More from Lilly, New Hobbit Image

Evangeline Lilly previously provided a little information about playing the role of Tauriel in The Hobbit. In a recent interview with Yahoo! Movies she elaborated on the preparation and training required for the role. In addition the article provided this great image of Bilbo with Bifur, Dawlin, Bofur and Oin at Bag's End.

Working on "The Hobbit," though, has radically changed how she readies herself for a role. "I can't just be spontaneous, because there is nothing natural about being an elf," Lilly said. "It's not human, so I have to study to learn what it means to be this other creature."

This means Lilly has had to train to walk, talk, and, of course, fight like an elf. She said, "So, on top of my stunt training -- which I need to learn how to be proficient with the bow and arrow, and with daggers, and in fighting orcs that are, you know, ten feet tall -- I also have to learn the language of Elvish, and I have to learn an RP [Received Pronunciation] neutral English accent for when I speak English." When you add in learning to move and gesture like an elf, Lilly figures she has spent "four times as much time preparing as I do actually shooting."

Also discovered the RSS Feed link in the top right was wrong and fixed it. No telling how long it was point to the wrong blog. Sorry about that.

Lego Gollum Poster, Fellowship Minifig Images

Last week, Lego revealed at the UK Toy Fair, their first wave of Lego The Lord of the Rings sets and the minifigs they come with. However, since pictures are not allowed, we really had no idea what the minifigs might look like beyond the posters that have been released. Now we know thanks to the images below which show off the Fellowship along with some of the bad guys. There is also the next poster, this time for Gollum. The links to the other posters are also below.
Aragorn | Bilbo | Legolas

The Hobbit Casting Call Gets Overwhelming Response

According to the Noldar Blog, it seems that the casting call Saturday in Wellington, New Zealand got an unprecedented response. So extreme that local authorities had to shut it down after just an hour and a half due to to excessive traffic and car accidents. The call was to get people of various sizes to probably play extras in the Battle of Five Armies that will be filmed sometime in the next five months. It seems the production expected around 1200 to show up between the scheduled times of 1pm to 4pm but instead at least 3000 showed up with estimated 4500 bt the time it was over. All to a location that only has room for 150 people. Around 800 people made it through before the casting call was ended at 2:30pm. Not sure what will be done now but probably some online process to fill out whatever additional casting the production needs. More details on the day's events can be found here.

Lilly Evangeline Provides More Tauriel Details

While promoting the recent release of Real Steel on home video, Evangeline Lilly (Tauriel) spoke with Entertainment Weekly about her role in The Hobbit films. Specifically she provided a few more details on what role her character of Tauriel has in the film since it is not based on one in the books. While she did not say exactly what her character does, she is reporting back to New Zealand for the last half of five months of filming which a recent casting call strong indicates will be to film the Battle of Five Armies. The Hobbit portions are below, the full interview can be found here.

Speaking of small and little, I’d be remiss not to bring up The Hobbit. You’re playing a new character named Tauriel, who’s a Mirkwood elf, and that would lead me to believe that she is a warrior of some kind. Did you have to learn archery and swordplay?
Yes, she is a warrior. She’s actually the head of the Elven guard. She’s the big shot in the army. So she knows how to wield any weapon, but the primary weapons that she uses are a bow and arrow and two daggers. And she’s lethal and deadly. You definitely wouldn’t want to be caught in a dark alley next to Tauriel.

Lego Lord of the Rings at UK Toy Fair 2012

Recently the UK Toy Fair 2012 was held and with it comes news of the upcoming Lego sets based on the Lord of the Rings films. As the picture shows, the entire Fellowship will be represented but the cost of getting them all will not come cheap as will need to buy 7 sets with a price range of $11.99 to $99.99. The Lego sets are environment sets that attempt to re-create moments from the film, which has been the norm for Lego movie properties(exclusing Star Wars). Below is a description of each of those 7 sets thanks to From Bricks to Bothans. The sets are expected to arrive in the UK around August, probably about the same for the States.

More from Andy Serkis on Gollum

It seems that Andy Serkis is getting a little more attention lately thanks to his buzz surrounding his award worthy turn as Caesar in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." While critics loved his performance, it seems the often older crowd of the Academy still does not understand motion capture technology; most still believing it is taking away actor's jobs. This was evidenced by todays' Oscar nominations which snubbed the actor and only gave the film one nomination in the Visual Effects category. In an interview with Hero Complex (from a few days before), the actor talked about the Oscar buzz, winning a Critics' Choice Award, playing Caesar and returning to Middle Earth. Below is The Hobbit related portion, the full interview can be found here.

