@@Toerinator Yep. I really wish Lego would quit focusing so much on marketing gimmicks for a minute and help the hardcore adult fans a bit by putting on some kind of challenge/complexity rating, too. 18+ tells me whose money Lego wants but not what kind of build to expect.
@@Toerinator even worse than that, people pay attention to that. I never once paid any mind to the age rating for sets. No one batted an eye at the age rating until they came out with the 18+ rating and use it as a punching bag to rank on Lego whenever they want to fit the argument they want to make. Pretty sure its intended purpose was to market towards adults who weren’t Lego fans and thought it was nothing more than a kids toy. As hardcore Lego fans, we should know that the age rating doesn’t really mean anything. If you like the product, buy it. Yes I would like to see the general trend of 18+ sets being expensive to go away, but that’s about it. I would’ve thought AFOLs were smart enough to recognize this, but they continue to leave me disappointed, though unfortunately not surprising anymore.
@@Toerinator The people who buy this set are not going to "play" with it. They build it, and then it lays around as a display set. Moreover, this set doesn't look like it's suitable for playing (it's probably quite fragile for its size) and that's why it's not very recommendable for the average young kid. For the same amount of money, parents can buy much better sets for kids.
I think this set is great, i hope they do an updated version of one of the moon base sets that were in the original theme for both the regular spacemen and the blacktron faction so we can get more figures, maybe even a few blue and yellow spacemen instead
Great video. I am a new fan of your channel and I love your vibe. Also, I can't tell the difference between the two Bottega bags, the kislux is close and cute, so that's enough for me. I will bring my friends to buy.
The original came out when I was 8, and the only Blacktron set I had then was the invader but I thought the layouts they had in the little booklets looked so awesome, as an adult now I’ve managed to get all the Blacktron sets except ironically the Renegade, so this set was a must for me, building it made me feel like I was 8 again! I honestly didn’t stop smiling the entire time, I think it’s kinda sad when we judge a set on complex building techniques, and forget how much fun it was to build all those old simple sets, I am personally very glad this was more of a simple build
I loved your live stream. The good tone in the conversation, and your responses to it. I'm still gonna get 2 of the set next time we get double points, I want to do both builds
Interestingly, I found the conventional brick-building without a lot of brackets and SNOT techniques rather refreshing and especially fitting for the nostalgia aspect. I also liked that this less delicate building technique adds to the impression of a military-grade badass faction where you rarely interrupt a reinforcment in the fuselage just to add another reinforcment.
Hot take: removing my nostalgia goggles, Blacktron was cool but a little rudimentary, an awkward step between classic Space and M-Tron/Blacktron 2 etc. I really like what some MOC designers have done with the Blacktron aesthetic and modern building techniques - these homage sets are trying to ape the original construction (kind of) so they aren't able to REALLY reimagine the original sets in a way that might make for a cool truly modern iteration of "Blacktron".
9:17 the only part of the yellow I dislike is outlining the cockpit in yellow. The trans-yellow would pop more if it were against black. But it _is_ “too much” yellow. And red. Piece count isn’t a perfect measure under any circumstances, but in this case I think the proportions of visible vs buried parts and the sizes of the various parts is pretty comparable across the Blacktron sets, so it works as an approximation. The original Blacktron line ranged from 19% yellow (Alienator) to 10% yellow (Battrax), with the Renegade sitting at 14% yellow. And none of them had anything but black, yellow, trans-red, trans-yellow, or light gray. In the second wave, the Message Intercept Base was 12% yellow parts, but given the size of the big black panels and the size and number of trans-yellow panels and plates, and a pair of light gray baseplates, if anything this overestimates the amount of yellow on the set. The Alienator is the yellowest of the original Blacktron sets, at 19%, but that’s mostly an artifact of it being a really small set: it’s a grand total of 16 yellow parts, with the 6 turntables for the walking mechanism being a third of those. Factor in the entire back section being mostly 2 big black wall panels and the feet being one big black piece each, and this is the one set where I feel like a raw piece count overestimates the yellowness of the end result. Even the Blacktron Cruiser, despite introducing a whole bunch of dark bluish gray parts (mostly internal structure) is still only 11% yellow, right in line with the classic Blacktron sets. But the Blacktron Renegade is almost 22% yellow parts, plus a bunch of dark bluish gray (mostly hidden structural elements), _plus_ another 8% red, most of them visible parts. While the classic Blacktron sets are all 70-80% black, with the Renegade being the blackest of them (by part count), the Blacktron Renegade is less than 55% black. So, yeah, it’s a _lot_ more yellow, and even more yellow+red. Not that I don’t like the overall look (other than the fuel cells and the cockpit outline), but saying it’s “too yellow” or “not black enough” is an accurate complaint.
