AFOLguy1970

The Trevi Fountain would be great! This might be a really expensive year. Parisian Restaurant, all remaining Tolkien sets, Benny's Spaceship, and now this. I wonder if it will have three coins in it?

It does seem suspect that Hobbit sets would be release way ahead of the movie. If Lego had a choice, I am sure they would have released the previous two Hobbit waves further ahead of the movie. It did not give you much time to get these if you wanted them for Christmas gifts. Also, it seems like part of the reasoning for waiting for the movie's release was not to inadvertantly give away the plot or appearance of certain characters (thus at least one reason we did not get Smaug). If this is it for LOTR, that is really a travesty. It pulled me out of my dark ages. No Gondor? Really? Imagine Star Wars without any manifestation of the Death Star or any Death Star scenes, and this is the equivalent of it.

Fun thread, I would say Mt. Doom if it included Sauron. If it's just a Frodo, Sam, and Gollum rehash, we might as well bring in the Rohan Battle Pack. I Vote for Mt. Doom with the assumption the big guy shows up.

I wonder how many people are going to buy this. Obviously, this is not targeted for children. With a licensed theme and 2500 parts, it could potentially go somewhere north of $175 or even $200 depending on what exactly is in there. You will have people who are fans of the Simpsons, but may not want to pay that much. Then again, you will have people who could care less about the Simpsons, but are eyeballing that house as something that would look nice in their modular town that takes up a whole room. I like the house well enough, but there are many more priorities for that kind of money (ie. MOCS, Hobbit/LOTR, modulars, Benny's Space Ship, etc.)

Thrain could yet appear in the last Hobbit wave. The movies seem to be alluding to his eventual appearance. The whole intro at Bree with Thorin believing that Thrain is somehow alive does not seem like a random scene to me. Maybe they will throw Gandalf in the Dol Guldur dungeon, and there will be Thrain. Just a guess...

Mt Doom would certainly have merit. Besides being an incredibly important location, you could have some play action sequences here. Collapsing pylons could certainly be made. Also, if you made the "lava" out of loose transparent red and orange pieces, you could submerge a character in it. Add a light brick beneath the lava to add to the effect. Perhaps you could make the whole lava floor be rotatable so that the lava would appear to have a current and be floating. Find a way to make the floor rise, and you could simulate an eruption. Sounds like some playability to me. If that is not enough to sell the set, have Frodo, Sam, Gollum, and SAURON as the characters, and it would probably fly off the shelves. Why Sauron? Because he forged the ring there. I have brought this up before, but will restate: there is no reason why you cannot have a set that depicts more than one moment in time. If there is to be another wave, I would think the most critical molds and prints needed would be the witch king's helmet, Gondor helmets, and a torso for Gondorians with the white tree on it, but different from how Aragorn appeared at the Black Gate. Other than those, you have just about everything else needed to recreate many scenes from the trilogy.

As of Sunday morning, mine is still in the "In Process" status and I ordered right when it became available. Is anyone else still waiting for their PR to be shipped?

See my post #118. Did you receive those as extra as well?

I also have had my order in "customer service" since Dec 31 11:00pm EST, and today it finally changed to "In process". A little bit more information on that: from another thread, apparently Lego checks large orders (volume and/or price) to try and weed out people involved in drop ship scams. In three large orders placed since October, they have all been in the penalty box known as "Customer Service" for a few days before shipping out. This is of course, using the standard shipping option. If you used express shipping, likely your order would have some sort of priority in the review line before it is actually picked and shipped. Thus, all of us who ordered the PR when it first became available should very soon be receiving notice that it shipped.

A very good and different way to do a review. It was entertaining. Hope to see some more from the vantage point of the minifigure. Sure look forward to seeing this soon!

I got mine while on a vacation in Colorado. There was enough money left over to buy it in the Denver store while passing through. It even made it up Pikes Peak in the rental car, although in the box and in the trunk. Anyway, in order to get it home on the airplane and avoid excess baggage charges, we broke down the box and put it folded into the suitcase. I then placed the 15+ bags, instructions, stickers, and my cameras into a carry on backpack. It all fit nicely. Airport security sure did look at that bag in the X-ray for the longest time trying to figure out what that was. Good times.

The PR became available last night in the US as it turned Jan 1 on the East Coast. The site was a little slow to order, but it worked fine. Today, I tried to go online to write down my pick-a-brick order that went along with it, but the S@H site is completely unavailable at the moment. Sure glad I did not wait until this morning.

szmmate, I would definitely recommend giving them a call, not only to verify that they are open, but also to see if they can hold one for you while you make your way to Vienna. I must admit, one thing even more exciting to me than building the PR soon would be the ability to get to Vienna within 3 hours! It is almost time, I noticed that the Police ATV is now in my shopping cart with a PAB order, and that is supposed to be the promo offer for January. Of course, I tried to place PR in the basket, but it is not quite there yet.

Very nice, and especially impressive that this is your first modular. I like how you did the lettering, and the balcony on top is great too.

