Blondie-Wan

It's hard to argue with that! There were a lot of great sets brought out that year, plus the return of the entire Pirate(s) theme. And in addition to all the fantastic stuff from that year, lots of great sets from the previous couple years were still available.

Oooh, very nicely done! Instantly recognizable, and it deftly captures a transitional movement in a static piece.

So did I. Wouldn't it be a hoot if it actually became a set?! It would also be one last chance to get the LEGO die element, now that the Games line is sadly discontinued.

It's coming out that late mainly because Lucasfilm is part of Disney now, so it has to fit into Disney's schedule, and between all the Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and other blockbuster Disney releases that have already been planned a while, July of 2019 is probably the first slot they had available where it wouldn't be competing with one of its own corporate family members. (Thanks to which mod fixed up the thread title - I appreciate it!)

This project seems not only a sound idea but also commentary, criticism and celebration of the whole Ideas program, all at once. I wish I'd thought of it myself; it's surprising it took this long for something like it to appear. _______________ Given the support rates of the current Most Supported projects on the site, I doubt any more of them are going to make it into this batch before it closes in a month, but there's still plenty of time for another ultra-popular, phenomenal vote-getter to pop up out of nowhere and get fully supported within weeks of posting - after all, this batch already has not one but two projects that garnered full support in a mere three weeks or less. It's unlikely, but you never know! Meanwhile, the batch now has eight projects already, offering an overall solid slate of selections. I think we'll get sets out of both this one and the preceding one currently in review.

13, actually. It was originally 18, but they lowered it to 13 when they went from CUUSOO to Ideas. It's just that if you're under 18 and they approve your project, they have to get consent from your parent or guardian to produce your idea,

Not a set specifically about men, no... Not a set specifically about or named for men, no... though as it happens, the second set ever in this line, Hayabusa, included a minifigure meant to represent Junichiro Kawaguchi, the Hayabusa project manager for JAXA, the Japanese space agency. And in the not-too-distant future we'll get the Apollo 11 Saturn V, which will probably include minifigures of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and possibly also Michael Collins. Just in this line, then, there will be a couple sets featuring probably three or four real-life male space explorers before this set based around real-life female space explorers comes about, if it does. Moreover, outside space exploration, there are already official minifigures of literally dozens of real-life men, mostly sports figures, but I think there's maybe one of a real-life woman, and that's if we count the person from Minifigures Series 5 who's officially designated "Egyptian Queen" as being Cleopatra, as that minifigure was addressed in The LEGO Movie. As the project creator notes, there may not be a lot of sets (if any) specifically created to represent exclusively men or commemorate their achievements, but the vast, overwhelming majority of sets do that in effect anyway. The tiny number of sets specifically designed to feature exclusively women just help make up a tiny, tiny bit of the overall disparity, and don't detract from all the men-only sets. Nor would anything need to, anyway; they can and frequently do approve more than one project at once. I could see them approving this, the Voltron - Defender of the Universe project, and the Large Hadron Collider all at once, for example. They've never approved three or more all at the same time, but they have done two at once on at least four occasions. And they actually have had a single review batch from which they approved three, just at different times - they approved the Birds and The Big Bang Theory projects at the same time from the same batch, while the two Doctor Who projects that were also in that batch were held over for further review., and one was ultimately approved in the next review (alongside the WALL•E project from the later batch). I think the creator chose to focus on women of NASA specifically because of her personal connections to it. She doesn't actually work for NASA herself, but she's a writer and editor for MIT who has done a lot of work pertaining to NASA, she's personal friends with various NASA employees including some astronauts, etc. It's not unlike how the Female Minifigure Set / Research Institute was submitted by an actual working research geochemist, the Curiosity Rover by an actual JPL engineer, and WALL•E by an actual Pixar animator (which may therefore be another factor in this project's favor). She does acknowledge the many contributions to space exploration made by non-NASA personnel in her comments and whatnot; she just wanted this to focus specifically on NASA. Had it been my project, I definitely would have included Tereshkova, and made it about women in space exploration history in general, not just from NASA, but I'd still be happy with this.

