10497 Galaxy Explorer 90th anniversary set

[Merlo]

On 9/5/2023 at 7:29 PM, icm said:

Edit, from what you've written in your other posts I get the impression that your ideal Galaxy Explorer is probably close to this one by Guido Martin Brandis / The Brick Artisan:

PS - Since you claim to want a weird and quirky look to the Galaxy Explorer, I do think the 10497 qualifies. The way the windscreens are handled is quite unconventional, and to my eyes pretty weird and quirky.

But the weirdest and quirkiest Galaxy Explorer of all was also released in 2022. I would have been satisfied if it was the only non-licensed Spaceship released in 2022, even though I like the 10497 so much more. Is this what you're after? I think it's a pretty great Spaceship too!

 

 

I don't think it particularly matters what my ideal GE would be, Lego doesn't owe me anything. I think it's great, though, how the old sets could be so many things to so many people. If you have an interesting and messy, yet simple design with bigger bricks, you could always make it sleeker yourself. I used to do this a lot as a kid. If you like it as is, that's great. If you don't - very easy to rebuild it. It's a lot easier to make something seemingly complicated simpler than the other way around. The new GE I definitely cannot make more complicated with my time and skills and it's brick count.

Thus, a completely unrelated comment on the Brick Artisan's GE:

I like the execution on the official GE better. I also like square lines more than rounded ones. 10497 looks contemporary but this somehow looks like 1990's even.

If those two sold next to one another I'd still buy the Brick Artisan's one.

There's no alibi work in that one, it's just the author's vision and you can take it or leave it. I can respect that.

I dig how simple bricks have been used in interesting ways.

Also it looks "messy" enough that you cannot take it all at once and thus it doesn't blend in with the background once you've seen it two times.

And the cabin look leaves some mystery about the interior so you can pretend it's a larger ship if you want.

The greebling also helps with this. But this is not something unique to this ship. Lego used to be all about this. Making small sets appear like they depict larger vessels and buildings. 10497 feels a bit like the opposite of that.

And the windscreen on "second deck" I also find to be like the Lego of old... it would be very very difficult to argue that looks better than the 10497 solution, but this one is interesting and strange, and that one is just the reversed front windscreen.

All in all a great effort by the designer.

The other ship is also cool. Perhaps a bit too child like for my old ***, but interesting.

I still see a lot of  Lego designs that are interesting, whether it's monkey kid or dreamz or ninjago, etc. I'd like some of that in themes I find appealing.

[Merlo]

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I get that you might not care for those types of "playset features". But for me, the interior details were perhaps the biggest thing that attracted to me about 10305 Lion Knights' Castle — and I'm 32 years old, so well past my own KFOL years. And the same was true of some of the other 18+ or otherwise adult-targeted sets I'd previously sought out and enjoyed, like the Modular Buildings Collection, Ninjago City collection, and LEGO Ideas Medieval Blacksmith. In general, I feel like a lot of AFOLs tend to treat some features of a set design as "stuff kids like" and others as "stuff adults like", but from my experience, it doesn't break down nearly so neatly.

I love the interior details. I like that they're there. I think they'll mean a lot to some people. But since I buy sets more to display them and I won't display the castle open...
 

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Aside from the actual complexity of a build, one of the things I've found about AFOL-targeted sets compared to KFOL-targeted sets is that they often tend to be more well-rounded. A lot of traditionally "boy-targeted" sets in themes like City, Castle, Pirates, and Ninjago are really heavy on action-focused subject matter and play features, but their interiors tend to be rather sparse, and they often have relatively little focus on everyday slice-of-life role-play scenarios. They've gotten better about this in recent years, (and generally about targeting both boys and girls rather than overwhelmingly prioritizing features that boys respond to in play tests), but prior to the mid-2010s, these shortcomings were EXTREMELY apparent.

 

I always thought this was primarily due to brick limitations in the past, or some other reason. Yes, of course, the sets were boy oriented more than not, but if you've seen kids play they don't actually behave like stereotypical boys and girls.

 

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In my opinion, there's nothing contradictory about including detailed and playable interiors like this in a display-oriented set. Even if as adults we tend to make less time for play and storytelling with these sets than we did when we were kids, these features still enrich the building experience, and act as awesome surprises to show off when they draw the attention of family, friends, and colleagues while on display. Sometimes we may even pull them down from the shelf just to open up and marvel at the details all over again (I certainly do, at any rate, even if they spend most of their time on display). And of course, details like these are a great source of inspiration for our own creations!

You won't get any opposition on this from me. Lego always lacked the interiors in my youth and I'm glad they're here now.

 

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Galaxy Explorer is not quite as exemplary in this regard, by virtue of being a vehicle set rather than a building, and it's for that reason that I opted to get the Lion Knights' Castle instead despite its much higher price. But even so, the new Galaxy Explorer still has a much more elaborate interior than most other large spacecraft sets. Within its relatively narrow fuselage, it manages not just the gleaming white bridge (with extensive control panels, computer screens and seats for a crew of four), a garage/repair bay for the rover, and a sliding airlock, but also a living area with beds — a feature nearly unheard of in KFOL-targeted Space sets!

 

Yes, more bricks brought more details and that's a positive change.

 

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As such, I consider it a great example of what could be possible with other large, adult-targeted sci-fi sets in the future. If LEGO could do work all that detail into a large space cruiser set at a $100 price point, just imagine the possibilities for a retro-inspired 18+ moonbase or space station!

I wish.
 

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But… the original set ALSO had a big glass roof? How are you simultaneously claiming that the new one feels like a smaller, speedier class of ship compared to the original, AND that bigger classes of ship can't/shouldn't have a big transparent roof like the one the original had? I'm genuinely confused at what you're trying to argue here.

