Comic-Con 2013 is just a few short weeks away and many of the exclusives to this years event are being announced. As we reported a couple of weeks ago, The Bridge Direct is going to once again delight fans with another exclusive figure from their amazing line of figures for The Hobbit Trilogy. Last year they did a really great Invisible Bilbo Baggins figure as we see him when he uses the Ring in Gollum’s Cave. This year they’re giving us one of the coolest looking characters from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey with their Azog 7” figure. We’re pleased to give you all an early access look at the figure you can get during Comic-Con 2013.
Azog is a really fantastic figure and he’s going to give fans that buy this figure multiple display options. Actually, I think fans are going to want to buy multiples of Azog just to have all options available to them. Its going to be a must have exclusive at Comic-Con.
PACKAGING
The outer graphics of the box mirror the look we saw on the Bilbo figure from last year as well as the look of the special edition original score. This is simply a fantastic look but this one differs in that it has a bit of a worn Orcish look to it. You also have a little slider piece that goes over the outside of the box with Azog’s symbol in the middle of it, a Comic-Con sticker in the lower front, and a sticker with the edition size on the back.
On the inside left of the box you have a graphic of the Azog figure and a blurb about the character himself. While the inside of the right side of the box gives you a look at the actual figure itself with everything you get. These are not the only cool things about the inside of the box which also uses a picture of The Battle of Azanulbizar.
Accessories/Articulation
Azog comes with several items allowing fans to choose how they want to display this huge Orc. As you see him in the package he is holding Thror’s head and holding his sword. You also get an empty right hand, his giant bone mace, and the severed left arm with that nasty metal claw.
The articulation on this figure is great. You’re able to create multiple poses and show off the action Azog gave us during The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The joints are also very tight allowing the figure to stand on its own and you do not lose any articulation with the switch out parts. The switch out parts are also easy to take off allowing for a frustration free change out experience.
SCULPTING
The sculpting job done on Azog is really quite good. He looks every bit the part of what we saw on screen and very detailed for being only seven inches tall. The likeness to Azog is fantastic and you can tell they really worked to make sure this looks like what we saw during the movie. He’s also got all the scars we saw on the character only adding to the great job done by The Bridge Direct. His weapons are very well done and look great when you’re creating the multiple looks this figure presents. The rest of his outfit from the metal pieces screwed into his stomach and wrappings on his arms are great. These are the types of details show why The Bridge Direct is the company to do Middle-earth figures.
The two coolest jobs done I think with this figure in the sculpting department are Azog’s skirt and King Thror’s severed head. During the film I did not notice that his skirt is made out of what appears to be the faces of dead Dwarves. Well, The Bridge Direct was able to bring that cool but creepy detail to life. It adds such a great evil detail to this massive figure. The other very cool bit I want to mention is the severed head of King Thror. This piece is superbly detailed looking like the King as we saw him in the movie making it cool and creepy since it’s a severed head. I also love that when you flip this piece over you see the spinal column sticking out from it.
PAINT
As I’ve said before in other reviews the paint can make or break the sculpt work done. Well, the paintwork done on Azog is really good making this one of the best-looking action figures I’ve owned. The skin tone looks like his movie counter part, as does everything else with The Pale Orc. You get the proper amount of wear on the leather, weapons, Thror’s head, and Azog himself.
Overall
Azog is a fantastic figure. You get a great sized figure, tons of detail, and multiple display options. He’s also going to be limited to 2600 pieces worldwide so he’s going to go pretty quickly. Make sure you stop by their booth 3513B, which they’re sharing with Weta Workshop. We also want thanks The Bridge Direct for this chance to give our readers a chance to look at this figure before the show.
SPECIFICATIONS
Azog comes in with an edition size of 2600 pieces.
The big week in Middle-earth continues today, with a brand new product from the folks at Gentle Giant. Following up the massive Goblin King bust is another bad guy from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: the pale Orc himself, Azog the Defiler, will be the next bust for sale from Gentle Giant. Azog comes in at nearly 7″ tall, with a price tag of $85 for non-PGM members and $76.50 if you’re a PGM member. You have time to save the coin, with Azog not shipping until the first quarter of next year. You can pre-order Azog right now directly from Gentle Giant’s website.
Today, is a huge day! We’ve already gotten the first poster for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and of course today we got the first trailer for the movie.
Well, that’s not the only thing for the new movie that has made an appearance on this very special day.
