A palantir in the hand is worth...

by Michael Martinez, Tuesday, October 24, 2000

TheOneRing.Net has posted a scan of an August call sheet for Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings'. Although some folks are all excited about seeing that it was indeed Saruman (Xenite.Org suggested as much way back when), we noticed something we feel is more interesting. The palantir is said to slip from Saruman's hand. In the literary story the palantir of Orthanc was about the size of a basketball. Now, this picture has been widely debated and supposedly at one point even debunked as a hoax perpetrated by Peter Jackson upon an insatiably curious fandom. Hoax or not, the size of the palantir and the fact that Grima Wormtongue doesn't toss it out the window of Orthanc in this particular scene may set tongues awagging.

Get the Tolkien Classics in a leatherbound 5-book set

by Michael Martinez, Tuesday, October 24, 2000

Tolkien collectors take note. Easton Press has published The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion in a special 5-volume set of leatherbound books. The books may only be ordered by telephone at 1-800-367-4534 (in the United States). The price for the collection is $48.25 (not including shipping and handling). Neither Xenite.Org nor Speculative Vision have seen the final product and cannot comment on quality.

Told you so: 'Greg Kramer nearly steals the show as the serpentine Gollum'

by Michael Martinez, Monday, October 23, 2000

Toronto Star theatre critic Richard Ouzounian admits he is no real fan of Tolkien, but he gives the 'Hobbit' play which just opened a thumbs up. And in particular he has something nice to say about actor Greg Kramer as Gollum. Kramer asked Xenite.Org's Michael Martinez for information about the character of Gollum earlier this year. Whether he was influenced by any of Martinez' suggestions or not, the actor was definitely on the track to understanding his character, and not simply accepting whatever the script and director called for. Stylistically, I've always found it an unholy mixture of William Shakespeare and Walt Disney, and I have trouble with heroes who announce in moments of high drama: 'I am armed with an elfish blade.' Well, Tolkien never wrote anything like the line cited here, so one must presume it comes from the hand !of Kim Selody, who wrote this adaptation. Ironically, Tolkien liked neiter Shakespeare nor Disney, so he might have been less than flattered by the comparison (which is a common one). Lorne Cardinal has a strong presence as Gandalf (and an uncanny resemblance to Laurence Fishburne), while Greg Kramer nearly steals the show as the serpentine Gollum. Lorne Cardinal is a Native American actor, and a performer for the Centre for Indigenous Theatre. Cardinal also appeared in Can't warm up to Sixty Below in 1997, which received less than a rave review (apparently not due to the acting). Cardinal also appeared in The Baby Blues later in 1997, a play which was better received than the earlier one by the same critic. "The Baby Blues simply entertains", wrote John Coulbourn in the Toronto Sun. Some people may also have seen Cardinal in a few movies, television series, and mini-series, such as "Big Bear", "Lonesome Dove", "The City", et. al. Herbie Barnes plays Bilbo Baggins. Another Native American actor, he has appeared in The Rez, a Canadian television series, the movie "Dance Me Outside", and two other series. Ouzounian says "Herbie Barnes is the most winsome of hobbits, and his Bilbo keeps tugging at our heart with his repeated mantra of 'Eggs, bacon, toast' whenever things get dire (as they frequently do)." The play runs through December. Any Tolkien fans dropping by Toronto between now and the end of the year may want to try and catch a performance. Drop us a line and let us know what you think if you do.

