As a Kiwi who hasn't and won't watch the lotr trilogy, I appreciated reading this summary. When persuaded by a friend to watch the first one on dvd I fell asleep just like i did when mum read us the hobbit when i was a kid. Boring battle after tedious battle and the absence of women characters, not to mention ick with pj dicking over workers and acting like wellington/nz was his company town. No thanks, I'm content with memes of the pretty bits of scenery.
But years ago, when my American cousins came to nz on a pilgrimage to hobbiton I tagged along and I loved it. For the first time in my life I understood what it would be like to live in a world designed for my height (155cm- exactly the right height to be cast as a hobbit extra). The little benches and ladders every where, all so perfectly charming.
I was moved to tears listening to the flightless bird interview with the short staff of hobbiton, remembering that unique sense of feeling at home in a built environment. Is that what it feels to go through the world as a average-tall man where your feet never dangle off chairs? where you can not only reach, but see the top shelf? For just that one hour of my life I got to feel I fitted.
I need to go to Hobbiton now! I used to be 158 cm. Now I’m 153 cm. I don’t go to concerts anymore because all I see is other people’s backs. Even in a seated venue - Spark arena - in the expensive seats (on the floor not sides) I struggle to see past the people in front. I showed someone a photo of me with my 2 surviving siblings at a wedding. My sister is about 5 ft 5 and my youngest brother is 6ft 2. The person’s comment? “He’s quite tall” referring to my brother!
Concerts and anything g involving crowds of adults are pointless for me too. You would love hobbiton Wendy, paradigm shifting! I was so enchanted I designed my Hamilton garden to look like the hobbito gardens.
My mum is under 5ft and I told her all about the episode and Hobbiton (she is also a massive LOTR fan) and we are going next year! I wish we could post photos, I would love to see your garden
I am 4’8” and a half. I’m a natural hobbit. At least there are female elves. No female dwarves. I read LOTR recently and it was the English class system that struck me this time: Sam actually sleeps at the foot ofFrodo’s bed and calls him Master. It’s not a friendship like in the movies.
I did the OE thing in the UK years ago. My father came from London in the 50’s and met my kiwi mum on the ship. Some of my female cousins in the UK are short. My aunt was 4 ft 11 and my grandmother was 4 ft 8. My mum’s family were tall. I was meeting up with some cousins in a pub in London and took my kiwi friend with me. Her comment at the door was “Shit, I thought YOU were short”.
I was a hobbit extra in the LOTR first film. I'm 4 foot 11 inches and it was marvellous seeing an ad for short round older people to be Hobbit extras, and going to an audition where hundreds of us shorties queued up and the shorties said to one another derisively what are those people doing in our queue as there were some tall people there - maybe they wanted to be orcs, or thought the screeners were blind? They measured our head circumference, and all our other measurements. We had to fill in a form about things we could do and I said I could not ride a horse but I would be able to wear coloured lenses on my eyes, and I could shoot a bow and arrow (hadn't done this for forty years but didn't say this). It was nice being the majority and having my short round attributes being seen in a. postive light. We were all sworn to secrecy and some years later when we saw one another on the street or at the supermarket we would just smile a secretive smile and say hello and amble on. It was an enjoyable and interesting experience.
I loved this, stick to your guns David, as while I've seen LoTR I feel exactly the same way about Harry Potter... Haven't seen it, Haven't read the books, don't plan to. Just doesn't interest me whatsoever. So I can empathize with the gnashing of teeth that occurs when I tell people that I'm not into it and they recoil in horror. I mean, they are just movies people... right?!... right?
They're just movies. There is this impulse, as a fan, to feel offended if people don't share your love. I feel it with stuff I love that other people don't - but as I get older, I just remember that's the joy of being a fan - everyone is into their own stuff and that's OK.
David, what movie(s) are you a super fan of that you would love for others to experience (other than Jurassic Park)?
Also, I’ve never read or watched LoTRs. I vaguely remember bits and feel as though I thought it was boring, but I’m kinda tempted to give them a try, or it least the 1st a go, just to see? 🤷♀️
So, I watched the original Alien movie last night and it was great, although I thought a bit slow at times.I think the fact it was from 1979 made it even better, with the old school set and graphics. But, biggest surprise-there’s a cat!! Who ever thought about including a cat is a genius! Tonight I’ll try Aliens. (Sorry, I know this supposed to be all about LoTRs but I have zero interest in that)
I love the thrill of being scared, but am a complete scaredy-cat at the same time. A baby when it comes to horror films, but love a good haunted house. I find that weird, like it should be the other way around. Lol. I don't think I've seen the Alien films, maybe the first one when it first came out. I'll have to give them a watch.
I think it’s bigger than that, to know that you know Elijah and other actors in the film but still haven’t seen their work is something I can’t comprehend. Please don’t think I’m calling you a bad friend! It’s just that for me, someone who has a link to many of those involved, I watch it with so much pride and that’s what I get out of it.
It’s also that New Zealand itself was a character in the films. To see New Zealand so involved in so many ways is why 99% on us have seen it and got so emotionally invested. So to hear there are New Zealander’s out there that haven’t seen it, whether you enjoy the genre or not, blows my mind.
I don’t like fantasy, but I love the effort and behind the sense stuff. I’m all about that, so that’s how I was able to watch and enjoy it. I would argue that I enjoyed the makings of even more than the movies themselves.
We're a consumer culture. And some people think if you don't like the books or movies or music they consume, you must not like *them*.
