LEGO Sci-Fi Ongoing - Rumors, Speculation, and Discussion

[Khargeust]

Looks unexciting. Also I think packaging is ugly and boring.

[Black Falcon]

First impression is quite good, I like it better than the ground vehicle - but will need better pictures to really judge it. I don´t think it comes near to the XL15, which is pretty good IMO

[legoturtle]

I think XL-15 and Galaxy Explorer are best Spaceships LEGO has ever made. One interesting thing is that minifigure head is yellow, legs are with, torso is white but arms are black. Could there be 3 different types of space minifigures or maybe even more types like previous CITY/Space sets 2022. Yellow is pilot, white explorer on the Moon. blue scientists and white civilians live on Earth.

[danth]

2 hours ago, Khargeust said:

Also I think packaging is ugly and boring.

I agree, at least for the silver wedge on the right side. That part might be the most uninspiring and joyless Lego bit of packaging I've ever seen. The tiny Space logo, the most boring possible font for the SPACE text, and the plain silver background. The logo should be bigger, the font should be futuristic, and there should be some cool exciting outlines of asteroids or lasers or something instead of just a plain silver background.

Of course I'm just going to throw the box away regardless.

[RichardGoring]

35 minutes ago, danth said:

The logo should be bigger

Not saying you're wrong, but in the graphic design world, this statement means everyone has down a shot... 

[Classic_Spaceman]

1 hour ago, legoturtle said:

I think XL-15 and Galaxy Explorer are best Spaceships LEGO has ever made. One interesting thing is that minifigure head is yellow, legs are with, torso is white but arms are black. 

They could be black, but PDG is more likely based on another leaked torso (which had a reddish orange left arm). Thus far, we have green, blue, orange, PDG/reddish orange (with gold hands), and black or PDG (also with gold hands) confirmed. 

1 hour ago, legoturtle said:

Yellow is pilot, white explorer on the Moon. blue scientists and white civilians live on Earth.

All of them have the same torso and leg prints (already leaked), with white, dark blue, and silver being their base colours. 
 

[Lyichir]

TBH I can't believe Space fans are already complaining about the prominent "SPACE" branding on these sets. Not saying it's above an honest design critique, but when I saw that my heart soared the same way it did when I saw the ads for the (sadly, doomed never to release) "Lego Space: The Videogame" on the sides of the Space Police III sets.

[Lion King]

4 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

TBH I can't believe Space fans are already complaining about the prominent "SPACE" branding on these sets. Not saying it's above an honest design critique, but when I saw that my heart soared the same way it did when I saw the ads for the (sadly, doomed never to release) "Lego Space: The Videogame" on the sides of the Space Police III sets.

Right?

[danth]

1 hour ago, RichardGoring said:

Not saying you're wrong, but in the graphic design world, this statement means everyone has down a shot... 

Yeah but that's web design mostly.

The planet's diameter is smaller than the height of the SPACE text. A logo smaller than accompanying text seems like a graphic design faux pas to me, or maybe it just violates common sense. 

43 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

TBH I can't believe Space fans are already complaining about the prominent "SPACE" branding on these sets. Not saying it's above an honest design critique

Then why can't you believe it?

You know what I can believe? That you immediately jumped in to complain about those who criticized literally anything Lego did.

It's just packaging. Not that important to me personally, but I do find it off-putting in this case.

EDIT: Actually the more I look at it though, the worse it gets. The City logo actually looks cool and has a great font. Now look at the Space side and see how disjointed and terrible it looks in comparison. Yikes.

I thought I was done talking about it but @Lyichir your comment goaded me to look at it again and wow is it bad.

43 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

but when I saw that my heart soared the same way it did when I saw the ads for the (sadly, doomed never to release) "Lego Space: The Videogame" on the sides of the Space Police III sets.

That game actually had a non-boring logo:

Huh, look at that. The Space logo is bigger and the font is more exciting and futuristic. Exactly what I suggested.

