Our next review is going to take a look at the two most recently delivered figures from Iron Studio’s 1:10 The Lord of the Rings statue line. These awesome pieces capture the sequence we see at Balin’s tomb in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. So far fans can snag Legolas, Gimli, Boromir, Armored Orc, Swordsman Orc, Archer Orc, and of course the Cave Troll. As you will see in this review, they’ve done an excellent job of capturing Middle-earth’s odd couple, Legolas and Gimli, as well as creating a couple of great collectibles. If you’re a fan with limited space and budget, then these collectibles will be right up your ally. Currently, Legolas and Gimli are listed as in stock from our friends at Sideshow, for $140 each. The rest of the line set is currently on pre-order.
The incredibly secretive billion-dollar TV series release confirms a launch date of September 2, 2022, for what has been filming for nearly 18 months in New Zealand. Looks like post production, VFX work and more will take more than a year to complete.
First OFFICIAL photo: Amazon’s LOTR
Here is the first official pic of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings, the biggest TV series in history, from showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne!
Curiously, the announcement begins with “yet-to-be titled”, which means the actual series may be called something new. Fandom has been split on this idea – The Lord of the Rings is the biggest selling book of the 20th century, and a well-known brand, familiar in all languages; and the Second Age story is of Sauron, who is the actual lord of the rings. On the other hand, casual viewers might be confused by naming the show the same as the feature films, where they might expect a reboot going in.
Our friends at Asmus Toys have launched a new line of collectibles that I believe fans are really going to love. Starting this Fall, fans will be able to acquire what Asmus is refering to as limited articulation figures. The first collectible that fans will be able to snag is the Balrog; which, as a fan of this character, makes me very happy. It’s really exceptional looking. If space is an issue don’t fret, because this statue is coming in at 11 inches tall with the wings. (Other figures Lurtz and the newly teased Azog will both be in the 8″ tall range.) You can get the Balrog right now at Sideshow for $110, which is a great price point for collectors. If you’re looking to get something that is cool, doesn’t take up a ton of shelf space, and has a price point that may enable you to collect them all, I think you’ll want to check this out.
Our friends at Weta Workshop had themselves one heck of a Comic-Con at Home 2021, with the goodies they’ve unveiled for us. We have a new Mini Epic, helms, a premium statue, a new master collection statue – and that’s just from Middle-earth! The new Mini Epic is this year’s Comic-Con Exclusive. It’s a variant of Saruman, but this time holding his staff and Gandalf’s staff as well. This piece comes in with a price tag of $49.99(US), and an edition size online of only 400 pieces.
If you’re a fan of the helm line then this Comic-Con was for you, as you got three new additions: two from The Hobbit Trilogy and one from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The two from The Hobbit represent helms we saw on the Ringwraiths during the Dol Guldur sequence. Fans can add the helm of the Ringwraiths Khand and Harad, with both pieces coming in at $79.99(US). The Lord of the Rings is being represented by the Uruk-hai Captain’s Helm, which also comes in at $79.99(US). The edition size of these three pieces will be set by the number of orders placed by August 5th.
This year’s premium statue is the Lord of the Rings himself, Sauron. This statue is a monster in size, and amazing in paint as well as detail. Fans who order him will get – for the first time ever – alternate weapons, with one of them being from a deleted scene! He also comes with a base which contains led lights, to give a glowing lava effect. Sauron comes in with a price tag of $999(US), and fans have time to save for this superb piece as he’s not shipping until 2nd quarter of next year. Like the helms, Sauron’s edition size is being set by orders received through August 5th.
We here at TORn are very happy to introduce something new within the collectibles arena. We’ve been doing reviews and news blurbs under ‘Collecting The Precious’ for a decade now; so we’ve decided to branch out and add something new! MadeyeGamgee and myself (Elessar) are excited to sit down and talk about various collectibles topics, ranging from new collectibles and interviews with the artists, to tips to help new and old collectors alike. The very first episode is on YouTube now, and you can watch it below. In this first episode we cover mostly the cool things that came out of San Diego Comic-Con at Home 2021. We hope you enjoy this first episode, which comes in at just a little under three hours.
This is part one of a two part interview with Julia Golding, founder of Project Northmoor and the Oxford Centre for Fantasy, which is dedicated to creativity and the study of Oxford’s most famous fantasy writer, J.R.R. Tolkien. Like Tolkien, she studied at the University of Oxford where she received a Doctorate in English Literature. Her CV includes British diplomat and Oxfam policy adviser, as well as multi-award winning author of children’s and young adult novels, with over a half a million books sold worldwide, which have been translated into many languages.
Julia Golding
Mithril: What is your first memory of reading Tolkien?
