Lord of the Rings Ongoing Discussion

[Gorilla94]

On 4/18/2023 at 11:03 PM, gdugaucquier said:

Pippin got a belt for his sword sheath, so it depends on the scene. Logically in Rivendell he does not wear his sword, but the original Pippin came in the Moriaset, and there he has his sword.

In the movie I think he wears it when leaving Rivendell (but the buckle is hidden behind his jacket) and you can see the belt (buckle again hidden) clearly when he is crying after Gandalf fell in Moria. It could be that he got the belt with buckle in Lothlorien, but I don't think so. In some promo images you can see Pippin clearly wears a belt with buckle and those images are from scenes before Lothlorien.  

Thank you :D I guess I'll keep Pippins old torso, then. In my opinion the shiny belt buckle improves the figure very much :D

I solved my problem with Sam :) The new face has orange eyebrows, but they work well with the old medium flesh hairpiece. The dark orange hair works perfect for Merry and suits him better with the dark green Torso :) Aragorn stays the same like from the old sets in my Display but with the new sword replacing a slightly less perfect custom piece. The best version of Legolas is in my opinion the old one with the Dual moulded arms of the cmf20-Viking :)

what are your opinions On Boromir? Sword and Shield are now perfect, of course. I prefer the new face and the outfits print is by far superior... the only thing I really don't like on the new one are the legs being blue( Those should have been dual moulded ) and his red arms (need Dual moulding and printing)

Gimli is a bit difficult in my opinion. I think he really needs printed arms and the new beard looks good from the front doesn't work that well on the backside combined with the helmet, so I prefer the old beard mould. That one in dark Orange would be perfect. My custom Cape imtroves the figure quite much. I wish the axe would have been a Clip compatible with a brown bar piece ^^'

Edited April 24, 2023 by Gorilla94

[Lordhelmet]

All quiet here, hopefully we start to hear news in the next five months about new sets coming out next year (hopefully a real wave of sets in Winter).

[McMurder_them_softly]

13 minutes ago, Lordhelmet said:

All quiet here, hopefully we start to hear news in the next five months about new sets coming out next year (hopefully a real wave of sets in Winter).

Likewise. Though if all we get is Rivendell, glad I got it and they did make 1 final set. It's a real nice capstone one. 

Still want more though to be sure!

[Lordhelmet]

Agreed, want more.  If they only make Rivendell and stop I will be picking up an extra copy before the end of next year just to hang onto.  But still holding out hope that it sold well enough to warrant more sets (and ideally play/diorama sets).

[JimBaggins]

The new Lego Friends botanical garden would work great as an expansion/ parts pack for Rivendell.

It's colors match perfectly and it has similar elegant architecture and level of detail

[Legoman123]

I’m sure we’ll let get more. Especially if the rumours/images are true surrounding Barad-dur.

[Gorilla94]

I would not worry. Lego wants to make money and if it is done well the Lotr IP can be like printing money. I expect at least a Mordor Set with Sauron and a Gondor set with the Witchking. I would be surprised, if we won't get a Bag end set, too. It wouldn't even require new moulds, if done for Lotr only. With the hobbit dwarfs it would sell like crazy. The UCS falcon showed how to do such a set.

Personally I hope for a dwarfen set. Erebor from the Hobbit would rock hard. Theodens Hall could be just gorgeous, too.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Gorilla94

[Ravenclaw62442]

I’m holding off on Rivendell until I know there’s more sets coming. 

[Roebuck]

1 hour ago, Ravenclaw62442 said:

I’m holding off on Rivendell until I know there’s more sets coming. 

There will only come more sets if it sells enough so that might be a self-fulfilling prophecy

[Crazy bricks]

I also expect more sets to come - not sure if they'll go for playsets at all. I'd rather more sets like Rivendell, and I'm not sure how well playsets would sell. Depends on how much kids of today enjoy LotR.

[QuiggoldsPegLeg]

22 hours ago, Lordhelmet said:

All quiet here, hopefully we start to hear news in the next five months about new sets coming out next year (hopefully a real wave of sets in Winter).

I doubt we’ll get any sets this upcoming winter. If Rivendell is testing the waters for the market like the designers say, they’d need some time in between deciding to make a wave of sets and releasing them. So if the theme does end up returning, we’d probably get Barad-Dûr next year and more sets in January 2025 at the soonest. (Since it takes a good year and a half or more to take a set from the design stage to being on shelves.)

And like others have said, I don’t know how likely it is that we end up getting playsets, as much as I really, really hope we do. It might be a safer bet for Lego to just keep putting out large D2Cs. Which is better than nothing, but still unfortunate.

