Canondorf

I'm a fan of science fiction in general, and something I noticed with some of my other sci-fi hobbies, is that really it's a "trade off". So building quality means you get long-time loyalty, long-term sustainable sales, but less overall uptake. Building for mass appeal, on the other hand, means you get short-term uptake, but nobody remembers or cares about the product two years later, and you may lose all your fans through complete dissolution of your identity. Like so much in life, it's a sacrifice of energy, one way or the other, between two different outcomes. The great science fiction franchises, that are still talked about after 50 years, which have fierce loyalty, built their world's deep, rather than wide. They got long-term sustainable reliable sales of their merchandise through loyalty, and fierce fans crossing three or four different generations. They tended to be the ones with some deeper and coherent vision or philosophy. In many cases, when the corporation in charge of said franchises disgarded the "ideal form" of these franchises, they destroyed 50 years of fandom, and found that the short-term audience that they had aquired forgot them. I think, being honest, that this is what happened to late Lego Space themes. They alienated fans, and missed the point or appeal of Lego Space. All of that sounds good to me :) The classic themes seemed to have the pattern of: Good Guy Civilians, Bad Guy Spies, and Good Guy Protectors. At the very least, I think one good guy civilian, and one rival faction, makes sense. It seems like 2024 City Space is the "civilian colony" theme of today. Depending on how Lego wants to develop this current 2024 Space theme, you could have multiple civilian factions like at the height of the 1990s when Futuron, M-Tron, Ice Planet, and Unitron overlapped - or perhaps give the current 2024 civilians mining-themed sets like the legendary 6989 Mega Core Magnetizer instead:

Although I know from long experience on internet forums that there are some people who can get really angry when a person argues for this, sometimes to the point that you can get personally attacked no matter how polite you are, I don't believe in taste being subjective, I believe there are objective ways to define even abstract things like beauty. (It doesn't mean you can't have co-equal "different types of beauty", or anything like that, but they are each approaching a "true form" of a different "ideal"). So, the reason I personally want 1990s themes back, is just that I think they were objectively beautiful, perhaps approaching a different ideal than say the Star Wars aesthetic aims at. I think younger collectors would love them just as much today; the colours are timeless on some of them, I would say. Dare I say, they were objectively better as playsets too, in that they allowed quite a wide latitude of imagination, or customisation and interpretation. Of course, this is my opinion, just as everything we utter are our opinions (needless for anyone to say). MOCs are, like you say, not for everyone, some people build Lego for the sets. On that front, 2024 Space is a good start, but I hope it's just a start, that they are warming up to a bigger space civilization. Antagonists. Mining rigs. Hidden secret bases. Monorails traversing remote canyons. Telescopes hunting new worlds, tracking stations, listening posts, lonely outposts, and radar dishes. I didn't have any Unitron aside from a minifig or two, nor do I think the above set is the best base I've seen, but the set seems to have quite a lot of interesting elements. A rover. A spacecraft. The suggestion of a large structure. Some kind of telescope or message intercept dishes. Something like a probe or satellite. All with quite few pieces, lots of studs to stand minifigs on, etc. It was just a random set I pulled off the internet to compare. Very imaginative I would say. Just wanted to say I think this is super cool. Exactly what I would love to see in an official set. Exactly, people don't want "change for the sake of change", I think personally. They just want something "done well" each time.

