NZ and Aussie Ringers have heard those words often enough….”Michael Hill, Jeweller.” Now apparently he’s also Michael Hill, Lord of the Rings.
According to David, “Although it does not appear to have been advertised just yet, people in Australia and New Zealand can now buy The One Ring from selected Michael Hill Jeweller stores (Parramatta Westfields in Sydney is one confirmed store).
The replica is available in either gold (in five grades from 9ct to 22ct) or silver (silver chain an optional extra) and comes with a small leather pouch and card explaining the inscription. The Tengwar do not appear to be coloured. Obviously, the silver replica is much cheaper than the gold equivalent.”
Thanka to Nevlonde, Ian and Yavie for all these news and picture!
Original poster of bilbo’s last song from the 70s
News thanks to Nevlonde: “Hi. Just read the e-mail about Bilbo’s Last Song. Don’t know if you know that the poem was set to music by Donald Swann in his compilation of songs that were poems in LOTR. The songbook is entitled THE ROAD GOES EVER ON: A Song Cycle. Music by Donald Swann; Poems by J.R.R. Tolkien. I have the 2nd edition, published in 1978. It is now out of print, but the song is just beautiful. For years I have played it and cried every time, picturing Bilbo leaving Middle Earth. There was an old recording of the songs on, (a Record, if you know what that is!). I don’t have it but had borrowed it from the library. Swann played and sang the songs and that’s how I learned them.
There are some volumes for sale on-line, but there’re not cheap. But his music is really good and the songs were approved by Tolkien. There’s a nice introduction to the music book, explaining how Swann came to write the melodies and that Tolkien approved all, but had him revise the music for “Namarie.” Tolkien hummed what was a Gregorian chant and Swann basically used that with a bit added by Swann. Thought this might be interesting to you. “
And Ian ads this:
The BBC recording of the radio series, originally broadcast 21 years ago, featured this poem spoken over music as part of the finale of the radio dramatisation, but it was not included on the separately released soundtrack album by Stephen Oliver. John Le Mesurier. who played the part of Bilbo, was not really a singer and although the original radio adapter Brian Sibley and director Jane Morgan, loved his “sung” version Tolkien’s secretary didn’t – and she would not give permission for the “sung” version to be included in the radio series. As a result it was re-recorded as a spoken piece over the music that was broadcast as part of the serial but never included on the musical soundtrack album.
Last year, with the expiration of copyright I believe, the BBC were able to broadcast the “sung” version on a documentary on Tolkien by Brian Sibley, which to everyone I know who’s heard is far more poignant than the spoken word version. The fact that Le Mesurier is not a great singer only adds to its charm. When the BBC released new CD recordings of the radio series earlier this year (to include new intro’s and outro’s recorded earlier this year by Ian Holm – the movie’s Bilbo, but the radio series’ Frodo) they included the musical soundtrack CD with this extra new version added.
It’s now official, the premiere will take place in Le Grand Rex Theater the 10 December 2002.
Take a look at some info on Le Grand Rex:
Le Grand Rex – 1, Boulevard Poissonnière – 75002 Paris www.legrandrex.com
The Grand Rex was born in 1932. It is the last historic movie palace still open in Paris with the original auditorium. It is by far the largest auditorium in Paris, the only one over one thousand seats, ahead of the eight hundred seats of theater 3 of the Paramount Opera, and theaters 1 of the Normandie and the Bretagne.
The Main screen is 16.90m (55ft) wide; all the width is used, only the height varies, from 745m (24ft) for cinemascope to 8.45m (28ft) in 1.85. Although these sizes are more than decent, it is a pity than the picture is smaller in cinemascope than in 1.85 (on the Champs-Elysées, the UGC Normandie used to have the same problem). This screen probably is the largest flat screen in Paris.
