BrickLink Designer Program: Brickwest Studios delayed
Posted by Huw,
The accidental fatal shooting on the set of the Western film Rust last week has had a knock-on effect to the BrickLink Designer Program.
LEGO has decided to delay the release of BrickyBricks82 Brickwest Studios -- a model of a Western film set -- until a later round and has substituted it with BrickQubit's Venetian houses.
BrickLink posted on Instagram yesterday "We’ve moved Venetian House forward into Round 2 and Brickwest Studio back to Round 3. This is out of respect for people affected by the recent tragedy on the set of Rust. We didn’t want to draw any unintended and inappropriate association between the fan design and the tragedy at this difficult time."
Those that were looking forward to ordering it when round two of crowdfunding begins on the 9th November will of course be disappointed but, on the positive side, Venetian houses is a truly beautiful model and one that I will be tempted to order myself.
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46 comments on this article
I wouldn't have done it but i understand
How coincidental and unfortunate - at least lego isn’t fully cancelling the project
Fair enough
I completely understand. Sure, it’s disappointing, but I do like the Venetian House.
Huh, I can’t seem to find the page with all the prices for the upcoming round anymore. I was looking for it to see if they updated that as well to show this one’s price, does anyone know?
Given how insanely expensive that building is going to be, it’d be nice if they’d actually show the interior in advance of Round 2.
I didn't make the link between Brickset Studios and the tragic circumstances on the set of 'Rust' until this announcement. But I might be a minority here and the decision is indeed understandable.
Venetian set looks beautiful but I shudder to think what it will cost.
Looks like it will be $289.99 in the US. The price is on the Bricklink page.
@mr_Fikou said:
"Huh, I can’t seem to find the page with all the prices for the upcoming round anymore. I was looking for it to see if they updated that as well to show this one’s price, does anyone know?"
This was the original info:
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/community/newsview.page?msgid=1309695
Venetian Houses $289.99
@dbbunny said:
" @mr_Fikou said:
"Huh, I can’t seem to find the page with all the prices for the upcoming round anymore. I was looking for it to see if they updated that as well to show this one’s price, does anyone know?"
This was the original info:
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/community/newsview.page?msgid=1309695
Venetian Houses $289.99"
Ouch. That’s an absolute pass for me then. Such a shame as I absolutely adore Venetian architecture, but I guess I could simply design a much smaller model myself if I really wanted to. Still can’t seem to find the prices on my device though, but thanks for the info!
Understandable move.
Can anyone who bought in round 1 advise: do I need to start my purchase journey on Bricklink or Lego? Seem to remember it being a bit confusing and complicated last time round
@SuperMatt said:
"Understandable move.
Can anyone who bought in round 1 advise: do I need to start my purchase journey on Bricklink or Lego? Seem to remember it being a bit confusing and complicated last time round"
Starts on Bricklink, ends at Lego.
I was wondering why Venetian House was showing "round 2", but was not listed in the previous Brickset article.
Tempted ... yes. But still wondering how to get it in SA.
Note: I would have preferred the set using 1x2 trans light blue tiles instead of azure for the water.
Appreciate the sensitivity, but confused by BrickLink attributing this to Rust. Not even close to the same thing as removing the Mandalay Bay from the Las Vegas set. The Rust shooting occurred in a western chapel on the set; there's nothing like that in the Brickwest Studios set.
Sounds a bit oversensitive to me, after all it was an accident, albeit a tragic one.
But as I much prefer the Venetian Houses anyway, I don't mind at all. Other than the purported price of that set of course.
On the one hand, this does kinda suck. I wouldn’t personally have associated the set with the shooting. There have been more westerns before Rust and hopefully some after Rust. Sure, some MOC makers could have made a joke in poor taste, but I don’t think that would affect people’s view of the set. I didn’t even know Rust was a western!
That being said, maybe this is a case of better safe than sorry. I do find the timing a bit odd though given the shooting is old news at this point.
@pawelg said:
"WTF? Crazy PC times. Sorry to break it to you: whole Western thing is about guns and shooting people."
But not about shooting a person on the set of the movie. This isn’t about the content of Westerns. This is about a real life tragedy that occurred.
I think it’s an over sensitive move, but this doesn’t feel like an attempt to censor someone or be the fun police. The set had just been pushed back a bit.
@DavidBrick said:
"Am I disappointed in the switch? No. It's silly and really makes no difference in the end.
What I'm disappointed in is the nearly $300 price tag. It supposedly has 13 minifigures (which aren't even shown) and 3500 pieces but it doesn't feel like a $300 set, it feels like a $230 max.
I still don't get the 436 unique parts. I thought the point of these were just using parts already in LEGO's catalog. Now they have to make new pieces? Then why limit it to 10,000?
They don't show the minifigures or the inside. You don't even know what you are really spending $300 on. It's really weird.
This whole Bricklink set thing is really just a disappointment. "
I assumed when they said unique parts they didn't mean parts unique to this set but meant the number of 'different' parts. So a 1x1 brick and a 1x1 tile would count as 2 unique parts but there might be 100 of each. I might well be wrong but that was my take on it anyway. Whatever it is the Bricklink description could be clearer.
