Zoolander writes "Christopher Tolkien has completed the last book of J.R.R. Tolkien from notes left from his father." The ultimate question is how much of a quality difference will there be; for instance the difference between Dune and Dune: House Atriedes is a pretty big gap. But in my experience, Christopher Tolkien has always taken a good, cautious approach when it comes to his father's work so here's to hoping.

The Non-Disclosure Agreement for the Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) beta test has been lifted, and with the game set for release soon it may be useful to you to peruse some hands-on previews of the title. Hexus.net offers A Day in the Life of a Hobbit, and Tobold's MMORPG blog has similar hobbit-related impressions. Tobold also has a comparison between LORTRO and World of Warcraft for those who might be thinking about making the jump. More hands-on info is available from Warcry, Kill Ten Rats, and Gamers With Jobs. Van Hemlock offers up a high level overview of the title, mentioning recent releases and pointing out the realities of Massive gaming: "How the Great Fantasy Epic Saga will stand the ravages thousands of petty powerlevelling smacktalkers all loitering about Rivendell bank, level one hobbit girls - dancing as naked as the game will allow, shouting ridiculous three-letter-acronyms and generally not getting into the spirit of the thing, remains to be seen. I expect Our People can crush even The Lord of the Rings beneath our metagaming heel without feeling too guilty."

Several readers wrote in with news of the debate around the identity of an ancient woman whose diminutive skeleton was found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004. Fox News reports that Australian scientists have discovered a subterranean chamber that may contain DNA proof that will settle the question of whether "the Hobbit," as the specimen is called, actually is a representative of a new branch of the human family, or not. The find's discoverers named the putative new race Homo floresiensis. Others in the anthropological field question this identification, arguing that the meter-tall Hobbit was a modern human who had something wrong with her. In a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with one of the original discovery team as co-author, researchers say they have compared the Hobbit's skull to those of modern humans with various ailments such as microcephaly, and that the Hobbit is different.

Petersko writes to mention a CNN article about an escalation between Peter Jackson and New Line that likely means we'll never see a Jackson-helmed "Hobbit" film. From the article: "In an interview with the Sci Fi Channel news service Sci Fi Wire, [New Line co-chairman Bob] Shaye said Jackson will never make another movie for the studio and said the filmmaker just wants more money. 'I don't care about Peter Jackson anymore,' Shaye said. 'He wants to have another $100 million or $50 million, whatever he's suing us for. He doesn't want to sit down and talk about it. He thinks that we owe him something after we've paid him over a quarter of a billion dollars. ... Cheers, Peter.'"

cyclomedia writes "TheOneRing.Net has a new scoop on the ongoing Hobbit Movie saga, sourced from elbenwald.de. Apparently the rights to make the Hobbit film fall back to Saul Zaentz 'next year.' He claims that, under their stewardship, The Hobbit will 'definitely be shot by Peter Jackson.' For the whippersnappers amongst you: Mr. Zaentz is the head honcho of Tolkien Enterprises, which originally acquired exclusive rights to productions of the LOTR and Hobbit material in 1976, prior to overseeing the Bakshi animated version of LOTR."

An anonymous reader writes "Due to legal wranglings with New Line Cinema over accounting issues for Lord Of The Rings, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will not be involved in the making of either The Hobbit or the planned Lord of the Rings prequel." I suppose there is still a chance that Jackson & Co. could end up involved, but at this point that looks unlikely.

simoniker writes "Author DB Weiss has confirmed that he's currently writing a Halo movie screenplay for producers that include LOTR/King Kong's Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh. When asked whether he was concerned about criticism from the long-time fans of any of his movie adaptations, Weiss commented: 'There will be the 5% on the fringe of any hardcore fanbase that get angry about any change you make to the source material. The truth is that novels, games, comics, and what-have-you are not usually ready to be slapped up on screen as-is.' In fact, Weiss suggests of this particular issue: 'If you did do a 100% faithful version, 999 times out of 1000 it would be a mess, and even the 5%-ers would recognize as much.'"

eggoeater writes "The latest incarnation of The Lord of the Rings is here in the form of musical theater and, as reported by Yahoo News, the reviews are not good. The Toronto production puts less emphasis on plot, character, and music, and concentrates more on hi-tech theatrics. The production uses a 40-ton, computer controlled stage with 17 elevators and the cast of 55 goes through 500 costumes in the 3 hour performance. Despite this, the same critics say it will be a big money-maker."

