Peter Debruge of Variety revisits The Lord of the Rings Trilogy a decade later and shares his thoughts:

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since a humble B-movie director named Peter Jackson came along and reinvented the fantasy film genre. Before tackling Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Jackson was best known as the guy who had made “Dead Alive,” “Heavenly Creatures” and a couple of foul-mouthed puppet pics — a background that shows in the approach he took to “The Lord of the Rings.”

Revisiting “LOTR” a decade later — thanks to the three-week series of theatrical screenings tied to the extended-cut Blu-ray release — I was struck by how remarkably well the three films hold up. If anything, they’ve gotten better with age, which I never would have guessed at the time they bowed.

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During Toy Fair 2010, Sideshow Collectibles announced they would be going back to their roots in their The Lord of the Rings license by once again doing maquettes of the characters in Middle-earth. What Sideshow told us was that this line would give us different aspects of the characters we have grown to love. Also during the video (view it here) from Toy Fair we got a tease of the concept drawings of several early pieces in the line.

Then in December of last year, during the twelve days of Sideshow, we got a beautiful look at protos of the pieces to come. The image included: Aragorn as Strider, Gandalf The Grey, Arwen, Legolas, and a hidden character in the back. The hidden character was Gimli, Son of Gloin and shortly after we got a great preview video of the upcoming Boromir maquette. We’re now two pieces in hand for this line with Aragorn already in our collections and now Gandalf the Grey joins him.

Continue reading “Collecting The Precious: Sideshow Collectibles Gandalf the Grey Maquette Review”

Circa writes: See this piece of contemporary art (Epic Journey, 2010, video installation 11 hours) by Canadian artist Kevin Schmidt which uses the LOTR EE as two boats tied together travel along the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada. Really cool. More..

Middle-earth Madness lived up to its name last night as hundreds of fans gathered at the Best Buy in Los Angeles, CA to celebrate the release of The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Trilogy on Blu-Ray. Actors John Noble (Denethor) and Sala Baker (Sauron) signed copies of the Trilogy as fans snatched up the brand new high-def version of the films.

Nicole Roberts walked away with the Grand Prize trip to New Zealand with her inspired and creative ‘Showgirl Balrog’ costume. (pics below) As you will see in our photo gallery, the competition was challenging and we’d like to thank all of the contestants for their talented entries!  Nicole’s costume was judged as the best by Academy Award Winner Sir Richard Taylor of Weta Workshop with help from Lead Designer Daniel Falconer. (We recently interviewed Daniel here)

The LA wing of TheOneRing.net staff was out in full force, and for those of us who could not attend, we’d like to thank them for their tireless efforts to make everything go smoothly! These volunteers spent nearly 15 hours yesterday! So a special thanks to Quickbeam, Cathy, Josh, Suvi, Justin, Peter, Alyse, Catherine, Michael, Echo, Alex, David and Cat from Alleycatscratch.com!

We’d like to thank Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Weta Workshop and Best Buy for making this event possible!

Click the ‘continue reading’ button to view all of the photos from the event as well as some videos. We’ll be updating them as more come in!

 

Continue reading “Middle-earth Madness – A Night to Remember!”

Want to win a massive, 15-disc Lord of the Rings box set to rule them all?

Punch in your expectations for Peter Jackson’s cinematic adaptation of The Hobbit in the comments section below for your chance at winning one of three Blu-ray copies of The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (Extended Edition + Digital Copy).

Scores of makeshift Orcs and Halflings are expected to line up Monday night in Los Angeles for the Middle-Earth Midnight Madness event marking the $120 box set’s Tuesday release. On hand to sign copies for the first 150 fans in line: Actor John Noble, who creeped out viewers as The Return of the King’s Denethor (and currently stars as Walter Bishop in sci-fi show Fringe). Stuntman Sala Baker, who inhabited various Orcs and even the Dark Lord Sauron in the Rings movie trilogy, will be doing the same. More..

So we have a few more details to share with you concerning the Middle-earth Madness celebration taking place right now at the Best Buy in Los Angeles. (1301 W. Pico. Blvd) First off, we can confirm that John Noble (Denethor), Brad Dourif (Wormtongue) and Sala Baker (Sauron) will be attending this evening’s festivities! Secondly, there will be a Laser Light show and Fireworks starting at approximately 11:45. (How awesome is that?!) And of course, what Tolkien can be had in LA without a game of Goblin Ball! (You know, you knock the heads off Goblins for fun). We’ve also got loads of shirts, posters and other swag to hand out throughout the evening. And of course, we are streaming events live as they happen on our Stickam account. You can see it on the homepage of TORn, or through the following link. [Stickam] If you are following along on Twitter, our hashtag is #MEMadness, and of course, we’ll be posting pics on Facebook throughout the evening. If you want to have your chance at winning a Grand Prize trip to New Zealand, make sure you get to Best Buy BEFORE 7pm PT. And we can’t forget the whole reason we are throwing this party today…the release of The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Trilogy on Blu-Ray is tonight at Midnight! The countdown continues!! [Live Stream] [Facebook] [Twitter] [Event Details] [WBshop.com]