Blondie-Wan

I didn't forget WALL•E; I omitted him because although he's a science fiction character, he himself is not a scientist, and doesn't use science in his adventures, thus making him irrelevant to the point I was making. That's why I did cite all those others - they all fit, at least a tiny little bit. Doc Brown is a scientist, and although his time machine winds up being used in a series of very personal adventures for him and Marty McFly in the films, he originally created it as a scientific experiment in its own right as well as a scientific research tool, for study of the past and future. Three of the four Ghostbusters are scientists, who move from pure academic research (however dubious) to commercial enterprise. Six of the seven human characters in Leonard and Sheldon's apartment are scientists and/or engineers. The Doctor travels through time and space, often investigating scientific mysteries. Even Princess Bubblegum is a scientist. You might scoff at my associating all this with real science, but remember, I was presenting all this in terms of the sets' appeal, and I think it's no great leap of logic to think there's a connection and a certain measure of overlap between those people who create, support and buy LEGO Ideas sets based on real-world, honest-to-goodness scientific endeavors, and those who create, support and buy sets based on pop-culture portrayals of science and scientists, even when not based in reality. Lots of people who like one like the other, and one can see this on the site in the sorts of projects they create and support. Note that Alatariel, the only Ideas member to have successfully gotten more than one set produced so far, has done one "real" science set (the Research Institute) and one of the very same pop-culture sets described here (The Big Bang Theory), and also happens to be an actual scientist herself. My point is that the sets based on Back to the Future, The Big Bang Theory, etc., while not portraying actual science in the same way as Hayabusa, the Research Institute, etc., do share much of the same appeal to overlapping audiences. That's why I brought them up. What Aanchir said may not be everything about these sets that is true, but that's not the same thing as saying that what he said isn't entirely true. What specific part of his post do you disagree with? And yes, I am similarly confident that Women of NASA garnered its votes so quickly in part because people like the message it presents and wanted to promote it, but that doesn't negate its appeal as a science set; it merely adds to it. And since the message is an innocuous and positive one, I see nothing to be annoyed by. More importantly, the fact it garnered a lot of interest and support so quickly demonstrates the set's commercial potential, and for the purposes of deciding whether or not to approve the set, it doesn't matter why the project is so popular; it matters only that it is. That's as strong an indicator as LEGO can get that the set has commercial potential, and that (combined with the positive message, the targeting of an audience often overlooked, and the ease with which it can be produced) is why it's a no-brainer for them to approve. It wasn't my intent to condescend at all, but I'm sorry if you interpreted my words that way. I didn't affirmatively state you were any sort of person; I merely stated my own inability to understand what in Aanchir's fact-based post you could be disagreeing with, barring the possibility - but not certainty - you might have an aversion to facts, as no small number of people have demonstrated recently (in venues beyond the LEGO world). There is indeed a great deal of rejection of this set, but it is hardly universal, and the set is popular with plenty. And while there certainly are many who object to the set, their objections appear principally to be rooted in a) basic misogyny, which doesn't deserve rewarding, or b) the erroneous impression that some other, more deserving project was nixed so that this one could be chosen, when in fact whether this project was approved or not has no bearing on the other sets. If Women of NASA had been declined along with the other ten, it just means there'd be nothing approved this round, with Voltron - Defender of the Universe still under review. Would that somehow be better?