If the agenda is just boosting the representation of women minifigures in LEGO sets and increasing the visibility of female role models, I have trouble seeing that as some terrible thing. There actually is a bit more to it than that. There's an associated build for each of the people. I'll grant you it's far from the most sophisticated or elegant build on Ideas, but it's far from the least, as well, and there are plenty of real, existing LEGO sets that have less going on build-wise than this, to say nothing of literally thousands of lesser Ideas projects. Seriously, there's a whole thread about "the best of the worst of LEGO Ideas" thread over in the General Discussion forum just full of such examples - I'm not crazy about the idea of making such a big public point of just mocking the less-skilled builders and half-baked concepts there, as I've noted in that thread, but I certainly can't argue all of them are as, well... good (or even decent) as this project is. Err... maybe, but I kind of doubt it. The project creator herself notes there are a lot more than five NASA-associated women who could have been in it, but that for the purposes of being a viable project it couldn't be just dozens or hundreds of minifigures. In one of the project updates, she explains her selection process, and the choices all make sense. That there are other worthwhile candidates doesn't mean none of the ones who are there shouldn't be there. Moreover, these are ultimately just the initial suggestions; it's not like they have to go with these exact five, and the final set (if produced) could go with others. But these five are all here because they're from different eras of NASA history, and also have different roles. I can't see any reasonable way this can be considered erasure - that's the very sort of thing it stands against, if anything. And yes, this project absolutely did benefit from social media exposure to people interested in it from a social justice perspective (whether you think that's good or bad - I think it's great, myself, though I realize you may feel differently). That doesn't mean none of the voters actually want this as a real LEGO set - there are scads of people who absolutely do, whether it's more from promoting women in STEM or purely for love of anything STEM-related. Whether for reasons you personally approve of or not, there is a real market for this set, made up of real people - some of them women, some of them not, some of them new to LEGO, some of them not - that really, genuinely would like to have this as an honest-to-goodness set they can buy and put together.

Other lines are great, but my much-beloved favorite is Classic Space all the way! (I assume we're excluding Star Wars and other licensed lines, as well as sets and themes based on real-life, non-sci-fi space exploration.)

What properties could they be better off using than Star Wars?

Which one - your Roblox project, or Women of NASA?

That's certainly a consideration, but I don't see it being a huge obstacle, for two reasons. First, many of these individuals (and/or their families) are apparently willing to approve this sort of thing, as evidenced by their inclusion in things like space exploration trading cards and the like. Secondly, the five women chosen aren't the only candidates, and if any of them or their heirs say no, there are numerous possible substitutions.

By that logic, they should never approve anything, and instead should just shutter the entire Ideas program. It's meant to provide both inspiration, and to go some way towards addressing the vast gender representation disparity in sets. The vast, overwhelming majority of minifigures in official sets across all themes portray men, or male characters. And the set is also meant to be educational, in a variety of ways. The fact you don't know who any of these people are (as indeed, many don't) is a perfect illustration of exactly the value such a set could have (though honestly, just reading the project description would suffice to tell you who these women are, if you cared to do so). Of course, I know you said you also don't care, which is certainly your right, but it's not really reflective of the entire audience for CUUSOO / Ideas sets, if the Shinkai 6500, Hayabusa, Curiosity rover, Research Institute, and Apollo 11 Saturn V are anything to go by.

I loved what little I got to play of LEGO Universe, and I'd dearly love to have another crack at it myself, but unfortunately there's, well... everything Lyichir said. Moreover, I doubt they even could easily bring it back at this point even if they wanted to. The team behind it was disbanded and they've all moved on to other things.

I don't know whether this is your intent or not, but both you sound as though you doubt there are enough people actually interested in buying this for themselves (as opposed to investments) to make it worthwhile. I'm confident that's not the case, though, and that there are plenty of people who'd want it. In fact I think it would sell more copies than any of the other projects in this batch, with the possible exception of the Voltron - Defender of the Universe one.

Huh. I'd have thought that if anything, their softness would make them less prone to breakage than more rigid elements. I've never had one of those break, though I do tend to be careful with them.

What makes you think the supporters of either Women of NASA or Purdue Pete have / had zero plans to spend money on it? I'm sure there are a few such people mixed in both projects' supporters, but I'm also sure both have / had plenty of people who genuinely wanted to buy them (and that TLG decided against Purdue Pete because they decided they didn't want to get into doing mascots, logos and such; they may also have feared, not unreasonably, that if they'd approved Pete, they'd then have had to wade through the next few reviews overwhelmed by projects for pretty much every other university mascot, and called upon to explain themselves by the fans of all the ones they didn't approve). They certainly do look at supporter survey data, but remember, if a project means they can sell LEGO to people who don't normally buy it, that's a win in their book, not a loss. Moreover, there are also tons of people who are regular Ideas users who are supporting this. After all, half of the "women in science" theme behind this is science, which means it's drawing upon that same crowd that has rallied behind so many other projects pertaining to STEM, exploration & research, science history, etc. - including the ones that became Shinkai 6500, Hayabusa, Curiosity Rover, Research Institute, and the forthcoming Apollo 11 Saturn V. I can't speak for everyone, but I can say my own household is planning to get two copies of Women of NASA if it's produced (one for me, one for my wife).

It's not just that it's being promoted; it's that so many people who learn about it then go and vote for it. Very few Ideas projects accrue support as quickly as this one is doing, and it boosts the project's chances enormously. The idea obviously has a lot of admirers, so there's little question about the set's commercial potential; it also has the positive role model and science education aspects that LEGO surely values. It undoubtedly will also help that the project creator has personal connections to the subject matter. From her profile, she's an editor and writer at MIT, and when someone commented to suggest the set include planetary scientist and NASA advisor Carolyn Porco, her response noted that Porco was not only the first custom minifigures she ever designed, but is also a personal friend. Reading things like this, one can't help but be reminded of the similar connections of research scientist Alatariel to her Research Institute set, JPL engineer Perijove to his Curiosity Rover set, and Pixar animator MacLane to his WALL•E set. Nothing is guaranteed, of course, and there's no telling why they might sometimes decline a project that seems like a shoo-in. But given everything I just mentioned, I think this's project's chances are very, very strong. It hasn't even actually achieved its full support yet, but I'm not only confident it will do so in time to join the current batch, I think it's actually the likeliest of these eight projects.

