More on LEGO’s Atlantis Launch and Design

atlantis-logoA couple of quick notes. Back in December, I posted an article from The Dail Mail discussing LEGO and mentioning the design of LEGO Atlantis. There was an interview with William Thorogood who was the team lead on the Power Miners. Quite a few people (including Jason and I) have commented or thought that there were some similarities with the Power Miners even before we knew that the team lead behind Power Miners is the team lead behind Atlantis. Among other similarities, there was just a feel to the whole series/line that there was a lot of “unity” among the various sets we’ve seen so far.

LEGO seemed to also be putting a large amount of back story and history into the Atlantis series, more so than in past series/lines. You could make a case for Bionicle, and while it has a lot of history and back story, I don’t think there was as much present when Bionicle launched. Combined with the upcoming movie and all of the related materials on the Atlantis.LEGO.com website, it really is one of The LEGO Group’s biggest launches. The following was released through LEGO marketing this week (and is printed with permission here):

Atlantis is a great new theme based in the story of underwater adventurers battling the deep sea creature guardians of the lost city of Atlantis through use of versatile and intricate underwater vehicles. Each set comes with a collectible key that within the story lines helps the underwater adventures unlock the gate to the lost city. LEGO has taken many cues from the extremely strong Power Miner’s marketing effort and applied them to this line. Most importantly, is the largest ever LEGO.com base of supporting interactive content with a large 3-D tie in.

On a related note, I believe LEGO Atlantis: The Movie, will be airing in the US:
Friday, Jan 15 7:00 PM Eastern/6:00 PM Central
Saturday, Jan 16 9:30 AM Eastern/8:30 AM Central

I’m sure it will be run several more times. That is based on what showed up on my DVR schedule this morning. You should check your local listings as we get closer.

Somebody has asked if this would be turned into a regular series on the Cartoon Network. While it would be very cool and interesting, and a reverse, since we’ve had a couple of cartoon series on the Cartoon Network turned into LEGO, I have no idea. I think enough material could be created around the LEGO sets to provide for a mini-series at the least, but who knows. We should see more Atlantis sets later in the year. Perhaps then. I’d add that LEGO did a good job of keeping a lot of Atlantis-related materials secret, such as the movie.