Richard Garriot has been lauded over his long career for his work with the Ultima series. Last night he received a Lifetime Achievement award for that work, a testament to his perseverance. This morning he talked about the "Trials and Tribulations" of creating a MMOG, specifically his ongoing project, Tabula Rasa. Read on for notes on his discussion of the long road his project has taken.

The ever excellent Rumor Control column on Gamespot deals with a couple of good ones this week. The bubble I wish they hadn't popped concerns the upcoming Halo movie adaptation. While IMDB listed Uwe Boll as the director earlier this week, the internets began circulating with the rumor that LOTR Director Peter Jackson might be taking the helm. From the article: "The green valleys and lush terrain of New Zealand, where Jackson filmed Rings, would make a nice stand-in for Halo's surface landscape. Lastly, there's the matter of the country's favorable exchange rate, which made shooting Rings much less expensive than it would have been if it had been made in the States--and the same could be done for Halo ... In this case, it was seen by someone with a sick sense of humor, because, according to a rep from Universal, the Peter Jackson rumor is 'completely untrue.'"

Last week I packed my bags and went to Washington to partake in the event known as PAX, The Penny Arcade Expo. That sexy new rising star of video game conferences. Along with thousands of other fans of the comic strip, we filed into the Meydenbauer conference center unclear as to what would greet us inside.

Antarctic Lemur writes "At the Powerhouse Museum LOTR Exhibition in Sydney, Peter Jackson has said a film version of The Hobbit is three years away at least. Reasons for the delay include the sale of MGM, which part-owns the movie rights to The Hobbit, and Jackson's recently filed suit against New Line Cinema, the other part-owner. Jackson is currently filming King Kong at his new facility in Wellington, NZ. Slashdot readers will also be interested in the high security planned for King Kong's pre-release screenings."

The LOTR Nitpicker writes "A list of deviations to be found when comparing the text of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and the translation of those texts to film as undertaken by Peter Jackson, et.al. updated to include deviations from the recently released extended edition DVD of The Return of the King. This story originally appeared on Slashdot back in January."

Topoimagery writes "After months of speculation and a few low-quality bootleg video clips, we finally get some official video from New Line. The Official Lord of the Rings Site has a preview of the upcoming Return of the King EE in Quicktime format. Here are direct links to the small version (4 MB) and large version (9 MB). Highlights include Voice of Saruman, Mouth of Sauron, Houses of Healing, and Aragorn confronting Sauron. Released date is December 14, and you can pre-order now. (For those of you who can't get enough spoilers, here's a site describing all anticipated new scenes on the DVD)."

It's pre-pre-Christmas season, and ThePrinceofWands writes "OMG! It's official, 25% more unbelievable greatness in this version." The linked description (on the official LotR site) starts "DISCS 1-2: The Feature FEATURE (approx. 250 minutes) - A new version of the final installment in the epic trilogy! The Academy-Award winning film now has 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage incorporated into the film for this highly-anticipated video release." The extended version can be ordered starting on Oct 1st.

quark007 writes "That's Cricket is reporting that the first match of the India-Australia cricket Test series in Bangalore next month will have hi-tech ticketing with the launch of 'Mobile-Ticketing,' a new service that enables cricket fans across the world to book the tickets online. But thats half the fun, since the tickets would be delivered directly to their mobile phones. the service is managed by Spice . The service delives the ticket as a special barcode which can then be scanned by a barcode reader. Sounds simple. Wired reported a similar story a while back." A system like this would have been great in my unsuccessful hunt for LotR Marathon tickets.

sbowles writes "DVDAnswers is reporting that New Line plans to release the four-disc extended edition of Return of the King on the 14th of December. As of yet, the LotR official site has not posted an official release date or an official list of contents for the set. This older IGN article gives some great details on the sneak preview presented at the San Diego Comic Con."

David Brin recently sent me an amusing idea for celebrity casting for LOTR. He's got some good ones (below), but of course, feel free to add your own ideas to the comments.

yootje writes "Two articles today on TheOneRing.net about rumours that the extended edition from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King will come in theaters before the release on DVD. The first article can be found here, the second one here. Both come from people who work in a cinema themselves, one in the UK and one in Denmark."

Pepebuho asks: "Given that LOTR 3 is out, how many of you have staged Home LOTR Marathons? How long did they take? Was it fun or did everybody fell asleep by the middle of the Return of the King?"