Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stone to meal;
Slays kings, ruins towns,
And beats high mountains down.
– Gollum to Bilbo
The Hobbit – Riddles in the Dark
We’ve now reached the “we haven’t seen this before” phase of reveals for statues from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The first statue to make the scene in this phase is a familiar face to fans of Middle-earth. That’s right! Gollum our lovely precious Gollum as we saw him in the Riddles in the Dark sequence from the movie. This is also the first time we’ve gotten Gollum in traditional 1:6th scale as a regular release in a line of statues based on Middle-earth.
PACKAGING
The overall graphic layout for Gollum’s box stays the same as we’ve seen with previous entries in the line. Per the format we’ve come to know the front of the box gives you a great shot of Gollum, graphic work for the title of the movie, and of course the Weta logo. The sides of the box for Gollum also present a familiar format with different looks at the statue. While the other side of the box presents some of the various products you can get for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey line of collectibles. The back of the box contains a great story on Gollum as well as information regarding details of the character and statue. The Styrofoam on the inside is typical with what we’ve become used to getting with these statues.
SCULPTING
Greg Tozer is back at it on this piece and he got some help from Ben Mauro for bringing this version of Gollum to life. Gollum has been quite the achievement for Weta from the time we first got a great look at him in The Two Towers and ten years later he is even better looking with the new technology. This statue I think captures that improvement in how Gollum looks. The likeness is as good as you’re going to see and the rage Gollum has in realizing he’s lost his precious to Bilbo comes through quite clearly. On his face you get great definition in the wrinkles with how his face squishes together allowing the anger to come through. The body gives you great definition in the rib cage showing how malnourished Gollum is from lingering due to the ring. Two final features on the body that I found very cool are the lack of scars on Gollum’s back and the blood vessels on his arms. The lack of scars of course comes from this being 60 years before The Lord of the Rings and not being tortured by Sauron. While the blood vessels are subtle but a nice attention to detail by Weta.
Gollum really doesn’t have a traditional outfit as we’ve seen with previous releases in this line. He has a simple loincloth with little pouch that he keeps his precious in. The sculpt job done on these are really well done in giving them the look of real leather. Gollum is also the first statue to come with an addition to the base. He’s jumping off a rock deep within the Misty Mountains that makes up his little home area, and it very much comes across sculpt wise looking like the rocks we saw on screen.
PAINT
Gollum does not have the traditional skin tone we’ve seen with the other statues within this line so far. He’s been under the mountain for years with no sunlight so he has a bit lighter look to his skin tone. Weta has of course been able to do this successfully and it once again looks like the Gollum we’ve seen on screen. He even has the nice pinker tone around the eyes you see on screen giving the appearance of someone who gets little sleep. Another success of the skin tone is making sure you don’t lose the wrinkle detail or boney nature of the rib area. One area I mentioned earlier that could have been lost easily is the blood vessels, but they’re really enhanced I believe with the subtle job done by Weta.
Finally, going back to his clothes or lack there of with the loincloth. The paint job does a solid job working with the wrinkles in the sculpt to create the leather look of the loincloth. His rock area has a great worn looking pain job to it with a great lighter tone around the bottom.
Overall
Gollum retails for $249, which is in line with most of the statues so far in the line. Gollum just looks great and works well with the Bilbo statue creating a great scene on your shelf. Weta also did a fantastic job with Gollum making sure he’s able to hold the post by inserting a rod into his leg that goes into the rock. Helping give this statue a great look and feel of that moment in the dark.
PS: The answer to the riddle: Time
SPECIFICATIONS
Gollum is an open edition piece and can be ordered right now from Weta Workshop.
Dimensions:
9.1″ x 14.2″ x 5.9″ (H x W x D)
23 cm x 36 cm x 15 cm
When Configura Equipos, a Spanish-language website featuring technology and gaming reviews and forums, posted this video last week it seemed like we were seeing something new. A preview for Google Chrome’s upcoming “A Journey Through Middle-earth” interactive map featured clips from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as well as the brief shots from Google’s own preview for the the new app.
But in the midst of these familiar images was what looked like a brand new scene of an army of orcs laying siege to a castle with very striking dragon-shaped prominences on the ramparts. Could this be something we hadn’t yet seen from The Desolation of Smaug? Were we getting a sneak peek at some flashback to Carn Dûm or Minas Ithil?
Nope. It turns out it’s a scene from the 2011 film Sucker Punchfrom director Zach Snyder.
Keen detective and TORn staffer Magpie matched up the images and found the scene, one of several in Sucker Punch that are overt homages to other genre films. So, alas, as TORn staffer Justin said, “These aren’t the orcs you’re looking for. Move along.”
