Category: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Today brought us Pre-View Night at Comic-Con 2017 and our friends at Weta Workshop came with some absolutely amazing new items. Some of them you can pre-order right now for shipping later this year and one item that is an amazing preview. Grond is an item we’ve gotten a chance to see at various cons and now we finally get a chance to order this awesome piece. Fans can order Grond right now for $749 and with an edition size of only 500 pieces this will not last long. This next piece is another on the list of items we have been asking Weta for, it is the Mouth of Sauron. The Mouth of Sauron comes to us on his horse covered in that awesome armor all while holding Frodo’s Mithril Shirt. Coming in with a price tag of $699 and an edition size of 750 pieces this is another item that is sure to not last long.
As you know we currently have an amazing contest going for a signed entire set of Weta Workshop’s 1:30 Dol Guldur scene. Going up for Pre-Order today is the South Courtyard area, which will be limited to only 500 pieces. This fantastic piece captures the broken down, thorny vine, creepy feel that we saw the Dol Guldur sequence during The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Not only does it do that but this gives you the freedom to create “what if” this happened during that sequence in the film when other pieces from the 1:30 range are added. The newest Dol Guldur piece comes in with a price tag of $99 and will be shipping in August of 2017.
One of the new items introduced at last year’s Comic-Con was the 1:30 range of collectibles where fans can recreate scenes from both of Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth trilogies. The first set to start things off is the recreation of the scene from Dol Guldur during The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Besides how well it is done, the beauty of this set is that fans can moves things around to create their own version of the events.
One of my favorite subsection of statues within the whole Middle-earth statue line from our friends at Weta Workshop is the rider line. This line obviously includes statues that involve someone riding a creature from Middle-earth. There are things like Legolas/Gimli on Arod to Gothmog on Warg. The Hobbit line of course has the amazing and large Azog on Warg, but not anyone from the good guy/gal side of things. That is until Dain IronFoot on War Boar showed up during Comic-Con 2015. Dain was a 800 piece statue and came in at a price tag of $499, which is now sold out from Weta. However you can still get this guy on the secondary market if you’re really hoping to add this to your collection. Continue reading “Collecting The Precious – Weta Workshop’s Dain IronFoot on War Boar Review”
One of the things I love the most in my collection are all the behind the scene books, art books, making of type books. It’s so much fun getting a chance to see the process of how these fantastic films were brought to life. Our friends at Weta have a brand new book that fits this genre of book with the Middle-earth: From Script to Screen. This 512 page book covers the world building Sir Peter Jackson and the crew at Weta did to build what we saw in both The Lord of the Rings Trilogy as well as The Hobbit Trilogy. Written by Daniel Falconer with assistance by our own Happy Hobbit Kili (done under her pen name KM Rice) this richly illustrated with thousands of film frames, concept art and behind-the-scenes imagery, many previously unseen, Middle-earth: From Script to Screen follows in the footsteps of the Fellowship of the Ring and the Company of Thorin Oakenshield, visiting the realms and landscapes of Middle-earth and uncovering their secrets. You can Pre-Order this fantastic book right now for $75, and if you do so straight from Weta you will receive a set of exclusive prop replica set dressings by 3Foot7 Calligrapher Daniel Reeve.
Almost three weeks ago we began our battles in this year’s Middle-earth March Madness. Each year, we try to mix things up a bit by creating different brackets; this year the categories were Books Only,Movies Only, Wider Mythos and Movie and Book, giving us four sets of varied characters from Tolkien’s realm. We also let previous champions Gandalf, Galadriel, Samwise Gamgee and Thranduil sit it out in a ‘Champion’s Hall of Fame’ – so we knew we’d have a first time victor this year.
Before we announce the overall winner, let’s look back over the five rounds which led up to the Final:
In Movies Only, the Moth Messengers made their first appearance, but were quickly squashed under the trotters of Dain’s Boar. Sebastian the Hedgehog, however, in a blow for small mammals everywhere, vanquished the Goblin Scribe; and there were brief hopes that he might make his way onwards to win the group. Alas, in Round 2 he came up against Tauriel, and he was no match for the elf warrior.
Figwit unruffled as ever
Alfrid Lickspittle, to the relief of many, was hastily dispatched by Figwit; the immaculate elf cruised through to the Sweet Sixteen Round 3, only to be defeated there by mighty stallion Brego. This fiercesome mount was the overall victor of the Movies Only group, having beaten Tauriel in the Elite Eight round.
Brego faced the winner of the Books Only section; a tough group, featuring such legends as Goldberry, Glorfindel, Elrohir, the Barrow-wights and Quickbeam. Small wonder that Fatties Bolger and Lumpkin were unable to get past Round One! In Round Three we had the first awkward pairing of the tournament, when Tom Bombadil had to take on his wife, Goldberry. Perhaps he overcame her, or perhaps she graciously allowed him to win; either way, it was the creature in yellow boots who went on to secure the division.
Not surprisingly, some of the most popular figures appeared in the Movie and Book bracket. Here the likes of Bilbo, Pippin, Faramir and Boromir had to battle Merry, Thorin, Aragorn and other heroes. Even the villains had tough match-ups, with Smaug facing the Witch-king and Sauron up against Shelob – and these were all just first round fights! By the Sweet Sixteen, Sauron was the only bad guy still in the mix – but Elrond did what he could not at the end of the Second Age, and vanquished the Necromancer; only to fall to the section winner, Aragorn, in the Elite Eight.
That fourth round also saw our second difficult ‘lovers’ tiff’, with Beren coming up against Luthien in the Wider Mythos division. Their journey to that point had seen them conquer such worthy opponents as Feanor, Earendil, Glaurung and Varda. Even Morgoth and Eru himself couldn’t make it past Round Two! In the Elite Eight match-up, mortal man Beren was no test for his elf spouse; she won their battle with an overwhelming more than 70% of the vote, making her winner of the Wider Mythos section.
In the Semi Finals, Luthien wasn’t able to defeat another devotee of elf-maidens; she was conquered by the Ranger from the North. The other Final Four battle brought disappointment for those of us hoping for a Brego vs Aragorn final; Tom Bombadil beat the steed, taking almost two thirds of the vote.
And so Aragorn was in to his second Middle-earth March Madness final, facing a somewhat unknown quantity in the strange and ancient creature from the Old Forest. The 2200+ votes have been counted, and the winner is…
Today brought us Pre-View Night at Comic-Con 2017 and our friends at Weta Workshop came with some absolutely amazing new items. Some of them you can pre-order right now for shipping later this year and one item that is an amazing preview. Grond is an item we’ve gotten a chance to see at various cons and now we finally get a chance to order this awesome piece. Fans can order Grond right now for $749 and with an edition size of only 500 pieces this will not last long. This next piece is another on the list of items we have been asking Weta for, it is the Mouth of Sauron. The Mouth of Sauron comes to us on his horse covered in that awesome armor all while holding Frodo’s Mithril Shirt. Coming in with a price tag of $699 and an edition size of 750 pieces this is another item that is sure to not last long.
