LOTR and the hobbit lego

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annie2200
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by annie2200 »

Thor wrote:Sooooo glad they got rid of those HORRIBLE oversized Fantasy Swords we saw in castle. Love the new Orcs...and Goblins...
Ditto mate. I really think the Urak-hai shield and sword combo is exactly like the movie depiction. The Orc ear pieces are epic. How exciting! :D
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by DaleDVM »

Nice statement Kyle. Every time LEGO drops the ball, Kyle and team Brickforge take it in for the score.

I think TLG and Brickforge making elements that look the same is a testament to how well both are able to replicate the source material. Kudos to both!

I don't doubt that a Gandalf the White will be coming in a future release. Whether they make his "new" staff or not is up for debate. Until I see one made I am not going to hold my breath. Even so, his traditional staff is needed not only for the Fellowship, but also for the duration of the hobbit movies. I like and own several of Brickforge's version of the staff. I would like to see LEGO's version as well. We will see what happens.

I agree about those fantasy swords. I wonder what they will arm the orcs with? I don't remember exactly what they had in the movies. I think they had a wide variety of weapons. I don't think they carried Uruk swords though. I remember scimitar looking weapons.
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by Bruce N H »

It's interesting that we don't already have Gandalf the White, since this run includes a couple of sets based around Helms Deep, by which point Gandalf was already White. That said, it's also interesting that this offering goes to the end of the Two Towers (Helms Deep in the west, Cirith Ungol in the east). I'd have thought they'd release three runs matching up with each of the three traditional bindings of the book (or, sigh, the three movies).
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by Azaghal »

Technically, Cirith Ungol was in the third movie, though it was the climax of the second book.

I'm very satisfied with the look of the goblins/orcs - now, if the "Moria" ones will match the Fantasy Trolls I will be greatly appreciative. :orc:
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by DaleDVM »

That Moria Orc looks sand green. Legolas has olive green clothes. When you see them side by side it looks pretty different to me. And thus the castle trolls will fit right in. Well... except for the faces and the eyes in particular.
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by Bruce N H »

Azaghal wrote:Technically, Cirith Ungol was in the third movie, though it was the climax of the second book.
Hmm, I'll have to go back and watch the movies again ... nah, I'd rather read the book. But, of course, the break between the TT and RotK is at the pass of Cirith Ungol, so we see it in both.

Going back to my previous point, if they instead did three waves, one for FotR, one for TT and one for RotK, they'd have to expand from this offering. This offering has three sets from FotR, three from TT, and one (Orc Forge) that I'm not sure where it is supposed to go, but it sure will make a great army builder, so I'm not complaining.

Anyway, FotR has a few basic settings: Shire, (cough- Old Forest/Barrow Downs -cough), Bree, Eriador wilderness, Rivendell, Moria, Lorien, Amon Hen. They've given us one small Shire set, but surely a Bag End would be an obvious setting. 'Attack on the Prancing Pony' would be a great set - inn, Strider, a hobbit or so, a couple of Nazgul, maybe Butterburr. If they made the inn right it would be a must-have for all castlers. They've already done the wilderness with the Weathertop set (while the flight to the ford is a crucial scene, it would not be much of a build, so other than a nazgul and horse army builder set, there wouldn't be much justification for that). Something from Rivendell is pretty obvious, and would give a chance to put Elrond and Arwen in a set - this, of course, would give us one of three female figs. We already get one Moria set, but if they expanded, one from the western door (with tentacled monster), and another of the Bridge of Khazad Dum (assuming they could come up with a good Balrog solution). I'm not certain what they could do with Lorien. Caras Galadhon would be pretty impossible to do as a set, though maybe something like they did the Dark Forest Fortress would be okay - all gray trees with yellow(!) foliage pieces. Or with smaller sets they could do the mirror of Galadriel, or maybe Galadriel's swan boat. Any of these options would give them their second female fig of note. Finally there's Amon Hen, but as a set I don't think this would give us anything that the attack on Weathertop did not (some ruins, some members of the company, some enemies). So, while I could come up with a million possible sets, a realistic offering that I would see for a FotR-only wave would be:
Gandalf Arrives (the set they already have)
Attack at Bree (inn, Strider, a hobbit or two, a Nazgul or two, Butterburr)
Attack on Weathertop (the set they already have) (perhaps they could make it so if you get the Bree and Weathertop sets you get all four hobbits and a good handful of Nazgul)
Rivendell (some beautiful Elvish structure, Elrond, Arwen, Bilbo)
Moria (the set they have)
Swan boat (Galadriel, unnamed elf (okay, we'll call him Celeborn), a canoe and a couple of members of the company)
That would give the same number of sets, some variation among price points, and all of the key figs (including 2 female figs)

