August 4, 2013 at 8:21 am by Demosthenes
Ringer Giurunian writes to tell us of this amazing diorama of the Argonath created by Russian sculptor Alexander Krasnov last year.
Krasnov calls the work “The Guardians” and created it from completely scratch using little more than plastics, foam sponge, PVA glue, gypsum, cardboard and a dremel. Oh, and some paint!
The scale is, apparently, 1:100, and the diorama measures 40 centimetres by 28 centimetres. The Argonath figures of Isildur and Anarion are 65 millimetres high and are based on the movie (and subsequent Weta collector sculpts), rather than the bookends released with the Collector’s DVD Gift Set of The Fellowship of the Ring. (more…)
Posted in Creations, Fans, Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the Rings, LotR Books
August 2, 2013 at 4:43 am by Demosthenes
This weekend in the Hall of Fire, we’ll be chatting about the final chapter of Book III of The Two Towers.
‘Go to sleep!’ said Merry. ‘You’ll get information enough, sooner or later. My dear Pippin, no Took ever beat a Brandybuck for inquisitiveness; but is this the time, I ask you?’ (more…)
Posted in Barliman News, Barlimans, Hall of Fire
July 28, 2013 at 8:30 am by Demosthenes
Last weekend in The Hall of Fire, we discussed sources of heroism in The Lord of the Rings. Who acts heroically, and what is it that makes them heroic anyway? For those who couldn’t attend, here’s a log.
And a reminder, next weekend (Saturday August 3 at 6pm EDT (New York time)) we’ll be discussing the next chapter in our read-through of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: Book III, Chapter XI: The Palantir. It’s the final chapter of Book III, 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
July 27, 2013 at 8:15 pm by Demosthenes
| Source: Tolkien Brasil| No Comments »
Our friends at Tolkien Brasil tell us that, somewhat in the vein of the fan film Born of Hope, Dutchman Johan Zanderbergen is currently working on an fan-made animated version of The Hobbit.
Tolkien Brasil reports that “apparently the script is very faithful to the books and presents the childish tone that Tolkien’s work expresses, without losing the air of Middle-earth and seriousness of the mission of the dwarves.” (more…)
Posted in Creations, Fans, Hobbit Book, The Hobbit
July 27, 2013 at 9:50 am by Demosthenes
Last weekend in Hall of Fire we discussed the hero and the heroic in Lord of the Rings. The topic proved quite popular for everyone, so by request this weekend we’ll be honing in a little more to examine heroism among the Fellowship itself.
‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.
‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given, us. A Shadow of the Past, The Lord of the Rings.
(more…)
Posted in Barliman News, Barlimans, Hall of Fire
July 27, 2013 at 7:20 am by Demosthenes
| Source: Kabam| No Comments »
It seems that Kabam is getting serious about promoting its free-to-play Kingdoms of Middle-earth mobile app game. Our spies tell us that ads have been seen airing on the SyFy network — something apparently pretty much unheard of for this sort of game. (more…)
Posted in Gaming
July 20, 2013 at 6:03 am by Demosthenes
Last weekend in The Hall of Fire, we delved into the events of The Voice of Saruman the second last chapter of Book III of The Lord of the Rings. For those who couldn’t attend, here’s a log.
And remember, tomorrow (July 20 at 6pm EDT (New York time)) we’ll be discussing the Hero and the Heroic in The Lord of the Rings. (more…)
Posted in Green Books, Lord of the Rings, LotR Books, The Two Towers
July 19, 2013 at 11:26 pm by Demosthenes

This weekend, Hall of Fire we’ll be exploring the hero, and the heroic, in the Lord of the Rings.
I think the simple ‘rustic’ love of Sam and his Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero’s) character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working, begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the ‘longing for Elves’, and sheer beauty. Letter #131, Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.
(more…)
Posted in Barliman News, Barlimans, Hall of Fire
July 15, 2013 at 8:05 am by Demosthenes
Ringer RedOrmTheViking offers some intriguing analysis of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. He proposes that Rob Kazinsky, who was originally slated to play the role of Fili, actually appears on screen once during the Misty Mountains song sequence at the beginning of the film. However, because he’s mostly in shadow and because the focus, as the camera pans around the corner and into the room, is Thorin Oakenshield with his pipe, Kazinsky’s Fili is easy to overlook.
RedOrmTheViking’s analysis is directly below, with my comments afterwards.
BRITISH actor Rob Kazinsky was originally cast in the role of Fili for The Hobbit films. He can be seen on the first production v-log walking around the Bag End set with other members of the cast during the “blocking” phase of pre-production.
A couple of months after the release of the first production v-log, Kazinsky dropped out of the film just as principal photography began, citing personal reasons. The role would ultimately be filled by New Zealand actor Dean O’Gorman.

