On April 1, 2023, Twitter is sunsetting Verified blue checkmarks from the previous 15 years. Many actors, writers and production people were verified to prevent spoofing and shenanigans, so fans could be safe and secure knowing they are following the real person and not a fake or bot. Since most are expected not to pay for a bluecheck going forward, here’s a handy list of all (we believe!) the official Twitter accounts of people involved with The Lord of the Rings:
LOTR fans started to embrace twitter as a community platform during The Hobbit years, ultimately helping #VoteBilbo win an MTV Movie Award. Twitter became the default social network for many fans over the years, including the most recent focus on (and disagreements over) The Rings of Power. Billionaire Elon Musk bought the website in 2022 and spent the first 6 months downsizing the company and free features, making blue-check verification pay-to-play instead of on merit. Many celebrities deal with imposters on social media, tricking fans into giving money to fake accounts. It is generally expected that with the removal of “fame” verification, there will be more copycat accounts showing up. As Gandalf would tell us, ‘Be on your guard!’
Hey y’all , I’ll loose the blue tick on Saturday I’m opposed to spending money on social media . I’ll go checkless . Please be careful of Imposters & money soliciting scams . I will never ask you for money on any social media platform . Cheers ✌🏽K
If we missed anyone, let us know in Discord and this post will be updated with the official accounts of our favorite LOTR people.
Update 21/04/2023: It appears that Nazanin Boniadi no longer has a presence on twitter. The best way to find Boniadi’s official online presence is probably via https://nazaninboniadi.com/. Thanks to Mirthfather on our Discord for the heads-up.
For the one year anniversary of the release of TOLKIEN we are excited to be joined by the director for a LIVE watch-along on #TORnTuesday.
Get your Blu-rays or streaming accounts ready to join Cliff Broadway and director Dome Karukoski for a live discussion of the feature film TOLKIEN on Tuesday, May 12 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET.
TOLKIEN (2019) can be found digitally for purchase on iTunes & Amazon, or can be streamed free with your HBO account. Get your copy ready to play, then tune into to TORn’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Twitch account where we will all press play at the same time!
Starring Nicholas Hoult & Lily Collins, and produced by FOX Searchlight Pictures, TOLKIEN tells the story of John Ronald & his school friends as they navigate school, war, orphan life, romance and friendship.
Several staff members of TheOneRing.net praised its depiction of The Professor’s life and the craftsmanship of the classical style film. Co-Founder of TheOneRing.net Calisuri found TOLKIEN so remarkable that it brought back to him a level of positivity in Ringer fandom that had been missing since 2005.
We are extremely excited to watch this movie with you the fans and the creative behind the film. So queue up your copy of TOLKIEN at 8pm ET on Tuesday!
Today sees the Digital Release of Dome Karukoski’s biopic “Tolkien”. Available now on all the usual digital platforms, the film is also set to be released on Blu-ray & DVD on August 6.
If you purchase the digital release from iTunes, you will own the film in both High Definition and 4K Ultra HD (although you will need an Apple TV device and a compatible 4K television to watch it in the latter format), along with all the bonus features that will also be available on the Blu-ray.
These include an Audio Commentary by director Dome Karukoski, a First Look Featurette, Photo Gallery and Deleted Scenes with Commentary by Karukoski.
Appropriately, there are a lot of complex emotions and thoughts to unpack after watching the latest film to tackle Middle-earth, TOLKIEN.
Let’s get this out of the way: If you have more than a passing interest in J.R.R. Tolkien or his works, you should view the film. You should view it in theaters and you should view it without knowing too much of what is going to unfold — and I will do my best to withhold spoilers, but some are inevitable if I am going to offer fair commentary on the film.
Let’s also get this out of the way: The next person who says “It’s not a documentary,” to me or anyone else with criticisms of the film’s portrayal of Tolkien’s life can go straight to Angband. This quip attempts to dismiss completely valid, rational views of the film, most often the assumed position that someone is about to say film isn’t accurate. Feel free to disagree with criticism, but don’t insult the discussion with a patronizing deflection or insinuate that there were two choices: either documentary accuracy or giving up all hope of accuracy and accepting anything.
Watching TOLKIEN was a powerful emotional experience. As J.R.R. has done for so many, he has profoundly influenced my own life. His words touch us on a deep level. His works laid the foundation of so much else that came after, most definitely including the biggest fantasy property on the block at the moment, GAME OF THRONES on HBO, that is something of a reply to Tolkien from George R.R. Martin. STAR WARS would certainly not exist as we know it without Tolkien. Harry Potter, Dungeons & Dragons and so much else grew from the field he plowed. The Professor is a giant that looms above us all.
So when Nicholas Hoult and Harry Gilby combine to portray Tolkien as a child and as a young man, it was unexpectedly moving; just the simple act of putting Tolkien on screen was powerful. It is a reminder that the nearly mythical professor was scared, lonely, insecure, sad, frustrated, desperate, drunk, charming, combative and impulsive.
Not only does Tolkien live before our eyes but his best mates from his young years, the boys essential to him during his formative era, all live and walk and breathe before our very eyes. In fact the film makes all of them immortal in a way, a reality that I imagine would have tickled Tollers.
And all of this is entertaining and beautiful but …
Watching TOLKIEN was a frustrating, and in some moments, an agonizing experience and I don’t mean in the midst of the drama lost in the story and characters but rather outside the drama and about the drama. And yes, I do get it. Screenwriting is hard. Putting a powerful, emotionally relevant story on screen is hard. The story of J.R.R. Tolkien is hard. Story telling about an period with less data about the man is hard.
