123 lines
5.9 KiB
Markdown
123 lines
5.9 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "akira and the slow decline of lego"
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published: 2019-08-29
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---
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isn't the title of this post just so… ambiguous and misleading? that is to say,
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titling something **akira and the slow decline of lego** definitely gives the
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implication that i'll be talking about some sort of causation (or at the very
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least correlation) between what appear to be apparently unrelated topics.
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***spoiler alert***: even if i *was* writing about some correlation between
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`lego` and `akira`, i have little doubt that it would be any more than hindsight
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bias and imagined significance coupled with taking events that had a global
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effect and using those to link the two together. people do this sort of thing
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all the smegging time and sometimes it can sound pretty convincing.
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but no; i'm just going to briefly touch on those two things separately from
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each other but in the same blog entry.
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## akira
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i don't think i've mentioned `akira` yet, and i only have this year to say what
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i currently want to say about it.
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the thing about `akira` is:
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> that's the image i wanted. `akira` is a masterpiece and a hugely influential
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> and significant film (especially in the world of anime), and *it takes place
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> this year*! so if you haven't seen `akira` yet, this year is a great year to
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> finally watch it! and if you *have* seen it before, just rewatch it, ok? no
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> big deal. in fact, make an event out of it. turn off any unnecessary lights,
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> crank up the volume, and fill your belly with whatever gets you pumped
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> (popcorn or pizza for food is pretty standard, and to drink i'd say either
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> beer or coke because they sound like pretty standard choices as well).
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also the guy shown in this final screenshot says a weird mix of things i agree
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and disagree with, and it's hard to know how much of his ideology i actually
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agree with, but this line is gold:
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## lego, why did you do it?
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i am and always have been a pretty huge lego fan. however, **lego used to be
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better**. and by this i mean the sets lego made were more fun to put together
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(and gave you better pieces to work with later), the series/themes used to be
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more creative, and everything used to be more universal/uniform. there used to
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be raised base plates that came with the big sets that were just fun af to
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build on. minifigs didn't all have unique faces and body parts. and don't get
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me started on when they began making film-based legos with that pseudo-skin
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colour.
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this is an example of one of those base plates you can't find anymore:
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### pop quiz!
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**how many current and recent lego themes can you name?**
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were most of them based on films? were they? i mean, you have collector sets,
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generic bricks sold in tubs severely lacking in brick shapes if you want to
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build something other than maybe multi-coloured enclosures or whatever, city of
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course (unless it's called something else now), the friends (?) sets (you know,
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the ones marketed to girls with the scary looking minifigs), ninjago, probably
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a medieval themed one, and about 10 or so different series that exist solely as
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cross-marketing tools between mainly film/tv franchises [`star wars`, `disney
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princesses`, `marvel this`, `dc that`, `harry potter`, you get the idea] and legos.
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what i see as the beginning of lego's downfall from its glory days can be
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clearly identified, and was very memorable. it was the disaster known as **jack
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stone**. i remember seeing `jack stone` legos on the shelf for the first time
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and wondering how an idea so off-putting made it into production. *and
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apologies to anyone who was fond of `jack stone` or "flesh-coloured" minifigs
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(which i'm getting to)*.
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jack stone legos started in 2001.
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> also in 2001:
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lego alpha team is introduced. i remember thinking how cool it was that the
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alpha team lego minifigs were all unique (by which i mean that `alpha team`
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legos seemed to be an actual `team` of the same unique minifigs, which was cool
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and new). i did not expect them to make it the normal thing to do for all lego
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sets, and that the days of generic and easily swappable minifig designs would
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actually end. at least i can say i much prefer the `alpha team` approach over
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the `jack stone` approach to making minifigs worse.
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and speaking of making minifigs worse, the "skin-coloured minifigures" began
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just a couple years later, in 2003. 2004 is when a lot of the colour-swapping
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happened, making life as a lego collector just that much harder (although
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compared to the minifig changes, colour-swapping bricks and tiles is nothing).
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### did you know?
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lego's ceo up until 2004 had always been a member of the family. looking at
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wikipedia's `lego timeline`, it shows that someone by the name of **jorgen vig
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knurdstrom** became the first non-family ceo of lego in 2004. what year does it
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say **knurdstrom** started at the company? 2001. apparently stepped down in
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2017 iirc. i've only been looking at references for parts of the time i've
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spent writing this, and i'm basically just monologuing (as advertised) in a
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random rant so forgive me if any of my facts are off. in any case i couldn't
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decide whether to make a joke by implying that lego not going in the direction
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i would have wanted was some sort of conspiracy and knurdstrom's fault or say
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that i feel bad for the guy having to be in charge while the company went
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downhill ^^' so take your pick.
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also sorry i lied about these being "brief". i wrote that thinking it would be.
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until next time,
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***stay tasty*** `o/`
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