As contests go, this is one for the ages. And it should be, since it heralds the beginning of the end of the final installment of Middle-earth movies at the hands of Peter Jackson and his movie-making team. It’s also the final cinematic trumpet blast from the director’s home country of New Zealand that has stood in as a real-world wonder for the fictional world of author J.R.R. Tolkien.
Fans from around the world will have a chance to win a trip to see New Zealand in all its glory if they win the trip that will take them eventually to Wellington to watch the first screening of “The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies,” with its director. Along the way they will stop at iconic locations the length of the island nation that helped create the cinematic Middle-earth. No doubt that will include a stop to the Hobbiton Movie Set on the farm where more than a decade ago, the literary village and home of Frodo Baggins left the imagination and books to became tangible as it was constructed for Jackson’s LOTR trilogy.
Many websites will help host the contest and TheOneRing.net will sponsor the portion of the contest that is for “the rest of the world.” Read on for details!
HOW TO ENTER
Entering the contest is a multi-step process (and this is not a replacement for the rules) but each entrant will need a Twitter or Facebook account to get things started. Then four challenges will be presented by each contest sponsor website but the primary judging is to be based on a video participants are asked to submit (two minutes or less). If you want to participate, we urge you to read the rules completely and to comply.
WHO CAN ENTER
Through TheOneRing.net, you can enter if you aren’t from one of the following nations: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mainland China, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom (including Channel Islands & Isle of Man), United States and any country to or on which the United States has embargoed goods or imposed targeted sanctions, such as Cuba.
So readers in Austria, Greece, Romania and the like (just picking off the top of the writer’s head), welcome to the show. For the readers from the nations listed above, your portal to the contest will be elsewhere. For example, those in the United States can go right here.
If you do enter from a nation that isn’t yours, you aren’t eligible so we recommend not trying it. Those wishing to enter TORn’s portal and are from the correct nation need only click RIGHT HERE!
Since it was first announced at Comic-Con International in San Diego on 27 July 2014, upwards of 25,000 people have already registered their interest to participate. We at TORn expect that number to be obliterated quickly.
ABOUT THE PRIZE
Contest winners will land in Auckland, New Zealand, before embarking on a specially designed itinerary to iconic filming locations–the highlight being a special visit to Hobbiton, the famous home of the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Fans will enjoy a private tour through the 12-acre site, with a close-up look at the 44 Hobbit homes. (We have been and maybe its time to trot out those photos and video!)
The Hobbit Fan Fellowship will also visit other key film sites throughout New Zealand’s Middle-earth chosen by Sir Peter Jackson and end in Wellington for the ultimate film fan’s dream – a private screening of the final film, “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” with Sir Peter Jackson.
About The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Directed by Peter Jackson, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies features a screenplay by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. Jackson also produced the film, together with Carolynne Cunningham, Zane Weiner and Fran Walsh. The executive producers are Alan Horn, Toby Emmerich, Ken Kamins and Carolyn Blackwood, with Philippa Boyens and Eileen Moran serving as co-producers. Production took place at Jackson’s own facilities in Miramar, Wellington, and on location around New Zealand. Post production took place at Park Road Post Production in Wellington.
For more information and to enter The Hobbit Fan Fellowship Contest visit
TheHobbitFanContest.com
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Just that happened to my sister and me exactly a year ago, however we never even stepped out our door! One June 11th, 2013, the first The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug trailer hit the internet in the U.S. and since we didn’t have time to write up our responses for TheOneRing.net, we decided to film our reaction to the trailer (watch here).
We never expected more than our 15 “hardcore” fans to watch our reaction video at the time, much less ever thought that PJ and the cast and crew would not only see it, but film their own response (watch Happy Elves)! For two young women who didn’t even know that posting trailer reactions was a “thing,” getting launched into the international news was even more unexpected, but it has been such an amazing unexpected journey. To be rewarded for being our unrestrained, embarrassing selves (see just how so in our reaction to the cast’s reaction here) is a boon to not only our little show, but to our souls.
We are forever grateful to Jackson and his team. As a result, we celebrate the support our Facebook page has received (3k likes!) and that of our YouTube channel (5.5k!) by sharing this video that is a compilation of the “deleted scenes” from our reaction videos that we had cut out at the time. Enjoy!
A year after that fateful night, we are now packing and preparing to leave for Denver Comic Con, not as attendees, but as panel participants. We will have our own Happy Hobbit panel and fan table and are so excited to meet as many of our viewers as possible. This path has led to San Diego Comic Con 2013 where we got to meet Evangeline Lilly and Manu Bennett and to the DOS World Premiere in Hollywood in December where we had a blast chatting with the cast and crew.
People always ask us what it feels like to live a Middle-earth fan’s dream, and the answer is simple: It hasn’t sunk in yet. One year later, it all still feels so blissfully surreal.
