The new LEGO The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith is an achievement. It is the LEGO designers’ finest work since LEGO The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell, which set an impossibly high bar in 2023. LEGO Minas Tirith reaffirms that bar, depicting the race of Men with the same clarity that LEGO Rivendell depicted the race of Elves. It receives our highest recommendation.
It is an intensely engrossing build, first and foremost. Dedicated LEGO fans know the addictive flow-state that comes from building for hours on end, and this was an 8278-piece build that felt, to me, like half that amount. I was captivated, watching this massive city take form and ascend. And ironically, after I finished it, I still couldn’t stop examining it. I knew every inch of this build by necessity – every stud, brick, rod, and tile. But seeing the entire build in aggregate was like experiencing it for the first time.
LEGO The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith
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According to lore, Minas Tirith was founded near the end of the Second Age and was subsequently fortified and expanded during the Third Age. But unlike most fortifications – which are built from the bottom up – Minas Tirith was built from the top down. It began as a watchtower on the shoulder of Mount Mindolluin. It subsequently expanded downward to include six lower terraces as it gained tactical and political importance.
LEGO divided this set into three boxes containing approximately 20 bags each, for a total of 60 bags overall. They’re packed somewhat lighter than in prior sets of similar size and scope, which creates the perception that the work is going quickly, even when it isn’t. I derived a constant, steady stream of satisfaction by building this set in manageable, bite-sized chunks.
LEGO divided this set into three boxes containing approximately 20 bags each, for a total of 60 bags overall.“
The first structure you build is the Outer Wall, including the Great Gate that provides the only way inside the city. Unlike the airy, elven architecture of LEGO Rivendell – which threatened to come apart if you so much as breathed on it – the walls of LEGO Minas Tirith are built strong. Fundamental building techniques underlie the entire structure, and the walls are 2-3 bricks deep in places. Several lined pieces, scattered intermittently throughout the walls, create narrative texture; this is an ancient wall that is functional and resilient, even if the finish has faded in places to reveal the mortared bricks beneath.
The Great Gate uses green bricks to create the impression of oxidized metal, which is effective for making the door appear ancient, yet strong. The designers included some wonderful set dressing on the door as well; two tiny minifigure statues, embedded its facade, add some extra flair.
On the wall’s interior, we see domesticity – a marketplace with goods, a plumbing system, a barrel of fish – that hints at a larger world beyond the build. The two sections of wall, along with the gate, form a massive, semi-circle arc, which you will later attach to the bottom of the set to form the full barrier.
The build continues with the first level of the city, in much the same manner as the outer wall. LEGO Minas Tirith is open in the back and cut away like a diorama, and so you’re simultaneously building the facade facing outwards and the furnished interior facing inwards. You construct each tiered level of the build until the entire model is complete.
Interior elements include a small room with a Palantir “seeing stone.” You also build a comprehensively large Hall of Kings which includes the white throne, steward’s chair, and dining table (so you can recreate the disgusting tomato scene). Minifigure statues with blank faces and stylized royal head accessories flank the throne on either side. Elsewhere, you can find the small room where Gandalf researched the One True Ring in the first film. It’s recognizable from all the ancient parchments and scrolls, stacked precariously on tables.
Exterior elements include lit cauldrons and trebuchets. And everywhere, there’s greebling depicting private dwellings and domiciles, in. The final topmost layer on the “roof” of the set depicts the Citadel, which includes the exterior for the Hall of Kings, the Tower of Ecthelion, the Court of the Fountain, and the White Tree of Gondor. The set comes with 10 minifigures, including four Gondor soldiers, Gandalf the White (plus his horse Shadowfax), Faramir, Denethor, Pippin, Aragorn, and Arwen.
The LEGO designers made two scaling decisions that I find fascinating. The first is that each leveled tier of the city gets increasingly shorter as you build upward. It’s an old optical illusion called forced perspective, and it creates the perception that something is taller than it actually is. Walt Disney famously used this trick on Cinderella’s Castle in Walt Disney World, and LEGO also uses it on many of their large sets – on LEGO The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr, of course, but also on non-architectural sets like the LEGO Pokémon Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise.
The second scaling decision was to depict the exterior of the city at less-than-microscale, and then simultaneously depict the interior of the build at minifigure scale. Thanks to its high ceiling, the Hall of Kings is nearly the size of the full LEGO model.
To put it more plainly? This room:
Canonically fits into this building:
That’s the scale. That’s how impossibly massive Minas Tirith is. And that gave me new appreciation, not only for the designers’ vision, but also for what the city represents in the larger story that Tolkien told and Peter Jackson retold.
Middle-earth’s race of Men is defined by its “fallen” nature. We’re told, both implicitly and explicitly, that Men are in decline; their golden age of innovation and might is past, undone by greed, infighting, and a desire for power. We see reminders of this glorious past as ruins and relics, and Gondor is especially noteworthy for this – from Minas Tirith itself to the Argonath statues at the kingdom’s northern border.
It is both depressing and aspirational; it shows us how far Men have fallen, but it also reminds us of the heights to which they are capable. And thankfully, it’s the latter that prevails in the end. Minas Tirith represents the best of what Men can be, and this model is a figurative followthrough of that sentiment.
LEGO The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith, Set #11377, retails for $649.99, and it is composed of 8278 pieces. It is exclusively available for purchase at the LEGO Store. It is currently out of stock, but you can sign up to be notified of its replenishment.
Kevin Wong is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in LEGO. He’s also been published in Complex, Engadget, Gamespot, Kotaku, and more. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.