LOTR & The Hobbit 2012

[Cutty]

This will be good for fans, I guess?

I'm not very excited and hoped this was based on unfounded rumours. So this Hobbit/LotR theme exists.

Hopefully those sets will be good parts fodder.

Anyway, I want to see pictures before there will be any sane judgement.

Be well!

Cutty

[Mr. Elijah Timms]

I guess the most exciting thing for me is... MORE DWARVES!!!!!

Edited December 16, 2011 by Mr. Elijah Timms

[Juppy]

Since this line is obviously catered to the AFOLS. I hope that most of the sets will be big and detailed ones.

[Tereglith]

Holy crap! LEGO has stepped it up like ten notches in terms of awesome licenses. If the LOTR sets even begin to approach the quality of the latest HP sets, I will be spending a LOT of money this summmer. Because these will be coming out around the same time as the Marvel sets, right? Geez. I'd better get a job.

Utterly awesome news. I thought I was excited before about superheroes, but now...

This line has so much potential, and I can only hope that they don't squander it like they have with POTC, basing almost all the sets off of the new movie and not capitalizing overmuch on the love people have for the first three. Hopefully (and the release dates of the movie vs. the sets seem to imply this) they take a more Indiana-Jones approach, where the first three movies are given their dues in a the first line, and then even after the new movie comes out they continue to get new sets in equal proportion.

[XimenaPaulina]

I do agree with the worry stated here in this thread that fan expectations will be too high for what Lego currently produce for their licensed themes. I think the POTC sets were seen quite negatively - high prices for sets that only partially resembled their source material (or not at all), and I am reluctant to go overboard with the excitement until we see pics of the kind of thing that Lego will be producing.

That's why it's always good practice to set realistic expectations towards a certain licensed theme. Years and years of being a LSW fan has taught me to understand the limitations/restrictions the set designers had to work with to come up with a decent set with a right price-parts balance, and to fully realize that the higher price of a licensed theme like this new LOTR is simply a fact of our LEGO hobby. If we set ourselves with this mindset I think it wouldn't be too hard to appreciate what TLG will give us in this LOTR line.

I promise to spend $10,000 on LotR and Hobbits!

If I may guess a ballpark figure I think ~$300 for the whole first wave of sets is a good estimate. Though I have a bad feeling that there would be a tendency to hoard army-building type sets where Uruk-Hai and the likes are included.

Let the conversation turn from "if" to "what" now... have at it!

Any bright guesses on what the sets we'll be getting? Let the speculation begin!

[AngryChair]

I wonder how long it will be before there are no more yellow lego faces/heads and all have been replaced with the peach range that the licensed ones have. I for one will be sad to see that happen.

I dread to think how expensive these sets will be. My wife is going to kill me.!

[jmagaletta]

That's why it's always good practice to set realistic expectations towards a certain licensed theme. Years and years of being a LSW fan has taught me to understand the limitations/restrictions the set designers had to work with to come up with a decent set with a right price-parts balance, and to fully realize that the higher price of a licensed theme like this new LOTR is simply a fact of our LEGO hobby. If we set ourselves with this mindset I think it wouldn't be too hard to appreciate what TLG will give us in this LOTR line.

If I may guess a ballpark figure I think ~$300 for the whole first wave of sets is a good estimate. Though I have a bad feeling that there would be a tendency to hoard army-building type sets where Uruk-Hai and the likes are included.

Any bright guesses on what the sets we'll be getting? Let the speculation begin!

I think for sure there will be a Weathertop/Amun Sul set. could you imagine 14 minifigs, 9 ringwraiths, aragorn, and the hobbits.

Edited December 16, 2011 by jmagaletta

[Vindicare]

Damn...I really was hoping this day wouldn't come. Now I have to spend more money on Lego...

[kciR]

This is pretty awesome! I really didn't expect this to happen, besides all the rumors in this topic.

The only thing I wish for are good sets that stay true to the books (or probably the movies). And hope for some expert sets, like they made for Star Wars.

But if I'm correct, they release the whole trilogy at once in the summer of 2012, and they split the hobbit into two parts.

That means, no extra sets besides the key-parts of LotR, but we'll see. We get at least a whole bunch of dwarves for The Hobbit!

[Zergos]

YES we finally will get a lord of the rings theme.. Thank you lego for doing this. This is gonna to deplete my wallet, that's for sure.

[Hobbestimus]

Any bright guesses on what the sets we'll be getting? Let the speculation begin!

I think a Bag End or Shire set of some kind is a given.

Probably Helm's Deep, Minas Tirith, Gandalf vs. Balrog with a stone staircase...the Rivendell Council...uh...maybe a giant elephant thing (whatever those are called). Weathertop Battle.

I am geeking out. So excited.

I wonder how they'll handle scale. - Toy Story Woody legs/arms for Humans, standard minifigure for Dwarf, short legs for Hobbits?

Edited December 16, 2011 by Hobbestimus

[XimenaPaulina]

I wonder how long it will be before there are no more yellow lego faces/heads and all have been replaced with the peach range that the licensed ones have. I for one will be sad to see that happen.

I also wonder why this issue of fleshie vs. yellow tones keep popping out of the discussion. Is the "Rule: Yellow = non-licensed themes, Flesh = licensed themes" really that hard to understand? Really?

I wonder how they'll handle scale. - Toy Story Woody legs/arms for Humans, standard minifigure for Dwarf, short legs for Hobbits?

I think they would keep the standard minifig size for humans, and the short legs for the dwarves and hobbits.

[Hobbestimus]

I think they would keep the standard minifig size for humans, and the short legs for the dwarves and hobbits.

