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Our very own MrCere, Larry Curtis, was a guest on last Sunday\u2019s broadcast of \u2018Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib,\u2019 on WNJC 1360 AM, Philadelphia at 11AM ET. As always, it was broadcast live via the internet via the WNJC website. A full transcript of the radio segment can be found below (thanks to Deleece Cook!). TheOneRing.net is featured every other week on Fictional Frontiers.<\/p>\n
Transcription 4th January 09 Session 17 TORN Radio Show<\/strong> <\/p>\n Another wonderful TORN segment on Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib Awan, and this week taking the mike, our own Larry Curtis! A great round up of what has been happening in the world of tORN and Middle-Earth.<\/p>\n If you\u2019d like to listen to this podcast you can find it here<\/a>. Sohaib:<\/strong> It\u2019s been a while, but without further adieu, its been a while, but our friends from the OneRing have returned. Larry Curtis is back from his New Year\u2019s Holiday, or I think he may still be on a little bit of a holiday (Larry Laughs), but we\u2019re going to run down a lot of the news which has been occurring, or which has been emerging I should say in the world of Tolkien over the last couple of weeks. Larry welcome back to Fictional Frontiers!<\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> Well thank-you so much. It\u2019s good to be back!<\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> Oh, it\u2019s nice to have another tORN segment. We were actually in withdrawal for a while (laughs) so it\u2019s nice that you all come back. To start with what\u2019s the big news you\u2019ve heard with say over the last couple of weeks? I know there was a rumour about the films being delayed as far as their release was concerned. I don\u2019t know how that, I guess it was a rumour, spread. But talk a little about what happened along those lines.<\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> Well you know, the internet is obviously an amazing place, but it also has negatives I suppose, and one of the things that happens on the internet is journalism is in the hands of everybody, which is great and terrible. So, at the OneRing we received a bunch of emails that say \u2018The Hobbits Been Delayed! The Hobbits Been Delayed,\u2019 and as far as any of us can tell the only reason anyone thought this could possibly be true is because the fantastic website\u2019 Industrial Movie Data Base\u2019 or imdb, had a date listed on it, which you know, it\u2019s not a reliable news site, and that\u2019s not an insult to the site it\u2019s fantastic , it just isn\u2019t meant to be news \u2013 but we kind of dismissed the emails and said there\u2019s no source, there\u2019s none of the journalistic minimums that we can even report this as a story. But, the same person I guess emailed everyone in the world, and it started to get reported that it was true, and nobody had checked any facts or anything, but there\u2019s this race for news and so people started to report it. And then, mainstream media started to report it because now they had a source, even though the source was just a website that believed in a rumour who believed somebody sent an email. So at that point we had to deal with like WOW \u2013 this is legit \u2013it\u2019s out there, and we\u2019re getting emails from all kinds of sources, and all kinds of links to legitimate (like) \u2013 I mean, I don\u2019t want to say their names \u2018cause it\u2019s embarrassing (Sohaib laughs) for them that they ran with the story, but we (Mike) at theOneRing made some phone calls, I sent some emails, and quickly we heard back \u2013 even from Guillermo \u2013 who said \u2018absolutely, this is ridiculous\u2019, and he knows enough about journalism as a screenwriter, that he said \u2018hey, there\u2019s not a source, there\u2019s nothing reported, there\u2019s no insider, this is absurd\u2019. So, if anybody did read those stories, don\u2019t worry, there\u2019s no delays, you have it from the highest source possible, the Movie is on track. Everything\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> Great! Great! It\u2019s wonderful to hear. And what again for our listeners who who maybe) listening in for the first time, What are the official release dates for the films?<\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> Right, right. Well, they\u2019re following the December release schedules that they followed with the Lord of the Rings film. This year, 2009, is mostly spent writing and pre-production and then 2010 they\u2019ll be shooting, so we\u2019ll see a film in December then, and then the following year as well. <\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> OK.<\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> So, we still have a ways to go, but it\u2019s not out of reach.<\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> Now, because we\u2019re actually, I guess I don\u2019t want to say we\u2019re heading into the meat of the actual pre-production of the work, what\u2019s been going on as far as far as design work? Because I know you had mentioned off the air that there\u2019s some pretty juicy details that have been emerging along these lines.