From: David
It was only a few minutes ago that I heard my sister scream for me to turn on the TV. Channel 2 of SVT, the largest TV company here in Sweden were airing a commersial about some kind of a olympic games documentary. It was named something like “The Olympic Rings” refering to the olympic symbol.
The thing that made me jump up and scream was what they used to play on the rings theme in the commersial. They used the LoTR trailer.
What I saw was the full third trailer played by Swedish actors dressed up as athletes. Instead of nazgûls there were hockey players from Finland, instead of the ring there were the five olympic rings and so on. It was hilarious! The whole show ended with “Spelen kan börja” (May the games begin) and someone dressed as Gandalf smashing his staff to the ground!
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Several people wrote to warn us all that the books currently in print that teach Elvish are ‘seriously out of date.’
Jeremy wrote about the Ruth Noel book:
“Noel’s book in particular was published in 1980 – before the History of Middle Earth (HOME) or any of the subsequent work published in Vinyar Tengwar. So many of her suppositions turned out to be wrong.”
Sulien did like Noel’s “The Languages of Middle-earth and said why:
“It has a complete table with all of the values of the tengwar and cirthas, as well as a fairly complete English to Elvish (and vice versa) dictionary up to and including words from the Silmarillion. It also has sections on Khuzdul (Dwarvish) as well as Hobbitish and some of the Mannish languages (Rohirric) (sp?). The book also goes on to explain some of the derivations Tolkien took from “real world” languages. I would recommend this book VERY highly for anyone interested in learning Elvish.
The final word comes from David Salo, Elvish language specialist employed on the Rings films:
“I read your notice on Elvish books below, and just wanted to point out that while these books are available, they are in fact either very much out of date (“An Introduction to Elvish”) or were not particularly good to begin with (“The Languages of Middle-earth”). People trying to learn Elvish languages may be seriously misled by these books. “The best resource currently available on Tolkien’s languages is Helge Fauskanger’s web site Ardalambion I am now looking for a publisher for my own book on the type of Elvish (Sindarin) most used in the movie, which will help people understand the work that I did in Tolkien language translation for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.”
Here’s a link to an article on Elvish.org that explains the shortcomings of that book. {More Talking of book-buying, this came in from David New:
“You may like to know that there is a truly excellent little bookshop in Oxford (our beloved Prof’s home for many a year) called Thorntons. It has that small bookshop charm that is lacking in the high street these days and they offer a good range of old editions of LOTR as well as old calendars and a few books such as the “Introduction to Elvish” you mentioned. If ever you’re in Oxford, check it out. I have a sneaky suspicion that JRRT may have visited this shop in times gone by, it is but a short walk from Merton.”
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Well…needless to say it was certainly disapointing to see our film lose out on all 4 Golden Globe Nominations. To quote a friend of mine in the business “if ‘A Beautiful Mind’ wins it’ll be a sham”. So say what you will about us not winning, we all know in our heart of hearts that the folks at New Line, WETA, 3foot6 and everywhere else in the production family deserve all the awards they can.
Despite our absence as winners, there were a few times we had a presence, take a look at the pics below.
Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) was interviewed by Nancy Odell from Access Hollywood (have you ever seen so much beauty on your TV screen at one time?) at the GG’s Pre-Awards TV Special. Cate was nominated for best supporting actress in ‘Bandits’.
Sean Astin (Sam) was spotted arriving during the special as well.
Dick Clark took us on a tour of New Line’s after party party area…near the Beverly Hills Hotel, very swak indeed.
Cate Blanchett was the first LOTRer to lose out for a Golden Globe.
Howard Shore’s LOTR:FOTR score lost out to ‘Moulin Rouge!’
Enya lost out to Sting (irony there, what) for Best Original Song
Peter Jackson lost out for Best Director
Before the best drama film was announced Kate Winslett introduced a small clip of LOTR scenes to the audience. Shots of Peter Jackson in very rare form in a tuxedo alongside Elijah Wood (Frodo) and Sean Astin (Sam).
Ian McKellen then announced the award for best foreign film.
And as the moment came to announce best drama…we were all upset to hear that LOTR did not win…
Enjoy these pictures anyway…
We love you PJ…and in the end isn’t that all that really counts?
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We are having our online viewing party tonight at 8PM EST. What time is that around the wolrd where you live?
Click on the following link to convert 8PM EST to your local timezone.
http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/worldtime/
EST is the same time zone at New York City (GMT -5)
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FB FOTR has broken the first record here in Italy. Yesterday it grossed 1.032.000 euro, beating the previous record set by Hannibal. It’s pretty safe to assume it’s going to be one of the highest grossing movies ever in Italy too.
Another record has been set at the Arcadia Multiplex, one of the finest movie theaters in Europe: they sold 17.900 tickets for Fotr only. All the theaters accepting advance bookings are sold out for the week-end, and it looks like this is going to happen again next week.
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Mikko writes: Yes, it’s official… Lord of the rings has gone past Potter in its 5th week here in Finland as in Sweden. Amazing.
The ecxact number was 439,917 people this friday, when Potter was running at 437,967.
What makes this even more amazing is the fact that practically all professionals predicted Potter to win by a mile… AND Rings got a few blunt reviews from our biggest magazines… AND it was released with 10 copies less than Potter.
Now the predictions run at 600,000 viewers. Only two have accomplished this before: A certain boat flick with a skinny, annoying hero and a certain alien flick with a hero trying to call home.
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