The first official brief 30-second look at LEGO Ninjago Season 12, otherwise known as Prime Empire, has officially been released.
Though we don’t have an official release date in the States for the upcoming season as-of-yet, Ninjago producer and co-creator Tommy Andreasen did shed a little light on the inspiration behind the ninja’s latest outing.
I would have guessed from the trailer and already released LEGO building sets that Prime Empire was inspired mostly by Tron. While Tron might be an inspiration, is it not the main one.
Prime Empire is first and foremost inspired by the urban legend of Polybius. If you’re not familiar with this urban legend — and I wasn’t when Tommy broke the news earlier today — then here’s a lengthy Wiki article on the subject.
The short version is that Polybius was a video game cabinet in the early 2000’s believed designed to control people’s minds and collect information about them. There’s no concrete evidence to this point so it remains an urban legend, and a great inspiration for Ninjago.
If Season 12 follows the pattern of previous seasons then it could arrive on the Cartoon Network in the United States sometime this spring.
In the meantime you can watch two Ninjago: Prime Empire prequel shorts below with more expected in the coming days and weeks. Their events play directly into Season 12 including the introduction of the main villain, Unagami.
