{"id":69815,"date":"2013-03-10T12:45:45","date_gmt":"2013-03-10T17:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=69815"},"modified":"2013-03-10T12:45:45","modified_gmt":"2013-03-10T17:45:45","slug":"j-w-reviews-the-hobbit-chronicles-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2013\/03\/10\/69815-j-w-reviews-the-hobbit-chronicles-book\/","title":{"rendered":"J.W. Reviews The Hobbit Chronicles Book"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"intro\">This month on J.W. Braun&#8217;s Bookshelf, J.W. takes a look at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0062200909\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=054789872X&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=theoneringnet\" title=\"The Hobbit Chronicles\" target=\"_blank\">The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles: Art &#038; Design<\/a> by Daniel Falconer and Weta Workshop. Meanwhile, in his mailbag feature below, he shares another riddle and answers your questions about Peter Jackson&#8217;s cameo in <em>The Hobbit<\/em>, the first Hobbit movie&#8217;s Oscar that&#8217;s not really an Oscar, and more.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><center><iframe width=\"510\" height=\"287\" data-src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/i_jFDOBf2ME\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>(Photos from <em>The Hobbit Chronicles<\/em> have been posted at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lordofthefilms\" title=\"Lord of the Films Facebook page\">The Lord of the Films facebook page<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>J.W. Braun&#8217;s Mailbag:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As per tradition, I\u2019ll start things out with a riddle for you to ponder. The answer appears at the end of the mailbag section:<\/p>\n<p>It was given to you, but others use it<br \/>\nThat\u2019s fine with you if they don\u2019t abuse it<br \/>\nYou might give it to your wife,<br \/>\nIf you think she\u2019ll behave<br \/>\nBut it\u2019s still yours for life<br \/>\nAnd will be on your grave<\/p>\n<p>What is it? <\/p>\n<p><strong>Mailbag Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Why didn\u2019t Peter Jackson do a cameo in The Hobbit? \u2013 Carrie<\/em><\/p>\n<p>He does have a cameo appearance in the first Hobbit film, but it\u2019s easy to miss. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nextmovie.com\/blog\/peter-jackson-cameo-hobbit\/\" title=\"Jackson's Cameo\">He plays a dwarf<\/a> fleeing from Smaug at the Lonely Mountain. When asked, \u201cWhy a dwarf?\u201d  Jackson responded, &#8220;I didn&#8217;t have a great deal of choice. There weren&#8217;t any human characters in this film, and they weren&#8217;t any hobbits roles I could play&#8230; and I&#8217;m not an elf.&#8221; &#8211; JW<\/p>\n<p><em>Which two towers are THE two towers in The Two Towers? \u2013 Jenna<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Tolkien came up with the title under deadline pressure and was unsure at first himself.  In a letter to his publisher on Aug 17, 1953  he wrote, \u201c\u2019The Two Towers\u2019 gets as near as possible to finding a title to cover the widely divergent Books 3 and 4; and can be left ambiguous &#8211; it might refer to Isengard and Barad-dur, or to Minas Tirith and B; or Isengard and Cirith Ungol.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p>A few months later, he was more definitive. In a letter to his publisher dated January 22, 1954, he said, \u201cI am not at all happy about the title &#8216;the Two Towers.&#8217; It must if there is any real reference in it to Vol II refer to Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. But since there is so much made of the basic opposition of the Dark Tower and Minas Tirith, that seems very misleading.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then again, some editions of <em>The Fellowship of the Ring<\/em> have this note at the end: \u201cHere ends the first part of the history of the War of the Ring. The second part is called THE TWO TOWERS, since the events recounted in it are dominated by ORTHANC, the citadel of Saruman, and the fortress of MINAS MORGUL that guards the secret entrance to Mordor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unclear if Tolkien or the publisher wrote this, but Tolkien did draw Orthanc and Minas Morgul in his proposed cover for the book.<\/p>\n<p>For the movies, the answer is more clear: they are stated in the dialogue as Orthanc and Barad-d\u00fbr. &#8211; JW<\/p>\n<p><em>Did the Hobbit win an Oscar or didn\u2019t it? Some articles say it picked up an early Oscar while others say it didn\u2019t win any Oscars. \u2013 Andrew<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This confused me also. Thankfully, the people at TheOneRing.net\u2019s message board helped clarify it for me. In early February, Weta Digital earned a technical award for breakthroughs in CGI. Because this is an Academy Award, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.mymiddleearth.com\/2013\/02\/11\/the-hobbit-lands-technical-oscar\/\" title=\"Early Oscar\">the press reported it as The Hobbit winning an early Oscar.<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>The truth, however, is that while some Academy Awards (including some technical awards) are Oscars, some are not. Weta Digital\u2019s award falls into the latter category, with the recipients earning an Academy Plaque and not the gold &#8220;Oscar&#8221; statue. And if you really want to split hairs, the award went to three members of Weta Digital (Simon Clutterbuck, James Jacobs and Dr. Richard Dorling) and not the film. \u2013 JW<\/p>\n<p><em>In the movies Sam is often referred to as Samwise, and there is a chapter in The Two Towers called &#8216;The Choices of Master Samwise&#8217; but I&#8217;ve never come across anyone calling him &#8216;Samwise&#8217; throughout the books. Do any of the characters refer to Sam Gamgee as &#8216;Samwise&#8217; in the book? \u2013 David<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Yes, from time to time. For example, in <em>The Two Towers<\/em> Frodo says, \u201c&#8217;I don\u2019t know how long we shall take to \u2013 to finish. We were miserably delayed in the hills. But Samwise Gamgee, my dear hobbit \u2013 indeed, Sam my dearest hobbit, friend of friends \u2013 I do not think we need give thought to what comes after that. To do the job as you put it \u2013 what hope is there that we ever shall?\u201d \u2013 JW<\/p>\n<p><em>The answer to the riddle above? Your name.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>J.W. Braun is a Tolkien scholar and author of <a href=\"http:\/\/jwbraun.com\">The Lord of the Films<\/a>, published by ECW Press in 2009. If you have a question for him, simply drop him a line at <a href=\"mailto:lordofthefilms@gmail.com\">lordofthefilms@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>You can find out more about J.W. at <a title=\"J.W. Braun's Website\" href=\"http:\/\/jwbraun.com\">jwbraun.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This month on J.W. Braun&#8217;s Bookshelf, J.W. takes a look at The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles: Art&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":67322,"comment_status":"open","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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[163,4,18,148,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-merchandise-books","category-hobbit-movie","category-merchandise","category-hobbit","category-production-weta-workshop"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/HobbitChronicles4.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-ia3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69815","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\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69815"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69828,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69815\/revisions\/69828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}