Lord of the Rings Ongoing Discussion

[wesker]

16 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Something like this you mean;

No way they could bring back all these retired moulds for this set, just look at how long it took to bring back just the goat:


After 5 years out of production, most moulds are destroyed if they want the part after that they must make a new mould.. 

Half of those molds are completely unnecessary.

There's ZERO reason to bring back Thorin, Fili and Kili's hairpiece when Lego already has CMF Aquaman/Endgame Thor's hairpiece in production which looks more accurate to those three characters than their original hairpiece did.

Dori's braids are practically identical to Morgan Elsbeth's that it makes more sense to just recolor her hairpiece rather than resurrect an old mold from 13 years ago.

Gloin's old mold is the most generic of the lot and can easily be substituted for the same beard/hair combo Gandalf uses in Rivendell. Balin could also easily be done combining the Snow White beard above with General Dodonna's hairpiece with printed sideburns to help the transition. Dwalin would likely use the Santa beard Professor Flitwick is using now. Even Bifur could probably get away with using existing parts and just having axe shard printed on his face instead like Elrond's crown was.

Really the only characters that actually need new molds are Nori, Oin, Bofur and Bombur.

[zoth33]

11 hours ago, Lordhelmet said:

I agree about fixing the party tree, but also agree with the original post that the side builds make the set feel more well rounded and that it is the shire.  I am disappointed about the price (especially in light of Lego financial performance) and the side builds probably contributed to the increase, but they do make the set feel more shire-ish and I think that is a good thing.

The side builds have no bearing on the price increase that makes no sense.  There obviously was some misinformation out there about the price the build was already done a long time ago so the price increase if there ever was one from 200 to 270 has to do with some other factors like Tariffs, shipping costs, increase in raw materials etc.  

[Kaijumeister]

It’s a beautiful set all round but a skip for me. As much as the side builds demonstrate some lovely attention to detail from TFotR, I wouldn’t have minded their omission in favour of adding more to Bag End.

But gah, still no hair / hat mould for Gandalf! Come on, Lego  I’m praying the book nook has a few minifigures in it.

[Lordhelmet]

1 hour ago, zoth33 said:

The side builds have no bearing on the price increase that makes no sense.  There obviously was some misinformation out there about the price the build was already done a long time ago so the price increase if there ever was one from 200 to 270 has to do with some other factors like Tariffs, shipping costs, increase in raw materials etc.  

side builds have large (most likely printed pieces?  More parts, specialty parts (tent,banner), more prints = increased cost of the set?  If they were not included theoretically the price would be cheaper.
 

 Again I prefer that the side builds are there.  I think they make the set look better and am happy they were included.  I think the designer did a good job adding them in to create a full shire feel.  I am excited for this set and it will be a day one purchase for me.

Edited March 12 by Lordhelmet

[Balrogofmorgoth]

2 hours ago, wesker said:

Half of those molds are completely unnecessary.

There's ZERO reason to bring back Thorin, Fili and Kili's hairpiece when Lego already has CMF Aquaman/Endgame Thor's hairpiece in production which looks more accurate to those three characters than their original hairpiece did.

Dori's braids are practically identical to Morgan Elsbeth's that it makes more sense to just recolor her hairpiece rather than resurrect an old mold from 13 years ago.

Gloin's old mold is the most generic of the lot and can easily be substituted for the same beard/hair combo Gandalf uses in Rivendell. Balin could also easily be done combining the Snow White beard above with General Dodonna's hairpiece with printed sideburns to help the transition. Dwalin would likely use the Santa beard Professor Flitwick is using now. Even Bifur could probably get away with using existing parts and just having axe shard printed on his face instead like Elrond's crown was.

Really the only characters that actually need new molds are Nori, Oin, Bofur and Bombur.

Hell no dude what are you smoking

[zoth33]

37 minutes ago, Lordhelmet said:

side builds have large (most likely printed pieces?  More parts, specialty parts (tent,banner), more prints = increased cost of the set?  If they were not included theoretically the price would be cheaper.
 

