TheOneRing.net was recently invited to St. Lawrence University where Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) was their special invited guest and attended his gallery opening and poetry reading. View the latest chapter of TORN Digital: Where TheOneRing.net meets video direct to your desktop! [More]

The latest newsletter is ready to go! Do you want to receive our free weekly newsletter? Packed with tons of info to keep you up to date on the latest? Plus filled with exclusives from time to time! Join the crowd of over 14 800 mailing list members! Sign up now! [More]

Each week, I scour Ebay looking for the hot Tolkien items up for sale. I post the most interesting here for you to bid on! [More]

Here is another chance to catch your favorite LOTR star on the small screen this week! Of Note to catch is Karl Urban (Eomer) in the romantic comedy 'The Price of Milk' (directed by none other than Harry Sinclair (Isildur) himself!). 'The Price of Milk' airs on the 'WOMEN Channel' Friday, Mar 21 at 6:55AM. And of course be sure to catch the 75 Annual Academy Awards this Sunday March 23rd! [More]

CAhobbit writes: I just wanted to share my wonderful day. Today in Hollywood I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Andy Serkis. He was doing a book signing for the newly released book: The Art of the Two Towers, in which he wrote the afterword. [More]

The flicker of distant fire danced on the horizon of the plains of Rohan as the Royal Guard moved at a quickened pace. Theodar, Captain of the Guard rushes to the defense of a Rohirrim family under attack by Saruman's forces. With his eldest son Theodur at his side, he and the Rohan Royal Guard rush to their rescue. Will the Holstrom Family survive the assault of the Dunlending onslaught? That is left to fate! [More] [Gaming Havens]

Brad Dourif (Wormtongue) will once again head down to Atlanta and attend DragonCon! Take a look. [More]

Sarah writes: You can vote for who you think the oscars should go to at pulse24.com, they only have one category with lotr (best picture), it is in second place at 33% behind chicago with 39%. [More]

The folks at opdebeeck.com create caricatures of all types of celebs. Take a look at their latest creation...PJ! [More]

From the folks at tednasmith.com: Ted Nasmith magnificent and visionary Tolkien artist is due to appear at two events next month. [More]

Take a look at who comes a callin' in the defence of the art of bow and arrow fighting! [More]

Scott writes: I picked up a talking Gollum figure at Frank & Son's collectable show (every Wednesday & Saturday in the city of Industry, California) this afternoon. [More]

Andy writes: On SNL today during the Weekend Update Gollum (Chris Kattan) appeared holding a stolen Oscar and repeating "My precious". He then went into a TTT-like delerium, where Smeagol would speak, and then Gollum would counter it. For example, Smeagol would say "Julianne Moore for Best Actress!", then Gollum would reply "Julianne Moore for Best Supporting Actress!" The audience loved every minute of it!

Rick P writes: Detroit Free Press will have an article on LOTR-related travel to New Zealand in next Sunday’s travel section.

KurlyQ writes: You can vote for Elijah Wood as 'Favorite Male Butt-Kicker' at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. [More]

Billy Boyd sure is busy on his Sniper 470 tour of Canada! He gave this interview the other day for the Edmonton Journal. Thanks to Ringer Fan Kristen for the link. [More]

Our friends at TORn community site Gwaith-i-Phethdain have a little snippet from Howard Shore about the use of chorals in his soundtracks in answer to a question posed to him at one of his London concerts last month. Shore said: "Well, the lyrics are actually either from the book or written by Phillipa Boyens. They were translated by David Salo. But I only used little fragments, seldom whole lines, because I needed to fit the lyrics to the music. It's easier that way, and actually it wouldn't work in the film to use them in their complete form." Thanks to Ringer Spy Fraggle for the heads up. [More]

BBC Newsaround is offering its readers the opportunity to quiz Andy Serkis. Apparently, he'll be in Las Vegas on Thursday 20 March and wants to answer a bunch of questions live on the phone. So if you want to leave him your question, head on over to the BBC site. [More]

Take a look at these exclusive images from War of the Ring, the Real Time Strategy Game coming in 2004 from Black Label Games. From Orc Concepts, to a Nazgul Steed, its good to see such great art as a foundation for a hopefully great game! [More]

