Oxonmoot 2024

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy brought a new generation of fans to Middle-earth, and is undoubtedly one of the greatest cinematic achievements of the 21st century. However, more than 20 years on, the films’ depiction of Middle-earth still dominates fans’ perception of Tolkien’s world, despite the many significant differences with Tolkien’s own imagination.

The ArdaCraft team is made up of people who almost exclusively discovered Tolkien’s world through Peter Jackson’s films, but who are now collectively discovering a new vision of Middle-earth. In order to do this, they are drawing on Tolkien’s writings and sketches, but also their own research into botany, geology, topography, historical architecture, farming methods, ancient ways of life, and more. By working in a heavily modified version of Minecraft, they hope to achieve the most detailed version of Middle-earth that has ever been made.

This talk will be a whistle-stop tour through our work over the last ten years.