Most toy manufacturers would doubtless kill for the longevity that Lego has enjoyed since first hitting the market in 1932. The name is a portmanteau of the Danish words ‘leg godt’, which means ‘play well’, with Ole Kirk Christiansen designed the toy when his primary job had suffered as a result of the Great Depression. He initially produced wooden toys before creating a system of interlocking bricks, with manufacturing of the plastic Lego bricks getting underway in Denmark in 1947, though nowadays factories exist around the world.
The last patent for Lego ran out in 1989, since when plenty of imitations have sprung up. None of them have the staying power of the original Lego, however, which has seen eight amusement parks built over the years and attracting thousands of visitors. Deals with film companies like Marvel and Warner Brothers as well as the likes of Disney have helped the company’s appeal to grow even further thanks to tie-in Lego designs. Indeed, Lego has become a true collectible item that adults and children alike have fallen in love with.
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Lego Buying Guide
In one sense, Lego shouldn’t really have the appeal that it does. You spend hours concentrating on connecting fiddly plastic bits together and then, once you’re done, the completed model simply takes up space in your house. In another sense, however, Lego’s appeal is easy to understand, on account of the fact that you’re building something that looks like something that you recognise from films, books or even just your own imagination. There is a sense of achievement after you’ve finished building your chosen product, too.
In essence, there isn’t a huge amount to say about Lego from a buying guide perspective, given that it is the same product done in different ways. That being said, the sheer volume of options when it comes to Lego is what makes it so impressive, to say nothing of the fact that there are different types of Lego that you might wish to consider. The aesthetically pleasing nature of the finished pieces makes them much sought-after, whilst even just playing with them can give you a genuine amount of fun that other toys can’t meet.
Things To Think About
There are countless different things that you need to think about when you’re planning on buying some Lego, starting with the age of the person that you’re buying for. This might sound simply enough, but the reality is that there are entirely different Lego blocks available for a really young child than there are for an adult, say. It is also handy to figure out what your niche is if you’re buying for yourself, based on the fact that there are just so many options in the Lego family that you need to find a way to narrow things down.
If you specifically want to build things from the Star Wars universe, say, then you’re going to be able to do just that, much as you can narrow your field down to just Marvel characters or only things to do with Harry Potter. If, on the other hand, you’re a bit more wide-ranging in your desires then it helps to figure out whether you particularly enjoy building castles or vehicles or people. It is also worth thinking about whether you’re going to want to use the Lego for a different purpose once the design that you’ve bought has been built.
To put that another way, if you really love building spaceships then buying a spaceship model will give you plenty of pieces that can be used on different spaceships of your own making in the future. You’ll have things like engines, cockpits and wings that can be re-purposed after the fact to ensure that your future inventions at least look a little bit like what they’re supposed to look like. With this in mind, you can buy from the Star Wars collection even if you don’t like Star Wars, just because it will allow you to re-use the pieces.
Owing to the vast amount of Lego available to buy, from building cities to specific buildings, iconic moments from TV shows through to characters from your favourite films, it helps to have a sense of what you actually want to build. It is not an exaggeration to say that Lego have a huge amount of options available to those looking to buy it, even to the point that you can buy individual bricks and pieces online or by visiting one of the company’s many retail stores up and down the country and heading to their PICK-A-BRICK wall.
Different Lego Themes
The simplicity of Lego us such that it can be used for basic things one minute and remarkably complex ones the next. One way to narrow down the Lego field before you head into the Black Friday sales is by figuring our what your budget is and then working your way back from there. You might want to buy a Lego Titanic set, for example, but when you discover that it costs more than £500 you might have to change your mind on that front. You can also choose to narrow down the field by selecting a theme that you like and going from there.
In truth, the number of deals that Lego has in place with film and TV studios as well as others means that the sheer number of themes that are available can be over-whelming. With that in mind, perhaps the best thing to do would be to look at a selection of themes and explain the sort of Lego kits that you can buy within that theme. It is worth bearing in mind that this list is far from exhaustive and even within the different themes that are often many more Lego kits that you can buy than just the ones that we’re looking at.