 

It did yes, and it was a wonderfully weird feature. But since the blue bricks extended forward it felt like a semi-closed fuselage thing going on, with the rear part being closed off. Several of the images of MOC's on this topic handle this well. Looking at them now I don't even think glass was the problem, it's more that the 10497 glass doesn't look like a part of the ship like it does on both the original and the MOC's. It looks like the ship is just the bottom part and then it has an elongated double cockpit like a fighter plane. Some MOC's also have a lot of glass like that and don't have this problem because the glass part seems to make up the hull of the ship. That way you get sort of the best of both worlds. It feels enclosed, and yet you can see the interior better. So now that I've managed to put that to words, it seems this is also one thing that the MOCers have understood and felt about the original, there was more to it than "it's a ship and it has glass". The interplay between those two worked because it was carefully chosen.

 

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LOL, no. There is nothing at all "easy" about building the entire front portion of the fuselage at such an unusual angle, especially while still maintaining a fully enclosed design.

For an outsider to reverse-engineer, there's nothing easy about this, yes. For Mike, it wasn't a problem. I've seen Lego sets do these things before to great success.
 

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But I do find this approach "better-looking" than the earlier stepped design, which still strikes me as a pretty obvious compromise meant to make the most of the limited window and windscreen elements available at the time.

 

Yes, I agree. In fact, I've accidentally mentioned this exact thing before I read your post. However, "better-looking" is a big factor of alibi designing... i.e. you cannot make it interesting, or you cannot make it both interesting and looking great, so you just make it so it looks great. If you put your heart and soul into a design and it turns out unpopular - you're to blame. If you don't really think about putting anything in it, but just make it have the literal parts it needs and it look great - how can you be to blame? It looks great! This is why I loved Lego sets of old.

 

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And why wouldn't the designers go with the approach that they feel looks best? After all, between the design work they did and the stuff they've said in interviews, it doesn't seem as though they share your viewpoint that the "soul" of Classic Space sets like the original Galaxy Explorer was intrinsically about looking "weird" or "awkward". In fact, I think you're maybe the only person I've ever seen try to assert that looking weird/awkward was a strength of the classic sets rather than a weakness, let alone a core aspect of what made them great.

Great! Then it's no worries for most people, they will probably enjoy a majority of the sets to come. For myself, I've found that a majority of interesting things are ugly. They're not really objectively ugly, of course, but their quality is not immediately apparent and since they don't conform to our expectations, they look somehow ugly or "weird" or "awkward" at first. That's why I said 10497 is a bit of a rice cracker. If you put on Barbie Girl for kids, they'll immediately catch on to why it's great. They definitely won't if you play them some jazz, because it's "ugly". It takes deeper look to see it can be much more interesting than Barbie Girl, just like it took a deeper look to realize what I've just realized about the cockpit of the Galaxy Explorer a few paragraphs before. The MOC-ers realized this because theirs was a work of love. Lego's was a work of skill, done professionally.

 

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Your priorities would clearly be different, and that's perfectly okay, but it bugs me that you keep acting as though the designers' choices indicate either a lack of understanding of Classic Space, or a lack of care/effort, when from all appearances the designers are just as passionate about classic Space as any of us, and it was that passion which informed their design decisions.

I only say that because the end result is too close to the source in literal, banal, countable aspects. Whenever you love a subject, your problem is deciding on what take of an idea to incorporate into the final design. You never just look at the bare mechanics of it and try to smooth them so they're superficially more appealing.

 

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In general, it seems their efforts paid off — the vast majority of feedback to this set has been glowingly positive, whether from reviewers or from ordinary buyers. Some folks had minor gripes with the design, and modified their own copies of the set accordingly, but you're the only person I've seen who thinks it was a ridiculous failure at what it set out to do.

I think it set out to sell well, didn't it? I would hope it was not a failure at that because I'd like to see more space sets in the future :)
 

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And it honestly seems kind of arrogant to keep acting as though your perspective only differs from other Space fans like @danth or myself because you're the only one willing to think critically

 

Have I said that? Worst case scenario you're just people that are not hard to please, and that's a good problem to have in one's life :)

 

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We ALL have our own likes, dislikes, and expectations, and we ALL evaluate new sets in accordance with those.

Sure. This is related to what I said about some of the sets from before... if you make a set be a lot of things at once, a lot of people will be able to find something for themselves in there. If the set mainly just looks good, then it won't be for me.

[Merlo]

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Do you even see what you're doing here? You're accusing @icm of a strawman fallacy by misunderstanding/misrepresenting the perspective you're coming from — but then you follow that up with a load of baseless assumptions about what Mike Psiaki's thought process and perspectives were when designing 10497.

Well I've been (overly) specific about how I feel about certain things and there's plenty of written proof and yet somehow my entire take ended summed up like a caricature :)

On the contrary, Mike didn't chime in on this topic, nor would I be able to claim he felt otherwise than he did when designing the set. All I can say is how I feel about it. There's no objective truth to it. I may feel something is beautiful, you may feel something is ugly. But I can't feel you said 2+2=5 if you did not.

 

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Just because he designed the set in a way you disagree with, you're now throwing out accusations that he didn't "really care or feel or think it's his job to try and reach the heart of the matter" and that he didn't bother "thinking how to translate between two design languages" or "taking a stand on whatever the designer likes" or "consulting with his colleagues". And then you conclude by fabricating a condescending summary of what YOU think his process was ("oh, it's a ship that goes vroom…"). Not only is that a strawman fallacy itself, it's also arrogant as heck. Moreover, it outright contradicts things that Mike Psiaki has described about the set's development process in interviews!*

Accusation is a charge of wrongdoing. The designer of the set had no legal or moral obligation to make the set into anything remotely close to what I would like, so there's no wrong done. This is nothing more than lighthearted forum banter to add some spice to an otherwise stale argument :)

 

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You claim you "would not insult anyone's vision of the GE" and "would not consider their taste inferior to mine", but you continue to do exactly that — both by insinuating that the set didn't reflect any sort of vision or careful consideration on the designer's part, and by insinuating that anybody whose vision of the Galaxy Explorer aligns with 10497 is simply settling for a soulless "inflated and smoothed" version of the original, as opposed to actually recognizing and appreciating specific creative decisions the designer made with the set.

