Why Ancient Rome never became an official theme?

[astral brick]

Considering the worldwide recognizability, the endless potential and the minifigures attempts, how is it possible that Ancient Rome never became an official theme?

[Beleg the Ranger]

Probably because it is real-world, and also I do not think kids would be thrilled. For the most part, what kids want (therefore Lego markets) is Ninjago, Star Wars, and City. While AFOLs might go wild, I do not think it would be in TLG's interests. Also,  Ole Kirk Christiansen did not want historical warfare to be a central part of a theme, just "good vs bad". These are my thoughts, it is fine if you think differently.

[Brick_Rattlehead]

I think they simply prefer to add another licensed theme than making a  new unique theme. At the end of the day , its about making quick profit.  The LOTR and Harry Potter themes seems to be castle theme replacement for them.

Some people say the kids and adults in general simply dont have much interest on medieval/castle themes which is a baseless observation. Brands such as Game of thrones, Harry Potter and LOTR remains popular to these days. 

Edited May 12, 2020 by Brick_Rattlehead

[Gorilla94]

I think Beleg is right with the real-life aspect.

Castle works as a fantasy world. There are pesants, but it is fine for everyone to stay with the well established romantic fantasy picture of happy ordinary people defended by honorfull knights (of wich some are even females) and ruled by a righteous king who leads them into battle against dragons or evil knights. There is no problem as long as they aren't depicting a real kingdom from history... 

It isn't possible to do such sets with Romans. They were real. Slavery, their few on human rights, sexuality, women, religion... i think "City sets" in an ancient Roman world would produce touble for Lego one way or another. Some will say rewriting history is bad, if they make it a Skyrim-like fantasy empire without slaves and with female soldiers, some will complain about the bad rolemodels, if they keep it at least mildly accurate to reality.

If the theme was more about military like castle there would be the question who they would fight. Which real nation would be the villains?

I am 100% sure we will see more ancient Cmfs. They have so much potential. But i doubt there will ever be sets.

[astral brick]

2 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

It isn't possible to do such sets with Romans. They were real. Slavery, their few on human rights, sexuality, women, religion...

This objection can be addressed to Ancient Egypt too, however there was a theme about it.

2 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

If the theme was more about military like castle there would be the question who they would fight. Which real nation would be the villains?

The barbarians?

2 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

I am 100% sure we will see more ancient Cmfs. They have so much potential. But i doubt there will ever be sets.

Don't you think there is a contradiction?

[Gorilla94]

There was no historical human vs. human-playtheme with existing fractions (and one of them being clearly the evil ones). Desert expedition was about a scientist, a journalist and an adventurer with evil treasure hunters as enemies and depicted nothing from ancient Egypt but graves and loose inspired temple ruins. Surely something like that would work well with Roman ruins, too, but that isn't what you want or am i wrong? With the second adventurers theme including maschineguns and so on they completely went the fantasy way with undead monsters chasing the heroes, which won't work with Romans because there isn't the generic mummy Pop culture horror stuff.

Lego Playthemes are always good vs. bad. There isn't much of that in history and even then you are on thin ice with depicting it that way. Lego made vikings a fantasy theme with horned helmets and fighting evil dragons and werewolfs. They are clearly pop culture vikings, not historically accurate ones. That works. I could imagine them do this with Greek mythological creatures and generic hoplits, too (and honestly hope they will do one day). Roman Legions were just an army. There are no myths about a handfull of roman soldiers making a journey like the hoplits around Jason and the Argo. There is no other pop culture Image about them fighting monters.

Who would be the "barbarians", which only means "those with the strange language"? The design will tell who they are depicting or at least from wich enemy the Designer took inspiration. Hannibal could maybe be used as a villain without offending too many people with Carthago being completely erased after the Punic wars, but Lego would never put a war elefant on shelves in a time when animal rights are such a hot topic... Vercingetorix, who is still a national hero in France, used as a cartoonish villain with a face like the series 15-evil knight could trigger some negative reactions, too. Or will we just stay with fictional halfnaked savages from Germania, a country and culture completely invented by Ceasar? I am only proud about who I became by my own work. My nationality really couldn't mean less to me and i'd in fact be happy with every usefull Castle print or accessory we get from such a line. But there are enough people that think very different about that and I can't imagine Lego taking that risk of offending them, if there are other potential themes to make sets.

No. The cmf offers potential for every character depicting a certain group of people being a good guy. There is no bloodthirsty looking savage Eagle Warrior in series 7 and no plundering greedy Spanish Conquistador with angry face in series 8. In a playtheme one side would have to be evil. Thats the difference. To make it more specific: why don't we have a butcher like from series 6 in City sets? Because of that stuff like a realistic Viking will stay a cmf or just appear in a museum city set.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Gorilla94

[astral brick]

20 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

There was no historical human vs. human-playtheme with existing fractions (and one of them being clearly the evil ones).

First of all, thank you for your elaborated answer, it was an interesting reading.

20 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

Desert expedition was about a scientist, a journalist and an adventurer with evil treasure hunters as enemies and depicted nothing from ancient Egypt but graves and loose inspired temple ruins

I see

20 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

Lego Playthemes are always good vs. bad. There isn't much of that in history and even then you are on thin ice with depicting it that way.

So everything comes down to politically correct, as I discussed in a previous thread. With hindsight, it was a miracle that Lego released Castle, Pirates or Western themes addressed to children.

20 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

Lego made vikings a fantasy theme with horned helmets and fighting evil dragons and werewolfs. They are clearly pop culture vikings, not historically accurate ones.

I was thinking of pop-romans too, something like Ridley Scott's Gladiator but despoiled of gory elements

20 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

That works. I could imagine them do this with Greek mythological creatures and generic hoplits, too (and honestly hope they will do one day).

An ancient Greece theme would be great as well

20 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

Roman Legions were just an army.

I was thinking of a whole theme - Colosseum, gladiators, chariot races, aqueduts, forum etc - beyond the military aspect

20 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

...Or will we just stay with fictional halfnaked savages from Germania, a country and culture completely invented by Ceasar?

Why not? Cartoonish tribes of barbarians of course. I would accept barbarians with a Lord of the Rings style as the price to be paid for having a Roman theme 

20 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

Because of that stuff like a realistic Viking will stay a cmf or just appear in a museum city set.

Maybe with the new 18+ ranking things are going to change. In the meantime I hope that the microscale ancient Rome will be one of the chosen Ideas.

[leafan]

They've never done it because they primarily sell to kids and kids *mostly* don't know what Rome is, let alone ancient Rome.

All the slavery, ex trade etc isn't a valid reason in my opinion because kids don't even know what it is like I mentioned, and it's not implied by the visuals of the era, unless they plan to do a brothel.

With the supposed target towards adults recently, I think it is possible, however unlikely.