Two Sets Have Been Approved from the Latest LEGO Ideas Review
The results of the first 2021 LEGO Ideas review are finally in... and two sets out of the 57 that made it to the review have been chosen for production. Let’s just cut straight to the chase: here’s what they are!
Jazz Quartet
Jazz Quartet has been designed by Hsinwei Chi, and we’re happy to see this one make the final cut; we’d picked it out as one of our highlights back in May. The model, as if the name doesn’t give it away, shows a quartet of jazz musicians playing away at their instruments. There’s a piano player, someone on drums, someone on double bass, and a trumpet player. We particularly love this one because people built out of LEGO bricks is not something we see very often, but Hsinwei Chi has done a fantastic job of bringing them to life.
The Office
LEGO seems to love cutaway studio sets lately. We’ve had The Big Bang Theory, Friends, Seinfeld and even Queer Eye. And now, The Office – the American version, we hasten to add – is being added to the line-up. The set has been created by Jaijai Lewis and, naturally, is a recreation of the Dunder Mifflin office from the TV series. We’ve not seen much of The Office – yes, yes, we know – so can’t comment on its accuracy, but no doubt fans of the series will be glad to see this come to light.
Further to the two above sets, LEGO also has chosen one additional set, but it requires further review. That set is Harry Finkel’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a set we’ve previously featured in our Ideas Spotlight. It’s a gorgeous set, and it seems LEGO does want to bring it to life but needs to further assess its viability. As it says on the LEGO Ideas Blog, “they haven’t been able to tick off all the boxes needed to move forward with it”. An update on the set will come along with the next review result in 2022.
It’s disappointing that some of our favourite sets didn’t make the cut, like The King’s Castle and Tutankhamun. But there’s always a reason for the decisions the LEGO Ideas team make. In a video published on the LEGO Ideas blog, designers Laura Perron and Samuel Johnson go into some detail about the factors involved in choosing which sets make the cut. Those factors include:
- Products already on shelves
- New products currently in development
- Licensing possibilities
- Production capacity
- Build quality
- Feasibility
- Playability
- Expected demand
- Brand fit
So, it’s always somewhat disappointing to see your favourite set not make the cut. But there’ll always be a good reason for it. Ultimately, LEGO can’t make every set, and has to make a careful decision as to what’s a best fit for the company and its consumers.
We’re unsure as to when we’ll see these sets on store shelves. As we wrote earlier this week, there are still five LEGO Ideas sets to come. It seems likely they’ll be released roughly in the order they were accepted, so we’d expect The Jazz Quartet and The Office to appear in early 2023.
What do you think about the latest review results? Let us know in the comments below.
