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I don't know how retail works, so I can't answer the question you're actually asking. However, my attitude is that, looking only at my bank account, it only makes sense to buy directly from Lego if there's a cool free promotional set available or if a set cannot be found elsewhere for more than a 5-10% discount, since VIP points equate to a delayed 5% discount and double points to a 10% discount. I can't take personal responsibility in my shopping habits for how much of my payment goes directly to Lego versus the retailer I buy from.

I agree with everything Exetrius said. It's a great spaceship that looks like a MOC; it's overpriced at $70 but well priced at $50; and it's very creative. It looks like no Lego spaceship we've ever seen before. The minidoll design is great. However, it's not <my> kind of spaceship, so I'll pass.

The canopy of the police ship is attached with too many studs, making it difficult to remove and replace without damaging the rest of the build. Inside, the controls of the police ship look great, but they're too fragile, making it difficult to place the minifig at the controls and remove it therefrom.

The current lack of a dedicated in-house Space line has been extensively discussed in a lot of threads (like this one), so I don't have much new to say here that I haven't said before. Not briefly, but more or less comprehensively, here it is again - Injecting Space and Castle into Creator is clearly the strategy with the lowest risk for the company, but I still wonder if it's viable, given that Creator increasingly feels like a subtheme of City. I assume you refer to modern Creator sets, with sophisticated primary builds that don't look like table scraps? Those would probably still require some significant conceptual effort to decide what they're going to be, and then significant design effort to develop the three models, if you're going to do something more creative than an iconic real-world space shuttle or a generic robot/mech. There have already been brick boxes with Castle and Space parts this year (Building Bigger Thinking), but I haven't the imagination to get those for their Space content. Although I find the shared universe of classic Space subthemes (by which I mean the pre-1999 Space line as a whole, rather than the 1978-1987 waves labeled "Classic" on Brickset) charming, I don't feel like the set designs were generally any better back then than more recent Space set designs since the early 2000s bankruptcy crisis. In general, the sets between, say, 1988 and 1998 relied far more heavily on large, complex parts that took more imagination to recontextualize than today's parts. Today's "specialized" parts are generally small elements of geometry for a builder's toolkit; the "specialized" parts of the classic Space era were generally platforms that represented entire spacecraft features or that encapsulated large complex geometries in a single part. However, I do agree that older sets were easier for children to build and rebuild into alternate models, because the larger parts meant that less thought and planning were required to decide what to build and how to build it. Although I admire some of the classic Space subthemes (particularly the 1978-1983 waves of Classic Space), I don't actually want Lego to revisit them as new Space subthemes, at least not openly. It would require just as much creative effort, market research, and product testing to develop a rebooted "Blacktron" or "Ice Planet" Space theme as to develop any other new Space theme, and an entirely new theme would allow set designers more creative freedom and risk less flak from disappointed AFOLs who complain that their childhood was ruined when the new sets don't resemble their favorite neo-Blacktron or neo-Ice Planet MOCs. For example, look to the 2009 and 2015 incarnations of Pirates: as sets, they were perfectly competent reboots of a well-loved classic theme, and they were very faithful to the tone and content of the classic theme too. But they flopped at least partially because the market wasn't right with children and at least partially because AFOLs didn't think they were creative enough. I except another Space Police line from my preference that Lego avoid direct conceptual retreads of classic Space subthemes, because "Space" + "Police" is a much more generic idea than "red space miners with magnets" or "black and yellow space spies that attack white and blue space explorers" or "blue, orange, and white spacemen that launch rockets from an ice planet." Rejecting Space Police 3, Alien Conquest, and Galaxy Squad because they feature cheesy B-movie aliens is fine from a perspective of personal taste, but it's a rather narrow view of the sci-fi/space opera genre to suggest that Space is necessarily better without them. I would also like a peaceful, humans-only, exploration-oriented Space subtheme that makes some nods toward "realism" and some nods toward the 1978-1983 classic, but (as I have said in other threads) most of what I would really want out of such a subtheme is covered pretty well, in a set here and a set there, in other themes right now. It helps that I am an adult with a job and I can go to Bricklink and eBay for classic sets that fill in the gaps. I recognize that if I were a kid without an income and with no knowledge of sets that were released before I was introduced to Lego, I would not be satisfied in this regard, but I also remember that as a kid in that position, Star Wars satisfied all my spaceship wants pretty well. To be successful year after year after year, a new Space theme would have to reinvent itself