LEGO Ideas has announced the winner of the Second 2016 Review Stage and it is the Women of NASA. This set was stated to be releases in late 2017 or early 2018. In addition, the Voltron – Defender of the Universe project is still under consideration so that could also be a set in the future. The results of that will be announced at the Third 2016 Review results.
There were twelve projects that qualified for review which included Voltron – Defender of the Universe, Spaceballs – Eagle 5, The Addams Family Mansion, the Merchant’s House, the Large Hadron Collider, LEGO Observatory – Mountain View, Modular Construction Site, the Women of NASA, Star Wars UCS X34 Landspeeder, Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, Lovelace & Babbage, and The Plum Creek – The Little House on the Prairie.
Honestly, the Women of NASA project didn’t really surprise me because LEGO does have a partnership with NASA and there are a few space-themed sets already including the upcoming Saturn V one for later this year.
What do you guys think if the project that was chosen to become an official LEGO Ideas set? Sound off in the comments below.
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I can’t stop rolling my eyes. LEGO made about 10 of the Female science sets, sold out within what a day? Now LEGO is making this set? Why? What’s the point when they didn’t make enough of the last set like this to meet demand?
Honestly I’m not a fan of Ideas, I think the whole thing is kind of a badly run joke, but really, this is a low point.
While the Women of NASA set is great, I feel this is a huge cop out on Lego behalf. There were many better choices for playability and collector interest.
I’m disappointed by Eagle 5 not making it. I hope they reconsider this set.
Mel Brooks specifically agreed not to license Spaceballs merchandise in exchange for Lucas’ blessing on spoofing Star Wars, so while the model seems like an easy call, the legal side is locked down tight.
Does that rule still exist today though? I mean, the movie is pretty old. Is one Lego set going to hurt? 😛
An agreement was made, and no expiration date was placed on it. At some point, Star Wars will enter into the public domain, and some years after that so will Spaceballs. On _that_ day, they are free to make any sets they choose based on it. Until then, you can’t do it without violating that agreement, and with one of the most litigious entertainment empires standing in the other corner, do you think they’ll take that chance?
Exactly. But knowing that full well, I take issue with the fact that Lego pretended (mislead, lied really) that the Idea was ever in any sort of serious contention to begin with. The builder could have been congratulated on a great idea & the fact that over 10,000 people voted for their set while stating outright that the set could never really be produced in reality due to licensing restrictions. Not doing so makes me lose trust in the whole concept of Ideas at all.
Who says they knew the situation before the review session started? The only time I know they pre-rejected a project because they knew they couldn’t secure the licensing rights was Doctor Who…ironically. The only other pre-rejection I even know about was Shaun of the Dead, and there was simply no way they were going to make a giant bar.
The one other thing is to consider that Mel Brooks made that agreement with George Lucas. George Lucas doesn’t own Star Wars any more, now does he? So really it all depends on what “The Mouse” thinks. If Disney was okay with Spaceballs products, George Lucas couldn’t do anything.
Of course, this is all my understanding. I’m not a lawyer by any means, and I don’t know all the specifics of legal agreements.
This was literally the least interesting of all the sets in this review cycle.
The theme/content doesn’t bother me as much as it being a poor set, which is essentially a minifig pack hastily thrown together into some mish-mash submission. If they wanted to choose this, fine, but it should have been “in supplement to” another set and not “in replacement of”. I know the’re considering Voltron but who knows….
From my point of view it is just a lobby for “feminism”. I miss the point for creativity. Ponit of Lego Ideas, where they are looking for brave ideas WHAT to build or HOW to build.
Make a set with 5 figures, same small pcs of brics and sell it for 59€ is so… …unfair.
Sometimes I have feeling, that same sets from Ideas site just inspire Lego for their own projects.
Also, the Ideas rules even say that they won’t accept minifig lines, and this is dangerously close to just being that.
