Fantastic spy report from Sylvesterpasemester

“A few months ago me and my friend, was working as extras during the filming of some battlescenes. I have read the books twice and I am very certain that what I saw ain´t in the books. I saw a huge guy with black armour and a huge kind of battleaxe or a hammer, who was standing in the front of a giant bluescreen and there were nine, I repeat !!NINE!! smaller guys with crowns around him. .

There were some kind of spikes attached to the armour and his helmet. It all looked very scary. Around him there lay tons of dead human bodies and a great corps[?] The guy in the giant armour must have been SAURON!!!!!!!! Me, my friend and the rest of the 50 extras ran in terror from this Sauron guy while there was two cameras filming us. It took three takes until the filming crew had what they wanted. From what I have read Sauron never leaves Barad Dur, so this was a big surprise.”

Now, a similar report came in months ago but in less detail, as it was what somebody saw who was passing by on another errand. This really seems to confirm that we will see Sauron. Given that the ancient history of the Ring is included in the movies, we could have guessed that we’d see Sauron at least when Isildur cut the Ring from his finger, but this latest news may mean we get to see him doing his thing at length. Could he even appear at the final battle before the fall of the Dark Tower? One clue will be: What armour were the extras wearing?

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I was in Munich for the past two days at the Alias/wavefront-usermeeting 2001. In the end we were shown a 8 minute long some sort of making-of of LOTR!!! Generally it was quite the same as the quicktime-movie that was released at the official site, but it was much longer with lot’s of new stuff!

I will try to tell you some new things I remember and how I liked them:
overall the audience was stunned and the 8 minute preview was followed by applause!

One of the many things we saw were fight scenes which were totally computer generated (the fighters, not the backgroudn I think). They still didn’t look finished but already very impressive.
I hope I remember this right but I think they do complete battle scenes totally computer generated.
They don’t animate every single fighter but use techniques like for the bug-crowds in starship troopers or the baby-godzilla in the godzilla finale, but much more anticipated and detailed. they can give every object (fighter) skills and behavioral patterns. combined with the dynamic interaction of the cg-fighters I think we will see pictures and sequences we have never seen before.

I was really impressed by the pictures and the mentioned techniques.
Although the preview was quite technical, I also had the feeling that middle-earth is really out there now 😉 I don’t think I had tears in my eyes, but there were some really emotional moments when seeing far too short scenes and pictures and thinking of the whole background and story of the book. I don’t know how someone will like the movies if he hasn’t read the books, but from my point of view there is something really great coming 😉

Thanks to another keen spy for that!

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Some people have the greatest holidays! This is one Ringer fan’s experience last year, and he just wrote to tell us about it:

“The reason I write you is that I was at the location when they filmed LotR. My character was a fighting human at the battlefield. I was just down there for about 5 days, but it was the greatest time of my life.

It wasn´t actually something planned from our side that we (me and my friend) were about to take place in the film. We were on holiday, backpacker tourists in New Zealand, when we heard about the rumor that the Lord of the Rings film was being filmed just some miles from our hotel.

We also heard that they were looking for volunteer actors (male actors between 1.7-1.9 meters tall, who were looking for adventures), so we decided to apply. We were approved and about three days later the filming began!

I am a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings and I have read the book several times so this was really something great. We had a great time and also learned alot about acting.

One thing that amazed me about New Zealand was the rich variety in the nature and climate. All from beautiful mountains in the south to the greenland and the tropical forest in the north. All suited perfectly for The Lord of the Rings scenery.

The costumes that we wore were hard leather armour and helmets. We also had heavy 4 feet swords, and shields. In the beginning it wasn´t really easy to maneuver in the heavy clothes but you got used to it. You learned a lot about maneuvering swords and take place in a fighting with swords and shields.

So after a lot of retakes, bruises, laughs, and sword fighting it was all done, and it was really the highlight of our journey…

I didn´t actually meet Christopher Lee, but I heard the rumors that he was really great! All the people that had met him said that he was really friendly and that he helped a lot of the new beginner actors.”

Thanks to the Ringer who sent us that!

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Thanks to Dengar for sending us this heads up:”In the latest issue of Games Workshops monthly magazine White Dwarf (issue 255) i found this ad. It didn’t contain any new info about the games, but the Saruman pic was cool. Unfortunatly the quality of the pic is quite bad.“Click the images to see larger versions:On january 30th, we learned that Games Workshop will be doing a table top game. See the press release for that announcement [here]

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The debate continues on whether Aragorn is charging along with elves or men in this Helm’s Deep clip from the official teaser trailer. (page 5, first image)

Here is some more fuel for the fire from Spy Tocata:

“Having been an elf at Helm’s Deep, yes, those must be elves. They have the distinctly Elven swords (curved blade, long handle) we used, and are definitely wearing Elven battle armour, which is bloody painful I can tell you. I’m tall and gangly, and it was tight enough to keep me from breathing properly for the many days I was in it. Orcs are much more comfortable, as are Rohans & Gondorian Rangers. Elving sucks!“

So, from someone on the set, we get further confirmation Elves are at Helm’s Deep.

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Ringer discussion guru Gorel (http://www.geocities.com/dinambar/) sends us this tidbit:

“In the picture about fight choreography (at the official site), it looks like the mysterious Lurtz (Lawrence Makoare) might be training for a fight scene with Boromir. It’s certainly a big orc looking dude.“

Thanks Gorel for sending us this pic!

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