Fifty years ago this week, television sets around the planet echoed Neil Armstrong’s now famous words: “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Myself? I was slightly less articulate. My best effort to date had been “Goo Goo, Gah. Mumum, Waaaaah” This was, however, age appropriate. Apparently I was in the same room as a television showing the broadcast. At the age of three and three quarter months, however, to say I was watching it would be a stretch of the imagination. By the time Apollo 12 was launched in November 1969, I was up to cruising around some furniture, and I was allegedly distracted from watching a moon landing in the attached photo.
With the third series of Stranger Things ready to drop on July 4th 2019, there is still time to get hold of this set and put it together while catching up on previous episodes… here are my scattered thoughts and photographs.
Back in 1983, I was fourteen years old. Going to school, riding my bike around to catch up with friends, playing the occasional game of Dungeons and Dragons. But nothing happened to me in a way that would be as weird as the goings on in Hawkins, Indiana, at that time, during which the first series of Stranger Things was set.
Stranger Things…Really?
When I first heard rumours about this set, I was sceptical. Why would a LEGO set based on program with supernatural content be reaching the market months before the arrival of an in house range, also featuring a supernatural theme – Hidden Side. It felt a little like LEGO was trying to compete with its own market, until I realised that the two lines are aimed at very different demographics: Hidden Side is aimed at younger, digitally focussed children, and focusses on game play. The Upside Down, on the other hand, brings highlights from an adult focussed series: that exploiting the nostalgic feelings we have for a not so bygone era, a metaphorical and literal shadows and soundtrack heavy on analog synthesiser. For many of us, that might have merely been our own childhood.
When the original Jurassic park film was released, a little over 25 years ago, it was one of the most impressive films I had ever seen, for the sheer scale of spectacle. Dinosaurs have always been impressive creatures, whatever your age, but the LEGO dinosaurs seen in the sets of recent years, while fun, have lacked a certain spectacle of scale. More a case of click in the legs, head and tail:”Rrrrrooooooaaarrrr, curse your inevitable betrayal.”
Twelve Months ago this week, while I sat in a hotel room in Japan preparing to go to Japan Brickiest, Ikea and the LEGO Group announced a forthcoming collaboration. Today, as part of Ikea’s Democratic Design Days 2019 Event, we heard just a little bit more:
It’s all about the compromise between the sorted pack up and stepping o a brick in the dark… BYGGLEK research at home in action. (source: IKEA)Continue reading →
Sometimes life just gets in the way. Over the last year, I think I can count the number of times I have headed out to take photographs on one hand. I could make any number of excuses, but in real life I just hadn’t felt like it. Work has been busy. Writing and reviewing has been taken a little more energy than I expected. And I just haven’t felt in the mood.
This year, we celebrate 50 years since Apollo 11 took Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin to the surface of the moon. Given the popularity of space themed sets, it is hardly a surprise that there have been a LEGO set released for the occasion.
LEGO have today announced the arrival of a new Creator Expert set, a take on the Lunar Lander. It will become generally available on June 1.
In which I pick up a set that hasn’t quite been released from LEGOLAND Germany, admire a Patronus and see a new way to build a tree. And Sirius Black returns after 15 years!