I’m always looking for more female Minifigs (and especially diverse ones), but all sets/figs I buy are put into my LEGO town. That’s why it is a priority for me. I don’t get the irritation with this pick, but I really haven’t gotten too excited about any of the LEGO Ideas sets (until the Fishing Shack). I’ll wait and see what the price is after it goes on sale. If I get them, great. If not, oh well…
To me, diversity is more a combination of genders/races. I dont feel it’s diverse to produce sets containing only male or only female characters, and its even less diverse to solely name them as female minifigure sets.
This could have easily been a set that had both male and female members of Nasa and a few Nasa builds and chances are it would not have been picked because it seems Lego want to simply have female minifigure sets become a thing nowadays.
In terms of minfigure collection, i suppose its nice getting more female figures with different outfits – i’ve found them to be lacking because primarily they come in sets wearing set-specific clothing unless its Lego City.
Though it’d be better to get a selection of male and female characters in every set that we get, which is what i think Lego should be doing more so than just female minifigure sets.
You’re playing with false equivalency. The norm is male-only or male dominated. To say that a woman-only sets and male-only sets are on the same level of “societal ill” ignores the decades of under-representation that women have suffered from.
The way to solve the societal ill’s of gender segmentation is not to repeat the mistakes of the past. The mistake of the past here is the idea of keeping things seperate as ‘Male dominated’ or ‘Male-only’. Making something ‘Female-only’ is also inequality.
Lego deciding to allow ‘female figure sets’ and ban anyone who makes a ‘male figure set’ on ideas to me speaks of repeating the same problems that exist currently, just applying them to females instead.
The image often shown of equality is a black hand holding a white hand, or a woman holding the hand of a man. Its the idea of union and accepting that union. The solution should be therefore to have sets that feature both male and female characters to promote the idea that its the status qou.
The complaints come from a wide variety of issues:
1. Some people just don’t want to see a set that promotes females in any capacity.
2. Some people feel that as long as we have to keep telling girls that, “no, really, you can be anything,” it simply reinforces the idea that, no, in reality, they cannot.
3. Some people feel that by pushing females so forcefully, boys are effectively being told that they no longer matter.
4. Based on everything else The LEGO Company has done in terms of sets targeted at girls, some people feel that this (combined with Research Institute) is a bit disingenuous.
Gender politics aside, there are other issues as well:
5. RI was hugely popular, but it was the last small-batch production for Ideas, which resulted in a botched release during an already tight holiday season as most of the available stock was snapped up by speculators and angry parents had to resort to paying a hefty premium to buy them on eBay and Amazon. In contrast, the Exo-Suit that launched on the same day saw a much larger secondary production run that resulted in sets being available well into the following year (and possibly still to this day).
6. RI2 was rejected in one review session, presumably because it was too repetitive, and a lot of people are probably still bitter about that.
7. This feels very much like RI2.1 (especially if you look at the second image with the full model), just with a minifig plaque thrown in.
8. There were a lot of really popular designs that got rejected in their first review, where this seems like it got accepted more by virtue of concept than strength of design.
I’m sure there are other reasons, but I think that covers most of what I’ve read here and elsewhere, which isn’t even getting into the conflict between the profit-sharing aspect of the platform and the fact that they specifically called for more original designs over existing IP in spite of the fact that they have a history of shorting the market when an Ideas set isn’t tied to a piece of pop culture.
I’ll probably buy it, depending on how the final model turns out (RI had a better design, I feel, and I was more inclined to buy every Ideas release I could at the time it came out), but if they screw this up a second time (and especially if this launches just in time to be all but impossible to find come December), I don’t envy their Consumer Affairs staff even one tiny little bit.
The builds are weak, the figures bland and the focus solely on female characters yet again for a Lego ideas set is beginning to seem like attempts at pandering from a company that do not understand what female fans want.
Lego feel that they need to make sets with only female characters OR sets revolving around princesses OR create an entirely different figure type that looks more like a doll OR that have pink in the colour scheme to appeal to girls.
Its somewhat insulting that Lego believe they need to alter sets to be entirely female focused in order to sell sets to females or to make a point. Its also insulting to the females at Nasa who were not included and the male’s at Nasa who are completely ignored.
Lego ideas was intended creativity and none of that is on display with this set.
