Seatron?

[Piranha]

Hey everyone,

Over in Train Tech we have been discussing which monorail was the best and members Brickraider General and Davey brought up a never released sea monorail. I found this quite interesting.

After some searching I found the same user galley had more stuff.

Sea Monorail

Apparently called "Seatron"

Has anyone else heard of this? And what do you think?

Pictures courtesy of: Brick Journal, Joe Meno and Nabii

[Corvus]

Looks like a knockoff to me... especially that minifig.

An awesome knockoff, though.

[prateek]

I don't think that's a knockoff, but just a really cool prototype. I love the name of the theme, "Sea People"

[indyj19]

i believe that became what is aquazone with the aquanauts and aquasharks

[lightningtiger]

Very interesting find and the question could be asked - why wasn't released ?

It must have a back story like the action happening on a water planet - fusion of space and underwater series togehter.

Some of the undersea life they could have brought back for Altantis - maybe if said Altantis is a run away success they might redo the monorail as part of an undersea base or link it with even power miners underwater !

I'm a conformist! !

[CMP]

Is that one of Frenzy's ancestors?

[not-in-use-anymore]

I'm sure this isn't a knock-off, I saw it before in a Brickjournal. The theme just seems odd... most of the _____-tron sets are space. Maybe it was suposed to be like Rock Raiders, a normal action theme, but on another planet. I wish they kept the fish-man/frenzy-ancestor/alien design, it would be interesting to have(new legs-check, new arms-check, new head-check, new torso-pretty sure there aren't any)Lego probably didn't make it because of design/money/time problems.

Edited February 27, 2010 by indianajones

[jonwil]

My guess is that the cost of such things as the monorail and the green underwater type dude meant that this was not a releasable theme (and so it morphed into the Aquazone we actually saw)

[Dannylonglegs]

Oh, This is Bizarre It looks like Early lego's poorly designed ships mixed with Megablox's insane pieces. That sea person is freakish, but definitely looks lego. I feel like This could be real, but part of me just doesn't want to believe it. If such extensive prototypes were built, why didn't lego go through with it? And why haven't I heard about this until now? Those sea creatures (not the figs) are strange too. If the sea people are frenzies ancestors, then those are definitely Squid-man's

Man, It feels like I'm looking into a parallel universe.

And I'm not high.

not that I do that sort of thing

ever.

Insectoid Aristocrat

[CP5670]

The models in the second picture look a lot like Aquaraiders (the first line, in 1997), at least in terms of the style and color scheme.

The monorail seems like it's made up of two distinct themes. I like how it contains all those prototype pieces there that never made it into any actual set. The "Aqualock" text looks like the same font as the "9V" on the 6990 battery box.

[CommanderFox]

Looks like a knockoff to me... especially that minifig.

An awesome knockoff, though.

Agreed. They look pretty cool though.

Good find!

CommanderFox

[kill will]

Holy crap, that second picture is like some awesome long lost Lego treasure... Seems pretty real to me, I wonder if any ambassadors would be able to shed some light on this?

The name and the bizarre models remind me of sea monkeys and the South Park episode where they evolved into a little civilization.

[Lordofdragonss]

This aquaman figure is so amazing! I wonder when we got a new torso and legs like this!

[indyj19]

in the particular article of brick journal where it talks about classic space, and space police 3, it also talks about how this "seatron" or "underwater space" was sort of scrapped and elements of it used to create the original aquazone

[Fugazi]

This is so interesting! I never knew about any of this of course. IMO the sea people black concepts are rather blah, and so is the human base but the monorail is quite impressive, very inspired sci-fi design. The colours of the yellow monorail and white/red base don't mix well but the final product could have been different. It's too bad that the Aquazone theme dropped the idea of a submarine monorail, though if would have been far-fetched. The preliminary design was very promising!

[Thee Pirate]

I'm surprised no one said anything about the track morphing from blue to gray. These sets would have a lot of playability in the mind of a child. You see, it's implied that the base the spaceship is landed at is above water, and when the Aqualock goes to the lower level, it's underwater. That means you can set this monorail up on a dresser, and everything below the dresser is underwater. That rocks!!

[just2good]

Wow, those look nice, I really wish they made one of those "sea people".

Anyone know any other unreleased themes?

[Lego lover]

Maybe the photos are real , but the minifig is too complicate for the year of the photos.

[Dannylonglegs]

I'm pretty sure these are real, Lego lover. The strange Minifigs were never released, but these prototypes were made. Personally, I wish someone who has read the article would summarize what it says about these themes.

~Insectoid Aristocrat

Edited February 28, 2010 by dannylonglegs

[Nabii]

I wrote the Brick Journal Article. These are genuine LEGO concepts from the early 1990's that I was given special permission to use ONLY in Brick Journal (These images have been scanned in and used without crediting either Brick Journal, Joe Meno or myself and without any indication of how they have been obtained - ignoring the rudeness it is of a breach of Brick Journals copyright too!)

But putting that aside; the original article is in issue 6 and is an interview with Jens Nygaard Knudsen - the creator of the Mini-figure and LEGO Space (he headed LEGO Space from 'classic' space until the end of Ice Planet). Sea-Tron is one of the concepts that became Aquazone - the most interesting thing for me (and explanation of the 'tron' post-fix) was that it was conceived of as a space theme - it is an alien water-world, much like Ice Planet is a frozen water-world, hence the alien mini-figure. This idea was actually carried over into the final sets of Aqua-zone, but was never communicated to the public. This means that anyone who thinks they are LEGO-Space complete in their collections had better make sure they have the Aquazone sets!

And yes, in some ways the figure is the ancestor of Frenzy as it was the same LEGO Designer who sculpted both!

Cheers,

Nabii.

[Inconspicuous]

Thanks for sharing that, Nabii. It's interesting that this theme morphed into Aquazone, it seemed like the final designs would have been really cool. And Aquazone being technically Space? Who would have thought! I also find it particularly interesting that the same guy who designed the reptile designed Frenzy: the similarity is uncanny.

Interesting find, Macoco, and thanks for the extra info Nabii.

[Dannylonglegs]

SNIP

Awesome! Thanks for the info (and writing the article too ) Since you seem to know alot about this, any clue if any of those prototypes are for sale anywheres ! I really love those fishy things.

~Insectoid Aristocrat

[jonwil]

Prototypes from LEGO are essentially NEVER allowed out of the company.

Whether they are destroyed or stored in the LEGO archives/vaults I dont know (and it may differ depending on the prototype)

[Dannylonglegs]

Prototypes from LEGO are essentially NEVER allowed out of the company.

Whether they are destroyed or stored in the LEGO archives/vaults I dont know (and it may differ depending on the prototype)

Oh, Shoot, I didn't know that Ah well, I'm sure I can try to make one out of playdo.

~Insectoid Aristocrat

[CP5670]

I always did think that Aquazone was at least inspired by space. In fact, if TLG hadn't told us that the Aquazone sets were subs, many of them could easily pass for spacecraft.