There are some fabulous, exclusive pieces up for grabs – including some things which, usually, money can’t buy! Time is running out on some of our auctions too, so best check them out now. Here are just three that might tickle your fancy:

4-ALA “READ” Bookmarks OUT OF PRINT; LotR and Hobbit

In July 2001, the American Library Association (ALA), in association with New Line Cinema, offered three different Lord of the Rings Bookmarks and identical full-size posters in honour of J.R.R.Tolkien’s works and Peter Jackson’s films. This sale is for just the hard-to-find Bookmarks. They include Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) “Make It AHobbit”; Arwen Evenstar (Liv Tyler) “Fantasize New Worlds”; and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) “Discover Magic”. Also included in this Auction is the newest ALA tribute to Tolkien’s works and Jackson’s films The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) “Take An Unexpected Journey” released in November 2012.

The 3 Lord of the Rings Bookmarks are out of print and will not be re-issued per a 10-year copyright agreement; although Bilbo is still around Each Bookmark measures at 2″ x 6″ and is made of light card stock. One side has the picture as seen in this listing, and the other side is blank white.

LOTR and Hobbit Bookmarks Auction

Lord of the Rings Poster with Gandalf by Cauty

Gandalf and the Hobbits was created by J. Cauty in 1973 when he was 17 years old. This Lord of the Rings poster is iconic for the style of the 70s when Tolkien was fast becoming popular.  Size is 24″ x 36″

Lord of the Rings Poster with Gandalf by Cauty Auction

Sam and Frodo on Mt. Doom Return of the King movie poster

This is a moment in The Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King of the final struggle of Sam and Frodo climbing deadly Mt. Doom and Sam’s heroic action to try and save Frodo and the Quest of the Fellowship. His words are printed on the poster:

“Then let us be rid of it, once and for all! Come on, Mister Frodo. I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you! Come on!”

NEW — Quality of picture is because of camera flash and lighting — Size is 27″ x 40″

Sam and Frodo on Mt Doom Poster Auction

We recently added a couple of amazing items from our friend artist Jerry Vanderstelt covering his The Lord of the Rings Trilogy prints as well as his newest print of Dwalin the Dwarf from The Hobbit Trilogy. We’ve also added a couple of autograph items from Graham McTavish and William Kircher who play Dwalin and Bifur in The Hobbit Trilogy.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy 3-Piece Print Set

This auction offers a beautiful three-piece set of The Lord of the Rings Collector Edition Lithographs by prominent artist, Jerry VanderStelt. Best known not only for his works inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien, he also captures the worlds of Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and much more in the Fantasy/SciFi genre. Each Lithograph of the three-piece set has a unique Remarque or sketch drawn on the bottom left corner, signed separately from the normal signature and a certification of authenticity.

TORn Collector’s Edition of The Hobbit Magazine signed by Dwalin and Bifur

This is a new copy of TheOneRing.net’s premier magazine tribute to The Hobbit! A collaborative effort between Topix Media Lab and your friends here at TheOneRing.net, it covers everything you need to know about The Hobbit movies from a fan perspective. Side-bars and feature articles, contributed by our own volunteer staff, include interviews, a feature on book versus the movie, articles on games and collectibles, a Middle-earth timeline, and much more! The high-quality, glossy paper used for this magazine is also packed with colorful pictures of cast and crew members, locations, collectibles, gorgeous fan art and a few exclusives! One thing that makes this truly a collector’s edition is that there are only two ads in the entire 82-page magazine.

Dwalin the Dwarf Print by Jerry Vanderstelt

Jerry Vanderstelt is also offering the winner of this Auction the choice of the frame-ready canvas or to have the canvas Gallery Wrapped.  The two images displayed with this Auction show the raw, canvas form and also how the Gallery Wrap option gives it a mounted, more dimensional look.  The canvas measures 18 x 24 inches, NOT counting the border that is designed to be Gallery Wrapped. Once it is Gallery Wrapped, the canvas will measure 18 x 24 inches.  Please allow 2-3 weeks for completion. The work uses the finest materials available of archival inks as well as Breathing Color’s exclusive “Lyve” canvas and “Timeless” protective finish.

he Hobbit Paperback signed by Graham McTavish and William Kircher

This is a NEW paperback copy of The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien with a movie tie-in picture from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey film released in December, 2012.  This copy has travelled to DragonCon 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia and has found itself autographed by two Dwarves (William Kircher and Graham McTavish) for TORn’s Fundraiser Auction.

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.