I love a lot of the content of the “female” focused friends or elves line, but arbitrarily making it a different scale for different types of figures really hurts the value. Many of the sets cover things that the normal creator or city line rarely, if ever, covers. Like swimming pools, theatres, malls, real life sort of activities.
Do I want all those sets with dragons and elves and stuff? Yes. I want lots of dragons in fact. Dragons are 10/10 beasts. Do I want them to be flowery, pink, and dolly just to appeal to girls? Not really.
Then don’t buy them and buy NinjaGo dragons.
it’s a shame that the elves dragons look as good as they do, while most of the ninjago dragons end up looking like robots. they ought to use those dragon molds for ninjago, so we can have at least one dragon without long eyelashes and anime eyes.
I dont think the original intention of Lego Elves was to be overly female focused. I think they wanted primarily female characters and decided to use new molds because the builds were primarily buildings. It’s just those molds have been heavily associated with girls given they are now the Disney Girls Superhero range or the Lego Princess figures.
I think where they went wrong in terms of the sets is deciding to make all
the animals as ‘cutesy’ as possible – they’ve tried to stray from this
recently with the Dragons and have done an alright job at appealing to
males and females but they are still stuck giving them eyelashes and anime eyes in order to avoid appearing ‘masculine’
Which is a massive shame because Elves could have been another Ninjago style theme in regards to popularity if it did not try so much to focus on girls. The story is strong, the characters interesting, the sets are well made and have unique designs and a consistent feel.
There are so many sets with no women figs. What is inherently wrong with a set composed of only women, after so many years of male-dominated sets?
What exactly is your issue? You don’t like pigeon-holing girls into “pink” or “dolls”, but girls and science is not good either? I don’t get it.
The issue is simple;
Its intentionally focusing on the gender rather than anything else.
The other sets have been made with variance, male and female characters, even if there are generally less females than males. None of the sets are being made or constructed with the initial title of ‘Boys…’ they are made with the intention of being good sets.
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If this had been labelled something like ‘Great minds of Nasa” and the creator had’nt made it clear that they designed the set simply because it was gender focused then perhaps i would not find it as offensive.
Instead the included figures feel like a compiled list by someone who knows
nothing about NASA and did a quick google search to find the most
popular and well-acknowledged members.
If it was celebrating the under-appreciated women at Nasa then it missed out two important one’s, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. Katherine Johnson along with Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson were the inspiration for ‘Hidden’ and the so-called ‘Human Computers’.
Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson recieved little recognition for what they did and unsuprisingly both are ignored here – while Katherine Johnson has recieved medals and awards and honours. Leading more to the theory they just google’d female Nasa members.
I accept the criticism of choice of individuals included.
I accept criticism about the build quality.
But the idea that it’s a political choice to call out women…
I argue that it’s a much more insidious political choice to NOT call out the obvious male-domination of other sets. Nexo Knights has, what, like one woman character for every ten man characters? No one freaks out about that, but literally the second set with women, and it’s got 40+ comments already.
It’s a gross inequality when people attack this set solely because it features women, when women are so under represented in Lego.
In an ideal world, sure, overall sets would have a fair mix of male and female figs. But in a world where most minifigs are male, it’s disingenuous to cry foul over the second ever set to feature women figs, while remaining silent on the obvious disparity of every other set.
Actually…they do freak out over that sort of thing. They also freak out (just as rightfully so) that Friends has one male for every ten female minidolls, and that the decision to use minidolls instead of minifigs pretty much makes those opposing gender inequalities incompatible with each other. You can’t supplement either group with characters drawn from another theme that has a surplus of what you’re missing. The bit that’s not talked about as much is that the success of Friends combined with the minidolls only increases the likelihood that there will continue to be a relative lack of females in minifig-based sets, because Friends “proved” that girls don’t like minifigs. And by segregating the females into minidoll-based sets, that will become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Currently, the closest they have to a gender-balanced line (besides Technic and other themes that include no characters) is CMF. When it launched, there were only two females out of 16 minifigs in S1. S2-4 bumped that to three, S5 to four, and ever since S6 there have always been five females included in every series of 16 minifigs. Disney’s 18 and LEGO Batman Movie’s 20 each included 6 females. That’s not 50/50, but at roughly a 2:1 ratio is as close as they’ve ever gotten over the life of a multi-year theme.
