LoTR DvD announcement from New Line Cinema

by Michael Martinez, Thursday, March 28, 2002

New Line Home Entertainment announced Tuesday that The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring will be coming to DVD & VHS August 6th, 2002. The two-disc DVD set will be available in both wide screen and full screen formats and will include the theatrical version of the film plus exciting bonus material on the second disc. These features include three in-depth programs that reveal the secrets behind the production of this epic adventure and 15 video featurettes. Also included on the bonus disc will be: One of the greatest sneak previews in movie history, featuring a ten-minute behind the scenes preview of The Two Towers, the second installment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy coming to theaters December 2002 The theatrical version of the film (PG-13) Enya's "May It Be" music video Exclusive DVD-ROM online content A preview of a new Electronic Arts video game A "Special Extended Edition" of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring will arrive in stores November 12. This extended edition of the film contains more than 30 minutes of never- before-seen footage created for the home video release. This version of the film, available on DVD and VHS, will likely have an R rating. The "Special Extended DVD Edition" will be contained in a four-disc set with two discs containing the film, and two discs with more than six hours of added content, produced specifically for the DVD. These extras will plunge the viewer into the complex landscape of Middle-earth, and reveal how the filmmakers created a painstakingly beautiful, and faithful re-creation of Tolkien's world. A collector's DVD gift set will also be released on November 12 in time for the holiday season. This gift set will include the "Special Extended Edition" with box art packaging conceived and designed by famed Tolkien illustrator Alan Lee. Included with the DVD are custom bookends designed and sculpted by Sideshow WETA, the artists that crafted the astonishing theatrical visual effects for The Lord of the Rings. The gift set will also include the National Geographic "Beyond the Movie" DVD, containing two previously unreleased featurettes and a photo gallery. These extras are topped off with a set of exclusive, collectible Decipher game cards.

Two Towers trailer released today

by Michael Martinez, Thursday, March 28, 2002

New Line Cinema is releasing a four-minute trailer for "The Two Towers" today, March 29, in theaters around the world. The trailer will appear after "The Fellowship of the Ring" has ended, but before the credits roll.

Official movie site unveils new design

by Michael Martinez, Thursday, March 28, 2002

http://www.lordoftherings.net/

Moriarty posts first review of Two Towers trailer

by Michael Martinez, Monday, March 25, 2002

In the usual rambling style that permeates AICN's news stories, Moriarty describes bits and pieces of the trailer for "The Two Towers", which starts showing in theaters on March 29. The trailer will appear at the END of "The Fellowship of the Ring", just before the credits roll. Read Moriarty's review here

An interview with Michael Martinez

by Michael Martinez, Monday, March 25, 2002

Webmaster J.W. Braun has posted an interview with Xenite.Org founder Michael Martinez. J.W.'s LoTR Fansite is a nicely done movie resource site which looks at the importance of Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" movies in the context of the history of fantasy film. Braun's opinion pieces make up part of the unique content of the fan site. Braun approached Martinez for an interview earlier this year, and scheduling finally permitted the two to work out a brief exchange. Martinez answers questions about Xenite.Org's movie news site, his writing at Suite101, his book Visualizing Middle-earth, and how it feels to be quoted in TV Guide Magazine. Be sure to check out An interview with Michael Martinez.