But Tolkien was a real life person. Some living now, knew him then, and he left behind letters and notes, video, audio recordings and war and school records. So when the film’s writers David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford, and director Dome Karukoski, chose to tell the story in a way that ignores those records and turns instead to fantasy, it is troubling at the least, distracting and frustrating.
SPOILER but (seriously, film spoiler ahead) the film chooses to depict Tolkien going for something of a walk in the midst of fierce fighting during the Battle of the Somme. He is obsessed, if not crazed, with the idea of finding his friend.
In reality 2nd Lt. Tolkien didn’t abandon his fellow soldiers and instead fulfilled his duty as a signaler for a battalion of infantry, sending instructions and trying to help communication in the chaos of fighting and dying across no man’s land.
Soon after he contracted trench fever — typically via lice — and was taken off the front. One of the most common symptoms of the ailment is leg pain — not quite the disease to inspire tench walking.
This isn’t a small shift in a man’s history, this is a massive, unneeded change about important characterization in the man and developments in the myth he created. There was already drama, conflict and characterization present in the actual history. If only the filmmakers had trusted the story of J.R.R. Tolkien instead of needing to make a fantasy story to replace it.
The film suggests Tolkien had a sort of fever dream during this walk and had visions of his future stories. Some will shrug this off, and he did start writing as he was away from the front, but a hallucinating Tolkien instead of a crafting Tolkien, especially when there was a set-up for it, is less effective. Yes, this can all be viewed as metaphorical, but it can also be viewed as a bad trip that became a good story.
Those aren’t the only inaccuracies; we are treated to a wildly different start of some important writing, that is definitely not an improvement (and from a filmmaking only viewpoint, it feels glued on at the end.) But it also avoids the opportunity to depict The Professor being the a professor. We are robbed of a very on-the-record Tolkien moment of inspiration that changed everything, only to have it replaced by a weakened moment, of problematic motivation.
I will resist the temptation, for spoiler’s sake, to say more and this essay isn’t the place to create a checklist of wrong history, but suffice it to say, some will.
To say that another way, just as big of a problem as being inaccurate about a real person’s story is that the inaccuracies — or straight up fantasy — robs us of getting to know the man, and the man is pretty interesting. The man didn’t need embellishing. And to be clear, I am not objecting to filling in some gaps and I credit the movie for doing that effectively in spots.
I object, as others will, to replacing the known record with storytelling fancy.
Others may legitimately raise concerns about structure or pacing, and while that isn’t something to be ignored, for me, those are forgivable.
None of this is to say there isn’t a fine story with a beautiful love-story in it. There is definitely that. And some dose of fancy or manufacturing of details is certainly inevitable and understandable. But manufacturing important things that contradict what is known is frustrating.
There is heart and abundant beauty present to be sure. In fact, there is a beautiful film here for you to catch in theaters, but it is too often a fantasy film about a real person as much as it is the story of that person.
Those knowing little about Tolkien will walk away “educated” and will perhaps find some emotional connection. Hopefully they will wish to learn more and pick up one of several great books about the man, which the director, a fan, has undoubtedly read. But this is TORn, not a collective that knows little about Tolkien.
Karukoski directed something beautiful. The acting is excellent. The lighting and shooting is beautiful. The music is wonderful. The tone is occasionally modern for a period piece but all of that is effective and emotional and there is much to praise.
But we aren’t going to get some other Tolkien biography anytime soon — this is it. We are rewarded with beauty and with pieces of Tokien and we are frustrated by the fantasy depiction of a man — and a story — that deserved greater purposeful fidelity.
Wondercon kicks off in a few hours in Anaheim, California and J.R.R. Tolkien and TheOneRing.net will have a big presence this year. On Friday afternoon at 4:30pm, the panel for Tolkien, Fox Searchlight’s historical biopic about the early life of the author who would create Middle-earth will give numerous glimpses into the what the film has in store for audiences. The panel discussion will include Director Dome Karusoski, and actors Nicholas Hoult, Anthony Boyle, Tom Glynne-Carney and Patrick Gibson. The Panel will be moderated by our own Clifford “Quickbeam” Broadway, and will be in the Arena at the Anaheim Convention Center. More details can be found at the WonderCon sheduling page here.
On Saturday we will be having our own panel discussion at 3pm in room 213CD covering the Tolkien film, the Morgan Library exhibit in New York and all the activity regarding the Amazon Middle-earth TV Series. We will also have a very special surprise for attendees that you won’t want to miss. In fact, you should make plans to be occupied for the rest of the evening on Saturday. We can’t say much more, but if you have been paying attention to the internet chatter about Wondercon, you may know the surprise already. Just look for “There and Back Again: A Tolkien Store” at Wondercon and come visit us. Details can be found here.
Yes, we will be at Wondercon, but with a booth. We do, however, have a panel, and a surprise after the panel. Can’t talk about the surprise just yet, but keep reading for more details.
2019 is our 20th Anniversary, so we are lining up lots of Middle-earth and Tolkien fun throughout the year. Our Wondercon panel will be on Saturday afternoon, March 30 from 3pm to 4pm in room 213CD. The plan is to cover both the upcoming Tolkien biopic film and to discuss the facts and rumors surrounding the Amazon Prime TV series. We will have some other Tolkien news too, so don’t miss our panel or you will miss out on the surprise. Mathom or Moot, we must “Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe”, for now at least.
You can check out more details on our event page on facebook, which is the only place we will be updating with any additional information we are allowed to share. You can find our Wondercon Panel here. Our event page does link back to the Wondercon Schedule, which is important so you can check out the schedule for Friday afternoon at 4:30pm in the Arena for Fox Searchlight’s film Tolkien, with cast and crew members in attendance.
It’s been a while since we’ve had this much Tolkien to talk about, come have some Hobbity fun with us.
