Sylvester McCoy, Radagast the Brown in the two upcoming films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, has been added as a guest to the annual celebration of popular culture known as DragonCon. Ralph Bakshi is also a guest and of course TheOneRing.net is also attending as it has for the last decade and we will make every effort to catch a chat with McCoy.
He is best known as the seventh Doctor Who but has worked extensively on the stage and in television. It is not yet known if he will appear as part of the Tolkien Track of programming (but he is more than welcome to take the stage during either of the two TORn panels on The Hobbit) but he will doubtless be asked a few Middle-earth questions even if he is involved with Doctor Who content.
Expect a lot more DragonCon content from TORn through the conclusion of the convention including the TORn road trip to DragonCon. Continue reading “Sylvester McCoy added as DragonCon guest”
Category: Conventions
The folks from WB Games have sent along this video from their event at Comic-Con last month.
TheOneRing.net is planning a road trip to DragonCon 2011 in Atlanta GA, and we are looking for a few financial sponsors to make it happen! The plan is to leave Los Angeles on Aug 30th, shoot up to Salt Lake City, and then direct non-stop (except for bathroom breaks) to DragonCon! The best part is we’ll be LIVE the entire time on Stickam.com, thanks to an amazing new piece of technology that should keep us connected the entire trip. If you would like to sponsor our efforts (gas, food, etc), please email us directly at advertising@theonering.net. It is a great opportunity to get your company out in front of a worldwide Tolkien audience, and participate in a worldwide first – We believe this is the first time anyone has streamed LIVE across the country!
Fans of The Lord of the Rings films already know that Andy Serkis can act his face off and act without ever showing his face. He first proved it with his landmark performance of Gollum in The Two Towers. Film making and acting without a net, portions of the film hinged on Serkis’ performance of a creature and Weta Digital’s ability to put the emotion on screen digitally. It worked. Beyond all expectations, it soared.
When the screenwriters threw in some character twists of the twisted character for Return of the King (for good or for ill, but don’t blame the actor) Serkis did it again. And of course his return as the same character to The Hobbit is as essential a tie between the films as any character. He went from Middle-earth to Monster Island with King Kong and even got to die a horrible death in his own skin on screen.
Weta went on to create Pandora and its blue skinned inhabitants with James Cameron in Avatar then teamed up again on Tintin with Serkis playing a human in the hilarious Captain Haddock.
But his role as Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, just about to open in theaters everywhere, is his greatest performance yet. He moves from being a central character in a big movie to being the center of the film and stealing the show from the actors who get flesh and blood on screen. Continue reading “Exclusive: Andy Serkis talks ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes,’ ‘Hobbit’ with TORn”
TORN Guest Blogger Ethan Gilsdorf writes: The extent to which the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons was inspired by Tolkien has been debated, but it’s clear that D&D’s co-founders Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson had read the trilogy. And it’s more than clear that the ongoing success and appeal of Lord of the Rings fueled interest in D&D, as well as vice versa.
This past week (July 27) would have been Gygax’s 73rd birthday. Folks have been working to immortalize his legacy and the impact of D&D by building a memorial statue in Gygax’s hometown of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. The next step is to raise money. This coming week at Gen Con in Indianapolis (the now massive gaming convention that Gygax founded), using the birthday as the impetus, the Gygax Memorial Fund will be at booth #1541 (the Old School Renaissance Group) to accept donations to get this statue built. Continue reading “Gygax Memorial Fund at GenCon”
(The following is an opinion piece from long-time staffer Quickbeam aka Clifford Broadway)
This year at San Diego Comic-Con 2011 we brought tons of Hobbity goodness to all the fans who joined us to celebrate our shared love of Tolkien. It was a huge success by all accounts. Our Hobbit panel launched the weekend with wonderful buzz. We got a nice interview with Bard (Luke Evans) before he even stepped foot in New Zealand for his first day of filming! I got a brief, single question in to the legendary Francis Ford Coppola. I was delighted to feature WETA’s own Daniel Falconer and Greg Broadmore in our live feed. Here’s the big kick in the pants: overall viewership of our innovative live streaming video beat G4’s audience; proving that Ringer fans know how to bring it better than anyone! Way to go TORn!
But I look back with a bittersweet reflection on how SDCC has evolved over time. Because “much that once was… is now lost.”
At first blush any newcomer attending the mega-event titled San Diego Comic-Con International (mind you, I’m talking about the truly virginal), would expect to walk into the main hall and they would ostensibly find: comic books. Continue reading “A Look Back: Has Comic-Con Really Jumped The Shark?”