like Ninjago while avoiding conflict with Star Wars, Super Heroes, and City. Perhaps one of the reasons that Nexo Knights and Chima were relatively unsuccessful compared to Ninjago (a point which has been extensively debated in other threads, and one which I will not comment on here) is that their various subthemes all felt very similar to each other both aesthetically and in content - the hero and villain vehicles and bases changed color slightly from wave to wave, and had slightly different features, but in general they all looked pretty much the same. In contrast, Ninjago has been able to be at different times a theme about sky pirates and floating islands, cyberpunk biker gangs, post-apoc dieselpunk raiders, giant mechs fighting kaijus in the city center, highly realistic quasi-medieval Japanese landscapes and ships and temples, and several other distinctly different ideas and looks, while retaining just enough stylistic unity to be recognizable as the same theme from wave to wave due to its common elements of color-coded ninja heroes, a certain distinctive design flair, and the common understanding that the stories occur on a cartoon planet Earth, or if not on Earth (I'm unfamiliar with the lore), clearly not "in space." It has been widely discussed, and agreed, in other threads that there's plenty of room for a new Space theme to keep reinventing itself like that while staying away from Star Wars, Super Heroes, and City, if it was treated as some sort of future city or as an umbrella theme that can cover a lot of different content, like City covers a lot of different ground in its exploration subthemes. Although conceptually there's plenty of room for an umbrella Space theme, I doubt that Lego has the capacity (especially in TV production) to provide such a theme the long-running support it would need to succeed, especially when internal resources are already heavily allocated towards so many other long-running, successful themes: Architecture, City, Creator, Creator Expert, Friends, Minecraft, Star Wars, Super Heroes, Technic; and other successful themes that have required heavy internal investment and have potential to run for several more years, like Harry Potter and Speed Champions. A counterargument to the above two points is provided by the fact that Friends has been running for nearly as long as Ninjago despite not reinventing itself nearly as drastically as Ninjago from wave to wave and not having nearly as much multimedia support, even though it represents a market segment that had previously long been underserved and one that many people doubted was viable. (Not to mention the fact that in content it competes closely with City and Creator.) One reason that Space was able to take off as a successful line in the 1980s was that not only were there a lot of space opera TV shows and movies at the time, like Star Trek and Star Wars, but there were also a lot of shows with the boxy, greebly grey visual style besides the big franchises that were relatively accessible to children - UFO, Space:1999, Silent Running, etc. (And Alien, though that wasn't aimed at children.) There was also a sense of progress in crewed space exploration, at least among children, because the Space Shuttle was still new and shiny and it wouldn't have been apparent to children that the Space Station was still 20 years away and nobody would be going back to the Moon anytime soon. And - here's the kicker - Lego didn't have the license to any of those properties yet, so any kid wanting a Lego spaceship had to get something from the in-house Space line. Today Lego already has a license to most of the child-friendly space opera in the cinema (via Star Wars and Super Heroes), and it's not shy about producing NASA sets if it wants to, even if the many rejected NASA Ideas projects and the disappointing Moments in Space gift with purchase contest make it seem like that. Although there is a good amount of pretty good sci-fi on TV right now (like The Expanse and, depending on who you ask, Star Trek: Discovery), it's generally aimed at adult audiences and features levels of blood and guts and bad behavior that are comparable to Game of Thrones. The thoughtful, serious, relatively realistic, and relatively family-friendly films Ender's Game, Gravity, Interstellar, and The Martian had very little toy and collectible tie-in merchandise in general, so there wasn't anything in other segments of the toy industry that could drive film-related sales and thereby help support an in-house exploration-based Space subtheme launched at the same time, so in that time period I think Lego already did pretty well by releasing Galaxy Squad and the 2015 Space subtheme of City, plus the Benny spaceship and Super Secret Police Dropship from The Lego Movie. Besides, if anything of that nature came out now that had a big presence in other segments of the toy industry, Lego wouldn't push out an in-house theme featuring similar content. They'd just get the license too. All of the previous paragraph can be summarized like this: the Space theme had no competition in 1978, so it grew until it reached its natural limits and was replaced by Star Wars when the time was right. A sustained new in-house Space theme of the type that many AFOLs want would have too much competition now to be viable. There ain't no competition for ninjas and dragons, so Ninjago has kept on growing. Okay, that's enough of that. Instead of pounding out a few hundred words about Legos each night, why don't I pound out a few hundred words on my thesis? Because I don't understand the math, and misunderstood math can be a fierce adversary that wants no part with words!