@ fair enough. And tastes will vary. I just rebuilt mine to eliminate all the visible red (trans-red is fine) And replace the parts that outline the cockpit canopy with black, and it really makes the trans-yellow windshield pop! But I didn’t otherwise decrease the yellow, because I think you’re right that it mostly looks good, even if it’s yellower than other Blacktron sets. In fact, I slightly increased the amount of yellow, because I redid the fuel cells to replace the red with yellow.
3:02 heh: the fact that round 1x1 tiles are too modern completely slipped by me when building the droid. Because I was focused on the anachronistic brick used for the torso - that’s almost 2 decades too new, and should either be a 1x1 with studs on 4 sides or, like the original, a pair of headlight bricks. And, funnily enough, I’m not a fan of black (in Lego or in fashion/decor generally), but Blacktron is among my favorite themes of all time. Normally, I avoid black in my builds when I can (if I need a neutral it’s light gray, white, dark gray, light bluish gray, or dark bluish gray, in that order), but when I build Blacktron, it’s all black, with a splash of yellow. My only knock on the new Renegade is that I think it has slightly too much visible yellow, and the power canisters should’ve been black and yellow and trans-red, not red and light bluish gray and trans-red.
I love your review. I think you have one of the harshest comments on this set. However, you offer an alternate voice. The vast majority of other RUclipsrs are just praising Lego (probably because Lego gave them an early copy). Keep up the independency.
Definitely hard to trust a RUclipsr who is in essence being paid by Lego to hype their products. I really like channels like this and Jang, who are independent and smart and tell it like they see it.
@ Exactly. Especially that Portuguese-Ex-Lego-Employee-Turned-RUclipsr, I find his reviews are extremely biased. Everything from him is just more and more confetti about any Lego sets. Yucks!
My sister is married to a rich guy and he gives her whatever she wants so she buys "designer bags and jewellery" but little does he know that everything she has is a fake. She puts that money on the side for probably a rainy day. True story kislux
There has been a recent trend I've noticed starting in 2023. Quality control seems to just not exist. there's hard edges on curved pieces, sprue debris is painfully obvious and the over all quality of pieces has also dropped. Take the ironman mech set with ultron that came out this year. It was riddled with these. The large golden elbow pieces (dunno the name but they make the structure of the mech's limbs) have clear temperature stress fractures as if it cooled too quickly thus showing lines in the plastic where it will stress fracture over time. Stickers. I genuinely dont see any advantage to stickers over printed pieces other then to save lego money. It looks cheap and it feels cheap. when I purchase a speed champions set, while its understandable to print stickers for these sets (any item printed with the car company logo makes royalties off sales so it makes sense to just make them stickers instead of pieces) Lego starwars which were about 70% of my lego purchases since I came back to lego in 2020 (I was forced to quit after losing my collection twice due to storms and moves about 1 year before Lego Starwars Line became a thing). Have progressively gotten worse and more expensive with more stickers then older eras and just terrible builds (Peredia set anyone? Like how are you going to just take pieces out of the set and leave hard gaps in the build instructions?! AND STILL CHARGE $55 USD?!) and this experience is just getting worse. Cut to my purchase of the Blacktron Renegade. $100 Dollars for a solid set. ZERO stickers, 3 figures and a fun little droid that matches the original droid decently well. The build itsself mirrors Lego's own design philosophy with these space subthemes which loved to connect builds in fun play ways and this set surely shined through! It proved to me that yes we probably wont get a space subtheme remaster (I've certainly been building my own set remasters and can always dream..) But these little nods to those of us who grew up with them just shows me they at least care about my experience with their product. This set came in a last ditch attempt to find that sparkle and joy in lego that I had as a kid but unfortunately as an adult my love of starwars shot me in the foot. Disney Tax is real. City Space has had some interesting builds and were reasonably priced and when compared to starwars, it made me mad. What kind of sets could Lego make if given creative control over what it put out instead of having to go through extensive cuts and rebuilds and finally deciding on the cheapest option that you can charge more money for, then you see the issue.
