Deathleech

Except of the six SW movies released, all but one were rated PG. Phantom Menace came out in 1999 and Attack of the Clones in 2002, right around the same time the LotR movies were released and they both received PG ratings while all the LotR films received PG-13. Only Revenge of the Sith received a PG-13 rating and that was most likely due to Anakin being horribly burned and mutilated at the end.

Oh I totally agree, and I agree with what other people like Alcarin were saying before. It seems like Lego just couldn't decide which direction to take their LotR theme. Do they cater more to adults with sets like Council of Elrond, army builders, and throwing in figures like the Mouth of Sauron? Or, do they try to appeal more to kids with play features and lots of main characters placed throughout waves? It seems like Lego couldn't really decide and ended up not really pleasing either crowd as much as they could. Personally, I am really surprised we didn't see more creatures and vehicles. Shelob was a fantastic set and I could easily have seen Lego making a $20 Treebeard/Grond set, a $40 Balrog/Witch King on Fel Beast vs Eowyn, and a $60 Mumakil. I think these would of had a lot of appeal to both LotR AND fantasy fans, much like the Pirate Ship Ambush set was suppose to appeal to ship fans. As is it's really hard to be happy with the LotR wave with so much wasted potential. We could of had army builders, beautiful locations, and tons of amazing creatures. I think Lego could have done a much better job than they did appealing to AFOLs and kids alike. Council of Elrond should have really been replaced with a Gondor Soldier/Mordor Orc Army builder and the Pirate Ship Ambush set should have been something Gondor based with the Witch King on a Fel Beast and Eowyn. I don't think anyone would complain if we got that at the cost of Elrond (who is in other sets anyways), Arwen (who has a MUCH more minor role than Eowyn), and the Undead Soldiers (who are seen less than the Gondor Soldiers).

How do you figure? The price per piece is right around 13 cents. Attack on Weathertop was 14 cents and Black Gates was 9 cents. Of course Black Gates only had one large molded creature (eagle) and 5 minifigures, while Weathertop had the same 5 minifigures but two molded creatures (horses). This set has a large molded creature with Gwaihir and 7 minifigures, 2 more than the other $60 priced sets. It seems about right? I think people have two big issues with the BoFA set. First off people expected it to be an army builder which it most definitely is not. Second the catapult/launcher takes up a TON of bricks making the actual structure look relatively small, and the set as a whole looks smaller as such. I have no idea why Lego decided to make such a huge bolt thrower instead of add more to the building, but whatever.

Council of Elrond came out six months before Mirkwood elf Army though... Regardless TRU is a poor indicator of anything. They jack their prices up so high they have sets LONG after any other retailer carries them. I will say CoE was one of the few sets I actually found at Target at deep discount. They had TONS of them left even after the other sets in the same wave were long gone. They had to discount them to $18 to finally clear them out which was almost a 50% reduction in price. I never saw MEA or UHA on clearance/sale at Target. The original three Star Wars movies were all rated PG which is what, ages 6-12? This is the ideal demographic for toys . The LotR films are all rated PG-13 which is 13+. SW basically captures the perfect age range for toys while LotR is at the very end of the spectrum when many kids are getting out of toys and into other hobbies. Add on to that SW is a merchandising juggernaut with all the cartoons, books, tie-ins, etc. constantly being pumped out and it's no wonder SW toys are a huge hit. I mean when is the last time you saw a LotR cartoon outside the movies twenty years ago, or a cereal promotion?

I dunno, I would say ToyBiz also did a much better job than Lego. They covered pretty much every main character, minor character, variations of said characters, and even did tons of different bad guy factions and creatures. It's hard to compare Lego (now the biggest toy company) to a smaller company like The Bridge Driect though. BD doesn't even make the top ten list of toy manufactures while Lego sits a comfy 4+ billion dollars in revenue above them.

Here in the U.S. Mines of Moria is $20 more than the BoFA set. It still is a vastly superior set though, almost every minifigure is exclusive except Legolas and Gimli, the Moria Orcs come with hair, and it has the super cool exclusive Cave Troll.

