Lothlorien open again, but...

The Lord Of The Rings filming location of Lothlorien, located just outside Featherston in the Wairarapa region, has reopened again after the storm damage has been assessed (see my earlier post on Sunday May the 17th).

The bridge, after the movie but before the storm

Apparently the tree that has crushed the bridge has been removed, and the bridge remains crushed but they're working hard on repairing the damage. Things aren't quite back to normal but at least the safety of our guests can be maintained again.

Not a lot else to say since I haven't seen it myself yet, but I'm due to visit with a group this coming Sunday the 14th of June - I hope to get a better idea of the situation, and possibly some photos then.

NB - although the location has been reopened, the privately owned location is not open to the general public. The best way to see it is to take Flat Earth's full day Extended LOTR tour, which visits it.

- Jack M.

Viggo visit last month, update

After my earlier entry regarding a sighting of Viggo, I came across some more info. Yesterday I picked up a copy of a free local newspaper, the Capital Times, which had a photo of Viggo on the cover, with the rather gaudy headline "Here Viggo Again" (puh-lease!).



The interview adds absolutely NOTHING to my store of knowledge, except that Viggo likes Old Gold chocolate, which was actually already mentioned in the Saturday May 30th Dominion Post's Indulgence supplement interview, a much better read. (NB - The Dominion Post headlines the article "Good Fella", which is pretty bad as well, but the subscript on the sidebar was "Hobbit Forming", which is just as sad. Do we really need ALL the headlines to be bad puns?). I won't scan it here unless there's call for it? Tell you what - if I get three signed requests, I'll consider it.

Although the interview was just abject rubbish, I thought I'd scan the photos here for the interest of some who doubted that Viggo was ever in New Zealand. The cliche way of doing it is to photograph yourself with a local newspaper in your hand, and make sure the date is showing. Lucky for me, that's pretty much what he did.




Here's a closeup of the date of the paper he's holding. Seems pretty conclusive to me, but just in case it's not clear enough on the scan, it says "Mar 11-18, 2009 - Vol 34, No 18".


Take the date of the paper this was published in, June 10th, 2009, and that means he was here after mid March, and before mid June. I trust my source when he tells me Viggo was later during that period but I don't have an exact date.

I feel all defensive now. :)


- Jack M.

Movement at Miramar Cinema finally?

Back in 2003, Peter Jackson and Jamie Selkirk got together and bought up an old Cinema here in Wellywood called Capitol Court, which is a 1920's Art Deco building. The word around town was that it would be developed into a LOTR related cinema, possibly with a Rings museum attached to it.

Fast forward to a year ago, June 2008, and the cinema had still not been used or renovated. Richard Taylor set up the Weta Cave, with its own little mini-museum. The whispers at the time were that the LOTR museum would be at the Cave instead of at Capitol Court. Everything went fairly quiet for another year or so.

From a Lord Of The Rings Museum perspective, the Weta Cave is distinctly unimpressive - a little disappointing even. The mini-museum is little more than a single small room (about the size of my small kitchen, in fact), and although it's crammed full of goodies, the LOTR stuff shares precious space with earlier Peter Jackson movies, and other Weta movies - which is, as it should be - after all, this is the Weta Museum, not the LOTR museum.


In regards to the Capitol Court building - every so often there are little news items published in the local papers about how the Miramar residents would like still the building restored to its former Art Deco glory, and how nothing seems to have been done, etc.

When the papers consult either of the owners, generally "things" are reported to be happening in the background but quotes from either Peter Jackson or Jamie Selkirk invariably state they are "in progress", "in talks", or "under discussion". And invariably, things die down again soon afterwards.


However, there appears to be some recent movement at the cinema itself, and I've also heard from a number of sources living in the area that there may well be some light on the horizon. I understand that in the next few weeks I may have some more definite news, but apparently the go-ahead on the redevelopment of the cinema has been given.


Of course, this does not (yet) mean that we're getting a "proper" LOTR museum - but if things are moving in that direction, perhaps we will at least get a proper little venue to watch The Hobbit on, in time for release date! Only time will tell.

Watch this space. Again.

Vague rumour - Spielberg in town?

This one is no more than a vague rumour - apparently Steven Spielberg has been spotted in town in the last week. I've heard mutterings from at least two people at this stage, but only one of them is vaguely reliable.

It could quite possibly be true since he would probably drop in to the post production facilities at Park Road Post from time to time, to see how Tintin is getting on. However, I've not got any quotes from anyone, nor any indication of when he was here exactly. The problem with Peter Jackson's studios is that they are about a 5 minute drive away from the Wellington Airport, and he could come and go without ever seeing the open air (except for the carpark at the studio, for all of 30 seconds). If he wanted to NOT be seen, it would be very easy to do.


So (as always), in the event of it not being true, pretend you never read it here. :)


What does this have to do with LOTR of The Hobbit? Um, nothing really. Just thought I'd mention it.

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.

Hobbit lunch

((The following entry isn't much of a rumour, it's more of a diary entry of my weekend. Totally Rings related though, so bear with me.))

