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It's the same idea as when the most recent UCS and minifig X-wings were released in the same year, 2012. If the subject is popular enough, there's plenty of room for two versions that emphasize different things. So: multi-part minifig Hogwarts for play, "UCS"/D2C Hogwarts as a scale model with cool building techniques. Or note the multiple concurrent versions of the Millennium Falcon: UCS and minifig, and even microfighter, out at the same time. (And all of those are designed to accommodate minifigs!). For more examples, consider the two minifig Batmobiles from the TLBM line, or the fact that Bugatti Chirons and Porsche 911 GTs are concurrently available from Speed Champions and Technic right now, and the same Ferrari is available in two Speed Champions sets. As an extreme example, observe that 75102 Poe's X-wing Fighter and 75149 Resistance X-wing Fighter have been concurrently available since 2016, even though they differ only in color and minor details. That's because some kids want the black one because it's the one Poe flies, and some kids want the grey one because X-wings "should be grey." So there's not necessarily an expectation that people will "buy two versions of the same set" - that is, that everyone who buys the D2C Hogwarts will buy the Great Hall and Whomping Willow sets or vice versa. Instead, there's the expectation that the interest in Hogwarts as a subject for a Lego set is broad enough to interest audiences that differ sufficiently that two distinct versions will each sell well, with neither significantly reducing the sales of the other.

...It's not a competition between James Bond and Doctor Who. The announcement of a James Bond license (for, possibly, a single set) says little or nothing about any potential for a revived Doctor Who license. If every license connected to Dimensions and Ideas had to be exploited to its fullest potential before a new license could be acquired, we'd have a full range of vignettes based on Beatles album covers and playsets for every location ever visited by the A-Team. Even if you're Doctor Who's biggest fan and you have reams of market analysis to back up your claims about the relative profit potential in a revived Doctor Who license versus a new James Bond license, it's just...not worth getting worked up about.

The International Space Station by XCLD just achieved support. Since this is the second XCLD ISS to achieve support, I hope they produce it this time. (TLG rejected the first one.) However, they probably don't want to make another NASA-related Ideas set, and they have rejected multiple items from the same creator before. (See: multiple RobenAnne buildings, multiple Bricksauria and Jurassic Park builds.) We'll see what happens.

Already supported.

You mean like this and this? :) A theme called Galaxy that was designed for maximum rebuild value is what primed me to like Classic Space before I knew Classic Space existed.

I was never much into Technic as a kid and I still don't look forward to each year's new Technic sets as much as I do to those of other lines, because the most interesting Technic kits are so large, but here are my two cents on studded versus studless Technic: - Studless Technic is great. You can do much more with it than was ever possible with studded Technic. Studded Technic was fine in its time, but the marriage between the vertical columns needed for Technic structures and the irregular grid of System was always awkward, and it resulted in some structures that were terrifically hard to put together and equally hard to take apart. I'm glad the Technic line has moved beyond studded structures. But - Studded Technic never really went away at all! Instead, it became a vital component of large System structures. The strength and rigidity of modern System structures, enabled by studded Technic, is fantastic compared to the larger System builds when I was a kid. Also, studded Technic was just beginning to be used for play features in System models when I was a kid - for instance, I was absolutely blown away by the wing jack mechanism in 4502 X-wing Fighter, back in 2004. Now it's fairly common for System models to have fantastic Technic-enabled mechanical play features, and also to have incredibly strong Technic-enabled infrastructures. I don't know enough about mechanisms to have a strong opinion on how clever, complex, or uninspired the mechanisms of today's larger Technic models are, compared to the large Technic models of past decades, and I don't pay enough attention to the B models to have a strong opinion about those either. From my perspective as someone primarily interested in System, today's Technic line looks just as good as it ever has, and today's studded Technic is better than ever because it's now being used for what it does best: integrating functions into studded (System) models.

If you can have a Lego Heath Ledger Joker in a large collector-oriented set then you can have a Lego James Bond in a large collector-oriented set! Seriously, though, all hand-wringing about licenses aside, a Creator Expert-style Aston Martin DB5 would be really cool...if all the parts were new in flat silver, the way all the Beetle parts were new in medium azure. Light gray just won't look as good.

