Gift ideas for the Return of the King EE Gift Set (1 Viewer)

[Bryan Ri]

Anyone have any ideas what we might expect in the Return of the King EE gift set? The only thing I can think of is a statue of the White Tree of Gondor, any thoughts?


Bryan

 

[Jimmy M]

The Eye of Sauron.

Jimmy!

 

[jake moosey]

a statue of everyone from the fellowship would be nice

 

[Richard Travale]

I would like a replica of Narsil

 

[Ernest Rister]

How about a statue of Denethor that bursts into flames when you turn your lights off? Then it waves its arms and runs down the length of your shelf, hurling itself into onto the floor.

 

[Richard Travale]

Actually, now that I think of it, it will either be Shelob or the Witch King.

 

[Mike Williams]

I'm thinking a really nice replica of . . . THE RING!

 

[Chazz_S]

My opinion- judging by the past two collectibles, it will not be something that's already been done, or is being released by the regular sideshow weta line. I think that rules out most of the guesses so far:

Aragorn in his 'regal clothing' i.e. King Elessar
Narsil
Gollum as Gollum(.....? not gonna happen)
Shelob
Witch King
Palantir
Ring replica (super unlikely)

 

[Dan Hitchman]

I don't think it would be a multicolored statue this time around as didn't WETA have a difficult time with the Smeagol statue? It looks crappy IMHO anyway.

I'd love to have a very, very well done Witch King on his fell beast (like the Ring Wraith on his prancing steed that WETA first put out; that was fabulous!).

They should also include the National Geographic Beyond the Movie versions of The Two Towers and The Return of The King, since they packaged neither in The Two Towers gift set. It would help complete what they started with The Fellowship set.

Dan

 

[Chazz_S]

Dan, they've already released the Witch King and fell Beast, you can see a pic in my sig link. I don't know if you've ever seen the Ringwraith on Steed, but it is BIG.

That's why I don't think they'll release anything that needs to be large (mumakil etc), how crappy would a fell beast/witch king look if it was the same size as the TTT EE Gollum? *shudders*

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

There had better be something substantial if they expect me to buy another gift set after the last fiasco. They were on the right track with the Fellowship box - you could remove the figures withut destroying the packaging, and the bonus DVD helped justify the added expense. I hope they have learned something with people being upset about having to destroy the box with the TT set.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Although I'd rather buy a more detailed larger version from Sideshow Toys, I predict it is going to be a small sculpture of Minas Tirith.

 

[Chris Farmer]

Dan, there was no Natl Geographic DVD on Two Towers, that's why it wasn't included. There was one for Fellowship and one for King, but not one for TTT.

 

[Corey Hall]

How about bookends, like the first set. It could be Barad-dur and Orthanc. Saruman and Gandalf. Frodo and Sam. Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul. Minas Tirith and Edoras. The possibilities are nearly endless. My vote though would be for Barad-dur and Orthanc, although that would've made more sense for TTT. I don't think it will be a character, due to the weak likeness of Gollum in the last set.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Weak likeness of Gollum???

The smeagol statue captures the likeness of the digital character quite impressively. Not sure which one yov've been looking at.

As for "crappy paint jobs". Well, these are individually hand painted. Some are obviously going to be better than others. There's just no way around that. If you are interested in buying something like this and care about the quality of the paint job, then don't order online. I know for some online buying may be the only option, but that's just the nature of the beast here. If you can put in the effort and a little time at the store and look through LOTS of them, you should be able to find one that looks good. That's what I did, and my paint job looks fine.

It ABSOLUTELY will not be gollum in any form, as that has already been done. If you wanted (or needed) a "gollum" to compliment the "semagol" statue, he was available to purchase for less than most all of Sideshow/Weta's other statues, $75 (most statues are $100-150). He was a LIMITED EDITOIN and has been available for over a year to purchase, and now he is sold out. He's going on ebay for hundreds now. SSW won't be making any more.

They already did a Witch King (both the "pale king"/shadow world depiction and the "morgul lord"/nazgul in armor depiction). And the ones they did are MUCH bigger with more detail and quality than they could do in a much smaller statue for the DVD.

The same goes for Shelob and King Elessar.

They won't do the "whole Fellowship". It would be nice, but not at the scale they would have to do it. They would be too small (difficult to sculpt AND PAINT), and just wouldn't look good enough.

Narsil (and Anduril) is already available in both full scale and Miniature forms from other collectable companies. And Sidehow/Weta themsleves have also already done many miniature sword collections. I could possibly see a miniature Shards of Narsil with the statue that holds them if it hadn't already been done (quite nicely from what I've seen). Not sure a miniature Anduril by itself would be impressive enough.

I really doubt they'd do The Ring. It would be kinda cool, but I think they'd probably want to be more creative than that.

The Nazgul on Fell beast has already been done, and it is big. However, while it is big it still had to be done at a much smaller scale than most of their other statues, so the fine detail isn't the same as you'd get from a 1/6th scale statue. One small enough to fit in the DVD box would be teeny-tiny. That just won't happen.

I could see them doing:

the White Tree of Gondor
Elessar's CROWN
Minas Tirith (though it would be quite small and a larger one would be better)
The Ship at the Grey Havens
Mount Doom (maybe)
An Eagle would be cool (but the scale would be too small for the DVD statue. better leave this for a regular statute)

I'd really love to see:

Sam holding Frodo in his arms
Sam carrying Frodo on his back

These could be done at the same 1/6th scale as the regular statues and still fit in the box.

Bottom line, PJ and the folks at WETA do this because they enjoy collecting this stuff themselves. I'm sure they'll pick something that they would want for themselves in their own collection and that they think embodies a central or powerful image from of the film.

For anyone interested in collecting the Sideshow/Weta LOTR statues (more than just the DVD-bundled statues), you should check out the thread in the AFTER HOURS forum.

There are some AWESOME collectables coming (and already out there) for folks who like this kind of stuff.

I can't wait for the Morgul Lord in armor and the Eowyn in armor that will be the companion piece, Sauron, and Gandalf TW on Shadowfax!

 

[KyleK]

For The Two Towers I think they should have continued with the bookend theme and done bookends of Barad-dur and Orthanc. For Return of the King they should do Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul.

Kyle

 

[Chazz_S]

I knew they would never have gone with Barad Dur and Orthanc dvdends, even though everyone was so convince that that was the collectible. They already gave us DVDends with the Argonath(I don't know what books you would put in between these, considering they'd fall right over under the weight of most books- put a one volume lord of the rings between these? I wouldn't!)

I guess the Gollum/Smeagol can technically be 'ends' but that point was not stressed at all. Considering the fact that they only gave you one, and there are no pics of the pair holding up books/dvds etc.

But back to barad dur and orthanc- at the size and weight and shape especially they'd be made as 'bookends', they'd topple right over with the wind.

 

[Craig S]

Good post, Sean, although I think the Gollum companion statue was only made available in November 2003 when the gift box was released. I was impressed that SSW sold 70,000 of these $80 pieces in two months.

 

[Chazz_S]

70,000?! Gollum was a 7,500 pc edition. 70k would be quite a 'limited edition'!

 

[Amy Mormino]

I love the Shelob idea. Wouldn't you love to have a replica of a hideous giant statue in your bedroom? Actually, in all seriousness, I would. Perhaps it could have a slot in its stomach and a little sword you could insert into it.

I think Narsil would be a little impractical, size-wise. As for the extra DVD, maybe the long-rumored deleted scenes disc. Now that would be a package to get!