But there are legitimate complaints raised about making _this_ set, in particular over making it an “all-female” set. An actual female scientist complained that by making this set it effectively marginalizes female scientists as not being distinct from “real scientists”. Someone else pointed out that the designer of Research Institute and Research Institute II has submitted a wide variety of interesting projects. The designer of Females of NASA has submitted exactly three projects, all of which are “Females of Something”, and none of the vignettes in FoN look as interesting as the RI dinosaur. In all fairness, the FoN vignettes are at least on par with the other two RI vignettes, but the dinosaur is the only one that anyone will think of when comparing the two, unless the final set turns out something that’s at least a tiny bit better than the dinosaur.
And that gets into another legit complaint, which is that every other submission in this review session was a stronger model, strictly from a design standpoint. A lot of people couldn’t give a flying fig over the fact that it’s an all-female set, pro or con, but they’re offended that the submission with the least actual substance is the one that got accepted, when all the ones that people have been drooling over got turned down, no matter how unrealistic it may have been to expect most of them to be released under the Ideas brand.
My personal problem with the set is that it seems to be focusing solely on gender, which is the exact opposite that needs to happen. There have been a lot of Male only sets, but it was because those were the characters wanted, it wasn’t because we wanted male only sets, or no women allowed in them, it was just the characters that would best fit the set. I would personally not have to problem with a set containing all females, but don’t make those sets all female just for for the fact that their female. Why not make a “Heroes of NASA” set, with both Genders of people being idolized for their hard work and contributions. Even if earlier sets were made with the intent of not having women (which they weren’t), the thing to counteract this would not be making a set with all females, because that is simply fighting fire with fire, as it will just be a female “dominated”set, as you would call it. I don’t think that gender of the figs matters, as long as they are the characters they are needed to be. You can have a male “dominated” set or a female “dominated” set, just don’t make those figs male or female because of their gender, make them on the basis of who the character in the set is supposed to be.
On the one hand, if they made it coed, there’s a very good chance that all of the women would get pushed aside for more famous NASA males. I mean, Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin would pretty much top the list of any NASA-based set. Yuri Gagarin would probably be included if they opened it to all space agencies.
There’s just not as much name recognition amongst females at NASA. At any given time, I could tell you exactly _two_ females who are/were employed by NASA. The first is Sally Ride, who was not famous for being the first person to ever do something like all those guys I mentioned, but for being the first female to do something that a bunch of guys had already done several times in the past, and that two Russian females had beaten her to by 20 and 1 years respectively.
And the second is Moogega Cooper…because she was on King of the Nerds, has such a bizarre name, and started appearing on How The Universe Works sometime after someone possibly realized that all of their science experts were middle aged and older white people. But not because I have any idea what she’s done during her time at NASA.
So, the tragedy here is that it really ends up being an either/or situation. “Both” doesn’t work as well as it seems like it should.
I did not think of That, but I still disagree. I was more replying to Doug’s broken logic on themes being “male dominated” and how he thinks that just because there are sets with all males there has to be sets with all females to level it out. In this case, I think it would be better to not include the well known heroes of NASA, but a co-Ed set with both gender’s “hidden heroes,” that way the well known astronauts wouldn’t push them aside. They don’t need all female sets just for the fact that they are female. I honestly wouldn’t have a problem with this set now if it wasn’t for the fact that they are advertising it dedicated to only females and it looks Like a bad set in my opinion. I don’t think many kids are going to be excited for this set, and girls and boys will probably float towards other themes than a set with five people they don’t know and two little builds. When I was a kid, I would buy a $50 spaceship or castle or hospital, not this. For a company that is all about creatively, I hope this set is more than the concept, with two or three small models. I think that this pick was not because Lego wanted to be PC or Feminists, but because it was the most practical choice. All the other set idea I think were too big or had copyright issues to produce, and that is why they didn’t pick some of the other sets. I hope that this set isnt putting names and figs over being able to produce a fun set for kids.
