Don’t read this if you HATE to know the ending of a good story! From Ringer Miss Mac:

I Just got my Entertainment Weekly, and there is a little quote in the section called “ReelWorld” that I thought may be of interest to you guys.

Heavy spoilers.

“Rings Redux

We bring you news all the way from Middle-earth. Sir Ian Holm, who plays hobbit Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings:The Fellowship of the Ring, may not appear in the sequel, but don’t count him out of the trilogy totally. ‘I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m back in three… as a very old man.’ Says Holm.

‘Bilbo just suddenly appears at the end of the movie and says ‘I’m ready for another adventure.’ He goes off with Frodo into the sunset.’

Sounds slightly hobbo-erotic to us.”-Rebecca Ascher-Walsh,Entertainment Weekly, #662, July 12, 2002

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The sun has been a daemon here lately, it’s reached 45 Celsius with the humidity…I’ve seen small trees burst into flame…or so I’m told.

I received a FedEx package in the mail yesterday and was worried about its contents, they were in the hot, black, metallic mailbox for over 5 hours and I was convinced whatever it was…it had to have melted.

I ripped open to package to see a plan gold CD in a small, transparent jewel case, the text on the CD read ‘Changing Seasons: WIDESCREEN’. I knew this was the FOTR DVD.

Anything associated with PJ’s LOTR movie project down in New Zealand was coded with the word ‘Jamboree: A Boy Scout Movie’ to avoid theft or duplication. Even to the point that signs pointing trucks to movie sets were labelled ‘JAMB’.

I knew ‘Changing Seasons’ was the same deal, wouldn’t you want to slip something into your pocket if it was labelled ‘LOTR: WIDESCREEN’? I popped this little DVD into my machine and instantly the words ‘Lord of the Rings’ bleed onscreen. How cool was that!

The menus for the feature DVD can only be described as elegant, much like the official site there is nothing forced down your throat, Howard Shore’s award winning score is used to great effect on the main menu. When you go into sub-menus, clips from the film are shown in a small ‘porthole’ like screen in the middle, and all the menu items surround it.

The movie transfer is of the highest quality, much like any other recent DVDs, the colors are sharp the scenes are crisp and sound quality is excellent.

I went over to a friend’s house to show her the film, with the main screen on it makes an impressive display, one by one her family stopped by and were interested. They all knew about the film and asked me repeatedly ‘Oh this is out now?’ so anticipation is high even among non-ringers!

I’m planning on showing the film to a complete novice who hasn’t seen it at all, and knows nothing of Tolkien, I’ll be very interested to gauge her reaction to the DVD!

Unfortunately I was NOT privy to the special features on the second disk; there is a media blackout on that right now. But we’ll all experience that DVD in a few months!

Take a look at these screencaps we posted a while ago from Ringer Spy Das Chupa [More]

Anything else you would like to know about? Send me your questions right here! [Xoanon@theonering.net]

Some questions that have popped up:

I have a question that would hopefully lead to advice for people with the same situation. My television set is square and an early 1990 model. I am hung up on which version to choose: widescreen or fullscreen? Seeing as you have seen the widescreen version, how is it? Do you think it would look okay on a square screen?

Xoanon: Widescreen is always the way to go, are you seriously considering cutting off an entire 1/3 of the film? Trust me, in the spirit of Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago…get it widscreen and don’t miss a thing!

Does it translate well to the small screen?

I’d have to say that on some levels it is even better on the small screen. Of course only SOME, there is nothing compared to sitting in a packed cinema with surround THX sound.

But I did find that some of the high action, fast moving CGI scenes are blurry on the silver screen. This doesn’t happen on the television, I have a nice 36 inch screen and it looked great.

You mention that the transfer is very nice, and what I’m wondering is if there is any pixelization that you noticed, especially in the darker/smoke/fog scenes?

I didn’t notice any pixelation during any darker scenes like Moria or Bree. I do know what you mean by the pixelated images, but there was none that I could see.

Have the continuity errors in Boromir’s death scene been erased from the DVD transfer? Such as:

Orcs falling down before they’ve been hit.
“Dead” orc actors raising their heads and looking around, not realising that they’re still in the shot.
Boromir’s disappearing arrows.
Aragorn possibly wearing sneakers when he kisses Boromir’s forehead.

