Lyichir

Yeah, suitable torsos could be a tricky aspect—since they're reliant on the type of printing and, especially for space themes, often need a certain degree of theme specificity compared to historic or "modern-day" themes where designs can feel slightly more interchangable. Depending on how you're approaching "uniforms", one option you might consider helpful would be armor pieces like or this or this, which can cover part or all of a torso's print with molded detail—useful if you find a torso that is close to what you want but has faction-specific iconography that doesn't match what you're going for. Personally I feel like the torso from the Lunar New Year sets would work, since it suits the aesthetics of the theme even if it's not necessarily a "realistic" space suit.

Several years ago this windscreen appeared in Trans. Neon Orange in an Aquaman set—a great modern alternative to the old helicopter windscreens used on some of the classic Ice Planet sets. Nexo Knights was also full of good Trans. Neon Orange windscreens, as was the first year of Monkie Kid to a lesser extent. Really, while it's sad that Trans. Neon Orange went away recently, we were lucky enough to be almost spoiled for it in its last few years! Sadly we have not been so spoiled for good Space wheels in white. I would love if some of the recent Space-styled wheels from Nexo Knights or Ninjago would appear in white in a future set!

Brickset and Brothers Brick (and probably others as well) have their reviews of the lodge up!

Well, mark me as one who is wholly convinced that that video is NOT any sort of hint about the next modular building. Pretty much all aspects of the build are lifted wholecloth from other sets—several of the plants are lifted directly from the Friends Botanical Garden, for instance. My guess is that this video was made by an external partner with no insight into upcoming sets.

A lot of Mario games have bigger coins (usually worth 10, 30, 50, or 100 coins instead of just one). Really coins in most Mario games are pretty oversized, given that even basic coins tend to be half as tall as him (in minifigure terms, probably a 2x2 round). Though if you're curious the "biggest coin" award would probably go to Paper Mario Color Splash, where one level has a giant white "gate" blocking the way. Coloring it back in later reveals it to be a giant coin, which you can walk straight through to collect (though hilariously, it's still worth just one coin)!

Perhaps not quite as many (16 in Rivendell vs. 12 in this past year's Skull Army faction), but not so much of a difference that it'd make releasing a cheap-ish LotR set with one infeasible. And really, anything cheaper than Rivendell would lower the aftermarket price of the weapon assortment from it.

I don't know if the internal cost of a weapon pre-pack like that would be that high—maybe too high for the smallest of sets, but themes like Ninjago include similar weapon pre-packs in sets as cheap as $20.

No. https://brickset.com/article/100265/71426-piranha-plant-announced!

Built the Rambi set, the last of my Donkey Kong sets. Not much to say about this one—his interaction isn't that novel but I love these sorts of small sets that execute a single character well.

Honestly unsurprising, given how specific many of the molds (like the broken sword especially) are to LotR props. Best case scenario is a smaller LotR set comes out in the next year or so and reuses it.

Huh, that's a surprising choice! But not a bad one, seeing as the "digi-fig" scale Piranha Plants only do a so-so job of resembling the more spherical, spotted look of the ones from the games. I hope that like the Mighty Bowser set there's compatibility with the digi-figs, since there's always room for a "giant enemy" encounter to finish off a level! EDIT: Built the Dixie Kong set today. I love most aspects of it (the stage is great, as are the figures). I do wish Dixie had a scannable tile in addition to the performance tile so Mario could interact with her individually like he can with the other Kongs.

Picked up most of the rest of the Lego Mario sets on my wishlist this weekend. Built the Larry and Morton's Airships set first and loved it—now I really wanna try MOCing airships for the other Koopalings. Also built the Diddy Kong minecart set, but my feelings on it were a bit more mixed—while the functions are clever and I LOVE the Kongs and Funky's plane, the set takes up a ton of space and the build was honestly a bit of a slog with the many similar minecart track segments. It did get me wondering... has there been any more word about a potential D2C set this year? I remember discussion of it earlier in the year but as far as I can remember there haven't been any reveals or leaks yet, and there's only a few months left in the year.

The varied angles of the bow and stern of the wrecked ship make for a very interesting-looking shape!

Neat! Some very clever parts use with the Minecraft goat head, which feels very much like a simple wooden sign. And is that boot something from Scala/Belville? Personally I like the first and third of these buildings the most since the very basic (but well-done) studs up construction feels very classic in a way that makes more classic colors seem particularly appropriate.

Oh, for sure, I don't mind other people making MOCs that are more attuned to their own personal opinions and taste in classic themes. After all (as this topic and others in this forum plainly attest to) everybody's personal preference for things like that can differ wildly. But since Lego has both the means to go more authentic (recoloring parts that haven't been in classic colors before), and their output directly affects my options as a builder, I obviously have my own particular hopes for what kinds of classic-inspired sets there could be in the future. Speaking of recolors, a part of me hopes that the new part 4569 (a 1x6 slope matching the angle of the classic 6x8 slope used for the spoiler on the recent Galaxy Explorer set) comes in some other colors like blue, grey, and black soon. So far I think it only appears in white and earth blue in the Concorde set, but as a brand-new basic slope piece I think it has a TON of potential for classic-inspired builds.

