MAB

They also reduce the size of the pieces, so sometimes part counts can be maintained but there are more 1x1s than in the past. Sneaky!

Exactly, LEGO has changed dramatically in the past decade. Adults are specifically catered for now. There are many builds suitable for older teens and adults. Younger kids should also have a theme they can enjoy. That is City. You can still build the sets of the late 2000s, and use alternate colours for variation.

They might restirct the number of Castle style sets too. The impression I got when reading the rules is that they nake the ultimate choice what gets to the crowd funding stage. No doubt they try to pick a range of set styles in each round.

Yes, they are primarily for children so it seems a bit odd for adults to say they are ugly, badly designed and lame when some kids, especially at the lower end of the age group they are aimed at, need simple builds. Even more so when there are plenty of good looking sets with interesting building techniques aimed at adults.

Yes, also Journeys in Middle Earth. Also the LEGO Helms Deep game but that can be played by kids.

It isn't an extension of PAB though, as these sets are not individually hand picked on demand. If they were, they'd charge PAB prices and they'd cost even more than they already are. They are packed like regular LEGO sets now. The original ADP sets were hand picked and subject to even worse delays. I think part of the draw of these sets is the exclusivity. If they were no limit and no decorated box I doubt they'd sell anywhere near as well. Part of it is the collectability / investment nature of LEGO these days. A bag of bricks is not attractive to collectors but would suit a builder.

You missed off Elves! With the nostalgia part, I totally agree that modern LEGO is preferable to 1980s LEGO when it comes to choice of parts. The thing I typically miss though are theme specific printed parts including minifigure parts. It wouldn't bother me too much if there was never a Classic Castle (or other vintage Castle) theme again, if they did updated versions of the torsos (some of which they have done), forestmen hats and some other helmets some other way. I think many Classic Space MOCers are similar, if they have the printed logo parts, some decent coloured windshields and a decent selection of coloured outfits.

Indeed, and a lot of the LOTR merch is high quality, detailed and expensive. The LOTR board games I have are also firmly aimed at adults, with quite difficult mechanics.

Yeah, building someone else's MOC like that can be annoying, unless you sort out all the parts first which can be boring. Even worse if you have to order parts in and wait for them to arrive.

This is where different people like different things. Personally, the Star Wars dioramas do little for me. They are different scales, some micro and some with minifigs, and too many bricks wasted in bases and backdrops. SW has backups in the kid sets and adult sets, so there is plenty of other things to choose from so their existence is not an issue, the same with the helmets range. I'd prefer one decent adult set to 3x dioramas per year. That set seemed to be more about the publicity surrounding LGBT awareness especially during Pride celebrations than for sales. Not that I know how well it did for sales, but it got LEGO a lot of positive press stories. We'll never know but I wonder if sales for other shows like Seinfeld were better.

City is a younger kids theme. A lot of the sets are for ages 5/6/7, and so of course the designs are simplified compared to sets for older kids. Adults have their own City, in the Modulars. I imagine LEGO research shows teens are not playing with City now there is more mature choices for them in other themes and so they concentrate the City theme towards younger kids.

I think Queer Eye was quite a small set compared to other 18+ these days. That requires a theme though. Adult sets are more buy everything at once in a big box, than needing to buy lots of smaller sets.

It is because producing boxes and picking and packing sets on demand is very expensive. I believe most of the parts were available through PAB online. You can order the set that way, without the box. But doing it on demand like that will cost much more.

Something like that (but bigger, due to the price) would be fine. I'd expect many more greebly parts for the fancy ornate architecture though. If the set was a one-off and so no other new minifigures were to be added, then those gold ones would also be fine to accompany this as a display piece, or regular coloured ones, not a big deal really. It does need something extra to make it obviously LOTR though. Without the minifigures or more ornate architecture it is just too plain. It could almost be any village on a hillside. That is the issue with Rivendell compared to The Two Towers, or Hobbiton, or the Argonaths or Minas Tirith. Those are all fairly unique. The scenes in Rivendell tended to be up close and that is why I think we will probably get a minifigure scale big single building plus some surrounding area rather than the whole location at this scale.

