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If kids can build anything with LEGO Bricks, just imagine where Adult Fans of LEGO can take things...

  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Is the Santa's Workshop set the real thing or a kitschy mall setup for children to visit with their parents?
  • Animation Age Ghetto: Despite LEGO marketing itself as an all-ages affair and having made sets specifically aimed toward adult collectors, LEGO is commonly regarded to be something only young kids can enjoy and something they are expected to "outgrow" past a certain age, with adult LEGO fans being seen as immature losers by some. It doesn't help that LEGO sets — including the adult sets — are frequently sold in the kids' toy aisle in stores and that most LEGO sets are based on IPs aimed at children (including some of the adult sets), adding to this mindset.
  • Archive Panic:
    • LEGO has been around since 1932 and has produced an innumerable amount of brick sets since 1949 and is showing no signs of stopping. If you want to be a LEGO collector, be certain that you have cash to burn...
    • Even if you just want to be a LEGO builder, buying bricks at all will cost you quite a bit; good luck tracking down bricks for more obscure colors for cheap, as quite a few bricks were, of course, only released along with specific sets that collectors already have to pay a lot of money to find—sending you down the Archives anyhow.
  • Broken Base:
    • Believe it or not, the beloved minifigures. There are plenty of fans who feel that they detract from the built models and are only used to sell sets. They're not completely off, though.
    • Arguments have broken out in the Lego community on whether minifigures should adopt more realistic skin tones. Supporters argue that this allows for greater ethnic diversity and realism when it comes to real life or licensed characters, while detractors argue that the yellow skin is more iconic and a neutral way of representing all skin tones.
    • The shift from unique figure designs to standard minifigures was noticed by the fanbase, with LEGO practically forcing characters into the minifigure system, even if the characters looked closer to the original if they didn't. A good example of that is Lotso, who was given a completely new body mold which was very different from minifigures, but was still recognizable as a LEGO piece. Many fans imagine that he would be a minifigure if he was made today. Some fans are okay with that, as LEGO was always about the System and non-standard figures would be significantly less useful. Others think that minifigures need to be more varied in appearance, as not every living creature fits into the same box in real life. This could also tie into the Big-fig debate below, as people with bigger torsos aren't automatically hulking behemoths.
    • The Big-figs are an even bigger case. While some like them for the amounts of detail they provide, others dislike them because of having only two joints and two possible ways to customize them, the fact that they're incredibly hard to get, or simply because they prefer the mini-fig/big-fig combination variant.note  In 2023, LEGO added another movable part to big-figs: the head. Older ones didn't have a rotating head.
    • The mini-dolls are disliked because they are meant to be "Minifigures for girls". Besides that, they are also portrayed as very thin and very "cookie-cutter" and their legs can't move separately, since the legs were designed for dresses. However, they are not completely disliked, since they brought some well recieved themes, such as LEGO Elves, they tend to work better with licensed characters, such as the Disney Princesses, and The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part introduced some cool looking and likable minidoll characters.
    • Specific to LEGO Star Wars, there is a bit of debate about battle packs that include unique, named figures or officer-type figures. Detractors state that the inclusion of these figures makes them automatically bad because they remove the core aspect of what the battle pack was originally supposed to be Explanation since the unique figures restrict the purchasing of more of the sets to create an army (as generally army builds do not include more than one of said figure to be accurate to the source material.) Those in favor of said battle packs state that it appeared that LEGO had moved away from this purpose of battle packs and instead now allows them to obtain popular figures for a cheap price. The latter argument also falls into conflict with collectors who admonish battle packs with previously rare figures (exclusive to primarily very expensive sets) as they believe that it diminishes the value of these figures.
  • Complete Monster: In addition to the ones on the Bionicle page, and the Ninjago page, there’s also Gorm; Meca One Prime; & Core Hunter and Witch Doctor;, see those pages for details.
  • Creator's Pet: The Big-figs. Even though many collectors and especially customizers have complained about the general uselessness of these figures, LEGO keeps using them to this day.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Some LEGO minifigure parts tend to be used only once in a theme, but they still get a lot of recognition for being unique and having loads of potential, with some fans wishing that LEGO would use them more. A popular one is the unnamed Star Wars Jedi, "Jedi Bob", from the first Republic Gunship set.
