Lord of the Rings Ongoing Discussion

[hikouki]

7 hours ago, TheInvisibleMan said:

To me this theme is crying out for the smaller diorama style they used for SW. There are so many iconic moments they could portray (Boromir’s final scene would be one of my favourite). I’m not really sure how anyone can justify spending €1,000 on a Lego set, no matter how great is is… 

They can make it great and phenomenal and really well worth $1K, but sadly that SW set is just not worth it. It is good, but not commensurate to the price. Many of the scenes have come out as individual sets in one way or another and there are only 8 or so new figs/ prints of figs.

I actually fear if Lego applies the same logic to any LOTR set.

[Altair1]

10 hours ago, TheInvisibleMan said:

 I’m not really sure how anyone can justify spending €1,000 on a Lego set, no matter how great is is… 

I find more justified to spend €1,000 on a great Lego set which I will keep forever than on the last iphone which will be obsolete in a few years :-)

[TheInvisibleMan]

24 minutes ago, Altair1 said:

I find more justified to spend €1,000 on a great Lego set which I will keep forever than on the last iphone which will be obsolete in a few years :-)

😂 yes, well, one doesn’t justify the other.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Lego could put out an amazing set with a huge selection of minifigures, but there’s surely a point when it’s just too much.

personally, I like smaller displays that I can switch up every so often or which are not so obvious that they become a huge focal point. The Rivendale set i think is exceptional and about the maximum size I want on display for any one set. I guess things may be different for those that have entire rooms dedicated to their collection, but I’d imagine that’s not most people.

[DonQuixote]

2 hours ago, TheInvisibleMan said:

😂 yes, well, one doesn’t justify the other.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Lego could put out an amazing set with a huge selection of minifigures, but there’s surely a point when it’s just too much.

personally, I like smaller displays that I can switch up every so often or which are not so obvious that they become a huge focal point. The Rivendale set i think is exceptional and about the maximum size I want on display for any one set. I guess things may be different for those that have entire rooms dedicated to their collection, but I’d imagine that’s not most people.

Agreed ,Rivendell is the perfect size to display for people who don't have dedicated giant Lego rooms

[RichardGoring]

5 hours ago, TheInvisibleMan said:

personally, I like smaller displays that I can switch up every so often or which are not so obvious that they become a huge focal point. The Rivendale set i think is exceptional and about the maximum size I want on display for any one set. I guess things may be different for those that have entire rooms dedicated to their collection, but I’d imagine that’s not most people.

2 hours ago, DonQuixote said:

Agreed ,Rivendell is the perfect size to display for people who don't have dedicated giant Lego rooms

Every so often I check to see if anyone is selling a second hand Rivendell (with or without figures) for cheap as I have dreams of making one of the double Rivendell MOCs - LEGO MOC 10316 Rivendell Extension by Fanpeixi | Rebrickable - Build with LEGO

And then I realize, that the current set is huge, fits the shelf I have it on perfectly, and nearly doubling the size won't really bring me any more joy.

[DonQuixote]

1 hour ago, RichardGoring said:

Every so often I check to see if anyone is selling a second hand Rivendell (with or without figures) for cheap as I have dreams of making one of the double Rivendell MOCs - LEGO MOC 10316 Rivendell Extension by Fanpeixi | Rebrickable - Build with LEGO

And then I realize, that the current set is huge, fits the shelf I have it on perfectly, and nearly doubling the size won't really bring me any more joy.

That's an incredible moc ! Finding space is hard. Especially for me. I live in a small apartment. Housing is very expensive over here. I can only display sets that fits in a shelf. Otherwise I would consider buying the gigantic Bluebrixx Blau Stein Castle with all the extensions  ( almost 30K pieces! ) But I have no place for such a behemoth. 

[MAB]

23 hours ago, TheInvisibleMan said:

To me this theme is crying out for the smaller diorama style they used for SW. There are so many iconic moments they could portray (Boromir’s final scene would be one of my favourite). I’m not really sure how anyone can justify spending €1,000 on a Lego set, no matter how great is is… 

Yet if they did many (let's say 10) iconic moments diorama sets at €100 each and you display them together, it becomes justifiable to spend that much as it is not a single set?