Presumably because the anniversary is not important to sales. If there is a business case to be made for making a LOTR set based on FOTR now, then they will make one now. There is no point waiting a further few years just so they can call it a 25th Anniversary set.

Sure, people meme two and sometimes three common phrases from it. But I don't think I've ever heard a kid say anything about not passing or simply walking into Mordor or that something is their precious though. I cannot remember the last time I saw a kid wearing a LOTR T-shirt, or having a LOTR lunchbox or backpack, and so on. Whereas SW, HP, Marvel, DC, etc go into a town and there will be plenty of kids with merchandise from those franchises. I also disagree that everybody knows what it is. People think very different things about it. Many families (with kids aged say 10) will not have watched it. A lot of people find the movies as boring as hell. They know what it is, and it is not a good thing for them. And so their children are not likely to be exposed to it. If so many kids were into LOTR, there would be lots of (non-LEGO) merchandise in toy stores. It is not just LEGO that is leaving all this money on the table by not doing toys based on it. Every toy company out there is missing out. Or, they know something different to you. Search for Harry Potter figures or Harry Potter toys, and you will see loads most of which is at toy prices aimed at kids. Whereas search for Lord of the Rings toys or figures, and they will tend to be highly detailed scale collectable models for display rather than play. If LOTR was on the shelves (next to Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel, DC, City, Ninjago, Friends, etc) then I reckon only a very small percentage of kids would ask for it. Under 10s, I doubt many will have actually heard of it. Over 12s, maybe some would choose it but not many (especially if there was a LEGO fantasy theme and they were not into SW, HP, etc). And that was really the issue last time and LEGO knows it. They made kid sets for LOTR based on the release of The Hobbit movies and they did not sell too well. Now as a company, LEGO openly cater for adults, they will aim it as a more mature theme (well, individual set) at adults.

For impulse buyers (kids / families in a rush shopping), yes many will just grab them. How many impulse buyers will there be though for LOTR compared to HP, Marvel, DC. Significantly less in my view. It is two completely different markets. For collectors these days, it seems fairly common now to either buy a box, or buy a complete set from someone that bought a box. I cannot see supermarkets or general retailers taking LOTR CMFs as they would not sell well as impulse buys as they are not really for (younger) kids like other CMFs. Adult collectors would buy complete sets online (like many do already for the regular CMFs). If LEGO want to make money out of that, instead of retailers selling 3x sets of 12 in a box for £126 or whatever it is that then get split into individual sets of 12 and sold for a higher price by the buyer (again online), they might as well sell a set of 12 minifigures plus a load of their core product - bricks - in their own online store. The same 12 figures plus a load of bricks for multiple £100s. I disagree with that. Parents do think about themes when buying a present. Many kids like themes such as City or Ninjago, and they will ask for something from City or Ninjago. Then the parent or grandparent will buy something from City or Ninjago. That is why LEGO puts theme names very clearly and prominently on the boxes.

I don't really know the source material, but the build looks fantastic. I think I'd rather walk than ride on that though!