As I've gotten older it's become less important to me for other people to like what I like. I'm still excited to share things I love with people I care about, but I've also realized that what's most important about art is the way it makes *me* feel.
I hate fantasy. I read LoTR as a kid (I was a cool kid evidently lol) and think I have seen the movies but have never seen GoT or Harry Potter. I think it is my stupid brain can't comprehend things that aren't grounded in reality which is very sad as reality is rubbish .
I watched those Extended Edition DVDs so much that last year I met someone walking their dog here in Miramar, and I recognised him from the extras on those 20+ year old DVDs.
But we were all of us deceived, for another Kiwi was made to watch LOTR.
David, I will read this whole thing (sorry, Jackson, I know you're a good egg) when I've gotten over the fact that you still haven't watched LOTR. But at the moment I just can't. I am reeling. Absolutely devastated. If ever we meet irl, I will tie you to a (comfy, back supporting) chair and force you to watch the entire trilogy, extended editions WITH commentary. There will be a lecture series to follow about important bits from the books that were left out. Snacks and the finest pipe weed in the South Farthing will be provided.
This is a threat.
ugh, feeling like butter scraped over too much bread rn
There is massive overlap in sci-fi and fantasy. LOTR is like, the most pure high fantasy with a soft af magic system. Plenty of fantasy is barely distinguishable from sci-fi so to say that you're missing out is a huge understatement. Like, you're missing out on good science fiction. Most of my favorite fantasy has awesome tech and is galactic if not intergalactic, loads of beings that could easily be called aliens, etc.
Na. I’m just an egg. I also like sci fi way more than LotR. I’m just finishing off the culture series and I want to write a Netflix series adaptation. If anyone has any contacts hook me up.
Okay David, it's inevitable that I have a long (and probably boring) story about LOTR. It was the mid-to-late nineties, and I had moved back to Matamata (before they tried to rename it Hobbiton) emotionally and financially wounded. I had stable but unrewarding work, but after a few years of that, left to take on some video projects. To actually pay the bills, I worked part-time at a local gas station. Then, when the projects finished up, got work driving a truck around the district picking up wheelie bins. Then things started happening in Matamata. Activity at Bucklands Rd, secret building activities, extras calls for short people, stars being seen at (basically the only) local restaurant. For a film buff (although not necessarily a Tolkien one),it was exciting, and I wanted to be a part of it. But it was an absolutely closed shop, so it came to me in bits. I'd drive past the entry to the site once a week in my truck and wave to the security guard at the gate. I had spent time at the farm nearly a decade before picking up hay in summer, and knew it would be a spectacular site. They'd bought a DVD player from the local electonics store, the owner gossiped. At the gas station, where I still part-timed, I had an amazing one-sided conversation with a horse wrangler while I filled the tank with diesel. I thought I had a pretty good grasp of casual swearing, but this woman took it to a whole new level. It had been raining lightly, and apparently horses don't like light fucking rain, and had been playing up all day. To top it all off, one of the fuckers had thrown off a fucking kid! The inverse side of your friend's story! At one point, when shooting was in full swing, they set up base at the old rugby club to deal with the extra logistics required. And of course they had wheelie bins. I found myself picking through the call sheets and uneaten lunches to find any hint of a script, to no avail. Was I getting a bit desperate?
It affected me so much, that when I returned to university the following year, I ended up writing a doco outline for a scriptwriting paper, entitled Finding LOTR, or something like that. Once again I had bumped against greatness, and spiralled off elsewhere.
This story rules. I think it talks to so much of how life plays out - brushing up against these things, bumping against other experiences and worlds. Sometimes we don't even clock it's happening. You did!
Wow that is a really (for want of a better word) cool story! The things that mold us aye?
Especially liked hearing the 'otherside' of 'horse' incident lol too funny now we hear David's interview with that 'fucken kid' who got off before being toast.
Most Kiwis of a certain age will have a similar story. My little brush with the film-making process was that I published some of the first aerial spy shots of the Hobbiton set, while it was being built, on the fan-site TheOneRing.net. I made sure I did it on a day when there appeared to be no filming activity on-site. After that the film’s PR people talked about getting the Civil Aviation Authority to declare a restricted airspace zone over the set, but I don’t think CAA were interested as it wasn’t a safety issue and they don’t normally do that sort of thing for purely commercial interests.
It would have been funny to have an outtake of the movie where Bilbo and Gandalf are sitting smoking their pipes looking out at the Shire and me and my little Cessna trundle across the horizon, PJ yells, “CUT! Can we get rid of that f-ing plane?”. I didn’t want anything to happen that caused the film-makers annoyance, but it would have been funny.
Apparently they had enough trouble with aircraft landing at Wellington while they were filming at Stone Street in Miramar anyway.
That was pretty cunning Evan. When I was researching my script I found TheOneRing.net. The fan story that most struck me was the person who studied the topo map, then trekked through the bush backing onto the farm, only to find a bare excavated site. They had arrived before construction had even started!
Yep. I read their bush-bashing story and thought, “Ooo! Good idea, but I can do one better than that because I can fly over it!”. So I did. First mission was solo, but after I published my pics, the crew from TORn asked if I could take them up as well.
As much as I'd love for you to watch them, I'd rather you only do it if you really want. Other wise, it'll feel forced and you wont enjoy it at all. People like what they like or don't like, and that's ok. Hey, I hate Tom Cruise ;) but I still love him Interview With The Vampire.