 

Edited Tuesday at 07:33 AM by MAB

[TheInvisibleMan]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

Yet if they did many (let's say 10) iconic moments diorama sets at €100 each and you display them together, it becomes justifiable to spend that much as it is not a single set?

 

Well, it’s a personal choice but you would at least have the option to chose to just get your favourite one(s). And you’d also be able to rotate your displays if you wanted to.

case in point, I only ever bought one of the SW dioramas. I liked most of them but not enough to justify the outlay.

[RichardGoring]

8 hours ago, MAB said:

Yet if they did many (let's say 10) iconic moments diorama sets at €100 each and you display them together, it becomes justifiable to spend that much as it is not a single set?

I think so. Ten different smaller sets will usually provide more variety, certainly of scenes, but also potentially building techniques, styles, colour palettes, part types. It's an opportunity to get different characters more easily, or multiple versions of different characters. And it's easier to find space to display them, has the potential for some to be more play-focused or give you different ways of using/interacting/displaying them. It might be less daunting for some in terms of taking on the build, and it will be easier for many to budget for - even though the total outlay is the same. And LEGO may increase sales as they will attract more people with an easily attainable $100 set.

Alternatively though, you get a focus on only main characters, the value isn't as good in terms of 'volume of stuff' you get for the money, it doesn't have the breathtaking wow factor associated with LOTR and does get as much hype/publicity, and people won't buy all of them, so the market opportunity for LEGO is smaller, so they don't continue with LOTR.

On a personal level, I would like more, smaller diorama sets. They give me most of what I value from the larger sets with the added bonus of more variety. But that shouldn't stop them from also doing a $500 monster set every year or three. Best of both worlds ideally.

[kuzyabricks]

On 9/5/2025 at 4:04 AM, Altair1 said:

The awful design of the new Star War Death Star 75419 makes me a bit worried... This is the first Lego set to reach the price of 1,000 bucks and they could not even make a proper product for this amount (for those who have not seen it, it is just a slice of Death Star instead of a sphere). I hope they will not continue on this trend. I am ready to pay 1,000 Euros for a full Minas Tirith, but not for just a slice of Minas Tirith...

The design is beautiful, only the price is awful. A 1000 dollar Minas Tirith would be amazing!

[MAB]

2 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

I think so. Ten different smaller sets will usually provide more variety, certainly of scenes, but also potentially building techniques, styles, colour palettes, part types. It's an opportunity to get different characters more easily, or multiple versions of different characters. And it's easier to find space to display them, has the potential for some to be more play-focused or give you different ways of using/interacting/displaying them. It might be less daunting for some in terms of taking on the build, and it will be easier for many to budget for - even though the total outlay is the same. And LEGO may increase sales as they will attract more people with an easily attainable $100 set.

 

It depends exactly on how you count them, but the Death Star contains about 18 different scenes. So £50 a scene, slightly lower than dioramas. Some of the DS scenes are done better than the dioramas but some are significantly worse, but I'd say the variety in scenes is pretty decent. They also managed to do three different Lukes in one set so there is still a possibility of multiple versions of one character in a big set. Compare that to using the same Frodo and Sam in Rivendell and Barad-Dûr, and it shows that getting multiple sets doesn't necessarily mean more variety in minifigures.

Would I like ten £100 LOTR diorama sets? Sure. But I'd also take a £1000 set that had ten scenes built into a giant ring.

[RichardGoring]

46 minutes ago, MAB said:

Would I like ten £100 LOTR diorama sets? Sure. But I'd also take a £1000 set that had ten scenes built into a giant ring.

I can see it now! The box would be HUGE! Mostly to accommodate the set name: The Dark Lord Sauron, mightiest Maia of the Vala Aulë the Smith, 's One Ring of Power

Or longer. Who knows.

[BrickBob Studpants]

Take this with a significant grain of salt, but Minas Tirith is actually rumoured to be released next year!!

[Roebuck]

19 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Take this with a significant grain of salt, but Minas Tirith is actually rumoured to be released next year!!

