The LEGO custom builders community never ceases to impress us with their creativity. We’ve previously seen fan-created LEGO builds like the Tower of Orthanc from Lord of the Rings, but the following creation is a first for us: a fully playable LEGO Lord of the Rings pinball machine. And while the pictures are amazing, you really have to see the video below to fully appreciate the fact that the pinball really works.
Via io9 and The Brothers Brick, the LEGO Lord of the Rings pinball machine is the work of Vladimir van Hoek, a Dutch builder who told Nerdist that he’s been a LEGO fan since he was three-years old; he recalled his very first LEGO set was “the Mail truck (set 6651).” Van Hoek poured serious time into this build: he put it together over the course of 100 hours, which were spread out over two years. He used approximately 15,000 LEGO bricks to create the machine, and the final board is 40 inches long and 20 inches wide. All told, it weighs about 44 pounds. The scoreboard isn’t functional, but everything else is.
He explained he had to figure out how to make the flippers work properly before he was finally able to tackle the machine itself. “The Lord of the Rings theme probably came from the upcoming Middle-Earth LEGO Olympics on MOC-pages,” van Hoek said. “But the Lord of the Rings [trilogy] has been a favorite book, and later movies, and later still LEGO sets.”
Here’s an example of the more subtle aspects of the machine: there’s a scene visible beneath the game board that recreates Aragorn’s encounter with the army of the dead.
And of course, Aragorn isn’t the only familiar face.
While this is an amazing build, van Hoek expressed his desire to dismantle it and reuse the brinks on a different project. “Seriously, I want to take it apart as fast as I can and have the ten percent of my brick collection available again,” said van Hoek. “I’m dying to start something new.”
You can find more photos of this LEGO LOTR pinball machine at van Hoek’s Flickr page, which also includes shots of his previous LEGO builds. For the future, van Hoek told us that he’s planning some smaller builds, and said that he “will build something for the birth card of my daughter” before eventually tackling “a colossal Ninjago City” with his friend.
What do you think about the LEGO Lord of the Rings pinball machine? You shall not pass until you leave a comment below!
Images:Â Vladimir van Hoek
Stay in Middle-earth with these stories!
- New Lord of the Rings Funko toys.
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- Burn it down with a Lord of the Rings fire pit.