^^ Nope, Mars Mission is one theme I skip over pretty fast when I've playing with my Brickset wanted list, pretending my Lego budget is much bigger than it really is. However, I recently got a Life on Mars set (Solar Explorer) that I really wanted as a kid. As an adult, I find it pretty disappointing. I also got a Space Police 3 set (Hyperspeed Pursuit) that I missed in my Dark Ages, and that one's a mixed bag.

Looks like a pretty decent start. Keep the updates coming! PS - most people on this forum make a Flickr account and deeplink photos as URLs from their Flickr albums.

^^I like the aliens from Space Police 3, Alien Conquest, and Galaxy Squad. The prints are great, and the sculpts are goofy and detailed. Those are fun, silly aliens that aren't really threatening, and wouldn't look out of place in a CGI cartoon for kids. The Mars Mission aliens, on the other hand, are very crude sculpts with virtually no detail, and they're meant to be scary, ugly, threatening aliens - they would look out of place in Chicken Little, but not in Alien. I just don't go for that kind of stuff. All this said, I haven't yet convinced myself to buy any Alien Conquest or Galaxy Squad sets.

Considering how many Technic fans complain that the Bugatti isn't functional enough for Technic and should therefore have been built out of System as a non-functional Creator Expert display model instead, I think it ironic that the next big licensed car revealed is, in the opinion of many System fans, too functional for System and should therefore have been built in Technic if it was going to look bad anyway. Seems like neither approach to mixing form and function satisfies the primary audience of the respective primary building system (System vs Technic). I think the functions of the DB5 are great, but it is a pity they had to compromise on the form to accommodate them. That said, it's really hard to get the subtle curves of the DB5 in Lego, and I haven't seen any MOCs that do it a whole lot better. I don't know if I'll get the DB5, though. Have to have a long talk with my wallet about that.

The Life on Mars theme came out when I was a kid, and the Mars Mission theme followed when I was in my Dark Ages. I was aware of it, but I though it was pretty terrible compared to Life on Mars - so unrealistic, so violent, such ugly aliens, so orange! When I got back into Lego and started reading the Eurobricks and Brickset forums again, I was very surprised to see how fondly Mars Mission is remembered by a lot of AFOLs now, mainly the set in whose childhoods Mars Mission was released. Looking at the sets with a dispassionate eye, I can see that a lot of them have pretty clever transforming functions and building techniques, and I can see the references to Classic Space in the theme pretty clearly, so I understand why a lot of people remember them fondly. However, they're still too violent, ugly, and garishly orange for my taste.