I wonder if the “unique parts” refer to prints/stickers...? Disappointed that there are no interior pics yet, but the designer probably didn’t expect this turn of events. I suspect they’ll be up soon.
I had my eye on this one, and while $289 seems steep, it IS a double-modular with a decent number of pieces and 13 minifigs. Not perfectly comparable to Assembly Square, but also not too far off. I think the value is there.
@DavidBrick said:
"Am I disappointed in the switch? No. It's silly and really makes no difference in the end.
What I'm disappointed in is the nearly $300 price tag. It supposedly has 13 minifigures (which aren't even shown) and 3500 pieces but it doesn't feel like a $300 set, it feels like a $230 max.
I still don't get the 436 unique parts. I thought the point of these were just using parts already in LEGO's catalog. Now they have to make new pieces? Then why limit it to 10,000?
They don't show the minifigures or the inside. You don't even know what you are really spending $300 on. It's really weird.
This whole Bricklink set thing is really just a disappointment. "
"Unique parts" does not mean parts you can't find in other sets, it means how many different parts there are in the set. All those those azure tiles count as one "unique part", so are all those reddish brown massonery bricks, etc.
I completely understand the change and agree with it.
Hopefully, for the fans planning on buying the set, this won't progress from 'pushed back' to 'cancelled', as I think that would be an overreaction.
If I could actually MOC beyond daydreaming I'd be inspired to build a Lego Rock Ridge :)
NOTE: it's already been done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IVT34AgqWM
They even have Mongo punching a horse! (which is the least of the reasons TLG would never make this...)
I tried searching on Lego Ideas for Venetian House but unable to find as seems that they are deleting any reference to entries once there are no more days left? I'm not too concerned about round 2, as delivery only from Aug 2022 which is too long to wait.
I suppose its understandable, but I feel like making the statement did a much bigger job of associating the two than just letting it remain would have. I am familiar with the story, and didn't make the association at all.
Honestly, I was expecting this decision.
Now Brickwest Studios won't make it into production in the third round. Too much competition. Great.
This set looks nice. But the question is: is this better than the Police Station ($200) + $90 remaining?
@Elcascador said:
"I didn't make the link between Brickset Studios and the tragic circumstances on the set of 'Rust' until this announcement. But I might be a minority here and the decision is indeed understandable."
agreed. there are hundreds of western movies and tons and tons of western-themed memorabilia and toys and swag. it seems like a streeeeeeetch to think someone is going to make a connection with this set and a movie that hasn't been promoted or released. heck, i didn't even know Rust was a western.
but its a CYA move, and apparently they want zero risk
@ambr said:
"I tried searching on Lego Ideas for Venetian House but unable to find as seems that they are deleting any reference to entries once there are no more days left? I'm not too concerned about round 2, as delivery only from Aug 2022 which is too long to wait. "
You specifically have to select that you are searching for "Not approved" / "Expired" / etc. ideas -- the search defaults to projects "gathering support" unless specified otherwise.
@dougts said:
" @Elcascador said:
"I didn't make the link between Brickset Studios and the tragic circumstances on the set of 'Rust' until this announcement. But I might be a minority here and the decision is indeed understandable."
agreed. there are hundreds of western movies and tons and tons of western-themed memorabilia and toys and swag. it seems like a streeeeeeetch to think someone is going to make a connection with this set and a movie that hasn't been promoted or released. heck, i didn't even know Rust was a western.
but its a CYA move, and apparently they want zero risk"
Worth pointing out the set isn't just a western theme, its depicting a western *movie* set. They probably wouldn't have delayed it otherwise but in that context I get they probably felt uncomfortable, even if no one was really calling for it. (I personally would feel weird about releasing it if I was involved, we aren't even a month out from the incident)
Unrelated general question: Did they take out the figures in the final model? This was probably the only one left in the program I would be interested in. (Price is really steep though....) But lack of figures probably is a deal-breaker for me :/
@fulcrumbop:
Bricklink is owned by The LEGO Group, but this is still their project. We don’t know if this was the designer’s request, Bricklink’s choice, or if they were told to shift them around by TLG.
@PixelTheDragon:
Probably less a case of holding off to make the announcement until the last minute, and more a case of, “Holy crap, you guys, I just realized...”
@pawelg:
It’s not even about being PC. They have their policies, and their corporate values, and if they feel something oversteps those bounds, they change course. If they don’t, they don’t rant about it because they know that just alienates people and drives customers away (customers usually being the parents of kids who maybe don’t understand why they’re not allowed to own “those evil toys” anymore). When the Jabba’s Palace set drew fire and brimstone from some white, European, non-Muslim because it legitimately bears a resemblance to the Hagia Sophia, they neatly sidestepped the issue by announcing the retirement date. Any AFOL would have told you to expect it to retire then, even without the controversy. But the guy was convinced he got them to stop producing it with whatever meaningless threats he’d made, and he went away. Customers were able to keep buying it for the already abnormally-long lifecycle of that set, and even had a bit of friendly warning to hurry up and buy it if they’d been procrastinating.
