Smaug the Magnificent indeed!  We had some incredible entries to our ‘Show us your passion for Smaug’ contest – it was as difficult to pick winners as we expected it to be. The panel of TORn staff judges really enjoyed seeing entries from all over the world; we received art work from countries such as Serbia, Australia, China, Slovakia, and Thailand, to name but a few! The dragons came in all shapes and sizes; as well as beautiful paintings and sketches, we received photographs of sculptures, decorated cakes, costumes, LEGO creations, knitted and sewn wyverns, and even a candle holder, a carved pumpkin and a jewelry Smaug!

Continue reading “Show us your passion for Smaug – contest WINNERS”

DofS blurayWith the release this past Tuesday of the Blu-ray and DVD Editions of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, there was a bit of confusion concerning several video advertisements and the bonus material on the discs.

The videos embedded below – “Beorn the Shapeshifter” and “Laketown – Entering the World of Men”, as well as a “Giant Mirkwood Spiders” video on the L.A. Times website – contained snippets of behind the scenes video and interviews that many could not find of the discs.

Warner Brothers has now informed us that these are promotional pieces created to promote the release, and do not include material from the discs themselves.

The Bonus disc on both the Blu-ray and Special Edition DVD releases do, however, contain the following content:

– Peter Jackson Invites You to the Set (In the Company of The Hobbit & All in a Day’s Work) ~ 41 minutes
– Production Videos ~ 37 minutes
– Live Event: In the Cutting Room ~ 38 minutes
– New Zealand: Home of Middle-earth, Part 2 ~ 7 minutes
– Trailers & Previews ~ 12 minutes
– Music Video “I See Fire” by Ed Sheeran ~ 6 minutes

 

Bard_Bain.jpgWarner Brothers UK has posted a short new featurette on YouTube showcasing Laketown and Bard. Curiously, while the video appears to be meant as an advertisement for the new Blu-ray/DVD release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the video itself is not present in any of the bonus features on the set.

The same is the case for the previously posted video “Beorn the Shapeshifter“. The Blu-ray/DVD releases do, however, feature an all new 40 minute documentary titled “Peter Jackson Invites You to the Set”. Continue reading “‘Lake-town – Entering the World of Men’ Featurette”

The-Hobbit-The-Desolation-of-Smaug-FX-046 SciFiNow spoke to Daniel Falconer, Weta Workshop designer and author of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: Unleashing the Dragon (order it here if you haven’t already) about the process of creating what he describes as “the grand-daddy” of fantasy dragons.

He also reveals what Benedict Cumberbatch brought to the role, and why he feels Peter Jackson understands exactly what is required from a fantasy epic.

Don’t forget to click the link to read the entire interview.

Continue reading “Daniel Falconer: Smaug is the grand-daddy of dragons”

hobbitconlogoAs staffer Garfeimao stated in the post below, convention season is getting going! The same weekend that some TORn staff will be at WonderCon in Anaheim, there is a very exciting convention taking place in Germany – HobbitCon! Message boarder kiwifan attended last year, and shared the fun of this exclusive event with us.  Here’s what she had to say:

Continue reading “HobbitCon 2 in Bonn, Germany – April 19-21”