Trivia / LEGO

• Content Leak: This happens all the time with LEGO, as sets and even entire themes tend to frequently get leaked onto the internet months before their official announcements from LEGO thanks to internal product listings and the like. It has gotten to where there are entire communities formed within the LEGO fandom that are dedicated to reporting and talking about leaked sets.
• Delayed Release Tie-In: Like many other tie in toys for the film, Lego sets for Minions: The Rise of Gru were released in 2020, while the movie was delayed until 2022.
• Distanced from Current Events:
  • The Las Vegas Skyline set from the Lego Architecture range was originally set to release in January 2018, and featured the Mandalay Bay. After a mass shooting took place in October 2017 in which the shooter used a room inside the Mandalay Bay as a vantage point, the set was pushed back to September 2018, and was redesigned to replace the Mandalay Bay with the Bellagio. This last-minute change is noticeable in the final product; the set features each of its buildings in the order they appear down the Vegas Strip, with the exception of the Bellagio. The Mandalay Bay version of the set did receive an extremely limited release in a South African toy store under vague circumstances, making it one of the rarest LEGO sets ever released.
  • In 2020, the Lego Group suspended advertisement of the City Police and White House Architecture sets in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests. One City Police set, Crook's Hideout Raid, was cancelled due to "not keeping with the values of the Lego City brand".
  • LEGO held off (and ultimately, Quietly Cancelled) on releasing their set based on the Overwatch sequel after Activision-Blizzard's massive sexual assault scandal broke out. Only one set, "Titan", was ever revealed.
• Follow the Leader: Lego has spawned numerous imitators, most famously Mega Bloks, K'Nex and Kre-O. Some companies like Cobi and Sluban specializes in real-life military sets that Lego refuses to touch.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content:
  • Lego Ideas, previously known during open beta as CUUSOO. Fan-submitted models with 10,000 user votes will be considered for production. Throughout the years it has seen licensed sets based on Adventure Time, Back to the Future, The Big Bang Theory, BTS, Doctor Who, The Flintstones, Friends, Ghostbusters, Hocus Pocus, Home Alone, NASA, The Office (US), Seinfeld, Sesame Street, TRON: Legacy, Voltron, and Yellow Submarine.
  • After accepting his initial pitch in early 2020, The LEGO Group would work closely with AFOL Dominik Brachmanski to develop the "Build Together" mode that is available for certain sets in the LEGO Builder app.
• Older Than They Think: While Lego popularized the idea of interlocking toy bricks, the idea for them originated in 1939 with Kiddicraft's "Self Locking Bricks". Lego didn't start making their own bricks until 1949.
• Prop Recycling: If Lego makes a new piece for a set once in a blue moon, chances are high that it will end up being reused in a future set or even in new sets released alongside each other, but with the pieces uses in a different context. One example is the fact that Makuta's original set has hand pieces that are just gray versions of Takanuva's Mask of Light. This is presumably done to save on time and money by ensuring Lego doesn't have to make new piece molds for every single set.
• Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy:
  • Any adapted property that directly involves Lego pieces will be very accurate design wise. The LEGO Movie and its follow ups take it a step further by having the movie stay as accurate to the limits of how real Lego bricks can be animated as possible.
  • The movie tie-ins to the Bionicle series are all over the place with this.
  • For the licensed properties, they try to stay as faithful to the source materials as they can while still staying within the limits of the Lego bricks. Their Star Wars sets in particular are famous for how accurate most of them are to their respective vehicles from the movies, especially in regards to the giant sized collectors sets.
  • In many cases, however, film-based LEGO sets wind up as this due to being in the design process before the film is finished, so they go with the concept art they're given and it may not always be kept in the film. The Star Wars sequel trilogy was hit bad by this, as it included several vehicles that were left on the cutting room floor, and the first Kylo Ren shuttle was in gray with no retractable wings. The initial Avengers: Endgame set were also based on unused concepts, such as a giant motorcycle for Captain America and a War Machine-colored Hulkbuster armor. Other tie-in sets have tried to avoid spoiling major plot points, such as Spider-Man: No Way Home sets not including the multiversal villains or the two previous cinematic Spider-Men, or sets based on The Mandalorian using a blank head to hide Din Djarin's true face.
• What Could Have Been:
  • This happened to the V-22 Osprey scale model that was originally one of the company's most anticipated releases for 2020. LEGO took great pains to make sure the set didn't violate its usual Family-Friendly Firearms rules by depicting it in hypothetical civilian markings rather than as a military vehicle. Nevertheless, an organization called the German Peace Society still objected to the set, pointing out that the real V-22 is strictly a military vehicle and as such a licensed model of it funds weapons companies. After a successful petition, the set was withdrawn. Nevertheless some sets were released prior to its official cancellation, and fetch high prices on auction sites.
  • If leaks are any indication, Lego had intended to make a theme based on The Flash (2023). However, likely thanks to the controversy surrounding the film's notorious Troubled Production and Ezra Miller's actions, the theme would be Quietly Cancelled by Lego, with one of the planned sets, "Batmobile: Flash Tracking", getting reworked to be part of the regular Batman theme as "Batmobile: Batman vs. The Joker Chase" instead.
  • Similarly, a Temple of Doom set was announced for 2023, which was demonstrated at toy fairs and the preliminary box art was leaked, only to be Quietly Cancelled. Lego has not provided reason for the cancellation, although it has been speculated that this was due to the film's controversial depiction of Indian culture.

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