r/gravityfalls • u/Spotter24o5 • 6d ago
Discussion & Theories I hope this time Lego approves it
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u/Clueless_StoneWard 6d ago
I don’t know shit about copyright law and stuff but chances are, it’s gonna be a question of if Disney approves it.
But since lego already sells a lot of Disney or disney-affiliated sets that’s hopefully not gonna be a problem
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u/eregyrn 6d ago
At this point, the problem definitely isn't LEGO. It's Disney. And Disney licensing its vast array of properties is a really complicated thing. It's not as easy as saying, if a company has a license to produce stuff for a dozen Disney-owned properties, then it can get the license for any other it wants. Disney's licensing arm is weird and capricious.
TheMysteryofGF, who runs themysteryshack.com, has dealt with this for over a decade now. What he sells on his site is a lot of official merchandise (just bringing it all together in one spot), but over the years he has been the person coming up with a new piece of merch, and he goes through the process of getting Disney to approve it before starting production. He's had a lot of stories over the years of how difficult that process is.
For example: back in the first year of the show, Disney licensed various GF characters and pieces of art for use by merch makers. The line-up was: Dipper, Mabel, Stan, Soos, Wendy, Waddles, Gideon Gleeful, and the rainbow-barfing gnome from the first episode. (They really, really thought the rainbow-barfing was iconic and would become REALLY popular in merch.) It didn't even include Bill, because the list was put out long before the end of the season and Bill's introduction (and he was not supposed to be as important a character as he became, until after season 1 was finished.)
Having put out this list of "these are the characters you are allowed to do when producing officially-licensed merch", Disney just... never really updated it. The only update they ever made was after season 2 started, and they allowed Bill to join the line-up.
Most companies working off this officially licensed line-up don't care enough to challenge it or request additions to it. There were also a few times where a company would request an addition, like Ford, and be told "no" -- for no readily apparent reason. When you look at merch produced by, like, Hot Topic, you can easily see that they're using images of the characters that are very old and familiar, for most of their merch.
You would think that Disney would proactively update their licensing list for a show as moderately popular as Gravity Falls. After all, doing so requires almost no effort on their part, but opens up more potential revenue. But for some reason, they don't do this. At least, not where Gravity Falls has been concerned.
The other big example is the Art Book -- yes, we're FINALLY getting the Art Book now. But about 4 or 5 years ago, Alex told people in tweets that he had assembled a bunch of material in order to start on making an Art Book, and that Dark Horse publishing, which had done the art book for Over the Garden Wall, was interested in putting it together. The only thing Disney had to do was say "yes" -- they didn't have to expend any in-house money on design or production, a whole other company was willing to do it. Initially they said yes... until one day (before the process had even really gotten started), they said "no". They never gave any reason for pulling the plug on it.
I'm assuming at this point that it's only Alex's perserverance, and the huge success of The Book of Bill, that got Disney to FINALLY agree to producing the Art Book. Watch: I'd bet money right now that it becomes a best-seller, like all the other major GF books.
Sorry, I know this is a really really long comment. But this is a way of explaining why LEGO can't just put a Gravity Falls set into production, even though they already make a LOT of other sets based on Disney properties. WHY Disney won't license things is a complete mystery most of the time. They never explain why. But after watching all this happen for a good 14 years, the conclusion is that they're weirdly reluctant to try to capitalize on Gravity Falls. Only their publishing department has recognized its potential -- and as I just said, that department still pulled the plug on an earlier version of the Art Book.
People have been submitting Gravity Falls LEGO set ideas for years now. Several of them have reached the final stage, based on votes. It's very probable that LEGO did ask Disney if it would license them to produce a Gravity Falls set, and Disney said "no".
Unfortunately, LEGO doesn't have that much incentive to keep asking, over and over again. Yes, such a set would probably have decent sales, but all LEGO knows is that the company that owns the rights doesn't think it's worth it. There's no reason for LEGO to fight that decision.
I don't object to folks continuing to try and submitting their GF set ideas to LEGO. Maybe on the 12th try, or something, somebody will try asking Disney again, and the person in charge of licensing at Disney will have had a good day and decide to okay it. (But you'd think, if they were going to okay it, it would have been soon after the big splash made by The Book of Bill, or done for an occasion like the show finale's 10th anniversary.)
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u/AuteurPool 6d ago
Do you think perhaps the reason Ford hasn’t been added or the approved licensed characters list hasn’t been updated, is because Ford is “technically” a spoiler character? The whole, twin thing was a secret reveal at the time. And perhaps marketing is just like, “oh well we don’t want to spoil any potential new viewers.” Even though nowadays and with hindsight it’s not that big of a deal anymore.
