Do you think lego will ever realese another space theme

[gedren_y]

I think what was meant by the 'IP losses' comment was that there is likely some drop-off of interest in an IP theme when there is no accompanying major motion picture, or popular TV series. Star Wars has theme park attractions (depressed tourism thanks to Covid-19), its own section on Disney+ where most of the existing films and TV shows are hosted (haven't seen the Ewoks movies there yet), and novels and comic books, so that drop-off is slight. Star Wars related merchandise hasn't really ever gone away. Harry Potter is in a very similar situation, though its merchandising spread is less in non-movie years.

[danth]

11 hours ago, MAB said:

But even if all the SW and HP sets sold to adults, so what?

So let's review the conversation so far:

"LEGO is only for kids so AFOLs who want Space should shut up."

"No, LEGO is not just for kids, they sell lots of sets to adults."

"So what? You should still shut up."

Got it. Space fans should just shut up. The reason's don't matter -- if we refute one reason, you'll just make up another. Good to know.

12 hours ago, MAB said:

That is what bringing back Classic Space would be - forcing a 30-40 year old theme on kids that have no interest in now out of date futuristic sets from 30-40 years ago.

If it's the same thing, bring back Space and give people a break from Star Wars.

But seriously, your argument is a huge straw man. Nobody is arguing that LEGO should bring back actual Classic Space sets from 1978. Look at the thread title. This is about space themes in general. Unlicensed, non-NASA themes to be specific. So, things like Galaxy Squad or Space Police 3.

On 10/11/2020 at 5:21 PM, Lord Insanity said:

I think our biggest chance is to have the creator rover sell well enough that Lego tries pushing the sci-fi envelope with the next creator space fantasy set.

Yes! This is what I'm hoping for. Just slap a damn Space print on some piece in the set and give us some colored windscreens. Make it look cooler AND get the nostalgia market. It's a no-brainer.

9 hours ago, Aanchir said:

@Nabii, a Classic Space fan and celebrated MOCist who went on to design sets for several of the Space themes of the 2000s and 2010s, has spoken extensively both here and on other sites like Reddit about how basically every theme he's worked on has been condemned by AFOLs (at least initially) for not matching up with how they remember the sets of their childhoods.

This sounds a lot like "Some random person on the internet criticized a Space set so we should never make one again." It's an excuse. None of those themes were condemned. Maybe criticized, but all themes get criticized. It's not because people with nostalgia can't be pleased. For instance I have criticisms for Galaxy Squad, Space Police 3, and Mars Mission, but I bought sets from all of them.

[TeriXeri]

I find it weird LEGO Star Wars fans seem to call Classic / Tron / Ice planet Space era as "old" themes nobody cares about, while Star Wars Original Trilogy is 37-43 Years old as well, pretty much the same era as Classic Space.

Edited October 13, 2020 by TeriXeri

[Lego David]

5 hours ago, danth said:

a Classic Space fan and celebrated MOCist who went on to design sets for several of the Space themes of the 2000s and 2010s, has spoken extensively both here and on other sites like Reddit about how basically every theme he's worked on has been condemned by AFOLs (at least initially) for not matching up with how they remember the sets of their childhoods.

The people who "condemned" the modern Space themes were probably just a vocal minority who couldn't take off their nostalgia goggles. Within my age group (people who weren't around when the original Space themes came out), those modern Space themes were pretty well-received. 

[TeriXeri]

11 minutes ago, Lego David said:

The people who "condemned" the modern Space themes were probably just a vocal minority who couldn't take off their nostalgia goggles. Within my age group (people who weren't around when the original Space themes came out), those modern Space themes were pretty well-received. 

I really think its situational, I didn't collect LEGO from 2001-2015 so I have no nostalgia or connection to the 2000s Space themes, I don't really like some of  the rounded design and Technic panels etc, but I wouldn't condemn the themes as there are plenty great sets/parts as well.

But I can understand people disliking certain things, like the initial Nexo Knights got pretty harsh comments on this forum by "Classic Castle" fans, but that doesn't mean that the theme was hated by every AFOL.

But even inside the Star Wars community, there's a big divide, some love movie 1-9, some just consider movie 1-6 as original etc.

Edited October 13, 2020 by TeriXeri

[icm]

4 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

I find it weird LEGO Star Wars fans seem to call Classic / Tron / Ice planet Space era as "old" themes nobody cares about, while Star Wars Original Trilogy is 37-43 Years old as well, pretty much the same era as Classic Space.

