mirkwoodspiders

Thanks for the links. Honestly not interested in any of them but they're good efforts. I'd hope for something closer to 9,000 or 10,000 pieces honestly - if it's possible for the Colosseum /Titanic/Eiffel Tower, hopefully they'd consider it to get sufficient detail for Minas Tirith.

Well, it's been "back" since last year. I'm guessing they were surmising the return of system scale sets?

master.jedi.bricks posted on instagram confirming an accessible interior for the UCS Sail Barge. Is he reliable? This is the first person I've heard confirming an interior. I kind of assumed there would be one but hadn't heard it for sure yet.

I thought about a battle pack as well. I remember the UCS AT-AT releasing with plenty of figs, but then a couple of months later the Hoth battle pack came out. I could easily see LEGO doing that with a Helm's Deep. Agreed on Minas Tirith. It's so hard to envision how they'd do it - UCS, microscale, system - none of them seem to make sense. But, they are brilliant at LEGO and could probably pull something off. I would say Helm's Deep and Bag End would be safer bets, yes. And, of course, I'd almost certainly buy them.

I'm wondering: 1) Do you think LEGO continues releasing large LOTR sets in the future? I'd say yes. 2 in the span of less than 1.5 years makes me think another one is on the way in the next year or so. 2) If the answer to 1) is "no", are you satisfied with these two releases as stand-alone sets? I'd say definitely not! Rivendell and Barad-Dur are fantastic, but it'd be cruel to give us these two then cut things off when we're still soaking in the return to the theme.

Oh yeah, Saturday release day. My local store is only about 40 minutes away. Not sure how early I'd have to go to get a copy, but I'd be willing to bring a book and wait 3-4 hours at least. I just can't wait for this set.

Minute one purchase for me if this GWP is halfway decent lol

Same here. I see zero reason to buy a set day-one without 2x VIP or a compelling GWP. I'm not sure what would constitute "compelling" though lol

Thanks for being honest! This is good news indeed. Nothing in the leak that said anything about an interior, but with these figs there has to be one, right?

That looks really good! Brilliant interior. It's 4,244 pieces, so this would definitely fall in the UCS range. As much as I'd love to have the MOC, I'm not going to the trouble to order all those pieces lol.

Just sitting here waiting impatiently for the UCS TIE Interceptor to get revealed next month... BARC Speeder Escape: Pass. Sith Infiltrator: Pass. The only reason I'm interested is Saw, and I can probably find him for a decent price on Bricklink. The ship itself underwhelms. I really hope it gets the UCS treatment someday. Podrace diorama: Purchase eventually. Sebulba's pod is quite well done, and the scene is an eye-catcher. Driodeka: Purchase eventually. Well-designed (mini-fig scale version notwithstanding), and it might have some neat functions of which we are not yet aware. Everything else released since 3/1: Already impulse bought lol.

I very much like both the driodeka and diorama. I was honestly envisioning the diorama as the pods sweeping through the starting line/grandstand area, but the iteration LEGO chose looks pretty good. It looks like two of the May 4th GWPs will be a keychain and then a patch with the 25th Anniversary R2-D2 logo on them. I'm underwhelmed, to say the least.

I can't see any reason to delay - I know you mentioned competing the Rivendell, but that's been on shelves for a year now. If people have been saving or what not for Rivendell, they'll be able to get that soon (hypothetically) and then wait for Barad-Dur for awhile, as it'd likely be on shelves for at least 18 months. Is there some TV show they'd try to align a release with that I'm not aware of?

I see. Well, we should know soon enough. June will come faster than we think. I hope the recently posted information is true!

itavixbrix just re-posted the info. Are they reliable from what you know?

Man I was thinking 4-5 figs... 12-15 is phenomenal! thebrickreporter says Sauron's eye will be brick-built, which I think we all assumed but now it's confirmed.

What do we think the price threshold for the GWP will be? If it's around $100, decent chance I got for multiples. Any higher it'd be hard to justify, though.

The midi sets look great. The anniversary figs have me excited to learn more about the Star Wars expanded universe. No idea who Cal Kestis, Darth Malak, or Ezra are, but now that they are special anniversary figs I want to know more to appreciate them more.

I agree with the sentiment - I really want more of the TPM figs we haven't seen in years. That said, I hope this is the tip of the iceberg with prequel sets. I did think on first look the cockpit looked too small, but I think those are probably the only pieces to work at the scale they made the set. I can't really think of another piece that would have worked better without screwing with the scale of the rest of the ship.

I'd imagine they do, yeah. Can't wait to see both

Have to imagine the Sarlaac pit is meant to be paired with a UCS Sail Barge this fall. Sail Barge will probably look great on its own, but you'd be able to add the Sarlaac Pit if you want, or pair an earlier version of the pit with the Barge and ignore this new one altogether.

I remember reading about an initial "draft" of Rivendell LEGO made as a microscale model. It looked amazing but was too massive to be a reasonable D2C set. I wonder if they wouldn't take a well-known portion of Minas Tirith from the movie and make a set of it, similar to what they ended up doing with Rivendell? Full microscale would be incredible though, and I can't say I would't consider paying $700-$800 for it...

Wait, as in they have confirmed its existence, or confirmed its release in 2024?

Cool, whatever helps you sleep at night man. Glad there is an "ignore" option for users...

Yep, and that definitely helps. Any time a set is released under the $130 or so price range, it'll be at my local Wal-Mart eventually, guaranteed, and there won't be a big rush to get the set.