Yes, of course. To state why the GE is disappointing to me. I can't really *know* what the designer was thinking nor what any of you were thinking for that matter, all I can say is how it feels to me. But just like I told to someone before, I don't think anyone is wrong to like the set nor was Lego wrong to make the set. Presumably, sets are made to sell and for people to like, not to meet some specific criteria. I'd say if you're redoing something the two ways that come to mind are a cover song - interesting take on the original, and a tribute song - that tries to capture most of the different things that the original meant to different people. 10497 is just a bit of both, but not a lot of either. It's not interesting enough to be a true cover, as evidenced by many more interesting MOC's in existence, and it's not deep enough to be a true tribute, as evidenced by the many things about it that I miss and can find in the original, a 40 year old set. It just tries to substitute both by superior execution.

 

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*Here are some links to interviews about the set you can read/watch, if you truly want to know about the actual thoughts and considerations that went into the set's design, instead of just the version of the design process you've made up in your head:

Fair enough, but I've seen a few of these before. They seem to weirdly collaborate with my thoughts on their design process.

It turns out they were inspired by Benny's Spaceship. They never had classic space sets. They're focused on technical aspects and execution rather than the specifics. They've been looking at real castles for 10305. I think I've mentioned MP does wonderful renditions of realistic-y sets and aspects, but not so much the ones where imagination is involved. 10305 takes a lot from the immediately preceding Creator Castle. There's no talk about what the Galaxy Explorer meant to any of them (probably nothing, aside from its know place in Lego history). It's all just written from a very professional point of view: there was an assignment, there were challenges to overcome, here's how we overcame them. This is all in line with what I've been saying and much like asking a painter to describe what was like creating one of his painting and the entire talk ends up about finding the right thickness of canvas and mixing a proper shade of yellow.

 

 

[Merlo]

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[A]- so you want either a 400$ playset which is playable and easy to rebuild or a 400$ hyper-detailed MOC and anything not corresponding to one of those two criteria exactly is a waste, correct?

No, any 400$ set can be a lot of different things and interesting for many different reasons. I just find 10305 interesting as a big castle to play with, and that's not in my sphere of interest.

 

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- interesting how the one part you can easily rebuild is "not for you", it appears that you only like playfully rebuildable sets when they don't exist, because when a set does have rebuildability, you don't like it (and you conveniently "forget" that you could modify it, in a way that somehow makes your argument stronger, hum...interesting

What? :)

 

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Now you yourself admitted that 10305 is full of play features, but because it is "dollhouse style", you suddenly really dislike it, so a playful set displeases you because of a minor issue (and it goes from : you are fine with it to : you don't like it)  

Well, as I said, those are two different things to me. 10305 is playable, it can be played with. Playful to me means having a playful look. It's not bad that 10305 is great for play - it's great! It's just not for me.

 

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When talking about 10497, you once again admitted to it using somewhat advanced techniques, but because it doesn't do this in just the right way and doesn't make just the right kind of windscreen and what not it displeases you (and it goes from : you are fine with it to : you don't like it)  

No, 10497 is also right in Lego's territory of trying to have its cake and eat it too. I'm in the process of moving and it's on my shelf right now between 21322 and some non-Lego modular buildings. 21322 looks very playful. The buildings look very lifelike. Looking at both sets it's difficult not to say something like "Fun!" or "Cool!" depending on which one you look at. 10497 is right between those two. A little bit fun, and a little bit cool. But no one ever exclaimed "a little bit fun and a little bit cool!"

 

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Notice a pattern? Here let me spell it out for you : you are a never-satisfied chronic nitpicker (I generally have the same issue, believe it or not). 

I think the words you're looking for are: I've been forever spoiled by some great Lego sets that likely demanded a lot of time and thought (or maybe incredible talent? no idea) and am finding it hard to adjust to a time where Lego just churns out sets that often look great, but lack vision.

 

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Those MOCs that won an Ideas vote were often too unstable or used new colours for parts, so they were modified a little to make them more market-friendly, in other words : to target a BROAD AUDIENCE that isn't just FINE WITH but actually LIKES the product, which is why they will aim for a balance of the two, a set that has no play features isn't going to remind adults of their childhood fun and a playset which looks bad on display is rarely "cool-looking" to kids, so it has to go for a middle point of the two aspects.

You can change a MOC to make it stable and to use available colors. Also, please note that the two are not mutually exclusive. A fully 18+ looking set can have all the play features a child would want. And a smallish set aimed at children can look good enough for adults to actually want it. I usually only bail on adult sets when I see it looks too much like a playset for me to able to display it unless it's fun and relatable to me.

 

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[D]-Let me re-explain for you : you said you wanted a set that is ideally playful and rebuildable but also full of little details and greebling

I don't think I've ever expressed any kind of preference for greebling. If you took the literal wall parts of old castles and smacked them together into an interesting shape, evocative of some different or nonexistant time and place, I'd be fine with that level of "detail" and "greebling" :)

 

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, while wondering if such a thing was possible, the answer is clearly not, because you didn't like the lack of certain details on 10497 (which would have entailed more parts-hence less rebuildability), all the while complaining that the set is not playful (aka rebuildable), so you, in other words, want to make an already hard to rebuild set harder to rebuild so it has more detail but would also like it if it had more rebuildability, I'll give you a moment to think about that...even I am confused, and I'm the one typing this sentence

It's actually really simple.

Look at the Galaxy Explorer - as I said it looks simple, sleek, elegant, it has that striking classic space color scheme. It's maybe not interesting enough to display with its clean and straight lines but, hey, what if... what if we made it the size of the original Galaxy Explorer? Or smaller!! It would be much more rebuildable, it would be swooshable, it would have an overkill of details for a simple playset. Imagine how silly my comment of "oh, it's kinda flat on my shelf next to more spectacular display models" would sound then? I would (hopefully) quickly be buried by replies of "because it's not a display model, dum-dum, now be quiet and let me swoosh and rebuild this ship just one more time!"

