LEGO LotR - general discussion

[Mr. Cube]

Stupid finale. Orthanc itself is a great set, but Gondor faction, Balrog and Witch-king + Fellbeast are still missing.

[Deathleech]

You all do realize that they ended the theme with a gorgeous massive D2C set, right? Orthanc was the finale. Just as Siagon Alley closed out HP. But nobody wanted to admit that to themselves.

Ya, but it would have been like if they had Diagon Alley come out before the sets for the sixth and seventh Harry Potter movies and then never released any sets for said movies. That's basically what they did with LotR and the "finale" set. I know Lego released some stuff based on the RotK movie, but the line still feels only 2/3 complete at present moment due to some huge, glaring holes (Eowyn, Witch King, Fel Beast, Balrog, anything Gondor...).

Edited July 1, 2015 by Deathleech

[Alcarin]

It will be a forever mystery, why Choose Black Gate without Gondor soldier, and why choose a ship seen for a couple of ''seconds'' instead of Balrog/Mumakil/Gondor related stuff......

[bungeshea]

The designer video for the Pirate Ship Ambush set said that they chose that particular scene, despite being very brief, because they thought that a pirate ship would sell well with children.

I guess that they thought that the Black Gate was a pretty recognisable structure in LotR, and plus they could recommend buying two of the set to make a full-sized gate. I think that they could have quite easily included a Gondor soldier in that set though; it would make it seem like more of a 'battle' as well, rather than just five figures.

Edited July 1, 2015 by bungeshea

[The_Chosen_1]

I forget -- did Orthanc come out before or after the second wave of sets?

[Blakstone]

Orthanc came out about a month after wave 2.

The Black Gate was likely created to pay for the Eagle mold in the Orthanc. I could have used a Gondor soldier, but hopefully not at the expense of Gandalf the White, Aragorn in Gondor grab, or the Mouth of Sauron. But they needed generic orcs to fight the heroes.

[MAB]

With all their pre-planning, I would imagine they knew they could reuse the eagle molds for The Hobbit.

[SMC]

I think its more that they stuck it in the hobbit because they had it, not sure they planed it at all but the outcome.

[Faefrost]

It will be a forever mystery, why Choose Black Gate without Gondor soldier, and why choose a ship seen for a couple of ''seconds'' instead of Balrog/Mumakil/Gondor related stuff......

The Pirate Ship was likely chosen because it was felt to have broad appeal not just for LoTR fans but more traditional Lego fans. Lego ships always sell well. Everyone here complains about it, but I suspect that if we were to see the actual accounting we would find that the ship was one of the better selling Middle Earth sets. Remember the stuff that we like isn't always the best consumer draw items. Case in point Helms Deep, which we all probably agree was the crown jewel of the LoTR line, by all appearences sold horribly in the big box retailers, at the $130 price point, and was likely a big reason we never saw Gondor.

The Black Gate feels like a set where a lot of compromises were made to hit the price point. Under traditional Lego philosophy with Wave 2 they wanted an "evil Castle" at an affordable price point. They had Orthanc in the pipeline at an extremely high price. The set probably had a long list of to do's. So much that it limit the "want to do's" and a Gondor Soldier was probably more of a want. We got the Mouth of Sauron in order to use up the Black Rider horses from Weathertop. Basically Black Gate was a dumping ground to further use molds and parts already in the warehouse.

[Deathleech]

Orthanc came out about a month after wave 2.

Yup, the second LotR wave came out in May/June(official release) and then Orthanc came out around July/August the same year. It was still released a few months before the second Hobbit wave though so it didn't really feel like the big finale regardless of what was still missing from the LotR line.

The Black Gate was likely created to pay for the Eagle mold in the Orthanc. I could have used a Gondor soldier, but hopefully not at the expense of Gandalf the White, Aragorn in Gondor grab, or the Mouth of Sauron. But they needed generic orcs to fight the heroes.

