Aanchir

Yeah, even in terms of subject matter I think the City theme has really been making some great strides. A lot has been said about the how much better the Friends theme tends to do than the City theme when it comes to "everyday" subject matter, but the past few years of City sets have definitely started to make slight progress in that area, introducing an impressive variety of residential buildings, eateries, food trucks, parks/recreational facilities, and even the first ever school, grocery store, and barbershop in either City, World City, or even Classic Town. Which I think is pretty satisfying in a theme category that's always had a rather disproportionate emphasis on stuff like construction and emergency services. And even just in terms of build quality and complexity, I think that the City theme's been really strong lately. Like, compare https://brickset.com/sets/60451-1/Emergency-Ambulance to https://brickset.com/sets/4431-1/Ambulance, or https://brickset.com/sets/60418-1/Police-Mobile-Crime-Lab-Truck to https://brickset.com/sets/7288-1/Mobile-Police-Unit. The newer counterparts have much more detailed bodywork and cab construction, less reliance on large panel or roof pieces, and in the police truck's case, even a much more detailed interior.

Creator doesn't really tend to shy away from minifig accessories or other small decorative elements, so I don't think a part like this would be off-limits. My bigger concern would be that the hobby-horse head might be too small relative to a brick-built horse large enough to carry a minifig or pull a wagon.

To clarify, are you saying the 90s color palette was fine as-is, or that 90s sets should have ONLY introduced those four colors? Because even in the 90s there were a lot more colors than these introduced: medium red, dark orange, light yellow, bright yellowish green, medium green, bright bluish green, medium blue, medium reddish violet, etc. To say nothing of even older colors like Nougat, Light Orange Brown, Red Orange, Brick Red, and Pastel Green that had already been around for years by the time the 90s rolled around, despite being mostly limited to themes like Duplo, Fabuland, or Modulex. I've long felt that one of the best things about the LEGO color palette from around 2012 onward is that there are way fewer colors like these that are used far too sparingly to actually build anything of consequence with them. Like, sure, there might be many more shades of blue and green today than there were in the 90s, but all of them are used widely enough to actually be useful when creating your own builds. Which I suppose is part of why these colors have had more staying power than many of those older colors from themes like Fabuland or Scala did. Also, for consideration Tr. Fluorescent Green Tr. Fluorescent Reddish Orange both came out in the 90s, and many LEGO Space fans in particular are incensed that they've been retired, even though other transparent green and orange colors are still widely in use. So clearly, even among older LEGO fans, there's a huge difference between having a color that's "just right" for a certain subject and one that's a rough approximation of the desired color. 'Cuz sometimes you want a green that's lighter or darker or more yellowish or bluish, not just one that's sort of in the middle.

That's a reasonable perspective, although I do think this figure stands out quite a bit from Blacktron CMFs in that it sticks to classic colors and a very rudimentary white harness print instead of having lots of modernized details. In that respect, this one is a much closer match to the figs from the Blacktron Cruiser and Renegade. Honestly, isn't it preferable for a book exclusive promo figure to be one that "doesn't really need to exist" rather than one that's super desirable or tailored to army building? I mean, most other figs that appear exclusively in DK guides (like the zombie skateboarder, white Boba Fett, pirate Batman, and samurai Lloyd) are also pretty unnecessary and easy to do without if you don't care for their designs. And I'm sure a lot of people would be infuriated if they instead made a modernized Black Knight footsoldier or Unitron astronaut that was only available as a pack-in with a $50 hardcover book. This way it's a nice bonus for people who choose to get the book, and no major loss for anybody who chooses not to.

Yeah, I agree about this. I am a big fan of the new Renegade design, but the B-model isn't anywhere near as strong as the Galaxy Explorer's B- and C-models (though in fairness, the three sets that Galaxy Explorer's builds took inspiration from had much more similar shapes and had much more similar inventories than the Renegade and Alienator/Strider, so the designer of the Renegade was working at more of a disadvantage here). The legs in particular are an area where it's very obvious the parts were selected based on what was available in the A-model rather than what would make a coherent-looking leg design. Truth be told I don't mind the foot design as much, especially since it makes a little more sense conceptually for the feet to take cues from the landing gear of the spaceships than the wings, but it is certainly also a very big departure from the original set's wedge-shaped feet. I am looking into trying to MOC a modernized Alienator that's more to my tastes, though — in fact, the canopy of the new Renegade's rover seems like it could be a good fit for an upscaled revamp of the Alienator's canopy.