Probably true.

Oh, maybe they'll use the abundance of short characters in this franchise as an opportunity to do a set of articulated short legs. I wouldn't mind a new set of short arms, too, to help proportions.

[4brickmoney]

Im starting to rewatch the movies now so I can build a large display to put the sets on. Now to earn the money Wife says I cant sell kidney there went my one good idea.

[jmagaletta]

I think they would keep the standard minifig size for humans, and the short legs for the dwarves and hobbits.

Isnt this kinda answered with the preview picture of frodo, granted its cg?

[XimenaPaulina]

Isnt this kinda answered with the preview picture of frodo, granted its cg?

Wuh? Frodo's legs aren't visible in the preview image, hence Mr. Hobbestimus' speculation.

[Haltiamieli]

So Cwetqo and others were right after all... but could the partial set list that Cwetqo posted in August have been legit too? Gandalf's Arrival (Hobbit or LotR; personally I'd wager for the former?), Weathertop, Balin's Tomb and Helm's Deep mostly sound quite propable scenes for Lego to use. But apart from maybe Helm's Deep none of the sound very building-oriented.

I can't but feel sad for the passing of Kingdoms. It was truly a great theme and more or less the reason why I returned to Lego collecting. But still a Middle-earth theme is good news in my books, it's the first Lego licence that really interests me. It could even turn me partly to the dark side of the fleshy minifigs.

I just hope they do it well...

[jmagaletta]

Wuh? Frodo's legs aren't visible in the preview image, hence Mr. Hobbestimus' speculation.

good point, i was saying with regards to torso and arms being changed with the smaller characters.

[newwavejunkie]

I think for sure there will be a Weathertop/Amun Sul set. could you imagine 14 minifigs, 9 ringwraiths, aragorn, and the hobbits.

Although 14 figs would be fantastic, if memory serves, there were only 5 ringwraiths at Weathertop. I believe the other 4 joined them later. Except for huge sets like the Death Star or Millennium, Lego tends not to give us every character that was present at certain scenes in licensed sets. I'd honestly expect maybe 2 ringwraiths, 2 hobbits and Aragorn in an Amon Sul set.

[Blondie-Wan]

They originally did this with the Star Wars license, although there were two years (I think) before the new trilogy was released. That's a different story because of how many new films were coming out and the license was contracted over a number of years. It seems to be their business model when obtaining new licenses that have new movies coming out.

Well, it wasn't two years; the first LEGO Star Wars sets all came out in 1999,* the same year Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released. However, you're essentially correct - it was indeed a mix of "classic" scene sets (five sets based upon the original trilogy) and new stuff (eight sets based upon the new movie), and IIRC the OT ones did come out a few months earlier, during the anticipatory build-up to the new movie's release. Indiana Jones and Toy Story followed similarly - each was a classic franchise with multiple installments released years earlier by the time they became LEGO themes in time for long-awaited new installments, each began with a launch wave consisting of sets based upon the originals, and each then had a second wave of sets a few months later, based upon scenes from those long-awaited new movies, and timed to hit shelves shortly before the new movies hit screens. In the case of Indy, the theme then stuck around a bit longer, as Star Wars had, and got a second year with more sets based on all four movies (though of course unlike its sister Lucasfilm franchise, Indiana Jones didn't continue as a regular theme beyond its second year - possibly because it wasn't and still isn't clear whether more movies are forthcoming, unlike the essentially guaranteed Star Wars Episodes II & III).

*"January wave" sets may actually have been available toward the very end of the year before, as happens sometimes even now, but of course they were officially considered 1999 sets.

[Tamamono]

Well, this is certainly a surprise! I'm not the biggest fan of the books or the movies, but I'm definitely familiar with them. I look forward to seeing what LEGO has in store for us!

Information about the sets and collectible minifigures from both collections will be unveiled at a later date at TheLordoftheRings.LEGO.com.

Collectible minifigures? Could they mean battlepacks by this?

[Scarapis]

oh man I may have to take a loan out on the house this year, I was one of the nay sayers until we saw some proof, proof has been seen and its like yee haa.

[Blondie-Wan]

I wonder how long it will be before there are no more yellow lego faces/heads and all have been replaced with the peach range that the licensed ones have. I for one will be sad to see that happen.

I also wonder why this issue of fleshie vs. yellow tones keep popping out of the discussion. Is the "Rule: Yellow = non-licensed themes, Flesh = licensed themes" really that hard to understand? Really?

Indeed. It's worth noting that the classic yellow minifigure is a hugely important trademark image for LEGO, one of the things people immediately associate with the brand. Perhaps if they'd never had minifigures before and were just starting out, they'd have gone right to fleshtones for absolutely all figures in all themes, but at this point yellow minifigures have over three decades of brand equity, nostalgia, consumer goodwill, etc. associated with them, and there's no way TLG would discard that. I think it's pretty much certain LEGO will continue to populate its (own) worlds with tiny yellow people for decades to come.

[Clone OPatra]

Collectible minifigures? Could they mean battlepacks by this?

The collectible minifigures part struck me too. I don't think they mean the battlepacks, since I don't ever recall them specifically mentioning those before. It's more likely that they will actually be doing randomized LotR minifigures, banking on the success of their regular collectible minifigures. It's probably not a problem for them to do so with LotR like it is for Star Wars, since minimates and normal action figures coexisted in the past.

[jmagaletta]

The one thing that really worries me about this is if lego fails to capture the epicness (not a real word) and size of some of the lotr sets. For instance Minas Tirith. I feel like it will be harder to do compared to star wars.

Edited December 16, 2011 by jmagaletta