I'll do a hopefully positive friendly critique / review of the 2024 Space revival. I'm thankful that Space is back. I like the sets, and am hoping they are a prelude to the re-introduction of Blacktron alongside these 2024 sets as an antogonist faction ("Blacktron 0", I guess, if this is earlier in history?) The only thing I would say, is that I'm not a huge fan of the orange elements, which I'm guessing is inspired by the orange fuel tank on the NASA Space Shuttle, or the Ares launch system, I wish the glass canopy had been more blue-coloured like old space, and have mixed positive and negative feelings that the overall look is a little aeroplane-like like Mass Effect. I wish the old box art was back too, as it fired the imagination. I like some designs much more than others: The flagship set, the Interstellar Spaceship, is a very sleek and pretty design. It feels solid too. 10/10 within it's own aesthetic. 8/10 judged by 1990s space's aesthetic. I just miss elements like rocket nozzles, RCS thrusters, etc. I am guessing the engine is something like an aerospike, Hall-effect thruster, or Star Trek-style fusion-powered impulse engine of some kind. In the current era, VTOL rockets, with bell-nozzle engines, are still the height of technology and affordability, whereas space planes, a concept that always had critics, are largely just attached to rockets for now. As a matter of interest, I photoshopped Lego 60430 onto a classic blackground (with the laser grid thing) to see how it would look: Much better :) It looks like it could be an early Classic Space-era or early Futuron-era space vessel. If you photoshopped the canopy as the same darker blue as 1987-1996 space sets especially. In terms of where it might come on a fictional Lego Space timeline, I would say this was a couple of centuries after City (after present day). It has the Classic Space / Futuron logo, as late Lego City astronauts started using, meaning Classic Space civilization was probably born out of present day astronaut programmes. So you could place 2024 Space either just before Classic Space, where the spacesuits have become more Star Trek-like, or maybe between Classic Space and Futuron, in terms of aethetics. (As if humanity abandoned sleek aeroplane-like fuselage in favour of pure stripped-down rocket ships at some point). The space suits are starting to be primary coloured, just like the Classic Space figures, and Futuron figures. I like the overall aethetic, but for different reasons than why I like the 1987-1996 Space era. Basically these sets look like Mass Effect. But in classic space, I appreciated the use of rocket engines, bell nozzles, RCS thrusters, etc, which will probably never go out-of-fashion, as well as open canopies, and big inflated wheels like a moon buggy. I also think this item would be great for a return; these EVA jet packs, which look totally realistic, just a zero-G, vacuum thruster pack, no wings or aerofoil: One way to quickly get back some of the older space aesthetic, would be a couple of mini-sets like the open-top, seated-at-the-front Lunar Rovers, or small rocket nozzle LEM-like vehicles, which could be sold for cheap on supermarket shelves, or packaged in with bigger sets. They are not the most detailed sets that the 1990s produced, but they are totally functional elements, keeping afloat via small bursts of RCS propellant like a LEM. Those smaller open-to-space vehicles are a nice hard science concept, whereas I'm not keen on the 'hover bike' concept, as it's close to Star Wars, with anti-grav technology speeder bikes. So I'm hoping for a return of straight-up rockets, rocket launch rovers with satellite payloads, as well as the iconic bell nozzle pieces of the 1990s: I feel that the return of space in 2024 is a great start. Perhaps the mis-management of the Star Wars brand by movie studios has effected Lego's descision to re-introduce their own Lego Space theme. I'm hoping however that this is just the start of a wider revival of the classic factions, eventually producing mining vehicles like the M-Tron and Ice Planet Rangers. If this is simply the first "Futuron" faction in a wave, hopefully Lego will embrace the past sets more going forward, treating this wave as a prototype.

Agreed 100%. I really like the colours of Spyrius, Blacktron 2 and Space Police 2 as well, so it's a pity not to use them. I was thinking, in an ideal world, Lego could have say 20-30 sets in is permenant circulation, among the 5 factions. Then if a particularily well-received update or MOC is deemed popular by Lego, add that to the list, but otherwise be very cautious in changing classic sets. Like say always have a Blacktron cruiser, Futuron monorail, Ice Planet satellite launcher in circulation. I came across some of the many excellent MOCs on Google images, of how the classic sets could be updated: I'm not sure who to credit with those, so apologies. The problem with 2010s Space, right as it died off, was the science fiction influences became quite generic, I feel. Silly B-movie alien invasion aesthetics, or making Space Police resemble 20th century cops, or limiting action to the planet Earth, or the planet Mars, rather than open exploration. I think this might be an example where a no-alien sci-fi worked better. I personally didn't like the designs around that time at all, or the colours. I just meant that Futuron in 1987, then Unitron in 1994, then Explorien in 1996, all shared the same white with blue canopy aesthetic. You could explain that post-hoc by saying that they were all related, perhaps all descended from the classic space guys :) One from each: In my head-canon, I see them as successors to each other. Unitron might have been a unification of Futuron, M-Tron and Ice Planet perhaps. However, you could say something like "Futuron continued to exist alongside the others" too.