I also like the Dark Orange recolor of the sword piece for a wooden training sword! Making this figure a Viking child is a great way to ensure it stands out from any of the figures in other recent Viking sets, and the training sword really completes that look. Besides its obvious utility for historic themes, the sword could also be useful for Legend of Zelda MOCs, since a number of those games have wooden or rusty swords in them. Besides that figure, there's also a "Year of the Snake" minifigure who wears a pink dress with a snake-patterned collar and carries a Bright Bluish Green snake piece. The dress will probably be a bit too vibrant and festive-looking for many people's tastes, but the new snake recolor could certainly be useful for historic MOCs!

Good on you! Did you ever get your hands on https://brickset.com/sets/1788-1/Treasure-Chest or https://brickset.com/sets/1906-1/Majisto-s-Tower? Those were a couple other American-exclusive sets from that era that I have fond memories of. I suspect the gimmicky boxes of those sets were yet another way for LEGO to try and stand out in a competitive toy market. The "magic castle box" gimmick of the latter set still stands out as extremely unique to me, even if in practice it didn't really add that much play value due to the box not having any interior details or any way for minifigs to interact with it besides entering and exiting the doors. And the box art certainly presents an interesting, stylized take on the Dragon Masters design language. The Treasure Chest box also wore out its novelty pretty quickly, since it was mostly just a sales gimmick/storage option, and a much smaller and flimsier one than the plastic storage bins that were available from other themes at the time. But the set itself did provide a neat "sampler" of the sort of parts, figures, building techniques, and play features used in other Pirates and Islanders sets of its time. I remember especially liking the little campfire!

It was one of a few different American-exclusive "value pack" sets back in the 90s — some others from this same year (with similar names, to boot) are the Cactus Canyon Value Pack and Sandypoint Marina Value Pack. Besides the subthemes you brought up, I believe Roboforce, Aquaraiders, and most of the Outback subtheme of Town were North America exclusives as well. The reasoning I've heard is similar to your understanding: LEGO already had a very strong market share in Europe in the 90s, but in the US and Canada they had a much tougher time getting a foothold due to the amount of competition from American toy companies (including, but not limited to, American building toy brands like Mega Bloks and K'nex). So LEGO produced a lot of North America only products to make sure that even if they couldn't always compete with other toys on price, the sheer size and variety of the LEGO shelf/aisle in toy and department stores would help draw kids' attention. There were a few cases of mostly NA-only sets getting promotional releases in Europe (e.g. at least one Roboforce set and one Aquaraiders set were offered as rewards for redeeming LEGO World Club magazine points), which I suppose worked well since they could be advertised as "exclusive offer/not sold in stores", but IDK whether there were any offers of that sort for the NA-exclusive Pirates sets.

That depends how you define playability, I think. Brick-built animals, even at minifig scale, often have a lot more articulation than their molded counterparts — for example, the shark in 31109 Pirate Ship has not only a posable jaw but also posable pectoral and tail fins, the birds' wings can pivot, and the horse in the B-model can move all four of its legs independently. But the more limited articulation of molded animals can also make them sturdier, easier to stomp around without the limbs buckling at the joints, and easier to place in a pose that's guaranteed to be balanced — all things that can make them more play-friendly for younger kids. It's a real trade-off for sure — even outside decisions about "molded vs. brick built animals", it's a big part of why mechs and brick-built creatures in sets aimed at younger kids often have fewer points of articulation than those aimed at older kids (despite that often making them less popular with TFOLs and AFOLs). Neither is intrinsically more or less playable, they just cater to different styles of play.

