Godzilla is stomping closer to theaters while Smaug is between the two films featuring the performance of Benedict Cumberbatch, but Wall Street Journal writer Michael Calia asked our own news editor Demosthenes to help out with the showdown between the two pop-culture heavyweights. Its a pretty fun read and Demos certainly did us proud but if Godzilla is King of the Monsters (1956 film) then maybe he should face J.R.R. Tolkien’s greatest dragon Ancalagon The Black. Many readers at the WSJ blog probably haven’t heard of him though, so Smaug is much more fun for the masses. You can read the blow-by-blow right here.
Category: J.R.R. Tolkien
IGN has posted a video with some interview snippets with WETA Digital Animation Supervisor Dave Clayton. In the minute and a half video, he discusses both Smaug’s impending attack on Laketown, as well as the final film’s massive “Battle of the Five Armies”. Thanks to Huan and Brandon Petkau for telling us about this! Continue reading “IGN Video: “Smaug will be a killing machine…””
Well, that was a surprise.
Even following our spy report last week that Warner Bros. (via New Line) had registered a new title for its trilogy of Hobbit films, I thought it unlikely they actually would follow through and make a change.
Mostly because There And Back Again seemed too established as a name and it seemed a bit irrational to toss away all that brand recognition.
On the other hand, it’s almost inarguable those two words The Hobbit are the true key that deliver all that goodwill (in an accounting sense) toward the films. And Warner Bros, with nothing more than the announcement of a mid-stream title change, have just scored the film millions of dollars worth of free editorial. That’s gold for any marketer.
Continue reading “How There and Back Again became The Battle of the Five Armies. And why.”
A couple of weeks ago we revealed LOTRProject’s new interactive map of Middle-earth — complete with key dates, events and character movements for events of the Second Age and Third Age.
Now Emil Johannson has reached back into the events of the Elder Days of Middle-earth’s history, creating a similar interactive map that depicts the key events of the elves’ war against Morgoth on a map of Beleriand. Continue reading “Explore this great interactive map of lost Beleriand”
As soon as you open your copy of The Silmarillion, you are faced with what is perhaps the most difficult chapter in all of the book.
Have you ever tried to image how the scene of the Music of the Ainur and the vision of the world, would unfold?
How is Tolkien’s highly-complex imagination perceived by you?
The following post presents a three-minute video with one fan’s outlook towards the Ainulindalë.
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– Comprehending and Conceptualizing the Ainulindalë in the real world
Ever read Dante Alighieri’s La Vita Nuova?
That passion. That love. All the emotions in just a few cleverly-constructed sentences.
Transform that text into music and you get Patrick Cassidy’s Vide Cor Meum; and you might just start to comprehend what the Music of the Ainur may have sounded like.
No discords of Melkor. At first.
Just all the Ainur signing in unison before the seat of Ilúvatar – the glory, the majesty, love and subtleties of nostalgia.
Richard Armitage is really doing the rounds pressing the flesh lately and chatting with journos. Here’s another interview, this time with Joe.ie.
A couple of interesting quotes:
If you look at the detail on the Lake-town set (in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug) some of the glasses have specific carvings into the glass and the cutlery –- it’s astonishing and the camera sees it all.
…even the title, the Battle Of The Five Armies, suggests something that is going to be pretty epic. When I saw the model of the battle ground, which was in a little secret room that you could sneak into and take a look at, something made me realise that Tolkien’s description of that battle is quite limited to where Peter has expanded it to.