Welcome to our collection of TORn’s hottest topics for the past week. If you’ve fallen behind on what’s happening on the Message Boards, here’s a great way to catch the highlights. Or if you’re new to TORn and want to enjoy some great conversations, just follow the links to some of our most popular discussions. Watch this space as every weekend we will spotlight the most popular buzz on TORn’s Message Boards. Everyone is welcome, so come on in and join in the fun!
Continue reading “TORn Message Boards Weekly Roundup – July 30, 2012”

Ringer HobbitSized tells us that Lego has released another short. Two Minute: Quest of the Fellowship is a summary of sorts of the four chapters that we’ve already seen.

You’ll find that the narrative is slightly different, and it concludes with a very brief Bilbo-Gollum teaser at the end for the sets that we know will accompany the forthcoming Hobbit movie. Looks like Riddles in the Dark will definitely be one of them.

The release date given is Winter 2012.

[More]

A lot of people are very excited about the forthcoming Lego Lord of the Rings game.

We may have missed a couple of cool reveals about the game that emerged at E3 around the beginning of last month.

So here’s a re-cap, including an 18-minute on-stage demo that Nick Ricks gave at E3. It reveals a long in-game sequence from the Mines of Moria, including Balin’s tomb. You can also pre-order the game here.

Props to Ringer Lars for the links. Continue reading “Re-cap on the Lego Lord of the Rings game”

This Saturday (August 4) at 10.30am, Billy Boyd will narrate the story behind the first ever stage production of of J.R.R.Tolkien’s The Hobbit on BBC Radio 4.

The very first stage production, written by Humphrey Carpenter with music composed by Paul Drayton, was performed at New College School in Oxford in 1967.

Some of the choristers in that first production are now eminent in the musical world: choral conductor Simon Halsey, Opera North’s Martin Pickard and artist’s agent Stephen Lumsden. Composer Howard Goodall watched his older brother Ashley perform. They talk about their memories and of Tolkien’s presence in the audience on the last night.

Thanks to Ringer Andrew for the heads-up.

Update: Ringer HuanCry adds that Radio 4 is also broadcasting a documentary Tolkien in Love the day before.

[Billy Boyd and the Hobbit] | [Tolkien in Love]

Ringer Tithenmamiwen pointed us in the direction of these very talented fellows.
Lord of the Rings a-capella in just 99 seconds — using all of Howard Shore’s key leitmotifs from the Rings score. Or as they write: “40,920 seconds converted into 99.”

A very cool concept and wonderfully executed. Go and enjoy!

Alan Jacobs muses in The Atlantic that “from the beginnings of modern fantasy, in the work of Tolkien, technology has always been the enemy of the good life. But does it have to be that way?”

It’s an interesting thought piece that draws on some key comments Tolkien made in letters around the time Lord of the Rings was published.

“Anyway all this stuff is mainly concerned with Fall, Mortality, and the Machine.” Letter 131. Letters of JRR Tolkien.

[More]