The difference, of course, is that Star Wars has been kept continuously in the public awareness by new releases of various media, including many extremely popular video games, since 1996. Classic Space is a niche within Lego fandom that has not been similarly maintained.  Maybe you (using the general plural you and not the specific singular you) don't like that, but if we are looking strictly at continuous cultural relevance of this one thing (1977 SW vs 1979 CS), there is a much stronger argument for producing sets related to the one than the other. Please (speaking to the general plural you) don't take this as an attack in any way, shape, or form, nor as any comment on the right-to-exist or potential-for-success of any modern Space theme, including a direct remake of 1979 CS.  It is simply a fact that there has been nearly continuous production of transmedia SW content since 1996 that keeps the X-wing, TIE Fighter, Millennium Falcon, etc, culturally relevant in a way that simply is not so for the 918, 924, 928 spaceships, etc.

Edit - yes, just a couple posts above Danth rightfully pointed out that the question of directly reviving CS79 is a straw man when the larger question is reviving Space in general.  As I've said earlier in this thread, I think another Space theme would be great and is likely to come along within another couple of years.  I was simply responding to TeriXeri's offhand comment, is all.

Edited October 13, 2020 by icm

[danth]

4 hours ago, icm said:

The difference, of course, is that Star Wars has been kept continuously in the public awareness by new releases of various media, including many extremely popular video games, since 1996. Classic Space is a niche within Lego fandom that has not been similarly maintained. 

True, but this is yet another pivot that happens in these threads again and again. It goes like this:

A: "LEGO Space themes were awesome, they should do them again."

B: "No, that's just NOSTALGIA talking. LEGO Space is OLD, and OLD things are bad, and NOSTALGIA is bad, and doesn't sell, and if you just got over your NOSTALGIA you'd see OLD things you like actually suck."

C: "Wait, Star Wars is 40 years old, and it's pure nostalgia! The X-Wing design is ancient and it's still cool. And nostalgia totally sells."

D: "So what? Star Wars is popular."

Point B is refuted by point C. And yet, again, instead of admitting that point B was wrong, point B is casually discarded, as if the argument never mattered, and we pivot to a new argument.

It's almost like people arguing against unlicensed Space themes are just griefers, who throw arguments against the wall to see what sticks, but don't really care about any of the arguments or whether they make sense, so long as the people in the Sci-Fi forum feel invalidated.

[icm]

No, what I'm trying to say is that point C is the flaw in the logic.  Star Wars, taken in its entirety, is not just some 40-year-old movie that's kept culturally relevant by pure nostalgia, as if it were a cult film.  Star Wars is an ongoing franchise with large volumes of new content being generated nearly continuously for the past 24 years.  The new content, in turn, keeps the old content relevant.  So Star Wars is not pure nostalgia, it is new and ongoing.  It's not that point C refutes point B, it's that point C itself is flawed because point C, inasmuch as it specifically addresses Star Wars and/or the X-wing, is refuted by point D.  Point C, as in "nostalgia totally sells," is true.  In the circles that these topics always follow, you usually stake your position as insisting on point C1, which is that Star Wars is "40 years old and pure nostalgia."  I really am not arguing against an unlicensed Space them!  I don't, as a matter of principle!  I don't want people in the Sci-Fi forum to feel invalidated, quite the contrary!  But point C1 is so flawed given the fact that the past 24 years have seen nine theatrical releases (plus three theatrical re-releases), five TV shows, and any number of major video games, etc., etc., etc., that I have to challenge it simply as a point of fact.

Edited October 13, 2020 by icm

[danth]

@icm

Ah okay, I guess I misread the main thrust of your argument. It wasn't "Star Wars is still popular", it was "Star Wars still has new content and therefore isn't pure nostalgia." Which...is kinda obvious now on re-read. I thought you were citing new content as evidence of it's popularity. My bad.

So your D is really: "Star Wars is NOT all Nostalgia."

Totally valid of course.

I will say though, with regards to LEGO SW sets in 2021, all but one are from the original trilogy. And the one set from the new trilogy is an X-Wing based on the original 1970's concept design. I consider that evidence that the main driver of sales is nostalgia from the original movies.

You're right though. A teenager could play the new Squadrons game, say "This is freaking cool!", and then go find and watch the original movies. And then decide he needs a LEGO X-Wing. I'm not convinced that's something that happens a lot, but I can only guess.

Edited October 13, 2020 by danth

[icm]

Glad to see we're on the same page now!

[JintaiZ]

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Edited January 11, 2021 by JintaiZ

[Gene T Turberville]

If Lego implements a space theme, I wouldn't be surprised. Now they use the space theme everywhere)

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

Well.....we do have Star Wars and City space is still on the shelves. So I don't really see classic space returning anytime soon. But I have a friend who thinks they will bring classic space back. I told him that i will wire him $50 USD if they do. 

