On 7/29/2014 at 8:05 PM, SMC said:

I do wonder if lego care about how the line is viewed, it wound not take a lot for us to be happy, we don't really know what lego has for us next year and there are gaps to fill so who knows

  On 7/29/2014 at 8:18 PM, Blakstone said:

Fortunately LotR does not really compete with Star Wars, City or Friends. It does compete with Castle 2013 but that was missing this year. That might be a good sign that LEGO does not want LotR / Hobbit and Castle to undercut each other.

I think that LEGO examines the different age demographics and appeal. So if they wanted to bring in a line that targeted a slightly older (or MUCH older) demographic, then LotR would be the line to remove.

The LEGO Movie had taken over so much of the shelf space in my local stores though and it will get a third wave in January.

I think we have generally seen that Lego does try as much as possible to please their fans. But we here are a fairly small niche group. Ultimately what Lego has to do is make the best use of their resources. It isn't that Lego competes with SW or City or Castle. It's that they all compete for shelf space and factory time. Lego's two most precious commodities. And the two factors that are hardest for them to change.

Here is the simple truth. A licensed theme with an current associated movie will in most cases do an order of magnitude better sales than a similar unlicensed theme. And there is a sharp drop off when the movie is out of the public eye. That's the elephant in the room. Is it greedy for Lego to direct their limited production resources to projects that have a greater pool of customers wanting to buy them?

Even if stores dedicated an entire aisle for Star Wars sets with even more sets than is offered now, I don't think they would sell more. It would just fragment the sales for each set. So I do not feel that giving LotR / Hobbit space to a large line would expand their sales. But if they gave it up to a new line that brought in new LEGO fans (e.g. Top Gear) would.

  On 7/29/2014 at 9:19 PM, Blakstone said:

Even if stores dedicated an entire aisle for Star Wars sets with even more sets than is offered now, I don't think they would sell more. It would just fragment the sales for each set. So I do not feel that giving LotR / Hobbit space to a large line would expand their sales. But if they gave it up to a new line that brought in new LEGO fans (e.g. Top Gear) would.

It doesn't make sense today. But Summer 2015 when Avengers hits do you think they might want a little more shelf space and need a bit more factory capacity? How about Fall 2015 with Episode VII looming. That's going to increase the footprint of the SW line some. No? And yeah there might very well be some other new product or project waiting in the wings. At the end of the day the Middle Earth fans have had 5 waves and a D2C UCS set. A 6th wave would be a delight. It's just the business analyst in me cannot see a reasonable and clear path to it unless there is some as yet unrevealed element to the equation.

Faefrost , maybe you can Explain why Lego wouldn't do a LotRs online only wave ,because I have always wondered why they wouldn't ,when they have D2C sets and Cuusoo sets ?

I think we are pretty close on our thoughts. However, Star Wars has been flat for the last three years with 43 to 46 sets. I don't think they will get more sets even with a new movie. Instead I think LEGO will skip the Clone Wars, Original and Prequel Trilogy sets.

But I think that The LEGO Movie likely took all the production capacity that LotR had. Despite our views in this forum, that proved to be a very good decision for them.

And we don't know what other opportunities that LEGO is looking at. I think many here were brought back from our Dark Ages by LotR. Speaking for myself, I will stay after LotR is done. I think to grow their business LEGO needs to constantly look at other properties that can grow their customer base.

One thing I see in LotR favor is that the next wave is likely designed. If a gap appears in their schedule, LEGO could take advantage of that.

We know that happened when Batman V Superman was pushed back a year. That caused LEGO to expedite a whole new wave as they had completed their designs for that movie already.

Let it go, let it go.....

  On 7/29/2014 at 8:01 PM, Faefrost said:

And never forget we got a council of Elrond set because we demanded it. We wanted Elrond. We wanted Rivendell. Collectively we do not always know what is in our best interests.

Well, not all of us demanded a Council of Elrond set. Kids, who Lego is mainly aimed at, certainly didn't demand it nor want it. A lot more of us AFOLS have also demanded a Gondor set and that has yet to come to fruition. And really that is my issue with the LotR theme. There were so many choices that just make us go "wtf?" Just look at this thread. Almost every poster who gives their "dream wave" has Eowyn vs the Witch King and/or Minas Tirith/Osgiliath at the very top of their list. Why were these not made over Council of Elrond? Ok, so maybe there was something going on behind the scenes that explains it and we are not privy to that info. But why other choices?