Perhaps, but "science" is a key element of not only a sizeable number of approved CUUSOO / Ideas projects, but a great many other ones that don't get approved. Look at all the sets in the line that directly feature subject matter pertains to scientific exploration, discovery and research: • Shinkai 6500 • Hayabusa • Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover • Research Institute • Apollo 11 Saturn V • Women of NASA That's six out of nineteen projects approved to date - almost a third of all CUUSOO / Ideas sets, so far. And that's not even counting the nature-inspired Birds set, which isn't far removed from the broad realm of science (one can say it's a scientific subject, just not a project depicting actual science, only a subject of science). Additionally, most of the ones based on licensed entertainment properties - Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, The Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who, Adventure Time - feature scientist characters, or ones who have science-related adventures. And then there are all the many, many science-related projects that have gotten 10,000 supports and made it to review, but not been approved (the Fossil Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Particle Accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, the LHC ATLAS experiment module, the H.M.S. Beagle, the Hubble Space Telescope, the field researchers, Lovelace & Babbage, the Mountain View Observatory, etc.). Clearly, scientific subjects in general (and space exploration in particular) are one of the biggest areas of interest for lots of Ideas users (and customers), surpassing even Star Wars and fancy cars, and the Ideas team's approval selections reflect that. Even if you think there's some other reason Women of NASA was chosen, it still fits the general label of science. I also don't understand why you broadly "disagree with this way to perceive the thing", since pretty everything Aanchir said is objectively true. Science-related sets have had a pattern of getting a lot of support on Ideas, as I've shown here. This particular project did get 10,000 supports extremely quickly (very few projects in Ideas history have done so more quickly). It's surely not a terribly difficult set to produce, as you yourself acknowledged. And it should have synergy with the Apollo 11 Saturn V set - not only are they both NASA subjects, but Women of NASA, in its present form, even depicts at least one figure instrumental in the Apollo missions. Respectfully, I don't know what there is in Aanchir's post to "disagree" with, unless you're the sort of person we've seen a lot of lately who embraces "alternative facts". I might have thought so, too, until the Old Fishing Store was approved. Now, though, there's no telling. Part of me half-wonders whether the Ideas team might have made a point of approving something like the Old Fishing Store in part specifically to shake up our preconceived notions about what will or won't be approved, so that we won't grow too limited in our thinking (of course, they surely also approved it mainly because it's simply a beautiful, amazing project, that will undoubtedly make for a beautiful, amazing, and hopefully popular set). I know I certainly learned a lesson when the Gingerbread House wasn't approved, after I was so sure it would be.

I don't think it was a matter of them choosing to do Women of NASA instead of any / all of those larger sets. I think it's more like they determined those larger sets were all unfeasible to do for one reason or another, but Women of NASA is feasible, so they could either do that one or do none at all. I wonder how many of the people complaining about the approval of Women of NASA would be happier if they hadn't approved anything at all. Incidentally, they didn't actually decline all the larger projects; the Voltron - Defender of the Universe one is still under review, and might be approved yet.

They are. I'm seeing July.

Perhaps, but they're not officially meant to be those people the way the minifigures of Blackbeard or Abraham Lincoln are. Now, I do agree with you here. Putting aside the symbolism of Women of NASA and what it represents, along with what will undoubtedly be some very cool minifigures, it's true that it's not the most interesting set in terms of the pure building experience. That might actually have contributed to its selection, though, given that the next two sets are apparently both going to be huge. They may simply have not been able to squeeze even another medium-sized set into whatever production capacity they have allotted for Ideas sets in the next year or so, but this one is surely logistically easier to produce than everything else in the batch. As for the Gingerbread House... I'm as mystified as anyone else. I thought that project was as close to a slam-dunk as any they've ever had, and there were other projects from the same batch that I also thought much likelier than the Old Fishing Store. But perhaps they just decided it was time to do a really lavish, modular-like building and we're looking for an opportunity, and the beautiful Fishing Store came along and they decided they'd rather do that than even a couple of other, smaller sets. Just a shot in the dark...

They're also way, way ahead when it comes to minifigures of real-life, historical people. Just between last year's soccer Minifigures line and the NBA subtheme of the LEGO Sports theme from the early 2000s, there are literally dozens of official minifigures of real-world male athletes alone, plus official minifigures of real dudes in various other themes, ranging from Abraham Lincoln to the Beatles. As far as I can tell, though, the only minifigure that can be considered to represent a real woman is the "Egyptian Queen" from Minifigures Series 5 (clearly modeled on Cleopatra, but not actually officially identified by that name until she appeared in The LEGO Movie a couple years later). Are there any others?

