Deathleech

Exactly. Figures like Arwen and the Mouth of Sauron are cool but they really aren't the main characters that people are clamoring for. Why put them in sets and waste molds on their head gear and hair? Why not included a Gondor Soldier in the Black Gate set instead of the Mouth of Sauron and give him a new helm mold instead? It could be re-used in at least one or two other sets rather than never being re-used. Or better yet why not have an army builder with Mordor Orcs and Gondor Soldiers in the wave? There are just so many questions that don't make sense if the second wave truly is the last. The Council of Elrond is a cool set for AFOLs but I feel like it lacks a TON of appeal to kids. A Gondor Army builder on the other hand would appeal to AFOLs, castle fans, army collectors, and of course LotR fans. The helm and shield alone could be really useful for MOCs and castle fans and I am sure kids would love the shiny soldiers. Of course LotR and army building fans would eat them up in droves, especially if it's the only set with Gondor Soldiers. I would even venture to say for every Council of Elrond set sold, Lego could of probably sold two Gondor Soldier Army sets if it was done right. It just seems like such a no brainer. Faramir in his ranger garb that can easily be used as a normal Ranger of Ithilien, 2 Gondor Soldiers in full armor with shields, and 3 Mordor Orcs (preferably with new armor or at the least new print). Make the build a white wall piece that can be added on to Osgiliath if Lego chooses not to make a Minas Tirith set. BAM! Money in Lego's pocket! Seriously, if Lego was going to end the LotR line after two waves why on earth would they make the Council of Elrond and Pirate Ship Ambush? Make a Gondor Soldier Army and Osgiliath set in their place and I bet sales would of doubled, if not tripled. I know I would buy like 20+ Gondor Army sets vs the 2 Council of Elrond I bought

The Mordor Orcs and Orc Hunters are identical other than the legs. You can buy the Orc Hunters for around $3.50, buy an extra set of dark brown legs for ~40 cents, and still be saving almost a dollar vs buying the Mordor Orc with hair and ears.

The Gundabad Orcs with hair seem to be the cheapest, followed closely by the Orc Hunters from the Warg Attack set. Those are probably the best two options if you want the hair and ears. The bald ones are significantly cheaper. Unfortunately there are no sets like Uruk-hai army or the Uruk-hai polybag to quickly and easily build a large Mordor Orc army.

I have to agree. Usually Lego (or any company for that matter) responds with the standard "thank you for your interest, unfortunately we cannot give any details at this time" response. Not that they give any details in that response really, it just seems uncharacteristic for them to be unsure of future plans. Shouldn't they have sales figures and be well aware what their own plans are for any upcoming waves? Especially when the waves are a year or so away?

Wait, are we talking about Smaug or Sauron here? Were we watching the same movie? At least half of DoS is spent in or around Mirkwood which Smaug had next to nothing to do with. That was all Sauron's taint. I guess you could argue the people of Lake-town are there and is bad shape thanks to Smaug, but it's not really made a point in the movie. In fact only the last 20 minutes or so are spent in or around Erebor, and Erebor itself seems pretty much fine, it just has Smaug occupying the area. He didn't actually destroy anything inside the mountain though, he just kicked the dwarves out and torched Dale.

I have said it a number of times already, but I don't think Lego intended to have the second LotR wave be the last when they started the theme. It seems more like poor sales, conflicting release schedules, or a combination of both would of contributed to them nixing a third LotR wave mid run. If we look at things it seems Lego pretty blatantly left out a number of big LotR sets to be released later. Excluding some major characters like Eowyn or Faramir is acceptable, Lego often leaves out secondary characters because they can't cover everything in a limited number of waves. Leaving out anything Gondor is totally unacceptable though. It would be like not including any Rebel Soldiers in the Star Wars line, or not including any Clone Troopers. I was at my local Target today and they didn't have a SINGLE Hobbit set out. They had the tags but the shelves were empty. No LotR sets either except... a dozen or more Council of Elrond sets! It seems like the second wave Lego really missed the mark and I hope that didn't make them pull the plug to soon on the LotR. I fear it might have though. The Council of Elrond probably has no appeal to kids, while the Pirate Ship Ambush set has little appeal to LotR fans. It's like Lego was trying to please too many crowns with the second wave and because of this they ended up pleasing none. I just hope it didn't cost us a third LotR wave and some great Gondor-themed sets...

I would have to vote Lothlorien based on the minifigure likelihood. If Mt. Doom had Isildur, Elrond, Numenoreans, Sauron, etc. that would hands down win for me. However I am sure it would just have Sam, Frodo, and Gollum. Lothlorean on the other hand could realistically have Galadriel, Celeborn, and some elves.