LoTR takes 4 Oscars, "Beautiful Mind" blows Hobbits away

by Michael Martinez, Monday, March 25, 2002

Stunned Peter Jackson fans, perhaps expecting too much from 13 award nominations for "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" watched the 74th annual awards ceremony of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on television around the world Sunday evening. With increasing frustration, many fans in TheOneRing.Net's IRC awards chat room ticked off the number of losses faster than wins accrued. In the end, "The Fellowship of the Ring" only took home statues for Best Soundtrack, Best Makeup, Best Cinematography, and Best Visual Effects. Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind" walked away with the Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture. The competition was tight, and host Whoopi Goldberg occasionally belittled the intense political activism within the academy's ranks. Early on in the show, she joked about having received an email earlier in the day which accused Frodo Baggins of being an anti-Semite (someone who bashes Jews). Tolkien expressed a great deal of admiration and respect for the Jewish people, and he admitted to modelling his Dwarves on them in some respects. Actor Sidney Poitier was given a special lifetime achievement award during the ceremony, in which Denzel Washington and Halle Berry took home the statues for Best Actor and Best Actress, marking the first time in the awards ceremony's history that a black actor and actress swept the top two categories for their profession. Poitier had won an award as Best Actor for his performance in "Lilies of the Field", and Washington has won for Best Supporting Actor once before. This marks the first time an African-American actress has won for Best Actress. Yahoo! News has a story about the history of African American actors and the Oscars here.

Mountains on the left, ruins on the right

by Michael Martinez, Monday, March 25, 2002

The (mostly) gaming oriented journal Other Hands recently announced it would shut down its print publication and refrain from publishing new modules and articles based on Iron Crown Enterprise's Middle-earth Role-Playing game. The capitulation of Other Hands before the Tolkien Enterprises juggernaut was the final gasp of pre-movie Tolkien-inspired fan-designed adventure gaming. Now, there are still various MUDs, MUSHes, and underground modules and impromptu gaming systems floating around out there which owe something to Tolkien's Middle-earth. But Other Hands was different. It attempted to elevate the study of gaming innovation to a near-academic level of scrutiny. There wasn't quite peer review in the process, but generally speaking, if you had the audacity to publish an article in Other Hands, your peers were sure to have something to say about your work. In today's work of trademark-centric business decision-making, Tolkien Enterprises was bound to clamp down with a Highlanderish "There can be only one game" attitude. Other Hands celebrated the beauty of the I.C.E. system, which was perhaps more well-known through its Rolemaster and Spacemaster product lines. Games Workshop and Decipher now hold gaming licenses derived from the Peter Jackson movies. And these companies are vying for the dollars of a shrinking marketplace. Regrettably, Other Hands was deemed a viable threat to the trademark. Why? Was the growing subscriber base really shifting public opinion away from the licensed gaming companies? Most likely not. Except for occasional mentions in the Tolkien press, Other Hands -- like most gaming endeavors -- goes largely unnoticed by the larger community of Tolkien fans. The journal published some very good Tolkien research in its time, and I am one of the people who contributed content in the past. There are other Tolkien journals out there, but none which appeal to the American gaming community. Read the full article here.

LoTR moves ahead of 'Beautiful Mind' in ABC poll

by Michael Martinez, Thursday, March 21, 2002

ABC News has posted the results of a poll in which 1,000+ Americans voted for which movie they feel should get Best Picture. Since we've joined the "Here's the latest poll results" rage, we figured we'd share this information. 30% of those polled felt "The Lord of the Rings" should get the Best Picture nod from the Academy on Sunday night. 28% favored "A Beautiful Mind". Read the full report here

Four years of reporting and counting...

by Michael Martinez, Wednesday, March 20, 2002

We were so busy getting ready to change servers, and so stunned by the unexpected death of New Zealand actor Kevin Smith the weekend of February 16, that we let a special anniversary slip past us. Xenite.Org has the distinction of operating the Web's oldest continually updated Lord of the Rings movie news site. The original version of this site went live in February 1998. We only ever found one older site, and it was never updated after the first page was put up in December 1997 (with nothing more than the revelation that a rumor was circulating about Peter Jackson possibly doing a "Lord of the Rings" movie). So, February 2002 marked a four-year anniversary for this site, and as Xenite.Org's 5th birthday approached we were very concerned about whether we would even have an active server come March 14. And then came the news of Kevin Smith's death, resulting from a fall on a movie set in Beijing, China. Although Kevin played no part in Peter Jackson's movies, he was very much admired by Hercules and Xena fans around the world, and the New Zealand film industry being as small as it is, many of the people who worked on "The Lord of the Rings" were personally touched by the loss of a truly marvellous actor. Xenite.Org expressed its sympathy to the family and friends of Kevin Smith for a month through a special memorial banner, and we were inundated with grieving fans who stayed in touch and up-to-date on the latest news at our Kevin Smith Forum. To those people who worked on the "Lord of the Rings" movies, who knew Kevin and suffered this terrible loss along with his family and fans, we offer our condolences. We are sure that Kevin was proud of the work his fellow Kiwis have done on these films. Anyway, here we are, four years and one month later, still trying to help keep LoTR fans informed about news and events pertaining to the Peter Jackson movies (and similar or related projects). If it seems we've been providing less original coverage of late, well, we've been busy, and we do apologize for the problems many of you have experienced. We wish we could have marked the four-year anniversary and the fifth birthday with greater joy and a smoother transition, but we're glad so many of you have stayed with us. We do this for you, no matter what anyone else may whisper in the dark corners of the Internet. Thanks for being here.