Counterpoint: in the late 2000s/early 2010s I remember a number of complaints here on Eurobricks that themes like Mars Mission, Space Police 3, and Alien Conquest didn't feel like true Space themes — despite including features like space aliens and mysterious energy crystals — because they were too near-Earth or near-future compared to far future, deep space stuff that could conceivably represent an interstellar society entirely separate from our own. Part of this was probably because back before Eurobricks had an "Action and Adventure Themes" subforum, discussion of themes with a roughly 20th/21st century setting like Adventurers and Agents took place in the Town subforum, regardless of whether they included sci-fi or fantasy elements. But even today, if the current City Space stuff WERE branded as its own theme, I could imagine similar complaints about aspects like the astronauts eating Earthling foods like sandwiches and pizza, watching Earthling sports broadcasts/recordings, cultivating Earthling plants, etc. — stuff that you would never see in an 80s or 90s Space set. For my part, I think sets like these can work pretty well either as part of the City theme or as a theme of their own. After all, the earliest LEGO Space sets included lots of rockets, satellites, forklifts, rovers, launch structures, and gadgets that looked fairly similar to contemporary American or Soviet technology. It was a few years before even sci-fi staples like walkers/mechs and robots/droids started to show up in Space sets. And the cratered surfaces included with some of the sets could just as easily belong to Earth's moon as to some distant planet. So there's nothing about LEGO Space as a theme that strictly needs to be any more remote or more futuristic/high-tech than what we see in the current City Space sets, or even the NASA-inspired City Mars Expedition sets. But also, it's also hardly unheard of for Town/City sets to deviate from strict modern-day realism if it means matching kids' imaginations more closely. Consider how City crooks wear prison stripes and domino masks almost as a rule, even when "on the lam", how some City Jungle Explorer sets have included giant carnivorous plants or ancient ruins full of dazzling treasure, or how the Arctic sets back in 2000 included meteorites containing frozen extraterrestrial creatures! Given that encounters with alien species are a situation many kids like to imagine as a possibility for real-world astronauts, including alien species in City and Friends space exploration sets (or even Creator ones like 31107) could be considered a similar sort of creative license.

Honestly, I don't think it's realistic to blame this on Ninjago's continued existence. LEGO has always tended to market new themes with the same strategies that they've found to work in recent years. It's like how in the 90s, most themes would get promoted with magazines, truck tours, and sometimes audio dramas and picture books. Or like how in the 2000s, basically any new theme got marketed with Flash-based online games, videos, and comics. Or how in the early 2010s, new themes would also get a mobile app game (although at that time, "interactive" apps were still an experimental thing relegated to small, dedicated product lines like LEGO Life of George or LEGO Fusion) and short mini-movies on LEGO.com and YouTube. As soon as LEGO has evidence that a marketing strategy is both effective and within their means, it gets added to the toolbox for how they might promote the next new theme. In other words, even LEGO did end up abruptly ending Ninjago, they would likely continue making apps and animated series for any new themes aimed at kids. The only thing that would stop them from doing that is if 1) those approaches for marketing to kids stopped being effective and 2) newer, more effective marketing strategies emerged to take their place.

I think the size of the cockpit feels appropriate — besides scaling up the width of the canopy by 1.5x, it also makes the crew capacity twice that of the original (just as with the Galaxy Explorer redesign). The canopy does need to be longer proportionally to allow for this, but the end result is essentially as if if you cut the black bulge behind the original set's canopy in half, and recolored the front half Tr. Yellow to match the windscreen. If you did want to keep the cockpit more proportional to the original set, you'd have to make the canopy not only two to four studs shorter, but also a full brick taller. I'm not sure any current windscreen pieces exist with quite the right proportions for that, and many of those that come close are way too curvy to fit this set's aggressive angular aesthetic. The ratio is alright, but I'm not a big fan of how the yellow parts are kinda scattered about in over a dozen small splotches instead of forming a few longer bands of color. And even those yellow splotches aren't spread out all that evenly — for example, the mod leaves the cockpit with basically no Bright Yellow besides the insignia and the tips of the blasters under each wing, whereas the original Renegade had a long, thin yellow stripe along each side. Overall, I'm fine with having more yellow than the original Renegade if the yellow parts in question are arranged in clean bands of color like that instead of just haphazard splashes of yellow greeble. By comparison, I love the idea of having a cargo bay that can take the rover's place as the Renegade's payload — not because I have anything against the rover design, but because being able to carry different payloads adds even more play and storytelling value. That said, I do have some gripes about Huw's version of the cargo bay: In the original set, the cargo bay's canopy was high enough to allow standing room for a minifigure, so if you wanted you could even remove the small rover from inside and replace it with a furnished lab or barracks. The canopy shape also gave it a futuristic angular shape that differentiated it from real-world cargo containers. By comparison, Huw's cargo container is very flat and boxy, and the use of slopes and trusses to shape the exterior instead of thinner panels gives it a very low "ceiling". Also, while Huw says he plans to add the standard clip and bar connections to the front and back once he has the parts he needs (which, again, adds great play and storytelling value!), I feel like that boxy shape is gonna look kinda awkward when combined with other sleeker-looking modules like the cockpit and engines. I appreciate that he kept the yellow stripe around the cargo bay, which is a great detail in both the original Renegade and his mod of the new one! But unlike in the original set, the placement of this yellow stripe leaves it entirely hidden when the cargo bay is "docked" on the new Renegade, so the only yellow bits that remain visible are the smaller plates on either end of the trusses. Could be as simple as "they thought it looked nice". I definitely understand why you dislike that detail, but a lot of those sorts of likes/dislikes ultimately still come down to personal preference.

