Official UCS set versions of popular MOCs?

[Naixin]

Hi! I was hoping to stimulate some discussion on this. We all know of the popular UCS-styled MOCs that this great community have built. What are the odds that Lego sees the popularity of these MOCs and decides to make official versions?

Personally, I feel like some of the MOCs (Starbrick's U-Wing, Tie Silencer, Bomber or Brickvault's Ghost) are amazing but not popular enough for the lego group to invest in making an official version (and to be fair, it probably won't be as good as the MOC). On the other hand, I can totally see lego releasing a future UCS AT-AT walker or something that has more popularity.

[sandtrooper]

My thought it would be cost prohibitive for Lego due to piece count.  Most of the UCS MOCs I've built have far more pieces than an official Lego set would have.  Because of this the design would also be simplified by Lego.  Also some of the MOCs aren't builder friendly in the sense that they are more complex to assemble.  Lego seems to shoot for making their builds universally easy to build based on the age of the builder.  Just my thoughts.

[TeddytheSpoon]

I would think that a like-for-like copy probably wouldn't happen, and certain things (like, unfortunately, the AT-AT) would just be way too unstable/heavy/parts-intensive to have at such a big scale.

That said, I think they could be a good barometer for TLG to judge what's popular, especially for the prequels. If the gunship sells well, then LEGO will probably consider doing more UCS prequel vehicles, and may look to the community to see what's popular - off the top of my head I'm fairly certain I've seen two or three ROTS Jedi Interceptors, for instance.

I really hope that does happen, as across 20 years of UCS sets, there's been like... Three from the prequels?

[RogueTwo]

I think (hope) a U-Wing is possible.  It would make a great minifig-scale set for $200.  Maybe next May the Fourth?  Rogue One seems to have been mostly forgotten by LEGO, perhaps because it’s too dark for children, but UCS sets are patently adult, anyway.  

A TIE Bomber seems inevitable at some point, but I can’t get too excited about that one...

Plus, then the UCS TIE Interceptor and Advanced would have to be rereleased, because the originals don’t hold up at all.  

All that said, the MOC that I’ve seen that seems like a most natural fit for an official set is a UCS Resistance X-Wing. 

[Trance89]

The Tie bomber was actually one of the options to vote for the next UCS set at the beginning of this year. The Republic Gunship got the most votes but considering the bomber was one of the options it can still happen in 2022 or later.

Brickset article

 

[Mandalorianknight]

I really doubt we'd see star wars mocs become sets. I think if they were open to that they wouldn't make it so you can't submit ideas projects for star wars. 

Although there was something pretty close, back when the UCS lambda came out, I believe the designer said he used bits of his friend's MOC. (with permission, of course)

[Beleg the Ranger]

I think UCS sets from current mocs is a good idea, but probably wouldn't fly with TLG's current marketing strategy. A U-wing would make a great UCS, as it was an awesome ship, and we have gotten 0 UCS from RO. RO is my favorite of the Disney SW movies, as Imperials were pretty great in it. Some sort of larger Scarif battle set would also have been nice, but too late for that. I wonder if anything else from RO would make a good UCS...

[lowlead]

I pretty much agree with the comments above with regard to cost prohibitive piece counts - with one exception.  A UCS Venator.  Plenty of exposure in the Prequels and The Clone Wars and, in my opinion, a viable candidate to be 'LEGOfied' with simplified design and reduced piece count to meet an appropriate price threshold without detracting too much from the original MOC design.

Edited June 5, 2020 by lowlead

[Evergreen]

It's unreasonable to expect LEGO to release a set as detailed as a MOC because their designs follow various restrictions that make it impossible to do so. So expecting a MOC detailed set is only a dream. But asides from design, I think at some point in the future (a couple of years to decades) LEGO will decide to make certain models that other MOC builders have made. Also since some of the most popular ones (X-wing, Tie fighter, etc.) have been made by LEGO there might be a good outlook on some other ones unless LEGO just remakes them...

[Ellisss_2]

12 hours ago, lowlead said:

I pretty much agree with the comments above with regard to cost prohibitive piece counts - with one exception.  A UCS Venator.  Plenty of exposure in the Prequels and The Clone Wars and, in my opinion, a viable candidate to be 'LEGOfied' with simplified design and reduced piece count to meet an appropriate price threshold without detracting too much from the original MOC design. 

I'd have to agree, this is well overdue and would be quite easy to design!

My UCS version happens to scale with 75252 and is sub 3000 pieces, so it's definitely possible! Maybe we won't get it for even longer now though due to the gunship :(

[stevej]

I'm sure I read somewhere that the UCS Imperial Shuttle that Lego released took a lot of inspiration from a fan build. I don't have the info to hand but maybe someone else knows more?

If that's the case then they've already done it once. :-)

[Mandalorianknight]

3 hours ago, stevej said:

I'm sure I read somewhere that the UCS Imperial Shuttle that Lego released took a lot of inspiration from a fan build. I don't have the info to hand but maybe someone else knows more?