There's some nice parts use in these, like the use of a crate to hold the seat in the rocket, and the use of nipple tiles and apollo studs as engine cylinders. The spiral staircase in the 76108 mod looks pretty good, but on the second floor (first above ground level) there doesn't seem to be any room for the minifigures to leave the staircase and step onto the floor without bonking their heads against more stairs. Have you looked at other solutions for that? Do you plan to build IRL both the Classic Space and steampunk versions of the Iron Giant?

Thanks for commenting. Do you have any suggestions for the rock work, or for how to improve the base?

Here's some more refinements on my Galaxy Explorer, which is inspired by pretty much every Galaxy Explorer redux ever made but especially by "LL928 Comes Home" on Ideas and this topic on Eurobricks. The base is mostly inspired by 926 and 6970. The ship is intended to use stickers from 70816 for decoration, and miscellaneous other stickers and decorated parts that aren't available in Stud.io, and the flag on the moonscape is intended to come from here. The rover is supposed to be able to park inside the base and also to fit in the front half of the spaceship's cargo bay while two crates occupy the rear half, but I haven't worked out that loading scheme in detail yet, and the rear fuselage may need to be reworked because of that. The outbuilding that supports the antenna is intended to be an electric rover charging station, among other things. The main challenge now is to build low-elevation rockwork for the moonscape that evokes the original crater plates, is fairly large, is fairly simple with a low parts count, and also has fun play features like panels that blow off, boulders that can be launched out of craters, or something like that. The intent is to keep it around 1100-1300 parts for an imaginary price point of $120 (consistent with the inflation-adjusted RRP of 928) or $150 (consistent with today's most expensive Star Wars and City playsets). Please comment, question, criticize! How can this be a better playset? How can it better evoke the original while staying consistent with today's design ethos or the style of today's flagship playsets? What's to be done about the rockwork? (About that I don't have much of a clue myself, right now.) Also see some bonus pictures of a quick and easy space scooter modeled after 885. Pictures in quotes for brevity. Thanks for looking! Flickr album

Since the thread has already been bumped and I frequently add and subtract Alien Conquest and Galaxy Squad sets from my Brickset wanted list without ever buying them, I'll chime in - The reasons I didn't buy any Galaxy Squad sets when they were still in stores were, first, I wasn't allowing myself to buy Lego as an adult yet, and second, I told myself that if I ever was to buy Lego as an adult, it would just be to pick up the 2012 X-wing model (9493). The reasons I don't buy Galaxy Squad now are first, too much competition from other Star Wars and City kits I want, and second, although I think the theme is very well executed, I just...don't...really...like it. If I want militarized spaceships, I'll go to Star Wars. If I want airplanes, I'll go to City. I'd much rather have an in-house Space theme where the conflict is only implied, and I'd much rather have minifigures whose heads and faces aren't encumbered by sci-fi headsets and goggles, nor the torsos by chunky armor that gets dated really fast. I appreciate the nods to Classic Space and Futuron in the primarily white ships with separating modules and carefully chosen accent colors (primarily blue), and I think the bug alien minifigures and vehicles are much more convincing and interesting builds than those of Insectoids. The theme has everything going for it except originality of concept, on its part, and general interest, on my part. I just don't like people that look like cyborgs and aliens that look like bugs. Never have, never will. Didn't like "Men in Black" as a kid, didn't like the Borg in Star Trek, never wanted to see the buggers in Ender's Game. I guess there's enough people like me in that way that Galaxy Squad didn't sell.

I vote for #5 and #9.

Thread bump to ask if anyone has had this problem: This evening I copied my Stud.io folder and build files to a new flash drive and foolishly deleted the old one before testing the new one. Now the program will open my build files, but none of the parts are visible in the build window and they all show as corrupted in the parts list. Parts images aren't showing up in the bottom tray either, and when I pull a part out of the bottom tray to place it in the new build it doesn't show up in the build window and it shows as corrupted in the parts list. I've reinstalled the program twice, once directly from a fresh download of the installer, but it's still not working. Has anyone else had this problem? How can it be resolved? Thanks for your help. EDIT: Got Stud.io reinstalled on the original flash drive and it seems to work. It still doesn't work on the new flash drive, but the build files copied back from the new flash drive to the old one open correctly on the original drive.

Those are all great builds. I like the red station wagon and the white sedan the best.

Lord Nelson would be proud to have this in his estate at Paradise Merton, if it weren't for the Yankee colors! Are the lower decks finished and furnished, or is all the space needed for structural support?