danth

I don't buy this, like at all. AFOLs are the people buying IDEAS, Creator, Modulars, UCS, and a bunch of the Marvel & Star Wars stuff. Who is buying the new Sandcrawler set for instance? You think kids want a boring brown rover from a 40 year old movie? I doubt it, personally.

Nice! That Ice Inspector is legendary. I don't want to know what those wheels cost to build! I guess I should post the grand-daddy of all Neo Classic Space MOCs, Peter Reid's LL-497: For something more hilarious, this is Dan Rubin's Robot Command Center complete with Classic Space guitar!

According to Bricklink, there have been 3 Castle Creator sets already: https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?catType=S&catString=171.611.9 Not sure if LEGO officially considers these "Creator" sets; maybe they were before the Creator name became official. But they each have multiple builds. And they aren't part of any official Caslte/Kingdom theme either.

We've had Creator space shuttles, robots, dragons, dinosaurs, modern buildings. Basically anything goes at this point, so...why not make one Castle and Space Creator set each year?

The galaxy can always use more space helicopters!

Now that's a nice shape! Kinda sci-fi, kinda WW2.

I'm starting to think our best bet for a non-war based Space theme with good colors is a Minidoll "girl" theme. And as much as I prefer minifigs over minidolls, I'd buy it.

Naugem's Xesh-Wing is an original and way cool design. It reminds me of something but I'm not sure what. Probably something from some anime. This Chibi Millenium Falcon by Stick Kim is super cute!

Everything you said! I really like that alien bug!

This is absolutely insane. And perfect in every way.

The first two are my faves of this group. That Blue Angel is rad! Reminds me of the Conquest X-30 from GI Joe. Now get a load of the MIRC by Adrian Drake. DId someone need a launcher for their Saturn V?

That first one is mind-blowing!

I am in love with this transforming Y-Wing fighter by space_e:

I've been clicking the download icon in Flickr (looks like a down arrow), right clicking on the link for the size I want, copying the link url, and pasting it straight into my posts. It usually auto-converts the image url into an embedded image.

These are my faves of the bunch. That mech is a thing of beauty. I hated the barrel arms on the Exo-Suit because I couldn't unsee them as barrels. But they're perfect on a steam-punk mech.

Wow those are a bunch of great ones! That Atlas mech is huge! I think my favorite mecha is this Classic Space themed mech by Martin Gee: Speaking of Classic Space walkers, I've always loved David Alexander Smith's dino-walkers like this whimsical Space Stegosaurus:

That Wormhole Explorer is amazing. I have the original Allied Avenger and Chris Gidden's remake is way better. Whoa, he's got a lot of wicked stuff! The one you pictured is beautiful. So it's crazy how many of my favorite creations are by the same people. Chris Giddens again did this incredible Galaxy Commander remake which has all the gimmicks of the original, plus bothe front cockpits separate to become their own fighters! And Peter L Morris has an entire photostream full of starfighters he's made. I think the guy must have the world record on number of starfighters created! They're all awesome but this might be my favorite:

It's all sci-fi isn't it? Nice pick on that retro rocket! All of that guy's stuff is awesome!

I thought it would be fun to have a thread just for sharing really awesome MOCs that other people created. I know looking at awesome stuff helps to get me inspired. My first ever Lego Space set was Starfleet Voyager. One really awesome Lego builder, Chris Giddens, created TWO remakes of this set that are both amazing! The first one is here: His more recent one is here: Two of my other favorite MOCs are by Peter Moris as part of his Classic Space Evolved set. This first one is remake of the Twin Starfire, a ridiculous set from the 80s that he made awesome: The other one I really like of his is his radical remake of FX Star Patroller, which is a mashup with the Mospeada Legioss & Tread (also known as the Robotech Alpha and Beta fighters):

So we're going with nihilism now? "We can't know anything, there are no facts, nothing is true or false!" Sounds like a last resort argument of someone who knows the aren't going to win. Look...I've been a kid. A kid who played with Legos and all sorts of toys. I know I played differently when it was generic toys like army men or Lego Space/Castle, vs toys like GI Joe or He Man. And all my friends played the same way. It's obvious, and it's something we've all experienced, and denying it is pretty silly. And if it wasn't true, Lego wouldn't be printing money cranking out the licensed sets. It's easier to play with toys when you have a story. Lego knows that, everyone knows that.

