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Thanks a lot for making this list. There are all sorts of great things to build here if I can ever find the time!

1) Do YOU really want a remake of the exact same Galaxy Explorer every three years? 2) Take that up with pop culture, not with Lego.

Just chiming in to say that one thing that makes Millennium Falcon and X-wing remakes more viable than pirate ship remakes is their relative lack of specialized parts. For a Star Wars ship, you need a bunch of basic bricks, slopes, and wedges that can be and are used for a wide variety of builds across every theme, along with canopy glass that is also easily reusable. The only really specialized parts you need are minifigure headgear and accessories, and every theme seems to get plenty of those nowadays. By contrast, a pirate ship needs large prefab hulls, masts, and sails, plus sharks and rowboats to go with it. That makes pirate ships more expensive to produce and requires their basic structure to be reused more often to recoup costs. Plus, without a clear reference point the improvements between subsequent releases aren't as immediately apparent for pirate ships. Even kids can be drawn in as repeat buyers of Star Wars ships if they remain interested in Lego for the length of one refresh cycle, because any kid who follows Star Wars media can (for example) tell the difference between the 3-wide engines and old-style canopy on the 2012 X-wing and the 4-wide engines and new-style canopy on the 2018 X-wing. I also wish we got more sailing ships, but from a production and design standpoint the Star Wars refresh cycle is clearly more practical than the pirate ship refresh cycle.

Thanks for posting. I like the new airlock and center module, and especially the lower frame and the legs.

City sets with two or three vehicles are already pretty common. Are you proposing that Lego sell larger sets with, say, six to ten vehicles of different kinds at a price point of $100-150? They could certainly do that, but I'd prefer it if those vehicles were split up into individual sets and sold separately, ie as Great Vehicles, or the way Speed Champions cars are sold. They're more affordable that way and you can still collect them all if you want. I guess what I'm trying to say is that no, it doesn't seem like a good idea as described above. Maybe you could say what you mean in more detail? The City Garage set from 2011 or 2012 had four or five little cars and a parking garage, and that was a pretty cool set. Is that the kind of thing you're trying to describe?

A couple nights ago I had a dream in which next year's set catalog had leaked and there were pictures of an awesome starbase with a new 924-style spaceship. Then last night it was a similar dream except they were new Arctic-styled sets. Guess if I'm having these kinds of dreams I should get out of the house and get some more fresh air, huh?

I've had a recurring dream ever since I was about 10, maybe 11, where I'm in a large store (usually a big-box toy store, usually empty of other shoppers - sometimes a department store, sometimes busy), and it has shelves upon shelves of sealed copies of old retired sets (mostly 2001 Toa and 1999 Star Wars) being sold at or below their original retail price. In the dream, it's tremendously exciting because I never thought I was going to be able to get those sets, but I'm never able to make it to the checkout line before the dream ends; when I wake up I'm disappointed to realize I didn't get that set after all. I think these dreams have two primary roots. First is my parents giving my brother the X-wing and me the Naboo Fighter in 1999 instead of the other way around, and second is my mom's attempt in 2002 to get us to promise never to buy Lego ever again because it's expensive and it was time to grow out of it, following which my brother and I basically begged our cousins (who had more pocket money) to buy the 2002 Toa for us. That these dreams still persist is attributable, I think, to the way they encapsulate the general anxiety of the things one's always wanted being forever just out of reach. If they were really about the Lego sets involved they should have stopped after I bought those sets on eBay ....

I just use the simple rule that 1 foot = 1 stud. It's not very scientific but it's close enough for me when building airplanes and spaceships. I've tried building cars to that scale but I'm never satisfied with the results, because it's important to me that a minifig fits inside while sitting upright. Eventually I just gave up on building cars ....

In the US the Arocs RRP was $230 for approx 2700 parts including PF and pneumatics, the Land Rover is $200 for approx 2500 parts without PF or pneumatics. Seems fair to me. The overall part count isn't that much less, so the PF and pneumatics accounted for the $30 extra in the Arocs compared to the Defender.

It seemed pretty daring and new to me at the time. Fantasy Era Castle came at a time when Lego was experimenting with much more open violence in its play themes, from the 2006 "gritty reset" of Bionicle to Exo Force, Batman, and World Racers. Fantasy Era was the first time when there were grotesque monsters in open warfare in Castle, among other things. Compare the scary skeletons and skeleton horses of Fantasy Era to the tame smiling skeletons of Pirates and recall the anecdote where, sometime in the late 70s or early 80s, one of the Kristiansens threatened to fire a set designer for daring to suggest that a castle dungeon should have a skeleton in it. Ten years later, with the proliferation of bigfigs and alien monsters through the Super Hero and Ninjago themes, Fantasy Era doesn't seem so unusual. But in 2007 it was a bold new direction.

Here in the USA the 75175 released in 2017 for $40 and the 75248 will cost $30, but your point is still good. The X-wings released in 2015, 2016, and 2018 are good models and fun sets, but at $80 US RRP I'm not sure they're $20 better than the 2012 model, which was only slightly smaller and less detailed at $60. I'm having a hard time imagining how they could bump up the January 2020 X-wing to $90 with improvements to the ship itself, though side builds like a relatively large maintenance vehicle or a building could easily do that.

