Henkeso

I'd like to point out that the dictionary definition of nostalgia is just "a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition". The person being nostalgic doesn't have to have personally experienced that past period or condition. In some cases, I'd argue actual experience makes nostalgia more difficult to feel, because it makes it difficult to idolize the past. And I don't think it's possible to understand why people would want a reissue of old sets, or why the secondary market prices for some old sets are so high, if you can't bring up the role that nostalgia plays. I think it's very relevant to the topic of the thread and that the people that have brought it up are attempting to answer the topic, not dismissing it - for instance, nostalgia is a part of why there is no way to recapture the feelings that building the sets originally evoked with a reissue, or that old sets released as-is, without updating would be a disappointment to an audience that expects the more complex building techniques and elaborate parts library that Lego offers today, etc. Also, to @danth , I don't see any dismissal of opinion in the passage you quoted. Pointing out that someone's opinion is just that - an opinion, not a fact - that other people may reasonably disagree with isn't dismissal of that opinion. Sometimes it's necessary to point out when a person is trying to rally support for their argument by presenting it as an objective fact that everyone should agree with.

I don't really understand what -or who- such a revived theme would be for. In theory, I should be all for it - I was only interested in space sets when I got my first sets at the age of 10. I had a bunch of M-tron ships, a couple Blacktron 2 (I used to build TIE fighters with the canopies before there was actual Star Wars Lego, and my "dark ages" started before the first Star Wars sets came out), the Ice Planet base. But my pride and joy was the Futuron monorail that my parents gave me for my birthday. I still have the tracks and train base with the battery-powered motor, but most of everything else was lost to time. Anyway, I loved the sets. But I wasn't interested in the builds as such, they were always interesting to me as starting points for rebuilding and expanding. A Lego set is a sketch, that uses just enough detail to suggest something much more elaborate - like how all the space bases don't really have interiors, just frameworks that could be filled in. That's what I loved about the space sets in particular - all the Town, Pirate and Castle sets were also like that, but the Space sets didn't really have any real-life sources that showed how it was "supposed" to look like, so I was free to build out the ships and stations according to my own imagination. For me, the "golden age" of Lego Space was when it was in a "dark age" of its own, when it wasn't officially supported, because that's when talented builders like nnenn, Peter L Morris, and dasnewten used a very limited palette of bricks (at least compared to today) to make absolutely stunning creations with a level of detail and technique that no official Lego set could ever hope to match. I occasionally came across photos of their builds on social media, and even when I wasn't actively building I admired them, thinking "I could never build anything like that). So of course, when I started building again I immediately decided to build a replica of dasnewten's Naganata starfighter. It took 3 months and taught me a lot. But when the Blacktron ship came out as a GWP last year, I wasn't interested in it at all - I'd seen much better versions of that ship MOCed (by people on this forum, no less), and if I wanted to get the original I'd just do that. But again, I only liked the original Space sets as a kind of "idea book" - sketches for more elaborate MOCs. I bought the Galaxy Explorer, and while I agree with most of the opinions I've read about it here (it's a very nice-looking model with some interesting build techniques that I appreciate), I don't like the idea of Lego sets being made just to sit on a shelf and look pretty. I want Lego to stick to making smaller sets that focus on playability while leaving AFOLs and enthusiasts freedom to MOC up larger, more detailed and elaborate versions of the things that the sets themselves only suggest. I suppose what I'm trying to say is, for me there's no value in re-releasing or rebooting or whatever. If I want to build a MOC based on the old themes, I can do so already. I believe the current Space sets on offer by Lego are perfectly fine, doing exactly the same job as the ones I had in the 90s, namely to get kids to build spaceships, bases, rovers and hopefully remix the sets into new builds of their own. It makes me a bit sad when I'm displaying my MOCs and kids come over to ask where I got the instructions for them from, as if they can't imagine someone just using Lego bricks as just that - building blocks.

Thanks for an awesome competition! Love the theme - when I was displaying Skull Station at a convention I had quite a few people pass by and comment that space pirates would be a great theme for Lego to launch, and I think so too. Lots of room for creativity, mixing of styles and doing things a bit more silly and "out there" compared to regular old Space. Congratulations to all the winners! Hope to go up against you all next time there's a nice space-related competition.

The shape seems to be accurate to the movie thopter, there's a pretty good clip showing it from several angles as it takes off and it looks kind of stubby there. The landing gear looks accurate as well. A potential issue with the tail is that it looks to be angled more upward from the body in the original, so it's almost like you could flip the tail on your thopter upside down to get it more accurate. Hope you don't mind me butting in with ideas and nitpicks, I get inspired watching a build take form.

This whole thread is a delight! Reminds me of how I spent hours rebuilding these sets when I was a kid. Mine weren't as cool-looking, of course. The most recent one is great, I also love mechs and robots but didn't like that particular set because the robot had wheels instead of legs, and even back then I thought it was cheating.

Really cool! I'm very interested in your build process, because I've been thinking of making a similar ornithopter. Thanks for sharing it! As for the cockpit, have you considered using something like this part on the sides?

