The Future of Lego Space. (opinions, ideas, discussion)

[9v brick master]

I'm 20 and I appreciate the Classic space sets love the monrails especially. It would make sense to bring this theme back because of benny's space squad and that selling like hot cakes. If they do make classic spaces set I would buy them I hope its replace a bad theme 

[pombe]

26 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

To me, Classic Space is the original sets, while everything else (themes, sets, and MOCs) evokes them to one degree or another. 

 

15 minutes ago, alvinofdiaspar said:

Agree - CS is a very specific type of design style - I think evoking the spirit of it in future sets is good; replicating it wouldn't feel right other than for nostalgia.

 

I admit it was a loaded question.  However, as a CS fan who wants to see some sort of CS revival, I'm cautious with my optimism regarding any sort of CS related material put out by TLG.

No re-imagining/sequel makes 100% of the fans happy, though some succeed more than others.  Like, how do:

1) Lord of the Rings fans feel about Peter Jackson's work?
2) Transformers fans feel about Michael Bay's work?
3) Avatar: The Last Airbender fans feel about M. Night Shyamalan's work?

I mean...look at how Star Wars fans reacted to The Last Jedi.  I could have swore the internet collapsed on itself.  Wow...

Back to LEGO:
1) As a Space Police I fan who missed out on Space Police II, I was really happy with Space Police III (though, I was disappointed that Blacktron was not utilized more as an opposing faction).
2) I do feel that Blacktron II was a disappointment compared to Blacktron I, but right now I would be happy with a Blacktron revival similar to either theme.

[Aanchir]

1 hour ago, Digger of Bricks said:

That's why I feel Lego should take inspiration from Classic Space rather than directly basing a future Space theme off of it, thereby not acting as a divisive reinterpretation of the original source material but rather its own distinct theme.

Like, say, spacecraft done in Dark Azur and Dark Bluish Grey with Trans. Bright Orange canopies? 

 

1 hour ago, alvinofdiaspar said:

Personally I feel that using massive amount of trans for canopies is too "garish" - it need to be used, but used discriminantly. I wish there could be some use of metallic silver as accents as well.

Between these two posts this hypothetical color scheme is hewing dangerously close to Nexo Knights sets like 70310, 70315, 70317, 70351, and 70362. Particularly since so many of the parts in those sets actually originated as LEGO Space parts.

[Digger of Bricks]

1 hour ago, alvinofdiaspar said:

I think evoking the spirit of it in future sets is good; replicating it wouldn't feel right other than for nostalgia.

Exactly.

1 hour ago, alvinofdiaspar said:

Me too - though I think that theme will fall more on the realistic (so far as Lego City realism goes) side and not space opera sci-fi that's more the purview of CS.

Eh, I do think Classic Space though leans more closely towards the realism of City rather than the Star Wars-esque fantasy of the Space Opera genre.

32 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

Between these two posts this hypothetical color scheme is hewing dangerously close to Nexo Knights sets like 70310, 70315, 70317, 70351, and 70362. Particularly since so many of the parts in those sets actually originated as LEGO Space parts.

Of course, as I've always felt that the Nexo Knights' initial vehicular color scheme took after the base hues of Classic Space's color scheme in some way. 

[alvinofdiaspar]

Just now, Digger of Bricks said:

Exactly.

Eh, I do think Classic Space though leans more closely towards the realism of City rather than the Star Wars-esque fantasy of the Space Opera genre.

Of course, as I've always felt that the Nexo Knights' initial vehicular color scheme took after the base hues of Classic Space's color scheme in some way. 

Pure conjecture on my part - but the way Lego positioned it in City (and the reports around how it is "inspired" by NASA) suggests to me it's more an extrapolation of other space-themed City sets (which is still great - it fills a niche that is ripe with possibilities) instead of something more bona-fide Sci-fi.  I am craving the possibility of a realistic martian outpost in the future.

Self-disclosure - I am old enough to have played with CS sets when they were just released (and Lego at the time is far, far more restrictive in terms of parts and techniques than what's available now) - so my perspectives about it might be different.  Let's just say,  Benny's cracked helmet is a very very real experience IRL.

Edited February 7, 2019 by alvinofdiaspar

[TheNerdyOne_]

I think that Classic Space loses a lot of it's charm and uniqueness without the colored canopies.  Plenty of other themes have proved that it can be done very well and still look modern, I think they did a great job doing so with CS specifically with Benny's spaceship.  If you ask me, using clear canopies or less blue makes the theme look generic and uninteresting.  If LEGO were to do that, I'd much prefer they'd just use that energy to make a new unique space theme.