In this case, they’re simply removing a potential source of controversy until there’s less chance that someone will draw down the wrath of Twitter on them, and then it will be business as usual. If it _was_ about being PC, they would have simply removed it from the slate and not allowed it to come back.
@ComfySofa:
You don’t think they’d be comfortable producing a set based on Slim Pickens passing the first fart in motion picture history? I guess it is pretty controversial. He was even worried they’d fire him from his real job as a firefighter once they saw the film.
Really bizarre decision considering these sets won't be produced or shipped out for months and months. Wouldn't be surprised if the sets from round 2 take close to a full year from now to be delivered. Also, as others have said, the connection between this set and the accident on the set of Rust wouldn't have even been made had they not called attention to it.
Lego makes cars all the time. What about all the families that have had a family member die in a car crash? So just because that family member's death didn't make national news, Lego has the audacity to keep making cars?
Trying to placate everyone's sensibilities is endless. No one made this connection until Lego brought it up.
I'm not angry about this, but using their logic, I'm curious why this doesn't apply to every real-world tragedy and every Lego set.
I'd rather have Venetian Houses but we need better images, the ones we have are out of date and they don't show the minifigures. Imagine buying it and you get 10 Spider-Men and three Chewbaccas but some of you people are probably weird enough to army build those.
As long as it isn’t cancelled, I suppose it isn’t the end of the world. I was really looking forward to it though. I do kinda understand the logic, but it seems a bit overkill in my opinion.
Wow...
That’s the one set I wanted from this round too.
@gonesnakee:
The basic rundown is that Rust is an independent film that almost nobody who wasn’t on payroll had ever heard of. The armorer was inexperienced and had considered turning down the job. The we’re using functional guns as props, rather than real prop guns that look real but aren’t capable of firing live rounds. Someone brought live ammo onto the set, some of it got loaded into one of the guns, the armorer handed it off to one of the production crew, neither of them checked to make sure it wasn’t loaded, and Alec Baldwin was given this gun to perform his scene. While waiting for things to get rolling, he was practicing drawing and shooting the gun, and ended up shooting the cinematographer, fatally wounding her.
I have a suspicion that they’re going to try to pin this all on one person, but I just named three individuals who screwed up. Two of them were supposed to actually open the firearm and verify that it was safe before handing it off, and one was an actor who treated it like a toy. _EVERY_ gun is loaded, even when you know it’s not.
And that doesn’t even get into the matter of who brought live ammo onto a movie set.
@Nokturn:
In these days of antisocial media, all it takes is one person finding out they’re offering to sell people a set that bears resemblance to this incident, and the next thing you know you wake up to see articles about how they produced this set to capitalize on a tragic incident. They can’t possibly convince everyone who reads those articles that it’s not true, so the cleanest path is to disassociate the event from the potential set by giving people time to have their reactions and move on.
@Wasthereonce:
Off the top of your head, who’s the last person you can remember, by name, who made national news by dying in a car accident? I’m coming up with names like Jayne Mansfield, Steve McQueen, and Princess Di. I think most of us have had enough time to recover from those. On a more personal level, I’d say Arthur Gugick, but he’s not world-famous, except maybe in the AFOL community.
This whole round feels more expensive than Round 1
I really want the Venetian houses <3
Totally understandable move. I am only "affected" because I was thinking of getting the Bowling Alley now and then the Venetian Houses in a later round - not sure I can justify the spend on both of them at once.
lol
@CopperTablet said:
"I'd rather have Venetian Houses but we need better images, the ones we have are out of date and they don't show the minifigures. Imagine buying it and you get 10 Spider-Men and three Chewbaccas but some of you people are probably weird enough to army build those."
Indeed, I don't understand at all what they're doing from at marketing perspective.
I am tempted to order Venetian Houses myself, but might actually pass because of lack of transparency. All we got are two rendered and color filtered images with no interiors and no minifigs. The project's ideas entry shows a little, but that's five years old. Who knows what you'll get in the end.
@pawelg:
“18+“ refers more to the skill level than the content. There are some topics they will never touch, there are others that will require delicate treatment, and there are others that won’t seem to be a problem until something like the Rust shooting happens. _Nobody_ thought anything of showing the WTC in the background of films in production in late 2000/early 2001, but then 9/11 happened and studios were editing it out of the background, editing scenes out of their films, and probably even reshooting from an angle where it wouldn’t be visible.
As for whether or not it makes the cut, that remains to be seen. This may even boost interest and help it advance. But if they were intending to make sure it didn’t clear the bar, they could just as easily have archived it and walked away.
Love the Venetian houses
Just checked this morning and new pics are posted, mostly showing the minifigs, with a few interiors. Also, additional pics are posted in the comments section, so be sure to scroll down!
As I suspected, it just looks like the designer wasn’t expecting this turn of events, and had to hustle to update the page in advance of the new pre-order date.
Overall, looks great!