LEGO Rejects “Firefly” Submission, Explains Itself After Two High Profile Rejections Dan Koelsch, May 8, 2012 I have loved LEGO toy building bricks since I was a kid, so I love the concept behind LEGO® CUUSOO. You can submit your own ideas for LEGO playsets, and if it gets 10,000 supporters, LEGO will review it to possibly make it themselves. If it sounds too good to be true, it is…at least so far. Get the details on LEGO’s recent rejections and explanations after the break. The first project to get the required supporters was The Winchester Pub from Shaun of the Dead back in March. Unfortunately, after review it was deemed not “content appropriate”. Since then, a few other projects have made the 10,000 supporter mark, with the most popular ones being related to film, television, or video games. One of these was the Serenity spaceship from the now-cancelled TV show Firefly, but today that was also rejected because the content of the show was not appropriate for all ages. The legions of Browncoats are sure to be pissed off, and LEGO decided to hedge their bets with not only a thorough explanation of the rejection, as well as a blog entry about Brand Standards.Long story short, if your idea is too cool for kids, then LEGO won’t make it. In fact, now LEGO won’t even allow it to be part of their CUUSOO beta. I’m sure there will be all kinds of arguments about hypocrisy and such, but I think LEGO could really get around this issue if they created a new brand for more adult-oriented playsets. I’m not talking about an X-rated LEGO brand, but more along the lines of PG-13 or soft R. With geek culture continuously growing, they are missing out on a lot of potential revenue. Star Wars and superheroes are nice, but imagine a Walking Dead or Game of Thrones LEGO playset.What do you guys think? Is Firefly appropriate for kids? What should LEGO do about this riff between them and us nerds who want cool LEGO sets? Fan Made Work Viral Marketing Viral News LEGOLEGO CUUSOO
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LEGO bricks are all about creativity. Nothing is stopping anyone from building their own Serenity or designing it in their digital designer tool so others can order it too. Scratch that. I just checked and they shut down “DesignedByMe” in January 2012. You can still get individual bricks though.
I would have loved this set. However, I can understand why Lego would not want to make this set. But what I can’t understand is why Lego does not just make a new brand. In addition, why there are sets based off of Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones. Firefly perhaps is more violent and sexual but I would not say that Pirates or Indiana Jones are exactly kid friendly.
What bothers me is that LEGO says this, but they have a high-end line of sets, LEGO Architecture, that is clearly targeted for an older audience. The series consists of simplified scale versions of iconic buildings around the world. Some of which children may know (the Empire State Building) and some they most likely won’t (Fallingwater or the Robie House). Each set comes with a booklet that contains, in addition to the instructions, architect biographies, building specs, and building history…and not a dumbed-down Dorling Kindersley version of history. If LEGO is claiming that they only do kid-friendly stuff, they are hypocrites. Anyway, as with all other media, LEGO should produce what the people want and leave it up to the parents to censor…whatever it is that they think needs censoring.
I plan on introducing my 5 year old to Firefly this year. It is just a grittier Star Wars IMO, and would actually have been PERFECT for LEGO to market. Maybe Megablocks will pick up the gauntlet.
can the creator give us a parts list and we use the Pick a Brick shop on LEGO to order the parts we need?
lot of potential revenue. Star Wars and superheroes are nice, but imagine a Walking Dead or Game of Thrones LEGO playset.
What i found to be interesting was the advertisement from lego this morning during one of the shows my kids watch, for ships from the new movie Battleship… Would hardly deem that age appropriate. My kids all love Firefly, have for many years, my youngest is 9 and has seen Serenity at least 6 times.