That works for small-medium ships like the Jedi Interceptor and Vulture Droid in 2005, but the starfighters have mostly moved into such high price brackets that I think it would really hurt sales to package them together. (Back in 2016 that strategy was blamed for hurting sales of 75150 with the Rebels A-wing and the TIE Advanced). I'll buy an X-wing and a TIE Fighter packaged separately, but I'll wait for a 20% discount on each. Total is $150 minus the discounts, but those are reliable. In contrast, the $100+ sets are rarely discounted by Amazon or Walmart or Lego itself, so a two pack of large modern starfighters would cost more than two single ships, and a three pack would be even more expensive. Two packs work fine if the total price is still moderate, which means you have to keep them to small ships like Jedi fighters and A-wings.

Hope that means you're doing number four.

Wow. Just wow. The TIE fighters have been overpriced at $70 since 2015, but at least they've had more than 500 parts. The X-wings have been overpriced at $80 since 2015 too, but at least they've had 700+ pieces. But another $10 hike in the X-wing price is a real big Star Wars tax. Definitely going to wait until that comes down. In the meantime, maybe I'll buy another 75218 on discount ....

Good question. The most expensive set I ever bought with chore money as a kid cost $55 in today's money, and the most expensive set my parents ever gave me for Christmas cost $140 in today's money. That's about in line with the flagship sets for most play themes today, but $55 is less than the retail price of a modern X-wing unless you get it on sale. My childhood chore money came from mowing the lawn, raking the leaves, and picking up pine cones, and I never had a job as a teenager, so I know I couldn't buy as many things for myself as some of my peers who had jobs or who got more chore money.

This question is a bit off topic, but could you post some breakdown pictures of the little A-wings, @Raskolnikov? The whole Mon Cal and Aggressor builds are brilliant, but those little A-wings are a bit more affordable!

It's a pretty good set out of the box, but I do wish they'd gone ahead and given it the extra one or two thousand small parts for more detail and some interior and just priced it at $800 like the Millennium Falcon. That way there wouldn't be this controversy about it being the second most expensive set without having the second highest parts count, especially since in many countries it already does cost as much as the Falcon. The interior is so empty that it'll probably be simplicity itself to add minifig rooms, so it's a good start point for modding, and that shouldn't be overlooked. Many sets aren't easily modded. Guess this makes this Shiptember a lot easier for anyone who was thinking of building a Star Destroyer this month.

The question was not if PPG can be used as a reference, but what the reference number should be.

Thanks for posting these. The color scheme is well-balanced, the builds are simple and solid, and they look like simple swooshable fun. I never knew about the 1980s Playmobil Space sets, but a quick Google search now shows me that Lego was just one player in a very crowded market of similarly-styled space toys in the mid-1980s! I guess the uncanny similarity between Lego and Playmobil Space toys extends back many years and isn't unique to 2019.

I would love to see the Thunderbirds set happen, and it's easily the best playset from a vehicle perspective. But the IP is a little bit obscure (at least here in the US), and Andrew Clark already has two Ideas sets, including one released this year. I doubt the Ideas review board will award him a third set, even though that set would be superb. EDIT - Actually, Thunderbirds is the only vehicle playset in this Review group.

@DonRamon1981, if you're going to make a big deal about sources you should begin by citing your own sources.

Excellent, this looks much better than the A model. I really like the roll bars that suggest a windshield frame and the net launcher as a big exhaust at the back. Metalbeard's body also looks really good, except for the fact that he can't seem to stand up on his own. Building feet that attach to the barrel of the cannon part would be really hard though, so I see why you didn't.

Generally what is meant by "Classic Space" is the Space sets released between 1978 and 1987 in which the minifigures have old-style helmets without visors and their torsos are only decorated with a single Classic Space logo (the logo that appeared beginning in 1978) at about chest height. You can find a comprehensive listing of those kits on Brickset. Among those, some are more "classic" or well-remembered than others. Generally the earliest sets in that line, specifically the 1978-1979 releases, are remembered much more fondly than the later sets. The fan community's regard for Classic Space kits seems to decrease pretty monotonically as the release year increases. More generally, other waves are remembered as "classic" Space but not "Classic Space." That is, many of the Blacktron, M:Tron, and Ice Planet sets are regarded as classic Space kits, but they aren't Classic Space specifically. The 1978-1987 sets earn the specific sobriquet of Classic in all databases because it was only with Futuron and Blacktron in 1987 that Lego began to specifically name new subthemes instead of simply categorizing them as "Space" in the catalogs. So what do you call the earlier sets? Well, they're the ones that started it all, so they get called "Classic" in the catalogs. As younger fans pass the age of majority and enter the adult fan community online, you see newer and newer sets being called "classic" in online discussions. For example, the Mars Mission sets from 2007-2008 are often called "classics" by those who grew up with them. TLDR - Specifically, "Classic Space" is just the 1978-1987 kits and, if you stretch a point, the kits from The Lego Movie 1 and 2 that pay homage to those with the character of Benny. Generally, "classic" Space kits are anything you liked as a kid.

I remember seeing this on Flickr a few months ago. Congratulations on getting it all built in real life. Can you post a picture of this one beside your huge modular fighter?