And then there were two… Middle-earth March Madness 2020 began just over two weeks ago, and here we are, arrived at the FINAL. We started out with 64 scenes from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies, divided into four categories: Tearjerkers, Scenic, Laughter, and Drama/Action. Five rounds later, and just two scenes remain, to battle for the title of Grand Champion 2020.
Once again we had almost 5,500 people vote in the last round; if you missed last night’s live results show, you can watch it here. (Panelists on last night’s show also discussed what they would choose for their own personal top four scenes from PJ’s movies; see if your choices coincide with theirs!)
In Round Five, we saw the Laughter division winner take on the champion from the Drama/Action category: ‘Would you like me to find you a box?’ vs The Charge of the Rohirrim. Comedy, it turned out, was no match for an epic battle sequence; the Rohirrim took almost three quarters of the vote to secure their place in the final.
But Theoden shouldn’t be cheering too soon; the Rohirrim face a very tough opponent in the Final. The other Semi Final was between the Scenic and Tearjerker brackets, and this was a really closely fought contest. It went right down to the wire, with strong feelings on both sides; the final vote split was 51% to 49%! By this narrowest of margins, Lighting the Beacons defeated ‘You bow to no one’; so it is Gondor’s call for aid which goes through to this year’s final.
Here is the bracket as it currently stands:
Feelings are likely to run high for this face off. Which epic sequence gets YOUR vote? You have until 10pm TOMORROW night (Wednesday 15th) to make your voice heard, so don’t delay! We’re also still taking entries for our GIVEAWAY of an awesome Balrog statue, from our friends at Sideshow. Vote again, submit your details again, and be in with a second chance to win!
We’ll have our final LIVE RESULTS SHOW tomorrow night at 10pm ET; you can find that, as ever, on our facebook page. Hope to see you there; or check back here on Thursday morning to find out who is Middle-earth March Madness Grand Champion 2020. VOTE NOW!
THE BEACONS ARE LIT, and Gondor calls for aid – but the aid is needed for the ‘You bow to no one’ scene! We know that many of you want to see ‘You bow to no one’ go through to the Final of Middle-earth March Madness 2020. Right now, however, it’s being beaten by the Lighting the Beacons scene; but there is only 10% in it!
Muster the Rohirrim! (Whose charge, by the way, is currently easily beating the ‘Would you like me to find you a box?’ scene; but that could all change, if there is a final day surge in voting as there was in the previous round. No scene is safe!)
Rally the troops! Get your fellow fans to VOTE before 10pm ET TONIGHT!
And don’t forget, everyone who votes can enter to win an amazing Balrog statue, thanks to our good friends and sponsors Sideshow. So check out the Final Four scenes, make your choices, and vote! VOTE NOW!
Then tune in to our facebook page at 10pm ET tonight to watch our live results show!
It’s time for the Semi Final! The champions of each of our four brackets have been decided, and now just four entries remain in Middle-earth March Madness 2020. Which scene will go on to be our Grand Champion this year?
Thanks to everyone who voted in the Elite Eight round, and who tuned in to our Live Results show last night; strong feelings were shared on Facebook threads and in the chat room, and we had almost 5,500 votes placed! Let’s take a look at our bracket winners:
The easiest win this round was in the Scenic category, where in spite of many finding this to be a tough choice, the Lighting the Beacons scene took 69% of the vote against the Sailing past the Argonath scene. It’s hard to see the Kings of Old go out of the contest, but the beacons are continuing to look like a very strong contender for overall Champion.
The contest was only a tiny bit closer in the Drama/Action group, where Gandalf and the Balrog fell to the Charge of the Rohirrim. The wizard and his foe could only muster one third of the vote, so the horsemen charge on, into the Semi Final.
In the Tearjerker category, feelings not surprisingly ran high, and there was much discussion. Boromir’s death had many fans, who posted how this scene always makes them weep; but in the end, it was ‘You bow to no one’ which came out victorious, by a margin of 10%. Could the four humble hobbits at Minas Tirith be our future Grand Champion?
