What do you think of Islanders?

[jwcbigdog]

Thinking about my pirate sets during the favorite theme thread, I remembered that I also had some from the Islanders theme as well. I kinda liked the sets at the time, but they are a little hokey looking back on them. The booby traps and crocs were cool, but the statues and head dresses were a little over the top.

What are some other opinions?

[Scnicker]

I really loved the Islanders. The tropical look about them was....refreshing. I really loved to kill the natives with my pirates and it was REALLY fun. I wish they did continue the line. That line always reminds me of buying my very on island in the Caribbeans .

[Athos]

I liked them. I wish there had been more sets. And less of those masks... The crocodiles (or are they alligators?) are really cool. Canoes were nice too. And there was a female fig.

Steve

[Formendacil]

Kinda bizarre was my main thought, but it was a really fun theme to play with, and it had a TON of useful pieces for a Castle fan, including weapons. My only problem with the line was the overabundance of those masks. They aren't the easiest pieces to find uses for, although I've found that they work well on Darth Maul heads for goblin/orks.

[tanzirian]

I think the islanders added a third dimension to the pirate line, just like forestmen did for castle (it was no longer just soldier vs pirate, or one knight vs another) and thus helped to flesh out the line. The sets have great play value (particularly 6278 and 6264) as well as some neat ideas. However, the sets lacked the design quality that pirate sets enjoyed up through 1993, starting the use of shoddy construction and garish colors in this theme. So in summary, one thumb up and the other down from me.

[Jojo]

Hello!


Unfortunatelly the Islanders came up when I entered my Non-LEGO-buying Ages, which may not be confused with Dark Ages as I still built with my bricks, in particular Pirate harbours in fact. Anyway, looking at the pics of the Islanders in the catalogue then, back in 1994, I wondered where the scenery had been put? In the beginning of the Pirate line there was no doubt for me that these ships were cruising around the Caribbean Sea. The story in the Pirate Comic 6255 also was located in Port Royal, thus Jamaica, thus Caribbean Sea. (I always wondered, though, what on earth the French soldiers that were storming the Bastille in Paris were searching for in Port Royal? I always imagined the Caribbean Sea an issue between the Brits and the Spaniards. However, in 1989 when the Pirates line was released we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, so the blue soldiers from the Pirates sets came quite handy. Hm, I get the impression I got somewhat distracted from the topic now.) However, the Islanders seemed to be more of an Australo-Papuan descent, maybe from the South Seas, and the red soldiers fit well in since the Brits started to colonize Australia those days. But since I always expected the end of my LEGO-days then I never entertained the thought of buying any of these sets, neither Imperial Guards sets nor Islanders. I just didn't want to start another faction of soldiers that I expected not to grow large, having already 18 Frenchmen. So I got my first English soldier not before the year 2000, same with my first Islander. And again I somehow got distracted from the topic what my feelings towards the islanders are. Well, what I think is: Nice line, quite underestimated, not too useful for Castle :-)


Bye
Jojo

[ezehogan]

First of all, I'd like to say that I never owned an Islander set, so I can only comment on the pictures I've seen.

I think the addition of the Islanders to the Pirate fray was a good thing. As stated above, the formerly two dimensional world suddenly got more complex and was no longer "good guys vs bad guys". I always envisioned the Islanders as a group of neutrals who could either befriend or do battle with both the pirates and soldiers. It all depended on how the Pirates/soldiers treated them at their first encounter.

Unfortunately, when the Islanders came out I simply didn't have the money for all of the sets that I wanted, and sadly they simply were overlooked. Although there were definately some sets available that I would loved to have had, I put more focus on Castle, space, and the actual Pirates at this time and just couldn't afford to branch out any further.

As for the sets themselves, I think the Islanders could definately have gotten more of a following if they were created durring the golden years. Unfortunately, they came out immediately following, and although the sets weren't bad, I think they would've been made considerably better if available maybe two years prior. Still, most of the sets seemed adequate.

In conclusion, I'd love to branch out and have a huge Pirate world today, filled with pirates (of course), soldiers, and Islanders. As it stands, funds continue to stand in the way of such a dream (just as they did originally) and such plans will have to remain on the back burner. I guess I just love castle too much to divert any funds away from it.

