This is the stuff spy reports are made of! Wild rumours and outrageous speculation from unverifiable sources!

Arwen at Moria Gate? Arwen’s adventures to include elements of Beren and Luthien’s story?

And more -Five locations in Wellington’s Lyall Bay! Rivendell scenes to be re-shot at the Wingate set, formerly Moria! Cate arrives Monday!

How does Altariel find all this stuff? We wondersss, yesss we doesss. Either by looking incredibly innocent or acting so poker-faced that security guards spill their guts in an effort to impress this harmless-looking person. This has had bad consequences for some of them, unfortunately, which we regret.

Let’s hear the gossip, anyway, from Altariel’s vantage point INSIDE Helm’s Deep:

“I saw everything including the awsome quarter scale of Helms Deep which was bigger than I was and even contained miniature arrows and bags of flour! I got to walk under the archway and into the castle behind it and when I left I got to take some of the set home with me. I wish I had thought to get some for a few of you guys-it looks so real up close you cant tell if it is real rock or not!

“I got to see Gandalf and all his Horse men and even Legolas’ body-double (who looked absolutly wonderful in all his riding gear). AND I went up to the guard-house while they were standing around waiting for the next take and nearly got so close as to touch them! I was soon told to get lost by ***** ******* however’ and retreated to my roadside perch and my binoculars.

Afer that I went over to Lyall Bay and got some decent photos of the set there (I managed to sneak on when no one was looking and got to walk around the path. Don’t know if you would want them though, the set is not that interesting-no tents were up yet, there were only some hastily-erected trees and strange-looking posts in the ground.

“After that I stumbled onto the Wingate set where I was to behold the greatest thing of all!……”

“………..So she let us on to the set and around the corner of the backdrop and, lo and behold, there was Sean Bean (Boromir)in costume going through his moves in the water along with a few other cold and wet looking men and women-he was fighting someone but I could not see them, he looked fantastic!

“I remind you that this was about 11 O’clock at night and they had been in the water all day. The scene, I found out, was of the Fellowship entering Moria and soon they were to fight off the horrible thing that comes out of the water. We were not allowed to watch the filming because the director started glaring at us and we had to go.

“…later on I heard screams and the sound of fighting coming from the set and amongst them was the sound of a woman’s voice. This could only be Arwen and I think that they are going to have her follow them secretly until they get to Moria where she is to join up with the Fellowship. I also heard from a fairly reliable source that PJ wants to include elements of the story of Luthien and Beren into the movie so you can imagine that Arwen could then get left behind in Lorien and follow them secretly for a while until the Emyn Muil or even Helm’s Deep. Well thats enough speculation-don’t want to ruin the movie now do we?”

Later on Altariel spent more time talking to people round the sets:

“Lyall Bay actually has five film sites and I only found one of the outdoor ones-there are two, the rest are in an old warehouse a ‘few yards back from the beach’.

“More help from yet another Security guard at Wingate and he also had a lot more to say about filming schedules and such-like. I always seem to get different info on them from every different person I meet. This guy reckoned that they were filming for 5 more weeks then having a 6 week break and going down south (or maybe it was the other way around?) and then they were finished-for good!

“Two others have said that the filming is to wind up around November this year and someone else March next year. But they could not possibly be finished as early as November because they are still way behind and they have to come back to shoot on the huge Minas Tirith set as well as complete inside shoots and go back to Queenstown, Ruapehu and to Methven.

Oh, and I went back to Wingate to see about the Rivendell thing and yes you were right, they have been taking bits if the Rivendell set there and I would have got a really good picture of all the set pieces lined up out the back if not for the meddling Guard who just happened to be there. They are taking away Moria and re-building parts of Rivendell for a re-shoot. I heard that George Lucas had to do that for Star Wars because the actors had messed up some scenes so I can only imagine the same has happened here.

“Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) is coming this Monday apparently so spirits are being lifted by that….”