Lord of the Rings Ongoing Discussion

[Altair1]

38 minutes ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

And speaking of scale, they could also revisit Cirith Gorgor and Morannon (a.k.a. The Black Gate).  This location is supposed to be the Towers of the Teeth (Narchost and Carchost) and the Black Gate, not The Tower of the Tooth and the tripping hazard as realized in the original model.  The original effort was so scaled back, you needed two of them (building one looking at the instruction book in a mirror) just to complete the scene and even then you were left with a "gate" that inspired the meme "One does simply hop the fence into Mordor"

Yes that's what I did, bought two Black gates 79007 to build a full one. I find the result actually decent, and fitting pretty well in front of my Barad'Dur :-)

Edited January 14 by Altair1

[ShaydDeGrai]

24 minutes ago, Altair1 said:

Yes that's what I did, bought two Black gates 79007 to build a full one. I find the result actually decent, and fitting pretty well in front of my Barad'Dur :-)

I kind of hate to admit this, but I actually was so dissatisfied with the official offering that I actually wound up buying four of them (yeah, I know, I can hear you thinking "Wait, what? You didn't like the set so you bought three extra copies of it? Huh?")  Like you, I bought a second copy to complete the gate and have two towers, then I decided the whole thing was too short so I bought two more copies just for parts to make the gate eight studs taller and double the height of the towers.  (Sauron now has four mouths and I have an excess of Gandalfs and Aragons, but whatever...)

[Black Falcon]

3 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

While Smaug wouldn't be MY first choice for their next Middle Earth set, if they were to do it I think it would have to be brick built and large enough to do justice to the character.  Smaug should be large enough to swallow a dwarf like a TicTac, so if you want something you can pose with minifigures it would need to be at least twice the size of anything they've done for Ninjago or D&D before I'd consider it a serious offering (and yes, that would make it a very pricey set).

I think if they would make Smaug, then it would be in an Erebor Set, so there would be no way it would be that big. 

2 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

I kind of hate to admit this, but I actually was so dissatisfied with the official offering that I actually wound up buying four of them (yeah, I know, I can hear you thinking "Wait, what? You didn't like the set so you bought three extra copies of it? Huh?")  Like you, I bought a second copy to complete the gate and have two towers, then I decided the whole thing was too short so I bought two more copies just for parts to make the gate eight studs taller and double the height of the towers.  (Sauron now has four mouths and I have an excess of Gandalfs and Aragons, but whatever...)

Well I have seen people seen taking worse choices, especially considering what your doubles are worth nowadays ;).

[BrickPrick]

Okay, gotta say, with my personal The Lord of the Rings fever slowly but surely reigniting, it's time to step in some yet to be explored Eurobricks corners. 

I always said to myself if Lego was to bring back play scale sets of this undercooked theme again, I would even put my favorite franchise, Star Wars, on ice for the time being. So many opportunities for great remakes waiting to be re-released. 

Leak-wise, though, I'm not quite as engaged for this one as I used to be, so nothing new on that front, I guess? We are still at a single expensive D2C set on a yearly basis, plus a few gimmicky products along the way? 

On 1/11/2026 at 10:24 PM, hikouki said:

After Minas Tirith, what location could be next for LOTR?

Or would they start focusing on The Hobbits movies?

Helm's Deep can only be a matter of time. So is a new Orthanc to pair with Barad-dûr. So I see either of those for next year. Here's hoping they won't touch anything from the Hobbit anytime soon. 

[ddavid]

21 hours ago, BrickPrick said:

Okay, gotta say, with my personal The Lord of the Rings fever slowly but surely reigniting, it's time to step in some yet to be explored Eurobricks corners. 

I always said to myself if Lego was to bring back play scale sets of this undercooked theme again, I would even put my favorite franchise, Star Wars, on ice for the time being. So many opportunities for great remakes waiting to be re-released. 