Ehh, we still got the eagle in two other sets besides the Black Gates. I would have rather seen a Gondor Soldier or two instead of the eagle. Heck, if Lego can throw in seven minifigs and an eagle in the Bo5A set, why not in the Battle at the Black Gates? Two more Gondor Soldiers would have fit PERFECTLY in that set and started to make multiple purchases of it more justifiable. They could have scrapped the Mouth of Sauron and his new helm mold to create a Gondor Helm instead.

While we are at it, giving us a more standard orc helm would have also been much more beneficial than a number of other new molds we got instead of it. Why give us the orc ponytail, goblin cap, etc. when all of these were used in only one set? We could of had a generic orc helm that could have been used in a number of sets instead like Pirate Ship Ambush, Black Gates, Bo5A, maybe even DGB and MEA...

Edited July 1, 2015 by Deathleech

[Dr.Cogg]

What I don't get is, why didn't TLG use the second wave as the third wave, because all the sets from the second wave ( excluding Orthanc) felt like sets you would make after the iconic scenes were made into sets.

I don't think the second wave sets were awful, I just think they were poorly planned.

Edited July 1, 2015 by Dr.Cogg

[SMC]

If the hobbit movie changing to 3 films stop us getting a 3rd LOTR wave then those hobbit films have even more to answer for .

[Lord_Tyrannus]

Maybe there's a light in the end of the tunnel for Gondor faction.. What if we get, in the Castle 2016 line, a blue torso with a Swan heraldry? I don't think we will ever get a white tree or anything that reminds Gondor soldiers, but the Swan knights would be a nice addition..

[Alcarin]

The Pirate Ship was likely chosen because it was felt to have broad appeal not just for LoTR fans but more traditional Lego fans. Lego ships always sell well. Everyone here complains about it, but I suspect that if we were to see the actual accounting we would find that the ship was one of the better selling Middle Earth sets. Remember the stuff that we like isn't always the best consumer draw items. Case in point Helms Deep, which we all probably agree was the crown jewel of the LoTR line, by all appearences sold horribly in the big box retailers, at the $130 price point, and was likely a big reason we never saw Gondor.

The Black Gate feels like a set where a lot of compromises were made to hit the price point. Under traditional Lego philosophy with Wave 2 they wanted an "evil Castle" at an affordable price point. They had Orthanc in the pipeline at an extremely high price. The set probably had a long list of to do's. So much that it limit the "want to do's" and a Gondor Soldier was probably more of a want. We got the Mouth of Sauron in order to use up the Black Rider horses from Weathertop. Basically Black Gate was a dumping ground to further use molds and parts already in the warehouse.

I would still bet a solid Mumakil set for 99$ with a Rohan soldier on horse would of sell better than the Pirate ship..... It would appeal to kids and fans alike, kids like big animals like Mumak is, and fans would buy multiple to make armies and scenes from the Pelennor fields....

Yeah I agree about Black Gates, but their wish lists and to do, are only there due to limiting to 4 sets (for no extremely great reason since I guess LEGO plans far ahead, and either they planned poorly or did not know what to do with the line) and in the end LOTR line (except Helm's Deep and UHA sets) were rather big disappointments overall (many of 1st wave was decent if not good) Its just the ''using of molds and parts'' part I kinda do not believe, since we get many parts only used in 1 set (Mouth of Sauron helmet surely is one of them) So I see rather no reason to choose Mouth of Sauron aka a new mold to use old horse printings.... it kinda saves one thing and makes another mold that you surely have nowhere to use :P

Maybe there's a light in the end of the tunnel for Gondor faction.. What if we get, in the Castle 2016 line, a blue torso with a Swan heraldry? I don't think we will ever get a white tree or anything that reminds Gondor soldiers, but the Swan knights would be a nice addition..

Well blue is the wrong color for sure..... if its silver torso then a bit better

[General Magma]

Just wait for the LOTR items that will be spawned by 3rd party vendors, they'll be better than any official LEGO alternatives.

[Blakstone]

I haven't yet bought any 3rd party LEGO compatible pieces and I don't plan on changing any time soon.

Instead I will keep an eye for anything useful in other LEGO lines. Pirates of the Carribean gave me some fleshie civilians for Bree for example.