New Elementary's parts review is up (ahead of their full set review which they say will be up this weekend), and I'm glad to see the yellow printing is nice and bright! Yellow printing on black plastic can often look kind of iffy even in some classic sets, but it seems like the graphic designer went out of their way to make sure the parts didn't end up with the sort of greenish tint that can sometimes result from that color combination. The same is apparent in Brothers' Brick's review, so hopefully that's a sign that the print quality will be strong across all copies of the set. After reading TBB's review, one feature I see that I'm not so fond of is the use of the classic 4x4x2 rocket cones for the rear engines. I think the Galaxy Explorer made a better call using Fabuland washtubs so that the narrow end of the cone would fit better with the upscaled proportions of the rest of the ship. Also, while I like the design of the new mini spacecraft, TBB's review really highlights how big a departure they are from the original fliers, which felt more like maneuverable hover-platforms than swift little speeders thanks to their multi-directional rockets. Thinking more about this, I realize it'd be fun to try and design upscaled versions of the original fliers and cargo hold that can be swapped out for the speeders and rover in the new version of the set. So I guess that's something I'll be playing around with on stud.io in the coming months!

As awesome as that would be, I think you'd have to scale the Renegade up quite a bit more than 1.5x to have corridors that would fit a minifig! I'd love to see somebody attempt that in a MOC though.

Really impressed with this redesign! It definitely takes more liberties from the original with regard to color blocking and such than the Galaxy Explorer did, but the end result is very effective IMO. And also like that set, it makes some nice improvements on the original in terms of playability/functionality, such as adding detachable energy cells, retractable landing gear, and a "dropship" function. One small but significant change I greatly appreciate is having one universal coupling design between modules, instead of some modules only having "male" pins or "female" pin holes. This expands the customization potential quite a bit: for example, if you wanted, you could flip the body front-to-back, attaching the cockpit and sensor/comms array to what's normally the "back" and the engines to what's normally the "front" — something that the original design didn't allow without modding. The decision to replace the cargo bay containing a small rover with a larger rover that can be dropped directly to the surface definitely adds to the playability IMO (and helps the rover build stand out more from the one that came with the Galaxy Explorer). But I think it's a bit of a missed opportunity not to give the rover itself modular connections like those on the spaceship — especially since in the original build, the cargo bay was yet another modular unit that could be attached to the body, cockpit, and/or engines. It's also a shame not to have any hoses along the body, since those were a detail from the original that was quite distinctive (and I suspect, very exciting for kids of the generation that got to experience Blacktron when it first came out). Moreover, fuel lines or cables like that are the sort of detail that could've complemented the new energy cells really nicely! I am not nearly as impressed with the Alienator/Strider alt build as with the main build. I certainly respect the effort to give this set at least one alt build, since that was a super impressive bonus feature of the Galaxy Explorer, but the leg supports feel awkward to me, and the use of arch bricks in particular makes it feel almost a little too obvious that the design is making do with parts selected with an entirely different type of model in mind. They seem flimsy and decorative, rather than sturdy and utilitarian like the trusses, lattices, and solid armor plating that makes up the rest of the build. Also, compared to the Galaxy Explorer alt builds, which all felt nearly as faithful to their predecessors as the main build did, this revamp takes a lot more liberties (particularly due to keeping the beefy cockpit and engine modules the same as in the main build). It's possible that the legs might look better from a different camera angle, though, and I appreciate that the very classic function has been maintained! I also quite like the service mech built with some of the leftover parts, despite it not being based on any existing Blacktron set. And who knows? Maybe I can take this opportunity to try and MOC an upscaled Alienator/Strider that's more to my tastes, using some of the features of this one that I do like as a starting point.