Why do the Mordor Orcs STILL have the same print when they have been in a total of 5 sets now and they have appeared in said sets 10 times? Yet Undead Soldiers and Goblin Town Goblins have two prints, only appeared in one set, and appeared two times each. It makes NO logical sense. "Hey guys, lets not waste money on a second or third Mordor Orc print cause they are only gonna appear in five sets and we will put two in each set, instead lets use those prints on two figs like the Undead Soldiers and Goblins since they will be used in one set and never again". Ok, so Lego maybe wanted to appeal to pirate/ship fans with the Pirate Ship Ambush set. I get that. However did it not cross Lego's mind that the scene is not even 5 minutes long, even in the EE of the films? And they made it over stuff people are literally clamoring for like Eowyn vs Witch King and Gondor Soldiers?

Yeah the Mordor orc print thing bugs me too. It's like the largest evil faction of Middle-Earth and you can't build a proper army that is diverse enough.

In fact almost all the Mordor orcs were bald (no ears) in sets and one even got a Uruk-Hai helmet, I mean come on?!

More Orc variety is going to be in the Minas Tirith set. ;-)

There is a customer angle / problem with not "completing" the sets too. If Lego gets a reputation for not completing ranges and missing out really quite important chunks of film series, it may damage sales in the future for similar ranges. Say another film trilogy comes along, and Lego brings out a range to complement it. Do you buy into it, knowing Lego has a reputation of missing out important parts of the film but will put in fairly inconsequential sets later on? Or do you just think you'll get enough sets to get the key characters (maybe just the something like the Fellowship, whatever is appropriate to the film) or not even bother with the sets and bricklink the small subset of key minifigs and forget the rest, since the rest will not be complete based on past experiences. So in LOTR case, forget getting Haldir and Theoden, forget Eomer and Rohan Soldiers, since what is the point of those if you don't have a Witch King and Eowyn, and so on.

  On 7/30/2014 at 9:27 AM, MAB said:

There is a customer angle / problem with not "completing" the sets too. If Lego gets a reputation for not completing ranges and missing out really quite important chunks of film series, it may damage sales in the future for similar ranges. Say another film trilogy comes along, and Lego brings out a range to complement it. Do you buy into it, knowing Lego has a reputation of missing out important parts of the film but will put in fairly inconsequential sets later on? Or do you just think you'll get enough sets to get the key characters (maybe just the something like the Fellowship, whatever is appropriate to the film) or not even bother with the sets and bricklink the small subset of key minifigs and forget the rest, since the rest will not be complete based on past experiences. So in LOTR case, forget getting Haldir and Theoden, forget Eomer and Rohan Soldiers, since what is the point of those if you don't have a Witch King and Eowyn, and so on.

That's an excellent point, MAB.

On the contrary, I think Lego intentionally does not finish lines in order to give them room to move for potential future products.

Did they finish all important scenes from the original three Indiana Jones or give us every key character? Did they finish every important scene from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies or give us every character? Has even Star Wars seen more than one set from Cloud City in 15 years or even one Naboo Royal Starship? Has the DC Superheroes line completed a Justice League yet? Or has Marvel completed the Ultimate Spider Man team?

Why not leave some things undone? How else can you keep the collectors hoping always for more? ;)

No, because in most cases they don't release new sets in the future because there are no new movies.

  On 7/30/2014 at 10:22 AM, d-delay said:

On the contrary, I think Lego intentionally does not finish lines in order to give them room to move for potential future products.

Did they finish all important scenes from the original three Indiana Jones or give us every key character? Did they finish every important scene from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies or give us every character? Has even Star Wars seen more than one set from Cloud City in 15 years or even one Naboo Royal Starship? Has the DC Superheroes line completed a Justice League yet? Or has Marvel completed the Ultimate Spider Man team?

Why not leave some things undone? How else can you keep the collectors hoping always for more? ;)

Some of those will depend on the license that Lego has, especially the superhero ones. It also depends on whether they intend to keep the license open and produce more in the future.

Missing out Gondor Soldiers, to me, is like not having any Scout Troopers or possibly even Storm Troopers in SW.

As for IJ, they covered virtually all of the main characters as I remember them. Maybe Walter Donovan from Last Crusade (but not very interesting) and the chief Gestapo guy from ROTLA, although he is partly made up for by the number of German Soldiers.

Indiana Jones was missing quite a few important characters such as Sallah, Toht, Colonel Dietrich, Walter Donovan, Mac, Colonel Vogel, Marcus Brody, Oxley and the Grail Knight.

Still the theme was lucky to get two more waves after the release of KOTCS despite there being no media support. If only LOTR could get the same...

