Since news for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is starting to flood out the door (we posted 15 new stories yesterday), we thought we’d try to recap the big news for readers. We’ll be doing this every day or two from now up until the movie debuts on December 13 to make sure you don’t miss out on anything just because the pace of news is pushing material off our frontpage.
Without further ado, here are the big headlines for yesterday, December 4. Continue reading “Recap: the big news from The Hobbit from yesterday December 4”
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You might recall that we’ve previously profiled the incredible Middle-earth LEGO dioramas of Blake Baer here on TheOneRing.net.
Now he’s back with his biggest piece yet — a 56-inch-tall model of Erebor made from 80,000 pieces of LEGO that weighs close to 200 pounds! This time he’s working with fellow LEGO aficionado Jack Bittner.
When we saw the first movie last year, we loved it too much not to build a scene from it. Of course, we couldn’t build any thing less than the iconic dwarf city. So here it is, our third and latest collaboration (our first was Amon Hen, our second was Rivendell). We chose Erebor for many reasons, not the least of which was that we love building mountains [sarcasm]. This build was a ton of fun, and we hope you enjoy it. And now, it is our pleasure to present Erebor, the dwarven hall of kings.
We had the chance to ask Blake a few questions about his and Jack’s Erebor diorama. Here’s what he had to say:
TORn: How big is it? Is it your biggest yet?
Blake: It most certainly is our biggest yet at 56″ tall, and close to 80,000 pieces totaling close to 200 pounds of LEGO.
TORn: How long did it take?
Blake: It took my friend Jack Bittner and I close to 400 combined hours to get the model designed, built, photographed, edited, and uploaded.
TORn: How difficult was conceptualizing the design?
Blake: We had the movie to rely upon for reference, so a lot of the design stages was just us watching the movie, haha. It obviously isn’t an exact replica, but it captures the essence of Erebor. We had the general layout of where we wanted Dale, the rivers, the mountains, etc. to be, but much of that changed as we built. We didn’t work off of any blueprints, so we were converting directly from imaginations to bricks, so many changes occurred.
TORn: What inspired the concept?
Blake: Large amounts were drawn from the movie portrayal of the Hobbit. The style of the facade of the gates of Erebor, for example, were drawn from the movie. In addition, representing Dale as a Sicilian-style city with terracotta roofs was drawn from the movie.
TORn: Will you be showcasing it anywhere?
Blake: We currently don’t have any plans to put it on display, but we hope to keep it together for a while so that we can possibly take advantage of any possibilities that may arise. The public unveiling was at Brickfair, VA, earlier this summer, but Erebor hasn’t seen any action To get an idea of the scale, check out the photo below that Blake supplied us. Amazing!
You can see even more photos of Erebor by Blake and Jack on their Flickr account.
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Earlier today, Peter Jackson, Richard Armitage and Evangeline Lilly participated in a Google+ Hangout – answering questions from fans and debuting a new clip from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (which
you can view here). The Hobbit Movies has written up a rough transcript
of the hangout (they describe the quotes more as “summaries”, than exact quotes). Continue reading “Rough transcript of Google+ Hangout with Peter Jackson, Richard Armitage & Evangeline Lilly”
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Two Great Eagles swooped into Wellington Airport’s main terminal building on Monday morning, giving Gandalf a glimpse of the runway.
The sculptures show Gandalf atop one of two Great Eagles, bringing news to the Middle of Middle-earth.
Weighing in at one tonne each with a wingspan of 15 metres, they have been developed by Weta Workshop and Wellington Airport to accompany Gollum in welcoming visitors to the Wellington region and New Zealand.
Continue reading “Two Great Eagles swooped into Wellington Airport”
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Earlier today a brand-new clip from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug premiered during a Google+ hangout with Peter Jackson, Evangeline Lilly and Richard Armitage.
It featured a glimpse of a very memorable moment from the book, as Bilbo helps the dwarves escape from the Mirkwood Elves. The clip has now popped up on YouTube in high definition, and we’ve posted it for you here. Enjoy! Continue reading “New clip from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – “Into the Barrels!””
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Over the past week or so, various press screenings for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug have been occurring all over the globe. Strictly speaking, everyone (including several TORn staffers) is supposed to be under embargo and NDA until December 8 at 12.01am PST, but in a clever (and seemingly successful!) work-around, TIME magazine has dropped the film in at the number 10 spot on its top films of the year.
So what did they have to say about the film? It’s a teeny bit spoilery, and actually quite complimentary. Continue reading “TIME declares The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug one of its top 10 films of the year”
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