The 2015 edition of Middle-earth Madness officially starts today! We’ve split our field of 64 characters and objects into four divisions: The Silmarillion,The Hobbit,The Lord of the Rings and The Others.
This is a brand new format for the competition this year – implemented to encourage interesting match-ups, intriquging final four and ultimately education on the breadth of works from our favorite author, J.R.R. Tolkien.
A note on how the bracket combatants were determined. TheOneRing.net created a document containing all combatants, sub divided into divisions. We asked staff to cast sixteen votes per division, with the votes having a weight of 1-4. Each staffer cast four 4 votes, four 3 votes, four 2 votes and four 1 votes in each division. We then totalled all the votes from each division to determine their rank, and ultimately placed those into our bracket for seeding.
As you can imagine, our staff is diverse and the results were very interesting! What was very exciting when creating the bracket was the realization that we have some amazing and story related match-ups in this first round.
Voting in Round 1 will remain open until March 21st at 10pm ET. At that point, we’ll calculate the winners and post the next round on March 22nd. Follow after the break for a complete bracket image (download it), and to vote on all of our Round 1 match-ups! [Round 1 Bracket]
Continue reading “Middle-earth March Madness – Round 1 Bracket – Vote Now!”
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Amazing artist Jerry Vanderstelt is back with some more great pieces.
Tonight, we’re pleased to let you know that he has created a series of portrait prints capturing The Nine Walkers, aka The Fellowship of the Ring. These prints are stunning and capture the personalities of the characters we’ve come to love so much.
As of now only Gimli, Legolas, Merry, and Pippin are up for sale. You can get them in either 12×16 at $39 or 17×22 at $69.
If you’re a fan of The Lord of the Rings films then these are a must have for your collection.
Update: Jerry has now added Strider and Samwise.
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Mathematics aficionados have had fun this year with the once-in-a-lifetime PI Day — 3.14.15. 9:26:53. Symphony Silicon Valley has more numbers for the inner geek in all of us.
Continue reading “Nine is a Pretty Good Number”
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Yes folks, Middle-earth March Madness is back for 2015! If you are new to TheOneRing.net, Middle-earth March Madness is our adaptation on the popular NCAA Basketball tournament that takes place every March/April in the United State. It is our chance to have some fun matching up middle-earth power players against each other. Past winners include Samwise Gamgee, Gandalf, Thranduil.
Based on feedback from our past years, we are switching things up a bit to include the entirety of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works. So in reality, this could be called J.R.R. Tolkien March Madness!
This year, our four divisions will be representative of a book (or series of books):
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion
Other Works (Lost Tales, Father Christmas, Children of Hurin, etc)
This allows each division to crown a champion for each book, and then they all face off against each other in the final four!
Our staff are sorting out the field of 64 combatants now, and we’ll be posting the first bracket and polls very soon. Stay tuned to the front-page of TORn for the announcement to start voting, and follow along on Twitter and FB with #middleearthmarchmadness @theoneringnet
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Ralph Bakshi will appear in person at a film retrospective of some of his most iconic animated films, presented by the American Cinematheque in conjunction with the USC School of Cinematic Arts. The films will screen at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica on the last weekend of March. You can catch a double feature of “Heavy Traffic” and “American Pop” on Friday, March 27 starting at 7:30pm. There will be a discussion with director Ralph Bakshi between these two films and a clip will be shown from his new film “Last Days of Coney Island”. On the following Saturday, March 28, there will be a double feature of “The Lord of the Rings” and “Wizards”, starting at 7:30pm, again with a discussion with director Ralph Bakshi between the two films.
If you have never seen this 
version of LOTR, or at least never seen it on the big screen, you must try and catch this screening. The rotoscoping is eye-catching, to say the least, and brings a level of veracity to the more serious themes of this story, something that was not common with animation of it’s time. Bakshi Productions will be selling art in the lobby starting at 6:30pm each night, so get there early.
Staffers from TheOneRing.net will running about the theater as well, so do make sure to say hello if you see us. And what can only be called a cosmic coincidence, Tolkien Forever, the Los Angeles based smial of the Tolkien Society will be hosting Tolkien Reading Day earlier in the day on Saturday, March 28 in Downtown Los Angeles. You can find out more details about that on Facebook event page. Why not make it a true Tolkien daily double with some reading, some viewing and some Fellowship.
The Aero theater is located at 1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90403, and you can buy tickets at the box office or in advance on Fandango. All the information you need can be found on the American Cinematheque Bakshi Tribute calendar.
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More than two weeks have passed since our celebrations in Hollywood – how time flies! During those two weeks we’ve still been working hard – updating records, and making sure we know who collected their perks, and to whom we still need to send things!
All remaining perks should ship towards the end of this week; if you haven’t received something by the END OF MARCH, then please let us know!
We’re also busy working on the ‘Red Book’ – the thank you which we will send to Peter Jackson, including the names of all who supported The One Last Party Indiegogo campaign. Those names can now all be seen on our Roll of Honor – click here to see this splendid Fellowship of Fans!
Continue reading “The One Last Party – more pics, Roll of Honor!”
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The 2015 edition of Middle-earth Madness officially starts today! We’ve split our field of 64 characters and objects into four divisions: The Silmarillion,The Hobbit,The Lord of the Rings and The Others.
