An Interesting Idea: Planetary Exploration

Yea that is cool. Unique look, cool concept, dig the color scheme.

I like that. Although thanks for reminding me that we're never going to see an official Lego Serenity...

:o(

Love it, but must first find a computer (can't support from my IPhone).

This IS an interesting idea! Seriously, though, it has a lot of play potential.

wish I could completed my Ideas account so I can support this one

I like the design. And maybe I'm in the minority here, but the use of female figures for the sake of diversity is starting to feel like pandering.

I'll be happy when we get something with a main female role that doesn't have an explanation of why there's a female role right after. I feel like that instead of trying to completely leave out the any male roles and only have female roles they're should be equally as many distributed throughout everything. Just because LEGO tended only to include male minifigures in the past doesn't mean we should completely eliminate them to even it out. Male and Female minifigures in every role should be coexisting together and working together. Completely leaving the males out like in the research institute doesn't seem like the right path to take, at least in my opinion.

I love the design. I'm cool with the female figure in a bounty hunter/explorer role. It reminds me of a Samus Aran type character.

Cool, although that isn't a great picture of the model. I would rather there be two of these with one male pilot and one female pilot ala the Exo Suit. And I'm 1.5 years too young to vote for this!! Stupid Ideas age restrictions.

I think if the whole reason behind the age restriction is to have quality models, why not have an age restriction on submissions only? I don't think it makes a difference how old the commenter or voter is.

I feel planetary exploration has been done already in some ways. If not with Master Builder Academy already, then play with Lego more. Seems to me if my bricks are not space shipping around in my own hands... then some where out there is an Explorien with my red versus blue brain.

^ I think because if you can't submit your own ideas, they think you're less likely to hang around and vote.

The model is really cool, that minifigure space explorer is really nice and there are some strong Firefly vibes coming off of it. I don't mind the idea of female minifigure only sets, but I think now that the Research institute has been done from the "female minifigures" project any justification of the figures being to act as role models comes off as jumping on the bandwagon. It would be a much stronger message to not have to justify your choice of female characters.

Also I feel like the project is going against its own message, if it's not meant to be about conflict why the "she doesn't know how the alien will react" line? It just implies actually there is conflict but she's causing it, but has no weapon to fight with so will probably be running away. The thing the alien is holding looks very much like a weapon to me, so again the focus becomes conflict.

Finally, I'm not an expert on parts, but the aliens helmet looks like a custom job to me, and the aliens dinosaur thing looks like it might need new moulds made...it might be done with existing Lego elements (I genuinely can't tell), but doesn't look like a legal build to me if it is made with all existing elements.

^Actually, all of the parts already exist. The alien's helmet is from Space Police and the alien mount's head is from Atlantis. As far as legal techniques go, LEGO would have to figure that out themselves if this reaches 10K and they consider producing it.

It could be neat. I thought the idea was not to create a theme, but a one-off set. This seems like it would fit into a theme more than just a successful single use set.

I am okay with females in sets, but I think we need a better balance, not omissions. My daughter says she doesn't like playing with boy figures because "she can't do their voice." Otherwise she wouldn't have a problem playing out roles for both.

The set looks neat. I agree that it is setting it up for conflict, but then never creates/resolves it. The alien definitely doesn't want someone stealing his minerals. She is actively trying to steal the object to study. There will be bloodshed in anyone's mind.

GlenBricker in your wording you made it appear as though we will never get this as a set because if its serenity-esque ness. I would have to contend with this. This is likely due to the recent surge in space, and the recent approval of the female mini figure set. I feel that this is a highly likely set and I would encourage everyone to support.

I don't mind a 'Lara Croft' style adventure series which appears to be what this Lego Ideas set is... Lara Croft in Space. Yet I am getting annoyed at the amount of sets getting voted through due to focusing on the female gender. We don't need more sets targeted at female its becoming aggravating as I but Lego Ideas sets for the builds not the figures. We lost out on several really good sets because of the last female based Lego Ideas set, I don't want to see that happen again.

As for the set itself, I like the idea of the alien planet aspect more than the hover-lab. The hover-lab looks rather dull to be honest, other than the fact it would look nice with the Lego Ideas Exo-Suit.

@tumaskrall10 - you read his comment wrong. He's stating that we'll never see official Firefly LEGO sets, not that this particular Ideas set couldn't be produced.

Instant support!

Awesome set and really sad at all the criticism over the fact that there are female minifigs in the set. It shouldn't even be an issue.

Who is to say that she has not received permission from an alien government to do research? Receiving permission, though does not mean all the local alien residents are aware of that. It does not mean a fight, but it does mean diplomatic relations.
On this set, I like all the characters, but I am not a fan of her ship.

