From the GeekDad Community: Last Chance to Read The Hobbit
GeekDad Community member Martin Williams shares some thoughts on reading The Hobbit with his children, before the upcoming movie changes the whole experience.
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Bag End Made From 2,600 Balloons? Yep.
You have some spare time. You’re a balloon artist. And you really like The Hobbit. So you make a replica of Bag End. Of course!
Continue ReadingFor Wisdom of the Shire, Look No Further: Q&A With Author Noble Smith (Part 1)
Noble Smith’s book The Wisdom of the Shire: A Short Guide to a Long and Happy Life (Thomas Dunne Books, 224 pp., $22.99), released today (October 30), is a definitive guide to Tolkien’s worldview. Luckily, this book is no dry …
Continue ReadingFantasy Legends Brian and Wendy Froud at New York Comic Con This Weekend: The Q&A
Cross Yoda with a fairy and what do you get? Brian and Wendy Froud. The fantasy artists and innovators are appearing this weekend at New York Comic Con, opening an art show in SoHo and lauching a new book of …
Continue ReadingNew Lego Hobbit Tabletop Game and Giveaway Announced
The newest addition to the Lego line of tabletop games has been announced, and it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that it ties in with the most anticipated movie of the rest of this year.
Continue ReadingOn the 75th Anniversary of The Hobbit, an Appreciation
“It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends” is what the writer Joan Didion once said about her experiences traveling to a new land (in her case, New York City). It’s also true …
Continue ReadingNew “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” Trailer Looks Amazing
The much-anticipated new trailer for Peter Jackson’s first film in the new Hobbit trilogy has hit the web today. Unlike the previous trailer that focused pretty tightly on the Dwarves and setting them up as individual characters, this one is …
Continue ReadingFamily Film Weekend: Watching Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Extended Edition
My four children all have different levels of geekiness but, so far, my youngest son (13) is the only one even mildly interested in The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I devoured those books in …
Continue ReadingHappy Birthday Sylvester McCoy! Doctor Who and The Hobbit Actor Turns 69
Scottish Actor Sylvester McCoy (real name Percy James Patrick Kent-Smith), best known to geeks as the 7th incarnation of The Doctor on the British television series, was born this day 69 years ago.
Continue ReadingThe Hobbit Trilogy Announcement Gets Mixed Reviews
Some more updates about the shocking (or predictable) news I wrote about yesterday here on GeekDad that The Hobbit will now be released as a trilogy of films.
Continue ReadingRumors of Third Hobbit Movie Confirmed
The rumors have been confirmed. The two-movie plan for The Hobbit has been changed, uh, mid-stream. Make room in your movie-going schedule and expectations for a Hobbit trilogy.
Continue ReadingThe Hobbit Production Video #8 Is Live
For those of you keeping track at home, here’s the eighth in Peter Jackson’s series of production videos from The Hobbit, giving us crazy sneak peeks of his time at Comic-Con, sets and shooting, as well as other goodies. …
Continue ReadingNew Hobbit Banner Reveals Clues to Movie Adaptation
This scrollable banner advertisement from The Hobbit has been bouncing around the Internet over the past 24 hours. Its very size (above is just a portion of it), and the fact on the original image you can move a magnifier …
Continue ReadingThe Hobbit Production Video #7 Is Live
For those of you keeping track at home, here’s the seventh in an on-going series of production videos from The Hobbit. This time around, Peter Jackson and friends give us a tour of the Stone Street Studio. As always, all …
Continue ReadingHow I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love 3-D (GeekDad Weekly Rewind)
I am not afraid to admit it: I’m a fan of 3-D movies. At its best, 3-D can add a texture and layering to the visual narrative that a skilled director and editor can spin into magic. At its worst, …
Continue ReadingLEGO Announces Lord of the Rings Video Game With a Trailer — and Dialogue!