Visionary Tolkien artist Ted Nasmith is due to appear at two events next month: He will be the speaker at a Tolkien Society AGM in Chester, England April 11-12. He will also attend the Elf Fantasy Fair just outside Amsterdam in Holland on April 25-27. More information can be found on his personal website. Thanks to Ringer Spy PippinSkywalker for the heads up. [More]

Billy Boyd - currently in Canada to attend a small Scottish film festival for a special screening of his latest project Sniper 470 - reflects on life-altering role in Lord of the Rings trilogy. [More]

This weekend, Hall of Fire shifts back to the Return of the King to discuss "The Muster of Rohan". Of all the fellowship, Merry alone remains with Theoden to witness the mustering of the Rohirrim and the arrival of the Red Arrow. [More]

It has been years since we dedicated an entire post to 1 LOTR actor appearing on 1 TV show. But we've been getting about 5 emails an hour about this...and I've little patience for more.

ITV will air 'Midsummer Murders' will air the episode 'Judgement day' with Orlando Bloom on 8:30 tonight (March 14th)

You can also take a look at some of the first promo items from Bloom's Pirates film. [More]

DarkHorizons reports: WETA have the contract to handle the (Chronicles of Narnia) technical elements whilst Andrew Adamson ("Shrek") will direct with a mid-2004 release planned. [more]

Cheryl writes: The Calgary Sun printed an article on Billy Boyd's brief visit to the city's airport yesterday. He says some tantalizing stuff about The Return of the King. [More]

msilverstar sends along this small bit of VERY interesting information in regards to the design and interface creation portion of the TTT DVD's are complete down in NZ. What does this mean in plain english? [More]

Seems that the talking Gollum action figure from Toy Biz will be released on September 29th according to kbtoys.com. Take a look. [More] [Shop]

Fooph sends in this report from the 'Six Scottish Shorts' screening in Medicine Hat, Alberta last night. Billy was in attendance to promote the Scottish film industry, and to garner some attention for some local Scottish talent to brought with him. Take a look! [More]

Larissa also brings news about Billy giving a lecture at Trent University (Peterborough, Ontario) next Tuesday (March 18) at 7:30 pm. It's free, and open to the public. [More]

More than 30,000 Yahooligans voted for their favorite movies of 2002, and according to the results Sauron was the baddest bad guy of 2002. Check out all the categories here. Also on the subject of polls, CNN is running a best film poll for the Academy Awards. Wander on over and vote for your choice. [More]

The Sydney Morning Herald's Sacha Molitorisz writes that the film 24 Hour Party People "charts the crazy days of Manchester's Factory Records", following bands such as Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and the birth of the rave scene. What might surprise though, is that Andy Serkis has a role in this intriguing film. [More]

Yesterday, we reported on a lecture WETA's Digital Operations Manager Milton Ngan recently gave at Victoria University. If this interests you, it may be worth revisiting a similar keynote he gave at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in mid 2002. The presentation runs for roughly 40 mins and the 127MB file is downloadable in either a Quicktime or mpg format. [More]

Here's the latest in our continuing series "How to Write a Sindarin Sentence" lessons. This week's subject was soft mutation and lenition. [More]

I love this. We've had Middle-earth food, now we've got Middle-earth Fitness. A group of LOTR fans known as the Shieldmaidens have got together to meet their health and fitness goals by the time ROTK comes out, and part of it involves walking the equivalent of the distance from Hobbiton to Rivendell. [More]

Sideshow/Weta Collectibles sends us a heads up on their 'Watcher in the Water' promotion. The deal offers a free Frodo Bust and a free Samwise Bust with the first 250 orders of the 'Watcher' figure. They are almost sold through those first 250, so if you were planning on pre-ordering one, get movin'. [More]

Arowin attended the WETA lecture at Victoria University with Milton Ngan. He writes up an amazingly detailed report on all things WETA Digital, from Gollum coolness to Tech stuff only true geeks love! Take a look!