 Again I prefer that the side builds are there.  I think they make the set look better and am happy they were included.  I think the designer did a good job adding them in to create a full shire feel.  I am excited for this set and it will be a day one purchase for me.

What I'm saying is the side builds were already apart of the build this build has been in design a long time ago.  They just didn't decide to put the side builds in last second these sets are already produced and in boxes already and have been for a few months.  So what I'm saying is there is no way that's where the supposed 70 dollar increase would come from because the set price was already there.  They just didn't add 70 dollars all of a sudden to the price for the side builds.  The side builds were already factored into to the original price now if there was a price increase I'm saying it was due to tariff's, tax increases, shipping costs being higher etc.  

[hikouki]

I feel like that for the price, they could have included a couple more minifigs - some random bystanders or villagers! LOL

I re-watched that segment and Bilbo had a segment where he was telling a story to some children. With the current Lego mould however, the next smaller minifigs for children would be the infant/ baby! LOL

[kuzyabricks]

21 hours ago, MAB said:

You said you would want a set with 12 dwarves. Which 12 would you include? And why would you not want all 13 from The Hobbit? Bringing back The Hobbit and putting all but one dwarf in a large set would be a stupid move.

And how would new collectors get Thorin?

Misspoke I apologize. I always forget it's Thorin and 12 dwarves, not just 12 dwarves

21 hours ago, Artanis I said:

You can gladly want to pay $270 for eternity, because there is no way a Bag End with all those 13 dwarves is going to be less than $370.

Completely disagree. They don't all need new molds. Get rid of the other side builds. 

23 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Something like this you mean;

No way they could bring back all these retired moulds for this set, just look at how long it took to bring back just the goat:


After 5 years out of production, most moulds are destroyed if they want the part after that they must make a new mould.. 

I understand that. They don't all need new moulds in my opinion. It could be done, I would rather have that than random side characters and poor tree designs.

[Roebuck]

13 hours ago, MAB said:

I don't think LOTR is more popular now than 12 years ago. I don’t think there are more LOTR collectables,  for example, available now compared to 10 or 20 years ago. However, maybe LEGO LOTR is more popular, although it is difficult to know as the number of people buying Rivendell and so on might be the same as the number of people that were buying complete series of sets in the past. Two things that have changed are that it is much more acceptable for adults to buy LEGO these days and people are used to paying much more for (large) sets. Those two things combined mean more adults are buying big LEGO sets for themselves. That also combined with LOTR still being popular (at least for adults) mean that big LOTR sets will sell.

Whether they would sell even better if they did smaller, kid aimed sets, I don't know. I don't think enough kids would buy them to have a wide release in supermarkets and toy stores, and the drop in quality and size might put adults off as they are now used to big sets. It appears that LEGO like to keep them as premium sets that are exclusive to LEGO and often a premium type retailer, rather than going the HP or Star Wars route and have very wide distribution of kid sets in general retail stores plus premium products that are exclusive. That suggests they don't think the small sets (kid) market is viable and hence there is no need for a theme of small sets when they can do one big set a year aimed at adults instead.

I agree, there are more adult fans today so there are probably more of them buying the LOTR sets as well. However the first waves was aimed at kids and then they must compete with Ninjago, City etc and they failed. 1 big D2C set aimed at adults can sell a lot less then a small set on shelf's in every store and still be a huge success. I do not think a normal wave of LOTR sets would do any better today with kids so that is probably why Lego only make big sets for adults. Since there are coming 2 this year they are probably doing well

6 hours ago, wesker said:

Half of those molds are completely unnecessary.

There's ZERO reason to bring back Thorin, Fili and Kili's hairpiece when Lego already has CMF Aquaman/Endgame Thor's hairpiece in production which looks more accurate to those three characters than their original hairpiece did.

