JesseNight

I guess that's the exact problem I've been running up against. I need more figures for my 80s and early 90s space themes and I guess some are just too unique to their specific themes. And yes next to the cheap prices of common bricks, I consider a few Eur/Usd per minifig a lot when needing a good amount. The more rare colors of course get even crazier. I don't mind some minimal wear, to me that adds to realism of a scene. But of course icons on a torso do need to be recognizable as such.

Very nice build, love the portal and how you mixed those different color shades in the scene.

I actually remember I had some small rowboats from the Pirate theme that were red, but the oars were definitely brown. Guess the rowboat must have existed in more colors. Really? Because flowers and trees were included with so many things in about every theme. Except Space, probably Here's another unpopular opinion following up the minifigs & minidolls discussion: I kinda hate minifigs, and I always have. As a kid, the bad proportions always annoyed the hell outta me. And nowadays I hate them for being way too expensive for what they really are (older figs from late 80s and early 90s themes).

People don't like change enforced upon them, especially if it's changing something that was good as it was. It takes getting used to, and many always seem to jump the gun when such things are announced. Fleshies had much more going on than being just a change. How long in human life have differences in skin color been at the base of conflict? Personally I never liked the old yellow heads, despite it being the norm at my peak of my active Lego years in the mid to late 1980s. I really like the fleshies, but with the different skintones I gotta pay attention to keeping heads and hands sorted per color, and pay attention to chest pieces with an open collar that show some skin. I do. Brown was barely even used in my prime days, it was just coming up with the first barrels, treasure chests, tree trunks, and pirate ship hulls. Same with green, just baseplates, flower stems, and trees. There were only 6 building colors in those days. And still I'd never have enough of any of them for bigger projects Friends focusses way more on the fun parts of life. Playgrounds, vacation homes, party settings, leisure activities. City/Town seems to focus more on daily life stuff like various work environments, various emergency services, some racing, and trains. I think Friends has a more laid back fun coverage for sure. I don't know how it is nowadays with kids, but in my time the Friends themes would probably have appealed mostly to girls (majority of Friends figures are girls too), where City/Town would attract more boys.

Correct, the GT-86 was the first generations here in EU. And the newer generation was dubbed the GR-86. This looks clearly more like a GT-86 to me. (and if we wanna go all the way on the model numbers, the FT-86 was the concept car)

Totally agree, however I settled for just the Galaxy Explorer in that lineup, found the other 2 rather expensive already. I won't deny that they offer a lot for the money, just wasn't a good time to be spending that much. Sadly they're only gonna get more expensive. Then again I need space for other things too at home. I like setting up something bigger than a single ship or building and since Space always was my favorite theme, I'm going for 80s Space all the way, maybe extending somewhat into the early 90s. Blacktron 1 (Galaxy) Explorer is getting close to realization, happy with most of the digital design and parts appear to be available and affordable. TBC! Dropped the plan for a mothership size Galaxy Explorer version for now (too expensive and too big for my current space). As for Star Wars... I like the franchise but in Lego it just doesn't appeal to me. I'd be more tempted to go for highly detailed models for something like that (if at all).

SP1 and BT1 are my absolute favorites, both ships and minifigs. I love the BT2 colors too, but it didn't feel right for them to carry the name "Blacktron" imho. Had it been another working/mining/science division in between M-Tron and Ice Planet, it would have worked a lot better for me.