Minimates probably bought the action figure license. Lego bought the construction/building toy license for LotR and the Hobbit. There are multiple licenses you can get.. games, action figures, construction toys, etc. Lego almost never gets the action figure license because they are a building block company at heart. That is why you never see SW sets with just minifigures. They have to have at least SOME bricks or building component. Lego tried to release the magnets or whatever it was awhile back and got in trouble for it so that's why they started gluing them to bases.

Ya, by my calculations it's $270-340 all together. It has around 3,000 pieces and 35 minifigures with one large molded Fel Beast creature. The Lego Death Star only has 24 minifigures, but it also has almost 800 more pieces. Of course I am sure Lego could and would down size some parts. Regardless this is 6 different sets all combined together. You could easily get just Grond and the Minas Tirith Gates for under $200, or both of those and two wall sections for under $300.

Blame ourselves for Lego's poor set designs? Uhh, no, that is on Lego and it's designers to make appealing sets. Its not on us to force ourselves to like sub par gray walls and boring scenes being made into sets. As for buying multiples, I think most of us did. I know I bought 20+ Uruk-hai Army sets, 11 MEA, 6 Orc Forge, 4 Council of Elrond, and at least 2-3 of EVERY other set (even Orthanc). AFOLS alone can't support a theme though. We only make up 5-10% of sales. Lego needs good sales with kids as well. To get that they would of needed more marketing (cartoon or some tie in) and more appealing sets (Balrog owns Council of Elrond a hundred times over in kids eyes, I am sure).

Category A: #11 #7 #8 Category B: #9 #10 #6

I agree with pretty much everything you said except this part. You listed all the big LotR factions, but there are plenty more minor Middle-Earth ones. If you want to REALLY break it down we could have gotten Gondor Soldiers, White Tree Guards, Rohirrim, Morannon Orcs, Uruk-hai, Black Uruks, Snaga, Morgul Orcs, Gundabad Orcs, Moria Goblins, Ithilien Rangers, Rangers of the North (never actually seen in film though..?), Cave Trolls, Mountain Trolls, Fel Beast, Easterling, Haradrim, Numenoreans, Noldor, Lothlorien Elves, Rivendell Elves, Eagles, Wargs, Mirkwood Elf Scouts, Mirkwood Elf soldiers (armored), Iron Hill Dwarves, Erebor Dwarves, Ents, Wildmen, Undead, Corsairs, etc. I am sure I am still missing plenty but that alone is over 30 different factions, all of which are fairly distinct from one another. At the moment I don't see Frey men being any more important than say Wildmen (could change), or one of the lesser factions in LotR/Hobbit. Plus many of the Middle-Earth factions aren't even the same race so that helps better distinguish them. In GoT most of the armies would be human and some, such as from the north, would have little difference from one another besides maybe a crest flag or crest on their clothing. In all the battle scenes we saw, the entire Northern army looked pretty much identical despite being made up of several different houses. Don't get me wrong, I definetly agree there are more characters and there are TONS of houses in GoT, I am just not sure most would really warrant soldiers from Lego. With so many characters to cover it seems most toy companies don't even bother giving you any GoT soldiers.

I suppose if you just look at the average you are right, but that seems to be a poor indicator because it includes so much inflation. Someone payed almost $24 dollars for an Azog when Dol Guldur Battle was first released, yet a few weeks later the set got discounted to $50-60! Why pay almost half the price of the set for a single minifigure? People are crazy sometimes and as such I tend to find the average prices misleading. I NEVER have paid the "average price" for any minifigure I bought on BL. I usually just watch the prices and wait till someone puts the figures up for a decent price. For example there are 11 Radaghast's up right now, all for $9 or less. The cheapest is $8.10. Why would I buy from anyone else or pay the average which is almost $2 higher? I suppose if you don't live in the U.S. where there are abundant sellers, or you have no patience things are much more difficult. Finding the average is also tricky because some minifigures in the same set are much more desirable than others. For example Azog is $14 average and Radagast is 10, but the Necromancer is barely over $5 and the Orcs and Gandalf in Dol Guldur Battle are $3. That's $38 total for them in a $70 MSRP set. If you look for deals and combined shipping you can probably get them all for around $25. I don't include shipping in the price because that can vary so much just based on your location. Plus most people don't include sales tax or anything in the MSRP of a set so why include shipping? The part about army building using Dain's was directed at other posters mentioning it and wanting to army build with them if Dain's plumage would have been removable. The CMF Roman was a $3 polybag though, not in a $60 set. It was easier to find and mass. Don't get me wrong, I am sure people still would army build with Dain's though. Everyone is just acting like a Dain with removable plumage from his helm would fix our lack of Iron Hill Dwarf soldiers. I know personally it wouldn't for me. I am a hardcore army builder, but even I draw the line somewhere. I am not going to spend $8+ per minifigure to get an army of Iron Hill Dwarves. I would want at least 50. At $8 a pop that would $400, I could almost buy the entire third Hobbit wave twice over for that price (and COULD once sales hit!). Even $8 might be on the low side and not be realistic if you want different heads, beards, torsos, weapons, etc. on them. I'm just saying is it really going to help THAT much? I mean if you only wanted 5-10 soldiers it may be ok, but for people who want large armies it is super impractical and expensive.

