That was quick. Two days ago blurry photos of the upcoming BrickHeadz LotR sets appeared, and today we already have detailed graphics. On the other hand, that shouldn’t be surprising, since less than a month remains until the official launch.
The first reports that LEGO was returning to The Lord of the Rings universe appeared back in September. On 3 December we already had confirmation of three sets, but with photos still of poor quality, and today we can see in all its glory what LEGO has prepared for us.
40630: Frodo & Gollum (184 pieces)
We hadn’t seen before that Gollum has printed pieces, which improves things a bit, but this figure still seems bland. On the other hand, it was a very difficult task to recreate him in BrickHeadz form. The little fish is a nice extra 🙂
Frodo is fine without major reservations, apart from that unfortunate hairdo, so very modest compared to what the films have accustomed us to.
40631: Gandalf the Grey & Balrog (348 pieces)
I was holding off my opinion on this set until better quality photos came out, and now that we have the first ones I still don’t know what to make of this set. I don’t know if anyone would be able to recognise the original character in the Balrog without being told beforehand, I probably wouldn’t. With characters like this you have to make big compromises, and we’ve already had examples of that, for instance figure number 147 Firstbourne Dragon from set number 40490 BrickHeadz NINJAGO. On the other hand, does that mean we should give up on them? After some thought I’ve come to the conclusion that no, and I hope LEGO will keep making attempts like this.
Gandalf is basically cool. Maybe nothing spectacular, but the figure looks nice and will look good on our shelves.
40632: Aragorn & Arwen (261 pieces)
I admit that in my imagination (because not much could be seen in the previous graphics) Aragorn’s armour looked better than what I see in the high-resolution graphic. Still, his character wins my sympathy. Arwen is more modest, but both characters look good, and this is the most consistent set of all three.