To people of our generations and older perhaps. Don't forget the development and marketing required on in-house themes costs effort and money too. And they take a risk. If people end up not liking it, the investment is lost. With licensed themes, they already know in advance whether it's liked or not. Maybe the money investment costs a bit more, but the income is pretty much guaranteed as long as the execution isn't messed up. As for recycled movies... yeah I hate that too. But again, it seems to work on the masses. Besides, hasn't that always been a thing? Didn't we watch "new movies" in the 90s that our parents told us were remakes already? Of course this knowledge about past movies was a lot less in our faces in the pre-internet days It's probably getting harder to keep fans. Old school fans may not have an interest in newer themes and licensed franchises, younger fans may lose interest fast in playing with actual physical bricks irl. (but props to parents who keep encouraging this instead of just putting a smartphone or tablet in the hands of their 3 years old)

Good points. The mid 80s wheel change was also about getting rid of the fixed metal axle and switching to those plastic clipped on wheels, in combination with a lot of Town vehicle maintenance/repair releases following (garages, roadside assistance vehicles). (I can imagine this also taking care of possible rust problems when parts would get wet from playing outdoors)

Let's not forget that this is a thread with "unpopular opinions" rather than complaints, therefore disagreements are to be expected I understand both sides here, I've been in both camps. I generally prefer printed parts for sure, but it has happened to me as a kid that I was annoyed about having some silly print on a part that I really wished having bare to use in a completely different setting. And this was in the 80s, so not a time to just order a missing piece on BL yet. The point of stickers in this example is obviously about having a choice whether or not to use it.

That's what I remember them from too: windmills and larger scale helicopter blades (probably Ideas Books content). Weren't they like belt driven in windmill builds? [Edit] Yeah they were with the universal 4.5V kit, that contained the belt as well as those wheels with the metal pin in them. That pin was to plug it directly into the motor unit: While we're going about studs on wheels... I've been wondering the same thing since childhood about this one: These classic Town (early 80s) minifig car wheels were stuck on a metal axis as far as I could tell, giving them hardly any other possible purpose. And they got this 1 stud right in the middle.

The baby scale never appealed to me, and I wanna keep everything in the same scale. I love the GE too. I still consider getting some more since I've seen some awesome bigger builds of it (but space at home might become an issue), and a Blacktron version would be very possible too with the same canopies and the new Renegade's computer tiles. I'd love to see a remake of the Space Police Mission Commander. I loved that ship (but never owned it), and I loved the SP1 color theme. It had some unique functionality with the buggy riding out the front, but that can be done a lot better nowadays (maybe even using some Technic) without wasting as much space, creating passenger space for more officers and/or a mission control center in the middle. @SpacePolice89 I remember that SP1 monorail train from the Ideas Book, I just wasn't a fan. I tend to be very strict on using the right colors for factions and a white motor car in a SP1 train just bugs the hell outta me. Odd they didn't at least use the black battery box from the SP1 Striker. Thought of a prisoner transport train but the universal cells are too big for my taste. Maybe an M-Tron transport for workers and tools. I agree with the GE and Renegade being among the best sets during the last years. Can't say I feel that way about the cruiser, I'm finding the old one superior.

@SpacePolice89 Interesting what you say about the cables... Because the cable on your picture isn't the original cable of that set already either. The 6990 first Monorail was the only set with cable part 5306ac015 where the 2x2 connectors were only 1/3th brick thick. Every other set using this system got the newer cable 5306bc015 with 2/3th thick connectors that I see on your picture. I'm going black & white on the Monorail train but I suppose it can be done all black as well. I just really love the taller canopies from M-Tron and Space Police, that's why I decided on the Blacktron II color scheme. That also made complete coverage of the white motor car less mandatory (but in the end I still succeeded in covering it decently well). I wanted to stick as close as possible to the original train model, aside from a slightly elevated studless roof (which allows me to hide the cable and power button), and the longer front end because of the canopy, as well as the taller side windows that exist in neon green. Luckily the battery box exists in black from the Space Police ship that had the 9V flashlights.

