LEGO The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr minifigures hands-on review

Take a closer look at LEGO Icons 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr’s 10 minifigures as we weigh up whether they make for worthy contributions to LEGO Middle-earth lore.

Standing in contrast to 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell in more ways than one, 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr arrives on shelves next month, and brings with it a selection of eight brand new minifigures (and two Rivendell repeats). Among those are the highly-anticipated Sauron, a revamped Mouth of Sauron and Gollum, the first-ever Gothmog, four generic orcs, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee.

We’ve already gone hands-on with these new minifigures as part of our wider review of 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr, but if you’re solely interested in seeing how these characters stack up in more detail, stick with us here…

Frodo Baggins

This is exactly the same Frodo Baggins minifigure that we received in last year’s 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell. He doesn’t exactly look like he’s just spent years trekking through Middle-earth, and especially not like he’s currently floundering around the harsh and barren wastelands of Mordor, but this was a good minifigure in 2023 and it’s a good minifigure now.

A slightly tattered outfit would have been fun, but not what you’d call essential – and the budget there was much better spent on the unique helmets Frodo and Sam wear to disguise themselves as orcs. Maybe the only other change we would really have liked to see here was to Frodo’s face prints: a more beleaguered alternative to his smirk would have been more relevant to the scene.

Samwise Gamgee

Sam follows Frodo tit-for-tat, in that he’s the same minifigure from Rivendell and likewise would have benefited from a new face print (we don’t remember either of the hobbits smiling much in Mordor). Both of these characters’ dual-moulded legs are appreciated though, and Sam’s accessories – his trusty sword and the Phial of Galadriel – are on point.

Gollum

This brand new version of Gollum has divided opinion among the community in early reactions to 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr, but in hand it’s hard to fault. Reusing the modern skeleton arms makes what’s otherwise a very specialist minifigure feel like part of the LEGO family, while his face print doesn’t feel as overdramatic as that of his predecessor.

It’s a finetuned approach to Gollum and one that works very nicely in 2024, even if head and leg articulation remains just out of reach.

The orcs

10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr includes four generic orc minifigures, which between them sport two different heads, two different sets of legs, four different torsos and two different types of helmets (with eight helmets in total, as part of the family pack of moulds that also includes Frodo and Sam’s borrowed headgear).

For what could have otherwise been fairly generic filler characters, each and every one of these orcs feels like a worthy addition to the wider LEGO The Lord of the Rings line-up. The LEGO Group has pulled off the same trick as Peter Jackson’s movies, which is that these ten-a-penny warriors genuinely feel like they have individual personalities – while still (in this case) encouraging you to mix and match their pieces.

Chances are you’re going to build these guys and instantly find yourself wanting an orc battle pack. You’ll find no arguments from us.

Gothmog

One character we didn’t necessarily expect to see in 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr (presumably this means we aren’t seeing a Battle of the Pelennor Fields set any time soon), Gothmog is the only named orc in the box. This is also his first-ever LEGO minifigure, and the LEGO Group has mostly pulled out all the stops in bringing him to life.

There’s some nice attention to detail with arms in two different colours (though a printed left arm might have better conveyed the character’s skin protruding from his armour), and the torso underneath his chest plate is printed despite the fact you’re covering it up, so bonus points there. But everything here really comes down to the face print.

Gothmog’s visage is somewhat ‘unique’, shall we say, so conveying that through a standard minifigure head (rather than a moulded element) was never going to be easy. But in the interests of keeping that LEGO DNA that has served Gollum so well in this set, it was always the right decision – not least for how successfully the designers have pulled it off. This is instantly recognisable as Gothmog, and you can’t ask for much more. 

The Mouth of Sauron

If you travelled back to 2010 and told any The Lord of the Rings fan that we’d get a Mouth of Sauron LEGO minifigure a full 11 years before Sauron, they’d have asked who you were and where your time machine was. But they also wouldn’t have believed you, because it’s just so random and unbelievable on paper. And yet we did indeed get our first-ever Mouth of Sauron minifigure all the way back in 2013’s 79007 Battle at the Black Gate.

That initial incarnation of Teethy McTeethface came at a prime time for LEGO minifigure design, and so it still holds up well more than a decade on. The version in 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr is therefore only an incremental update on its predecessor. But there are still changes to note, including improved printing, gunmetal grey arms instead of regular dark grey, and a rounder helmet mould with less exaggerated proportions.

The helmet raises the same questions it did in 2013, though: have we crossed the line from LEGO DNA into action figure territory? At what point are these pieces too accurate and detailed? They’re subjective questions without definitive answers, but ones that also carry over into probably the most highly-anticipated minifigure in 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr…

Sauron

Despite obviously not being appropriate for the time period otherwise depicted here, Sauron makes his long-overdue LEGO debut in 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr. Has he been worth the wait? Yes… and no.

Like his Mouth, Sauron features a unique rubberised helmet, here incorporating his shoulder armour in one continuous piece. And it almost feels overengineered in its precision and accuracy, a reaction exacerbated by the lo-fi charm of his mace, which is constructed from a handful of standard LEGO elements. The solution to what’s under his helmet is clever and the torso and leg printing are both spot on, though.

Not everyone is going to feel the same way about that helmet either, and nor will everyone come to a firm agreement over Sauron’s minifigure proportions. Already we’ve seen plenty of people taking him to task for not using the longer arms and legs reintroduced through LEGO Avatar, but there have been just as many people relieved that he sticks to the standard minifigure proportions.

If you find yourself in the former camp, consider for a moment that the LEGO Group is trying longer limbs again this summer with Harry Potter’s Madame Maxime. And then decide for yourself just how successful that approach really is…

Click here to check out our full verdict on 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr. You’ll be able to buy your copy from June 1 if you’re signed up to the LEGO Insiders program, and early adopters will receive 40693 The Lord of the Rings: Fell Beast as a bonus free gift until June 7 (or while stocks last).

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