The closest battle was in the Laughter bracket, and I know many will be upset by this result: Pippin is out! His Second Breakfast, though it secured 48% of the vote, just could not overcome the Artoo and Threepio of Middle–earth; Gimli and Legolas’s ‘Would you like me to find you a box?’ scene goes on to the Semi Final.
So here’s how our Final Four pair up in the Semi Final:
‘Bow to no one’ vs Lighting the Beacons will surely be the closer of these two battles; how to choose between those two?! At the same time, how does one pick between a scene of humour and a sweeping, majestic battle scene? Tough calls indeed. But if you’re thinking, ‘I wish the decision had never come to me!’ and considering not voting in this round, let me urge you to reconsider… Because our good friends and sponsors Sideshow have given us an awesome prize to giveaway!
Every person who votes in the Semi Final will have the chance to enter to win a Balrog statue! He may not have made it to the Semi Final, but he could be making his way to your home; and he even comes complete with a mini Gandalf, so you can reenact their face-off to your heart’s content. Simply complete the voting survey and then, if you wish, fill in your details in the form at the end, and you’ll be in with a chance to win. And if you vote again in the Final, you can enter again! But let’s get through the Final Four first… Big thanks to Sideshow for such an amazing giveaway!
Don’t take too long over your choices; this round only goes until 10pm ET TOMORROW, Monday 13th April. Tune in to our facebook page at 10pm ET tomorrow night to watch our live results show! Which two scenes do you want to see facing off in the Final? YOU decide: VOTE NOW!
The Quarter Final of Middle-earth March Madness 2020 is now on; but it closes this evening! If you want your voice to be heard, don’t delay – vote now!
In the Elite Eight round, each of the four brackets has its final contest, before the victors go on to meet the winners of other categories. So there are four fights currently ongoing; two are very close, and two have fairly wide margins…
If you’re a lover of the Argonath, you should know that right now, the scene where the Fellowship sail past those mighty kings of old has only 30% against the Lighting of the Beacons scene. Likewise (and this one really surprises me!) the charge of the Rohirrim is currently trouncing Gandalf vs the Balrog, two thirds to one third. But a lot can change in a day! If you want to see the Argonath or Gandalf and the Balrog go through to the Semi Final, rally your troups and get them to VOTE!
Will it be Pippin or Gimli who comes out on top from the Laughter bracket? ‘Second Breakfast’ is in the lead just now, over ‘Would you like me to find you a box’ – but there are only 100 votes in it! The same margin stands between Boromir’s death and ‘You bow to no one’ – which of these two will turn the tide and sail on through to the Final Four?
A reminder of our Elite Eight pairings:
Tune in to our facebook page at 10pm ET TONIGHT to watch our live results show! But meanwhile, push for the result YOU want by sharing, tweeting, getting your friends involved, and voting!
Then come back here tomorrow morning to vote for the Final Four; and to find out about a very EXCITING GIVEAWAY we’ll be doing, for those who are joining in with March Madness this year! Love the Balrog? You’ll definitely want to stay tuned….
On April 7, 2020 the senior members of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings production team came together with fans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first teaser trailer of LOTR, an online-only digital video that broke all online download records.
This digital trailer, released on Apple Trailers, was responsible for 30% of all internet traffic upon release according to Akamai. It surpassed the Star Wars Episode 1 trailer, arguable the most hyped film in history, in downloads the first day and first week.
Prior to this trailer, fandom was seen as “Star Wars.” This validated fandom and a different way of marketing and appreciating what fandom can bring. It created a different perception of the power of fans.
Gordon Paddison, VP Marketing LOTR
Michael Pellerin describes watching the LOTR trailer with Chairman Roy Disney at Walt Disney Studios, the parent company of Miramax that actually let LOTR walk away to New Line Cinema. “He just went huh, wow, good on them. Disney would have made it a company film. This is more of a visionary thing.”
Richard Taylor tells a heartfelt story of offering a job to a professional make-up artist early on, which was respectfully declined. “We were turned down by almost everyone… but when the trailer came out, a number of people we had pursued actually wrote back to me!”
An early Cinefex advertisement soliciting resumes for Weta Digital c. 1999-2000
“What Michael did under Peter’s leadership was to unpack everything about everything, the whole process. In that trailer the world got to see the first thing that Weta Digital was doing. There was unbelievable groundbreaking stuff being done. It was all so beautifully unfolded for the world.”
