LEGO reveals the themes that didn’t make the cut for the Minifigure Vending Machine

From BIONICLE and Spyrius to Adventurers, Aquazone and more, the LEGO Group has revealed the themes considered for 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine that didn’t make the cut.

21358 Minifigure Vending Machine’s character line-up spans a quintet of classic LEGO themes from the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, pulling together Castle, Space, Pirates, Fabuland and Paradisa. But while that final selection covers some of the LEGO Group’s most iconic ranges, the design team also considered a few deeper cuts, more recent themes and even product lines that sit outside System.

What ultimately made the difference was the budget available to the designers, which couldn’t be completely focused on its 16 minifigures in the same way as (for example) a traditional Collectible Minifigures series. The build itself required a couple of new pieces to achieve, restricting the LEGO Ideas team’s ability to conjure up brand new parts for every character.

“It was a big combination of elements that are available,” LEGO Ideas Design Manager Jordan Scott tells Brick Fanatics and other LEGO fan media during a roundtable interview. “We couldn’t make brand new elements for everything, but we wanted to obviously focus on the capsules and the wall element, because those were needed for the model.

“So we were saying, ‘What could we do with existing pieces that still make them feel novel?’ I had a PowerPoint that me and Nathan [Davis, graphic designer] were going through saying, ‘We could do this theme, or we could do this one, but it would need a new helmet. Or could we do it with an existing helmet?’”

At least one new colour of Classic Space astronaut and one new LEGO Castle faction were locked in from the fan vote that preceded the reveal and release of 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine, and the team ultimately decided to double up on popular choices in those polls with both Griffin and Kraken knights and pearl gold and teal astronauts. But at least initially, the choice for the rest of the line-up was wide open.

“We had everything from Fright Knights to M-Tron, Spyrius, Adventurers, Aquazone, all these themes that you would remember,” Jordan adds. “And then even more recent ones, like Power Miners and things, just to span as many decades as possible – but also to have the appeal of the themes that we know our fans really like, which is Castle, Pirates, Space and things like that.”

Influencing factors in the final decisions included not just the availability of current parts – though that did block Jordan’s personal preference – but the wider LEGO portfolio.

“I think we looked at Adventurers to do Johnny Thunder, but he’d just come out with LEGO City, so that didn’t make sense anymore,” Jordan recalls. “I would have personally loved Aquazone or Aquanauts, because that was my favourite theme as a kid. But again, the tanks and everything, we just don’t have those pieces anymore. So that was a bit limiting.”

Castle, Space and Pirates are the heavy hitters of the LEGO portfolio – the three original genre themes beyond Town – but for many in the community, there’s another range that belongs in the same discussions as those: the one that had a hand in saving the LEGO Group from bankruptcy in the early 2000s. But as a constraction theme, was there ever any way to bring BIONICLE into 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine?

“If you want my honest answer, yes, it was considered,” Jordan says. “However, we didn’t have anything that could make the mask look authentic enough for it to actually be convincing. We tried one or two masks, like our helmets that we have in stock, but it just didn’t look right. So we moved away from it. And also, because we wanted to have these pairs, we needed another one to make the pair.

“It was just really difficult to make the helmets look convincing with minifigure parts. I think we talked about doing a kid in a costume at some point, like a BIONICLE costume, similar to the Fabuland ones, so it was like a little kid in one. But it just didn’t work. You couldn’t decode it. It didn’t feel like the way that we want to bring it back.”

Anyone holding out for a modern BIONICLE minifigure (and not the weird tiny figures that popped up in the theme’s later years) will have to continue waiting patiently, but popping a specially-moulded mask on a minifigure feels like the kind of thing that could eventually appear in a traditional Collectible Minifigures series. We’re just speculating there, but the concept is clearly floating around Billund…

For now, you’ll be able to get your hands on 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine – and the 16 characters that made the final cut – on June 1 if you’re signed up to the LEGO Insiders program.

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