This is exactly what I'm saying. But I'm having a hard time getting people here to acknowledge this pretty basic concept. I'm not even saying an open story is better than an established story, just different...and I can't even get people to concede that.

Doesn't Lego license out the rights to make video games, cartoons, and movies for Ninjago, Nexo Knights, etc? Is that what your bold text is describing? I've watched the toys that made us. So would you say there is no difference with how a kid who has seen Star Wars would play with a classic Spaceman vs how that same kid would play with a Boba Fett minifig?

Well I guess there was confusion because I brought up Nexo Knights, and then you guys brought up Johnny Thunder and Ninjago. Those are both much worse examples of what I'm getting at. So I figured I'd counter with an even stronger example -- Star Wars minifigs -- to make it obvious. Johnny Thunder is almost as generic as a classic theme. However it has named characters with back stories and some mini-comics (with no dialog). So as a theme it has a bit of a defined world, but not much. And of course the minifigs look like anyone out of Indian Jones or The Mummy or other movies. Ninjago, to me, is a licensed theme. Just one where Lego owns the license. The characters and setting, and even the stories, are defined in cartoons and movies. However I do agree that the parts from Ninjago, even main hero/villain minifigs, are generic looking enough to be used in probably any setting with martial arts/ninjas. Now Nexo Knights, yes it's an in-house license like Ninjago, but a bit further on the character-specific/world-specific parts spectrum. Each character really does have his/her own helmet visor. And those visors don't work in medieval times because they have antennas and headlamps and other sci-fi stuff on them. Same with the weapons and shields to some degree. They could totally work in He-man or Thundercats style settings though where magic and technology mix. You guys have made some good points I hadn't considered though: In-house license themes don't have minifig faces that have to look like specific people In-house license themes can intentionally design characters so that minifig parts are more generic/reusable

These are both false equivalencies. Are you really going to pretend that a boonie hat or a ninja minifig is just as reusable within one's own made up world as a Boba Fett helmet or a Storm Trooper minifig? Let's be real here. And let's use an example. This is a Classic Space man: He is generic and archetypal enough to be used for any made-up space man character a kid wants. He can be this guy: He can be this guy: Now let's look at another minifig. The Star Wars Storm Trooper: Instantly recognizable as the Star Wars Storm Trooper. You cannot unsee it. Yes, maybe you can find some creative use of the helmet as the thumb piece of a giant robot or something, or reuse most of the body pieces, but the helmet is going to be really hard to see as anything else than what it is designed as. There are some other Sci Fi worlds you can use this figure in of course. He can be a HALO EOD trooper: Of course the EOD trooper was specifically designed as a Storm Trooper homage so that's close to cheating. So you have HALO, maybe Fallout power armor (although that's also based on the Storm Trooper), and possibly something from Destiny. So the Storm Trooper is kind of reusable in cases where you have something based on the Storm Trooper design already. Now let's take this guy: It's Boba Fett. Almost every part of him is instantly recognizable. It's pretty hard to unsee Boba Fett and pretend he's someone else. Maybe another Mandalorian trooper? Other than the gun and antenna most parts aren't generic enough to reuse and not just see Boba Fett. So, am I saying generic is good and specific is bad? No. Am I saying someone from another planet who has never seen Star Wars cannot make up whatever identities they want for the Storm Trooper or Boba Fett minifigure? No. But I am saying, if you are familiar with Star Wars, there is a difference between playing with a figure like the generic Space Man and a figure like Boba Fett. One is easy to make whoever you want. One encourages you to make your own characters and stories. The other encourages you to play in a world from a movie. If you cannot understand this very basic concept, it's intentional on your part.

I like the idea of retro package and old style sets. The premium price is pretty dumb though. Why? Now if they did this for a Classic Space set with the Legoland banner I would pay that premium. I'd want the old-style helmet though. (Yes Lego can remake a reinforced version; they make tons of new head pieces every year).