It's a good time to be a Lord of the Rings fan with a new animated movie (The War of the Rohirrim) this December, The Rings of Power season two arriving in August and a new live-action movie in 2026 that will bring back Gollum.
What's more, LEGO has now launched new Lord of the Rings sets following last year's Rivendell set (LEGO 10316) and three BrickHeadz duos: Aragorn & Arwen (LEGO 40632), Gandalf the Grey & Balrog (LEGO 40631) and Frodo & Gollum (LEGO 40630).
They've now been joined by another BrickHeadz duo, Legolas & Gimli (LEGO 40751), and most impressively, another huge Icons set in the form of Sauron's "dark fortress" Barad-dûr (LEGO 10333).
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(Don't fancy The Lord of the Rings? We've got you covered with the best Star Wars LEGO sets, the best Marvel LEGO sets, the best Disney LEGO sets and just the best LEGO deals around.)
So to mark the occasion, I took advantage of the classic rainy Bank Holiday weekend to build the epic new set, setting myself the double challenge/pleasure of seeing if I could rewatch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy as I did it.
Extended editions, obviously.
Pros
- Impressive design
- Filled with fun details and secrets
- Ingenious Eye of Sauron design
Cons
- Expensive at £400
- Repetitive build at times
Barad-dûr key specs
| Pieces | 5,471 |
|---|---|
| Minifigures | 10 |
| Dimensions | 83cm x 45cm x 30cm |
Lego Barad-dûr features: How tall is Lego Barad-dûr?
Let's start with the facts. The Barad-dûr set contains 5,471 pieces (fewer than Rivendell's 6,167 pieces) which are spread across 40 bags – now in LEGO's sustainable paper bags – and it measures 83cm tall, 45cm wide and 30cm deep.
That doesn't make it the tallest LEGO set ever which remains the Eiffel Tower (LEGO 10307) at 149cm tall. It is, however, slightly taller than the Daily Bugle set (LEGO 76178) and also taller than the now-retired The Tower of Orthanc LOTR set from 2013.
I can safely say when you've built it though that you won't be complaining it's not taller since it's already an imposing model.
Without any of those taller sets to hand, I put it up against Groot (LEGO 76217) and Yoda (LEGO 75255) as a comparison for just how huge it looks.
The tower section of the set is fully modular which means that if you had multiple sets, then you could build Sauron's fortress even higher. However, unless LEGO releases just this tower section, it would prove a costly endeavour.
You also get 10 minifigures to go with the set: Frodo, Sam, Gollum, Sauron, Mouth of Sauron, Gothmog and four Orcs. They come with a variety of accessories and a "family pack" of helmets for customisation.
For instance, you can add orc helmets to Frodo and Sam – who can be displayed on a mini rock build – to match how they snuck around Mordor unnoticed.
Lego Barad-dûr release date: When can you buy Lego Barad-dûr?
The Barad-dûr set is available to buy right now after being released on June 1, 2024 on the LEGO official store.
You have to be a LEGO Insiders member to buy the set currently. It's free to sign up and you earn points with every purchase, which can then be used towards rewards, and you get exclusive offers.
If you don't want to sign up, Barad-dûr goes on sale to everybody on June 4, 2024 on the official LEGO store.
Anybody who buys the set between now and June 7 will receive a free Lord of the Rings set of the Fell Beast (LEGO 40693), which comes with a Nazgûl minifigure.
Can you rewatch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy while building Lego Barad-dûr?
Not that I ever need an excuse to rewatch The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but this build felt like the perfect opportunity to match work with pleasure.
So I took out my 4K boxset and pressed play on The Fellowship of the Ring as I opened the first bag. As fans know, the extended editions are split into two parts, so I decided to use each part as my LEGO building session for the day.
The set is built in four sections, split across three instruction booklets and totalling just over 1,000 steps in total. Throughout the booklets, there are interesting facts about why certain aspects are built as they are, as well as quotes from the movies and fun gags.
I thought it'd be more challenging to connect all the sections together, but the build has been so well-designed that it was easy to slot them into place with minimal fuss.
I'd love to say that by the time The Return of the King had wrapped up its multiple endings, I was putting the finishing touches to the set, but the reality didn't match up to the fantasy as Barad-dûr is a considerable build.
Instead, I had just finished bag 34 when the trilogy ended, and that included some of the lengthy credits for the extended editions. (If you're interested, I had reached bag 31 by the time the ring was destroyed.)
Overall, the build took me nearly 14 hours to complete, although I'll confess that you could probably shorten it a bit if you don't get distracted by certain moments of the movie. But if you can completely ignore "I am no man", then you're a bigger person than me.
As for what I did while completing the build, I had enough time to rewatch The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, theatrical cut only though. You could also delve into the making-of special features for the original trilogy, but the 4K boxset is disappointingly bare-bones.
Would I recommend having the movies on? Yes and no. For one, you can get distracted – you try fitting pieces together as you weep over Boromir getting killed – but there's no denying having Howard Shore's majestic soundtrack playing makes it a more immersive build.
It's certainly a build that requires concentration at various points. This isn't an all-ages LEGO build and even for seasoned builders, there are challenges as you build large sections of similar-coloured pieces, multiple moving parts that you have to get just right and fiddly smaller pieces to replicate the rocks of Mordor.
It can also become quite a repetitive build at stages where you have to build multiple versions of the same section. This is especially the case nearer the end as you fill out the outside walls of the tower. If you're confident enough, you can build them at the same time, just take care to not get too confident as there are sometimes slight changes.
That being said, LEGO has done an excellent job in packing the set with fun, quirky details that keep the build from getting too stale. There are also plenty of times that I felt like an engineer when the moving pieces came together, such as the black gate which opens with a cleverly-disguised brick on the outside.
The best feature is saved to last as well with the Eye of Sauron, which has been ingeniously designed. It moves around as in the movies (although you do have to do this manually) and can also be illuminated with a light brick placed at the back of the tower.
Given we don't see the inside of Barad-dûr in the movies, LEGO has been able to get inventive for what it might contain.
So, naturally, there's an dining room for those hungry Orcs (guess what's on the menu, there), a prison with a raisable cage, Sauron's office which conceals his map for Middle-earth and the Mouth of Sauron's study complete with a cute portrait of Sauron.
There's plenty of other surprises to be found, so we don't want to spoil them here.
Lego Barad-dûr verdict
While it's £30 cheaper than the Rivendell set, Barad-dûr is still a pricey LEGO set at £399.99. But if you take the plunge, you'll be rewarded with a final model that's superbly detailed and filled with witty nods to the movies.
The end result is physically impressive too, fittingly ominous with its sleek black bricks – which, from personal experience of the LEGO 1989 Batwing set, will become dust magnets, so be warned – and a fiery Eye of Sauron.
It will make a statement piece in your house whether your visitors are fans of The Lord of the Rings or not. Quite where you'll put it will arguably be the biggest challenge as you'll want easy access to the back to see all the intricate details. (For me, I've yet to move it from my dining table, mostly out of fear of a Gollum-style meltdown if I drop it.)
Barad-dûr is another winner for LEGO's growing Lord of the Rings collection. Sauron would be proud.
Pros
- Impressive design
- Filled with fun details and secrets
- Ingenious Eye of Sauron build
Cons
- Expensive at £400
- Repetitive build at times
The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr is available to buy now for LEGO Insiders members, with general sale from June 4.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