I'm in the middle of building the tuxedo cat right now after getting it for Christmas. When I'm done, probably gonna build it in Stud.io to make a parts list for an all black version, so it looks like my own cat. Got some 3D printed whiskers to go with it too. (on a side note, kinda wish the cheerful cat from the December Lego ads was for sale too) Also trying to do some more serious modding to the Icons Delorean, and some subtle details to the Icons ECTO-1. @SpacePolice89Did you do any modding to the monorail set or keeping it as is? It's one of my favorites too now and I was lucky to get it as a kid (considering how expensive it was). Ironically I didn't appreciate it as much back then, because I was really interested in the bigger spaceships at the time (still wanna do that mod I did in Stud.io to build it with the taller canopies, probably in BT2 color scheme)

Vouchers and insider points seems to be how they solve every issue. That way it probably costs them nothing at all, seeing how the official Lego store prices are usually much higher than third party toy stores. I haven't had much issues (yet) but I know plenty people who did and I'm having very mixed feelings about their idea of "solutions".

Oh about that, I've learned my lesson the hard way before. Not specifically with PAB but just with ordering online for birthdays or Christmas time. Nowadays I try to always have a backup plan.

To be honest, I don't mind if an order takes some time. But I would appreciate more open communication about order status and possible delays. This is why I generally prefer dealing with (good rep) BL stores over ordering at PAB, unless the price is an issue of course.

It seems to be very different per country, how people experience CS (not just Lego but many large multinational businesses). So far I have very good experiences (in Belgium)

I haven't been inside any of these cars but they tend to have relatively small steering wheels. Whether the scale is accurate I don't know, I think Lego just stuck to the steering wheel that's worked for all of these large models. True that a lot more requires changing. If you just go to the McLaren P1 page on Lego.com and scroll a little down, there's this side view you can slide between the real car and the Lego one. That's where it really shows how much too large the Lego version wheels and wheel arches really are. Whether there's a reason they went with this or they just got stuck in the design, I have no clue.

I am honestly flabbergasted... First that they didn't have or use the saved file of the last good design and just add the missing letter. Second that there is apparently no quality control at all anymore for this to happen twice in a row. QC is seriously an issue everywhere nowadays, not just Lego. I'm seriously starting to believe that the first wave of buyers is the quality control of new products nowadays. Not even talking about the amounts of errors in instruction manuals of expensive sets in some periods in the last years. At least they do still make an effort to give people a "fixed" one (after a few attempts lol).

For real? You'd think after 1 serious error they'd read it an extra time before printing... What are the errors on the new sheet?

That's a good question. Definitely not a scale issue since the real cars (Bugatti Chiron, Lamborghini Sían, Ferrari Daytona SP3) have the same wheel size with only some difference in width. The McLaren P1 actually has a smaller wheel size than the previous. Maybe just a design choice to make it overall look better? I can imagine the wheel arches being hard to get perfect on scale, perhaps they wanted to fill them better so it wouldn't look off? Or maybe they realized a bit late that older wheels were too small? Or maybe they just wanna feed into people's "bigger is better" attitude with newer models? Just wild guesses really...

Didn't know about the Interceptor either. Imagine if they'd release the same ship twice, with different box and minifigs If I think about ships I'd like to see... I would definitely love to see a Klingon Bird of Prey, or a Romulan Warbird (but that one might be a challenging design). Would honestly love to see the Voyager ship too. I really love the design of the Maquis Raider, but that one has so few appearances that I'm not counting on it.

Even within one ship, there's already noteworthy locations to create sets of various sizes. Who wouldn't want the bridge, for starters? Saw the transporter room mentioned more than once. How about Ten Forward? Med bay with crew? DS9 promenade perhaps? I wouldn't mind honestly. But I worry about the scale. It bothers me when the scale isn't accurate, therefore a classic Enterprise or a Voyager that's the same size in Lego as the Enterprise-D wouldn't make sense, considering how much bigger the Galaxy class really was. But sadly, keeping size accurate would seriously limit any future releases...

I don't know better than not having numbered bags with pre-sorted stuff from my young Lego days. Back then, the bags were still sorted but in a different way. Bricks together, plates, small tiles and lights, Technic axles and bushes. That's the same system I would still use when building a bigger project. Sort out the parts per type and color somewhat. Take your time sorting and make sure to have some space available, and a safe way to keep the small parts together. Don't see it as a chore, because the building experience after will be a lot easier.