In what is possibly of the biggest boilovers imaginable, Middle-earth March Madness for 2014 has come down to a father-son battle for the title honours!
That’s right: it’s a Thranduil vs Legolas final.
After a very slow semi-final start, Thranduil clawed his way back through the field to eventually topple Aragorn out of the contest, while Legolas and Thorin waged a neck-and-neck battle for quite some time before the former pulled away in the vote.
Continue reading “Father vs Son! The Middle-earth March Madness Final is set! Thranduil vs. Legolas!”
We didn’t see a lot of Mikael Persbrandt’s Beorn in the end in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and arguably he remained all the more intriguing for it.
Here, Persbrandt chats extensively with AB Svensk Filmindustris about the big skinchanger. A choice quote where he talks about the vocal effects:
When it comes to portraying something that big — he is like, Beorn is, like, three-and-a-half metres long or something. Four metres, maybe. His lungs are like 18 litres [in capacity]. So what they do — they run it through programs I think. I have quite a deep voice myself, but they still they enchanted it a little bit.
Continue reading “Mikael Persbrandt talks about Beorn”
The Final Four are set! And in a stunning turn of events, Middle-earth has gone ‘Hot!’ In an unexpected twist of fate, the final four combatants are arguably the most swoon-worthy group of Middle-earth combatants ever.
First up, we have Thranduil facing off against Aragorn. Some staff are already dubbing this match-up as ‘Team Sparkle’ (Thranduil) vs. ‘Team Stubble’ (Aragorn).
And with Legolas dispatching Gandalf in the Elite Eight, we now have a Hobbit (film) showdown of epic proportions – Legolas vs. Thorin Oakenshield.
Will this be the first year we have an all Elven final? Can Aragorn finally put Team Sparkle out of the competition? Will the Richard Armitage Army dispatch Legolas? All is up in the air as the final four voting has begun!
Voting will last until 10pm ET on April 5th in this round. So let the Middle-earth March Madness continue! Happy Voting!
Continue reading “Vote in the Middle-earth March Madness Final Four! Some like it ‘Hot!’”
This piece by Simon J. Cook does happen to mirror some of my own thoughts on the place and benefit of any re-imagining of Tolkien’s vision of Middle-earth within the world.
Still, as much as Tolkien’s letter to Waldman (Letter #131) opens Middle-earth to new perspectives, and vivid reinterpretations, I believe it’s equally important to acknowledge the flipside: missives sent to Allen & Unwin (Letter #188) and Forest J Ackerman (Letter #210) show Tolkien also cared deeply about what others did with his works.
I think it’s a balancing act that will never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
Continue reading “In praise of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit”
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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.
It’s confirmed. It is most certainly not Enya. Instead, Leonard Nimoy, the world-famous actor who is perhaps best-known for his portrayal of Mr. Spock in Star Trek, will perform the end credits song for The Hobbit: There and Back Again.
The final film in The Hobbit trilogy might still be more than six months away, however we now know for certain that Nimoy will perform his cult song The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins over the film’s end credits.
This was an April Fool gag, and is not a true story. It is false, and all details have been invented. We hope that everyone enjoyed the joke.
While in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, women (Enya, Emilíana Torrini and Annie Lennox) performed each of the credits songs, Peter Jackson continues to employ male voices for The Hobbit. For An Unexpected Journey, the credits song was sung by Kiwi musician Neil Finn; on The Desolation of Smaug, it was the British singer Ed Sheeran. Now There and Back Again, will feature none other than Nimoy himself performing The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. Continue reading “Leonard Nimoy confirmed to perform end credits song for The Hobbit: There and Back Again”
In what is possibly of the biggest boilovers imaginable, Middle-earth March Madness for 2014 has come down to a father-son battle for the title honours!
