LEGO explains Minas Tirith’s minifigure line-up: ‘We had to make choices’
The LEGO designers behind 11377 The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith have explained how they landed on the set’s 10-strong minifigure line-up, and why certain characters didn’t make the cut.
From the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and Aragorn’s coronation to Gandalf’s confrontation with the Witch-king of Angmar and Denethor eating some tomatoes, there’s a lot going on at Minas Tirith in Return of the King. But the first LEGO set based on the White City concentrates its minifigure selection on just 10 key characters: Denethor, Faramir, Aragorn, Arwen, Gandalf, Pippin and four Gondor soldiers.
Notable omissions from that list include King Théoden, Éowyn, the Witch-king, Merry, Frodo, Sam, Rohirrim soldiers, Gothmog and a few orcs – but Senior Model Designer François Zapf has spoken briefly about the minifigure line-up to Brick Fanatics and other LEGO Fan Media, hinting at a wider strategy for its Lord of the Rings Icons sets.
“There’s a lot of things happening in Minas Tirith, so basically we had to make choices with the line-up,” François said. “Since Barad-dûr is really focused on the bad guys, here it’s more a celebration of all the good guys. It was a cool opportunity to bring characters who’ve never been done before, like Faramir, Denethor and of course the Gondor soldiers.”
10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr does indeed focus primarily on the baddies, from Sauron and Gothmog to the Mouth of Sauron and Gollum – but there are a couple of heroes in there too, with a small sliver of Mount Doom included for Frodo and Sam to perch on. Yet it’s the only one of the four flagship Middle-earth models so far to split focus like that, as the other three concentrate entirely on either side of the hero or villain spectrum.
10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell includes the entire fellowship alongside a handful of supporting hobbit, elven and dwarven characters, while 10354 The Lord of the Rings: The Shire’s minifigure selection is comprised solely of hobbits (plus Gandalf). Minas Tirith tilting back towards the good guys – and passing up the chance to tick off another minifigure-in-waiting with the Witch-king – feels in step with those sets.
It also makes a degree of sense that there wasn’t an attempt here to recreate the entire Battle of the Pelennor Fields outside the White City’s gates. LEGO Minas Tirith isn’t minifigure-scale from top to bottom (that would be massive), instead combining a microscale exterior with a minifigure-accessible interior. Littering the space in front of the model with Rohirrim soldiers, Corsairs of Umbar, orcs and oliphaunts would have been a real mismatch from a scale perspective.
That said, the set’s gift-with-purchase, 40893 The Lord of the Rings: Grond, seems to play with that split in scale by combining a model of the bad guys’ battering ram with a couple of orcs, and while it’s a fun little freebie it’ll be interesting to see how it actually looks next to Minas Tirith. Chances are you might want to employ a little forced perspective in your display if possible.
In any case, there is one positive to the relatively meagre minifigure selection in this set (relative to the price tag): the door is open to future sets that might include those missing characters. More specifically, smaller future sets. You have to imagine we’ll get a Witch-king minifigure at some point, and a set of the Lord of the Nazgûl atop his Fell beast – complete with Éowyn and Théoden – would be pretty cool to see. As would a cheaper way to get more Gondor soldiers…
For now, you’ll be able to enjoy 11377 The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith and its new Middle-earth minifigures from June 1 for £579.99 / $649.99 / €649.99. Buy it before June 7 and you’ll receive 40893 The Lord of the Rings: Grond while stocks last.
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