Best of BrickNerd: Weekend Highlight — Article originally published December 16, 2021.

Exactly 10 years ago today, LEGO announced that it would be releasing official Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit sets. The subsequent waves of sets from Middle Earth inspired thousands of MOCs and a building spree like none other over the last decade. But hearing the news of the anniversary made me recall all the amazing things these movies, books and LEGO sets have inspired me and many other people to create.

It Began with the Forging of the Great Rings

Cover for the FEllowship of the Ring, the first movie and my first venture into High fantasy.

I remember vividly how my dad took my sister and me to see The Fellowship of the Ring. I had no idea what to expect from the movie as I had not read the books or seen anything about it. I was only eleven years old at the time and I was much more of a Harry Potter fan, so I thought Gandalf and Frodo were just copies of Dumbledore and Harry respectively. But that feeling soon vanished when the opening showed the War of the Last Alliance.

I was instantly sucked into the world of Elves, Dwarves, Men and Orcs. Tolkien had created such a vivid and complex world, with very fantastical descriptions cemented in Norse and Middle-English myth and folklore that most people did not think could be done justice on the big screen. But Peter Jackson accomplished the impossible and it made me an instant fan of High Fantasy. I wanted more and could not wait for the next installment of his trilogy. My dad, sister, and I actually made a sort of tradition of it in the next two years—dinner first and then off to see The Lord of the Rings.

Since then I have watched all three movies at least twice a year, and they are some of those rare movies that I can put on and not get bored off, even now, 20 years later. I only read the books twice, including the Silmarillion, and the worldbuilding and storytelling done in those books is something I will always cherish and draw so much inspiration from. And not just me, a lot of books from my favorite authors throughout the years have the distinct signature of being inspired at least somewhat by Tolkien.

An Unexpected Journey

It was 2010 when I rekindled my love for LEGO. I was supposed to go play video games with a colleague at his place when he told me that he had some castle-themed LEGO in his attic. Needless to say, we did not play a lot of video games that day and ended up building a castle till early in the morning. The day after, I visited a toyshop and bought 7948 Outpost Attack. I was instantly hooked and wanted more and more LEGO.

This creation by Blake Baer was made months before the announcement by LEGO was made and I remember being awestruck by the amazing details in both landscaping and minifigures.

I wanted to build grand castles and cities, build armies of knights and wizards and orcs. I was lucky that at that time you still had quite a few sets of the Fantasy Castle line available in stores, so the Trolls were very welcome additions to make Orc soldiers. It was around that same time when the first LEGO Collectible Minifigures came out and I was super excited when I saw the Elf. I now had all the parts I thought I needed to make all the factions of Tolkien’s fantasy world. I started creating my own world and castles and factions within it, using Dwarves, Elves, Men and Orcs. I could not be more pleased with what I could build with LEGO. Little did I know it was going to get so much better.

My uncle referred me to LOWLUG, a forum where builders from the Netherlands shared their newest MOCs and news about LEGO. I joined in August of 2011 and was instantly hooked. I did not know such a thing existed, much like Are shared in his article, I thought I was the only one. I was ostensibly and utterly wrong in that of course. Lowlug.com opened whenever I logged onto my laptop. I looked for new builds and deals on castle sets that were on sale and just news on LEGO in general.

The very first picture LEGO used to announce that they were releasing official Lord of the Rings sets.

That was when I saw it on the main page of the forum. That glorious picture of a LEGO Frodo minifigure holding a golden ring. I had just woken up and leaped from my bed in utter joy. I could not believe it! Lord of the Rings LEGO!? Are you kidding me? Those were my two favorite things in one! How could this ever be topped?

The answer to that last question is that it could not. Not for me anyway. Ever since that first wave of Lord of the Rings sets, no sets could ever reach that amazing level of detail in both the minifigures as well the buildings themselves. The only downside I thought they had at the time was that they were flesh-coloured. I was a big yellow minifigure user at the time and was sad I could not incorporate all of the amazing minifigure designs used in these remarkable sets easily into my collection. But that was the only downside for me at the time. The sets had new swords, new shields and it introduced us to the new LEGO horses that could actually prance!

This minifigure heavy MOc was built by BrickNerd’s own Noah Henning, and captures one of the most amazing scenes in movie history, the Ride of the Rohirrim during the battle of Pelennor Fields.

Years later when I made the switch to flesh-coloured minifigures, I started looking for those detailed LOTR minifigs again and was a little shocked when I saw the prices they were being sold for in the aftermarket. I almost kicked myself in the head for not buying all the sets in stores when they were reasonably priced. But it did show me one thing: these sets were still desired. People wanted them and were willing to pay a lot of money to obtain them. For me, they will always be the best range of sets LEGO has given us, and I use the parts and minifigures weekly in my Dungeons & Dragons games. They ensured my love for LEGO and I have been building my collection ever since. The shiny gold One Ring element has even become commonplace in other LEGO sets and SNOT work alike!

9474 Helm’s Deep was the biggest set of the first wave of Lord of the Rings sets and still the best castle lego has released to this thay (the Author who wrote this might be a bit biased). In this picture they have added the separate 9471 Uruk-Hai Army set that could be used to expand the Deeping Wall of the castle and more importantly expand your Rohirrim and Uruk-hai armies.

Still to this day, I think that the 9474 Helm’s Deep set is the best castle that LEGO has ever made. The amount of amazing minifigures that are in this set is rarely met these days, and the techniques used to give it that recognizable shape is just excellent. It had so many useful parts and minifigures that for me it just cannot be topped by any other castle released by LEGO before or since. It even had a catapult with which you could toss your Dwarf into the attacking Urûk-Hai forces!