[TeriXeri]

17 hours ago, icm said:

Classic Space is a niche within Lego fandom that has not been similarly maintained.

I didn't take your post as offense at all, I fully understand your point that Star Wars has gotten way larger attention in the last 25+ years. 

Even when considering Classic Space got a lot more spotlight in the last years with LEGO Movie 1+2 and the Legacy Heroes LEGO game , and now an Orange Spaceman that comes with a book, it's true Star Wars overall has massive following and coverage in comparison, even within LEGO , a line of sets that is continous for 22 years in 2021.

I didn't want to generalize the whole Star Wars as old, it certainly isn't , but people calling Classic Space designs as old (as in to the point of outdated nobody cares about it) didn't really make sense, as LEGO has shown they can do modern iterations of it with sets like 2014's Benny's Spaceship , or smaller scale like Benny's Space Squad in 2019.

Even within the 21 years of Star Wars LEGO sets, there has been a lot of different design iterations/updates/variants of repeated releases like Falcons, X-wings etc, so there's no reason to assume Classic Space sets can't look Classic, yet use modern design standards and newer parts.

Reviving exact copies of Classic Space original sets shouldn't really happen, unless it's some one-off set like a 50th year anniversary Galaxy Explorer milestone , and even then, I wouldn't complain if it weren't a 1 on 1 copy of the same parts, but nearly looked identical still.

Would I like more Spaceship sets from in-house? Yes

Does it need to be Classic Space ? Not exactly , but I do prefer angled designs over rounded, even a 3-in-1 1000+ piece spaceship set could be very interesting if it uses many basic parts like angled wings, slopes and a bunch of transparent pieces, Benny's 2014 Spaceship was a good example of that style.

Edited October 14, 2020 by TeriXeri

[MAB]

3 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Even within the 21 years of Star Wars LEGO sets, there has been a lot of different design iterations/updates/variants of repeated releases like Falcons, X-wings etc, so there's no reason to assume Classic Space sets can't look Classic, yet use modern design standards and newer parts.

 

Is there a need for them to look "Classic" though? For kids of today, I don't think that there is a need as there is next to no nostalgia for old Classic Space. There is no source material that needs to be followed for the shapes, the design principles or the colours, as there is for licenses.

3 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Does it need to be Classic Space ? Not exactly , but I do prefer angled designs over rounded, even a 3-in-1 1000+ piece spaceship set could be very interesting if it uses many basic parts like angled wings, slopes and a bunch of transparent pieces, Benny's 2014 Spaceship was a good example of that style.

If they do a "Classic" Space theme again, it would not surprise me if there are a number of changes to the "rules". The reason I use "Classic" Space and not Classic Space is that I don't think any modern set or theme can ever be called Classic, as in the original Classic. Classic was an era of LEGO and cannot really be repeated.

It would not surprise me if any new theme had at least some of the following changes:

More colours of suits and obviously not classic smiley heads.

More rounded, modern designs compared to the angled, blocky designs of the past (when all the parts were angled and blocky).

More colours used for spaceships. And possibly not consistent colours throughout the theme - so maybe something like Galaxy Squad where the ships had different colours depending on the colour of the minifigure(s) that they came with.

Transparent clear windscreens, to avoid clashes with different colours used in the ships.

Aliens. A faction to fight against. Especially if real space is frequently covered through City, sci-fi space would need to be an action based theme, and so there would be some sort of conflict.

 

Any one of those things is enough to make some Classic Space fans go crazy. Even using light bluish grey instead of light grey or helmet shape is enough to set some off. If they made more rounded spaceships using modern parts in multiple colours with the Classic Space logo, and Classic Space minifigs in multiple colours, I'd buy them.

For example, remove the GS logos from this one, replace with the Classic Space logo, and replace the figure with a dark azure CS minifigure (who would be named on the box).

 

 

Then make another similar one that has magenta accents, with a magenta figure, and so on. 

I think that would make an interesting theme. It would fit in with modern LEGO styling. Kids would probably like it. Some people would pull their hair out complaining. 

 

[Aanchir]

On 10/12/2020 at 11:31 PM, danth said:

This sounds a lot like "Some random person on the internet criticized a Space set so we should never make one again." It's an excuse. None of those themes were condemned. Maybe criticized, but all themes get criticized. It's not because people with nostalgia can't be pleased. For instance I have criticisms for Galaxy Squad, Space Police 3, and Mars Mission, but I bought sets from all of them.

