Lord of the Rings Ongoing Discussion

[kuzyabricks]

2 hours ago, zoth33 said:

Ok I thought I was missing something.  I hope he was joking because that would be crazy.  Thanks for the clarification.  I really hope the hunt for gollum is good.  Good movies seem to be hard to find nowadays.   

 

3 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

Really? I hope that's not a mistake. It was a great idea to turn three LOTR books into three movies. They had lots of content. It was an awful idea to turn a short single book into three movies, because there wasn't sufficient content and (to me) it felt like they had to expand things too much and add in a lot that didn't really contribute a lot to the main story or the overall experience.

That in turn caused it not to be nearly as popular. And so LEGO got burned by poor merchandising sales. And we lost LEGO LOTR for a decade.

I hope history doesn't repeat!

Edit: I read this as three movies, which sounds like a bad idea. Nine suggests you are joking? Clearly it's too late for me. Please say you're joking!

Haha sorry should have put a /s or something. Was making fun of the fact that the hobbit movies were split from 2 into 3)))

[RichardGoring]

Phew! 

This is the thing you need in a text forum! 

Although the fact several considered it could be serious speaks volumes of some of the crazy decisions some of the movie studios make, especially with sequels. 

[MAB]

10 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

Really? I hope that's not a mistake. It was a great idea to turn three LOTR books into three movies. They had lots of content. It was an awful idea to turn a short single book into three movies, because there wasn't sufficient content and (to me) it felt like they had to expand things too much and add in a lot that didn't really contribute a lot to the main story or the overall experience.

That in turn caused it not to be nearly as popular. And so LEGO got burned by poor merchandising sales. And we lost LEGO LOTR for a decade.

I guess we will never know if The Hobbit performed worse at the cinema because it was three movies rather than being two movies, or just one movie like previous Hobbit films. Personally, I enjoyed all three and I didn't find it too bloated. In fact for the Hobbit I prefer the extended editions over the theatrical ones. It was not LOTR good, but I still enjoyed it and I think it would have been lacking compared to what was the final product if it had been just two or one movie.

Similarly, we will never know if being three movies rather than one or two impacted on the sales of LEGO sets. If there was just one wave, or two waves, overall sales would almost certainly be lower than the three waves we had but whether that would be better for LOTR LEGO fans of the time. I know a lot of people blamed the rumoured change from two to three movies as responsible for not getting a third wave of LOTR sets and instead getting the third wave of The Hobbit sets. But LOTR sales were also not particularly good at the time. If there were just two movies for The Hobbit and no third wave of The Hobbit sets, LEGO might have cut its losses and not done the third wave of LOTR if one was planned. It was that difficult stage when LEGO had not hit the popularity heights, it was pre-LEGO Movie, pre-adult friendly sets, yet aimed at older kids and probably had a narrow audience because of it. The target audience was all over the place, some were 8-14, some 9-14, some 10-14, Orthanc was 14+, polybags were 6-12. They seemed not to know who they were aiming at. Which in one way was good for adult buyers of the time as it meant you could pick up the sets at a very good price, and you could also buy extra figures very cheaply too as Castle fans deprived of Castle for a few years were buying the discounted sets for parts and needed to get rid of the licensed figures.

[RichardGoring]

Yes, fair points.

Hindsight and all that, plus applying current ideas to the past. But I'm also glad it's not three (or even nine!) Gollum movies, so they can try and concentrate on making one good movie to get people excited and engaged with it.

[TheDoctor]

I wonder what the extent of the model will be this time?

The 2012 version roughly captured this portion...
(minus one window)                                                                                                                     (I also forgot just how basic the old set is!)


But I didn't really realise just how HUGE Bag End is!
The WETA model is by far the best reference for scale, it's actually so large you can't even see additional windows on the left-hand side as well as a back door which wraps around the side.


I think we'll see a similar portion again, which includes the Study window as well as the extra bedroom window to the right of the front door.

Problem is, that's only 3 rooms represented (Hall, Study & Bedroom)
It would arguably be missing the most important room of any Hobbit hole; the kitchen!

Edited January 17 by TheDoctor

[MAB]

3 hours ago, TheDoctor said:

It would arguably be missing the most important room of any Hobbit hole; the kitchen!

