Subject:
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Re: Sentimental Journey (Was Re: What all has TLC done?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Mon, 10 Jan 2000 20:03:28 GMT
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Viewed:
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1317 times
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Paul,
Paul Baulch wrote:
> On one point I feel moved to vigorously disagree with Scott and Todd.
> Exploriens did NOT suck! Quite the opposite! One little mistake with the
> design of a "useless" wing piece (the PEWC [1]) doesn't relegate Exploriens
> to the status of the ugly fiascoes that are UFO and Insecturds. I like
> Exploriens a lot, especially the minifigs. The whole subtheme takes me back
> to the days of Futuron of which I missed a huge amount. Trans blue rules.
> TLC knew, so they used it a bucketload.
Well, I for one fell in love with the Futurons, there have always been
bad designs in every theme, from Castle to Town to Space, but overall,
the Classic Space line, and the Futuron line, compared to the newer
lines, really fall short. I have no love of the Insectoids, because the
models were basically all the same, with a bunch of useless pieces. The
UFO sets were interesting in the fact that they were just different. I
don't like the hulls very much, but my roommate did some neat things
with the parts. It is all the brick, after all. The Exploriens were
probably my favorite space theme after the downgrade of the last good
ones, which I feel the Spyrius, etc. The SW sets, even though they are
modeled after a movie, still are cool. They capture the feeling of real
ships, real people, and real situations. One where I don't think the
newer space themes touch.
> And speaking of older themes, I was leafing through part of a 1987 catalogue
> (found somewhere ancient) and was highly amused to see, on the same page,
> these three "Classic" space sets: 6931, 6891, and 6780.
6931 and 6891 are both good sets, with lots of pieces, and tons of items
where you can modify them to what you want. Try building the 6982 into
something different. That white cockpit piece is horrid, I can't seem to
get anything to work out decent with that. 6780 was bad, but it has
great parts.
I would say that since SW came out, that it is the best Space theme.
Exploriens follow closely, but still are not as good.
> Wow, the same
> spaceship with a different gimmick stuck in the back! How unimaginative can
> you get! Almost as amusing as the 6783 Light-N-Sound Box with
> Cockpit-Stuck-On-Front, or the 6985 Lump-Of-Cool-Parts [2] which were on the
> same page of the catalogue.
6985 rules. It is one of my favorite Classic ships, outside of the
Galaxy Explorer, 928, It can fly in space, it has no holes where the
crew is, and it can hold lots
of minifigs. The Exploriens ship is inferior to this ship. 6783 was
horrid as well.
> On the next page of the catalogue, and the (then) new Futuron sets were
> shown. They showed a substantial improvement (esp. monorail!). And in a
> couple of years, Blacktron and Space Police 1, an even greater improvement
> again. But that 1987 catalogue showed what was to me the true reason for
> this change. Classic Space had died because it wasn't really that good
> anymore.
Actually, I thought the real reason of the end of Classic was because of
the shelf life. Classic Space went from 77 to 87, 88. The reason, IMO,
was that they were trying to market LEGO products to a different kind of
culture, one that could not accept anything old. That's were all the
themes probably resulted from. When I first saw Blacktron, I thought it
was bad until I bought the Battrax:
http://www.lugnet.com/pause/search/?query=6941-1
I had to get used to it, but then I thought they were neat. As I look
back, they are REALLY neat. I get so frustrated sometimes when I look
through old catalogs and the like, and see what I could have gotten.
>
> [1] What does PEWC stand for again? Pathetic Exploriens Wing Canopy?
> [2] And people make fun of the 6982 Explorien starship because its ugly! Yet
> they'll go all misty-eyed over the 6984
> Galactic-Mishmash-Of-Grey-Black-And-Red or the 6973
> Loud-Candy-Colours-Garage-Door-Defender..... There is no justice.... :-)
6984 was also a great ship. It was very usable, I filtered out all the
red of all SP2 sets I have, which I own them all, just like Exploriens,
thank you very much. The 6973 was also a great ship.
I think you are over defending Exploriens for trans- blue elements or
something. Every theme has its good points and weak points, but overall,
the Explorien Starship falls short in so many categories compared to any
of the ones you mentioned above. I have the 6985, the 6973, the 6984,
and the 6891 all built in my space port, with some slight modifications.
Both of my 6982 are thrown into my sort and rebuild box, simply because
the design, the look, and the believability of it are not up to par.
>
> Hmmm. Anyway, it's late so I'm sure I sound a bit stupid, I guess the point
> I'm trying to make is that there's a lot of rose-coloured glasses being used
> to look back at Classic Space (and perhaps other themes too) and I don't
> think they were all they were cracked up to be, and when I hear people go
> all googly about them I can't help chuckling a little, or perhaps even snort
> in a gently derisive way.
Rose colored glasses seem to be applied to the Exploriens, IMO. I have
been working and building with LEGO since I was 4 years old (I'm 24
right
now), when I got my first LEGO sets, and have seen a pattern of general
bad modeling come since the mid to late 1990's. The SW line recaptures
some of the magic. I think the sales of these sets do show this well.
All the sets had there fair share of bad models. However, you can change
the older sets into something good. Nowadays, especially with the 6982,
it is a hard task to do without a major drain of pieces. And that is
sad.
Scott S.
> One final note before I go to bed: I prefer Space to SW for one reason:
> Space had original designs. SW has replicas of the film's designs. I don't
> know about anyone else, but this makes SW nowhere near as inspiring for me.
> More than an Arachnerd Base, perhaps, but a lot less than an Android Base.
Doesn't matter. They are still cool spaceships, I am not incorporating
my universe into SW, SW is going to be put into mine.
>
> Aw, stuff it, I'm on holidays. More final notes:
> [*] One thing I never could figure out was Ice Planet's use of
> trans-fluoro-orange. It is so unpleasantly, well.... loud. I mean, they
> understood how cool trans blue was. What were they thinking when they made
> trans-fluoro-orange?
Whatever. It is different and interesting. And no printed hideous
creations like the Insectoids.
> [*] I think I've figured out that I judge a subtheme not by how good the
> colour scheme is, or by how good the parts are or how well they're used, but
> by how much the sets inspire me to make something along their lines. For
> instance, my favourite Space sets (the 6887 and 6897) are my favourites
> precisely because they've inspired me to make MOCs that try and capture
> their look and feel on a different scale, with a different purpose.
> Blacktron 2 did that for me a lot, in general. I liked it.
> [*] Pity the Blacktron 2 'figs sucked so much though. :-(
> [*] At least Classic Space didn't have magnets.
>
> Good night everyone,
> Paul
--
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Scott E. Sanburn-> ssanburn@cleanweb.net
Systems Administrator/CAD Operator-Affiliated Engineers ->
http://www.aeieng.com
LEGO Page -> http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Station/3372/legoindex.html
Home Page -> http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Station/3372/index.html
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Sentimental Journey (Was Re: What all has TLC done?)
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| Scott E. Sanburn wrote in message <38741E76.73300082@c...eb.net>... (...) On one point I feel moved to vigorously disagree with Scott and Todd. Exploriens did NOT suck! Quite the opposite! One little mistake with the design of a "useless" wing (...) (25 years ago, 11-Jan-00, to lugnet.space)
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