When a license ends...

[koromo]

This is not a foil to what license you would like to see, or what IP will enter stud and tube form. It is a pondering on what happens when a license enters and then leaves the lego realm. What did it supplant and replace? What new items did it add, what did it "take away"? What replaces it or what theme makes a return?

I had a more developed section after the above paragraph but internet browser magic ate it. Briefly I wish to hold personal feelings and gripes on hold about each particular themes ups and downs and focus on the questions.

[Though admittedly the SW license has been going on for 10 years and now Batman is making a return. So maybe they will not fit into the analysis well.]

What I am looking at are the themes that seem isolated from the core lego themes of Castle, Pirates, Town, & Spaces. For example, Avatar, Spongebob, Cars, Toy Story, Prince of Persia...

And another is a focus on the supplant and replace themes of Pirates of the Carribean and the forthcoming Lord of the Rings license.

[vynsane]

Well, it's pretty apparent that PotC supplanted Pirates and LotR supplanted Castle/Kingdoms. I'd say we'd see Pirates return once PotC is done with.

I'm glad to see that SW hadn't cornered the market on Space, though it seems to have had an impact until recently what with the 6-year gap between Life On Mars and Mars Mission.

[Zeya]

It also seems to me like most of themes supplant other themes, wholesale. Especially in recent/upcoming months. PotC replaced Pirates and LotR is replacing Kingdoms.

Have we even seen a return of a theme that had been supplanted by a licensed theme? I don't think we have, at this point. I mean, I don't think there is a case where a now-expired licensed theme had replaced an original theme. That seems to be a new thing with PotC and LotR.

Or maybe... let's see. Speed Racer could arguably have stamped out a racey original theme for a while; but it was so short lived (movie failed too). I'm not sure about Ben 10 and what it did or didn't do to Bionicle. Avatar didn't bump out anything. Cars and Toy Story didn't bump out anything.

The only other one that comes to mind is Star Wars. I'm only out of my dark age in 2010, so I'm not familiar with how things were around 1999/2000 when SW launched. But I think there have been some short-lived space themes during the SW run, most recently Space Police. But with that, they had Space Police take on a cops-and-robbers feel, although it did feature aliens and spaceships like SW does. (Just speaking from an objective standpoint.)

Another thing I can think of where some licensed IP has meshed well is with things like Maersk. If anything, the train fans have embraced that wholeheartedly. There's one license that hasn't really removed a theme. Same might be true of the Ferrari sets. But then that's a rare case of using a brand, as apposed to a movie/book theme. Starbucks lego set, anyone?

[vynsane]

Both the Speed Racer movie and theme were awesome (it's a touchy subject for me). It's a shame that it came before my LEGO reawakening, because the sets are hard to come by these days. "World Racers" seems to have stemmed from the Speed Racer concept, especially the set 'Wreckage Road'. The 'Backyard Brawlers' car in that set is basically ripped right from the Speed Racer sets. That's a non-licensed theme coming out of a licensed one.

I'd say Pharaoh's Quest is a spiritual successor to Indiana Jones, so there's another licensed -> non-licensed transition for ya.

[Zeya]

How could I forget Indiana Jones? PQ is definitely an unlicensed IJ.

[koromo]

I do not see cars as having added much to lego. The modular parts for the characters have limited conversion for other applications and unlikely to remain in the inventory for future builds.

PoP gave us the camel, ostrich, lots of gold pieces, (tamina's braid?) other neat gear including the persian helm, clawblades etc. Sadly the first two went with the theme. But it didn't compete with anyother theme, neither did cars.

PotC presented the scabbard-sling, a globe, goldbars, different mermaid tail, etc. Hopefully these are retained in a return of pirates...
Additional PoTC was released with the 4th film well after the other three had come and gone from active viewership and only released 9 sets.

IJ also had a trilogy under its belt and a 4th film released with the lego sets but the theme ran 2 years and double number of sets.(in my view a more sucessful release) We saw the satchel, whip and machinegun, not sure what else (also if I messed-up on what pieces debuted when, please let me know)

Toy story was released, again with a fourth film in a series. How much staying power would it have? The character molds were unique but would go away with the theme.

This is what disappoints me leading up to the release of LoTR. It also has a trilogy, a fourth film to be released. Has already bumped off the core lego theme of castle. Pattern? 7,8?,9? sets and bubble away like PoTC when the movie comes and goes?