Middle-earth mailing list active again

by Michael Martinez, Wednesday, March 20, 2002

After a month of silence, Xenite.Org's middle-earth mailing list is working again...sort of. Virtually all of our email services were interrupted for a while due to the server changes we have undergone since the weekend of February 17. Among the longest suffering casualties were all our mailing lists. We finally got the middle-earth mailing list going again this week. Unfortunately, the current implementation is (hopefully) temporary, and we are not sure that the majordomo requests to subscribe or unsubscribe will work properly. People who experience trouble with the Xenite.Org mailing lists should contact the Xenite.Org Administrators.

Beautiful stunt woman tells her LoTR story in There and Back Again

by Michael Martinez, Wednesday, March 20, 2002

Lichen June wrote to tell us about her online journal concerning her work on Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings'. Her beauty notwistanding, Lichen's experience touches Xenite.Org in another way. She was trained by Sam Williams, who doubled for Kevin Sorbo on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Xenite.Org has been a part of Hercules and Xena online fandom for years. A graduate of the University of Iowa, Lichen is currently writing a book about her adventures as a stunt woman in New Zealand's magical film industry. She is sharing some of her adventures on her Web site. We wish her all success in her endeavors, and look forward to reading about her experiences in "Stuntee". http://www.geocities.com/lichenjune/

Is LoTR more popular than 'A Beautiful Mind'?

by Michael Martinez, Wednesday, March 20, 2002

Sara dropped us a line, letting us know that 'The Lord of the Rings' has pulled ahead of 'A Beautiful Mind' in Hollywood Hungama's poll of 'Which movie would you prefer to see'. 'Black Hawk Down' is the third choice in the movie. We don't normally post information about movie polls here on Xenite.Org. They are often covered in the headlines we carry from Tolkien Online or TheOneRing.Net, but our recent changes in servers have forced us to defer posting updates here, so we thought a brief mention of the poll was a good way to say, "We're back!" Visit Hollywood Hungama for more information.