Will be interesting to see, a lot of people have been waiting over a decade for that set.
My guess is half a city in closer to microscale split in the middle then maybe some minifig interior or the hole city in even smaller scale with the back open like barad dur.

Do we expect any orcs etc? I think maybe it makes most sense only to focus the minifigs on the Gondor side instead of including 2-3 bad guys attacking the city like another castle set aimed at kids 

[BrickBob Studpants]

According to @Lego_Minecraft_Goat, there’s gonna be a Sauron bust, released in March for $74.99 with 538 pieces! It’s unclear whether it comes with a minifig, like the recent Marvel busts.

[CloneCommando99]

3 minutes ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

According to @Lego_Minecraft_Goat, there’s gonna be a Sauron bust, released in March for $74.99 with 538 pieces! It’s unclear whether it comes with a minifig, like the recent Marvel busts.

If it does, it’ll be Rex’s Microfighter 2: Electric Boogaloo

[brickbride]

On 9/16/2025 at 8:16 PM, MAB said:

They also managed to do three different Lukes in one set so there is still a possibility of multiple versions of one character in a big set.

The UCS Hogwarts Express over at HP also had several versions of several characters: 20 figs total, 4 of which were Harry, 2 of which were Ron, and 2 of which were Hermione, so that's almost half the figure count taken up by only three characters. Though that set wasn't well-received and retired pretty early, the figure selection wasn't the worst aspect of it. (Or rather, many people wished we'd gotten adult Ron and Hermione as well, which would have meant 10 slots spent on only 3 characters.)

Edited 5 hours ago by brickbride

[psqidexslizer]

5 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Take this with a significant grain of salt, but Minas Tirith is actually rumoured to be released next year!!

Kinda surprised this is the next one. I thought they’d do Helm’s Deep first so they could reuse Theoden and generic riders of Rohan in the inevitable Minas Tirith.

The last two sets had eight new minifigures each. I’d assume those would take up at least two slots with another three taken up by a new Aragorn, Pippin, and Gandalf the white. Denethor II, Faramir, Eomer, and Eowyn should all ideally be there as well as some ghosts. Seems like a lot of new characters to cover, I wouldn’t be surprised if some didn’t make the cut.

I’d also assume reuses of Merry, Gimli, and Legolas from Rivendell, The Mouth of Sauron and orcs from Barad-Dur, and the Nazgûl from the Fell Beast.

[brickbride]

51 minutes ago, psqidexslizer said:

Kinda surprised this is the next one. I thought they’d do Helm’s Deep first so they could reuse Theoden and generic riders of Rohan in the inevitable Minas Tirith.

Well that assumes that we'd get the fields outside Minas Tirith, and not just the topmost level with the Tree and the Houses of Healing. I mean the last set was called "The Shire" and it consisted of a single Hobbit hole. Just saying.

Edited 1 hour ago by brickbride

[psqidexslizer]

14 minutes ago, brickbride said:

Well that assumes that we'd get the fields outside Minas Tirith, and not just the topmost level with the Tree and the Houses of Healing. I mean the last set was called "The Shire" and it consisted of a single Hobbit hole. Just saying.

Hey now, we all got that ugly tree with the birthday sign and a tent. 

But in all seriousness, they covered the parts of the Shire that are focused on in the films, namely Bagend and Bilbo’s birthday party. There really wasn’t much else that people would recognize. Heck, I’d argue most people didn’t even recognize all the minifigures included. With Minas Tirith, the focus was divided between the topmost level (tree and healing house) and the battle outside, with some notable scenes also giving attention to the interior. Not to mention, the shape of the city is fairly distinct and recognizable. It’d make sense for them to capture the shape of the city, even if they do scale it down significantly like they did with Barad-Dur.

There is one thing though I am fairly certain we can both agree they won’t cover - Faramir’s funeral pyre.

[McMurder_them_softly]

Definitely not my first choice but I am looking forward to hearing more about this! Consider my interest piqued. 

Also been in a LOTR mood lately, been watching the films, reading the books and just finished the Balrog book nook. The Balrog build is nice, but I like the structure more purely from a build standpoint. I also just really enjoyed it, but that is largely due to I mostly stick to Star Wars spaceships and this was building something so different.