Personally, I love LOTR, books and movies. I will watch them everytime I come across them. All these years later, I still sob when Gandalf falls and Boromir dies. Merry and Pippin still fill me with joy. I still have shameless crushes on both Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortenson. And there's nothing quite like the bond between Sam and Frodo along their journey. And yes I was in fact one of those girls who had the Arwen pendant 😅😅. Im pretty sure it still lives at my parents house somewhere.
I had the absolute pleasure of meeting both Elijah Wood and Sean Astin at a comic con a few years ago and they were both absolute lovely! All 4 Hobbits actually did a panel together and it was wonderful seeing them all together again. Older and greyer but still just as fun.
Thanks for this, David ❤️. P
S. Forgive me I still haven't listened to the Flightless episode yet 🙃🙃🙃.
I've never seen these movies or read the books, but at a small company I used to work for, one of the software developers named a custom program that we used "Gandalf". Then there was a newer version of this program called Gandalf2, shortened to G2 by my coworkers. I did not understand this reference when I first started working there, but to run the program you had to click on a picture of a wizard. At one point I had to write up some documentation/training on how to use this program and it was pretty funny to type into an official document "Step 1: Click on the Wizard"...Small companies are so fun.... I miss those days. This is my only experience with Lord of the Rings :)
Aw. I opened this newsletter excitedly because I thought you'd watched it. I was actually annoyed that you hadn't. Then I sat with that feeling for a while and realised I have a problem. It's me, not you. I shouldn't force my passions on to others. I did it to my husband when he refused to watch Game of Thrones. I said he was stubborn, like it was part of his identity having not watched it. And the more I went on about it the more he dug his heels in. He eventually gave in, and even though he didn't want to like it, he did. And I said 'I told you so'. On reflection, I was the asshole.
It's OK - it's part of fandom, and I am super glad you sat with it and clocked it. I feel it still with things I like, and find myself annoyed when others don't get excited. Then have to slow down and realise it's about *me*.
Best example is an embarrassing band I like - Tool. I went to one of those shows alone, and that's fine! The older I get, the more I appreciate that.
Lol Aimee from someone who has neither watched all of the LOTR movies apart from one (for purely skitety purposes of being able to say 'I sat on Bilbies hobbit house') nor watched a single episode of Game of Thones I can concur that yep you were being an asshole to your hubby 😂 - regardless of the fact he (apparently?) ended up enjoying it ...are you sure he didn't say that to get you off his back?
He tried to back out after the first episode but I basically tied him to a chair and clipped his eyelids open to watch the second, and after that he was hooked!
Fuckn oath! I did that Northern Circuit walk last year and it was SO LONG!! And that punk of a mountain was really freaking steep. No wonder Sam and Frodo looked tired by the end (of all things).
And of course we came across healthy bastards running the bloody track. And then at the top we met tourists galavanting along the steaming ridge-line in their jeans and sneakers - those who just do the Crossing have an easier time of it, but jeans??!!
Lo and behold there’s a massive, surprising volcanic labia at the top. Just right there. They didn’t show that in the films.
When we got down over the other side of the ridge, towards the west(ernesse!), I realised we were where the foot soldiers marched out of the Black Gates of Mordor. I tried my best to reenact the Mordor scenes with my mates as we tramped on by but no one was into it. I don’t think they’ve watched LOTR, either ☹️.
Ooh I haven’t done the Northern Circuit yet but I want to so bad! I’ve only done the crossing, but yeah, plenty of people hiking in jeans AND shorts on a day it was snowing at the top!
I had never really thought about as a millennial, LOTRs being influential to my formative years but, yeah it was. I was really lucky in 2008 I did a summer internships at the Tongariro Natural History Society which was paid for by the LOTRs movie production - a thank you ( perhaps requirement) for using the park (Mt Doom) in the films. It was an awesome summership. I got to do an impressive variety of things- lots of setting pest traps, kayaking a wetland for bird surveys, helping change transmitters on kiwis, driving kiwi eggs to Rotorua for operation nest egg, painting a historic train bridge. I'm forever thankful for that experience, it fostered my love of field work. I might not be doing what I am today with out that summership. I'm not thankful enough to pretend to enjoy LOTRs, infact at the time it really emphasized my inability to escape references to the movies. I think there are a small percentage of kiwis that just couldn't handle the saturation of LOTR here while the movies were being released. Well I couldn't at least.
Thrilled something good came out of the funding other than the tourist $$'s Shelley. Your summership sounds amazing & with all the interruptions the filming of the LOTR had on the natural habitats of our fauna & floral it was the least it could do.
Thankyou for your contributions & awesome career path because of it.
My now husband and I powered through them in one weekend when we were dating. 12+ hours of my life I will never get back and I cannot remember a damn thing about them.
The reaction you got gave me “Harry Potter adult” vibes, which is to say it was unhinged.
I watch the extended editions each year in the black hole between xmas and new year, as a way to wrap up the year that was before clambering into the year that will be. And yeah every time I feel a little sick seeing the Weinstein name, and I cringe at Eowyn's stew and thinly veiled Aragorn crush. But it really does stand up when you consider the time it was made and how it still stands up re: CGI/special effects. Bummer to know what Peter Jackson is involved with, and the issues with wētā workshop (visited the akl location last year which was pretty sick). But ultimately as a not-very-much-of-a-movie-person, live ur truth babe xx. Watch movies or don't watch movies, who cares. Let people live!