I love play sets. I love display sets. I don't have a particular need for inflated play sets. The only thing that does is dillutes the "level of interest / square cm", rebuildability and cuteness of the set. IF the real life inspiration for the set is actually very detailed so you absolutely have to enlarge it to show that faithfully for older fans - I'm fine with that too. This is neither.

 

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To give you another example, you want more detail on 10305, because it is too much dollhouse-like, and the rockwork displeases you, so you want more detail, but you also want that set to be more rebuildable/playful (you use those words interchangeably), which can only be done with fewer details and less parts.

Or, Lego could say "the castle can only be this big for the level of detail to suffice in an 18+ set".

Or, Lego could say "the castle will be aimed at kids but, by God, it will be so cute AFOL's will buy it too" (as was sometimes the case with the castles of old)

Also, here's a random MOC in 10305 style.

This is overdetailed and oversized for its own good. Take this, compress it, don't go full "and here someone carved their name in the wall" and you'd have a set that's cute, wonderful and affordable and 10305-ish done good.

Look at this:

This set has 3 pieces from today's perspective. Yet see how the pizzeria is reminiscent of the real thing? And how cute that silly van is?

Lego used to excel in "going around the limitations to capture the essence of a thing suited for any age".

Now they excel more at "disregarding the essence to just add a thousand pieces more to boost the price".

 

 

[danth]

Maybe we need a "critique of Lego set design" in the General forum. It seems to be its own topic not specifically related to the Galaxy Explorer. I have some general thoughts on it, but I'm done talking about it in this thread.

[Horation]

12 hours ago, Merlo said:

Also, here's a random MOC in 10305 style.

This is overdetailed and oversized for its own good. Take this, compress it, don't go full "and here someone carved their name in the wall" and you'd have a set that's cute, wonderful and affordable and 10305-ish done good.

Look at this:

This set has 3 pieces from today's perspective. Yet see how the pizzeria is reminiscent of the real thing? And how cute that silly van is?

Lego used to excel in "going around the limitations to capture the essence of a thing suited for any age".

Now they excel more at "disregarding the essence to just add a thousand pieces more to boost the price".

 

 

Ok, I'm done with this debate, but I can see why we argued for so long, we really don't see things the same way, that van looks absurdly chunky (aka terrible), but that first set looks playful and rebuildable, packed with details which are recognisable, including indeed a place where someone carved their name, a spot with a hidden frog, etc... 

Lego used to excel in "going around the limitations to capture the essence of a thing suited for any age".

Now they excel more at "capturing the essence of something with a thousand more pieces than before, which still goes around limitations to create a thing suited to any age, but arguably geared a little more towards adults and teens (at a price which, when you readjust it for inflation, is similar to the past, but with far more parts)".

[Merlo]

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Ok, I'm done with this debate, but I can see why we argued for so long, we really don't see things the same way, that van looks absurdly chunky (aka terrible), but that first set looks playful and rebuildable, packed with details which are recognisable, including indeed a place where someone carved their name, a spot with a hidden frog, etc... 

Ok, so how could I not think, after this, that you aren't able to see things in the context of the time they're made in, the intended audience, the available pieces, etc.?

For example it's quite obvious that the new Galaxy Explorer is a much better set than the original, yet the original was *everything* when it came out while the new one is "it's ok" in the time it came out. And this is the only way we can rate sets. We look at what's available and what's possible and compare what we got.

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which still goes around limitations to create a thing suited to any age

Well any set is suited to any age to some extent. Were 10305 as detailed as that church, or at least halfway there, I'd like it a lot. Even if it was much smaller.

Had 10305 been just as it is now, but also much smaller, I'd still like it. I like AFOL sets, I like kids' sets, I don't particularly like hugely inflated kids' sets as it's a lot of money and space for something that won't be as awesome as a full blown AFOL set and won't be as playful as a full blown kids' set.

[Black Falcon]

40 minutes ago, Merlo said:

yet the original was *everything* when it came out while the new one is "it's ok" in the time it came out. And this is the only way we can rate sets. We look at what's available and what's possible and compare what we got.

The problem here is. Both, the "it was everything" and the "it is ok" are your personal feelings about those sets. You can´t really make a rating out of it. ;).

[Horation]

2 hours ago, Merlo said:

Ok, so how could I not think, after this, that you aren't able to see things in the context of the time they're made in, the intended audience, the available pieces, etc.?

For example it's quite obvious that the new Galaxy Explorer is a much better set than the original, yet the original was *everything* when it came out while the new one is "it's ok" in the time it came out. And this is the only way we can rate sets. We look at what's available and what's possible and compare what we got.

Ok, just to clarify, I was explaining why I liked the castle set over the older one.

Now, how could I not think, after this, that you aren't able to see things in the context of the time they're made in, the intended audience, the available pieces, etc.?

For example it's quite obvious that the new sets are better than the old ones, but you are constantly complaining about how they are needlessly detailed and expensive, and how they'd be better if they were to go back to the olden days' detail levels.

Also, you are simultaneously saying that the church "is overdetailed and oversized for its own good. Take this, compress it, don't go full "and here someone carved their name in the wall" and you'd have a set that's cute, wonderful and affordable and 10305-ish done good." and "Were 10305 as detailed as that church, or at least halfway there, I'd like it a lot. Even if it was much smaller." 

So you are saying you wouldn't like the church, because it is too detailed.

But that you would like 10305 if it was as detailed as the church, even if 10305 had to be reduced in size a little.

So you are trolling, and constantly disagreeing with others just for the sake of it, next time at least be sure to be consistent.

P.S. I'm ignoring you so no need to reply

[Merlo]

2 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

The problem here is. Both, the "it was everything" and the "it is ok" are your personal feelings about those sets. You can´t really make a rating out of it. ;).

