First look at King Thranduil, father of Legolas!

It's been a little while since my last blog entry here. I've not sat still, I've just been so busy with various other rojects that are all coming to fruition in the meantime. More on some of those projects later, but in the meantime, I wanted to show you something I bought at the Weta Cave today.

The first of The Hobbit books seems to have come out, somewhat unexpectedly and suddenly, and it's called "The Hobbit (An Unexpected Journey) Almanac 2013". The book is a hard cover, issued by HarperCollins Children's Books, and it's essentially a puzzle and activities book for kids. It's a lovely looking book, very glossy and lots of fun stuff for the younger crowd, say, about 7-10 year olds.

The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey - Almanac 2013

What's a little odd is that it's such a high quality pressing - it's supposed to be scribbled on by children, which seems such a waste of a great looking book. It's a beautifully bound hardcover with full colour glossy pictures on all pages. What's also a bit odd is that the book is aimed pretty much at the children that The Hobbit book is aimed at - age 6 and up. Wasn't Peter Jackson making a much darker movie? Why aim this at the younger market? Isn't that a bit like having a "Texas Chainsaw Massacre Crayon Colouring Book"?

One of the most delightful pages is the one that shows King Thranduil (played by Lee Pace) in all his glory. It's officially the first time he's been seen - there's been lots of speculation about what Legolas's father might look like, but here he is!

I have to say - he looks pretty fantastic. You can definitely see a family resemblance between him and his son, right down to the dark eyebrows and the blond hair! Very impressed once again by the Hobbit design team!

Also in the book are some smaller photos of his home:

The last photo here is a great shot of the White Council together somewhere - Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and Saruman the White as well.

Click on any of the pictures if you want to see larger versions.

Rivendell Location News

Eight of us Flat Earth LOTR tourguides had a training day today, which is something we like to do from time to time to refresh everybody's stories a bit, and perhaps to share some new ones we may have heard since the last meeting.

Personally I think there's no more demanding audience than fellow tourguides - everyone's always correcting everybody else, and it's often difficult to get a story out over the din of people joining in! Oh, and did I mention I was being filmed for our training DVD? Gooood fun!

(From left to right) Tony, Tim, Phil, Steve, Andrea, Todd, and me. Missing (taking the photo) is Bryn.

It was a fun morning at the Kaitoke Regional Park ("Rivendell") though - I took the group through the location in much the same way as I would on a normal day. There were some new stories to tell, and a few to correct as we've heard new information from more reputable sources, or someone's stumbled across a new photo that disputes earlier tellings of the same stories.

One location in the area was used for a famous Orlando Bloom's publicity photo, and if you came on a tour here in Wellington, chances are you have a very similar photo of yourself in that very spot.

We had actually stopped taking people up to the tree, as the tree was showing signs of damage from the thousands of people (however carefully) standing on its roots. Steve (the local forest ranger) had requested some months ago to give the tree a little rest, which we'd all been adhering to.

However, I was talking to Steve a few weeks ago, and he was planning on doing some renovating to the area, redefine the paths, and put up a small platform for people to stand on while they took the same photo. It looks like that's become more than planning since my last conversation with him, as the platform has just appeared!

This photo shows the platform in the centre, a short path leading up to it on the left, and the "Legolas Tree" on the right.

Standing on the platform allows for the best photo opportunity.

Compare the tree with this publicity shot of Orlando at the exact same location (photo by Pierre Vinet, (c) New Line Cinema).

Now that the platform has been put into place, the tree should be fine again, and all the Legolas fans can have their favourite photo taken again.

- Jack M.