Edited November 28, 2023 by danth

[danth]

Double post.

Edited November 28, 2023 by danth

[Lyichir]

36 minutes ago, danth said:

You know what I can believe? That you immediately jumped in to complain about those who criticized literally anything Lego did.

Why are you being like this? All I was saying was that I was not expecting some of the first discussion of the prominent space branding to be complaining about how ugly/boring it is. I don't see why you thought this was a reason to throw shade at ME or assume that my only interest in this was because I was defending Lego. It's comments like these that make me feel like it's not even worth contributing to discussions like these—no matter what I do, I'll never be seen as anything but a shill to people who seem to view anything other than negativity as a sign that I'm shallow or inauthentic.

To be honest, the design of the logo or text wasn't really what excited me about it—what excited me about it was City Space becoming a big enough "thing" to merit its own distinct branding, featuring the classic space logo no less. And I certainly didn't find the size, color, or font choice obtrusive enough to consider it "ugly". That's where my confusion at THAT becoming the subject of discussion already was coming from.

[danth]

8 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

Why are you being like this?

DARVO. Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.

I and others give an honest critique of what we think is bad design.

You reply to mock us as if we're ungrateful, silly people. You don't even try to argue that the design is good. You don't offer a different opinion. You just attack the people with the critical opinion.

I call out your bad (and widely known) habit of doing this.

Then you act like I'm the bad guy. You pretend to be the victim. Even though you are the one that ridiculed my opinion.

[Clone OPatra]

Move on and drop it @danth. And before you ask why I'm singling you out (publicly, no less), Lyichir made a generic comment about the discussion, and you took that and made comments to and about Lyichir.

Thanks.

[danth]

So we can insult Space fans as a whole, but not say "you" when replying to the person insulting Space fans?

Got it. Dropping the issue then.

[Clone OPatra]

You think that comment was an insult? 

I think the logo design is pretty uninspired (as does Lyichir it seems), but a general comment on the fact that people are focusing a lot on logo design is cool and fine.

[danth]

14 minutes ago, Clone OPatra said:

You think that comment was an insult? 

There's the classic "Space fans are always complaining" trope.

Then there's the fact that I was the only one who mentioned the Space logo itself, so obviously it was about my comment specifically.

And then totally disingenuous strawman that I'm complaining that the Space logo being prominent, which literally nobody said. I complained about the font, the size, the background. But the reply is basically saying I'm so dumb that I'm a Space fan complaining about getting a prominent Space logo. I mean of course that's insulting. It's almost like I'm being intentionally trolled.

I can't imagine what other meaning "Space fans are complaining about the prominent "SPACE" branding" other than to call them stupid and/or ungrateful.

And it's only a few people on the entire forum that repeatedly do this. I guess I should just block them and be done with it.

Sorry, I'm only explaining my thought process because you asked. Dropping it otherwise.

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by danth

[Lion King]

I can’t wait to see more space sets from City as December gets closer.

[Lyichir]

Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to say that it was wrong to critique the design, just that I was surprised that kind of quibbling over something so minor was where the discussion was heading so early on. On further thought, it's not THAT surprising—we've only gotten the barest glimpses at the sets themselves at this point, so there'll probably be more substantive discussion of the actual sets and parts and everything in a couple days when we (hopefully) get full reveals of the sets.

@danth, the reason I still read your posts is because I genuinely think you make great MOCs and often insightful comments as well. I really try my best to be respectful even when sometimes your comments come off to me as unnecessarily cynical. I really wish you would show the same respect to me, and maybe give me the benefit of the doubt once in a while.

Believe it or not there's a fair bit Lego does that I really dislike. For example, their continued platforming of the Harry Potter theme allowing the books' bigoted creator to continue profiting off them and funding hate for people like my own sister is INCREDIBLY frustrating. Another example I learned of just today is how the Legoland park in California is engaging in union-busting behavior (which only reinforces my existing worry that the only reason they recently announced a manufacturing plant in my home state of Virginia might be the state's "right to work" laws making unionization more fraught). These, to me, feel like real major frustrations that are worthy of condemnation, or even outrage.