Leak-wise, though, I'm not quite as engaged for this one as I used to be, so nothing new on that front, I guess? We are still at a single expensive D2C set on a yearly basis, plus a few gimmicky products along the way? 

Helm's Deep can only be a matter of time. So is a new Orthanc to pair with Barad-dûr. So I see either of those for next year. Here's hoping they won't touch anything from the Hobbit anytime soon. 

I think we will need to unfortunately wait quite a while for a new Orthanc, as it is too similar to the Barad-dur. Additionally Lego might think that a lot of people that have the disposable income to afford such expensive Lotr sets don’t seem to mind as much paying those crazy prices for the old 2013 Orthanc version, which would dampen the demand for a new one. Hope I’m wrong though

Edited January 16 by ddavid

[Black Falcon]

8 hours ago, ddavid said:

I think we will need to unfortunately wait quite a while for a new Orthanc, as it is too similar to the Barad-dur. Additionally Lego might think that a lot of people that have the disposable income to afford such expensive Lotr sets don’t seem to mind as much paying those crazy prices for the old 2013 Orthanc version, which would dampen the demand for a new one. Hope I’m wrong though

I really don´t think that that many people are paying those high prices really, especially compared to the amount of people that would buy a cheaper one from Lego. And actually the number of people that own that Set anyways is way higher than of those that are buying it for that price, so some people having no demand for it is there anyways, though some would probably still buy a new version if done well.

[MAB]

9 hours ago, ddavid said:

I think we will need to unfortunately wait quite a while for a new Orthanc, as it is too similar to the Barad-dur. Additionally Lego might think that a lot of people that have the disposable income to afford such expensive Lotr sets don’t seem to mind as much paying those crazy prices for the old 2013 Orthanc version, which would dampen the demand for a new one. Hope I’m wrong though

Lego know that in the past six months, 49 Orthanc sets have sold on bricklink, worldwide, used and new. They also know that there are 49 left in asellers' stock listed on BL. With those tiny numbers, I doubt they'd consider stock of the old one when deciding to produce a new one. They clearly didn't with The Shire.

[BrickPrick]

15 hours ago, ddavid said:

I think we will need to unfortunately wait quite a while for a new Orthanc, as it is too similar to the Barad-dur. Additionally Lego might think that a lot of people that have the disposable income to afford such expensive Lotr sets don’t seem to mind as much paying those crazy prices for the old 2013 Orthanc version, which would dampen the demand for a new one. Hope I’m wrong though

Given I come from the Lego Star Wars theme, don't mind me when "too similar" is something I have to chuckle at. Like when did this ever stop Lego from releasing another set, a long overdue remake no less. And no, I don't think the fact some selected hardcore fans buying off the old Orthanc set for a fortune would prevent Lego to release a new one either. If anything, these sky-high collectors prices might work in their favour when they can offer a cheaper alternative. 

[Lordhelmet]

1 hour ago, BrickPrick said:

Given I come from the Lego Star Wars theme, don't mind me when "too similar" is something I have to chuckle at. Like when did this ever stop Lego from releasing another set, a long overdue remake no less. And no, I don't think the fact some selected hardcore fans buying off the old Orthanc set for a fortune would prevent Lego to release a new one either. If anything, these sky-high collectors prices might work in their favour when they can offer a cheaper alternative. 

We are definitely not experiencing the too similar problem with LOTR, thinking Gandalfs cart is like Lukes Landspeeder is a funny thought though. I do get the sentiment that given the lack of sets we get, it does make any remakes feel significant.  We are finally getting Gondor after 14 years which was desperately needed.  Still some significant gaps (Lothlorien, Edoras, Eowyn, Witch King, Oliphaunt, etc.) but I think remakes are finally ok given that the most egregious missing part is rumored for later this year.  Not having a Gondor set was the equivalent of not having an X-wing, or other similar main ship).  So I am good with all the remakes now, and as always wish we were getting some lower cost sets (battle packs, standard sets, etc.)