Gordon Paddison was New Line Cinema’s VP of Digital Marketing who took a risk engaging with fan sites early on. “Nobody is doing anything bad, its just that they care! That’s how you develop a relationship that lasts 20 years. It comes down to passion. Fans are passionate and I was a champion of the fans, as was everyone on this chat and Peter. A strategy of love is the best you can have.”
“Star Trek had been taking legal action and shutting down fan sites for years. This was the beginning of embracing fandom and we developed a great relationship working with you guys [at TheOneRing.net]. This video changed the velocity & tone of the fan response.”
“Peter was so good at saying very early to the fans that this is not the definitive version of Lord of the Rings, this is my personal impression of what the films should be. It did a lot to right-set the filmmaker vision and set us on a journey that was really humble. “
“I have a very in-depth trust in Peter. When he came to us that he wanted to do this trailer, there was no question that it was the right thing to do. I hadn’t seen a trailer like this, so I was surprised that there would be this level of reveal.”
Richard Taylor
Co-Producer Rick Porras describes the unique vision of this first teaser trailer, “What made it special was intercutting the old footage and seeing the filmmaker talk about it. Including Peter [in the video] really started something special.”
A big reveal is that the this teaser trailer actually includes footage of the original pitch package for studios to even make LOTR. Everything with Peter Jackson in a white shirt was part of the pitch package delivered to Miramax, New Line, and all other potential studios. New Line Cinema of course saw the vision and financed the films.
Sasha is a Weta artist who designed the Lord of the Rings logo and typefaces – who also pulled double duty as an orc on stilts.Jed Brophy is the first actor ever shown officially from LOTR, on Nazgul horseback
“The fans were so engaged. Normally you can hide under a rock for a while. The fans were getting materials and putting them out. From my experience you don’t want to get into a fight with your core market. We had to feed them!” Gordon Paddison acknowledging the fourth estate of filmmaking – the fan community.
Gandalf’s shadow, sent secretly by Ian Mckellen, generated one of the first legal notices the studio sent to TheOneRing.net
Jed Brophy, in addition to playing many orc characters, was a horse rangler on the film and is actually in the teaser trailer as one of the nazgul nine. “It is a pretty incredible thing to see something you’ve done, which is just another day at work.”
Executive Producer Mark Ordesky was fully supportive of Peter & Gordon’s efforts releasing this teaser. “The best way is tell your own story before someone else tells it. What was genius about the trailer is Peter basically showed how he’s going to do things that you can’t possible imagine.”
“Think with hope, not with fear. I have come with answers.”
One of the fun tidbits revealed was that the ringer verse voice over was performed by Nick Tate, who has done everything from Jurassic Park to Spongebob. The Tolkienist was the first to reshare the discovery with fans!
Michael Pellerin expands on the Roy Disney story, confirming that LORD OF THE RINGS was indeed a Disney film at its inception because of the Miramax deal. Miramax was a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, and to this day Harvey Weinstein is credited as Executive Producer on LOTR.
“In April of 2000, I was in NYC in an audio recording session with Roy Disney, for a project I was finishing up with him. I had been counting down the days until the first LOTR online preview was to be released and it just happened to occur while we were in the studio. I tried to be as surreptitious as I could, waiting for the preview to drop on my laptop. But Roy could see I was obviously up to something — probably not having to do with our show. So he asked me what I was doing, and I fessed up to him that the first LOTR preview was about to appear online, and I couldn’t miss it. Instead of reprimanding me, Roy said we should all take a break from the session and watch it together — which we did.
When it was over, Roy turned to me and was duly impressed. He said he thought Peter and New Line were really going to pull off what many felt was impossible — a motion picture of The Lord of the Rings – and that the project had found the right home, after all, with a director who was clearly a visionary. This was an amazing comment by a man whose progenitors founded the Walt Disney Company, and who himself was one of its chairmen. Especially in light of the fact that Disney that was the parent company of Miramax, the studio that was originally producing Peter Jackson’s film version of LOTR, before it went into turnaround and ended up as a trilogy of films for New Line Cinema. Technically speaking, Peter Jackson’s LOTR was originally a Disney film, in its inception. So hearing Roy Disney express the same hope and feeling of excitement we all had watching that preview, felt like a sense of closure to a long journey that began in 1997, and was soon to make cinematic history.”
