Lego review: 9470 Shelob Attacks

Lego has historically struggled with creating brick-built animals. While Lego bricks are great for building things with lots of right angles and flat surfaces like vehicles and buildings, it's a bit tougher to use Lego bricks to recreate organic lifeforms. Lego realizes this, as we can see in their recent Dino theme where the eponymous dinosaurs were not brick-built but unfortunately more action-figure-like.

Shelob in this set is perhaps Lego's Best Spider Ever. It's their third attempt at a Giant Spider; before Shelob, Lego made two different sets based on Harry Potter's Shelob ripoff Aragog. There was the hilariously cartoonish Aragog in 4727 Aragog in the Dark Forest in 2002, and the slightly less terrible but still terrifically terrible Aragog in 4738 Hagrid's Hut in 2010. Look at those sword-legs! Indeed, there are two key problems with all of Lego's previous spiders: getting the eight multi-jointed legs right, and getting the abdomen right.

Shelob Attacks rights all the wrongs of previous Lego spiders. Although they're still a bit fragile, Shelob has well-designed legs that are actually strong enough to support the spider's body on their own. And Shelob has a huge abdomen which adds some meatiness (yum!) to her body. She's even got a spinneret so she can trap Frodo for a juicy treat, and imposing pincers to munch on him with.

Look closely at Shelob's eyes. One of them is poked out! This is a nice lil reference to the source material, where Sam stabs her in the eyeball. Speaking of the non-Shelob parts of the set, let's take a gander: There's Frodo with his blade Sting, the Phial of Galadriel, and of course the One Ring that fits snugly on his hand. The best part of this minifigure, though, is his petrified "I've just been poisoned" facial expression--click on the image above for a zoomed-in view. We've got his loyal Samwise, who looks pretty much how you'd expect him to look.

Then there's Gollum. Instead of a standard minifig body, Gollum has a hunched-over mold with a random stud on his back (to later attach some elven rope?). I'm not really a fan of this body or his strange facial expression, but he wouldn't have worked with a standard minifig body. I'm not sure what the correct portrayal of Gollum would've been.

Nevertheless, this is a nifty set. A realistic, if slightly fragile, depiction of Shelob. Great Frodo and Sam minifigs. And the first appearance of Gollum!

Lego review: 9469 Gandalf Arrives

As an introductory set to Lego Lord of the Rings, Gandalf Arrives is fitting. It's from an introductory scene in The Fellowship of the Ring! It's got Frodo with the book he's reading in the film's opening scene after the prologue, and Gandalf has his horse-driven cart in which "he arrives exactly when he means to."

A nice touch is the collection of fireworks Lego Gandalf brings to use at Bilbo's birthday party, including the red dragon firework that Merry and Pippin steal. Even more nifty is that the red dragon firework piece is actually a repurposed snake piece from Lego's Ninjago theme, seen here being released by the fearsome Rattlecopter.

This is also one of the first sets to include Lego's new horse figure with movable hind legs! Huzzah!

Lego review: 30211 Uruk-hai with Ballista

Uruk-hai with Ballista is sadly vastly inferior to its fellow Lego Lord of the Rings polybag, Frodo with Cooking Corner. While the other features a charming set of friendly alcoholic undertones, Uruk-hai with Ballista is simply... an Uruk-hai with a little ballista. It's pretty pointless, since you can get these same pieces in higher quantities in the Uruk-hai Army and Battle of Helm's Deep sets. But this lil polybag has been quite popular as an army-builder for people who really want ten thousand Uruk-hai to attack the Hornburg.

Lego review: 30210 Frodo with Cooking Corner

One of two polybags released for the Lord of the Rings line, this is a great lil introduction to the series. You get Frodo in his "Shire outfit," a neat little stove with a frying pan and sausage, a wine bottle, a goblet, and a keg.

The alcoholic undertones of this mini-set are pretty excellent. Nowhere on the packaging does it specify what the keg is or what it holds inside, and the "wine bottle" could just be a "bottle." Kids are left to figure out what it all means on their own. But with hobbits' massive appetite for alcohol, it's fitting that this set includes so much. I'm happy Lego let the set designer get away with it.

My five favorite Lego sets of 2012

As some of you may know, one of my day jobs is at Lego. While I don't own all the sets on this list, I spend enough hours per week essentially staring at Lego that I feel I'm qualified to make this decision.

5. Town Hall

Town Hall is the newest addition to Lego's ongoing modular buildings theme. It's the biggest set in the series, which began in 2007 and has become one of the most popular themes for the sizable adult Lego fan community. The past five years or so, Lego has really begun to acknowledge and embrace the fact that they have so many adult Lego fans, creating many new sets like this one that are aimed specifically at older builders.

These sets are some of the only remaining Lego products with minifigures who retain the classic "two dots for eyes and a smile" face, while most modern minifigs feature a wide variety of facial expressions. Town Hall features a ton of figs and interesting building techniques, like the use of croissants for the city's crest. There's also "1891" on the front to signify the year the town hall was built--coincidentally, 1891 is the birth year of Lego founder Ole Kirk Christiansen. The flat townhouse style is reminiscent of Copenhagen architecture. In fact, the pillars and small balcony where the mayor stands reminds me of Christiansborg Palace, the seat of the Danish government where the royal family stands on the balcony to address their constituents. Overall, a timeless set which reminds me of my months living in Copenhagen.

The Hobbit review

I was incredibly worried about The Hobbit. Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings is one of the most important works of film in my life. I know, if I were a "real" fan I'd care more about J.R.R. Tolkien's original books. And I do. But being the age that I am, Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy came out smack dab in the middle of my formative years.

When The Fellowship of the Ring was released in December 2001, I had just turned 12. I remember seeing the very first trailer for the movie earlier that year; I spent the next few months rapidly reading The Hobbit and LotR in time for the film's release. While older fans took issue with the numerous changes Peter Jackson made to Tolkien's classics, I've essentially been experiencing the movies just as long as I've been experiencing the books, so to me Jackson's version is no less legitimate than Tolkien's version.

With The Hobbit, however, my time between reading the book and seeing the movie was much more significant. I had eleven years of reading the novel before Jackson's first Hobbit film came out yesterday. So I was afraid I would be far less receptive to the movie's changes than I had been to the changes in the LotR trilogy.

I was wrong.

It didn't start so well. I've long been a skeptic of 3D cinema being the wave of the future, as Yahtzee Croshaw illustrates more eloquently than I ever could. But Peter Jackson is insistent that 3D is the way to go with The Hobbit. So I trusted him. And what I got was... exactly what I thought. Upon the film starting, it looked like the cheesy cardboard-cutout 3D I expected. I thought I was bound to hate it for the duration of the film. Fortunately, by the end of the movie I stopped being bothered by the 3D effect, which I suppose shows its success. There were even a few nice 3D touches, particularly little things like smoke and a few close-up shots of characters' faces. But I still want to see the movie again in 2D.