On returning to Gollum for “The Hobbit”: Gollum’s never really gone too far away from me because he’s indelibly kind of printed into my DNA now, I think. I’ll tell you what was weird is going back and playing a character that has been so sort of absorbed into public consciousness that you almost don’t feel like you own it anymore. And to sort of gather it back — I mean, I did feel, I think, probably in the first couple of days going back into it that I was sort of doing a weird impersonation of him rather than being him because there have been so many spoofs and people’s impersonations and so on, and some people’s impersonations are really great. And I’m kind of thinking, “Oh gosh, that’s how to do it, yeah.” And you know, then you get back into it. … Meaningfully getting back into it was really exciting.

Casting Call for The Hobbit

If you live in the Wellington, New Zealand area, then good news for you as Peter Jackson's The Hobbit is on hte hunt for extras. Based on the height descriptions it seems they are looking for their Five Armies extras as the requirements would cover Dwarves, Goblins, humans, and Elves. Details can be found here. (via AICN)

The Middle-Earth Family Tree

Emil Johansson has recently started the website LOTR Project that attempts to put together all the relationships in Middle-Earth that goes beyond The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and includes everything Tolkien wrote. The result is an impressive family tree table that isn't even completed as he continues to work on it. He tells The One Ring, "The first family tree I made was probably six years ago and consisted of two huge papers, 1 by 1 meters. I quickly realized this was something I wanted to share, but my knowledge of the web was too poor to allow it. I was not until November last year that I decided to give it a try. Even though much of the research already had been done, programming the site and adding the characters into the database have taken a lot of time. Too much for me to want to think about it." It is a must view site for any die hard Tolkien fan. Click here to check it out.

Elijah Wood on Filming The Hobbit

In an interview with Collider, Elijah Wood comments on his month long return to New Zealand to film his scenes for The Hobbit. He spoke about the sense of family since many of the crew members worked on the Lord of the Rings, working in 3D, and how he enjoyed the trailer. No specific filming details were revealed but he clearly enjoyed returning to Hobbiton. The full interview can be found here.

You guys all commemorated your experience on The Lord of the Rings by getting tattoos. Did you do anything to commemorate your experience on The Hobbit, or was it just too short?
WOOD: It was too short. My involvement is so small. It was a gift to go back and return. I was in Hobbiton again, for the first time in 11 years. I turned 19 in Hobbiton. I’m 30 now. That put a lot of things into perspective. It was beautiful. It was just beautiful to go back. I only worked a small amount when I was there. I was there for a month, and the majority of my time was just going to set every day and meeting a lot of the new cast members, catching up with old friends, and being in Wellington again. It feels like home, and those people feel like extended family to me. It was such a treat to go back. It was awesome!

Jackson on Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Consistency

In a MTV interview, Peter Jackson comments on making The Hobbit movies and his attempt to make sure that the Hobbit films have a continuous look and feel to create essentially a five film series. He also said that the final block of filming will start in early February and conclude by July. (via TOR)

Lego Legolas Poster

Lego has released their next line of teaser posters for the upcoming Lord of the Rings line of Lego sets with Legolas. The previous images were Aragorn and Bilbo.

Cameraman Talks Motion Capture on Lord of the Rings

Recently motion capture pioneer Andy Serkis (Gollum) commented about the developments in motion capture that have reached a point where it truly captures a full acting performance where "Every reaction, every emotion, every acting choice and beat happens there and then." Sadly most critics and fellow actors continue to believe that motion capture is the equilvant of animation where the actor is more of a guide then true acting. Someone who knows there is more to it then some dots, suit and computers is Return of the King camera man Evan Pugh who wrote about his experience working with Serkis on the Butchers Hook blog.

People who dislike the increasing use of CG in films should remember that movie making is about creating magic, about making make-believe. At the end of The Lord of The Rings trilogy, before the hobbits are able to have their overextended self-congratulatory epilogue, Frodo bites the ring from Gollum's finger, Gollum then falls into Mount Doom. As he flails backwards into a sea of fire we watch his horror, not at his impending demise, but at his loss of the ring and then as he falls his glee that the ring is going with him. This dramatic scene was all made possible because Andy Serkis contorted himself over the back of a broken office chair in a draughty warehouse in a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand. As a member of production explained at the time this was a 'Kiwi job'. Who cares that the practicalities of shooting that scene - both for facial expression and motion capture -weren't salubrious, when the technology allowed it to be transformed into the magic that made the final cut.

Serkis Briefly Talks Hobbit Motion Capture

In an article about how Hollywood ignores the real acting that occurs with motion-capture, Andy Serkis commented briefly on how motion capture was used on the set of The Hobbit when he reprised the role of Gollum for the film. As for the image, it was first posted by Collider. It shows Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) with Sting. Based on the webbing on Bilbo and in the background, this is a scene involving a fight with the giant spiders of Mirkwood.

What’s changed as a result of Weta's new active-LED system used for "Apes" is that there are no longer any breaks in the capture sequences: "Every reaction, every emotion, every acting choice and beat happens there and then," Serkis emphasized.