Could PC Zone be more wrong?

by Michael Martinez, Monday, October 23, 2000

TheOneRing.Net picked up a story from PC Zone in the UK which claims that Electronic Arts has secured the rights to publishing all games related to Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' movies. But there are some problems with the story. For one thing, the company which is suing Tolkien Enterprises is Havas Interactive, not Hasbro Interactive. Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast, but they don't own Havas. PC Zone is reporting that Hasbro "is currently in a legal battle to try and secure rights to publish a Lord of the Rings game which would be totally un-connected to the films in any shape or form." PC Zone also says Peter Jackson is an Australian director. Most anyone knows by now that Jackson is a Kiwi (New Zealand) director. So, given these major gaffes, how likely is it that the main point of the story -- that Electronic Arts has secured the movie-related gaming license -- is correct? Electronic Arts has been mentioned as a contender in several industry articles since June. Recent rumors have suggested they were in negotiation with New Line Cinema for the contract. But oddly none of the major news sources (or anyone, for that matter, beyond a few fannish Web sites) are reporting that the contract has been secured. When we checked Electronic Arts' Web site for a press release or something we found the server was down. At the very least, rumors about the EA deal's being finalized still seem to be rather premature.

The Quests of Middle-earth

by Michael Martinez, Sunday, October 22, 2000

I suspect that if one were to ask people at random what one contribution to modern literature and entertainment J.R.R. Tolkien would be most identifiable with, popularizing the quest story would be a very frequent answer (if not necessarily the most frequent one). Quests have been a part of our story-telling since Gilgamesh. Jason and the Argonauts popularized the notion for the Greco-Roman world, and they laid down the basic law of Quest Tales: you start with a humble hero, probably of noble blood, surround him with heroic companions, and send him off to the far corners of the world to achieve great deeds. It doesn't really matter how many people go on the quest, what they are questing for, or if their blood is really royal. The excitement is in the quest itself, in the realization that something must be done or the world may end tomorrow. A good quest is filled with villains and monsters, treachery and secret help, the loss of old friends and the gaining of new friends. In The Lord of the Rings and even The Hobbit Tolkien satisfies the reader's classic expectations by delivering all these elements. But he didn't stop there. He explored many facets of the quest story, in depth and briefly, throughout his three ages of Middle-earth history. The Quest of Mount Doom made this sort of thing fashionable, but Tolkien had older quests in mind when he wrote the story. Older in terms of his life and in terms of the history he was assembling out of previous efforts to write a great mythology. And it is perhaps significant that quest stories are a part of virtually every mythology. Mythologies try to bring some order to a people's sense of the world, and a good mythology explains how the wisdom and understanding it represents was acquired. Thor's quest for his hammer in the land of the giants is a metaphor for the battle between good and evil. The ultimate clash can be deferred with a small struggle, but it cannot be prevented. Thor ended up killing all the giants in the castle where he found his hammer, but the giants still gathered for Ragnarok. Read the rest of the article here.

'Ancanar' begins filming

by Michael Martinez, Saturday, October 21, 2000

Ancanar.com has updated again, and the independent movie production inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's Silmarillion stories is now officially underway. Filming began on October 17 and pictures have been posted on the official Web site. "Ancanar" is set in a Beleriand-inspired mythical landscape where a young man, for whom the film is named, sets out to find a hidden city of the Elves after his people have been devastated by a terrible war. The movie project has created quite a stir among online Tolkien fans. Producer/actress Raiya Corsiglia may have some competition for breaking hearts among male fans. Check out Carolyn Palmer, who plays an Elven lady. And, ladies, the lead actor, Gregory Lee Kenyon, will probably cause a few sighs in the audience, too.

Realm of the Ring swamped by fan-preview downloads

by Michael Martinez, Saturday, October 21, 2000

Jonny Grindlay asked other Webmasters to host the MPEG preview on their own sites if at all possible. Xenite.Org has now made the preview available on its own server. Grindlay experienced an unprecedented 21 gigabytes of bandwidth usage on the first day the preview was made available. The preview is a 4-1/2 minute production Grindlay put together from footage and pictures which have been released in New Zealand and on the Internet. It is not a trailer, but rather is a review of twelve of the film locations which have been covered by the news media, fan sites, and the official Internet preview posted on April 7. Click here to see the preview on Xenite.Org's server (but, please, save it to your hard drive if you may -- we don't anticipate any bandwidth problems, but every little bit helps). Please report any problems you experience with the Xenite.Org download to Michael Martinez.

