In 2022 LEGO will celebrate its 90th anniversary. In a run up to that the company has asked fans for their votes on what old theme they’d like to mark the occasion.
First some nomenclature: a LEGO “theme” refers to a collection of toys all related to one another by a concept. There’s licenced themes such as Marvel, Harry Potter, Star Wars and more, but the 90th anniversary fan vote is based on original themes that LEGO itself has created.
The first round of these votes closed recently and now we have the results. Below are the 28 separate themes and the number of votes each one achieved:
- Bionicle – 24 799
- Classic Space – 18 171
- Pirates – 15 884
- Trains – 14 855
- Adventurers – 13 988
- Classic Castle -12 603
- Forestmen – 8 056
- Lion Knights – 7 117
- Imperials – 7 012
- Town – 6 610
- Black Knights – 6 427
- Model Team – 6 397
- Dragon Knights – 6 334
- Space Police – 5 738
- Rock Raiders – 5 298
- Studios – 5 179
- Blacktron – 5 088
- Ice Planet – 4 503
- Black Falcons – 4 244
- Aquazone – 4 051
- M-Tron – 3 555
- Alpha Team – 2 807
- Paradisa – 2 584
- Time Cruisers – 2 234
- Wolfpack – 2 111
- Exploriens – 1 695
- Arctic – 1 620
- Divers – 1 424
Now there was some trouble in how LEGO chose to allow people to vote. The popular Castle theme had various subthemes such as Black Knights and Forestmen. Because of this split Castle was underrepresented despite achieving a fair portion of the votes.
Because of this a special inclusion was made here. Instead of the second round of voting including three themes, it will now include the following four:
- Bionicle
- Classic Space
- Pirates
- Castle
If you’d like to vote on your favourite classic theme making a return you can do so right here. Just take note that you will need to make and log into a LEGO account, and you can provide a written reason to accompany your vote.
Voting closes on 10th February but it’s worth remembering that LEGO has the final say here.
All that aside, what happens to the winning theme? Whatever comes out as the winner will be turned into a new product in 2022 under LEGO’s adult-focused line. This means that the set will likely be large and expensive as the company makes more products intended for an older audience, especially returning fans.
All four of the finalists have a special place in both the history of LEGO and the people who bought and played with the themes in childhood and even into adulthood. Bionicle is the standout to us as it represented a radical change for the company in the early 2000s and it acted as the theme that revitalised LEGO (financially and in a more broad sense) and it was many people’s first experience with building your toys.
We highly recommend this documentary about the theme which is embedded below and free to watch on YouTube. If you enjoy it we recommend checking out the rest of the channel who made it, Nick on Planet Ripple. This channels’ Rewind series of videos cover almost all the important LEGO themes, including the other themes in the list above. The full rewind playlist is available here.