bachamn

thanks for the link! I don't have TV so I hadn't seen any of those spots yet. Totally agree that Dain looks as epic as he should, and, holy crap, Galadriel at 0:06!

ftfy, but yeah as was mentioned sets are based on film-canon not book canon, etc. I have a hard time keeping it sorted in my mind too; I'll see something irregular and have to remind myself that I'm wrong :p Well, they at least mention the role/fate of that ring in the DoS: EE.

pfft, who needs a LEGO Helicarrier? DARPA is already on that... How is it possible that two people in a row made this typo? "Three Beard"? bahahahaha

First, seeing Meet the Feebles in the kid's section would make me do a double take; that's hilarious and just so, so wrong. so you feel it's lacking? So far the only arguments I've seen against it are that they put too much into it or did you mean lacking in thoughtful planning/production decisions?

this has been my thinking about this all along; the ent is brick-built, and we have the game version of Treebeard for reference. (which I'll admit is more film-accurate, but I don't think it's so different that modifying the 'ent' to match would be too difficult to accomplish.

Azog was killed in T.A. 2799, the events of The Hobbit begin in T.A. 2941, so he's been dead for a long time. Gandalf does mention him in the Unexpected Party chapter of the book as the orc who killed Thror. Bolg isn't mentioned at all until the 'Clouds Burst' chapter when he is introduced as the leader of the orc army in The Battle of Five Armies. Contrary to the film's narrative, he was more or less leading this charge as a form of revenge for the slaying of the Great Goblin. I think Azog might also have been referenced again in 'The Clouds Burst' to give context of who Bolg is and his history with the dwarves, but that's pretty much it for The Hobbit. As some others mentioned, the details about Azog being killed by Dain is mentioned in the appendix, specifically Appendix A: Durin's Folk. It details that he chops off Thror's head, brands "AZOG" into his forehead, and throws a moneybag out with it as "payment" for the realm of Moria. He was pretty gangster.

While I don't agree with most of your perspectives on the Hobbit films, I have to give you a +1 for mentioning Meet the Feebles. That movie is...something else haha but yeah, film could have done without Legolas and Tauriel. I've said it before on here but everything she does irks me, she just feels out of place in the world, not just because she's a PJ fabrication. I mean, even her theme music seems generic and contrived to me.

I think with relation to the "wrinkles" on Thranduil and Bilbo, those are supposed to be jawline/cheekbone definitions? I don't think they're meant to be wrinkles. As people have said, Bolg is the main antagonist in the book, arguably after Smaug, but he's the ones leading the orc armies, not Azog. According to book canon, Azog was killed by Dain during the Battle of Azanulbizar. PJ decided to keep him alive and made Bolg a more of a sub-antagonist in the films. That's why I personally feel it's a shame we haven't gotten a figure for him, and I'm sure others likely feel similarly, aside from the fact that his design is just too cool to leave out. Just weird that we got many variants of normal orcs but not an important character like this.

huh?

totally agree with this. If you look at the featured petitions on the Change.org homepage and still feel justified in using that platform to complain about the toys you didn't get, I'd suggest some self reflection.

I found him! Blue coated Thorin was in my extras bag. No idea how I overlooked that. Whew! Also, I'm not really familiar with the other parts of this forum so my apologies if this belongs somewhere else, but folks in the US, Toys R Us currently has a 15% off in-store coupon up that's good for tomorrow and Saturday http://m.toysrus.com/graphics/media/trus/112014E_DS_TRU_BroadOfferCoupon_JLJB03.pdf?camp=CME:TRU:EM112014E_EmergencyBroadOffer&csep=acb99508-3c5e-4dbb-ba67-e8deb3fbb696

well..blah. thanks for the info, looks like I need to dig through my extras to see if I still have him!