Weta has just released the first product and it’s a special preview product for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug with this mini barrel-riding Bilbo Baggins statue. This statue fits in line with the mini-statues you’ve seen us review here from The Lord of the Rings. It’s the very first mini-statue for The Hobbit trilogy. This will also be the first in a line of barrel-riding pieces leading up to the release of the film in December. Bilbo is in-stock for $65 so get you order in now to enter for a chance to win 65 Weta dollars and add this amazing Bilbo statue to your collection.
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stone to meal;
Slays kings, ruins towns,
And beats high mountains down.
– Gollum to Bilbo
The Hobbit – Riddles in the Dark
We’ve now reached the “we haven’t seen this before” phase of reveals for statues from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The first statue to make the scene in this phase is a familiar face to fans of Middle-earth. That’s right! Gollum our lovely precious Gollum as we saw him in the Riddles in the Dark sequence from the movie. This is also the first time we’ve gotten Gollum in traditional 1:6th scale as a regular release in a line of statues based on Middle-earth.
PACKAGING
The overall graphic layout for Gollum’s box stays the same as we’ve seen with previous entries in the line. Per the format we’ve come to know the front of the box gives you a great shot of Gollum, graphic work for the title of the movie, and of course the Weta logo. The sides of the box for Gollum also present a familiar format with different looks at the statue. While the other side of the box presents some of the various products you can get for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey line of collectibles. The back of the box contains a great story on Gollum as well as information regarding details of the character and statue. The Styrofoam on the inside is typical with what we’ve become used to getting with these statues.
SCULPTING
Greg Tozer is back at it on this piece and he got some help from Ben Mauro for bringing this version of Gollum to life. Gollum has been quite the achievement for Weta from the time we first got a great look at him in The Two Towers and ten years later he is even better looking with the new technology. This statue I think captures that improvement in how Gollum looks. The likeness is as good as you’re going to see and the rage Gollum has in realizing he’s lost his precious to Bilbo comes through quite clearly. On his face you get great definition in the wrinkles with how his face squishes together allowing the anger to come through. The body gives you great definition in the rib cage showing how malnourished Gollum is from lingering due to the ring. Two final features on the body that I found very cool are the lack of scars on Gollum’s back and the blood vessels on his arms. The lack of scars of course comes from this being 60 years before The Lord of the Rings and not being tortured by Sauron. While the blood vessels are subtle but a nice attention to detail by Weta.
Gollum really doesn’t have a traditional outfit as we’ve seen with previous releases in this line. He has a simple loincloth with little pouch that he keeps his precious in. The sculpt job done on these are really well done in giving them the look of real leather. Gollum is also the first statue to come with an addition to the base. He’s jumping off a rock deep within the Misty Mountains that makes up his little home area, and it very much comes across sculpt wise looking like the rocks we saw on screen.
PAINT
Gollum does not have the traditional skin tone we’ve seen with the other statues within this line so far. He’s been under the mountain for years with no sunlight so he has a bit lighter look to his skin tone. Weta has of course been able to do this successfully and it once again looks like the Gollum we’ve seen on screen. He even has the nice pinker tone around the eyes you see on screen giving the appearance of someone who gets little sleep. Another success of the skin tone is making sure you don’t lose the wrinkle detail or boney nature of the rib area. One area I mentioned earlier that could have been lost easily is the blood vessels, but they’re really enhanced I believe with the subtle job done by Weta.
Finally, going back to his clothes or lack there of with the loincloth. The paint job does a solid job working with the wrinkles in the sculpt to create the leather look of the loincloth. His rock area has a great worn looking pain job to it with a great lighter tone around the bottom.
Overall
Gollum retails for $249, which is in line with most of the statues so far in the line. Gollum just looks great and works well with the Bilbo statue creating a great scene on your shelf. Weta also did a fantastic job with Gollum making sure he’s able to hold the post by inserting a rod into his leg that goes into the rock. Helping give this statue a great look and feel of that moment in the dark.
PS: The answer to the riddle: Time
SPECIFICATIONS
Gollum is an open edition piece and can be ordered right now from Weta Workshop.
Dimensions:
9.1″ x 14.2″ x 5.9″ (H x W x D)
23 cm x 36 cm x 15 cm
When Configura Equipos, a Spanish-language website featuring technology and gaming reviews and forums, posted this video last week it seemed like we were seeing something new. A preview for Google Chrome’s upcoming “A Journey Through Middle-earth” interactive map featured clips from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as well as the brief shots from Google’s own preview for the the new app.