We have some fabulous, exclusive pieces up for grabs – including some things which, usually, money can’t buy! Here’s just four that might tickle your fancy:

Burger King Lord of the Rings Goblets: Arwen, Frodo, Strider, Gandalf

A like-new, complete set of 2001 Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring glass goblets. Only removed from boxes for displaying (unlit).

These 4 collectible goblets were only available with Burger King meals! The set includes Wizard Gandalf the Grey, Ring-bearer Frodo Baggins, Elven Princess Arwen Evenstar, and Strider the Ranger/Aragorn, Son of Arathorn glass goblets in their original boxes. Each goblet measures 7 inches tall and is made from glass with red LED lights in rubber cup bottom, which can be turned on or off for display.

Burger King Goblets Auction

HUGE replica of Bilbo’s Contract signed by Celebs & Oscar Party Attendees

Item’s size: a 44 x 72 inch foam core mounted reproduction

At auction is a huge replica of Thorin’s contract for Bilbo Baggins’ employment as Burglar for the Company of Dwarves on their Quest to The Lonely Mountain as it appeared in Peter Jackson’s movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. TheOneRing.net threw a magnificent party as we were joined by film celebrities, Tolkien artists, authors and many more to celebrate the 2012 Oscars on February 24, 2013 while The Academy Awards took place just around the corner in Los Angeles, California. This contract was signed by attendees at that party, including artists Donato Giancola and Tim Kirk, Celtic band Emerald Rose, and many others. Here’s your chance to own a piece of TORn and Cinema history… not to mention a very easy-to-read copy of Bilbo’s Contract!

This replica can be kept intact in one large piece if it’s picked up in person in Los Angeles, California. However, because of the size and dense mounting board this Contract is affixed to, the Contract will be divided into 12-inch sections for the most manageable and economic shipping cost possible.

The seller may be delayed in shipping this item right away as they’re on a Road Trip to DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia for TORn’s participation at that fantastic convention during Labor-Day Weekend.

Replica of Bilbos Contract Auction

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Sony PlayStation 2, 2004)

Product Information
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is a beat-’em-up action title that follows events from the first two films in the movie trilogy, which is based on the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien. The game is inspired by the battle scenes found therein. The story is told through footage from the movie that slowly melds to in-game cinematic screens, all explaining the origin of The Ring and those who covet it. Players choose from three warrior characters, patterned after their onscreen personas: Legolas the Elf, Aragorn the Ranger, or Gimli the Dwarf. Then, embark on a quest that spans a multitude of levels. Players will revisit such familiar locales as Fangorn Forest and the Mines of Moria.

For North America players.

Sony PS2 LOTR: The Two Towers Game Auction

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Sony PlayStation 2, 2003)

Product Information
Electronic Arts continues their exclusive relationship with the cinematic versions of J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous trilogy with the release of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. In this combat game based on the third film by Peter Jackson, players will fight legions of orcs and other creatures from a third-person perspective as heroes Aragorn, Gimli, or Legolas. Following the same structure as its action-oriented predecessor, players will wield swords, axes, daggers, and bows to fight multiple enemies simultaneously. Featured locales include Minas Tirith, Mount Doom, and more, with each environment offering multiple tiers or planes to travel across. Now characters will be able to jump and climb, enabling them to interact with their surroundings to a greater degree. Film composer Howard Shore’s epic score punctuates the battles as the original cast provides the voice acting. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King also features a number of film clips used as segues to the game’s action scenes.

For North America players.

Sony PS2 LOTR: Return of the King Game Auction

I wanted to highlight a few of the items in this post so you could get a better look at just how cool these items are. The items I want to highlight for you are: The Boromir Exclusive Statue, Arwen Exclusive Statue, Nazgul Prototype Medallion, and the Thorin/Goblin King set from The Bridge Direct.

BOROMIR AUCTION. The Boromir Exclusive from Sideshow Collectibles has an edition size of only 500 pieces world-wide and is sold out making this a pretty rare piece for any collector. The Exclusive piece for the Boromir statue is a switch out arm allowing you to create the scene from the Extended Edition of The Two Towers.

ARWEN AUCTION. Also, from Sideshow Collectibles is the Arwen Exclusive which also has an edition size of 500 pieces world-wide. Like Boromir Arwen is sold out and going to only get rarer with time. The Exclusive item for Arwen is a switch out head sculpt wearing her pendant.

NAZGUL MEDALLION AUCTION. The rarest collectible we have up for auction right now is the Nazgul Medallion prototype. This prototype is what was used to create the medallions fans could by from the Sideshow/Weta line collectibles during The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. This amazing collectible is truly one of a kind and cannot be had just anyplace.

THORIN & GOBLIN KING AUCTION. Finally, we have a great looking set of figure from The Bridge Direct of Thorin Oakenshield and the Goblin King from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Make sure you’re the lucky winner of these amazing items. You’re going to love them.

