This decade can surely be described by the word “controversy”—surely you see the word thrown around in the entertainment industry, but who would’ve thought that word would leak into our Lego seꦛts? Well, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself—Lego isn’t involved in some TMZ-style gossip in 2018, yet the toy company has received a lot of backlash over the years for their supposed controversial sets.
Whether it be sets that offended specific groups of people or ones that parents deemed𝕴 too wicked for their children, Lego has fought off controversy since their inception back in 1932. Some of that controversy definitely seems justified, especially when you’re staring down a set that’s extremely reminiscent of a certain camp back in the day (yeah... they kind of went there once).
If some of these sets showed up on the shelves of your local toy store, you’d likely raise an eyebrow or two. But some of these sets are soaked in hidden controversies that only hardcore Lego fans would know—like how some sets were severely underproduced due to Lego being on the brink of financial ruin back in the early 2000s. Tod🍎ay, however, not only are we going to look at the sets that probably couldn’t be made in 2018, but we’ll also be looking at the sets that received so much backlash from fans for being poorly designed, or downright cheap. Lego is a company that prides themselves on the quality of their sets, so it was striking to see how over the years they’ve released products that fringed upon dollar store quality—so let’s take a look at the worse Lego has to offer.
25 ꧟ Lego Breaking Bad Makes Parents R⭕eally Sad
First off, and yes, you will hate me for saying this if you’ve heard it before, but seriously watch some Breaking Bad if you haven’t already—it’s on Netflix too. Alright, with that out of the way, a Lego version of Breaking Bad is undoubted♉ly cool but is j🃏ust asking for controversy.
This is a custom-made set, so we have to let Lego off the hook with this one, unfortunately.
But Lego made it clear they🌱 wanted nothing to do with it, and that technically earns it a spot as a set they’d never release today.
24 ꩵ ⛎ Lego Construction Worker Shows Kids How To Speak To Women
For the uninꦏformed, a “catcall” is when a guy calls out to a girl and more often than not it involves 💟a pretty gross compliment. It’s popular amongst construction workers, and it seemed that Lego wanted to play on this trope.
Here, the Lego construction worker just says “Hey, babe” on a sticker, and it seems pretty innocent and kind of funny.
It’s the type of thing that 𓃲will definitely go over kids' heads and give adults a chuckle,ಌ but one dad was furious with the joke and it wasn’t long before this turned into a controversy.
23 Lego Simpsons Is Great, B🦂ut Many Parents Don’t Think So
Some of these sets you’re personally unlikely to have an issue with, and for many fans of the insanely popular, and somehow still-running show The Simpsons, you’re♔ likely to scratch your head wondering what was the problem here.
Well, even though The Simpsons is a great show, it’s obvious that parents would have a problem seeing their kids exposed to a program of this nature. The Simpsons' sets are ju🔴st so cool that I kind of wish parents would leave this one alone, bu⛦t it’s easy to understand their anger.
22 Jabba’s Palace Was Accused Of Being Insensitive 🎀
Don’t get me wrong, Jabꦡba’s Palace is a pretty scummy place—I’m prett♍y sure it’s the equivalent to one of those sketchy-down-a-dark-alley clubs that always seem like a bad idea to go to. That being said, prejudice is the last issue I’d think people would have with the place.
Well, popular communities appaꦡrently found the set prejudiced because it supposedly resembles one of Istanbul’s most revered places. The community asked for Lego to release a public apology and Lego had to eventually pull the set.
21 𒅌 An Eerie Rendition Of A Camp ꧒
Yeah, we’re kind of cheating with this one again because this wasn’t a product featured in a store, but Lego still was involved in it. Polish artist Zbigniew Libera had some sort of partnership with Lego and built a s🐈et that was a bit jarring to many.
Libera built a camp out of Legos and one that resembled one specific, known camp.
From an 🅘artistic perspective, this is actually pretty captivating, so much so that the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland displayed it—just don’t expect it to be on the shelves of your local Walmart.
20 A Bunny Thaꦆt Is Likely Missing A Few Cells
What you are staring at isn’t some "masterpiece" created by my 11-year-old sister. Nope, what you’re seeing is an official set from Lego themselves. And if you’re asking “How? Just how?!” then you’re right💧 there with me on this one.
This just couldn’t be released today simply because it’s just so terrible. I mean, just look at it!
Even if my little sister came to me with this,🎃 I’d have to hide some disappointment in my voice, but knowing this was Lego makes it a failure of spectacular proportion🌸s.
19 Lego Clone Wars' Twilight Set Brings Back Bad Memor💜ies ꦕ
I just want to forget this particular era of Star Wars, not that I’m enjoying this one that much more (sorry, episode 8 fans), but this particular era where this set is from b𒐪rings back only the worst memꦯories. And apparently, fans hated this set just as much as the show that it was based on.
The set garnered a ton of hate from hardcore fans for being seriously overpriced and just being a poor set to come out of the popular Star Wars series of Legos. The rev🐻iews of it definitely show 🔯that.
18 Gender Controversy Surrounds ꦜLego Friends ಞ
Lego Friends does bend our rules a little as the sets are out today and are quite popular. But we wanted to highlight the controversy that surrounded these sets, because it was quite a heated one. Back in 2012, Lego introduced Lego Friends, a set that was obviously targeted towards theirꦬ female market. A lot of people ♕didn’t like that.
The people at🐷 the forefront of this controversy were women’s groups arguing that Lego was in a way marginalizing girls and dictating which Legos they should play with—a petition even went out that gained 47 thousand signatures to remove the sets.
17 Podracing Has Never Looked More Awful 💫
Whether you love or hate the prequels (we’ll assume mostly hate), many agree on a few things—Darth Maul was great, the memesꦫ were great, and podracing was awesome.
Lego, however, found a way to ax the fun out of podracing and they did it by making this set.
Obviously, this thing isn’t as bad as Mr. Bunny up there, but that isꦫn’t saying much, because this thing still looks like yesterday’s trash. In the words of the great Anakin Skywalker, “I don’t like bad Lego sets. They’re cheap and rough and irritating and look terrible”.
16 Spider-Man Rides A Trike Now... “Say🌞 What!?”
I’m not the biggest Spid🤪er-Man fan, despite very much enjoying the re✤cent game. That being said, though, I don’t ever remember our web-slinging friend chasing baddies on a motorized tricycle.
Hate to ꦗbe that guy, but why on Earth would someone like Spider-Man ever need a trike when he probably could go faster swinging around the city by himself? It just doesn’t make any sense at all—like maybe if Spidey fought crime in the Sahara Desert then I could get on board with this set, but as it is now, it’s just terribly bad.