Treebeard (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King by Toy Biz)

While I’ve never read any of the Lord of the Rings novels (and honestly have no real interest of ever changing that), I’m very fond of the film trilogy by Peter Jackson. My favourite out of the three is The Two Towers, and one reason is because of the character Treebeard. Ancient and wise, soft-spoken and compassionate, resolute and immensely powerful, he and his fellow Ents played a major role in helping to turn the tide of the War of the Ring for the side of good.

The first Treebeard toy in Toy Biz’s LOTR toy line came out in 2002 to coincide with the release of TTT. It was positively gargantuan at 45 cm tall and featured electronic light-up eyes and several spoken lines of dialogue lifted directly from the film. I felt it looked pretty nifty, but also too big and too expensive for me to snap up. But then in 2003, Toy Biz released a second Treebeard toy for their Return of the King series. It was a greatly downsized version sold at the same price point as most of the other toys, and I decided that I couldn’t pass it up.

Despite being downsized, this Treebeard was still the biggest LOTR toy in his price point, and a big toy, period. Including the large branch jutting out from behind his head, (which came packaged separately and pegs into place), he stands just under 25 cm tall. His colouration is a mixture of medium and dark brown with grey and green wash. The leaves on his smaller branches are either dull green or light orange. His beard is light brown and his eyes are glossy medium brown with black pupils.

Ents are very tree-like creatures and Treebeard absolutely looks the part. His body is sculpted to resemble rough, gnarled wood. His long legs with their huge and wide feet are like tree trunks and the curled fingers on his hands are like branches. He also has multiple branches of varying size jutting out of various locations on his body,including one on his forehead. His drooping moustache and long, bushy beard resemble Spanish moss. Overall, he looks very much like his movie model, albeit with fewer branches.

Treebeard’s legs rotate at the hips and have universal joints at the knees, but due to his size and design, it’s rather difficult to put him in any kind of walking pose without him falling over. His knuckles are hinged and his wrists, elbows, and left shoulder have universal joints. His right arm swings freely at the shoulder due to his action feature. Pushing down on the branch-shaped lever right behind his shoulder causes his right arm to raise and his moustache to move as though he were speaking. The latter feature is not as impressive as on the larger electronic version, but it’s still pretty neat and fun.

Overall, this toy is a very good representation of the Treebeard character, and if I recall correctly, it was a reasonably affordable one at the time of its release. Nowadays, of course, you’re only likely to find it on places like eBay, where it can command a much bigger price tag. As Treebeard himself would say, “Don’t be hasty.”