Random set of the day: Tonto's Campfire
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 30261 Tonto's Campfire, released during 2013. It's one of 8 The Lone Ranger sets produced that year. It contains 20 pieces and 1 minifig.
It's owned by 1,865 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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52 comments on this article
Does anyone actually remember this movie?
@R1_Drift said:
"Does anyone actually remember this movie?"
Dumb and forgettable movie but great sets and figs.
Underrated movie theme and potentially the last proper Western sets we will get.
Season 2 of Fargo, I learned that Tonto means "Stupid idiot," or "Fool," it's been awhile I don't remember the exact words said, but oof. The creators of Lone Ranger were either not thinking or intentionally did so. I've never heard any of the old teleplays, never seen the old shows, never even seen the Disney movie, so I don't know if that's an accurate depiction of the character, but something feels wrong here.
@R1_Drift said:
"Does anyone actually remember this movie?"
One of Gore Verbinski’s worst
Ooh, what have we here? I didn't know that there was a Lego hatchet.
Also, someone needs to put that bird thing on a Friends figure. It just has to happen.
@R1_Drift said:
"Does anyone actually remember this movie?"
I certainly forgot it came out as recently as 2013! I never saw it but yikes.
@MCLegoboy said:
"Season 2 of Fargo, I learned that Tonto means "Stupid idiot," or "Fool," it's been awhile I don't remember the exact words said, but oof. The creators of Lone Ranger were either not thinking or intentionally did so. I've never heard any of the old teleplays, never seen the old shows, never even seen the Disney movie, so I don't know if that's an accurate depiction of the character, but something feels wrong here."
I believe Tonto, when derived from Spanish, means foolish. But I also think that was just given to the native Americans as they likely didn’t understand the language and thought them foolish for how they were talking.
I actually really liked the movie this came from. Don't really know why people are hating on it that much.
@MCLegoboy:
It gets even more awkward when you learn the Lone Ranger is loosely based on US Deputy Marshall Bass Reeves. He was black.
@MCLegoboy said:
"Season 2 of Fargo, I learned that Tonto means "Stupid idiot," or "Fool," it's been awhile I don't remember the exact words said, but oof. The creators of Lone Ranger were either not thinking or intentionally did so. I've never heard any of the old teleplays, never seen the old shows, never even seen the Disney movie, so I don't know if that's an accurate depiction of the character, but something feels wrong here."
While I can't say anything about the movies, that certainly is not an accurate depiction of the character in the show. He was quite intelligent and a good hearted man. I used to watch the show as a kid so I wasn't a fan that Disney was bringing it back. His name in his native language is "crazy one". Crazy is one of those delightful words that has many connotations, but the writers may have named him that simply because they thought Tanto sounded cool.
Another Depp fig!
@Illya said:
"I actually really liked the movie this came from. Don't really know why people are hating on it that much."
To be honest, I don't remember people even talking about it that much. It was one of those movies I forgot existed. Did you watch the original show, or were you new to it? I may check it out if I ever get through my watchlist.
The movie is remarkable. The film is bookended by two great train sequences. The overall theme of the film is melancholic and elegiac in regards to the fate of Tonto and the other native Americans. Slyly subversive for a film produced by Disney and released on July 4 weekend.
I remembered being frustrated at Lego for releasing an obvious cash-grab theme based on a passing movie instead of a true western theme. Now I wish I'd gotten a few, if only due to modern politics greatly harming the chance of a new wild west anything. Dadgumit.
@ToyTownBreakDown said:
"The movie is remarkable. The film is bookended by two great train sequences. The overall theme of the film is melancholic and elegiac in regards to the fate of Tonto and the other native Americans. Slyly subversive for a film produced by Disney and released on July 4 weekend."
The train sequences are great, Verbinski is one of the most talented directors of blockbuster action
@ToyTownBreakDown said:
"The movie is remarkable. The film is bookended by two great train sequences. The overall theme of the film is melancholic and elegiac in regards to the fate of Tonto and the other native Americans. Slyly subversive for a film produced by Disney and released on July 4 weekend."
