Another interesting thought-piece that I stumbled on in my Middle-earth wanderings across the internet. In this article, Tolkien scholar Michael Martinez tackles the eternally vexing question of textual fidelity and why he feels that the divergences between novel and film are beneficial. (more…)
We know that The Necromancer has a big role to play in The Desolation of Smaug. But just how big will it be? Will Dol Guldur be a relatively minor affair involving only Gandalf and his fellow wizards? Or will other key actors of The Hobbit be somehow drawn into the struggle in the south of Mirkwood?
In this feature, Ringer Captain Salt assembles what we know already form various actor blog posts, video logs and magazine articles and tries to tie it all together. (more…)
Posted in Green Books, Hobbit Movie, Rumors Spy News, The Hobbit, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
In this piece on his blog Midgardsmal, linguist David Salo writes about how he derived various Orkish dialects used in the Lord of the Rings films from his own extrapolations of Black Speech, and
about his thoughts on the approach Sauron might have taken in putting together Black Speech itself.
Yours truly has been ever-so-slowly getting through the newest Tolkien book The Fall of Arthur for the last month-and-a-half with a hope of at some point stringing together a few poor words on the subject.
I’ve also been reading other what others have had to say in the media. This piece, by Tolkien scholar John Garth, is a good place to start if you’re interested.
Early in The Fall of Arthur, long awaited by fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and now edited for publication by his son Christopher, an army rides to Mirkwood where they see in a storm above it, Ringwraith-like:
wan horsemen wild in windy clouds
grey and monstrous grimly riding
shadow-helmed to war, shapes disastrous.
But this isn’t Middle-earth: it is Europe on the brink of the Dark Ages, and the army is led by Arthur and Gawain. Mirkwood is simply the old name for Germany’s eastern forests, which Tolkien borrowed for the children’s story he was writing in the same period in the early 1930s, The Hobbit.
Tolkien was a writer of endless stories. And as with most of them, The Fall of Arthur is literally endless: unfinished. It’s been lying among his vast legacy of papers, almost unknown but for a paragraph in Humphrey Carpenter’s 1976 biography and a single reference in Tolkien’s published letters. Publication follows that of the more difficult The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún in 2009, which Christopher Tolkien probably elected to publish first because it was complete. Like Sigurd and Gudrún, The Fall of Arthur is in alliterative verse, a mode last fashionable in the 14th century.
Posted in Books Publications, Christopher Tolkien, Collectibles, Green Books, J.R.R. Tolkien, Other Tolkien books, Tolkien
How will The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug unfold. It’s the big question. How do all the threads fits together? What’s being changed? What’s being added that was never in Tolkien’s text of The Hobbit?
Here, Ringer Captain Salt from the TORn messageboards attempts to put string together all the teasing hints that we’ve seen make their way onto the internet over the past 12-18 months.
Needless to say, this really is SPOILER country. If you don’t even want to know what the plot might be, don’t go here! (more…)
Posted in Green Books, Headlines, Hobbit Book, Hobbit Movie, Hobbit Movie Rumors, Rumors Spy News, The Hobbit, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Trailer
At the beginning of this month, the TORn messageboard Reading Room (home on our boards to all things Tolkien and scholarly) held an amateur symposium, with a number of folks submitting papers for discussion.
Among them them was this interesting piece by Arandir analysing the Battle of the Five Armies. We felt it was deserving of a wider audience and are delighted to — with Arandir’s permission — reproduce it for you as a TORn Library piece.
Posted in Characters, Green Books, Hobbit Book, The Hobbit
Beginning last Saturday and running through to September 4, TheOneRing.net is hosting a Pledge Drive (see the banner at the top) as well as a bunch of auctions for some really cool memorabilia and collectibles.
The day-to-day operation of the website, and the events we host, require a lot more resources than when we first started nearly 15 years ago. We sometimes find it hard to ask our readers for the help we need to keep running, so we began discussing what it is that makes TheOneRing.net worth helping out. It started out as a search for the Top Ten Moments of TORn, but the list got so long because each staff member had their own idea of important moments in TORn history. Here, instead, is something more encompassing: Ten Ways TORn helps serve Tolkien and Lord of the Rings fandom (listed in no specific order).
And, if you enjoy what we do, consider a donation (no amount too small, because every bit does help!) to keep us running!
If you can’t, that’s fine as well — keep reading, commenting and contributing. Because TORn is as much you as it is us!