On Sunday the 7th of June 2009 a small group of Tolkien fans met up at the home of Brian, Suzie and Harrison Reeve, to enjoy a nice lunch of homemade pizza and pumpkin soup.

I convinced my wife Aiko and my son Josh that it wasn't just a geek outing, and our good friend Mark Fry travelled with us there as well. We were later joined by a friend of Brian's named Wayne Underhill.

From left to right - Josh, Aiko, myself, Brian, Mark, Wayne, and Suzie.
Brian, Mark, and Wayne are carrying elvish blades. None glowed blue, so all was safe.

Wayne Underhill (his actual name, I should add!) had just been exploring some LOTR locations at the North Island's central plateau, where the Mount Doom scenes were filmed amongst the volcanoes, Mounts Ngaurahoe, Ruapehu, and Tongariro. We had some photos to compare, as Josh and I had just visited a few locations in the South Island. Wayne was (among other things) a Gondorian soldier in Minas Tirith, in the Return Of The King. I suspect his name helped him get in.

Mark Fry had until recently been working at the Wellington Dymocks bookshop, which closed its doors suddenly a few weeks ago. Apart from being in the Fellowship Of The Ring (an extra in the village of Bree's bar scene), Mark had been instrumental in supplying the Wellington region with an astounding collection of LOTR and Tolkien related books and merchandise. He's also a big Tintin fan.

Brian and Suzie are possibly the two nicest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I would best describe them as a pair of true hobbits. Brian is meticulous in his note keeping, where Bilbo write the Red Book all through his life, Brian has collected scrapbooks from local papers and other sources on various subjects. His LOTR collection is now up to 22 (large!) volumes! His Hobbit scrapbooks are coming along nicely as well.

I should point out that my wife and I met through LOTR - I met her as one of my tourists back in 2005, and we got married earlier this year. In many ways she's as big a fan of LOTR as I am, although she hasn't changed her career for it yet - I used to work in IT in various guises for 18 years. Going to the rainforest location of Rivendell every day is SUCH a better job!


It was a lovely meeting, and although more than a few rumours were shared, I can't reveal any of them here as the source would be too obvious. And no, I won't divulge them in the next few weeks either, unless I hear them from other sources as well. Time to do some digging!

Heh! I wonder if fame will change me...!

Awesome! Looks like my little blog has been picked up by TheOneRing.net... :) Apparently my rumours were more detailed than their rumours...

When all is said and done, of course, they still remain rumours. The fact is, Viggo spoke to my contact, but does actually mean that he will appear in The Hobbit? The comments on my earlier post talk about scenes that were filmed for LOTR but never made it into that movie - there's always a good chance that new scenes filmed by Viggo Mortensen won't make it into The Hobbit either.

As a good friend of mine once remarked, "nothing is certain until you're sitting in the cinema watching it". And of course, even that's not true, what with PJ's habbit of making extended versions!

Guillermo del Toro book signing at the Weta Cave

It looks like the Weta Cave is finally realising the importance of having their stars making appearances at the top venue in town. On Wednesday evening the 17th of June, Guillermo del Toro is signing his new vampire book, The Strain, as well as a range of del Toro related miniatures.

Del Toro is quite the collector himself, by all accounts. Take a look at the photo of his earlier visit to the Cave on the Weta site, on December 9th last year. I think he bought every Kong skull he could lay his hands on, plus a Dalek to boot!


NB - For a quick giggle, compare my uncut version of the same photo, and check the guy on the left side of the photo. Now I know how Christopher Lee felt when Saruman got cut out of the Theatrical release of Return Of The King... :(


Oh, the harsh reality of the cutting room floor...

Hobbit Photo on Mt Victoria

A few days ago I received a FaceBook Friend request from Mallory from South Africa, who's been on one of my tours. At one point during the tour (on Mount Victoria), I used her camera for a cool technique called (among other things) "forced perspective".

Basically, it's the same technique Peter Jackson used to turn Elijah Wood (5'6") into Frodo (3'6").

I don't usually get to see the result of the photo I take (since it's always on other people's cameras), so it was nice to see the picture on her FaceBook Gallery. I thought I'd post her photo here (after checking with her first, obviously!).




The photo was with about 30 seconds preparation, of two people who didn't really know what I was doing, with me using an unfamiliar cameras, and with no digital enhancements afterwards (ie, it's just as easy to do it with a 35mm film camera).

Tintin on hold?

The local papers may have put a nicely positive spin on it (unusually!) but I've heard from a number of actor friends recently that they have been told not to expect to be hearing about any Tintin roles coming up for a while, as the project has been put on hold, apparently. No idea for how long at this stage.

Let's hope it's not another "Kingdome Come", the locally produced film that seems to have fallen into a huge hole. By the time the $1,000,000.00 set was being dismantled a few weeks ago, it wasn't looking promising.

Still, Tintin has Spielberg, Jackson, Serkis, and Weta's names attached to it (not to mention Herge!), so at least the sheer momentum might keep it going yet. Go Tintin!


Watch this space!