Comic-Con and other official news wrap-up

Okay, a ton of various official news. First, let's start out with the biggest item. Yesterday at the San Diego Comic-Con LEGO announced the upcoming Bag End set (follow the link for a hi-res picture):



As you can see, this set will include the six figures revealed previously. BTW, someone put together this picture, which shows these figs to be quite movie-accurate. So any accusations of silliness (particularly with regard to Bofur) can be squarely laid at Peter Jackson's doorstep.



Ace from FBTB has lot of and an article. He reports this will be available December 1 and will cost US$60. I've seen this called 'An Unexpected Gathering' at multiple places online, so I assume that is the official name. Why not 'An Unexpected Party'? I have no clue, but again I'll just blame Peter Jackson. Anyway, on to the set itself. I'm pretty happy with this overall - as many have said it looks more like a MOC than a set, which is always a complement. Fully furnished interior is accessible from the back. I see some cool elements like a new pretzel and what I think is a new round plate with hole used for the windows. Also awesome new maps (of Mirkwood, the Lonely Mountain, and the Shire), Bilbo's diary and board elements, but sadly those are stickered. It may be that this is a demo and the ultimate set will have printed pieces, but given the Moria stickers I'm not going to hold my breath. Oh, I see Sting there, which is kind of odd since this is supposed to be set before Bilbo gets it,* but good for the fact that you can also use this set for the start and end of the Lord of the Rings scenes.




In other set news, Will from Lord of the Brick reports that the list of Hobbit sets has shown up on a German toy site. The list they give is:
Mystery of the Ring 12.99 €
Fleeing from the Mirkwood Spiders 29.99 €
Attack of the Wargs 59.99 €
Bag End 79.99 €
Cave of the Orc King 99.99 €
There is no confirmation on this, but it seems pretty reasonable. I'd like to point out that this is extremely close to my predictions. My speculation had combined their 'Cave of the Orc King' and 'Attack of the Wargs' into one set and I'd also suggested two other sets for the encounter with the trolls and a long shot set of Gandalf at Dol Guldur. I'm assuming here that 'Mystery of the Ring' will essentially be a small set for the Riddles in the Dark chapter. Given the report from Comic-Con that the Bag End set will be US$60, you can make estimations of what these may cost in the US.

Okay, back to San Diego. Yesterday at Comic-Con you could pick up a map of 'ComicCondor' and pouch at the LEGO booth.



If you traveled around to the Weta, Mondo and Warner Brothers booths you could get the elements to build a Bilbo. Note that the head is reversible. This is the same fig that will be in the official sets, so I don't know why this is called an 'exclusive' (unlike the Super Hero figs, which reportedly (sadly) will not appear in sets), except, I suppose, that Comic-Con attendees get this five months early.




In other news from Comic-Con LEGO had two great Hobbit-themed displays. As part of the LEGO booth they have huge sculptures of Gandalf and Bilbo. Also, throughout the day, attendees could help assemble a mosaic that turned out to be a LEGO-ized version of the Hobbit movie poster.





LEGO had announced that they would also preview some Lord of the Rings videos that will air on the Cartoon Network. I don't know if these are the ones that you can see on the official site or not. Be sure to go watch those, if only to see what the Nazgul look like when Frodo puts on the Ring. If the videos turn out to be something else, I'll be sure to note that here (or if they go up on YouTube I'll embed them here). We were also supposed to hear about a contest to build any scene from the Lord of the Rings to win a trip to Legoland and Warner Brothers Studios, but I haven't yet seen anything from San Diego or on the official site. Also, no images of the Bilbo model that was supposed to be raffled off yesterday.



One last bit of official news. Over on the official site they've posted a Helm's Deep game (warning - performance seems to be a little browser-dependent). You control Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli to repel the hoards of Uruk-Hai.



*I just had a horrible thought - maybe in the movie Bilbo will already have Sting before the adventure begins. That would allow Peter Jackson to avoid the admittedly problematic questions of why some random trolls have a cave full of treasure from Gondolin, and also why Gandalf and Thorin seem to have no swords of their own before beginning the journey. But on the other hand, why would a respectable Baggins have something like a sword on display, and where would he get an elf sword in the first place? That would go very much against the character development of Bilbo as he gains and later names his sword. Not to mention the fact that he runs out from Bag End with not so much as a pocket handkerchief. I'm concerned that Peter Jackson will screw up the whole conflict between Bilbo's Baggins and Tookish sides. I promise, sometime soon I'll pull out the DVDs and rewatch the whole trilogy and then go off on a whole Peter Jackson rant on this blog. Short thumbnail: in every place PJ gets the 'look' just about perfect, but he constantly belies a complete befuddlement over anything deeper than the basic aesthetics of Tolkien's work.