The themes and colours of the 1990s were the most beloved, and should have just stayed in print, rather than changing every couple of years from 1996 onward. The sets were quite hard science hard sci-fi, where everyone wears an oxygen tank, always wear a space suit, the environments are all airless low-gravity, and the smaller ships look like stripped down rocket engines with seats attached (since there is no need for canopies, in a vacuum, your pressure suit acts as one). Rocket bell nozzles are present on most vehicles, displaying respect for Newtonian laws, and Newtonian motion. In our solar system, there are hundreds of thousands of airless bodies, minor planets, and so on. Around our solar system, most stars are uninhabitable red dwarfs, invisible even to decent telescopes. So early space exploration for the purpose of mining would likely be expeditions to low-G environments, and perhaps barren solar systems around faint stars. Something like 50 out of 60 local stars are red dwarfs, unlikely to have a habitable planet perhaps, due to high radiation, solar winds, or other factors. There are dozens of large minor planets in our solar system alone, for example Pluto, Vesta, Ceres, Eris, Sedna, Makemake. Likely there will be many more around other stars, as well as endless asteroids and comets. Early Lego sets showed explorers setting up mobile tracking stations, radars, telescopes, etc. Very realistic and cool. The Blacktron also had hidden listening posts for intercepting data from other factions. Later sets and themes made the mistake of moving away from this very pleasing aesthetic toward too many smooth aircraft-like vehicles with specialised parts. This made Lego space look like generic sci-fi. They became more toyish-looking, like a cheap knockoff starfighters, rather than following this far future but realistic hard science fiction aesthetic. For example, the satellite launchers used by factions like the Ice Planet, look very similar to real world ballistic missle launchers: Essentially this quite unique look, with well-established colours, was changed for no reason, when it had very good faction differentiation. The vehicles became more aeroplane-like, just like Star Wars, just as Lego was also producing Star Wars vehicles, meaning there was no distiction between Lego and other generic sci-fi in the 2000s. As nice as it is to see a Space revival, the City Space stuff looks generic and too near-future. Here are the factions I would bring back, and just keep in permenant stock: FUTURON/UNITRON White, Black, Transparent Blue Canopy (The standard civilization of space explorers. Unification of Classic/Futuron/Unitron/Explorien. Main civilization.) SPACE POLICE Blue, Black, Transparent Red Canopy (The police forces of the above civilization. They protect the Futuron, and also other organisations like M-Tron.) BLACKTRON Yellow, Black, Transparent Yellow Canopy (The technological rival and thief civilization. They will seek tech advance by any means. Espionage experts.) M-TRON Red, Black, Transparent Light Green Canopy (The mining specialists. They use magnets to mine minerals. Blacktron steal their technology and raw ore.) ICE PLANET RANGERS White, Blue, Transparent Orange Canopy (Ice world specialists. They explore barren ice worlds and export water ice. Blacktron steal their satellites.) Essentially four good guy factions, and one based on stealing their tech. You could easily make a Real-Time Strategy game of this. Optionally you could add Aquanauts and Aquasharks to this same far future sci-fi setting, as water-only factions, mining ice planets like Europa around other stars. The reason for Blacktron 1 and Space Police 1 colours, rather than Space Police 2 and Blacktron 2, is that they fill out the colour spectrum better without clashing with the other themes, are distinct, and at least in Space Police 1's case, I would say more aesthetically pleasing than Space Police 2. Combining Blacktron 1 wasp-like colours, with Blacktron 2's cool designs would probably be the best way to handle that. Otherwise you have both Blacktron 2 and M-Tron using the same transparent elements. Just keep printing the same sets, adding a few good ideas or updates occasionally, and they can stay across generations.

Lego Space could be seen as quite hard science fiction. Everyone wears pressurised space suits constantly. Everyone carries a finite oxygen supply in a tank. Visible rocket motors power their ships according to Newtonian laws. The environments they explore appear very hostile, probably low gravity, airless bodies. The majority of stars in the Milky Way galaxy (an estimated 85%), are red dwarfs, quite barren stars probably unable to have habitable planets. The majority of them are in multiple star configurations, such as binary systems, or trinary systems. In such systems, essentially each star may have it's own solar system. There are around 60 stars, 52 of which are faint red dwarfs, invisible to the naked eye, within about 16 light years. This increases exponentially with distance, so that within just 50 light years, there are around 2,000 stars, in 1,400 star systems, according to an estimate. There might be a million bodies within our solar system alone. Lets assume that Lego Space was a hard science setting, with either slower-than-light travel (via sleeper ships), or very limited slow FTL, and was about astronauts mining these millions of bodies: - 20th century: Lego City space missions probe the planets of the solar system. - 21st century: Lego City space missions establish bases on the Moon and Mars. - 22nd century: Earth ocean minerals begin to be exploited by Aquanauts, and their enemies the pirate Aquasharks. - 23rd century: By this time, a culture of astronauts has arisen, born to explore, they begin to settle the nearby stars. - 26th century: [Humanity's sphere is now across 14 nearby star systems, inc. 100,000+ asteroids.] - 27th century: The asteroid outposts and colonies are united under a government, becoming known as the Futurons. - 28th century: Blacktron, a group of criminal technophiles, begin to steal tech, and Futuron creates the Space Police. - 31st century: Breakaway cultures, the mining-oriented operation called M-Tron, later the Ice Planet rangers, appear. - 32nd century: Blacktron are re-organised into the Neo-Blacktronian group, the Blacktron Future Generation. - 33nd century: Blacktron attacks escalate against the Ice Planet and M-Tron, with Space Police attempting to respond. - 35th century: [Humanity's sphere is now across 50 nearby star systems, inc. 1,000,000+ asteroids.] - 37th century: Space Police, M-Tron and Ice Planet sign the Unitron Accord, uniting into a single body, the Unitron. - 38th century: Spyrius, the ideological successor to Blacktron, begin a campaign of espionage against Unitron. - 41st century: During an era of relative peace, frontier explorers return to science, calling themselves Exploriens. I personally like Lego Space from about 1987 to 1996 the most, and wish they would bring back those factions and designs. Just freeze them at that point. I think that was the best looking, most imaginative. I think the Lego Space theme got watered down with too many changes of theme, too many toyish looking models in the 2000s, whereas this original hard sci-fi aesthetic was timeless. Just bring black Blacktron 1 or Blacktron 2, Space Police 1 or Space Police 2, and maybe M-Tron and Ice Planet. Keep them in print forever as a cross generational thing.