    • Those include the extra-long limbs created for the Toy Story sets, the large torsos created for the TMNT sets and the adolescent legs created for the Harry Potter revival.
    • As for licensed themes, the SpongeBob SquarePants theme has continued to be very popular, even with their eventual discontinuation in 2014. Mostly because the figures are highly character accurate (at the time) and the theme having loads of potential, with many wishing for a revival, since dual-molds would allow for more high quality figures.
    • Animation based LEGO themes are very popular in general, despite being very sparsely released and often very expensive. Those include Toy Story, The Incredibles, Disney Princess note , the aforementioned SpongeBob, TMNT, The Simpsons, Scooby-Doo and The Powerpuff Girls. Most of which were very shortlived, except SpongeBob, the original runs of Toy Story and Cars, and Disney Princess note . Even some of the more controversial themes like Cars, The Angry Birds Movie, Minions, and Trolls have a handful of fans.
      • Special mention has to go to the Avatar: The Last Airbender sets. Only two sets were released in 2006, but these two sets are in very high demand and often sell for very high prices in places like Ebay and Bricklink.
      • This also applies to licenses that go for a more cartoon-like style such as Minecraft, Overwatch, and LEGO Ideas sets like Sesame Street.
    • A Brickset survey showed that many people wanted the Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones themes to return, with them placing first and second on the polls, respectively.
  • Epileptic Trees: There is a collection of people who believe that certain LEGO Creator sets are the designer's attempts to circumvent the ban on military technology that LEGO has set as a policy, by having the sets appear in civillain markings and changing just enough details to make it inconspicous, with the biggest pointer being set 31039, which according to some fans heavily resembles the F-35 Lightning II, and another one being set 4953, which fans have interpeted as an F-14 Tomcat.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
    • They are not called "LEGOs", the pieces are called "LEGO bricks" and the toys themselves "LEGO sets."
    • Don't ever say LEGO is a children's toy. While some sets are marketed toward younger audiences, there is still a multitude of sets intended for adult collectors, with those being considered some of the best sets.
  • Fandom Heresy: There are many Lego fans who consider it sacrilegious for minifigures to be colored anything other than yellow, outside of licensed themes. Some purists even detest modern yellow minifigures for abandoning the original minimalistic dot eyes and smiley face.
  • Fandom Rivalry:
  • Fan Nickname: Cheese slopes are the most well-known, but other parts, mini-figs and themes have been nicknamed. Another one is BURP (Big Ugly Rock Piece), a large piece of Lego used for rock decorations in the 90's.
  • Growing the Beard:
    • While LEGO has been doing brick sets since 1949, many regard the late '1970s and the induction of Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen as CEO as the point in which LEGO began to truly find its footing, as the late '70s saw the introduction of the iconic LEGO mini-figures as well as LEGO's first true themes in the form of Town, Castle, Space, and Trains, which would mark a massive shift away from the sandbox style of the company's earliest sets to the detailed and intricate building sets that LEGO is known for today.
    • Some also point to the introduction of the LEGO Star Wars line as being another pivotal moment for LEGO and the moment they went from merely being a popular toy company to a dominating force in the toy and collectors industry, since the theme marked their shift to licensed themes and collectors sets, which remain some of LEGO's most famous and sought after sets today.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
    • Fans of Minecraft tend to complain about the relatively simplistic character designs of the minifigures, especially since the Minecraft artstyle is already simplistic to begin with. What really grinds their gears is that the Steve figure, despite LEGO being entirely capable of creating a high-quality version, still has no short sleeves or shoes, and his skin still being light instead of tan. The Zombies have the same problem, but they usually get a pass, since making highly detailed figures for Mook characters is not exactly plausible. The Alex figure also gets a pass, since her design is at least somewhat detailed in comparison.
    • Marvel fans are also annoyed at how LEGO simply recycled the character designs for Hulk and Thanos in the respective Avengers: Endgame set, despite the heavy redesigns (Hulk getting a shirt, Thanos not having a helmet). Especially the former, since it shouldn't take too much time to just print the shirt on.
    • Some have called LEGO Ideas "The New LEGO Space" for focusing a lot on space-themed sets despite many other projects being much more interesting. This is more of a problem with the community than with LEGO themselves, however.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: Some otherwise average sets regularly fetch for high prices in the resale market due to the desirable minifigures they contain. For instance 75012 BARC Speeder with Sidecar, a small Star Wars set that builds two simple speeder bikes, retailed for $25 but can fetch 10x the price nowadays due to it containing a unique, detailed minifigure of Captain Rex.