I was recently privileged enough to view a lecture by Milton Ngan. As far as IT stuff goes, Milton has a pretty good job. You see, he is the Digital Operations Manager at Weta Digital. He is basically the architect for all the technical side of things at Weta. [More]

The Philippine Tolkien Society recently attended 'New Worlds', The 1st Philippine Sci Fi and Fantasy Convention which took place yesterday (March 12, 2003) in Makati City, Philippines. [Images] [More Info]

John A writes: BBC are running a poll on the most influential movie franchise, and of course LOTR is there but currently running behind Star Wars and Citizen Kane (Franchise? -Xo) in 3rd place. [More]

Evil Elf writes: I was on the SLU pilgrimmage that TheOneRing.net attended recently. North Country Public Radio asked me to do a diary of the trip. A word of warning: it's ten thousand words! Sixteen pages, so pour yourself a drink first. In fact, pour me one too! [More]

Xoanon here, be sure to watch this space for the latest chapter of TORN Digital featuring our recent trip to SLU with Viggo!

Andy Serkis (Gollum) has reconfirmed his appearence at Collectormania 3 in Milton Keynes (UK).

Samwise writes: I was in my local library earlier today and found an article about Andy Serkis (Gollum) in the magazine called "Dramatics".


Anyone with scans of the article, send them along!

A few of you here and there might have been wondering what the film Ned Kelly (starring Heath Ledger, Naomi Watts, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush) was going to be like. According to the Sydney Morning Herald's Gary Maddox, who was recently at a media screening in Sydney, the news is promising. [More]

You can never have enough Billy Boyd news in one week. One thing we overlooked in the past week is a brief q&a Billy had with the folks over at IGN's FilmForce. The questions are often longer then the answers but fans of the man might want to check it out anyway. Thanks to Kenneth for the heads up! [More]

From communitysite TheFellowship.nl comes the news that an expansion set for the Lord of the Rings Risk-boardgame will most likely be in stores in The Netherlands from september onwards. The expansion set will probably include the regions of Gondor and Mordor that aren't on the current map.

Whether or not it will also be available in the US and other countries at the same time is unsure; the game got released in The Netherlands a few months before it got released in other parts of the world and the same might go for the expansion set.

Has PJ been sneaking past shots from RoTK in the quick montages that form the FoTR and TTT trailers? Remember the old near-subliminal shots of Sauron decapitating an innocent man of Gondor in the first FoTR trailer? Ringer Spy Raggo put forth the hypothesis in Barliman's tonight that the footage may in fact have been taken from Return Of The King... [More] Updated!

Rebecca writes: I just read in the Weds March 12th issue of Daily Variety that Karl Urban (Eomer) has signed with CAA (Creative Artists Agency). He is in final negotiations for Universal's upcoming 'Pitch Black' sequel 'Riddick'.

LOTR star Billy Boyd has been talking up Russell Crowe's "Master and Commander". Boyd, who plays helmsman Barrett Bonden in the pic, tells BBCi Films: "I think it will be an amazing movie. It's Peter Weir, and the rushes that I saw just looked beautiful. Every frame is like a painting." [More]

Shawn Dunn learned about 3D animation while working at Canada Post. Now, as Kris Westwood reports, he'll be training other animators responsible for the award-winning graphics of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. [More]

Burlington - Actor Billy Boyd attends a one night special screening of Scottish short films March 19 at the Showcase Burlington Cineplex Odeon (3325 Harvester Road) presented by the Film Circuit, a division of the Toronto International Film Festival Group. [More]

Medicine Hat – Actor Billy Boyd attends a special screening of Scottish short films March 13 at the Monarch Theatre (609 2 Street SE) presented by the Film Circuit, a division of the Toronto International Film Festival Group and the Medicine Hat Film Festival. [More]

Karin writes: The Scandinavian Sci-fi, Game & Toy Convention's website has announced the guests for the two-day convention which is going to be held in Malmö, Sweden april 26-27th 2003. Among them is Sala Baker (Sauron). [More]

LOTR: TTT has recently surpassed Harry Potter and the Chamer of Secrets in Worldwide Box Office. TTT has reached $861.9M in total, squeaking past Potter at $858.1M. [More]

For you scholars out there, we've got Elostrion back for lesson #5 in our series, "How to write a Sindarin sentence". This week's lesson will cover the mutations, starting with Soft Mutation, also known as Lenition (softening). This lesson is very simple once you memorize the mutations that take place. We'll go over how we mutate a consonant, and when to do so. Meet us in #thehalloffire this evening (Wednesday March 12) at 7pm ET (midnight GMT) to participate. We'll post the log later for folks who cannot make it!

