Hobbit Party Week is here!

Here is a quick update on all the Hobbit parties I'm aware of - this is no doubt a non-exhaustive list but will give you some idea of how tired we will be on December the 2nd (so, more of an exhausting list)...

First up is the Hobbit Artisan Market, which will go from Saturday November 24th to Wednesday 28th, so, Premiere Day. I managed to get to it briefly on Saturday late afternoon after a tour finished earlier than usual (cruiseship tour), and it was a lot of fun. If you haven't been to it yet, go as soon as you can - apart from anything else, they're selling the special Hobbit 3D glasses (in the Dwarven style), which will not be produced again.

Also a sight to behold is the phenomenally cool dragon by Kim Beaton, in the very last stand at the end of the market. The dragon weighs 3 tons, apparently! It looks amazingly lifelike, especially considering it's made from moldable "flexible" concrete.



The next party is of course the Hobbit Premiere Tour Costume Party, organised by Red Carpet Tours and TheOneRing.net. Tickets are still available (although not cheap), and discounts are now being given to students with valid ID. The costume party will start at 7:30pm on Monday the 26th. We will be attending - our costumes are all ready!


On Tuesday the 27th, the Wellington Youth Hostel will host its own Red Carpet Party. Tickets are a lot more reasonably priced there, and a prize will be given to the best costume. I'm in! This costume has a one week rental! I'm expecting the Middle-Earth News Network Tour attendees to be there, but please, everyone else also turn up to the Welsh Dragon Bar that night!


On Wednesday of course, the Official Red Carpet Walk itself will be held, and that will take the better part of the late afternoon and early evening. Pre-carpet entertainment will begin at 3:00pm, and the stars will begin to arrive at 4:30pm or so.

Before that though, early morning at 7:45am, I will be giving an interview to TV3, which should be aired on Breakfast TV at around 8:15am. Very exciting for nobody except myself, I'm sure!

At 10:00am, of course, the New Zealand Tolkien Smial will have its official Second Breakfast, beside the red carpet, underneath the Tripod in Courtenay Place (opposite the Embassy Theatre). TVNZ will be there to join us for a bit as well, so that might be quite fun. Come one, come all, and you're still wearing a costume from an earlier party, please don't be shy! It's "bring-a-plate", so don't show up empty handed please!

In the evening there's a secret party for Hobbit extras, but I can't confirm where that's being held, so good luck finding it!


Next, on Thursday the 29th, the Weta Collectors Forum "Shadow & Glame" is having an Afternoon Tea at 4:00pm at the Roxy Cinema in Miramar. That will be a nice time to catch up with some other old friends as well. I don't have a proper link to this party, except for a picture invite - does anyone have more info?


Finally, on Friday and Saturday night (Nov 30, and Dec 1), we will be going to a another very special event - a Middle-earth themed Burlesque Cabaret called "Bare and Back Again". Should be a ton of R18 fun!


So, which events will you be attending? Leave me a note! I'm intending to go to all of them - sleep is for the weak!

Welly-moot number six was a total success!

It's almost 11:00pm, and I just got back from the Embassy Cinema in Wellington, where the 6th Welly-moot just took place. It was the second meeting in the last month - the previous meeting wasn't quite as well attended as I'd hoped, but this one made up for it. All in all I think there were 14 people there, and a lot of business was discussed.

Clockwise from me in the green shirt - Peter Kenny, Todd Rippon, Astrid, Erica, Kris, Viviane, Sven, Kim, Mervi, and Paul. The others joined later.

Apart from myself and my beautiful wife, we met up with Mervi from Finland, and Kris who is living here in the Wellington region. Mervi represented the two Finnish Tolkien Societies, while Kris and I are halfway through setting up the Wellington one (but more on that later). New Zealander Erica from TheOneRing.net joined soon afterwards, and then Peter Kenny (Australian's Brisbane Tolkien Appreciate Society) and Astrid (Austria's Tyrol Tolkien Smial) came in as well. Peter and Astrid joined me on a LOTR tour yesterday, in fact they are both interviewed on the TVNZ News segment about our reaction to the new Hobbit Trailer.


Also in attendance were Paul from the UK, Brendon and his partner from Australia, and three lost backpackers I found on the side of the hill during yesterday's tour, Viviane, Sven and Kim.


If that lineup wasn't special enough yet, we had a ANOTHER special guest for the evening - Todd Rippon also joined us, and he spoke about his time as an Oliphaunt rider, and his ultimate demise at the hands of that cruel elf, Legolas (but "that still only counts as one!").


Todd had some exclusive photos from his time on the set, which unfortunately I can't reproduce here but were enjoyed by all present (so attend next time!).


During the evening, Peter Kenny also recited some of his Hobbit poetry, which went down a treat, as did the cake and the ice coffees.


Other business of course included a discussion about the new Hobbit Trailer released yesterday. I "happened" to have it with me - it's downloadable from Apple.com after all, and my iPad 2 does the job very nicely, thank you! In fact I think we played the trailer 3 or 4 times, in all. Also on hand was our newsclip from yesterday, of course (that's definitely bragging rights), and a small clip from The Hunt For Gollum as well, once the discussion mentioned it. It's a solid piece of Middle-earth film, and if you haven't seen it yet you definitely should!




One final point that was discussed was that Kris and I are definitely setting up the official Tolkien Sciety in some form here in Wellington, and that will be announced properly as things happen in the near future. I'm hoping that by the next meeting we will have the official approval from the UK as well. Exciting times!


  - Jack

Hobbit Trailer released - and I made it to TV News again

By now I'm sure everyone has seen the brand new Hobbit Trailer - just in case you haven't yet, check it out at Apple's Movie Trailer directory.


I got a call from TVNZ this morning, to see if I would be available to comment on the trailer later, for their evening news. I told them I'd be touring with a group of LOTR fans, so they invited the whole group along, to watch it at 4:00pm (local NZ time) on the satellite feed! Well, we didn't have to think about that too long, that's for sure!

They interviewed us all at length afterwards, although most of that was reduced to some very excited soundbites. We got a few words in towards the end though.

You can watch the whole reaction-interview at TVNZ's website.

Overall a great trailer - I had expected more of a teaser trailer - you know, fade in, one quick image, and fade out, and repeat. Instead we got one full of exciting content, and lots of mystery! Was the elf in white actually Galadriel or not (I don't think it was, personally)? Where were the ruins that Gandalf was walking through?

Also, some revealing moments - we now have a much better idea about how Frodo fits into the Hobbit movie (considering his character hasn't actually been born yet). That will put a few minds at ease, I'd say!

One little detail I loved was that Bilbo shows off his (newly found) sword Sting, and the markings on the blade are correctly incomplete - the elfish lettering which appear on it during LOTR refer to an incident that happens during the last half of the Hobbit book, and the writing doesn't get added to the sword until after he vists the Elves again in Rivendell. Well done, Weta Workshop!

All things considered, it was a great trailer. It gave lots of hints that The Hobbit would be part of LOTR's story line, but different as well. Get the old audience back onside, and add new ones as well.

By the way, if you want to keep the trailer, it's actually downloadable from the Apple site.