You actually touch on a very ironic point there. There are _TONS_ of “hidden heroes” who have worked at NASA over the decades. They all stand deep in the shadows of the likes of Armstrong, and even most of the astronauts over the years have been forgotten by the public. So how ironic is it that this set singles out women who have been left out of the limelight because they were women when it is precisely _because_ they are women that they can be thrust onto the public stage like this? Does anyone remember the names of the men who flew on Sally Ride’s first mission? What about the names of any of the men who crunched numbers for the Apollo missions?
As for kids today, I think you underestimate the pervasiveness of identity politics. If a show has more than one white male on the case, you hear complaints about how it’s not diverse enough. There are white college kids wearing white puzzle pieces to protest “white privilege” when they can’t even explain what it means. Girls are taught that girls can do anything, and boys are taught that girls can do anything. Research Institute had a lot of parents trying to buy it because their kids really wanted a copy (or at least claiming as much).
But whatever the reasons they chose to accept this project, it’s the second one to make it into the Ideas lineup, which makes it look like a trend. With RI, they did drop “Female” from the original name, but it’s not like anyone forgot that it was the whole idea behind that set. As for the set itself, we still have no idea what the final result will look like, and it may look very different from the proposal.
great, another wasted opportunity.
I thought that was LEGO Ideas’ moto?
since the lego company motto is, “only the best is good enough”, then ideas must be something along the lines of, “eeeh… I guess it’ll do.”
The part of the video used for the thumbnail makes her look like a female Frankie MacDonald… “ATTENTIOOON fans of LEGO, ATTENTIOOON commenters, earthquake warning!”
Well, I think we all agree that this is the most politically correct set EVER. I didn’t even bother to watch the actual video, it’ll just make me more angry.
Remember the “research institute”?
Heaven forbid there is a set with females in it, that’s so PC, it’s not like they make up 51% of the population or anything…
*Sarcasm that I’m sure went over your head.*
Excuse me, I should have specified what I meant. From what I said, I completely understand your reaction.
What I meant was that Lego probably made this set because it was women based, not because it had good quality(we can all agree that the builds in the set aren’t that great) or because it was a cool idea. When I said politically correct, I meant “done with a politically correct agenda.”
And I still think that’s arrogant, ignorant and stupid. LEGO made it because they weren’t making anything else and it be lame to not announce anything, this is simply filler.
But I’m amazed by the sexist in the LEGO community. There are hundreds of posts on Bricklink about how it’s ‘un-equal’ that there are no males and not sexists because… I’m not sure why it’s not sexist to those people.
Brickheadz were released today, there are 9 males and 3 females. No one gives a damn, no one is calling for an equal amount of male and females with them.
This horrible set (which we all can agree on) was picked because it’s cheap and easy to get the rights. That’s it. If there were a mix of male and females it still would have gotten made because it’s the cheapest, lowest risk set of this bunch.
They have actually taken a hard pass on an entire review period before, as well as cleaning the slate of all past review candidates that were still pending a final decision. They’ve also accepted two candidates in a single review session at least twice. It’s only the AFOL community that imposed the phantom restrictions that all review announcements must include exactly one approval, and that potential secondary projects could be held over to fulfill that requirement in the event that a weak slate had to be rejected in entirety.
And I am actually pissed at the selection of Brickheadz that they released. I don’t care about the Beast/Belle (though I understand that they were selected to tie into the impending release of the live-action movie) or the Marvel characters at all. What I really, really want, though, is a bunch of different Harley Quinn Brickheadz based on the various different minifigs they’ve released of her. That and copies of the SDCC DC characters.
I know that, they can announce all the sets will be made if they wanted to. Ideas has been (rightfully) getting an increasing amount of criticism for how long it takes and never keeping up to date with it’s own rules or explain why things were passed. I think they picked this because they know it’s an easy out and will fit into the science theme nicely. I just have no faith LEGO will make enough to meet any kind of demand like they did with the research set or Mars rover.
But then we have people complaining they did it only for the females, which is insulting. If it included males it still would have been made. It’s the lowest risk, cheapest set of the group.
