The Italian Tolkien Society is organizing a series of events aimed at arousing italian fans’ interest as well as foregneirs’one all over the world. On 24th of april, the ambassador of New Zealand in Italy, Peter Bennett, met in Rome the President of the Italian Tolkien Society, Paolo Paron, together with the ITS Manager of Foreign Relations Oronzo Cilli, and the Cultural Executive of the Embassy of New Zealand, Angela Giovanardi. This meeting gave birth to some important initiatives.
‘The Embassy of New Zealand will back any suggestion by the Italian Tolkien Society about the promotion of Tolkien and New Zealand’, said Bennett. The most attractive among these initiatives is the planning of a two weeks journey in New Zealand at low prices on february 2004, with the collaboration of the travel agency ‘Nuova Zelanda Viaggi’ of Rome. For the trip, the ITS is trying to get the support of several italian institutions. The departure is scheduled from Rome, with stops in some other european countries in order to enable foreign Tolkien fans as well to join our journey. The package will include the return flight, board and lodging, as well as guided tours to LOTR sets.
Besides, the Embassy of N.Z. in Italy will sustain some it’s initiatives, such as ‘Verso la Contea’ in Trani and the 10th ‘Hobbiton’ in Udine and both of them will be honoured by the presence of the Ambassador. Cultural exchanges will be also possible between New Zealand and italian young people as well as a twinning with the New Zealand Tolkien Society.
Moreover, the Italian Tolkien Society is organizing an outstanding exhibition for 2004 in Brussels, for the fiftieth anniversary of the publishing of the two first books of LOTR, in collaboration with the english Tolkien Society and with the involvement of the other european Tolkien Societies. An entire week will be devoted exclusively to the great english writer, hoping that one of Tolkien¹s sons will join some of the scheduled initiatives. The event will be introduced at the European Parliament of Brussels, as occurred this year in march for the celebration ‘Verso la Contea’.
For further information about these initiatives and to join the trip, please contact the promoter Oronzo Cilli at his mail address: tolkien@email.it
New Zealand’s Onfilm magazine has an interview with PJ about “King Kong” – I’ll just report the interesting things it covered.
“No film as captivated my imagination more than King Kong….I’m making movies today because I saw this film when I was nine years old. It has been my sustained dream to re-interpret this classic story for a nwe age.
As in LOTR, Peter and Fran will be joined by Philippa Boyens on the screenplay. “We can do a complete rewrite. Now that Philippa has joined the team, it’s a chance to start over,” said Jackson. When he and Fran finished the first script in 1996, he said, “The basic storyline will be very similar but the scenes, the sequences and the detail will be very different.” Now he finds he doesn’t like “the flip, smart-arsed tone of our old script. We are better writers ow than we were in 1996. This new version will be based on the 1933 movie, but not on our 1996 script. This movie will be so much better than the 1996 film would have been. In hindsight, fate has been kind to us.”
Jackson also commented that more of the film- about two thirds – will be set on Skull Island, as compared to previous versions. He has always said that he didn’t want to make a “colourised version” of the original. That is to my mind rather like his approach to making LOTR – he evidently never intended to make a “visual xerox” of the book.
Amidst the respective wakes of commercial flotsam and heated discourse which marked the paths left by Peter Jackson’s cinematically interpretative forays into Middle Earth rises the latest release from the Tolkien Ensemble. Entitled ‘At Dawn in Rivendell’ this release is the penultimate installation of a tetrad of works by the Ensemble which began in 1995 with ‘ An Evening in Rivendell’, followed with ‘ A Night in Rivendell’ in 2000. The extant works saw fruition through the musical alliance of Caspar Reiff and Peter Hall. Both composers and performers are joined on this release by Christopher Lee, The Copenhagen Chamber Choir Camerata, Copenhagen Young Strings as well as a number of soloists who contribute to the realization of this juncture in the Rivendell series of recordings.
To the CD itself. Opening with a spoken word piece delivered by the distinctive tones of Christopher Lee, the prefatory ‘Verse of the Rings’, which is the Ring count; ‘Three rings for the Elven-Kings…’. Lee performs several other spoken-word pieces throughout the CD such as ‘Warning of Winter’, ‘Boromir’s Riddle’ and the ‘Riddle of Strider’. I feel Lee’s voice works in delivering such in somewhat dry tones which do well in summoning an air of inevitability. This is evident on ‘Malbeth the Seer’s Words’ where the Copenhagen Young Strings provide a precursory canvas upon which foreboding washes before drifting up to catch Lee’s words towards the end of the piece; words which carry the listener to the ‘…Paths of the Dead.’ ‘Song of Gondor’ presents a solemn nobility of strings sweeping upwards towards a baritone, almost plaintive delivery of the prose. Companion to this mood may be the track ‘ Éomer’s Song’, both pieces elicit, I feel, echoes of such Old English works as The Ruin and The Wanderer and, especially with ‘Éomer’s Song’, The Battle of Maldon where Byrhtnoth characterised the old northern spirit in the face of inexorable doom. A cry for the heroic past to return and the encroaching dark fog to lift.
