LEGO Icons 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow's Pirate Ship will set sail tomorrow, but several past brick-built ships paved the way for its launch.
10365 Captain Jack Sparrow's Pirate Ship might be the return of Pirates of the Caribbean to LEGO, but Icons has been releasing large-scale ships for the last few years. In fact, LEGO Designer Mike Psiaki said during a recent roundtable with LEGO fan media that discussions around where else the theme could sail to next – bringing them into dock at Pirates of the Caribbean.
"In Icons, we're always looking for the next new, cool set to do that really fits well with the LEGO brand, makes a great display model, or has a great cast of characters," he explained. "Pirates of the Caribbean is just one of those franchises that is pretty close to timeless.
"There's something about ships that makes really great LEGO building experiences, but then also awesome display models with fun play features. We did 10294 Titanic, we've done 10335 The Endurance, and so we were thinking about an evolution of that.
"What other ships can we do? A bunch of ships from Pirates of the Caribbean have been floating around in the air here for a while, so it just so happened that this is the one and this is the year where one of those has materialised. You never know what the future will hold."
With that intriguing hint about more Pirates of the Caribbean ships potentially making their way onto shelves down the line (although that shouldn't be taken as confirmation of anything at this stage), Mike also went on to discuss how both 10294 Titanic and 10335 The Endurance offered design lessons to inform 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow's Pirate Ship as well.
"When I look at those three ships, they're wildly different," Mike said. "One thing that was really funny when I was testing out scratch-built hulls, Hans [Burkhard Schlömer], the designer of 10335 The Endurance, recommended just using the moulded pieces.
"He had just finished the Endurance, which has a completely scratch-built hull. I was like, come on, you should be encouraging this! But in the end, he was definitely right; it's way better to build it from the bigger pieces."
It's not just modern ships that offered valuable insight into how 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow's Pirate Ship, but also classic Pirates of the Caribbean models. Mike borrowed 2011's 4184 The Black Pearl and 4195 Queen Anne's Revenge to get inspiration on design features and minifigures.
Specifically, one reinterpreted building technique that Mike is proud of is about how 4184's designer, Bjarke Lykke Madsen, revolutionised LEGO ship hulls, cutting the stern off and using arch elements to complete the curved shape of the ship. While it's relatively commonplace today, it was a revolutionary choice in 2011, and offered a starting point for how Mike approached the design of 10365.
However, he went on to note that the modern ship quickly took on a new direction, due to the focus on display required for Icons LEGO sets.
"The ship was skirting the line a lot more between a classic LEGO toy and what we see in the movies," Mike explained. "Here in Icons, we're always trying to be very faithful to what you see on screen, so we went very far away from some of the design decisions that were made in [the 2011 set] to make it work as a LEGO toy, putting a little bit more emphasis on the display possibilities."
While every LEGO set has its own priorities that require different design choices, a lot of features from old sets, even dating back over a decade, still feed into the modern releases we see today.
LEGO Icons 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow's Pirate Ship will be available to buy from September 12, retailing at £299.99 / $379.99 / €349.99.
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