As previously mentioned, I’m currently in a month long hiatus until mid-June, but since this news is rather large, I figured I might as well make a quick article to share it with you guys…..though I doubt anybody noticed I was gone.
Just today, LEGO announced the next Ideas set, which will presumably come out later in the year or early next year, following the Doctor Who set (which I couldn’t be more excited for after we got a glimpse of the minifigure in the new Dimensions sets!).
This set is the Marble Maze, which was one of 9 projects in the review stage this time around, along with other projects such as The National History Museum and the Goonies 30th Anniversary. I’m not at all surprised by this result, as the maze was one of few projects to not be base off of something that already exists, meaning something that is a genuine landmark or a project based off of something. Reasons for these sort of sets not being picked would be that LEGO would need to go and get the license to produce it, unlike an original idea.
This of course has been the case every now and then shown by the Minecraft, BTTF and Ghostbusters sets, but it is far easier for LEGO if they choose sets that don’t require this extra hassle, such as the Birds Project and the Exo-Suit by Peter Reid, where they just need the person behind the idea to sign up for it….which obviously is the case since they submitted it to the site. And besides, with so many themes being used for the new dimensions line-up (those being Back To The Future, Jurassic World, The Wizard Of Oz, Doctor Who, Portal 2 -those last 2 being my personal favourites – and the now reincarnated Lord Of The Rings) it seems unlikely that it will be possible for the Ideas line to get any licenses for themselves. The reason for this may be because, well, Licenses cost money….and there’s a heck of a lot of it being spent on existing licenses. The budget unfortunately probably doesn’t accommodate Ideas sets too.
Here’s the video that shows JK Brickworks, the creator of the Maze, showing it off.
Just so all you guys know, I’ll be doing another couple articles possibly over the next week or two, just to keep the ice thin. After June 25th though, you’ve got 3 whole months of this blog being one of my up-most priorities, so stay tuned for that!