Frederik writes: Hi, I’m a danish fan of the rings and I’m writing to inform you that the cast of the rings has gotten another knight today. In the event of Queen Margrethe II’s 70 years birthday, a good deal of people were knighted and Viggo Mortensen (being half Danish after all) was one of the lucky ones. The title given to Viggo is “Ridder af Dannebrog” which translates into “Knight of the Danish banner”.

Todd Gilchrist writes: Yesterday in conjunction with the release of Warner Brothers’ new Blu-rays, Hollywood News published an exclusive interview with Richard Taylor, one of the good folks at effects house Weta who was responsible for helping bring the Lord of the Rings film to the screen. While Taylor provided as much information as he could, he confessed outright that he actually had nothing to do with the high-definition upgrade, and further, hadn’t even seen the discs yet. Subsequently, however, we spoke with one of the DVD/BD project’s actual participants, longtime Peter Jackson collaborator Michael Pellerin, who provided some real insights into the process of bringing the films to Blu-ray for the first time.

In addition to his work with Jackson on documenting The Lord of the Rings films, the producer and director has worked on countless featurettes and bonus materials for other films as well, including Tron and Fantasia for Disney. But Pellerin offered some surprising revelations about the new Blu-rays, including some specific and unexpected improvements that most audiences wouldn’t even know needed to be made. Additionally, he hinted at the reservoir of content that has yet to be released, but seems destined to appear on some sort of massive Lord of the Rings boxed set hopefully in the not-too-distant future – although much like the fate of The Hobbit, those specifics have yet to be fully ironed out. More..

Writing a book is a complex process. Creating movies based on books is even more complicated, especially when the source material has been around for decades and has a legion following. The filmmakers must be able satisfy longtime, diehard fans while still attracting newcomers. Furthermore, the filmmakers must also know how and when to stray from the books in order to adapt to a visual medium. With the book The Lord of the Films, author J.W. Braun takes on the ultimate difficulty of writing a book about films that are based on books. Yet the book, acting as a companion guide to the films, reads fluidly, is never confusing and is engaging to the end. (Read Working Author’s review here.) Braun was kind enough to entertain a few a questions and share his experiences as a writer. More..

Linuxelf sends some new clips along: First up is an in-depth interview with Peter Jackson, plus this: Ever wondered how many New Zealanders as extras where in the LOTR movie trilogy? This article does the maths & attempts to find out! 🙂 see how some of the extras had a blast to pass the time! And finally TTT interviews the day after the NZ premiere with, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Elijah Wood, Peter Jackson, Karl Urban, they are also asked what the strangest questions they had been asked by reporters. Enjoy!

Peter Jackson In-depth Part 1 of 2

Continue reading “More Archive LOTR Goodies from NZ”

With the release this week of the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time on Blu-ray, Warner Bros. offered TheOneRing.net the chance to speak to with Richard Taylor, head of Weta Workshops. (Be sure to check out our very own Xoanon’s interview with him as well)

Taylor and partner Tania Rodger famously built the New Zealand special effects house first from their Wellington, New Zealand flat in in 1987 and expanded it dramatically in 1994 when bringing in Peter Jackson. Since then it has grown into one of the elite special effects houses in the world, producing the wonders seen in films like the LOTR trilogy, King Kong, and Avatar, just to name a very few, and all of this across the ocean from the U.S. Film Industry, building what director Guillermo del Toro called, “Hollywood the way God intended it.” Continue reading “Exclusive: TORn’s interview with Richard Taylor”