RA B&WWith the Home Video release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (which becomes available this week in Australia, Brazil and parts of Europe), Richard Armitage has been busy giving interviews, as we’ve been posting over the past week or so. He found time to sit down again with staffer greendragon, and they chatted about finding Thorin’s voice one last time, what he’s working on now, and what it was like to fill (literally!) those mighty dwarven boots… Here’s what he had to say:

Continue reading “EXCLUSIVE – Richard Armitage chats with TheOneRing.net”

DofS blurayWith the release this past Tuesday of the Blu-ray and DVD Editions of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, there was a bit of confusion concerning several video advertisements and the bonus material on the discs.

The videos embedded below – “Beorn the Shapeshifter” and “Laketown – Entering the World of Men”, as well as a “Giant Mirkwood Spiders” video on the L.A. Times website – contained snippets of behind the scenes video and interviews that many could not find of the discs.

Warner Brothers has now informed us that these are promotional pieces created to promote the release, and do not include material from the discs themselves.

The Bonus disc on both the Blu-ray and Special Edition DVD releases do, however, contain the following content:

– Peter Jackson Invites You to the Set (In the Company of The Hobbit & All in a Day’s Work) ~ 41 minutes
– Production Videos ~ 37 minutes
– Live Event: In the Cutting Room ~ 38 minutes
– New Zealand: Home of Middle-earth, Part 2 ~ 7 minutes
– Trailers & Previews ~ 12 minutes
– Music Video “I See Fire” by Ed Sheeran ~ 6 minutes

 

RichardArmitageDigitalSpyInterview01 Richard Armitage is really doing the rounds pressing the flesh lately and chatting with journos. Here’s another interview, this time with Joe.ie.

A couple of interesting quotes:

If you look at the detail on the Lake-town set (in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug) some of the glasses have specific carvings into the glass and the cutlery –- it’s astonishing and the camera sees it all.

…even the title, the Battle Of The Five Armies, suggests something that is going to be pretty epic. When I saw the model of the battle ground, which was in a little secret room that you could sneak into and take a look at, something made me realise that Tolkien’s description of that battle is quite limited to where Peter has expanded it to.

Continue reading “Armitage talks Hobbit, the Battle of the Five Armies, Into The Storm, Schwarzenegger and more”

memadness2014-champion-fb The results are in! After three weeks of intense competition we can finally crown a winner! In the end, Thranduil — the Sindarin king of the Woodland Realm — has taken the crown in our 2014 Middle-earth March Madness contest!

We received more than 20,000 votes in the final, and Thranduil (Thrandy to his nearest and dearest?) soundly defeated his worthy opponent Legolas (aka Leggy) with 64.18% of those votes! I guess it is good to be king!

We’d like to thank you all for participating in this year’s event and hope you had a fun time discussing the finer points of your favourite Middle-earth characters and objects, regardless of whether you viewed the contests as a physical battle, a game of wits, or a popularity contest (all valid ways to vote!). It’s also a neat way to explore what makes these characters such interesting and vital parts of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Continue reading “Congratulations to our 2014 Middle-earth March Madness champion: Thranduil!”

DoSThorin01 Chairman Tobias M. Eckrich of the German Tolkien Society (Deutsche Tolkien Gesellschaft) recently chatted with Richard Armitage about his time on the Hobbit set. What he says about the Erebor interior scenes in the confrontation with Smaug being shot inside nothing but a great green box is interesting — one wonders whether a theatre background helps with the adjustment to such an absence of visual cues.

Don’t forget to follow the link at the bottom for the complete interview. You can find the English transcript immediately below the German translation.

Continue reading “Richard Armitage chats with the German Tolkien Society”

If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share, then send it to poetry@theonering.net. One poem per person may be submitted each month. Please make sure to proofread your work before sending it in. TheOneRing.net is not responsible for poems posting with spelling or grammatical errors.

1012875_10151734987468078_5989034310269212298_n Follow Mashable today on Snapchat for an epic themed Hobbit adventure through New York City to coincide with the release of the DVD and Blu-ray for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Keep an eye out for TORn staffer ImladrisRose who may make a surprise appearance during the hunt.

You should be able to follow their journey on Twitter with the hashtag #thehobbit, Tumblr and Facebook.