I loved Life on Mars, but I only ever got two of the alien craft, and neither were this one. I looked upon those mini catalogs that came in the sets back in those days and drooled over sets like this one. Especially with all those printed wedge slopes. Ugh, they look so pretty.

That speeder is going gangbusters!

As a Spacer, I was pretty excited for new Space, what with my burgeoning Star Wars collection and sting nostalgia.

But I don’t know. Some of these Mars sets were cool, but most were too strange or weird.

I saw one for sale on a local e-commerce recently. It was for sale for a very good price, given it was in excellent condition, with manual and original box too. I was going to buy it, but someone was faster than me, unfortunatelly...

Wait…doesn’t this set name translate to Grave Digger?

Also, sand purple!

Is it ... searching for places to excavate, or just searching for excavation?

I'll keep lore fast. Friendly aliens on Mars. Build big tube systems. Fix astronaut ships.

The tube system from Life on Mars is something I have always wanted, but have never got around to buying it. Sure seemed like such a neat system.

@Zordboy said:
"Is it ... searching for places to excavate, or just searching for excavation?"

Yes.

LOM was a great theme with a scheme behind it: The modules from the sets of the line can be swapped interchangeably, but you had to buy at least two of the sets to fully enjoy it. So you got some creativity at some entry level (Matchbox Con-nect-ables annyone?) but of course, parents were supposed to buy as much sets as possible. Today's RSOTD also features the missing transport terminal from the main base 7317. The T3 7312 is the smallest set with changable modules.

Life on Mars is still one of my all-time favorite themes, and it's the first theme I collected 100% of the sets for. I never miss a chance to evangelize on its behalf :P

It brought some really interesting concepts to the table - non-traditional minifigs, major factions that were peaceful with each other, the pump tube system, a number of new "sand" colors, modular vehicles, human vehicles that were more closely grounded in near-future tech.

My favorite aspect is that the main base from 7317 has docking ports labeled for 7313 and 7314, and has a spot for the third docking port contained in 7316. Put the four sets together and you've got a huge playset with a lot of function! I only wish the human faction got a base too.

LOM was a very welcome theme, even if for no other reason that it confirmed that LEGO was willing to continue with some type of non-licensed Space-related theme alongside of Star Wars. I give full marks to the designers for pushing the limits of the available parts library at the time to create something truly different than the Classic Space lines produced; the little flyers are fantastic, but the mechs and the human vehicles are somewhat lacking IMO (see Mars Mission several years later for an example of how much better the concepts could be; LOM designs were well ahead of their time). Overall, a great line with great sand-color schemes and figures, too.

@xboxtravis7992 The aero tube system looks fantastic and is very fitting for a space- or underwater base, but in practice the functionality is fiddly; if all the components aren't put together just so, or if the turning radius of the tubes is too tight to accommodate the sleds, they don't work so well. But again, a nice try and they do look great on display.

Is it just me or does Lego not make fun themes like this anymore?

Petition to bring back sand purple and sand red. Such great colours.

The way that poor alien has to hang onto the speeder for dear life as it's rocketing along will never not be funny.

It's one of the last sets I got before my first "dark age". I really loved to play with it as a kid (along with 2 more sets from LOM). Oh, so many sweet memories! The aliens are so cute here!

@SolidState said:
"Petition to bring back sand purple and sand red. Such great colours."

I'll sign.

@MeisterDad:
Who does he think he is, a larcenous Ewok?

Ooh, is this what the Mars area in Lego Racers 2 was based on? I played that game to death as a kid but never owned any of the toys featured in the game.

@gorf43 said:
"Is it just me or does Lego not make fun themes like this anymore?"

You can blame Ninjago for that. Ever since it's big success in 2011, it has dominated the LEGO market, not leaving any room for new fun original themes like this one. Why should LEGO take a risk and try out something new when they can just play it safe and dump all their ideas into Ninjago?

Star Wars has contributed to that decline as well. Original Space themes used to be a household name for LEGO with new releases every year, but they all died off after the release of Star Wars. I am honestly surprised Life on Mars even made it to shelves at all, considering it was released right in the middle of the Star Wars prequel era, and I think it might have been one of the worst selling original Space themes because of that, sadly.
We did get a brief revival in the 2007-2013 era when there were no new Star Wars movies coming out, but that died off too as soon as the Sequel Trilogy stared releasing.