[JPinoy]

The sets look nice by themselves. I link the minifigs look great. However instead of Pacific Islanders I kinda use these guys as the Bantu faction. The Bantu were a sub-saharan African tribe not much different than that of Shaka Zulu's... if you ever saw that movie.

[LusiferSam]

Personally I hate the Islanders. Hey, I have all the sets and I did like the first two I got. But I quickly became disappointed in them. I think 6278 is one of the worst set ever made. It has good elements but they were slapped together, so the sum of the whole is less than it's parts. One of the other things that really turned me off is the weird Polynesian/African mix.

But what really kills me is the fact that it doesn't fit. In 1989 when Lego first came out with the Pirate theme they had a small back story. A group of colonists found the pirate's gold and the soldiers took it into their protection. A clever little story to get the ball rolling in my opinion. I don't remember hearing about island natives. Yes it added a third dimension, but that like saying a the Fright Knights added a third dimension to the Royal Knights (stupid, stupid, stupid). So we got the pirates, we got the soldiers (two groups of them), where are my COLONISTS?!!

And the Islanders heralded the end of the Pirate line. '94 (the Islander's year in the sun) sucked. '95 was a good year, but '96 and '97 were both down.

[TwoTonic Knight]

I kinda like the Islanders - I tend to think of them as south pacific, but you can use them as a variety of cultures. It broadened the Pirates line, but I doubt they sold that well.

[Blueandwhite]

Stupid Islanders !! They were one of the reasons I stopped buying lego. Now don't get me wrong, the idea of Islanders is cool and everything, but they also represent alot of the problems lego was going through in the 1990s. Simply put, Lego kept introducing new lines only to discontinue them in the following year.

One of the reasons I stopped buying pirate Lego (and Castle Lego ) was the fact that the factions kept changing. Essentially, during the 90s, a line was generally introduced one year, and then dropped the following year. What made earlier lines great was the fact they continued them for several years. Newer lines, like the Islanders simply didn't have the staying power to keep me interested!

What made lego so strong in the 1980s was that the themes remained consistant, allowing people to expand their collection with pieces and figures that worked well together. Sets that were released in 1984 generally complimented sets that were released five years later. The same can't be said for sets released in those crazy nineties !

In short, the Islanders, if developed further 'could' have been an interesting theme. Alas, that never happened.

[Blueandwhite]

I rather have a new line a year considering Lego was repeating the same boring stuff from past years. Most of it didn't have staying power so Lego moved on. Look at the Divers, they were great sets but there is only so much you can do and over time, like a year they made 25 sets and they were all the same, so of course the next year they couldn't do more.

I think continueing lines is a problem sometime, you need to introduce new things or they get old. But I do agree you need to continue them for more than a year sometimes. At the same time you need to continue old lines to have some flow. Luckily Lego this year is giving us a nice mix of the old and new themes.

I agree with you to a point, but the problem is that in the 1990s, Lego hasn't really supported ANY of their lines. Great themes such as Ninja, and the Western sets were introduced, but lasted only for a few years. The idea of introducing and then replacing lines prevents people from acquiring a large quantity of bricks to operate within a single theme. I mean, how many large scale Ninja, Western, Islanders, Rock Raiders, Blacktron II, Alpha Team, Adventures etc... MOCs do we see? Most people don't have the money or commitment to invest in a theme which is going to be dropped within a year or two.

Lego is all about diversity, but that only goes so far. Simply put, most of these themes are just too different to encourage continued building. I loved alot of these themes when they were first released, but when they were discontinued just as quickly, I became fed up (Wolfpack Anybody?).

Getting back to the Islanders...

Yes, these guys were a really neet idea. Unfortunately, they were only arround in 1994. If the line had been arround a little longer, and was given the time it needed to mature, maybe I would have more respect for these guys.

Later.

[Rubberchickenknight]

i have a neutral opinion, just as they were the neutral between the pirates and the government. here's some customized islanders:http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=112312 there all using the same body because i only have one islander body