Hey guys, any chance at all of them bringing back some lord of the rings sets? They could have did so much more with that series. Mines Tirth? rohan? The elephants from the battle of Plennor fields would have been amazing.

Don't think so. LOTR sets are not realistic with "classical" castle set's scale. Do You imagine a Helms Deep's size Minas tirith? with 5 or 6 minifigs? I do not...

No one can say for sure, but I feel confident in saying that it's HIGHLY unlikely.

 

Never got one Gondor soldier. Sad/weird.

I also don't expect the theme returning anytime soon. Licenses like that are very expensive to aquire, and sadly the sales didn't match that Investment. Seems TLG came a couple of years too late here. I am also sceptic if there will be a new medieval fantasy theme around at all in the near future. Nexo Knights is more into scifi and the last venture in the classic castle direction wasn't really brilliant either. 

In general licensed themes tend to come and go when they're properties people are already really excited about. The LEGO Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Cars, and Toy Story themes all came about in anticipation of new movies in their respective universes. It's unlikely that any of those themes would have come about when they did if there hadn't been highly publicized new movies in the works to re-ignite interest in those series' previous installments. In the absence of new material being hyped up, public interest in these properties tends to wane, and it becomes much harder to generate interest in a licensed toy line based on them.

Granted, modestly-priced individual sets can still sometimes work without a new movie tie-in. Ideas projects like The DeLorean Time Machine, Yellow Submarine, and Wall-E sets did not tie in with new or ongoing entertainment franchises, instead just capitalizing on nostalgia for older movies. But at the same time, a Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit project on LEGO Ideas would not have that powerful sense of novelty that comes from a beloved IP being realized in LEGO for the very first time. Many of the Middle-Earth projects that have reached 10,000 supporters have been too ambitious for their own good, and a less ambitious project might struggle to generate that kind of interest in the first place since so much of the demand for smaller Middle-Earth playsets has already been fulfilled.

excellent points. they came out too late and were hard to tie in with the movies. great sets though.

I think it was a combined LOTR / Hobbit license, so there was some advertising via the Hobbit films.

2 hours ago, MAB said:

I think it was a combined LOTR / Hobbit license, so there was some advertising via the Hobbit films.

Indeed it was. But when you looked at the shelves of the toy stores around the time, there weren't terribly many sets on display. Unlike Star Wars. And while the Hobbit films were successful they didn't have the impact the LOTR films had as a cultural phenomenon.

I think the only hope for more LOTR sets is if they ever end up making Movies or Movie off J.R.R Tolkien's amazing works we call the Silmarillion, I think if they did that they MIGHT make new LOTR sets but who knows ....

3 hours ago, YeOldeAnimations said:

I think the only hope for more LOTR sets is if they ever end up making Movies or Movie off J.R.R Tolkien's amazing works we call the Silmarillion, I think if they did that they MIGHT make new LOTR sets but who knows ....

The Tolkien family owns the rights to the Silmarillion and has no desire whatsoever to license it for film, unfortunately.

Just now, SirBlake said:

The Tolkien family owns the rights to the Silmarillion and has no desire whatsoever to license it for film, unfortunately.

Yes I know this very well, I hope they do not BUT they might sell them some day (I hope not) but they might. Only time will tell.

Nope, don't think it's ever coming back. From what I could gather the original line didn't sell particularly well, although that was partially due to some questionable set choices by Lego themselves.

the list on Lego Ideas still has Lord of the RIngs as an active license.  there might be hope.  

 

50 minutes ago, goalieboy82 said:

the list on Lego Ideas still has Lord of the RIngs as an active license.  there might be hope.  

 

It's only an active license on account of the Dimensions packs, which are still available in Europe. For us AFOLs, a theme may effectively be "over" when new sets stop coming out, but from LEGO's perspective it's only over when they stop selling it, or when the actual licensing agreement expires.

If LEGO really had any interest in making more Lord of the Rings sets, you'd have to wonder what exactly they're waiting for? As it is, though, the Hobbit movies were their impetus for acquiring the license in the first place, and currently there's no new Middle-Earth media over the horizon that's likely to generate a similar spike in interest. The reality is that with a licensed theme, a lot of the demand is ultimately outside of the LEGO Group's control — they're merely capitalizing on what people are already interested in.

The Hobbit trilogy killed almost any hype in regards to the Tolkien universe in my opinion. It made an indecent amount of money at the box office but I don't know if the sets sold well, If I remember correctly they didn't stay on shelves very long.

I guess the frustrating part is that what was offered from Lego in the original trilogy isn't really complete, and thus collecting everything is less appealing.  

Edited April 6, 20177 yr by RetroInferno

As sad as it is, I doubt it. Maybe with a possible live-action Silmarillion we'll get Ancalagon the black or something. (Is he in that? I haven't read it)

I don´t think that there will be some return of the LotR/Hobbit theme. But we can create some MOCs with the existing pieces. And some new pieces are very interesting, like this new shield from LEGO Elves:

I can't believe we never got to see a Sauron minifig apart from the one in the Lego TLOTR videogames...

JakeChambers: My last hope were the Dimensions sets. Instead of updated Gimli and Legolas they could bring us some of the most desired characters - Sauron, Éowyn and generic Gondor Soldier.

3 hours ago, Mr. Cube said:

JakeChambers: My last hope were the Dimensions sets. Instead of updated Gimli and Legolas they could bring us some of the most desired characters - Sauron, Éowyn and generic Gondor Soldier.

Too bad Dimendions is going down. My mouth was watering with all the cool licenses, and I also thought they might bring new TLotR minifigs in the future, seeing they had released Legolas and Gimli. Oh well :(

43 minutes ago, JakeChambers said:

Too bad Dimendions is going down. My mouth was watering with all the cool licenses, and I also thought they might bring new TLotR minifigs in the future, seeing they had released Legolas and Gimli. Oh well :(

I certainly doubt that even if Dimensions were continuing, and even if it were continuing to bring Lord of the Rings characters, it would ever be the source for any sort of generic soldier character. Apart from the generic ACU trooper in the Jurassic World team pack, Dimensions mostly focused on distinctive characters with distinctive abilities.

Let's not discuss this. It brings up too much heartache from when they first canceled the line.

Yes, they could have done a lot more with it, but I'm guessing they released what they wanted to release based on their license. I doubt any company is in the business to lose money, so they were probably limited to what they could release. It just happened to not be exactly what adult fans wanted.

It is unfortunate with Dimensions. They could have done something differently there instead of Gandalf, Gimli, and Legolas. Oh well. This happens with ALL licenses. I'd love a Sao Feng figure from POTC, that will not happen either. I'd love Pintel and Ragetti figures also. Won't happen.

Are there any models from the LotR videogame that are buildable in reality? And does anyone have that picture that shows the Lothlorien prototype?

After seeing the new Thor teaser, I really hope we get an armored hulk and that it looks non-techy so I can repurpose him as an armored troll

We have already seen picture of him:

: 

Edited April 16, 20177 yr by sahidko