During my association with TheOneRing.net I have often felt very fortunate to know great people and be in great places. Sometimes I have been lucky enough to have my camera along.
Out of that vast TORn photo library that includes digital images, and old scratched negitives, I put a few images together with some music from Arjan Kiel, (with thanks to fan film ‘Born of Hope,’) to pay tribute to the whole community of TheOneRing.net.
Click on the small triangle to play and to see the best fullscreen version, click on the box at the far right.
TORn’s 10th Anniversary bash keeps getting better and better. Our good friend Magnus from Weta just posted a birthday card to TORn from Weta on in the VIP message thread on our Feedback board:
“Dear Tehanu, Xoanon, Corvar, Calisuri and thousands of other friends, No website has provided such a platform for fandom and creativity across literature and film as TheOneRing.net and for that we salute you! Past, current and future crew at Weta will be forever spiritually connected to TORn and we are absolutely relishing the opportunity to take on future journeys together – there… and back again… naturally. We have recorded a short tribute at http://www.wetanz.com/torn10bday/
Where you can also see your card in high resolution glory.”
Check out the high res version of the Weta birthday card (pictured) and the TORn tribute video at the link above. You won’t want to miss it.
In addition to being a world renowned author, Peter S. Beagle wrote the screenplay for the 1978 animated LORD OF THE RINGS, directed by Ralph Bakshi. Conlan Press has acquired what Warner Brothers insists is the *very last* available DVD stock of the movie. There are exactly 573 copies in this stash, and according to the distributor there are no current plans to re-release the title.
The normal Conlan Press price for a personalized signed copy of this DVD would be $30. To celebrate TORN’s anniversary, however, they are dropping the price to $20 from now through midnight (Pacific time) this Sunday, April 29th. If you want to get one before the price goes back up, go to www.conlanpress.com click on the bright blue ORDER button at the left of the screen, and scroll down to select this special title. Please note: more than half the purchase price goes directly to benefit Peter.
Thank you Peter, and Connor at Conlan Press, for this very special offer.
The folks from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt send this bit of coolness to us! They want to whet your appetites for the May 5th release of ‘The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún’, take a look at the foreword written by Christopher Tolkien!
In his essay On Fairy-Stories (1947) my father wrote of books that he read in his childhood, and in the course of this he said:
I had very little desire to look for buried treasure or fight pirates, and Treasure Island left me cool. Red Indians were better: there were bows and arrows (I had and have a wholly unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow), and strange languages, and glimpses of an archaic mode of life, and above all, forests in such stories. But the land of Merlin and Arthur were better than these, and best of all the nameless North of Sigurd and the Völsungs, and the prince of all dragons. Such lands were pre-eminently desirable. Continue reading “Christopher Tolkien’s Foreword to ‘Sigurd and Gudrún’!”
Joel writes: Check out these review comments from people on Amazon regarding the blu-ray release of the theatrical editions. There’s a story there how, in this economy, people are angry at New Line for doing the ‘double dipping’ by releasing the theatrical first, and the extended later. It has forced the trilogy down to a 2-star average rating. I’ve not seen something quite like this before – love of the film, but such anger over a release/marketing policy. There’s 34 pages of >90% bitter reviews.
Xoanon here: I’m not too sure how much of ‘New Line Cinema’ exists, so venting to them may not help. LOTR is now a property of Warner Bros., and I assume the release schedule is of their doing. One sure fire way to get their attention is to visit this link and send them a kindly worded email expressing your disappointment. You never know, fans made LOTR a hit, and perhaps we can make a difference here as well.
From thebookseller.com: J R R Tolkien will move into the digital age as HarperCollins begins selling his Lord of the Rings series as enhanced e-books.
As The Bookseller went to press, the publisher said it was planning to issue Tolkien’s entire back catalogue as e-books, beginning with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit and The Children of Húrin from today [20th April]. The e-books will include the maps and runes contained in the traditional print books and will be on sale at waterstones.com, harpercollinsebooks.co.uk and tolkien.co.uk. Waterstone’s will have a dedicated author page featuring the e-books from today.
David Roth-Ey, director of digital business development, said that the launch was the “most significant e-book initiative” the publisher has done so far. He said: “This is something that the fans so clearly wanted. Releasing Tolkien in e-books is something that has long been a goal of ours and we wanted to create high-quality legal versions of these books. It was a long -process—with the maps and runes, it’s slightly more complicated than [digitising] your average thriller.” HC turns Middle Earth digital
TORn’s 10th Anniversary bash keeps getting better and better. Our good friend Magnus from Weta just posted a birthday card to TORn from Weta on in the 
In addition to being a world renowned author, Peter S. Beagle wrote the screenplay for the 1978 animated LORD OF THE RINGS, directed by Ralph Bakshi. Conlan Press has acquired what Warner Brothers insists is the *very last* available DVD stock of the movie. There are exactly 573 copies in this stash, and according to the distributor there are no current plans to re-release the title.
![The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (Theatrical Editions) [Blu-ray]](http://www.theonering.net/torwp/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/51x3aa9fknl_sl500_aa240_-150x150.jpg "The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (Theatrical Editions) [Blu-ray]")