Lego quality has definitely, clearly declined in recent years on various fronts. For their crazy prices, I expect nothing less than perfection, not missing parts, inconsistently colored bricks, etc. Competing brands' designs and quality have risen to such high levels that I mostly buy their sets now, but little Lego, which is a shame, since I grew up with Lego and used to be able to trust that when I got a set, everything would be top quality, with no worries. Now whenever I open a set, I wonder if it'll mean another request for a problem/missing piece. Lego's manipulation of social media/RUclips is also ugly, as are their FOMO GWPs, which are no gifts at all. Lego Star Wars is a particularly painful subject for me as a life-long Star Wars fan: outlandishly overpriced, repetitive releases, quality issues, stickers galore.. I still have a few of my Star Wars sets, but it's unlikely I'll be buying more--certainly not on the level I used to.
@@SO-ym3zs same. my last purchase of a current set was the tantiv hallway and while I certainly enjoyed the build if it were a lego city set it would be $10-20 USD less There is a way lego can fix this issue but SW fans are going to be livid specially the cloneboys. It would also require Disney to let lego make creative control decisions aka bringing in KOTOR sets, or EU/Legends stuff but lego is so controlling of the IP it refuses to. I also every starwars set I've gotten I've modified to be better, more and more extreme levels required the further lego goes on with SW but there has been zero sets not related to starwars where I'm like, "I can make it better..." and not for lack of skill just it just doesn't need it
It was a huge hit with my kids. They won't stop playing with it, and unlike the Galaxy Explorer, that's ok because it doesn't break apart when they pick it up.
Age ratings other than 18+ might mean something in other themes, but 18+ just seems to mean who LEGO hopes will buy it. It would be nice to see some separation between sets like this one, the Winter Village sets, Sesame Street, etc. and true advanced builds like modulars and 1:8 scale Technic cars.
I tried to sell my son on the idea of this ship because I think beyond a display model it does have all the classic potential to just take it apart and build completely different space ships from your own imagination but he chose the new city spaceship 60446 over it.
I was also extremely excited when this came out because the gift with purchase was awesome... but this one it seems just big. I'm defintely more excited about the Creator 3 in 1 dragon
I’m usually a sucker for this retro stuff, but something about this just doesn’t click, and I liked the invader GWP and love the Galaxy Explorer. I don’t hate this set at all, and if it goes on sale then I might grab it, but I’d rather spend $100 on several Lego City Space sets than this.
For me the key selling point of the set is the amazing drop ship mechanism! I also appreciated its modularity. Since the build was not too complex, I was able to build it without the instructions!
My problem with it is that it looks more like a play set for children rather than a modernised classic set for adults. The Galaxy Explorer at least had a good solid look to it with SNOT techniques and curved edges. I imagine most of these will be built intended as display pieces, yet it has a large awkward footprint, looks flimsy and visually messy, plus a dusting nightmare. If it was my choice I'd have gone for a smaller ship but with the same piece count and made it much more like the fantastic fan MOCs with clever building techniques that so many of us admire. They should have gone all out in one camp or another. Either mass market kids set or lovingly created dense piece count nostalgia MOC type set. Here it just sits half way between both.
I really wanted them to do what they did with the galaxy explorer, Keep it the same but up date the pieces. If you want to change it, then go towards the new direction of the mutated Blacktron CMF. This hybrid inbetween lets alot of us down.
Personally, I enjoyed the build. I pairs very nicely with the galaxy explorer and the GWP blacktron cruiser. The MoC would be similar the Lego Star Wars mainly because space and blacktron released before Lego got the agreement with star wars
Good review! A bit charitable, perhaps, but a good overview. I'll be passing on this one since I was out of Lego when it originally came out, and I have no emotional ties to it. For half the price, I'd consider it, just for kicks.
How does it compare to the Galaxy Explorer? If it is as good as or better than it then I will rush to get it as I loved Galaxy Explorer, if you gave Galaxy Ex- a 9 or 10 bricks though and this just an 8...mmmnn, I will leave it as I have had a couple of disappointing builds lately, in particular Santas Postoffice went down like a lead zeppelin. After the past few years utter masterpiece Christmas sets the post office was a real let down, I probably should have bought the Christmas tram set again instead, you can never have too many Christmas 8wide trams. In fact I will see if I can get another Christmas tram set instead of Blacktron, plenty of time to get Blacktron. Merry New Year and have fun building.