Indeed, that's what happened when Serkis revisited Gollum after a 12-year absence for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" (December 14). Shooting live on set provided a more dynamic sense of play in his scene with the young Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman). "The way we approached the scene was very much to treat it like a chamber-theater piece, where we could experiment and try different things out," Serkis explained. "Of course, the other significant change now is that we're using facial capture, so my facial muscles are driving the facial muscles of the digital puppet."

Richard Armitage's Talk Hobbit With MTV

As part of their 2012 Ones to Watch series, MTV spoke with The Hobbit's Ricard Armitage as he spoke about working on The Hobbit and his role of Thorin. Filming is currently on break but the third block will start at the end of January until July with possibility another block in 2012. Below are the highlights (with spoilers if not read the book) with the full Q&A here.

MTV: Is it easy to forget you're acting? Do you get lost in the world the production creates?
Armitage: The soundstages they made in Wellington, [New Zealand], most of the time it doesn't feel like we've been working on a set. Even when there's a green screen there, Peter's vision of it is so clear and his description of it is so clear. The pre-production CGI that they've already created really fires up your imagination. That was the shoot we started with. On location, it's just theirs to program these amazing images into your head, so we can now take them back into the studio.

Lego Aragorn Poster

Coming this summer is new Lego sets for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. Previousily Lego released a poster depicting the Legoized version of Frodo and now below is Lego Aragorn in his Return of the King pose for your enjoyment.

Cumberbatch Reveals Minor Plot Spoiler

In an interview with Empire to promote BBC's Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch commented on his roles of Smaug and the Necromancer, revealing a tiny plot change.

"I’m playing Smaug through motion-capture and voicing the Necromancer, which is a character in the Five Legions War or something which I’m meant to understand. He’s not actually in the original Hobbit. It’s something [Peter Jackson]’s taken from Lord Of The Rings that he wants to put in there."

In the novel, the Battle of Five Armies (his Legions reference) is essentially a fight over Smaug's treasure after his defeat. The Necromancer (aka Sauron) was defeated in a battle at Mirkwood that occurred "off screen" halfway through the novel. In the book, Gandalf left Bilbo and co to their own devices why taking care of an unspecified adventure that was revealed in later books to be a fight with
Sauron.

The comment above suggests either a few things. One is Peter Jackson merged the two battles, giving a greater purpose to the Five Armies battle beyond simple greed. I think the more likely possibility is both battles are depicted in the movies (Mirkwood in Unexpected Adventure, Five Armies in There and Back Again), with Mirkwood being the first fight with Sauron and the Five Armies being the second while retaining its significance as would provide a nice transition to Sauron rising to power in Mordor for The Lord of the Rings. This fits with what little we know of filming as the departure of Gandalf is kept in the movie (per an AICN set report) and while providing a significant battle for the first movie, something the book didn't have. If true, Tolkien purists will pitch a fit but I doubt movie goers will complain.

Stunt Doubles for The Hobbit

The One Ring has posted an article that provides a few details on the stunt doubles that will help sell the realism of The Hobbit films and of course keep the actors safe. The full details can be found here, a quick summary is below with name, who stunt for. All count Starz' Spartacus, Lord of the Rings, King Kong and/or The Adventures of TinTin in their recent stunt credits.

Bronson Steel for Stephen Hunter (Bombur)
Mana Davis for Richard Armitage (Thorin)
Peter Dillion for Ken Stott (Balin)
Sean Button for Aiden Turner (Kili)
Winham Hammond for Graham McTavish (Dwalin)
Allan Smith for Jed Brophy (Nori)
David J. Muzzeral for Adam Brown (Ori)
Isaac Hammon for John Callen (Oin)
Vincent Roxburgh for James Nesbitt (Bofur)
Tony Marsh for Peter Hambleton (Gloin)
Scott Chiplin for William Kircher (Bifur)
Jeremy Hollis for Mark Hadlow (Dori)

R.I.P. Bob Anderson

The Lord of the Rings family has lost one of its own this New Year’s Day when sword master and fight choreographer Bob Anderson passed away at the age of 89. He had a long career creating the epic fights scenes for many movies and training the actors and stuntmen to pull them off. Or in some cases doing it himself like performing Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. His work includes The Princess Bride, Highlander, Pirates of the Caribbean, and many more. In short, if you have geeked over a sword fight sequence in a favorite movie, don't be surprised if he either helped create it or influenced the person that did.

Peter Jackson wrote on his Facebook page:

It is a rare, even within the film industry, that you get to work with a legend which was why I was thrilled when Bob Anderson agreed to come on board The Lord of the Rings as our sword-master. In fact, it took a while for it to sink in that I was going to get to work with the same man who had helped create some of cinema's greatest fight sequences - from Star Wars to The Princess Bride. Bob was a brilliant swordsman and a gifted teacher; I will remember him as a wonderfully patient man, possessed of a terrific sense of humour. It was a privilege to have known him.