As we work our way through the 20th anniversary period of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, we can at the same time celebrate the 10th anniversaries of The Hobbit Trilogy. Our friends at Weta Workshop currently have a timed pre-order going for an amazing-looking Smaug statue from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. This timed pre-order runs until July 6th, which is just next week! However many fans order this by that cut off date will set the edition size of this collectible. You can snag Smaug right now for $1,299 (USD), or $187.50 a month on a payment plan – allowing you more easily to acquire this piece. If you decide to do the full payment plan you have time to save, with this stunning Smaug not arriving until quarter one of next year.
If you loved The Unexpected Party sequence from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey then our friends from Weta Workshop have something for you. You can now buy a board game version of this sequence in the film. The purpose of this game is to be the first person to complete all 15 lines of the song before Thorin arrives. The player with the most points – who did the best job arousing Bilbo’s curiosity and shaking up his sheltered life – will win! Due out in September of this year you can pre-order this game right now for $39.99.
Continue reading “Collecting The Precious – Weta Workshop’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Party Board Game”
Tonight our friends at Weta Workshop have a trio of new items that fans can add to their collections. These pre-orders cover multiple types of collectibles ranging from mini-statues to the very Hobbit Holes. The mini-statue is the King of the Dead as we saw him during The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. This one of course falls in the mini line of statues, but looking at the photos, it is packed with all kinds of details. Not only that, we get what appears to be a new clearish like resin used to create the ghostly look, that the King of the Dead had in the movies. The second item that fans can get is the first Hobbit Hole from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy in Farmer Maggot’s own house, which we got a brief look at early in the The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The final item comes The Hobbit Trilogy and is one of the very cool designed Erebor Royal Guard Helm. This helm is a limited piece at only 750 pieces so you will want to make sure you snag it soon. The King of the Dead and the Hobbit hole are shipping now. While the Dwarven Helm is shipping early in 2018.
Announced not long after Comic-Con 2017, King Thorin on Throne gives us a look at Thorin during The Hobbit Trilogies third and final film. This fantastic piece, sculpted by Lindsey Crummett, does a great job of capturing Thorin at the height of his dragon sickness, as well as showing how run down Erebor has become after Smaug’s attack. I really love the detail on this one, from Thorin’s likeness to the detail in his armor. The paint job used to create the run down look is particularly well done, including how the armor looks like metal, uncared for and dirty. With this piece, we also get a new box design, which I think is a great change. For fun I also brought a special guest to this review with the King Thror on Throne.
Continue reading “Collecting The Precious – Weta Workshop’s King Thorin on Throne Review”
One of the things I love the most in my collection are all the behind the scene books, art books, making of type books. It’s so much fun getting a chance to see the process of how these fantastic films were brought to life. Our friends at Weta have a brand new book that fits this genre of book with the Middle-earth: From Script to Screen. This 512 page book covers the world building Sir Peter Jackson and the crew at Weta did to build what we saw in both The Lord of the Rings Trilogy as well as The Hobbit Trilogy. Written by Daniel Falconer with assistance by our own Happy Hobbit Kili (done under her pen name KM Rice) this richly illustrated with thousands of film frames, concept art and behind-the-scenes imagery, many previously unseen, Middle-earth: From Script to Screen follows in the footsteps of the Fellowship of the Ring and the Company of Thorin Oakenshield, visiting the realms and landscapes of Middle-earth and uncovering their secrets. You can Pre-Order this fantastic book right now for $75, and if you do so straight from Weta you will receive a set of exclusive prop replica set dressings by 3Foot7 Calligrapher Daniel Reeve.
Continue reading “Collecting The Precious – Weta Workshop’s Middle-earth from Script to Screen and two new helms”
Spring is in the air, and it’s finally that time of year when fans get to vote on their favorite Tolkien characters. Yes, Middle-earth March Madness is back for 2017! If you are new to TheOneRing.net, Middle-earth March Madness is our adaptation on the popular NCAA Basketball tournament that takes place every March/April in the United States. It’s our chance to have some fun matching up middle-earth power players against each other. Past winners include Samwise Gamgee, Gandalf, who won in both 2013 and 2015, Thranduil, and last year’s winner Galadriel, who defeated the mighty Morgoth in the final round.
To mix things up a bit and give some other, very deserving characters a chance, the past winners mentioned above will sit this year out in the esteemed ‘Champion’s Hall of Fame.’ As for this year’s brackets, the four divisions will pit characters against each other based on the following criteria:
Movies Only – characters who appeared only in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and/or The Hobbit movies
Books Only – characters who didn’t make the final cut for the movies
Movies and Books – characters who graced both the written page and the silver screen
Wider Mythos – Middle-earth characters not in the movies from Tolkien’s works outside of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
Our staff are sorting out the field of 64 initial combatants now, and we’ll be posting the first bracket and polls this Monday, March 20. Stay tuned to the front-page of TORn for the announcement to start voting, and follow along on Twitter and FB with #middleearthmarchmadness @theoneringnet
