Spaceship!
Have you watched The Lego Movie, and do you recall the character Benny, the 1980s spaceman, whose signature quote is “SPACESHIIIP!”? Well, I felt a lot like Benny at a point ...
Guess what and go figure, Lego turned 90 years old last year. Of course, they celebrated the occasion by releasing some excessively wonderful sets. Among those, there was a renewed version of the 1979 Galaxy Explorer. The 2022 revision of the Galaxy Explorer is a bit more … exuberant. At just over 50 cm length, it’s about twice the size of the 1979 model, and has some more bells and whistles.
Since I never owned the original Galaxy Explorer, needless to say, I needed to lay my hands on the new edition. I enjoyed every single minute of the 4-hour building experience. There were lots of flashbacks to the 80s. The astronaut minifigs look just like the ones from back then, with one crucial difference: the chin part of the helmets, which was notorious for breaking (Benny’s, in the movie, is broken), is more stable now.
Here are some impressions.
I really love how the non-rectangular bits are attached to the chassis. That’s some nifty Lego engineering right there.
One new addition is the sliding airlock door between crew compartment and hangar. Awesome construction.
Behold the crew (including a coffee serving robot, thank you) and finished SPACESHIP! - and note how it’s standing slightly elevated above the ground, thanks to newly added landing pads. These are retractable.
The back door opens as back in the 80s, and a small car can slide right out. The boosters can be removed and used as one-person speeders.
Lego really can still do it.
Tags: the-nerdy-bit