icm

I, too, remember reading about the SW license renewal negotiations back in 2006 or so. I distinctly remember being worried that Lego was going to drop the license and there weren't going to be any new Star Wars sets in 2007. I told my mom and sister all about it as we were driving to Walmart. Not coincidentally, the run of Space from 2007 (not 2008) through 2013 happened on that renegotiated Star Wars license before it was renegotiated again with the Disney buyout. @danth has been quite vocal about blaming the lack of Space since 2013 on the license terms of that buyout, and this statement by Christian Faber seems to support that idea. Does anyone know what year the most recent Star Wars license renewal began? Was it 2022, coinciding with the Monkie Kid Galactic Explorer and the Icons Galaxy Explorer? That would make the first license run 1999-2006, the second license run 2007-2013, the third license run 2014-2021, and the fourth license run 2022+. Those work be 8 years, 7 years, and 8 years, so those would seem to be consistent lengths of license terms and consistent intervals of license renegotiations.

Huh. Well, there it is. Clearly they were able to renegotiate some concessions later, since Space Police III and Galaxy Squad are as out-there as any pre-2000 Space themes and we've had some honest-to-goodness Space sets in the last few years (though labeled as other themes, with a cross-theme Space logo on the box), but maybe there's still some gremlin lurking in the license that meant they were legally obligated to shoehorn last year's Space sets into other themes. I also recently saw on Reddit a magazine scan from 2000 where Lego's marketing manager said they couldn't do Star Trek because they were focusing on Star Wars. I'm glad Lego has had enough weight recently to start making Space sets again, even if they are snuck in under Monkie Kid, Icons, Gift With Purchase, City, Friends, Dreamz, Creator 3-in-1, Collectible Minifigures, and Technic. I hope they can keep doing that for a long time. Side note: A few days ago I built the new Renegade, the new City spaceship, and the classic Space Police II Galactic Mediator. The Renegade is a great set overall, but I find its shape hard to swoosh and I don't trust the clip joints enough to subject them to heavy mix-and-match play cycles. The City spaceship is really awkward and gangly with the lab module in the back, and I like it much better as a medium-sized spaceship with the lab module separated as a ground base - which is honestly the design intent! So, in my opinion, CS'24 still needs a big 918-class spaceship, because the 60446 is best as a smaller 924-class transport. As for the Galactic Mediator, I was quite surprised by how lightweight, rigid, and swooshable it is. After all these years, it might still be the best toy of the three.

I built my copy of the 10355 Blacktron Renegade yesterday. The space gun in the bag for the rover had the molding error that prevents use of the antistud of the side-scope, but the space gun in the bag for the cockpit didn't. Has anyone else experienced that? I'm glad one of them was good so I could still build the set, but now I need to file a broken-parts report for the other.

Thanks for the pictures! It looks really good.

Oh, that's a good idea. I'll have to remember that for my next order.

Oh. Well. I liked the greenhouse but that uncanny resemblance to the Funwhole product puts it in a bad light.

I voted according to: Not for me - I'm not interested in buying this at all. Like it - If I had an unlimited budget, I would buy this. Love it - Day one buy if selected. I marked these entries as "Love it": Classic Lunar Rover by livetobuild: https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-7/2623/Classic-Lunar-Rover Medieval Seaport With Cog and Crane by BrickPerfection: https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-7/2611/Medieval-Seaport-with-Cog-&-Crane Penguin Family by JoffreBricks: https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-7/2388/Penguin-Family Privateer Frigate Fortuna by BrickPerfection: https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-7/2609/Privateer-Frigate-Fortuna Scalawag Sloop by Sam2XD: https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-7/2606/Scalawag-Sloop The Wright Flyer (1903) by TJJohn12: https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-7/2555/The-Wright-Flyer-(1903)

I agree with everything you just said.

Indominus Rex doesn't count as a mutant dinosaur?

