Let's try to mash all the LOTR submissions into one. Reviews: comingsoon.net, Empire Online (UK), CNN, Slate, Salon. The LA Times has a story about animating Gollum which we can't link to because it requires registration. Lord Satri writes "Ents, elves and mages being on every orc's lips, new versions of Tales Of Middle-Earth are available. It is an open source, one player and online multiplayer game. It is ported to many OS's. Yeah, no terrific graphics, but the game is really worthwhile. It is based on the famous roguelike Angband (variants here). Faithful to Tolkien's writings."

hprotagonist0 writes "Salon has posted an article by sci-fi author, scientist, and essayist David Brin (The two Uplift trilogies, The Transparent Society) with his thoughts about LotR. A technophillic optimist, he warns against waxing too Romantic about feudal, good vs. evil fantasy. Instead, he says, we should look ahead to the future. Thought-provoking."

wonton_mein writes "The New Zealand Herald is doing some daily coverage of the LOTR - TTT. Can't wait for Dec. 18."

Slashback tonight with more on "anti-leech" anti-browser technology, Panamanian VoIP blocking, the Magic Box fraud, and LotR battle scene creation, fighting back against PanIP, and more. Read on below for the details, and (if applicable) have a good holiday.

TheOneRing.net has posted an article going indepth about LotR CGI, and specifically the rendering of extremely large crowds being done byWETA Digital. With the special edition due out soon, and TTT coming out in december, well let's just leave it at "Yay".

donglekey writes "The software used by Weta to output scenes to be rendered on the LOTR trilogy has been made open source under the Mozilla license. Called Liquid, it outputs from Maya to any Renderman compliant renderer. This is extremely good news as it may quickly become a standard in high end 3D, as well as greasing the wheels for Aqsis, a GPLed Renderman renderer."

popala writes "The first review is in on Home Theater Forum. There are a few screenshots from the unseen scenes and the whole thing is reviewed dvd by dvd! Although I don't like the review itself - I think it is a bit dry and not very journalistic, I do think it is still worth a read - even just a glance of the screenshots from cut scenes."

Drakkar writes "As most of you know, the new trailer for the Two Towers was online last night for AOL users, but the link was given on the official site, LordofTheRings.net. It's in real player format. A new trailer with higher quality will be up tonight, midnight ET. This new piece of film is awesome. (the song at the end of the trailer isn't from the TTT soundtrack, it's from the movie Requiem for a Dream)" xTK-421x points to more links: "Now available is the new 3 minute trailer for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Available here in MOV and here in RM. Reported first at Aint It Cool News."

kiddailey writes "What do you get when you combine standard Lego bricks with Lord of the Rings? A really cool version of Bag End that would make any LOTR and Lego geek as happy as Smeagol with a stomach full of fisheses. If only I could be so creative... or have so much spare time. Be sure to check out his whole gallery of cool lego builds."

Headspace2 writes "Weta Digital (The graphics company behing LOtR computer effects) has just purchased 220 2.2GHz dual Xenon machines, each with 4GB of ram, to add to their current render wall of 350 1 Ghz P3 systems. They have also placed an order for another 256 Xenon servers. And it's all running Linux. My favorite quote is 'it is thought the server farm will be the most powerful processing site in the Southern Hemisphere'. They should use that in the FotR ad campaign... 'Rendered using the most powerful processing site in the southern hemisphere' Congrats the guys that get to play with all those clock cycles. Make more movies.

minus23 writes: "Very interesting article over at Digitalanimators.com, talking about some of the challenges faced by the crew working on the second installment in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Interesting bits include managing an off-site database of 45TBs, Linux workstations from IBM, 1400 processors, and the animation methods to be used on Gollum. It's a good thing. :)"

A few people have pointed out that Apple has put a trailer online for The Two Towers, so if you have broadband and the ability to play video in Apple's favorite format, you can check it out. I'm 0 for 2, so I guess I'll wait. Besides, its only a half a year away ;)

SicariusMan writes "Seems there is a Two Towers teaser out at movie-list.com. Thank goodness for the CrossOver Plugin." And Astin writes "Ain't it cool news has a list of mirrors showing the new LoTR trailer. More action and burning and orcs, etc, etc, etc."

gnat writes "The IT Director for Weta Digital, Peter Jackson's company doing the digital effects for the Lord of the Rings movies, is keynoting at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. They use a ton of Linux and Perl." FWIW I believe Hemos and I are speaking too, but I'm much more interested in seeing this LotR thing.

E1ven writes "The Lord of The Rings: The fellowship of the ring won four awards, including Cinematography, Makeup, Music (Score), and Visual Effects. " At least they have 2 more chances for Best Picture or Best Director. They definitely deserved the ones they got.

Stalwart reviewer Duncan Lawie contributed this review of Susan Solomon's The Coldest March, the epic tale of an early and tragic polar expedition, not long after returning from an Antarctic trip of his own. (Imagine spending New Year's en route to the southern ice.) Duncan's been cooking up some other things lately, too -- like an interview with Science Fiction writer Ken Macleod and a review of the LotR movie from a "bookist" perspective.

bigdreamer writes "Looks like LOTR is a big hit even among non-nerds. this CNN article says it won the most awards, including Best Picture, at the first annual American Film Institute awards Saturday."

WonderBoy Cox writes "IGN's FilmForce has an interesting article about the much anticipated Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (LOTR:FOTR) DVD coming in the fall of 2002, and the next two movies. According to Jackson The Two Towers is fairly complete in rough cut and Return of the King is coming along nicely. "Both films will be between two-and-a-half and three hours in length with 500 to 600 effects shots, much like the first movie." But, the best part, is that he DVD will have around 30 to 40 minutes of extra footage! "

ramakant writes: "It looks like George Lucas has really sold out this time. If you thought Jar-Jar Binks was bad, MTV.com is running a story that a few members of 'NSYNC will be making cameos in Episode II. I think the target demographic for these films has changed a little since the original trilogy. Oh well, at least LOTR rocked." The MTV article says that NSYNC asked for the part; an article in a UK tabloid says Lucas asked them.

Motor writes "I'm not sure if I'm doing the BBC website a favour by mentioning this, but BBC Radio 4 is, from Saturday the 5th of January, running their excellent radio serialisation of The Lord of the Rings in thirteen, one hour weekly episodes. I'm not sure how much load the streaming system can handle though :)" Make a note of it, and save 'em. The LotR radio show is very acclaimed.