I kind of wish they would come out with a cheaper set like 20 bucks. I have found memories of these since these where my borthers. I am curious if they are going do a ship a year? Comeone Ice planet!
I wouldn't have even given it an 8. I find a lot of aspects of it unappealing. I do find there's too much yellow around the main cockpit, it should've more closely resembled the smaller GWP set's cockpit. And I actively dislike the nose of the ship. A thin flap with an overly large logo does not work for me. The play features don't impress me either, in particular the detachable mini-ships feel very underdeveloped. The logo being represented by bricks on those mini-ships feels like something the designer expected customers to be wow'd by, but for me, it feels like a waste of effort. Even the drop vehicle is too squared off and nothing in this set has the right feel/vibe of the original Blacktron, which always had kind of bizarre "ugly duckling", yet somehow cool designs. For my final bit of negativity, I dislike the blue used on the box art. The only thing I actively LOVE are the minifigs.
This always looked like trash, people just clouded by nostalgia goggles/bait. Couldn't pay me to assemble, or display that ugly crap, not in this day and age. Good if you still lived in the 80s or early 90s.
Pretty harsh, but as one with no nostalgia for this set, for me it's not the coolest looking Lego ship ever, for sure. And it's way overpriced for what appears to be a simple kid's build.
I have this Ship and did not grow up in the 80s or 90s, And I love this ship, I am offended that you would call this ship Crap because you are Clearly wrong.
I'd have to disagree on value: $100 for only 1100 pieces in a set is steep, particularly a non-licensed set. Food for thought: you could get a 2400 piece set from Funwhole for about that price, with all prints and full lighting. Or a 3000 piece set from Pantasy. Same brick quality for all three brands.
Atleast they did it with no stickers, but it also did seem to be a budget set to produce and the recolors intended for other future sets maybe? to be able to plan for better budgets for those ones... i dunno... just guessing how a boss would streamline the cost. Its also kinda brilliant and lazy that the set is actually 2 sets but only one SKU, so many like me will buy 2, but the second one would have been cheaper model if sold without the extra parts, so there is more inflation of cost that way, but those extra parts also could make neat back pods for the alienator. so there is that too.
@@jacobe1942 Lego definitely knows how to suck money out of someone's wallet :) For instance, encouraging people to buy not just one overpriced set, but multiple copies of them. Their marketers and accountants are pretty brilliant, from a business perspective. As a fan, I find it all really off-putting.
@@SO-ym3zs Oh yeah, they are terrible, but the product is so good.? they aren't even giving paper instructions which I think is a big miss to call it a 2 in 1. I actually like the second build even better, but there are actually a lot of good pieces left over to make it bigger. All those pieces really mean though that if they had made this 2 different sets that the second could have been much cheaper. So they get to sell extra bricks...yes. And likely they would have made it even better and less lazy repetition of canopies. I actually think the curved canopy would be a better design choice for really re imagining a set.... which is what I may do if a good deal is found. I was trying to stick to only castle/ pirate.... but a few space and western are tempting.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
The 18+ rating argument is very silly to me. That rating has very clearly NEVER been representative of anything besides the intended market.
Even worse: it feels like it actively excludes children, just to accommodate adults who are insecure about playing with Lego.
@@Toerinator Yep. I really wish Lego would quit focusing so much on marketing gimmicks for a minute and help the hardcore adult fans a bit by putting on some kind of challenge/complexity rating, too. 18+ tells me whose money Lego wants but not what kind of build to expect.
Isn’t that the case with all the ages on a Lego sets?
@@Toerinator even worse than that, people pay attention to that. I never once paid any mind to the age rating for sets. No one batted an eye at the age rating until they came out with the 18+ rating and use it as a punching bag to rank on Lego whenever they want to fit the argument they want to make. Pretty sure its intended purpose was to market towards adults who weren’t Lego fans and thought it was nothing more than a kids toy. As hardcore Lego fans, we should know that the age rating doesn’t really mean anything. If you like the product, buy it. Yes I would like to see the general trend of 18+ sets being expensive to go away, but that’s about it. I would’ve thought AFOLs were smart enough to recognize this, but they continue to leave me disappointed, though unfortunately not surprising anymore.