You must see this trailer for the newly-announced LEGO: Lord of the Rings video game, to be released this fall for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, DS, 3DS, PS Vita and PC.
Continue ReadingHow I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love 3-D
I am not afraid to admit it: I’m a fan of 3-D movies. At its best, 3-D can add a texture and layering to the visual narrative that a skilled director and editor can spin into magic. At its worst, …
Continue ReadingTop 9 Ways to Celebrate Middle-Earth Day (GeekDad Wayback Machine)
We’ve already covered the serious side of Earth Day today, so now we invoke the spirit of geekitude and take it to an extreme. So, then, how should Middle-earth Day be celebrated by its residents? We have nine (like The …
Continue ReadingJ.K. Rowling Reveals Her New Book — For Adults
As widely reported yesterday, J.K. Rowling and her publisher Little, Brown have announced her new book. And, as you may have heard, it’s not for kids. The “blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising” book, her publisher says — her first …
Continue ReadingToday Is Tolkien Reading Day: Read The Hobbit to Your Kids
Tolkien Reading Day occurs each year on March 25 — the actual day in The Lord of the Rings when Frodo and the Fellowship were successful in destroying the One Ring and defeating Sauron. To honor that, The Tolkien Society wants you to …
Continue ReadingMarch Madness Comes to Middle-Earth
How would Gandalf match up against Treebeard in a slam-dunk contest? Or Aragorn vs. Merry and Pippin, one-on-two? (Don’t underestimate the feistiness of those hobbits.) Our friends over at TheOneRing.net have launched an alternative to the NCAA basketball tournament called …
Continue ReadingViggo Mortensen Speaks: Part 3 of 3
This third part concludes my three-part, in-depth conversation with Viggo Mortensen, in conjunction with him receving the Coolidge Award in Boston. [Note: Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.] In this final installment, he and I discuss what drives …
Continue ReadingViggo Mortensen Speaks: Part 1 of 3
Gilsdorf: There was a story that you had a run-in with the police who saw you wielding your sword in public and, uh, had a problem with that. Mortensen: It is true that I once was asked by local law …
Continue ReadingIntroducing the GeekMom Book Club!
Book clubs can be a lot of fun. You get to read books that you might not normally read and share your favorites with other people. But sometimes it’s hard to find people in your real life that would be …
Continue ReadingUnknown Tolkien Letter Falls Out of Book
As reported on TheOneRing.net and elsewhere, a handwritten note written by J.R.R. Tolkien that he’d addressed to a couple he and his wife Edith had met on an unfortunate holiday just sold to an anonymous internet bidder for £1,700, or about $2,700. …
Continue ReadingWhy the Hobbit Trailer Creeps Me Out
When I first saw the Hobbit trailer, I was pretty excited. My inner fan-boy erupted with a huge roar of approval. So much of it is right: the dwarves, Martin Freeman as Bilbo, comedy, a cool battle with the trolls, …
Continue ReadingThe Hobbit: The First Trailer Is Here!
The first trailer for the first of Peter Jackson’s two-part film adaptation of The Hobbit, subtitled An Unexpected Journey, is out. And it’s just as brilliant as you’d hope and expect, even if it doesn’t do a lot more than …
Continue ReadingThe Hobbit: One Year and Counting (Down)
Exactly one year — 366 days in this case — from today will come our first opportunity since 2003 to return to Middle-earth in a new movie. It won’t be easy to wait, but we can feel secure in the …
Continue ReadingThe Hobbit as Tolkien Saw It
J.R.R. Tolkien was a remarkably talented man, and famously provided a set of his own illustrations for his 1937 novel The Hobbit, though of course many editions have added those by other artists. But it wasn’t until the publisher HarperCollins was …
Continue ReadingHoping The Hobbit Inspires My Kids to Read
My kids aren’t old enough for the Lord of the Rings films yet, but once they have read through Harry Potter I have it in mind to start them on Tolkien’s books. The problem is that these are quite a …
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