andrea writes: Marco Giovanni is the journalist who stayed in NZ during the re-shooting. No new photos, maybe in August issue, but some minor SPOILERS:
–Peter Jackson moved from a set to another, as usual, with his Red Bicycle ‘Challenge’ model, recognizable by the skull on the handle. It’s a Shelob-lair souvenir, where there are also some dangling, mummyfied corpses, which are imprisoned in synthetic webs made by an elasticized fiber of boiled-vegetable-oil (220°C!!!).
-Shelob will be a 5 meter-high monster, really fast, who stops in a second to fix her eyes on her prey.
-The plot will have weddings, coronations, ambushes, suicides, betrayal, but also the biggest battle of the history of cinema: 200,000 orcs in Pelennor field!”
Demosthenes here. You might recall that some time ago, Peter Jackson spoke to the LoTR Fan Magazine about the inspiration for Shelob. In part, he said:
I’ve got a real fear of spiders; I guess I have arachnophobia. Ever since I was a kid, spiders have freaked me out. There is a spider in New Zealand called a Tunnel Web spider, which is a common New Zealand spider but a very nasty, fat, pudgy one that lives in gardens.
Ever since I was a kid, I have been terrified of coming across these things. You find them under old bricks and old logs and leaves and such. It is a very evil-looking spider; it’s small—about an inch and a half long. About three weeks ago, we had a Shelob design meeting, and I looked at the designs and said, “You know, we have to make this look more like the Tunnel Web. She has to be more like this horrible spider.” Most of the CG guys that I was talking to were from the U.S., so they didn’t have a clue what a Tunnel Web was. So I turned to one of the Kiwi designers, Christian Rivers, and said, “Can we find pictures of one?”
The next morning, Christian poked around in his garden and managed to catch one in a glass jar! So right now, we have a live Tunnel Web at Weta being the model for Shelob. As far as I’m concerned, a photograph would’ve been just fine!
Xoanon promptly went and dug up the image below from the Te Papa museum website to terrify us all.
But when I saw Shelob described as being “really fast” it struck me that not only might WETA use the Tunnelweb as a static starting point, they may use its movements as a starting point for modelling the way that Shelob moves. This would make any video of a Tunnelweb in action worth gold to the thousands of spoiler-seeking LoTR fans around the world.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to disover any video of a Tunnelweb lurking on the internet. But here’s a couple more pictures of this vicious-looking beastie for you to enjoy.
I also remembered that there’s been shots of an (early) model of Shelob floating around for a while. While not new, they’ve never been scrapbooked previously. These particular ones are screencapped from The Quest for the Ring.
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Mattforce sends along these snippets gleamed from the Official LOTR Magazine’s latest issue:
The two major changes in RotK are addition of TTT material and cutting of Scouring:
– Isengard sequence/VOS is at the beginning of RotK.
– Minas Morgul, stairs of Cirith Ungol and Shelob’s lair also in RotK
– “We don’t have the Scouring of the Shire.” (In case anyone was holding out hope … )
– At this point, no Ghan-Buri-Ghan. Doubts this will be added in pickups.
– Otherwise it follows the book “reasonably well.”
Other stuff:
– Shelob will be “the creepiest and scariest of creatures.” Based on the Tunnel Web spider of New Zealand. Photo above
– Mumakil and Nazgul will have center-stage appearances – more spectacular.
– Post-production should be completed and film “delivered” end of October, early November.
– Also of interest: “We only meet one new character, which is Denethor – and he’s only new to those who don’t check out The Two Towers extended cut in November!” Sounds like a comfirmation of the Faramir / Boromir / Denethor flashback.
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So we all know that the ROTK trailer is not out, nor will it be out for a little while…or will it? Check out this email from Ringer Spy Mr. Sieve. Mr. Sieve was at a convention in Chicago over the weekend and stumbled across a booth with the ROTK trailer. Take it as you will. We can neither confirm nor deny this is factual. (But thats the nature of spy reports eh?!)
I was at a Halloween costume & party convention over the weekend in Chicago, and in one of the booths, selling lotr costumes and accessories, the guy running the booth had a copy of the ROTK trailer. I don’t know where he got it — I didn’t ask and he didn’t say, but let me tell you … it was AWESOME!!! … Narsil was reforged, Eomer wept with Theoden in his arms on the pelennor fields, pippin lunged and pulled faramir off the funeral pyre, sam went after something (shelob assuredly, but they showed nothing of her) with the phial of galadriel, grima drew a dagger and leapt at someone …. those were just the highlights … i’ll attempt to go through it shot for shot as best i can remember …. it opened with armies charging across plains, then cut to gandalf in theoden’s hall at edoras telling aragorn, gimli, and legolas that they are running out of time … oh hell, i don’t remember the exact order now, but they do show the halls of the dead (a bunch of skulls lying on the floor in a dungeon looking set), they show aragorn riding at the head of an army with the white tree emblazened on his breast plate, they show eowyn and faramir in the garden in gondor embracing, sam crying out to frodo that “can’t you see? He’s betrayed us!”, but the coolest thing of all is SAURON COMES BACK IN PHYSICAL FORM … unless it was some weird flashback, which I doubt, in the final battle before the black gates, Sauron is back, decked out in the same armor he was wearing in the flashback sequence in FOTR, and he goes after Aragorn — so it would seem … Sauron is bashing his way through, they cut to Aragorn fighting off a bunch of orcs, they cut back to a shot of Sauron, and they cut to a shot of Legolas, shouting Aragorn’s name, as if to say, “Hey Aragorn, look out, there’s a huge %$^#$^&^ with a mace about to pound your skull in!” …. all in all, the trailer was about two minutes long and showed a lot — but my memory isn’t what it used to be … just thought I’d let you all know that there is complete ROTK in circulation … again, I have no idea where this guy got it, but I’m kicking myself now for not giving him like twenty bucks, and asking him to dub a copy and mail it to me …. if I can sort out anymore of it in my muddled mind, I will let you know …
Thanks Mr. Sieve for the heads up!
Want to discuss this report? Sauron in physical form?! Head to our chat room in Barlimans right now!
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Take a look at the ‘Gollum’s Song’ music video! The Emil’ana Torrini song is featured on ‘The Two Towers’ Soundtrack (out in North America December 10th). The video features a whole assortment of clips from TTT, nothing new unfortunately, but here it is!
-LARGE (11.8MB)
-MED (2.2MB)
-SMALL (970K)
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Ringer Spy Peter has sent in a Quicktime encode of the US TV spot that complements the one we posted last night. Whilst there is no new footage (all shots are taken from the most recent theatrical trailer) – it does concentrate on the various CGI/effects shots, and is worth a look if you want maximum hype-exposure. [More] Here be Spoilers!!
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In “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first movie in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, audiences had a brief glimpse of a shadowy figure climbing a distant wall. In “The Two Towers,” the trilogy’s second installment, that distant shadow becomes a vital presence. [More]
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