Thanks for everyone's patience on this! If you are thinking about coming to Dragon*Con in Atlanta August 29 - September 1, 2003, please check out the official Dragon*Con Tolkien's Middle-earth Fan Track [Schedule]!
I'll be posting more information on the individual sessions starting tomorrow. : )

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]

Another great chance to catch your favorite LOTR stars on the small screen this week! Take a look! [More]

Irascian writes: This year’s Edinburgh Festival, a celebration of the arts in all its wild and wacky forms, had several performances of interest to Ringers. “Figwit”’s Folk Parody Band – “Flight of the Conchorde” has already received publicity on TORn, as has the main attraction for most Ringers – the debut performances of “San Diego”, a new play by David Greig starring Billy Boyd as the playwright himself. One other festival treat that hasn’t received much publicity is “The Lord of the Rings – the Fellowship of the Celebrity” a wacky parody, most accurately described as “’The Lord of the Rings’ meets ‘Pop Idol’”! [More]

Ringer Yduj sends first word on the AOL Two Towers DVD Promo. Clips feature a bite from Sean Astin's short 'The Long and Short of It' and other content. Woohoo sister!

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 17 180 mailing list members! Sign up now! [More]

Matt from Minneapolis reports to us that Ebert and Roeper, movie critics of some repute (apparently), have given the TTT DVD a favorable review. Well now I'm convinced! I may just buy it on the 26th!

Kailin writes: I didn't get a picture of it, but I suppose I can if you want. There is a big promo poster with Samwise on it in Beverly Hills near the Beverly Center. It is similiar in style to the Aragorn poster in Montreal, only in English, and with Sam's face instead of Aragorn's.

Media Watch: Take2 Magazine Talks LOTR, Bloom

Steve writes: There are a couple of great TTT related articles in the August/September issue of Take2magazine. TTT Review & Comptition for the TTT video & goodies, then a great Orlando Bloom (Legolas) interview on Rings & POTC etc, plus nice little pic of Bloom & review of Ned Kelly. [More]

Ringer Fan The White Rider recently picked up a copy of gaming magazine Bullseye. In it he discovered this preview of Electronic Arts' upcoming release Return of the King. A good read, and the game sounds quite exciting. [More]

Here's an amazing group of screen captures thanks to Ringer Spy Terribly Mauled that preview the TTT Extended DVD which releases on November 18. Boromir, Faramir and Denethor! The additions look as though they'll be absolutely brilliant. I know I'll definitely be picking up a copy. [More] [EE Pre-Order] Major Spoilers!

Ringer Greeny sent in this tidbit about an screening of Two Towers and Fellowship of the Ring in Denmark in late August at the Frilandsmusset near Copenhagen. [More]

TORn Staffer Ostadan alerts us to this great playtesting review by Marco Ferrandi of a new LoTR boardgame called War of the Ring. In the hotter and wetter days of this tropical 2003 summer, I received a call from Nexus CEO Roberto Di Meglio. He told me to go Venice to playtest a new and still enigmatic ‘monster game’ based on The Lord of the Rings... A game that we now know as War of the Ring! [More]

Ringer Fan Holly spotted this very good LoTR section on a site called ifilm. Most of this stuff people will have seen before, but there are a couple of Comic-con video clips featuring Sean Astin and Andy Serkis that may be of interest. You can choose to watch in Real Player, Media Player or Quicktime, so just wander on over and choose your video poison. [More]

Ahriell writes: Last night I went to see the play "San Diego" by David Greig, in which Billy Boyd stars. It is on at the Edinburgh Royal Lyceum Theatre for a few days. The play was very good, quite a challenging play to watch, but well worth sticking with. After the play I took my chances and waited for a bit in the theatre bar, and oh God was I rewarded! [More]

Ringer Cadiliniel of Gondor writes: According to the Radio Times, Andy Serkis will make a guest appearance (or rather ... guest voice) on a new episode of 'The Simpsons'. The episode airs this Sunday, on Sky 1 at 6.30pm.

Ringer Spy Lily Took Elf-friend spotted this giant promotional poster for the release of the theatrical version of the Two Towers on DVD and VHS on August 26. Definitely one for Aragorn fanciers! [More]

Ringer Spy Drew sent in a great scan from the recent Entertainment Weekly. In it, the magazine looks at various 2003 film's chances at winning an Oscar, including 'Return of the King.' Yes, Oscar talk is starting already... [More]

Ringer Spy Terribly_Mauled dropped us this small batch of preview screencaps of what we'll see in the Towers EE and RoTK. So, if you want to get a peek at some Boromir flashbacks, the cloven Horn of Gondor, Hithlain elven rope in action, or the Paths of the Dead, then check these out! We've even been able to match a couple to snatches of dialogue that Council of Elrond posted the other day. [More] [EE Pre-Order] Major Spoilers!!

