LotR Sets

[maniac29]

There is no "current fantasy line".

I believe "Castle" is the theme being referred to, and it is still on board for 2010. No, there are no "new" sets in the Castle theme for January 2010, but it is slated to carry through until it is phased out and replaced by another kingdom of sets. Actual mileage may vary and objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

Haven't you heard of the new Kingdoms theme.

[Bluesecrets]

Haven't you heard of the new Kingdoms theme.

Havent' you heard the policy of no leaks at CC?

[wobnam]

Haven't you heard of the new Kingdoms theme.

What does that have to do with "developing their current fantasy line"?

[maniac29]

Haven't you heard of the new Kingdoms theme.

Havent' you heard the policy of no leaks at CC?

Sorry.

[Bruce N H]

Well, LEGO stated previously that they would not do a LotR license as it would be too dark and adult. Presumably the Hobbit could go through as more geared to a younger audience, but I don't see any indication that they would go for the license. We've previously discussed that hint of a possible video game, but it seems pretty equivocal. If you dig back and find the original source, they mention Travelers Tales working on some LEGO games, and then in another paragraph say that Travelers Tales was proposing a Hobbit game. But they never say that it would be a LEGO Hobbit game, and TT makes lots of other non-LEGO games.

As with others, I would not be happy with a LEGO Tolkien license, for reasons I've put out in multiple previous threads on this question.

Bruce

[ottoatm]

There is no "current fantasy line".

This was hardly the point of my post.

The main points are back in the original post - in terms of alternatives to LoTR, whether it is the Crowns/Trolls or something completely new, I'm happy with the way things are going, and I think there all all kinds of ideas they can come up with that they haven't released yet~

[wobnam]

Hard to answer this without saying too much about the new line, but LotR would bring us a lot of pieces and designs we won't get otherwise, at least not in the next few years.

I don't see why we can't have both.

[rogue27]

They just produced tons of Skeletons, Wizards, Dwarves, Orcs, and Trolls. We've gotten everything we need (except arguably elves) to produce any fantasy setting we want. I'd hate to pay extra so they can write "Lord of the Rings" on the box.

[wobnam]

I'm pretty sure you don't have to buy them if you don't want to.

[rogue27]

I'm pretty sure you don't have to buy them if you don't want to.

You miss my point. We just had three years of sets that were "Lord of the Rings" in everything but name. Your wish has been answered. There is nothing to see here.

[Blue Moon Knight]

You miss my point. We just had three years of sets that were "Lord of the Rings" in everything but name. Your wish has been answered. There is nothing to see here.

Except there weren't any skellies raised from the dead by an evil Necromancer in LotR, or a troll king. Trolls were hardly mentioned in said book. And we didn't get hobbits and cool swords in the current line.
I don't recall jesters either. Personally, I haven't gotten my wish.


With a smiley for good measure.
-BMK

[nanuck95]

Except there weren't any skellies raised from the dead by an evil Necromancer in LotR, or a troll king. Trolls were hardly mentioned in said book. And we didn't get hobbits and cool swords in the current line.
I don't recall jesters either. Personally, I haven't gotten my wish.

I understand where you are coming from, I get the impression you are looking for sets that are geared very specifically towards LotR, but I think the point that rogue27 and others have made is we got plenty of stuff to be able to make your own LotR characters plus a lot of extra stuff. Did we get hobbits? No, but we got plenty of figures where you can make your own hobbits with the short legs or use brick built legs like others have made. Did we get the dagger Sting? No, but we have seen plenty of great weapons, including the chrome swords for the knights, the skeleton and troll swords, plus the knives in the MMV. Did we get Gimli the dwarf or Saruman? No, but we got plenty of other dwarves and wizard capes, hats, and accessories to be able to make all that stuff on our own. In addition to that, we DID get tons of great stuff like skeletons, giant trolls, troll kings, jesters, queens, etc that mostly covers LotR and opens the door to lots of other uses.

I understand some people want the official stuff so they can say "this is the official Aragorn minifigure" or whatever. There is nothing wrong with that and I'm kind of guessing that's the category you fall in to. One of the reasons I love collecting Star Wars sets is because I like having the "official" X-Wing set with Luke Skywalker as much as I like creating my own. If there were LotR sets, I would probably purchase them as well for the same reason. But in the meantime, I think I am pretty content with what we have and I'd rather keep churning out new castle stuff than jump into another licensed theme that will be a repeat a lot of the same things we just got.