100 years ago, before we had hobbits, we had munchkins, and Toto, too

by Michael Martinez, Saturday, October 21, 2000

In the year 1900 L. Frank Baum published his second novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and he set into motion a literary epic which would span 40 novels, several movies, and generations of idiomatic citations of his work or the derivative works. Although the Oz books were never as popular as J.R.R. Tolkien's books, by the time the first novel became public domain material in 1956 it had sold 5,000,000 copies. That's an impressive number even by today's standards, though it works out to slightly fewer than 100,000 copies per year. Six more writers followed in Baum's shoes, and the last Oz novel was published in 1963. But the first book was adapted by Baum himself to the stage in 1902, who also produced or helped produce the first three film adaptations of the book in 1908, 1910, and 1914. J.R.R. Tolkien didn't even begin working on his Book of Lost Tales until 1916, and it would be another 21 years before The Hobbit was published. Although Baum died in 1919, another movie was produced by Chadwick Pictures in 1925 and Oliver Hardy, soon to become famous as part of the Laurel and Hardy comedy team, played a farmhand and the Tin Woodman. A cartoon which was never distributed was made in 1933 and soon afterward Samuel Goldman purchased the film rights. MGM bought the rights from Goldman in 1938, about the time The Hobbit was causing a stir in the United States, and the studio set about bringing the classic story to talking movies with color in what would be one of the all-time most expensive film productions, costing more than $3,000,000 in the late 1930s. Judy Garland, then a teenage sensation, had drawn the notice of Arthur Freed, who wanted to produce a film for her after seeing her in "Broadway Melody of 1938". Only because secret negotiations broke down between MGM and 20th Century Fox did Garland get the role of Dorothy. Had matters gone otherwise, Shirley Temple would have added Dorothy to her long list of credits. The movie production was plagued by problems and controversies, and it lost its director before filming was completed. In 1939, however, "The Wizard of Oz" premiered across America with unprecedented publicity. A network radio broadcast followed the event, along with newspapers across the country. Variety reportedly estimated the media coveraged reached about 92,000,000 people. And "The Wizard of Oz" was the first MGM movie handled by their merchandising department, created specifically to handle the toys, games, and other spinoff products. When the movie officially opened on August 15, 1939, it had already been heralded by the media as the greatest movie made to that time. When the film opened on Broadway, MGM sent teen actors Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney (he did not appear in the movie) to entertain audiences between showings. After two weeks Rooney left to work on a movie and actors Bert Lahr (the Cowardly Lion) and Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow) joined Garland for a third week of sellout shows. Despite the widespread popularity of the movie, MGM earned over $3,000,000 on the movie's initial release but still lost money. World War II began in September and that prevented the company from marketing the film overseas. "The Wizard of Oz" nonetheless took five academy awards, including Best Picture for 1939 (the same year that "Gone With the Wind" and "Jezebel" came out). MGM rereleased "The Wizard of Oz" in 1949, 1955, and 1998. But the movie was seen most often in America on network television. CBS acquired the rights to show the movie in 1956, and the movie ran once per year every year until 1988 (usually airing in the Spring -- and it may have run longer, but we're looking at notes from the 50th anniversary video edition, distributed in 1989). Some footage that Oz fans have never seen, or which they've only seen stills or home-movie versions of, included a dance number in the Haunted Forest called "The Jitter!bug" (which explains the otherwise obscure remark Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch, makes when she sends the flying monkeys to seize Dorothy: "I've sent a little bug ahead to take the fight out of them!"). There was also a processional number in the Emerald City, done to a reprise of "Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead!", upon the return of Dorothy and her companions with the Witch's broom. And a shot of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion crossing a rainbow bridge was cut. The 50th anniversary edition video includes some extra footage, including a longer dance number done by the Scarecrow (and choreographed by legendary choreographer Busby Berkeley) for the "If I Only Had A Brain" sequence. One pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers sold for as much as $165,000 at auction a year before the 50th anniversary. Other memorabilia found their ways into private collections and museums across the country. One item that turned out to have a remarkable history of its own was the coat that Frank Morgan, who played Professor Marvel and the Wizard, wore as Professor Marvel -- turned out to have L. Frank Baum's name sewn in the lining. Investigation showed that the coat had indeed once belonged to Baum himself, and it had somehow ended up in MGM's wardrobe department, where it was grabbed at random and fitted to Morgan. The "Wizard of Oz" movie has been hailed as one of the greatest fantasy films of all time. Victor Fleming, who switched to directing "Gone with the Wind" before filming was completed on "The Wizard of Oz", was replaced by King Vidor, but Fleming was not the first Oz director, either. The original director was Richard Thorpe, but he was taken off the project after only two weeks. George Cukor was asked to handle the film but he declined, though he spent two weeks redesigning Dorothy's look and touching up some of the other characters. The movie is very little like the book, and yet many of the classic elements of Baum's story have been retained. The production was not plagued by critical purists who demanded perfection or studied day-by-day by an active fan-base. Every scene was filmed on an MGM sound stage. Everything, including the tornado, had to be created, often with technology which had never been used before. "The Wizard of Oz" set the standard for production values on fantasy films for decades to come, and few movies have even come close to matching its breadth and depth in convincing an audience that the imaginary world is real. Now, 61 years later, we await Peter Jackson's three "Lord of the Rings" films, the first of which is to be released in 2001. J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was first published in 1954, but though it was an instant success it did not enjoy widespread popularity until 1965 when Ace Books published an unauthorized mass market edition and spurred Tolkien's publishers into action, kicking off a revolution in the publishing industry. We have waited a long, long time for these movies. However faithful or unfaithful they may prove to be to the literary story, however commercialized they may turn out to be with all the attendant merchandising, we have come this way only once before. Or, rather, our grandparents have been here. Now it's our turn. It may be another 60 years before anything like "The Lord of the Rings" or "The Wizard of Oz" graces the silver screen again. Whatever happens, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all of us. If the success of the 1939 movie, arguably one of the least faithful productions, is any indication of what lies ahead, it is far from being a cause for concern. Rather, it is a cause for celebration. Munchkins, Hobbits, Tin Men and Elves: we love them all. For further reminiscing about "The Wizard of Oz", check out The Sun-Times story.