Many of you will have read Greg Wright's perceptive essays on HollywoodJesus.com. Now they've been gathered together into a book, "Tolkien in Perspective: Sifting the Gold from the Glitter." We're happy to announce that the book is now available on Amazon for pre-order. [More]

Frodo and Sam make their escape from Cirith Ungol. Not a moment too soon as the Nazgul appear and the alarm sounds. But have they simply leapt from the frying pan into the fire? What follows is a gruelling trek through the Morgai and across the Plains of Gorgoroth. [More]

Ringer Fan Sharon tells us that the Norwegian VG article we linked to yesterday also included the premiere date for the theatre trailer for RoTK. The section translates: The world premiere of the "Return of the King" trailer is the 26th of September. In Norway it will be shown before the Norwegian romantic comedy "The woman in my life" with Thomas Giertsen in the main role.

Ringer Spy Bellerophon writes that the Tolkien Online boards have stumbled across this screencap from the FoTR EE DVD. What is it? It doesn't seem to be from the first two films. We wonder if this could be a maquette of the Dead (just in the way we saw the early models of Shelob on the DVD). Or perhaps it's totally unrelated to LoTR. Take a look! [More] Possible Spoilers!

Vilyakeeper describes his excitement as the long-awaited Orthanc collectible from Sideshow turns up unexpectedly. So, they're possibly in your mail now, if you've ordered them. [More]

TORn Staffer Ostadan recently spotted this post from someone who works for Hasbro on the usenet group rec.games.board about what's happening with Risk for Return of the King. [More]

Apparently more than 20,000 people were at the Westpac Trust Stadium in Wellington, this afternoon to do some screaming and shouting for LoTR. Ringer Spy NZBoy reports that an LoTR sound crew was at the Rugby match, and came out after the game, and got the crowd to chant several different human and orcish war chants. Check out our report for some pictures and a very cool soundbite of one the chants! [More] Minor Spoilers!

News from the LOTR convention Best of Both Worlds in Canberra, Australia: "Brad Dourif cannot join us in Sept. as he will be filming. We are working very hard to secure another guest for you and will advise asap." Also Bruce Hopkins [Gamling the Old] wrote to say that he is looking forward to being a guest at BOBW, and "Gamling is also in The return Of The King. I have just done some filming for the pick ups and have a couple more days to go over the next month."

Ringer Spy AlfaMale spotted this great new set of six screencaps on AICN (which was removed not 2 minutes after being posted). One of these shots really give an idea of just how enormous the battle of the Pelennor will be. You can also check the interior of the White Tower and see the skull-filled spookiness of the Paths of the Dead! [More] [EE Pre-Order] !!Major Spoilers!!

Note: it seems that some of the thumbnails on this page have been triggering a truly ridiculous bug in versions of MS Internet Explorer older than v6 sp1 (build 6.0.2800) in which the browser refuses to render any images after viewing the page. We recommend getting a Decent Browser, or upgrading your IE, or try using this link to access the images and navigate with the Prev & Next buttons - or clearing your browser cache, completely restarting IE, and force-refreshing the scrapbook page with Ctrl-F5. The thumbnails currently online are known to work fine - if you have a stale copy of the page you might still be encountering problems. Whilst you're at it, you might want to consider a better operating system all round... ;) - Arathorn

With millions without power for a soon-to-be second night in a row, some of them may take to heart that one man is among them...this man is the ever-prepared...Sean Astin.

Anyone who has seen the Extended Edition cast commentaries or listened to the many stories that the other castmates tell about Sean Astin will get a chuckle out of this one. Sean was in NYC yesterday during the blackout and, as reported by MSNBC and ET, he has been helping people out of elevators and directing traffic in the streets. Way to go Sean!

One of the stars of the Lord Of The Rings films is preparing to make his Edinburgh International Festival debut. Billy Boyd, who plays Pippin in the films, is to appear on stage in the play San Diego. It opens at the Royal Lyceum Theatre today for a limited run over the weekend. [More]

Ever want to see Peter Jackson's version of The Hobbit a little too badly? [More]

Jen the Hobbit writes: Every Saturday evening, a film will be shown on the silver screen at the Piazza (Downtown Renton), located on South 3rd Street between Burnett Avenue South and Logan Avenue South. TTT is playing this Saturday night at dusk. Prior to every film, a band will perform to entertain and warm-up the crowd. There will also be food, soft drinks and popcorn available for purchase.

