Since the dawn of space, mankind has been gazing up at the stars, our fascination and longing for the cosmos never ceasing. Over the past century, we've made strides in space exploration, pioneers steadfast in the belief that a brave new world awaits us in the far reaches of the deep void.
In this vast expanse of the universe, there are always mysterious elements that captivate our imaginations. Comets, planetary rovers, constellations, and black holes... They come together to paint us a picture of the cosmos that's brimming with dreamlike wonder and adventure.
Today, we use a Lego set to uncover more cosmic secrets, ensuring that this romantic tale of humanity and the cosmos never reaches its final chapter.
Postcard from Outer Space
Out of all the themes that Lego Group has released, my personal favorite is the IDEAS series. Since its launch, it has become one of the most diverse product lines in Lego's repertoire. Over the past few years, it has brought us many outstanding creations, such as the Grand Piano,Table Football,and various popular film and TV franchise sets. Today, we're going to take a look at a set that's minimalistic yet extremely stylish - LEGO® IDEAS 21340 Tales of the Space Age.
- Set Name: Tales of the Space Age
- Set Number: 21340
- Pieces: 688
- Official Price: £44.99 / $49.99 / €49.99 / ¥499 RMB
- Stickers: None
- Minifigures: None
About Designer
The original idea for this set was crafted by Polish Lego fan and designer Jan Woźnica (aka john_carter) and submitted to the "Out of this World" design contest hosted by the Lego® IDEAS community. The contest winners would have their designs mass-produced as Gift With Purchase (GWP) sets.
After Jan's design won the runner-up prize, it underwent some tweaks before being directly submitted to the IDEAS community. It quickly made it onto the renowned "10K Club" list. In October 2022, the Lego® IDEAS project team decided to mass-produce the design, after some modifications by the official designers, and it hit the shelves of the official Lego retail stores in May of this year.
If you're a long-time fan of Cool Toys Trend, you're undoubtedly familiar with the story behind it. As such, we hold special expectations and feelings towards this set. It was actually at the invitation of Cool Toys Trend that Jan created the second scene, "Intergalactic Road Trips".
Unbox
Centered on the front of the packaging box are images of the four separate postcards, with the Lego Group logo and set name underneath, along with the note that this is the 48th set in the IDEAS series. The bottom section provides relevant set information.
On the back of the box, there's an image of what the four postcards look like when connected. Below it are instructions for interactive play and lifestyle images, as well as a line-drawn diagram of the finished product's dimensions.
Upon opening the box, the set includes eight numbered bags of parts, five instruction manuals, and no stickers.
The first of the five manuals offers information about the set's creator and design concept.
The remaining four manuals each guide you through the assembly of one of the postcard scenes. This means that the model can be built by four people simultaneously, with every two adjacent numbered bags of parts completing the assembly of one postcard.
Finished Model
When I first completed the assembly and saw the image formed by these four scenes, I was a bit taken aback. LEGO® IDEAS series products are often based on film and television IPs or more complex scenes. The assembly technique for the Space Age Story set is relatively straightforward, and its size doesn't really compare with other sets; it's just a combination of four postcard-sized scenes. Moreover, the size of each scene is identical, all built on a 12x4 baseplate.
The construction of the four backgrounds is quite simple, stacked with different colored plates and bricks. Each scene's primary color is black, with the lower half of each scene mixing in other bright colors like blue, pink, orange, and green.
This color combination evokes the style of typical 1980s art promotional posters. This style of poster would often appear on cinema walls, usually promoting the latest sci-fi blockbuster or the cover of a classic dystopian space-themed book. When combined, these four designs make a stunning piece of decor, perfect for hanging in the living room.
Although the base construction of each postcard is very similar, each scene has unique details that make each postcard special. These fun elements combined - with the bottom of each scene depicting unique alien landscapes and a black backdrop symbolizing the night sky, featuring rocket launches, comets streaking across the sky, lunar rovers, lunar eclipses, and cosmic black holes - make use of many clever piece placements (NPU). For instance, smaller comets are represented by white wand pieces from Harry Potter sets. The lunar eclipse is created using two overlapping disc pieces. Stars are depicted by 1x1 printed tile pieces, their positions varied to create different constellations.
