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.
There was definitely a scene in the trailer that looked like Bilbo unsheathing Sting in a (troll) cave for the first time. And it has also been confirmed that Thorin has a pre-Orcrist sword, so he'll obviously find Orcrist in the troll cave. Gandalf finding Glamdring, however, might be a different story. Maybe the introduction of three swords was overkill for Peter Jackson.
ReplyDeleteHello, first of all, I really like your blog. I've been reading it for a while now and I'm always glad to find some LOTR MOCs and other stuff. I also like your articles about the official line.
ReplyDeleteWhat bothers me a little is your CONSTANT blaming of Peter Jackson. You really never give him a break :)) I love the books and I also missed many things in the movie (Tom Bombadil for instance) but on the other hand, I really don't expect the movie to have same value as the book. It's a completely different medium. I guess that even the hardcore Tolkien lover would have problem to choose things to omit and things to make it into the movie. You just can't put all the deepness of the book into the movie that lasts 3 hours. So I guess, that Peter Jacksons deserves some respect. This is just my opinion.
For me the movie is great illustration of the book. I love to see all the battles come alive, all the characters... But for the nuances I'll always prefer the book.
Anyway, this is one thing that I see as a flaw on the blog that I otherwise love, so please don't take this as an offend. And I'm sorry for my english, not a native :))
Hey,
ReplyDeleteNo problem, I'm not at all offended. I do, really, understand the limitations inherent in taking a work like LotR and putting it on screen, and I almost always love the aesthetics of PJ's work (leaving aside my complaints in this post about Bofur). I do believe, though, that PJ messes up thematic elements. Okay, I have to pull out the DVDs soon and make a fuller post on this topic, and then you can be free to tear my points apart. I hope that this doesn't impede anyone's enjoyment of this blog.
Peter Jackson nails the essence of the books and that is pretty much all you can ask for. That is: the story, the main themes, the visual style and atmosphere are all spot on. I find that a huge achievement.
ReplyDeleteSure, some minor themes are not executed perfectly, neglected or omitted. But you have to cut out stuff somewhere and I think he does it right most of the time.
Of course one can discuss about this, and everyone can mourn for their own favourite moments/themes that didn't make it to the screen. But please stop bashing PJ *all the time* and blaming him for *everything*. It really, really brings down your blog (which is otherwise excellent).