Haltiamieli

Wow, great to see that the Great Elk Clan hasn't completely vanished from the realm of Mitgardia even if I did, a long time ago. Of course the build itself is great too! Probably my favourite detail would be how well those mechanical Bionicle arm-thingies (or whatever?) blend into the whole looking like wooden ornaments.

I wonder if these will have some elemental associations. Naida is just a [deliberate or not] typograpical error away from Naiad, a sort of water nymph from Greek legends (and he/she has a spa, or a fountain or whatever). In this scheme Aira would be clearly associated with air, but Azari and Farran are not that obvious names (or at least I don't get them?). Baking could include fire and crystals are from earth, I suppose. Of course, they might not be that straight-forwardly elementally anyway. Naida would be rather awkwardly unfortunate name in Finnish, as it is colloquially used as a somewhat rude word for copulating.

Indeed. And Tolkien's 100th birthday was actually back in 1992. No such natural celebratory times are in sight now.

There are without doubt many different reasons, big and small, behind the choice of leaving Friends (nearly completely) out of the movie, but one that may have weighed in the matter (and I didn't see mentioned here yet) is that minidolls are less posable. That may suit the play patterns of their intended audience, but it does not suit brickfilms.

And so it came to happen that the 31st review (from New York Post) aggregated in Rotten Tomatoes was the first to be of the "rotten" variety. Of course, not all the other reviews have been glowingly positive either. Nevertheless, the critical reception so far has been way better than I dared to hope.

And if Lego LotR doesn't end yet and we get a third wave full of Gondor stuff 90+ percent of us will be happy that they put Mouth of Sauron there (the only set ever where we could get him) instead of one Gondorian soldier who would just make some eBay sellers rich before the third wave floods the market. And if they would cancelled the third wave (similarly like they seem to have actually done) just with that one Gondorian instead of MoS in the Black Gate set, I'm not sure if there'd really be considerably less backlash amongst fans. They would still have cut the theme prematurely (as it appears to us), that would still be only one single Gondorian in a pretty expensive set not too suitable for multiple buys, there'd still be no Minas Tirith/Osgiliath, no Eowyn, no Witch-King... It's so easy to take all we get as granted and crave for just a little bit more.

Gandalf Arrives is still one of my favourite sets from the LotR line... I think it was great introductory scene for the theme, especially for adults (including, mind you, those 99,99 % who aren't active AFOLs). It's cheap enough to be an impulse buy and the cart is well designed build for its size, showcasing what Lego is most essentially about. A battlepack might have sold as well or possibly even better, but to a different demographic... it would be preaching to the choir. The lack of battlepacks is unfortunate and rather unexplicable, I'd like them as much as the next guy, but I think the smallest sets get undeserved flak for that. Well, except Riddles for the Ring − now that actually is a lame set deserving a bit of flak. To keep the window open for a possible future set. They can consider future prospects whether or not they have definite plans just yet. And even if they do have a Treebeard set designed it doesn't necessarily mean it will ever be released. We can hope, but nothing's given.

Yes, that is implied:

The whole soundtrack is available in Spotify. Various Artists – The Lego® Movie: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Don't we already have this? Not that I would complain if we'd get another mold of a bigger and fuller sack. There's quite a few agricultural/horticultural tools that would be nice to have like rake, sickle and hoe. Rake might be hard one to mold though, with all the thin parts. I'm sort of expecting we might get an ancient druid with a sickle someday, if the CMF series goes on long enough. It could be far enough removed from such avoidable subjects as (mainstream) religious practices of today. A rake (or even a hoe) could accompany a gardener figure instead of (or in addition to) a watering can.

"[T]aking the audience for a ride when in fact they were promised a journey" is probably the best critical summary of the films I've yet seen. On the whole the article is a bit tedious read with the overuse of allegory, but there's a lot of good points. The writer does, however, appear strangely uncritical of the LotR trilogy. Maybe it's for the sake of argument.

Seems it's already time for the sequel rumours too, in the midst of the first reviews: Warner Bros. Already Working on Sequel to ‘The Lego Movie’ Is this any news, though? Probably not. I suspect the studios have someone start penning a sequel, just in case, for every somewhat franchisable big budget movie as early as possible. Saves valuable time if the movie is a hit, and doesn't waste that much money if it bombs.

The Wrap gave us the first clearly (though not completely) negative review I've read: ‘The Lego Movie’ Review: Funny Pieces Don’t Click With Heavy-Handed Message. I'm trying to maintain quite low expectations despite all the hype, especially as I made the mistake to pass the time before the movie premiere (February 14th here in Finland) by watching Lord & Miller's earlier films. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs I found pretty watchable/mediocre, but 21 Jump Street was just horribly dumb and groanworthy.

Yeah, but I think the designers at Lego could do it. They have, after all, a lot of experience of "gates and walls" sets. The biggest problem I suppose would be making the set self-sustaining with enough play possibilies. Would the gates and walls be enough, if there was nothing much behind to defend? They did add the throne room to Helm's Deep set for a good reason.

Around 900. Even with Grond and interiors etc. I think the design could quite easily be less than 1300 pieces (i.e. the size of The Battle of Helm's Deep).