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I apologize if there's already a thread for this topic, but I couldn't immediately find one and I wasn't going to spend all day searching for an existing thread with rate-limited searches. Mods, please merge this into any existing thread. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but in retrospect it seems obvious that many of the themes from my childhood were unofficial tie-ins to movies or other topics of general interest at the time, before TLG went deeply into licensed themes as a corporate strategy. For a lot of other themes, it seems like there must be some kind of connection, but I can't quite pin it down. A few other sets and themes have unofficial connections and timing that are currently obvious, but may not be obvious to someone browsing Brickset in ten years. I'll list what I see here. Please comment on any connections you see that I may have missed, or connections I've made that you don't agree with. These aren't in any particular order. I'm not including sets that commemorate internal TLG anniversaries, like the 40th anniversary Technic sets or the 2008 homage to the 1958 Town Plan set. Obvious, but unofficial, connections: 2001 line Life on Mars (subtheme of Space) - This line coincides with the movies Red Planet and Mission to Mars. 1998 line Space Port (subtheme of Town) - This line coincides with the movies Armageddon and Deep Impact, and the Mania Magazine that introduced it gave it a narrative of defending the Earth from a deadly meteor shower. 1998 line Insectoids (subtheme of Space) - Except for the insect styling of the vehicles, the colors and visual style of the line remind me of the Borg in Star Trek: First Contact, which was released the same year. There may be some connection, but it's more tenuous than the links above. 1997 line UFO (subtheme of Space) - This line was released one year after the movie Independence Day and coincides with the movie Men in Black. 1995 line Launch Command (subtheme of Space) - This line coincides with the movie Apollo 13. Although that movie features moon rockets rather than space shuttles, the Lego line is clearly all about NASA. 2013 line Galaxy Squad (subtheme of Space) - This line coincides with the movie Ender's Game, and the box art of the bug aliens swarming over a planet looks a lot like the depictions of swarming bug aliens in that movie. However, TLG must have decided that a direct movie license would be unprofitable or that a non-compete agreement with Lucasfilm prevented them from pursuing one. 2014 set X-Men vs. The Sentinel - This set coincides with the movie X-Men: Days of Future Past, for which TLG did not have the rights to make direct tie-in sets. 2006 line Batman - This line comes one year after the movie Batman Begins, when it was clear that the Batman franchise had recovered from Clooney and Schwarzenegger but while TLG was still testing the waters for direct superhero licenses. 2008 set The Tumbler: The Joker's Ice Cream Surprise - This set coincides with the movie The Dark Knight, for which TLG did not have the rights to make direct tie-in sets. 2001 line Dino Island (subtheme of Adventurers) - This line was released one year before the movie Jurassic Park III. The very next year TLG released direct tie-in sets for the movie. 2001 line Dinosaurs - This line coincides with the movie Jurassic Park III. 2011 line Space (subtheme of City) - This line coincides with the end of the Space Shuttle program. 2010 and 2011 sets Shuttle Adventure and Shuttle Expedition - These sets coincide with the end of the Space Shuttle program. 2015 set Blue Power Jet (Creator) and 2017 set Air Race Jet (Technic) are obviously inspired by the F-35. Solar panels on houses and electric cars in recent Creator and City sets are obviously inspired by real-world developments in the solar industry and automotive industry; food stands and food trucks are inspired by the growth in the food truck industry over the last five to ten years. Official connections that may not be obvious to someone browsing Brickset in ten years, because they refer to real-world events and anniversaries: 2003 set Wright Flyer - This set coincides with the 100th anniversary of Orville and Wilbur Wright's first flight. 2003 line Discovery - This line coincides with the launch of the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, and with renewed interest in the Space Shuttle and International Space Station due to (sadly) the loss of Columbia. It also coincides with general interest in air and space due to the 100th anniversary of flight. 2017 set 2016 Ford GT & 1966 Ford GT40 - This set commemorates the 50th anniversary of a major Ford racing win and celebrates a major Ford racing win in 2016. 