Here and here. I have no idea where these numbers came from from other than the 500 dwarves which are stated in the book. I assume they are educated guesses based on info we are given. I am sure a lot was pieced together from other sources such as appendices, Unfinished Tales, etc.

I don't think the value is quite that bad. It's true the price per piece is a littler high (almost 13 cents instead of the golden 10), but this set also has an decent sized molded eagle and 7 minifigures. All past $60 LotR/Hobbit sets have only had 5 minifigures. As for your minifigure price predictions, I find them a little high. You say $12-15 each for Thorin, Dain, and Azog, but the previous Azog (which was only found in a single set that was $10 more expensive) is currently sitting around $11.50. Radaghast and the Necromancer from the same set are only $8 and $3.50. With another, cheaper set offering Azog and based on other sets I would say they all MIGHT start off at $12-15, but quickly will fall down to the $8 mark a few months later. With Dain's plume being removable, I guess it would be nice but it wouldn't really be practical. Who is going to spend $8+ per minifigure on a bunch of Dain's to try and make an army of Iron Hill Dwarves? It's just not ideal or really feasible unless you are loaded with cash. Personally I think this is the hands down worst set of the third Hobbit wave, and possibly one of the worst sets in the entire Middle-Earth theme. Azog is barely different, the two orcs have new face prints but lack hair or helms which I HATE, the ballista is waaaaay to big and the bridge/tower are to boring, and Gwaihir isn't really a huge sell at this point with similar eagles being in Black Gates and Orthanc. The only highlights for me are Dain and Thorin, who look good. If not for being a completionist I might actually have passed on this set. As is I will pick it up on deep discount, but it will be the last set from the third wave I bother building.

I am sure they all are, as well as a number of other ticked off Lake-town civilians. It's hard to say how many Lake-town Guards were around before and after Smaug attacked, and how many of the 200 men who took up arms were actual guards before the Bo5A.

I was having the same issue and just cleared my cookies and it works fine now. I think the redirect page even mentions clearing your cookies.

Where are those sneak peeks!?

Well the last movie hasn't been released yet and PJ may vastly change the army numbers from the book to the film like he did in several of the LotR battles. For example in the book there were 100,000 orcs at the Battle of Pelennor Field but in the film it was closer to 200,000. With that said, the numbers from the Hobbit book are 15,000 Goblins, 3,000 Wargs, and thousands of bats vs 500 Iron Hill Dwarves, 200 Lake-town men, 1,000 Mirkwood Elves, and 100 Eagles. Plus Thorin and company. There is never a number given for the number of Lake-town Guards but I would assume the low hundreds at best.

Sure, they are below: Smaller Grond Bigger Grond Gondor Army Soldier Minas Tirith

Well the thing is all the other molded creatures have been dramatically shrunk down and are much smaller than minifigure scale. The eagles really aren't that much smaller than the Fel Beast, but Lego reduced the eagle size so much they would look absolutely ridiculous next to a Smaug sized Fel Beast. They would be like a third or a forth the size where in the movies they are maybe half the size at most, or like a third smaller than the Fel Beast.

