Last night, the evil Dr. Moriarty, resident worker bee at Ain’t It Cool News, held a live chat on IUniverse. I caught the tail end of it, it was rather interesting. Here’s what he had to say concerning LOTR:
I think there’s a hell of a chance that PJ’s about to take everyone to school. The 2 script version is stunning, beautiful piece of fantasy storytelling. It’s adult and smart & passionate and sad and everything that people always complain that fantasy cinema isn’t.
And Jackson’s got the software to back it up his human actors. WETA has tricks up it’s sleeve, that no one can imagine ……..MASSIVE IS THE FUTURE….
The main reason I’m confident is becasue I’ve seen designs that we can’t post. Gollum in particular gives me faith, He’s no JAR-Jar. Instead he’s a heartbreaking character, a thing with a soul.
Thanks to Hobbs3 for the tip!
TheOneRing.net was recently contacted by Donald Sutherland’s publicist and agent.
She told me that the news of Donald being cast in LOTR was ‘News to her’ and that they have not been approached by anyone.
This, I find as a dissapointment, but there may be yet more to the story, as all these things are never set in stone.
Amazon.com has compiled a few ‘best of…’ lists, and ‘The Hobbit’ has made three of them.
First, it made their top 25 SF or Fantasy novels of the century. This list was presented in alphabetical order, so there is no indication of how well it did in the voting by the editors. It shares company with ‘1984’, ‘Brave New World’, ‘Dune’ and ‘The Princess Bride’.
Second, it made it into the top 50 childrens’ novels of the century. It placed 17th of 25 for the first half of the century.
Third, it was included in their top 100 fiction novels of the century. It placed 6th for the decade 1930 – 1939. It rubs elbows with ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and ‘The Death of the Heart’.
‘LoTR’ made the childrens’ novel list as an honourable mention under ‘The Hobbit’.
These lists were critical lists, rather than fan-picked.
Thanks to Chuck for the news!
From: Craig
I was checking out www.pcgamer.com and was looking at a review of the new Wheel of Time game based upon Jordan’s novels, which I’ve not read. But I found this, and thought you might be interested in maybe posting it on the site and letting the fans of the novels give a response. I couldn’t find the author who wrote it, but it’s probably Chris Kramer who wrote the article.
ENJOY!
Craig
The New Tolkien? Who cares?
Tagging Robert Jordan as the “new J.R.R. Tolkien” is about as meaningful to me as describing 98 Degrees as the “new Backstreet Boys.” Do we really need another Tolkien? Most folks don’t have much of a use for the original.
Am I interested in seeing the Lord of the Rings movies when they’re released in 2002? Yes, but only because I’m a big fan of Peter Jackson, the director. I’d much rather watch Jackson’s brilliantly twisted Dead Alive or Meet the Feebles for the millionth time than wade through hundreds of pages of frolicking elves. In the name of investigative research, I did read the WoT series in its encyclopedia-sized entirety. Each of Jordan’s Wheel of Time books are well over 800 pages in length. There’s about 600 pages of pure uselessness in every novel, wherein the fifty-seven main characters gripe at length about their lives and how unfair the universe is. Almost nothing happens for the majority of the book, then Jordan crams in a huge battle in the very last pages that carries you over into the next book. After reading all eight novels, I was left with the distinct impression that Jordan had originally intended to write the standard fantasy trilogy and then go about with his life. I’m guessing that some time shortly after his second novel went into its umpteenth pressing and all those big fat royalty checks began rollin’ in, Jordan sat back in his chair, scratched his chin and thought about stretching things out a bit.
sigh, it’s ignorant people like these that make me wonder why they have a job and I don’t!
Thanks to ringer staff member Gamgee for this weeks great poll question!
Check out last weeks final results in our old poll area.
Way back at the beginning of this project Peter Jackson talked about filming in different locations simultaneously, with him directing in one location live and the others via satellite. This is what they have ended up doing, according to a recent article in the Sunday Star-Times. Peter Jackson is using a kind of advanced video-conferencing system to direct in up to three locations simultaneously while working with live actors as well. New Line has its own dedicated satellite and images are beamed up to it.
The intereview with Barry Osborne confirmed that all three movies are being filmed simultaneously. I think some people still think that the movies are being filmed starting at the beginning and going through ’til the end. (I get emails, “Why isn’t so-and-so in NZ yet?”) The schedule as it stands, and with the added chaos of the flooding etc. must be a nightmare to keep track of.