While it is true there are more stuff we want for Lord of the Rings, this line provided a lot more characters than most non evergreen lines have.

[Deathleech]

I haven't yet bought any 3rd party LEGO compatible pieces and I don't plan on changing any time soon.

Instead I will keep an eye for anything useful in other LEGO lines. Pirates of the Carribean gave me some fleshie civilians for Bree for example.

I plan on doing both. If I see some really nice looking 3rd party armor pieces that vaguely resemble Gondor armor, for example, I will probably pick up a bunch of those and then some plain black torsos and legs and random flesh heads to make my own make-shift Gondor Soldiers. At the same time I am hoping future Castle (and any other themes for that matter) give us some nice parts we can re-use for LotR. I'm really hoping we get stuff that can be used for Gondor Soldiers, Easterlings, more orc variety, and Haradrim (I know a lot exist for them already, especially thanks to PoP.

While it is true there are more stuff we want for Lord of the Rings, this line provided a lot more characters than most non evergreen lines have.

It did give us a lot, it's just a shame they missed a few key characters and a key faction. What makes it even worse is they could have fairly easily switched just a few things up in their existing sets and they could have covered pretty much everything. For instance the Black Gate set could have been more like the Bo5A set in it's minifigure count. Battle at the Black Gates could have had Gandalf the White, the eagle, 3 orcs, 2 Gondor Soldiers, and a more generic torso and leg Gondor print for Aragon (along with a spare Gondor helm for him so he could serve as a third Gondor Soldier). They could have removed the Mouth of Sauron and used his helmet mold for the Gondor helmet instead, and removed the black horse to compensate (we see prints all the time only get used in one set, really no reason to use it again). The Pirate Ship Ambush set could have been replaced by a number of Minas Tirith or Pelennor Fields sets, any of which could have still included the Undead as well as Eowyn and the Witch King.

[Flieger]

They could have removed the Mouth of Sauron and used his helmet mold for the Gondor helmet instead

Sure. But we see Lego making strange decisions on new moulds all the time. The Inquisitor from Star Wars Rebels got its flight helmet, which could be seen for a few seconds at max. The Mouth is almost prominently featured compared to that... And when was the last time we got a new mould in Castle? Most of the helmet and armour moulds of the 2013 line were available in my childhood, too. Compared to the wealth of moulds other lines are getting, Castle (and LotR) seem a bit undersupplied.

[Deathleech]

The thing is the Mouth of Sauron isn't even in the normal version of RotK, he is only in the extended edition. That means there are a number of people who have never even seen him or know who he is. I feel like Lego was trying to throw us AFOLs a bone with the MoS, but really it just perplexed us more since there were so many other figs they could have made.

For instance they give us three different Goblin Town goblin prints and a new head piece, but then use the same print for every Mordor Orc which were four different sets (no armored versions, wtf?). We get three versions of Elrond and an Arwen, but no Witch King or Eowyn. Gandalf has the gray hair which looks nothing like it does in the movies, yet they released the Thorin/Fili/Kili version which would have been perfect for him in gray. The elf hair/ear piece doesn't even accommodate a quiver when elves are known for their archery. And sure pirate ships may sell great, but Lego gave us one as a flagship set for a wave when it was only in the movie a few minutes. Ships sell so well Lego is going to give us one over more iconic Gondor locations?

These are just a few of the very questionable decisions Lego made with their Middle-Earth themes. I don't think anyone was expecting every character to get made. Heck, not even themes like Star Wars that have been around for over a decade have every character. What bothers people so much is we got a lot of lesser characters over more important ones. No one is really complaining about there being no Gothmog, Denethor, Guritz, Madril, Gamling, etc. Heck, if the line would have ended after one wave I doubt people would even be complaining quite as much. But when you get things like the Mouth of Sauron over the Witch King and Arwen over Eowyn it just doesn't make sense.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Deathleech

[Blakstone]

Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are different themes for LEGO even though they were both covered under the same license. The Hobbit had obviously had a much larger Change budget to pay for new molds and prints. I don't think we will get anywhere comparing those themes.