2006 set Boeing 787 - This set is obviously promotional material for the Boeing 787, which was then in development. Various large Technic models, including the Bugatti Chiron, Porsche 911 GTR, Mack Anthem, Claas tractor, Volvo wheeled excavator, Volvo front loader, BMW motorcycle, and Arocs - These sets are obviously promotional material for fancy new toys and tools from the manufacturers whose products are depicted. Speculative connections: Surely the Speed Champions sets with multiple Porsches and multiple Ferraris must have some reason for picking those cars at this time, but I don't know enough about cars to tell why. The same goes for the older licensed Ferrari sets with named drivers. There's probably some connection between movies like The Fast and the Furious or its sequels and the various waves and subthemes of Racers. Surely the various subthemes of Castle owe something to contemporary entertainment properties (e.g., Fantasy Era and Tolkien, Forestmen/Dark Forest and Robin Hood), but I don't know enough about castle and fantasy fiction to identify anything specific for most of them. Can anyone identify possible inspirations for Space sets and subthemes between 1985 and 1995? If the first wave of Classic Space is acknowledged to owe a lot to a wave of interest in sci-fi space opera driven by Star Wars and other contemporary sci-fi entertainment like Space:1999, as also to anticipation for the Space Shuttle, was there a wave of interest in real-world events and anniversaries that drove the runaway success of the first wave of Pirates in 1989? In the same vein, did TLG capitalize on anything to which the runaway success of the first wave of Bionicle in 2001 can be attributed? 2001 line Alpha Team - Perhaps this is loosely inspired by the movies Mission:Impossible, The Matrix, or Spy Kids? Perhaps a James Bond movie or some superhero movie? 2015 line Space (subtheme of City) - This line is mostly a rehash of the 2011 Space subtheme, but perhaps the timing of its revival is a delayed reaction to the success of realistic/near-future space exploration movies like Gravity, Interstellar, and The Martian? 1995-1997 line Aquazone - Perhaps this is loosely inspired by the movie Waterworld? 1993 set Magic Flash - That sure looks like the A-Team van to me. 2003 line Island Extreme Stunts - It's directly a tie-in line for a Lego video game, but maybe it was also meant to tie in with things like the Olympics and the X Games. Suspected connections: Since I remember reading a few articles about divers and underwater labs in National Geographic World magazine, I wonder if the timing of the 1997 Divers line (subtheme of Town) can be attributed to any real-world wave of interest in the subject due to events or anniversaries. The same goes for the 1998 Extreme Team line (subtheme of Town). From my perspective as a kid at the time, I remember a lot of magazine articles about mountaineers climbing this or that peak or shooting this or that river. The Daredevil Flight Squad set might be partially inspired by the contemporary retirement of the SR-71 Blackbird. I also read a lot of magazine articles about polar exploration, perhaps since the heroic age of Antarctic exploration was getting to be about a century old by the release of the 2000 Arctic line (subtheme of Town). But what about the timing of the 2014 revival? The desert, jungle, and Orient subthemes of Adventurers are clearly inspired by the Indiana Jones movies, but what's responsible for the 1998 timing of the first wave and the 2003 timing of the revival? Was there any major news event or anniversary? I remember reading a lot of magazine articles about ancient Egypt, the pyramids and mummies, etc - was there a wave of interest in ancient Egypt in 1997 or 1998, and if so, what was the cause? The 1997 Western theme is obviously inspired by cowboy movies and American history, but why was it release in 1997? That predates the movie Wild Wild West by two years, but was there another big movie or TV show in 1997? It seems like that genre had pretty much died out long before 1997. Perhaps an anniversary of a classic Western movie or novel was getting a lot of press? Was it just generally related to the nebulous sesquicentennial of the settlement by Americans of much of the American West, or the nebulous centennial of the age of Wild West outlaws? The 2002 Studios line was obviously inspired by old monster movies, but is there a good reason why it was timed for 2002? The 2012 Monster Fighters line was obviously inspired by old monster movies, but is there a good reason why it was timed for 2012, except perhaps as a 10th anniversary tribute to the previous Studios line? It seems like the 1999 Rock Raiders line must be inspired by something in contemporary sci-fi in movies or TV, but I don't know what that would be. It seems like the 2006-2008 Exo-Force line must be timed to coincide with a wave of interest in anime/manga mecha shows, but I don't know what those would be at the time. The 2008 revival of Alpha Team in the form of Agents could be timed to go with the 2007 revival of the James Bond franchise in Casino Royale, or perhaps to go with the impending Marvel Cinematic Universe, for which TLG did not yet have a license. This connection seems pretty tenous, though. Are there any events or anniversaries coinciding with the timing of sets depicting famous architecture, like the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, the Taj Mahal, the Sydney Opera House, Tower Bridge, the Burj Khalifa, the Guggenheim Museum, etc? What about famous cars like the Mini Cooper, VW Minibus, Ferrari F40, VW Beetle, or Routemaster bus? 2003 NBA line - The license is obvious, but why the timing? Was NBA basketball bigger than usual at the time, or was TLG just picking up ideas and seeing what stuck, this being in their days of near-bankruptcy? 2018 Speed Champions set of 1968 Ford Mustang GT - A subtle allusion to the 50th anniversary of the movie Bullitt. OK, that's all I can think of. Time to take my tin-foil hat off and get back to work.