We wouldn’t have had this adventure of a lifetime without TheOneRing.net, our viewers, and of course, Peter Jackson, Weta and their team. As Gandalf says in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, “I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.” What was a small act of kindness from Peter Jackson’s team and the cast sent ripples of joy through our lives and by extension, through the lives of the thousands experiencing the adventure alongside us through our videos.
Hannon le.
Happy Hobbit is still going strong and we have many episodes planned for this summer, including our first ever Happy Hobbit movie! While fandom has given us uncountable joys, one of the greatest is building a community with our fellow Tolkien fans and knowing that, even if only for a moment, we have made you smile. I’ve lost track of how many messages we’ve received from people saying that the best cure for a bad mood is to watch Happy Hobbit! Perhaps our fan Ian McDermott summarizes it best:
‘Happy Hobbit’ has become a haven for me, a gentle and caring respite for the jaded, world-weary traveller; a place where good cheer and whimsy rule for no better reason than to bring happiness to others. Hannon le, ladies.
Please note we will also be participating in TORn’s panels at Denver Comic Con throughout the weekend, including the big party Friday night at the Dino hotel (the Best Western Southwest), so keep your eyes peeled for our coverage on Facebook and Twitter! I will also be participating in several writing panels, including one about the making of my book Darkling.
Last year we heard a lot of buzz about a reality show that was designed to appeal to the geek audience and was on the hunt for those everyday folks who loved genre entertainment to compete in a show something like THE AMAZING RACE. Called THE QUEST, TORn helped announce some walk-up casting calls and, maybe, some TORn staffers were considered for parts on the show. Tonight we received this official word (a little a lot late) of what to expect when it gets a preview tonight.
Here is the info we received: “Tonight, as part of the 2-hour Once Upon A Time broadcast, ABC will present its first look at an epic reality competition like none other, The Quest. This mid summer series takes 12 everyday people and puts them in an extraordinary fantasy world to compete to save a kingdom. Please keep your eye out for the first look of this exciting new series from a producing team that includes the Executive Producer of the blockbuster The Lord of the Rings trilogy (Mark Ordesky), the executive producer of the Emmy winning The Amazing Race and the executive producing team behind the groundbreaking Queer Eye.”
BONN — HobbitCon 2, in Bonn, Germany is just hours away from starting with a hotel packed full of special guests, lecturers, and fans from around the world.
The Maritim Hotel in Bonn hosts the entire event, which takes over the whole property for the weekend. A full slate of lectures and presentations are scheduled starting just a few hours from now. All of the 13 dwarves from The Hobbit movies are present save Richard Armitage, who is at WonderCon, James Nesbitt who was scheduled but had to cancel and Aiden Turner. That means Adam Brown, Jed Brophy, John Callen, Ken Stott, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Stephen Hunter, Dean O’Gorman, Graham McTavish and William Kircher are all involved. (That means three trolls are here as well!) The gentlemen were present and were rumored to have been observed hanging around the hotel last night talking together and to each other. Reportedly, 26 countries are represented at the event.
The first HobbitConRichard Taylor and Royd Tolkien were also in the house as was Mark Atkin — Thorin Oakenshiled in scale size. TheOneRing.net has three panels scheduled for the weekend, including one tomorrow evening, speculating on the third film in Peter Jackson’s adaptation. With the entire event scheduled in one place, it gives the whole affair a remarkable, intimate feeling that is a little challenging to explain. Its one of those things where you have to be there.
In fact, European fans can still make that happen, buying tickets by walking up to the hotel. Details can be found RIGHT HERE. TORn would love to see you in person around the hotel and at the first panel at 5 p.m.!
As many of you might have guessed, there were a couple of stories posted today that were a few facts shy of truthfulness, courtesy of your very tricksy TORn staff on the occasion of April Fools Day. Currently, Warner Bros has no plans to move the release date of “The Hobbit: There and Back Again” to July 2015 or any other date, and no, Peter Jackson has not hired Leonard Nimoy to reprise his “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” song for the closing credits. We also had a little fun over on the message boards, highlighted by this post by DanielLB. Turns out there were April Fools jokes all over the inter webs today, and even a few with actual advertising, such as the Cheeteau perfume, that smells like Cheetos. None for me, thank you very much. A quick google search should come up with some of the best, but this reporter rather liked the the PBS report on Dolphins shooting rainbows out of their beaks, or Westjet converting to Metric time and giving you a mathematical equation to figure out the time conversion. So if you were scratching your head, wondering if something we said was true or not, rest assured that the two stories mentioned above were not true, but the interview with Luke Evans and the spoiler analysis from Cinemacon were true. And if you would like a walk down memory lane to April Fools past, you can find them on the TORn Mathom-house Wiki.
And for anyone wondering why Garfield the Cat is being used here, the answer lies in my nickname.
Elijah Wood will be appearing at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) to debut his latest film, Set Fire to the Stars.