Shelob

YU built this great (and terrifying) Shelob. BTW, the solution for the Ring is great.

Hobbit figs

As part of the promotions surrounding next week's San Diego Comic-Con, LEGO released the first images of figs from the upcoming Hobbit series. These represent, left to right, Gandalf, Dwalin, Bombur, Bofur, Bilbo and Balin. I'm not a huge fan of the Bombur, Bofur and Balin figs (at least the headwear - the heads and torsos seem fine), but I'll assume those are pretty movie-accurate. Also, I guess all hobbits go to the same hair stylist.

Helm's Deep

Masasdl made this Helm's Deep.

Argonath

I love Lord of the Lego Stud's Great River.

Rivendell

Lord of the Lego Stud built this massive Rivendell.

Caras Galadhon

Elander, who was featured a couple of days ago, has other great Tolkien MOCs, like this Caras Galadhon.

Riddles in the dark

Jacob Nion shares this riddles in the dark scene.

Moria

Elander made this great West Gate of Moria. Note the use of the pieces from the Moria set. Via Lord of the Brick.

Barrels out of Bond

Ian Spacek built this Barrels out of Bond vig.

Oliphant

I don't think I ever featured this great oliphant that Legohaulic built for MOCathalon a couple of months ago.

Unexpected Journey

Bricko made this version of the Hobbit movie poster.

Isengard

YU presents Isengard, both in happier times and after Saruman was twisted by his own pride.

What might have been - the MOCs (Two Towers version)

I previously blogged Nuju Metru's (aka John Lennon's) series of Fellowship of the Rings sets. Now he's completed his series of Two Towers sets (these can be seen on Flickr and Brickshelf). BTW, he notes that he started this project back before LEGO even announced the license.

First up we see the Dead Marshes. With Frodo, Sam, Gollum, the Ring and some modular marsh bits, he imagines this at a $12 price point.

A cute feature of this set is the pop-up corpse from the Last Alliance.


Next up is Treebeard Encounter with Merry, Pippin and a brick-built Ent, all for $20. I have to agree that this is the huge missed opportunity in the actual sets that have been released so far. I still hope that we'll see a Treebeard in a future wave of sets, but it may be that they're done with sets from the Two Towers.

Note that hinges and ball joints give Treebeard great poseability.


Edoras as the 'big' set at $70. This includes the still-missing figs of Eowyn, Wormtounge and Gandalf the White.

With removable roof and modular construction, this Meduseld has great playability.


Warg Skirmish at $12. While I'm unhappy with Peter Jackson for creating this scene, Nuju Metru's LEGO rendition is superb. The Wargs are at a good scale and seem like something that could really appear in a set. Perhaps Legolas should be in this set, since he is nowhere else in this wave of sets from Nuju Metru.


Ruin of Osgiliath at $50. Another great rendition of a Peter Jackson fabrication. I really like the version of Faramir here, and that fell beast is amazing.

I assume there will be a fell beast in the Return of the King wave - surely in a set with Eowyn confronting the Witch King. I hope LEGO's version is brick-built (rather than being a single-use mold) and is as cool as this one.


Looking at this series as a whole, I do think there are a couple of obvious holes here if this were to be the actual run of Two Towers sets, in that Nuju Metru does not include either Helm's Deep, which was the focus of the official line, or Shelob (though a quick double check on Wikipedia reminds me that the movie version actually ended just before Shelob, which makes this version true to the movies). On the other hand, Nuju Metru includes Treebeard and Edoras, which don't seem to be part of LEGO's plans (again, I'm assuming that a fell beast will be in an upcoming wave of sets). I think a combination of Nuju Metru's sets and the official sets would be the ideal release. Again, LEGO, hire this guy as a set designer.

Here's looking forward to a Return of the King series from Nuju Metru!

Into the abyss

HighonBricks has Frodo and Sam going to Mordor.

Forth the three hunters!

Bricko presents Forth the three hunters!.

Rivendell

Gabe Umland presents this scene from Rivendell. It think this is the first MOC I've featured that includes the 'official' figs.

But no living man am I!

Pate Possu presents Eowyn and the Witch King.

Treebeard

Pate-possu made this version of Treebeard.

Battle in the Gap of Rohan

TMM illustrates a scene that takes place 'off-screen' in the book, the battle in the Gap of Rohan. Theoden's son Theodred was killed in combat at the Fords of Isen.