If that's the case then they've already done it once. :-)

i mentioned this earlier, the designer was friends with someone who made a MOC of the shuttle, like you said. Based on the fact that they were friends and that as far as I can see there's no mention of the inspiration ( I believe it was about the technic on the wings, but I could be wrong) on the box/instructions, I think it was more of a special scenario and doubt we'll see anything where it overtly ties to a moc.

[icm]

It was quite a scandal at the time in the AFOL community.  I believe the MOC was by Cavegod, and the cockpit shape of the set also was heavily inspired by the MOC.  I don't remember the whole story offhand, so if you want to know more you'll have to find the forum threads about it yourself.

[Evergreen]

3 hours ago, icm said:

It was quite a scandal at the time in the AFOL community.  I believe the MOC was by Cavegod, and the cockpit shape of the set also was heavily inspired by the MOC.  I don't remember the whole story offhand, so if you want to know more you'll have to find the forum threads about it yourself.

It actually was Dmac's Imperial Shuttle that he made wayyyy back. Here's a link to a post of his shuttle. 

[Redroe]

10 hours ago, stevej said:

I'm sure I read somewhere that the UCS Imperial Shuttle that Lego released took a lot of inspiration from a fan build. I don't have the info to hand but maybe someone else knows more?

If that's the case then they've already done it once. :-)

I think that's a great fact, and its quite clear that Lego do pay attention to AFOL builds. The 2012 TIE and its various offspring was very similar to MOCs from the period. But MOCs are rarely going to be adopted by Lego themselves, except through an official route like Ideas. And Ideas SW projects never make the cut.

[Krisproductions]

Wonder if we will still get the Nebulon B in the future. 

[Mandalorianknight]

1 hour ago, Krisproductions said:

Wonder if we will still get the Nebulon B in the future. 

i think so, when the last fan vote happened the options were Home One, Palpatine's arrest and slave one with landing pad. Home one interior won, but we got palpatine's arrest a few years later, and of course they've been a few slave ones and the cloud city set.

[TeddytheSpoon]

12 hours ago, Krisproductions said:

Wonder if we will still get the Nebulon B in the future. 

I believe the designers said in an interview not too long ago that the gunship was the only ship that they hadn't completed any work on, which suggests they've got (or had) concepts lying around for that and the TIE bomber. I imagine we'd get a playset scale TIE bomber before a UCS one, but getting a Nebulon B in the near future would be sweet.

[dmaclego]

On 6/6/2020 at 5:10 AM, icm said:

  I believe the MOC was by Cavegod, and the cockpit shape of the set also was heavily inspired by the MOC.  I don't remember the whole story offhand,

One bit of the above is true: you don't remember the story. But it's OK :) .

And the story was that I finished my Lambda Shuttle in 2006 and published MLCad file online so that anyone could build it. Soon enough Cavegod and several other builders presented more or less modified versions. Then in late 2008 or early 2009 my friend Adam, fabulously talented LEGO designer, explained to me the dilemma they had: they wanted to issue a UCS shuttle and he was tasked to do just that but he in certain areas of the model (mainly cockpit and wings) he could not come up with better ideas than mine. Basically he said: if you disagree, I will design the model differently and it won't be the best possible but if you agree, I will use your ideas. So I agreed. (For free, if you are curious, because I consider it an honor to be at least partially responsible for the iconic UCS model). So if there was any scandal, it was only with those builders, who took my MLCad file and then forgot to mention who actually designed the model they would proudly present as their own.

In case you're interested, here's Adam's Designer Video from 2010:

 

And going back to the topic - if it happened once, it may happen again. People keep designing amazing models and once in a while they happen to be so "set-alike" that it would be foolish of the LEGO group to ignore them.

So keep on building and the next UCS may be yours :) .

 

Edited June 9, 2020 by dmaclego
Link repair

[icm]

Thanks for posting, it's good to get the real story from the person who knows it best!  With last year's big Batmobile, the designers were aware of a very good fan build (Dave Slater) and so they went out of their way to make every shape solution different from his so that nobody could say they copied anything.  I wonder if that's a new policy.

[lowlead]

9 hours ago, icm said:

...the designers were aware of a very good fan build (Dave Slater) and so they went out of their way to make every shape solution different from his so that nobody could say they copied anything.  I wonder if that's a new policy.

If that's a new policy, it isn't the best policy if you ask me.  I would much prefer the model design be the best it could be, even if it means directly using ideas from MOC builders.  Credit for any collaboration can be on display in the beginning 'making of' section of the instruction book, no?  I'm sure there's more to it, but the whole idea could also function pretty well as a fan outreach gesture.

[Mandalorianknight]

1 hour ago, lowlead said:

If that's a new policy, it isn't the best policy if you ask me.  I would much prefer the model design be the best it could be, even if it means directly using ideas from MOC builders.  Credit for any collaboration can be on display in the beginning 'making of' section of the instruction book, no?  I'm sure there's more to it, but the whole idea could also function pretty well as a fan outreach gesture.

Yeah, and there's got to be times that they haven't even seen the MOC they're using the same technique on, where it's just a coincidence. I like you idea of if they use a fan's technique they credit them in the manuel.