Quote Originally Posted by llamatron View Post
I disapprove greatly - not because I don't like the sets but because I dislike the trend of Lego phasing out their traditional themes in favour of licensed alternatives. Instead of Lego Pirates, we get Lego PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN® with the OFFICIAL LIKENESS OF JACK SPARROW! They're more expensive, less bricks and more limited in what they can do (have to be from a movie, have to be approved by license holder, can't be normal "yellow" skinned minifigs). And now we seem to be losing the excellent Kingdoms and recent Castle themes for LOTR stuff. It's not that the LOTR sets are bad, it's just the abandoning of "normal" LEGO castle that's bad and annoying.
I can understand this point of view.
But from lego's perspective, the licenced properties make them big bucks. Just look at Star Wars. I believe they have sold 200million Star Wars boxes (i could be wrong - but thats what their marketing said).

LOTR as popular as star wars will sell at least half of that above total.
Why wouldnt you do it?