It's my guess that in the time the original Galaxy Explorer came out, you weren't really spoiled for choice when it comes to brick built space ships. I might be wrong, but the ship seems to have a legendary status at least partially based on that.

It's also my guess that the new Galaxy Explorer didn't sweep the world off of its feet. I mean, I hope it did and I'm wrong, but I didn't hear no immediate plans to continue with Lego space remakes, even though the designers themselves expressed the wish to do so.

[arnoldtblumberg]

So hey, that Galaxy Explorer set is pretty cool, isn't it? :)

[danth]

50 minutes ago, arnoldtblumberg said:

So hey, that Galaxy Explorer set is pretty cool, isn't it? :)

It is! It's out-of-this-world amazing.

 

[Aanchir]

27 minutes ago, danth said:

It is! It's out-of-this-world amazing.

Honestly it'd be pretty dang exciting to me even if I didn't love the design, since it's the first time a non-licensed sci-fi theme has gotten an adult targeted exclusive like this!

In the past, various other KFOL-targeted themes (Castle/Kingdoms, Pirates, Monster Fighters, Ninjago, etc. have gotten teen/adult-targeted exclusives to tie in with them. But we never really got that sort of thing for space themes of that time period like Mars Mission, Space Police 3, Alien Conquest, or Galaxy Squad. Nor even for action themes with high-tech/futuristic leanings like Exo-Force, Agents/Ultra Agents, Power Miners, or Atlantis.

Admittedly, I doubt an adult-targeted spin-off for most of those themes would be anywhere near as popular as either the adult-targeted spin-off sets we did get, or the more "retro" adult-targeted sets of recent years like the Galaxy Explorer. After all, fans of classic sci-fi sets and themes (at least here on Eurobricks) often weren't at all keen on their 21st century counterparts, and I doubt those frustrations with their very modern color schemes and design language would subside just by making them bigger and more detailed.

But it's still very satisfying to know that LEGO has now both recognized the market for big exclusives like this among old-school LEGO Space fans, and figured out how to make modern adult-targeted sets that appeal to that audience. Makes me eager to see what other retro-inspired Space sets they come up with in the future!

[Lion King]

1 hour ago, arnoldtblumberg said:

So hey, that Galaxy Explorer set is pretty cool, isn't it? :)

 

55 minutes ago, danth said:

It is! It's out-of-this-world amazing.

 

I kinda regretted buying htis unopened box. However, with a second thought, I will go ahed and build it. Hopefully it doesn’t disappoint me!

[danth]

42 minutes ago, Lion King said:

 

I kinda regretted buying htis unopened box. However, with a second thought, I will go ahed and build it. Hopefully it doesn’t disappoint me!

Whaaat? You haven't built it yet?

[Lion King]

11 minutes ago, danth said:

Whaaat? You haven't built it yet?

Nope! It’s sitting there for one year. Guilty as charged!

[Black Falcon]

7 hours ago, Merlo said:

It's also my guess that the new Galaxy Explorer didn't sweep the world off of its feet. I mean, I hope it did and I'm wrong, but I didn't hear no immediate plans to continue with Lego space remakes, even though the designers themselves expressed the wish to do so.

Among AFOLs it did great at least - as for the overall audience, only Lego could answer that. But well leakers actually say there will be a new Space remake Set next year, which will likely be the 6954 Renegade, so I would say it is save to guess the Galaxy Explorer can´t have done that bad ;)

[Merlo]

There were adult exclusives for older Lego lines? I thought AFOL sets were a relatively recent invention, unless we count complex technic sets and such.

10 hours ago, Lion King said:

 

I kinda regretted buying htis unopened box. However, with a second thought, I will go ahed and build it. Hopefully it doesn’t disappoint me!

IMHO it's a cool and fun build. The set is exactly what you see on the box.

6 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

Among AFOLs it did great at least - as for the overall audience, only Lego could answer that. But well leakers actually say there will be a new Space remake Set next year, which will likely be the 6954 Renegade, so I would say it is save to guess the Galaxy Explorer can´t have done that bad ;)

I doubt many Lego sets do bad now that they're raking billions. Let's hope we get a 10497-like Renegade and not an Eldorado-like Renegade :)

[Classic_Spaceman]

14 hours ago, Merlo said:

It's also my guess that the new Galaxy Explorer didn't sweep the world off of its feet. I mean, I hope it did and I'm wrong, but I didn't hear no immediate plans to continue with Lego space remakes, even though the designers themselves expressed the wish to do so.

Considering both the LEGO Moments Space spaceship set (possibly the Blacktron Renegade) and the space-themed CMF series coming next year, LEGO clearly thinks that Space is popular and and viable enough to continue at least as a small subtheme. 

12 minutes ago, Merlo said:

Let's hope we get a 10497-like Renegade and not an Eldorado-like Renegade :)

One would be better, but either would be excellent! 
 

[icm]

On 9/10/2023 at 4:04 AM, Merlo said:

Ok, so how could I not think, after this, that you aren't able to see things in the context of the time they're made in, the intended audience, the available pieces, etc.?

For example it's quite obvious that the new Galaxy Explorer is a much better set than the original, yet the original was *everything* when it came out while the new one is "it's ok" in the time it came out. And this is the only way we can rate sets. We look at what's available and what's possible and compare what we got.

So, uh, @Merlo, I'm not going to keep debating you on the design decisions of the 10497 spaceship. But you said some things here that I think are worth commenting on.