@@Toerinator The people who buy this set are not going to "play" with it. They build it, and then it lays around as a display set. Moreover, this set doesn't look like it's suitable for playing (it's probably quite fragile for its size) and that's why it's not very recommendable for the average young kid. For the same amount of money, parents can buy much better sets for kids.
I think this set is great, i hope they do an updated version of one of the moon base sets that were in the original theme for both the regular spacemen and the blacktron faction so we can get more figures, maybe even a few blue and yellow spacemen instead
Great video. I am a new fan of your channel and I love your vibe. Also, I can't tell the difference between the two Bottega bags, the kislux is close and cute, so that's enough for me. I will bring my friends to buy.
The original came out when I was 8, and the only Blacktron set I had then was the invader but I thought the layouts they had in the little booklets looked so awesome, as an adult now I’ve managed to get all the Blacktron sets except ironically the Renegade, so this set was a must for me, building it made me feel like I was 8 again! I honestly didn’t stop smiling the entire time, I think it’s kinda sad when we judge a set on complex building techniques, and forget how much fun it was to build all those old simple sets, I am personally very glad this was more of a simple build
I loved your live stream. The good tone in the conversation, and your responses to it. I'm still gonna get 2 of the set next time we get double points, I want to do both builds
Interestingly, I found the conventional brick-building without a lot of brackets and SNOT techniques rather refreshing and especially fitting for the nostalgia aspect. I also liked that this less delicate building technique adds to the impression of a military-grade badass faction where you rarely interrupt a reinforcment in the fuselage just to add another reinforcment.
It’s such an ugly looking thing. I don’t get the appeal. And I’m an 80’s guy
It may disappointed you but it's the best thing after all the crap Lego has give to us since 2007
Hot take: removing my nostalgia goggles, Blacktron was cool but a little rudimentary, an awkward step between classic Space and M-Tron/Blacktron 2 etc.
I really like what some MOC designers have done with the Blacktron aesthetic and modern building techniques - these homage sets are trying to ape the original construction (kind of) so they aren't able to REALLY reimagine the original sets in a way that might make for a cool truly modern iteration of "Blacktron".
9:17 the only part of the yellow I dislike is outlining the cockpit in yellow. The trans-yellow would pop more if it were against black.
But it _is_ “too much” yellow. And red. Piece count isn’t a perfect measure under any circumstances, but in this case I think the proportions of visible vs buried parts and the sizes of the various parts is pretty comparable across the Blacktron sets, so it works as an approximation.
The original Blacktron line ranged from 19% yellow (Alienator) to 10% yellow (Battrax), with the Renegade sitting at 14% yellow. And none of them had anything but black, yellow, trans-red, trans-yellow, or light gray.
In the second wave, the Message Intercept Base was 12% yellow parts, but given the size of the big black panels and the size and number of trans-yellow panels and plates, and a pair of light gray baseplates, if anything this overestimates the amount of yellow on the set.
The Alienator is the yellowest of the original Blacktron sets, at 19%, but that’s mostly an artifact of it being a really small set: it’s a grand total of 16 yellow parts, with the 6 turntables for the walking mechanism being a third of those. Factor in the entire back section being mostly 2 big black wall panels and the feet being one big black piece each, and this is the one set where I feel like a raw piece count overestimates the yellowness of the end result.
Even the Blacktron Cruiser, despite introducing a whole bunch of dark bluish gray parts (mostly internal structure) is still only 11% yellow, right in line with the classic Blacktron sets.
But the Blacktron Renegade is almost 22% yellow parts, plus a bunch of dark bluish gray (mostly hidden structural elements), _plus_ another 8% red, most of them visible parts. While the classic Blacktron sets are all 70-80% black, with the Renegade being the blackest of them (by part count), the Blacktron Renegade is less than 55% black.
So, yeah, it’s a _lot_ more yellow, and even more yellow+red.
Not that I don’t like the overall look (other than the fuel cells and the cockpit outline), but saying it’s “too yellow” or “not black enough” is an accurate complaint.
I really like all the added yellow. Feels like a bit of a Blacktron 2 influence where they had more color accents.
@ fair enough. And tastes will vary.
I just rebuilt mine to eliminate all the visible red (trans-red is fine) And replace the parts that outline the cockpit canopy with black, and it really makes the trans-yellow windshield pop! But I didn’t otherwise decrease the yellow, because I think you’re right that it mostly looks good, even if it’s yellower than other Blacktron sets. In fact, I slightly increased the amount of yellow, because I redid the fuel cells to replace the red with yellow.