National Geographic launches LoTR movie site

by Michael Martinez, Wednesday, March 20, 2002

There is misinformation there, as well as in the television special which inspired it, but National Geographic has created a unique Tolkien Web site in collaboration with Warner Bros. Warner Bros. is a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner, the parent company for New Line Cinema, which underwrote and distributed Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" movie and the two sequels due out later this year and late next year, "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King". Among other errors of fact in the history they provide, the National Geographic site says: Tolkien's concern for nature echoes throughout The Lord of the Rings. Evil beings of Middle-earth dominate nature and abuse it to bolster their own power. For example, Saruman, the corrupt wizard, devastates an ancient forest as he builds his army. The Elves, in contrast, live in harmony with nature, appreciating its beauty and power, and reflecting a sense of enchantment and wonder in their artful songs. However, these are errors in fact with respect to the book only, as the movie does alter the history of the Rings of Power to a considerable degree. In the book, it is the Elves who make the Rings of Power for their own purposes, to delay or halt the effects of Time, to prevent their own inevitable fading. Hence, the greatest perversion of the natural order in Middle-earth is committed by the Elves. The television special wholly omitted Tolkien's extensive knowledge of and admitted influences from Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and other ancient languages. While the National Geographic site is interesting, and is well worth a friendly visit from fans of the movie, it is only a glimpse into the complicated career and life of author J.R.R. Tolkien. We recommend that interested fans who want to know more about the author of The Lord of the Rings browse our selection of books about Middle-earth and Tolkien. To visit the National Geographic site, go to http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/. While the information regarding Tolkien's linguistic influences is generally correct, it is extremely incomplete. Tolkien based Sindarin, for example, on Welsh, and Sindarin actually plays a greater role in both the book and the (first) movie than Quenya. Quenya, on the other hand, seems to have caught the media's attention. National Geographic also tells its visitors that "Tolkien created the mythology and history of Middle-earth to serve as the poetic legend he felt his homeland, England, lacked." This is not true. Tolkien did attempt to create a mythology for England. That mythology was published in the first two volumes of The History of Middle-earth, and was called The Book of Lost Tales. Much of what transpires in The Book of Lost Tales is actually set in the English geography. What we generally regard as Middle-earth -- that is, the world of hobbits, wizards, and Dunedain and High Elves -- came together as a result of the combination of Tolkien's intense desire to see his Elvish legends -- derived from but not the same as The Book of Lost Tales -- published and pressure from his publisher, Allen & Unwin, to see more about Hobbits. When first asked to write a sequel to The Hobbit, Tolkien wrote to his publisher, "And what more can Hobbits do?" He certainly came up with something, and The Lord of the Rings helped to launch a new era in popular fiction. The information provided by National Geographic is regrettably incomplete and represents very poor scholarship. We do recommend that people visit the site to gain a better understanding of just how limited and misrepresented the public view of Tolkien's career and influences have become as the decades have passed. The tremendous influence he acknowleged in his letters from sources as varied as ancient Greece, Egypt, and Babylon (in addition to the much more well-documented Anglo-Saxon and Finnish sources) deserves better attention than to be snubbed by such a prestigious organization as the National Geographic Society.

LoTR in Cinefex Magazine

by Michael Martinez, Wednesday, March 20, 2002

Cinefex Magazine dropped by to let us know they have an upcoming issue featuring The Lord of the Rings. Sam and the Cave Troll grace their cover. Attentien Tolkien fans: Be sure to check out the comprehensive Lord of the Rings coverage in the upcoming Spring issue of Cinefex, due out on March 25. The 56-page cover article contains an authoritative account of the special effects behind this extraordinary film, following its development from conceptual phase through production and postproduction. Culled from some forty in-depth interviews with key contributors -- including director Peter Jackson -- the story features detailed information on production design, makeups, costumes, props, model and miniature work, plus the cutting-edge digital effects responsible for so many of the film’s memorable images. Accompanying the spread are more than sixty color photos ranging from behind-the-scenes shots to never-before-published effects clips. Cinefex can be found in major bookstores, on newsstands and is also available through the Cinefex website at http://www.cinefex.com/.

So, what happened to the Xenite.Org news feed?

by Michael Martinez, Tuesday, March 19, 2002

Before Speculative Vision went down, I had posted an explanation of where we've been. Alas! That was a custom story and its text is lost. Due to high use of bandwidth and server resources, Xenite.Org was notified in January that our Web-hosting contract would not be renewed when it expired on February 17. We decided to change servers and by February 10 I had selected a new hosting company. Unfortunately, they never fully activated our account, and after 5 days I realized another solution was needed. On February 17, Xenite.Org moved to a temporary server, and within a week we had moved again to a permanent hosting service. Unfortunately, that was also the weekend that New Zealand actor Kevin Smith died, and we were operating the most well-known Kevin Smith forum at SF-FANDOM. We were inundated with grieving fans, and our own sense of loss as well as demands for addressing the fan community's needs detracted from the Xenite.Org move. Needless to say, many things broke, and some things were lost in the double server change. There was simply no way I could keep updating LoTR movie news either there or here during the process. By mid-March things began returning to normal, and I hope to be posting more news and information here on at least a weekly basis.

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