danth

I like these picks. Everyone loves Rock Raiders. People have made some amazing brick-built windscreen cages for these in recent MOCs. So it's not like those parts would even need bringing back. Ice Planet is a perfect choice. Hopefully trans-neon orange was put on temporary hiatus for some technical reason and will be back soon. If it was supposed to be permanently retired, even better: simply fire the person responsible and bring the color back immediately.

Oh my. That's quite a...something. I see what they were going for. But they could have not gone for it at all, and gone for something you can more easily achieve with Lego. Or used big balloon pieces or technic panels. Hell, a bunch of smaller pieces aligned horizontally would have probably looked really cool. Anything but those cheap vinyl sheets.

Very cool! I really like that bubble canopy.

I was thinking more along the lines of Ninjago dragons or the Avatar flying beasts. For minifigs I would prefer something like the Galaxy Squad bug wings or the CMF fairy wings over flexible vinyl.

I'm more pumped for these sets than any Lego set in a long time: I just see cool clean designs, no stickers (hopefully), neat colored windscreens, fun combiner gimmicks, nice generic racer minifigs. Ugh. So good.

I don't really love fabric sails either! I prefer brick built on a personal level but I can understand why people want fabric -- the original Pirates sets had fabric sails so they will always feel more authentic to Pirate fans. I also prefer plastic minifig capes to cloth or vinyl capes. Hell I don't even like rubber bands in sets. The brick built dragon wings I've seen don't seem particularly thick and generally look cooler anyway IMO. The frames that hold the vinyl wings don't seem particularly thin either. The balls they use to hold on the vinyl wings are an eyesore and increase the thickness too (only in a few spots of course). I get what you're saying but I don't think I've ever seen the vinyl wings achieve a better wing look than brick built. I just want to play with Lego pieces and vinyl wings don't feel like Lego pieces to me. Apologies if vinyl isn't technically the correct material.

Vinyl wings suck. (Or whatever those thin plastic sheets are). Lego sets should be made out of Lego pieces.

Official list updated!

Star Wars looks better in Space colors! Nice. I like the use of the large trans neon green panels.

Wow, that minifig scale Delorean beats the pants off the official one. Plus, what everyone else said. Awesome lighting, nice use of the transparent dome, cool digital clock -- wow!

I think the 10497 Galaxy Explorer set might be one of the best of all time. It's a million times better than the original, it has copious prints (including consoles and the Classic Space logo and the LL928 bricks), an entire new wing design created just for it which ended up being perfect, amazing build techniques (the airlock, brick built arrow, and wing edges for example), etc etc. A total love letter to the original. I just cannot complain, personally. I think the three complaints I see most from others are: It's too sleek. Forms of this complaint might be that it's too fighter-jet like, or it doesn't have the double-decker look of the original. It didn't come with any new windscreens. It didn't come with any sort of base or landing pad. I just don't care about #3 at all. We can get a ground base or landing pad as another set. That'd be great. The ship was most important. I echo everything @TeriXeri said about this. I'm actually glad the set was only $100 -- it makes it feel less bad to buy (unlike the Lion Knight Castle), and more fun to buy in multiple. I am sympathetic to complaint #2. I was kind of hoping for new windscreen parts myself. Anything new in trans yellow. A large trans yellow panel could have been especially nice. But I can't hold it against 10497 for having the trans pieces it does. It's not the fault of that set that I already have all those pieces. And I do get #1. I think what the people complaining about that really wanted is some sort of second floor in the back of the ship. I can see the appeal of something like that. I just think "make it more clunky" is a tough sell. Most people want a sleek ship, not the Homer. I know some people do want the Homer... For me though, the steeper angle of 10497's rear backwards windscreen conveys enough of the original's upper hump, especially from the side view. I still want a CLASSIC. SPACE. THEMED. CREATOR. SET. to provide us more transparent yellow pieces. Maybe a base would be one of the builds.

Ohhh yeah, I totally had some of those!

Thanks for the link, super interesting new parts! The plant pieces looks especially good. I like that the big piece looks kinda leafy, kinda feathery, and kinda fiery. Seems versatile. As intended I'm sure.

DUDE, I didn't know those had no stickers! Both sets were on my radar but were giant "maybes". Now they are both "likely" buys, I will definitely pick them up if I see a deal. Thanks! I've made a new list, sets nominated by others. I think I'll update my signature with a direct link to the post. Yeah apparently it's needed because I didn't know about the sets you nominated! And now I want them. Whoa. Now that's an idea. Double-sided prints on bricks. Obviously they do that on minifig faces, but that is a great idea for regular bricks! And definitely helps with the "too many boxes" problem. Nice! 👍 EDIT: Just realized it might be tricky to "hide" the side you aren't using, whereas minifig heads usually have one side covered. Still, I think the idea has legs.