  On 7/30/2014 at 10:26 AM, Robert_88 said:

No, because in most cases they don't release new sets in the future because there are no new movies.

Not sure about this. Avatar is the best example of a discontinued theme with ongoing popular works, while Superheroes and Star Wars do occasionally introduce several non-movie sets.

Even though there aren't many examples, the other problem is, new films (that include prequels) mostly bring out new sets based on that film but no more based on previous ones (eg, Toy Story and Cars). In worse cases, it usually turns out that TLG have done with LotR things and just try to complete the final wave of Hobbits

Edited July 30, 201410 yr by Dorayaki

  On 7/29/2014 at 10:09 PM, Dr.Cogg said:

Faefrost , maybe you can Explain why Lego wouldn't do a LotRs online only wave ,because I have always wondered why they wouldn't ,when they have D2C sets and Cuusoo sets ?

Because it is a licensed line. And licenses are finite and based on a start date and a finish date. They buy the size of license that they anticipate needing. But licenses do not set the boundaries for when they can make a product. They set them for the period they can sell the product. This is an important distinction. Once a license expires all remaining product must leave the shelves. All products, all sets have an anticipated life span including a minimum lifespan it will need to sell itself profitably. They will stop making new products in that licensed theme when the time remaining on the license starts to get within sight of those minimums. Figure regular retail channel product (stuff you would find at TRU and Walmart) has a 1 year expected life cycle for licensed themes. D2C sets look to mainly have a 2 year expected life cycle. They will not deliberately make a product that they need to pull from shelves halfway through its expected minimum shelf life.

There are a few other issues with them switching to adult focused D2C sets. They get made and sold in much lower volumes than regular retail sets. 10's of thousands topping out around 100 to 200 thousand, vs retail which is hundreds of thousands topping out at several million pieces. Can D2C generate enough to justify extending an expensive license?

Also D2C has production limitations that full blown retail themes do not. D2C exclusives do not have enough volume to permit new parts or molds. They also appear to have a much more limited "change budget" which allows for part color changes, printing, etc. So even with D2C we probably would not be able to get much of what we want. No Witch King head or Gondor helms under D2C. Which would have TLG asking is it worth the effort.

Figure 5 years would be a pretty common time frame for a movie based license. Also remember that there are periods at the front and back that we do not see. Pre release and post during that sell down period. The license doesn't start when product hits shelves. It starts when they sign. We know the Middle Earth licenses began or were in effect in 2011. So the license probably ends at the end of 2015 barring other clauses, extensions etc. if the license ends by 2016 then fall 2014/winter 2015 will probably be the last sets released.

  On 7/30/2014 at 1:54 PM, Dorayaki said:

Not sure about this. Avatar is the best example of a discontinued theme with ongoing popular works, while Superheroes and Star Wars do occasionally introduce several non-movie sets.

Even though there aren't many examples, the other problem is, new films (that include prequels) mostly bring out new sets based on that film but no more based on previous ones (eg, Toy Story and Cars). In worse cases, it usually turns out that TLG have done with LotR things and just try to complete the final wave of Hobbits

Superheroes and Star Wars are the exception to the rule. They have grown to be such broad multimedia juggernauts that they are less current movie dependent. They are essentially self sustaining properties. This does not happen often. For Super heroes it is really only just starting to crest as such after 50 years of deep pop culture penetration. There are a few other IP Properties like this. Disney Princesses and Transformers could probably pull it off. Tolkien sadly cannot.

  On 7/30/2014 at 10:22 AM, d-delay said:

On the contrary, I think Lego intentionally does not finish lines in order to give them room to move for potential future products.

Did they finish all important scenes from the original three Indiana Jones or give us every key character? Did they finish every important scene from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies or give us every character? Has even Star Wars seen more than one set from Cloud City in 15 years or even one Naboo Royal Starship? Has the DC Superheroes line completed a Justice League yet? Or has Marvel completed the Ultimate Spider Man team?

Why not leave some things undone? How else can you keep the collectors hoping always for more? ;)

Most of those licenses we KNOW Lego is coming back to or will get to eventually though. Lego is suppose to be coming back to the PotC line in a few years when the new film is released so they might give us some sets from previous films then. The same with DC Superheroes.. there are new movies constantly coming out so Lego can always make new stuff based on it. Star Wars is ongoing and shows no signs of slowing down so I am sure we will get another Cloud City or something never produced sooner or later. LotR though?

