Where is Space 2012?

[Aanchir]

Yeah, I tend to agree. I always considered the forward pointing antennas to be lasers as well. I think the funniest minifigure accessory ever is this "camera" http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/4360 It's a bazooka to everyone except for the LEGO PR people!

To be fair, professional video cameras actually used to be that bulky decades ago! I just as often thought of that as a camera (in sci-fi settings, maybe a futuristic heat-vision camera or scanner) or a weapon, usually depending on who was carrying it.

Even with this, I never had my space people fighting each other. Even when Blacktron came out, I just thought they were cool looking spacemen from a different civilization, only after becoming an AFOL do I realize that they were supposed to be bad guys (I dropped out of LEGO right before Space Police 1 hit the market, so I missed that narrative). I assumed these ships were armed just in case they happened upon some kind of hostile creature of alien civilization.

I recently bought my stepson the 70701 Swarm Interceptor. I must admit, I like the look of the ship, and had fun building it with him. I think it's neat how they made it so the cockpit stays level while the rest of the ship rotates around. However, I'm not impressed with some of the large parts used. For example, the large wings are very limited in their use outside of the main model since they're completely flat. There are no studs or antistuds on them, so you can't customize the look, use in a MOC, etc. All you can do is throw the sticker on it and use it for it's intended purpose. I see a lot of these "unitasker" type parts used in the GS line. I would prefer that they use something like this for the wings: http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/3585 I think it's a much more useful part for general building and customizing.

Well, I'm often conflicted about that kind of thing. Kids might not find as much use for these kinds of parts as more basic plates. At the same time, as an AFOL I have learned to celebrate NPU (Nice Part Use), and the use of those wing elements (which were originally airplane tails) is a good example of that. It's not that much different functionally from how a lot of older Space sets used parts like this, this, or (getting closer in scale) this as wings.

On the whole, LEGO Space has a long-standing heritage of using specialized parts, either those specifically designed for the theme or those borrowed from other themes. And I think that most Galaxy Squad sets still maintain a good balance between very specialized detail elements and more versatile building elements. Those wings on the Swarm Interceptor are easily the parts with the most limited usefulness on any of the human vehicles, and I think only the Crater Creeper and Swarm Interceptor are especially limiting in terms of what you can rebuild them into.

[1974]

Yeah, I tend to agree. I always considered the forward pointing antennas to be lasers as well. I think the funniest minifigure accessory ever is this "camera" http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/4360 It's a bazooka to everyone except for the LEGO PR people!

Even with this, I never had my space people fighting each other. Even when Blacktron came out, I just thought they were cool looking spacemen from a different civilization, only after becoming an AFOL do I realize that they were supposed to be bad guys (I dropped out of LEGO right before Space Police 1 hit the market, so I missed that narrative). I assumed these ships were armed just in case they happened upon some kind of hostile creature of alien civilization.

I recently bought my stepson the 70701 Swarm Interceptor. I must admit, I like the look of the ship, and had fun building it with him. I think it's neat how they made it so the cockpit stays level while the rest of the ship rotates around. However, I'm not impressed with some of the large parts used. For example, the large wings are very limited in their use outside of the main model since they're completely flat. There are no studs or antistuds on them, so you can't customize the look, use in a MOC, etc. All you can do is throw the sticker on it and use it for it's intended purpose. I see a lot of these "unitasker" type parts used in the GS line. I would prefer that they use something like this for the wings: http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/3585 I think it's a much more useful part for general building and customizing.

The 4360 combined with and old school black pin was my favourite UZI type of shooter for my Technic figs ..

I also never had my space guys fighting each other. They were too busy flying around and exploring the vast outer space

Blacktron came about just when I entered my dark age, but I never saw them as bad guys. I do not remember the Space Police vs Blacktron at all as I had totally droped out of LEGO by then

Blacktron was just the new _very_ cool kid on the block and damn I wanted them back then ...

Many years later I've bought the lot (actually quite a lot as I now have a Blacktron base that takes up a couple of square meters) and my me and my son enjoys it very much. They're still not bad guys ;)

Also bought the 70704 just to check out the new theme, but .. meh ..