I also feel like the biggest set will be based on Erebor/Bo5A and the $60 one will be Smaug. It just makes sense. Smaug shouldn't have a ton of screen time in TABA, he will probably torch Lake-town then die. He shouldn't have more than 30-45 minutes of screen time even with PJ adding all his extras. The biggest set in the TABA wave should be based on the Bo5A since that's the main event happening in the movie. Plus kids are really going to want Smaug so Lego will probably want him in a more affordable set. And as others have mentioned, the minifigure selection just isn't there for 5 figs, let alone 8. There just aren't very many new or unique ones Lego can do. Ok, we get Braga, Alfrid, Bain and Bard and a Lake-town Guard. Are any of these characters highly sought after? Not really, it's like the C list of characters other than Bard. I think Lego could easily do Smaug justice even in a $60 set as long as they only include a small 50-100 piece tower with the bolt thrower on it. It's true kids probably won't care about the minifigures and will focus on Smaug, but what about AFOLS? Unless it has a lot of useful red parts, or molded pieces, they could easily pass if there are no exciting minifigures included. It's just another parts pack for them. Lego should try to make the set as appealing as possible and have both a cool dragon and minifigure selection. Plus it would just be weird getting a Hobbit building set that actually has the main selling point be the build and not the unique minifigure selection for once Ya, no fighting actually happens in Erebor, at least not in the book. The 13 dwarves barricade themselves inside when Thranduil and the Lake-town men come looking for the treasure. When the orcs arrive they all join forces against them and Thorin and company come outside to help. Lego would be smart to give us the big gate and dwarven statues as the main build in a Bo5A. I mean what else is going to be the build? The ruins of Dale? That might be cool, but not near as exciting or unique looking. set.

I doubt Lego would ever get the How to Train Your Dragon license. That movie is made by Dreamworks who is in direct competition with Dinsey's CGI department. And guess who Lego has TONS of licenses with? Not Dreamworks. Has Lego ever even picked up a Dreamworks license before? I can't recall ANY...

Yes I realize that, but do you realize NOTHING about the Hobbit or LotR line has been different from a standard license release? We aren't talking Simpsons here with only one big D2C set, a CMF series, and a tv show tie in. We are talking a standard wave. Sure Lego could deviate from their formula, and of course they have. No company can do the exact same thing for decades and stay current or in business. But at the same time that doesn't mean throwing away things they know that work just for the lulz. With most of their licenses Lego ends them RIGHT after the final movie is released (Harry Potter, PotC, Indiana Jones). What exactly is there indicating them doing ANYTHING different with the Hobbit? In fact we know the Hobbit concludes in 2014, the advertisement even says so.

I recently sold a TON of my old childhood toys so I have some first hand experience with this. While most of the stuff I sold wasn't Lego, I think it still applies. I sold a lot of action figures as complete waves but I also sold the figures separate. What I found was selling stuff individually does get you more money and you often sell it MUCH faster. Almost anyone can afford a $3 figure, but the number of people who can afford a huge $100+ lot goes way down. Also not everyone will want everything in the lot if you sell it all together. If they have no interest in the 10 Hoth Soldiers they aren't going to waste the money buying it just for everything else. Of course the benefit of selling a huge lot is it is MUCH easier on you to list one auction than list 50 auctions. People do buy huge lots, whether for their personal collection or to re-sell, it just takes time. You have to find the right buyer. Like Alcarin points out, you might try to bundle only the same type of figures together. That way it's not such a big expensive auction, you have only one or two types of figures so people won't be buying stuff they don't want, and you still way fewer auctions to list than if you sold everything individually. I did this and it seemed to work fairly well.

Why? The Hungarian site listed it as 95 euro.. that is almost $130 exact. Anyways I wouldn't be surprised if Lego was able to fit Smaug into a $60 set. If he is brick built he could easily be the only build in the set, or they could construct the tower with the bolt thrower in under 100 pieces I am sure. I would think Lego is saving the big flagship set for the Bo5A scene since that seems to be the main conflict in the TABA movie, not Smaug (who will probably be dead within the first half hour). Galadriel and Sauron in a $13 set would be awesome but knowing Lego they will probably give us something else, like Gandalf vs Thrain or something.

I meant there is no new material being released after this year. Sure we will get the DVD releases next year, but there is no Similarion or any other such film being released. To bring up the evergreen IP is just kind of silly when Lego said in the advertisement the Hobbit theme concludes this year and next year we won't get anything new. TABA is the last Middle-Eath/Tolkien inspired film we will probably see for a long while. Ya sure, Lego MIGHT do something totally different, anything's porrible. But they very well could stick to the formula they know, which seems to be making them tons of money as they are the second largest toy maker in the world and right on Hasbro's heels.

Oh, I know it's just fluff to help sell sets. I was pointing out that they didn't mention the theatrical release, yet they mentioned the IP being an evergreen product when it is obviously going to be ending soon. Why not mention the theatrical release to help sell more sets too? New movie releases seems to be the big time to get sales and what Lego bases their licenses off primarily (they keep the license until the final movie is out in theaters, not on DVD in many cases). I guess they did the theatrical release in another line as Lego-Freak points out though.