I love your reviews - very thorough and thoughtful.
Definitely one of the best channels out there: articulate, thoughtful, independent.
3:02 heh: the fact that round 1x1 tiles are too modern completely slipped by me when building the droid. Because I was focused on the anachronistic brick used for the torso - that’s almost 2 decades too new, and should either be a 1x1 with studs on 4 sides or, like the original, a pair of headlight bricks.
And, funnily enough, I’m not a fan of black (in Lego or in fashion/decor generally), but Blacktron is among my favorite themes of all time. Normally, I avoid black in my builds when I can (if I need a neutral it’s light gray, white, dark gray, light bluish gray, or dark bluish gray, in that order), but when I build Blacktron, it’s all black, with a splash of yellow. My only knock on the new Renegade is that I think it has slightly too much visible yellow, and the power canisters should’ve been black and yellow and trans-red, not red and light bluish gray and trans-red.
I love your review. I think you have one of the harshest comments on this set. However, you offer an alternate voice. The vast majority of other RUclipsrs are just praising Lego (probably because Lego gave them an early copy). Keep up the independency.
Definitely hard to trust a RUclipsr who is in essence being paid by Lego to hype their products. I really like channels like this and Jang, who are independent and smart and tell it like they see it.
@ Exactly. Especially that Portuguese-Ex-Lego-Employee-Turned-RUclipsr, I find his reviews are extremely biased. Everything from him is just more and more confetti about any Lego sets. Yucks!
My sister is married to a rich guy and he gives her whatever she wants so she buys "designer bags and jewellery" but little does he know that everything she has is a fake. She puts that money on the side for probably a rainy day. True story kislux
Great review - only thing is that it's a LEGO Exclusive, so isn't on Amazon etc and won't be on sale, unless it doesn't sell well.
There has been a recent trend I've noticed starting in 2023. Quality control seems to just not exist. there's hard edges on curved pieces, sprue debris is painfully obvious and the over all quality of pieces has also dropped. Take the ironman mech set with ultron that came out this year. It was riddled with these. The large golden elbow pieces (dunno the name but they make the structure of the mech's limbs) have clear temperature stress fractures as if it cooled too quickly thus showing lines in the plastic where it will stress fracture over time.
Stickers. I genuinely dont see any advantage to stickers over printed pieces other then to save lego money. It looks cheap and it feels cheap. when I purchase a speed champions set, while its understandable to print stickers for these sets (any item printed with the car company logo makes royalties off sales so it makes sense to just make them stickers instead of pieces)
Lego starwars which were about 70% of my lego purchases since I came back to lego in 2020 (I was forced to quit after losing my collection twice due to storms and moves about 1 year before Lego Starwars Line became a thing). Have progressively gotten worse and more expensive with more stickers then older eras and just terrible builds (Peredia set anyone? Like how are you going to just take pieces out of the set and leave hard gaps in the build instructions?! AND STILL CHARGE $55 USD?!) and this experience is just getting worse.
Cut to my purchase of the Blacktron Renegade. $100 Dollars for a solid set. ZERO stickers, 3 figures and a fun little droid that matches the original droid decently well. The build itsself mirrors Lego's own design philosophy with these space subthemes which loved to connect builds in fun play ways and this set surely shined through! It proved to me that yes we probably wont get a space subtheme remaster (I've certainly been building my own set remasters and can always dream..) But these little nods to those of us who grew up with them just shows me they at least care about my experience with their product.
This set came in a last ditch attempt to find that sparkle and joy in lego that I had as a kid but unfortunately as an adult my love of starwars shot me in the foot. Disney Tax is real. City Space has had some interesting builds and were reasonably priced and when compared to starwars, it made me mad. What kind of sets could Lego make if given creative control over what it put out instead of having to go through extensive cuts and rebuilds and finally deciding on the cheapest option that you can charge more money for, then you see the issue.
Lego quality has definitely, clearly declined in recent years on various fronts. For their crazy prices, I expect nothing less than perfection, not missing parts, inconsistently colored bricks, etc. Competing brands' designs and quality have risen to such high levels that I mostly buy their sets now, but little Lego, which is a shame, since I grew up with Lego and used to be able to trust that when I got a set, everything would be top quality, with no worries. Now whenever I open a set, I wonder if it'll mean another request for a problem/missing piece.
