Delta 38

Ooh, the Roman is nice. Too bad I've resolved not to buy any Collectible Minifigures until I can afford to get the full lineup of every series in one go...

...Er... If it's a UCS set, wouldn't the emphasis be on the actual model? Most of the UCS Star Wars sets don't have minifigures, and the few that do might have one or two uncommon minifigs and a few others... but that's it. And even then, if there are minifigs they're usually there for a purpose. The Super Star Destroyer (10221) has Vader, an Imperial Officer and some Bounty Hunters to recreate the meeting scene. There's a specific place in the model for displaying them. If Orthanc's interior would be minimal at best, why would they include so many figures? Again, the emphasis is on the model rather than the scene, and there'd be nowhere for the figures to go. My realistic guess is that we'll have three: Saruman, Grima Wormtongue and an Uruk-hai. The Uruk-hai is probably a rarer variant like a Berserker, but could also be replaced by Gandalf (either White or Grey). Treebeard would almost certainly be in his own set if he were released (i.e. Fangorn Forest) and you'd still get the required characters for the scene (Treebeard, Merry, Pippin and possibly another Ent). Actually, now that I think about it, it makes sense why Orthanc is a UCS set instead of being in "normal" scale, as I had initially hoped. You can't really put any play functions in it, and if you don't like Orthanc for what it is, it's not going to appeal anyway. Edit: So I just realised that perhaps Orthanc is a different case, since the ships of Star Wars don't really cater for both sides. You can't buy a UCS AT-ST and expect to get a ton of Ewoks and Rebels with it. Okay, that's valid, but there are still hardly any minifigs anyway. Obi-Wan's Starfighter (10215) probably has room for a minifig, but there isn't one included. Same with the B-Wing (10227). Even the upcoming X-Wing (10240) doesn't have a pilot despite the inclusion of R2-D2, who's really only there because he needs to be as part of the ship.

I don't think the Geonosian head needs to be redone if it's released in an Attack of the Clones set. Poggle the Lesser resembles the Clone Wars version more than the AotC one to me, and the one we have now is already pretty accurate. Plus I'm guessing the Geonosian was thrown into the Advent Calendar to accompany that Geonosis set (the droid from the set is also there) so I think the current one is fine. Wouldn't the new moulds be a selling point though? I don't know how much it costs to produce them and a Petranaki Arena set would be the only time they'll be used at all, but I imagine it'd be popular if it's what people want and has a good model to go along with it.

Hmm. Looks interesting, I guess. The other two sets are smaller than expected, but then again most of the new lineup is. I think I can kind of see why nobody was really able to specify anything apart from "vehicles" and "a pod"...

To be fair, there's not much you can actually do with that scene aside from some extra bits here and there. Though I would have liked more things in the set, it wouldn't have worked as an enclosed model without being huge. That scene takes place at Balin's tomb chamber, which just happens to be a large empty rectangular room that's pretty plain as it is. Adding some walls wouldn't make it any more interesting to the target audience. I think it's an admirable attempt, even though some more walls may have helped. An enclosed version would probably end up being downscaled and looking something like the Rancor Pit.

Oh, interesting! I didn't know about either of these. Nice to know. On another topic, the Jek-14 Starfighter set is based off The Yoda Chronicles, right? The brief research I did into this says that The Yoda Chronicles isn't canon, which means that set is completely made-up. Canonical or not, the set seems nice enough, but I do find it slightly odd that they're effectively releasing a series tie-in as part of a licensed theme's wave. The minifigs look like custom ones, too.

Ooh. The LAAT/i looks very solid and while it still seems perhaps a bit too long, it's quite nice. The AT-TE seems a little more compact now, though it's probably just me. I also like how the Homing Spider Droid uses those quarter-dome pieces. The rest is all fairly interesting though Maul looks horrible. The new Count Dooku figure is great, but why is his lightsabre chromed? I never really understood why that piece is always chromed when other lightsabre hilts had made the switch to metallic ages ago. Edit: Also, I just noticed that the coloured Clones (Sergeant, Captain, Commander) all have metallic-looking visor printing while normal Clones have plain black. Interesting.

Oh I see, my mistake. It seems the cape makes the torso appear to be a lighter colour, so that's what confused me. (Arghhh, wrong again! *Hits head repeatedly*)

Yeah, the print seems the same though the colour's different, which is what I was referring to (compare it to the other shades of brown in the image, it seems to be the lightest). It's closer to his robe's actual colour (see here) than the dark red colour in the game.