Sven Lugar writes: This event will take place at Mount Pinos! Important Note: please note that this is at the McGill campground which is 1/2 the elevation of our usual site, so there will be less wear & tear on the body! The Event is at the McGill campsite on the road up to Mt Pinos. [More]

Isilme writes: For fans in the Washington, DC area, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is sponsoring a *free* big-screen, outdoor showing of FOTR tomorrow (August 16) at Strathmore Hall. Local restaurants & vendors will be selling food and proceeds will benefit the NIH Charities. [More]

Ringer Shalane recently went on a Red Carpet Tour. Between July 28th to August 8th, Shalane had the opportunity to wander New Zealand visiting many of the sets where the filming for Lord of the Rings occured. [More]

Ringer Tor G writes that Norway will be premiering RoTK two days ahead of the December 17 world launch in Oslo. Apparently up to 5,000 people will be able to attend, with tickets on sale from September 1. People who buy the TTT DVD at Egertorget shop on the night of August 26 will get the oportunity to buy a ticket at the same time. [More]

The MovieOne cable network is finally bringing Fellowship of the Ring to Australian TV on August 24. To help promote it, they've put together some pictures and interviews and stuff on a website. Check out these interviews with Peter Jackson, Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, as well as Orlando Bloom and Hugo Weaving. (Requires Quicktime) Thanks to Ringer Rallas for the link. [More]

Ring*Con 2003 is getting more interesting by the day. This time the nice people behind it emailed with a short update on the confirmed guests. New to the already impressive line-up are none other then Sala Baker (Sauron) and WETA-Workshop wizards Rogier Samuels (Senior Prosthetics) and Carola Brockoff (Creatures/Prosthetics), who will amongst other things give a live demonstration on stage. Also returning after being very succesfull (and loud) last year is music group Schelmish. A new addition to the list of musicians in attendance is the duo eve and breeze. As always be sure to check out RingCon.de for more information on the event!

Andy Serkis and the folks at WETA Digital worked magic on their computers to create Gollum for the big screen. Take a look at these photos featuring both Andy and Gollum side-by-side! [More]

Galadriel-ca writes: I dropped in at HMV early this month, and it seems they're pretty much ready for August 26th. They had their New Release fliers available detailing not only what's on the DVD, but what their lenticular (or holographic, if you prefer) insert will look like this time. The flier is a little misleading in that it doesn't really say if there are two versions of the insert, but the cashier I spoke to seems relatively sure that the two images are one and the same rather than separate versions. [More]

A Tolkien workshop will be held at the University of Western Ontario this Friday, August 15. It’s $60CDN for the day + $12CDN for lunch. [More]

Just a reminder that Elijah Wood will be on E! News Daily at 7pm tonight. Check your local listings for the E! Channel. [More]

Beh sends this in: Jon Labrie, former CTO at Weta Digital - who masterminded the digital architecture behind the Lord of the Rings films. Meet the Tech Wizard Behind Lord of theRings at Content World 2003 in Los Angeles. [more]

Pippin's Scarf writes: David Poland has started his Oscar column. As expected, ROTK is his #1 lock. [More]

Lots of you have written in to tell us that the official site has added an interview with Karl Urban. "The battle of Pelennor Fields takes place on the huge, grassy plains outside the city of Gondor and it constitutes one of the largest cavalry charges in the history of cinema." [More]

Thanks everyone!

Scott sends along this paraphrased look at what was said during the 10 minute RETURN OF THE KING preview on the TTT DVD! Take a look! Opens with Peter Jackson in cutting room, there was a picture on the door with him with a chainsaw...he talks about the editing process as he sits on the couch in his usual shorts... !!!MAJOR SPOILERS!!! [More]

Cinthia writes: I'm here to give terrible news to all Latinamerican fans. Once again we receive a dissapointment. HBO Ole without any explanation has cancelled the showing of the extended LotR-FotR. [More]

Scott has a few scans from the TTT DVD he'd like to share with us. The front and back scans as well as the centerfold featuring Eowyn! (not really what you think). [More]

Greetings! As the weeks until Dragon*Con are counted down (yes, we will be at Dragon*Con), we find in review that we have gone over enough Elvish to begin constructing sentences! Last week's lesson was run by our Tengwar guy, and was unannounced - we hope to get in at least one more lesson on the Tengwar. Until tomorrow - keep speaking! (Wednesday 8/13/03, 8pm EDT, 5pm PDT, 1am GMT Thursday -- in #TheHallofFire)

Elanor writes: Last year before Fellowship was released, a friend tipped me off to a store in my neighborhood that sells DVD's earlier than the official release date. So I figured it wouldn't hurt to check this year either. So today I am the proud owner of the theatrical widescreen DVD of The Two Towers! !!!SPOILERS!!! [More]

The folks behind 'Ringers: Lord of the Fans' have sent along an update on their progress and are asking for your help! Take a look! [More]