Mm, it's too bad the pics are gone from this review.... I've had a copy of this set since picking one up on clearance roughly eight years ago (!!!), but as I have a huge backlog of sets still sealed in their packages awaiting assembly, I didn't get around to it until just a few days ago. Having finally built it, I love it! I do have to admit to some minor disappointment that the legs aren't really as posable as I'd hoped, as well as there not being a detailed interior despite the large hatch opening, but in the end it doesn't matter for this display piece. It's still an excellent model, and one I'm glad to have been able to get. If I'd realized this was the only review for it here and that the pics are now gone, I might have documented the build for a new review, but oh well. I'm now mulling over whether to apply the display plaque sticker - on the one hand, it's a STAMP, and one that goes across 12 pieces, but on the other, those parts are just ordinary 1x8 black tiles, which aren't exactly difficult to come by, and not something I really need to hoard or anything. Decisions, decisions... Anyway, at the end of the build I found myself with spares of not only the usual suspects (1x1 round plates, etc.), but also two 1x2 plates with click hinge fingers - that is, this part - in Medium Stone (medium bley). I went back through the instructions to see if I'd missed anything, but it seems not; the parts inventory shows there should be 12 of them, and I went through all the steps again and found where they went, and verified that I'd included them when building, and it really did turn out that mine came with 14 of them, two extra. According to Peeron, the set does in fact normally include two extra, though it also says there are 13 of them rather than 12 or 14. Huh. Odd...

I don't think it's a joke at all - I'm sure the project creator and virtually everyone supporting it is doing so because they really want it to be a set. And nobody disputes that there are other fantastic NASA projects that would make excellent sets, but whether this one becomes a set or not won't prevent any of them from becoming sets - lots of them could become sets without getting in one another's way (and indeed, they can even complement one another). In fact, the project most recently approved to become a set was another NASA one, the awesome Apollo 11 Saturn V. _______ Meanwhile, the Modular Construction Site has now reached 10k, becoming the seventh project to enter this batch. Congratulations to ryantaggart!

Why, and what makes you think it won't be?

New notice on the site: "Starting August 4, we will no longer support importing old LEGO® CUUSOO accounts when creating a LEGO Ideas profile. LEGO CUUSOO was the predecessor community to LEGO Ideas that ended when LEGO Ideas launched April 30, 2014. If you don’t have a LEGO CUUSOO account, or if you’ve already imported your old LEGO CUUSOO account, this change won’t affect you." I wasn't aware there were even any CUUSOO accounts left to import, but okay. I presume everyone here switched over long ago though, right?

Why are so many of the Minecraft threads in the Special Themes forum?

Good for it! At this rate, it stands a decent chance of getting its full support in time for the current batch. The Modular Construction Site also looks likely to get into the same one, thanks to being just a few hundred votes away now. While there are several other projects besides those two that have lots of votes and that will surely reach 10k, none of them seem to be either close enough or fast-moving enough to do it in time to get into this batch. I think this batch will be those two, plus the six that have finished already.

They do me, too, but at the time I got most of them I was living in an eensy studio apartment and didn't have enough space to really put together everything I wanted to. I've also been thinking I might sometime like to do a review of the complete theme for this place or YouTube or something, so I've sort of been waiting for that ideal moment. Unfortunately, while I do have all of the boxed retail sets plus the Brickmaster polybag, I no longer have sealed copies of three of them, nor do I have any of the ultra-limited, ultra-rare stuff like the convention exclusives. Maybe I should just go ahead and open all the rest... I haven't been able to bring myself to go the Bricklink route yet, though I might give in eventually. I have exactly two copies of each set featuring Russian soldiers from the fourth movie, so I have 12 "generic" Russian soldiers, plus Spalko and Dovchenko (and their duplicates). I also have five copies of 7196 Chauchilla Cemetery Battle, so I actually have more cemetery warriors than I need; I'll use the rest for other purposes. More importantly, the five Akator Crystal Skulls from those sets, plus the eight from my two copies apiece of 7627 Temple of the Crystal Skull and 7628 Peril in Peru, give me enough crystal skulls to recreate all 13 skeletons (though I now also have the second minifigure magnet set, which also includes one of the skulls). I also have four copies of 7199 The Temple of Doom, so four "regular" Thuggee, plus Mola Ram and the giant chief Thuggee guard (and their three clones apiece, of course). I really wish there were Thuggee battle packs, though... Finally, I have three copies of 7197 Venice Canal Chase, two of 7282 Shanghai Chase, and ten of 7195 Ambush in Cairo, and so have the quasi-army-builders from those.