Blondie-Wan

The LEGO Ideas Facebook account just shared the first teaser image! This thing is going to be huge.

I've started using an advent calendar tray for small elements that tend to come in only one or two colors, like Technic pins. I wish now I'd kept the trays from two duplicates I've gotten of two of the calendars, but hadn't really given much thought to their ongoing utility (I do keep at least one box from each Advent Calendar release that I get, but these were duplicate copies).

LEGO can introduce new elements (new molds) in Ideas sets if it chooses to do so. We can't submit projects that require them, that's all. If LEGO decides the best solution for the final set version of an approved Ideas project is a new piece rather than whatever the project creator used, they can go ahead and do that, but we as project creators can't submit projects that explicitly call for new elements. That said, there has never been an element mold that debuted in an Ideas set so far (a couple pieces that appeared in both the Doctor Who Ideas set and the Doctor Who Level Pack for LEGO Dimensions are as close as they've come, but the Level Pack was still released a few weeks before the Ideas set), and I don't think it's likely to ever happen, but it's possible.

I wouldn't expect them to announce the results for this review until after they've posted the final 10K Club interview they're doing with each creator of a project in this batch. This week they posted the second of the twelve, so we have another ten weeks of interviews to go; the results should then be announced sometime after that (so, early June at the earliest, which nicely fits the more general "summer" time).

What LEGO project or set isn't in 3D? I mean, aside from the Life of George models and the mosaics and such, which have bricks in 2D planes (but still use 3D bricks, of course)...

That's all true, but it's also true that they can and do queue approved sets for production, so presumably, they can always approve a set if they really want to and are able to do it, even if they're also approving several others - as long as they're willing and able to approve a set that they won't be able to release for a long while. There have been four different reviews in which they approved two different projects. There has also been one batch from which three different projects were ultimately approved (albeit in two different reviews, as the batch with the Birds sculpture, The Big Bang Theory, two Doctor Who projects, the modular Apple Store, and the Back to the Future Time Train had those first two projects - Birds and TBBT - approved right away while the two Doctor Who projects were held for further review, and then one of them was approved in the next review, alongside WALL•E from the following batch). I admit I half-wonder whether the fact Women of NASA is the only project approved in the last review (that is, not why it was approved, but why no others were approved with it) is because it's fairly small and easy to slip into the production queue, while most of the other projects are quite a bit larger. They're already about to release the two largest Ideas sets ever, back-to-back (we don't have a piece count for the Apollo 11 Saturn V, but in terms of sheer physical size it's apparently going to be taller than even the freaking Disney Castle, while a comment from one of the Ideas team members indicates the Old Fishing Store will have over 1500 pieces, as the original project surely did). OTOH, not only are those two monsters coming up, but they're also still considering the Voltron project, which would be another rather large one. So, who knows (besides LEGO's team, of course)...

That's fair. Of course, I don't think anyone is saying they expect this one LEGO set to magically correct all such disparity. It's a small step, but still a step nonetheless - more of one than everything else staying the same but this one set not coming out would be. Distribution is probably a function in part of (limited) production resources allocated for Ideas sets before they're even approved. It does at least seem to be improving, though, as the last few Ideas sets have been easier to find in stores than the earlier ones in general (though the ones based on licensed pop-culture entertainment properties have also been more available than the others). They do indeed, and in fact have been doing so, AFAICT. I've noticed the last few years' worth of City sets feature more women in roles like cops (and criminals, even!), firefighters, astronauts, etc. than in years past. Outside City, though, there seems not to have been much progress in the other minifigures-based themes, though they do obviously now have the minidolls, which are more overtly targeted at girls, and in which themes women are far more represented than men.

