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Horatio-Caine

Review: 6987 Message Intercept Base

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I wasn't expecting to review anything, and this is the only review you'll most likely see me do, however given the set it is then I'd be only happy to review it.

Some facts:

Released: 1988

Pieces: 569

Minifigures: 5

Build time: Around 2-3hrs

Price paid: Just over £50

The set is the all time classic Space base from my favourite Space subtheme, Blacktron. It is the one and only 6987 Message Intercept Base. The best space base made in my opinion and pretty much the peak of Lego space. Many say that the bad guys got the biggest base, but in a sense when it was released in 1988 for its first year it was kinda a good guy base too, it was only in 1989 when Space Police came out that Lego changed the space story/canon somewhat and made Blacktron become outcast in a way and splitting away. Either way that doesn't stop it from being amazing, the Star Trek: First Contact of Lego space bases. And sometimes its good to be a little bit bad.

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The story goes that a while ago I managed to get a new example of this set, however the box wasn't great and was missing the front flap/lid, I managed to get another empty box which also wasn't great in other areas, but had the lid. I carefully took the lid off and carefully glued it to the new examples box successfully. I still had somewhat of an original box left though, so I decided to buy a complete set unboxed with instructions to pair with it so I can sell it back in better more complete condition than before. However that gave me a great excuse to make it and while I'm at it post a review. So let's get on with the details.

It looks like this new.

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The Building Process

With all that out of the way, time to empty the parts, get out the instructions and start building the detailed model.

First, the set comes with some pretty nice parts, some of the more special ones that stand out are shown below.

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The trans yellow windscreen parts as always look great, there is even a 4x6 trans yellow plate, which rings back to the old classic space days. A nice use of castle wall pieces too, as well as the large black panel piece with the iconic Blacktron logo.

The Minifigures/Crew

The base comes with 5 classic Blacktron astronauts, sporting the mostly black body with grey detailing, and the intimidating pure black visor, becuase not being able to see your face is just cooler and so much more badass. It has a good amount of crew, however an extra figure or two would have been nice for a base this large and detailed, but oh well, at least its better than a lot that came after where the numbers seemed to go down to about 3.

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Instructions

Being released 25 years ago now, the instructions that came with the set were harder to follow than now, less pages but more work on each step, I like that though. The front cover shows the base opening and closing as well as two of the four alternate models that can be built. A massive walker (basically a much larger Alienator) and a spaceship, which looks a bit like a much more fearsome Spyrius Saucer Centurion (6939) released some years later.

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The Baseplate

This is pretty much the last big space base set that still used a flat surface studded plate before the raised baseplate came along afterwards. It actually consists of two plates, one large flat one, next to another one the same size with some cool crater detailing, another nod to what was used in classic space. These two together as you are about to see makes for one hell of a large home.

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Vehicles

The base comes with two vehicles, a small but nimble buggy and an agile spacecraft. While not as large as separate models like the Battrax (6941) or Renegade (6954), they are still cool and give the base a sense of being complete.

The buggy doesn't contain a lot of parts, however despite that it is the little details that make it rather nice. Those large tyres make it compensate for the not too many parts it has, and it just looks so space like. Even the transparent red rocket piece at the back with the transparent red cone at the front while only being as few pieces just make it look sleek and a lot of fun. It could totally ace the car chase scene in Star Trek: Nemesis.

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The spacecraft is one of the gems of the set, it is a small Vic Viper like craft. The wings can be adjusted to fold up and down, in some ways it resembles one of those mini Klingon fighters from Star Trek Into Darkness. Very clever design, even the thrusters are neat and it has enough firepower at the front and on the wings. It resides in the hanger of the base and actually stems around one of the main functional features of the base which will be revealed.

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It must be great being him. Ready to boldly go...where no one from Futuron has gone before.

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Space...

The Base Itself

Now onto making the big part, the base itself, what a joy it is to make. Here's a shot of part way through making, to show how this set is full of detail, this actually feels like a base, a place where if you are a Blacktron astronaut you really can chill out here after a hard days work. Control stations, tool/weapon holders and the spacecraft launchpad, plenty of stuff to do.

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The base is now complete in all of its glory.

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As you can see, there is a control tower to the right, which quite cleverly using a sort of gear piece below it can move backwards and forwards connecting to the base or separating on its own and making things look bigger and more spaced out. When separated it allows you to open up the walkway/corridor in between.

Another part that uses the same method is the hanger itself, which again through the use of a rotating gear piece opens the hanger right out, to allow, yes you guessed it, the spacecraft to jet off. It also makes the unique and rare yellow 3x3 dish pieces at either side open out. One small flaw with this mechanism is that it is a bit fragile if you aren't careful.

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The Blacktron astronaut not in the craft can only just about hide his jealousy that he's not in it.

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And now back to work, can't be long until its is my turn to fly it, or mine. Another load of excellent interior detail this set offers.