First of all, were you a fan of Lego at the time the original Galaxy Explorer was released, either as a KFOL, TFOL, or AFOL? If not, I don't think you have a greater claim than anybody else to be able to "see things in the context of the time they're amde in, the intended audience, the available pieces, etc." You and I and pretty much everybody else on the forums are just regular AFOLs who came of age after Classic Space, and we're all looking back at the same old set list on Brickset through our own individual experiences and perceptions. The designer of the 10497 is the same age as I am, but during the development process of the set he was able to talk to some old hands at the company who actually were there when the original Galaxy Explorer was made. In that, I think he has a much better claim of being able to see the original in the context of the time it was made, its intended audiences, and the available pieces. But, yes, at the end of the day, the 10497 is just his Galaxy Explorer remake MOC that happened to be produced as a retail set because he's lucky enough to work at the company and make that happen. It's fundamentally neither more nor less valid as an interpretation of Classic Space or the Galaxy Explorer than anybody else's interpretation of Classic Space, or anybody else's Galaxy Explorer remake MOC.

Second, I disagree that the only way we can rate sets is to "look at what's available and what's possible and compare what we got." That may be the way you rate sets, but it's not the way everybody rates sets. I like to rate sets on their own merits, without making every set compete against every other set. While I find some sets disappointing, I don't aggressively compare every set against the fanciest MOCs of the same subject, or against my vaguely, incompletely expressed ideas of what could have been.

Third, you seem pretty hung up on the idea that the original Galaxy Explorer was "everything", the best of the best, the most amazing spaceship ever, etc. - and that, therefore, a proper new Galaxy Explorer remake should be "everything", the best of the best, the most amazing spaceship ever. Anything that doesn't meet your idea of a spaceship that is the best-spaceship-evah is just "ok." Well, it's certainly true that there had never been a larger Lego spaceship before the original Galaxy Explorer, but does it necessarily follow that a remake has to be the best-spaceship-ever, the largest-spaceship-ever, "everything"? Not necessarily. There are other ways to interpret the place of the Galaxy Explorer "in the context of its time" and with respect to "the intended audience, the available pieces."

For instance, to make the new one the biggest, best Lego spaceship ever, it would have to be bigger and more expensive than the UCS Razor Crest or the UCS Millennium Falcon. Those are terrific sets, but I don't think anyone was crying out for an $850+ UCS Galaxy Explorer. Instead, consider that in the context of its time the original Galaxy Explorer was a pretty big Lego spaceship meant for children to swoosh it around and tell stories with minifigures, and also consider that it made effective use of the wedge plates and slopes of its time to make a large, sleek wing shape and fuselage. In the context of today, the new Galaxy Explorer is a pretty big Lego spaceship meant for children to swoosh it around and tell stories with minifigures, and it also makes effective use of the wedge plates and slopes of today to make a large, sleek wing shape and fuselage. In the context of its time, the original Galaxy Explorer did give an impression of being a pretty big spaceship, but relative to today it's actually pretty small. So to preserve the impression of being a pretty big spaceship in today's context, the new one did have to be upscaled. But it didn't need to be the biggest-spaceship-evah. So I think that's a pretty close match, in context. 

Also, how about a different kind of context? In 1979, the police headquarters from Town had 372 parts and 4 minifigures, and the big spaceship from Space (the Galaxy Explorer) had 338 parts and 4 minifigures. So besides being the biggest-spaceship-evah, the Galaxy Explorer was ~ a little smaller than the police headquarters set of the time. The pattern has changed a bit recently, but generally City police stations have been ~$100, with 5-7 minifigures. The largest City sets each year have been $150-200, with several more minifigures; the largest spaceships, vehicles, or flying machines in other themes are generally ~$150-170. So there's an argument to be made that a "proper" Galaxy Explorer remake would have been targeted at roughly that price range and it would have included a small radar station, some more minifigures, and a brick-built landing pad. I think that a lot of AFOLs would agree with that. But for what we got, which was just the spaceship, I think it's pretty good. And I don't think that's a failure of imagination - it's just a marketing decision to focus only on the spaceship and bring the set back to the more accessible price point. After all, the $32 RRP of the original set is about $140 today, so we got something that is, relatively speaking, more accessible than the original. And I have no complaints about that.

I'll close this post by repeating, once again, your opinions and interpretations of Classic Space are perfectly valid. They're just not more or less valid than anybody else's, and your ways of thinking about it and evaluating sets, etc, are not the only ways. I'm probably getting a mistaken impression of you - you don't mean to give the impression that you think your ideas are better than everybody else's and everybody else is wrong - but that's the impression I get when I read your posts most of the time, so I apologize for reading you wrong and responding to that mistaken impression.

Cheers - 

icm

[Aanchir]

15 hours ago, Merlo said:

There were adult exclusives for older Lego lines? I thought AFOL sets were a relatively recent invention, unless we count complex technic sets and such.

There were several in the 2000s, though they usually had a 12+/14+/16+ age marking instead of 18+. The 18+ markings are something LEGO has only recently rolled out due to finding that a lot of adult buyers were more likely to interpret 12+ or 14+ on a box as "for teens" instead of "for adults", even though adults were the primary intended audience for many of those sets.

Most of the earliest adult-targeted sets were either licensed (like the Star Wars UCS sets) or generic/non-themed, but the success of those sets eventually gave LEGO the confidence to start making adult-targeted exclusives for some of their other themes beginning in 2009 (and continuing in the early 2010s). So while adult-targeted "themed" sets like Medieval Market Village and Imperial Flagship are arguably still "relatively recent", they've been around much longer than the sort of overtly retro-inspired sets LEGO has only gotten into within the past few years like Barracuda Bay, Lion Knights' Castle, Galaxy Explorer, and Eldorado Fortress.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Aanchir

[Merlo]

11 hours ago, icm said:

First of all, were you a fan of Lego at the time the original Galaxy Explorer was released, either as a KFOL, TFOL, or AFOL? If not, I don't think you have a greater claim than anybody else to be able to "see things in the context of the time they're amde in, the intended audience, the available pieces, etc."

I was a fan during the classic space era. It was already when sets became white instead of grey, but my friends with older siblings often inherited older sets too and I remember thinking about them as if they were these ancient Lego sets from the past, which from a grown up perspective is very silly since it was just a few years before my time.