I love how much you love these movies. I think probably Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 are my LOTR. I'd say I do them at least once a year! Same amount of joy each watch. Maybe even more, as it becomes almost a comfort thing.
I’m similar in that I can enjoy most any sci-fi movie, but add the fantasy scope and it doesn’t really work for me. I have seen the LOTR movies, but only once. A good sci-fi like Alien series/addons, Expanse series, Inception, Interstellar, Arrival, or Passengers (all of which I’ve seen multiple times) resonate much more with me, and I’ve never really been able to understand why.
Yes (Sam Rockwell is awesome), not yet, yes (creative, extremely low budget time travel, but I never got Upstream Color), and don’t know it (looks like you mean the 2022 one of that name).
I also love Idiocracy for a rewatch, but less as sci-fi and more of “future pre-documentary”.
I loved the MOOD and score of Upstream Colour. Unfortunately my overall love of this stuff kinda warped when Shane Carruth was found to be a pretty terrible human. Hero status no longer :(
Oh gosh David. Imagine if trees were sentient beings and they finally worked up the wherewithal to punish us humans for being absolute muppets by fucking up this planet.
You say you don’t like fantasy, but you have made a film (Mr. Organ) about New Zealand’s real life Grima Wormtongue. A most fantastical character.
Jackson’s review of LOTR is good reading but calling Faramir a cunt is going a bit too far. I’m not sure how the reviewer came to this conclusion. Faramir was the much put upon second child who was always being compared unfavorably to his “heroic” older brother. His Dad even told him that he wished he had died instead of Boromir and he should lead a (suicidal) charge on the orcs at Osgiliath because that’s what his big brother would have done. Denethor (his Dad) was the cunty one. Faramir was the guy who had the ring in his grasp when he captured Frodo, Sam, and Gollum. He had the strength of Will to resist its power and do a Princess Elsa (“Let it go”) because he didn’t fall for the Ring’s shenanigans, even when his “superior” brother did.
After all the shit he went through, a happy ending with a “horse-gell” like Eowyn is no less than he deserved. After all, they were in a war together. However, this may not have lasted because, like Jack (Keanu) and Annie (Sandra) from “Speed”, relationships made under stressful conditions may not survive the boring, peaceful times.
I also disagree with his choice of worst CGI. The most egregious piece was the helicopter shot when the Fellowship emerge from the Mines of Moria. It looks like PlayStation 2 NPCs “float-walking” over rocky terrain. At a fan event, I asked Matt Aitken (Weta Digital) if he thought there were any sequences he reckoned were released “underdone” thinking he would cop to that one, but he gallantly refused to throw his team under the bus. On ya, Matt.
In case you couldn’t tell, I am a big fan of the trilogy and love it when overseas visitors say they came here due to the LOTR movies. Despite all the controversy about the business, politics, and morals of the movie industry folk involved, I still think the actual movies are a massive achievement and a great cultural touchstone for Aotearoa/New Zealand.
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them. One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them; In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.
While I stand by all of my statements, I take your point. Were there bigger C U Next Tuesdays? Yes! But they were all despicable people to start off with. Fary had a clear decision point where he could have just let them go and it would have made sense to let them go and he would have come across as a hero for doing that, for trusting these two little hobbits and their deformed friend and eschewing the seduction of the ring. But he takes them to Osgiliath and it’s not until he almost hands the ring to Sauron that he realises he’s been a giant fail son. Maybe it’s because I’m the oldest son, but he just seemed like a whiny little shit who was tripping off his power. But we can all agree Denethor was a cunt. Potentially worse than Sauron. Sauron would never have eaten like that. Eugh.
I still think that for the most part the CGI stacks up. Like there are still movies/series being released which don’t look as good as these +20 years later. I hadn’t noticed that part when they’re prancing on the green screened mountain. Something to look out for on the next rewatch.
I propose a support group for those of us who have a mental block on being able to watch protracted cult "classics" (yes, I put quotes around classics and not cult - deal with it 😉).
I haven't watched any Star Wars or Matrix movies and am almost universally derided for it - especially considering I spent 20 years working in IT. Apparently all nerds are supposed to love these things. It's a form of prejudice and I won't stand for it!! 😂
Through different industry connections I saw short preview (like 20 minutes or so) of both Matrix and Avatar when they were respectively just pre-release and that was sufficient for me. Same for the Marvel saga...
I think my tendency to like movies with no explosions and slow plotlines, where often little actually happens*, leads to most movie trailers informing me what to miss, rather than exciting to see.
* Favourites include '2OO1: A Space Odyssey' and Local Hero
As a Kiwi who hasn't and won't watch the lotr trilogy, I appreciated reading this summary. When persuaded by a friend to watch the first one on dvd I fell asleep just like i did when mum read us the hobbit when i was a kid. Boring battle after tedious battle and the absence of women characters, not to mention ick with pj dicking over workers and acting like wellington/nz was his company town. No thanks, I'm content with memes of the pretty bits of scenery.
But years ago, when my American cousins came to nz on a pilgrimage to hobbiton I tagged along and I loved it. For the first time in my life I understood what it would be like to live in a world designed for my height (155cm- exactly the right height to be cast as a hobbit extra). The little benches and ladders every where, all so perfectly charming.
I was moved to tears listening to the flightless bird interview with the short staff of hobbiton, remembering that unique sense of feeling at home in a built environment. Is that what it feels to go through the world as a average-tall man where your feet never dangle off chairs? where you can not only reach, but see the top shelf? For just that one hour of my life I got to feel I fitted.
