This is an awesome set. I had lot's of fun when I put this model together. I have to admit that I had a missing piece, but that didn't stop me from building this set. It's the first set which I got that had a missing piece.

The minifigs are very good. First we get an alien commander, who is my favourite minifig in this theme. He has very awesome armour and his eyes are made of a LEGO translucent yellow cylinder. The other alien is just a basic LEGO Space (Mars Mission) alien which we've seen in lot's of sets of this theme. The other 3 minifigs are humans. All of them have the same suit and the same helmet, but they all got a different face.

The spaceship for the alien commander is a little bit small, but it looks cool. It has some nice lasers and some very attractive stickers. The only problem is that the spaceship is too small because the alien commander will die when he's fighting that huge spaceship of the humans. The big aircraft looks really awesome, and it's really awesome too. It has lot's of weapons, two cockpits which you can detach and which can be transformed into two jets, a cargo area, a place where you can store the alien figure, huge engines, a handle for easy playability and a platform where you can see an atv which has a driller piece from the LEGO Bionicle figure Turaga Whenua. The only thing I have to complain about this model are the stickers, but it's an awesome set to have.

All in all, this set is a great model and I would highly recommend you to get this. You can find this set on eBay and BrickLink for sure. Here is the link where you can check out the full gallery I made for this set on my website: www.klokriecher.de


Videos I made of this set:

Stopmotion 1

Stopmotion 2

Review

Speed Build

I missed this theme first time around. I got into now based on how well it complements the 2019 City Spaceport sub theme, of which I have a number.

Placed side by side, the orange, white and dash of black schemes from 2007 / 2008 and 2019 look gorgeous.

My building experience for this set was one of great fun and even a little challenging for this multi-decade Lego veteran. The Technic Lego that provides the core strength and a handle to this build really make it a joy to plug together. As the build progresses, you can really see all the playability potential coming together. The instructions were a little screwy, sometimes I couldn't quite see how a build came together, but I got there in the end.

Parts, lots of great parts, my orange inventory is now through the roof. Particularly canopies. The aliens from this series are quite different to anything before or since. I generally prefer the aliens from Alien Conquest or Galaxy Squad themes. Having one in a tube being taken away isn't completely new. The Alien Conquest line has that too. It is definitely quite a dark gritty concept for Lego though.

Playability, well lets see, mining buggy, check, two detachable mini-spaceships, check, baddie ship, check, 3 minifig astronauts, 1 Alien Bio-General, 1 Alien Soldier, 4 crystals. Hell yeah that is a lot of play. The handle on the main big ship isn't quite up to the job, particularly with big adult fingers. The centre of gravity is to far forward relative and the handle lacks the necessary stiffness to compensate fully. The drop down buggy delivery ramp with Technic release is brilliant though a little pointless. The ship could just land. But it's pointless in a glorious way. very playable. The big ship can only be swooshed with big hands or extreme care, or preferably both! The Alien ship is a great shape, but otherwise a bit dull. But adds gives opposition options, though the minifigs and Aliens lack much int he way of personal equipment except a walkie talkie and binoculars.

I got this second hand, having been looking for ages for a price I was prepared to pay, so I am dead chuffed with value.

Pros -

A Lab,

a Drill sample buggy,

two fighters,

lots of big guns including a Technic cannon

Big set really owns a play space

Cons -

Poor swooshability or main fully assembled ship.

Aliens seem kinda weak compared to minifigs,although the Alien General looks ok.

Slightly odd Alien capture / dissection / forced to power ship thing going on.

Overall this set is fracking awesome! My few negative comments are minor complaints really.

I cannot decide whether this is the best Mars Mission set or the 7645 - MT-61 Crystal Reaper… Or maybe the excellent looking 7649 – MT-201 Ultra-Drill Walker … hmm… Anyway, 2008 was apparently a great year for Lego Space and a better year for Mars Mission than 2007. This is an amazing flagship, with innovative design and functions.

Minifigs:
The Mars Mission astronauts were never amongst my favorite minifigures, though I do like the golden visors. Similarly the jelly aliens are rather poor with the lack of detail and lack of movable arms and legs. The Alien Commander is an improvement but he is still far from being perfect with the hole in his back and the ‘penny saving’ common parts (arms and legs are the same piece).

The mining scout rover:
The set comes with a drilling buggy. Design-wise it’s not special but it looks robust and compact. The cool, wide wheels make it look more complete than it would look otherwise.

