danth

It's not that exaggerated. Most people when they say "theme" are talking about minifig themes, like the original Space, Town, and Castle were. All we have left for those is City, Ninjago, and Dreamzzz. At least I assume Monkie Kid is dead. Friends isn't a minifig theme, it's a minidoll theme. Creator isn't a minifig theme, since many (most?) Creator sets don't include minifigs, and since Creator sets don't follow a theme in the literal sense. I guess there's the Modular Buildings but those are effectively deluxe City sets and there's only one a year. So, saying two unlicensed (minifig) themes wasn't really that hyperbolic if the actual number is three.

Hopefully we'll get a blue Space minifig, and the remaining parts for the light gray one, in the Build, Paint, and Play GWP. Which is supposed to happen some time this year. But it ain't Lego IDEAS if they don't make the actual release a huge downgrade, so we'll see.

Damn, they even lost DuckBricks? That's bad. Although he still bought 3 copies of each set...

Licensed sets don't sell. Especially Star Wars. They're just not popular with kids. You know how I know this? I was at Target this past weekend, and basically every 2025 Star Wars, Marvel, and Harry Potter set was on sale. I guess kids just don't like those sets. Especially Star Wars. (And anyone who's familiar with my post history knows I'm being facetious and poking fun of people who say some variation of "X sets must not sell because I saw them on sale once". I see those posts ALL THE TIME. And it's NEVER licensed sets they say this about, because they apparently have very "selective" vision).

I'm not familiar with the source material, but this spaceship is super cool. https://beta.ideas.lego.com/product-ideas/4e6e1549-a555-4a1e-9862-1f0c7697f35b

Giant Space Lego sets at Legoland Florida:

I was trying to buy parts for a MOC on Bricklink recently, and when I tried to manually select which shops, I couldn't check out due to the "average lot" requirement in some shops. That was super annoying. I already spent the time to pick the shops and confirm prices were okay, and then didn't hit the unmet requirement until I went to check out. I didn't even know about "average lot" requirements until then. It might be better if there was just an earlier warning that a store selection will have unmet requirements. Luckily, the auto-store select actually worked perfectly -- it avoided the expensive stores AND any unmet requirements. Did they improve the algorithm recently? Because I swear it didn't work as well before. But anyway. I'm not convinced that the "average lot" minimum is conducive to what Bricklink is all about. Because the solution, for me, was to not use those stores. If everyone had "average lot" requirements, very, very few people would use Bricklink. The whole point of Bricklink is to buy the bricks you want, and if a store doesn't let you do that, seriously, what is the point? I'd much rather just pay a service fee, or pay higher per-piece prices. Like, whatever the cost is to get the parts I need, just charge me that. Don't make me jump through weird hoops that only serve the seller. Like, I'm paying you to go find me the exact pieces I need, so don't tell me no -- do it and charge me what makes it worth it to you. It's why I go to hardware stores that sell loose bulk nails instead of Home Depot. I'd rather pay $1 for the 5 nails I need than $5 for the box of 100 I will never use.

Thanks!

Dumb question. Can anyone point me to the "parts list" that bricklink designers are allowed to use in their builds? Is there one?

Thanks, I checked out the Brickset review and the video by AustrianBrickFan. I guess the product description about hidden rockets in the helmet was just totally wrong? Or am I missing something? I remember building the leg joints in 40649; I couldn't believe they were using a single cross axle to support the weight of an entire huge leg! The use of large click joints seems like a good idea. I was sort of hoping for some hidden gimmick. Imagine how cool it would be if the interior was all light bluish gray with some trans yellow bricks/panels thrown in just for the alt build potential.

I missed that. Right above that it says "plus a mini robot and rocket hidden inside its helmet" so who knows. It's probably just the one?

This from the description of the Upscaled Blue Astronaut on Lego.com: I wonder what the hidden rocket looks like. I suspected some gimmick when I saw the trans red bits on the airtanks.

I'll be damned. Who is he? Do I kneel?

Oh, a sticker would be a hard pass for me. With no minifig, that beautiful Space print is the prized piece of the set.

One other thing: I don't think all the parts for the upscaled astronaut are going to be available in all colors anyway. So the reality is, clear backed stickers are never going to solve all your problems. Also, how are are you going to get extra stickers? Super last thing: If I wanted to build this in red, I'd still rather have prints than clear-backed stickers. I'd just buy the third party printed pieces that will surely be available.

