10497 Galaxy Explorer 90th anniversary set

[TeriXeri]

I think this 8 wide build / 6 wide interior and cockpit window is the right spot, monkie kid spaceship doesn't feel oversized on the outside, yet also has plenty of space inside to sit figures on chairs.

For 497/928 I have the old set and 4 wide "interior" consists of just a floor with 2 printed slopes and a steering wheel.

This interior design effectively doubles interior space (for minifgs) while only scaling up 1.5x and the windscreen section remains faithful 6 wide.

A lot of details aren't really visible that well via just pictures, like the grey sliding airlock door to seperate the hangar bay from the rest of the ship. 

 

Edited June 24, 2022 by TeriXeri

[GeoBrick]

59 minutes ago, danth said:

EDIT: It feels so weird to actually be defending Lego for once.

Don't be. If something's done well, it is worth it. 

[Merlo]

2 hours ago, icm said:

I just can't understand the logic of this post.  It's like you're saying the original ship suggested all these extra details for you to imagine, and the new ship has those details, but then, no, wait, those details aren't actually present on the new ship.  My head is spinning.

What? :)
The original ship made it seem like it's a big vessel made for galaxy exploring, but in a more modest scale then the name would imply. Even though it wasn't that big, the design was believable enough that you could have bought it being a bigger vessel.
The new ship is the complete opposite - the design suggests it's a much smaller vehicle, like a fighter jet or something, but the scale has actual room for it to be a big ship.
But instead of making it seem like it's much bigger than it is (like Lego designers often used to in my youth), they left flat sides and big see through spaces, so you can't even imagine it's bigger.
 

 

2 hours ago, technicfanatic said:

Also, I do have to say, LEGO seems to have gotten cheaper!

The original was 338 pieces, and priced at $32. In today's dollars that is $128 = 37.9c/part

The new one is 1254 pieces, and priced at $100 = 7.97c/part.

That is mind boggling. My parents were right. It was a tad expensive (and hard to get, of course, where I lived)

 

There was always something off with this. I think back then Lego had big megablocks chunky parts, and now they have a lot of tiny parts.
 

[GeoBrick]

Well, appearantly the rest of us can imagine its bigger, despite its sleekness and other such features that demote the set to a 'jet fighter' status for you.

[icm]

It's the same design.

Ok, back to work.  Potato, potahto.

[Merlo]

4 minutes ago, GeoBrick said:

Well, appearantly the rest of us can imagine its bigger, despite its sleekness and other such features that demote the set to a 'jet fighter' status for you.

 

3 minutes ago, icm said:

It's the same design.

Ok, back to work.  Potato, potahto.

Sure, if you imagine the combined canopy of a spaceship is 50% of its length and it opens like that. I haven't seen that in scifi on big ships, or else I would've believed it too.

[GeoBrick]

Flying saucer designs of the 20th century often had a huge canopy on the top of the hull. Hell, even LEGO released a couple such sets.

[TeriXeri]

47 minutes ago, Merlo said:

 

Sure, if you imagine the combined canopy of a spaceship is 50% of its length and it opens like that. I haven't seen that in scifi on big ships, or else I would've believed it too.

This is how I see it, in the case of 10497: 

On this new version, there's an airlock in the back section, which to me suggest it's the main exit door, so figures can exit without putting vacuum to the entire crew of 4-6 that easily fit in there, or figures could even sit there without space helmets/airtanks on.

As for the rear cockpit window, I see it mainly as a window, not really as the main entry point, and while the orginal 928/497 has a transparent plate on a hinge to place the figures, the actual rear doors/ramp in my imagination always was the main entry/exit.

Han Solo doesn't enter his Millenium Falcon by popping off roof panels.

 

But yes, I can also see other viewpoints, if you would open the big yellow canopies and consider them main entry/exit points, I can see the "jet fighter" idea behind that.