Misleading clips aside, we’re still looking forward to Google’s “Chrome Experiment,” which will “bring Middle-earth to life in the browser with 3D Trolls, interactive musical experiences, and more.” It’s currently in beta testing to be released to the public later this year. And as for Configura Equipos… ¡Estamos vigilando!
Red Carpet’s Premiere Tour group dressed up for their Hobbiton visit
Red Carpet is steadily adding new locations into its tours in the light of the new Hobbit movie, says director Vic James.
“We’re pretty excited because since the Unexpected Journey came out, we’ve been able to add new sites and new people,” James says. “We visit landowners and check out new locations on a regular basis, as information and invitations come to hand.
“The Premiere Tour last November was the first to visit some of the new places and when the time is right for further landowners to allow visits, we will add them in.”
The north island leg of the tour includes, as before, Hobbiton and the central volcanic plateau that served as Mt Doom. A new feature are some rapids where the dwarves’ more hair-raising barrel-riding scenes were filmed.
The ‘top’ of the South Island is a beautiful addition to the tour, James says. Nelson, with its sunny bay ringed by mountains, is reached by a ferry cruise through the beautiful fjords of Marlborough Sounds. There’s a stop along the way at Pelorus Bridge, scene of Bilbo and the dwarves’ barrel-riding adventures.
Red Carpet’s LOTR tours always include visits to extras, artisans, actors and crew members for the films. Halfdan Hansen, son of the real-life Ringmaker for LOTR, has his studio in Nelson and has created a new version of the Ring, invisibly weighted with some denser metal so that it lies strangely heavy on the palm of the hand.
In Nelson there is also the option to take a two-and-a-half hour helicopter flight to Dimrill Dale and South of Rivendell. The flights have been a huge success with tour guests.
Olympus Rocks – a place to hide from the spies of Saruman
To accommodate the extra locations, tours are now 14 days duration. People can also choose to join the North Island 6 day or the South Island 10 day options. “It’s a long way to come to not see it all,” James says.
It was an interesting journey the filmmaker and Hobbit actor Jed Brophy took us on in one hour, we where guided along the stages and rooms of Park Road Post in Miramar, Wellington, to where we finally ended up in Peter Jackson’s’ home away from home the editing room in his traditional bare feet.
Jed was a great host along side Peter Jackson who explained certain things on the way to the editing room, we saw snippets of work in progress, Azog and an Orc in motion capture, some Pre-Viz of Smaug the Dragon, of whom we only saw snippets of in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which is akin to the unfinished Gollum in his first but brief appearance in Fellowship of The Ring, before he was fully realized as a digital character in the Two Towers, he was a mere shadow of himself you could say..
To celebrate the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in Australia on May 1st, Popcorn Taxi had a special showing of the film with a Q&A session with Richard Armitage. RingerSpy and long time message board member, Deleece Cook aka Elven, was lucky enough to attend and sent us the following report on the night.
We’ve now reached the “we haven’t seen this before” phase of reveals for statues from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The first statue to make the scene in this phase is a familiar face to fans of Middle-earth. That’s right! Gollum our lovely precious Gollum as we saw him in the Riddles in the Dark sequence from the movie. This is also the first time we’ve gotten Gollum in traditional 1:6th scale as a regular release in a line of statues based on Middle-earth.
Greg Tozer is back at it on this piece and he got some help from Ben Mauro for bringing this version of Gollum to life. Gollum has been quite the achievement for Weta from the time we first got a great look at him in The Two Towers and ten years later he is even better looking with the new technology. This statue I think captures that improvement in how Gollum looks. The likeness is as good as you’re going to see and the rage Gollum has in realizing he’s lost his precious to Bilbo comes through quite clearly. On his face you get great definition in the wrinkles with how his face squishes together allowing the anger to come through. The body gives you great definition in the rib cage showing how malnourished Gollum is from lingering due to the ring. Two final features on the body that I found very cool are the lack of scars on Gollum’s back and the blood vessels on his arms. The lack of scars of course comes from this being 60 years before The Lord of the Rings and not being tortured by Sauron. While the blood vessels are subtle but a nice attention to detail by Weta.
Gollum does not have the traditional skin tone we’ve seen with the other statues within this line so far. He’s been under the mountain for years with no sunlight so he has a bit lighter look to his skin tone. Weta has of course been able to do this successfully and it once again looks like the Gollum we’ve seen on screen. He even has the nice pinker tone around the eyes you see on screen giving the appearance of someone who gets little sleep. Another success of the skin tone is making sure you don’t lose the wrinkle detail or boney nature of the rib area. One area I mentioned earlier that could have been lost easily is the blood vessels, but they’re really enhanced I believe with the subtle job done by Weta.