[Captain Mutant]

The idea - as someone wrote earlier - that LEGO might be intimidated to do a Classic Space-like thème because of all the MOCs out there which look so amazing, would be disappointing if true.

for one thing, most of these MOCs are just there for display. IIRC Peter Reid’s Exo Suit had to be extensively modified to make it an official LEGO toy because it kept falling apart.

Creating a set that both looks great and can endure the rigours of playtime isn’t easy and is not something most “amazing looking” neo-Classic Space MOCs focus on.

Right now, for whatever reason, LEGO doesn’t feel a dedicated theme would be sustainable.

So we have 2 choices:

1. Use LEGO pieces to create our own theme

2. Eagerly wait and see what this forthcoming LEGO City Space theme is all about.

I myself am doing both ? 

[danth]

18 hours ago, Lyichir said:

This actually makes me think of another possible reason why Lego might not opt for an updated Classic Space theme—that it has already been done so well so many times by AFOLs that it would be that much harder for a Lego-designed take on it to measure up in the eyes of all fans. It's very possible that something more novel that doesn't invite direct comparisons to past AFOL MOCs might be received more favorably overall than a theme that has already had so many different takes on it over the years.

 

8 hours ago, Captain Mutant said:

The idea - as someone wrote earlier - that LEGO might be intimidated to do a Classic Space-like thème because of all the MOCs out there which look so amazing, would be disappointing if true.

Personally I think it's a huge stretch.

It means Lego would never make regular Star Wars sets because they wouldn't "measure up" to the awesome UCS sets.

It means Lego would never make regular Creator buildings because they wouldn't "measure up" to the awesome Creator Expert buildings.

And nothing is more "a theme that has already had so many different takes on it over the years" than Star Wars. 

I really sounds like "You guys are wrong for wanting Classic Space to come back, for any bizarre reason I can think up, no matter how dubious." 

[Lyichir]

2 hours ago, danth said:

 

Personally I think it's a huge stretch.

It means Lego would never make regular Star Wars sets because they wouldn't "measure up" to the awesome UCS sets.

It means Lego would never make regular Creator buildings because they wouldn't "measure up" to the awesome Creator Expert buildings.

And nothing is more "a theme that has already had so many different takes on it over the years" than Star Wars. 

I really sounds like "You guys are wrong for wanting Classic Space to come back, for any bizarre reason I can think up, no matter how dubious." 

The Creator Expert buildings are actually an example I was thinking about—designers of the modulars have cited the plethora of amazing fan designs as one reason why recent buildings have tended toward multiple types of businesses sharing a roof and a baseplate, since it helps them to stand apart from the single-purpose banks, barbershops, pool halls, flower shops, and so forth that fans have already designed.

Call me cynical but my experience with the adult Lego fan community has generally been one where they are perhaps one of the hardest markets of Lego fans to satisfy. That's the difference between redoing Star Wars ships umpteen times and doing the same for classic space. The former is done primarily to entice new child fans who recognize the ships from the movie but haven't gotten a chance to get their own versions. The latter wouldn't do that—the sole benefit of bringing back Classic Space instead of doing a new sort of space theme would be to entice nostalgic adults, a much more challenging proposition since you'd be competing both with the fan community's talented creations as well as the rose-tinted recollections older fans have of their childhood favorite themes.

[danth]

Just now, Lyichir said:

Call me cynical but my experience with the adult Lego fan community has generally been one where they are perhaps one of the hardest markets of Lego fans to satisfy. That's the difference between redoing Star Wars ships umpteen times and doing the same for classic space. The former is done primarily to entice new child fans who recognize the ships from the movie but haven't gotten a chance to get their own versions.

I just find this so hard to believe. Do kids really care about a 40 year old movie? What kid wants a Jawa Transport?

I could believe that parents push Star Wars on their kids. But given a choice they'd probably just play with Ninjago.

[Lyichir]

31 minutes ago, danth said:

I just find this so hard to believe. Do kids really care about a 40 year old movie? What kid wants a Jawa Transport?

I could believe that parents push Star Wars on their kids. But given a choice they'd probably just play with Ninjago.

I mean, I cared about it 20 years ago when it was already 20 years old, after my dad showed it to me. Call that "pushing" if you like, but parents share movies they liked with their children all the time. And the presence of modern Star Wars movies creates plenty of opportunity for kids to get into the franchise of their own volition, even moreso than when I was a kid watching the movies with the prequels still several years away.