Danth's list of great sets with no stickers: 10497 Galaxy Explorer (Tons of Classic Space prints!) 40567 Forest Hideout 10305 Lion Knights' Castle (Lots of printed shields) 31120-1 Medieval Castle 76254 Baby Rocket's Ship 31109-1 Pirate Ship 71800 Nya’s Water Dragon EVO 75300-1 Imperial TIE Fighter 40649 Upscaled Lego Minifigure (Cool GIANT face print) 60354-1 Mars Spacecraft Exploration Missions (Lots of Mars Space prints!) 60323-1 Stunt Plane (Cool tail fin print) 60383-1 Electric Sports Car (Lots of prints!) 60393-1 4x4 Fire Truck Rescue 60322-1 Race Car (Multiple printed CURVED SLOPES, and 2 minifigs for $10!!!) 60396 Modified Race Cars (trans green & trans pink windscreens) 60395 Combo Race Pack (awesome clean designs, cool modular gimmick) The above list is not exhaustive, but a list of sets I have recently bought/built, and very much like for multiple reasons, only one of which is the lack of stickers. I've added parenthetical info if there happen to be any prints of note. Sets nominated by others: 75347 TIE Bomber (Johnny1360) 75348 Mandalorian Fang Fighter vs TIE Interceptor (Johnny1360) 10297-1 Boutique Hotel (Lion King) 10278-1 Police Station (Lion King) The sets in the above list will hopefully move to my list if/when I buy the sets!

Yep, same. I lived through it too. The changes from M-Tron to Ice Planet, to Spyrius, to Unitron, to Exploriens, and to RoboForce felt "right". Like, "these are all Space". Even if I didn't like some of them that much. However the jump from RoboForce to UFO was jarring. Like, "Whoa, what is this?" Same with Insectoids which was arguably even weirder. I bought RoboForce and Explorien sets at the time but just couldn't bring myself to like UFO or Insectoids.

Thanks @Mylenium for the feedback. Yeah the AI thing sounds like pure hype. Are there other sites out there that have significantly more sealed vintage Lego sets sold than Bricklink or eBay? I feel like I would know if there were. If not, then the points on the BrickEconomy graphs are definitely based on asking prices.

I hate to say it, but BrickEconomy values seem to be totally made up nonsense. Look at its estimate for a new Futuron Monorail 6990. It shows a value of like $3600. It also shows multiple "sales" around that price in 2023 in its graph. However the only places you will even see those sell new are bricklink and ebay. And bricklink has zero new Futuron Monorails sold in 2023. Ebay shows one new Futuron Monorail sold in the 2023, for $1600. Basically, nothing to justify the prices on BrickEconomy. BrickEconomy seems to base its values on asking prices, which mean less than nothing. Brick Economy: Futuron Monorail (notice multiple "sales" in 2023 in the graph) Bricklink Price Guide (notice no sales of new Monorails in the last 6 months) eBay sold items (notice only 1 sale of a new Monorail for only $1691) Am I crazy or is BrickEconomy just using asking prices in its estimates, which are generally inflated nonsense, instead of using actual sale prices?

Thanks! Glad at least 2 people like it! 😁

So I was originally surprised that Deep Freeze Defender was not in the lead, but now it has caught up and surpassed the Blacktron Renegade. It was inevitable. Ice Planet has so many things going for it right now. It's basically the best of the 90s and there hasn't been a 90s throwback Space set yet. The color scheme is undoubtedly one of the best to ever exist, if not the most striking of all time. It's also unique in that it's the only Space theme with a specified environment type. An icy environment inspires all kinds of adventures that might not be possible on a rocky moon. And of course orange. transparent. chainsaw. which is its own internet meme. But seriously that is a cool piece. And speaking of cool pieces, Ice Planet was the first and only theme with specialized visors. The little skis were super cool too. I was thinking about how ripe Ice Planet was for a throwback at exactly the same time trans neon orange was discontinued. Trust me, I have had conspiratorial thoughts about that...but Lego can easily bring a color back. Actually I don't even care if it's easy. I assume the color is just on hiatus while they figure out how to make it cheaper, but if it was supposed to be permanent, that's a stupid mistake and I don't care how much it costs them to correct it.

Very fair statement. I'm sick of all gray spaceships, for sure.

Not saying you couldn't figure something out with other pieces, but it wouldn't be the same.

Yeah, that's the difficulty with making a poll for bases. No monorail + no big panels means the poll would be meaningless. Or I'd have to leave out all the best bases.

It is allowed! I voted for 4 things too. You can even vote for all of them, but that's kind of like voting for none of them. 😁 I like those colors too. I like the idea of white & gray with trans purple windscreens, and teal & gray with trans red windscreens.

I'm not worried about this too much. I'm sure Lego can bring those back just as easily as they took them away. Ice Planet is too good for them not to bring them back.