Agreed, I didn’t find the film remarkable but way better than Prince of Persia and even the latest POTC. I still can’t get past Tonto looking nothing like he’s Native American (both in regards to who plays him and his design), though. Quentin Tarantino allegedly loved the film, at least when it came out.
The "steam engines" from this film still exist, and were sold last year at auction to a museum in Illinois. They have been used in a TON of stuff since 2013, but are actually just props with steam generators inside. We are a far cry from Disney's 1950's epic "The Great Locomotive Chase" featuring three WORKING steam engines, two of which were from the Wild West era. (they, and all the cars in that film, were borrowed from the B&O RR museum)
Fun fact: These two prop locos (a 4-4-0 and a 4-6-0) were also used in Drunk History's version of the Great Locomotive Chase...so I guess Disney came full circle?
This license tie-in themes for one-off films are always wild. At least Western fans could get something out of this!
@Murdoch17 It's always fun tracing the history of props like that. It's a shame how much Hollywood ends up destroying. A necessity for cost of course, but an unfortunate one nonetheless. It's nice to hear something getting into a museum for once!
@PurpleDave This is going to seem a completely random question, but I was doing some reading today and something caught my eye. Were you the guy who designed the "Mantas Tamer" from old Rahi Building Challenge back in the day?
@SmilingCyclops said:
" @R1_Drift said:
"Does anyone actually remember this movie?"
I certainly forgot it came out as recently as 2013! I never saw it but yikes."
That’s right! 2013 was the year. Time flies. This is the first RSoTD from this theme, isn’t it?
@R1_Drift said:
"Does anyone actually remember this movie?"
The very last section of it on the train, once after over 2 hours of waiting the William Tell Overture kicks in. That part was fantastic. All the rest of it was cr @p. The Lego sets however were amazing. The best Western stuff Lego has ever done.
The sad thing is if you know what the movie was originally planned to be, before Disney started meddling, it would have been great. Originally it was supposed to be a Western Action/Horror set in the same universe as PotC. The Cavendish gang were supposed to be Werewolves terrorizing the west. That's where the cannibalisms that got left in the movie comes from. That was the reason why the Lone Ranger shoots Silver Bullets. You can see some of the seams of the original much better story in the movie.
Funny Just2Good only just did a video on the worst performing films with Lego themes. The Lego theme was great for Western fans, especially the Constitution train chase with working Gatling gun.
The film from memory I didn't mind but it had nothing to do with the original TV show and was the usual nonsense Hollywood EXPLOSIONS EXPLOSIONS MORE EXPLOSIONS with no plot. Plus some quite dark moments, like what the hell is with the liver eating guy? Just why???
It would be cool if Korean cinema did a Western film (not sure why they would but anyway) since they have such great scriptwriters (Korean scriptwriters write this thing called a great plot, something Hollywood hasn't heard of for a long time...)
The sad thing is Hollywood are the ones greatly responsible for the loss of many of the old classic steam engines. In the old days when you saw trains going off collapsed bridges or crashing, those were actual old Engines that the studios got their hands on and drove off cliffs. Nobody was thinking of historical preservation back then. The engines were just cool looking scrap metal.
Taumatawhakatangihangakoayauo-
Tamateaturipukakapikimaungahoro-
Nukypokaiwhenuakitanatahu...
@MCLegoboy said:
"Season 2 of Fargo, I learned that Tonto means "Stupid idiot," or "Fool," it's been awhile I don't remember the exact words said, but oof. The creators of Lone Ranger were either not thinking or intentionally did so. I've never heard any of the old teleplays, never seen the old shows, never even seen the Disney movie, so I don't know if that's an accurate depiction of the character, but something feels wrong here."
Wait till you read this Far Side cartoon: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/129126714285759175/
12.5% of The Lone Ranger sets is already in RSotD!
@R1_Drift said: "Does anyone actually remember this movie?"
Terrible movie.
One of the single greatest train sets Lego has ever produced.
Somehow, the way Tonto is posed makes it look like he's gonna commit his first axe murder on the campfire.
@Randomness:
It’s not a hatchet. It’s a tomahawk, which is a style of hand axe that’s unique to the indigenous people of North America. It first appeared (with a lighter color handle) in 71001 Tomahawk Warrior. No points awarded for imaginative naming on that one.