[natelite]

Machinegun came with the original batman theme not Indy.

Toy story only has 3 series, not 4.

[mooslug]

This is what disappoints me leading up to the release of LoTR. It also has a trilogy, a fourth film to be released. Has already bumped off the core lego theme of castle. Pattern? 7,8?,9? sets and bubble away like PoTC when the movie comes and goes?

The Hobbit movie is broken into two parts, so there will be one end of 2012 and end of 2013. The line will be around for a good while.

[Zeya]

PQ folowing IJ is an example of a licensed theme ending and a very similar original one beginning. I wonder if a similar situation might happen with Harry Potter? Maybe some kind of wizard adventure theme not necessarily involving pullover sweaters and ornate college preparatory schools?

[unclephn]

This is what disappoints me leading up to the release of LoTR. It also has a trilogy, a fourth film to be released. Has already bumped off the core lego theme of castle. Pattern? 7,8?,9? sets and bubble away like PoTC when the movie comes and goes?

That's kind of what toy licensing is all about; selling merchandise licensed by current franchises/films/cartoons/etc. The corresponding LEGO sets of particular license will live and die with that license outside of LEGO. I agree with you that it sucks that a license such as POTC supplanted Pirates, but that's more because of circumstance. I don't think someone said, "Hey, we need a new theme to replace Pirates. Pirates of the Caribean!". It just so happened that the POTC franchise was hot at the time of its inception.

The good thing is that once a licensed theme comes and goes, the original theme always has a good chance of coming back better than ever.

[BrickGarurumon]

I usually don't like it when a license ends.

[Deathleech]

This is what disappoints me leading up to the release of LoTR. It also has a trilogy, a fourth film to be released. Has already bumped off the core lego theme of castle. Pattern? 7,8?,9? sets and bubble away like PoTC when the movie comes and goes?

The thing is though, most those other licenses you mentioned don't have anywhere near the longevity or expansive universe Lord of the Ring does. They are just a couple stand alone movies with relatively few scenes you can model sets after before they get to boring or similar. I mean after you do a couple sets for PotC and make the Black Pearl ship, you aren't really left with a ton of sets you can make that are truly unique.

Lord of the Ring is so much different though. It's much more in line with the Star Wars universe, which Lego has been pumping sets out for almost a decade now and still has sets coming out regularly. There is just so much to draw inspiration from that the line could go on forever (check out my thread for just a few years worth of sets they could do ). And none of this is even including the lore outside the three films.

I mean look at the recent Avengars line. They pretty much hit all the main scenes with the first wave or 4 or 5 sets and I doubt they will have many more Avengar based ones (though I am sure they will have more Super Hero sets). Ultimately though, it really depends on how well a line does. If the LotR line bombs, I am sure it will only last a wave or two. If it does phenomenal, it will be around for many, many years.

[ninjagoyo]

Toy story was released, again with a fourth film in a series. How much staying power would it have? The character molds were unique but would go away with the theme.

I wonder about that. The longer minifig legs and arms we will definitely see again.
I had been speculating to myself about the licensing terms for the other molds... for example, Lotso, a fatnastic fig. Would LEGO be entitled to reuse that mold if they altered the color and printing so that it no longer looked like the character (eg, with a brown body, tan muzzle, and 'happier' eye printing , as a giant teddy bear... or in dark green with printed scales and teeth as some kind of space monster). If not that, what about just the Lotso arms, say? Could they be reused on another figure?

[NIGELTTF]

PQ folowing IJ is an example of a licensed theme ending and a very similar original one beginning. I wonder if a similar situation might happen with Harry Potter? Maybe some kind of wizard adventure theme not necessarily involving pullover sweaters and ornate college preparatory schools?

I would think not. Not only would that expose them to some liability if WB wanted to sue, it would make them in a worse bargaining position for future licenses if companies were going to think they were going to just rip them off later. Sure Disney got away with Wizards of Waverly place, but that's because they are freaking Disney and WB would be a fool to try and play chicken with their legal department on such a grey matter.

They might sort of dabble with it by adding a female magic using character in Monster Hunters. Sort of borrowing enough elements from Willow from Buffy the Vampire slayer and Harry Potter so that it wouldn't be immediately recognizabile as a rip off of either, since Urban Fantasy is a fairly well developed genre nowadays.