<\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> There are. You know, what\u2019s funny about this is, as far as I know, what I\u2019m about to say isn\u2019t \u2013 well it\u2019s not that it\u2019s not out in the public \u2013 but it\u2019s just the reason we know about this is, Guillermo is good enough to stop by the website from time to time and participate in our message boards \u2013 which is just kind of silly that a Director thinks that much of fans (tongue in cheek)he\u2019s willing to do that (Sohaib laughs) but he does!, So its confirmed that it\u2019s him, there\u2019s no doubt about it, and he stopped by at the very end of the year to say \u2018Hey, Happy Holidays to everyone\u2019 \u2013 He previously kind of teased us and said \u2018I think by the New Year we\u2019ll have some big announcements for you all\u2019, but he stopped by to say \u2018Sorry, no big announcements \u2013 we don\u2019t have any bombs to drop, but things are going fantastically\u2019 and he hinted at some design work which you just alluded to. He said, and I\u2019m going to just quote him, it\u2019s better than me trying to read than tell his story, but he said, Sohaib:<\/strong> That was one of the big concerns that a lot of our listeners was about the development of the Spiders and aside from whatever take they\u2019re going to have as long as, as far as they were speaking but, what else did he mention along those lines?<\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> Well he did talk a little bit about the Goblin Kingdom, or at least alluded to it, and the Wargs and even Smaug the Dragon, which are all the principle monsters in the film, or most of them at least, so all those are fun things. I mean Im sure for anyone, just like I would, pay any amount of money or do anything to be a fly on the wall. (Sohaib laughs) To see that creative stuff going on, it\u2019s just amazing.<\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> (Laughs) I go that sentiment too, because I would love to be a fly on the wall. And I know when I was in San Diego \u2013 WETA was out there and you know, they\u2019re so friendly, I bet if actually drove up to New Zealand, if you signed an non disclosure agreement, they probably wouldn\u2019t let you in. (Laughs)<\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> Well, I have been very lucky and have been to New Zealand and have visited WETA (Sohaib:<\/strong> \u2018Oh WOW\u2019) and they do give you the tour and they have actually … it\u2019s just this quiet little place and little part of Wellington and it\u2019s really out of the way, and so lots of people did show up there from the States and around the world, and there\u2019s nothing to see. I mean, you can go there and you can look at the sidewalk and it says WETA outside but, there isn\u2019t anything to see. So they realised well this is kind of a problem, people make a big trip to come here and it\u2019s important to them, so they\u2019ve made what they call the WETA Cave now which is full of a lot of their designs and things that they can show \u2013 things that no one has to sign anything for \u2013 you can buy some things, buy a WETA hat, a WETA T-shirt, they have some big life size models and its really cool. I wouldn\u2019t go to New Zealand just for that but almost! (Sohaib laughs) Its fantastic because if you\u2019re in that part of the world make sure you do stop by.<\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> I\u2019m going to definitely try to do that \u2018cause I actually did pick up a WETA cap (Laughs) I think I want to actually get one from the WETA shop down there. But Larry I have to ask you though, I know there were some rumours \u2013 I don\u2019t know, I\u2019m sure you\u2019re probably aware of the rumours \u2013 but I don\u2019t know what\u2019s conformed or not, is Mike Mignola going to be part of the Hobbit Team? Because I know when I spoke to him actually a couple of months ago, he said he was interested and if Guillermo ever invited him he\u2019d love to be involved, but then I started hearing some rumblings about him actually possibly being involved in the project. Is he involved in any way, form or fashion?<\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think officially that he is. I guess we won\u2019t know for a little while for sure but, yeah, Guillermo was kind of alluded to \u2018yeah I want my people involved in it\u2019, and Mignola is probably one of the guys that he trusts and loves and does his work, they\u2019ve had incredible design production together, they\u2019ve come up with some great things \u2013 the Hellboy stuff. I think probably it\u2019s not official, and maybe he isn\u2019t at a point where he can really announce that kind of stuff, but I would almost bank on it \u2013 I just think in some way, he\u2019s not going to go to New Zealand and live there for a year \u2013 I imagine he has a lot going on, but I\u2019d be surprised if he didn\u2019t spend a little time there and contribute to the production in some way \u2013 which is a positive definitely.