And I could turn that back around on you—how many kids do you think would care about the also 40-year-old Classic Space theme if they weren't introduced to it through their parents or through modern media featuring it like The Lego Movie? It's the same kind of nostalgia at work, just on a much, much smaller scale than Star Wars.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Lyichir

[Digger of Bricks]

Over at Billund's LEGO House, an exhibition showcasing prototype builds for TLM2 displays an eight-wheeled Apocalypseburg Classic Space rover mounted by a green Classic Spaceman, though this time with the new ol' fashioned helmet mold! 

 

[Aanchir]

35 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Over at Billund's LEGO House, an exhibition showcasing prototype builds for TLM2 displays an eight-wheeled Apocalypseburg Classic Space rover mounted by a green Classic Spaceman, though this time with the new ol' fashioned helmet mold! 

On an unrelated note, wonder if those armor pieces Emmet and Lucy are wearing might show up in a future set? They could be cool for more modern/rugged sci-fi creations. Unlike my brother, I haven't had a chance to see the movie itself yet, so I don't know whether those are just a pre-production thing that didn't made it into the final movie… I guess I'll find out tomorrow evening!

56 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

I mean, I cared about it 20 years ago when it was already 20 years old, after my dad showed it to me. Call that "pushing" if you like, but parents share movies they liked with their children all the time. And the presence of modern Star Wars movies creates plenty of opportunity for kids to get into the franchise of their own volition, even moreso than when I was a kid watching the movies with the prequels still several years away.

This! Growing up, Star Wars wasn't just an "old movie" to me. A pretty much constant stream of new material, including video games like Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and Star Wars Episode 1: Racer for the N64 or books like the Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections books and Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear chapter books, kept a lot of the stuff even from the older movies as relevant and interesting to me as if they had just come out.

I remember spending quite a lot of time playing these games, watching Lyi play them, and looking at them and our cross-section books for reference to MOC our own LEGO Star Wars creations. Some of our earliest encounters with the existence of the AFOL community even came in the form of our dad downloading LDraw instructions that adult fans had drawn up for how to build some of the podracers that hadn't been released as sets. And I can't remember exactly what year it was, but there was definitely a year sometime between the ages of 3 and 7 that he and I dressed up as Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi for Halloween, including a toy lightsaber that lit up and a toy blaster pistol that made laser sound effects.

Plus, as a kid, it's often really hard to really register just how old some things could be. To me, "Beauty and the Beast" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" were both fairy tale movies that I knew weren't brand new, but when i first saw them I certainly wouldn't have been able to realize that one came out just a couple years before I was born and one came out before my PARENTS were even born! As an adult, it's very easy to recognize how much more advanced the animation is in "Beauty and the Beast" or how much crisper the voice recording is, but as a kid you don't have so much of a frame of reference, particularly experiencing them primarily via what were (by today's standards) low-fidelity recordings on VHS.

Even with live action films like Star Wars, it wasn't really until a lot later in my lifetime that I started being able to really pick up on the noticeable differences between how the colors, lighting, and effects looked between older and newer movies. Nowadays, as an adult, I can certainly recognize that glossy orange look white people's skin often has in older movies. But as a kid, again, I had no reason to look out for that kind of thing, and hadn't watched enough movies or learned their release dates to recognize these kinds of differences as consistent patterns and not just stuff that varied arbitrarily from movie to movie.

Classic Space was different. Yes, I was aware of it as a kid, but mostly through visibly used and weathered older parts and idea books that my dad obtained for Lyi and me via yard sales. Their "oldness" compared to a new set was pretty unmistakable, not just in terms of their rudimentary designs (weirdly cylindrical helmets with no visors, faces with no defining details, torsos with a logo and nothing else) but also the visible aging of the parts themselves. And even knowing it was old wasn't enough to tell me that its oldness made it special somehow.

I think LEGO has proven with The LEGO Movie that they can enjoy Classic Space, but that's not the same as demonstrating that it's more appealing than Star Wars would be, let alone more appealing than a Space theme more tailored to the way kids today imagine adventures in deep space. Because the vision people had of the future in the 80s certainly isn't the same as the vision people have of the future today.

One Classic Space part that's a pretty clear testament to that is the walkie-talkie, which these days rarely appears in more sci-fi leaning themes like Nexo Knights or Ninjago. Once upon a time, a walkie-talkie wasn't just a modern gadget, but a forecast of how people would increasingly communicate wirelessly in the future, especially out in the frontiers of space where there were no phone lines.