Hobbiton was so, so special. As a non-watcher of the movies, I found it utterly captivating.
I need to go to Hobbiton now! I used to be 158 cm. Now I’m 153 cm. I don’t go to concerts anymore because all I see is other people’s backs. Even in a seated venue - Spark arena - in the expensive seats (on the floor not sides) I struggle to see past the people in front. I showed someone a photo of me with my 2 surviving siblings at a wedding. My sister is about 5 ft 5 and my youngest brother is 6ft 2. The person’s comment? “He’s quite tall” referring to my brother!
Concerts and anything g involving crowds of adults are pointless for me too. You would love hobbiton Wendy, paradigm shifting! I was so enchanted I designed my Hamilton garden to look like the hobbito gardens.
My mum is under 5ft and I told her all about the episode and Hobbiton (she is also a massive LOTR fan) and we are going next year! I wish we could post photos, I would love to see your garden
Floor seats are the worst in arena, better views from low terrace seats every time
I am 4’8” and a half. I’m a natural hobbit. At least there are female elves. No female dwarves. I read LOTR recently and it was the English class system that struck me this time: Sam actually sleeps at the foot ofFrodo’s bed and calls him Master. It’s not a friendship like in the movies.
I did the OE thing in the UK years ago. My father came from London in the 50’s and met my kiwi mum on the ship. Some of my female cousins in the UK are short. My aunt was 4 ft 11 and my grandmother was 4 ft 8. My mum’s family were tall. I was meeting up with some cousins in a pub in London and took my kiwi friend with me. Her comment at the door was “Shit, I thought YOU were short”.
I LOVE Hobbiton. Although felt disappointed and yes, traumatized to find THERE'S NO HOUSES BEHIND THE DOORS! But I think they have one now?
Yes - I go inside in the Flightless Bird episode! Expansive and amazing.
I'll have to go again. And I AM planning to listen to the episode. I don't have any issue with you not watching the movies.
I was a hobbit extra in the LOTR first film. I'm 4 foot 11 inches and it was marvellous seeing an ad for short round older people to be Hobbit extras, and going to an audition where hundreds of us shorties queued up and the shorties said to one another derisively what are those people doing in our queue as there were some tall people there - maybe they wanted to be orcs, or thought the screeners were blind? They measured our head circumference, and all our other measurements. We had to fill in a form about things we could do and I said I could not ride a horse but I would be able to wear coloured lenses on my eyes, and I could shoot a bow and arrow (hadn't done this for forty years but didn't say this). It was nice being the majority and having my short round attributes being seen in a. postive light. We were all sworn to secrecy and some years later when we saw one another on the street or at the supermarket we would just smile a secretive smile and say hello and amble on. It was an enjoyable and interesting experience.
I ADORE THIS SO MUCH. That must have been such an incredible experience! When you watch the films, can you catch yourself?
It must’ve been like some benevolent phrenology!
I loved this, stick to your guns David, as while I've seen LoTR I feel exactly the same way about Harry Potter... Haven't seen it, Haven't read the books, don't plan to. Just doesn't interest me whatsoever. So I can empathize with the gnashing of teeth that occurs when I tell people that I'm not into it and they recoil in horror. I mean, they are just movies people... right?!... right?
They're just movies. There is this impulse, as a fan, to feel offended if people don't share your love. I feel it with stuff I love that other people don't - but as I get older, I just remember that's the joy of being a fan - everyone is into their own stuff and that's OK.
David, what movie(s) are you a super fan of that you would love for others to experience (other than Jurassic Park)?
Also, I’ve never read or watched LoTRs. I vaguely remember bits and feel as though I thought it was boring, but I’m kinda tempted to give them a try, or it least the 1st a go, just to see? 🤷♀️
I really like showing people the Alien films - and also a few horrors I whip out (for the right people who I want to shock!)
So, I watched the original Alien movie last night and it was great, although I thought a bit slow at times.I think the fact it was from 1979 made it even better, with the old school set and graphics. But, biggest surprise-there’s a cat!! Who ever thought about including a cat is a genius! Tonight I’ll try Aliens. (Sorry, I know this supposed to be all about LoTRs but I have zero interest in that)
I love the thrill of being scared, but am a complete scaredy-cat at the same time. A baby when it comes to horror films, but love a good haunted house. I find that weird, like it should be the other way around. Lol. I don't think I've seen the Alien films, maybe the first one when it first came out. I'll have to give them a watch.
I think it’s bigger than that, to know that you know Elijah and other actors in the film but still haven’t seen their work is something I can’t comprehend. Please don’t think I’m calling you a bad friend! It’s just that for me, someone who has a link to many of those involved, I watch it with so much pride and that’s what I get out of it.
It’s also that New Zealand itself was a character in the films. To see New Zealand so involved in so many ways is why 99% on us have seen it and got so emotionally invested. So to hear there are New Zealander’s out there that haven’t seen it, whether you enjoy the genre or not, blows my mind.
I don’t like fantasy, but I love the effort and behind the sense stuff. I’m all about that, so that’s how I was able to watch and enjoy it. I would argue that I enjoyed the makings of even more than the movies themselves.
I don't think Elijah has watched Mister Organ or Tickled yet, and I am OK with that (not equating the two, haha)
Oh no doubt. If you’re in the industry it would be very difficult to see everyone’s work that you’ve come into contact with.
We're a consumer culture. And some people think if you don't like the books or movies or music they consume, you must not like *them*.