In just three weeks, leagues upon leagues of fans of the Lord of the Rings Tabletop Battle Game will converge into the Games Workshop UK Headquarters in Nottingham for the first ever Lord of the Rings Grand Tournament! The Grand Tournament will take place the weekend of April 5/6th and is open to everyone! [More]

BigSushi writes: FOTR and TTT are going to be shown in the IMAX screen in London on the 11th and 12th of April respectively. [More]

BEVERLY HILLS, California (AP) -- Oscar organizers are hoping the movie awards ceremony doesn't get lost in a U.S.-led war with Iraq. The United States, Britain and Spain proposed a March 17 deadline for Iraq to prove it has disarmed -- which means a military strike could be dominating the news by the time Hollywood kicks off its annual awards extravaganza on March 23. [More]

Victoria U allumni Milton Ngan (now a WETA Digital staffer) will be speaking at the University this Wednesday at 6PM. We do NOT know if it is open to the public. Take a look at what the University has to say: "During the post production of "The Two Towers", Weta Digital went through an exponential amount of growth to achieve the number and quality of the effects seen in the cinemas today. This is the story of how these effects were made and the challenges that were faced along the way. A short history lesson into the origins of Weta is included to provide some perspective of the journey into Middle Earth." [More]

The release Russell Crowe's upcoming movie Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World has been moved back - in the hope it will pick up Oscar nominations for 2004. The sailing flick was originally set to be released in June, but bosses at movie studio 20th Century Fox have decided to shift it to a much later date, November, so the film is still fresh in the minds of voters when nomination time arrives. [More]

TORn Staffer Darth Caesar ran across this amazing IGN Filmforce report from the annual Gaming Development Conference. See the evolution of Gollum, the Ents, and MASSIVE in this incredible series of video features. Go. There. Now. Run! [More]

Occasionally I go wandering round the internet and find odd and amusing LoTR sites. This one does funny captions of screencaps, outakes, pictures and such from LoTR and cast events. If your sense of humour runs to this sort of thing, take a look. [More]

Ringer Spy Mr. Sieve sends us a spy report of what could possibly be in the ROTK trailer! While we can't vouch for the accuracy quite yet, its a great read! [More] Major Spoilers!!

Update - Xoanon here: Several other people from the same convention where Mr. Sieve apparently saw the trailer are reporting that there is NO video or tv setup showing ANYTHING of the kind. All just a fanboy pipedream? I'd bet on that...but you never know.

From the folks at Houghton Mifflin: Actor Andy Serkis will sign copies of THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE ART OF THE TWO TOWERS (for which he wrote the Afterword) at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, CA on Sunday, March 16, at 1:00 p.m. Presented by Houghton Mifflin, publishers of J.R.R. Tolkien since 1938.

AKA: 'Orlando Bloom in the Bath!', but I thought I'd spare the non Orli-obsessed among us. Take a look at these scans from the April issue of Australian Empire Magazine. Thanks to Sue for the scans! [More]

A nice article about the Weta team and their work on the films, from Animation World Magazine. Thanks to Wordsmith for the link. [More]

According to this story from The Times, it seems as though McKellen is trying to coax Peter Jackson into directing The Hobbit, maybe as a TV series. Sir Ian is very keen to reprise his role as Gandalf, it seems. [More] Thanks to Greylin for the news.

Here's a different review of LOTR films vs. books, on Christianity Today, by Ralph C. Wood, professor of theology. As Ringer spy Joseph puts it, "The review itself is longish, balanced, literate, intelligent, and has some thought-provoking reflections on "adventure" vs. "quest" and visual vs. aural presentation of story. [More]

Very interesting, rather academic article comparing FOTR, the book vs. the film, by Martin Ball, who is the music and drama critic for "The Australian" newspaper in Melbourne. [More] Thanks to Barry for the link.

The official site has a short interview with Sir Ian McKellen about the difference between playing Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White. [More] Thanks to Ruth for the link.

Missed all the news this weekend? Too busy digging out from another snowfall like I was? Well fear not! We've got our weekly 'Weekend Roundup' to get you going for a Monday morning! [More]