I sit back and wonder how to review this masterpiece. Everything is there. The casting is perfect, the score by Howard Shore is the most iconic since the John Williams’ canon, the cinematography is beautiful, the adaption is the most pure I’ve ever seen from a novel, and yet the pacing is brisk and three hours later, I was happy to move on to Two Towers just to get more.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL REVIEW

CLICK HERE FOR FULL REVIEW

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Jackson and Co. set up to close out what they began. And they do it in style. With a clear ending set in mind, and a better roadmap to work from they are able to raise the bar from Two Towers and while they might not quite reach the heights of perfection that Fellowship of the Ring had, Return of the King could arguably be the more enjoyable.

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The Hunt For Golllum

Starring: Adrian Webster, Arin Alldridge, Patrick O’Connor, Rita Ramnani, and Gareth Brough

Written by: Chris Bouchard, Julianne Honey-Mennal, Sabina Sattar, and Stuart Price based on stories by J.R.R. Tolkien

Directed by: Chris Bouchard

I went into this fan fill with a little trepidation. Usually fan-films are known for two things. Being in LOVE with the subject matter. Absolutely horrid on special effects/acting/etc. and that’s not meant to be a knock as it generally not the fault of the creative team, merely the limitations of budget, time, available talent, etc.

This is a different scenario and a much different film. Obviously inspired by Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema’s adapations of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it amazes me that for a film with SUCH a low budget (under £3,000) that it could actually meld in completely with the high budget films.

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According to Dark Horizons James McAvoy is the favored choice to play Bilbo Baggins in Guillermo del Toro’s The Hobbit.

Nothing is even near official, but it’s always fun to speculate.

This is the full transcript of the online chat hosted by Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro regarding The Hobbit and the Sequel.

(continue reading…)

According to Coming Soon who quotes Variety, in addition to Andy Serkis and Ian McKellan being approached to reprise their roles in the Hobbit and its sequel, Viggo Mortensen has also been approached to reprise his role as Aragorn.

I’m assuming that’s more for the sequel, unless they try to shoe horn him into the Hobbit storyline, perhaps in scenes with Elrond.

WETA has announced that Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Torro will be holding an hour-long online chat on May 25th! It is hoped that fans will register and submit their questions in advance HERE. The top 20 questions will be answered during the chat and then the two will answer live questions as well!

Here it is directly from Peter Jackson himself.

Enjoy!

Directed by Guillermo del Toro, scored by Howard Shore and with Ian McKellan and Andy Serkis reprising their roles as Gandalf and Gollum, this is a good time to be a Middle Earth Fan.

Of course we all want to see Peter Jackson return to Middle Earth,  but del Toro is a phenomenal second choice.

Howard Shore’s score should help maintain a seamless transition as well.

I am intrigued on what this second film will be and from what material it will be culled.  It seems like a box office move, but it will certainly be interesting to see what’s up their sleeves.

Visit the Hobbit page that is newly created. This page will contain all subpages to future reviews of movies and novelizations.

The direct link to the review is:The Annotated Hobbit Novel.

Welcome to SecondViews: Middle Earth! This page is under development as we are concentrating on filling up our already open V page and our Main page. We will be slowly building up content here in the future! Thanks for visiting!