I think the Black Gate was needed to pay for the Eagle mold which they wanted for the Orthanc but until this year, there was never a new mold in a D2C set.

So the Black Gate has five minifigures. Two new versions of heroes. I can see why they wanted to have more villains then heroes. Otherwise the heroes would not look like they are in danger. Having a main villain also makes sense and the Mouth of Sauron is well known to fans. I am glad we got him.

I don't think they had the Change budget to create a new Mordor orc print for the Black Gate. But you are still right that we needed a new one and LEGO could have gave it to us.

In the same wave, we got the Pirate Ship Ambush with three heroes but they are identical to the wave 1 versions. We also get the King of the Dead and two different Soldiers of the Dead, a Pirate of Umbar, and one Mordor orc. If LEGO reused the Soldier of the Dead torso for both minifigs, they could have given us a new Mordor orc print here and reused it in the Black Gate.

I would also preferred that they omitted Gimli from this set since he was already in wave 1 and the Council of Elrond set. They could have placed another Pirate, Soldier of the Dead, or even another Mordor orc then.

[Ql97]

The second wave was actually quite good. The problem is, they released it at the wrong time. A lot of evidence points to them having planned a third wave, which ended up being canceled because of Peter Jackson's constant schedule changes. The second wave, which was supposed to be filler wave, between the other two waves, ended up being the final wave. This left us without all the aforementioned stuff, like Eowyn, the Witch King, and Gondor. My disappointment is not with the set designers, who produced excellent sets based on the source material, but with the managers, who chose which sets to release, and when to release them. They killed the theme.

Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are different themes for LEGO even though they were both covered under the same license. The Hobbit had obviously had a much larger Change budget to pay for new molds and prints. I don't think we will get anywhere comparing those themes.

I think the Black Gate was needed to pay for the Eagle mold which they wanted for the Orthanc but until this year, there was never a new mold in a D2C set.

So the Black Gate has five minifigures. Two new versions of heroes. I can see why they wanted to have more villains then heroes. Otherwise the heroes would not look like they are in danger. Having a main villain also makes sense and the Mouth of Sauron is well known to fans. I am glad we got him.

I don't think they had the Change budget to create a new Mordor orc print for the Black Gate. But you are still right that we needed a new one and LEGO could have gave it to us.

In the same wave, we got the Pirate Ship Ambush with three heroes but they are identical to the wave 1 versions. We also get the King of the Dead and two different Soldiers of the Dead, a Pirate of Umbar, and one Mordor orc. If LEGO reused the Soldier of the Dead torso for both minifigs, they could have given us a new Mordor orc print here and reused it in the Black Gate.

I would also preferred that they omitted Gimli from this set since he was already in wave 1 and the Council of Elrond set. They could have placed another Pirate, Soldier of the Dead, or even another Mordor orc then.

These are all good points. I agree with you completely.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Ql97

[Deathleech]

Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are different themes for LEGO even though they were both covered under the same license. The Hobbit had obviously had a much larger Change budget to pay for new molds and prints. I don't think we will get anywhere comparing those themes.

They used some of the same molds and prints in both themes though. If the Hobbit had a larger budget, Lego should have used it to make more generic Middle-Earth stuff that could be used across both themes and then the LotR budget could have been used specifically to make LotR only stuff. This isn't even the real issue though. I wasn't really trying to compare them.

I think the Black Gate was needed to pay for the Eagle mold which they wanted for the Orthanc but until this year, there was never a new mold in a D2C set.

So the Black Gate has five minifigures. Two new versions of heroes. I can see why they wanted to have more villains then heroes. Otherwise the heroes would not look like they are in danger. Having a main villain also makes sense and the Mouth of Sauron is well known to fans. I am glad we got him.

The eagle being in the Black Gate set doesn't bother me. What bothers me is wasting new prints and molds on characters when there are much better options available. It was nice getting the Mouth of Sauron, but not at the expense of a Witch King or Gondor Soldier. Also, the Bo5A set had more good guys then bad and that didn't seem to bother Lego at all. The good guys were supposed to be heavily out numbered in that fight as well.

