Lord of the Rings Ongoing Discussion

[Artanis I]

Most people are going to be disappointed in some way.

It will either be too small, wrong shape, wrong colours or prints, not enough generic minifigs (army build), not enough secondary character minifigs, inadequate versions of hero minifigs, or too many stickers/prints. And it will also cost more than people would like to pay!

 

Personally, all I want is official minifigs of not-seen-before characters, and to get a decent number of soldiers without having to sell the family as slaves to afford it.

[Altair1]

14 hours ago, Kyrasdad said:

Its never about the "beauty" of the white city

Actually for me the excitement is mainly about the beauty of the white city, even if I will be happy to get some key minifigs too. I just hope it will be as big a set as possible to do it justice, the price does not matter. In any case I will buy it in whatever form it comes out, and will just MOC the missing parts it if needed.

[MAB]

10 hours ago, Cyprinus said:

I feel Minas Tirith will disappoint one way or the other. Beyond doing it in architecture scale there really isn't a good way to capture the whole thing, and while in Rivandell they managed to combine select scenes into a glorious display, it also didn't have a shape anyway near as iconic as MT. Meanwhile doing it Barad-Dur style means you don't have a way of doing most of the scenes in the movie (since they're outside), while the interiors you have are kinda meh (the throne room and the pyre of Denethor)...

Barad-Dûr sort of worked because it is a single building (albeit huge). So having rooms inside the tower works even though the scales are different.  Whereas if they do Minas Tirith city like that and have rooms inside it, it wouldn't look right. Plus as you say, most of the important scenes happen outside so would need to be done on the microscale side. This is why I'd prefer minifigures with some buildings rather than microscale with no minifigures. I cannot see microscale with minifigures working.

So yeah, I agree, it is going to disappoint one camp or the other.

Edited October 1 by MAB

[Blazej_Holen]

4 hours ago, Altair1 said:

Actually for me the excitement is mainly about the beauty of the white city, even if I will be happy to get some key minifigs too. I just hope it will be as big a set as possible to do it justice, the price does not matter. In any case I will buy it in whatever form it comes out, and will just MOC the missing parts it if needed.

....the price does not matter.

 

Lucky you, when you can afford whatewer Lego trhow at you, no matter the price. On the one hand - congratz, on the other one, is it wise to give TLG that kind of bianco cheque to their pricing strategy? 

[Altair1]

56 minutes ago, Blazej_Holen said:

Lucky you, when you can afford whatewer Lego trhow at you, no matter the price. On the one hand - congratz, on the other one, is it wise to give TLG that kind of bianco cheque to their pricing strategy? 

First of all just to clarify, my ''price does not matter'' policy only applies to LOTR sets, because of my undying love for this theme. Second of all, I seriously doubt that TLG is reading this thread :-)

[Lordhelmet]

I love all the Minis Tirith talk and what we want.   I think it is safe to say what we all probably want most, is multiple Gondor sets of different dollar values to include all the minifigures and scenes we never got, including some army builder sets.  I for one am still holding out on the theme truly returning on its own (and not just in Icons) to do the lineup we never got over a decade ago centered around the third movie (I suppose we got the black gate and pirate ship, but at the time we were all expecting a Gondor wave).  

[Cyprinus]

9 hours ago, MAB said:

Barad-Dûr sort of worked because it is a single building (albeit huge). So having rooms inside the tower works even though the scales are different.  Whereas if they do Minas Tirith city like that and have rooms inside it, it wouldn't look right. Plus as you say, most of the important scenes happen outside so would need to be done on the microscale side. This is why I'd prefer minifigures with some buildings rather than microscale with no minifigures. I cannot see microscale with minifigures working.

So yeah, I agree, it is going to disappoint one camp or the other.

I'd also argue that the lack of interior scenes for Barad-Dur helped the designers - they may not have anything to go off, but that meant they can do anything, as long as it fits in a dark lord's tower. Whereas Minas Tirith had limited interior sets, they weren't all that interesting, but skipping them will make (some) people riot.

To be honest I feel it would be better if they skipped Minas Tirith altogether - no matter what they do, a loooooot of people will be really disappointed. And probably not without a reason... 

3 hours ago, Lordhelmet said:

I love all the Minis Tirith talk and what we want.   I think it is safe to say what we all probably want most, is multiple Gondor sets of different dollar values to include all the minifigures and scenes we never got, including some army builder sets.  I for one am still holding out on the theme truly returning on its own (and not just in Icons) to do the lineup we never got over a decade ago centered around the third movie (I suppose we got the black gate and pirate ship, but at the time we were all expecting a Gondor wave).  

It ain't going to happen. At most we'll get what we had this year and supposedly next - a bigger "location" set and some misc thing to put on a shelf (book nook, bust, dunno what else they'd do, Gandalf's hat? buildable Rings of Power?).

Edited October 1 by Cyprinus

[MAB]

15 hours ago, Cyprinus said:

To be honest I feel it would be better if they skipped Minas Tirith altogether - no matter what they do, a loooooot of people will be really disappointed. And probably not without a reason... 

