mtrsteve

I 1000% agree regarding Frodo and Sam. Should have had some new printing on them for this price point. No conceivable reason not to.

Silmarilion content I believe is still firmly with the Tolkien estate, so no rights unfortunately. I believe the other poster is correct, that they announced two Peter Jackson movies, the first is Gollum, but I think the second one is still an unknown.

Brick Clicker just posted a video rumoring a May 14th reveal. Dunno the source, but seems plausible.

Yeah, seems it's much ado about nothing. The wait continues...

I'm reading that there may have been a new leaked image, but can't find any trace of it. Has anyone seen a new leak today?

My top 5, in order: Tom Bombadil (+Goldberry would be even sweeter but breaks your rules) Faramir Balrog bigfig Eowyn Bill the Pony

I'm in the camp that would be totally happy with this approach. I've got no issue with mixing scales if the objective is to look good while also incorporating good play. I'd also be totally satisfied with something more like Hoth where we get just the front wall/gate with a bunch of side builds like an Oliphant, the with king and fell beast, Grind, etc. Bottom line is we need to get Gondor representation in some form eventually. Only mother thing that comes to mind is a Battle for Osgiliath style set, which could also be amazing.

Nerd of the rings did a nice brief overview of where middle earth rights sit a couple weeks ago. I figure many of you would find this interesting given how often it's coming up in the thread:

Not necessarily, it could focus on the one Ring as his accessory. I would expect to get sting, but it does not follow that just because it has Frodo is HAS to have it.

Not the OP or the original designer, but I built the MOC pictured here: https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/s/BsuO3qaOgJ a couple years back. It has a great eye of Sauron design. Tilts up and down, pivots side to side, lights up with a light brick, and reasonably minimal connections at the sides. Not everything about this MOC is super sturdy, but he knocked it out of the park with the eye design.

That's just the way it is. License rights can get awful specific. Case and point, Lego isn't allowed to do a Star Wars collectible Minifigures line. They've made every Star Wars character under the sun, but they aren't allowed to sell them in that particular format. And the Tolkien estate is notorious for being very specific about their license deals, which has only become more complicated in recent years with more and more of the material being adapted.

Even more so agreements with the Tolkien estate. And LotR rights are about as convoluted as any IP out there at this point. But I would agree unlikely that a legal issue is preventing them from doing play sets.

This is the worst news I've heard all day. And if they make one of these the GWP for Barad Dur, I will once again be waiting for 2x VIP to buy. This is what happens when everyone runs out and buys the first wave of LotR brickheads just to show support for more LotR sets. You don't get more sets, you get more brickheads. Yay. Yes I'm being melodramatic, it just feels like such a blueballing.

Yeah well there's always room for improvement. I just know I bought almost all the LotR sets, whereas the only hobbit set I bought was to get Smaug

I mean to say that if instead of making Hobbit sets, they only made LotR ones, they may have sold better because the scenes are more iconic. So the direct Hobbit tie in sets may have sold worse than the direct LotR ones, dragging down overall sales in the process. To be clear, I have no evidence to support this other than my own feelings towards the respective sets. Obviously the Hobbit movies gave then the impetus for starting the line in the first place, which can't be ignored (but is maybe besides the point)

I'm not so sure that it was a clear benefit that the hobbit trilogy was being released. I felt like most of the LotR sets were great, while most of the Hobbit sets were meh by comparison. Theme may have done better in the absence of hobbit material.

Well, here's a Mina's tirith MOC that's pretty decent. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8V7MFd7/

Well as soon as you put Frodo and Sam anywhere near that dungeon, many casual fans will think of the Cirith Ungol scene right away. So unless you leave those figures out, it's defacto the same thing.

I have to disagree. Unless this were to be a microscale display only piece, it's still a (huge and pricey) play set to at least some degree. Including adjacently related features is totally fair of they enhance the playability of the set. Including last alliance figures as lots of people are clamouring for would be as bad as an anachronism as including geographically misplaced scenes, but would still be fine with me because people want to recreate those scenes and moments (And not everyone is a skilled MOC creator or has that sort of time). Now, if they include the mount doom scene that might be a bridge of khazad dum too far...

If that June release date turns out to be accurate, when do y'all expect we would get an official announcement?

And THIS is why lego keeps us coming back. There are lots of off-brand options out there, but quality is such a dice roll. Sometimes great, sometimes meh, sometimes just awful.

I could see them using the long legs and a new armor piece that comes a little further down over the top of the legs to make the proportions work visually.

With Lego announcing the rebranded VIP program, you will apparently be able to earn points by scanning in your instruction books to catalogue what sets you own. As they are giving you points for this, it must be worth something to them, which is obviously the data they receive. I for one will be adding *only* my LotR sets to my catalogue, to do my small part to bias the stats they get ;)

Gimli in the too-long coat of mail XD

Picked up my copy of rivendell online today. Double VIP, spring parts pack, pirate ship playground and a fleece blanket as bonuses. That's a pretty decent haul. Those fleece blankets are actually really nice.