As I've gotten older it's become less important to me for other people to like what I like. I'm still excited to share things I love with people I care about, but I've also realized that what's most important about art is the way it makes *me* feel.
I think the worst extension of fan culture is where we got to with Marvel and DC - it just made me want to back away from the whole affair!
Ditto! The more popular and bigger that cinematic universe became the less interested I got with it. Pretty much the same with LOTR and Harry Potter.
I hate fantasy. I read LoTR as a kid (I was a cool kid evidently lol) and think I have seen the movies but have never seen GoT or Harry Potter. I think it is my stupid brain can't comprehend things that aren't grounded in reality which is very sad as reality is rubbish .
No they are life changing events 🥲
I watched those Extended Edition DVDs so much that last year I met someone walking their dog here in Miramar, and I recognised him from the extras on those 20+ year old DVDs.
I think you might be my new hero. Did you get their autograph?
We now regularly walk our greyhounds together, so no I didn't!
Fair. You’re still my hero tho
But we were all of us deceived, for another Kiwi was made to watch LOTR.
David, I will read this whole thing (sorry, Jackson, I know you're a good egg) when I've gotten over the fact that you still haven't watched LOTR. But at the moment I just can't. I am reeling. Absolutely devastated. If ever we meet irl, I will tie you to a (comfy, back supporting) chair and force you to watch the entire trilogy, extended editions WITH commentary. There will be a lecture series to follow about important bits from the books that were left out. Snacks and the finest pipe weed in the South Farthing will be provided.
This is a threat.
ugh, feeling like butter scraped over too much bread rn
Haha! I look forward to the lecture!
P.S.
There is massive overlap in sci-fi and fantasy. LOTR is like, the most pure high fantasy with a soft af magic system. Plenty of fantasy is barely distinguishable from sci-fi so to say that you're missing out is a huge understatement. Like, you're missing out on good science fiction. Most of my favorite fantasy has awesome tech and is galactic if not intergalactic, loads of beings that could easily be called aliens, etc.
Na. I’m just an egg. I also like sci fi way more than LotR. I’m just finishing off the culture series and I want to write a Netflix series adaptation. If anyone has any contacts hook me up.
Okay David, it's inevitable that I have a long (and probably boring) story about LOTR. It was the mid-to-late nineties, and I had moved back to Matamata (before they tried to rename it Hobbiton) emotionally and financially wounded. I had stable but unrewarding work, but after a few years of that, left to take on some video projects. To actually pay the bills, I worked part-time at a local gas station. Then, when the projects finished up, got work driving a truck around the district picking up wheelie bins. Then things started happening in Matamata. Activity at Bucklands Rd, secret building activities, extras calls for short people, stars being seen at (basically the only) local restaurant. For a film buff (although not necessarily a Tolkien one),it was exciting, and I wanted to be a part of it. But it was an absolutely closed shop, so it came to me in bits. I'd drive past the entry to the site once a week in my truck and wave to the security guard at the gate. I had spent time at the farm nearly a decade before picking up hay in summer, and knew it would be a spectacular site. They'd bought a DVD player from the local electonics store, the owner gossiped. At the gas station, where I still part-timed, I had an amazing one-sided conversation with a horse wrangler while I filled the tank with diesel. I thought I had a pretty good grasp of casual swearing, but this woman took it to a whole new level. It had been raining lightly, and apparently horses don't like light fucking rain, and had been playing up all day. To top it all off, one of the fuckers had thrown off a fucking kid! The inverse side of your friend's story! At one point, when shooting was in full swing, they set up base at the old rugby club to deal with the extra logistics required. And of course they had wheelie bins. I found myself picking through the call sheets and uneaten lunches to find any hint of a script, to no avail. Was I getting a bit desperate?
It affected me so much, that when I returned to university the following year, I ended up writing a doco outline for a scriptwriting paper, entitled Finding LOTR, or something like that. Once again I had bumped against greatness, and spiralled off elsewhere.
This story rules. I think it talks to so much of how life plays out - brushing up against these things, bumping against other experiences and worlds. Sometimes we don't even clock it's happening. You did!
Wow that is a really (for want of a better word) cool story! The things that mold us aye?
Especially liked hearing the 'otherside' of 'horse' incident lol too funny now we hear David's interview with that 'fucken kid' who got off before being toast.
Most Kiwis of a certain age will have a similar story. My little brush with the film-making process was that I published some of the first aerial spy shots of the Hobbiton set, while it was being built, on the fan-site TheOneRing.net. I made sure I did it on a day when there appeared to be no filming activity on-site. After that the film’s PR people talked about getting the Civil Aviation Authority to declare a restricted airspace zone over the set, but I don’t think CAA were interested as it wasn’t a safety issue and they don’t normally do that sort of thing for purely commercial interests.
It would have been funny to have an outtake of the movie where Bilbo and Gandalf are sitting smoking their pipes looking out at the Shire and me and my little Cessna trundle across the horizon, PJ yells, “CUT! Can we get rid of that f-ing plane?”. I didn’t want anything to happen that caused the film-makers annoyance, but it would have been funny.
Apparently they had enough trouble with aircraft landing at Wellington while they were filming at Stone Street in Miramar anyway.
That was pretty cunning Evan. When I was researching my script I found TheOneRing.net. The fan story that most struck me was the person who studied the topo map, then trekked through the bush backing onto the farm, only to find a bare excavated site. They had arrived before construction had even started!