Eh... maybe. Personally I sort of feel that if you're going to abandon so much of the classic design language, you might as well be making a whole new space theme instead. There's more to the Classic Space look than blues and greys. Plus there's plenty of more modern angular windscreen parts that'd be lovely to get in some of those more classic colors!

The 4000+ piece thing is confirmed by (reasonably reliable) leaks, though—inverted corner is purely speculation.

Do you have a specific theme in mind for this sort of MOC? I feel like looking at sets from that particular theme (or a similar one) in that time period would give you a better idea of the kinds of design language and tropes you could try to emulate. For example, if you are planning a castle MOC then looking at themes like Knight's Kingdom II, Vikings, or early Fantasy Castle could give you some inspiration.

Doubtful. They're probably doing this largely because Assembly Square is retiring and so this is just replacing it at that price point, regardless of whether it's an anniversary or not.

For regular retail sets, it can sometimes be a few months in advance—but for a direct-to-consumer release like Ideas sets, it's usually not more than a month ahead of release.

Do we know for sure that the rumored Space set is Blacktron? A part of me wonders if a Space Police I set might be an option (which would allow them to reuse the Blacktron I torso from this year's GWP). I could definitely see a Space Police I-inspired ship working with modern parts, possibly including either new windscreen recolors and/or some of the ones from last year's Monkie Kid spaceship.

New Classic Space models could be cool I guess but to be honest none of the examples you shared here really have the "feel" of Classic Space to me—the shame color scheme, maybe, but the bulbous shapes feel totally different from the angular, industrial aesthetic of the original sets or even some of its more modern iterations like Benny's Spaceship or last year's Galaxy Explorer. I feel like that's a challenge if doing "new" Classic Space designs—the more you diverge from the original source material, the harder it is to appeal to all fans of that original theme. I would like to see a classic space moonbase to go with that Galaxy Explorer, though—and an original design might be the best approach for something like that since the ground bases from the original sets, being very sparse and open to the elements, might be considered to have aged more poorly than some of the spaceship builds.

I don't really appreciate my words being taken out of context to support a wholly different argument. Lego molds are a complex subject. Compared to many other toy companies, Lego molds DO tend to be more precise and expensive, owing to their need for consistent compatibility. Even for Lego it can vary (more functional, connectivity-focused parts need a greater degree of precision than something like a figure part for which precision and longevity might be less essential). In Bionicle, an example of this was some masks or weapon parts being molded out of a softer plastic that could be molded more easily, without as much issue with the molds breaking down over use. These savings helped to keep costs down compared to basic bricks or sturdy Technic parts, but they DID result in notably less resilient parts (breaking or developing scratches more easily than hard ABS or Polycarbonate parts). Bionicle molds were different in many ways from other System themes, but many of them DID continue to be reused throughout the theme's lifespan. Bionicle sets were also cheap (usually $30 or less, with the majority being less than half that) and produced in large quantities, meaning that, for instance, a mold investment for a series of six similar figures could be paid off more easily than other parts made for more expensive, lower-production sets. There's also rumors (I don't recall them being confirmed or not) that Lego did some reaccounting in Bionicle's later years that found that the cost of some molds had been underestimated, leading to more reuse of molds and fewer discrete molds per year in the theme's later years. Obviously there are reasons why this doesn't apply as neatly to reissuing your average '70s, '80s, or '90s set (or for that matter, to bringing back older Bionicle sets now that their stable of common parts to draw from are almost all retired). Among other things, one reason why one-to-one reissues of many older sets is unlikely is that older molds were in many cases refined or replaced with superior versions over the years—an example is older castle wall panels, which included easily damaged supports that newer versions eschew. For that reason bringing back the older, inferior versions would be ill-advised. I think recent modern nostalgia-focused sets, like the Galaxy Explorer or Lion Knights' Castle, have taken a safer approach than the older "Lego Legends" reissues by trying to come up with modern builds that merely evoke classic sets (and often do so with a greater level of detail and engineering), instead of trying and failing to create "authentic" reissues that nonetheless fall short of matching the originals.

Lego does offer PDF instructions of most sets through their customer service site. Brickset helpfully links to them on their set pages if you don't feel like searching for them on Lego.com.

Main Building Category 1. "Lagoon Lock-Up/Soldier's Tavern Remake" by Aanchir 2. "The Lost Lagoon" by The Brick Stop 3. "Enchanted Island Remake" by Danny_Boy4 4. "Pirate's Perilous Pitfall Remake" by Slegengr 5. "Saber Island 2023" by TomSkippy Mini Set Building Category 1. "Fortune Idol" by Oky 2. "Captain's Cabin" by MontyMatte 3. "The Jellyfish Raft" by MarcoLego 4. "Imperial Guard Camp Remake" by thewatchman 5. "Shark Cart" by TomSkippy