Indeed I do. And while it won't be a perfect 1:1 match, and not every single person who supported it on Ideas will buy it, they'll be made up for by the people who didn't support it but will still buy it. I will say I have total confidence that LEGO will easily be able to sell more copies of this than there are people who supported it (10,000). And why not? What do you think makes it sooo unlikely that this particular set won't sell to the people who supported it? I happen to know of people who both supported this set and fully intend to acquire it (myself included). There's nothing about feminism that would preclude someone from having an interest in both it and in LEGO, just like there isn't anything about an interest in cars, Star Wars, or any of a zillion other things that precludes someone from having an interest in LEGO. You know how ridiculous it would sound if you said "those who voted for this don't care much bout Lego, more about cars" as a reason to blow off a car-related Ideas set (for example)? Well, it's just as ridiculous when you say it about feminism. Besides, the set is about more than just feminism. It's also about science and space - you know, those subjects people care so little about that they make up the subject matter of only about a third or so of all LEGO CUUSOO / Ideas sets approved to date, including this one. LEGO's review board analyzes each Ideas project that makes it to review on a variety of criteria, including the business case - "will it sell?", to put it simply. They have all sorts of data on the support this project garnered - not just how (amazingly) quickly it got to 10,000, but also poll data on who supported it, whether they're really inclined to buy it, and so on. They also have the sales data from this set's nearest analogues in the line - the Research Institute, of course, but also Curiosity, Hayabusa, etc. They had access to all the same information you and I have, and far more, and they decided to go ahead and give this project the thumbs-up. Hmmm. It's about addressing a lack of representation in other sets (as well as the larger, non-LEGO world). Despite the real achievements of these real women, and occasional high-profile portrayals like Hidden Figures, women aren't really shown as scientists, engineers, explorers, etc. nearly as often as men in toys, media, or just about anywhere else. Even LEGO itself has far more male characters than female ones in most of its sets. This set will simply make up a very small bit of that gap (which will still be huge). And women and their accomplishments are just not viewed the same way as men and men's are. If this had been a "Men of NASA" set, do you suppose you or anyone else would be making the same outcry? Why is that?

Hmmm. LEGO does seem to do a fair number of Volkswagen sets already. I wonder whether that will hurt or help the Golf's chances.

Yeah, it sure is weird that they'd approve a project that carries both educational value and a positive message, garnered national attention not only in LEGO-related circles but also beyond them (getting people who normally don't pay attention to LEGO to do so), got fully supported in barely over two weeks, and is easily produced. You'd think they'd want to approve only unpopular projects that only just barely make it 10k in two years and two months, appeal to only a tiny corner of a niche of a subset of people who already spend all their money on LEGO anyway, require years of complex development to produce colossal sets with thousands upon thousands of bricks, and actively encourage children to smoke.

Ah. I'm on the mobile version of the site at the moment and don't see signatures. Let me switch over... :: switches :: ... aaaaaand switched. Ah, I see two projects based on The Flash. I will check them out!

What's your project?

The new UCS Snowspeeder looks fantastic (stickers notwithstanding), and I'd love to have one, but I'm disappointed it's not a new UCS Millennium Falcon. But I gather that's still rumored for the fall set?

Well, despite featuring kids, it's not exactly the most kid-friendly of shows; I wouldn't expect them to accept any projects based on the series (though then again, I never would've thought they'd do Gremlins, The Simpsons, or The Big Bang Theory either, so so much for what I know). Generally speaking, I think LEGO will consider pop-culture projects only if they fall into the G-to-PG-13 range, content-wise. Stranger Things obviously doesn't have an MPAA rating since it's a TV show rather than a movie, but if it were cinema and not television I think there's a strong chance it'd get an R.

Not minifigures, just figures generally (whether minifigures, microfigures, nanofigures, DUPLO figures, brick-built figures, minidolls, constraction figures, whatever). Those sets all feature figures of exclusively male characters. My point was merely that even with these two women-only sets (Research Institute and now Women of NASA), sets featuring exclusively female figures are still dramatically outnumbered by sets featuring exclusively male figures. That's true if we limit it to minifigure-scale sets, but even more so if we consider all other Ideas sets as well. BTW, even if we stick to just sets with minifigures, it's still not just BTTF, Ghostbusters, and Yellow Submarine. Hayabusa (the second CUUSOO set ever) also features a solitary male minifigure, Junichiro Kawaguchi (albeit made entirely using existing minifigure elements, with no new prints).

Indeed, Women of NASA will be the second such product, after the Research Institute. I believe there have also already been six all-male CUUSOO / Ideas ones (Hayabusa, Minecraft, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, WALL•E, Yellow Submarine), and the Apollo 11 Saturn V will presumably be a seventh, of course.