Yep. I read their bush-bashing story and thought, “Ooo! Good idea, but I can do one better than that because I can fly over it!”. So I did. First mission was solo, but after I published my pics, the crew from TORn asked if I could take them up as well.
This brought me so much to read :).
As much as I'd love for you to watch them, I'd rather you only do it if you really want. Other wise, it'll feel forced and you wont enjoy it at all. People like what they like or don't like, and that's ok. Hey, I hate Tom Cruise ;) but I still love him Interview With The Vampire.
Personally, I love LOTR, books and movies. I will watch them everytime I come across them. All these years later, I still sob when Gandalf falls and Boromir dies. Merry and Pippin still fill me with joy. I still have shameless crushes on both Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortenson. And there's nothing quite like the bond between Sam and Frodo along their journey. And yes I was in fact one of those girls who had the Arwen pendant 😅😅. Im pretty sure it still lives at my parents house somewhere.
I had the absolute pleasure of meeting both Elijah Wood and Sean Astin at a comic con a few years ago and they were both absolute lovely! All 4 Hobbits actually did a panel together and it was wonderful seeing them all together again. Older and greyer but still just as fun.
Thanks for this, David ❤️. P
S. Forgive me I still haven't listened to the Flightless episode yet 🙃🙃🙃.
It bought me some much joy to watch and then write and then read your comment.
Outstanding job, bud ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Here you'll appreciate this 😅😅😅https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLjVNKwk/
Sunny and LotR 😍😍😍
I've never seen these movies or read the books, but at a small company I used to work for, one of the software developers named a custom program that we used "Gandalf". Then there was a newer version of this program called Gandalf2, shortened to G2 by my coworkers. I did not understand this reference when I first started working there, but to run the program you had to click on a picture of a wizard. At one point I had to write up some documentation/training on how to use this program and it was pretty funny to type into an official document "Step 1: Click on the Wizard"...Small companies are so fun.... I miss those days. This is my only experience with Lord of the Rings :)
Aw. I opened this newsletter excitedly because I thought you'd watched it. I was actually annoyed that you hadn't. Then I sat with that feeling for a while and realised I have a problem. It's me, not you. I shouldn't force my passions on to others. I did it to my husband when he refused to watch Game of Thrones. I said he was stubborn, like it was part of his identity having not watched it. And the more I went on about it the more he dug his heels in. He eventually gave in, and even though he didn't want to like it, he did. And I said 'I told you so'. On reflection, I was the asshole.
It's OK - it's part of fandom, and I am super glad you sat with it and clocked it. I feel it still with things I like, and find myself annoyed when others don't get excited. Then have to slow down and realise it's about *me*.
Best example is an embarrassing band I like - Tool. I went to one of those shows alone, and that's fine! The older I get, the more I appreciate that.
Tool is not embarrassing. Tool is fucking sublime.
TOOL are so totally not embarrassing!!
Is Tool embarrassing? They remind me of Echo and the Bunnymen, bit gothy.
Lol Aimee from someone who has neither watched all of the LOTR movies apart from one (for purely skitety purposes of being able to say 'I sat on Bilbies hobbit house') nor watched a single episode of Game of Thones I can concur that yep you were being an asshole to your hubby 😂 - regardless of the fact he (apparently?) ended up enjoying it ...are you sure he didn't say that to get you off his back?
He tried to back out after the first episode but I basically tied him to a chair and clipped his eyelids open to watch the second, and after that he was hooked!
My experience with LOtR is that I do not make time for over long films about men tossing jewelry into volcanoes.
And it was a very long walk to the volcano!
To be fair, the walk to the “real” Mt. Doom is also quite a long walk!
Fuckn oath! I did that Northern Circuit walk last year and it was SO LONG!! And that punk of a mountain was really freaking steep. No wonder Sam and Frodo looked tired by the end (of all things).
And of course we came across healthy bastards running the bloody track. And then at the top we met tourists galavanting along the steaming ridge-line in their jeans and sneakers - those who just do the Crossing have an easier time of it, but jeans??!!
Lo and behold there’s a massive, surprising volcanic labia at the top. Just right there. They didn’t show that in the films.
When we got down over the other side of the ridge, towards the west(ernesse!), I realised we were where the foot soldiers marched out of the Black Gates of Mordor. I tried my best to reenact the Mordor scenes with my mates as we tramped on by but no one was into it. I don’t think they’ve watched LOTR, either ☹️.
Ooh I haven’t done the Northern Circuit yet but I want to so bad! I’ve only done the crossing, but yeah, plenty of people hiking in jeans AND shorts on a day it was snowing at the top!
I had never really thought about as a millennial, LOTRs being influential to my formative years but, yeah it was. I was really lucky in 2008 I did a summer internships at the Tongariro Natural History Society which was paid for by the LOTRs movie production - a thank you ( perhaps requirement) for using the park (Mt Doom) in the films. It was an awesome summership. I got to do an impressive variety of things- lots of setting pest traps, kayaking a wetland for bird surveys, helping change transmitters on kiwis, driving kiwi eggs to Rotorua for operation nest egg, painting a historic train bridge. I'm forever thankful for that experience, it fostered my love of field work. I might not be doing what I am today with out that summership. I'm not thankful enough to pretend to enjoy LOTRs, infact at the time it really emphasized my inability to escape references to the movies. I think there are a small percentage of kiwis that just couldn't handle the saturation of LOTR here while the movies were being released. Well I couldn't at least.