Of course LOTR AFOL fans would want them. But the general public and especially kids wouldn't buy into a series with generic characters (and in many cases for a movie series they have not watched). LEGO knows that they need key characters in CMF, otherwise they won't sell. They also know CMFs are cheap impulse buys where kids recognize the characters. Look at the HP sets: 3x Harry, 2x Ron, 2x Hermione, 2x Dumbledore, 2x Luna, 2x Neville and many other important characters with a few minor ones. Here, there are enough costumes and enough kids interested in playing with the sets to justify CMFs and sets. There are enough memorable locations that can be done in a reasonable way as small playsets that parents / grandparents will buy for kids. If they did one series of 16 for LOTR, I reckon we'd get the entire Fellowship in it. If they did two series, I reckon we'd get two entire Fellowships (or maybe leaving out Boromir in the second). Some Harry Potter sets have become very boring for longer term (and especially adult) collectors, since they have yet another Harry, Ron and/or Hermione. But they still sell well, since the buying population constantly changes. Every year, there are plenty of new kids to the bookies and movies. Whereas the LOTR fanbase is very different. Sure some kids get into it, but nowhere near as many as HP. For LOTR if they have key characters in CMF, then it will impact sales of sets. If they had a CMF series containing the Fellowship at the same time as a theme where you had to buy 4 or 5 smaller sets to get the Fellowship (like last time) or a single expensive adult set to get the Fellowship (presumably like this time), I imagine the sets would sell very badly. People would buy the CMF. If a casual fan can get Frodo, Sam and Gollum for £10-12 in CMF, would they pay £40 for Frodo, Sam and Gollum climbing the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, and the next year another similar set of Frodo, Sam and Gollum in Mount Doom, and then another set for Frodo, Sam and Gollum crossing the Dead Marshes. The same with Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn in front of a bit of rock, in open plains or between two rock walls. If a fan could get the whole Fellowship plus a few other key characters in CMF, would they buy a £500 set with the same characters plus a few extras? I think that would be a very hard sell. The locations here don't really matter, they'll either be small sets like a bit of wall that aren't great and repeat characters from the CMF (so just buy the CMF) or they'll be well done large sets that are "too expensive" (so just buy the CMF). In this case, it is very different to SW UCS sets. For UCS sets, the stars are really the builds of iconic spaceships and not the minifigures (even if unique to the set). While LOTR has some iconic locations, to do them well would mean going away from minifigure scale. That is why if LEGO wants to make money out of adults that are into LOTR, I don't think they will make CMFs. Not when they can sell the same minfiigures plus bricks for higher prices. They cannot coexist. They are not really impulse buy type items that people would buy in toy stores and supermarkets (like regular ones, HP, Marvel and DC). If they were going to make them online only as a D2C CMF, they might as well make them a D2C set and sell their bricks at the same time.

I also think it is right they rejected a parts pack, because it breaks the rules. Much better to have a proper build like the one you show. If people want it as a parts pack rather than a set, they can still vote for it. As for the colours, yes, they are great alternatives. Just like the (old / new) (light / light bluish and dark/dark bluish) greys arguments, use what we have got now or stick with the old. Classic Space is dead for new parts. But new Classic Space is not. Adapt and use new parts and colours, or stick with the old and accept that you will never get anything new. Putting a new brick next to an old one often looks odd anyway no matter what the theme, even if it is the same colour.

It might not be perfect for LEGO though. Previous CMF have been attractive to both adult collectors and kids. A fairly niche market combined with named rather than generic characters would not necessarily sell well. CMF need mass market appeal because of the way they are sold. Plus it would damage sales of regular sets (if they did them). LOTR has the issue that most of the characters dress fairly consistently throughout, so making alternative outfits is not so straightforward.

Yeah that's a great MOC. It could still go either way, a microscale display of the whole location or a minifig scale building and courtyard.

They look good for ornamental architecture.

I think many other adults are too. Sets like that are great if someone wants one large display piece. Often the minifigures are clutter and for (non-AFOLs) there are often way better larger and detailed figures to display. During covid, it was amazing to see how many people had a lego set in the background and often it would be a large set like Yoda statue, a technic car, Saturn V, a few modulars, campervan, a UCS set, etc. It was quite rare to see a sprawling collection of smaller sets and minifigures. Of course, it might be that people keep that sort of mess off-camera and purposely place a single identifiable set behind them.

I think that is the point of it, it isn't meant to fit with the rest of the theme. The adult (it was 16+ at the time but would surely be an 18+ set now) set was meant to be something different to the plentiful minifigure scale playsets, to show they can do something much larger than a couple of rooms in a coherent and architecturally beautiful way. The same with the HP Icons set and the crests Art sets, they are meant to be something different than the playsets. Diagon Alley (16+) and Hogwarts Express (18+) show they can also do minifigure based sets aimed at older teens / adults at much larger scale than playsets. Hogwarts Express is 5129 pieces and $500. Cut the minifigures by about half and remove larger pieces (inc train wheels) and replace them with more greebly 1x1s for fancy patterns in the roofs and so on, and the LOTR D2C could still be either minifig based or microscale. Of course, the downside with LOTR is that it is not a theme. HP fans (AFOLs) have the fall back position of buying the children's playsets if they don't want the microscale Hogwarts. Whereas LOTR is not a currently a theme and so that position does not exist. If it is branded as ICONS rather than Lord Of The Rings, that might indicate that there are no plans for a theme. And we will have to wait to find out.