Robin sends in word of a new Viggo Mortensen exhibit opening in September at the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles! The exhibit, called "Miyelo", is comprised of a series of large-scale, panoramic photographs of a Lakota Ghost Dance. [More]

Thousands of Wellington rugby fans will have the chance to chant and stomp their way into the final film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy at Westpac Stadium on Saturday. Rings sound technicians will ask the crowd to stay behind after the Wellington Lions' national provincial championship opening game against Southland to record sounds for battle scenes in The Return of the King. [More]

Elijah Wood (Frodo) is set to make an appearance on E! News Live this Thursday, August 14th. E! News Live airs daily at 7PM. {More]

Jessie writes: Thought you might be interested to know, G4 will be featuring games based on movies tonight on their show Blister, including RotK. Blister will air at 10:30pm on channel 136 (Comcast Cable). The Sindelar takes us through the ways of the cinema while also showing us some summer movie video games. We look at Hulk, Tron 2.0, Pirates of the Carribean, The Italian Job, Enter the Matrix and The Matrix Online, and get a sneak peak at The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. [More] [Gaming Havens]

What Happens When FIGWIT Comes Over...Again?

Ahriell writes: After a very busy week of preparations for the party punctuated by frequent trips to Edinburgh to catch various shows, including Flight of the Conchords (Bret mcKenzie, aka Figwit's show at the Fringe Festival)... a few times, the weekend finally arrived. [More]

Kenneth from IGN FilmForce writes: I thought your readers might be interested in our interview with Daily Show correspondent Stephen Colbert, which contains some discussion about LOTR. [More]

From ComingSoon.net: Universal Pictures will pay "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy director Peter Jackson $20 million against 20% of the gross from the new King Kong movie, marking one of the largest deals ever made with a director. [More]

Ringer Spy Scorpio writes: Orlando Bloom is in this month's Anime Insider Magazine. The writers made their own live-action cast of "Yu-Gi-Oh!" and Orli made the role of some guy named Maximillion Pegasus. [More]

I've posted about my good friend Lindsay Klemm and her musical talent before. This time she has completed her 'LOTR Suite' with 'To the Havens...': "This song was the one I'd been waiting to write until I had completed all the other songs for the Suite. I had the most ideas for this one, since it's the one that I felt would be the most emotional, not to mention the last piece the listener would hear in the suite. Now that this song is complete, I will resample all the Lord of the Rings songs and release my first cd, Lord of the Rings: Symphonic Suite." [Listen Now!]

Peter Jackson might want to clear off his mantel. The director of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which has already grossed more than $1.8 billion worldwide, is finishing part three, “The Return of the King,” and even without seeing a frame, Hollywood insiders consider it the front runner for a best-picture statuette—and Jackson for best director—come Oscar time. [More]

Alias writes: Here's a picture of The Two Towers feature DVD. I don't know if you've already seen the DVD feature disk of The Two Towers, but I received this from a friend of a friend and I thought it was my duty as a Middle Earth inhabitant to share with others what I have. [More]

Ringer Spy Kevin sends along these Promo TTT pins from Blockbuster Video. They feature Gandalf, Eowyn (although they call her 'Eowin'), Theoden, and Wormtongue, Aragorn, Arwen, Sam, Merry & Pippin, Saruman, Frodo, Legolas, and Gollum. [More]

Amanda Morrison from Embassy Theatre Trust writes: We have now sold out of the Classic seat option, thanks to your readers!! (for more info click here) We can however offer another option which does not appear on the Web-site as the designers have only just today decided what sort of seat to put in the very front three rows of the theatre!! This will be known as the Lounge Area and the price will be $NZ200 (approx $US110). As well as the name on the seat for 10 years, donors would also get the special Weta Workshop pin, and be included on our mailing list to buy tickets to special events and premieres that the Trust hosts from time to time. Invitations are transferable so could be passed on to friends or colleagues. [More]

Greetings, Quickbeam here.

Go Out on a Limb with me and discover one of the most emotionally satisfying themes in LOTR: uplifting the "common" to the level of "nobility." [Click here] Also check out Universal's "lotr.com" where I reveal the true message behind Treebeard's wrath: "The Challenge of the Trees."

The costume worn by Orlando Bloom in his role as 'Legolas' in The Lord of the Rings trilogy is to feature in The Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy - The Exhibition at the Science Museum in London. [More]

UPDATE: Take a look at a few amazing photos from the exhibit!

A Rep from Lions Gate Films sent us this story about Peter Jackson and 'Cabin Fever' director Eli Roth, take a look! After several sold out screenings of CABIN FEVER at the New Zealand Film Festival, several staffers of Peter Jackson's production company WETA Digital raved to Jackson about the film and it's young filmmaker Eli Roth. [More] [Cabin Fever Website]