Maybe there's a more straightforward way to do it, but you can save the images to a Flickr album and then copy the URL into the post editing window. The forum software will automatically embed it as an image. However, you'd probably be better off just linking to Brickset.com if you want to refer to specific sets. Brickset URLs are short and very easy to read.

It's the same idea as when the most recent UCS and minifig X-wings were released in the same year, 2012. If the subject is popular enough, there's plenty of room for two versions that emphasize different things. So: multi-part minifig Hogwarts for play, "UCS"/D2C Hogwarts as a scale model with cool building techniques. Or note the multiple concurrent versions of the Millennium Falcon: UCS and minifig, and even microfighter, out at the same time. (And all of those are designed to accommodate minifigs!). For more examples, consider the two minifig Batmobiles from the TLBM line, or the fact that Bugatti Chirons and Porsche 911 GTs are concurrently available from Speed Champions and Technic right now, and the same Ferrari is available in two Speed Champions sets. As an extreme example, observe that 75102 Poe's X-wing Fighter and 75149 Resistance X-wing Fighter have been concurrently available since 2016, even though they differ only in color and minor details. That's because some kids want the black one because it's the one Poe flies, and some kids want the grey one because X-wings "should be grey." So there's not necessarily an expectation that people will "buy two versions of the same set" - that is, that everyone who buys the D2C Hogwarts will buy the Great Hall and Whomping Willow sets or vice versa. Instead, there's the expectation that the interest in Hogwarts as a subject for a Lego set is broad enough to interest audiences that differ sufficiently that two distinct versions will each sell well, with neither significantly reducing the sales of the other.

...It's not a competition between James Bond and Doctor Who. The announcement of a James Bond license (for, possibly, a single set) says little or nothing about any potential for a revived Doctor Who license. If every license connected to Dimensions and Ideas had to be exploited to its fullest potential before a new license could be acquired, we'd have a full range of vignettes based on Beatles album covers and playsets for every location ever visited by the A-Team. Even if you're Doctor Who's biggest fan and you have reams of market analysis to back up your claims about the relative profit potential in a revived Doctor Who license versus a new James Bond license, it's just...not worth getting worked up about.

The International Space Station by XCLD just achieved support. Since this is the second XCLD ISS to achieve support, I hope they produce it this time. (TLG rejected the first one.) However, they probably don't want to make another NASA-related Ideas set, and they have rejected multiple items from the same creator before. (See: multiple RobenAnne buildings, multiple Bricksauria and Jurassic Park builds.) We'll see what happens.

Already supported.

You mean like this and this? :) A theme called Galaxy that was designed for maximum rebuild value is what primed me to like Classic Space before I knew Classic Space existed.

I was never much into Technic as a kid and I still don't look forward to each year's new Technic sets as much as I do to those of other lines, because the most interesting Technic kits are so large, but here are my two cents on studded versus studless Technic: - Studless Technic is great. You can do much more with it than was ever possible with studded Technic. Studded Technic was fine in its time, but the marriage between the vertical columns needed for Technic structures and the irregular grid of System was always awkward, and it resulted in some structures that were terrifically hard to put together and equally hard to take apart. I'm glad the Technic line has moved beyond studded structures. But - Studded Technic never really went away at all! Instead, it became a vital component of large System structures. The strength and rigidity of modern System structures, enabled by studded Technic, is fantastic compared to the larger System builds when I was a kid. Also, studded Technic was just beginning to be used for play features in System models when I was a kid - for instance, I was absolutely blown away by the wing jack mechanism in 4502 X-wing Fighter, back in 2004. Now it's fairly common for System models to have fantastic Technic-enabled mechanical play features, and also to have incredibly strong Technic-enabled infrastructures. I don't know enough about mechanisms to have a strong opinion on how clever, complex, or uninspired the mechanisms of today's larger Technic models are, compared to the large Technic models of past decades, and I don't pay enough attention to the B models to have a strong opinion about those either. From my perspective as someone primarily interested in System, today's Technic line looks just as good as it ever has, and today's studded Technic is better than ever because it's now being used for what it does best: integrating functions into studded (System) models.

