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Tag: Tolkien

  • “Battle of the Five Armies” is This Year’s Hobbit Movie

    Fans of Peter Jackson‘s Lord of the Rings movies have been enjoying a trip back to Middle Earth through cinema for the past two years. Jackson’s latest trilogy, based on Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit, has dominated the box office during the last two Christmas movie seasons.

    This year fans were expecting a grand finale with a third movie subtitled There and Back Again – a reference to the subtitle of the original novel. Now, though, expectations for the film have been shifted slightly by a significant name change.

    Peter Jackson announced this week that the third movie in The Hobbit trilogy will be titled The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Jackson stated that the change was made because There and Back Again was the title of the final movie when only two Hobbit movies were planned. With the inclusion of last year’s The Desolation of Smaug, the third movie simply doesn’t fit the original title anymore.

    Jackson did state that There and Back Again might be used on a future The Hobbit trilogy box set release. The director is currently in the process of editing The Battle of the Five Armies as well as an extended cut of The Desolation of Smaug.

    All of this was explained in detail by Jackson through a post on his Facebook page:

    Post by Peter Jackson.

    The Battle of the Five Armies is set to release in the U.S. on December 17, 2014, when fans can expect humans, goblins, wargs, elves, dwarves, eagles, and orcs to join in a climactic battle over the Lonely Mountain’s riches. Though the titular battle encompasses only a small portion of the original novel, the movie will undoubtedly present the event with all the action-packed grandeur Jackson became known for through the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

    In the meantime, fans can ease their wait with the many well-produced The Hobbit production videos released by Warner Bros.

    Image via Facebook

  • ‘LEGO The Hobbit’ Previewd in New Trailer

    ‘LEGO The Hobbit’ Previewd in New Trailer

    Last month TT games surprised nobody by announcing LEGO The Hobbit. Similar to LEGO Lord of the Rings, LEGO The Hobbit will allow players to explore Tolkien’s Middle-Earth as envisioned by Peter Jackson in The Hobbit: And Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The third Hobbit movie will almost certainly get its own LEGO game adaptation.

    Players will take on the role of a young Bilbo Baggins and dozens of other Hobbit characters, including all of the dwarves and Gandalf himself.

    The game will be coming to nearly every video game platform, including PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PS Vita, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U, 3DS, and PC. The content and graphics will, of course, vary from platform to platform, and it isn’t out of the question that LEGO The Hobbit will one day make its way to mobile platforms, as LEGO Lord of the Rings has for iOS.

    Warner Bros. and TT Games today released the first trailer for LEGO The Hobbit. Unsurprisingly, the game heavily resembled the Hobbit movies and uses much of the same dialogue and sound effects. This is augmented by the added silliness that has always been part of the charm of the LEGO video games:

  • Evangeline Lilly Hits the Red Carpet for The Hobbit

    Evangeline Lilly, along with fellow Hobbit actors Martin Freeman and Orlando Bloom, hit the red carpet in Los Angeles last night for the world premiere of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The second installment of The Hobbit series hits the theaters on December 13.

    Lilly plays Elf warrior Tauriel in the new film and gives Legolas (Orlando Bloom) a run for his money as far as skills with the bow and arrow go. Lilly’s character didn’t appear in the book, but was instead created by director Peter Jackson to bring in another female to a mostly male cast.

    Since there isn’t a lot known about Lilly’s character, thanks to the character not previously existing in Tolkien lore, Lilly provided the following description of Tauriel. “Tauriel is the head of the Elven Guard. She’s a Sylvan Elf, which means she’s of a much lower order than the elves we all became acquainted with in The Lord of the Rings,” Lilly said. “She doesn’t hold the same kind of status that Arwen or Galadriel or Elrond or Legolas do–she’s much more lowly. She sort of goes against the social order of the elves a little bit.”

    While a lot of fans are hoping to see a little on-screen romance between Lilly and Bloom, Lilly isn’t giving away any details, but does describe Tauriel and Legolas’s relationship as “significant.” At any rate, from the poster one user shared on Twitter, it looks like the pair will at least woo the audiences with their butt-kicking abilities, even if nothing romantic pans out.

    Despite the fact that Tauriel is a newbie as far as the other character are concerned, some people are certainly embracing the Elf and Lilly was even featured in a stamp series for The Hobbit in New Zealand, where the movies were filmed. “I’m on a stamp and coin from Middle-earth. It doesn’t get much cooler than that,” Lilly said. “I have so much love for New Zealand and so I’m honored that she is showing me such love.”

    Check out the trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug below.

    [Image via YouTube]

  • Google’s New Chrome Experiment is ‘Hobbit’-Branded

    Throughout the past two years, Google has been releasing its “Chrome Experiments” showcasing what its web browser and HTML 5 are capable of. Past experiments have included a variety of topics and games, including star charts, skee ball, and multiplayer air hockey.

    Today Google revealed its latest Chrome Experiment, a partnership with Warner Bros. for a look at Tolkien’s Middle-earth from the perspective of the new Hobbit movies. The experiment puts players in an overhead view of Middle-earth, with different locations from the Hobbit movies highlighted. Clicking one of these locations brings up an interactive overview of the site and characters related to it that can be navigated horizontally using the mouse. One and two second clips from the first Hobbit movie slide by in motion-comic style while narration is read by Gandalf the Grey.

    Compared to past Chrome Experiments, this “Journey Through Middle-Earth” is relatively simplistic. However, it could provide a basic overview of key locations from the first Hobbit movie for those who need a refresher.

    There are a few things missing, however. The Shire is inexplicably missing as a location for more in-depth examination. In fact, there are currently only three locations available for a more in-depth look: the Trollshaw Forrest, Rivendell, and Dol Guldur. Three other locations surrounding the Lonely Mountain (Lake Town, Thranduil’s Hall, and the Lonely Mountain itself) are also shown on the map but are currently locked. It’s safe to assume that these locations, which will feature heavily in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, will be unlocked in the lead-up to or after the release of the new movie.

  • ‘The Hobbit’ Trailer Recreated With LEGOs

    Back in June, the long-expected trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was finally released. The preview gave Tolkien fans their first glimpse of the dragon Smaug, voiced in this adaptation by Benedict Cumberbatch.

    This week, the dedicated artists of the Brotherhood Workshop have re-created the entire trailer using only animated LEGOs. The artists claim that the project took two months and “countless” man-hours to complete. Even the teaser phrase cut-aways and title from the trailer were painstakingly spelled out in LEGO.

    The Brotherhood Workshop has also provided a side-by-side comparison of their animation and the original Hobbit trailer. It shows exactly how precise and detailed they were in their recreation:

    The entire project, from start to finish, has been chronicled on the Brotherhood Workshop’s Facebook page. The page states that the group is simply a few “quirky artists who love to be creative” and who dream of someday creating movies. The group has created LEGO animations in the past, many of them also Tolkien-related. In addition to a humorous take on the Battle of Helm’s deep, the group has also parodied the Harry Potter movies.