LEGO® Ideas has become one of the most varied LEGO themes. In the last few years, it’s bestowed upon us such creations as a playing Piano, a Table Football game and a set inspired by a popular South Korean boy bang. But not every set needs to be tied to a popular IP or offer an elaborate build. The latest LEGO Ideas set I’m taking a look at today is quite simplistic but don’t let its minimal appearance fool you. Is the Tales of the Space Age set a worthy addition to your LEGO collection? Here’s my review of the 48th LEGO Ideas set.
Product Details
Turn off your thrusters and let your mind drift into space with this LEGO® Ideas Tales of the Space Age (21340) building set. It features 4 connectable brick-built 3D postcards, each depicting scenes inspired by 1980s sci-fi myths, films, books and posters. Create cool minimalist LEGO brick representations of an observatory for viewing comets and shooting stars, a moon base and lunar eclipse, a shuttle blasting through space, and a black hole.
- Set Name: Tales of the Space Age
- Set Number: 21340
- Pieces: 688
- RRP: £44.99/$49.99/49.99€
- Number of Bags: Bags x 8
- Stickers: N/A
- Minifigures: N/A
- Instructions: Booklet x 5 + Builder App
- Availability: LEGO Stores & LEGO Online from May 1st
I must admit, when I first saw the set I was a little underwhelmed. LEGO Ideas has spoilt us with some pretty unique builds and sets inspired by popular characters, TV shows or music. So when I first saw it, it didn’t bestow much excitement. The design of Tales of the Space Age is purposely a rather minimalist set compared to almost all other LEGO Ideas sets. It’s a collection of four postcard-sized brick-built scenes and each scene depicts a different space-themed image. The basis of each image is pretty much the same, with the base of the scene being 12 studs wide and 4 studs deep.
The background is created by layering various plates and bricks. Each image is largely made up of black elements but also a mix of brighter shades of other colours including blues, pinks, oranges and greens. This gives them an artistic style reminiscent of 80’s iconography. You can easily see these adorning the wall of a cinema, advertising the latest sci-fi blockbuster or used as the cover of a classic dystopian space-themed book. In fact, it’s one set which really fits in with the hip living room scenes often featured in the lifestyle image.
Although the base build of each image is very similar, each coloured scene has different details to make each one a little more unique. These use elements in interesting ways to create lunar landscapes along the bottom of each image. Then the background, which denotes the sky, features things such as a rocket blasting off, shooting stars and distant moons. These are crafted with some interesting elements, such as the smaller shooting stars being Harry Potter wands. The crescent moons are two created by overlapping disc elements. There are even 1×1 tiles printed to show stars, these can be rearranged to create different star patterns.
The set can be displayed in a number of different ways. Each image can stand separately or they can be connected together using a series of Technic pins. You also have the option to hang them on the wall, using the Technic ‘hook’ elements which were first used in a similar way in the LEGO Art sets.
Fan Submission
The original idea for this set was created by Polish Fan Designer Jan Woźnica (aka john_carter). First, it was submitted to the LEGO Ideas ‘ Out of This World’ challenge to find a small set to become a future GWP item. Jan’s project was a runner-up to The Adventures of the USS Cardboard. The project was tweaked and then submitted to LEGO Ideas as a project idea and it soon hit 10K. It was revealed in October last year that the project has been selected to become a future set. Many projects which become LEGO Ideas sets are redesigned to follow various standards, but this is one of few projects which has had very minor changes to the design. One big difference is the addition of a fourth image and the ability to hand them on the wall with the Technic bracket featured in the LEGO Art set. There’s a bit more detail about each scene and the fan designer in the 5th instruction booklet.
Overall
It’s not an elaborate set nor does it have the fan appeal of other Ideas sets but it’s still a really cool little set. The build won’t take you long either but sometimes that’s a good thing too. It could easily be built by a group of people thanks to individual instruction booklets. I do think it’s slightly overpriced but not by much. I suppose it does have a couple of large pieces, which can push up the price of sets. I would say, don’t be put off by the simplistic nature of the set, this adds to the charm of the set. Once built it genuinely looks very cool sitting on a shelf or hung on the wall. The only major downside of the set it that the black surfaces really show up and seem to attract dust and hair. So apologies for the rogue hairs and dust in some of my images, blame Lola.
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This set was provided to BricksFanz by the LEGO Group for purposes of review. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group. Providing a set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
