Tribute.ca brings us this behind-the-scenes special on the making of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. We hear from director Peter Jackson and many of the film’s stars about their journey back to Middle-earth. It’s also a good recap of Lord of the Rings with plenty of footage and scenes that you might have forgotten! Check it out! Continue reading “Behind the scenes of An Unexpected Journey”
Category: Hobbit Movie
Spoilers! This new 1 minute, 15-second clip from apple Site features Gandalf and Bilbo in arguing about Bilbo’s Tookish heritage in Bag End at the beginning of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. A certain famous ancestor of Bilbo’s gets a mention, and so does an equally famous battle in Shire history! Continue reading “Apple Hobbit clip featuring Bilbo and Gandalf”
While New Zealand and the U.K. are already enjoying theaters playing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, North America is set to kick off events tonight. The 12:01 screenings are a way for fans to express their desire to see the film early, at the first possible moment of the film’s release on Friday, December 14.
TheOneRing.net, following a long tradition of getting fans together in real life, have set up Line Party events around the country. Companies like Badali Jewelry, with its commemorative Line Party Pins, ReadD 3D glasses, Guardians of Middle-earth video games, HMH book publishers and Denny’s have all made donations that have been sent to select lines around the nation.
TORn’s Line Party in Atlanta, Georgia received media attention today, led by our own staffer Deej, also known as Rebecca Perry. The Atlanta Journal Constitution features a story with Deej and many of the site’s friends and DragonCon’s Tolkienites. They even used photos from the subjects of the story to full effect.
Other notable lines are in Boston, scattered around California and appear in virtually every state and many countries around the world.
Meanwhile, the Salt Lake line party, led by this young writer here, is taking a low-key approach. For LOTR:Return of the King we privately purchased 1,400 tickets so this year is a quiet gathering to build momentum for the next two Hobbit films. However, we are throwing down the gauntlet and will turn next year’s event into a friendly rivalry. Just you try to out-do us in 2014!
You too can participate in Line Party events now and in the future. Check out our lines here and look for more and better in 2014. Also, we will print limited t-shirts to commemorate our fourth Line Party effort. Called the LP4 shirt, look for it soon! Thanks to all the Line Party leaders for your efforts and to fans: ENJOY!
I had the pleasure of seeing an advanced screening last night of ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’- in 3D but not in 48fps. In honour of todays date (12/12/12) I thought I would share the 12 things I loved most about the film, and 12 things I didn’t. I will say that overall I loved the movie, and plan to see it in all formats at least a few times each. And it was a lot harder to come up with 12 things I didn’t like about the film than 12 things I did like. Spoilers ahead!
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Things to love:
1) The prologue – Seeing Erebor in its glory! Young Thorin! Thranduil! A fleeting glimpse of Smaug! And, most surprisingly (I was actually a little worried about this), seeing old Bilbo and Frodo as they get ready for Bilbo’s birthday party. A nice way of seeing how Bilbo begins the Red Book as well as a nice segue into the beginning of ‘Fellowship of the Ring’.
2) Martin Freeman as Bilbo – Perfect casting. I have long been a fan of his, and he absolutely nails this performance.
3) Richard Armitage as Thorin – See above.
4) The dwarves singing at Bag End – I laughed during ‘Blunt the Knives’ and almost cried during ‘Misty Mountains’.
5) The returning cast (Sir Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett) and familiar settings (Hobbiton, Rivendell) from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. It was like being back with old friends after a long absence.
6) Bret McKenzie as Figwit Lindir.
7) The Stone Trolls – Bert, William, and Tom. They look and sound just as Tolkien described, except… (see # 8 on my 2nd list).
8) ‘Riddles in the Dark’ – My favorite scene in the film and from the book. Both Martin and Andy Serkis were brilliant together. Can we just give them both an Oscar now?
9) Bad Ass Dwarven fighting. Those goblins never stood a chance.
10) The soundtrack – a Middle-earth film without Howard Shore’s score is like a Hobbit without food and pipeweed.
11) Here come the eagles!
12) One last glimpse of Smaug opening his eye as the film ends. I can’t wait to hear Benedict Cumberbatch give voice to one of my favorite literary characters next year.
Things You Might Not Love:
1) I would have liked to have seen a bit more done with Radagast the Brown. Don’t get me wrong – I love Sylvester McCoy, and he does warn Gandalf about the goings-on in Dol Guldur. But otherwise he just seemed to be there for the sake of being there. Perhaps the Extended Editions and films 2 & 3 will fix that.
2) Bilbo seemed a little too excited to leave the Shire, and he left on his own. I wanted to see Gandalf come and get him.
3) Speaking of Bilbo heading out on his adventure, why did he have a backpack? I would have rather he left as he did in the book, without so much as a pocket hankerchief.
4) Azog – In my opinion, he was too cartoonish and too obviously CGI. A little disappointing given how amazing Weta’s CGI characters usually are.
5) The Wargs – See above.
6) The Goblin King – See above.
7) No talking wallet during the Stone Trolls scene – I understand it may have been a bit too cartoonish, but I was disappointed not to hear “Ere, ‘oo are you?”
8) Bilbo covered in troll snot – I would have been okay without seeing that.
9) The scene with the Company in the middle of a fight between stone giants seemed almost completely lifted from the scene in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ on the Pass of Caradhras.
10) No talking eagles, either – I wanted to hear at least a little something between Gandalf and Gwahir.
11) I know the eagles aren’t a taxi service, but couldn’t they have dropped the Company off just a *bit* closer to Erebor instead of at the top of a mountain very far away?
