All fans of the LEGO Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit range are waiting to see if the manufacturer will offer us a molded eagle as the preliminary visual of the set suggests. 79007 The Black Gate put online by the Sears brand (see this article) or if the animal will be made from bricks like the one in the set LEGO Creator 31004 Fierce Flyer.

Either way, this Creator set is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to stage the eagles that respond to Gandalf's call to get Thorin and his companions out of a very bad situation in The Hobbit.

We also find these eagles during several events in the Lord of the Rings saga: Battle of the Black Gate, rescue of Frodo and Samwise after the destruction of the ring ...

In short, eagles are important animals in both sagas and in case of disappointment with the representation of the raptor in the set 79007, we can always turn to this LEGO Creator set of 166 pieces sold for less than 10 € at amazon...

It's Bjarke Schonwandt, the "quality" man at LEGO who confirms the info on the very secret forum reserved for "LEGO Ambassadors" and I will sum it up here in a few words, because after all, we are all entitled to the info:

The arches delivered so far in the set of the range The Hobbit 79003 An Unexpected Gathering are ALL defective (See this article).

Explanation: A dark story of the bad graphics file used to cast the part, I'll skip the details. LEGO made a mistake.

ALL boxes sold to date are affected, and LEGO has stopped production of the affected set to correct the problem.

The solution: Contact LEGO customer service without delay to have the two arches delivered in this set (LEGO reference 4114073) replaced with the same reference, but with the correct dimensions.

Moreover, this same Mr. Schonwandt had promised earlier in 2012 that LEGO would take care of bringing out in new sets the 10 most expensive pieces on Bricklink, just to break the effect of shortage and speculation ... He also confirmed that LEGO keeps track of requests to replace missing or defective parts in order to unmask "the profiteers of the system".

Adam Dodge aka Dodge_A is currently participating in the contest LEGO Olympics Middle-Earth (MELO) which takes place on MOCpages.

Here is one of his participations with a reproduction of the scene in which the Fellowship of the Ring tries in vain to cross Caradhras before turning back and passing through the mines of Moria, all in decorative wall panel version ...

It's practical and it frees up shelves ...

I let you discover the other views of this MOC on his flickr gallery. You will also find a Balrog and Smaug ...

Other nice MOCs are to be discovered among the many entries of the LEGO Olympics Middle-Earth competition.

It is the Canadian branch of the Sears brand that makes the dumpling of the day and which in the process allows us to see a little more closely what the next LEGO Lord of the Rings set will be made of. 79007 The Black Gate.

On the preliminary visual of this set of 655 pieces marked as "in stock" at Sears and that you can discover by clicking on the image above we will note that the eagle is a molded figurine, that we will be entitled to Gandalf the White, Mouth of Sauron, 2 orcs and Aragorn.

The description of the set in English:

"... Fly the Great eagle high above the Black Gate of Mordor where Aragorn and Gandalf the White must distract the Eye of Sauron. Use them to stage a scene while Frodo Baggins and his friend Sam throw the One Ring into the fiery depths of Mount Doom and destroy it forever. To reach the Ring's final destination, you must defeat the Mouth of Sauron and the Mordor Orcs positioned high in the spiked gate walls. Then breach the gate and lead the attack on the enemy! Includes a Great Eagle and 5 minifigures with weapons: Aragorn, Gandalf the White, Mouth of Sauron and 2 Mordor Orcs..."

If you want to see the visual, don't hang around too much, LEGO is definitely going to request its removal from the Sears online catalog ...

(Thanks to maxell in the comments)

Miguel is writing to me this morning to point out a problem that may seem trivial to some but which may prove annoying for others who consider that at the price or we pay for our sets, we have the right to be demanding.

It turns out that the set from the LEGO The Hobbit range 79003 An Unexpected Gathering is delivered according to the boxes with two types of arches (Tan Brick, Arch 1 x 6 x 2 - 4114073 on the instructions of the set) different intended for the assembly of the window of the house of Bilbo: Some of these arches are indeed equipped with a plastic stopper making it possible to maintain the elements locked between two of these parts and others have just an empty groove there. The absence of this stop induces a floating of a few millimeters of the elements of the window which is for some quite unpleasant.

Unfortunately, it seems that the distribution of the parts concerned is random according to the boxes. Some buyers get the parts with the stopper pin, others get the parts fully hollowed out.

A dedicated topic was opened by Miguel on Eurobricks to try to determine the importance of the problem that several buyers of this box have already come forward to confirm.

The instruction booklet clearly shows this stopper in the center of the part's groove.

LEGO has been contacted regarding this issue, I will keep you informed of the response.