Rob Kazinsky at Bag End.
However, if my suspicions are correct, it appears that one single shot of Kazinsky as Fili made it into the final cut of the film, and it’s when the dwarves begin to sing the Misty Mountains song in Bag End. This is the shot in question (with the brightness kicked up a few notches).
Go back and watch that scene. Fili is the only dwarf in the entire company whose face you don’t see throughout the whole singing sequence. All of the other dwarves are accounted for, and seen very clearly except for Fili, who we only “see” in this single shot.
We know from the early v-logs that the Unexpected Party scenes were the first to be filmed with the dwarf cast. We also know that Kazinsky had already filmed a few scenes as Fili before dropping out of the film. From what little we can see of his face, it’s pretty clearly not Dean O’Gorman.
It’s likely that Jackson cut around showing Kazinsky s Fili for the scene, and in this one particular shot, digitally enhanced the shadows on him to hide his face so our focus is solely on Thorin. Dean O’Gorman was cast not too long after Kazinsky left, allowing Jackson to finish the remaining scenes in Bag End featuring Fili.

Thorin sings the Misty Mountains song with Fili in the foreground on the left. Note the similarity in the shape and length of the nose to the previous photo of Rob Kazinsky above.
I found it interesting since — to date — there have been no known images (official or unofficial) released of Kazinsky as Fili.
I should point out that I only managed to spot this after watching The Hobbit blu-ray on a 1080p screen, where it is much more noticeable.
Dem here. I did a couple of things in checking through this to see if it holds water.
First, I rifled through the credits as listed on IMDB, and also examined the actual list of film credits courtesy of someone who seems to have filmed them in-cinema. Kazinsky does not seem to be listed on either. I know that folks are sometimes not credited for various reasons, but IMDB already has a list of uncredited people for AUJ and Kazinsky is not among them. And I realise that IMDB is not always a poster child for reliability, but it’s something to keep in mind.
The next thing I did was to watch the scene (you can do it too — I’ve embedded youtube video of the scene at the bottom) and count all the dwarfs. And indeed, to one extent or another, the camera does linger over each of the other dwarves. Primarily it’s Thorin, Kili, Balin and Dwalin. But all the company get camera time (Oin probably gets the least). More importantly, and in stark contrast to the shadowed Fili, they’re each in full, bright light.
Lastly, I took my own screencap. Mine, from a slightly more front-on angle shows a tiny bit more of Fili’s facial features, though i haven’t gone to the effort of brightening it. Then I started hunting round the internet for a few different profile photos of Dean O’Gorman as Fili for the sake of comparison. My own opinion is that the individual half-hidden in the shadows in the AUJ doesn’t really resemble O’Gorman. I feel that the brows and the bridge of the nose, and the nose itself seem too dissimilar for it to be O’Gorman.

Fili and Thorin at Bag End. A slightly better angle. Screencap taken from the clip below.
But you might not agree; it’s certainly not absolutely conclusive! Food for thought anyhow.
Posted in Dean O'Gorman, Hobbit Movie, Rob Kazinsky, The Hobbit, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
July 13, 2013 at 9:45 am by Demosthenes
The key players in The Lord of the Rings are probably some of the most-written about characters in literature. Everyone loves the leading lights such as Frodo, Aragorn, Sam and Gandalf.
Yet there are a number of minor (some even without a name!) characters who either serve an important purpose, give us a great deal of food for thought, or even go against established yet hard-to-overcome stereotypes about the content of Tolkien’s writing.
In no particular order, here are my leading six. (more…)
Posted in Fellowship of the Ring, Green Books, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, LotR Books, Return of the King, The Two Towers, Tolkien
July 13, 2013 at 9:28 am by Demosthenes
Last weekend in the Hall of Fire, bouncing off Gandalf’s famous “For I also am a steward” rejoinder to Denethor, we discussed exactly what made a steward in Middle-earth. For those who couldn’t attend, here’s a log.
And remember, tomorrow (July 13 at 6pm EDT (New York time)) we’ll be discussing the next chapter of The Two Towers: The Voice of Saruman. (more…)
Posted in Barlimans, Green Books, Hall of Fire, Hobbit Book, Lord of the Rings, LotR Books, The Hobbit, The Two Towers
July 13, 2013 at 6:18 am by Demosthenes
In this extract from his acclaimed book Tolkien and the Great War: the Threshold of Middle-earth, John Garth outlines some of the earliest antecedents of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium, in around March 1916, shortly before he left for the Somme. Even for someone who’s only read as far as, say, The Silmarillion, there are tantalising threads of familiar and semi-familiar names.
(more…)
Posted in Green Books, J.R.R. Tolkien, Other Tolkien books, Tolkien