Once the Hobbit films are done we probably won't get anything new from the Middle-Earth franchise fir a long time. At least not for several years. I mean it took a decade between LotR and the Hobbit to be made into films, and the only material really left are the more obscure works like the Similarion (which I doubt will be made into a full length feature). This means Lego has a limited amount of time to get all the sets in they can before they lose the license and never come back to it. They don't have the same time restraints with any of those other themes.

  On 7/30/2014 at 5:10 PM, Deathleech said:

This means Lego has a limited amount of time to get all the sets in they can before they lose the license and never come back to it. They don't have the same time restraints with any of those other themes.

Unfortunately that is not exactly how their strategic planning would work. Everyone seems to think of this as some singular process. Lego must make the grand decision to make and properly cover all of the scenes and all of the movies. It does not work that way. They will not base a decision of whether to make more sets or have another wave on whether or not they have done Gondor yet. The questions of subjects or scene coverage will not come up or enter the discussion until the business case and decision has been determined to make more of anything. The question will be is there a good enough business case for a third wave. This will involve things like sales numbers and projections, interest from the merchants (which honestly I suspect is low. LotR is an AFOL theme which does better direct at Lego stores. TRU Walmart and Target make their money from kids, who really aren't that interested in the theme). Time remaining on license (see above) , and a host of accounting and financial determinations. Gondor and Witch King will be no part of these discussions. If the discussions turn out positive then design begins or continues and they talk about what to include in it.

^ Well how do we know that the theme is not popular with kids? Aren't we assuming too much that because we AFOLs like it, only adults càn like it?

Is there any evidence that kids don't like the Hobbit and LOTR?

  On 7/30/2014 at 5:10 PM, Deathleech said:

the only material really left are the more obscure works like the Similarion (which I doubt will be made into a full length feature).

I feel like Children of Hurin would make a better film adaptation than Silmarillion which would be too involved for most audiences and probably require it's own trilogy (at least).

  On 7/30/2014 at 6:47 PM, Faefrost said:

If the discussions turn out positive then design begins or continues and they talk about what to include in it.

Yep, 100% finances before fandom.

Ya, I get that Faefrost. My point wasn't Lego needs to plan out an entire wave and cover everything before the license ends. I am sure no matter what the license is and no matter how long Lego has it, they will miss some things.

My point was that unlike most of the licenses d-delay listed (PotC, Star Wars, Super Heroes), LotR and Hobbit don't really have anything else that can carry the line once the third and final Hobbit movie is out. The chances of Lego releasing a LotR set in 5 years are slim to none because there probably won't be any more Middle-Earth themed films for a looooong time (if ever). Once the Middle-Earth license ends for Lego they won't pick it up again. PotC on the other hand comes out with a new movie every few years. Star Wars is an on going license with all the tv shows, movies, etc. that come out. With these licenses there is potential for Lego to always make sets based on scenes not yet covered. If we don't get a third Lotr film though we probably never will see Gondor Soldiers, Eowyn, or the Witch King in official Lego form.

Edited July 30, 201410 yr by Deathleech

  On 7/30/2014 at 8:34 PM, Trunkbass said:

^ Well how do we know that the theme is not popular with kids? Aren't we assuming too much that because we AFOLs like it, only adults càn like it?

Is there any evidence that kids don't like the Hobbit and LOTR?

I always wonder about that too. I have nieces and nephews who LOVE anything Lego Hobbit or LOTR. All of my evidence shows they love it. Girls and boys, ages 5 to 10. But that's really the only contact I have with children so that's hardly a significant number to compare against a worldwide average.

  On 7/30/2014 at 8:37 PM, Deathleech said:

Ya, I get that Faefrost. My point wasn't Lego needs to plan out an entire wave and cover everything before the license ends. I am sure no matter what the license is and no matter how long Lego has it, they will miss some things.

My point was that unlike most of the licenses d-delay listed (PotC, Star Wars, Super Heroes), LotR and Hobbit don't really have anything else that can carry the line once the third and final Hobbit movie is out. The chances of Lego releasing a LotR set in 5 years are slim to none because there probably won't be any more Middle-Earth themed films for a looooong time (if ever). Once the Middle-Earth license ends for Lego they won't pick it up again. PotC on the other hand comes out with a new movie every few years. Star Wars is an on going license with all the tv shows, movies, etc. that come out. With these licenses there is potential for Lego to always make sets based on scenes not yet covered. If we don't get a third Lotr film though we probably never will see Gondor Soldiers, Eowyn, or the Witch King in official Lego form.

Next year fall/winter comes Hobbit+LOTR release of DVDs that should be some media coverage....