 

Edited June 24, 2022 by TeriXeri

[technicfanatic]

1 hour ago, Merlo said:

There was always something off with this. I think back then Lego had big megablocks chunky parts, and now they have a lot of tiny parts.

I don't know if that is true of this particular example. We can do a precise comparison once the set actually gets into consumer hands, but looking at the parts list for the original explorer, I see plenty of small parts that are used in current sets. 

I think there are more specialized parts in modern sets.

[Merlo]

12 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Han Solo doesn't enter his Millenium Falcon by popping off roof panels. 

Yeah, there's definitely something to this. Although I'm not sure if a see-through roof panel would be beneficial for the back crew of a spaceship or just introduce a structural vulnerability.

11 hours ago, technicfanatic said:

I think there are more specialized parts in modern sets.

Yeah, I'm not too fond of that. Makes it look less like bricks and more like models.

 

[ReplicaOfLife]

4 hours ago, Merlo said:

Yeah, there's definitely something to this. Although I'm not sure if a see-through roof panel would be beneficial for the back crew of a spaceship or just introduce a structural vulnerability.

That argument also works against the original Galaxy Explorer, which had a big see-through roof panel aswell. Only that back then they used a trans-yellow 4x10 plate instead of a windscreen, propably because they didn't have big windscreens yet.

And you really shouldn't get started on structural vulnerability regarding Classic Space ships . Pretty much all of them had giant windows or even giant holes all around their fuselage, all of which would be rather impractical in an actual spacecraft.

[Merlo]

3 hours ago, ReplicaOfLife said:

That argument also works against the original Galaxy Explorer, which had a big see-through roof panel aswell. Only that back then they used a trans-yellow 4x10 plate instead of a windscreen, propably because they didn't have big windscreens yet.

And you really shouldn't get started on structural vulnerability regarding Classic Space ships . Pretty much all of them had giant windows or even giant holes all around their fuselage, all of which would be rather impractical in an actual spacecraft.

I mean, sure, but the argument was never "Lego is not realistic" (like I would know what's realistic in space? :)), just that old sets left a lot of stuff to your imagination, while that is becoming increasingly more difficult with the newer sets.

[Lord Insanity]

I find it really interesting that you think the original was more imaginative and "starship" like than the new Galaxy Explorer.  I actually feel the other way around.  To me the original is like the Yellow Castle, it was interesting for its time but has aged poorly.  The original is basically just a concept art false color space shuttle from when the idea was that it could be used to ferry things to a permanent base on the moon.  (Obviously that capability never materialized on the real space shuttle.)  The new Galaxy Explorer on the other hand actually feels like a starship that could explore the galaxy to me.  That additional room behind the cockpit and the cargo bay airlock door does wonders for the design.

As a kid I always imagined the large colored windows and canopies in Space sets a being "trans-plate armor".  In complete defiance of the laws of physics I always treated those as the strongest armored section of any build.  When the visor helmets came out I treated the visor as a "trans-plate armor" blast shield.  After all even on box art the visors were often up and clearly not the main air holding cover.  Those are so perfectly clear you can't normally see them like all the classic space helmets.

[MaximillianRebo]

To borrow from a well known space franchise, maybe the trans-yellow canopy pieces are made from 'transparent aluminum' 

[Merlo]

 

6 hours ago, Lord Insanity said:

I find it really interesting that you think the original was more imaginative and "starship" like than the new Galaxy Explorer.  I actually feel the other way around.  To me the original is like the Yellow Castle, it was interesting for its time but has aged poorly.  The original is basically just a concept art false color space shuttle from when the idea was that it could be used to ferry things to a permanent base on the moon.  (Obviously that capability never materialized on the real space shuttle.)  The new Galaxy Explorer on the other hand actually feels like a starship that could explore the galaxy to me.  That additional room behind the cockpit and the cargo bay airlock door does wonders for the design.