Lego's manipulation of social media/RUclips is also ugly, as are their FOMO GWPs, which are no gifts at all.
Lego Star Wars is a particularly painful subject for me as a life-long Star Wars fan: outlandishly overpriced, repetitive releases, quality issues, stickers galore.. I still have a few of my Star Wars sets, but it's unlikely I'll be buying more--certainly not on the level I used to.
@@SO-ym3zs same. my last purchase of a current set was the tantiv hallway and while I certainly enjoyed the build if it were a lego city set it would be $10-20 USD less There is a way lego can fix this issue but SW fans are going to be livid specially the cloneboys. It would also require Disney to let lego make creative control decisions aka bringing in KOTOR sets, or EU/Legends stuff but lego is so controlling of the IP it refuses to.
I also every starwars set I've gotten I've modified to be better, more and more extreme levels required the further lego goes on with SW but there has been zero sets not related to starwars where I'm like, "I can make it better..." and not for lack of skill just it just doesn't need it
I had the original, made sense to have a new faction
It should have a 40+ on it. Because that is why it exist. No 8+ who it should be targeting could buy it themselves.
It was a huge hit with my kids. They won't stop playing with it, and unlike the Galaxy Explorer, that's ok because it doesn't break apart when they pick it up.
From that perspective, most Lego sets should say "Adults with a bunch of disposable income only" :)
Age ratings other than 18+ might mean something in other themes, but 18+ just seems to mean who LEGO hopes will buy it. It would be nice to see some separation between sets like this one, the Winter Village sets, Sesame Street, etc. and true advanced builds like modulars and 1:8 scale Technic cars.
Very true! "18+" is a clever marketing gimmick, but has no real bearing on difficulty.
@@SO-ym3zsI think the 18+ mostly indicates it is a display model. I have the UCS Millennium Falcon, breath on it to hard an something will fall off.
I tried to sell my son on the idea of this ship because I think beyond a display model it does have all the classic potential to just take it apart and build completely different space ships from your own imagination but he chose the new city spaceship 60446 over it.
I was also extremely excited when this came out because the gift with purchase was awesome... but this one it seems just big. I'm defintely more excited about the Creator 3 in 1 dragon
I always praise the bags I buy from kislux , to be honest, its durability is very good, much higher than the original
I got the original blacktron space base so I'm gonna get this
I appreciate the honest opinion. I have not yet picked one up, as I am holding out for a potential sale like what we saw with the Galaxy Explorer.
I’m usually a sucker for this retro stuff, but something about this just doesn’t click, and I liked the invader GWP and love the Galaxy Explorer.
I don’t hate this set at all, and if it goes on sale then I might grab it, but I’d rather spend $100 on several Lego City Space sets than this.
Excellent work!
For me the key selling point of the set is the amazing drop ship mechanism! I also appreciated its modularity. Since the build was not too complex, I was able to build it without the instructions!
There is no way you built this without instructions!
My problem with it is that it looks more like a play set for children rather than a modernised classic set for adults. The Galaxy Explorer at least had a good solid look to it with SNOT techniques and curved edges. I imagine most of these will be built intended as display pieces, yet it has a large awkward footprint, looks flimsy and visually messy, plus a dusting nightmare. If it was my choice I'd have gone for a smaller ship but with the same piece count and made it much more like the fantastic fan MOCs with clever building techniques that so many of us admire. They should have gone all out in one camp or another. Either mass market kids set or lovingly created dense piece count nostalgia MOC type set. Here it just sits half way between both.
I really wanted them to do what they did with the galaxy explorer, Keep it the same but up date the pieces. If you want to change it, then go towards the new direction of the mutated Blacktron CMF. This hybrid inbetween lets alot of us down.
Comparison is the thief of joy. I would like to see a rating without placing it against other sets.
Personally, I enjoyed the build. I pairs very nicely with the galaxy explorer and the GWP blacktron cruiser. The MoC would be similar the Lego Star Wars mainly because space and blacktron released before Lego got the agreement with star wars
It looks good, but next to all other blacktron sets it has more yellow than all those other sets combined... hence it is too much yellow.
Way too much. Blacktron sets had a little bit of yellow trim with most of the yellow being the windows, this is like half yellow
Good review! A bit charitable, perhaps, but a good overview. I'll be passing on this one since I was out of Lego when it originally came out, and I have no emotional ties to it. For half the price, I'd consider it, just for kicks.