One of Lego’s best themes.

@Kathleen said:
" @SolidState said:
"Petition to bring back sand purple and sand red. Such great colours."

I'll sign."

Signed in all caps. Please LEGO....

This set is great. The recombinable modes of the walker, the fun little scooter, the mining platform you can connect up with the tubes of the main base, and got that early 2000s charm of trying out new things

@LegoDavid said:
" @gorf43 said:
"Is it just me or does Lego not make fun themes like this anymore?"

You can blame Ninjago for that. Ever since it's big success in 2011, it has dominated the LEGO market, not leaving any room for new fun original themes like this one. Why should LEGO take a risk and try out something new when they can just play it safe and dump all their ideas into Ninjago?

Star Wars has contributed to that decline as well. Original Space themes used to be a household name for LEGO with new releases every year, but they all died off after the release of Star Wars. I am honestly surprised Life on Mars even made it to shelves at all, considering it was released right in the middle of the Star Wars prequel era, and I think it might have been one of the worst selling original Space themes because of that, sadly.
We did get a brief revival in the 2007-2013 era when there were no new Star Wars movies coming out, but that died off too as soon as the Sequel Trilogy stared releasing. "

It's a shame, the Galaxy Squad sets were really interesting and fun (well, the "human" ones were), but never really took hold. I can't help but feel that if they had not gone for weird bug aliens as the "bad guys" but did a Blacktron style revival as a counter for them, it may have done better. Would have been nice to see some Minifig-alien alliance as well like LOM.
However, saying that the recent City-Space stuff from a couple of years back was Excellent!! Especially 60224. What a great ship for a cheap price!

Really like the product art of this theme.
Makes me think of pulp sci-fi novels.

I really hope the next in-house sci-fi theme takes more after this one than after those they've done since.
Peacful coexistence, not constant conflict and exclusively human on alien violence.
Space Police? More like Pigs in SPAAAAACE!

Life on Mars was sweet! They had that unique character and this kind of Y2K future styling to them. Got all of em except two polybags iirc.

@lost_scotsman said:
" @LegoDavid said:
" @gorf43 said:
"Is it just me or does Lego not make fun themes like this anymore?"

You can blame Ninjago for that. Ever since it's big success in 2011, it has dominated the LEGO market, not leaving any room for new fun original themes like this one. Why should LEGO take a risk and try out something new when they can just play it safe and dump all their ideas into Ninjago?

Star Wars has contributed to that decline as well. Original Space themes used to be a household name for LEGO with new releases every year, but they all died off after the release of Star Wars. I am honestly surprised Life on Mars even made it to shelves at all, considering it was released right in the middle of the Star Wars prequel era, and I think it might have been one of the worst selling original Space themes because of that, sadly.
We did get a brief revival in the 2007-2013 era when there were no new Star Wars movies coming out, but that died off too as soon as the Sequel Trilogy stared releasing. "

It's a shame, the Galaxy Squad sets were really interesting and fun (well, the "human" ones were), but never really took hold. I can't help but feel that if they had not gone for weird bug aliens as the "bad guys" but did a Blacktron style revival as a counter for them, it may have done better. Would have been nice to see some Minifig-alien alliance as well like LOM.
However, saying that the recent City-Space stuff from a couple of years back was Excellent!! Especially 60224. What a great ship for a cheap price!"

Honestly, I give Ninjago credit to drawing in Fans for such a long time. The theme resisted cancellation and supassed its own successors; Chima and NN.
So, though I don't collect it, I consider it a fun original theme.

What isn't fun is TLG's (perceived) depedence on short-lived licensed themes and th policy to cancel original lines after 2 years of sale. That's too short to become memorable.

Wow, what a coincidence. I just received word from a seller that my bid on this set was accepted, so it'll join my collection soon, hopefully!

Recently I became nostalgic for it, because my other two LOM mechs are in storage and this set contains the third of the trio, albeit with a whole load of extras. Bought it for 16 euro + shipping. I noticed I will need to buy at least two alien arms to replace the tan replacements it will come with.

This set contains a meteorite scanning station, flyer, front leg module, cockpit and arms module, meteorite storage module and back legs with crane module. They can be combined into the scorpion seen here, or into a bipedal mech walker and a bipedal crane walker at the same time. A secret other configuration rearanges the cockpit-arms module to form a centaur.