As a kid I always imagined the large colored windows and canopies in Space sets a being "trans-plate armor".  In complete defiance of the laws of physics I always treated those as the strongest armored section of any build.  When the visor helmets came out I treated the visor as a "trans-plate armor" blast shield.  After all even on box art the visors were often up and clearly not the main air holding cover.  Those are so perfectly clear you can't normally see them like all the classic space helmets. 

I feel the greatest strength of classic space and CS-adjacent sets is how truly weird and imaginative they were. I don't feel like I need to post any examples and you'll already know at least a few sets by heart that can only be described as "what even is this?"
Of course the old sets have aged poorly, they were just ideas that were realized with much greater limitations than Lego designers have today. I certainly don't think the OG Galaxy Explorer looks better than the new one. But even though it ranks quite low on the
"what even is this?" spectrum, it was obviously made with a certain idea in mind. There's very little of that idea in the new ship.

It basically went from this


To this



The new ship looks just like the new castle - plain. That means that whoever made it does not even realize that classic space had ideas but instead thinks of it as ugly old sets that would be very easy to beautify.  The most striking thing about the design of the new ship is how flat the sides are. And that likely wasn't even a part of the idea of old ship, but just something that happened due to limitations and could have been improved upon. If the new ship wasn't in classic space colors, I probably wouldn't even connect it to the old Galaxy Explorer. It's pretty, but not even remotely weird.

I believe Lego has become such a stranger to imagination and not just reproduction that anything that is not immediately obvious might as well not exist, because to them it does not.
Given that, they probably would've had more luck making a recreation of something where you really can't miss some of the features, like the Galaxy Commander.

For example, look at this random idea that popped out while I was looking for Galaxy Explorer images.




Some obvious Galaxy Explorer inspiration, has a double canopy, does not look plain. Regardless of the execution, it has some personality.
And that's what it's really about. Give me something to inspire my imagination. It does not have to be 1970-s level ugly, but a little weirdness would go a long way.

P.S. The bulkiness also makes it look more ship-y and less fighter-y.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Merlo

[icm]

See, from the time I was a little kid browsing Brickset until today I’ve always thought that “what even is this” aspect of Classic Space (and later Space lines) is the worst part. I like to know what I’m looking at. I like comprehensible, clean, simple designs. For me the Galaxy Explorer is the Classic Space ship with the least aspect of “wtf is this”, which is the single biggest reason why it’s the best of the old spaceships. But I don’t think you or I are qualified to speculate on what aspects of a modern remake best embody or impugn parts of the original design intent, because neither you nor I know the mind of the original set designer. Mike Psiaki does though. The original set designer kept working at Lego for decades and only retired pretty recently, I think, so it’s more likely than not that Mike had the opportunity to pick his brain a few times. But I swear we’re talking past each other on imagination here. I’ve already posted a list of about a dozen ways the new set is wildly imaginative in my opinion, and you took that list and said you can’t see a single one. So there’s no accounting for taste. I should go back to bed.

Edited June 26, 2022 by icm

[arnoldtblumberg]

I love the look of the new set, and I'm a first-gen Classic Space fan that owned the Galaxy Explorer and most of the others, played with them constantly, and see none of this disconnect everyone is spending so much time discussing. The new one is beautiful and works for me. 

[lowlead]

^^ Same.  Love the set, gonna buy several.

[swissvoice]

7 hours ago, Merlo said:

 

I feel the greatest strength of classic space and CS-adjacent sets is how truly weird and imaginative they were. I don't feel like I need to post any examples and you'll already know at least a few sets by heart that can only be described as "what even is this?"
Of course the old sets have aged poorly, they were just ideas that were realized with much greater limitations than Lego designers have today. I certainly don't think the OG Galaxy Explorer looks better than the new one. But even though it ranks quite low on the
"what even is this?" spectrum, it was obviously made with a certain idea in mind. There's very little of that idea in the new ship.