I don’t get how you got that impression when the main idea of my post was that LEGO is likely to make another Space theme again in the future. The reason I brought up Mark’s posts is as a reminder that even if it seems to some of us like LEGO has “given up on” Space themes and will need some huge change in thinking to bring them back, it’s just as possible that they haven’t internally drawn as sharp distinctions as we typically do between space and other “Space-ish”  themes in recent years.

And if that’s the case, then it might not be any more far-fetched for them to bring out a new Space theme as soon as summer of next year than it would’ve been for them to bring out a high-tech spy theme in 2014, a high-tech castle theme in 2016, or a high-tech ghost hunting theme in 2019.

Personally, I find it immensely unlikely that LEGO would’ve made stuff like spaceships, space stations, and alien species as instrumental to The LEGO Movie 2 if they truly had categorically decided “space themes” were otherwise off the table. You don’t pitch a movie for kids centered around stuff that you’re convinced kids won’t be interested in.

[danth]

27 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

I don’t get how you got that impression when the main idea of my post was that LEGO is likely to make another Space theme again in the future.

I don't know. Because I'm feeling defensive?

I've had a hard time figuring out what people are getting at lately.

I guess I just don't want to hear that "Space fans don't like anything so they shouldn't make more Space sets", which I feel like I've heard a lot, but maybe that's just me being dumb.

Yeah, TLM2 was super space heavy. I'm thankful we got a lot of cool stuff out of it.

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

4 hours ago, danth said:

I guess I just don't want to hear that "Space fans don't like anything so they shouldn't make more Space sets", which I feel like I've heard a lot, but maybe that's just me being dumb.

You're not being dumb. I used to dislike my wants being tempered either. But I've actually learned that perhaps some people may be closer to Lego than I think and they may know what will and won't happen.......at least anytime soon. 

Edited October 15, 2020 by Brandon Pea

[gedren_y]

On the hopeful side: With the trajectory of City Space, and the Creator sets, I wouldn't be surprised that we get an alien worlds exploration theme in the next few years. Story-wise something between Exploriens and Life On Mars, with non-minifigure aliens reminiscent of TLM2, would be my guess. Maybe with augmented reality as the gimmick, like Hidden Side.

[Aanchir]

1 hour ago, danth said:

I don't know. Because I'm feeling defensive?

I've had a hard time figuring out what people are getting at lately.

I guess I just don't want to hear that "Space fans don't like anything so they shouldn't make more Space sets", which I feel like I've heard a lot, but maybe that's just me being dumb.

I’m with you there. I think a lot of people assume random online complaints from our communities impact LEGO’s decision-making process way more than they actually do. At least when it comes to sets and themes that aren’t primarily aimed at adults to begin with. I mean, let’s be real: most of LEGO’s current themes would look nothing like their current forms if their designs were somehow contingent on overwhelming, vocal AFOL approval! Usually the sharpest community reactions say more about our weakness at prognosticating what LEGO will or won’t do than anything else.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Aanchir

[Flak Maniak]

Here's an idea that will make everyone mad: No new proper space theme, but, a later Ninjago subtheme is Ninjago-in-space.

[Fuppylodders]

14 hours ago, Flak Maniak said:

Here's an idea that will make everyone mad: No new proper space theme, but, a later Ninjago subtheme is Ninjago-in-space.

Not as mad as you think. While I disliked nexo knights, ninjago actually has always done very decent sets of whatever style they've been doing. Granted they'll be ninjago-fied, but whatever they do end up with, will be decent looking space sets that could probably easily be removed of the ninjago style to decent looking space sets. Not entirely what is hoped for, but possibly our best chance yet and closest it's been to it. 

I look forward to seeing what they bring! 

[Flak Maniak]

Hah, fair. I love me some Ninjago myself. Ninjago-style vehicles that happen to be spaceships would probably be the closest aesthetically that we'd get to a modernization of old-timey space themes. Maybe it's a better idea than I thought! Maybe we'll get skeletons or snakes in spacesuits, even!

How about this then: Fantasy Era Castle, in space. Space orcs, space dwarves, space elves, space skeletons. Jousting on jetbikes. (Ok Nexo Knights already did horse jetbikes.) I guess this'd be as close as we ever got to Lego 40k.

[Lego David]

Well, there is the new LEGO World Builder platform, and if the people here really want to see the return of LEGO Space in some form, this new platform is the way to go. There is already a popular project on the site called "Space Repair Garage" that apparently a former LEGO designer also contributed to:

https://worldbuilder.tongal.com/world/8f50bacc-4d28-496c-8e31-7bfc4e755202?page=5

[HyperC]

We need a 1000+ piece plus classic space sets.  My old classic space favorites seem to simple to my kids.