Julia: Your question reminded me that I had a first unsuccessful attempt at reading The Hobbit too young on my own (around 6 or 7) which put me off Tolkien. I wish someone had read it to me – or steered me towards a recording –because it took me a long while to rediscover The Hobbit. But then came the summer when I was ten. I decided to try Tolkien again but started with The Lord of the Rings. I have a vivid memory of lying on a sofa in my childhood home in Essex, suburban Southeast England. I can even conjure up the feeling of the sofa fabric and the cool room with the sunny road outside. I was enchanted, completely lost in his world. I got to the end, and immediately went back to The Fellowship of the Ring, because I couldn’t stand for the experience to end – so I carried on lying down reading. It really was a turning point for me; ever since then he has helped inspire my passion for creating worlds in fiction.
Mithril: You’ve written over 60 novels, and once said “[Tolkien] is a key influence over the way I write and the reason I became an author.” Can you delve into this a bit more?
Julia: It is connected to his example as a creator of myth. He wrote about us being sub-creators, how we can be a little like a god to our own worlds. I love the idea that we each have the ability to create these microcosm universes, decide the rules and nature of the worlds, invent the peoples, their behaviour, culture and languages. Tolkien led by example. His enduring appeal to me is as a uniquely creative mind whose subcreation has unrivalled internal consistency, length, breadth and depth.
I was also inspired by how he wrote about the things that mattered to him by using them to power the structure holding up Middle-earth. He didn’t come at you with an obvious allegory and bash you over the head with the application; he famously wrote in the Preface to The Fellowship of the Ring that: ‘I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.’
That doesn’t mean, of course, there aren’t values or messages to be drawn, but these are those connected with the reader’s experience. You can be a person of faith, no faith, and from the whole range of world cultures, and still there will be something important there for you. He found great power in such stories as those where the hero sacrifices themselves, displays humanity to the enemy, or fights a battle where victory is also a kind of defeat – all of which can be linked to source stories ranging from the Bible to George MacDonald and William Morris, via Old Norse sagas and Anglo-Saxon poetry. This method of using the things you find powerful as a code underlying your own story showed me how to draw on what I care about to create something uniquely mine – and hopefully the reader senses this and cares too.
Mithril: You hold a Doctorate in English Literature from the University of Oxford. While there, did you study Tolkien’s works?
Julia: I studied Tolkien when I did my undergraduate degree, which was in [the University of] Cambridge back in the mists of time. I wrote a final year paper on Tolkien and C.S. Lewis looking at their different approaches to mythopoeia. I didn’t become a professional writer for another fifteen years, but that third-year thesis stayed with me.
Mithril: You are the founder of Project Northmoor, a center for creative studies with a focus on fantasy and J.R.R. Tolkien. How did the idea for this come about? Can you talk about the process of pulling it together?
Julia: This all came out of the attempt to buy Tolkien’s house, which began in November 2020, launching in December that year – all in super-quick time as we were trying to buy it before anyone else did. I live close by the house. When I cycle past, I have always thought it would make a perfect creative writing centre and would be a wonderful way to honour Tolkien’s legacy. There isn’t anywhere like that in the UK, which is astonishing considering his global importance as a writer. When we started the campaign to buy it, we decided the idea of having a literary centre in Oxford was a valid goal even if we didn’t achieve our aim for the house. We wanted to provide a place for those who love Oxford fantasy to come for inspiration. When we didn’t make the target in the first three months, we had to stop as the vendor wanted to take another offer. Such a shame as we really gave it our best shot! Many Tolkien fans around the world were really generous but there just weren’t enough of us to get us over the line. We then went to plan b and began looking for another venue for the centre. However, that meant we started off online. That was a blessing in disguise as it made us think outside the box of what residential creative centres usually offer. We could be global from the outset, building a wonderful community of creatives who are inspired by Tolkien and other Oxford fantasy writers.
In the second part of this interview, we’ll share a video where Julia visits a barrow which may have helped inspire the Barrow Downs scene in The Fellowship of the Ring.
Our next review is going to take a look at the two most recently delivered figures from Iron Studio’s 1:10 The Lord of the Rings statue line. These awesome pieces capture the sequence we see at Balin’s tomb in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. So far fans can snag Legolas, Gimli, Boromir, Armored Orc, Swordsman Orc, Archer Orc, and of course the Cave Troll. As you will see in this review, they’ve done an excellent job of capturing Middle-earth’s odd couple, Legolas and Gimli, as well as creating a couple of great collectibles. If you’re a fan with limited space and budget, then these collectibles will be right up your ally. Currently, Legolas and Gimli are listed as in stock from our friends at Sideshow, for $140 each. The rest of the line set is currently on pre-order.
