Classic-Castle.com

Bruce N H wrote:

Kev wrote:
You are the exception, and, of course, there are exceptions. I've been an elementary school teacher since the mid 90s, and the children that like either the LOTR movies or books are few and far between, even during the peak of the movie popularity. The most I could ever get out of the kids when mentioning LOTR is "my dad likes those movies."
...
Out of the 800 kids at my school, I can name maybe three that are fans of LOTR. None of them were interested in the idea of LOTR legos when I mentioned the new sets to them. They all said they had outgrown them.

Hopefully, the Hobbit will change this.

I (sadly) pretty much agree here. I was a pretty advanced reader, and I first read Fellowship in the fifth grade (after which I was hooked). Our teacher read the Hobbit to us in the third grade, and it seemed to be well received.
This, of course, was many many years before the PJ movies. I did see the Rankin/Bass animated hobbit when I was younger (say 2nd grade), and the Bakshi animated Lord of the Rings came out around the same time I read Fellowship (and therefore in my mind's eye Boromir will always look like a viking).
I'm surprised the PJ movies haven't made LotR more accessible a couple of years younger.

Bruce

I was quite the opposite, even engaging in the movies/books before I had even watched/read them! I had older brothers who would play the video games and stuff, so I would always be keeping my eye on the TV just to watch those cool action scenes. I grew up in that culture, to the point where lots of my LEGO endeavors were through LOTR.

I can't really speak about the next generation though. I think there is enough attraction to the things that the LOTR sets will bring that will hopefully make them successful. There is still an incredibly large LOTR fan-base however. It will be interesting to see how things play out with this new license.

As far as appealing to children goes, I think Lord of the Rings does lack the 'playful' feel that Harry Potter and Star Wars have, with all their wacky creatures, wands/lightsabers, magic/lasers, etc. And Tolkien's stories are generally quite grim and downbeat in tone.

Given the scale and detail of the sets, Lego seem to have high hopes for the line, so it'll be interesting to see how it does.

Just looked at the sets again... I don't think I'll buy (m)any of them. They look nice and playable by themselves, but I have absolutely no use for peaches and I don't think they're too great parts-wise either. Kingdoms disappeared off the shelves a month too early

Sir Bragallot wrote:Just looked at the sets again... I don't think I'll buy (m)any of them. They look nice and playable by themselves, but I have absolutely no use for peaches and I don't think they're too great parts-wise either. Kingdoms disappeared off the shelves a month too early

There is still the joust! I just bought 4

BTappel wrote:

Sir Bragallot wrote:Just looked at the sets again... I don't think I'll buy (m)any of them. They look nice and playable by themselves, but I have absolutely no use for peaches and I don't think they're too great parts-wise either. Kingdoms disappeared off the shelves a month too early

There is still the joust! I just bought 4

Four wow , you should get some pictures of them all together . But the leaving of Kingdoms from stores was so quick that I had to buy one set for more than list off of eBay and the other one I'm still trying to get . I have have heard rumors of Lego keeping Kingdoms after LotR ends anybody else heard about that?
~KnightMan~

I think that is to be interpreted as 'Kingdoms' simply taking the name of 'Castle' as an overall description for upcoming castle lines rather than the actual line itself (at least that's how I interpret it): I don't see them making more lion/dragon knights sets after this, but I'm sure there'll be a a new castle line at one point. I'll look for the Joust on the shelves, the internet says it's hard to find however and it may not be the same here in Belgium, where we have virtually no Lego stores, in fact there's not 1 store in my vicinity that sells any Lego at all, I have to go other places that are usually overpriced :/