Here are my votes! I wanted to write up my reasons for picking the entries, what I liked about them and so on, but I notice that no one else seems to be doing that, is that not allowed? Anyway, the votes: Category A: Pirates of sector 56 by Danny_Boy4 Gold, Glory and Girls! by jansued MetalBeard 9000's Crew by JulianH Category B: Renegade Voidrunner by The Librarian Space Armada Sentry by the Inventor Red Beard Space Runner by Oky Category C: Kahuka-1 by Yatkuu The Blackhole Sunfish by kritch Pirates of sector 56 Ship interior + rest of the crew by Danny_Boy4

I was hoping to add some more detail to my category B build and take better photos, but it looks like I won't be able to before deadline, so I guess I'm going to submit my builds as-is! It's been a challenge trying to find time for Lego with full-time work and a toddler, but I had a lot of fun with the contest and looking at everyone's submissions. Thanks for running the contest!

Thanks again! Yeah, I realized I'd missed taking a picture of her, so I added it today.

My entries for Category A and Category B:

Thank you for the welcome and the encouragement! The main thing that's missing right now is a level above the bar, that I plan to put the captain's quarters on. And some better pictures - of all the aspects of the Lego hobby, photography is the one I find most challenging. Hope you guys can see past that :)

Thanks! The theme of the competition's great for making funny, eclectic builds, and I made a lot more figs than this crew of 6 - but these were my favorites.

For this build, I was inspired by the various Skull Island sets that Lego has released over the years. They usually feature a cove with a skull-shaped entrance, with a few structures that mark it as a safe harbor for pirates. My version is this - Skull Station: I decided early on that the skull on the front would be more like a Terminator skull than the typical white one. Putting lasers in the eyes just seemed like the right thing to do. The main concourse is dedicated entirely to a bar, loosely inspired by the Mos Eisley cantina. As a little easter egg, I put a few Blacktron and Spyrius figs in the back of the bar. A shady deal of some kind is obviously going on, just the type that Skull Station is known for. The bottom of the build is a hangar deck, and I hope to have a small craft ready that can fit in the hangar by the time of the deadline. This is still a work in progress - I still have an entire upper story to build, but I wanted to show what I managed to put together so far. I showed it today at the Klossfestivalen exhibition in Jönköping, Sweden.

Here's my crew for the space pirate competition! Making these figs was a lot of fun. Today, I exhibited them (as well as a build that I will enter for category B) at the Swedish Klossfestivalen exhibition in Jönköping! Skull Station is known throughout the Caribbean Galaxy as a hive of scum and villainy. The fearsome crew keep the station in ship shape. Captain Goldbar McZero: The McZero clan of automated trader-bots is wealthy beyond measure, thanks to the infallible stock market algorithms they are programmed with. However, every family has a failson, even a robotic lineage that reproduces by assembly line manufacture. Goldbar McZero was created with a miniscule variation in their risk assessment protocols, so tiny and seemingly insignificant that it was ignored by the McZero's strict quality assurance scanners, but causing a cascade of failures that affected Goldbar's judgement. For causing the first net loss in the history of their clan (and for collapsing the economy of 30 star systems in the process), Goldbar was exiled from the clan and struck out as an "independent entrepreneur", ending up captaining a hollowed-out asteroid in the middle of nowhere. C1-B1: Originally a peaceful butlertron specialized in service and customer relations, C1-B1's existence was overturned when their owner commanded them to "download pirate software". Unfortunately for the owner, C1-B1 took the instruction literally and overwrote their core operating system with a copy of the infamous FreeBOOT OS that it managed to access from the darknet. Since then, C1-B1 embarked on a ruthless campaign of looting, pillaging, and starting every sentence with the exclamation "yarr". Li'l Snapper: A cyborg Rocodilian from the wasteland planet of Kroax, Snapper is a surprisingly gentle being despite her lumbering appearance. A warrior-poet and author of several philosophical treatises (as well as five hit singles), Snapper is content serving as the station's security officer and external maintenance engineer. Deck Chief Grombo Bricksbane: Former Swarmer-Commando of the Loperian Star Locusts, Grombo traded a lucrative career (certain to end in a battlefield death) in the service of an evil empire for the relative safety and freedom of being deckhand and chief cook on Skull Station. His Loperian Noodle Slop is considered the best in the sector, according to top restaurant critics! Silaria, Last Queen of the Aluth: A survivor of a cataclysm that destroyed her people's homeworld, Silaria believes that the reason for the disaster was a secret superweapon deployed by the Galactic Federation. The list of targets for her vengeance keeps on growing, but her warlike spirit is useful for keeping the station safe from intruders. Warsmith Tok'Ra Grakath: Former Chief Warsmith of the Magmarian Horde, Tok'Ra was dishonorably discharged for creating a toxic work environment by berating her apprentices and occasionally flooding the forges with noxious vapors. Expecting to return in triumph when her people rise as a true horde again and shake off the yoke of such coddling nonsense as "health and safety regulations" and "HR department heads", Tok'Ra spends her time engineering artisanal weapons of individual (and occasional mass) destruction, her greatest pride being the ship-killer lasers installed in the eye sockets of Skull Station's eponymous skull.