I started this post a while ago, but didn't finish it because I didn't feel like posting at the time, and I felt I'd already said what I had to say about Galaxy Squad. But since the forum software saved it, I'll go ahead and post it. Here's how I would change Galaxy Squad to make it more appealing to my own tastes: 1 - Split the bug aliens and the humans into two separate subthemes of Space. Leave the bug aliens as they are - I think they're great for what they are, but I'm just not interested in bug aliens! 2 - Drastically simplify the stickers on the human ships. Leave just a pinstripe or two and the Galaxy Squad split-spaceship logo, which I do think is pretty rad. 3 - Instead of giving the humans snarling faces with cybernetic overlays, give them a smile and a little microphone, like the heads from Exploriens. 4 - Style the human leg/torso prints as exploration spacesuits, not as body armor. 5 - Use the classic standard helmet instead of the CMF space helmet. 6 - Give the spaceships landing gear - at least fixed, if not retractable. I'm always disappointed when a Lego flying machine just has to flop like a pancake on the ground instead. That said, I understand how much the need to include landing gear can get in the way of other goals for structural stability or play features. At the risk of going off-topic, though, I'll repeat an opinion I've expressed in other topics, mainly this one - I understand why a lot of AFOLs feel starved for non-Star Wars space sets. I totally, 100%, understand, and in many ways I feel the same. However, if I take a broader perspective and look at sets released in themes that Brickset doesn't classify as "Space," nearly everything that I would want in the sci-fi Space theme of my personal dreams has been covered pretty well in the last few years, by which I mean 2014-2018. I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but here's what I see: A new Galaxy Explorer-class starship, by which I mean a really rad big wedge-shaped ship that seats two or three? Check - that's the Arrowhead from the Star Wars line. Sure it's Star Wars, but it's non-canon and I couldn't care less about the show it goes with, so it's just a spaceship to me. A new One-Man Spaceship, i.e. a little spaceship that captures the same feel of chunky 70s retrofuturistic utilitarianism as that 1978 set? Check - that's the first Phantom from the Star Wars Rebels line. It's from Star Wars and it's even canon, but I've seen very little of the show it goes with, so it's just a spaceship to me. More generally, the Marvel Avenjet and DC Javelin that have been released in the Super Heroes lines are just spaceships to me! A great big chunky, utilitarian rover that would fit right in at a Moonbase? Check - that's the Arctic Mobile Exploration Base. A whole line about exploring dangerous, uninhabited unknown territory with spiffy, chunky, utilitarian equipment, especially one that includes scenery besides the vehicles? Check - that's the City Jungle line. It may not be set in Space and it may have jungle rocks instead of crater plates, but it's pretty darn close to the storyline I would want my ideal Space theme to enact - i.e, something like Lost in Space. More generally, since these are not sci-fi but they are definitely space sets, we've just had the most amazing Lego rocket ever released and a set with new space(wo)men in new colors (in more senses than one). Speaking yet more generally, I just suppose that the "space" genre of product line has been folded into the "action and adventure" class, and I'm OK with that. Before 1995, the Space line was the only line that featured fantastic, futuristic vehicles and settings. The "action and adventure" genre began in 1995 with Aquazone, which was in its building style and design language basically just Space with propellers and flippers instead of rocket motors and metal detectors. Then Rock Raiders was, officially, about space miners on a distant planet, but since they were underground we only saw their mining equipment instead of their spaceship itself. The first Alpha Team line had a Moonraker-style spaceship, and even if subsequent Alpha Team and Agents lines haven't had vehicles labeled as spaceships they've sure had a lot of fantastic zippy flying machines. Same with Exo-Force, Nexo Knights, Ninjago...the only real difference between something like the Lightning Jet from the Ninjago Movie, or the Rumble Blade from Nexo Knights, and a SPACESHIP!!! (as Benny would say) is that the box art doesn't feature a black sky and desolate alien terrain, and there's no breathing equipment to help the pilots when they bail out. As I see it, it's not so much that TLG has stopped making Space themes as it is that TLG has diversified its approach to sci-fi well beyond simple Star Trek-style concepts of boldly going where no one has gone before, and fighting some aliens along the way. That doesn't necessarily mean that TLG has given up on Space, just that Space isn't the only sci-fi kind of theme it's willing to make anymore. OK, that's enough off-topic commentary. Better not reply to this in this thread - use the one I linked to instead. I just don't know enough to say anything helpful about Galaxy Squad in this thread that I haven't said already, and I've already said my piece in the other thread.

Hi, welcome to Eurobricks! As you've seen for yourself, there aren't a lot of Star Trek MOCs out there and there are even fewer high-quality large ones. As you've said, TLG doesn't have the rights to make them, and of course that lack of a license makes it less inviting for AFOLs to build their own. However, one reason (aside from fan preferences and license disparities) that you don't see a lot of good Star Trek MOCs, whether large or small, is that Star Trek ships (especially Federation ships) depend on smooth curves a lot more than Star Wars ships, which are mostly blocky and angular. It can be really hard to build a nice smooth circular or oval Federation starship saucer section in Lego on a large scale without making it look pixelated and flat. Also, Star Trek ships use struts to hold major structural components more often than Star Wars ships, which are mostly single modules. It can be really hard to get a sturdy load-bearing strut on a large scale, and equally hard on a small scale - plus, on a small scale, the linkages and proportions are harder to master, too. I've never tried. That said, there are quite a few good Star Trek MOCs out there! Most of them are shuttlecraft, because those can be blocky, angular single modules, but there are a few good starships, too. The Mega Construx Enterprise is an amazing build, apart from a few large specialized parts used for finish detail and the single-piece warp nacelle struts. A nice 100% Lego Enterprise was recently posted in this thread - you could ask @BrickMonkeyMOCs for a list of the builds he consulted for inspiration when designing his model. I don't recall seeing any "bad guy" Star Trek starships recently, though.

Thanks for that link. It's kind of a one stop shop for inspiration as I keep plugging away at my Galaxy Explorer redux. I may end up borrowing some of the ideas for the rock work, but I'm pretty much done with the ship and base, except for the physical build. Back on topic, my favorite MOC genres to see are detailed minifig-compatible scale models of aircraft, ships, "real space," and Star Wars vehicles, plus Classic Space builds with clean lines. My favorite genres to build, though I haven't built much so far, are spacecraft inspired by real space and Classic Space (I don't have the patience to do a scale model of a pre-existing subject).

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.