The alien spaceship:
The secondary alien spaceship is also a great addition to the set; the angled wing arrangement gives a very strong appeal. It also seemed to me much bigger in reality than I had thought from the pictures. One drawback is that the alien commander has to be sort of hooked into his piloting position with the help of a wrench-like piece… unfortunately the poor guy is assisted only by virtual blasters whereas the MX-81 Hypersonic Operations Aircraft comes with a very real Technic shooter.

MX-81 Hypersonic Operations Aircraft

• Design:
  An interesting design with a good portion of aha!-effect is necessary for children and AFOLs alike, but in this set, Lego designers exceeded all expectations. Thinking that the design is the trademark feature of this set, I will spend a few more lines describing the look of this set:
  Lego have presented in the last 31-32 years many different configurations for their Space flagships but this must be the most unique. The fuselage, instead of being elongated as in all other Lego top-of-the-range vessels, it builds mostly vertically, bringing in mind a flying castle. But this doesn’t mean that the spaceship looks static. On the contrary, the high placed, huge, boomerang shaped wing on the rear and the low placed side laser blasters on the front create a very dynamic shape with a diagonal tension. The main body appears to fly suspended by the wing. This is the third flagship spaceship with a double cockpit configuration making it partially a spiritual successor of the great 6980 – Galaxy Commander and 6973 – Deep Freeze Defender. It seems to have become a trademark for Lego Space flagships.
  There are also some really interesting stickers; the dragon graffiti on the sides is really cool! The traditional Lego Space insignia with the spaceship circling the planet in ‘Saturn-ring-like’ fashion has unfortunately lost some of its 'golden glory' of past times. My major gripe with this set (and with the entire mars Mission line) is the colour scheme. It is supposed to convey some Martian redness but it reminds me strongly of old, retro, monochromatic comics. I cannot avoid thinking how cool it would look in black or in ‘Space Police III’ white with blue transparencies. Or at least if the orange pieces didn’t look so dull…
• Playability:
  The main function of the set is the ingenious mechanism that deploys the drilling rover. The platform collapses by pressing the transparent blue button on top and serves also as a landing gear - how cool is that?! The main building frame is a Technic composition that provides with the necessary mechanism. That leaves little space for anything else within the main fuselage; there is only a small control centre which is far from airtight, but one must take into account the complexity of the design, which otherwise would be impossible to resolve. Anyway there are other spacious and more conservative spaceships (like the 5974 - Galactic Enforcer), so I am not complaining about the lack of space. The tail of the spaceship is in fact a robust handle which is absolutely necessary; the spaceship is so heavy that the deployment of the platform would otherwise be a mission. The major drawback of the design is that the fuselage is too wide (14 studs) for children to hold and swoosh. I think younger children would have problems with the size and weight of this set.
  The cockpits are detachable of course, and one of them can be combined with both lateral blasters to form a cool smaller flyer. There is also the aforementioned Technic shooter and an alien container. All in all there is loads of playability.

Verdict:
I would propose this set for a Red Dot Design Award or similar. I think it’s some achievement to combine such innovative functions with such a fresh shape. This spaceship clashes with the tradition that other big Lego spaceships have created but it really offers something new. Thumbs up to the designer of this one!

This set is very cool. It can flip down a platform, deploy a miner, and separate into four parts (The big part, two defense flyers, and a probe.) There is also a blunt launcher with more lasers attached and an alien prison pod. It used to have a tendency to break in two, but I fixed it once and squeezed it together extra hard to make sure it would not fall apart, and it has not since. The alien ship was interesting, but my brother stole it one day and took some pieces, the rest he mixed into the lego boxes. The secret lab is rather hidden because, an armor plate that can flip up covers it. I prefer to keep it combined when I am not playing with it.

pros:
Ingenius design.
Flip-down platform.
Blunt launcher.
Interesting Alien ship.
Awesome separating function.

cons:
Sometimes breaks in half.
Drill on drilling vehicle cannot move downward.

In all, an awesome Mars Mission, but I recommend the Ultra-Drill Walker more.

i got this 1 day before my birth day i was suppose to get it in my birth day but i got it 1 day early some how.
this set huge then i thought.but some how its kinda getting smaller.
pros:
AWESOME
includes alien commander minifigure
prefect for a base
more pices then the eagle base!
huge
cons:
when you try to take it apart the wings wont come off easily
i really wanted this set!
its a must-have set.