Ya, Smaug's influence is what drives the plot and his main influence is taking the home/gold. Everyone seems to be obsessed with the treasure, even Thranduil. No one really seems to care about the actual destruction Smaug caused to the area. Thorin just wants his home and gold back, and everyone else wants the gold. Bard might be the only exception to this.

Also, the Lego factory in Mexico is owned by Lego where the China one is not. That seems to help for obvious reason.

It also mentions it's an Evergreen IP, but we know that this year will be the last Hobbit film release and nothing else is planned beyond that. It is kind of curious they only mention the video game and DVD though, and not the theatrical release...

Hmm, that's a pretty terrible name for the movie then. Everyone I have talked to is like "why is it called the Desolation of Smaug? He doesn't die in it." If the desolation was referring to the ruins which he destroyed it should of been a little more clear. It doesn't really make sense to name the movie that way. There is very little footage of all the destruction he caused, in fact other than a few seconds and maybe a flashback I can't remember there being much of ANY emphasis on it. There was way more in the first film. You kind of see the hardship the people in Lake-town are facing (Bard mentions them going hungry and such a few times), but other than that nothing about the ruins of Dale or any of the surrounding area.

As the old saying goes, if it's to good to be true it probably is. Lego didn't decide to outsource production to China because they make the highest quality product there and Lego is just going to eat the cost because they wanted to do us fans a favor. They have a factory in China because it saves them money. Lego is a business and they want to make money. Now obviously there could be a few reasons that it's cheaper to produce in China and the two biggest ones people believe are either inferior product or poor wages. IS Chinese plastic an inferior quality? I dunno, I will say it seems... "different". I wouldn't say it's horrible and I do think some people take things a little over board, but there is definitely a difference in SOME parts. Heck, when I first got back into Lego I bought the CMF Space Marine and noticed his feet didn't have the same clutch, the legs aren't as stiff, and the plastic seems a little more light weight. These were all observations I made before I was even aware the figures were made in China. More recently I have noticed some issues that still persist. The elf from CMF 11 has pants that are different colored than the torso. See here. Now do I think these are HUGE issues and Lego has gone way down hill? No, obviously not. I understand people's concerns though. They don't want Lego slipping and gradually offering worse and worse product until Megabloks is the preferred brand (a scary thought!). When you are passionate about something ANY decrease in quality can be a slippery slope. If Lego starts allowing even small issues what's to stop them from allowing bigger and bigger ones in the future? I will say it seems like due to Chinese laws and the fact Lego doesn't own the Chinese factories these just seem to be growing pains that are still being straightened out. It seems like Lego is actively trying to fix their issues and trying to get the exact same product out as produced in other Lego factories.

I dunno if TRU is the same in other countries, but be glad they don't sell it where you live. Here in the US TRU has it for $250, $50 more than MSRP.

WB produces the game. They are directly linked to the movie and probably have more insight and interaction with the film crew. They aren't a third party creating toy sets based on the movies like Lego. Also it is MUCH easier to create a Lego set than it is to create a video game. A Lego set is just characters and a location.. you can only gather so much info from that. All Lego needs is some concept art to create a set. The video game actually plays out just like the movie with the characters talking, their actions, etc. A Lego set provides the setting and the figures but after that you can make up whatever story you want. For instance MEA may be the mad king Thranduil riding his trusty Warg steed "Brownie" into combat against the Gundabad Orcs and Mirkwood Elves who have united to stop the crazy king. Of course the box art implies the elves are fighting the orcs, but you get the point. Your imagination is the only limit. In a video game Thranduil will have a specific role and he will ONLY be the Mirkwood Elf King and like in the movies. As for this next summer/fall wave being LotR or Hobbit, I would guess it's the Hobbit. It seems everything points to that. I think the most likely explanation is Lego never revamped their release schedule and the TABA wave is being released when the film was originally supposed to in the summer. Several factors make me think this. First off the 2013 waves seem to be very small almost as if they were split in half. Second the Hobbit wave is being released right around when the movie was suppose to be released (if you take into account the Hungary website is a few months slow).

I always wondered why the Helm's Deep game was never released in the US. It seems sort of interesting.. much better than the Hobbit game we got

How many D2C sets did we actually get last year anyways? The two Star Wars ones, Orthanc, Winter Village, Sydney Opera House, Arkham Asylum... I am sure I am missing one or two and that's already six right there alone.

Magic erasers usually have a small amount of bleach in them which is how they remove stains. I don't think it's enough to hurt the Lego pieces though so it's probably a decent option.

The factories in China aren't owned by Lego so they don't have the same quality control. The plastic in China also is from local sources so it's not the same standard as stuff in other Lego owned factories.