News from Noelle: LOTRONLINE’s Hobbit Guild is having an Impromptu Poetry Contest (Forum Wide) It’s open to everyone … It sounds very Hobbitish.
Here’s the info:
The topic of the Contest will be announced tommorow. You have 48 hours to get your poem in (any edits to your post after you have posted will disqualify your poem – so enter it carefully!). THe poems will be voted on by a pannel of judges from the different Guilds (You do not have to be a member of the Hobbit Guild to post for the contest). Keep an eye on this thread for the information (and for your entries)
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David Jones (Woden, ACT) are giving away a book with the DVD of FOTR: The book they’re giving away is The LOTR Visual Companion which came out late last year. It’s AUS$39.95 (ie the same price as the DVD here), so if you don’t have it yet it’s a pretty good freebie. I don’t know if other DJs stores are doing it though.
Also, one of the many digital artists who worked on LOTR is doing a seminar on digital effects as part of the Australian Science Festival in Canberra. Here’s the blurb from the ASF booklet:
The Art of Digital Effects in Feature Films
Digital artist Paul Kirwan has worked on films such as “Lord of the Rings”, “Titanic” and “Babe, Pig in the City”. Paul, a former animation student at the Australian National University, returns to Canberra for this presentation. Sat Aug 17, 6pm, Shine Dome, Australian Academy of Science. Bookings advised (02) 6248 2000, all ages, $3.
Thanks to K for the news.
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Ostadan writes:
The following article was posted in the rec.games.board USENET group. Rob from Hasbro is a reliable source of information. Hasbro has been getting more imaginative with their tried-and-true games recently as in Risk:2210 and the Star Wars Game of Life (of all things), which turned out to have some interesting features of its own. So this game may not fall into the “make-a-buck franchise knockoff” category so easily as it might seem.
“Lord of the Rings RISK will be released in the US in November. It is for 2 to 4 players and encompasses, geographically and thematically, the first two movies/book in the series. The game was designed by our UK office and is being picked up, largely unchanged, for US released (most changes are things like ‘colour’ to ‘color’ and ‘centre’ to ‘center’.)
The things that are like RISK are as follows: 42 territories on the board, grouped into 6 ‘continents’. Battles are the same. Troops movement is the same. Army generation is the same. Basically a RISK core.
Now, the things that are different…
There are two evil armies and two good armies. Other than set-up, where some spaces are always evil, some always good, and some could be either and other than two different types of pieces (elves vs. orcs for example), the difference is largely cosmetic.
The game is a ‘timed’ game in that a token representing the Fellowship starts in the Shire, moves through 13 territories on a prescribed path, and exit the board. When they do so, the game is over. The exact length of their journey is never quite known because some spaces require a die roll to move on (e.g., the Mines of Moria) and there is cardplay that can be used to slow them down. BTW, the Fellowship is represented by a cool pewter life-size ring that has inscribed runes in and out to look like the One Ring.
When the fellowship leaves the board, the person with the most territories and ‘card points’, wins. ‘Card points’ are points you get for playing some cards (I believe they called Adventure Cards).
Adventure cards are obtained by capturing a territory that contains a Site of Power. Some Adventure cards are immediate-play effects that are then discarded, some are cards that you can hold an play on the start of your turn (mostly to hold up the fellowship or otherwise mess with other players), but many are Missions that need to be completed.
In order to complete a Mission, you need to send your leader to the place listed on the card. Then you get to play the card and reap the benefit.
Leaders??? Yes, each player gets one leader, which gives certain bonuses in battles but is largely used to move around completing missions. Commanders get an extra ‘free move’ at the end of the turn to give them more mobility.
So lets say I take the space that contains Weathertop, a site of power. I draw an adventure card. In this case, I get the one that lists the Halls of the Elven King. On a later turn, I manage to capture the territory with the Halls and move my leader into that space. I now turn in my mission card and get 3 troops for doing so. I also get a point at the end of the game for playing the card (completing the mission).
Throw in a few spaces with defensive fortresses that help you hold them and you have Lord of the Rings RISK.
Rob
Hasbro Games“
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Irish Independent – Monday, 5 August 2002
Fantasy epic ‘Lord of the Rings’ could outstrip the success of Harry Potter when it is released on video and DVD this week. Tens of thousands of peole have already ordered copies of the film which goes on sale tomorrow. ‘Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’ was a box office smash when it was released in cinemas last year. Now it is being tipped by many to outsell the video and DVD versions of wizard saga ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’.
A spokesman for HMV said that pre-orders for the film had already broken records in its stores. “This is the biggest number of pre-orders we have ever had for any film. Harry Potter was a family movie but it didn’t have the same collectible feel to it. Because ‘Lord of the Rings’ is a family film it has more of a cult following”, he said.