But compared to things that sometimes I feel like the amount of energy spent complaining about things like minor imperfections in prints, or even something as inconsequential as the graphic design of a logo, feels petty and unearned. And years in the Lego community dealing with the same sorts of cyclical complaints of that nature have made me perhaps a little too jaded to that sort of discussion, and overly eager to try to head it off and try to redirect it toward discussions I feel are more productive. I realize that that's probably a little self-centered of me. I'll try to be better about not trying to police the conversation.

[jodawill]

I asked my son what he thought of the set. I go to him whenever I want an unbiased opinion because everything is new to him and he gets excited over a lot of stuff I snub my nose at. He said he didn't think it was very good, but he couldn't explain why. He just said he thinks classic space is better.

I think the reason is that it's just too similar to the real world. It doesn't really scratch that itch for people who want something more fantastical. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it. Maybe some other people like that more. I think the box art is also ok given that it's just a city set. I never really expected a lot personally.

 There's still a rumor of another larger set that's supposedly similar to the Galaxy Explorer. I'm hoping that one will be more in line with what we space fans are looking for.

[danth]

22 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

just that I was surprised that kind of quibbling over something so minor was where the discussion was heading so early on.

There were exactly two comments critiquing the packaging/logo before the surprise over the comments. A total of four sentences.

This is all much ado about nothing.

I'll quote how my comment ended:

3 hours ago, danth said:

Of course I'm just going to throw the box away regardless. 

I preemptively signaled it's not very important. But it didn't work...

13 minutes ago, jodawill said:

 There's still a rumor of another larger set that's supposedly similar to the Galaxy Explorer. I'm hoping that one will be more in line with what we space fans are looking for.

Yes, I'm sad we haven't heard much about this lately. Or the Space CMF series (which might not even be sci-fi, who knows).

What I do know is that when Lego releases a set I really like, for example the Galaxy Explorer, or less recently Benny's Space Squad or Benny's S-S-Spaceship, I tend to buy lots of other Lego sets that I normally wouldn't buy. I get a lot more forgiving. Almost like getting those kinds of sets reinvigorates my love for Lego generally.

So the 2024 town space sets are "maybes" for me right now, but if a new Blacktron Icons set comes out, I'm going to be in a good mood...and the 2024 town space sets become "heck, why not" sets.

[Lion King]

22 minutes ago, jodawill said:

There's still a rumor of another larger set that's supposedly similar to the Galaxy Explorer. I'm hoping that one will be more in line with what we space fans are looking for.

Similiar to Galaxy Explorer? I thought it would be more similiar to Blacktron spaceship since there is a vague description. “Black spaceship” is what we know. However, we don’t know if it’s actually Blacktron spaceship at the moment. 

[jodawill]

31 minutes ago, Lion King said:

Similiar to Galaxy Explorer? I thought it would be more similiar to Blacktron spaceship since there is a vague description. “Black spaceship” is what we know. However, we don’t know if it’s actually Blacktron spaceship at the moment. 

I mean similar in size, complexity, and it most likely being an old space faction.

[Lion King]

3 minutes ago, jodawill said:

I mean similar in size, complexity, and it most likely being an old space faction.

Ah. I got you now. 

[Artanis I]

The model might be interesting, but not going to win me over in that boring colour scheme.

If they're not going to make a proper space shuttle, go the whole hog and give it cool colours!

[SpacePolice89]

13 hours ago, Lyichir said:

For example, their continued platforming of the Harry Potter theme allowing the books' bigoted creator to continue profiting off them and funding hate for people like my own sister is INCREDIBLY frustrating.

That's a bit unfair. Everybody is entitled to an opinion even if you don't agree with them. Hate is a strong word and is not appropriate to use in this case.