Lego Icons Lord of the Rings: The Shire

I'll be honest right away. When this Lego set was announced, I was quite disappointed. So there was no purchase, for my part, but Lego simply thought we should get a copy of this and that of course entails a review. When the fifteen bags and 2017 pieces were assembled, I was left with a mixed bag of impressions. I was pleasantly surprised that some of my opinions that I had beforehand (of course then only based on pictures and videos) changed to be a little more positive. Because the building process was great fun. I really have nothing to complain about at all. It's a great mix of interior and exterior, with fun little solutions and always engaging and entertaining. You create interesting angles, there are plenty of wonderful details and an end result that is still very nice.

Sure - it's a very pared-down version of a Hobbit hole. There are only three relatively small rooms and the inside is not really much to cheer about in terms of size or what it shows. I like the outside more and it is, after all, the side that is also natural to show as a display. The things I did not really like beforehand are still there. The biggest gripe is that the building is too low in height and that I would have liked a larger area at the front. To illustrate this, you can look at the picture below from the film. This is kind of the scene I would have wanted and even though this would have meant maybe a thousand more pieces and a much higher price tag, it was still the Bag End I had hoped for.

This hope really only comes for one reason and it is called Rivendell. Because, alongside Lego's most magnificent building ever, Bag End feels... small. Of course, you could argue that this is how it should be - the cute little hobbits are small and their minifigure counterparts should fit into a more customised environment. But I don't really think the magic is captured when the front cover is so sparse. There are some great details; the rounded windows and door are super nice, the flowers and fence (created with boomerangs) are fun - but the building would have benefited from something in front. Also, the design of the tree on the roof is also an echo of things feeling a bit cheap. As if all the things that made Rivendell so fantastic have been cut back. It's not so strange that the tree is one of those things that many have made their own improved version of.

This is reflected in all the little things that come alongside the main building; a small tent, a tree, a cake and other details to illustrate Bilbo's birthday party. I'm personally not too keen on all these 'plots' that end up on the side. They have their own little bases but are completely disconnected from the rest, and in this case it would have been better to build the garden alongside so that the party could be part of the base on which the house stands. But, really, I would have preferred to skip all these loose things completely and put those bits on decorating Bag End a little more. A bigger tree on top, more plants and (yes, I know I'm nagging) something in front of and around the den that gave it some perspective. Now Gandalf arrives on his chariot but he has no way to get to the little gate and the surrounding hills don't feel as lush and tall as I wish they had been.

Fortunately, with Lego, you can solve these things yourself. So I simply got two green base plates and have started designing something of my own to make it more like the scene from the film I showed before. All complaints aside, I was still happy with the building process as such. It was just as fun as I always want a major construction to be. So, I don't really have any complaints about the process, and that's obviously a big part of the judgement - how much fun it is to build. Despite the inevitable green colour scheme, it never felt repetitive and there's no one boring step where you have to do lots of the same steps. It's simply a build that constantly engages and entertains. There are some occasional small interactive techniques where an envelope lying in the fireplace can spin so that the ring appears, which is a neat little mechanic. Bilbo can also, as he does in the film, disappear at his birthday party by spinning him so he is hidden behind some barrels.

In conclusion, I am still more positive about this Lego set than I was beforehand. It was an incredibly pleasant building time and it looks very cosy well placed on the shelf. However, the minuses that I had beforehand are all there and if I am to be completely transparent here, the price tag of just over £220 also feels far too high. The number of pieces in relation to the price is too few and the building as such is nothing that matches the cost. In conclusion, it is of course great that we get such nice Lord of the Rings Lego even if this particular one in the end does not really reach all the way forward. For my part, I am mainly looking forward to starting to build a scene around it, which will lift the whole building properly.