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Dammit, I want the car! Well at least I have this weapon.

The detail just doesn't end, revealed in the middle towards the rear of the hanger is a small and cute control booth that can be accessed via ladder, just below is another control area.

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Going back towards the right end of the base are more control areas, including another raised area with a yellow seat, although how the guy gets down is anyone guess.

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I may find it hard getting down, but I'm still higher up than you are.

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Relax, I know what I'm doing.

And now my final and favourite part of the base, the corridor/walkway in between. This may not seem like a big bit, bit it is so nicely detailed and feels really realistic. You can lift the two windowed areas up via the hinges to put someone in the staring or walking down the corridor. In order to lift the one up at the front of the base you have to move the control tower forward a bit, otherwise you won't be able to get your hand in, it's a bit annoying but doesn't take much to do at least.

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I gotta get to that craft now!

Well that's it, to sum up this is a fantastic base and my favourite, so many nice touches that overall make for a sweet build. It does have some minor flaws, like as mentioned no stairs to the top part in the control tower and no way of getting up to the base itself from the outside, but this is Lego so I'll just use my imagination. A bit flimsy in places and an extra minifig or two would be nice, however that could be solved easily now. As a whole it makes for an amazing space base that could even be modded to make even more detailed, while its obvious the colour scheme is also classic too, can't beat mostly black with some yellow highlighting. It gets my seal of approval, and it was fantastic having the chance to make it again.

Pros

+Amazing design and detail

+Superb colour scheme

+Nice vehicles

+Many nice compartments

+Great playability

Cons

-Flimsy in some places

-One or two more minifigures would have been nice

Overall: 95%

Anyway I hope you enjoyed my review, thanks for reading.

Edited by Horatio-Caine

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Great review. I miss these old space theme sets. I had a few but gave them away a long time ago. There is just so much going on in this set. I do think that these old lego spacemen look way better that the new ones that lego has produced. Where did you get this set??

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Thanks, I won it on eBay last weekend in which it arrived today. The original Blacktron spaceman design will always go down as a classic, I like the Future Generation design too but compared to this I don't think it is as good. The newer Blacktron spaceman designs, most noticably the torsos I think are good to be honest, not as good as the original Blacktron but I'd say a bit better than Future Generation.

Edited by Horatio-Caine

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Hey, thanks for the great review of this iconic set. What would a more modern equivalent to this be? All the Space 'bases' in my recent memory seem to be mobile ones.

Joe

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Hey, thanks for the great review of this iconic set. What would a more modern equivalent to this be? All the Space 'bases' in my recent memory seem to be mobile ones.

Joe

Thanks, glad you liked it. They don't seem to make bases as much at all anymore when it comes to space. Looking through Brickset the last base they made was from Space Police 3 in 2010, 5985 - Space Police Central. 2009 there is 5980 Squidman's Pitstop when it comes to a bad guy base, although I find it difficult to call that a proper base as it doesn't look that big to me.

Do you mind if I ask about how much you paid for it?

I paid just over £50 for it, the auction was open to Worldwide bidding so there was a bit more competition, I'm still satisfied though as it was complete and in good enough condition so I've not needed to replace or find any parts that are missing.

Edited by Horatio-Caine

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Great review of this legendary set. The set has a very "complete" feel to it, going beyond the other classic space bases in size and scope, and I like how the whole structure is elevated off the ground. The corridor is my favorite part too, but it always seemed half finished to me in the original model. I made various modifications to my set which extend it:

6987b-01.jpg

Some of the alternate models on the box were also pretty good, especially the giant Alienator. It was rare to see good box alternates back then.

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Great review of this legendary set. The set has a very "complete" feel to it, going beyond the other classic space bases in size and scope, and I like how the whole structure is elevated off the ground. The corridor is my favorite part too, but it always seemed half finished to me in the original model. I made various modifications to my set which extend it:

6987b-01.jpg

Some of the alternate models on the box were also pretty good, especially the giant Alienator. It was rare to see good box alternates back then.

Thanks, the mods look nice and make the set even better, the walkway was such a good design, if I ever build my own large Blacktron base I'd most likely do the walkways very similar. I pretty much like all the alternate models 6987 had, not the biggest fan of the walkers but that alternate model was pretty mean looking. The two bases looked good as well, and the spaceship looked very menacing and well designed, its bigger than all the other Blacktron spaceships from the line so it would make a great main attack vessel, shame it was just an alternate model so you've only got the one picture to go by if you want to make it or something along the lines of it.

Wow, great review of a great set! I'm guessing your a Star Trek fan?

Thanks, yes I do have a liking for Star Trek, mostly the movies, I've not watched many of the episodes since when I got into liking it they didn't really show the episodes on TV as much anymore. Wasn't really into it until sometime after Nemesis came out, but I started to like it because I thought Patrick Stewart was excellent when I first caught some bits of TV episodes and films, so naturally I took the most liking to the Next Generation characters, followed by the original series of Kirk, Spock .etc. I'm not really into the rest like Enterprise, Voyager and DS9, something about it just seems to be missing compared to the those two, its a shame because I'm told Voyager gets good later on. The main thing I've come to like about Star Trek over all the other space franchises which I've got less interested in since is that there are quite a lot of great quotes and meanings that are quite true to real life, and quite inspiring.