Hardly anyone thought it would pass! But it certainly was a pleasant surprise. We have at least two Ideas sets this year, and possibly three. The Apollo 11 Saturn V should be out around July, and then this set should be out sometime in the fall. The Women of NASA set is currently due either late this year or early next year (they did specifically mention in the announcement that it could be either). Originally, we would have had one more set this year, as the Adventure Time set was going to have been a January release (and IIRC, the box still has a "copyright 2017" date on it - can someone check?), but it got moved up from January 1, 2017 to December 26, 2016 at the last minute, taking 2016 from having three Ideas sets to four, and making it the third year in a row with that many. That doesn't appear to be a possibilty for this year, but I think having two sets that are as big as Apollo 11 and the Fishing Store will make up for it.

Thanks! Though there doesn't seem to be a way to amend a vote once its cast. I'd like to keep my votes for the projects I picked as likeliest, but also add Voltron if I can. Can this be done?

Wow. That's fantastic. Well done! Very well done, indeed!

Whoa! I've been away from this thread for a bit; I didn't realize there were pics already! It still looks beautiful. I was coming here to say it appears we have confirmation this set will have the highest piece count by far of any Ideas set to date, with the possible exception of the also-forthcoming Apollo 11 Saturn V, which we know will be huge but will likely have lots of large parts, so there's no telling what the part count will be. Yesterday, an Ideas user commented on the Ideas blog post about the latest review results (in which they announced Women of NASA will become a set) "Congratulations to the winner! But it Looks like I'm still waiting for Lego to choose a 1,500+ piece ideas project to buy!", and Hasan from the LEGO Ideas Team replied "It appears you may have missed our last review announcement ;-)". The Old Fishing Store was the last Ideas set announced before Women of NASA, so this strongly suggests the Old Fishing Store will have 1500+ pieces. If it has 1542 or more, it will have twice as many (or more!) as the largest Ideas set released so far. Wow! https://ideas.lego.com/blogs/1-blog/post/121?comment_uuid=5e15e20a-e0dd-4bf4-beb4-8575716af4e4#comment-5e15e20a-e0dd-4bf4-beb4-8575716af4e4

Ooh, good point. Robert8, could you add Voltron - Defender of the Universe to the poll?

At least two that I know of. The "space jet thing," by which I assume you mean this videogame-derived F7A Hornet project, was one; it was actually held through multiple reviews. I'm guessing they must have either really wanted and held out hope as long as they could, or it took them a long time to ascertain whether the game was a good brand fit (all I know about it myself comes from that project). Also, the Doctor Who project that became a set was actually one of two similar projects that were both submitted almost immediately after it became known they'd accept submissions for the franchise, both of which got their full support in a matter of weeks, and thus went into the same review batch together, just as two similar Ghostbusters Ectomobile projects had done a few review cycles earlier. Unlike the two competing Ghostbusters projects, the two competing Doctor Who projects were both held over to the following review. Like them, though, one of the competing projects was ultimately approved, while the other was declined. I believe there was also a Landrover Defender project quite some time ago (in the CUUSOO days, IIRC) that was held for a while and then declined, but I can't seem to find it (though I do see a different Landrover Defender project that was declined more recently, but not after being held over). If I'm remembering correctly, that's a total of three projects that have been held over and subsequently declined. That might sound discouraging to someone who wants to see the Voltron project make it, but there's still plenty of room for hope - after all, there have also been multiple projects that were held over and then approved. The other Doctor Who project is one, obviously; the Female Minifigure Set (that became the Research Institute) is another.

I think it would make a fantastic set as well. Fortunately, the fact it's being held for further review probably indicates they do have some interest in doing it, and are trying to make it work. I'm guessing it's held because either they're trying to ensure they can come up with a build design that has all the project's features and still meets LEGO's requirements for a commercial set, they're still crunching the numbers on the business case ("would this Voltron project, which needs to be at least size X and therefore cost price Y, sell enough copies at that price?"), or most likely IMO, they're trying to hammer out a licensing agreement that works for both LEGO and the Voltron rightsholders.