Not going into the female minifig thing, but I will add that no matter what set was chosen last round another set would not have been chosen. That is a function of Lego deciding to choose one set, as opposed to the fault of the set picked.

@Margot
Its not that I'm criticizing that there are female minifigures, it's just that having only female minifigures with the sole purpose of showing it doesn't have to be men is a little, well, wrong. If it was only a female minifigure without that reason behind it, I'm absolutely all for it, but I feel like leaving the males out just isn't right. Like I said before, I believe in both male and female minifigures coexisting with each other, without leaving either out. I personally was all for the female minifigure, but because there was reason given as to why it's a female, it changes things for me.

@CaptainRogerRedbeard thanks for the correction, I often don't recognise theme specific pieces, I think that the finish on the helmet piece was what made it really look like a custom piece to me.

I think this is an awesome set. I love the feel of the alien guy, his creature, and his lair. It is almost a combination of Mad Max meets Dying Earth meets Martian Chronicles meets The Wizards, at least that is the vibe that I get, and I very much dig it. Great idea, and it will go well with the Space Miner coming out soon.

I agree with Jonathan (and other)'s points - there should be male and female minifigs, but creating sets that are "women only" seems just as bad as specifically male-only sets (and in fact worse because it was done intentionally). I'm just glad that Lego left out the "women" reference in the official set. There's also a massive under-representation of ethnic minorities and physically and mentally handicapped minifigures too - maybe that'll be the next PC road Lego is forced to travel down.

The real irony is that now the only way minifigures are identified as being women is that they have lipstick, long eyelashes and breasts. How long until someone starts complaining about that? Why can't we have "natural" women who don't feel the need to pander to men's sexual desires? /s Maybe the really sexist people are the ones who assumed the minifigures for several decades with simple smiley faces were all men. I know when I was a kid, all the white classic space minfigures were women in my mind.

Jonathan - so I guess you're not going to be lining up the the "all women" Ghostbusters 3 that's on the cards?

@Brainslugged
I actually don't have a problem with Ghostbusters 3 having female starring roles, because they're not using it for the sake of having female characters, unlike this where the whole point is only having female roles. I get the feeling that in Ghostbusters 3 the choice to have women was purely for purposes entirely separate from just having women so its not only men. Just my opinion again :)

+1 supported

Supported and shared out. And bring on the female minifigs! The more the merrier!

@LordMoral

I emailed Ideas support about that issue as well and they fixed it... We can now support from iPhones! (I just supported on my iPhone 5s)

The idea is very nice. Sci-fi is cool, but "neutral" sci-fi (exploration, aliens, exotic life) is the best. With a speeder, an alien and a bit of rock-environment thing, you've got everything you need in a small package.

I think the minifig should be a typical smile face, no more, no less. No male or female or whatever, leave it to other media. Let the kid choose, let him explore. Give genders in City, but in space, no one can hear you scr-... ah, forget it...

Loving it. Supported!

It is a little strange that the humans who try to steal the minerals are the bad guys, and the aliens trying to protect them are tho good guys. It is hard for children to identify themselves as aliens against humans. :S But if they trade, that's okay.
As for the female roles:
If there is no female minifig: "Why are there no female minifigs?"
If there is a female minifig in a role associated to men: "You put it there for female propaganda!"
If there is a female minifig in a usual female role: "Are girls only good for being nurses and princesses?"

I love the minifig space explorer. I'm not completely sold on the vehicle. It just seems a bit to cluttered and random. I like the idea of ugly functional vehicles, but maybe just a bit cleaner or clearer aesthetics. This one looks like it got hit by the mad greebler. So much so that the actual vehicle escaped from under the greebling and nobody noticed.

The little trading post is cute and has a nice barren alien world feel.

The speed and apparent support levels do confuse me on this one. Yes it has a neat non adversarial space story. But there is nothing particularly eye catching about it, except oh look "it's a girl in Space!!!" Still a great fig I'll grant you.

I think the problem here is that someone's just trying to piggyback on the success of the RI and the two Classic Space-styled sets this year. That vehicle's pretty ugly, and I don't appreciate the all-female deal at all. Like some other reviewer said, the Exo Suit solved the equality problem better than the Research Institute, and I don't see how people could not notice that and still make a rip of the original idea.

LOL, the only reason this project is ANYWHERE, is because Glenbricker mentioned it.

It would be an idea if LEGO added some orange to the ship, and added the Space Miner minifigure instead of the Female Space Researcher! ;-)

Hmmwah, doesn't look too bad. Much more noteworthy would be mentioning a remake of LL928 as the first and still hugely appreciated first large Lego spaceship. Check it out for yourself on Lego Ideas https://ideas.lego.com/projects/68687