Remember The Hobbit production vlog #2 that came out back in July 2011?
Well, we’ve watched it again (and recommend you do too), especially the bit between 2:05 and 2:25, where it isn’t hard to spot Peter Jackson and his crew wearing a “200 Days To Go” sweatshirt. What is hard to spot though is the logo on the front of that sweatshirt… until now.
Our Dwarves at TORn who spend their time mining the interwebs for gems of information came across an image of the hoodie that reveals the logo is none other than Smaug the Golden.
Our staffers then got down to discussing it, and some said Yes, and some said No. Some said it couldn’t be the real design for Smaug, and some said it only offered clues to what the real Smaug will look like. One staffer called Greendragon was (aptly!) drawn to this image more than the others and said it looked very much like “a John Howe Smaug“. Finally, the end of it was to put the image out for your consideration and see what you thought of it.
So, what do you think? Real or not? Mildly interesting or surprisingly faithful? Sound off on our message boards.
A friendly spy let us know some exciting news! As seen on a book supplier’s ordering site – listings for a pair of Hobbit movie themed books by Weta Workshop!
The first, titled “The Hobbit Chronicles: An Unexpected Journey”, is a hardcover expected to retail at $39.99(USD). It’s listed as coming out on November 6th, 2012. Presumably this will be some kind of “making of/behind the scenes” book for the first film.
The second book has a publication date of October 15th, 2013 – a long time to wait for this one! Titled “The Hobbit Location Guide: Where the Journey Begins”, it is a trade paperback with an anticipated price of 14.99(USD). It seems likely that Ian Brodie, author of the “Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook”, would be involved with this one. This will come in handy if you’re planning a pilgrimage to Middle-earth, aka New Zealand!
Neither appears to be available for the public to pre-order just yet; but as we make our way through this year of ‘Hobbit Eve’, the good stuff just keeps coming and the anticipation just keeps building!
Middle-earth March Madness is down to the Final Four! Coming out of the Rankin/Bass Division, battered and bruised by some close calls, is none other than everyone’s favorite wizard, Gandalf! From the Ralph Bakshi Division, with a final match that was not nearly as close as one might expect, is Aragorn! From the Tolkien Family Division is the solid number one seed Legolas, coming hot off his latest victory over the Ringbearer himself, Frodo. Last, but certainly not least, out of the Peter Jackson Division, is tournament dark horse, and the only remaining Hobbit…Samwise Gamgee! Voting in for the Final Four will last until April 1st at 6pm ET. Check out the results from the previous rounds: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3.
Follow after the break to place your vote and see the latest version of the bracket. (Download) Good luck to all of our competitors!
Continue reading “Middle-earth March Madness 2012 – The Final Four!”
Lets make one thing clear up front: Don’t go to the theater expecting too much from “Wrath of the Titans.” Don’t expect to be emotionally invested or deeply moved or to have your intellect challenged or to be dazzled by dialog or performances; none of those things will happen.
And, even the best special effects films can leave viewers feeling like they have been pick-pocketed by bright lights and huge databases of computers generating artificial pixels of men and monsters like most of the films with “Transformers,” somewhere in the title. Continue reading “Film Friday: ‘Wrath of the Titans’ surprises”
We have asked in delightful geeky conversations, and you have too: “Why are fantasy accents British?” In fact, at a recent TORn staff meeting at John Carter, that very topic came up. Well, bless the BBC and writer Brian Wheeler for taking the conversation to the next level and checking with some experts and for including LOTR and The Hobbit in the discussion. You can read it right here. Thanks to spy Elessar (but not the TORn staffer of the same name) for the tip.
A close relative of TheOneRing’s own Barliman’s chat room concept of group commentary while watching a film, DownInFront.net has completed thoughts on the entire LOTR trilogy. The site is free and interesting an the folks commenting know film but most importantly, they know story. The site leads off its “about” portion of the website with the following:
“Down in Front is a commentary podcast with a difference – all of the members of the Down in Front family are, in some way, involved in the film industry and work on movies for a living. Sometimes we even worked on the movies we run commentary on. Sometimes we’re not proud of it.”
They have done many more films than these, but deserve a tip of the hat for taking on this trilogy (although we confess we have only listened to snippets so far but believe they are certainly entitled to their opinions, whatever they are!) You can either watch the film and synch their commentary or listen to it on its own. Curious? Take a look right here to check out their work. (We like the idea so much, who knows, we might even borrow it and lock some staff in a room sometime during a trilogy marathon for a TORn staff commentary.) Thanks to spy rtambree for the notice.