<\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> Oh yeah. Definitely. It\u2019s funny because in the world of these amazing creators you see often people from other industries or other Directors or Producers or Artists, they sometimes even visit sets or studios and they just give their input in an unofficial manner. I\u2019m sure many of our listeners probably watch the original Star Wars Films Episode One, and I remember there was a wonderful DVD on the Phantom Menace DVD set in which there was a clip of Steven Spielberg visiting George Lucas and George Lucas was showing him around a lot of the design work for Phantom Menace, and I\u2019m sure during that time he probably gave George a couple of pointers and there were actually rumours that he had actually helped him on the Direction of the final sequences of the film. But it was done in an unofficial capacity but I\u2019m sure probably even if Mike\u2019s not involved directly as far as credits are concerned he probably will be involved in some way form or fashion indirectly at least.<\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> Yeah, I would think that\u2019s exactly accurate and I think any time you\u2019re just whatever level of creativity, your master work, once you\u2019re in this fraternity once you have a chance, why wouldn\u2019t you go and be involved, why wouldn\u2019t you drop by the Star Wars set or why wouldn\u2019t you hang out at Hellboy world for a little while, and just, you know \u2013 who wouldn\u2019t do that. And they come mostly in a position to set their schedules and get to do those things. So I don\u2019t know how you get in that fraternity but I\u2019d love to be a member (Sohaib laughs) I\u2019m sure you\u2019re right.<\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> Well hopefully they\u2019re listening in, maybe the Secret Society will send you an invite. But before I get to this event that\u2019s going to be happening in New York in October \u2013 I want to definitely touch on this before we leave, and that\u2019s tORN reaching its ten years of existence. Talk a little bit about that, what that meant to you and all the fans of the Lord of The Rings Series around the world because I think its an incredible accomplishment.<\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> Well it is crazy. We\u2019ve had some internal discussions that were \u2018Hey, this is 10 years old pretty soon\u2019 \u2013 in just a few months and I\u2019m quick to give credit to those who started the OneRing – which was not me, I came a couple of years after the fact, although I was a reader from day one I didn\u2019t get involved right away. But, 10 years in pretty phenomenal in the age of come and go internet \u2013 it\u2019s just phenomenal \u2013 yet it was never meant to grow into anything crazy like it has \u2013 it definitely changed founders lives, and it changed lives of a lot of other people bothered \u2013 well definitely including me, I\u2019m fortunate enough to call those people good friends and they\u2019ve kind of adopted me and I guess if you\u2019re passionate for something like they are, have the right intentions, which they do, things turn out pretty well. And it really has impacted, the OneRing.net is a brand name, it not for profit, but it\u2019s a brand name that reached every corner of the globe, its reached the production of the film on a daily basis, there\u2019s no one involved in Lord of the Rings that didn\u2019t know about it \u2013 it\u2019s just really a tribute to founders but as well for the fans \u2013 it\u2019s as just as much as the fans who put in their heart soul and time and did it out of love. I think that\u2019s why it\u2019s successful, I think. <\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> And I agree with that. I think it\u2019s wonderful because I think you touched on it so well. It\u2019s almost a family if you will in a sense because you have people who are packaged so much by not just the films but the books, but one thing I\u2019ve noticed is you don\u2019t see a lot of the negativity on theOneRing.net, you get a lot of wonderful information, but at the same time people\u2019s opinions and differences of opinion are recognized and respected and that\u2019s what you do in a family \u2013 you recognize the differences, accept the differences, and discuss those and you move forward and it makes you stronger for it and I guess, you say you came in later on in the process, I would probably say that you know Chris and Mike were the founders \u2013 they were sort of the Fellowship of the Ring \u2013 I guess you would be the Rohan so to speak because you came in a little bit later, but (Larry Laughs) you\u2019re definitely a critical part of the theOneRing.net (Larry laughs).<\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> Well I do consider myself luck to be involved. And yeah, Chris and Mike definitely, but also Bill and Erica, Erica from Wellington \u2013 (Sohaib:<\/strong> \u2018right\u2019) who just had a baby last week .. <\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> Oh Great! Congratulations to them and hopefully we\u2019ll have them on as well. Gee the family continues to expand \u2013 what can you say! (laughs) <\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> I know I suppose.