How does it compare to the Galaxy Explorer? If it is as good as or better than it then I will rush to get it as I loved Galaxy Explorer, if you gave Galaxy Ex- a 9 or 10 bricks though and this just an 8...mmmnn, I will leave it as I have had a couple of disappointing builds lately, in particular Santas Postoffice went down like a lead zeppelin. After the past few years utter masterpiece Christmas sets the post office was a real let down, I probably should have bought the Christmas tram set again instead, you can never have too many Christmas 8wide trams. In fact I will see if I can get another Christmas tram set instead of Blacktron, plenty of time to get Blacktron.
Merry New Year and have fun building.
Glad I didn't buy it. It really didn't impress me as much as other sets.
Not for me. But I want those yellow triangles
I’ll wait for a sale. Mostly I want to pair it with my Galaxy Explorer.
The Galaxy Explorer was $50 at Walmart, so, yeah, probably best to wait.
As it's a LEGO exclusive, it's unfortunately not likely to go on sale - and won't be sold elsewhere.
I kind of wish they would come out with a cheaper set like 20 bucks. I have found memories of these since these where my borthers. I am curious if they are going do a ship a year? Comeone Ice planet!
A lot of yellow for Blacktron
Def underwhelming
I wouldn't have even given it an 8. I find a lot of aspects of it unappealing. I do find there's too much yellow around the main cockpit, it should've more closely resembled the smaller GWP set's cockpit. And I actively dislike the nose of the ship. A thin flap with an overly large logo does not work for me. The play features don't impress me either, in particular the detachable mini-ships feel very underdeveloped. The logo being represented by bricks on those mini-ships feels like something the designer expected customers to be wow'd by, but for me, it feels like a waste of effort. Even the drop vehicle is too squared off and nothing in this set has the right feel/vibe of the original Blacktron, which always had kind of bizarre "ugly duckling", yet somehow cool designs. For my final bit of negativity, I dislike the blue used on the box art. The only thing I actively LOVE are the minifigs.
I really wanted to buy these set, but these guy really made everything sour.
I've seen other reviews of this set and in all of them bricks are in paper bags, you have plastic bags.
Apparently Lego is phasing out plastic bags slowly
This always looked like trash, people just clouded by nostalgia goggles/bait. Couldn't pay me to assemble, or display that ugly crap, not in this day and age. Good if you still lived in the 80s or early 90s.
Pretty harsh, but as one with no nostalgia for this set, for me it's not the coolest looking Lego ship ever, for sure. And it's way overpriced for what appears to be a simple kid's build.
I have this Ship and did not grow up in the 80s or 90s, And I love this ship, I am offended that you would call this ship Crap because you are Clearly wrong.
I'd have to disagree on value: $100 for only 1100 pieces in a set is steep, particularly a non-licensed set. Food for thought: you could get a 2400 piece set from Funwhole for about that price, with all prints and full lighting. Or a 3000 piece set from Pantasy. Same brick quality for all three brands.
Atleast they did it with no stickers, but it also did seem to be a budget set to produce and the recolors intended for other future sets maybe? to be able to plan for better budgets for those ones... i dunno... just guessing how a boss would streamline the cost. Its also kinda brilliant and lazy that the set is actually 2 sets but only one SKU, so many like me will buy 2, but the second one would have been cheaper model if sold without the extra parts, so there is more inflation of cost that way, but those extra parts also could make neat back pods for the alienator. so there is that too.
@@jacobe1942 Lego definitely knows how to suck money out of someone's wallet :) For instance, encouraging people to buy not just one overpriced set, but multiple copies of them. Their marketers and accountants are pretty brilliant, from a business perspective. As a fan, I find it all really off-putting.
@@SO-ym3zs Oh yeah, they are terrible, but the product is so good.? they aren't even giving paper instructions which I think is a big miss to call it a 2 in 1. I actually like the second build even better, but there are actually a lot of good pieces left over to make it bigger. All those pieces really mean though that if they had made this 2 different sets that the second could have been much cheaper. So they get to sell extra bricks...yes. And likely they would have made it even better and less lazy repetition of canopies. I actually think the curved canopy would be a better design choice for really re imagining a set.... which is what I may do if a good deal is found. I was trying to stick to only castle/ pirate.... but a few space and western are tempting.