But nowadays visions of the future usually invoke people communicating with a wrist communicator, a headset, holograms, or head-up displays and video screens in their actual vehicles. I think part of what makes Benny so appealing to kids and adults alike, in fact, is that he's something of a comic relief character… obsessed not only with space, but with a very particular and increasingly outdated vision of the future.

[Digger of Bricks]

8 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

On an unrelated note, wonder if those armor pieces Emmet and Lucy are wearing might show up in a future set? They could be cool for more modern/rugged sci-fi creations. Unlike my brother, I haven't had a chance to see the movie itself yet, so I don't know whether those are just a pre-production thing that didn't made it into the final movie… I guess I'll find out tomorrow evening!

At least not for TLM2, as @Lyichir says they don't appear at any point in the film. Given how developed of mold it looks to be though, I'm figuring they designed for something else, be it perhaps a future Series 19 CMF or maybe for Ninjago or that other upcoming mystery theme.

[TeriXeri]

14 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

I'm figuring they designed for something else, be it perhaps a future Series 19 CMF or maybe for Ninjago or that other upcoming mystery theme.

Like I said in another thread, they could certainly be used for a lot, with that stud on front, some transparent or printed 1x1 element could completely change the purpose/faction, especially if the armor is in some more neutral color like silver/grey/black.

Even an very old design armor piece like this (1991) jetpack could be used by non-Blacktron, and it was actually reused in a 1999 Spaceport theme later, but really the 2 studs on front could be customized in so many more ways.

 

The thing with the Nexo Knights armors, the Dual molded ones would look out of place in a faction that doesn't really use neon orange, and even the single-molded ones have that shield-shaped hole on front.

Now, they did re-use the 2nd season one on Pharah, but that minifig torso print is clearly designed around that armor piece positioning.

Edited February 7, 2019 by TeriXeri

[Digger of Bricks]

Just now, TeriXeri said:

Like I said in another thread, they could certainly be used for a lot, with that stud on front, some transparent of printed 1x1 element could completely change the purpose.

You know though, think of all the derivative armor parts we've seen since Series 7's Galaxy Patrol CMF, as many of them have been seemingly taking after that part with slight alterations to one degree or another. I guess it is somewhat getting a little redundant, whereas otherwise they could've been just giving us recolors of the first few preexisting molds they'd initially done. 

[danth]

4 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Over at Billund's LEGO House, an exhibition showcasing prototype builds for TLM2 displays an eight-wheeled Apocalypseburg Classic Space rover mounted by a green Classic Spaceman, though this time with the new ol' fashioned helmet mold! 

Sorry if I'm just being dense but where is this information? I don't see it in your instagram link.

EDIT: I see it now. The little left & right arrows.

Edited February 7, 2019 by danth

[x105Black]

On 2/6/2019 at 6:59 PM, Aanchir said:

Between these two posts this hypothetical color scheme is hewing dangerously close to Nexo Knights sets like 70310, 70315, 70317, 70351, and 70362. Particularly since so many of the parts in those sets actually originated as LEGO Space parts.

And Nexo Knights has a color scheme pulled almost directly from Ice Planet and definitely feels like a Sci-fi theme.

On 2/6/2019 at 11:48 PM, TheNerdyOne_ said:

I think that Classic Space loses a lot of it's charm and uniqueness without the colored canopies.  Plenty of other themes have proved that it can be done very well and still look modern, I think they did a great job doing so with CS specifically with Benny's spaceship.  If you ask me, using clear canopies or less blue makes the theme look generic and uninteresting.  If LEGO were to do that, I'd much prefer they'd just use that energy to make a new unique space theme.

I personally disagree.  My ideal space theme would use transparent or trans black canopies.  Other colors can be too restricting to me, dictating the color scheme.  They can also make the build look to colorful.  Of course I'm not opposed to color, but I prefer a darker color scheme like the earth blue and dark grey others have mentioned.

[icm]

All this talk of blue (but different shades of blue!) and white, with transparent canopies, reminds me of Galaxy Squad.  In a previous thread I said I didn't like that theme and I never would, but I ended up buying two of the smaller Galaxy Squad sets a few months ago and I liked them a lot.  Like x105Black, I prefer trans-clear, trans-black, or trans-light blue canopies, as they're more versatile in settings outside Space or Sci-Fi.  I guess I'm really not too particular about the color scheme for future Space themes, just the content.  Let's have a straight exploration theme without a lot of guns and bad guys, with nice sturdy builds that don't fall apart when you sneeze like those from Exploriens and Life on Mars, which were the last straight exploration themes without guns and bad guys.

