Games

Many years ago, the dwarves of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, were driven from their home by Smaug, last of the great dragons. Thorin Oakenshield, the grandson of the last King of Erebor, has vowed to reclaim his home and called upon the dwarven clans of Middle-earth to aid him. Rebuffed, he instead plans a daring raid of a few chosen dwarves to slay Smaug whilst he sleeps. To aid them, Gandalf the Grey has promised to recruit a skilled burglar: Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit of the Shire. Their journey will take them through forests and caverns, all the while being tracked by an old enemy of Thorin's... An Unexpected Journey is the first movie in a trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's 1937 novel, The Hobbit . That's Tolkien's short novel which, by word-count, is just under a fifth of the length of The Lord of the Rings . There's been enormous controversy about director Peter Jackson's decision to split The Hobbit into three three-hour films, with a fear that there simpl...

With the decision taken to split the two Hobbit movies into three, a question mark was raised about how the films would be titled and when they would be released. Warner Brothers have now answered those questions. The three movies will be called: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - 14 December 2012 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - 13 December 2013 The Hobbit: There and Back Again - 18 July 2014 Interesting news, though to be honest I don't think the second title works that well. Even assuming the film's title comes from its conclusion (basically the end to the book, The Hobbit ), that still doesn't seem to leave a lot of material for the third movie. Whilst Jackson has repeatedly defended the decision to split the slim novel (less than one-third length the size of The Lord of the Rings ) in three on the basis that there is material in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings to mine, this claim has not withstood close scrutiny. The overwhelming majority of the appe...

Peter Jackson and his producing partners have announced that their two-film adaptation of The Hobbit will be stretched to three films. Jackson had filmed a lot of material for the two movies which will have to be cut out due to time. After discussions with the studio, this material will be combined with new material (filmed early next year) to turn The Hobbit into a trilogy. "Guys, it's the script for The Hobbit III: Fifty Shades of Gandalf the Grey . You do not want to know what Galadriel is doing with that elven rope in this scene." At the moment it is believed that the first two movies will retain their titles of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again , and their planned release dates of December 2012 and 2013. The planned third movie will presumably be released in December 2014. No suggested subtitles for it have appeared (expect fan suggestions such as ' The Search for Plot ' and ' There and Back Again and Back Again as ...

A whole ton of interesting stuff is happening at the San Diego Comic-Con, as usual. A lot of upcoming movies have had exclusive teaser posters released for them, and these are two of the most interesting: An Unexpected Journey is the first of two movies adapting J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit to the big screen. The same crew are handling the project as the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy a decade ago, including director Peter Jackson. The first movie will be released this December. Principal filming on the two movies ended a week ago, with the production switching to editing and special effects work. The World's End won't start shooting until September and is planned for release later in 2013. This is the third in the thematic Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, following on from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz , and reunites director Edgar Wright with actors Simon Pegg (who also co-writes) and Nick Frost ( Paul , despite featuring Pegg and Frost, doesn't count because i...

We still have a year to wait, but The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has just had its first trailer released: Looks like Jackson has done a good job of recapturing the feel of the original movie, and it's good to see McKellen and Holm back in their old roles. Freeman also looks promising as the young Bilbo, and Richard Armitage seems to be doing a good job as Thorin (though he's still a bit more Klingon-esque than I think most people had in mind). Overall, looking good.

Upon his death in 1973, J.R.R. Tolkien left behind a vast collection of writings about Middle-earth. His third son and literary executor, Christopher, assembled some of these into The Silmarillion , published in 1977, but the question about what to do with the other reams of material was unclear. Aware that fans of Middle-earth would be eager for more material, even unfinished or existing only in rough drafts, he assembled Unfinished Tales and published it in 1980. Its success inspired him to proceed with the far more ambitious, twelve-volume History of Middle-earth project. Unfinished Tales occupies an awkward place in the Tolkien canon. Unlike the History series, which consists of almost exclusively non-canon material (early drafts and rough notes of material that was eventually finalised and published), the material in Unfinished Tales was specifically written by Tolkien to flesh out other parts of his mythos that were not explored in the books themselves. In particular, the wr...