They did that first time around for whatever reason. I think it would be better to do something and please some rather than nothing and please none. To me, doing an architecture style microscale set when there are no other architecture style microscale sets would be a bit off as it wouldn't fit with everything else and still leaves a big gap. Whereas if they did a minifigure scale set it does. Once done and 'complete', they could always revisit and do a microscale set without minifigures if they think the demand is there.

[RichardGoring]

52 minutes ago, MAB said:

They did that first time around for whatever reason. I think it would be better to do something and please some rather than nothing and please none. To me, doing an architecture style microscale set when there are no other architecture style microscale sets would be a bit off as it wouldn't fit with everything else and still leaves a big gap. Whereas if they did a minifigure scale set it does. Once done and 'complete', they could always revisit and do a microscale set without minifigures if they think the demand is there.

Although Barad-dur is microscale from the outside. And they've used the interior space for minifig scale rooms. I agree that it probably can't be a pure architecture-style set though, with no figures or a simple display stand with nothing for the figures to interact with.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, RichardGoring said:

Although Barad-dur is microscale from the outside. And they've used the interior space for minifig scale rooms. I agree that it probably can't be a pure architecture-style set though, with no figures or a simple display stand with nothing for the figures to interact with.

Yes but Barad-Dur is a tower, so it makes sense to have rooms inside.They are completely the wrong scale but they feel right because towers have rooms and so it works. There is not really anything that suggests scale on the outside so it just feels like the tower and minifigures work together even though the reality is that the tower should be much much larger. Whereas if they did the same with Minas Tirith, it would look pretty stupid since it would be a (presumably) single room inside the city. Any rooms should be inside a building, not inside a whole city. And given that most of the action takes place outside rather than inside, the minifigures should really be on the city side, not the inside. But any minifigures would seem out of place if placed on the microscale side, which is presumably why they used the smaller trophy figures in the Hogwarts sculpture set.

[Kyrasdad]

Thank you all for answering my question, in the end it seems my opinion is not so onpopulair as i thought. 

Seems most of us feel like,  better a Minas Tirith then no Minas Tirith, but if we had a say in it most of us rather have multiple sets all depicting popular scènes around  the city with the appropriate minifigures to go along them.

[Cyprinus]

9 hours ago, MAB said:

They did that first time around for whatever reason. I think it would be better to do something and please some rather than nothing and please none. To me, doing an architecture style microscale set when there are no other architecture style microscale sets would be a bit off as it wouldn't fit with everything else and still leaves a big gap. Whereas if they did a minifigure scale set it does. Once done and 'complete', they could always revisit and do a microscale set without minifigures if they think the demand is there.

The whatever reason was cutting the theme short because it failed to meet expectations. Ultimately most kids don't care about LotR, and for grandparents buying gifts other options will feel safer.

The problem with making a properly minifig scale Minas Tirith is that unless it isn't Minas Tirith, but a tiny (compared to the whole thing) bit, it just isn't feasible in any way, shape or form. Though I guess we had precedent for such things this year with "The Shire", but whatever.

As for the "pleasing some" thing, the issue is that it also displeases others. And I have a feeling I'd likely be in the latter group...

Edited Thursday at 06:18 PM by Cyprinus

[Seaber]

On 9/30/2025 at 4:58 PM, Black Falcon said:

 Kettleburn for instance was in the movies, even if he was just shown in a small scene.

I was thinking of Lisa Turpin. 

[RichardGoring]

I wonder if they'll do a forced perspective, like the 43232 Peter Pan set. The main gate is minifig scale, and then up through the levels to a nanoscale citadel. It would be hard to pull off in a satisfying way, but maybe the only realistic way of capturing everything. The speculation is fun. I look forward to seeing what they've decided upon.

Edited to add: I really enjoyed building 43232, so I suspect the build experience would be good if they went down this route.

[Altair1]

On 10/1/2025 at 6:39 PM, Cyprinus said:

To be honest I feel it would be better if they skipped Minas Tirith altogether - no matter what they do, a loooooot of people will be really disappointed.

This may be the most absurd comment I have ever read in this thread... so just to avoid the disappointment of some people, it is better not to do at all the set that so many of us LOTR fans have been waiting for so long? A Minas Tirith set in any form is better than no Minas Tirith set at all. 

[Black Falcon]

42 minutes ago, Seaber said:

I was thinking of Lisa Turpin. 

Well, then the licensing deal seems to be different indeed. 

[hikouki]

On 9/30/2025 at 3:31 PM, Cyprinus said:

I feel Minas Tirith will disappoint one way or the other. Beyond doing it in architecture scale there really isn't a good way to capture the whole thing, and while in Rivandell they managed to combine select scenes into a glorious display, it also didn't have a shape anyway near as iconic as MT. Meanwhile doing it Barad-Dur style means you don't have a way of doing most of the scenes in the movie (since they're outside), while the interiors you have are kinda meh (the throne room and the pyre of Denethor)...