  • Memetic Badass: LEGO bricks have a memetic reputation for being landmines of the feet. While they typically cause short-term, if agonizing, pain at best, from the way LEGO bricks are described you'd think they were lethal traps that would trigger flashbacks of Vietnam War punji sticks.
  • Memetic Loser: Goofy was this originally. Despite being one of the most well-known Disney characters, he still didn't get any physical minifigure releases. However, it became a Discredited Meme once he finally got one.
  • Memetic Mutation:
  • Misaimed Merchandising: The LEGO Ideas Sesame Street and Winnie the Pooh sets are 18+ sets for adult collectors, even though both sets are based on franchises typically aimed at young children. This ended up angering parents, who would buy the sets for their kids, only for them to not enjoy the sets due to how large and complicated they are (since they are meant for adults). Likely as a result of this, LEGO has stopped doing 18+ sets based on kids' IPs, instead aiming for works that are already geared towards an older audience or have Multiple Demographic Appeal built into them.
  • Moe: The cute minifigures (especially the original ones with the simple dots for eyes and a curve for a smile that predates the character art designs of Adventure Time) tends to fall into this.
  • Moment of Awesome: See here.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • For a number of years minifigures coexisted with maxifigs, until the latter were discontinued during the early 80s. Sets like 208 Mother with Baby used standard minifigures as babies, and to a modern audience, it can be seen as a regular human being forced by giants to dress up as a baby.
    • 4000013 A LEGO Christmas Tale is a charming Christmas-themed set featuring Santa Claus on his sleigh, elves making toys, children opening presents, and a snowman with a skull for a head.
    • The Mouth of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings line is about as horrifying-looking as he is in the Extended Edition.
    • The Mario figurine, when turned off, has his eyes and mouth go completely black, almost looking hollow or souless. Did they end up fixing this for Luigi? NOPE!
  • Older Than They Think: Specialized pieces and sets devoted to building one specific model have been around since 1955. Despite this, for many years now there has been a seemingly inexhaustible supply of people in their 20s or 30s lamenting this "recent" development and fondly recalling how it was all just boxes of random generic bricks when they were kids.
  • Periphery Demographic: LEGO was primarily meant to be a toy for children. It is immeasurably popular with teenagers and adults—a demographic LEGO has been more than happy to welcome as time has gone on. Nowadays, there are LEGO sets aimed specifically towards teenagers and adults.
  • Presumed Flop: Many LEGO fans believe that every LEGO theme that ends (LEGO Mars Mission, LEGO Power Miners, LEGO Agents, etc.) was cancelled due to poor sales, but there are rarely any numbers that back up these claims. In actuality, LEGO designers have gone on record stating that most themes are only intended to last 1-3 years, so the end of a theme does not mean it failed. There are a few exceptions, such as BIONICLE, its 2015 reboot, LEGO Dimensions, and LEGO VIDIYO that were explicitly confirmed to be prematurely cancelled due to failing to meet sales expectations, but most other themes just simply live out their lifecycle.
  • Sacred Cow: Considering its immeasurable popularity, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who actually dislikes LEGO, let alone thinks they're a bad toy.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Identical minifigures that show up in almost every set in a theme are generally disliked, especially those that have no story related reasons to be included. For instance, Owen Grady shows up in three of the four Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous sets, despite not being a character in the series. This issue is mostly played straight for figures which aren't faceless Mooks (so this say, doesn't apply to cases like Robo SWA Ts or clone troopers.).
    • Star Wars fans have several universally disliked sets, whether due to poor build quality, inaccuracy or downgrades, poor minifigure selection, or bad pricing. This includes 75098 Assault on Hoth (due to being a mish-mash of smaller play sets and not living up to the Ultimate Collector's Series name), 75199 General Grevious's Combat Speeder (a comically out-of-proportion and heavily overpriced set) and 75201 First Order AT-ST (an incomplete model that costs the same as the previous released complete one).
