Duchess here. I'm about to show you pictures from HOBBITON! (If you wanted to play Concerning Hobbits (Hobbiton theme) while reading this, it'd make it more authentic. :)
Oh my word it was hard to pick which pictures to post. It's so much fun to blog about this, cause I know many of you are LOTR nerds.
Let's make this clear: Middle Earth = New Zealand. You'd look out the window one minute, you'd be in Hobbiton, 10 minutes later, you'd be in Rohan, 10 minutes after that it's Mordor.
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| Here's a map of New Zealand that is labeled only with LOTR sights. I know you can't see it that well, but just to show how much of both islands they used, because NZ is really like its own world in the sense that it has so many totally different and exotic terraines. |
While hiking Tongariro Alpine Crossing (Daniel's blog), there was a side trail that led to a waterfall called Soda Springs. You could see the waterfall from the trail, so we didn't go super close. Only later did we realize that it was the waterfall they used to hide Faramir's cave! What?! But one thing I've learned on this trip is that some things you just have to remember, and a lot of the times those are the memories I cherish the most, when I sift through my own memories and mental images instead of looking at a computer screen. A lot of the times I remember those the best, because I'm not relying on an external device to capture it for me. Anyway, that's how it should be: I have two of the best cameras in the world. If you look Soda Springs up, you probably won't recognize it from the movie. They added a lot of CGI.
Peter Jackson is a kiwi. I was confused too. I don't eat him, and his hair could probably act as a nest to a kiwi bird, but a Kiwi is just the word for a New Zealand citizen. The first time I asked someone if they were from NZ: "So are you New Zealand...ish?"
Anyway, since Peter Jackson grew up in this landscape paradise, he was familiar with all the different terrains, what the terrains from LOTR should look like, and how they could work in the movies. He traveled around, being a movie director, and concluded that there's no place like home, to film the incredible trilogy. He picked well.
There was a great sin upon my family. My very own mother had not seen or read the trilogy before we went to Hobbiton. (Everybody gasp) She still has not read them all. But she is a wife, and mother of 3 kids. Finding the time to read 1500 pages of a deep novel does not come easily. We fixed the first problem--she has now SEEN the trilogy. The last night in NZ we finished the Return of the King. I still bawled like a baby at the end. How many times have I seen that movie!! So it was opposite for her. Instead of, like us, recognizing the set from the movie, she recognized the movie from the set.
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| Hobbiton? Yes, we want to go to Hobbiton. |
The mill. Bilbo runs over that bridge when he decides to go "on an adventure!" Gandalf also rides his cart over it when he visits the Shire for Bilbo's 111 b-day.
They had everything set up like the movie. They originally built it with temporary materials, but so many people wanted to see it, they reconstructed it identically with permanent ones(brick, wood, cement, etc.).
Off to the Green Dragon...where we found a jolly dwarf. I was about to say jolly hobbit, but then Daniel pointed out that if you compare Caleb to Gimli or Frodo, which comes to mind?
"Longbottom leaf...the finest pipe-weed in the South Farthing."
(Merry and Pippin in Sauramaun's storeroom)
Funny enough, Aragorn decided to sport his Nike! (probably didn't want to stand out with his cloak) Though secretly I think Dr. Drown (one of my teachers)is underneath that mysterious hat... :)
The guy with this in the movie is great.
And there it is...
"In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
For those of you who don't know LOTR that well, here's a reference to all these random pictures:
What we saw (above); what's in the movie (below):
What we saw (both pics above), what's in the movie (below):
This was one of the coolest things. I wanted to run down down it, just like Bilbo did, but the photographer wanted the authentic feel:
The Party tree. Lots of people think this is a fake tree, but this is 100% natural. However, the tree above Bag End is fake. Jackson directed that 200,000 fake leaves be hand-connected to the branches, only to be displeased by the color, and proceeded to spray paint each individual leaf a darker shade of green. I guess it worked. He fooled me. Incidentally, in strong winds, these fake leaves fall off the tree, and when they do, they are in high demand, as they are the ONLY thing from the actual movie set that you are allowed to take home with you. Thankfully, I have one.
I expected a hobbit woman to poke her curly head around that dress, smile, and wave.
For all you coffee lovers:
This is the only house in Hobbiton with a thatched roof.
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| I really do think dad is gonna bring in the bright-yellow-socks-with-sandals look. |
It was funny to look down a hill, and, well, there's a chimney!
Sam's house! In the very last scene, the little girl that runs up to Sam was Sean Austin's (who played Sam) actual daughter, and the baby boy that Rose holds is Sarah McLeod's (who played Rose) actual son!
The butterfly just posing for the picture.
"Well, I'm back."
As we hope to say to Hobbiton one day.