I was watching the Comedy Central game show “Beat The Geeks” the other day when a LOTR challenge came up under the “Movies” category. The contestant was shown a picture of Elijah Wood and asked to name him, his character in LOTR, and where his character was from. The contestant answered correctly, so his challenged “Geek” (expert) had to answer a more difficult question in the same subject. He was shown a picture of John Rhys-Davies and asked to name him, two other movies he was in, and the name of his character in LOTR. The Geek identified him, gave the two other movies (he chose the Indiana Jones flicks), but couldn’t come up with “Gimli”, claiming he was a movie geek, not a Middle Earth geek! (Is that a very perturbed dwarf I hear sharpening an ax?)
By the way, this show also features “guest geeks” of different pop culture categories, ranging from “Star Trek” to “James Bond”, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a LOTR geek is featured at some point in time. I’m sure the producers would find plenty of volunteers right here at The One Ring!
Or should that be ‘When the Orcs come marching in….” A couple of people wrote in to say they’d seen the FOTR being used as the background to a televangelist show. Elvestine wrote: “Hey- after finishing watching FOTR last night, I walked past my TV which was on “Praise the Lord” on TBN “The Trinity Broadcasting Network”, which is a Christian channel. I thought I heard something familiar, and sure enough, behind Steve Muncie’s preaching they were playing the LOTR:FOTR sountrack. Strange, but they were.”
Stranger yet was the context. According to AquaDrake, “He was giving a message about overcoming fear with cheer, and about half-way through it I realized they were piping in music from the FOTR score. It was the Khazad Dum track…”
Right. “Be of good cheer,” said Gandalf. “Do not be downhearted or sad or a little bit whiny and sullen, because I will fend off the Balrog, even though it be at the cost of my own life. So, toodle-pip, and remember, ‘Always look on the bright side of life.'”
From David: “I also attended the Andrew Lesnie event in Melbourne last night. While he said the rough version of TTT he had seen ran about 2h 15m, he implied that there was quite a bit more to go in yet. I can’t remember his exact words but I believe he said there was some digital material still to be added, plus some of the recent pick-up shots.
“I concur with Matt’s description of the night, and of how enthusiastic and forthcoming Andrew was. He was on stage for about 3 hours (with an interval) and told numerous stories about his work. We also saw him in front of the camera twice. About 20 or so years ago Andrew was a cameraman on a children’s current affairs show, shooting two 4 minute stories every day. In one of these he also played a vet operating on an injured cat, along with the soundman and the reporter as surgical assistants! The second on-camera appearance was in the “making of The Long and the Short of it” doco on the Sean Astin short film. Andrew played a painter (Peter Jackson played a bus driver). This was a wonderful piece, which also included Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, Mark Ordesky and many others.
“As Matt reported, Andrew was quite happy to talk about his days as a clapper loader and focus puller, and to show early corporate film work (including a truly bizarre Kellogg’s board meeting) and one of his television commercial showreels. He made the point to the many young filmmakers in the audience that there was always something useful to learn in every sort of work.
“It was a fantastic evening, topped off when Andrew kindly signed my copy of LOTR (the hardback version illustrated by Alan Lee).”
And from K: “I was also lucky enough to see Andrew Lesnie last night and, I want to agree with everything Matt said, very interesting and a great guy.
“Some clarifications: When Andrew mentioned TTT running time it was in the middle of other discussions and not in response to a specific question, so he wasn’t really focused on that information. He clearly was unsure and stumbled on it, saying something else (possibly 2.4X…) before settling (uncertainly) on 2.15 – I wouldn’t take much notice of this information. He made an interesting comment that PJ clearly felt, on viewing a rough cut, that the characters where overwhelmed “getting lost in the landscape”, and so almost all the pick ups were character development – very good news I think.
“He was very excited about TTT, as Matt said, and said the film will be of a much higher visual quality (he wasnt that thrilled with this aspect of FOTR) due to the technicalities (quality losses associated with anamorphic optical stretch – this can now be done digitally as the whole film has been digitized) Matt mentioned. (could this be why the FOTR DVD looks so much better than the theatre release?) The whole discussion was approximately the expected length of the FOTR SE, so I will now sleep at my desk.”
