Win! The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists Special Screening, Workshop

Frost Magazine has teamed up with Sony Pictures to give some lucky readers and their children (or niece or nephew) a chance to go to a special screening of Pirates! and then attend a special workshop.

Event: The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists Special Screening and Workshop
Date: Tuesday 4th September (Exact times TBC)
Venue: The Pirate Castle in Camden, London
Schedule
– Arrivals and pirate-themed food and refreshments
– Aardman Animation workshop – learning how to make the Polly Dodo character from the film out of clay (1 hour)
– Screening of The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists (1.5 hours)
– Finish

To win just follow @Frostmag on Twitter and tweet “I want to go to Pirate screening with @Frostmag” or subscribe to our newsletter.

Featuring the Voices of Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, David Tenant, Imelda Staunton and Brendan Gleeson

The Pirates! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS

On Blu-ray™ 3D, Blu-ray™, DVD and Digital Download on September 10

Special Features Include Games, Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes and More! Blu-ray™ and DVD Include UltraViolet™

It’s going to feel like a ‘plunderful life’ when Sony Pictures Home Entertainment debuts THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS on Blu-ray 3D™, Blu-ray™, DVD and Digital Download on September 10. From the Academy Award®-winning Aardman (Chicken Run) and Sony Pictures Animation (The Smurfs), comes the all-new, swashbuckling stop-motion animated film that’s sure to entertain families from beginning to end. This critically acclaimed action-packed comedy adventure follows the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain, voiced by Hugh Grant (About A Boy), and his band of misfits (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey and Ashley Jensen) as they frolic on the high seas in a madcap quest to win the coveted “Pirate of the Year” award. Along the way they battle a diabolical queen (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a haplessly smitten young scientist (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure! The film also stars Brian Blessed (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) as The Pirate King, Salma Hayek (Puss In Boots) as Cutlass Liz and Jeremy Piven (TV’s “Entourage”) as Black Bellamy.

THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS, Aardman’s most ambitious stop-motion film to date, is directed by Peter Lord, a founding partner of Aardman, director of Chicken Run (with Nick Park), and a two-time Academy Award® nominee for his short films made with the company. The film is co-directed by Jeff Newitt. The screenplay is by Gideon Defoe, based upon his books. Production Designer is Norman Garwood. Producers are Peter Lord, David Sproxton, and Julie Lockhart. Executive Producer is Carla Shelley.

The Blu-ray and DVD boast hours of kid-friendly extras, including Filmmakers’ Commentary and two behind-the-scenes featurettes: “From Stop to Motion,” taking fans on a journey through the making of the film, and “Creating the Bath Chase Sequence,” a look at the various stages involved with shooting the bath tub scene. Exclusive to the Blu-ray is the “Pirate Disguise Dress-Up” game, in which fans can help our swashbuckling pals get past Queen Victoria by disguising them in various silly get-ups. Additionally, two short films with optional commentary from Director Peter Lord are exclusive to the Blu-ray.

Owners of the Blu-ray and DVD will be able to add THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS to their free cloud-based UltraViolet account, enabling them to access their film through any UltraViolet-compatible service or device – from PCs and tablets to TVs and smart phones.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey trailer

It has been eight years since we saw the end of Frodo’s journey to destroy the one ring in Mordor and bringing Sauron’s reign in Middle-Earth to an close. Now Peter Jackson is back and this time, telling a story from a different Baggins; Bilbo Baggins (played by Martin Freeman).

This honestly came as a surprise, as I thought to believe they were still shooting and would be too busy to release a trailer not for another month! Maybe Peter Jackson decided to release his Christmas present to audiences around the world. If that’s the case, then I say “thank you, Mr. Jackson!”

It starts off Bilbo (played by Ian Holm, returning as old version of our protagonist), telling Frodo that he hasn’t exactly told the whole story. As traditional hobbit behavior, Bilbo has no interest in having adventures but unfortunately has no choice when Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellan once again back for the prequel) appears. Though he doesn’t come alone, he introduces the thirteen dwarves; (deep breath!) Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Dwalin, Balin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori, Ori, and Thorin Oakenshield. You’ll notice that Balin was mentioned in The Fellowship of the Ring in the mines of Moria, whose dead carcass was on top of a tomb. Also Gloin was mentioned in the same film, he’s father of Gimli (played by John Ryhs-Davies).

Then the dwarves begin to sing a song and really sets the tone that Jackson knows best when bringing drama. We get glimpses of Gandalf traveling to various ruins, Bilbo first seeing the shards of Narsil (the sword Isildur used to defeat Sauron and Aragorn would eventually wield in The Return of the King) and Cate Blanchett returns as Galadriel. Then Howard Shore’s majestic score kicks in but the theme is entirely new and all the better for it! Finally we see Jackson continue his action chomps with a few fight sequences with the famous scene between the dwarves and trolls.

The ending is very fitting and makes links to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Bilbo asking “can you promise I will come back?” and which Gandalf responds quite bluntly but honestly “no and if you do, you will not be the same!” Finally we see Andy Serkis as Gollum in the shadows, crawling sinisterly above our hero.

The movie is a complete reminder on how much The Lord of the Rings has played a huge part in our culture and the way the film industry have viewed on fantasy films (look at Harry Potter series and tell me it doesn’t have some LOTR influence)

Unfortunately, we all will have to wait till December 14th, 2012 to get our tickets back to the world of Tolkien.