Some of these continuity errors are simply not what they look like…much like the sneaker thing…so to answer your question…no, everything is exactly the same…sneakers?

Must know, what are the chapter names, small thing but very curious to know what they are.

Chapter Headings:

1 Prologue: One Ring To Rule Them All…

2 The Shire

3 Very Old Friends

4 A Long Expected Party

5 Farewell Dear Bilbo

6 Keep It Secret, Keep It Safe

7 The Account Of Isildur

8 The Shadow Of The Past

9 Saruman The White

10 A Shortcut To Mushrooms

11 Bucklebury Ferry

12 At The Sign Of The Prancing Pony

13 The Nazgul

14 The Spoiling Of Isenguard

15 A Knife In The Dark

16 The Caverns Of Isenguard

17 Flight To The Ford

18 Rivendell

19 Many Meetings

20 The Fate Of The Ring

21 The Sword That Was Broken

22 The Evenstar

23 The Council Of Elrond

24 Bilbo’s Gifts

25 The Ring Goes South

26 The Pass Of Caradhras

27 Moria

28 A Journey In The Dark

29 Balin’s Tomb

30 The Bridge Of Khazad-Dum

31 Lothlorien

32 The Mirror Of Galadriel

33 The Fighting Uruk-hai

34 Farewell to Lorien

35 The Great River

36 Parth Galen

37 The Breaking of the Fellowship

38 The Departure of Boromir

39 The Road Goes Ever On…

40 Credits

Harry Knowles on his site said the DVD corrected the “flaw” of the car kicking up dirt in the background. (I saw the film 4 times and never caught it. Regardless, I am glad they fixed it.)

One thing I did catch on my 4th viewing — and you can correct me if I’m mistaken — is the part where the Black Riders (Nazgul) are following Arwen & Frodo over the river. When the Riders come to the river’s edge, the close-ups have the horses feet in the water, followed by frames where the feet are out of the water. I love the film so much, and I grimaced when I saw it.

As far as I know there WAS never any car there…and the smoke you see is from a Hobbit chimney…and yes it’s still there. I’ve no idea what Harry Knowles is looking at…or not looking at. And no….they haven’t touched anything else regarding ‘mistakes’.

As one of the ‘hearing impaired’ I rely entirely on closed captioning and have been disappointed in some recent things. or instance there is no captioning on the National Geographic movie special DVD , although there is on tape. Can you check the closed captioning?. It probably means you have to watch the movie again.

This is a great question, I unfortunately neglected to mention this in my first review. I’ve just checked out the captioning and it is in a VERY readable ‘Arial’ type font…bold as well.

Anything else you would like to know about? Send me your questions right here! [Xoanon@theonering.net]

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Revelations that Figwit has had a role in the production of a new movie have fuelled an already burning interest in the latest New Zealand martial arts feature film – The Tongan Ninja.

Bret McKenzie aka Figwit is one half of the song writing team Flight of the Conchords. They have written the theme song for a new low budget feature film. Later in the year the duo are off to Edinburgh to perform their show Folk the World. I caught up with Figwit, in Wellington at the Hilton Motel and asked him about the film:

Figwit: “Me and Jemaine [author note: Jemaine in this case refers to Jemaine Clement fellow founder, along with Figwit, of Flight of the Conchords] wrote the theme song `The Tongan Ninja’”.

“Jemaine was working on the film. He plays one of the lead roles. One day we came up with an idea for the theme tune and Jason Stutter, the director, liked it. So he got Plan 9 studios to arrange the song and Jemaine ended up singing on it.”

“I haven’t seen the film yet but the little bits I’ve seen are hilarious. I love the way they made a feature film on next to no money.”

“We wrote a few other songs for the film: ‘Nunchuka lover’ and the rock anthem ‘Love is the Weapon of Choice’ which I don’t think was used in the final cut.”

As reported in a previous article [Here], Figwit choreographed some of the Film’s dance routines, but why?

Figwit: “I’m not sure. Somebody had to do it. I knew a few dance moves from dancing at parties and at school discos but I thought about movies like Fame, Footloose and Flashdance for inspiration.”

