LEGO knows more about The Lord of the Rings than Warner Bros.

The LEGO design team behind 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell are more knowledgeable about The Lord of the Rings than Warner Bros. 

During an exclusive interview with the LEGO designers behind 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell, insight into the design process of the huge fantasy creation was revealed. Speaking to Mike Psiaki, Wes Talbott, Chris Perron and Ashwin Visser, the team shared details from development and you can listen along by clicking on the video below. 

“For the development of this, we’re collaborating with Warner Brothers,” said Mike. “They’re the ones that made the Hobbit movies, and then I’m not an expert on this, I guess they currently own the rights to the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. They were quite good to work with. They have a good understanding of the limitations and capabilities of LEGO bricks. And so a lot of the suggestions we made, they’re very much on board with. 

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“They gave us access to a lot of great reference material from production – a lot of images that we could go through. So yeah, it was a super great collaboration, we didn’t work directly with anyone that had done any of the production design in the original film trilogy, which could have been awesome. But they had plenty of resources for us to get what we needed to make this model as authentic as it is.” 

For as detailed a build as 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell, having access to resources to accurately capture the details of Rivendell is undoubtedly crucial. However, it appears that the designers knew more about the fantasy franchise than the team at Warner Bros. 

“We had done this, which I believe is a city in Númenor, I think is what it is of,” continued Mike. “And we had this graphic on the sticker sheet, we’re sending it for approval, and they’re like; ‘what is that?’ And we’re like; ‘that’s the painting from the movie’. We were pulling up a reference from the set of Rivendell, and we’re just like; ‘it’s exactly this?’ And they’re just like; ‘yeah, carry on.’ That was a funny moment.” 

You can watch our full interview with the design team by clicking on the video earlier in this report and read our in-depth review of 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell by clicking here. We’ve also got a guide on everything you need to know about the new LEGO Icons set here. 

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