Harry Potter
There have been few film franchises that have caught the imagination quite as much as Harry Potter. The world that J.K. Rowling invented when she wrote the book series was so deep and all-consuming that it opened the door for any number of different follow-ons, with the likes of the Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them series being the obvious example. The books and films truly caught the imagination of the (now) generations that have read them, so it’s no surprise that there are countless Lego versions of things that featured in them.
The question is, what would you like to build? Certainly the most impressive of options is Hogwarts Castle, which involves more than 6,000 pieces, incredible authentic detail and things that were in the books and films such as the Chamber of Secrets, Hagrid’s Hut and even the classrooms where Wizarding lessons took place. As you might imagine, that is also the most expensive Harry Potter-themed set, although you can get different versions of it that are slightly cheaper than the ‘hard to find’ main version offered by Lego.
Perhaps instead you might want to build 4 Privet Drive, where Harry lived before being whisked off to Hogwarts, or the Potion Class that he took when he was at the school. You might just wish to build large-scale versions of Harry and Hermione or get involved with creating the Hogwarts Express. Whichever aspect of the Harry Potter world it is that you’re a lover of, there’s a decent chance that you’ll be able to build a Lego version of it to keep in your own home, ready to cast a ‘reparo’ spell on when someone knocks it over.
Marvel
If there were to be a film series that could take the battle to Harry Potter then it would undoubtedly be the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Whilst Iron Man wasn’t the first film from the studio, it launched what we now think of as the MCU and the team behind it began to build something that culminated in Avengers: Endgame. Of course, the fact that they had created such a deep and well-thought out world meant that things couldn’t end there, so more films have been and will be added to the MCU in the future.
All of which is good for Lego lovers that have a penchant for Marvel, given that it means that we’re being presented with any number of different Marvel-themed options to build with the bricks provided by Lego. You can put together the final battle from Avengers: Endgame, for example, or the Infinity Gauntlet. You can create the Dragon Flyer used by Black Panther or the Hulkbuster: Ultron Edition. Even the ship of the Guardians of the Galaxy can be created out of Lego, if that’s something you love.
Because there is a deal in place between Marvel and Lego, more and more things will be released with every passing film that the studio releases. Inline with the release of The Eternals, for example, was The Eternals In Arishem’s Shadow set. Similarly there was an ‘Escape From the Ten Rings’ set to coincide with the release of Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings. It is an ever-growing Lego set that will continue to please and fascinate those that adore the world that Marvel has created.
DC
Whilst the DC Comics world will always be in the shadow of Marvel for a lot of people, there’s no denying that the franchise has some of the most recognisable characters of all time. Though we now love Captain America, Thor and Doctor Strange, there’s an argument that only Spider-Man from Marvel boasted the same name recognition as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman before the MCU became a household thing. As a result, kids and adults alike will love building the Batmobile, the Batcave and Gotham City.
Admittedly, a lot of the main DC-themed stuff on offer from Lego is centred around the Batman franchise, if for no other reason than it is one that lends itself to major exploration. It is worth bearing in mind that Batman has been recreated countless times, meaning that it just as fun building the Batmobile from the Adam West Era as it is getting your teeth stuck into the Batwing from Michael Keaton’s 1989 version of the Dark Knight. Add in to that that the likes of Penguin and The Riddler offer exciting villains and it makes even more sense.
Of course, things aren’t solely about Batman when it comes to Lego’s association with DC Comics. Wonder Woman is another brilliant character that offers a wealth of different options, including the 350+ piece Wonder Woman vs Cheetah set. Harley Quinn has become a character that many people love thanks to the work of Margot Robbie in the title-role, plus there are plenty of different keyring Lego figures of the likes of Superman that will keep even those with little more than a passing interest in DC interested.
