The annual tradition of determining who won or lost at San Diego Comic-Con is in full swing across the blogosphere. The all-volunteer staff of TheOneRing.net (who always attend on their own accord and dime) experienced all the booths, panels and exclusive lines at SDCC 2014.

After taking it all in, here are just a few reasons we think 2014 SDCC belonged to The Hobbit. Continue reading “The Hobbit totally won San Diego Comic-Con. Here are just eight reasons why.”

Many thanks to Ringer Piet for bringing this video of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Panel to our attention.  Before you get your hopes too high, the teaser trailer has been excised from the video, so it only shows the Panel, but it’s still worth watching for that.  Meanwhile we’ll all keep hoping they’ll release the trailer online soon.

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Poster OnlineDirector Jonathan King’s new film Realiti, featuring Graham McTavish among the cast, will have its world premiere in Wellington on July 31st, with further screenings there and in Auckland in early August. Written by Chad Taylor, the film was made whilst McTavish was also busy with pickups for a certain trilogy; the director says:

“The Hobbit’s Graham McTavish plays a featured (non prosthetic  – or kilt!) role in the film, and he’s really great in it: a different tone to his fantasy-related work, but a part that really suits his authority and charisma. Graham worked on the film at the same time as he was shooting The Hobbit here and it was a thrill for us how much attention he gave to our small film at the same time as he was involved in such a big one! I think it will be great for fans to see Graham in a different kind of role.”

Continue reading “Film ‘REALITi’ with Graham McTavish to screen at Auckland and Wellington film festivals”

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Fantasy-Con’s official mascot!
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These dwarves aren’t afraid of Smaug!

The first annual FantasyCon was an amazing weekend! Tens of thousands of fans from around the country and many actors from around the world traveled to beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah for an engagingly fun weekend of group panels, signings, photo ops and fireside chats. Here is a recap of some of the fun from several TheOneRing.net staff members who made the journey there.

Elijah Wood Hosts Kickoff Party

Starting off the week was an amazing dance night hosted by Frodo himself DJ ElWood!

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Elijah Wood is on the right in the center of the stage. Frodo has some groovy tunes!
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Official Fantasy-Con photographers got better shots than we did 😉

Middle-earth Kick-Off!

To start FantasyCon with a celebrity blast, an all-star group of Tolkien guests took the stage including:

  • Sean Astin (Samwise)
  • Adam Brown (Ori)
  • Billy Boyd (Pippin)
  • Jed Brophy (Nori)
  • John Callen (Óin)
  • Peter Hambleton (Glóin)
  • William Kircher (Bifur)
  • Sylvester McCoy (Radagast)
  • Graham McTavish (Dwalin)
  • Mark Ordesky (Executive Producer LOTR)
  • John Rhys-Davies (Gimli)
  • Ken Stott (Balin)
  • author Doug Adams (‘The Music of The Lord of the Rings’)
  • artist Donato Giancola
  • Badali Jewelry
  • …and the staff of TheOneRing.net!

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Continue reading “FantasyCon 2014 Full Recap!”

sdcc-logoIt is now just a little over 2 weeks from the start of San Diego Comic Con International, the biggest and most talked about Scifi/Fantasy convention on the geek calendar. We at TheOneRing.net have been busily planning for an epic week of Hobbity goodness to share with all of you, attendee and stay-at-home fans alike. This is your handy dandy little guide to when and where you can find us throughout the convention.

This year we will only be at one location on the Exhibit Hall floor, sharing space at the WETA booth #3613. We won’t have a huge amount of room in this booth, but then that is because WETA is pulling out all the stops for the final Hobbit film and ‘Bringing It’. You will want to make Booth #3613 a ‘must see’ location, even your non-Tolkien fan friends will want to visit WETA. So stop by the booth, say hello to TORn and WETA folks alike, buy some stuff, have your camera ready and enjoy the geekiness of all things Hobbit.

The full SDCC panel schedule will officially be announced beginning this Thursday, but here is advance notice of when our panel will take place.

An Unofficial look at the final Middle-Earth Film “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” Thursday, 7/24/14, 5:00p.m. – 6:00p.m., Room: Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront

The Hilton Bayfront is next to the Convention Center down near Hall H, and the Indigo Ballroom is probably the biggest room we have yet had at SDCC, so don’t be late and risk missing our sneak peek at the final film in the series.

Edited to Add 7/8/14:  Warner Bros. has announced their slate of films for SDCC and The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies will be among them. Their panel will be at 10am on Saturday, July 26 in Hall H. Peter Jackson was confirmed to be attending, and will be joined by Director George Miller with Mad Max Fury Road. Also mentioned was Jupiter Ascending and there will be a sneak peek screening of Richard Armitage’s Into the Storm on Wednesday, July 23 at 10pm at the Reading Gaslamp Theater, but no word yet on how to snag tickets for that. 

Throughout the weekend TORn staffers will be tweeting, posting pics and videos to Facebook, posting stories here, live streaming, and giving you as much Hobbit news as we possibly can. This will include some of the new projects the actors are working on that are also at SDCC, such as “The Strain” with Sean Astin, “Legends” with Sean Bean and “Outlander” starring Graham McTavish. See the video below for a message from Graham regarding SDCC:

Graham McTavish has confirmed he will be at SDCC, so consider this your official invite to our Laketown Luau on Friday night, beginning at 7pm at the Kona Kai resort on Shelter Island. The SDCC website has finally posted the shuttle routes and we can now announce that the Kona Kai is on the Teal shuttle route. You can find the shuttle schedule here and remember to click on the PDF link at the bottom for the map of the hotels and route information. The Teal route is set to take about 30 minutes to get you between the convention center and the hotel, but if you have a car, the distance is only 6 miles away.  Lake-town Luau

You can only attend the Laketown Luau by purchasing a ticket at our Eventbrite page. With loads of games and a relaxed, outdoor environment, this will be a family friendly party, so bring the kids.

We will update this post or make a new one as soon as we have confirmation of what Warner Bros. might be doing for film previews, including “The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies” and whether PJ will put in an appearance. Same goes for confirmation on other film projects, such as Richard Armitage’s ‘Into the Storm” and Luke Evans’ “Dracula Untold”. We already know Outlander will have a premiere event during SDCC.