@GSR_MataNui:
Probably? I don’t recall it specifically, but I started and ran MaskofDestiny from mid 2001 to early 2004. I don’t really remember everything that I built during that time, but everything I built I shot at home on a sofa that I basically gave up for three years as it was too much trouble to break down the makeshift photo studio I constructed around it. My first digital camera was a bit wonky with colors and white-balancing, but if it had this kinda fuzzy purple background (a piece of micro fleece that got misplaced during one of my subsequent moves), and a bright magenta copyright notice, then that was definitely me.
@Faefrost:
The author of a book series I read ended up posting a paper that I think was written by her husband, regarding the feasibility of making functional silver bullets. As shown in the tv series and film, they don’t work. Lead is soft, and deforms to fill the barrel and engage the rifling. Silver is hard, and the gasses produced by the gunpowder will simply blow past the bullet because it won’t create an airtight seal. However, they make copper jacketed bullets (the movie Full Metal Jacket is even named after that type of ammo), and you could do the same with a silver jacket. You could create a sabot round, or ring the silver core with a lead liner. One weird possibility mentioned (and I’m not a firearms expert, so I have no idea if this would survive being fired) would be to fill some sort of glass bullet with a liquid form of silver, so the bullet shatters on impact. You could bury a silver core inside a fragmentation round. There are all kinds of interest, this-could-legitimately-work possibilities. Solid silver rounds just aren’t one of them.
@PhantomBricks said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Season 2 of Fargo, I learned that Tonto means "Stupid idiot," or "Fool," it's been awhile I don't remember the exact words said, but oof. The creators of Lone Ranger were either not thinking or intentionally did so. I've never heard any of the old teleplays, never seen the old shows, never even seen the Disney movie, so I don't know if that's an accurate depiction of the character, but something feels wrong here."
While I can't say anything about the movies, that certainly is not an accurate depiction of the character in the show. He was quite intelligent and a good hearted man. I used to watch the show as a kid so I wasn't a fan that Disney was bringing it back. His name in his native language is "crazy one". Crazy is one of those delightful words that has many connotations, but the writers may have named him that simply because they thought Tanto sounded cool."
In the original radio show, Tonto was also depicted as a brave, intelligent, honorable, and indispensable partner of the Lone Ranger. His dialog was delivered in the stereotypical broken English used to code for Indian characters at the time (FWIW, radio is a purely auditory medium), but I would say the actions and character he was given belie any notion that he was a fool or a lackey.
Wikipedia says the character's name was purportedly conveyed by a Michigan Potawatomi who said the word meant "wild one" in their language.
The name of the Tonto Apache of Arizona would thus be an unrelated homophone. That name is directly derived from the Spanish word for "fool"—however! That's because the Spanish directly translated the indigenous name one group of Apache used for another, paraphrasing a word meaning "wild rough people" as "foolish". (Another neighboring Apache group apparently called them the equivalent of “people without minds”.)
In Spanish, "tonto" means foolish when applied to situations or actions. However when applied to people is a strong insult like idiot or imbecile.
I think this is the only one from this range I still need.
@GBP_Chris said:
"Somehow, the way Tonto is posed makes it look like he's gonna commit his first axe murder on the campfire. "
Well if that’s all you have to cut up a turkey leg, that’s all you have…
That headpiece could be used in a black metal band MOC.
The larger Lone Ranger sets were really well done for detail, 5 mini-figs and fair price, apart from the mine and train also really liked 79108: Stagecoach Escape.
@Harmonious_Building said:
" @R1_Drift said:
"Does anyone actually remember this movie?"
Dumb and forgettable movie but great sets and figs. "
Yep. I think I have most of them, and th theme is replete with really nice design and parts with lots of cool play features and figs with all the extras (new molds, prints, and decorated legs).
Why can't SW do this with its sets and figs?!!
A murder of crows?
It feels more recent that these came out. Like PoP this theme is way more memorable than the movie.
@StyleCounselor said:
"A murder of crows?"
