Review Review: 70816 Benny's Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP!

[Rufus]

Thanks for the further replies! Sorry i haven't been able to respond fully recently.

Quick question: since the spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP! is so big, I'm anticipating trouble landing it on my CS base. I don't think it fits in the old landing pad baseplates. Should I get a 48 x 48 baseplate just for her?

The ship is approximately 64 studs from the tip of the nose to the rear of the upper two engines. With the wings retracted, the lower engines protrudes a couple of studs further.

So you could possibly use two of the old landing pad baseplates!

[rollermonkey]

TLG is going to have a hard time keeping this on shelves for a while. My local LEGO store sold through their first shipment in two hours yesterday.

Edited May 20, 2014 by rollermonkey

[Piranha]

Thanks for this great review Rufus.

This set is very amazing, all the small details and homages to Classic Space are incredible. This is easily one of my favorite sets ever.

Can't wait to pick it up next month.

Scale of 1-10, this is an 11.

[Lordofdragonss]

This set needs more transparent parts. The lack of green red dots on smaller ships bothers me, but that's easy to change.

[legotrainfan]

Thanks, Lyichir, for your reply.

[Churchill]

Amazing. I found this and the other 2 new Movie sets at the Monroeville TRU outside of Pittsburgh. I sat right down and built it nonstop. I'm 45 so CS is right in my childhood range. I love it! Thanks for the review Rufus!

[danth]

I pre-ordered this set from Amazon because I'm not hopeful that any stores around me will get this in before Amazon does. However, I'm still going to look for it and buy it if I see it anywhere. I mean everyone needs at least two of these, right?

[Moebius118]

That one transparent sticker on the reactor window? Ugh! Fingerprints all over it.

That was one piece that should have been printed.

[ETAV8R]

Almost pulled the trigger on this today at my closest LEGO store. They had full stock of all the movie sets other than one with the fire engine mech and western steampunk helicopter.

[Andi123]

does anyone know when it hits European stores?

[Dane]

In Denmark it should be 1st June so probably the same in several other European countries

[rollermonkey]

Just finished.

OMG, it's HUGE!

...and so awesome.

But I'd gladly trade the Octan spaceship for at least one more Master Builder to help occupy all the seating positions. (There's 8 counting Unikitty's R2-D2/Astromech perch.)

[RoboKnight]

It's available on Bricklink now, whoo-hoo!

[rollermonkey]

OK, who are the two bozos that said this is a poor set in the poll?

[Moebius118]

OK, who are the two bozos that said this is a poor set in the poll?

Maybe they voted poor as in they are too poor to afford it? Hahaha

[rollermonkey]

Speaking of which. I was thinking about the value of the set... This is a really great example of how price-per-piece really is an unreliable metric.

With a US price if $100 but 'only' 940 pieces, it is over the magic 0.10 PPP number, but the reality is that there are very few 1-stud parts in the set, and lots of very large parts such as airplane fuselage pieces, large technic frames, large angled plates and etc. The completed model is over 60 studs long, with a 50-stud wingspan!

[danth]

I finally got mine! Made the trip to the nearest TRU and snagged it. SPACESHIP!

[SSJ2 Dark]

Picked mine up at the LEGO store at Mall of America and built it this morning! Fantastic design and features; I'm excited to mod it with more trans elements and soften some transitions. I especially love the trans-yellow windscreen, it's really the defining element of the spaceship!

[Herky]

It's a pretty cool set, got it last night and it goes together quickly, took about an 90 mins to put it together, lots of cool functions although I kept wondering why they needed the stickers. Especially the 4 on the classic space logo that goes on the jet engine holders, those could have been printed easily. I hate stickers.

I like the robots, and the way the wings extend, they did a good job with that. The kids got up this morning and are playing non stop with it, I do wonder if the brick separator is just standard in big sets now though, is this also counted in the piece count? I think we have about 25 of them now in different colors.

Overall I have to go with this being a great set...I will likely get the mech set too, that one looked great on the shelf and in the case all built. Really excited to see the movie again now.

[slacker int]

want, want , WANT!

Thanks for the in-depth review Rufus - very well done! Can't wait to get my copy of this beauty

[DPrime]

This has only showed up in US TRUs and Lego stores so far, correct?

Definitely going to be an instant purchase when I see it... Might get another or more if they go on sale, though. :)

[1974]

OK, who are the two bozos that said this is a poor set in the poll?

Me. Don't like it all. I think it's poorly designed. Could buy hundreds of them if I needed (will probably buy a dozen of them but that's for parting out in my BL shop)

I've had quite some time to give it my thoughts as I have known about this set for a long time. I confirmed/broke the rumour here, remember?

I'm a huge CS nut, but this is not CS. It's a sticker infested Technified butt ugly p.o.s with a broken minifig

In my opinion that is, solitary as it may be

Cheers,

Ole

[rollermonkey]

Wow. I don't know what CS you played with as a kid, but this guy right here feels like it's a fantastic reimagining of a CS ship, with well incorporated modern elements and techniques.

Are there any things that I'd like to mod? Of course there are, but it doesn't make me hate the overall package.

Mods I'd like to try:

Adding a 1x8 plate under each 'flap', over the yellow technic beams so the opening isn't quite so large under there.

Adding plates to the bottom, particularly in the back half. The alternating light and dark grey is weird, and I'd like to close the bottoms of the technic frames.

Incorporate landing gear. Although a front gear is pretty much not possible beyond a single inverted round plate, I think I could do something with those black technic frames for rear gear.

Add four 4x4 plate to the movable portion of the wings, or maybe a plate/tile combination attached to the fuselage under the movable portion. This would be to reduce or eliminate the amount of daylight when the wings are out.

But since all of this issues with the bottom side of the model, none of it really detracts from the overall appearance, IMO.

[AncientDayz]

I have over 100+ sets, and I have to say this is one of my favorites right now. It's probably some of the nostalgia talking right now, but still, I really like it. Can it be improved? Sure. But, as a post above states, it does a great job capturing a classic feel with some modernization.

[jonwil]

I just wish us Aussies didn't have to wait until August to get this set :(

Thankfully there is always overseas retailers who can sell me one :)