Weta’s Ben Hawker is a brilliant guy and he worked with the creative and fun folks at Air New Zealand to create the ideas that became perhaps the most popular airline safety video in the world, collecting 8 million hits since it was launched a week ago. TheOneRing was honored to play a part with Cliff “Quickbeam” Broadway and I (Larry “MrCere” Curtis) appearing to help represent fans from across the globe. Well, they also asked us to chime in on the behind-the-scenes video which features J.R.R. Tolkien’s grandsons Royd and Mike, the genuinely excellent and beautiful airline employees Kara, Mark and Will (plus others not in the video), the film’s director Josh, the soon-to-be superstar Dean O’Gorman, Peter Jackson and that Hawker guy. TORn may have its own version of a story and photos from that set before long but Air New Zealand has a great video to follow up last week’s starting off with a familiar face. Also fun, many of the crew making this video also worked on The Hobbit. Check out the short clip on the next page! Continue reading “A secret look inside Air NZ’s Middle-earth safety video”
Category: J.R.R. Tolkien
As fans impatiently wait for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, one journalist in Middle-earth – ahem, in New Zealand – has written a great article which reminds us of the humble beginnings of this extraordinary tale. When Professor Tolkien jotted down those few, simple words – ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’ – it was indeed, as Gandalf might tell us, ‘like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche…’ When did you first encounter Middle-earth? Relive those memories with this charming article.
One of most popular and beloved trilogies in film history, Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies –- based on the three Tolkien titles that came after The Hobbit — have inspired a quasi-religious fervor in fans.
But perhaps you don’t keep a cardboard Legolas in your bedroom. Maybe you read The Hobbit as a child and recall a little dude with furry feet and some fat dwarves. Here are 10 reasons we’re still hooked on The Hobbit as it celebrates its 75th anniversary.
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A letter from JRR Tolkien to Swallows and Amazons writer Arthur Ransome has revealed the author’s concerns about sales of The Hobbit.
Tolkien said he would send a revised edition to Ransome “if there is a reprint”, adding “sales are not very great”. The letter forms part of a collection of Tolkien’s writing held at the University of Leeds — where he taught.
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Last July, we told you of rumours of a new publication of Tolkien’s work, expected May of 2013. There is now confirmation from British publishers Harper Collins that Tolkien’s long poem, The Fall of Arthur, will indeed be released next Spring. The text has of course been edited by the Professor’s son Christopher, and the publication will also included ‘three illuminating essays that explore the literary world of King Arthur, reveal the deeper meaning of the verses and the painstaking work that his father applied to bring it to a finished form, and the intriguing links between The Fall of Arthur and his greatest creation, Middle-earth.’
Exciting stuff; fans everywhere will be eager to read Tolkien’s poem on the British legend which was one of his inspirations to create his own mythic saga. Read the details here; thanks to David for sending us the update!
UPDATE – we now also have the official press release from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, about the US release of this work. It follows after the break!
Continue reading “New Tolkien work to be released next May! – UPDATE”
The Tolkien Society has unveiled a lovely new ‘blue plaque,’ (a.k.a. historical marker), at 2 Darnley Road, West Park, Leeds, commemorating the time J.R.R. Tolkien lived there. Tolkien became Reader in English language at the University of Leeds and went on to be Professor of the English Language at the university. In 1924 Tolkien bought the semi-detached property on Darnley Road and the family lived there for over a year before Tolkien’s election to the Rawlinson and Bosworth chair of Anglo-Saxon saw them return to Oxford in 1926.
Dr. Kersten Hall, graduate of St. Anne’s College, Oxford and Visiting Fellow to the Faculty of Arts at the University of Leeds, unveiled the plaque on the 1st of October 2012 at 11:30 a.m. local time.
Watchful visitors to the U.K. are sure to have seen a similar plaque on the house at 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford, where Tolkien lived and wrote LOTR during his tenure. There is a featured shot of this plaque in the documentary film, RINGERS: Lord of the Fans, which was co-produced by TheOneRing.net.