That's only when you collect the theme and end up with a bunch of Tontos with his headgear
Hard to beat the value from 79108: Stagecoach Escape these days.
I don't have the set, but really, look at it, 3 horses, 5 figures, and a build using some rarer pieces.
No way that'd be anywhere close to $30 today.
@Brickalili said:
" @GBP_Chris said:
"Somehow, the way Tonto is posed makes it look like he's gonna commit his first axe murder on the campfire. "
Well if that’s all you have to cut up a turkey leg, that’s all you have…"
@StyleCounselor said:
"A murder of crows?"
@Binnekamp said:
That's only when you collect the theme and end up with a bunch of Tontos with his headgear.
No doubt. My comment may be less imbecilic with the proper context. \_^^_/
Although, as you noted, it's also perhaps an apt critique of the prevalence of the fig in the theme.
I don't remember ever seeing even a commercial or poster for the film, but the lego sets are great one of my favourite themes. I got two of the bigger ones for my birthday last year. The one with the tipi and the one with a sheriff office and a bank. I would also like the stage coach!.
Still love this Tonight Show sketch from 1969, where Johnny Carson interviews Tonto (actor Jay Silverheels from the TV show) for a new job:
Johnny: Well Mr. Tonto, just looking over your application here and would you tell me who was your last employer?
Jay: I work for 30 years as faithful sidekick for Kemo Sabe. Hunt, fish, make food, sew cloths, sweep up, stay awake all night listen for enemies for Kemo Sabe. Risk life for Kemo Sabe...... 30 lousy years!
Johnny: By the way, what does "Kemo Sabe" mean?
(Jay whispers into Johnny's ear)
Johnny: And why did he finally leave?
Jay: He found out what "Kemo Sabe" means.
THE LONE RANGER theme was great! Maybe the last old west theme we get.
The movie is…. strange. It’s very dark for a big budget blockbuster (Butch Cavendish being a cannibal, Tonto’s tribe being massacred by corrupt US calvary, etc.) but it has some fairly good set pieces and I like Verbinski’s visual take on the old west.
The less said about Depp playing Tonto the better, for many reasons. The movie does try to explain that he’s basically touched-in-the-head because of trauma he experienced as a kid, but a Native American character speaking pidgen English and acting like an idiot at various times isn’t a great look for a movie made in the 21st century.
TL;DR watch RANGO instead.
@AllenSmith:
And north of the Mexican border, “nova” means the explosion created by a dying star. Yeah, words can mean very different things when they exist in more than one language. Unfortunately, Spanish is by far in more common use in the US, and that meaning is the sort that would get a lot more attention than if it meant, say, “apple”.
@Binnekamp:
If you only have one, it’s just a murdered old crow, since it is dead in the movie. Across the theme, it would then be a murder of murdered crows.
@PurpleDave said:
" @AllenSmith:
And north of the Mexican border, “nova” means the explosion created by a dying star. Yeah, words can mean very different things when they exist in more than one language. Unfortunately, Spanish is by far in more common use in the US, and that meaning is the sort that would get a lot more attention than if it meant, say, “apple”.
@Binnekamp:
If you only have one, it’s just a murdered old crow, since it is dead in the movie. Across the theme, it would then be a murder of murdered crows."
Yeah, but manzana doesn't sound as cool...
That Lone Ranger in the top right corner of the packaging looks a bit like John Cleese as "Rogue Cheddar" ;-)
@PhantomBricks said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @AllenSmith:
And north of the Mexican border, “nova” means the explosion created by a dying star. Yeah, words can mean very different things when they exist in more than one language. Unfortunately, Spanish is by far in more common use in the US, and that meaning is the sort that would get a lot more attention than if it meant, say, “apple”.
@Binnekamp:
If you only have one, it’s just a murdered old crow, since it is dead in the movie. Across the theme, it would then be a murder of murdered crows."
Yeah, but manzana doesn't sound as cool..."
Spanish is more common use now, but the Lone Ranger (and Tonto) debuted on radio in Detroit in 1933. So it would be more interesting to find out how much visibility Spanish vocabulary had then in Michigan. How widely was Spanish studied in the 1900s–20s when these writers would have been in high school? My guess is much less, but I can't find any statistics from that far back. I did find that French was the most studied language in 1960.