I don't see them doing that. It's already been announced as coming this summer. It would also be a disservice to the project creator, who surely doesn't want to have to wait a couple extra years for the set. If they were willing to delay a set for two years to hit a nice round "X decades" anniversary, they might have chosen first to do it with the Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine, which was released in 2013, two years before the original movie's 30th anniversary, but they didn't.

Well, I will grant you present a reasonable argument for including one of those others in Mae Jemison's place; all those women would be worthy inclusions. That said, that doesn't invalidate the accomplishments of Jemison, who was no mere "passenger" but a mission specialist and an M.D. She's an extremely accomplished individual in her own right, and the "accident of birth" to which you allude does matter, however much one might not want it to. Representation is a pretty big reason for this whole set's existence, and Jemison's presence in it adds to that value - possibly not for you, but surely for the thousands of people who want the set and actually intend to buy it (not to mention boosting its value from a LEGO parts perspective, more so than most of the others would). (And again, we don't know for sure yet which women will actually make it into the final set. It's even possible Eileen Collins will be there.) If you really think there should be a different selection, you can always suggest it to the project creator; she should be easy enough to reach.

There's more than one color here, and the women chosen are still deserving. Five minifigures is already pushing it for a non-licensed Ideas set, as indicated by TLG's guidelines, so it's entirely reasonable that the creator set the number at that many, as more might have hurt the project's chances in review. And the figures she chose fill a variety of roles, most of them not astronauts. Yes, Eileen Collins would absolutely have been another excellent choice, but more deserving than the others here? Which one(s) do you deem less worthy, and why? And as has repeatedly been noted, we don't even know for sure yet that Collins won't be in the final set. Sure, I assume the roster will remain the same, but that's not even definite yet.

I'd be happy to have any classic "adventure"-type theme back, whether with Johnny, Jake, or Indy. Fortunately, I think we're likely to at least get that latter, licensed adventurer back when the next movie comes in a couple years, and I can't quite believe LEGO is completely done with its own in-house adventure themes forever, either.

(emphasis added to point I wanted to make) Agreed. But until that happens, there's a need for sets like this. At the moment, portrayals of girls and women are still heavily outnumbered by portrayals of boys and men in LEGO sets (and the broader culture) in general. Minifigures of real-life women are particularly rare, much more so than ones of real-life men. That sounds good, but does ignore the way the deck is stacked against women. There's a lot of deeply ingrained, systemic sexism that works against the approach you describe working to fully correct everything. There's still plenty of grounds for sets like this, given the massive number of sets going the other way (with mostly or exclusively men).

The idea is to have representation. LEGO cannot produce a set with every single woman who has ever worked for NASA; they are not going to produce a set - any set, in any theme - with several thousand minifigures. Even if they were inclined to do so, that would be fundamentally different from the Ideas project that people supported. They cannot approve a project with five minifigures and perhaps a couple hundred pieces whose supporters reasonably expected to buy for somewhere between $30 and $50, change it into the largest and most expensive set in history, and reasonably expect those supporters to pay tens of thousands of dollars for it. So... why this particular selection? I believe the creator touches on that in her project's description and updates. If you want more detail you'll have to ask her, but I think it's safe to say each was chosen for some particularly noteworthy accomplishment. Mind you, while the final set will obviously not have thousands upon thousands of minifigures, it's entirely possible there might be five different women chosen for the set from those presented in the project, although the project is probably a good indicator of who we'll see. I never said I was, and you're inaccurately summarizing my arguments. But I am every bit as entitled to criticize those critics' criticisms as they are to make them in the first place, just as you're free to criticize my own criticisms of their criticisms. And I, in turn, am free to criticize your criticisms of my criticisms of their criticisms. We can do this all day. That said, I just have a very hard time taking seriously those critics whose arguments against this set appear boil down to not wanting a set devoted to women of NASA, when women are so grossly underrepresented in most LEGO sets in general, and especially in STEM roles. I don't see those same critics complaining every time LEGO releases a set containing minifigures of men only, or one in which most or all of the scientists, explorers, engineers, programmers and discoverers are men, or one with minifigure representations of real-life men but not of real-life women. Why, then, are they so upset when one measly set with a handful of real-life inspirational women gets approved?