[MAB]

5 hours ago, QuiggoldsPegLeg said:

I doubt we’ll get any sets this upcoming winter. If Rivendell is testing the waters for the market like the designers say, they’d need some time in between deciding to make a wave of sets and releasing them. So if the theme does end up returning, we’d probably get Barad-Dûr next year and more sets in January 2025 at the soonest. (Since it takes a good year and a half or more to take a set from the design stage to being on shelves.)

And like others have said, I don’t know how likely it is that we end up getting playsets, as much as I really, really hope we do. It might be a safer bet for Lego to just keep putting out large D2Cs. Which is better than nothing, but still unfortunate.

It wouldn't surprise if they already have sets planned and designed, even if the decision to release is not made yet. In photos of design areas in the past, there have been many unreleased sets in the background. 

[hikouki]

Not a big fan of the Harry Potter sets and I don't own any. But I'm blown away by the fact that some smaller sets could be combined to form the large castle. I wish Lego did the same thing for the LOTR sets.

I'm not complaining that we got a big expensive set - it has been a long time and the build is great. But we could have seen something more grand if it were divided into several more affordable sets that you could later put together.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, hikouki said:

Not a big fan of the Harry Potter sets and I don't own any. But I'm blown away by the fact that some smaller sets could be combined to form the large castle. I wish Lego did the same thing for the LOTR sets.

I'm not complaining that we got a big expensive set - it has been a long time and the build is great. But we could have seen something more grand if it were divided into several more affordable sets that you could later put together.

That works with HP because much of the action over all the movies occurs at Hogwarts, so multiple Hogwarts sets can be placed near or on top of each other to create one location. Whereas LOTR changes location so often.

[Balrogofmorgoth]

12 hours ago, hikouki said:

Not a big fan of the Harry Potter sets and I don't own any. But I'm blown away by the fact that some smaller sets could be combined to form the large castle. I wish Lego did the same thing for the LOTR sets.

I'm not complaining that we got a big expensive set - it has been a long time and the build is great. But we could have seen something more grand if it were divided into several more affordable sets that you could later put together.

I have to strongly disagree here. I’m not saying they wouldn’t have been able to pull that off, but I think the effect would have been very different, in a bad way. One crown jewel type set I think was the perfect way to achieve the design and aesthetic they were going for. A modular system could possibly work for something like Minas Tirith, where achieving everything you would want out of that location would be almost impossible in one set. But I don’t think it would have worked for Rivendell

I’m not holding my breath for more sets, I can’t let myself get my expectations that high. But…obviously I very much hope to see more 

[RichardGoring]

57 minutes ago, Balrogofmorgoth said:

I have to strongly disagree here. I’m not saying they wouldn’t have been able to pull that off, but I think the effect would have been very different, in a bad way. One crown jewel type set I think was the perfect way to achieve the design and aesthetic they were going for. A modular system could possibly work for something like Minas Tirith, where achieving everything you would want out of that location would be almost impossible in one set. But I don’t think it would have worked for Rivendell

I’m not holding my breath for more sets, I can’t let myself get my expectations that high. But…obviously I very much hope to see more 

Agreed. The Hogwarts combined castle looks good, but it's not nearly as elegant or clever as Rivendell. And remember that with Hogwarts it has to be reduced to simple 8x16 blocks that can be stacked together in many different configurations, as people buy different sets. They'd have to do the same for anything else - otherwise why bother splitting it into multiple sets - which would compromise the end result significantly compared with what we got in a single, large, cohesive set. As much as it sucks for the only option to be a $500 set and for those who want to attempt to army build figures.

[krtwood]

2 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

Agreed. The Hogwarts combined castle looks good, but it's not nearly as elegant or clever as Rivendell. And remember that with Hogwarts it has to be reduced to simple 8x16 blocks that can be stacked together in many different configurations, as people buy different sets. They'd have to do the same for anything else - otherwise why bother splitting it into multiple sets - which would compromise the end result significantly compared with what we got in a single, large, cohesive set. As much as it sucks for the only option to be a $500 set and for those who want to attempt to army build figures.

As long as the sets are worthwhile on their own, you don't have to make the way they combine together have to accommodate people who only buy some of the sets.  For example, I remember the Transformers sets from my youth where some of them could combine together to make one big robot.  If you didn't buy all the sets then you couldn't make the big robot, period.  Another example is what Bluebrixx did with their Castle Blaustein sets.  There you couldn't even build anything else with the expansion sets if you didn't have all the previous sets, but you could stop buying the sets at any point and still have something complete.  But it wasn't modular at all and they still sell the base set as fast as they can make them.  It's a way of making a really huge set (25,000 pieces) without selling it as one massive set.  In the Technic lineup, Lego has made sets where if you buy 2 or 3 sets it's possible to build a larger set out of the combined pieces that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the smaller sets.  It's just something extra you are able to do if you buy them all and a bridge towards having larger sets for someone who maybe otherwise wouldn't spend that much all at once.  So there's more than one way to break up big sets into small sets.