Amongst such pieces one finds ‘relief’ in the guise of ‘A Walking Song’, ‘A Drinking Song’ and ‘ A Bath Song’, each self-descriptive and bathed in a canvas of capering melodies and good interplay of vocals that will surely tempt the hairiest of feet to get a tapping. These compositions are enjoyable and the employment of instruments such as doublebass and mandolin add to the atmosphere each track stirs. Here the juxtaposition of diverging musical flavours throughout the CD capture, I feel, the merging of chronological horizons, from the equine tramp of the Riddermark to the waistcoated bowels of Bag-End, which draped events in the narrative in a kaleidoscope of variation and vibrancy.
Within ‘The Long List of the Ents’ and ‘Treebeard’s Song’ Lee again features. This time Lee narrates as Treebeard latterly projecting his bass tones, accompanied by the orchestral solo of Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen. Is the voice convincingly Entish? Well I’d submit that’s a matter of perspective, certainly time constraints may compress the natural norms of Middle Earth in respect of this particular medium. Otherwise it serves to evoke the age-knotted Treebeard to good effect. Twenty pieces comprise the CD and the final of these is the ‘Elven Hymn to Elbereth Gilthoniel’ now, one is no-doubt familiar with the portrayal of Elven song in pats mediums of the like and often such, I feel, are all too diaphanous, failing to give breath to the race they seek to animate. However I can quite honestly say that I found the Ensemble’s piece to work as it were. The piece seems more fleshed and, indeed, professional while maintaining its vision thereby producing an almost fey quality without subverting to the familiar commercial cloak worn by Clannad-type artists. No, this piece worked to set itself apart from the previous pieces, therein its landscape unfolded and wove together with the mezzo-soprano of Signe Asmussen accompanied by the gentle waterfall of an Irish harp.
One aspect this CD drew out for me was the recognition of the rich vein of oral tradition infused throughout Tolkien’s work, a passive undercurrent to the tidal flow of the main narrative. Tolkien’s prose, I feel, embodied not only his relationship with ‘Lit and Lang’ but also of that northern heroic spirit, imagined or otherwise, that gradually ebbed as wood fell and choking edifices rose heralding the passing of something momentary and now rarely glimpsed or evoked. I approached this CD with a fresh ear and I was delighted not only with the musical interpretations therein but also the care taken with the booklet to reproduce the respective prose and the illustrations of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, whose enthusiasm for Tolkien’s works resulted in the Danish translation of the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was also familiar with the Queen’s pictorial interpretations of his works. For me this series is singular in a sense as it avoids the pitfalls of ‘cinematic scores’ and, through artists more than familiar with Tolkien’s works, it instead delivers a lively interpretation that, in part, fleshing aspects of Tolkien’s works personal to the listener in a less intrusive manner than cinematic reproduction. This CD will certainly continue to reward the listener on each play.
What follows is a brief interview with Caspar Reiff
Tolkien Society: What aspects drew you to Tolkien’s prose and indeed narrative through to the subsequent interpretation of same through the Tolkien Ensemble?
Caspar Reiff: The first time I read The Lord of the Rings was in 1990. I was 19 years old and like so many other readers absolutely amazed with the quality of the book. I read it in the Danish translation (by Ida Nyrup Ludvigsen) wich is very good except from the translation of the poems that loses a lot of the lyric strength in the translation.
After reading the book 2 or 3 times in Danish I decided to try to read it in the original language and that was the first time I discovered the poems as being more than a curious nuisance, but indeed another wonderful aspect of Tolkien’s masterpiece.
Throughout The Lord of the Rings Tolkien describes several of the poems as songs and as a musician the obvious question was: What does the music and songs of Middle-earth sound like? I really had to find out…
TS: How did you and your fellow composer(s) approach the project? Was the overall goal clear at an early stage?
CR: The overall goal of the project was clear in 1996.
