In this neat little video, 
Channel 7 Australia’s James Tobin chats with master swordsmith Peter Lyon about the weapons he made for The Hobbit. Some really interesting info about Orcrist, Thorin’s /other/ sword and Bolg’s massive be-spiked war-mace.
Category: Hobbit Movie
It’s not that long ago that Howard Shore’s OST for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was fully revealed for the first time as a listenable web-stream. Problem was, you couldn’t pick single tracks to listen to, and if you paused it, you had to start all over. Now, Rolling Stone offers the standard edition to listen to in its entirety with the ability to select tracks independently and the ability to pause as well.
Or if you want to trial the Special Edition, Watchtower Records has short previews from every track available on its website.
In the Rolling Stone article, Neil Finn says that “Song of the Lonely Mountain” builds on a musical theme written for the movie by New Zealand film composers Plan 9 and David Long, which a group of dwarves sing in an early scene. To work on the song, Finn put himself in the dwarves’ shoes.
“I’d get a little melody and I’d think, ‘Would a dwarf sing that?’ And you go, ‘No, it’s too floral. It’s not earthy enough,'” he says. “Even though there’s aspects of brotherhood and kinship in the song, I had a line about love and Peter and Fran [Walsh, co-writer and co-producer] sort of looked at me and said, ‘No, not love. There’s something not quite right about that.’ It’s not a love song.”
This month, audiences will return to Middle-earth with THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY – the first chapter of an all-new film trilogy adapting author J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary prequel to his own “The Lord Of The Rings” saga.
Andy Serkis may not be the first face one would recognize from the award-winning film series and its new prequel trilogy, but his role is nonetheless one of the franchise’s most distinctive – and one of the epic story’s most integral. The actor plays Gollum (née Smeagol), the one-time custodian of the One Ring and a deceitful influence on the events of the fantasy-cloaked land of Middle-earth. Cunning and covetous of the precious possession, he is a tragic figure corrupted by the magic of the Ring and driven mad by its power – a reluctant villain and a duplicitous guide for the story’s heroes. His is the cautionary tale, which threatens each of the Ring’s subsequent bearers, and yet it is he who leads the way to the Ring’s destruction – and the ultimate salvation of Middle-earth.
Making his first extended appearance in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (2002), the character ignited the cultural zeitgeist – not just for his haunting role in the beloved narrative, but because his on-screen incarnation represented such a prominent paradigm shift for the digital realization of photo-realistic phantasmagoria. Here was a character completely computer-generated (CG), and yet exhibiting the full range of emotion equal to its live-action counterparts.
Courtesy of RichardArmitageNet, here’s some vision from the Japanese premiere of The Hobbit — attended by Peter Jackson, Martin Freeman (Bilbo), Andy Serkis (Gollum), Richard Armitage (Thorin), Elijah Wood (Frodo) and Hugo Weaving (Elrond). Some nice interviews to pick over, too.
The premiere was held at the TOHO Cinemas Roppongi Hills and preceded by a red carpet event similar to the one held as part of the world premiere this week in Wellington. Continue reading “Video: footage from Japanese Hobbit premiere”
Only Twitter users and a part-time critic at the New York Daily News have so far broken the embargo on Jackson’s return to Middle-earth. But, The Guardian asks, is the film verdict-proof anyway? Continue reading “An unexpected wait for Hobbit reviews”
Social media news: The Hobbit is now officially on Google-plus. So if you’re a plusser, head to the movie’s page and add it to your circles. Then you might like to do the same for TheOneRing.net’s own page, which you can find right here!