But in the midst of these familiar images was what looked like a brand new scene of an army of orcs laying siege to a castle with very striking dragon-shaped prominences on the ramparts. Could this be something we hadn’t yet seen from The Desolation of Smaug? Were we getting a sneak peek at some flashback to Carn Dûm or Minas Ithil?
Nope. It turns out it’s a scene from the 2011 film Sucker Punchfrom director Zach Snyder.
Keen detective and TORn staffer Magpie matched up the images and found the scene, one of several in Sucker Punch that are overt homages to other genre films. So, alas, as TORn staffer Justin said, “These aren’t the orcs you’re looking for. Move along.”
Misleading clips aside, we’re still looking forward to Google’s “Chrome Experiment,” which will “bring Middle-earth to life in the browser with 3D Trolls, interactive musical experiences, and more.” It’s currently in beta testing to be released to the public later this year. And as for Configura Equipos… ¡Estamos vigilando!
Red Carpet’s Premiere Tour group dressed up for their Hobbiton visit
Red Carpet is steadily adding new locations into its tours in the light of the new Hobbit movie, says director Vic James.
“We’re pretty excited because since the Unexpected Journey came out, we’ve been able to add new sites and new people,” James says. “We visit landowners and check out new locations on a regular basis, as information and invitations come to hand.
“The Premiere Tour last November was the first to visit some of the new places and when the time is right for further landowners to allow visits, we will add them in.”
The north island leg of the tour includes, as before, Hobbiton and the central volcanic plateau that served as Mt Doom. A new feature are some rapids where the dwarves’ more hair-raising barrel-riding scenes were filmed.
The ‘top’ of the South Island is a beautiful addition to the tour, James says. Nelson, with its sunny bay ringed by mountains, is reached by a ferry cruise through the beautiful fjords of Marlborough Sounds. There’s a stop along the way at Pelorus Bridge, scene of Bilbo and the dwarves’ barrel-riding adventures.
Red Carpet’s LOTR tours always include visits to extras, artisans, actors and crew members for the films. Halfdan Hansen, son of the real-life Ringmaker for LOTR, has his studio in Nelson and has created a new version of the Ring, invisibly weighted with some denser metal so that it lies strangely heavy on the palm of the hand.
In Nelson there is also the option to take a two-and-a-half hour helicopter flight to Dimrill Dale and South of Rivendell. The flights have been a huge success with tour guests.
Olympus Rocks – a place to hide from the spies of Saruman
To accommodate the extra locations, tours are now 14 days duration. People can also choose to join the North Island 6 day or the South Island 10 day options. “It’s a long way to come to not see it all,” James says.
Comic-Con 2013 is just a few short weeks away and many of the exclusives to this years event are being announced. As we reported a couple of weeks ago, The Bridge Direct is going to once again delight fans with another exclusive figure from their amazing line of figures for The Hobbit Trilogy. Last year they did a really great Invisible Bilbo Baggins figure as we see him when he uses the Ring in Gollum’s Cave. This year they’re giving us one of the coolest looking characters from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey with their Azog 7” figure. We’re pleased to give you all an early access look at the figure you can get during Comic-Con 2013.
The outer graphics of the box mirror the look we saw on the Bilbo figure from last year as well as the look of the special edition original score. This is simply a fantastic look but this one differs in that it has a bit of a worn Orcish look to it. You also have a little slider piece that goes over the outside of the box with Azog’s symbol in the middle of it, a Comic-Con sticker in the lower front, and a sticker with the edition size on the back.
The sculpting job done on Azog is really quite good. He looks every bit the part of what we saw on screen and very detailed for being only seven inches tall. The likeness to Azog is fantastic and you can tell they really worked to make sure this looks like what we saw during the movie. He’s also got all the scars we saw on the character only adding to the great job done by The Bridge Direct. His weapons are very well done and look great when you’re creating the multiple looks this figure presents. The rest of his outfit from the metal pieces screwed into his stomach and wrappings on his arms are great. These are the types of details show why The Bridge Direct is the company to do Middle-earth figures.
As I’ve said before in other reviews the paint can make or break the sculpt work done. Well, the paintwork done on Azog is really good making this one of the best-looking action figures I’ve owned. The skin tone looks like his movie counter part, as does everything else with The Pale Orc. You get the proper amount of wear on the leather, weapons, Thror’s head, and Azog himself.