This year I've almost exclusively bought older sets. Either to repurchase the ones I sold at some point, or to get the ones I want from bygone times. The only 2021 set I've bought is 31111 and that's because it's basically space!

Life On Mars is the Lego Space theme for me. Sure, the others may be more classic, but they were long before my time; LoM was the Space theme of my era, and I loved it. In fact, I just got the Aero Tube Hangar semi-complete for my birthday last month, and have since then mostly completed it via Bricklink... it's just missing a handful of non-essential pieces, most of which I've substituted with different colours temporarily. It's pretty impressive, the tubes make it much bigger and more expansive than it looked from the box image, and it's proudly on display now!

Today's set... I've had for longer. Still not since the theme's debut - despite how much I loved the theme I only got one set, 7303, back in the day, because 2001 also gave birth to BIONICLE, as well as being the year that my Star Wars interest got seriously kick-started, so both of them kind of ate up most of my attention - but this one, I found in a charity shop around 2009 / 2010. Even though I was teetering on the edge of my 'dark age' by then, the prospect of a big box of Lego parts that included some of the Martian characters I loved was just too good to pass up - and it became even more fantastic when I got it home and realised that it contained both this set and 6969, each more than 80% complete! I've since almost completed both of them from Bricklink, too - just missing two pieces for the Insectoids set that are waaaaay more expensive than feels reasonable! - and it's still one of my favourite unexpected Lego finds, to this day.

I only just realised the other day, when looking at Aero Tube Hangar again, that the docking station from this set was designed to attach onto the hangar along with the two included there. Ten years I've had this set, and never realised that was what that part of it was meant for...? xD

Still love this theme. So many cool designs, in cool colours, and the little aliens are amongst my favourite non-standard minifigures - second only to the classic skeletons. Now my LoM collection includes this set, 7317, 7303 and 7311... quite a respectable scene, all things considered! Though I still need to rebuild this set before it will be complete; I just don't have room to add it to my current set-up, as it stands at present.

@lost_scotsman said:
" @LegoDavid said:
" @gorf43 said:
"Is it just me or does Lego not make fun themes like this anymore?"

You can blame Ninjago for that. Ever since it's big success in 2011, it has dominated the LEGO market, not leaving any room for new fun original themes like this one. Why should LEGO take a risk and try out something new when they can just play it safe and dump all their ideas into Ninjago?

Star Wars has contributed to that decline as well. Original Space themes used to be a household name for LEGO with new releases every year, but they all died off after the release of Star Wars. I am honestly surprised Life on Mars even made it to shelves at all, considering it was released right in the middle of the Star Wars prequel era, and I think it might have been one of the worst selling original Space themes because of that, sadly.
We did get a brief revival in the 2007-2013 era when there were no new Star Wars movies coming out, but that died off too as soon as the Sequel Trilogy stared releasing. "

It's a shame, the Galaxy Squad sets were really interesting and fun (well, the "human" ones were), but never really took hold. I can't help but feel that if they had not gone for weird bug aliens as the "bad guys" but did a Blacktron style revival as a counter for them, it may have done better. Would have been nice to see some Minifig-alien alliance as well like LOM.
However, saying that the recent City-Space stuff from a couple of years back was Excellent!! Especially 60224. What a great ship for a cheap price!"

I actually loved Galaxy Squad because of the "weird" bug aliens lol. Any good original theme needs both good heroes and good villains, and I think Galaxy Squad had one of the best balances of that. Other themes tend to focus way too much on either one or the other (most of the times, the heroes, since those are easier to sell apparently).
Just look at Monkie Kid and Ninjago, our current original themes: The heroes in those themes have dozens of huge vehicles at their disposal, yet the villains get one or two vehicles at best.
Galaxy Squad was one of the few original themes that actually balanced this pretty well, it is a huge shame it was so short lived.

@LegoDavid said:
" @lost_scotsman said:
" @LegoDavid said:
" @gorf43 said:
"Is it just me or does Lego not make fun themes like this anymore?"

You can blame Ninjago for that. Ever since it's big success in 2011, it has dominated the LEGO market, not leaving any room for new fun original themes like this one. Why should LEGO take a risk and try out something new when they can just play it safe and dump all their ideas into Ninjago?