Then comes the TT. In the west we have Meduseld, Helm's Deep, Isengard, Fangorn. In the east we have a lot of wilderness (not a lot of build potential there), okay, the Black Gate, but maybe that's not workable as a set, Ithilien, Cirith Ungol. So, for set ideas I'd say:
Meduseld - you get the king's hall, Theoden, some various Rohirrim and/or some subset of Gandalf (the white), Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli - an obvious place to include Eowyn, for our third and final woman
Uruk Hai Army (existing set)
Battle of Helm's Deep (existing set)
Fangorn - (Ent! hobbits, some foliage)
Isengard - hmm, either a massive set, or maybe a great microscale build along with a Saruman fig (see, for instance, those Star Wars Planets sets that mix a fig with microscale)
Ambush of the Haradrim - (Faramir, Sam, a couple of Haradrim, Oliphant(!))
Shelob attacks (existing set)

Of course wave three would be RotK. In the east you get a bunch of rocks and then the Cracks of Doom. In the west it's all about Minas Tirith. I'm sure we'll set things along these lines from them. I'm guessing it will be something like:
Cracks of Doom - Frodo, Gollum, Sam, Ring, rocks, fire
Minas Tirith gate - big wall, gate, some figs, grond
Battle of the Pellanor Fields - big army builder set with good and bad guys, a wall, some siege weapon
Witch King attack - Witch King, Theoden, Eowyn (!), Merry, Fell Beast
Citadel of Minas Tirith - Citadel, white tree, Denethor, soldiers
I'm not sure what else. Obviously there could be lots more of Minas Tirith, somehow constructed so they all fit together. Houses of Healing are important in the book, but not really the movie. Houses of the Dead as well. Maybe just another army builder set.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by AK_Brickster »

First of all, Bruce, you know your stuff! You should send this to TLG or post it on the forum we have here for them.
Second, I had totally forgotten about "Warg Riders". How cool would it be to get some of those??

http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Warg_riders
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by Kev »

Well, the ship has sailed on waves based on a single movie. I think since the movies have already been out for years, it doesn't really matter at this point, though it would have been nice for the big LOTR fans. The none-single-movie-focused-waves-during-none-movie-years have worked so well for them with the SW sets, I'm sure they think it will do as well with LOTR. Probably think it is better to just hit some of the most iconic set pieces for all the various key characters.

We'll get the single-movie waves with the two Hobbit movies at least!
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by DaleDVM »

I can understand why you would like releases to follow the movies/books. However, I don't think your lineup of sets would kick off the release very well. The reason TLG didn't make the release like Bruce suggests is that those sets from the FOTR do not have enough conflict. Lets face it kids love the conflict of good vs evil. TLG wisely, IMHO picked the first huge battle from the movies for the first waves main release i.e. Helm's Deep, Uruk hai army, and one could argue the Orc forge fits in here as well. In fact all but two of the sets have conflict and one of those (Orc Forge) is an army building set.

I can imagine that Bree, Rivendel, Hobbiton, and Lothlorien may all get some attention in the future. However, all of those sets have little to no conflict. Therefore those scenes may be better embodied as exclusives for AFOLs. I think selling peaceful sets like those at Toys R Us may be a loser for TLG. If any of those was made in the main line it would be Bree because of the ringwraiths. However, there really wasn't a battle at the Prancing Pony... just some killing of Linens n Things... :raiseone:
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by Redav »

A bit late to the chat but that's the interwebz for you.

As far as the theme goes, I think it's neat. Sure there's pros and cons just as have been discussed but I am looking forward to the set. Think this might be the first new Lego I buy in a long time.

But, there's always a but. If the Castle theme is vanishing (even just for a few years) then that's a shame but I guess that's TLG for you.
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by AK_Brickster »

Has anyone seen this pic from "baal7200" on Flickr?

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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by Sir Kohran »

I think there's a difficulty in that the sets must avoid excessively overlapping with each other, yet quite often in Lord of the Rings each stage or 'situation' in the story features the same cast with the only change being the location and scenario.
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by Bruce N H »

Sir Kohran wrote:I think there's a difficulty in that the sets must avoid excessively overlapping with each other, yet quite often in Lord of the Rings each stage or 'situation' in the story features the same cast with the only change being the location and scenario.


Um, spoilers, I suppose. Should we really worry about spoilers here, though?