I think I know what you're talking about. I agree that we'd probably be more likely to see Galadriel from The Hobbit, though a minor complaint, her costume is plainer than the one she wears in the Trilogy (that one has flowery patterns while The Hobbit just has a few sequins, from what I can see). Back on topic... Elrond and Arwen look nice. I hope they're sticking with that colour on Elrond because it's more accurate than the game's version (which is more of a reddish-brown, like the Uruk-hai). And my mistake on the legs, the new image proves that it's just a trick of the lighting. Oh well, I thought having unique hips was extremely unlikely anyway.

Ah right, though I was referring to the last bit (Thror probably wouldn't work or at least wouldn't be very interesting). I think the problem with Galadriel isn't about her appearance (Mouth of Sauron etc. etc.), but rather, she doesn't appear in any scenes with much action. There have been a few "peaceful" sets so far, but even those have some element of adventure to them. The Gandalf Arrives set is one of the first scenes of the films and it's kind of exciting, because there's Gandalf, he's coming to the Shire for some reason, and we know Frodo's one of the heroes of the story so something important's about to happen. Same thing with Bag End, four Dwarves and Gandalf have to signify something. The Council of Elrond set takes place where the Fellowship is formed and the quest officially begins. The most "action" that can happen with Galadriel as far as I can think of is the Mirror scene, and it isn't really anything new. We get a glimpse of the Eye of Sauron, but we've seen him before, and the scene basically just reinforces stuff we already know rather than setting up a new part of the story (the Ring is evil, it can corrupt people, Sauron wants it, etc.). We'd probably only see Galadriel if they think she's necessary, and I'm hoping they do. With the first wave of The Lord of the Rings, weren't the members of the Fellowship intentionally spaced-out so people would have to buy most of the sets in order to complete them? As for Bilbo, we've seen him a few times so if they included him the complaints of "too many Bilbos!" would quickly appear. (Also, Merry was in Weathertop. It was Sam who was missing.)

If you look at the waist/hip the printing on the soldiers are different. The one on the left has that robe thing printed on part of it. I can't tell whether the King's legs are identical (they look like it to me), but the hips on all of them are definitely different. It'd kind of be weird to get an old Bilbo with a Hobbit game since most of the story revolves around Bilbo earlier in life. However, he's not in the Council of Elrond so we might not see him anywhere else. That said, I'd really like to get the ship seen at the Grey Havens which the ringbearers, Celeborn and Bilbo go on. But that would certainly be too obscure and unimpressive to be made into a set.

Hmm, interesting. While I personally would have liked a ridiculous neon green colour like in the video game for the dead soldiers, this dull/pale/sand/whatever it is green works too. Neon green would probably be too bright for the theme. It's unfortunate that we don't see that Orc Commander guy who has the small skull on his head in the set, though. I don't mind that we're getting more reused Mordor Orcs, but it's a real lost opportunity there. I can't help but think that if there were more sets in which to get the main characters in, they could possibly exclude Legolas and Gimli and throw in another Orc or Corsair. Gimli already appears in the Council of Elrond, so if Legolas had his own set somewhere they might have been able to do that. Depending on how long Lord of the Rings runs for, we're probably going to see those three over and over, so the least they could do is give them new capes or something, too.

Oh wow! So Jango Fett is confirmed, and Santa Jango Fett sounds pretty cool. Some modification and maybe he could be a red Mandalorian. Speaking of which, I wonder what the Supercommandos are? I only know the old-fashioned type with the bulky armour. The rest sounds interesting. I particularly want to see what the Duel on Geonosis set looks like.

Hmm, interesting. The earlier information indicates the Palantír was a minifigure head, but the post on FBTB says it appears to be "a special minifig head" and mentions it as not actually being present. While getting it as a head piece would be fun for making random minifigs with, I'm hoping that's just preliminary and that it'll be replaced with a round piece. Then again, I guess it's harder to print on a round piece... I'm surprised that nobody else to my knowledge has mentioned it, but I really hope we get two Palantíri, one with the Eye of Sauron and one "normal" one (just blue with some swirls).

Hmm... Games Workshop produces a number of Lord of the Rings figures for collectors or people who play the associated game. I think they're still being made, or at least being sold, and that's despite The Lord of the Rings having cooled down over recent years. While Lego sets are primarily aimed at kids, I think there's a bit of a focus on the collectors too, particularly with minifigures (like how you needed to buy most of the sets to get the full Fellowship lineup in the first wave). You could also look at the UCS Orthanc as evidence for this. While it might be a nice model, I don't know how many kids would want what appears to be a boring black tower when there are plenty of smaller, more colourful sets from other themes. So clearly they're targeting people who have been longer fans of the franchise. I think Lego is one of the few things that can survive releasing and rereleasing products based on something that might not be as popular or recent any more because there's still some market for it, however large. I'm also thinking of the current Superheroes line. Sure, there are movies which some sets are built around (The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, Iron Man 3 etc.), but after those releases pretty much anything can happen. My guess would be that The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit would have perhaps a maximum of three more years to live if we're basing it on how popular the franchise by itself is, though in terms of possible content it could go on for much longer than that. Still, it's ultimately about what people will buy. Realistically there seem to be two reasons why the line will continue longer than that: if the sets are very popular and are selling well, or if they feel it necessary to release more iconic scenes before the license runs out. Those seem to already be happening (while releasing obscure characters or sets might not translate into more longevity of the line, it does mean that they're deliberately pushing back some of the major sets), but again, without the continued popularity of the original source material it might be stopped, even if it is doing extremely well.