<\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> Before we head out Larry, talk a little bit about this wonderful event in New York. I\u2019m actually going to try to go definitely because I know it\u2019s on two days, but give our listeners the details on this because I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve seen anything like this in any genre of film ever especially where its going to be held at Madison Radio City Music Hall. <\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> Yeah, its just been announced about a week or so. A good friend of the website is also a good friend of Howard Shores \u2013 his name is Doug Adams and he\u2019s kind of Howard\u2019s right hand guy. He\u2019s been working on a book about the music of the Lord of the Rings which is pretty wonderful. I\u2019ve been lucky enough to share some good conversations with him. So they want to have this big \u2013 part of it I guess is part of the 10 year, but Radio City Music Hall the 9th and 10 of October they will play the Fellowship of the Ring live, and Howard will be there and they will perform the orchestra parts as well as the chorus, so I guess really all the score \u2013 live score I guess is the best way to say it. It will be those two nights, and I have it on very good authority, if they sell out it will be on a 3rd night on the Sunday of the same weekend. So really with that much notice, any Lord of the Rings fans, any fan of music and film, which is pretty much everyone, really ought to try to go and attend. And I\u2019m saying that not because I\u2019m getting anything \u2013 it\u2019s nothing to do with me except I think it\u2019s awesome. The OneRing is also going to try to plan some events around the weekend so anyone who does go there will be plenty of other things to do there as well. But it\u2019s a phenomenal chance to see the live score of the films, it\u2019s just as cool as can be.<\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> Well I\u2019m very excited about it. I don\u2019t know which night I\u2019m going to go but I\u2019m definitely going to be there. I want aware actually that Howard Shore was actually going to be – is he going to be conducting or is he going to be in attendance? <\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know for sure he said he\u2019s going to be conducting. I know he\u2019s very involved, I know he\u2019s definitely its a little bit of his project, and so he may conduct. How\u2019s that, that\u2019s about as official as it can be, but he\u2019s definitely involved in the whole weekend he\u2019ll be around, I would suspect fans really want to say Ho to him somewhere along the line but he\u2019s definitely heavily involved \u2013 it\u2019s his baby.<\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> Fantastic, and actually my favourite score in all movie history, the Lord of the Rings trilogy all 3 films scored. I look at it as one film, but the Lord of the Rings soundtrack by Howard Shore in my opinion was and is the best score that I\u2019ve seen for any film, It\u2019s the best film score, period for me, and Kristin Thompson says that she listens to it daily, I\u2019m not passionate, (Larry laughs) I don\u2019t listen to it daily, I do listen to it at least once or twice a month \u2013 but… Larry it\u2019s been fantastic, and I\u2019m really excited about what\u2019s going to be happening down the pipe not with just the OneRing.net and us, but you know the Lord of the Rings film in general and I just wanted to have a say have a safe holiday and thanks for coming back and we look forward to having you back on here again. <\/p>\n Larry:<\/strong> Well thanks so much \u2013 Happy New Year to you and all your avid listeners and friends and I really appreciate the time to talk to you.<\/p>\n Sohaib:<\/strong> Thanks so much Larry.<\/p>\n Transcript by Elven for Fictional Frontiers and tORN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our very own MrCere, Larry Curtis, was a guest on last Sunday\u2019s broadcast of \u2018Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib,\u2019…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[435,4,74,334,148],"tags":[575],"class_list":["post-30952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guillermo-del-toro","category-hobbit-movie","category-jackson","category-hobbit-rumors","category-hobbit","tag-fictional-frontiers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-83e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOr visit Fictional Frontiers website: www.fictionalfrontiers.com<\/a>
\nOr email Sohaib with all your questions and suggestions: Sohaib@fictionalfrontiers.com<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\u201cI can only say, that great WETA progress was made with designing and exploring Mirkwood and the Spiders\u201d Now WETA… for those who don\u2019t know, is the design team and special effects workshop that worked on all the Lord of the Rings films, it\u2019s in Wellington, in New Zealand. So he\u2019s been in New Zealand writing with the Lord of the Rings writing Team having this great creative process that he reported, and then John Howe and Alan Lee are part of that design team. And WETA and Allan and John, he mentioned that they had given their best, which is pretty great \u2013 obviously things have taken place and they kind of designed those amazing Mirkwood Spiders \u2013 well at least preliminary designs \u2013 it\u2019s just fantastic to think about what great imaginative work that must be. And …<\/p>\n