I Dreamed I Saw a Great Wave… of LEGO Sets

When the LOTR sets were released in 2012, my involvement in the Dutch AFOL scene became more and more active. It was during that year that I went to my first meeting and met people there that I have called my friends ever since. I was glad that I could meet people who were like-minded and shared my passion for not just LEGO but fantasy as well. That same year one of those people came up with an idea to do a collab that has resulted in a group that does yearly collab layouts on several events and even local Comic Cons.

This was actually built by me and was made for a contest, which explains the odd shape of the base. We had to build something that would fit on a 32x32 base, with a 16x16 corner cut out of it. A friend had actually built a rock-formation and said it was unfortunate he did not have all the Dwarf minifigures from the Hobbit. Luckily I did! Although this could not have worked as well as it did without the use of the relatively new shorter minifigure legs that could move their legs.

It was during one of those events, Legoworld Utrecht 2013 I believe, that I met a LEGO designer who actually designed the second wave of Hobbit sets. I remember talking to him about them and how frustrating it was that Peter Jackson had announced they would split the movies into three parts instead of the two parts they had announced initially. That talk made me realize how much work goes into making sets and designing them—how big of a commitment LEGO puts into producing the sets we all come to like and enjoy.

He told me how they were frustrated because one of the sets 79001 Escape from Mirkwood Spiders was designed after a scene that was going to be in the second Hobbit movie and not the first one. So they slapped a sticker on the box saying it was an exclusive preview set for the second movie (and most people did not even mind I think). It was during that same event that we had the possibility to preview the sets of the second wave of the Hobbit movies just before they were released, and I had never been able to do that before so I was stunned. I thought the designs of the figures like Beorn looked amazing and looked at every detail of these new and exciting sets.

This highly detailed micro-scale version of BArad-Dûr was built by Ian Spacek. The tower is a very faithful adapation of Sauron’s main stronghold in Mordor and was featured heavily in Return of the King, the last installment of the Lord of the rings trilogy.

This is probably where I have to say that I think the second and third waves from The Hobbit were pretty bad. Other than some nice minifigure design, they were not really that exciting and certainly not a must-have for me. You can kind of see that LEGO had not accounted for a third movie and therefore another wave of sets. The sets seemed lackluster and hastily put together, which is probably what happened because of the last-minute decision to stretch the Hobbit into three films. 79018 The Lonely Mountain, for instance, is actually rather bad in my opinion and looks little like the scenes in the Hobbit movies. The Dwarves inexplicably wield translucent weapons and their armor looks nothing like how it looked in the movies. But it did have Smaug with amazing rubber foldable wings, which to this day, is still on my wishlist.

In the end. we got 32 sets including polybags, 110 minifigures over the course of two years, but some key sets and minifigures are woefully missing. The Return of the King was particularly slighted, missing Barad-dûr, Minas Tirith and the Fell Beast as well as a Witch King minifigure (although it could be said that the Ringwraith figures in Weathertop are a representation of the Witch King, his spikey and spooky armor is sorely missed). There was so much room for amazing sets and even better minifigures. I would have loved a Faramir minifigure as his part was so great and tragic, not to mention a Denethor minifigure which leaves us only to wonder what could have been.

Shards of Narsil by Cole Edmonson, the Sword that was broken but would be remade and renamed as Andúril , Flame of the West.

Perhaps with the new Lord of the Rings prequel series coming on Amazon we might get a few more waves of official sets, but that seems highly unlikely due to the adult nature of the show and the fact that LEGO would have to get an entirely new license for the other works of Tolkien. There is never much hope, to paraphrase Gandalf, only a fool’s hope.

All We Have to Decide is What to Do with the LEGO That Was Given Us

But luckily the LEGO fan community has stepped in tremendously where LEGO is lacking, and the last decade has given us an amazing array of fantastic MOCs. There was even an entire collab between builders from all over the world where they built scenes from the Second Age, a part of the Silmarillion which contains the Forging of the Rings.

The Grey Havens by Carter Witz

Lond Daer by Barthezz

The Forging of the Rings by Classical Bricks

Siege of Ost-in-Edhil by norlego

The Siege of Imladris by Elven Ranger

Haven at Umbar by Jako of Nerogue

First appearance of the Ringwraiths by Cole Blood

Destruction of Númenor by Northern Lego

Minas Ithil by Mountain Hobbit

Every time I see one of these amazing builds inspired by Tolkien, I am still amazed at how many cool things have been inspired by this short-lasting theme, almost 10 years after it was released. I think it is a testament to the author’s creation that we still see so many builds today. LEGO only produced them between 2012 and 2014, yet still to this day, you see many new MOCs and builds from all over the world, exploring Middle Earth and filling in the gaps of missing LEGO sets.

If you compare this to for instance Prince of Persia, Pirates of the Caribbean or any other licensed theme that only had a limited run, the LOTR theme’s longevity is quite astonishing really. But I understand, the body of works left by JRR Tolkien and his son Christopher is vast and spans thousands of years in Middle-Earth. The fact that LEGO has given us some of the tools we can use to build his detailed world is something I am personally very grateful for.

Sauron, Dark Lord of Mordor by Aaron Newman

But most of all, I am glad to see movies that were made 20 years ago based on books that were written almost 50 years before that still inspire us LEGO builders, young and old. In all honesty, that enthusiasm does come with a few downsides as prices for LOTR minifigures and sets have skyrocketed. Certain figures have become really rare and the second-hand LEGO marketplaces can demand a lot of money for even the secondhand sets without a box or instructions.

But the fact that LEGO Lord of the Rings sets are still so desirable means that this theme means a lot of things to people. It shows us how timeless these wonderful stories are that Tolkien created so many decades ago. And it shows us what kind of community can spawn in only a decade from a simple tale about Hobbits and a ring.

What impact has LEGO Lord of the Rings had on you as a builder? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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