People will always complain. Even if we got those sets you and atreyu listed I am sure people would complain we didn't get Edoras, Lothlorien, Barad-dur, Easterlings, Mt Doom, Mountain Trolls, etc. There are just too many locations and characters to cover everything unless Lego were to do half a dozen waves+. That's why they just need to hit the main scenes we are still missing. I think most sane people would be totally satisfied with a Witch King (on Fel Beast) vs Eowyn set, a set that includes Gondor Soldiers, and a Balrog. Anything after that would be icing on the cake. While the Prancing Pony and Green Dragon would be great, I don't think anyone would be too dissapointed if we never got them. I know, it would just be nice to know the reasoning though. It sucks being completely in the dark as to why our favorite line ended prematurely before some major scenes were covered. That's pretty cool but dang, 800 pieces for a Watcher in the Water set? That means it would be in the $80-100 price range. I am not sure people would wanna dish out that much cash for a bunch of re-hashed characters and a relatively minor creature (at least compared to the rest like the Balrog, Fel Beast, etc.). I would think of a Watcher in the Water set more around the $20-30 price range. I can totally understand the brick count getting inflated though. My Grond, which I imagined as a $20 set, ended up having over 400 pieces and would of probably been closer to a $40-50 set. I can only imagine how the Lego designers constantly struggle to give us some bigger scenes while keeping the brick count and price lower.

I never said it was the exact same, I said it was similar. The main difference being the white lines underneath the eyes (which are actually more prominent in the pic/video you linked, but the forehead paint is missing). I imagine this is because the picture you linked is after all the fighting has happened and once the the war paint has smudged and dripped down. If you look at the Warhammer Narzug, he also has similar paint on the face to the Lego minifigure. A big glob on the forehead, a space in the middle, and two lines coming down beneath each eye. The mouth is almost identical and there just so happens to be five braids protruding on the Lego minifigure hair, the exact same number as on Narzug. Do you honestly think this is a coincidence? I don't. I never said it was an exact take (even figures like Aragorn differ between their Lego and movie versions), I said Narzug was obviously the inspiration for the minifigure. I don't remember seeing any other orc that looked ANYTHING like this in the Hobbit film. If you can find one that looks closer to the Lego minifigure, by all means please share it. The picture I linked looks like it was straight up the inspiration Lego took for their minifigure. Hair, eyes, mouth, even the white war paint.

Below is a side by side comparison. As you can see, the war paint is extremely similar. It has the large glob on the forehead with a spot missing in the center and a big line down the nose. The yellow eyes and mouth are undeniably Narzug's. The hair is the only difference, but there is really no way for Lego to do it any closer without putting the braids on an extremely specialized bald cap since they need to all connect to one stud in the middle. You can even see the five braids in the Lego hair mimicking where they would be on Narzug. A coincidence? I think not. This is just another example of Lego taking a named character and using it as the basis for making a generic Lego figure. Why bother listing him as Narzug in the Lake-town set? Most adults have no idea who that is and even fewer kids know him by name. Listing him as a named character also means Lego would of needed to throw in a different orc as they couldn't have included two in a single set. Narzug is dead by the time the Lake-town scene happens and there is no other set he would have fit in as such. It's like the Ent in Orthanc. The beard and eyes are undeniably Treebeard. If not Treebeard, which ent are they modeled after? Sure the beard could be fuller but that is about the only difference, and it is still close enough.

I think it's another case of Lego making it look close enough that it could go either way. They did the same with the Ent in Orthanc. Lego obviously took a lot of details from these source characters and applied them to "generic" minifigures and builds. As you can see in the picture below, Narzug has almost the exact same "puckered lips" and white markings on his face. His braided hair is also fairly similar, though not exact (not sure Lego could really make a hair piece exactly the same due to the stud holding it together and all the braides with bare scalp between them).

You should get at least some of the Hobbit ones. There are several that have LotR locations or characters that would otherwise not be available. Most notable are Galadriel and Bag End. There also are the Wargs and a lot more orc variety. I agree about the Hobbit movies. I feel like Peter Jackson pulled a George Lucas. the original LotR movies were amazing. The pre-quels sucked much like the original Star Wars trilogy and the pre-quels. I am not sure if this is completely Jackson's fault or not though, considering there wasn't a ton of substance in the source material with the Hobbit. I will say he went completely over the top with the CGI. It was bad enough when it was just Legolas doing cartwheels in the air and surfing on everything his feet touched, but when you have the orcs and dwarves doing it to it makes things ten times worse. I feel like the Hobbit movies come off more as comic book adaptations than fantasy, which is a shame. We get enough super hero movies every year.