Anyway, that's my $0.02 for what it's worth.

[Lamanda2]

"Except there weren't any skellies raised from the dead by an evil Necromancer in LotR, or a troll king. Trolls were hardly mentioned in said book. And we didn't get hobbits and cool swords in the current line. I don't recall jesters either. Personally, I haven't gotten my wish."

Well, of course Lego didn't include hobbits, Etc. in the 'Castle' line, for obvious reasons. But we did get many fantasy elements, of which you can use to create your own Lord of the Rings from Lego. I mean, why ask for official Hobbits when we can already create them? What with Lego realeasing Dwarves, and there being short legs (in two colors) available from the online PaB for just $0.17 ea. you could create as many as you wish, really.

Customizers such as BrickForge also do a great job filling the gap by providing exceptional items like cool swords, perfect for your unofficial Hobbits. Sure it isn't completely 'purist' and all, but my point is that you -can- make them with what is available now. That is the point of LEGO afterall, right?; using your imagination to build something with what rescources you have at hand.

This is an interesting topic, surprisingly.
EDIT: Nanuck totally beat me to the punch ^
~Amanda

[Bruce N H]

Hey,

On the suggestion that we don't have to buy a licensed theme, while of course that is true, I do think there are a couple of negative consequences, even if we didn't purchase it.

1. LEGO would probably not release two parallel themes - a normal Castle line and a LotR line at the same time. During the height of the SW theme, someone (Brad? Jake?) explicitly said that they would not release a major in-house Space line to compete with themselves, and perhaps this was part of a contractural obligation with LucasArts (the LoM sets were in there at one point, but never really pursued). Also, look at the Harry Potter line. That was at its strongest in 2001-2004. And then look at what Castle line was out in that time - nothing (here I'm talking about sets that would be on the shelves of Target or Toys R Us that kids' parents would buy, not the great Legends and MOC sets available through S@H that were released in those years). The HP Prisoner of Azkaban sets came out in spring-summer 2004 to coincide with the summer 2004 release of the movie, and KKII sets didn't come out until early fall 2004. Yes, there was some overlap, as LEGO did some more HP sets, but they'd really run the line down by that time (only four sets for the fourth movie, just the one big set for the fifth, and of course nothing for the sixth, leaving aside rumors of a few upcoming sets (perhaps rereleases)). The take home is - LotR license would mean no internal Castle line, at least until the license started tailing off.
I don't think Prince of Persia will have this effect, btw, as that is a different enough line as to not directly clash with Castle (though, of course, highly anticipated by us).

2. My major problem, though, is that licensed themes kill off creativity. Once there is an 'official' version of something, people (and here I'm talking about the effect on kids mostly) turn off their imaginations. Of course, the last ship may have sailed on this one, as the movies have fixed images in people's heads. I can't tell you the number of "Legolas is supposed to have long hair" comments I've gotten on my LotR MOCs. And it's not like people cite me some passage from the text (I'm certainly aware that I made choices that don't exactly fit all of the descriptions in Tolkien), nor are the comments couched in terms like "That's not how I imagined it". Rather, the comments are locked in to "That's not how Orlando Bloom looks in Peter Jackson's version of Tolkien's work." Of course all of us AFOLs don't have to be tied to an official version of things from the LEGO designers - there are still tons of great SW MOCs out there, for instance. And even the great SW MOCers out there often don't have the creativity that S. Fujita was forced into in his great interpretation of the Original Trilogy built long before the LEGO license. And kids are much less likely to come up with something original on their own. Instead we'll get a kid's version based on a LEGO designer's implementation of Peter Jackson's interpretation of Tolkien's vision.

Okay, rant is over now.

Bruce

[wobnam]

You miss my point. We just had three years of sets that were "Lord of the Rings" in everything but name. Your wish has been answered. There is nothing to see here.

If you think a LotR line wouldn't produce a huge number of useful new parts for us Castle builders, I guess we'll just have to disagree on that one. I want LotR for the parts. I have no interest in building LotR sets or mocs.

This is my point: LotR filling one of the license spots will benefit Castle builders a lot more than most of the other possible licenses I can think of. (Unless, of course, as Bruce points out, it means no original castle line... but) If we can have original castle + LotR, I'd rather have that than original castle + Batman or SpongeBob or whatever. It might even force the original castle to take a different approach, like a more civilian or historical direction to avoid competing with LotR.