[Balrogofmorgoth]

2 hours ago, krtwood said:

As long as the sets are worthwhile on their own, you don't have to make the way they combine together have to accommodate people who only buy some of the sets.  For example, I remember the Transformers sets from my youth where some of them could combine together to make one big robot.  If you didn't buy all the sets then you couldn't make the big robot, period.  Another example is what Bluebrixx did with their Castle Blaustein sets.  There you couldn't even build anything else with the expansion sets if you didn't have all the previous sets, but you could stop buying the sets at any point and still have something complete.  But it wasn't modular at all and they still sell the base set as fast as they can make them.  It's a way of making a really huge set (25,000 pieces) without selling it as one massive set.  In the Technic lineup, Lego has made sets where if you buy 2 or 3 sets it's possible to build a larger set out of the combined pieces that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the smaller sets.  It's just something extra you are able to do if you buy them all and a bridge towards having larger sets for someone who maybe otherwise wouldn't spend that much all at once.  So there's more than one way to break up big sets into small sets.

Yes exactly. I wouldn’t want LOTR sets to look like the Hogwarts sets. In my opinion, the 2021-2023 Hogwarts sets look pretty terrible. They’re blocky, ugly, and unrealistic. It’s cool that they can all combine to make a fairly accurate Hogwarts layout, but that’s about it. I wouldn’t want that for LOTR. However, there are other options for sets to be able to fit together to form something bigger, like Helm’s Deep and Uruk-Hai Army for example. Rather than blocky modular sections, it’s just two complete sets that have the option to connect for something larger. I think that would be a great system for Minas Tirith since I just can’t conceive a way to achieve an accurate build for it in one set at a reasonable price. It would probably have to be a few separate sets that work on their own but can all connect to form the entire city if you buy them all. For example, one set could be the upper level with the tree, citadel, etc. Another section could have various walls with trebuchets and houses and incorporate a multi-level system. Another could be the lower level with gates and Grond. Maybe even another could be the beacon. There could even be a small battle pack style set with a small section of the wall that you could buy several of. Each set works by itself but if you buy them all you can make a very big and accurate Minas Tirith build 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Balrogofmorgoth

[Yoggington]

The yellow eye on the new Dreamzzzzzzz shark-boat jumps out as a future LotR piece every time I see a pic of it.

[Eurolock]

Winners finally announced on Lego Ideas. The builds chosen were all really great - but I’m definitely surprised by the choices. Not sure I would have put any of them into my top ten. All a matter of opinion of course.

[Jarreth2]

So does this mean they’ll produce the grand prize winner as a set ??

EDIT .. just reread it all .. not necessarily .. but who knows.

Congratulations to all the winners 👍🏼

Edited May 12, 2023 by Jarreth2

[Arjo]

Anecdotal evidence to report here: was sad to see the set is no longer on display at my local (large) lego store. In fact the boxes are discreetly shelved away from more premium floor space. I havent bought it yet and enjoyed paying Rivendell a regular visit. I thought it would stay longer in plain sight for people to admire (and be tempted to open their wallets).

[MAB]

19 minutes ago, Arjo said:

Anecdotal evidence to report here: was sad to see the set is no longer on display at my local (large) lego store. In fact the boxes are discreetly shelved away from more premium floor space. I havent bought it yet and enjoyed paying Rivendell a regular visit. I thought it would stay longer in plain sight for people to admire (and be tempted to open their wallets).

This is fairly coomon thought, isn't it? Have it on display for a few months, then replace it with the next big thing. Big things are coming round so frequently now. I imagine anyone that is going to drop a huge amount of cash on a specific LEGO set would know about the set before entering the store. It can only be displayed for so long until that space is needed for the next set that needs advertising.

[Arjo]

Agreed, except in that particular store which has extensive floor space, flagship sets tend to stay on display much longer than Rivendell did.

To me, it is beautiful and the epitome of how great a set TLG can produce, I would therefore have liked and expected it to have more staying power. Whether there is anything to read into it, too small a sample, too many uncertainties and other moving parts. Hence why I mentioned it in passing, as anecdotal at best. Your point about the churn stands though, even within AFOLs there seems to be a limited attention span, chasing the next leak and the next set. I get it, many of us are addicted, but some sets should be able to capture one's heart more than a month (in my humble opinion). I for one am still longing for Rivendell, despite its hefty price tag (2x VIP or another retailer discount if I am ever so lucky!).

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Have you seen the new rivendale