My PaB order from November 28, with white Classic Space airtanks and torsos, finally shipped this morniing. My PaB order from December 9, with parts I need for MOCs and sets, hasn't shipped yet.

@Brickshelf Archive: Thanks for making that archive. I was wary of clicking the link to check it out, because you are a new member and your very first post included a link to a website I don't know anything about, for the purpose of large file downloads. Now that @aFrInaTi0n has checked out your website, I feel like I can trust you and your link. But I hope you understand why I was wary.

Just one more sad sign that we all live in the Aslume :(

@aFrInaTi0n: Thanks so much for doing that! I can't wait until you've got all the zips packaged up for user photos, there are quite a few user photo libraries I want to preserve.

Not controversial at all, I think a lot of us feel that way. The Endor speeder chase especially should have been a $30-$40 remake of the classic set 7128 from 1999.

Very nice. This is the first Viper Mk II build that I've seen where the new X-wing canopy really works. Would you mind posting more pictures to a Flickr gallery? I might try to build this in Studio. Thanks!

You've got that out of order. It was Calamity Drone first, then Queen, then Hermione.

Mega has a GI Joe Skystriker set out right now, which is close enough to a playscale Tomcat for me. I have it on my desk right now, actually. I'm intrigued to see what Mattel will bring to the market with this announcement.

Oh, very nice!

I dunno, a $70 version with 707 pieces sounds alright to me - a little larger and a little more detailed than the 2021 version, without breaking the bank. Lots of people have built recolored versions of the 2021 version anyway, so this would just be formalizing that idea.

I don't know enough Python to judge for myself is this script is completely safe, but I trust you. Do you see any vulnerabilities or unsafe practices in that code? Just want to check before I run it on my computer.

@aFrInaTi0n: Thanks for making that Python script! That'll make it a lot easier to download my favorite galleries once I can find the time. Brickshelf was a big part of my childhood as a TFOL, and I still like to reverse-engineer builds from Brickshelf and then order parts for them.

I seriously, seriously doubt that Lego is running a botnet or a network of paid operatives to downvote your Reddit post. There are enough conspiracies and enough conspiracy theories in the world, we don't need to add another.

You've got your franchises mixed up. It's Star Trek that's the utopian future where people are supposed to have moved past bigotry, not Star Wars.

@Max_Lego said: First: Star Wars has always been an American fantasy by American filmmakers and crew. Of course it reflects mainly American issues. (Not to discount the many wonderful contributions by British creatives and those of other nationalities, but seriously - George Lucas is from California.) Second: Anti-alien bigotry shows up several times in the OT. Threepio calls Jawas nasty smelly little creatures, the prison officer in the Death Star calls Chewbacca a "thing", Leia treats Chewbacca rudely and dismissively, Cloud City relegates the Ugnaught workers to the lower levels and lets the humans live and work on the upper levels, the Empire dismisses the Ewoks as unthreatening because they don't take them seriously, etc. There's plenty of onscreen evidence for anti-alien bigotry in the OT. Not to mention that it has always been offscreen canon, since the very earliest days of the franchise, that Han rescued Chewbacca from Imperial slavery. Third: The Emperor is a cackling evil space wizard who runs a tyrannical evil empire replete with fascist iconography. Why is it unbelievable that the Emperor is a bigot too? Fourth: Are you seriously arguing that the Empire isn't evil? WTF, have you entirely missed the point? If you don't accept that the Empire is evil, how can we take any of your other interpretations of SW canon seriously? Fifth: I should know better than to get involved in internet keyboard arguments like this, especially since they don't pertain to 2025 Lego Star Wars sets. More complaining about too many clone sets rumored for summer 2025, less nerdwank complaining about SW lore, please!

WTF? I said nothing political whatsoever. Where in God's green earth are you getting a comment about Trump from what I said, @Berthil? The adage is, "One bad apple spoils the barrel." That's it. This thread has nothing to do with politics, please don't bring them into this.