Hey,
I think these sets look pretty good, and am also curious as to what they suggest about the movie. I do agree that i'd rather have more elf-hair than hoods, but dark green is never something to sniff at.
Back when the Lake-town Chase set was revealed at ComicCon, a LEGO rep went on MTV (odd venue) to promote the set (
video here), and she said a couple of interesting things. The MTV guy asked if they were making a dragon, and she smiled and said "We'll just have to find out." Then the MTV guy asked how many new Hobbit playsets were going to be created, and she said "we have about, very estimate, um, five." And then she said there "may be more" and she'd have to check with the master builder. I don't know who the rep is and how close she was to the set design and selection process. It may be that she had seen either preliminary designs that have been scrapped, or that she saw sets from future waves at various stages of the design process. Since there have been a few leaks regarding these three sets, plus the official announcement of Lake-town Chase, and now these more solid releases (and given what Elderon said above, I think these are well out of the leak category), but no sign of additional sets, I think this is it for the moment.
Regardless of when it comes, though, we do need a set with Smaug, Bilbo, and a big pile of chrome gold.
Bruce
