I don't know how many of you all here are serious LotR fans, but Tolkein's house is up for sale, but they want to turn it into an official Tolkein center for fans and scholars.
https://www.projectnorthmoor.org/
This is being backed by several of the actors and people from WETA and so on, so if you want to help please donate!
…why do they need fan money? Like, isn't his estate super wealthy?
The estate handles his properties, including LotR, but it doesn't necessarily actively buy or donate anything. It's run by his descendants, and apparently they have no interest in buying their old house (which was bought by a private buyer way back), so it's up to the fans to look out for it.
And hey, that's their choice. His family are his inheritors, not his fans.
The Tolkien Society has expressed serious doubts over the project
https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2020/12/statement-on-project-northmoor/
If it sound like a sham and smells like a sham it's porbably is:
- Project Northmoor’s two-page plan lacked sufficient detail;
- No prominent members of the Tolkien community – be they writers, academics, artists etc – are directors of the company, or are named as running the project;
- This would not be a museum and would not be open to the public;
- Project Northmoor’s primary intention appears to be to run creative workshops, rather than educational programmes about Tolkien;
- Project Northmoor’s plan includes spiritual retreats, which falls outside the scope of the Society’s objective;
- Their business model includes running a bed and breakfast, with a full-time resident warden;
- The property itself is a listed building in a conservation area – with a blue plaque proudly showing its connection to Tolkien – meaning the property is well protected under the law and not in need of rescue;
- The relationship between the US and UK organisations appeared unclear; and
- As a new organisation – Project Northmoor having only existed for a month – it is difficult to assess their ability, capability, and capacity to deliver the project successfully.
Hmmm sounds like them and the real estate agency trying to sell Trump’s childhood home have something in common.
Except the grift is displayed up front.
Well, not related to the estate thing… I was recently reccomended this fan edit of The Hobbit and gave it a shot, and rather liked it. The Bilbo 4.0 cut.
https://goldfishblues.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/the-hobbit-the-bilbo-edition-3-0-the-final-cut/
Takes the 9 hours of film (including some of the extended edition material) and cuts it down to under 4 hours and some credits. I've tried watching other edits before but they're usually really chunky and try to save time by cutting badly in places in an attempt to get it down to 2 or 3 hours, which leads to the dialogue and pacing feeling really off or the music cues being awkward. but this version has been polished and refined for years and it's pretty solid. I didn't even notice the cuts for the first hour or so, I had to compare to the original before I realized "oh yeah, that pointless scene is gone."
This cut keeps scenes more intact overall, so while it holds true to the book it also keeps some of what Jackson brought to the table and keeps the pacing of dialogue and such feeling right. Really recontextualized the Beorn and Gollum stuff, and gets rid of or trims down a lot of the excessive action beats. It des its heavy duty editing on all the Legolas stuff, the Gandalf side story (which the original book never touched on), and the battle of five armies… which well, weren't in the book.
It's not perfect, and there's bound to be something you liked from the long version that didn't make it, but overall I think this might be my goto version from here on out if I actually want to enjoy it and not just have it as background noise..
I didn't want to continue the movies after the first, but gave the second one a try to see Beorn's honey cakes. It sucked. I would give something that cut down on the fluff a try, but God, those movies are textbook examples on how not to adapt a work, imo.