It basically went from this


To this



The new ship looks just like the new castle - plain. That means that whoever made it does not even realize that classic space had ideas but instead thinks of it as ugly old sets that would be very easy to beautify.  The most striking thing about the design of the new ship is how flat the sides are. And that likely wasn't even a part of the idea of old ship, but just something that happened due to limitations and could have been improved upon. If the new ship wasn't in classic space colors, I probably wouldn't even connect it to the old Galaxy Explorer. It's pretty, but not even remotely weird.

I believe Lego has become such a stranger to imagination and not just reproduction that anything that is not immediately obvious might as well not exist, because to them it does not.
Given that, they probably would've had more luck making a recreation of something where you really can't miss some of the features, like the Galaxy Commander.

For example, look at this random idea that popped out while I was looking for Galaxy Explorer images.




Some obvious Galaxy Explorer inspiration, has a double canopy, does not look plain. Regardless of the execution, it has some personality.
And that's what it's really about. Give me something to inspire my imagination. It does not have to be 1970-s level ugly, but a little weirdness would go a long way.

P.S. The bulkiness also makes it look more ship-y and less fighter-y.

I kind of agree to a certain level with your opinion. To me the new Explorer does also feel more like a Jet. On the other hand I think the original one does look more like a proper spaceship. While I will definitely buy the new one, because I still like the model, for me the canopy is the main reason it does not feel like a spaceship. There is more interior space but to me it still looks like the original one has a much larger interior. I wish they'd made it look like a more spacious interior. That being said I still like the model and don't think it looks plain. Just not 100% how I would imagine an Explorer spaceship. But it's still a good starting point to moc our own personal GE.

[Lord Insanity]

@Merlo

Those examples of the old car and the crazy tricked out car kind of illustrate your point very well.  What I think you're missing is that I and apparently several others feel that the example is the other way around.  The original Galaxy Explorer is the plain old car and the new Galaxy Explorer is the crazy tricked out car.

 

16 hours ago, Merlo said:

For example, look at this random idea that popped out while I was looking for Galaxy Explorer images.

Some obvious Galaxy Explorer inspiration, has a double canopy, does not look plain. Regardless of the execution, it has some personality.
And that's what it's really about. Give me something to inspire my imagination. It does not have to be 1970-s level ugly, but a little weirdness would go a long way.

P.S. The bulkiness also makes it look more ship-y and less fighter-y.

While that does look like a really cool digital MOC it clearly uses parts that were replaced by newer versions and could never be built as is today.

I find it fascinating that you feel the Galaxy Explorer looks "fighter-y".  To me it looks like it would be really fast but have the turning radius of a beached whale.  It feels more like a  "Stardestroyer-y" cruiser to me.

I think the one thing we call all agree on is at least it is a fantastic parts pack for Space.

[Merlo]

10 hours ago, swissvoice said:

 That being said I still like the model and don't think it looks plain. Just not 100% how I would imagine an Explorer spaceship. But it's still a good starting point to moc our own personal GE.

Understandable, but since I don't moc I'm really out on the limb here... because... someone might make an awesome moc out of those so maybe buy a few? Or nobody will, so maybe don't buy at all? :)

[Merlo]

2 hours ago, Lord Insanity said:

@Merlo

Those examples of the old car and the crazy tricked out car kind of illustrate your point very well.  What I think you're missing is that I and apparently several others feel that the example is the other way around.  The original Galaxy Explorer is the plain old car and the new Galaxy Explorer is the crazy tricked out car.

 

While that does look like a really cool digital MOC it clearly uses parts that were replaced by newer versions and could never be built as is today.

I find it fascinating that you feel the Galaxy Explorer looks "fighter-y".  To me it looks like it would be really fast but have the turning radius of a beached whale.  It feels more like a  "Stardestroyer-y" cruiser to me.

I think the one thing we call all agree on is at least it is a fantastic parts pack for Space.