If you can have a Lego Heath Ledger Joker in a large collector-oriented set then you can have a Lego James Bond in a large collector-oriented set! Seriously, though, all hand-wringing about licenses aside, a Creator Expert-style Aston Martin DB5 would be really cool...if all the parts were new in flat silver, the way all the Beetle parts were new in medium azure. Light gray just won't look as good.

There's some nice parts use in these, like the use of a crate to hold the seat in the rocket, and the use of nipple tiles and apollo studs as engine cylinders. The spiral staircase in the 76108 mod looks pretty good, but on the second floor (first above ground level) there doesn't seem to be any room for the minifigures to leave the staircase and step onto the floor without bonking their heads against more stairs. Have you looked at other solutions for that? Do you plan to build IRL both the Classic Space and steampunk versions of the Iron Giant?

Thanks for commenting. Do you have any suggestions for the rock work, or for how to improve the base?

Here's some more refinements on my Galaxy Explorer, which is inspired by pretty much every Galaxy Explorer redux ever made but especially by "LL928 Comes Home" on Ideas and this topic on Eurobricks. The base is mostly inspired by 926 and 6970. The ship is intended to use stickers from 70816 for decoration, and miscellaneous other stickers and decorated parts that aren't available in Stud.io, and the flag on the moonscape is intended to come from here. The rover is supposed to be able to park inside the base and also to fit in the front half of the spaceship's cargo bay while two crates occupy the rear half, but I haven't worked out that loading scheme in detail yet, and the rear fuselage may need to be reworked because of that. The outbuilding that supports the antenna is intended to be an electric rover charging station, among other things. The main challenge now is to build low-elevation rockwork for the moonscape that evokes the original crater plates, is fairly large, is fairly simple with a low parts count, and also has fun play features like panels that blow off, boulders that can be launched out of craters, or something like that. The intent is to keep it around 1100-1300 parts for an imaginary price point of $120 (consistent with the inflation-adjusted RRP of 928) or $150 (consistent with today's most expensive Star Wars and City playsets). Please comment, question, criticize! How can this be a better playset? How can it better evoke the original while staying consistent with today's design ethos or the style of today's flagship playsets? What's to be done about the rockwork? (About that I don't have much of a clue myself, right now.) Also see some bonus pictures of a quick and easy space scooter modeled after 885. Pictures in quotes for brevity. Thanks for looking! Flickr album

Since the thread has already been bumped and I frequently add and subtract Alien Conquest and Galaxy Squad sets from my Brickset wanted list without ever buying them, I'll chime in - The reasons I didn't buy any Galaxy Squad sets when they were still in stores were, first, I wasn't allowing myself to buy Lego as an adult yet, and second, I told myself that if I ever was to buy Lego as an adult, it would just be to pick up the 2012 X-wing model (9493). The reasons I don't buy Galaxy Squad now are first, too much competition from other Star Wars and City kits I want, and second, although I think the theme is very well executed, I just...don't...really...like it. If I want militarized spaceships, I'll go to Star Wars. If I want airplanes, I'll go to City. I'd much rather have an in-house Space theme where the conflict is only implied, and I'd much rather have minifigures whose heads and faces aren't encumbered by sci-fi headsets and goggles, nor the torsos by chunky armor that gets dated really fast. I appreciate the nods to Classic Space and Futuron in the primarily white ships with separating modules and carefully chosen accent colors (primarily blue), and I think the bug alien minifigures and vehicles are much more convincing and interesting builds than those of Insectoids. The theme has everything going for it except originality of concept, on its part, and general interest, on my part. I just don't like people that look like cyborgs and aliens that look like bugs. Never have, never will. Didn't like "Men in Black" as a kid, didn't like the Borg in Star Trek, never wanted to see the buggers in Ender's Game. I guess there's enough people like me in that way that Galaxy Squad didn't sell.