First of all I wanted to be make a complete musical interpretation of the about 70 poems from The Lord of the Rings. Secondly the music and the concept should be “in the spirit” of Tolkien’s work by using acoustic instruments and professionally trained musicians.
Thirdly the soloists should fit the specific characters of The Lord of the Rings, one soloist could have a maximum of three roles, and those roles should in some way be connected with regard to race and musical tradition (like Peter Hall: Frodo, Sam and Tom Bombadil or Morten Ernst Lassen: Aragorn and Éomer). One soloist doing both elves and humans or dwarves and hobbits should be avoided.
The music should fit the various races of Middle-earth using folkmusic for the hobbits, the classical Liedgenre/choral music to the humans and a more ethereal mixture between the two for the elves. The more strange characters like Gollum and Treebeard should be treated individually. The overall music tone should be based on the British/Nordic classical- and folkmusic traditions.
One other very important part of the concept was to compose music that varied from the very intimate single voice or just singer/guitar or singer/piano over different chambermusic constellations to large orchestral and choir pieces. At quite a lot of places in The Lord of the Rings Tolkien gives hints to the musical instrumentation of specific poems. Those hits should obviously be respected i.e. using a harp if a harp is mentioned (like in Galadriel’s Song of Eldamar, “I sang of leaves…”)
Furthermore we should try to use as few technical options and cuttings in the editing of the recordings as possible. Not all, but quite a lot of the songs, are recorded “live” in the studio in “one take” and the use of more than three or four cuts in a song are very rare in the production.
Finally the titles of the songs should be taken from “Index I Songs and Verses” from The Lord of the Rings.
TS: Where there any problems in relation to particular prose pieces and their musical realization?
CR: The poems of The Lord of the Rings has a great span from the very short ones to poems spanning over three full pages in the book, with different styles like The Eagle’s Song: “Sing now, ye people of the Tower of Arnor…”, over Song of Eärendil: “Eärendil was a mariner” to A Drinking Song: “Ho! Ho! Ho! to the bottle I go…”.
One of the first things I discovered when I started the project was that it would be absolutely impossible for me to do all the music myself, at least in a convincing way. Fortunately my friend Peter Hall was able to help me, mainly with the folkbased music. Peter Hall has a vast knowledge of different kinds of folkmusic covering the British/Irish/Nordic traditions and instruments and as a classically trained musician (London College of Music) he knows the classical music as well. This was a very important thing for the project.
On two poems we cooperated with other composers i.e. Song of Beren and Lúthien (Anker Askov made the piano arrangement) and Song of Nimrodel (Kristian Buhl Mortensen made the arrangement for lute).
TS: Now with the third phase complete, looking back, do you feel you have so far achieved your desires within the context of the CD’s?
CR: Yes, I certainly do.
TS: What type of feedback have you received regarding the series?
CR: We have been very fortunate to get a lot of very positive reviews on all three albums An Evening in Rivendell, A Night in Rivendell and At Dawn in Rivendell and we have received a lot of letters and mails from all over the world from people appreciating our work.
A couple of years ago I received a letter from a person in America who told me that his daughters rat, called Arwen, was buried in the family’s garden – to the music of my version of Galadriel’s Song of Eldamar…
TS: What can we expect with the last instalment in the series?
CR: The fourth and final CD will be titled: “Leaving Rivendell”. There will be new soloists covering the roles of Gimli and the ent Bregalad and Christopher Lee will have a leading role on the CD as well.
But, as Gandalf says: “Many folk like to know beforehand what is to be set on the table; but those who have laboured to prepare the feast like to keep their secret; for wonder makes the words of praise louder.”…
TS: After completion of the series what direction will you take the Tolkien Ensemble or is its being purely for the works of Tolkien?
CR: The Tolkien Ensemble is devoted to Tolkien’s works. After the completion of the musical interpretation of the poems of The Lord of the Rings, Peter Hall and I will start to work on the poems of The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. Apart from that Peter Hall are at the moment working on creating a full music version of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.
So we have still a lot of work to do to complete the task, and afterwards I hope we will be able to keep the ensemble together, playing the songs in live concerts .
TS: Would you ever consider interpreting the prose of the Old Norse sagas in the same manner?
CR: I have never thought of that…
TS: Thank you for your time and I wish you well with your future projects.
Two more people sent in their reports from Collectormania. The event, held last weekend just outside of London, must’ve drawn hordes of LOTR-fans. Probably because it was attended by five members of the cast: John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd, Andy Serkis, Bruce Hopkins and Sala Baker! Next up there’s a blurb from Gillian
4th May, 2003. Sunday night in Milton Keynes. A small cinema that seats around 120 people, if that. Scheduled – a talk with visiting actors prior to a special screening of The Two Towers.
The cinema was almost full when I entered at 17:45, and managed to secure three seats together about five rows back in the stadium seating. The night before had seen a talk with the same actors followed by a special screening of Fellowship of the Ring. The obvious group contingent of young ladies from the night before was again very much in evidence. They were generally excited and obviously enjoying themselves
Although they were mercifully quiet during the film as opposed to their behaviour the night before during FoTR when they had whooped at every appearing of Pippin and Legolas. It was amusing for the first 20 minutes, but eventually their distracting ‘enthusiasm’ prompted many of the audience to start yelling “Shut up!” and “Oh, grow up!
At 18:00 my accompanying friends entered in a hurry, one muttering something about barging into John Rhys-Davies at the door. As last night’s talk had started a good 30 minutes late due to the actors’ signing commitments, and we were still 15 minutes from the start of tonight’s talk, this confused me, for about ten seconds, because then JRD himself strolled out of the access corridor, takeaway coffee in hand, booming “Good Evening.” He leaned his elbows on the railing at the front of the tiered seating like an old friend leaning on a wall to chat to his neighbour. Apparently the other actors had gone for their promised drink in the bar after their long day of signing but, despite having one of the longest queues of all, JRD had foregone his drink to come straight to the talk.
The first words out of his mouth after the greeting, delivered in a mock patient drawl were “For you young ladies, nooo, I do not have Orlando Bloom’ s telephone number and yeess, if I did I WOULD give it to you!”
After the laughter had subsided he continued, “Now we’ve got that out of the way does anyone else have any silly questions?” He accepted the offer of a mini Toblerone and managed to talk around it quite effectively as he mentioned his antipathy for the producers of Helen of Troy (although he didn’t labour the point) and gave details of the accident in Croatia while filming Musketeers. I remember that he broke his arm and that, when the wall fell on him, he was initially afraid that both his hip and back were broken. I can’t recall all the specifics about injury, but the story of a long line of men silently holding up the remnants of the wall for the next 30 minutes before he could be rescued from the heap of rubble was very moving.
JRD was obviously still suffering and confirmed he wasn’t quite recovered. In fact, after the initial friendly leaning gesture, he mostly wandered around in front of the stadium seating, with his hand in the small of his back. He did indulge in one physical display, when asked what it was like learning to fight with an axe. He answered that the fight training had been great, but then they got onto the set, and they dressed him in many pounds of armour, put a 14(?) pound helmet on his head, handed him two heavy axes and then told him to fight, “Oh, and do it on your knees!” JRD got down on his knees at this point to demonstrate, swung an imaginary axe, and promptly disappeared from the audience’s vision as he overbalanced. Much laughter.
At another point in the talk, John stated his opinion that Gimli doesn’t recognise that he is short. He also shared a few notes on the “Toss me” exchange between Gimli and Aragorn at Helm’s Deep. The “Toss me” line was because they thought there needed to be some pay off from “Nobody tosses a dwarf” in the first film. He added that “Don’t tell the Elf!” was his own interpolation. He referred to the humour in the second film with the observation that there is a need for occasional lightness in a drama on screen, as opposed to the book where there is battle after battle, setback after setback with no respite. That can be done in a book, but the needs of drama are different.
People continued to enter the cinema during John’s talk, some of them attempting polite tip-toe, others just wandering past and up the central stairs right in front of John, while some remained at the side. John took this in his stride. I was quite annoyed for him, even if he had turned up fifteen minutes early but perhaps I missed any quiet apologies as people walked in front of him.
His monopoly on our attention was finally broken by the mass arrival of Billy Boyd, Andy Serkis, Bruce Hopkins (Gamling) and Sala Baker (Sauron), along with another influx of audience. As the steward started to announce the actors’ arrival, two more audience members came around the corner instead and there was mild amusement. John turned this to full-on laughter by teasing the couple in a booming voice as they hurriedly ascended the stairs to find a seat, “I bet you’re really embarrassed right at this moment, aren’t you? I know I would be!” The rest of the actors therefore entered to general good humour and all helped themselves from the multipack of mini-Toblerones that was again handed towards them. I think ‘Sauron’ took two. I suspect one young lady is currently framing an empty sweet packet.
The cast moved to the front of the cinemas and positioned themselves immediately below the screen and JRD appropriated a seat in the front row, his back to the audience. Throughout the remainder of the talk he could not be seen but continued to interject. On each occasion of that I could see one arm waving gently in emphasis, accompanying a disembodied but still commanding voice.
The questions this session were rather more intelligent than some of those in the last session (of which a transcript has been posted at theonering.net so I won’t repeat). The order I’ll relate them in is not the right order, but the order they came into my memory when I was making notes afterward. There will, of course, be omissions due to the faulty nature of my memory.
[spoiler]Billy told us that the most difficult part of his role as Pippin was the moment when he has to swear fealty to Denethor. Gandalf is making a grab for him and he has to dodge around furniture to reach Denethor. Now this would all have been okay if the scene wasn’t blue screen, if Gandalf had been there (which he wasn’t), if Denethor had been there (yep, he wasn’t) and if there had actually been any furniture to dodge around!
Billy also wouldn’t confirm if Pippin got to look into the Palantir, which was a little disappointing considering his previous ‘inadvertent’ spoilage about the Denethor scene. (That was my question and I’ve made a note to myself to phrase spoiler questions more ambiguously in future, or ask Ian McKellen, who let slip a fairly major spoiler in his latest talk ) However, since we now know he gets to Gondor, I suppose there’s still a chance that the Palantir gazing will take place, and I can still see a place for that in the story, even with the changed circumstances regarding Gandalf’s knowledge of the Palantir.
Andy Serkis was asked to do his ‘Gollum voice’ and obliged with a whole scene, the conflict between Smeagol and Gollum in Ithilien. Before he started, he told us that the entire scene had been filmed in one two-minute take. The man was a good twenty yards or so from us, but we could see his face and as we watched him alternate between the two personalities effortlessly, I couldn’t help feeling it was a pity that we didn’t get to see the real Andy Serkis in the film. His live performance left tears in my eyes and not even the first viewing of the relevant film scene did that to me. I can understand that PJ cut between the two personalities during that scene to emphasise the two persons/dual personality thing, but the in-between effect, as AS’s face flipped from one character to the other, was stunning and I wish that PJ could have found some way to retain that.
The audience asked for spoilers and after hesitation, Sala Baker announced that in ROTK, Sauron turns into Legolas. Bruce quipped that Gamling becomes king of Rohan, and JRD quickly added that he was sharing no spoilers but did think that the early death of Legolas was a scene that was sorely missing from the first film. (The ‘griping’ at the popularity of Legolas was a running joke throughout the talks on both nights)
Someone asked the actors to tell us about the thing they found most difficult. Bruce Hopkins had confessed (the previous night I think) that he wasn’t exactly an accomplished horseman (possibly not at all), but this wasn’t picked up until he was on a skittish horse in the middle of the ruins of Isengard and someone bothered to ask him. By that time they had decided to extend the character of Gamling far more than originally planned, so they sent him for horse-riding lessons. This session, he added that he had problems with one particular horse. He was attempting to control the horse but it wasn’t working and he wasn’t happy, to put it mildly. Someone later commented offhandedly, “Oh, were you trying to back rein(?) him? That horse doesn’t back rein.”
For his ‘difficult’ story, Billy Boyd referred to the pain and hassle of hobbit feet, especially when it was cold and wet.
Andy Serkis described the major problems he had with playing Gollum, all issues that are a nightmare for an actor. For one, he had no costume to help him get into the part. In addition, he did not feel he owned the character as the performance relied on other factors beside himself and, although at the end of each day Elijah and Sean (with whom he spent the most time) could leave knowing their performance was mostly in the can and perhaps feel some pride in the finished performance, he could not. He knew his work was not finished and that he had many more hours and days of work before he would be finished with that scene. JRD quipped that for a job that was originally touted as one that appeared the most effortless of any of the actors, that is a couple of weeks of voice-over work, Andy Serkis had ended up with one of the most difficult.
The ‘unitard’ that AS wore for his performances as Gollum became known as the ‘Gimp’ suit and he described the embarrassed feeling of walking onto a set full of “hairy-arsed chaps” while wearing “spandex”. Sounds like he got some ribbing for it too. He quipped, “I felt like a right… unitard.”
Sala Baker is scheduled for more work on Sauron and described his most difficult issue being with the costume and the fact that it ended up being redesigned. A most uncomfortable experience in both guises.
To questions on the Extended Edition, BB confirmed (as elsewhere) that the storyline with the Huorns (“the evil trees”) has been reintegrated into the story line. He added that so much had to be removed because to take only small snippets left the storyline confused and they ended up removing a huge chunk of the Treebeard stuff. He’s glad it’s back in, including the Hobbits drinking the Ent Draught, which he thought was a nice nod towards Tolkien.
In regard to questions about the relationship between him and Dominic Monaghan, BB mentioned that a mischievous approach was not discouraged on set because it helped to promote a relaxed attitude and this made it easier to cope with the long hours. The tendency to informality also made it easier for people to bring out their own ideas and suggestions but also not to feel slapped down when those suggestions were rejected. The general consensus was that it was a marvellous atmosphere and they would work for PJ again in a heartbeat.
Bruce Hopkins added that their good experiences were one of the reasons they were so keen to appear at events such at Collectormania and talk to fans. He also added, as if necessary, that PJ really cares about the fans too.
Someone asked if they could ask Tolkien one question, what would it be? After only minor hesitation, BB answered, “I’d ask him why he didn’t give the Hobbits boots in Rivendell!”
That’s all I can remember, but I’ll finish with John Rhys-Davies final quip from the Saturday session, “Thank You for not throwing boiled sweets!”
Two more people sent in their reports from Collectormania. The event, held last weekend just outside of London, must’ve drawn hordes of LOTR-fans. Probably because it was attended by five members of the cast: John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd, Andy Serkis, Bruce Hopkins and Sala Baker! The first report is from Mary.
Collectormania 3. Milton Keynes. Saturday 3rd -Monday 5th May. Me. M. R and R. We were there. And my legs now hurt enough to provide plenty of proof of time spent walking round stalls and standing in queues that look so deceptively short until you realise that everyone is actually desperate to have a life-changing conversation with a star.
Collectormania 3. Milton Keynes. A place which seems to be unprepared for the possibility of tourists (understandable if you have ever been there) and needs to be introduced to the concept of SIGNS which might actually help you to know where you are heading for.
But we found the location in the end and in a wonderful quirk of fate managed to park right outside the entrance. Ha! Milton Keynes also needs to be introduced to the concept of long-stay parking and perhaps encourage people to spend more than 5 hours without having to rush out and buy another parking ticket, though without the lure of an event such as this, we decided that 5 hours is probably the peak time for suicide having endured too long in a place that must surely have been designed by Satan himself.
I digress. After the initial period of childish excitement something along the lines of small child finding themselves in the middle of an enormous sweet shop with access to all the bext sweets, it was into the line to see Virginia Hey (Zhaan from Farscape) consisting of one other person; there is no justice in the world that more people were willing to pay Paul McGann £20 and stand in a ridiculously over-long queue than come and talk to this wonderful lady. And a wonderful lady who would write “To dearest [me], tons of love” on the lovely 10×8 free photo selected from the variety on offer. She even spotted that there was a tiny flaw in the picture and carefully picked up a blue pen and coloured it in!
After that it was merely a short hop into the next line to see Warwick Davies – finally the chance to meet Willow himself, and to top it all off I actually had a decent question to ask him about his commentary for the recent DVD release of Willow. He was genuinely pleased that I liked his commentary and added that he now has to do 6 of the things for the Leprechaun movies – not pitying him that job! He mentioned that one line he liked was cut from the commentary, about General Kale, who was named after a movie critic of the time, but after her death it was deemed disrespectful to include it, though Warwick reckoned it aptly summe her up!
Both Virginia and Warwick were allowing people to take photographs, and I cursed the fact that M had made off with the camera and was quite possibly at that very moment supping coffee whilst I was mingling with the stars, unable to preserve the moments for posterity in any form other than my memories (time was spent at night piecing together the order of events, but got unfortunately tangled with numerous other activities from the day… the old memory is not what it used to be… what was I saying?!) and Warwick was even coming round to the front of his table to stand with the fans – and at this point I was somewhat pleased the camera wasn’t available as I would have been slightly embarrassed at my current inability to bend at the knees. Though I will add that having a walking stick at busy events is a great boon. Apologies to anyone who has permanent scarring…!
We checked out the lines to see Billy Boyd and Andy Serkis, but made a cunning plan to endeavour to avoid the queues by arriving early the next day, and instead did the tour of the stalls, being more than momentarily distracted by the stall selling replicas of weaponry from movies… I say to you Arwen’s sword… and please excuse me whilst I mop up the drool from the keyboard. I am sure I really CAN justify nearly £200 on a sword… can’t I?
The stalls were more than slightly crammed in, and the circumstances of the event, with it being an open event in a shopping mall, meant that it was very, very busy indeed, and it was really very hard to browse. But I did at least find a Han Solo action figure for my mother, which goes a small way for refusing to pay out for an actual Milennium Falcon…
The highlight of the day was the screening of Fellowship of the Ring in the evening, a small and select screening in one of the smaller screens at the cinema, and thus a somewhat intimate affair. And sadly there were a number there with whom I had no desire whatsoever to get so intimate with – if you cannot distinguish between watching your DVD at home (“Yes, you CAN scream and talk and shout and quote lines from the movie”) and going to the cinema (“No you may NOT scream, shout, quote and otherwise drive your fellow movie-goers to distraction despite constant requests to shut the **** up”) you should not be going out of the house without your mummy and daddy.
Let me not get sidetracked into the hell that was screaming pre-pubescent girls who should quite possibly have been drowned at birth or at least locked into the toilets for the duration of the evening.
The screening was preceded by a talk from those members of the cast who attended the event – Billy Boyd, Andy Serkis, Sala Baker, Bruce Hopkins and the irrascible and irresitible John Rhys-Davies, who held court for a good 45 minutes answering questions and regaling us with anecdotes from the making of the movies. Nothing new was really revealed, but nonetheless it was delightful to be allowed the privelage of being so entertained by such genuine and talented people who share a common desire to share their passion for an incredible movie.
Day two consisted on my part of large amounts of queuing and waiting. Despite getting there well before the advertised starting time there was already a wait of over an hour for Andy Serkis and Billy Boyd, so it was time to test out the virtual queuing system of “take a ticket and come back when we call it!” Or at least when they call a range that contains your number, which does at least keep actual time standing in a queue to a minimum, though it then results in an increasing paranoia as you realise that 1) You cannot understand the tannoy announcements with the numbers and 2) no one appears to be updating the boards keeping track of which numbers have been called.
But I got there in the end, and first of all saw Andy Serkis, who came across as very natural, very easy going, and not yet requesting the paper to be moved under his hand after signing too many autographs! He was also more than willing to have photographs be taken, and I left feeling that I had met a lovely guy. One then had to battle out through the hoardes of “Boyd-ettes” who were staring fixedly at Billy as he met with those actually queuing and dribbling occasionally with the odd shriek thrown in for good measure. Credit to Billy for not requesting them to be put out of their misery with tranquiliser darts.
It was back into line after that to get my chance to meet Billy, who took a moment before signing my picture to rearrange his tablecloth and make himself pretty again. He was most amiable and when I asked how hard this kind of event was, replied that it could be worse – he could be digging roads! Of all the people there, he seemed the most tired, though one could never say that he wasn’t giving his all. Kudos to these people who slog their guts out making movies that people may not even like, and then take time to meet and greet those of us who genuinely appreciate all that they do. I am sure they know how much we think of them, but thanks again all the same.
Billy came round the front of his table for photographs and then I could grin my way madly off to try and locate Sophie Aldred. There is a reason for this. Honest. Not least that I used to be a huge Doctor Who fan, but my class watch Words and Pictures every week and she presents some of the shows. I could just imagine their delight if I could show them a photo of me with “their Sophie” and tell them how I had met her. But sadly she and Sylvester McCoy had vanished into the ether, not to return until after we had departed to go see X-Men 2, and the realisation that we were spending a large proportion of this weekend in cinemas.
The evening saw the screening of The Two Towers, which was markedly different from the previous night in several ways.
Firstly, we had the honour of getting John Rhys-Davies in a good 10 minutes early to talk and answer questions: “Did you train for all the fighting you had to do?” to which his reponse was an emphatic YES! And he had gotten quite good at it, too, and then arrived on set to be covered in heavy armour, have his face covered with prosthetics AND THEN asked to go on his knees! Can you fight? Argh *falls over*!
We had perhaps some of the best seats available in that we were right above the entrance / exit and thus could see the guests arrive before everyone else, as they waited to come out. This proved most beneficial when they left, and I leaned over the side with my camera, eliciting a wave and a huge smile from the wonderful Sala Baker, and a fabulous funny face pulled by Andy Serkis! Oh if only I had a scanner!
It was the talk before this movie that held perhaps the greatest moment in the entire weekend, as Andy was asked if he could do his Gollum voice, and he proceeded to perform Gollum’s monologue for us all to see. This was an incredible performance, and received a standing ovation which was much deserved and hopefully went some way to make up for his Oscar nomination snub. If anyone should doubt the talents of this guy and think that all he had to do was sit in a studio making funny voices into a tape recorder, they should talk to “Mr Spandex” himself about his experiences, and the fact that even after doing his scenes he knew that he didn’t really have anything “in the can” like the other actors, and indeed wouldn’t until some year or so later.
Fortunately the screening of the movie was a vastly improved experience compared to the previous night, for posisbly several reasons: a number of the screaming-contingent left before the movie to chase after the guests, and of course they do not yet own this on DVD and have thus not had a chance to watch it to death and learn every second forwards, backwards and inside out. Notably, one of the first things Andy Serkis asked US before the Fellowship screening was “Who has seen this movie more than 5 times? More than 10? More than 15?” steadily increasing the numbers, as hands resolutely stayed up beyond 20 times, concluding with “And who of those of you still with your hands up has a life?”Indeed, Mr Serkis, indeed! (And no comments about how many times it was I saw a certain other movie and memorised the entire script before it was even out on video – I was young then… that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it!)
The weekend was wonderful. I cannot extoll the virtues of the guests enough for always smiling, always ready to talk, giving us more than we could ever hope for.
Lots of people are always catching up with news that might have been reported a long time ago and then forgotten about. Newcomers to the site are still reeling with shock as they learn that the Scouring of the Shire is out, that Saruman probably doesn’t die there but at Orthanc, and that Sauron may assume visible form and confront Aragorn at the Black Gate. Here’s some thoughts on all that from various readers:
Adanedhel writes: “Regarding your “ROTK Spoilers! Saruman, Grima & SAURON News!” here, and especially this: “…the Dark Lord who looked like he was in different armor than when we saw him in the prologue…”
“In my opinion, this is NOT Sauron himself but his servant, the Mouth of Sauron, because your spy says “in different armour” and few weeks ago you’ve reported that Peter Jackson is unhappy with the armour of the Mouth of Sauron because he thought it looks very much similiar to the armour of Sauron, so Sala Baker had returned to NZ for reshoots. I could be wrong, of course, but we must also consider this.”
OJ puts it another way: “I should think that the reason that “Sauron” appears in “different armour” when he has it out with Aragorn is because he is NOT “Sauron”. Rather, I should think that in the movie as in the book, “The Mouth of Sauron” is present at “The Black Gate” in the last battle of the movie.”
Nicholas says: “I thought Peter Jackson said that he knew Sauron couldn’t stay as just an eye (here he mentioned that Star Wars – Darth Vader quote) but that he couldn’t take full physical form either. I wonder if maybe people are confusing Sauron with the Mouth of Sauron battling Aragorn? I would think it would be more dramatic for PJ to do what Tolkien does in the book – having Sauron (whether he be just an eye or in some other form) suddenly realize what’s going on when Frodo puts on the ring in Mount Doom and do all he can do to try and stop Frodo, instead of Aragorn. Anyway, just a thought.”
Diana scanned some othersources for what we think we know about changes to ROTK: “Amidst all this discussion of the death of Saruman–possibly opening the door for the cut of the Scouring of the Shire– I stumbled across this old Q&A article (before Fellowship was released) on E!Online: More]”
Q: “The Return of the King has a very long denouement, with fully one third of the book coming after the destruction of the Ring. I worry that the filmmakers may have cut or severely shorted the Scouring of the Shire and the Grey Havens episodes. Any word on that?”
A: “LOTR conceptual artist Alan Lee showed me his sketches of the Grey Havens buildings and boats. Elijah Wood (Frodo) and Ian Holm (Bilbo) said they count their “farewell” scenes (when they say goodbye to their friends before going to the Grey Havens) as among their favorite to film. Sources tell me the Scouring of the Shire has made the cut, albeit with a few tweaks.” [But we’ve since heard – from PJ, if I remember correctly – that the Scouring was OUT. Hence the confusion – T.]
Q: “Peter! We’ve got to have hope. Do you promise a happy ending to The Return of the King? Peter: It’s happy/sad. The third film makes me cry. It’s really emotional. It’s very, very emotional.”
Diana has another guess: “Furthermore, in regards to deleted scenes being put back in the Extended and Theatrical DVDs, has anybody mentioned the shot of Arwen in the TTT trailer? In the theaters we saw a shot of her walking off, cloaked, with other Elves. In the trailer, we see her apparently throwing off her cloak, rushing to Elrond, exclaiming “Tell me what you see!”. Could they possibly put this shot back in the movie?”
Update: Demosthenes here. Regarding the demise of Saruman, people keep submitting the picture below – which is from Brian Sibley’s The Making of the Movie Trilogy. Sure does look like one angry Wormtongue, there. Yep, that’s a knife in his hand and that does indeed appear to be the floor patterning of Orthanc.
