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.
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.
RangerOfTheEast writes: BNU (NZ Rugby Team) TO STAR IN LORD OF THE RINGS AGAIN! Following on from the success of last year’s soundbite, the Academy Award winning Lord Of The Rings sound team have requested BNU’s services once more. If you enjoy running around screaming like a mad man and assaulting your fellow friends then come and join us on Thursday 3 July 2003 from 7.30pm @ Vogelmorn Park. The club will getting some payment but we need to get plenty of people along prepared to make some noise! This will probably be your last chance to play a part in the production of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy (and you can help your club at the same time) so see you all next Thursday. [