A Blast from the Past - LEGO Galaxy Explorer

LEGO is an old trademark. Older than me. Kids were dreaming of LEGO Spaceships long before I was born. One of those ephemeral sets was LEGO 497 - Galaxy Explorer:

Long gone are the times when the number of all of the currently available LEGO sets was so modest, that the LEGO Catalogue was able to contain and list them all. We live in truly fantastic times, when LEGO releases more sets during a single year than I could count. One of them is a re-imagining of the Galaxy Explorer with the advantage of a plethora of modern bricks and building techniques.

The Unboxing

The LEGO 10497 Set comes in vintage looking Box, that directly resembles the LEGO style from the 80's. The pieces are loosely contained in 9 standard bags. 7/10 because of the sentimental feel:

The Difficulty

It is not THAT difficult to build, but it has some tricks up its sleeve, focused mainly around the angled crew cabin/cockpit. 8/10

The Faithfulness

Re-architecting the vintage Galaxy Explorer had to be a challenging task. The original one, from today's perspective, is a very simple model. The new one had to contain some impressive moving parts, but on the other hand had to resemble the 1979 one.

I'd say that the Architect of this set did a pretty great job, 9/10

The Stickers

No Stickers! Every logo and Sign is printed on brick(s). 10/10

The Mechanics

The new version of the Galaxy Explorer contains a set of 3 retractable feet, 2 big moving hull windows, openable back that hides a simple vehicle and a cute little sliding door between the cabin crew and the vehicle storage area. A lot of cool things are packed into this set. 9/10