While this probably isn’t a distinction that anybody involved with the film would be particularly happy about, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has topped 2013’s list of most pirated movies. According to TorrentFreak, the film was illegally downloaded on BitTorrent networks an estimated 8.4 million times. Coming in at second & third place were Django Unchained and Fast and Furious 6, with 8.1 and 7.9 million downloads respectively. Continue reading “‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ is 2013’s most pirated film”
Month: December 2013
Welcome to our collection of TORn’s hottest topics for the past year. We’ve collected some of 2013’s most popular posts on our 10 Message Boards. You’ll be surprised at what captured the attention and imagination of our 10,500+ members. Come and have a look back at what has kept us busy as we impatiently awaited the release of The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug. We actually did manage to talk about many fascinating things, besides The Hobbit. So just follow the links to some of our most popular discussions for 2013. Continue to watch this space as every weekend we spotlight the most popular buzz on TORn’s Message Boards. Everyone is welcome, so come on in and join the fun!
Continue reading “TORn Message Boards Weekly Roundup – Special New Year’s Edition!!”
The Independent Critic has positively reviewed The Rise of the Fellowship, the ‘buddy-comedy written in honor of online gamers and The Lord of the Rings that will debut on Netflix on January 3.
The film, which won the GenCon 2012 Film Festival, is already available on VOD, iTunes, and Amazon.com.
Continue reading “Rings comedy film ‘Rise of the Fellowship’ debuts on Netflix on January 3”
In this piece, Matt Lebovic of The Times of Israel explores the eternally fascinating question of the parallels between Tolkien’s dwarves and the Jewish people. Allegory is almost certainly too strong a word for the relationship, the quotes that Lebovic draws from Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and various interviews make clear Tolkien’s dislike of the allegorical style (although Leaf by Niggle makes one wonder and Letters #241 and #153 provide conflicting evidence there), and his sincere admiration of the Jewish people.
Edit to quote from Letter #153:
…I might say in my myth I have used ‘subcreation’ in a special way (not the same as ‘subcreation’ as a term in criticism in art, though I tried allegorically [emphasis mine] how that might come to be taken up into Creation in some plane in my ‘purgatorial’ story Leaf by Niggle (Dublin Review 1945))…
Couple of quick points of nit-picking: the Company has 13 dwarves, not 12, it’s Middle-earth not Middle Earth, and arguably Khazad-dûm (Moria) is more accurately the spiritual home of the Dwarves (especially of the Longbeards of Durin’s line) rather than Erebor. As a point of trivia, the Dwarves eventually reclaim Khazad-dum under Durin VII sometime in the Fourth Age. As for the Arkenstone, some people hold that, within the Legendarium, it might have been a Silmaril, but that seems unlikely to this writer. Continue reading “Are Tolkien’s dwarves an allegory for the Jewish people?”
He’s the biggest star of the movie so there was a lot that went into creating Smaug, the dragon the size of a 747 that rules over Erebor with greedy malevolence in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
Here are five things you need to know about the dragon Smaug.
Continue reading “Five things USA Today wants you to know about our deadly Draconic friend”
Forum member Dwalin has returned again this year to give us a thorough review of the second wave of figures from The Bridge Direct. These figures are pretty awesome and, I believe, after reading Dwalin’s review you’ll see why fans are so fond of these figures. Thanks to Dwalin for helping us out with this review.
Continue reading “Collecting The Precious – Dwalin Reviews The Bridge Direct’s The Hobbit Wave 2”