My claim about seeing things in the context of the time they were made in was not addressed to you or the designer, but the person I was replying to. From one perspective all things that are different are ugly. At its very core, this is why have racism and many other needless things. It takes getting to know something to start seeing it as something other than the initial gut reaction. So old Lego sets (and everything else) can easily look ugly if you want to look at it that way.

As far as my claim about the Galaxy Explorer, it was not made based on some special property of mine, but rather the fact that the MOC designers saw what I saw in it (and likely more, that I'm not yet able to see or at least describe), while 10497 stopped short of those things. It's a simple common experience, just like you can hear music theory and chord resolutions and common practices in songs even if you don't actually know anything about it, but just go by ear.

 

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The designer of the 10497 is the same age as I am, but during the development process of the set he was able to talk to some old hands at the company who actually were there when the original Galaxy Explorer was made. In that, I think he has a much better claim of being able to see the original in the context of the time it was made, its intended audiences, and the available pieces. But, yes, at the end of the day, the 10497 is just his Galaxy Explorer remake MOC that happened to be produced as a retail set because he's lucky enough to work at the company and make that happen. It's fundamentally neither more nor less valid as an interpretation of Classic Space or the Galaxy Explorer than anybody else's interpretation of Classic Space, or anybody else's Galaxy Explorer remake MOC.

Validity was never a subject of conversation, well, unless someone was implying that I feel only my take is valid. All I said was that I wish the designer saw what other MOC makers saw. It's possible that he did, but that he trimmed away the things that would work against making the ship as sleek as possible. If we're getting into the age thing, on the other hand, I feel the world here has many "disconnects". E.g. every day I see millenials discovering things that were not possible for anyone not to know perhaps just 15 years ago. I also see younger people (get off my lawn!) have a much more modest knowledge of the events preceding their lifetime than my generation and many others did before, where it was common knowledge. If I have to guess, it's that the modern world has too many things vying for our attention, and really fun, engaging, even addicting things. So a lot of people are a little bit of an expert when it comes to their specific interests, but don't really have a more superficial wide view on the most important happenings outside of that. Of course, I imagine there are many many times more of those (or we have a lot more information and disinformation about those) to make that possible.

And this disconnect is evident at Lego as well, on many fronts. It was evident with every imaginary generation change and is even more evident now. Sets had certain qualities, other sets had certain qualities, latest sets have certain qualities, etc. But once you go far enough you stop seeing the qualities of what came a lot before your time. This is because you don't need to look hard to look what was lacking, but often you would have to look hard to look for the subtle things that made something excel. We're just wired that way as people. If you switch from 60 hz to 240 hz monitor you may or may not be able to see the difference right away. If you try switching back later, your eyes will bleed.

 

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Second, I disagree that the only way we can rate sets is to "look at what's available and what's possible and compare what we got." That may be the way you rate sets, but it's not the way everybody rates sets. I like to rate sets on their own merits, without making every set compete against every other set. While I find some sets disappointing, I don't aggressively compare every set against the fanciest MOCs of the same subject, or against my vaguely, incompletely expressed ideas of what could have been.

I disagree with that approach too, that's why I haven't suggested it. The first thing you quoted just states that each time period comes with its own expectations. A set that might have had everything anyone thought of in the 1980's might be very basic by today's standards because bit by bit we did think of many ways to improve upon them. I don't also compare them to the fanciest MOCs expecting them to be the same. The designer of 10497 is more to "blame" when it comes to reaching for grandeur than I am. 10497 I feel looks great as a simple recreation of the original (visually), but for whatever reason is inflated by 50 %. This makes it non swooshable and less rebuildable. I don't agree with their idea of "to make something for adults make it 50 % bigger". My guess (only) is that adults would probably like something more sophisticated because their tastes are now more refined and that is, in fact, a much bigger change that happened in their life than the fact they become 50 % bigger. This also ties in with the designer interviews, where it's clear they're oriented towards technical aspects and thus would do great recreations of existing objects. If 10497 had the same number of detail but was smaller - it would look more detailed. Another thing I liked as a child is having different ships, builds, etc. and contrasting them for play then and for display now. As much as I'd like a lot of old space remakes, it's going to be difficult to find space for them if they're this big. And by being that big, without the real need for it, the level of detail per square cm will suffer, making them less appealing as display items.

 

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Third, you seem pretty hung up on the idea that the original Galaxy Explorer was "everything", the best of the best, the most amazing spaceship ever, etc. - and that, therefore, a proper new Galaxy Explorer remake should be "everything", the best of the best, the most amazing spaceship ever. Anything that doesn't meet your idea of a spaceship that is the best-spaceship-evah is just "ok." Well, it's certainly true that there had never been a larger Lego spaceship before the original Galaxy Explorer, but does it necessarily follow that a remake has to be the best-spaceship-ever, the largest-spaceship-ever, "everything"? Not necessarily. There are other ways to interpret the place of the Galaxy Explorer "in the context of its time" and with respect to "the intended audience, the available pieces."

No, I just somewhat overemphasize the points. Enough to make them clearer, but not so much that they would be obvious lies and one wouldn't be able to take them as is and adjust the ratios in their head. The original presumably meant a lot in the time it came out but not primarily due to its size. The size was there to give decent proportion to everything it had to include, the interior, etc. The remainder of the space, which would then constitute just boring necessities (wings and the rest of the exterior) were then spiced up with huge engines and an impressive rear spoiler.

So the question is just "what's the best galaxy explorer we could make in 1979" (not in terms of size, but overall experience) and "what's the best galaxy explorer we could make in 2022". In this my only claim is that the original was closer to achieving its full potential in 1979 than the new one was in 2022.

 

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For instance, to make the new one the biggest, best Lego spaceship ever, it would have to be bigger and more expensive than the UCS Razor Crest or the UCS Millennium Falcon. Those are terrific sets, but I don't think anyone was crying out for an $850+ UCS Galaxy Explorer.