I don't really think that's such an issue. As you go through the book they break up into all sorts of subsets. Of course in the Shire you have first three hobbits, then four, then add Strider, then Glorfindel, then a big crowd of everyone in Rivendell, then the nine leave, whittled down to seven after Amon Hen, but then broken up into three sets - Frodo and Sam (soon joined by Gollum) one way, Merry and Pippin together the other, the Three Hunters, joined, then left then joined again by Gandalf. After those four meet up again with Merry and Pippin, you again break into three groups, with Gandalf and Pippin going straight to Gondor, the Three Hunters by a more circuitous route, and Merry joining up along with the Rohirrim. During the Battle of the Pellanor fields you have all of these in the west in the same region, but with all of this parallel action going on that could be different sets - Gandalf and the Witch King at the gate, Pippin with Denethor and Faramir, Witch King again with Merry and Theoden and Eowyn, the others coming up the river, etc etc. Shippey's Tolkien: Author of the Century does a great job of following how all of the parallel threads weave in and out.

All that said, in the sets we've seen, LEGO has intentionally mixed the figures up so you have to buy multiple sets to get everyone. So, for instance, the Moria set has only 4 of the 9, even though they were all there in the Chamber of Mazarbul. Legolas isn't in the Helm's Deep set (which seems wrong, as you can't have the whole head count competition between him and Gimli). Two hobbits (and three Nazgul) missing from Weathertop. Etc.

BTW, finally a picture we can talk about! Hopefully there will be more very soon. That Helm's Deep set in the middle should help satisfy any of those who are upset that the Tolkien sets are making "Castle" go away. Okay, aside from the flesh tone issue, that's a pretty amazing set. If they hadn't labeled it "Lord of the Rings" and just included some yellow-skinned knights, I think all castle fans would be jumping for joy.

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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by Sir Kohran »

Bruce N H wrote:
Sir Kohran wrote:I think there's a difficulty in that the sets must avoid excessively overlapping with each other, yet quite often in Lord of the Rings each stage or 'situation' in the story features the same cast with the only change being the location and scenario.
I don't really think that's such an issue. As you go through the book they break up into all sorts of subsets. Of course in the Shire you have first three hobbits, then four, then add Strider, then Glorfindel, then a big crowd of everyone in Rivendell, then the nine leave, whittled down to seven after Amon Hen, but then broken up into three sets - Frodo and Sam (soon joined by Gollum) one way, Merry and Pippin together the other, the Three Hunters, joined, then left then joined again by Gandalf. After those four meet up again with Merry and Pippin, you again break into three groups, with Gandalf and Pippin going straight to Gondor, the Three Hunters by a more circuitous route, and Merry joining up along with the Rohirrim. During the Battle of the Pellanor fields you have all of these in the west in the same region, but with all of this parallel action going on that could be different sets - Gandalf and the Witch King at the gate, Pippin with Denethor and Faramir, Witch King again with Merry and Theoden and Eowyn, the others coming up the river, etc etc. Shippey's Tolkien: Author of the Century does a great job of following how all of the parallel threads weave in and out.

All that said, in the sets we've seen, LEGO has intentionally mixed the figures up so you have to buy multiple sets to get everyone. So, for instance, the Moria set has only 4 of the 9, even though they were all there in the Chamber of Mazarbul. Legolas isn't in the Helm's Deep set (which seems wrong, as you can't have the whole head count competition between him and Gimli). Two hobbits (and three Nazgul) missing from Weathertop. Etc.
Bruce
I realise they’ve spread the characters over a range of sets (and actually praised them for it earlier in the topic), but that’ll be quickly negated if they make many more sets, because there’s at least one Fellowship character in nearly every scene of the story.

I’m just concerned that future sets won’t be able to avoid continuously featuring the same Fellowship and Rohan characters and generic Orcs. The rest of the sets won’t consist of much beyond trees, rocks and walls, with the only distinctive feature being a baddie specific to a certain area like Saruman, the Mumakil, Denethor, or the Witch King.

Obviously it’s early days and I’m sure Lego have thought it through, but it’s still something to consider.
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Re: LOTR and the hobbit lego

Post by Medieval Guy »

Those sets are great! Now we just need some closer views. Helm's Deep is awesome and looks like a great way to get some handy pieces (i.e. hinges) but still in a lovely set. Shelob looks awesome, but I doubt I'll buy that set because I never leave my builds togetther for long, and none of the pieces interest me. You can barely see the cave troll in the background, but he looks decent, as do the Mines. Also, you can see the rampant horse on the right side. Does anybody know if the legs are movable? Or does the horse stay like that?
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