Another interesting thought-piece that I stumbled on in my Middle-earth wanderings across the internet. In this article, Tolkien scholar Michael Martinez tackles the eternally vexing question of textual fidelity […]

This weekend the Hall of Fire will be taking a zig-zagging from books to film as we examine one of the great unknowns of The Desolation of Smaug — Dol Guldur and the PJ plan.

Radagast: But what if it is a […]

Much has been written about The Hobbit in recent years thanks to the filming of the new trilogy of Peter Jackson films.But during all the hubbub surrounding Jackson and Company’s take on Tolkien’s classic story […]

This is a cute little Lego animation of part of the Riddles in the Dark sequence from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Thanks to Ringer Adam for the link.

There’s still some three months before The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug debuts on our screens (four if you’re unlucky!). Yet wider geek fandom is already looking ahead to what we can expect. In this article, […]

“What do you get if you multiply six by nine?”

Martin Freeman’s age today*!

That’s right — today Martin is 42. We reckon that’s pretty awesome seeing as Martin played the role of Arthur Dent in the Hitch […]

In the first week of filming for Blue Jasmine, her first movie with director Woody Allen, Cate Blanchett feared she might be fired. It was just a simple scene but Allen wasn’t happy. ”He said, ‘It’s awful, it’s […]

This Saturday (at 6pm ET (New York time)), Hall of Fire will return to our chapter-by-chapter read-through of The Lord of The rings, rejoining Frodo, Sam and Gollum as they enter The Dead Marshes.

“To do the […]

As the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in Extended Edition format approaches, Empire Magazine examines whether studios are giving the format their full support. Perhaps what’s on offer in the AUJ EE […]

Thanks to Ringer Roheryn on the TORn messageboards for spotting this little news story about recording for the Desolation of Smaug soundtrack!

The New Zealand public has essentially lost access to […]

Here are three quite interesting descriptions from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Annual 2014 of the areas of Middle-earth that Thorin & Company will be passing through early on in The Desolation of Smaug. […]

This one is not exactly new, but nevertheless pretty cool. Architecture mag freshome put together a short feature celebrating the design and architecture of some of the most striking architecture projects that […]

Thunder in the distance, clouds on the horizon. It was shaping up to be a day spent huddling inside when the company split ways for the day, but they did not despair.

Justin took the crystal slab, streaming […]

In this piece on his blog Midgardsmal, linguist David Salo writes about how he derived various Orkish dialects used in the Lord of the Rings films from his own extrapolations of Black Speech, and
about his […]

Courtesy of Ringer Oleander Took on the TORn messageboards, we have some exciting new merchandising key artwork to ogle. !–more–

It seems as though it will be used on a puzzle game that’s popped up on <a […]

If you live in Belgium, Denmark, France, The Netherlands, Norway, or parts of Switzerland, congratulations — it’s only 99 days until The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug debuts in your region! It opens a day […]

As you know, we’re currently conducting our pledge drive to raise funds and keep our servers running. We also have some very exciting auctions going on over at Ebay.

There are some fabulous, exclusive pieces […]

With thoughts of Bree-town still dancing in their heads, the company was sure they’d make this the best day yet. Panels were streamed with the powerful crystal slab, Middle-earth’s daunting history was made more […]

The internet can be a harsh, hyper-critical place that’s quick to judge and low on thoughtful, considered analysis. This article is a bit of a reminder that passion runs deep in all fandom cultures, and to […]

File this under cool (or weird) concept art. This comes ultimately from conceptual artists If Industries, who seem to delight in taking geeky things from pop culture and going “well, how might that work in the […]