I actually remember liking Nemesis the first time I got to see it, it does have some good bits, however the problem was that I had not seen First Contact or Generations (which I know a lot of people dislike, however I liked it a lot and thought it was one of the best films) yet at the time, so when I watched them all after (this was after the 2009 reboot I recall when they started showing all the films on Film 4), my opinion of Nemesis dropped a lot, Insurrection was ok but not in the leagues of First Contact (its a bit like 6988 following 6987 in my view). I'd still watch them if they are on but I always feel it's a shame the TNG cast didn't get the justice they should have with the last few films.

Edited by Horatio-Caine

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Sorry about that, was doing some rearranging and had been meaning to reshow the pictures, all of which have now been restored and are visable in the review.

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Sorry about that, was doing some rearranging and had been meaning to reshow the pictures, all of which have now been restored and are visable in the review.

Thanks!

EDIT: Great review! May have to see what bricklink prices are like.

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Thanks for the review of this excellent set, and I must say all that perfectly clear trans-yellow makes me a bit jealous!

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Great review, and big thanks for bringing the photos back!

This is the set that brought me out of my Dark Ages exactly a year ago now.

I had it, or rather the pieces of it, since I was a kid, but I had no instructions, so I never was able to build it as a kid, which frustrated me to no end (it was part of a huge box filled with Lego that our former neighbours gave to me :D). Around christmas 2012 I came across my old Lego boxes again, and saw the big panels of this base. Which got me thinking, and pretty much just one Google query later I had the instructions on my laptop. Needless to say I rushed down to get the boxes from the basement, cleaned all the bricks, sorted them, and this was the very first thing I built. And, boy, what a feeling that was... to have had that base for over 20 years and finally be able to build it. I had goosebumps all over.

Only minor drag for me is that I'm missing the windshield piece of the small spaceship. I need to get that from someplace sometime. :)

To this day, this remains my favorite space set ever, and I wholly agree with what you said about it feeling just a tad more complete and realistic than the other bases. And I just love that black and yellow color scheme. Call me nostalgic, but space never looked as good as during the Futuron/Blacktron I/SP I days. All three themes had nice, clear color schemes that just looked great. Later it all became a mess with odd neon colors and weird combinations that sometimes didn't really work, maybe with M-tron being the notable exception.

Edited by Roger_Smith

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Thanks for re-adding the photos! And great review!

I have all blacktron I sets except this one, and I really want it.. Too bad most transparent yellow pieces are that expensive on bricklink.

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I love seeing reviews of these old sets. They bring such good memories. When I was a kid, having the possibility to foresee the pieces by opening lifting the lid was such a great feeling.

I had a few blacktrons. Their visors was so great.

Thanks for this great review.

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I SOOOO wanted this set when I was a kid, and was insanely jealous of one of my friends who DID get it (I had to settle for the Futuron Cosmic Laser Launcher, which I brought over to said friend's house to do battle with his Blacktron army once or twice). As far as I know, he still has it.

Thanks for the review. I really wish I'd have been able to afford this set back in the day even more, but oh well...

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Thank you for the review! I've had this set since 1988 and I agree it's one of the best bases they've ever put out. I'm pleased to hear all the love for the corridor, as it is my favorite part of the set. Most bases up to that point were just one large open room with really nowhere to go, so that was a nice addition. It also uses a very nice selection of trans-yellow parts- I think this is one of the final sets to use them so abundantly, unless you count 1x1 plates and round 1x1 plates. That dome part is great, and is very useful for Classic Space MOC'ing. I picked this up at Target back in the day for $53. I don't recall it being on sale, so that was a chunk of change for me- one of the most expensive sets I owned, but totally worth it. The original Blacktron line will always be one of my favorite themes, and this set is the icing on the cake.

Nice to see your Trek fandom- Trekkie here, too. Big fan of the films!

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This was the only large set I had as a kid, and I loved it. Unfortunately, I parted most of my sets out to build MOCs, and this one was no exception. Someday I'll get the parts together and rebuild it permanently. It is a great set, and I've long hoped they'd do another in a similar fashion. I'm thankful that I had the great fortune of growing up in the 70's and 80's, when we had all these great LEGO Space themes. Thanks for the great review!

Live long and prosper, Horatio-Caine!

Edited by M'Kyuun

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I am a fan of the classic space sets and it was interesting to see the review of this set, though I cannot say that I like the colour scheme, I prefer the blue, grey and white of the space sets.

Edited by KeepLeft

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I really like this alternate build. It is amazing how you can see the details better with the white and blue color scheme.

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