Dori's braids are practically identical to Morgan Elsbeth's that it makes more sense to just recolor her hairpiece rather than resurrect an old mold from 13 years ago.

Gloin's old mold is the most generic of the lot and can easily be substituted for the same beard/hair combo Gandalf uses in Rivendell. Balin could also easily be done combining the Snow White beard above with General Dodonna's hairpiece with printed sideburns to help the transition. Dwalin would likely use the Santa beard Professor Flitwick is using now. Even Bifur could probably get away with using existing parts and just having axe shard printed on his face instead like Elrond's crown was.

Really the only characters that actually need new molds are Nori, Oin, Bofur and Bombur.

It is a god point that they could probably use close enough moulds in production today for a lot of the parts, it seems that Lego where willing to use more on minifigs back then anyway. However 4 moulds is probably still too much

[MAB]

8 hours ago, zoth33 said:

The side builds have no bearing on the price increase that makes no sense.  

That depends on what they would have done as an alternative. If they had the same Bag End without the side builds, it would have been cheaper. If they had a larger Bag End using the same number of parts as the whole set, it might still have been slightly cheaper if they avoided using the foil parts. It might also be that they could use exactly the same parts and charge more for a bigger spread out set than a smaller more compact set because customers see more value. 

12 hours ago, Balrogofmorgoth said:

LOTR collectibles actually are more popular now than they were 10-15 years ago. WETA and United Cutlery have been releasing new LOTR products now than they ever did before. A ton of retired products have come back and even more new ones have been made and released. And they’re always out of stock pretty quickly. Same thing with the books, I can barely keep up with the different editions being released all the time these days

I don't think I've ever seen those on shelves of regular stores, supermarkets, etc. When the original movies were out, and again when The Hobbit was released, there were loads of collectables for 'normal' people, such as action figures, mugs and fridge magnets, collector cards, etc. That is the type of reach LEGO would need if it was to do a regular LOTR theme containing small sets. Expensive high-end WETA models are essentially the equivalent of the large LEGO sets, for the more die hard fans. 

[Khargeust]

Due to LEGO's premature announcement, I'm guessing there won't be a teaser for this third set and they'll skip ahead to the official announcement. Probably today, tomorrow, or the day after, but I don't see the group doing it beyond that date. 

I can't wait to see the visuals of the interior of the house as well as those of the GWP.

[BrickBob Studpants]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

That depends on what they would have done as an alternative. If they had the same Bag End without the side builds, it would have been cheaper. 

We don’t really know how pricing works though. I doubt they first design the set and then determine the price, but rather the designers get a rough estimate and then design the set within those parameters, likely with a back and forth. The survey leak showed that they work with ranges, at least for D2C sets. So it is possible that the price was always around $250-270, and the designer added the side builds to add value

[TheDoctor]

1 hour ago, Khargeust said:

Due to LEGO's premature announcement, I'm guessing there won't be a teaser for this third set and they'll skip ahead to the official announcement. Probably today, tomorrow, or the day after, but I don't see the group doing it beyond that date. 

I can't wait to see the visuals of the interior of the house as well as those of the GWP.

Yeah, they're cutting this one fine.
It's less than 3 weeks until the release.

[BrickBob Studpants]

12 hours ago, wesker said:

Half of those molds are completely unnecessary.

Yes, some of the pieces have similar enough replacements (like the Aquaman hairpiece for Thorin, Fili, and Kili), but I’d hate for them to cheap out on minifigs that were so well done the first time round  If they ever bring the dwarves back for a set, they should go all out and resurrect or update as many of the original pieces as possible.

They‘ve done a great job so far with either updating pieces (Gollum, Gimli‘s helmet, orc shield, MoS‘ helmet), repurposing well-fitting existing pieces from other themes (HP goblin hair), or creating new ones (elvish hairpiece, both weapon packs, Sauron‘s helmet). It would be a shame if the same courtesy wasn‘t extended to the dwarves!