TheOneRing.net wants to thank all the participants for engaging with the fans from those early days to now, 20 years later, in such a respectful and candid nature. THANK YOU Gordon Paddison, Richard Taylor, Jed Brophy, Mark Ordesky, Michael Pellerin, & Rick Porras for making the time to celebrate this record setting trailer release.
Watch the entire conversation as it streamed live here:
Thanks to all the thousands of folks who voted in Round Three of Middle-earth March Madness 2020; we’re now down to the Elite Eight, ie the Quarter Finals! Some of you were able to tune in for our LIVE results show last night; if you want to catch up, you can watch that show here. Let’s take a look at some of those results…
The choices are, for many voters, getting harder as the contest goes on; and that was shown in the outcomes, with most match ups being closely fought. The widest margin was in the Scenic bracket, with Lighting of the Beacons beating the Fellowship’s first glimpse of Rivendell by taking 79% of the vote. This isn’t as big a majority as it had in the previous round (87% against the Witch King and his army leaving Minas Morgul), but it’s still a pretty decisive win; and I’m still backing the Beacons to go all the way to be this year’s Champion! Its Quarter Final contest, however, is a VERY tough one: it goes up against the Fellowship sailing past the Argonath, which beat out Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli running through Rohan by 72% to 28%. Beacons vs Argonath; how to choose between those two epic scenes? Which one will get YOUR vote?
Only one of the other duels in Round Three had a resulting margin of more than 15%: in the Drama/Action category, where once again we had two charges facing off. The Charge of the Rohirrim (on Pelennor Fields) was able to overcome Gandalf and Eomer’s dawn charge at Helm’s Deep by almost 1,000 votes, or by 62% to 38%. It goes on to meet a demon from the ancient world in the Elite Eight, Gandalf’s fight with the Balrog in Moria having defeated Eowyn’s vanquishing of the Witch King. Our panel last night had a long discussion of the varied merits of these two scenes; most in the chat room agreed that Eowyn’s victory is more powerful in the book (where her identity is unknown right to the last moment), whilst many thought that the rendering of the Balrog in PJ’s movie actually enhances what we read in Tolkien’s work. Whatever your opinion, it was the fiery foe who won in Round Three; though there were fewer than 300 votes in it.
The closest pairing in the Sweet Sixteen round was found in the Tearjerkers group; I suspect some people may have had to toss a coin to decide this one! We are indeed all looking for ‘some good in this world’ right now; but nonetheless, ‘You bow to no one’ snuck through, with only just over 100 votes between those two amazing scenes. Boromir is still hanging in there; or rather, he’s not, but his death is! The mighty warrior’s death scene took 54% of the vote, and thus defeated the Fellowship’s reaction to Gandalf’s fall in Moria. So in the Elite Eight of Tearjerkers we have to choose between Aragorn being moved by his comrade’s death, and Aragorn being moved by four hobbits who changed Middle-earth. Will you need to toss that coin again…?
Talking of tossing things – the Laughter bracket continues to be Pippin vs Gimli. Pippin’s ‘What about second breakfast?’ was victorious over Gimli’s ‘Toss me!’, but to our panel’s (and my!) surprise, Legolas’s ‘Would you like me to find you a box?’, beat Pippin’s ‘Where are we going?’ There were only about 600 votes between the contestants in both these match ups; and so our final in this category is Pippin’s second breakfast vs Gimli’s box.
Here’s how the Elite Eight shapes up – the final duels within each of our four categories:
Get those votes in! Voting in the Elite Eight round will close at 10pm ET Saturday 11th April. Click here to go to the survey – open now! We’ll have another LIVE results show starting at 10pm ET on Saturday evening, which you’ll find on our facebook page. The Semi Final will then kick off with a post here on the morning of Sunday 12th April, when we’ll be down to the last four…
Are any of your favourites still in with a chance? Are these some of the toughest choices you’ve ever faced?! Join in the fun and let us know your thoughts!
