Lego Mission to Iraq

LEGO Mars Mission? I have a bone to pick with you. While I continue to enjoy your toys recommended for people 1/3 my age, I must take issue with the theme of your Mars Mission sets. From the packaging, the Mars Mission story is: humans take armored assault vehicles to an arid, sandy world to plunder its natural resources, but wind up in a conflict with the natives, who seem very much intent on keeping their natural resources and rebuking the alien invaders.

…does this story sound familiar at all?

The theme even comes with its own Abu Ghraib where the invaders humans can “process” their captives back to Earth through some fun pneumatic transport pipelines. Did I say pipelines? Surely I’m not implying oil here!

As a kid who grew up with Lego figures wielding flashlights and camcorders as weapons, I was a little sad to see full-fledged guns make their way into what was supposed to be a creative building toy. I can understand times changing, but changing into this?

Not to sound like a Green Party wack job, but isn’t it also a little insulting to refer to the native Martians as the “aliens”? Seems like the real invaders are the ones with the identical smiling yellow faces. It’s entirely possible that Lego has decided to use these toys to comment on the ambiguity and questionable ethics behind the Iraqi war, but with the “aliens” (i.e. the native Martians) attacking, striking or ambushing in each play set, I kind of doubt it.

At least with Blacktron the bad guys were only up to whatever geo-political age-appropriate subterfuge my imagination could dream up.