Free Squiddy! Alien rights now!
I really do love the new Space Police III theme, from the wonderful alien minifigs to the subtle in-jokes that the designers incorporated throughout their sets.
Nevertheless, a running joke among LEGO fans is that the line is xenophobic and defames sentient non-human life forms.
Seeing District 9 last night (based on Alive in Joberg from 2005), reminded me of this great webcomic from Shortpacked! Click the preview pic below to read the full comic.
Of course, LEGO designer Mark Stafford has explained that “Space Police are only responsible for interspecies crime… Non criminal aliens are of course welcome to live and work in terran space.”
Sounds like a challenge to all you LEGO fans out there to build a creation that shows the new SPIII aliens in a more positive light.
August 16th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Hh ha, the ALF have the right idea.
August 16th, 2009 at 9:30 am
*Ha
Stupid typo.
August 16th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Sounds like a great challenge indeed. Who knows I’ll think of something. Actually I love those aliens and I don’t like those police officers very much…
August 16th, 2009 at 11:02 am
This was the first thought I had when I originally saw the box art.
August 16th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Although I find the alien liberation stuff kinda funny, I think it highlights TLG’s poor handling of racial diversity. Skirting the issue by making a homogeneous population only worked when yellow was the only available minifig skin tone. Licensed sets containing Black and Caucasian characters only serves to highlight the lack of diversity elsewhere in the Lego system.
Now that TLG has included multiple races in unlicensed sets, but only as unlawful criminals, one has to wonder whether this isn’t a step backwards in terms of making Lego more diverse.
I encourage TLG to accept and embrace minifig diversity. Alien cops chasing human criminals would be a good start, but having multi-racial minifig heads and hands available in fig packs or PaB would be even better.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:57 am
When I heard about these sets, I actually sent a complaint to TLG, together with the suggestion to include humans among the bad guys and aliens among the police officers in future sets of this line.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Does anyone remember ALIEN LEGION?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Legion