Star Wars has contributed to that decline as well. Original Space themes used to be a household name for LEGO with new releases every year, but they all died off after the release of Star Wars. I am honestly surprised Life on Mars even made it to shelves at all, considering it was released right in the middle of the Star Wars prequel era, and I think it might have been one of the worst selling original Space themes because of that, sadly.
We did get a brief revival in the 2007-2013 era when there were no new Star Wars movies coming out, but that died off too as soon as the Sequel Trilogy stared releasing. "

It's a shame, the Galaxy Squad sets were really interesting and fun (well, the "human" ones were), but never really took hold. I can't help but feel that if they had not gone for weird bug aliens as the "bad guys" but did a Blacktron style revival as a counter for them, it may have done better. Would have been nice to see some Minifig-alien alliance as well like LOM.
However, saying that the recent City-Space stuff from a couple of years back was Excellent!! Especially 60224. What a great ship for a cheap price!"

I actually loved Galaxy Squad because of the "weird" bug aliens lol. Any good original theme needs both good heroes and good villains, and I think Galaxy Squad had one of the best balances of that. Other themes tend to focus way too much on either one or the other (most of the times, the heroes, since those are easier to sell apparently).
Just look at Monkie Kid and Ninjago, our current original themes: The heroes in those themes have dozens of huge vehicles at their disposal, yet the villains get one or two vehicles at best.
Galaxy Squad was one of the few original themes that actually balanced this pretty well, it is a huge shame it was so short lived.

"

I was at just the right age when it released for Galaxy Squad to be pretty much the greatest thing ever. I will never forget the glorious titan that was the CLS-89 mech.

@GSR_MataNui said:
"I'll keep lore fast. Friendly aliens on Mars. Build big tube systems. Fix astronaut ships. "

You forgot to mention their search for an energy source called Biodium (it's those orange things hidden inside the transparent neon orange rocks).

Also the martian's leader is Riegel/Reigel/Rigel (spelling differs from source to source, named after the star of the same name), who is the only dark green martian and who can be found in 7317 . Riegel's daughter is Cassiopeia and he is one of the Bosses you have to race against in Racers 2.

Unfortunately there's not much lore of any type concerning the 3 aliens in this set: Pollux, Canopus and Vega (although it's suspicious that Vega is the only martian to appear in more than one mainline set). Like the other martians though, they are all named after more or less famous stars (except for Cassiopeia, which is a constellation of cause). Also all 3 of them appeared in either the PC or GBA version of Racers 2.

The base section of this set is designed to be an expansion for the single open-ended tube of set 7317 so the 2 sets can form a larger base. The sets 7313 and 7314 are supposed to connect to the base's other docking bays as well, both of which are colored accordingly.

I really enjoyed that level of inter-connectivity between sets of the same theme, that's why LoM will always be fondly remembered by me.

@DavidBrick said:
"Life on Mars was awesome and so underrated. It's the first original theme to have minifigures that were different than standard minifigures."

Might depend on your definition, but I'd say the ghost and maiden from castle, but certainly the skeleton where different from normal figs.

@LegoDavid said:
" @gorf43 said:
"Is it just me or does Lego not make fun themes like this anymore?"

You can blame Ninjago for that. Ever since it's big success in 2011, it has dominated the LEGO market, not leaving any room for new fun original themes like this one. Why should LEGO take a risk and try out something new when they can just play it safe and dump all their ideas into Ninjago? "

Didn't they recently take risks with Hidden Side and Vidiyo?

@DavidBrick:
The official definition of a minifig is that it has to use any combination of two items from the standard minifig head, standard torso assembly, and standard leg assembly. The ghost typically uses head and torso assembly, with a 1x2 brick and 1x2 plate filling in for legs because the ghost shroud is actually one plate short of touching the ground on a normal minifig. Now that they have midi-legs, maybe we’ll see those paired with the ghost shrouds (or maybe not because there are visible gaps in front of the knees).

The old skeleton had friction joints in the hips, allowing them to stand. It was the shoulder joints that were floppy, preventing them from effectively using weapons in combat. Fantasy Castle introduced friction joints for skeletons, but the arms were ridiculously long, and made them look like orangutan skeletons. Ninjago revised the friction skeleton arms to be sized more accurately to a minifig’s arms.

LoMartians officially don’t count as minifigs precisely because they don’t use a single standard minifig piece. But the Ep1 Battle Droids and R2-D2 beat them by two years, along with a few podrace pilots. These guys even stole their arms from the Battle Droids (pity they didn’t wait until Ninjago came out).