“We made the dance up in the morning and filmed in the afternoon. So it was all very quick. We didn’t have any time to fine tune it. And the dancers, who were mainly friends and family of the crew, had to learn it immediately.”

“ My favourite bit is where the dancers peal back to reveal the Chef surrounded by three dancers from the Wellington samba club. Supa booty action!”
When asked if his future lay in choreography, Figwit revealed a secret that should have all you fantasy- sci-fi – musical fans quivering:

Figwit: “I ‘ve made up a dance routine for ten thousand dancing Uruk Hai celebrating Sauron’s birthday. I haven’t spoken to Peter Jackson yet, do you know what his email is? Anyway the idea is strong. It would show a side to the Uruk Hai that we haven’t seen, make them more likeable.”

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Earlier we reported that this set look like it was a suitable replacement for any standard plastic piece chess set. Well, some fans wrote us to explain that the pieces in this set are in fact plastic that are painted with a pewter/bronze effect. This would explain why the set is such a bargain. Check out the description below and some images to boot. [More]

Here is the description, and some images, from the shop:

This is a pre-order item that will ship on August 21st. This stunning Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring chess set features sculpted figures, each depicting a key character from the award-winning film in superb detail. Each piece has either a pewter or bronze effect, with heroes depicted in pewter and villains in bronze. Each piece bears a great likeness to the characters in the film and the actors that played them. The chess set piece details are as follows:
Pawn: Hero – Sam Gamgee; Villain – Orc Warrior
Rook: Hero – Boromir; Villain – Orc Overseer
Knight: Hero – Aragorn; Villain – Lurtz
Bishop: Hero – Frodo; Villain – Cave Troll
Queen: Hero – Galadriel; Villain – Ringwraith
King: Hero – Gandalf; Villain – Saruman
This magnificent chess set will look beautiful in your home, whether you’re an avid chess-player or just a Lord of the Rings fan and collector. The chess board features a map of Middle-earth and measures a full 15 x 19 inches and the average height of the figures is 3 inches.

Click Here to Purchase this Chess Set

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News thanks to Isilwen: “I thought you’d like to know that the latest issue of Renaissance Magazine is a special issue about swords and there is a short article entitled ‘United Cutlery brings Lord of the Rings swords to Humankind.’ It describes the process of making the swords from the props used in the movie. They will be coming out with an orc sword and a ringwraith dagger. Also they will be putting out a limited edition of the broken version of Narsil in September. Arwen’s sword will be released in November! The company may also eventually be offering sheaths for their swords.”

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TheOneRing.net is proud to introduce its first EXCLUSIVE product offering. Thanks to our sponsorship with Sideshow / Weta Collectibles, we can now bring you unique Tolkien-related products that otherwise would not be available to the general public.

First up is the ‘Orc Legion Helm.’ This exclusive piece is a 1/4 scale replica of armour used in The Fellowship of the Ring. It is made out of heavy-weight polystone and has a hand painted finish with a faux bronze patina. If you have not purchased one of the Sideshow / Weta helms, you might not be aware that these things are HEAVY. This particular helm weighs 13oz(368.5 g) and is 6.75in(17 cm) high by 2.25in(5.7 cm) wide. It comes with a display base that has The Fellowship of the Ring and Sideshow / Weta Collectibles Logo as well as the sculptor’s signature.

Take a look at some of our close up shots of the helm:

You might ask, how is this item exclusive to TheOneRing.net? Well, you won’t find the Orc Legion Helm in your local stores or at any online store. It is only available through the official Sideshow / Weta Collectible Shop and promoted here at TheOneRing.net.

Okay, but what is the big deal? Well, as you may or may not know, running a website the size of TheOneRing.net costs a lot of money. And being that TheOneRing.net has never been about making money, we depend on affiliate sales, ads, and now, unique item sales to keep things running. The money we earn from the sales of this exclusive item will go directly to our site costs (server hosting, bandwidth, etc) and if there is any left over, we donate it to charity. (check our charity listing here)

So if you enjoy TORn everyday and you would like to show your appreciation, pick up one of these Helms and proudly display it on your desk. Mine looks great right next to my Fellowship calendar…:) [Buy today]

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