To mark the launch, HMV have hired people to dress up as hobbits and entertain customers in selected stores. More than 34,000 fans have oredered the film from online retailer Amazon. It is the first in a trilogy based on RR Tolkien’s classic books with a total budget of €296m. Extras included on the DVD include behind-the-scenes footage and a sneak preview of the second film, “The Twin Towers” (And I thought for once the Irish Independent was going to write a piece about LotR without a blunder… – S) which is due out at the end of the year.
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The HoF transcripts page is one of the more popular sections of TORn; we receive many e-mails from people who say they enjoy reading them. Of late, those e-mails have been wondering when the logs of recent chats would be posted.
Unfortunately, real life interruptions, and important maintenance on other parts of the site, has meant that the HoF page has fallen way behind.
However, we can finally announce that this has been fixed and TORn has a whole plethora of previous HoF chats for our avid readers to pore over.
Over the past few days, TORn staffer Arathorn (who deserves more thanks than I can adequately express) has been literally slaving to fix the Hall of Fire page and implement a system to not only bring the chats up to date, but to simplify the process of posting them.
This is good news for us, because it’s only takes 30 minutes to edit a log now, rather than a week! And, it’s good news for you also because you’ll be able to read HoF transcripts virtually right away, instead of having to wait for days and weeks (and sometimes months). You’ll also discover that the HoF page will be more frequently updated with future topics.
On behalf of all HoF staff, I’d like to thanks Arathorn for his sterling efforts, and encourage you all to check out the changes. [More]
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Moochie sent in this report from Comic-Con in San Diego:
San Diego had three incredibly special guests at today’s Comic-Con convention:
Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monaghan!!
Yes, that’s right folks all the con-ventioneers are still walking around in a daze right now. Lucky for me, Moocholas, I live here, and am able to fly back home on cloud nine can post.
During New Line Cinema’s Panel today at 1pm pacific , attended by 4300, yes OVER FOUR THOUSAND peeps in the room, they had three incredibly special guests!!!
Richard Taylor’s wonderful, funny, full of anecdotes , presentation on Weta and all the effects as well as shooting stories with the crew, and cast.(more on this later, he really did an incredible job both days) Two Towers Trailer, short film with PJ saying he promises to make it to San Diego and the Con someday- Go us!!! Panel is almost over when Richard announces “We have three other special guests we’d like to introduce.. ”
(And the rather large group of fanclub members who each had sworn never to tell anybody else, all smiled knowingly)
BILLY BOYD
ELIJAH WOOD
DOMINIC MONAGHAN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Wild screams for a minute or two)
Imagine someone screaming “FIRE!!!! ” , and you start to get the picture!!!
Very large rush to front. Cameras going nuts. Don’t think anyone fainted, but couldn’t see all the way back. A Massive sea of people!!
All three Boys smiling ear to ear. Very surprised and delighted.
They all look great, long hair, jeans, 2nd day beard growth. Billy is visibly sunburn. (hey, get some SPF 45 there Billy, this is California) Dom is very tan, Elijah is still pale (apparently knows enough to get SPF45) and looking terrific.
Suddenly, Elijah jumps on the chair, onto the Table back down the other side’s chair so he can get to the very back of the stage where he whips out his digital camera and starts to take OUR picture (can only imagine how cool it looked from up there) He stops, says “EVERYBODY SMILE AND SAY CHEESE”
which of course we didn’t do- NOT !!!!
we all screamed and jumped and laughed for that picture-
There was a constant crowd sitting on the floor in the front, taking pictures, and giving security a lot of work. People asked some questions but mostly, they were of the “Can I have your autographs?” kind. As one lucky young man came up to get his cast autographs Dominic said ” Everyone in this room hates you now.” Then Richard Taylor added, “But in an hour, he will be down on the exhibit floor, and everyone knows who he is .”
They were running out of chairs on stage and Lawrence Makoare (Lurtz) at one point felt the need to sit on the poor young man’s leg. “Wow” said Billy Boyd, “That’ll leave a bruise”
Richard was also happy to point out the young man’s great natural Hobbit hair. “Yeah, ” he replied, “They call me a Hobbit.”
Elijah Wood was reminded how just a year ago, he could peruse the exhibit floor, un-noticed for the most part, and now his life was changed. How had it changed?
Elijah responded, that for the most part, he still led a fairly normal life, going out and about , though getting recognized more often. However in a situation like the Con, with 4000 Ringers in front of him, he could hardly go thru the exhibit hall anymore, it would just be too much.
They were asked to show their tattoos. (No they didn’t) But they indicated where each of them had there’s. Apparently Dominic had a small laps of memory when he start to point to his trousers, but then remembered it was on his right upper arm, Billy’s on his ankle and Elijah on his, (quote) “Torso”
Very Very sorry to anyone who is kicking their dog right now for not coming to the Con. WOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!
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