Expectations are just so high and the opportunity to come up with a model quite limited and narrow.

[Seaber]

I think after the lukewarm reception to the Shire set, Minas Tirith may not be the best set to follow as it will likely dissapoint some people. 

Going for Helm's Deep as the next big set would have been an easier thing to achieve in Lego at a reasonable price. 

Alternatively, having some smaller sets still in the highly detailed range such as Weathertop or the Prancing Pony may have been good. Lots of people missed out on the Nazgul figure, we're still missing an updated ranger Aragorn variant, PP would likely appeal to castle fans outside LOTR... 

Fingers crossed Minas Tirith if it is really coming does this line justice! 

[MAB]

13 hours ago, Cyprinus said:

The whatever reason was cutting the theme short because it failed to meet expectations. Ultimately most kids don't care about LotR, and for grandparents buying gifts other options will feel safer.
 

Proof? There were also discussions at the time that the split from 2 to 3 movies for The Hobbit messed-up the time line for the LOTR sets and they only signed a short term deal. Again, speculation.

13 hours ago, Cyprinus said:

The problem with making a properly minifig scale Minas Tirith is that unless it isn't Minas Tirith, but a tiny (compared to the whole thing) bit, it just isn't feasible in any way, shape or form. Though I guess we had precedent for such things this year with "The Shire", but whatever.
 

It would be Minas Tirith in the sense that it is a bit of Minas Tirith, just like Rivendell wasn't the whole of Rivendell but bits of it merged into one. Some people want the whole city with presumably no figures due to scale and hence that would be a very static architecture set. Others want the action of specific scenes which happen in certain parts of Minas Tirith with minifigures. Which of course leads to ...

13 hours ago, Cyprinus said:

As for the "pleasing some" thing, the issue is that it also displeases others. And I have a feeling I'd likely be in the latter group...

Yes, some will be pleased they get minifigures and minifigure scale buildings and the white tree while others are unhappy that they miss out on the microscale whole city, or vice versa. If they are only to do one Minas Tirith set, some won't be happy how it is done. Doing none is no better, and doing a bad hybrid is also likely to be worse than either option.

Edited Friday at 07:52 AM by MAB

[Cyprinus]

5 hours ago, MAB said:

Proof? There were also discussions at the time that the split from 2 to 3 movies for The Hobbit messed-up the time line for the LOTR sets and they only signed a short term deal. Again, speculation.

Obviously I can't give you exact proof, especially since LotR sets dropped during a period I completely ignored Lego. However several people I know and trust, plus a bunch in various Lego servers forums and so on describe a large chunk of the sets as basically being on permanent clearance and still not selling. And it seems there are definately less of them in circulation than of others sets from the same time period, so that would check out.

Quote

It would be Minas Tirith in the sense that it is a bit of Minas Tirith, just like Rivendell wasn't the whole of Rivendell but bits of it merged into one. Some people want the whole city with presumably no figures due to scale and hence that would be a very static architecture set. Others want the action of specific scenes which happen in certain parts of Minas Tirith with minifigures. Which of course leads to ...

The Mumakil in the room is that in the case of Rivendell, individual scenes are more iconic than the location itself. Minas Tirith is the complete opposite - the shape of the whole town is the most iconic bit.

[mtrsteve]

14 hours ago, MAB said:

Doing none is no better, and doing a bad hybrid is also likely to be worse than either option.

I think there's a decent slice of us that like the hybrid designs too. Best evidence for this is the number of such designs that hit 10k Ideas supporters, though I suppose some of those would have supported just about any Minas Tirith ideas set. 

[TheInvisibleMan]

Personally, I think they could provide a fairly good coverage by splitting it I to three sets - one larger one, probably with the top section, then two smaller ones, maybe with the city walls section or gate. It would be cool if combining all three made one seamless larger set but each still works as a stand-alone set. This could also allow for a good selection of minifigures.

[Seaber]

On 10/3/2025 at 8:50 AM, MAB said:

It would be Minas Tirith in the sense that it is a bit of Minas Tirith, just like Rivendell wasn't the whole of Rivendell but bits of it merged into one. 

This is a good point, and while Rivendell changes quite a bit in the films - buildings move about and dissapear/reappear - Minas Tirith stays constant. 

[RichardGoring]

Rivendell's retirement date has been extended by a year to Dec 2027, suggesting it's still selling well. Not entirely surprising, but hopefully it helps steer LEGO towards doing more.

[MAB]

7 hours ago, TheInvisibleMan said:

Personally, I think they could provide a fairly good coverage by splitting it I to three sets - one larger one, probably with the top section, then two smaller ones, maybe with the city walls section or gate. It would be cool if combining all three made one seamless larger set but each still works as a stand-alone set. This could also allow for a good selection of minifigures.

If the larger one is the top, then I cannot really see how they could be combined. Unless of course you need to buy 10 of a smaller lower section to create a base for the big top section to be added. But then most of those would be covered up.