Sneaking on the internet Monday night is a new look at the “LEGO Lord of the Rings” game in the form of a trailer. Focusing on the peril of the One Ring and introducing “The Fellowship” it doesn’t give a clue about gameplay but it has been certified adorable by a committee of astrophysicists and board certified physicians or plumbers or something. Using dialog from the films, it throws in a few sight gags and a great big — well see for yourself below. We will post a better version when one becomes available. The release date says “2012” on the trailer but October 1 has been confirmed.
Category: Collectibles
At the end of the second week in September a cart came in through Bywater from the direction of Brandywine Bridge in broad daylight. An old man was driving it all alone. He wore a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, and a silver scarf. He had a long white beard and bushy eyebrows that stuck out beyond the brim of his hat. Small hobbit-children ran after the cart all through Hobbiton and right up the hill. It had a cargo of fireworks, as they rightly guessed. — From A Long-Expected Party, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
In Peter Jackson’s LOTR film, the first moment of Gandalf arriving in Hobbiton and finding Frodo waiting on the trail were critical because it established two essential characters and the setting of Hobbiton. It also introduced audiences to the scale of Hobbits with human-sized characters including forced perspective of Frodo riding in Gandalf’s cart.
The meeting serves as the entry point for Lord of the Rings LEGO as well with set 9469 introducing important characters in an easy-to-build kit that is also easy to afford at $12.99 retail in the U.S. It will likely find itself as birthday present to and from friends many times over. Because it is recommended for ages eight to 14, I enlisted Logan (8) and Dresden (10), to assist with the build of the kit. Continue reading “Product review: LOTR LEGO ‘Gandalf Arrives’ set”
Ringer Combee alerts us that it appears that the pre-order bonus for the Lego Lord of the Rings game is an Elrond mini-figure from the battle of Dagorlad. French site Lord of The Brick has more details.
Update: We also now have this translation courtesy of Ringer Elpidha.
And it is Amazon.de that releases information about the Special Edition version of the videogame LEGO Lord of the Rings now in preorder (release date: October 2012). We discover that the minifig of Elrond will be included as a bonus with the collector’s edition of the game, and it is indeed the same minifig that was seen in the minigame available on the line’s official site (see that article).
The minifig is a success, no doubt about it. It remains to be seen if it will also be available in a future set or if it will be necessary to go to Bricklink or eBay to buy it separately.
Spies tell us that eyewear manufacturer Oakley is creating a special, limited edition run of 3D glasses for The Hobbit. The branded, high-quality 3D glasses will retail for $150.
Our spy, Ringer Irish Man, tells us they will come in a sleek, wraparound style, like they’d belong on the beach, very unlike the Dwarf-inspired shape we’ve seen from mass-release Hobbit 3D glasses we reported last week.
Only 4,000 pairs will be made, and each will come with a gold/silver metal lapel pin of Bilbo’s elvish sword Sting.
Ringer Quackingtroll alerts us to a Lego Lord of the Rings playable online flash-based game over on the Lego LoTR website.
It’s called The Siege of Helm’s Deep. Personally, I found it a bit confusing, but go try your hand!
If nothing else, the lead-up cut-scenes look really, really cool.
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Today, Weta Workshop put up their most detailed environment yet. The Barad-Dur: Fortress of Sauron has gone up for order and after seeing this at Comic-Con just last month this is something fans will want to make sure to figure out how to get into their collection. Barad-Dur took the team at Weta over 1,500 hours to complete and when you get a chance to see this you will be able to see why.
This environment is a perfect rendering of what was on screen and will take you right to the moment we first saw Barad-Dur on screen. Barad-Dur comes in with a price tag of $699.99 and an edition size of only 1,000 pieces world wide which are sure to sell quickly.
You do have time to save though as this environment will not be shipping until December this year or next January.