[BrickPrick]

21 minutes ago, Lordhelmet said:

We are definitely not experiencing the too similar problem with LOTR, thinking Gandalfs cart is like Lukes Landspeeder is a funny thought though. I do get the sentiment that given the lack of sets we get, it does make any remakes feel significant.  We are finally getting Gondor after 14 years which was desperately needed.  Still some significant gaps (Lothlorien, Edoras, Eowyn, Witch King, Oliphaunt, etc.) but I think remakes are finally ok given that the most egregious missing part is rumored for later this year.  Not having a Gondor set was the equivalent of not having an X-wing, or other similar main ship).  So I am good with all the remakes now, and as always wish we were getting some lower cost sets (battle packs, standard sets, etc.)

Yes, exactly. I would be hard-pressed to name any other relevant licensed theme where remakes feel as significant and justified as it's the case for The Lord of the Rings, which was put on ice for a decade. While it's a brutal way on Lego's behalf to ask some people to break the bank to return to brick-built Middle-earth, you can definitely build upon these D2C offerings. So yeah, I'd like to have some of that metaphorical Landspeeder magic. Though not having anything Gondor-related for all this time has been crazy for sure; your X-Wing comparison is rather fitting. Very excited for the official Minas Tirith reveal. 

[RichardGoring]

The problem with Orthanc is that the previous set was really large and fairly well detailed. It's only a little smaller than the more recent Barad-dûr, so I can't imagine a new version being a different size. Which means they'd end up with something pretty similar in all ways to the original set. That really limits the market potential for an Orthanc set, because there are lots of people who already have it. Whereas a UCS set of any other location is not owned by anyone, so a much larger market potential. Then there's the balance with demand, but there are at least half a dozen locations that are in equally high demand (if not more) than Orthanc, so I suspect it either won't happen, or it will be a long way down the list.

The real driver of value for Orthanc set is the figures. You can buy the pieces for the tower for about $250. And you could easily place all the figures in other UCS location sets except probably Saruman. Saruman could be in a $100 booknook/diorama wizard's battle set very easily. And I think even those who have Orthanc would buy a new version of that at $100, but may not stretch to a $400 set.

[MAB]

5 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

The problem with Orthanc is that the previous set was really large and fairly well detailed. It's only a little smaller than the more recent Barad-dûr, so I can't imagine a new version being a different size. Which means they'd end up with something pretty similar in all ways to the original set. That really limits the market potential for an Orthanc set, because there are lots of people who already have it. Whereas a UCS set of any other location is not owned by anyone, so a much larger market potential. Then there's the balance with demand, but there are at least half a dozen locations that are in equally high demand (if not more) than Orthanc, so I suspect it either won't happen, or it will be a long way down the list.

The real driver of value for Orthanc set is the figures. You can buy the pieces for the tower for about $250. And you could easily place all the figures in other UCS location sets except probably Saruman. Saruman could be in a $100 booknook/diorama wizard's battle set very easily. And I think even those who have Orthanc would buy a new version of that at $100, but may not stretch to a $400 set.

I don't think there are lots of people with the original, not enough that sales wood be low for acre-release. It was the most expensive set of the original releases, I don’t think it was ever discounted and was from a time before LEGO had really taken off.

[Mandalorianknight]

8 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

The problem with Orthanc is that the previous set was really large and fairly well detailed. It's only a little smaller than the more recent Barad-dûr, so I can't imagine a new version being a different size. Which means they'd end up with something pretty similar in all ways to the original set. That really limits the market potential for an Orthanc set, because there are lots of people who already have it. Whereas a UCS set of any other location is not owned by anyone, so a much larger market potential. Then there's the balance with demand, but there are at least half a dozen locations that are in equally high demand (if not more) than Orthanc, so I suspect it either won't happen, or it will be a long way down the list.