[Agent Kallus]

I've seen £180 thrown around as the UK price for this set, has that been confirmed anywhere?

[TheDoctor]

21 minutes ago, Agent Kallus said:

I've seen £180 thrown around as the UK price for this set, has that been confirmed anywhere?

That was before the (unconfirmed) rumours of a $270 price tag.

If that's the case, it will be £230.

[zoth33]

8 hours ago, MAB said:

That depends on what they would have done as an alternative. If they had the same Bag End without the side builds, it would have been cheaper. If they had a larger Bag End using the same number of parts as the whole set, it might still have been slightly cheaper if they avoided using the foil parts. It might also be that they could use exactly the same parts and charge more for a bigger spread out set than a smaller more compact set because customers see more value. 

I don't think I've ever seen those on shelves of regular stores, supermarkets, etc. When the original movies were out, and again when The Hobbit was released, there were loads of collectables for 'normal' people, such as action figures, mugs and fridge magnets, collector cards, etc. That is the type of reach LEGO would need if it was to do a regular LOTR theme containing small sets. Expensive high-end WETA models are essentially the equivalent of the large LEGO sets, for the more die hard fans. 

Your missing what I'm saying.  this is the set we are getting the set was already in design production etc.  This is the final set it's been in boxes already.  I'm saying the rumored price of 200 was probably wrong.  He was saying the price increase from 200 to 270 could have been the side builds that's not likely as I said the set has already been finalized for some time now they just don't add side builds right before the set releases.  The debate of the price increase from 200 to 270 was what he was referring too and I'm saying that just doesn't happen overnight things don't change like that and production can't just switch up like that.  

[MAB]

6 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

We don’t really know how pricing works though. I doubt they first design the set and then determine the price, but rather the designers get a rough estimate and then design the set within those parameters, likely with a back and forth. The survey leak showed that they work with ranges, at least for D2C sets. So it is possible that the price was always around $250-270, and the designer added the side builds to add value

Indeed,  we don't know. We do know that for themes they used to design to price bands / price points and probably still do, as they tend to aim for low, mid and high price points within the themes. But for one-offs rather than themes such as this, I imagine they had a few designs for this set at different price points and probably even pitched the same designs with and without extras. For example, they could aim for $200-300 with a single design.  It could well be that there was this set without the side builds at a slightly lower price, this, and this with even more side builds at a higher price point. One main design, but a range of possible price points to pitch to the sales team.

40 minutes ago, zoth33 said:

Your missing what I'm saying.  this is the set we are getting the set was already in design production etc.  This is the final set it's been in boxes already.  I'm saying the rumored price of 200 was probably wrong.  He was saying the price increase from 200 to 270 could have been the side builds that's not likely as I said the set has already been finalized for some time now they just don't add side builds right before the set releases.  The debate of the price increase from 200 to 270 was what he was referring too and I'm saying that just doesn't happen overnight things don't change like that and production can't just switch up like that.  

OK, yes the rumour was probably just wrong. As above, I imagine the designers had a number of variations ready at different price points in the initial stages. Those could have leaked, or the leaked price could have been made up. But once it was in production I imagine they would have decided on the price probably plus or minus a bit. It wouldn't surprise me if they aimed at, for example, $250 18 months ago in the design stages then they decided they could squeeze another $20 based on previous LOTR sales figures.

[RichardGoring]

Clay, who runs the legoleaks subreddit, said he didn't know where the $200 rumour came from and thought it was inferred from the piece count, rather than ever being something LEGO planned.

[TheDoctor]

2 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

Clay, who runs the legoleaks subreddit, said he didn't know where the $200 rumour came from and thought it was inferred from the piece count, rather than ever being something LEGO planned.

I'll be very interested to see if it is the new US tariffs having an impact.

The plan was a 25% tariff on goods imported from the European Union starting from 1st April.
Coincidently right around the release date of the set!