They recently instituted a rule that submissions should be no more than 3000 pieces. Scads of projects have been well over that in the past, including several that made it to review, but so far nothing surpassing that has been approved (the recently-approved Old Fishing Store is probably the closest), and none of the sets that have actually been released have had more than 771 pieces (though the Old Fishing Store and Apollo 11 Saturn V both appear likely to blow right past that). If you meant lower size limits, then I think the minimum piece count is two, and also no projects consisting solely of minifigures. The smallest CUUSOO / Ideas set actually released so far is the Research Institute, which has an official piece count of 165. Considering the ginormous sex / gender disparity among minifigures in existing sets so far, one could reasonably argue we need several hundred more female minifigure packs to make up the difference. :p It's unfortunate you don't seem to care much for present-day, real-world space exploration, but it's abundantly clear lots of LEGO fans in general and LEGO Ideas users in particular are crazy about them. Look at not only how many have been approved, but also at how many others have made it to review but not been approved, and how many still others are gathering votes at any one time. Space nerds have told LEGO in no uncertain terms that we want more, more, more of these sets.

You don't know yet that Eileen Collins won't be in the final set; she could well be. The creator appears to have chosen the women she did in the project proposal for a variety of reasons; maybe you should ask her. As for Research Institute having already been made, there's a world of difference. That set celebrated women in STEM generally, but had "generic", nameless scientists. This one will have specific, real-life individuals as minifigures, which is a significant difference. It's also much more focused than that other set, which ranged across disciplines from astronomy to chemistry to paleontology - this one is tied not even just to space exploration in general, but specifically to NASA. Those facts give it an identity of its own, while at the same time allowing it to complement both the Research Institute and the upcoming Apollo 11 Saturn V. It's also notable in having a bunch of minifigures of real-life women not just in STEM, but at all. There are literally dozens of official minifigures representing real-life men, including a ton of sports figures, such as the NBA players from the basketball subtheme of LEGO Sports from the early 2000s, last year's soccer players from the German footballer collectible Minifigures line, and some real-world race car drivers from certain Racers sets. There are also occasional historical figures portrayed in works of fiction that got LEGO themes, like Blackbeard in Pirates of the Caribbean. That upcoming Apollo 11 set will likely have Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, and there are classic yellow interpretations of William Shakespeare and Abraham Lincoln in The LEGO Movie and its associated Minifigures line, while existing parts were repurposed for a simple but official minifigure of JAXA Hayabusa project manager Junichiro Kawaguchi in the first-ever LEGO CUUSOO / Ideas set to include a minifigure. There are others... virtually all of them male. Off the top of my head, I think the Minifigures series 5 Egyptian Queen, clearly inspired by Cleopatra and actually named as such in The LEGO Movie, might be the only official minifigure who could even be considered to represent a real woman (assuming one doesn't count figures of movie and TV characters as representing the real-world performers who portray them, and if one does, women still lag far, far behind men in such representation). Moreover, from a parts monkey perspective, it should be uniquely valuable in a way that other set wasn't, as it should have five fleshtoned minifigure heads (and associated torsos) with female face prints, a couple of them women of color. Builders working in licensed themes or otherwise using flesh tones rather than classic yellow will surely value this set for that reason alone, whether or not they even have any particular interest at all in space exploration, women in STEM, NASA history or whatever. Few if any sets feature this many female faces in fleshtones; even sets with this many female faces in classic yellow are uncommon. And there are very, very few fleshtoned minifigures of women of color; this set should have two (assuming the same five women are represented in the final set as in the project). That alone makes this immensely desirable to builders working in realistic fleshtones. So, yeah... tons of reasons why having done the one set doesn't mean they shouldn't do the other. Saying that is like saying they shouldn't have done the Ghostbusters Ectomobile after having already done the Back to the Future DeLorean time machine, since they're both cars from 1980s sci-fi / fantasy movies.

That's a general Ideas discussion thread for the overall program. All individual Ideas sets also get their own threads. Usually such threads are named after those sets, though.

