As part of the celebrations of the fifteenth anniversary of the release of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Tourism New Zealand has launched a new way to explore the country that has become, for many, the ‘real’ Middle-earth. They tell us:
‘To celebrate New Zealand being the real Middle-earth for 15 years (since the first Lord of the Rings film) we have come up with a new way to take you on an adventure.
Imagine if you travelled the real Middle-earth like a Hobbit – what journey would you take? What if you were an Elf? A Dwarf? A Wizard? ‘Middle-earth travel’ aligns the characters to the NZ experiences they would do, on their New Zealand holiday.
Consumers will take a quiz to discover what character they are, and will receive a personalised message from Peter Jackson saying:
- What character they are
- Providing them with a customised itinerary through NZ
- Providing them with a shareable video of ‘What to pack’ for their journey to Middle-earth’
You can take the quiz on Tourism New Zealand’s Facebook page, 100% Pure New Zealand; or you can find it on their website, here.
They also shared with us two fun articles: 15 Middle-earth stars profess their love for New Zealand and How to travel like a hobbit in New Zealand.
Many airline companies have sales on around this time of year, so if you’re inspired, maybe 2017 will be the year you make your own Unexpected Journey to Middle-earth? Or at least we can all enjoy pictures from 100% Pure New Zealand, whilst we dream of such a voyage…!
Posted in:
Share:
In addition to the many fans that posted their reviews on TORn (see yesterday’s article: 15,084 Reviews and Counting), many of our core staff chimed in with reviews soon after FOTR opened. In this article, we bring you reviews by such well-known names as Xoanon, Tehanu, Quickbeam and Ostadan. All of them capture the magic and excitement that we all experienced 15 years ago.
To begin, one lucky staffer, Tehanu, the envy of all of us, was lucky enough to attend the film’s premier in Wellington, New Zealand. Of course, Tehanu (a.k.a. Erica Challis) is one of TORn’s founders and served as our ‘feet on the ground’ and number one Ringer Spy during filming. Here are some of her impressions from the day:
“I’ve been in Wellington for a day or two and I have to tell you, the town is in a Rings uproar. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now. The streets are hung with LOTR banners, everything from the Town Hall to the Evening Post’s headquarters is renamed ‘Middle Earth’ (as is the airport, I believe, though I haven’t seen that myself.) The Rings is on every newspaper, every phone bill, every electricity company billboard, on the ads for Mastercard. There are funny billboards harping on LOTR themes everywhere (“Wellington: Full of orcs, hobbits and elves. …But enough about Parliament…..”). The monster cave troll dominates Courtenay Place from its perch on the awning of the Embassy Theatre, where the plasterers are working round the clock to finish the theatre in time for the Premiere.”
Continue reading “TORn staff reviews Fellowship of the Ring”
Posted in:
Share:
On December 18, 2001, TheOneRing.net introduced a new feature on our site: Ringer Reviews – “A database of reviews from Tolkien fans all over the world, whether you loved, liked or hated the film this is where you can express your feelings in words and celebrate with your fellow fans the release of the first installment in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.” Twenty-four hours later, fans had posted 3,000 reviews. By Christmas the count was up to 6,700 and on January 19, 2002, a month after FOTR opened, over 10,000 reviews had been submitted.
Today the count stands at 15,084 reviews. Unfortunately, the individual reviews reside on our old site and have been archived. But, we thought it might be fun to revisit some of the overall results, more of which can be found at the Ringer Reviews link above.
Continue reading “Fellowship of the Ring: 15,084 reviews and counting”
Posted in:
Share:
A number of other sites around the internet are also celebrating the 15th anniversary of the opening of The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring this week, and/or The Lord of the Rings movie franchise in general. For the convenience of our readers, we put together this one-stop shop for a stroll down memory lane. We’ll bring more to you during the week as we find them. Enjoy!
Continue reading “FOTR 15th anniversary – a compilation of articles”
Posted in:
Share:
TheOneRing.net isn’t the only news site reporting on the 15th anniversary of the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring this week. Leigh Blickley, Senior Editor at The Huffington Post, takes us on a bit of a walk down memory lane in her article that looks back at the many people and circumstances that came together to produce the fantasy classic.
“Fifteen years ago, Hollywood was abuzz as director Peter Jackson geared up to release the first installment of his screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings. The film series was the talk of the town, considering Tolkien fans were chomping at the bit to see Jackson’s cinematic imagining of Middle-earth. The somewhat unknown filmmaker took on one of the most expensive and ambitious projects in cinema history, and many worried he would flounder in bringing the beloved epic to life.
Well, Jackson delivered something far more incredible than what anyone was expecting.”
We have to agree with you, Leigh! But, we’re not the only ones. Later in the week we’ll take a look a the many reviews of stunned (in a good way) critics and fans alike. In the mean time, you can read the full HuffPost article here.
Posted in:
Share:
As hard as it is to believe for many of us, this coming Monday, December 19th, marks the 15th anniversary of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring opening in theaters. To help celebrate, we’ll be looking back all this week at the news on TORN and other sites from before, during and after the release of this incredible movie that changed many of our lives and that, together with the other two films in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has become a classic.
By this time in 2001, many of us had already purchased our tickets, some for the midnight shows. Many were preparing costumes and/or thinking up excuses not to go into work on the 20th (ahem). A precious few of us had even been lucky enough to have seen the movie before it opened (I wish). But, one thing we all had in common was the thrill and excitement of watching the trailers in the months leading up to the December release.
Re-watching some of the trailers again brought back a tinge of the excitement I felt when I spent hours watching the first trailer, on dial-up no less! Kids, you’ll have to ask your parents to explain. Yes, those were the days. To help all of you revisit that excitement, here’s a gem from 2014 posted by staffer Demosthenese: The ghosts of trailers past: revisiting The Lord of the Rings, complete with TORn staffers’ exclusive frame-by-frame analysis – well worth a re-visit even today.
The first teaser in theaters came out on January 12, 2001 and was only 1 min, 47 seconds long; but what a 1 min and 47 seconds! In it, we see the classic ‘money shot’ of each member of the Fellowship as they walk over the crown of a hill in the wild. Gandalf leads the way and as each of the others follow we see the titles appear: The Fellowship of the Ring – Christmas 2001; The Two Towers – Christmas 2002; The Return of the King – Christmas 2003. The sublime subtlety of The Return of the King title appearing as Aragorn topped the hill was lost on no one who had read the books.
The second trailer was released on May 25th and clocked in at a fulfilling 2 mins, 27 seconds. In it, we learned quite a bit about the One Ring and, oh my goodness, got our first glimpse of *gasp* Sauron! Oh, the rumors and hours of discussion that ensued, not to mention the hubbub caused by seeing Arwen for the first time!
The third trailer, which premiered on television in front of Angel in September, gave us our first, glorious glimpse of The Shire and Bag End. “Fate has chosen him…. a Fellowship will protect him… evil will hunt them ….This Christmas the legend comes to life.” How many of us had that memorized? The other biggie in this trailer was seeing the tip of the fiery foot of the Balrog; que more endless hours of rumors and discussion!
We hope you enjoy watching the trailers again, and taking a walk down memory lane with us this week!
Posted in:
Share:
As part of the celebrations of the fifteenth anniversary of the release of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Tourism New Zealand has launched a new way to explore the country that has become, for many, the ‘real’ Middle-earth. They tell us:
