Scott sends along this paraphrased look at what was said during the 10 minute RETURN OF THE KING preview on the TTT DVD! Take a look!
Opens with Peter Jackson in cutting room, there was a picture on the door with him with a chainsaw…he talks about the editing process as he sits on the couch in his usual shorts…after his introduction, he promises the Shelob scene will be worth the wait from the Two Towers…
Gandalf with Aragorn & others on horseback: “The battle for Helms Deep is over, the battle for middle earth is about to begin”
Jackson says that lines sums up the Return of the King, helms deep was just “an opening skirmish”, and now the future will be decided, will Sauron and the orcs prevail? Is mankind going to prevail?
Gandalf talking to Aragorn: “Understand that things are now in motion that cannot be undone, if the ring is destroyed, Sauron will fall. But if Sauron regains the ring, his victory will be so complete that none can foresee the end of it while this world lasts”
Aragorn (before he looks into the Palantir): “He has gone unchallenged long enough”
PJ talks again about how the title of refers to the situation with Aragorn becoming king.
Viggo talks about his character coming to terms his “destiny”
Phiippa Boyens talks about the responsibility of being the king?
PJ talks about how Aragorn, Gimil & Legolas go into a “haunted mountain called the Dwimorberg” and face a horrific test.
PJ explains the Stewards and how they are caretakers for the throne.
Denethor: “Word has reached my ears of this Aragorn, son of Arathorn and I tell you now, I will not bow to this Ranger from the North.”
PJ talks about Mordor threatening Denethor & Gondor, mention Sauron thinks Pippin has the ring.
Merry to clueless looking Pippin: “Don’t you understand? The enemy thinks you have the Ring. He’s coming for you”
Billy Boyd talks Gandalf taking Pippin to be safe in Minas Tirith.
PJ talks about the Minas Tirith set being built in the same quarry as Helms Deep only weeks later, then the giant miniature of the city is shown.
More talk about Minas Tirith battle, Alan Lee comments the battle at Pelennor Fields are probably 200,000 strong compared to the 10,000 at Helms Deep,(cool drawings of Minas Tirith during battle).
PJ talks about the battle and how they used computer to map out the battle with all the orcs and others.
Christian Rivers talks about the formation of the orcs, groups of 1000
groups of 200 etc. and how they’ll attack from around the city. PJ talks about how they are basically planning a real battle strategy.
Alan Lee thinks it will be the most spectacular battle ever filmed.
Dominic Monaghan talks about how you don’t see war through a hobbits eyes much but Merry becomes a warrior and he finds himself in the army.
PJ talks about the summoning of the Riders of Rohan to Gondors aid and how Merry is there with Eowyn, Eomer and Theoden.
Benard Hill talks about the Rohan and the horsemen they provide more horse stuff about how people came from all over to help.
PJ talks about motion capture of horses.. So they could do things with them that real horses couldn’t.
PJ & others talk about how the battle is a distraction for Frodo to destroy the ring.
Sean Astin hints about what happens to poor Mr. Frodo
Elijah explains how we see the complete deterioration of Frodo
Sean talks about the battle of good and evil, “at what cost will good win? Who will have to suffer? What will be lost? What kind of pain will have to be endured by the characters that people have grown to enjoy?”
Viggo: “There are some victories but there are great losses as well. Everyone will have suffered. Some will not have survived.”
Elijah says its better then 1 & 2 combined, it’s better than he could have hoped it to be.
PJ: “Everybody that we know, in some form or another, comes out of it different. I mean, it is an immensely affecting experience for them, and I hope for the audience as well.
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.
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.
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!
2000-08-14 After much rumors and speculations on various film music web sites, Howard Shore has now confirmed that he has been hired to compose the original music for Peter Jackson’s much anticipated Lord of the Rings. In fact, it looks like the Canadian composer of stylish scores such as Silence of the Lambs, Crash, Dead Ringers, Philadelphia and The Fly, has been commissioned to score the whole trilogy. In a statement made to Music from the Movies, Howard Shore himself confirms: “Yes, I am doing The Lord of the Rings Trilogy”.
Howard Shore has two new films coming up before entering Middle-Earth: he has scored the Jennifer Lopez thriller The Cell, opening this week, and The Yards. He recently wrote the score for High Fidelity, where Carter Burwell (who was hired initally) had to withdraw due to a schedule conflict. Another current Howard Shore project is the French film Ester Kahn.
The news about Howard Shore being the most likeable but surprising choice for Lord of the Rings was broken by www.soundtrack.net several weeks ago, but Music from the Movies is the first source to finally get the assignment confirmed.
This is not what you”d expect. Miramar. Solidly working class, rows of compact, pre-World War II bungalows and a smattering of state houses on broad, flat streets that give way to knots of disused factories. Soccer Ñ not rugby Ñ is the game of choice and on winter Saturdays a thick fringe of supporters jostle at the edges of Miramar Park Ñ home of the Miramar Rangers Ñ as planes, climbing from the airport, roar overhead. There is none of the raw sectarian divisions described in Denis Edwards” just-published 1950″s memoir Miramar Dog, just a kind of suburban monotony. Perhaps it is the anonymity of Miramar that suits Peter Jackson. Secrecy surrounding The Lord Of The Rings has reached paranoid levels. Few interviews are granted with Jackson and those that are almost exclusively conducted over the telephone. Those privileged enough to gain entry to Jackson”s Miramar-based special effects company Weta Ñ where the lion”s share of the work on models for The Lord Of The Rings is being done are required to sign a two-page, legally binding non-disclosure agreement. (Which makes our job here a challenge Ð E.) When North & South sought access to those parts of Weta”s inner sanctum not involved in The Lord Of The Rings Ñ including Jackson”s lavish 200-seat private cinema built in the style of early screen palaces permission was refused. Jackson, who has earned a reputation for being difficult (not according to artist John Howe, who described him as quiet, un-pushy, unobstructive, willing to listen, but certain of his decisions.-E.) said that there were some things the public did not need to know about. Instead, to interview Weta”s directors we were ushered to a bare, dimly lit boardroom devoid of any interest. Jackson himself would only be interviewed over the phone, ostensibly to “save time”, and when we protested the one-time photo engraver told us we were lucky to be granted an interview at all. Welcome to Hollywood, Miramar-style. Sequestered behind the tightly shut doors of Miramar”s shabby warehouses is Jackson”s multimillion-dollar film empire. In Para Street, hard up against the hills that divide Miramar from Seatoun, an old homestead that is the headquarters of Jackson”s small production company Wingnut Films can be glimpsed from the street. No sign marks its existence, just a blunt warning: Private Property, No Trespassing. Over the hill are the well-heeled seaside suburbs of Karaka Bay, and Seatoun, favoured residence of much of the film and television industry including Jackson. (So where did we get the idea he lived in Christchurch? Whoops. My money is on Seatoun.- E.) In Weka Street in the suburb”s north, Weta Ñ the crux of the industry spawned by his success Ñ and the Jackson-owned Camperdown Studios are housed in a 65,000 square foot former pharmaceuticals factory. In Stone Street, near the narrow cutting in the hill which shields the suburb from Wellington”s airport, the 1.7 hectare of the former Taubman’s paint factory awaits transformation. The sprawling jumble of empty buildings is the latest addition to Jackson”s portfolio of property in Miramar. “It’s a huge punt,” admits Jamie Selkirk, Jackson”s genial partner and director of Weta and Camperdown Studios. A freelance producer and editor who has worked with Jackson since the 1987 spoof Bad Taste, Selkirk is also a shrewd businessman. He says the $3 to $4 million he estimates has been invested in buildings in Miramar (including the work required to convert them into concrete-lined, sound-proof studios) is unprecedented in Wellington. “Auckland has got no real big studios, it’s got a whole lot of warehouses that Hercules and Xena use but we’re trying to create a purpose-built facility.” The Jackson camp are relying on other Wellington television producers and filmmakers to pick up the slack after filming on the last of The Lord Of The Rings is completed at the end of 2000. “We”re crossing our fingers really,” says Selkirk, “We”re hoping that by doing The Lord Of The Rings it will say to the world that we can make movies down here.” “Wellington, in my opinion, doesn”t have a magic formula about it which makes it the place that you have to make films, I just think it”s a great place to live,” Jackson chirrups down the phone from across town. “This perception that if you”re really serious about making it in the movies you’ve got to go and chase work, you’ve got to go to LA, cos that’s where it all happens Ñ if I”ve done anything it”s simply to say, “Surely you don”t have to do that, surely if I”ve got a good idea for a film and I want to make it then they”re going to be happy enough to come here and make it” and that”s proved to be the case. “You know there are advantages to being in the US,” he continues. “You certainly get access to money and actors of star status and crews that have worked on 50 or 60 movies, you have alot of access to gimmicks and toys that you don”t get here, but the Kiwi attitude to filmmaking is something I prefer. The film industry here is all about working with people you”ve worked with before and it”s really like a group of friends getting together for a few months and making a movie.” According to another local producer Ray Thompson, the depth of talent and “can do” attitude of actors, technicians and filmmakers here is reminiscent of Hollywood in the 1920s. While Jackson has been the lynchpin of Weta, the tenacity of his friends should not be underestimated. Weta was formed in 1993 with Selkirk, prosthetics specialist Richard Taylor, animator and computer technician George Port and the late Jim Booth, to buy a $100,000 computer used to create special effects for Heavenly Creatures. Weta creates puppet-like creatures and computer-generated special effects for films, as well as shows such as Xena and Hercules. In the lead-up to Lord Of The Rings, due to start filming in October, the company is employing 160 people. Weta”s success is rooted in its ability to overcome the tyranny of distance: technology has blurred the gulf between Miramar and Los Angeles.
