The day has finally come and gone when many of you were lucky enough to view The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies in theaters. TORn’s facebook page, the discussion boards and Barli’s chat are all buzzing with excited observations! Many of our staffers saw it too and, as it TORn tradition, we’ll be featuring their comments and insights here, as well as a spoilery picture or two. Speaking of spoilers, they abound in the rest of this article, so read no further if you haven’t seen the EE yet and don’t want to be spoiled until you do!
SPOILER ALERT!!
Continue reading “TORn Staff Reviews the BoTFA EE”
It’s already a week since DragonCon 2015 came to an end – and we’ve just about had time to draw breath and catch up on sleep! For any of you who haven’t had the chance to attend DragonCon, it’s one long party from Thursday night (although some would say that Wednesday is the new Thursday) to Monday evening. TORn staffers did their best to keep up with it all!
We had our usual ‘fan table’ spot in the Hyatt hotel, where we sold t-shirts, buttons, lanyards and hoodies (from our good friends at LoTH Hoodies) and enjoyed catching up with fellow fans. There are folks whom we see every year at DragonCon, and it’s always lovely to see familiar faces, as people stop by to say hello.
Continue reading “DragonCon 2015 Wrap Up”
DragonCon is in full swing down here in Atlanta – and TheOneRing.net is in the thick of it! Staffers deej and greendragon are hard at work running our fan table – come by and say hello! We’re in the Hyatt opposite the entrance to the art show. We have new buttons for sale, with some fabulous artwork by our own staffer Mithril. We also have shirts, lanyards and hoodies for sale, and prizes to be won!
Staffer MrCere, meanwhile, is very busy running the convention’s Tolkien Track. Their track room can be found in the Marriott, rooms L401-403 – lots of great panels to be heard in there. TORn will be giving a panel today (Saturday) at 2.30pm, in Hilton Grand Ballroom East, looking forward to what we might see in the soon to be released Extended Edition, and to what else is in the works for Tolkien fans; then tomorrow at the same time, 2.30pm, in Marriott L401-403, we’ll be looking back over the amazing journey we’ve all been on, through Peter Jackson’s movies and the fanbase which has grown up around them.
Last night the track hosted the annual ‘Evening at Bree’, organized by greendragon. Our good friends Emerald Rose raised the roof and got everyone up and dancing. The lovely Stephen Hunter was a fabulous MC of the costume contest, which as ever was full of incredible entries – thanks to our judges, who had the very difficult task of picking winners! And cast members Dean O’Gorman, Peter Hambleton and Sylvester McCoy came by to say hello to the fans. At the start of the evening we took a moment to remember artist Jeff Murray and fellow fan Melissa Kern, who sailed into the West this year; it was wonderful to feel the love in the room and to know that this is a community which cares about and for one another.
And finally – tonight staffer deej is living up to her name and DJing the ‘Middle-earth goes 90s’ dance party, 10pm in Marriott A601-602. Can’t wait to see the amazing 90s costumes folks will have dreamed up – Ringers are such creative folks!
It’s all happening! Looking forward to seeing some of you over the weekend; and we’ll have pictures to share afterwards, for those of you who can’t be here.
After weeks of rumors (and some nail biting), it’s official! The DVD and Blu-ray editions of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, will be available on Tuesday, November 17. Those who prefer a digital copy can own it four weeks earlier, on Tuesday, October 17. The official press release follows:
THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES
EXTENDED EDITION
A PRODUCTION OF NEW LINE CINEMA AND
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER PICTURES, THE FINAL FILM IN THE EPIC THE HOBBIT TRILOGY, ARRIVES ON BLU-RAY™, DVD AND DIGITAL HD FROM WARNER BROS. HOME ENTERTAINMENT GROUP
BLU-RAY™ and DVD ARRIVE ON NOVEMBER 17
OWN IT EARLY ON DIGITAL HD ON OCTOBER 20
EXTENDED EDITION FEATURES A 20-MINUTE LONGER CUT AND
MORE THAN NINE HOURS OF NEW SPECIAL FEATURES
The Hobbit Trilogy Extended Edition Also Available on
Blu-ray 3D™, Blu-ray™, DVD and Digital HD
Burbank, CA, August 25, 2015 – The adventures of Bilbo Baggins come to an epic conclusion when “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” from Academy Award®-winning* filmmaker Peter Jackson, is released as an Extended Edition on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. A production of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM), the extended cut of the final film in The Hobbit Trilogy includes 20 minutes of extra footage and more than 9 hours of bonus features that will complete every Hobbit fan’s collection. The film, the third in a trilogy of films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on November 17 and will be available early on Digital HD on October 20.
