There are yet more ways to buy “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” including downloading it. In what is called the Xbox SmartGlass Exclusive, thanks to spy TheSilentSon we have a feature to share showcasing Thorin (Richard Armitage), Fili (Dean O’Gorman) and Kili (Aiden Turner) that talks about the relationship of the three in the subtext of the film. This is clearly behind-the-scenes content from the same people who are bringing us production diaries from Pellerin Multimedia. It spells out the Dwarven lineage as written by J.R.R. Tolkien and has some great making-of shots as well as snippets of interviews. And, if you haven’t put it together yet, these are likely the hottest of the hot dwarves. While the Xbox stuff obviously is tied in with HBO (I see you John Snow) and a commercial push, it isn’t completely clear how viewers could download the film. Feel free to alert Microsoft to send us further info (and, as an Xbox owner, I just might give it a whirl and report back.) In the meantime, fans will really enjoy all three minutes and six seconds of this feature.

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEYSeveral good Tolkienites have written in to tell us about a podcast involving Sylvester McCoy (Radagast – of course) and Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent). McCoy discusses his involvement in further “Hobbit” installments. Hedgehogs also come up. Give it a listen right about here.

The new Gollum in The Hobbit is technologically updated from the LOTR trilogy.
The new Gollum in The Hobbit is technologically updated from the LOTR trilogy.
Our own staffer Justin brought this excellent chat between Stuff magazine and Weta Digital’s Joe Letteri to light. Letteri discusses some of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and the challenges of shooting in 3D at 48 fps, but he also has some interesting things to say about Smaug.

Letteri on Smaug: “Really, we could’ve done Smaug in the traditional way – just ask Benedict Cumberbatch to come into a voice booth and record his dialogue, and do everything entirely with keyframe animation. But when we record what Benedict’s body is doing, it frees him up to give us some idea of the physicality and intimate the poses, so that what he’s got on his mind can come through in how he’s performing it – and we’ll take that and extend it into what we do with the dragon.”

Letteri on revisiting Gollum: “I don’t think so – it’s not something that Peter’s ever indicated that he was interested in doing, and for my mind I’m happy to just have the film be finished as a film. We were lucky to be able to come back and do Gollum now with what we know ten years later – we have the best of both worlds, we can do that in new scenes. But even if that hadn’t been the case, I’m inclined to say a film exists in and of its time – and if you want to see something new, go and make a new film.”

You can read the rest of the excellent article right here!

Bilbo wins Best Hero 2013The MTV Movie Awards just announced that Bilbo beat out all the other contenders, including Iron Man, The Hulk, Catwoman, Batman, and Snow White, for the coveted “Best Hero” award. A massive fan effort that spanned continents lead to Bilbo’s victory by a margin of more than 100,000 votes. Using the hashtag #votebilbo, fans cast their votes on Twitter and Instagram and forged a dedicated fellowship committed to showing the world that even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

With more than 1.63 million votes, Bilbo was the clear winner, much to the chagrin of legions of Kristen Stewart and Twilight fans who gave our little hobbit a run for the money. In addition to tweeting, fans created thousands of images that they uploaded to Instagram to share their love for our favorite hero. We’ll have a gallery of some of our favorites online soon.

It’s been a true adventure riding the wild voting rollercoaster, and it’s brought many Ringers together and strengthened our community. From #votebilbo, we’re now united under #BilboTheHeroClick to read about how TORn’s MrCere went from thinking this campaign was “harmless but pretty useless,” to wholeheartedly jumping on board the #votebilbo train as, “A funny thing happened during the process: It became really fun on Twitter to #VoteBilbo!”

[MrCere’s “#VoteBilbo becomes a thing]

hobbitgollumalrg2 Just this week with the arrival of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles, Creatures & Characters , fans got a sneak peek at an upcoming statue for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The character that was shown was Gollum, fully enraged at something down in his cave. Tonight, fans get to order this statue – and it’s a great companion, as you can see in the pictures, to the Bilbo statue previously released. Gollum comes in at $249 and will be shipping sometime in May/June. There is no announced edition size with this statue.

13DwarvesWelcome 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 – April 8, 2013”

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