I'm not sure how it could be the other way around since the original had the double deck and the new one has... I don't know... a simple design for young Lego fans and added details for AFOLs.
I mean, after all, the old GE was simplified into the new. Can you really take the new GE and simplify it much further, looking at the overall design, not the details?
It seems like the only thing left would be to eliminate the outer slopes of the blue part, so it remains like a big triangular prism.

As for the other moc, I don't think in hangs on any one part. You could probably make many models with those qualities, and then some, using all kinds of parts.

It probably looks fightery because you can clearly see all the figures. So you've got: wings, comfortable space for figures, some bulk for cargo or something else in the rear.
And the interior space doesn't look like it's made to be walked about and interacted in flight, it looks like the figures would strap in or at least take a seat and remain in that position for the duration of the flight.
Is there even a passage from the front canopy to the back? So because of that strap in nature, I get a feeling you wouldn't strap in to go exploring the galaxy, but rather go on a shorter mission of some kind.

And, as I mentioned,  "lack of interior space" was never really an issue. I know Lego is just pretend so I can pretend it has a huge interior if I don't see all of it. I only can't pretend that if I do see all of it.

I'm looking forward to see some variations on this.
 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Merlo

[icm]

Tell you what, Merlo. You build your own fully modern Galaxy Explorer from the ground up in Studio or another digital program of your choice - or even better, in real bricks - and then make a topic about your ideal Galaxy Explorer. Until then, I think we’ll all just keep talking past each other. You’ve seen my MOC built from the ground up to be a fully modern interpretation of the classic set, according to my own ideas of how it would/should be, without being a copy of anybody else’s design - now let’s see yours. Looking forward to it :)

ps, for me I my headcanon was never that the Galaxy Explorer in the set was a smaller playscale version of a much larger spaceship, like how the playscale Millennium Falcons are smaller versions of a spaceship that takes $800+ to do justice to at full minifig scale. I always felt like, well, the size of the spaceship in the set must be its true/in-universe size compared to the minifigs/people.

So I designed my MOC thinking of it kind of like it being a minivan in space, with a well furnished cockpit for two up front and a couple of pretty good sized cargo spaces in the back that can haul a couple small rovers or an awful lot of luggage. There’s a little dividing wall so that the minifigs can, like, turn around in their seats and rummage in the luggage, but it’s not like a full compartment. You wouldn’t stand up in the back of a minivan and start chucking luggage around while it’s going full speed on the freeway, you wouldn’t do that while this thing is in flight either.  
 

So for me, coming from that perspective, the new set is nicely enlarged but not completely changed in scale as if it wasn’t even the same class of ship anymore.

You seem to be coming from the opposite perspective, imagining the original set as this shrunken playscale version of a really huge cruiser - hence when the new set still only holds a few minifigs, albeit in a bit more style, you’re disappointed because you imagined a huge cruiser. There are a couple of huge cruiser Galaxy Explorer MOCs on the web, offhand I can think of Alec Hole and Lego Space Guy, both on Flickr.

I’d be very interested to see how you would downsize an enormous vessel like that into a playscale version if you were assigned the task of developing a 90th Anniversary Galaxy Explorer for a price point of, let’s say, $400 or less to match the castle.

Edited June 27, 2022 by icm

[lowlead]

Jesus.  August 1st can't arrive fast enough.

I'm all for a good long debate, but this has been beaten to a bloody pulp, no?  @Merlo I would be genuinely interested in seeing what you imagine as the ideal GE remake, as you have a puzzling take on this new set.  Like others, I can't wait to see what you come up with!

...and for the record, I would love to have both the Gigahorse and a resto-mod '59 Coupe DeVille in my garage side-by-side.  Both epic vehicles.

Edited June 27, 2022 by lowlead

[Mondo-TRON]

Hello, first post.

I cant wait until they ship the Galaxy  Explorer. I glad they made a Classic Space for the 90th.

CS was before my time, I started with M:Tron and Black Tron, but I gain interest in CS recently and bought a few Benny's Space ships and other sets.