The real driver of value for Orthanc set is the figures. You can buy the pieces for the tower for about $250. And you could easily place all the figures in other UCS location sets except probably Saruman. Saruman could be in a $100 booknook/diorama wizard's battle set very easily. And I think even those who have Orthanc would buy a new version of that at $100, but may not stretch to a $400 set.

To some extent there's a limiter on this- obviously Rivendall or Barad-Dur will have higher sales, but I think it would be hard to argue that the Gray Havens or Prancing Pony would sell better than Orthanc at similar prices. It has been 13 years after all, and many adults who have bought some of these new LOTR sets probably aren't even aware that there was an Orthanc set back then.

And even for those who are, the cheapest fully complete Orthanc in the US on bricklink is $999.99. I doubt most fans would pay $500-600 more than a new orthanc would be nowadays for a used version of the old one. To say nothing of how expensive sealed copies are- the cheapest is almost $1200.

It's important to remember that "Adults who buy lego" is a much, much larger group than "dedicated Afols who use sites like Bricklink", which is something that, at least in the star wars theme, is commonly brought up with all the figureless 18+ display sets that seem to sell well despite most people in the forum saying they'd just prefer normal system sets.

10 hours ago, Lordhelmet said:

We are definitely not experiencing the too similar problem with LOTR, thinking Gandalfs cart is like Lukes Landspeeder is a funny thought though. I do get the sentiment that given the lack of sets we get, it does make any remakes feel significant.  We are finally getting Gondor after 14 years which was desperately needed.  Still some significant gaps (Lothlorien, Edoras, Eowyn, Witch King, Oliphaunt, etc.) but I think remakes are finally ok given that the most egregious missing part is rumored for later this year.  Not having a Gondor set was the equivalent of not having an X-wing, or other similar main ship).  So I am good with all the remakes now, and as always wish we were getting some lower cost sets (battle packs, standard sets, etc.)

Funnily enough, Star Wars went longer than LOTR did without Gondor without a set of the Massassi Temple/Yavin Rebel Base. 24 years.

I agree that the main missing locations (Gondor and Barad-Dur) being covered means that the remakes are opened up a bit. I'd still bet on Helm's Deep for 2027.

Edited January 18 by Mandalorianknight

[Darth_Bane13]

8 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

And you could easily place all the figures in other UCS location sets except probably Saruman. Saruman could be in a $100 booknook/diorama wizard's battle set very easily. 

Ideally they'd just remake the $13 wizard battle set.

[Altair1]

8 hours ago, MAB said:

I don't think there are lots of people with the original

According to Brickset, 8550 of its members own Orthanc. Not bad for the most expensive set of the initial LOTR wave.

6 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

I agree that the main missing locations (Gondor and Barad-Dur) being covered means that the remakes are opened up a bit.

I think Edoras and Lothlorien also qualify as ''main missing locations'', even if they may not be as iconic. But there is indeed a good chance that Lego continues to alternate between new sets and remakes, and in the case of the latter the most likely next one is Helm's Deep.

Edited January 18 by Altair1

[MAB]

34 minutes ago, Altair1 said:

According to Brickset, 8550 of its members own Orthanc. Not bad for the most expensive set of the initial LOTR wave.

 

And 10421 own Helm's Deep, which suggests a remake of that wouldn't sell well especially if that group overlap a lot with the (only) 10996 people that bought Rivendell. Or maybe brickset stats need to be taken with a big pinch of salt as they are not representative of the market.

[Altair1]

As someone else already clearly explained a few messages above, the thing with Orthanc is that it was already large and very well detailed. Helm's Deep on the other hand was relatively small (even with its extension) and probably deserves more a UCS remake. But again, only time will tell what comes next...

Edited January 18 by Altair1

[zoth33]

6 hours ago, MAB said:

And 10421 own Helm's Deep, which suggests a remake of that wouldn't sell well especially if that group overlap a lot with the (only) 10996 people that bought Rivendell. Or maybe brickset stats need to be taken with a big pinch of salt as they are not representative of the market.