    • Many Star Wars fans also tend to heavily dislike "gimmick" battle packs, which are battle packs that feature lesser known, deep cut, and absurd forces as the feature, Examples primarily because these are the battle packs where one can heavily agree that they take away the primary appela of these battle packs (to build an army).
    • Star Wars fans also tend to dislike the minifigures in the initial Clone Wars sets from 2008-14, due to their large cartoonish eyes, which were designed to imitate their appearance in the series, but many felt that they end up clashing with the aesthetics of regular Lego minifigures. This was dropped when sets based on Star Wars Rebels came around, with some hate of the series's cartoony portions carrying over to here (primarily in regards to the stormtrooper helmets.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Stickers. Most fans hate these because they don't last, can be difficult to align, and seem lazy. Never mind that printing every single part that required decoration is costly and would raise the price of sets. Of course a set with liberal sticker use (or several designed to match up) like the Mystery Machine or, god forbid, stickers that cover multiple parts, will be lamented.
    • Rubberbands (for sets like the Bohrok and the many, many X-Wing sets) suffer a similar fate, but unlike stickers, they're fairly easy to replace.
    • Studs. Their inherently tiny size makes them hard to keep a grip on and very, very easy to misplace.
    • LEGO sets with brightly-colored Technic pins or liftarms for mechanisms. Even when the pieces are color-locked, they're not always covered up properly, which can annoy adult builders.
    • Shooters. Stud shooters, flick missiles, or large cannons are generally disliked by older collectors as they tend to stick out and look odd. Fans of series such as Ninjago or Star Wars have also grown tired of them due to being included in practically almost every set. LEGO Star Wars collectors also dislike how they've been replacing plenty of unique and diverse molds of blasters in favor of uniform stud shooter guns. As play features, they also serve no purpose to collectors who like to display their sets and keep them in tact rather than playing with them. This hate particularly got bad when it came to battle packs, as over time collectors would accumulate a massive number of these in sets.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The revealed pictures of the tie-in sets for Toy Story 4 got a lot of criticism for redesigning the figures for Woody and Buzz, despite both already having well designed figures from the Toy Story 3 tie-ins. The fact that the redesigns got rid of the molded heads and the longer limbs for Woody doesn't help, plus the figures having generic minifigure faces instead of cartoony ones, arguing that toys aren't human and thus shouldn't look like generic LEGO people.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • In spite of Adventure Time getting both a LEGO Ideas set and LEGO Dimensions packs, the latter having exclusive minifigures, the lack of a proper Adventure Time theme is both surprising and disappointing. The world of Adventure Time is huge and filled with characters who were just waiting to be made into official minifigures, but nothing came of it. This is especially baffling, considering the show was scheduled to end by that time. The same applies to many other Lego Dimensions-only IP such as Sonic the Hedgehog.
    • While it is a little convenient that LEGO launched a new Spider-Man theme around the time Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse came out, featuring characters like Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen, Aunt May and most of Spider-Man's Rogues Gallery, the lack of characters from Spider-Verse note  was upsetting for many Spider-Man fans. Spider-Man Noir and Spider-Ham later got added to the series, but many complained that the former looked more like a cowboy than a detective. This is likely due to the fact that Lego's license with Marvel is through Disney, while Spider-verse is through their rival Sony. They did scoot around this, however, by throwing Gwen, Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Ham, and even Spider-Man 2099 from the same movie into their sets, but the absence is still felt.
    • There are no sets based on the X-Men Film Series for similar reasons despite popular request, and the only two X-Men sets released were based on Marvel's comics. Part of this can be blamed on the fact that Marvel's heads at the time were trying to screw them and The Fantastic Fournote out of any publicity to spite 20th Century Fox for having the film rights, but even when Disney bought FOX, it took until 2022 for Marvel's merry band of mutants to come back to LEGO, and even then for a single set thus far.
    • The lack of a proper Shazam! theme was quite a bummer, considering how SHAZAM! (2019) came out around that time and all previous DCEU movies got a proper set. Granted, there was a figure of Shazam in the new Batman theme and LEGO likely refused the idea due to trying to avert Spoiled by the Merchandise this time, there is quite a lot that could've been done with characters from the movie who only appeared in the trailers so far.
    • A common criticism of both DC and Marvel sets is that they tend to focus on the same minifigures—either with or without changed designs—for sets that are more or less the same, especially with Batman, Spider-Man, The Avengers, and their respective villains. While it's understandable given how well they sell, fans lament that many other characters less prominent than them, even big-leaguers like Superman, aren't given any focus, if at all.