Continue reading “Battle of the Five Armies EE DVD available November 17!”
HobbitCon 3 took place just a couple weeks ago in Germany and our friends at Henneth-Annun were on-hand to get the low-down.
They’ve compiled an extensive English-language report on the three-day convention, as well as many quotes from Q&A panels featuring Luke Evans, Graham McTavish, Sylvester McCoy, Lawrence Makaore, John Bell and more.
Don’t forget to click the link at the bottom to read the complete report.
Enjoy!
HobbitCon 3: third time’s a charm!
by Peter “TheHutt” Klassen
I do remember the very first HobbitCon. When FedCon GmbH, the organizing company, announced a new convention during the RingCon 2012 dedicated exclusively to “The Hobbit”, with the participation of 11 dwarves from Thorin’s Company (although two of them cancelled later), I didn’t know what to think about it. That was even before the first movie from PJ’s second trilogy was released, and the dwarf actors were only known to us from the director’s video blogs. And in fact, the first HobbitCon proved to be a commercial failure, though it had a very pleasant and homely atmosphere.
Luckily, the organizers didn’t give up, and the second HobbitCon fared much better than the first one. And now, after the third HobbitCon (christened by Mark Ferguson “HobbitCon DREI”, which is German for “three”) has passed, you can really tell that there was barely room to swing a cat. If the first HobbitCon had just 800 visitors during the weekend, the third one had 5500 guests from over 27 countries! The Maritim hotel in Bonn was bursting, and the amount of Fili & Kili cosplay couples was staggering.
Speaking objectively, the HobbitCon is a unique event in the whole world. International conventions usually work with several mixed genres, there are many different fandoms present at a convention, with each fandom represented by just one or two actors. These are giant commercial vehicles, with an airplane hangar-like atmosphere. The HobbitCon is very different. You do not need to stay in a line overnight to get into a Q&A panel hall. You can be partying in a bar and suddenly find yourself on the dance floor together with Graham McTavish, Jed Brophy or even Luke Evans. Of course it is not for free – but still, three days of positive emotions, homely atmosphere and the feeling that the movie actors have become your friends, are worth it.
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The winners of last month’s Hobbit Fan Contest that got to go to New Zealand and watch an in-progress cut of “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” and experience the beautiful scenes of the north and south islands and the hospitality of Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand, won their spots by producing short films.
As reports from the experience suggest, there was a great bonding of the 75 winners and their guests during the week-long tour of Middle-earth. These bonds are on display in a “thank you” video that the group organized to give to Peter Jackson and all the many folks who helped make the trip amazing. There is even a nod to TheOneRing.net which honestly touches us.
Turns out that crew can make a pretty great video with parts from all around the world. Their sincerity and appreciation really comes through and will make all fans proud. Enjoy! #HobbitFanContest
The day has finally come and gone when many of you were lucky enough to view The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies in theaters. TORn’s facebook page, the discussion boards and Barli’s chat are all buzzing with excited observations! Many of our staffers saw it too and, as it TORn tradition, we’ll be featuring their comments and insights here, as well as a spoilery picture or two. Speaking of spoilers, they abound in the rest of this article, so read no further if you haven’t seen the EE yet and don’t want to be spoiled until you do!