I hear you. I wasn't crying for an inflated GE to start with. Maybe if it needs to be bigger to incorporate new details or functions, but not just so it could be more like the star wars ships in size, but not in detail.

 

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In the context of today, the new Galaxy Explorer is a pretty big Lego spaceship meant for children to swoosh it around and tell stories with minifigures, and it also makes effective use of the wedge plates and slopes of today to make a large, sleek wing shape and fuselage.

Is it? I thought it was meant for adults. As we've talked before, it's not very swooshable and demands care not fall apart, that the children wouldn't have. At least one of the previous posters claimed that it falls apart anyways, but I don't agree with that. I feel that as an adult you sort of have an idea where you could and where you couldn't grab the ship in order for it to stay in one piece. I might be wrong, don't have any data on this.

 

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In the context of its time, the original Galaxy Explorer did give an impression of being a pretty big spaceship, but relative to today it's actually pretty small. So to preserve the impression of being a pretty big spaceship in today's context, the new one did have to be upscaled. But it didn't need to be the biggest-spaceship-evah. So I think that's a pretty close match, in context. 

Sure. I don't mind things being upscaled. Just, as I said, there should be a need for it. The large Lego spaceships of old had a lot of ugly (for today's standards, as described before) detail in terms of overlapping shapes and colors or the design paired with the size made them seem like big space vessels with a little imagination. Both the "smooth" design of 10497 (separated colors, straight lines, no greebling) and the fact that the glass parts are completely separated from the hull of the ship and open like airplane canopies makes it seem like a small, simple vessel that has very little detail by itself, but was enlarged to an extent where the few details that it has were able to be reproduced faithfully. We got a boost in size, but not a boost in size-related boons - or in other words, a cool playset that got stretched and by that accidentally dilluted.

 

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So there's an argument to be made that a "proper" Galaxy Explorer remake would have been targeted at roughly that price range and it would have included a small radar station, some more minifigures, and a brick-built landing pad. I think that a lot of AFOLs would agree with that. But for what we got, which was just the spaceship, I think it's pretty good. And I don't think that's a failure of imagination - it's just a marketing decision to focus only on the spaceship and bring the set back to the more accessible price point. After all, the $32 RRP of the original set is about $140 today, so we got something that is, relatively speaking, more accessible than the original. And I have no complaints about that.

I would go for that. These days everything is a marketing decision for Lego. I guess at some point they had to work hard to stay afloat. With the popularity they have today, letting us have more than the sum of the parts that we all expect to see (10497) and maybe even less than that (Eldorado) would be a waste of resources and designer time.

 

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you don't mean to give the impression that you think your ideas are better than everybody else's and everybody else is wrong - but that's the impression I get when I read your posts most of the time, so I apologize for reading you wrong and responding to that mistaken impression.

I don't really feel anyone is wrong about this. I'm glad if people enjoy these sets and since I'm just a single person and Lego is not my entire life, I feel the ideal situation would be if the sets would appeal to as many people as possible, instead of just me. And since Lego has many designers whose ideas gel differently to each set, there are many combinations possible. This is a positive side effect to the fact that there are no space/castle/pirate lines but just a string of unrelated sets. I'll keep buying those sets because at the end of the day I hope for the string to continue and I'm sure to like some of them.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Merlo

[Yoggington]

It's threads like this that keep me away from the classic space ends of the Lego community at large. The gatekeeping and high-horsery verges on toxic. Sometimes you gotta step back and ask yourself if you enjoy Lego or you just enjoy your own idea of what it's supposed to be.

 

This was a fun throwback set. I've built it twice since release plus each of the alt-builds once each. Thoroughly enjoyed all builds, and learned a few tricks. The alt-builds were a neat bonus - unnecessary to include, but even the idea of them brought me back to trying to re-create the 'suggested' back of box models.

It looks great when complete and really tickles the nostalgia bone. It has become my four yo nephew's go-to Lego item when he's over. That's good enough for me.

[arnoldtblumberg]

1 hour ago, Yoggington said:

It's threads like this that keep me away from the classic space ends of the Lego community at large. The gatekeeping and high-horsery verges on toxic. Sometimes you gotta step back and ask yourself if you enjoy Lego or you just enjoy your own idea of what it's supposed to be.

 

This was a fun throwback set. I've built it twice since release plus each of the alt-builds once each. Thoroughly enjoyed all builds, and learned a few tricks. The alt-builds were a neat bonus - unnecessary to include, but even the idea of them brought me back to trying to re-create the 'suggested' back of box models.

It looks great when complete and really tickles the nostalgia bone. It has become my four yo nephew's go-to Lego item when he's over. That's good enough for me.

All of this. But just watch, someone will be here momentarily to explain in great detail to you why you're wrong to be happy with it.

[Merlo]

2 hours ago, Yoggington said:

It's threads like this that keep me away from the classic space ends of the Lego community at large. The gatekeeping and high-horsery verges on toxic.

My friend, I don't think you have thought this through. If you are on a/your high horse, "you are talking or behaving in a way that shows that you think you are better than other people". Yet you came here to say that you keep away from this thread because you're free of the accusations you throw at others. Additionally, if you're toxic you're "causing social tension or unpleasantness", yet I cannot see this quote of yours as providing anything other of value than that.

 

51 minutes ago, arnoldtblumberg said:

All of this. But just watch, someone will be here momentarily to explain in great detail to you why you're wrong to be happy with it. 

One of the rare acceptable forms of social tension in today's society comes as a side effect of free exchange of thoughts and ideas, because we recognize that it's a small price to pay in order to avert single-mindedness, yet you seem almost offended by that. Where I'm from we humorously call that behavior "everyone has the right to my opinion" :)

In any case, it'd be nice if we kept this thread 10497-adjacent. What do we know about that rumored Renegade? Is it a rumor? Someone described something looking like a Renegade in production? Any guesses on possible release or if it'll happen for sure?