It's true the very first two CUUSOO sets used stickers, way back when these sets had much more limited runs than they do now (the Shinkai 6500 was only ever released in Japan, and Hayabusa was also Japan-only for a while until they decided to give it a global release). Since then, though, they appear to have adopted a tradition of directly printing any element decoration needed for a CUUSOO / Ideas set - only one set since then has had stickers at all. Almost every set released after Hayabusa has had decorated elements (the Curiosity rover and the Maze are the only ones with none at all), often in pretty substantial numbers - the Doctor Who set has about fifty printed elements, including the minifigure parts. And out of all these decorated elements, the only post-Hayabusa ones that use stickers are a couple parts in the set for The Big Bang Theory, and those appear to be parts they just aren't set up to print on. As long as the Apollo 11 Saturn V set doesn't use any element decoration on pieces they've never printed on, then, I think it'll be sticker-free. The entire CUUSOO / Ideas line has only had three sets with stickers ever, two of which were first produced only for release in a single country, and the third using them on just a couple of rarely- or never-printed parts. And they've never had STAMPs in the line at all. Maybe I'm being unduly optimistic, but I don't think they're going to start now.

And I think an even better choice than having platform exclusives would be bringing previously platform-exclusive characters to LEGO Dimensions. It would be great for the game to be able to say it's the one game in which one can have, say, Mario, Sackboy, and Master Chief all together. I definitely think Elves has potential for LEGO Dimensions. Possibly also DC Superhero Girls, though they already have three different versions of the DC universe already. I, too, would love to see a few more characters released from existing franchises. I think LEGODalekbuster523 may also have something to say about that. ;)

I imagine not, since the movie hasn't been released yet and won't be for about two months, so few people here have seen it. If you mean the trailers for the movie, then possibly - I'm sure plenty of us have noticed there, if that's what you mean.

I find it unlikely they'd ever touch South Park... though I also felt the same about The Simpsons, The Big Bang Theory, and Gremlins). Still, though, South Park feels a farther stretch than any of those others. Gremlins actually has had official merchandise in recent years. It's not a huge merchandising thing like Star Wars, and never will be even if it gets new movies, but in recent years it's had action figures, vinyl figures, t-shirts, and even Christmas sweaters. Steven Universe I could see happening, based on what I've seen of the show. That's not to say it's likely, but I do think it has a much better chance than South Park. And I'd certainly personally much rather have Steven Universe than South Park.

If you mean the discontinuation of Disney Infinity, I believe that game wasn't even unprofitable, though; Disney just decided it wanted to get out of actually developing its own games and switch over to a licensing model for all its game endeavors. That sucked for the DI developers, but it's not at all bad for LEGO Dimensions.

The stuff I mentioned earlier. I'm guessing people who read my earlier post just looked at what I said about console exclusivity and overlooked the much longer section right after that formed most of my post:

No one here did the event on the 3rd, or has any thoughts about the theater initiative?

Technically, Mr. T doesn't exist in a LEGO Dimensions pack; B. A. Baracus does. And The A-Team hasn't actually been particularly big on LEGO Ideas; unlike those other two franchises; there's never been an A-Team project that's gotten enough votes to reach review. Doing the characters and franchises introduced in the game via a blind-bag series might be problematic. It's one thing when we have something like the Disney Minifigures series, which has nine different franchises represented, but ones which are all Disney-owned and can be handled as a group. A series for the various LEGO Dimensions franchises would be an unwieldy mishmash of properties belonging to Warner Bros., Universal, Fox, the BBC, etc. - some of which are shared with other rightsholders (J. K. Rowling, the Saul Zaentz Company, the estates of J. R. R. Tolkien and Terry Nation, U-Drive Productions, etc.), alongside LEGO's own homegrown IP. And LEGO would have to shoulder this all by themselves, something they didn't do with the game - remember, LEGO Dimensions is itself a Warner production, and I suspect it's actually Warner licensing all these properties, not LEGO, or at least not LEGO by itself. And I think the economics that allow all that for a multi-year videogame simply won't work the same way for a limited-release blind-bag series that's around for a few months.

I'll approach this from a slightly different angle. In the spirit of how The LEGO Movie incorporated brief bits of fan-created footage towards the end, what I'd really like to see would be a ReBrick-style contest for FOLs to create their own brickfilms, the best of which (among suitably brand- and family-friendly entries, of course) would be chosen for theatrical presentation as shorts before The LEGO Movie 2 (and other big-screen LEGO productions). What better way to embrace and represent everything LEGO stands for than to show off the finest creations of LEGO's customers and fans? For a more conventional answer, I think I'd love to see a LEGO Lucasfilm movie, combining Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Willow, perhaps among others.