As I said once before on this page, Ideas is not a democracy. They don’t take a vote and majority wins. If a project requires a license they can’t obtain, it’s going to be rejected outright, and that’s totally understandable (to most people). If they already have the requisite license, it’ll probably get rejected for failing to bring something new to the table. If after everything is said and done there’s no hard barriers left in the “reasons we can’t possibly do this” column, it’s up for grabs. In the case of the Exo-Suit, everyone thought it was too complex and couldn’t be done…except one designer. That one designer is the sole reason that set got accepted.
All you need is for one designer to turn a Maybe into a Yes. After that it’s just cheering on the person who decided to design the final set. In this case, we don’t know if it got accepted because the Ideas team has a Social Justice Warrior who gravitates towards this type of project, or if it got accepted simply because there was no compelling reason to turn it down and the design is simple enough that any designer on staff should be able to whip something up in a day or two. My guess is more the latter, if only because Research Institute II got rejected in one session.
Since you have sunk to the level of insults, I see that there is no point in debating with you any longer. Just agree to disagree.
do you even realize how many muscular women with short haircuts are shedding big greasy tears of joy at this?
Why is it “politically correct” when a set has only women characters, but it’s totally fine when a set has only male characters?
The political correctness comes from the title of the set, it is advertising itself as being solely gender focused, so thats why it becomes politically charged. If it didnt, chances are a lot of people would only really have issue with it being a repeated style set of the Research Institute.
Its also a bit iffy that the creator of the set is aware of the
movie/book ‘hidden’ however only chose to select one of the three members of Nasa for the set. Removing two african-american Nasa members in favour of two widely accepted and recognised Nasa members.
Worth noting is that the Research Institute was also designated ‘Female Research Institute’ and Lego were wise enough to drop that name before announcing it as the winner, then it became accepted and people liked it more because gender was not the focal point.
Wow… again a female scientist set… why specific gender sets ? Think it is oldfashioned, more of the same, overpriced and really something no one is waiting for.
lego patting girls on the head, “seeee? YOU can be anything! in the meantime, here’s more pink/purple sets that have clunky useless figures, with pretty maaake-up, and gliiiitter, and eyelashes on everything from the pets to the monsters.”
LOL
Great, again, a bunch of talented and creative projects got pushed aside to make/promote a political agenda. We already have a NASA Ideas set coming in the near future and have the Women Science Pack or whatever it is called that they produced. We have seen plenty of space exploration and sciencey things from Ideas already, I want a little more variety in what they choose to produce. Lego, I know women have been influential in science and the world, but just chose some interesting projects that appeal to a wider audience. I’m about sick of Ideas.
What is political about this set??
The only good thing about this set: It will for sure save me some money!
Am I the only one who thinks this is filler just so LEGO can reject everything from next round and announce Voltron then?
I doubt that’s the case. The boat repair shop probably skews too close to the fishing store (though I’d really prefer the former), the two Marvel sets and the Disney Wars set fall under existing IP (and the Bus would probably be too big), and the LEGO Store is right on the size bubble and might be sniped by the Modular design team.
However, the diner probably falls well within the high price range, the two cars are easy if they don’t conflict with the Speed Champions/Creator licensing. Red Dwarf probably depends on how well Doctor Who did, since they’re both BBC properties. Iron Giant probably depends on if they can make a model that’s stable while standing. The trolley seems like a clear winner in this batch, being small with no licensing issues, and unrelated to any previous Ideas sets.
That’s a good point actually.
It’s all politics, the EEO etc.
Most don’t know any of these women so this is probably very boring for kids. And does Lego know that there is a small demand of Lego for the female gender. I am not being gender specific, just that’s a bad business move.
By the way kids like exciting set and this doesn’t look that exciting
Most kids don’t know any of these women so this is probably very boring for kids. And does Lego know that there is a small demand of Lego for the female gender. I am not being gender specific, just that’s a bad business move.
Equally underwhelming and unsurprising.
I know, I was really pulling for that set to make it too.
Yeah, I actually think that the Construction Site set looks (& prolly would have been) a better set & build than the Assembly Square- certainly it is more unique!