The original set found room to have a cooking area, just not a complete stand alone kitchen. And also had plenty of food and drink to suggest a feast.

I'm really not sure how much they will do next time, as the original set was substantial enough in size to depict a hobbit house pretty well. I don't think the size is the problem with the old one now, it is more the detail in the design. As you say, it looks quite basic now compared to modern sets. It was mainly a studs up box with a few SNOT parts for attaching windows. I imagine the next one will have a lot more small detail rather than the large slopes used in the walls. And using more small parts would mean it is not all that much larger in scale. It is a bit like doing a City house in LEGO or a building in Modulars, they don't have to be done to realistic scale or number of rooms to look good. I'd prefer fewer large rooms than many that are too small (and parts intensive for the walls).

 

 

[MAB]

3 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

Yes, fair points.

Hindsight and all that, plus applying current ideas to the past. But I'm also glad it's not three (or even nine!) Gollum movies, so they can try and concentrate on making one good movie to get people excited and engaged with it.

Even at the time there was a lot of discussion about The Hobbit being three movies as the reason for not getting Gondor or a third LOTR wave. And for the love of ships by kids as the reason we got the Pirates of Umbar ship and not Gondor. Obviously, we didn't know The LEGO Movie would kick off the popularity of LEGO, or that LEGO would start appealing to adults outside of the traditional AFOL fanbase, or that LEGO LOTR would become so popular. I wish we had, as I would have stocked up even more than I did. There were discussions and reports about the sets being heavily discounted though. Orthanc was the only set I wasn't able to buy at a decent discount. Everything else I got at between 30-50% off, and even more off towards the end. Although those were the days that most non-exclusive sets were available at some stage at 30% off and even then did not sell out very fast. Even retailers knew something was wrong, as some were giving 50% discounts on the final The Hobbit wave about a month after release. It is crazy to think what prices were available for some of those sets, you'd never get close to that now from a retailer. I remember posting Lonely Mountain and Battle of Five Armies on a LEGO deals discussion and others saying The Lonely Mountain at £50 was just about right, but that BOFA was still well overpriced at £30 and that it would be a poor investment. The LOTR game (50011) also wasn't selling well. I only picked a couple up for £15 each as I didn't think I'd ever use the parts and didn't really have any use for the microfigs, especially as I had already purchased all the figures at 35p each on the old online PAB. Then a clearance type place must have bought out the remaining stocks as the game disappeared completely then came back a few months later but only on their website and they had 1000s of them at £20 each (retail price was £30), even when they had been selling on ebay for closer to £100 by that stage.  I miss those days!

 

[zoth33]

22 hours ago, kuzyabricks said:

 

Haha sorry should have put a /s or something. Was making fun of the fact that the hobbit movies were split from 2 into 3)))

It's all good.  It's hard to read sarcasm in text form.  Also the fact that some people come up with some crazy stuff all over the internet just makes it hard to tell.  

[TheDoctor]

15 hours ago, MAB said:

 Although those were the days that most non-exclusive sets were available at some stage at 30% off and even then did not sell out very fast. Even retailers knew something was wrong, as some were giving 50% discounts on the final The Hobbit wave about a month after release. It is crazy to think what prices were available for some of those sets, you'd never get close to that now from a retailer. I remember posting Lonely Mountain and Battle of Five Armies on a LEGO deals discussion and others saying The Lonely Mountain at £50 was just about right, but that BOFA was still well overpriced at £30 and that it would be a poor investment.

Yeah, I remember the huge discounts in the UK too.

The one that sticks in my mind was 79018 The Lonely Mountain getting reduced to £40 in Argos! I picked up two.

I wish I'd have bought 50 79015 Witch-king Battles when they were on clearance.
In hindsight, it's obvious that that would become a desirable set, but I never expected the price of Smaug to climb so high.

(I keep my two in PP ziplocs inside a HDPE box filled with Silica Gel sachets. So far so good, no powder, oil or stickyness on the wings.)

Edited January 18 by TheDoctor

[Artanis I]

Meanwhile in Australia, because the first 2 waves sold so poorly, (and I got multiples with deep discount) stock of the 3rd wave was almost non-existent. Retailers effectively said 'we don't want much of that, thanks' and it sold out in days, before I even saw the movie.