If the line has ended, there are a couple of bright points: (1) More spending money this summer for vacation and MOCs (2) The Battle of Pellenor Fields will be easily won by the good guys. Surely, Legolas, Aragorn, Gimli, The King of the Dead, and Two Dead Soldiers will be able to overcome the two orcs and their catapult, because that is all that represents Gondor in Lego. When the second wave came out, I was puzzled and a little excited as well. It almost appeared like it was setting up for the third wave. No one in their right mind would have designed these sets if they were the ones meant to finish out the wave. Two of them were based on extended scenes which were not viewed by many. I find it hard to believe that the Mouth of Sauron would take precedence over the Witch King and that a pirate ship would be more important than Minas Tirith or Osgilliath. The Council of Elrond was the AFOL set, and Wizard Battle was the token affordable set with playability features. Orthanc was great to get, and I am glad we got at least that if this is the end. Hopefully, we will know soon whether this is really the end or not. As for the Cuusoo Minas Tirith, it certainly looks nice, far better than I could have designed. Surely, it is better than nothing. If it came with a Witch King and Gondor soldiers, that would really be great.

Built this set today. Thranduil is certainly the star of the set, although i like the other characters as well. This is certainly a good army builder for Mirkwood elves. The fort pieces are very useful with the nice color arches and supporting bricks. I also like the shields. Very nice review, it will probably convince some people to buy this.

That watergate design looks great! There is probably a way to install a lever and have a technic function make the gate open and shut. The first two movies seem to allude to a rescue by Galadriel at Dol Guldur. Elrond and Saruman would likely be present as well. Although Dol Guldur is now represented by two sets, perhaps there is one more to be made that involves this battle. Another big set featuring the ruins of Dol Guldur seems unlikely because it is covered well enough and most of the attention would go to BOFA and Smaug, especially the higher priced sets. Therefore, it is hard to imagine a large scale build featuring the White Council vs Sauron as much as I would like to see it. Perhaps a battle pack for the final Dol Guldur battle? So far the formula for a "battle pack" seems to be 6 minifigs for $30 with one figure being unique, a creature, and a build to go along with it. I would go as far to say that a Lorien elf set could surface if Galadriel leads the Lorien elves into battle. Perhaps you would have Galadriel, two Lorien elves, and three Gundabad orcs. Then, you would have maybe part of the fortress to connect to the rest of it. Who knows what the creature would be, maybe a warg or whatever the Lorien host typically rides.

If this becomes a set, that is probably the intent: nostalgia. Someone at Lego has to know this would be an AFOL magnet. For those of us who just cannot afford to buy that Galaxy Explorer we lost so long ago, this would help ease the pain. Note the LL929 labels. Galaxy Explorer was LL928. Perhaps a subtle hint that this is the successor.

I would definitely buy that spaceship,but would probably swap out the kitty with a plain brick--just not into that cutesy, wootsy stuff. The spaceship rates right up there with the Parisian Restaurant on the must buy list. If Lego does not make this, they are leaving a lot of money on the table.

My only hope with a special minifigure is that they do not make that the only opportunity to have that particular person. Bilbo and Elrond were fine, because they did come out in sets, although in different form. I would hate to see something like Galadriel, Sauron, etc. show up only as a part of a video game that some of us may not want.

This was a really good advent calendar. My older son did the Star Wars one while my younger son and I each had one of these. The variety of themes was really good. You had a police guy, a firefighter, robber, snowman, astronaut, race car driver, boy, and Santa. The Santa seems like a nice improvement over previous versions of him in the calendar. A lot of the builds were quite imaginative such as the train, grill, and the fireplace. The spares were also nice. There were a couple of weak days (yes day 9 bench, I am looking at you), but overall this will likely motivate us to purchase these again next year. I too will be keeping several of the builds intact. Fire Brigade gets the firefighter, the grill, and the dalmation. Grand Emporium could see the remote control toys. The Christmas tree and gifts will fit in nicely to the Pet Shop. The table setting might be added to Bag End to seat more dwarves. Of course, the minifigures will be incorporated into the town setting. Overall, a nice advent calendar, and our first year of doing this!

Gandalf Arrives had two strengths as a desirable set: First, it was inexpensive compared to the others. Second, when it first came out, it was the only way to get Gandalf and that version of Frodo.

A LOTR/Hobbit one would be great. Maybe next year could be the year to correspond with the last hobbit movie. Santa Gandalf? You read my mind! The minifig possibilities would be great. The big challenge would be what to include on the days that do not contain minifigs. Of course, you could have microbuild towers and locations, but what else would round it out?

It is a shame the PR cannot at least be preordered. That way, everyone who orders is guaranteed one in a timely fashion, and Lego gets some idea of what demand is going to be like for the set. I will be staying up for New Years Eve, but not necessarily for the purpose of seeing 2013 go to 2014.

I too seem to have some connections with the Nigerian Royal family. They even are not asking me for any fees to make the transfer. All they want is my bank account number so that I share in the wealth. Imagine how many MOCs could be made with that kind of money!