Sir Ian McKellen talks about the Balrog

by Michael Martinez, Friday, October 20, 2000

Entertainment Tomorrow spoke with Sir Ian McKellen, who plays Gandalf in Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' movies about the upcoming Balrog scene. The page provides an audio file or fans to listen to, and we won't give away too much, but the actor reveals that he won't actually see the Balrog. It appears that some decisions remain to be made about how the scene will be put together. McKellen also discusses, in general terms, how an actor is usually in the dark about what will actually appear in a final production. "My job is to present raw material," he says, which the director or producer will work with in creating the final product. McKellen says "the epic quality of the story is obviously going to be different...it's a cinematic epic quality rather than a literary one." When asked about the eye in the Internet Preview, McKellen suggested "knowing Peter Jackson that could be something from one of his previous films" or another film altogether. He feels some of the material (in a general sense) presented in the Internet Preview probably won't appear in the final films. Thanks to TheOneRing.Net for the heads up.

The Listener digs into LOTR film's impact on New Zealand

by Michael Martinez, Thursday, October 19, 2000

If their analysis of the tax situation is as fraught with errors and mis-statements of fact as their brutal handling of Tolkien's storylines, everything is probably rosy in New Zealand's film industry and tax base after all. Nonetheless, fans with a morbid sense of curiosity or a deep sense of compassion for New Zealanders who are heading into a worse economic situation than they are currently experiencing may want to read Tolkien-Movies.Com's scans of a very lengthy collection of articles from The Listener. The intricacies of financial deals probably don't interest most people, but "The Lord of the Rings" is stirring up quite a controversy it seems. It will be the last set of movies to benefit from tax laws which were changed in 1999. New Zealand's film industry may be threatened with near total failure, or so the article would have us believe. Further down in the scans provided by Tolkien-Movies.Com are several articles dealing with the movies and the book. The information about the movies is okay, but once the writer got into discussion Tolkien grand ignorance took control and some David Day-like nonsense spewed forth, spraying what could have been a very informative article about Tolkien's Middle-earth gross inaccuracies and compressions. Let the surfer beware.