This set can be connected using mechanical axle pieces, allowing you to arrange the four postcards in any order you prefer. Through the use of hooks on the back, you can also display them separately or hang them on the wall, creating a complete LEGO art piece set.
Behind the scenes of the comet and black hole postcards, two Easter eggs are cleverly hidden. Whether it was intentional by the original designer or a tweak by the LEGO official designers, the bottom positions of these two postcards feature a layering of red and white pieces, which happen to form the colors of the Polish flag, a nod to the original designer's nationality. It's a brilliant touch, and it makes me wonder if future sets designed by Chinese designers will include similar surprises.
Comparison of original design
Looking at the previous LEGO® IDEAS series sets, the original submissions from authors in the IDEAS community, even if they successfully pass the review and enter mass production, must undergo modifications by the official design team of LEGO Group before the production phase.
The most striking recent IDEAS series set for me is the LEGO® 21337 Lighthouse set. It's probably the one that has undergone the most drastic change, from the original minifig scale to a normal figure scale set.
The "Planetary Rover" was once a yearly subscription gift for the "Cool Toys Trend" magazine, and we gave it out as a MOC based on the original version from the author. For a more direct comparison, our editorial team compared the original version of the work with the mass-produced version from the LEGO Group.
In the image below, the mass-produced version by the LEGO Group is on the left, and the original version is on the right. Looking from the front, the changes are minimal. The usage of all the parts is essentially the same.
There are minor changes to the mountainous landscape at the bottom of the scene. Judging from the exposed studs, the direction of the rover is reversed, and the LEGO Group's mass-produced version added a landing module decoration behind the rover, making the scene appear fuller than the original.
From the side, the yellow and white contrasting blocks in the background have been modified in the mass-produced LEGO Group version to half colored, half black. The original version, however, is fully colored. The baseplate color remains the same as the red-brown used by the original author.
Looking at the back, the mass-produced LEGO Group version is simpler. Perhaps the original author only intended for the postcard to be a tabletop decoration, without considering wall hanging. Therefore, the back is more focused on structural integrity, and the parts usage appears a bit chaotic. Here, we can see the difference in design philosophy between LEGO official designers and fan designers.
Let's compare the "constellations" in the four postcards. The changes are pretty significant in terms of color coordination. In the mass-produced version, the disc piece is retained as the design for spaceship smoke, and curved parts are added at the bottom to make the smoke look more flowing. A 1x1 round plate with a hole is added between the spaceship's thruster and the body, making the spaceship look more proportionate. The background colors have also been extensively modified in the mass-produced version to create a more unified color scheme, harmonizing the overall image when the four postcards form a large scene.
The side design, like the "Planetary Rover," modifies the decorative colors to half black, half colored, so I won't go into detail here. The effect is pretty clear.
From the back, the mass-produced version is again cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing. It replaced the animal tooth piece used in the original design for the Big Dipper, creating space to add a wall hook. The mechanical arm used for support is also reduced in number. Big kudos to the designers for this.
The design of the Big Dipper in the original design used the hole in the vehicle light piece. This design could depict the Big Dipper against a white background, but might not show up against a darker background. However, the original designer added a white animal tooth piece on the back to plug the hole. Therefore, LEGO official designers changed it to a 1x1 flat tile plus printed piece design.
Conclusion
Although this carefully designed set doesn't have anything particularly special in terms of building techniques—it's just simple stacking of plates and bricks—it might not appear as large as other IDEAS sets at first glance. However, as an editor, I still think it's a really cool little set.
The overall build won't take us players a long time, and the four postcards are divided into four separate instruction manuals for building. This makes it perfect for a fun, fast-building competition among family members. The affordable price and flexible display options mean you can place this set wherever you want in your home. From this perspective, whether it's given as a gift or used as a home decoration, it's extremely fitting.
If there's a drawback to this set, it's that the de-studding is too well done, to the point that after some play or display, the model's surface will have very visible fingerprints, dust, and scratches. Despite this, I, as an editor, can definitely give this set a high score of 4.9. Thanks to Jan Woźnica for bringing us such an excellent creation.