In 1997, Lego was entering a bit of a rough patch. The number of types and colors of pieces they manufactured had exploded in the 90s, and their inventory management systems were not up to the task of making all those expensive injection molds worth their cost. Extra, unneeded elements began to pile up in storage, eventually spurring the creation of the bizarre Time Cruisers theme as a clearinghouse for whatever random bullshit they had too much of in the warehouse.

I can’t confirm for sure that this sloppy attempt to address an inventory management failure is also where Roboforce came from, but it would certainly make sense. Released in 1997 and only in the North American market, Roboforce consists of four ugly-ass sets that seem like they were assembled from the leftover scraps of the space subthemes that came before them.

There is no consistent livery for Roboforce, no overriding design principle other than they all have legs – kind of. 2151 Robo Raider truly just looks like an Ice Planet 2002 reject:

While the only halfway well-designed set, 2152 Robo Raptor, seems straight out of the Blacktron design handbook (except for the fact that it’s a robot dinosaur).

Roboforce’s brief, incoherent run shared the shelves with a more successful 1997 Space theme, which we’ll look at next time.