You do realize that everyone doesn't put their info on Brickset right?  That's not really a good indication of how many sets are actually sold.  

[Black Falcon]

13 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

To some extent there's a limiter on this- obviously Rivendall or Barad-Dur will have higher sales, but I think it would be hard to argue that the Gray Havens or Prancing Pony would sell better than Orthanc at similar prices. It has been 13 years after all, and many adults who have bought some of these new LOTR sets probably aren't even aware that there was an Orthanc set back then.

In the end it is hard to say how well something sells though. To stick with your example Orthanc would probably sell mostly to Lord of the Rings fans, while a Prancing Pony would be way more usefull to Castle fans than that black tower.

48 minutes ago, zoth33 said:

You do realize that everyone doesn't put their info on Brickset right?  That's not really a good indication of how many sets are actually sold.  

That was actually his point ;)

[MAB]

5 hours ago, zoth33 said:

You do realize that everyone doesn't put their info on Brickset right?  That's not really a good indication of how many sets are actually sold.  

Yes I do. And that is my point about the Tower of Orthanc numbers. Not everyone puts their collection on there and not everyone on there tells the truth.

[BrickPrick]

On 1/18/2026 at 12:39 AM, MAB said:

I don't think there are lots of people with the original, not enough that sales wood be low for acre-release. It was the most expensive set of the original releases, I don’t think it was ever discounted and was from a time before LEGO had really taken off.

Yeah, I feel this way too. We have to think about the fact that lots and lots of people grew up with The Lord of the Rings during their childhood. In other words, they weren't necessarily at an age with disposable income back then, but they are adults by now. And like it's already been mentioned, Lego wasn't the same company that it is nowadays. It has significantly broaden it's reach to speak to much more targets groups. There wasn't this explicit focus on the "adults welcome" mantra and no regular D2C sets. So you now have to factor in all these additional casuals who may have never touched anything brick-built in their lives. But as far as anyone is concerned, they never had to. As they may just be big enough TLOTR fans and wanna impulse buy Rivendell because it looks very beautiful and appealing to them. So no, in no world would "many people already owning the 2013 Orthanc set" be a good enough reason for Lego to don't do a remake in the 2020s or beyond. 

22 hours ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

Ideally they'd just remake the $13 wizard battle set.

That'll make $35, good sir. 

Edited January 19 by BrickPrick

[BrickBob Studpants]

I wouldn‘t mind a new Orthanc at all, especially if it actually comes with Treebeard this time! Always struck me as funny that we got a random unnamed Ent back then, but not the Ent  

That said, it‘s pretty low on my LOTR wishlist. I want a Mûmakil first!

[hikouki]

Just saw the Zelda final battle set. At the back of my mind, I just wished the Balrog set was diorama-based just like this, instead of a book nook.

[BrickPrick]

4 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

I wouldn‘t mind a new Orthanc at all, especially if it actually comes with Treebeard this time! Always struck me as funny that we got a random unnamed Ent back then, but not the Ent  

That said, it‘s pretty low on my LOTR wishlist. I want a Mûmakil first!

I was about correcting your comment but thanks to it, I only now realized that it indeed might have been just an random Ent. Could have sworn it was Treebeard all along. Maybe it's supposed to be? I mean the likeness is... uncanny for sure! 

 

The new Sauron helmet instantly including a minifigure is the stuff of distant dreams. Take notes, Lego Star Wars. The time of finally getting one of these helmets might be finally here for me. I just want some LOTR minifigures, man. Though depending on how much it settles, purchasing the figure separately might be the wise thing to do. =)

[RichardGoring]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

Yes I do. And that is my point about the Tower of Orthanc numbers. Not everyone puts their collection on there and not everyone on there tells the truth.

You mean people on the Internet might... lie to me?!