[alvinofdiaspar]

Are there anyone old enough (or been exposed to 70s/80s sci-fi art and design enough) to feel that Classic Space have a distinctive Terran Trade Authority vibe to it?

Edited February 9, 2019 by alvinofdiaspar

[Pdaitabird]

9 hours ago, x105Black said:

My ideal space theme would use transparent or trans black canopies.  Other colors can be too restricting to me, dictating the color scheme.  They can also make the build look to colorful.  Of course I'm not opposed to color, but I prefer a darker color scheme like the earth blue and dark grey others have mentioned.

One thing I like about the colored canopies of older space themes is that it looks like the glass is coated with some sort of barrier to protect against cosmic radiation (the lack of such futuristic coatings being why real spacecraft don't have big windows). I always considered the yellow canopies of CS ships to represent a protective measure.

[TheNerdyOne_]

On 2/7/2019 at 11:08 AM, Digger of Bricks said:

Over at Billund's LEGO House, an exhibition showcasing prototype builds for TLM2 displays an eight-wheeled Apocalypseburg Classic Space rover mounted by a green Classic Spaceman, though this time with the new ol' fashioned helmet mold! 

 

Since we're definitely not getting that model as a set, I recreated it to the best of my ability in LDD.  We can't see everything so it's not exact, but hopefully it's accurate enough while still retaining all of the features.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/i9041y8rpswl1ll/Apocalypseburg_Rover.lxf/file

[Digger of Bricks]

9 hours ago, Pdaitabird said:

I always considered the yellow canopies of CS ships to represent a protective measure.

I myself have always considered Trans-Yellow canopies to be depicting in-cockpit backlighting. 

4 hours ago, TheNerdyOne_ said:

Since we're definitely not getting that model as a set, I recreated it to the best of my ability in LDD.  We can't see everything so it's not exact, but hopefully it's accurate enough while still retaining all of the features.

Pretty darn spot-on if you ask me.  

[Aanchir]

13 hours ago, Pdaitabird said:

One thing I like about the colored canopies of older space themes is that it looks like the glass is coated with some sort of barrier to protect against cosmic radiation (the lack of such futuristic coatings being why real spacecraft don't have big windows). I always considered the yellow canopies of CS ships to represent a protective measure.

To me, the colored windscreens in themes like Classic Space, M:Tron, and The LEGO Batman Movie sometimes almost seem less like they actually represent colored glass and more like they represent clear glass with colored cabin lights inside. However, that's not universal.

I also think that Nexo Knights used its transparent fluorescent reddish orange windscreen and banner elements in such a way that they often felt less like any sort of physical material and more like energy fields or "hard light" hologram projections. Which I think goes to show that sometimes what kind of material a transparent windscreen color suggests depends less on the color itself and more on what other non-windscreen elements are used in those colors.

Because Nexo Knights uses the same color for its windscreens as for its laser/energy blasts and holograms like Merlok 2.0, it creates the sense that all of those things are some kind of energy projection rather than a physical material, whereas Classic Space has less of that feeling because its lasers and other transparent elements are typically not the same color as its windscreens.

I've seen some MOCists put this to good effect even in less sci-fi creations, such as some of Aaron Newman's "Dragon Lands" MOCs like this one where parts that might ordinarily represent sci-fi lasers or windscreens are repurposed as magical energy blasts and energy shields. Bionicle G2 in 2015 and 2016 also did some cool things where transparent elements in sets like 70795 or 71312 created the sense that characters' bodies were coursing with supernatural energies, even on parts that would have had more of a strict sci-fi look in a different color.

 

[Artanis I]

Something I never really thought about before. Different time periods used different approaches. Some sub-themes had a single trans colour, some had multiple. If not all just one, I tended to use red for rear lights & engines or powerful weapons, and the theme's dominant trans colour for other lights, energy beams/panels, lasers, shields etc. Especially the neon ones. Gets a bit different when you're talking about sets with green & red (presumed) lights, a different colour for the canopy and such.

Even if it's just the trans black (or smoke, whatever), canopies that are tinted have a more 'sci-fi' feel to them than the plain clear. I recall City (or should I say Town) sets used to use light blue visors, windows and screens. Even that looks more scientific/magical.