This month, J.W. reviews The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Annual 2013, a companion to the first Hobbit film. Meanwhile, in his mailbag section he answers questions about The Lord of the Rings films, Howard Shore’s “Complete Recordings”, and Tolkien himself.
Category: Merchandise
As we reported earlier this week it appears that figures from The Bridge Direct for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey are starting to land in stores before their official October 1st release date. We showed you pictures of the Legolas and Tauriel figures which are part of wave 1. Today, rumors are starting to surface around the internet that Warner Bros. may be having these two figures pulled from this wave. Why? It would be a sign that these two characters will not be making an appearance in the first Hobbit film. If there’s any truth to the rumor, you may want to grab these two figures if you see them because their value on the secondary market could jump quiet high because they’ll be in the packaging for the first movie.
SAN FRANCISCO – Sept. 25, 2012 – Kabam, a leader in massively multiplayer games for connected devices, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have partnered to co-publish games for mobile devices and the Web inspired by Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit Trilogy, a production of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM).
Under the deal, Kabam will develop and operate two multiplayer strategy games, The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth for mobile devices and The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age for web browsers, both launching in fall 2012. Starting Sept. 25, players can sign up to take part in the upcoming beta for The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age at https://www.kabam.com/the-
Continue reading “Kabam and Warner Brothers bring Hobbit games to mobile devices/web”
Big thanks to Ringer MrHollandsays for sending us pics of the ‘Thorin Oakenshield & The Goblin King Battle Set’ from The Bridge Direct. You can pre-order the vast majority of these figures right now on Amazon.com – so start your ‘Hobbit’ collection today! For those wishing to avoid spoilers, don’t look beyond the break as we have close up shots of the figure! [The Bridge Direct Hobbit Goblin King with Thorin 3.75″ Battle Pack]
Continue reading “Goblin King & Thorin Figure Set Revealed!”
As we wrap up our “World Hobbit Day” festivities, we at TORn are pleased to bring you one final piece of our celebratory specials via an exclusive interview with Aivale Cole (nee Mabel Faletolu).
For fans of Howard Shore and the music of The Lord of the Rings films, Aivale (credited as Mabel Faletolu on the soundtrack of The Fellowship of the Ring) perhaps needs no introduction. For the rest, you probably recall that most heartrending of voices that engulfs the broken Fellowship as they emerge from the darkness of Moria and grieve over Gandalf’s fall into Khazad-dûm.
That piece was sung by none other than Aivale, a vocalist hailing from Wellington, New Zealand. Back in 2001, she recorded the solo piece with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
Join us in this exclusive interview as we catch up with Aivale who, after more than a decade, takes us back to that “crazy but exciting” time when she worked with Howard Shore and Peter Jackson, and also shares a rather amusing anecdote involving Ian McKellen.
Word has been seeping out for a few weeks of some of the toy characters (on display at Comic-Con) being revealed through various channels of the pipeline that gets movie tie-ins to market. Now, made by Bridge Direct, they are for sale on store shelves in at least some locations including the new Toys-R-Us in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Not only is it exciting to see new products (Tolkienites make great consumers!) but there are some clues about “The Hobbit: A Long Expected Journey,” and, our staff thinks, some false leads. But true or false, except for some glimpses in Peter Jackson’s production diaries, we have our first clear look of Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel. For those wishing to avoid spoilers, don’t look beyond the break!
The process of merchandise hitting the market and spoiling some aspects of movies is inevitable and fun for consumers but maybe less fun for filmmakers who may want to keep a lid on every possible detail. Lilly’s character, a creation of the screenwriting team, has been mildly controversial as a character not created by J.R.R. Tolkien who wrote the children’s novel the trilogy of movies is based on 75 years ago. Many message board users at TheOneRing.net have taken a wait-and-see stance. Continue reading “Hobbit toys hit store shelves, Tauriel revealed”