WESTWOOD, MA – January 22, 2009 – Turbine, Inc. announced today that The Lord of the Rings Online™: Mines of Moria™ was named “Best MMORPG” in the 1up.com 2008 Reader’s Choice Awards. Mines of Moria, Turbine’s latest expansion to the increasingly popular massively multiplayer online game (MMO) The Lord of the Rings Online dominated the results, securing nearly half of all votes in the “Best MMORPG” category over nominees including World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures and Pirates of the Burning Sea. 1up.com is a leading online destination for videogame news, reviews, previews, features and additional content. Continue reading “THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE™: MINES OF MORIA™ NAMED BEST MMORPG OF 2008”
Day: January 22, 2009
Mike Foster writes: J.R.R. Tolkien scholar Douglas A. Anderson will present “Annotating The Hobbit & Other Adventures” at Bradley University’s Neumiller Chapel in Bradley Hall at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 17, in Peoria, Illinois. Bradley adjunct English professor Mike Foster will be the moderator of the free lecture. Anderson is the award-winning author and editor of The Annotated Hobbit, Tales Before Tolkien, Tales Before Narnia. Seekers of Dreams, and, with Verlyn Flieger, an expanded critical edition of Tolkien’s On Fairy-stories. He is also an editor of the academic journal Tolkien Studies. Foster has been the North American representative of the Tolkien Society since 1995. From 1974 until his retirement in 2005, he taught a literature course on Tolkien at Illinois Central College. In 2006 and 2008, he taught an upper-division version of that class at Bradley University.
Sir Ian McKellen”Lord of the Rings” fans, don’t expect the highly anticipated “The Hobbit” prequel to be another “Lord of the Rings.” Sir Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in the trilogy, will return for “The Hobbit,” but said his approach won’t be that of reprising a character he’s played before. He’ll instead be reacting to the new material with a fresh perspective on his character.
“We’re not remaking the ‘Lord of the Rings,’ we’re going to do ‘The Hobbit’ and what Gandalf has to do in that will be different line by line, scene by scene than the trilogy,” McKellen told writers at the TV Critics Press Tour in Hollywood. “All that’s going back to the character. It’s going back to a whole new set of circumstances.” McKellen: ‘Hobbit’ Won’t Be ‘Rings’ Remake
You’ve seen and not seen him, creeping along the slimy stones in hot pursuit of hobbits or hanging around the Empire State Building. But though Andy Serkis has breathed life into iconic characters, some of his most recognizable scenes have involved his demise. “I’m going to cut a show reel together of my great death scenes. I think it could be a bestseller,” says Serkis with a deep-voiced laugh. After all, he has taken a swim in the fires of Mt. Doom in his performance-capture role as Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” and, perhaps even more memorably, plunged to his death as Kong (not to mention that in his small — human — role as a cook in “King Kong,” he was eaten head-first by a ravenous worm.) “That’s a pretty good one,” Serkis says of becoming worm food. “My son’s been traumatized by that for years. He was about 5 when he saw that. The Freudian nature of his father’s death by CG hasn’t left him, really.” Andy Serkis, a monstrous talent on the loose
With work on “The Hobbit” really starting to move forward, Guillermo del Toro updated MTV News this week with exclusive scripting, casting and pre-production news, including confirmation that “Hellboy” creator Mike Mignola will be coming aboard for early visualization.
“We are sketching and designing with Weta’s John Howe, and [Adam Lee],” del Toro offered. “Mike Mignola is coming soon. He’s going to do a stint on the design team.” This is good news for fans of Mignola, who worked with del Toro on both “Hellboy” films as well as providing some art for “Pan’s Labyrinth.”
“In about two, three months we’re going to full-on have more designers come on … from outside Weta. But we are already about a good third of the road [along] with some of the creatures — some really interesting and strong designs.” More…