Dominic Monaghan and Sean Bean focus of attention

by Michael Martinez, Wednesday, October 18, 2000

The Unofficial Dominic Monaghan Web Site has posted a 'Q and A' interview with the actor, and Sean Bean is the subject of a new biography just published. Monaghan talks a little bit about playing Merry Brandybuck in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" in his interview, as well as what he might have done had he not become an actor. Winona Kent of The Complete Sean Bean has sent out the word that a new book about the actor has been published. Thought you might be interested to know there is a new biography of Sean Bean available. The unofficial biography has been written by Laura Jackson, who has also written biographies of Queen, Ewan McGregor, and other celebrities. There apparently isn't too much info about LOTR since the bio focuses on Sean's career up to this point, but LOTR is mentioned. You can get more info here at The Compleat Sean Bean: http://persweb.direct.ca/wkent/bio-book.html Bean plays Boromir in the upcoming LOTR film, "The Fellowship of the Ring". Thanks to Tolkien Online for the heads up about Dominic Monaghan.

Fan-made LOTR preview hits the Internet

by Michael Martinez, Wednesday, October 18, 2000

Jonny Grindlay of The Realm of the Ring has patched together an impressive 4-1/2 minute MPEG preview of the exterior sets used for Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' movies. People who don't yet have broadband access to the Internet will nonetheless want to devote the time required to downloading the MPEG file. Grindlay, who has visited at least one filming set and been mentioned in at least one news story from New Zealand, has captured footage from two New Zealand television studios, the official Internet preview, and various pictures published in print and on the Internet to produce a stupendous report on the filming locations. Some of the footage is new to us at Xenite.Org.

Hobbit play to open in Toronto

by Michael Martinez, Wednesday, October 18, 2000

TheOneRing.Net found out about a Hobbit play being staged in Toronto from October 21 - December 21, 2000. How seriously are the actors taking a production aimed at audiences aged 9 and up? Greg Kramer, the actor selected to play Gollum in the play, asked Xenite.Org's Michael Martinez for a few tips on sources about Gollum earlier this year. Kramer had high praise for Young People's Theater, the company putting on the production, and he said it's been over 20 years since a similar production had occurred in Canada. We wish Canadian Tolkien fans and Theater-goers a good season.

Harry Knowles dispells another Liv Tyler rumor

by Michael Martinez, Wednesday, October 18, 2000

Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News has posted a small bone for LOTR fans. He recently spoke with co-screenwriter Philippa Boyens about Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' movies. Knowles only posted a summary of his talk with Philippa but he said she mentioned that she expected Orlando Bloom to become "quite something" after the movies have been released, that Elijah Wood undergoes the transformations for Frodo very well, that she now sees only Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, and that Liv Tyler has a natural feel for speaking Elvish. So, Liv can speak Elvish beautifully? That doesn't sound like the kind of guarded remark someone would say about an actress whose scenes are supposedly being cut. Special thanks to David at Tolkien Online for the heads up on the article.

Orlando Bloom talks to Otago Daily Times, Legolas' age revealed at last

by Michael Martinez, Monday, October 16, 2000

Another cast member has now given an interview with a New Zealand newspaper: Orlando Bloom, Legolas in Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy. David at Tolkien Online alerted us to this brief interview with the actor (which includes a picture of Bloom sitting by a lake). The most startling revelation in the interview? Someone has decided that Legolas was 2931 years old at the time of the War of the Ring. That would mean Peter Jackson (or the interviewer or actor) believes Legolas was born around the year 87 of the Third Age, although no published material written by J.R.R. Tolkien mentions this.

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