish them all the success.
Maybe it’s time to add the weight and the stud count
Bricklink has a wonderful feature that you can take a set and then part it out into a wanted list, and then search seller inventory to find those parts. That's how I built that giant Imperial Star Destroyer set from the aughts for a little over $200 instead of the like $1000 that used copies of the set were going for at that time (it's probably even more now.)
Just for funsies, I looked it up, and you can get the whole 21050 set for about $150 now on bricklink, which is a pretty good $/psc price. Considering what the set is, and the lack of stickers, means it should be easy to wash a used set to get all the pieces nice and clean; a laundry bra bag with a fine mesh works great for this.
Keep new assembled kits out, let them play with it as built from the instructions. But then as it falls apart with play, and the kids don't fix it the same way it was originally built, it eventually goes into a big box of former kits that are all jumbled together.
We did this, and without prompting to do so, the kids started building their own things out of the box, exactly as you did with your kits.
You just have to learn to let go of the set, and it becomes exactly what you want.
Edit: I'm not sure if a $800 set has that same property, but for the everyday $5-$40 sets, absolutely treat them as temporary collections, and life is great.
I find it particularly endearing how a single system of toys can provide decades of experiences to a single human. I don't think I've ever encountered another toy that is like that on such a massive scale. Yes there's other construction toys out there that strive to do the same, Knex was another one that I was into for a while, but there's nothing that quite scratches that same itch that Lego does.
But I found that if the builds are out they will be played with and fall apart and eventually become loose legos and that’s all fine and good.
Loose Legos on the floor making random things is fun. But building with sets and instructions is a different skill set and is entertaining in its own right.
The newer Friends series has a short reward video at the end of some builds which sort of puts the cherry on top of the set builds.
Kids still do this.
I don't know why this idea persists. There have always been sets with custom pieces. My kids go crazy over the custom pieces because it sparks new ideas for their other builds. My kids know every custom piece from every set they've ever built and will describe them in great detail so we can search through the bin until we find it.
> The Lego spirit of ever combining and creating with same pieces over and over again is gone
For you, maybe. The kids are still doing this and having a great time.
I can't but help think that people who assume that the big sets take away that haven't touched Lego in decades.
My sons sets got built "to spec" once, got played with like that for a few hours, and then never looked the same again ever, even though we still have the manuals in a box somewhere.
I'm not very tapped into it, but last month I saw a DIY Lego Rocky from Project Hail Mary going viral. I think this week I saw a very detailed jellyfish model doing the rounds.
I swear every lego-related post you see people dooming about this when all they look at are the giant sets clearly targeted towards adults that _want_ this sort of thing and not the plethora of other stuff.
Legos releasing single build sets that are clearly targeted for adults (look at the 18+ age statement) does nothing to harm you - it's targeted a different consumer demographic.
It's like Taco Bells now serving alcohol or Costcos now selling Asian groceries. Companies will not stay stagnant and will look at additional opportunities to expand to new buyer demographics.
https://rebrickable.com/sets/alternates/
you just enter the number to find alternate builds, some sets can be built into dozens various creations
And I think for the actual value you get, scaling by volume would actually be more accurate.
I think scaling linearly works better here
Back in the aughts, they redid their philosophy of having large single-purpose pieces and went to having those large pieces be replaced by subassemblies of much smaller pieces that were much more general purpose. That's when SNOT became huge in Lego's official sets.
As someone with multiple decades of experience with Lego, things now are much much better than they were back in the 90's and early aughts specifically because of this pivot that Lego did. There is something to be said about part count inflation, and how many of the parts nowadays are tiny little pieces rather than the big 2x2 or 2x4 bricks. And also, some sets and some themes do require their unique pieces. Friends has their little minifigures that are different from the standard minifigs. The Mario sets might need to have some specific pieces -- there's no standard 'mario mustache' tile. But overall, Lego has done a pretty incredible job of increasing the utility and decreasing the single-use aspect of many pieces.
I love it, knowing about these little details. Also fun to share with friends that inquire about the various LEGO on display in the house. This, and all the fancy mechanics (e.g. typewriter, nintendo), engender a ton of respect and awe for the designers.