Thanks for taking the time to answer! Really puts some perspective on large scale MOCer vs. minifig scale set builder. 👍🏼 Yay! That was part of what I was trying to figure out with my questions. Clear backed stickers would be way more useful. Because almost all Lego stickers are NOT clear-backed, I've often railed against the argument that "stickers are more useful because I can put them on another part," because the shape and backing color dictate what parts you can actually use them on. Most stickers cover an entire brick of a specific shape anyway...and if the sticker color doesn't match the brick color, it's going to look weird. You can cut a sticker down to a smaller size, maybe (if the sticker is large but the actual decoration is small), but you are still limited by the sticker's backing color. Clear backed stickers fix that problem of course. I usually consider it a moot point though, because almost all the Lego stickers I've ever gotten in a set are opaque. Clear backed stickers are going to have all kinds of downsides though -- like seeing every spec of dust, lint, or god forbid pet hair that got underneath them. And I assume worse looking bubbles and thumbprints. And they must be made differently, right? Like plastic instead of paper, and maybe even a different adhesive. I wonder if they are more expensive?

Regardless, the vast majority of printed/stickered pieces are tiles or (curved) slopes of some kind, and these are plentiful pieces that almost always exist unprinted, so you can easily get them if needed. If you're buying sets for MOCs and want undecorated parts you might prefer stickers, but buying sets for a specific MOC doesn't really make a whole lot of sense when Bricklink and PAB exist, and buying sets for general MOCing is always going to give you loads of parts you never use anyway, and you can always buy Classic style sets if you want to avoid decorations. So while the preference for undecorated parts is valid, sets with printed parts is not much of a problem -- just don't buy them. Get your undecorated parts easily in other sets, or by buying them individually. And really the people who "prefer stickers because you can leave them off" don't prefer stickers to prints, they prefer undecorated parts to decorated parts, and don't actually want stickers or prints. People who want decorated parts always prefer prints because...stickers really have no upside if you actually use them. I guess there might be weirdos out there who like thumbprints and bubbles in their decorations and lint and hair stuck around the edges...

I'm inclined to agree with this. It was a glorious time. Hmm, interesting, I like it!

It's great. I think a lot of people were hoping for a minifigure, but the robot is a consolation. https://jaysbrickblog.com/news/lego-upscaled-blue-classic-space-astronaut-minifigure-reveal/

You're preference is totally valid. For designs that are large enough, I prefer them to be brick-built over using either a print or sticker. Or even for some smaller stuff, you can use textured pieces instead of prints/stickers. Like, I'd much rather a set use masonry bricks than some brickwork print. But if you consider prints as "cheating", wouldn't a sticker be even worse "cheating"? A printed brick is still a brick in your "system of bricks", but a sticker isn't. Are you mostly a MOCer? What about prints in a set like this? If someone gifted you this set, would you prefer the printed eyes were stickers instead, so you could leave the creature eyeless? Or would you not care because you'd replace the printed piece with some small tile or something to create your own eye? Or would you not bother with the set at all out of disinterest? What do you think of minifigures? Do they fit into the "system of bricks"? Should they have unprinted faces and torsos? None of these are rhetorical questions. I'm seriously curious.

I totally forgot about this thing: https://brick.news/en/blog/lego-ideas-gwp-2026-build-paint-and-play-minifigure-model-kit-revealed Not news, more of a reminder that cool things are (hopefully) still happening.

You know what's stupid? This thread may have convinced me to buy some of these ridiculous Remix sets. Because they are cheeeap when you look at the price per piece, and the sheer amount of stuff you get. $60 for 874 pieces, three good sized vehicles that all look pretty good, and from what I can, all printed logos! You can just consider the weird modularity a bonus that you can ignore.

I don't like that "It's for kids" is used all the time as an excuse for something being nonsensical. Also...the fact that you can choose not to buy something isn't really a great defense either. Personally I think whether you like these sets has more to do with your appetite for ridiculousness, which I have much more of as an adult than I did as a kid.

Well, sounds like @zeeverse doesn't like the recent City Space offerings, which is fine. Now it seems like we're all arguing semantics, which is boring. And failing to understand each other. I think we've lost Monkie Kid, so this year we have, what, City and Ninjago and Dreamzzz for unlicensed minifig themes? I'd like another, but I doubt we'll get one.