12) That it will be another year before we all see ‘The Desolation of Smaug’.
With the public screenings now on in New Zealand and England and a day away in the U.S. and Canada, it seems a good time to continue to celebrate Hobbit Week and share some of the footage we gathered on the red carpet in Wellington, New Zealand. And this time instead of speaking to the media in general, they are speaking directly to you, the community that makes up TheOneRing.net. We have saved this footage for just the right time but here in the states it feels like ‘Hobbit Eve’ and there hasn’t been a lull in the media for weeks so it is now or never! Hope you enjoy some short visits and appearances by Adam Brown, Andy Serkis, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, James Cameron, John Callen, Mark Hadlow, Martin Freeman, Peter Hambleton, Richard Armitage, Stephen Hunter and William Kircher. Enjoy!
Another review from a staffer of TORN long ago, Wee Tanya brings her thoughts to you now.
Warning before you begin: Spoilers abound in this review. Read it or not, it’s up to you.
Tonight I had the extreme pleasure of watching a press screening of The Hobbit on behalf of TheOneRing.net. Not only was I ushered into the screening like an honored guest, but TheOneRing.net’s name is still renown, and I was even introduced by the night’s host to the whole crowd as “Wee from TORn”. Then he grilled me on Tolkien trivia, but don’t worry, I did us proud.
Much like Arathorn I’ve been keeping a low, spoiler-free profile for the past ten years. Life happened, and I managed to drift far enough away from the ride that when I caught up with Peter Jackson’s video diaries, I spent an entire evening watching every one. Fine, maybe I’m not totally unspoiled. But there I sat as the theater darkened, not knowing what to expect at all except for two things: first, that suddenly there were three movies instead of two; and second, that someone actually called the movie boring!
I’d like you all to know that it was not boring, not a jot. The pace is beautiful, lyrical even, and in the middle of Rivendell it slows to the stately walk of Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel. But it might seem slow at first because there is a LOT of tale to tell. Bilbo begins even before “Concerning Hobbits,” back in the dark days of the Silmarillion, and establishes the sacking of Erebor and Dale before we even know what a Hobbit is! In my opinion this was necessary, because it opens up a wider world to stare at (in awe) before the camera pulls back to the familiarity of Bag End. I wanted the camera to pause at every detail of Erebor, because it was stunning. It echoes the designs of Moria from the first movies, but amplified, because it is a Dwarven city at the height of its glory instead of one abandoned.
I admit that my eyes started leaking the second I saw Bilbo put pen to paper, and I have to applaud the larger-story continuity of the first scene. It begins on the very same day as Fellowship of the Ring, and shows Bilbo writing in the Red Book, expanding upon his story (which we all know he finishes up in retirement in Rivendell, so it’s even more touching to see this flow). Ian Holm is the first Bilbo that we see, and he’s perfect, of course. Elijah Wood’s Frodo wanders through, giving the scene even more continuity as we see Bilbo watch him leave — little does Bilbo know, Frodo is off to his own adventure. And then Gandalf shows up, and after that come dwarves and more dwarves, and the story is up and running.
But whose story? I’d like to posit that this movie is actually Gandalf’s story. Ian McKellen’s expressive eyes hold the heart of the plot, which for this movie boils down to, “Did Gandalf do well in choosing this particular burglar for the company?” McKellen must have some kind of meticulous timeline of Gandalf’s life in his head, because he can step back into the role of a younger, less secure, less shiny Gandalf with exquisite ease. Gandalf’s growth as a wizard is what’s tested here, and that stately-walking scene in Rivendel (which might be slow to some) is a fine moment in which we see Gandalf squirming in his seat, while his peers probe him: is this decision to help the dwarves really a good one? Can he back Radagast’s claim that the Necromancer is back, against the (slightly less Palantir-addled) Saruman? We’re not sure, and neither is he.
There are a few set pieces in this movie that all true fans expected, and all of them deliver. I was pleased to hear many songs meandering through Bilbo’s larder (That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates!), and while the cut was more like a fan’s extended version than Hollywood might want, in short: F*** ’em. Peter Jackson gave me the story that I would’ve bought and watched in an extended version anyway, and I’m overjoyed that a third movie gave him the space to spread out and tell the tale as it was told in the books. Did the set piece with the trolls feel the way it did in the book? Of course. And I even squinted at them to make sure they were in the same position that Frodo finds them in, in Fellowship of the Ring. (SEE, Peter Jackson? You knew we’d keep track.)
As for Smaug, we saw some beautifully filmed teasing, but the Big Bad (ok, Medium Bad; the Big Bad is the Necromancer) is being saved for the final film. In a nice visual paeon to a certain Dark Lord, the movie ends with a thinly-slit reptilian eye. Symbolism, I get it! Other beautiful moments for Tolkien fans abound. Watch for: That Moment when Bilbo stays his hand instead of slaying Gollum. Watch for: The intricately designed beauty of each and every domain, including the goblin kingdom above Gollum’s layer. Watch for: FIGWIT.
I won’t discuss Riddles in the Dark, because it’s perfectly done.
What did I dislike? Well. Radagast was saved from being cute by his Peter Jackson-grossness (is that BIRD POO ON HIS FACE? Oh God of course it is), his plot explicated neatly from the Silmarillion. Radagast was necessary for getting information about Mirkwood over to the rest of the world. It’s a fan’s retelling of how it happened, and I’ll pretend that Fran and Phillipa heard it from local lore, the kind of stories that might appear at the Prancing Pony.
In short, I loved this movie, and I want more. Two more. Fine, take my money, and show me as many movies as you want!