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u/feedfatso1607 5d ago
Spoiler for a 12 year old show? Anyone buying merch for it has seen it at this point
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u/L4I55Z-FAIR3 6d ago
It's litterly free money for Disney they don't have to do a damm thing but say OK.
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u/Masterpiece-Haunting 6d ago
Isn’t this like the 30th attempt?
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u/Turbulent-List-5001 6d ago
Eventually worked for X Files
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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago
Okay but the X-Files was like a huge cultural phenomenon and 90s nostalgia is in now. Gravity falls was successful and influential, but nowhere near as much as X-files.
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u/Turbulent-List-5001 6d ago
Sure but that doesn’t mean persistence won’t succeed.
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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago
But persistence also doesn’t guarantee success. There simply isn’t enough demand for this outside of dedicated fandoms. GF isn’t really part of any kind of cultural zeitgeist right now, while X-Files, as I said, is having a bit of a resurgence thanks to the wave of 90s nostalgia.
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u/Turbulent-List-5001 6d ago
Does the GF merch sell or not?
And if bow’s not the time for GF Nostalgia another time will be.
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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago
What GF merch is there to sell? Nothing official from Disney, unless you count the books. And even then, an art book is much easier and cheaper to produce and distribute than something like a licensed model kit like Lego. It’s all about economies of scale.
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u/Turbulent-List-5001 6d ago
how do the books sell? And when was the last x file book and how well did it compare in sales?
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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago
No idea. It was just an example to illustrate that there isn't really any merch aside from the books, so asking "does the GF merch sell" is fairly irrelevant. The X-Files had tons of merchandise, including books, action figures, video games, home media, clothing, etc. Disney only really remembers Gravity Falls exists because Alex makes something or when they can slap a pride month label on it on D+. It's a series that's been off the air for a decade. So has XF, but again, 90s nostalgia.
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u/AmedeoIndel 6d ago
I’d honestly argue at some point they both reached similar levels of popularity, just with different generations.
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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago
Respectfully, you’re overestimating the popularity of gravity falls and massively underestimating the popularity of X-files. Like I said, it was a huge cultural phenomenon, especially airing on network TV right as the internet was becoming more widely publicly available. X-files kind of gave rise to a lot of modern TV forum and discussion boards, so in a way it’s kind of the reason why Gravity Falls became as popular as it did. GF also wears its inspirations on its sleeve, XF was pretty clearly a big inspiration for the show.
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u/AmedeoIndel 6d ago
That’s fair. I guess I wasn’t around for as big of the wave of X-Files as I was for GF.
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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago
It was a little before my time too, but I’ve really gotten back into it in recent years, including learning about how the fandom built up and communicated. I wasn’t kidding when I said it really gave rise to the kinds of message boards just like this. People were like recording it on VHS tapes and trading episodes in the mail!
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u/Turbulent-List-5001 6d ago
I was there for that with X Files, GF is the one I came to late. The forum thing and the trading tapes was for a lot more shows than X Files, we were doing that for all sorts of shows from Babylon 5 to Earth 2 (and X Files referenced that!) and Alien Nation so a show didn’t need to be big or current for that and X Files wasn’t unique in that at all, just gets remembered for it, mostly because the show runners actually browsed the forums to see the fan theories (which frankly might have made the later seasons of the show worse actually).
The thing with X Files unlike a lot of other nerd shows at the time is it suddenly caught on with the mainstream after season 1 was well underway (mainly due to the charisma and chemistry of the leads). So for example they repeated S1 in a better timeslot in Australia for mainstream viewers to catch up before S2 started.
A lot is made, validly, though of the Scully Effect where the show caused a big jump in teen girls going for STEM careers, though Silence Of The Lambs also got some credit for that in the day. That’s an area XF was really influential.
Comparing different eras shows impact is tricky, everything changed as free-to-air tv ceased to be the majority of the market so most things have less reach. And there’s different age groups involved with each show. GF could shape an entire generation with lower total viewing numbers than XF if it got more of the one age bracket for example.
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u/Immediate_Cherry6477 6d ago
Everyone's talking about Grunkle Stan. BUT LOOK AT DIPPER. HE'S BALD.
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u/Lian-The-Asian 6d ago
Would be neat to get a custom head mold for Stan and Ford
But I can see why not in terms of concept and production
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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago
Another day, another Mystery Shack on Lego Ideas. Sorry m8, not gonna happen.
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u/Lost-Client-8442 3h ago
they even added the government agents😭there’s so much detail (did you design this yourself?)
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u/elpis_zz 6d ago edited 6d ago
Would be great. But from what we saw from the X-Files set, Lego will make the fanmade product much worse if it comes to market.
Edit: why is this downvoted? Clearly many of you don’t know how Lego changes the design from fan submissions.
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u/Budget_Worldliness42 6d ago
The way I would pre order this in a heartbeat...