I agree, I was just pointing out that someone else asked the exact same question one week prior to this one, and people answered as though it hadn't just been asked. Just found that amusing ;) also meant to ask about this: I thought there was only one version of Thorin released prior to the crowned version that just came out in BotFA., so my display case only has two Thorins. I picked up all the sets from the first two waves so if it existed I would have had one at some point, but reading this made me concerned that I had sold/traded off a variant thinking it was a duplicate. :/

this I can definitely agree with, I should have mentioned that in my previous reply. I'd prefer the film be categorized under Fantasy/Adventure but PJ does have a proclivity to "spice it up" with extended action sequences. The barrel escape is probably the most obvious example of departure from the book and creating a made-up battle sequence. I loved it in the theatre, but after rewatching a few times it's one of my least favorite parts of the film. I couldn't have said it better myself. When I re-read Hobbit again recently I was kind of shocked at how quickly paced everything was, but I guess that comes with the territory of being a children's book. Totally agree that most of the audience would be wondering why Gandalf just disappears mid-quest (as I did when first read this as a kid) if the film didn't follow him to DG so the inclusion of extra Necromancer plotline outside of what was in book's narrative was necessary to make a cohesive story, and ultimately tie the events in with LotR.

...I think this thread has started to devour itself

I can agree with you about the irregular pacing of the films, but I guess this just hasn't ever bothered me. Maybe it's because I can recognize PJ's struggle as a Tolkien fan to get in as much of the canon as possible while still keeping the films short enough to be "watchable". I know I would struggle with this if I were in his position. In the LotR director's commentary, editing for pacing is repeatedly mentioned by the production team as an obstacle they had to overcome and it's why the EE's exist in the first place. That is to say, I don't think they were giving as much consideration to pacing in the EE's because that wasn't the focus of the editing. I'm certain that if they decided against releasing EE's for The Hobbit films there would have been a huge outcry. I agree that the AUJ extras were a bit lacking, but the added scenes in DoS really flesh out some things that were kind of grazed over in the theatrical edition. So to me, they're 100% worth it. So yeah, obsessive fans of the lore, like myself, aren't going to be bothered by the slowing down of the pace of the film if it means we get to enjoy more of the scenery, so to speak. I'm not watching these films to get that "action film" experience you describe, as I might if I were watching a superhero flick. My focus is given to absorbing the lore that I love in a visually stimulating format, and in that respect I really feel like the EE's are the "true" versions of the films.

Well, to each their own. I believe someone else said something similar to this (might not have been here) but when it comes to Tolkien I welcome as much footage as I can, especially knowing PJ's production quality is so spectacular. If they made a miniseries about hobbits sitting around drinking in the Shire and telling stories I'd be glued to the screen every time it came on.

at first I took this as saying they can't release the DLC until the film comes out, but then I re-read and it does sound like you're suggesting the game devs haven't started working on it yet because they haven't seen the film? If they were planning on releasing this alongside the film they would have had to received a considerable amount of source material to work with long in advance. Game development takes a long time, especially when it's multi-console

Nice, with that new staff pick for Lothlorien there are currently two LotR themed sets featured on the homepage of Ideas at the moment, and the Minas Tirith set is less than 900 votes from consideration! I think at the least we can assume those paying attention know there's a desire for more and we won't go down without a fight. Whether or not anything will come from that is another issue, but they can't say we didn't try. :)

haha, I was just thinking the same thing. it's pretty common on this site; seems a lot of standard forum etiquette is not practiced here it ;)

Bridge Direct's "handling" of this toyline goes beyond design changes. I have no idea how those guys obtained the rights to market such a huge license but they've failed all along the way. From everything I've gathered following their "progress" they used the production changes as a scapegoat for their own shortcomings.

I think the point you're missing is that the focus of this discussion is about actually trying to get a Minas Tirith set accepted by Ideas so there's even a chance TLG might consider it as a real set. (however remote that chance may be) I don't think anyone is saying there's anything wrong with you supporting the other one that you like better out of principle; they're saying it would be more productive for you to support the other one as well because it's the only real chance at one ever being made. What doesn't make sense is trash-talking the popular set that already has some attention from TLG and appears to have a very good chance of reaching the 10k threshold. Saying you refuse to vote for it simply because you think the other one is better seems kind of petty. The other set is great, but it's size makes it ultimately negligible in this particular discussion.

was just about to write this

the new trailer is incredibly powerful! Very excited for this release...and troll catapults! thanks for posting the leak, here's the link on youtube (while it lasts) https://www.youtube....h?v=xl2nu1jJz3c

Not sure if this was intentional, but +1 for the placement of Shelob's shadow in this pic :D