See, I'd argue that at least the paleontologist vignette in Research Institute is at least as clever a build as the living room in The Big Bang Theory. It's smaller, of course, but that doesn't make it a less interesting or satisfying build. Different strokes, and all that. It's certainly true Research Institute wouldn't be nearly as interesting without the minifigures, but the same is true for The Big Bang Theory (and, to a lesser extent, virtually all the CUUSOO / Ideas sets that have minifigures - or virtually all sets with minifigures, for that matter). I think we can safely assume there'd be far less interest in the The Big Bang Theory set if it didn't have the minifigures, only the living room. WALL•E isn't a celebration of science in the same way as the Saturn V, though. And if it were, it would just strengthen my point even more about how much science is an area of particular interest to Ideas users. The project itself isn't divisive; if anything, it seeks to invite more women and girls into interests from which they've traditionally been marginalized and excluded. The fact some people object to the idea of sets themed around women in science isn't the fault of the set or its designer, but of those objectors. I don't know what you mean by "some forms of contemporary feminism", but feminism in general is widely, widely misunderstood to mean things it actually doesn't. There shouldn't be any reason to object to the set; it's not as though it promotes anything negative. And it's hard to see objecting to a set of accomplished women as anything other than rejecting women's accomplishments. As far as the rest of it goes, everything we know about LEGO Ideas strongly indicates they evaluates each project individually. There is simply no reason to think a different project from the batch would have been approved if this one hadn't been, and extensive reason to think the others that were declined would still have been declined whether this project were even around or not. Most of them were huge, for one thing. Several of them also involve licenses. At least one of the latter, the Spaceballs project, is widely thought to involve license issues that make it extremely difficult for anyone to do merchandise from it, under any circumstances. We are also already getting two very large Ideas sets this year, both of them larger than any other Ideas set to date; there simply may not be room in LEGO's limited production capacity for more huge sets in the near future. Women of NASA is small and super-easy to do, and doesn't have the same license issues as most of the other licensed projects (though it may have some), and on top of that it is an extremely popular project that got massive coverage and got its support faster than just about everything else in the batch (note that the Voltron project, which is still under review, was also an extremely fast vote-getter). There is simply no good reason not to do this set (people who are upset at seeing minifigures of women are not what I'd call a good reason). Same here. Honestly, I'd love it if they approved even more science projects than they already do, though my wallet surely wouldn't.

Agreed, but there's nothing in the Ideas platform that disallows that. They just don't want a project that's only minifigures, or close to it - as in, what one might get out of three or four or five so-called "CMF" packets. It's not as though either the Female Minifigure Set / Research Institute or Women of NASA is the smallest or most minifigure-focused set they've ever considered. Remember the Daft Punk project from a while ago? That one had a mere 40 or 50 pieces, 8 or 10 of which were for the two minifigures, and the remaining ones made for a much smaller build than the combined vignettes of Research Institute (or Women of NASA). Even so, that Daft Punk project was still officially considered, unlike the Star Wars Dark Bucket project, which was archived before ever officially making it to review. Apparently, the threshold for what constitutes a sufficiently "substantial build" as opposed to a minifigure-only pack is simply pretty low. Perhaps all the Dark Bucket needed to make it to review was a handful of little brick-built weapons racks or speeder bikes thrown in.

At first, yes (Female Minifigure Set was the project name). It also allowed for a much greater range of professions beyond scientists. While it was still gathering supports, LEGO suggested she narrow the focus more to make it more of a cohesive set than a bunch of wholly unrelated vignettes, and being a scientist herself she elected to focus on the three scientists that had always been at the core. When she did, that allowed for it to be viewed as an interdisciplinary research institute rather than a collection of unrelated professional women, and that's how it was offered in final set form. However, it was always more than just the three minifigures, even though they're obviously the core focus of the set. The set has a total official piece count of 165, of which the three minifigures account for 12 parts, or fewer than 8% of the set by piece count. More than a few of the set's enthusiasts expressed particular admiration for the economical, clever build of the dinosaur skeleton - an arguably more creative build than anything in the set for The Big Bang Theory, actually, which I assume was the set you meant by "good enough to be passed as a normal Ideas set".