THERE is a certain amount of creative license that enters into any film adaptation of a book. And history teaches us that no matter how faithful (or unfaithful) a film adaptation is with respect to its original source, someone will complain about the movie’s (un)faithfulness to the books.

For example, I loved the first two “Harry Potter” movies, which I felt were extremely imaginative and creative. I had never seen children’s movies before where the actors were actually called upon to ACT. Compare the lively, engaged performances of the adults in “Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone” with the wooden performances of otherwise perfectly good actors in classic children’s films like “Mio in the Land of Faraway”, “The Witches”, “The Neverending Story”, and so on. You almost have to go back to Edmund Guinn in “Miracle on 34th Street” to see anything like an adult actor taking a children’s story seriously enough to treat it with respect (well, “Mary Poppins” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” were pretty good).

But I digress from the main point. Movies can be very faithful to the book, and one of the criticisms that my Harry Potter fan friends who had read the books before watching the movies complained about was that the movies were boring and predictable. They followed the books very closely (even while cutting out a bit of material).

But then along came “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”, which Alfonso Cuarón directed — totally changing the tone and character of the film franchise — and people complained that his film was too UNLIKE the book. Talk about injecting a Goldilocks Syndrome into a fanbase, you just cannot find people agreeing on when the “Harry Potter” movies are just right even up to the last film (which some people hate for all sorts of reasons — but I loved it).

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I’m fairly obsessed with The Hobbit’s Benedict Cumberbatch, I have been since I first saw him take on the role of Sherlock Holmes in BBC’s ‘Sherlock’. This is why it’s great to hear that Benedict will be awarded for his talent at the upcoming Britannia awards.

Benedict whose credits include ‘The Fifth Estate’, ‘Star Trek: Into Darkness’ and ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, as well as obviously ‘Sherlock’ and the upcoming ‘Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug’, where he’ll be playing the titular dragon antagonist Smaug, will be receiving the award for British Artist of the Year at the Britannia Awards in Beverley Hills.

The award itself is dedicated to paying tribute to the British artist who represents the best of UK talent, and looking at the year that Cumberbatch has had I’m hard pressed to think of someone more deserving. Previous winners of the prestigious award are Kate Winslet, Michael Sheen, Rachel Weisz, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Blunt and Tilda Swinton, which as you can see is a fairly impressive selection of names to be joining. It’s also nice to get another male winner to go with the fantastic actresses that have been honoured.

Also winning at the Britannia awards are George Clooney, who will receive the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film, Kathryn Bigelow, who will receive the John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing and Sir Ben Kingsley will receive the Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Entertainment.

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 click on the images to view larger versions and don’t forget to say hi to PeckishOwl

Of course. we can’t come to the city that never sleeps and NOT throw a party!  So on Thursday 10th October we will be holding our annual ‘Ringers Take Manhattan’ event!  This year, we’ll be at a different venue – the charming Oak Cellar at Jake’s Dilemma, 430 Amsterdam Avenue (just down the road from where we were last year).  As ever, we’ll have a generous finger food buffet, and your ticket will also include your first drink and two tickets into our raffle for the evening.

You can buy tickets for this party here.  Tickets can also be bought on the door that night, but will be $5 more expensive then – so it pays to buy in advance!  We really hope you’ll join us – we look forward to seeing many of our fellow fans in NYC in October!

[Buy tickets to Ringers take Manhattan]

What started off as a friendly chat quickly devolved into an exposé… and an attack of a clone!

The author’s reason? Spiders. Mirkwood. Beorn. Wood-elves. Lake-men. And Smaug.

No, seriously. “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” is going to be the best part because hello, all the best stuff happens in it. “The Hobbit” Part Three-ie (out on December 17, 2014) is going to be the worst snooze cruise since Helm’s Deep. That’s because certain dragons are going to get whacked in the first of many hours and the rest is just going to be a big battle and then a long walk home.

Have a read of the rest and see whether you agree, or not.

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Actor Orlando Bloom is currently making his Broadway debut (sans blonde wig, we assume) in a new production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

This is the first time Romeo and Juliet has been staged on Broadway in 36 years — and we have THREE pairs of tickets to giveaway to lucky TORn readers!

Bloom’s co-star is two-time Tony Award® nominee Condola Rashad, and the production is directed by five-time Tony Award® nominee David Leveaux. The play will open on Broadway on Thursday, September 19, 2013 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre; preview performances have been running since Saturday, August 24, 2013.

How do you enter?

To enter to win one of these three pairs of tickets, all you have to do is follow @RomeoJulietBway on twitter, then send @theonering.net a TWEET!

Simply follow ‘@RomeoJulietBWay’, then tweet:

Please enter me to win tickets to R&J on Broadway! @RomeoJulietBway @theoneringnet #TORnRJ

Tweet us by MONDAY 16th Sept – don’t delay!  We’ll then pick three winners from all the tweets received, and we’ll be in touch with those lucky folks to let them know!

The winners will be able to choose tickets for a WEEKDAY performance of their choice (depending on availability) before Nov 1st of this year.  (Which means, if you’re planning on coming to New York ComicCon, you could go and see Romeo and Juliet on the Wednesday and then come to TORn’s party in the Big Apple on the Thursday – more on that soon!)

If you aren’t lucky enough to win, you can still buy tickets to see the lovely Orlando on stage!  All details of this production can be found here.

Don’t forget the #TORnRJ in your tweet!  Good luck!

Tweets about “#TORnRJ”

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.

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Analysing the role of The Necromancer in The Hobbit

By Ringer Captain Salt

The Dol Guldur storyline was only a minor portion of the first Hobbit film. Yet it set in motion things which will expand into a major story thread in The Desolation of Smaug after Gandalf leaves the company early on to deal with “some pressing business away south”.

Just how will the Necromancer story play out in the second film? It appears this depends on how many of the other story lines are tied into that which most serves as a direct prequel to The Lord of the Rings.

The widespread rise of evil

As Gandalf establishes in An Unexpected Journey, the rise of evil preceding The War of the Ring is not localized to Dol Guldur or Mirkwood; trolls and orcs on the move seem to spark concern that the watchful peace may be coming a close. Certainly, it seems that Azog is connected to the Necromancer, at the very least through his son/wretched offspring, Bolg. According to leaked Bridge Direct descriptions from last year:

It was said that Azog the Desecrator fell many years ago in the great battle between the Orcs and the Dwarves. But now he appears again at the top of a deadly horde of killer orcs. For Gandalf begins a race against time because he has to figure out the connection between the most dangerous orc commander and the growing evil, which takes shape in the ruins of the fortress of Dol Guldur. One thing is totally clear: no one will deter Azog from his intention to destroy Thorin Oakenshield’s companions to the last dwarf.

Bolg is the offspring of Azog the Desecrator — like his father, he is huge pale orc. He is the overseer in the dungeons of Dol Guldur — torturing is his hobby. He garnishes his armor with the bones and the blood of his victims. This husky Orc fears nothing and nobody — until he suddenly meets an unexpected opponent.

Azog — Sauron’s newest undead minion?

Azog the Defiler

Also as some have noted, during the final confrontation with the Gundabad Orcs Sting gleams brightly until Bilbo lands across the head of Azog’s warg, at which point the blade dims. Why? Because Sting recognizes that Azog is not a “living” Orc? And why is Bolg, himself a formidable Orc chieftain of the north in Tolkien’s writings, serving as Sauron’s interrogator? Does he owe the Dark Lord a debt for raising a slain Azog from the abyss?

Despite many fans’ probable preference that Azog and Smaug remain independent agents rather than thralls of Sauron, the Bridge Direct description would not mention a connection between Azog and Sauron if there were not one. Additionally, in An Unexpected Journey Gandalf makes mention that he fears “the enemy” — meaning Sauron — could use Smaug “to terrible effect”.

(As an aside, this actually ties closely with Gandalf’s thoughts on the importance of Thorin’s mission and the northern theater in Tolkien’s The Quest for Erebor as published in Unfinished Tales).

And keep in mind that even before he had signed on to the project, but apparently after he had read the then-in-progress scripts, Ian McKellen mentioned that Peter Jackson and Co. had been quite clever about tying the various elements in The Hobbit together. The implication is that we would get a more cohesive narrative than the seemingly largely unrelated linear plot-lines that played out separately in An Unexpected Journey.

There was a spike of excitement on The Hobbit Discussion Board when some spoilers were found in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Annual.  Come on in and get spoiled right here.

As we are always inspired by the music of Howard Shore, the discussion on The Hobbit Board turned to sharing favorite musical moments in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  Share your favorite moments here.

You should know that those of us at TORn really do have other interests.  That was displayed most enthusiastically when the Off Topic Discussion Board wondered:  “So how do you feel about Marvel movies?”  You can dive into the fun right here.

There was quite a milestone on the Message Boards when we reached 10,000 registered members!  That’s a LOT of people doing a LOT of discussing… and there’s always so much more to talk about!!

We’ll share more topics next week and hope you join in on the conversations!  Don’t forget, TheOneRing.net’s Message Boards NOW have over 10,000 registered fans, just like you.  Let your voice be heard!!

Gandalf & Saruman at SLCC 2013

SALT LAKE CITY — Once scheduled for a smaller venue in the suburbs, the first ever Salt Lake Comic Con filled Utah’s capital city’s largest convention venue and had it bursting at the seams Saturday. For a time the hundreds waiting outside were not allowed to enter except at a 1-out-1-in rate. Word on the dealer’s floor said it was because the fire marshal closed the space but that rumor was never confirmed.

Reports in the media called the event “record setting” for a first-year convention, and that is possibly true, but such stats aren’t readily available. In any case, it was a massive event with celebrities that included William Kircher (Bifur) and Manu Bennett (Azog) and other pop-culture icons like William Shatner and Adam West.

Azog at Weta booth, Salt Lake Comic Con 2013

TheOneRing.net was part of the fun as well, with staffer (and this writer) Larry D. Curtis (MrCere) attending with the show in his (my) hometown. the SLComic Con invited TORn to present a panel about Smaug and serve on other panels as well, with topics including Fantasy Films, all things Tolkien, Geek Culture and film school.

Bennett and Kircher were kind enough to drop by TheOneRing panel that also included author and TORn friend Paul Genesse. He helped moderate the panel and showed incredible enthusiasm for the material.

TheOneRing also managed a booth on the at time very crowded floor supported by incredible friends at Badali Jewelry and Weta Workshop making its first U.S. appearance outside of the San Diego Comic Con. TORn helped back in a small way to staff the Weta booth and send those with questions about where to purchase The One Ring to Badali’s very nearby booth. Artist David Powell was also kind enough to sign posters of his art for fans.

The Salt Palace Convention Center can be expanded and the SLCC will return next year. TheOneRing.net hopes to be part of the show. Thanks to Dan McBride and Blonde Ninja for their support of the TORn booth. Thanks also to the many financial supports at the event and to Salt Lake Comic Con for letting us be a part of the show. If you attended and would like TORn to return, you can use the contact info here to let them know.

If anybody has images of Bennett and Kircher attending the TORn panel, please send them in! We were busy having a panel and didn’t get any photos.