Ha, that makes the set pale in comparison. While we might not need the two large towers at the front, I would've liked the wall sections on either side (the two sharp bits jutting out of the rock that are higher than the small towers). Actually, that explains why it looks strange to me. Without those, it loses the whole shape. As I thought, the Eagle is rather small despite how big they're supposed to be. Seeing as the feet are the same area as a 2x2 plate, which is 1.5 cm, I'm estimating the Eagle to be 11 cm. Compare that to the current horse mould, which is about 7 cm from tail to head. It's sad that it doesn't have claws to pick up minifigures with, but oh well, that's what Blu-Tack is for.

The game version is clearly much smaller than it should be. The Witch-king's Fell Beast bites Théoden's horse in the film, I think, whereas the moulded version in the game looks like it could barely swallow a minifigure's head. I'm imagining that if the Lord of the Rings line continues for some more years we'd see at least two Fell Beasts, one for the Witch-king and one generic Nazgûl (or unhelmeted Witch-king, like at Osgiliath). If that's the case, I don't see a brick-built Fell Beast being too likely, especially if there's an incentive to collect them. Lego models typically downscale things. Helm's Deep or Weathertop weren't even close to being minifigure-scale, and it's probably unrealistic that a brick-built Fell Beast would be made simply for more accuracy. The Oliphaunts in the game (also moulded) are downscaled like the Fell Beasts are, and if we ever see one of those, it's certain they will be smaller than they should be (horses were being stomped on at Pelennor Fields). Again, the moulded Great Eagle we're getting in the Black Gate is probably a good indicator of how big a Fell Beast would be, though by any definition the Eagles appear to be tiny. And yeah, I see your point about a moulded Fell beast looking cartoonish, but I think that applies to any moulded creature really. The Cave Troll and Goblin King we've gotten so far are both moulded and don't look as imposing as their film counterparts, but that hasn't really detracted from them as figures by themselves.

A bit late on this, but regarding the Fell Beast, I don't think it's large enough to be accurately portrayed as a brick-built creature. If we're getting a moulded Eagle in the Black Gate then any Fell Beast we get can't be too much larger than that. Smaug MOCs can't really be compared to Fell Beasts because Smaug is bigger and can be rendered in a less-blocky form. Though I prefer moulded Fell Beasts, it's unfortunate that we lose poseability, particularly in the wings. Part of the reason why they're so intimidating in the films are those huge swooping movements it makes.

Ah, good. I'm still sane. The music of The Lord of the Rings was great because it had instantly-recognisable themes and motifs, usually used for specific areas or groups of people. So bringing back those themes where they're most prominent in makes sense for familiarity. Same with the characters, too. But that particular use was weird, especially considering how it's pretty much the sole theme of the Ringwraiths (and I think Sauron, in the prologue). On a similar topic, there seems to be a general complaint that there weren't any major themes in the film apart from the main theme, though I think that's just because there are few major characters introduced that can have a theme. I remember distinctly that there was a theme that played whenever Wargs appeared, for example.

Oops, I'm a bit late here. I saw The Hobbit Boxing Day last year (when it came out in Australia), and I thought it was quite good. I didn't really notice any difference with the 48 FPS. As with The Lord of the Rings, I thought the changes (primarily the inclusion of Galadriel, the introduction with Frodo and Bilbo writing in his book) worked well. Am I crazy, or did they use the Nazgûl theme... I wanted to compare themes from the original Trilogy to reprised music in The Hobbit, but I can't seem to find this one anywhere. I'm almost certain that was in the film.

The problem with this is regardless of how thick the armour is, Orcs have jagged, multi-layered chestplates that might not translate well into one single piece. Gondorian armour is more conventional as the chestplate is already one piece. To be fair, Uruk-hai armour is also made of multiple smaller plates, though they're meant to look kind of bulky anyway.

Oh no, oh no! So much for my pessimism. I hope we'll still see Orthanc in smaller scale in the future or I'll have to miss out on it entirely. Yeah, that's what I meant. It seems female Elves (or at least Arwen and Galadriel) have slightly wavy hair, so that could be possible for non-specific characters. I can't really see Elrond's hair being used elsewhere though.