In the same wave, we got the Pirate Ship Ambush with three heroes but they are identical to the wave 1 versions. We also get the King of the Dead and two different Soldiers of the Dead, a Pirate of Umbar, and one Mordor orc. If LEGO reused the Soldier of the Dead torso for both minifigs, they could have given us a new Mordor orc print here and reused it in the Black Gate.

I would also preferred that they omitted Gimli from this set since he was already in wave 1 and the Council of Elrond set. They could have placed another Pirate, Soldier of the Dead, or even another Mordor orc then.

As much as I don't like it, having Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli in the Pirate Ship Ambush set makes sense since they were all present in the movie. Kids probably love having all of them in one set. What makes absolutely no sense is having three different undead prints when they are in one set and then having ONE Mordor Orc print when they are in four different sets (and actually the torso print was used in six since it was used on the orc hunters as well)! I am all about getting the most bang for your buck so it is mind boggling why Lego would do all these prints for minifigs only in one set, then not bother giving us any other Mordor Orc prints when they are used so much. Or why give us the Mouth of Sauron who is only in the EE of the film for a few minutes rather than one of the main bad guys like the Witch King, or Gondor Soldiers which are featured prominently throughout the RotK?

[Faefrost]

I would still bet a solid Mumakil set for 99$ with a Rohan soldier on horse would of sell better than the Pirate ship..... It would appeal to kids and fans alike, kids like big animals like Mumak is, and fans would buy multiple to make armies and scenes from the Pelennor fields....

I rather suspect that any hope of a Mumakil was long ago vetoed by the Chima team. See while the giant Mamoth might sell better than the Pirate Ship, the Chima Giant Mamouth with the full cross media tie ins will sale much better than the LotR's Mamoth without any concurrent media.

[Alcarin]

I rather suspect that any hope of a Mumakil was long ago vetoed by the Chima team. See while the giant Mamoth might sell better than the Pirate Ship, the Chima Giant Mamouth with the full cross media tie ins will sale much better than the LotR's Mamoth without any concurrent media.

I would still bet a flesh or more realistic mammoth (as not in trans colors) would sell better..... Kids afterall dont have tons of cash for all those sets, so they had to choose.... on the other hand noone (or barely anyone) would ever buy that mammoth in masses for an army, because it does not look ''earthly'' as Mumakil would..... Its like scrapping Jurassic Park for a trans T-rex.... 2 different worlds to me.

And if not Mammoth there was another 2 options of giant animals, one carrying Grond to the Gates (which makes perfect opportunity to give us Gondor soldiers and the action packed set with breaking Minas Tirith Gates) and then there was the absolute king in the movie with the Nazguls on their flying beasts.... funny part is, that Smaug in movies looked less terrifying than those flying beasts... Another option for a 99$ set that I could bet would sell better.

Its hard to understand designers of LOTR sets, either they got drunk after 1st wave and lost logic or never watched the whole movie or enjoyed it..... thats the only 2 conclusions I can pick out..... To scrap Gondor, Witch king, the biggest battle in the movies (Corsair ships took the lesser part of it and the smallest in terms of screen time) Eowyn, and possibly even Denethor, which at that time was the most powerful adversary of Sauron, is all I can say.

[MAB]

Its hard to understand designers of LOTR sets, either they got drunk after 1st wave and lost logic or never watched the whole movie or enjoyed it..... thats the only 2 conclusions I can pick out..... To scrap Gondor, Witch king, the biggest battle in the movies (Corsair ships took the lesser part of it and the smallest in terms of screen time) Eowyn, and possibly even Denethor, which at that time was the most powerful adversary of Sauron, is all I can say.

Or the people above the designers that approve what is going forward to retail. I think the designers did a good job, even in wave 2. Wizard Battle is a wonderful little play set, also giving a cheap Saruman. Elrond Council hits a cheap set spot, using some nice elements especially the arches and leaves. The Black Gate again hits a price point and is easily doubled in size to be more movie like - I'd prefer what they did and have to buy two, then to have a full gate at a much smaller scale. And even the ship is nicely designed and reasonably movie accurate.