25% on $200 is $250

OR

25% off $270 is $216

(Maybe the retail was supposed to be $220? I remember hearing that number once or twice and it seems reasonable)

Regardless, the tariffs are definitely happening (unless there's some sudden agreement in the meantime, which seems highly unlikely as the EU is not backing down and is instead implementing counter-tariffs)

So either way, LEGO is going to get more expensive for US customers until the Virginia facility is complete.

EDIT
It's worth noting that at $200 the PP ratio was $0.099/piece
At $270, it's $0.133/piece

For reference, last year's averages:
Star Wars    $0.114/piece
Disney          $0.115/piece
Marvel          $0.111/piece
Mario            $0.107/piece

Barad Dur      $0.084/piece
Rivendell       $0.081/piece
Even compared to other licences (excluding Jurassic Park due to the large moulds) the price is way off and at $200 it would have been comparable to the other LotR sets.
 

Edited March 12 by TheDoctor
Changed 25% 'of' to 'off'

[JohnTPT17]

.

Edited March 12 by JohnTPT17

[TheDoctor]

47 minutes ago, JohnTPT17 said:

$338, actually 

Why did you change what I typed?

It should say 25% 'off' actually.

Reflecting what the RRP would have been before tariffs.

Edited March 12 by TheDoctor

[JohnTPT17]

29 minutes ago, TheDoctor said:

Why did you change what I typed?

It should say 25% 'off' actually.

Reflecting what the RRP would have been before tariffs.

My bad - it was originally "of," so I thought you were trying to do the same math for both. Looks like I misunderstood your intentions - my bad!

[Lordhelmet]

2 hours ago, TheDoctor said:

I'll be very interested to see if it is the new US tariffs having an impact.

The plan was a 25% tariff on goods imported from the European Union starting from 1st April.
Coincidently right around the release date of the set!

25% on $200 is $250

OR

25% off $270 is $216

(Maybe the retail was supposed to be $220? I remember hearing that number once or twice and it seems reasonable)

Regardless, the tariffs are definitely happening (unless there's some sudden agreement in the meantime, which seems highly unlikely as the EU is not backing down and is instead implementing counter-tariffs)

So either way, LEGO is going to get more expensive for US customers until the Virginia facility is complete.

EDIT
It's worth noting that at $200 the PP ratio was $0.099/piece
At $270, it's $0.133/piece

For reference, last year's averages:
Star Wars    $0.114/piece
Disney          $0.115/piece
Marvel          $0.111/piece
Mario            $0.107/piece

Barad Dur      $0.084/piece
Rivendell       $0.081/piece
Even compared to other licences (excluding Jurassic Park due to the large moulds) the price is way off and at $200 it would have been comparable to the other LotR sets.
 

I am interested in the tariff impact on Lego as well, I did see the article yesterday where Lego announced there were no current tariffs impacting them.  So I am assuming the things that are shipped and imported before the Tariffs start wouldn’t have an impact (like the first wave of the shire), but then how do they affect sets after they start, does the base price increase by 25% on the shelf before sales tax is applied?  Can Lego get some type of exemption - they are already building the production plant in the US - can’t really speed that up much?  Just curious what the impact will be.

I was planning on getting the Death Star, but if it goes from $1080 to $1350 (after sales tax and potential tariffs) it probably won’t happen.  I would still probably grab the book nook despite the increase. 

Edit: I think the math is wrong, the above assumes 25% at full price to the consumer, but after I thought about it, they are probably paying a lot less on any imports, so the Death Star would theoretically go up to something closer to $1215 depending on the value of the import vs. sale price.

Edited March 12 by Lordhelmet

[DonQuixote]

The €70 increase is caused by people saying:

1 ) Day one purchase for me!

2 ) Shut up and take my money! 

How many times I have seen these comments on social media. 

Well , the Lego company reads these comments and they think : maybe we can ask a little bit more. And if it sells ,they will add a little bit again.And so on...