Lord of the Rings—not even in its cinematic, action-heavy form—doesn’t really lend itself to the power fantasy of video games. That’s not stopped people from trying for years, including the latest game, the hack-n’-slash-meets-orc-dating-sim Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. But Shadow of War fails to understand Lord of…
Some of our favorite science fiction and fantasy franchises are defined by the weapons in them. Star Wars has its lightsabers. Zelda’s Link has his Master Sword. These are the touchstones of each property, and artist Matt Ritchie is reimagining them all in a beautiful, colorful new way.
When Shadow of Mordor released in 2014, its “nemesis system” was brilliant enough that many people hoped it would define a new generation of games. Years later, that vision of industry-wide character hierarchies that learn, evolve, and remember the player never came to pass. Shadow of War, the follow-up, further…
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, the latest video game set in the world of Lord of the Rings, looks like some crazy Tolkien fanfiction. Its most recent trailer went even wilder, and introduced us to, among other things, the giant spider Shelob... in the form of human woman. How? Why? The team behind the game has a reason,…
The works of J.R.R. Tolkien have given us a lush, vast fantasy realm in Middle-Earth, one that’s extraordinarily archived and detailed in his many writings. But a new book wants to go even further on one particularly famous aspect: Tolkien’s use of botany to tell us about the flora of Middle-Earth... and how its…
Sidekicks. Always there to lend a helping hand, or sword, or wand, as the case may be. A hero is nothing without his or her sidekick, but these companions rarely get the recognition they deserve. A few second bananas may get the spotlight on occasion—your Robins, your Chewbaccas, your Igors—but they all originated in…
After years of fighting, with twists and turns and reams of legal writing to rival the books that caused them, the legal battle between Warner Bros. and estate of J.R.R. Tolkien has been settled.
Ohayo, my outstanding outgoing mail packages! Apologies for being late; all I can do is promise that it’s another extra-long installment, thanks to the abundance of great letters you guys keep sending me. So, this week: Some hard truths about the Avengers, some Wonder Woman plot holes filled, way more Tom Bombadil…
The first game in Warner Bros’ latest Lord of the Rings franchise, Shadow of Mordor, tried to position itself as something that could have ostensibly happened in between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It played with, but respected, the canon of Middle-Earth. Its sequel, on the other hand, is tossing that out the…
If you had to replace a beloved actor who unfortunately passed away in the middle of filming a franchise, you might go looking for someone who also had experience in the “long-bearded wizard” department. Unfortunately for Warner Bros., Ian McKellen refused to take up the Dumbledore mantle.
Ian McKellen’s had a storied career—one that’s spanned well beyond his beloved genre roles as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings and Magneto in the X-Men films. But now he’s going to revisit all of it in a one-man stage show that we all suddenly desperately want to attend.
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, the newly unveiled video gaming sequel to Shadow of Mordor looks like it’s ramping up things up in every possible way. The last game already played fast and loose with Lord of the Rings lore, but now you’re a human leading armies of orcs into an invasion of Mordor. With your own ring of…
These days, the world feels more like Mordor than the Shire. Thankfully, a few hobbits are still around to bring us some hope.
Say what you will about the Pop Vinyl toy aesthetic, there is something to be admired in Funko’s ability to acquire licenses for their toys like grey goo nanomachines devouring their way across the face of the Earth. Case in point, the company announced like, a hojillion toys at the UK Toy Fair yesterday, and we want…
One of the many reasons why The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in both book and movie form, is so good is the characters. Each hero, villain, and everything in between is simply memorable and captivating. Everyone has their favorites and if your favorite is Gandalf, this is going to knock your socks off.
There are quite a few permutations of the Lord of the Rings films out there on Blu-ray, but the extended editions are the ones you want, and the extended trilogy pack is down to $40 on Amazon today, complete with all three extended films totaling 11 hours, plus 26 hours of special features to boot. No wonder it’s the …
The two people who greenlit Peter Jackson’s ambitious, risky Lord of the Rings trilogy are returning to the roots of Middle Earth. Former New Line executives Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne are producing a biopic of Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, and they’ve just hired a director.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely, or so the idiom goes. But sometimes absolute power just makes you kind of an idiot. There are entities out there who practically omnipotent but somehow haven’t managed to find a way to use their powers for anything worthwhile. Here are 10 beings who are utterly wasting their godlike…
Last week, Amazon accidentally let slip that a new bumper collection including all six extended editions of Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth movies together for the very first time was on its way—and that it apparently had a humongous price tag. We thought it couldn’t possibly be true, but apparently we were wrong.
Pretty much ever since the Hobbit movies were announced, fans have clamored for an ultimate box set that gathered the (then-future) extended editions of those films with the extended Lord of the Rings cuts in a single box set. Well, you’ll soon be able to—and it’s pretty spectacular.