If you’ve ever sent in an article, submitted a photo or report, posted on our messageboards, visited our chat, or commented on our twitter, facebook or g+, you’re the reason TheOneRing.net is among the largest and most-respected pillars of the Tolkien community on the web.
Posted in Barliman News, Barlimans, Cannes 2001, Casting Rumors, ComicCon, Conventions, Costuming, Crew News, Director Rumors, DragonCon, Events, Fans, Fellowship of the Ring, Film Screenings, Green Books, Hall of Fire, Hobbit Book, Hobbit Cast News, Hobbit Movie, Hobbit Movie Rumors, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lectures & Education, Locations Sets, Lord of the Rings, LotR Books, LotR Cast News, LotR Movies, Make the Hobbit Happen, Meet Ups, Movie Fellowship of the Ring, Movie Return of the King, Movie The Two Towers, MrCere in New Zealand, New Zealand, Old Cannes News, Old ComicCon News, Old DragonCon News, Old Main News, Old Oscar Party News, Old Spy Reports, Original TORn, Oscar Parties, Other Events, Other Merchandise, Other Tolkien books, Peter Jackson, PJ New Line, PJ's Other Films, Production, Return of the King, Rumors Spy News, Rumours Spy News, Studios, The Hobbit, The Two Towers, Tolkien, Tolkien Reading Day, Trailer, WellingtonTolkien’s love of Anglo-Saxon history is well-known, as are his influences from such Nordic works as Beowulf and the Finnish Kalevala. His passion for these cultures is evident in every race he created for Middle-earth, including the dwarves. Yet as has been highlighted in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, some of the inspiration for the dwarven race may have come from an understated influence: the Celts. (more…)
Posted in Aidan Turner, Alan Lee, Billy Connolly, Characters, Dean O'Gorman, Graham McTavish, Green Books, Hobbit Movie, Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Lectures & Education, Miscellaneous, soundtrack, The Hobbit, Uncategorized, WETA Workshop
Azog the Defiler
In particular, he examines whether persistent criticism of this key villain might be a result of flaws inadvertently introduced by the relatively late switch from two films to three.
Posted in Characters, Fellowship of the Ring, Green Books, Headlines, Hobbit Book, Hobbit Movie, LotR Books, LotR Movies, Movie Fellowship of the Ring, Movie Return of the King, Movie The Two Towers, Return of the King, The Hobbit, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, The Two Towers
Last weekend, The Hall of Fire examined what’s undoubtedly the movie topic of the moment — the character and appearance of Beorn. Lots of thoughtful opinions from all sides, and some interesting analysis of the mythic roots of Tolkien’s shapeshifter as well as of Alan Lee, John Howe and Ted Nasmith’s classic illustrations. Plenty of spoilers, too! For those who couldn’t attend, here’s a log.
Also, this weekend (Saturday August 24 at 6pm EDT (New York time)) we’ll be returning to our Lord of the Rings book chats. This week we begin the first chapter of book four — The Taming of Smeagol — so be sure to join us for this exciting topic! (more…)
Posted in Alan Lee, Barlimans, Characters, Green Books, Hall of Fire, Hobbit Book, Hobbit Movie, J.R.R. Tolkien, John Howe, Locations Sets, Mikael Persbrandt, The Hobbit, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Tolkien Last weekend, The Hall of Fire delved into one of the great (and tragic) stories of Tolkien’s Legendarium, Akallabêth: The Downfall of Numenor. For those who couldn’t attend, here’s a log.
Also, this weekend (Saturday August 17 at 6pm EDT (New York time)) we’ll be focusing on a movie topic — Beorn. That’s right, the shapeshifter of the Vales of the Anduin and hero of the Battle of the Five Armies. What do you think of Mikael Persbrandt, what are your thoughts on Beorn’s demense and hall so far, and what do you think of the spy image that we revealed last Friday? Those are just a few of the questions we’ll touch on, so don’t miss it! (more…)
Posted in Fellowship of the Ring, Green Books, Lord of the Rings, LotR Books, Return of the King, The Two Towers
High Goblin Activity by William Puck.
TheOneRing.net chatted with the mysterious Mr Puck to find out more about himself and his work. Read on, and discover what he had to say — and see some of the examples of his guerilla-style, street art as well. (more…)
Posted in Creations, Fans, Green Books, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit
