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.

• Spy Reports

• Spy reports were a big part of our content when the website first started. From casting announcements to secret location pictures to leaked images of important plot points, spy reports were our bread and butter stories. Some of the reports were from random, anonymous sources, while others were official leaks from cast and crew. In fact, there were many production members who said they used TheOneRing.net to keep track of what some of the other filming units were doing. Other spy reports were just someone stumbling upon a film location and sending in a story or images and then we’d all try and guess what location it actually was. Some of our biggest spy reports were of Arwen at Helm’s Deep (which subsequently didn’t happen), Saruman’s prone body on a spiky wheel (which did happen), and TheOneRing.net was given the honor of introducing Thorin to the world. And very soon, we will be seeing stories from MrCere’s visit to the set from his Production Embed last year.

• Hall of Fire Chats and the Message Boards

• Literary discussions on the message boards and Hall of Fire chats – From the very beginning of TheOneRing.net, discussions of the books, chapter by chapter, has been a hallmark. After all, while we waited for news on who would be cast, where filming would take place, and rumors of what might be cut out, we had the books to talk about. Discussions worked by talking about one chapter at a time, and luckily, there are enough books with enough chapters, to keep those discussions going on for a long while. Since the beginning, we’ve looped through the books several times, but luckily, there are always new readers joining the discussion, and new interpretations to be had. And for something a little more dynamic, there are the Hall of Fire chats in Barlimans. Sometimes the talk is about a specific chapter, or a certain character, and sometimes it is about current events, such as new character images or reviews of a recently released trailer. No matter which forum you use, there is always someone to talk to about some aspect of Tolkien, the books or our fandom.

• TORns Live Videos

• We began with TORn Live, which consisted of Red Carpet interviews at premieres, awards ceremonies and special events like Cannes 2001 and SDCC. These would be recorded, edited and released online a few days or weeks later. But technology now allows for live streaming interviews and vlogs and the like. Quickbeam hosts a weekly TORn Tuesday event with interviews and discussions, while he interacts with a live chatroom. The Happy Hobbit ladies record and post their vlogs and post them within a day or two of their recordings, for a much quicker turnaround on video content. And right now we have the Road to DragonCon in full swing with live streaming from across the country.

• Conventions

• Convention appearances – Calisuri and Quickbeam hosted a panel at San Diego Comic Con in 2001, before the release of FOTR, and since then barely a year has gone by that TORn hasn’t had a presence at at least one convention. At many of the conventions we appear at we also have a presence on the exhibit hall floor where we have sold some of our classic TORn shirts. We love it when we get up on stage for a panel and half the people in the audience are wearing some of our older shirts.

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  Baggins Birthday Party sign

  Line Parties and Fan Events

• Line Parties and other fan hosted events – TheOneRing.net has always been a grass roots type of fan-site and that is no more apparent then looking at the Line Parties of years past. Whether it is just a few friends, or some hundreds of people signing up on the website to attend, fans like you all over the world hosted Line Parties. A few even took place over several days, and included costume contests and trivia games for prizes. Other fan hosted events over the years have been the Hobbit Day/Baggins Birthday Bash events on Sept. 22, the Tolkien Toast on Jan. 3 and the Tolkien Reading Day on March 25. TORn staff in Los Angeles have been hosting a Baggins Birthday Bash party for 11 years now, but there are fan groups around the world that have hosted similar events. Smaller moots happen around the world all the time, there is a very active group in Wellington and one in Croatia. If you are hosting a fan event in the next year or two, please feel free to tell us about it.

• The Oscar Parties

• Originally conceived as a fan event to help raise funds to buy TORn a new server, who could have imagined the Cast and Crew actually showing up to the FOTR oscar party? Even more surprising, who could have imagined the ROTK sweep and all those Oscars on stage at a fan hosted party?

• O.R.C and E.L.F.

• TheOneRing.net hosted conventions – The One Ring Celebration on the West Coast (O.R.C.) and the Eastern Lord of the Rings Festival on the East Coast (E.L.F.) were co-productions with a professional convention company, but they definitely had a TORn stamp on them. The conventions allowed us to combine our love of the films by interacting with cast and crew with our love of the books through academic discussions, the art shows and costume displays. We really did break the mold on how a commercial scifi convention is run and hope everyone who attended had a blast.

• Academic essays and editorials

• TORn has long standing relationships with many in the academic community who have posted guest essays and editorials. Over the year several staffers have posted in depth analysis to fan questions on the site as well. In fact, we have a whole section on the ‘old TORn’ (pre-crash) called Green Books for academic posts. This section had so much good stuff in it, we published a book called “The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien” and a sequel book as well.

• Driving fan initiatives

• After Return of the King was done and Peter Jackson moved on to do King Kong, the fans waited to see what would happen with The Hobbit afterwards. Months turned to years and still no word while studios went bankrupt, copyrights issues got tangled up and various lawsuits were filed for missing payments. Finally, a few fans decided they had had enough and started a petition to ‘Make the Hobbit Happen’. They brought it to TORn and we got thousands of you to sign so that a big pile of names was delivered to TPTB. A similar thing happened when there was talk that the production would be moved out of New Zealand. The fans could see no where else as Middle-earth, so the ‘Keep the Hobbit in NZ’ campaign was born, but this time on Social Media. And most recently, there was an explosion of Tolkien fan love over the #Votebilbo twitter event prompted by an MTV Audience Award.

• TORn Community

• This list compiles many of the things that TheOneRing.net does to keep you informed, entertained and engaged, but there is really just one thing that makes TheOneRing.net so important to keep around. And that is the community of fans that convene on our message boards, in Barliman’s chat, on Facebook and Twitter.

This site was built by fans getting together to discuss what they hoped for from Peter Jackson long before FOTR ever saw the light of day. The fact that a long existing fan-base gathered here meant engaged and informed discussion began from day one, including analyzing all the spy reports about casting and location details. We didn’t have to wait for the release of the films, or for several episodes of a new show to take off before we could discuss the minutia of every detail because our fan base was already well established.

And what is ‘fandom’ if not a community of like minded people passionate about the same thing. Sure, everyone has their own opinions, so every time a new image was released, or a new trailer appeared, the message boards and chatroom erupted into heated discussions. But as the years wore on friendships were made, some turning into marriage, and we all began meeting up at various moots, conventions, concerts, premiere events, trips to New Zealand or just coffee and a movie. How many of you newer fans were galvanized by the #Votebilbo campaign and now have a wider array of Twitter friends because of it? The fact that TORn was able to continue to exist during all those lean years between film productions is due mostly to you, the readers, sticking around to discuss anything and everything to do with Tolkien, and sometimes other bits of pop culture. We know that after the release of The Hobbit: There and Back Again we will see another decline of readership, but we also know that the community is strong, the friendships have been forged and all of you take that fandom with you where ever you go next.

So again, if you are so inclined to help support us and keep the website going, please do make a pledge or bid on one of the many cool auction items we’ve been posting about the past few days. On behalf of the All Volunteer Staff at TheOneRing.net, you have our deepest gratitude for all the support over the years.

“It will get more dangerous and dark as Bilbo gets further away from home and in more jeopardy,” says Andy Serkis, who, in addition to playing Gollum in the films, is Second Unit Director on the trilogy.

Will we enjoy the departure from the more lighthearted nature of Unexpected Journey? Well Richard Armitage will, at least. He says, “Obviously I favor the dark.”

[Yahoo! Movies UK: Hobbit stars on 'dark' sequel]

The Zaents Company owns Middle-earth Enterprises and that company gives Warner Bros. and other studios the right to produce Hobbit films and all that springs from them. The author, Tolkien sold his movie rights before his death to pay for medical expenses.

The found document is below, click it for a larger version:

The document, dated January 22, 2013, could be the company simply protecting its rights to develop a theme park in response to the message board rumors late last year or it could be actively considering such a development as a real possibility. It isn’t clear if this park would be in New Zealand or in one of the established theme-park regions of the U.S., such as Flordia or California, or perhaps both. Warners recently had a successful port of its Harry Potter movie franchise to a well-received theme park experience. The possibilities of what to do with such a park, is a nearly limitless source of message board content.

Thanks again to Tolkienbrasil.com for the heads up. You can read the story right here or below is a rough translation:

FROM TOLKIENBRASIL.COM:

Warner Bross and Univeral are already thinking of a theme park ride on Middle Earth and it looks like the rumors are true.

The first news about occurred in early January in a post on micro site Micechat.com. In saying only: “Great news in the world of theme parks. Universal is negotiating the possibility of bringing the sights and scenery of The Lord of the Rings at a theme park near you. Heated with the success of the magical world of Harry Potter, Universal is unwilling to let Disney take the reins of the market with parks Avatar or Star Wars. We will have an exciting time for fans of theme parks. ”

Many took no credibility with the post, why not present any kind of source on this information. And there is no announcement from Universal about. Thus, the information was taken as mere rumor.

Given the recent process of merchandising products on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Tolkien Estate promoted by the companies face in administering the films (Warner Bros, New Line and Saulz Company), started to think that a theme park would still be far from becoming reality.

However, recently the site parkrumors.com presented what appears to be a piece of a document relating to the transaction that is like a theme park. This is the trademark registration of the name “Middle Earth”, which is the company Saulz Company. But that was extended with the possibility of doing a theme park.

The document presented by Parkrumors site is authentic?

Well, the document that the site has not parkrumors has its source, ie, we do not know its origin, since it is not told what department this document originou.O that could still form the opinion that it is only a rumor from fact.

Lawyer Site Tolkien Brazil came into contact with the industry patent records from the U.S. government on this information and the veracity of the document. And it was confirmed as true in an email received this morning. In that email it was confirmed that no such document exists and can be found on-site records of U.S. patents (see HERE).
parquetemáricodoc

Click on image to enlarge

In this document we see that is dated on January 22, 2013, with the word mark “Middle Earth”. Taking as the record owner of the company The Saul Zaentz COMPANY (which is the company that holds the rights to produce adaptations of the hobbit, lord of the rings and that makes the licenses of any products derived from these stories). Below is the translation of the terms of the document:

IC 028. U.S. 022023038050. G & S: Amusement

IC 035. U.S. 100101102. G & S: Management facilities for camping; Providing consumer information services and making referrals in the field of entertainment services for products, services, events, activities, facilities and locations

IC 039. U.S. 100 105. G & S: Organization of excursions; Organization of sightseeing trips, providing information, news and commentary in the field of travel, providing links to websites of other guidebooks, transportation of passengers and / or goods by car, boat and rail, transportation services, namely, providing transport services by bus services travel information

IC 041. U.S. 100101107. G & S: Salas games, entertainment centers for children, interactive play areas; entertainment as amusement, entertainment services in the form of an amusement park to show, entertainment services, namely, arranging and conducting special events at an amusement park, entertainment services, namely, arranging for ticket reservations amusement park attractions; Organizing and organizing exhibitions for entertainment purposes; Providing amusement parks; Provide recreation facilities; Provision of park thematic

IC 043. U.S. 100 101. G & S: Reservation of accommodation for camping, camping facilities provide services Resort Hotel

The document is official. And we see clearly that this is a trademark registration document for the purpose of producing a theme park. It remains now await negotiations to be made quickly and it becomes reality theme park on the middle ground.

A pity that the park “Middle Earth” will have no character of Silmarillon stories …

From the source post:

“…here is how I heard that it played out. Universal asked Warner Bros. to approach the Tolkien family since the Tolkien’s trust WB with the success of the LOTR series. WB described how Universal was willing to work with JK Rowling and how the 2 of them (WB and JK) held Universal’s feet to the fire to uphold Rowling’s vision of the IP. And I believe that the Tolkien’s may have actually talked to JK Rowling. This was before Universal said a word to the Tolkien’s. So after WB stoked the fire, Universal entered the picture with an impressive plan.

As of now there is a lot of hammering out to go, but Universal has gotten a lot farther than Disney ever did.”

Tolkien aficionados would recall, of course, that the professor had a notoriously low estimation of the creative works of Walt Disney. Letter #13 in Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien makes his position clear:

“It might be advisable [...] to let the Americans do what seems good to them — as long as it was possible [...] to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).”

That’s not to say that Universal would fare any better with Tolkien Estate in any quest to create a Middle-earth theme park. The Estate is well-known to be wary of merchandising, and is currently engaged in a legal stoush with Warner Bros. and Saul Zaentz, alleging that the companies are merchandising beyond what was contractually agreed upon in the 1969 rights deal.

Micechat, a site that specialises in theme park news, claims Universal “is very close to acquiring the rights to develop and produce attractions based on the successful Lord of the Rings franchise of films”. So we might see whether there’s anything to this rumour quite soon.

What we know

What we think: It is strongly believed that The Hobbit Teaser will appear in the US in front of The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (awesome title, btw), opening on December 21. Since this film is out in many European and Asian countries already, it has been hypothesized that the Teaser will appear in front of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows when it opens in those countries. This has not been confirmed, but logically it makes sense because Sherlock is a Warner Bros film, as is The Hobbit. Chances are, after the first few days, The Hobbit Teaser will begin to be dropped in front of a lot of different films, and it will spread like wildfire on the internet. No one need worry that they won’t be able to see it within the first 48-72 hours. I wonder if demand will crash any entertainment websites.

That being said, I plan to see it first in a theater. Why? Indication from reports at BNAT say that this Teaser may well be in 48 fps and 3D, which is probably one reason it will be playing in front of Tintin. Of course, this is dependent on whether or not theaters screening it are even capable of screening at 48 fps yet. If not, then it will still be in 3D in many cases, at the slower rate. Either way, this would be my preferred way of seeing it the first time before I move to my computer to seek it out (and analyze the heck out of it). How do you plan to see it the first time?

Conjecture of what we might see in The Hobbit Teaser: Now this is where things get tricky. The audience at BNAT13 was asked, and for the most part has complied, with keeping the content of The Hobbit Teaser a secret. The vaguest hints imply a beloved sequence from the book being included and it was something you could ‘hear’. Could this be a dialogue line, such as “In a Hole in the Ground there lived a Hobbit”? Or could this be a song, such as “Far over the Misty Mountains Cold”? Another hint mentioned a band of Dwarves singing and it was a thing of beauty. So, my money is on the song, which would be an epic way of opening the Teaser and introducing many of the key players. Other hints indicated this Teaser focused more on ‘character’ and less on the ‘epic’ nature of the story, and that it was like seeing long lost friends.

Since we know they’ve filmed at the Hobbiton location, it is almost guaranteed that we are going to see the Shire and Bag End and meet Gandalf and Bilbo there, and it will feel very much like going home again for all of us. If the Dwarves’ song is in, I’m almost positive that is the way in which they will be introduced on screen, but I can’t help wondering if we get the briefest of flashes of action from this sequence as well. Action flashbacks, to the history of the Lonely Mountain and Smaug’s attack, or action flash forwards with quick scenes of Gollum and Riddles in the Dark, or Beorn or Trolls or any of a dozen other adventures. Of course, I don’t believe we are going to get a look at Smaug this far out, except maybe for an extreme distance shot of him attacking the Lonely Mountain from the perspective of a few Dwarves who’ve escaped the mountain. But I think Smaug will be held in reserve until the first Teaser for the second film comes out next winter.

The other big debate right now is whether or not the Teaser will show sequences from both films or just The Unexpected Journey portion. I agree they will show some epic sequences and give both titles and dates of release, but I think they are still toying with the idea of keeping the breakpoint a secret. No one has yet come out and said “part one will end here”, but if they only show sequences from the first film, it will be much easier to intuit where that break will be. With that in mind, I believe we will see snippets from both films, so that the mystery of where that split occurs may be kept. It’s all just smoke and mirrors in the end, and I predict that there will be cheers and gasps in the audience the first few days that the Hobbit Teaser is available.

Resource: Teasers and Trailers must be rated just as the films they play in front of must be rated. When that happens, they appear on the following website, which implies their impending release into theaters.

http://www.albertafilmratings.ca/recentclasstrailers.aspx

One note on this, the Version of the Teaser that played at BNAT was not yet rated, and therefore may be slightly different than what is released if they need to tweak it in order to receive a certain rating. We won’t know until it comes out, and then those who were at BNAT begin to twitter about possible differences. If there is silence from them, then we got the same version, and if there have been changes, I’m sure we’ll hear about that as well.

Once the Teaser is out there, in theaters and online, please come back to TheOneRing.net for analysis and discussion with your fellow fans. I’m sure within the first 24 hours we will have collectively analyzed every last frame of the Teaser and squeed volumes, so come join the fun.

From skyline.co.nz: Reputed to be the steepest lift in the Southern Hemisphere, the gondola carries visitors high above Queenstown to the Skyline complex located on Bob’s Peak. Situated an easy five minute walk from central Queenstown, the gondola is an all weather tourist attraction in its own right. Sit back and relax as the views from the gondola unfold while you journey to the Skyline complex. The best vistas in the region are found here, spread out in a spectacular 220 degree panorama. Numerous observation decks around the complex offer breathtaking views of Coronet Peak & The Remarkables, over Queenstown and across Lake Wakatipu to Cecil and Walter Peaks. Truly magnificent and awe-inspiring.

Jackson let slip to Australian film magazine Empire that Cameron would visit the set in September.

It’s been seven months since Cameron was last in New Zealand to celebrate his award-winning film Avatar. He announced in 2010 he would return here to film two Avatar sequels but since decided to take the action to California. [Read more]

“Jackson’s spokesman would not reveal which celebrities were currently in Wellington, but said filming had resumed last week and would continue until December. “

Early reports suggest Cumberbatch will voice the dragon character Smaug but the actor refused to specify his role, insisting, “I can’t say at the moment, thank you very much.”

A red-faced Freeman later told reporters, “I knew I was a sort of a big mouth but I didn’t realize to what extent I was a big mouth, and I’ve just ruined everything. I might not actually go back to a job – they might have just sacked (fired) me.”

[Full Report]

  “Do you ever look at the people in the background?”  While watching The Lord of the Rings, how often do you watch the action and people behind the principle players?  This has sparked some great discussion on how much more there is to these films.  What have you noticed that you watch for every time now?

“Ian McKellen has posted a new blog entry called “THE HOBBIT, 2 Elves and another Wizard.”"  Once again our beloved Sir M has taken mercy on the fans and whispered about what’s going on in New Zealand and Middle-earth!  See the latest geek-fest launched by our Wizard’s blog!

We’ll share more topics next week and hope you can join in on the conversation.  Don’t forget, TheOneRing.net’s message boards have almost 6000 registered Tolkien fans, just like yourself!  Let your voice be heard!