Star Wars
Who amongst us hasn’t at least tried to use a Jedi mind-trick on someone at one point or another during our lifetimes? That is the cultural influence that Star Wars has had on hundreds of millions of people and, thanks to its regeneration in the Disney Plus era, doesn’t show any signs of abating. It is a film franchise that very much deserves to have the word ‘iconic’ next to it, given the manner in which so many aspects of the films have been adopted into the zeitgeist in the years since A New Hope hit our screens.
Unsurprisingly, Lego has come up with some genuinely superb pieces to compliment the films, with the Millennium Falcon unquestionably being the the most sought-after. Indeed, there are numerous different versions of that piece based on the various different films that have featured it, but it is far from the only Star Wars-based item that you can build in Lego. As an example, how about the All Terrain Armored Transports that were developed during the Clone Wars, if you want to be accurate the history of the films, but actually first featured in The Empire Strikes Back.
Whether you’re into the newer films, the original trilogy or you only really started to get into it when you watched The Mandalorian, there are plenty of different options for you in terms of Lego kits. As always, the best rule of thumb would be to decide upon the budget that you’ve got to operate with and then have a look at the sets that you can afford. Of course, the likes of Black Friday provide many with the perfect opportunity to look to stretch their budget a bit further than they were originally thinking, which is ideal.
Random Sets
As well as the well-thought out sets that tie-in with different franchises, there are also Lego sets that are one-offs or don’t quite get to fit in with a specific franchise. In 2021, for example, the Lego Ideas series saw the release of a Home Alone set. This involved the house, including internal sections where you can see Harry & Marv getting stung by some trap or another that Kevin has set up for them. You can take delivery of a Little Nero’s Pizza or build the Oh-Kay plumbing van that the ‘Wet Bandits drive around in.
If Home Alone isn’t your bag then how about Friends? The apartments that Monica and Rachel and Joey and Chandler live in can be built, as can Central Perk, where the gang spends most of their time hanging out. It works on the basis that you understand that they were both film sets, so there are also cameras and lights in place to give you the sense that you’re watching an episode being ‘filmed’. Just don’t get it confused with Lego’s Friends series, which is different selection of kits.
There will often be a one-off Lego set released for specific things, such as the 9,000+ piece set for the Titanic, which can be broken into thirds to allow you see inside the different floors. When new films get released, Lego will often launch a set to matchup with it, such as the Ecto-1 fan from Ghostbusters that came out alongside 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife. In short, if it’s impressive enough a thing to spark the public imagination then there’s a very real chance that Lego will release a set to match.
Things That Aren’t Really Lego
The final thing that is worth mentioning whilst we’re talking about Lego is the fact that the company has got into the habit of releasing things that aren’t really Lego as many of us would understand the product. There is, for example, a Lego board with just shy of 3,000 pieces that allows you to create a portrait of any one of the four members of The Beatles. A similar thing can be done with Andy Warhol’s version of Marilyn Monroe, as well as the likes of Mickey and Minnie Mouse or Marvel Studios’ Iron Man.
Lego has become such an all-consuming brand that you can buy Lego-themed merchandise that actually has nothing to do with building something and is just a lunchbox, t-shirt or some Lego-branded stationary. Perhaps you fancy making a map of the world or creating some ‘flowers’ that you can put around the house. Whatever it is that tickles your fancy, the chances are high that Lego will have come up with a way of getting you to buy a product of theirs that ticks the box, even though it isn’t really Lego in the sense of involving bricks and building.
There’s also the fact that there are certain sets that are released in an exclusive fashion, meaning that you can’t buy them outright but will get sent them if you spend a certain amount of money with the company. Lego know how to turn a profit and to interest their customers, so if there’s something that you want to build in Lego then there’s a very real chance that you’re going to be able to do so. If all else fails and Lego don’t actually offer a kit of the thing you want to build, why not get in touch with the Lego Ideas team and suggest it?