  • Ugly Cute: Attempts to make more intimidating or monstrous-looking characters with the normally adorable minifigures, like the Orcs from the Lord of the Rings sets, tend to have this effect.
  • Unexpected Character:
    • LEGO released an entire minifigure series based around Disney in 2016. It's safe to say that few people expected something like this, since LEGO isn't known to put licensed characters into a minifigure theme, outside of The Simpsons, and even that had DTC sets to back it up. A second series was eventually released in 2019.
    • 2018 was the start of LEGO Overwatch sets. Unexpected, since video game-based themes only got made when they have a LEGO Ideas set based around them. Not to mention that Overwatch has a T-Rating, and sets for Blizzard's other franchises such as Warcraft and Starcraft were licensed by Lego's rival Mega Bloks.
    • The 2019 Disney series contained some surprises:
    • In 2019, LEGO revealed that they would be making sets based on Trolls World Tour, the first theme based on a DreamWorks Animation property. Reactions were... mixed to say the least, as Trolls isn't particularly popular with the Periphery Demographic and sets quickly landed in the bargain bins.
    • A Direct-to-Customer set for Stranger Things was leaked for a while, but brushed off for being too risky for a kid-friendly brand such as LEGO. Turns out it was real.
    • Also in 2019, LEGO announced sets based on the second Minions movie. It's their first Illumination based theme and got a similar reaction to Trolls.
    • On March 10th, 2020, LEGO announced a partnership with Nintendo to create sets based on Super Mario Bros. This was surprising due to how Mario was associated with LEGO’s rival K’NEX (though it's most likely their license expired) and the fact that Mario’s formal rival Sonic the Hedgehog has appeared in LEGO Dimensions but has yet to receive a proper LEGO set outside of Ideas.
    • 2022 dropped a doozy of an IP many never would have thought possible given that it comes from Hasbro, the biggest rival of LEGO: The Transformers, with a UCS style Optimus Prime that actually transforms!
    • 2024 has a set scheduled to come out based on The Twilight Saga. No, seriously.
  • Values Dissonance: It's very unlikely that set 215 "Red Indians" (who are literally colored red rather than the usual yellow), or even the 1990s Western sets, would be considered acceptable in the 2020s.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?
    • The properties that LEGO chooses to adapt for the LEGO Adaptation Games and toys tend to skew towards PG-13 rated titles. Star Wars and Harry Potter are initially PG material (with the later, darker ones being PG-13) but we also have the Burton/Schumacher Batman films (all PG-13), the Pirates of the Caribbean films (likewise) and the Indiana Jones series (first two are PG, but only because PG-13 didn't exist, and The Temple of Doom was partially responsible for its creation).
    • In 2015, LEGO released a set that passed the LEGO Ideas submission and approval process... based upon The Big Bang Theory. Merchandise for a sitcom filled to the brim with sex jokes is being sold in LEGO Stores alongside themes like Legends of Chima and Ninjago. You know, for kids!
    • Expansions for LEGO Dimensions include ones for PG-13-rated Mission: Impossible and innuendo-laden Ghostbusters. Agent Smith of R-rated The Matrix even appeared in The LEGO Batman Movie expansion!
    • A Marvel Heroes set pits Deadpool and Magneto against Wolverine. While Magneto has had his share of violence in the comics, later films have come out such as R-rated, strip-club-featuring, innuendo-and-curse-soaked Deadpool and the equally gory and profane (not to mention tonally even darker) Logan.
    • Though the LEGO Ideas "123 Sesame Street" set is based on a show aimed at toddlers, it's actually marketed towards the program's Periphery Demographic and nostalgic adults who grew up watching it. It's a large, complicated build comprised of well over a thousand pieces, with an "18+" label on the package.
    • 2024 is set to come out with a set based around The Twilight Saga— a series that's particularly infamous as a Love Triangle set against the backdrop of a violent conflict between werewolves and vampires, characters who are selfish and manipulative jerks, and sparkling vampires.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: A few of their commercials by Ghost VFX, The Padawan Menace by Animal Logic and Hero Factory by CGCG. The feature films, also done by Animal Logic, are very pretty as well.

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