I vote for #5 and #9.

Thread bump to ask if anyone has had this problem: This evening I copied my Stud.io folder and build files to a new flash drive and foolishly deleted the old one before testing the new one. Now the program will open my build files, but none of the parts are visible in the build window and they all show as corrupted in the parts list. Parts images aren't showing up in the bottom tray either, and when I pull a part out of the bottom tray to place it in the new build it doesn't show up in the build window and it shows as corrupted in the parts list. I've reinstalled the program twice, once directly from a fresh download of the installer, but it's still not working. Has anyone else had this problem? How can it be resolved? Thanks for your help. EDIT: Got Stud.io reinstalled on the original flash drive and it seems to work. It still doesn't work on the new flash drive, but the build files copied back from the new flash drive to the old one open correctly on the original drive.

Those are all great builds. I like the red station wagon and the white sedan the best.

Lord Nelson would be proud to have this in his estate at Paradise Merton, if it weren't for the Yankee colors! Are the lower decks finished and furnished, or is all the space needed for structural support?

Thanks for the nice double review. You really show off all the details of these sets. They're both really charming little sets that seem to capture all the essentials of their respective films in an affordable package, but that little Quantum Realm ship just doesn't hit all my "SPACESHIP!" buttons, so I don't think I'll pick it up after all. Also, the lack of leg printing on Wasp compared to Ant-Man and Yellow Jacket is pretty disappointing. It would be pretty cool if TLG copied that cockpit technique for a City helicopter, though.

Such a fine ship. Is it based on a real vessel? How do you plan a build like this?

That's a very nice little biplane there. I like the way you've achieved a more subtle dihedral than the original set, and the second seat and curved horizontal stabilizer profile are great. Also, the extended empennage is much better than the stumpy rear fuselage assemblies that official sets always have. However, It's a little disappointing to see that the ailerons and wheels no longer move, and the outboard struts look pretty flimsy.

This question is kind of off-topic, but there have been a lot of small digital mockups of various imagined parts of the Bugatti in this thread. Could someone point me to the best software for prototyping Technic models? Is there a package that can simulate mechanisms in motion? I've tried to build small mechanisms in LDD and Stud.io, but the part placement for anything but snapping bricks is very tedious and I can't figure out how to get a mechanism (say, a gear train) to move. Thanks! And back to the Bugatti - Has anyone been able to get a good look at the steering geometry? Does it have Ackermann steering this time, or just the same old parallel steering links used in most medium-sized Technic trucks?

^^^ OK, fair enough.

When someone takes a picture of a set in a Lego store, then Brickset is willing to post that picture. That's what they did with the 75181 UCS Y-wing, a couple days before its official reveal. This seems to be the same situation. Can someone link to the exact language in the Eurobricks forum guidelines that prohibits pictures like that? The clause against leaks doesn't say anything about sets that you see in the store with your own eyes and photograph with your own camera and buy with your own money. Are we now going to condemn Jangbricks for the times when he got sets before the official street date, perfectly legitimately, and side with TLG in demanding that his reviews of those sets be taken down, too? Let's be consistent, people. We like Brickset, we like Jangbricks, let's stop piling on the guy who got lucky enough to buy the Bugatti.

This is a very nice Enterprise. Off the top of my head, it's the best one I can remember seeing. The choice of a Millennium Falcon style petal fold for the saucer lets the warp engines be small enough to support with conventional construction techniques, while still looking good for display and sturdy for play. I've thought about buying the Mega Construx Enterprise, but each time I decided not to because its one-piece nacelle struts and other large parts for finish detail seem like such clumsy solutions. You show that a handsome display Enterprise doesn't need those cheats. Thanks for posting.

These are all impressive models, but the Airbus is my favorite. It's a very nice compromise between scale modelling and playability. The way you've integrated the windscreen and contoured the nose works perfectly for a minifigure set, but it still looks like the real aircraft. The model as a whole is very large, like one would expect for a scale model, but not too large to imagine playing with as an official set. How many pieces? However, the wings would look a lot better if you built them at an angle, because then the curved slopes on the leading edges could be continuous instead of stepped.