I always remember the small, weird pieces being hard to get apart.

What I don't remember was every kit being made up of so many small, weird pieces.

When I was a kid, the first "special" Lego kit I remember was the Star Wars sets in 1983 (and especially that everybody wanted a Millenium Falcon but I didn't know anybody who had parents that could afford one!)

Apart from those Star Wars kits, everything I had were generic blocks and strips (not sure what they're called, the ones that are 1/3 the height of a block) and some different designs of people. The closest I had to previous special sets was a town thing that my brother and sister had before me (they were 10 years older), which was a bunch of large floor tiles with roads and grassy areas with studs, some flowers pieces (single stud) and a handful of special buildings. But they were designed to be relatively generic, and the fun was using those building blocks to make a new city each time, not trying to recreate exactly someone's model. Apart from the flowers and the men, basically everything was a standard part, except perhaps a different colour.

When I was a teenager, the trend had become sets with lots of specialised parts for one specific model, such that they didn't really make sense as generic pieces. I enjoyed the technics kits because the early ones were just generic building blocks (apart from the wheels and rack and pinion, but again they could be re-used in lots of subsequent designs), but more and more the kits in the shops were for specialised models with unique pieces that were never designed to fit aesthetically with anything other than the model they came with. I'm sure _some_ people built other things with them, but equally I'd bet than probably 90% of those kits were built exactly once following the instructions and then never disassembled again.

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bena 7 hours ago | parent [-]

The elements that are 1/3 the height of a brick is a plate if it has studs, and a tile if it does not.

Lego did not have Star Wars sets until 1998. The original Lego Millenium Falcon set 4504 would have retailed for right around $100. Which was high, but just as high as the bigger Castle sets at the time.

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SoftTalker 6 hours ago | parent [-]

They definitely had lunar/space themed sets in the '80s, but they were generic (at least the ones I had). I don't recall when the Star Wars sets came out, they might have been one of the first cross-promotional tie-ins that Lego did?

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bena 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Star Wars sets started coming out in 1998. They weren't the first licensed sets, but the first fictional license.

Prior to Star Wars, they had Shell, Exxon, and Esso branded sets. I think sometimes they licensed the Ferrari brand as well.

And yes, Lego has had a Space theme since the late 70s. But it was a general "Space" theme. They would later make Space Police, Blacktron, Magnetron, etc.

But actual Star Wars was 1998. I have some of those sets. It was a big deal to get an actual lightsaber hilt and blade.

	▲	ralferoo 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Very interesting. Googling shows some generic space themed things from the 80s like you say, but no Star Wars. I guess my old age is finally catching up on me and my memories have all blurred into one. I did find a Millennium Falcon from 1983, but it's definitely not Lego.