Check out all of the Light The Beacons Auctions!

Here is a gallery of photos just so you can see exactly how cool these items are:

Azog the Defiler

In particular, he examines whether persistent criticism of this key villain might be a result of flaws inadvertently introduced by the relatively late switch from two films to three.

Did Azog defile An Unexpected Journey?

By Rud the Spud

Azog is an aspect of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey that has perturbed me for some time now.

Did he or didn’t he work in An Unexpected Journey? And, if not, was he the victim of the late change from two to three films?

I don’t know if it was the massive hype (which I’m glad there is less of for Desolation of Smaug), the huge expectations off the back of The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy or whether it was simply the basic love for the book itself, but I found An Unexpected Journey mildly disappointing.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it and I loved so many aspects of it but there remains an uneasy feeling that I’ve only recently been able to define.

And that is Azog.

AZOG IN THE TOLKIEN’S LEGENDARIUM

The Battle of Azanulbizar.

In Tolkien’s Legendarium, the Battle of Azanulbizar was fought in retaliation for this dishonour.

In An Unexpected Journey, the battle is condensed into Thrór’s large-scale attempt to retake Moria. It is during this battle that Azog decapitates him in the film. Events are altered: in the book it was Náin, father of Dáin Ironfoot, who Azog slew. And it was Dáin (who will be played by Billy Connolly in There and Back Again) who leapt after Azog and hewed off his head before Moria’s East Gate.

At Azanulbizar, Thorin did fight off several orcs with an oak branch, but Tolkien does not report that he went near Azog. But the upshot is that Azog was truly slain in the battle. He does not return; it is his son, Bolg, who nurses the grudge against Dáin and the dwarves. And it is Bolg who leads the wargs and goblins into the Battle of the Five Armies. Bolg’s role in the movies is yet to unfold.

The alteration of events for the sake of making a concise screenplay is understandable and acceptable. The filmmakers instead use the Azanulbizar to emphasise the heroism of our central character Thorin and establish back stories for Balin and Dwalin. Even the survival of Azog wasn’t a major issue for me initially. It was a little contrived how Thorin believed him to be dead (doesn’t he know how movies work?) but even that was acceptable.

It was the depiction of Azog that irks me the most.

This art print, inspired by The Fellowship of the Ring, captures the moment when Gandalf is trying to recall the right direction through Moria. The artist, Madison Gregory, offers a range of art prints from different movie franchises. Fans can get this print in sizes ranging from 4.5″ x 10″ to 21″ x 42″ with prices between $100 and $400.

They also still have the original A Journey in the Dark available if you’re a collector of original works. This print is signed and limited so don’t delay in adding one of these to your collections.

Morgul Blade Product Page and Contest!

In last week’s article, I started with a simple question: how do book lengths, as measures by word count, compare to their adapted movie run times, as measured by seconds? I was mostly looking for a statistical basis to express my displeasure at The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (and by extension, parts 2 and 3 of this unnecessary trilogy), but I wound up comparing the density of the Hobbit movies, as measured in Words in Book per Second of Movie (WIBPSOM), to other prominent movie adaptations of books: The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, and the Twilight franchises.

The findings were interesting in and of themselves (TL;DR: The Hobbit Books have way smaller WIBPSOM values than the other franchises), but they begged for a larger scale analysis, both in size of dataset and scope of inquiry. To address the size of the dataset, I found all of the (English language) entries on this list of best-selling books that have theatrically-released, non-silent movie adaptations. After including multiple movie adaptations of the same movie and excluding movies where I couldn’t find any data on book length as measured by word count, I came up with a dataset of 59 movie adaptations of best selling books.

As for scope of inquiry, well, let’s get down to brass tacks: is there any relationship between the density of a book’s movie adaptation, as measured by WIBPSOM, and the quality of the movie, as measured by its IMDB rating?

In a word, the answer to this intriguing question is an emphatic “no.”

[Read More]

John Rhys-Davies is Welsh and a screen actor and voice actor. He is perhaps best known for playing the dwarf Gimli and Treebeard in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the charismatic Arab excavator Sallah in the Indiana Jones films. He also played Agent Michael Malone in the 1993 remake of the 1950s television series The Untouchables, Pilot Vasco Rodrigues in the mini-series Shōgun, Professor Maximillian Arturo in Sliders, King Richard I in Robin of Sherwood, General Leonid Pushkin in the James Bond film The Living Daylights, and Macro in I, Claudius. Additionally, he provided the voices of Cassim in Disney’s Aladdin and the King of Thieves.