I made a feeble attempt to study Spanish in high school and still don't recognize any of the three words mentioned here. I only remembered the joke about "Nova" as a car brand after looking it up. But I'm familiar with "Tonto" as a geographic name in Arizona. The original poster didn't even have direct knowledge of Spanish, and learned an etymology of "tonto" from unrelated television show.
The point is, knowledge of foreign language in the US is naturally esoteric. It's dubious to make judgments about a writer's attitude based on foreign words; it's much more sound to make judgments about how they chose to depict a character. In an era when American Indians were usually nameless enemies in popular fiction, Tonto was markedly different.
@AllenSmith:
I once heard that, I think it was Coca-Cola, has an entire department whose job it is to make sure they don’t pull a Chevy Nova of their own. We were just discussing our way around outright stating that Disney had to market Moana using a different name in Italy because, probably long after it was too late to change the original English version, they discovered that there’s a porn star who goes by the same name.
These things happen. It’s difficult to fully protect yourself from making mistakes of this sort, and in terms of businesses, it can have huge financial implications. Sometimes it’s done knowingly, or even on purpose. I don’t think it would be possible to quantify, but I’d love to know exactly what financial impact there was when Little House on the Prairie got released on DVD with an Adults Only rating in Finland. If that had happened by mistake, as part of a cultural disconnect, someone probably would have been fired. In that case, it was an informed judgement call, made with the expectation that any sales that were lost as a result would still leave them in better financial shape than if they paid, by the minute, for 204 episodes, and four TV movies, to get the proper rating for a TV series that qualifies as educational programming in the US.
The director of this movie was also the director of Rango!
Anyways, I really wish Lego would bring back the western theme. In fact, Lego should bring back/create more themes. But that probably won't happen
The only set in the theme without the Lone Ranger minifig.
@PurpleDave said:
"
@GSR_MataNui:
Probably? I don’t recall it specifically, but I started and ran MaskofDestiny from mid 2001 to early 2004. I don’t really remember everything that I built during that time, but everything I built I shot at home on a sofa that I basically gave up for three years as it was too much trouble to break down the makeshift photo studio I constructed around it. My first digital camera was a bit wonky with colors and white-balancing, but if it had this kinda fuzzy purple background (a piece of micro fleece that got misplaced during one of my subsequent moves), and a bright magenta copyright notice, then that was definitely me.
"
https://brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=88917 This was the Brickhself Gallery. Can't spot it now but in one of the links Biosector cited someone along the lines of "Dave Purple" as the creator. I had a real "wait a minute" reaction to that.
@GSR_MataNui:
Ah, no. My Brickshelf gallery is under PurpleDave. Mantas Tamer was, I believe, one of MoD’s registered users. I was able to dig up this article:
https://www.maskofdestiny.com/news/taming-mantas
When I started the site, I was advised that, if I wanted readership to grow, I needed to post new content every day. When you’re exclusively focusing on a single theme that only gets a couple release waves per year, that leaves a _lot_ of days to fill. I’m not the sort of builder who takes to just cranking out one MOC per day (I did that once with the McToran run, and maybe a second time with Bioniwars, but that only covered one month each time), and most of my time with the site I was either solo or had one other person on staff. So, when kids started sending in pics of their MOCs, that was an easy call to make. It gave me content to post, which allowed me more time to focus on keeping up with the deluge of e-mail I got through the site (on at least one occasion, I got home from a full day at work and spent the same amount of time reading and responding to e-mails I’d received just that day). It also gave kids a thrill to see their creations posted on the front page, so that was a bonus.
Anyways, I created probably over a dozen folders of user-submitted MOC photos, with submitters ranging from one-timers, to ones who sent a new batch of pics fairly regularly. Hopefully, wherever you encountered that is not giving me credit for all those MOCs. I wrote the articles, and did a bit of minor editing on the photos (reducing file size, converting BMP to JPG, creating the 60x80 thumbnails that were standard for that family of sites), but if I personally posted any image that did not have copyright text inserted, the image came from someone else.