Thrilled something good came out of the funding other than the tourist $$'s Shelley. Your summership sounds amazing & with all the interruptions the filming of the LOTR had on the natural habitats of our fauna & floral it was the least it could do.
Thankyou for your contributions & awesome career path because of it.
Wow that must’ve been an amazing experience!
this sounds absolutely epic! What a cool internship.
My now husband and I powered through them in one weekend when we were dating. 12+ hours of my life I will never get back and I cannot remember a damn thing about them.
The reaction you got gave me “Harry Potter adult” vibes, which is to say it was unhinged.
I watch the extended editions each year in the black hole between xmas and new year, as a way to wrap up the year that was before clambering into the year that will be. And yeah every time I feel a little sick seeing the Weinstein name, and I cringe at Eowyn's stew and thinly veiled Aragorn crush. But it really does stand up when you consider the time it was made and how it still stands up re: CGI/special effects. Bummer to know what Peter Jackson is involved with, and the issues with wētā workshop (visited the akl location last year which was pretty sick). But ultimately as a not-very-much-of-a-movie-person, live ur truth babe xx. Watch movies or don't watch movies, who cares. Let people live!
I love how much you love these movies. I think probably Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 are my LOTR. I'd say I do them at least once a year! Same amount of joy each watch. Maybe even more, as it becomes almost a comfort thing.
I’m similar in that I can enjoy most any sci-fi movie, but add the fantasy scope and it doesn’t really work for me. I have seen the LOTR movies, but only once. A good sci-fi like Alien series/addons, Expanse series, Inception, Interstellar, Arrival, or Passengers (all of which I’ve seen multiple times) resonate much more with me, and I’ve never really been able to understand why.
Have you watched Moon, Highlife and Primer? Oh and this Australian-written film, Monolith. Big fan.
I love those smaller ones, too - whilst rewatching Interstellar a few times a year!
Yes (Sam Rockwell is awesome), not yet, yes (creative, extremely low budget time travel, but I never got Upstream Color), and don’t know it (looks like you mean the 2022 one of that name).
I also love Idiocracy for a rewatch, but less as sci-fi and more of “future pre-documentary”.
I loved the MOOD and score of Upstream Colour. Unfortunately my overall love of this stuff kinda warped when Shane Carruth was found to be a pretty terrible human. Hero status no longer :(
(The art and the artist argument rages on - his stuff, as films, are impressive)
Comfortable escapism 💕
I keep telling myself I should watch these. One day.
Not sure why I repeated stands up, maybe I've spent too much time sitting down 🤦🏼♀️
That is the perfect time to watch them. I smell a new Christmas tradition coming on. Don’t tell my partner.
*chanting*
ENTS ENTS ENTS GIVE US THE ENTS
ENTS ENTS ENTS ENTS ENTS
What even is this
Oh gosh David. Imagine if trees were sentient beings and they finally worked up the wherewithal to punish us humans for being absolute muppets by fucking up this planet.
This is sort of enticing I have to be honest. Are these big trees in a lot of the film?
ENTicing even
Only in the second one. There is also a lot of horses in the second one.
You say you don’t like fantasy, but you have made a film (Mr. Organ) about New Zealand’s real life Grima Wormtongue. A most fantastical character.
Jackson’s review of LOTR is good reading but calling Faramir a cunt is going a bit too far. I’m not sure how the reviewer came to this conclusion. Faramir was the much put upon second child who was always being compared unfavorably to his “heroic” older brother. His Dad even told him that he wished he had died instead of Boromir and he should lead a (suicidal) charge on the orcs at Osgiliath because that’s what his big brother would have done. Denethor (his Dad) was the cunty one. Faramir was the guy who had the ring in his grasp when he captured Frodo, Sam, and Gollum. He had the strength of Will to resist its power and do a Princess Elsa (“Let it go”) because he didn’t fall for the Ring’s shenanigans, even when his “superior” brother did.
After all the shit he went through, a happy ending with a “horse-gell” like Eowyn is no less than he deserved. After all, they were in a war together. However, this may not have lasted because, like Jack (Keanu) and Annie (Sandra) from “Speed”, relationships made under stressful conditions may not survive the boring, peaceful times.
I also disagree with his choice of worst CGI. The most egregious piece was the helicopter shot when the Fellowship emerge from the Mines of Moria. It looks like PlayStation 2 NPCs “float-walking” over rocky terrain. At a fan event, I asked Matt Aitken (Weta Digital) if he thought there were any sequences he reckoned were released “underdone” thinking he would cop to that one, but he gallantly refused to throw his team under the bus. On ya, Matt.
In case you couldn’t tell, I am a big fan of the trilogy and love it when overseas visitors say they came here due to the LOTR movies. Despite all the controversy about the business, politics, and morals of the movie industry folk involved, I still think the actual movies are a massive achievement and a great cultural touchstone for Aotearoa/New Zealand.
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them. One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them; In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.
I think Jackson is lurking here, so hope he can weight into this "c-word" issue!
While I stand by all of my statements, I take your point. Were there bigger C U Next Tuesdays? Yes! But they were all despicable people to start off with. Fary had a clear decision point where he could have just let them go and it would have made sense to let them go and he would have come across as a hero for doing that, for trusting these two little hobbits and their deformed friend and eschewing the seduction of the ring. But he takes them to Osgiliath and it’s not until he almost hands the ring to Sauron that he realises he’s been a giant fail son. Maybe it’s because I’m the oldest son, but he just seemed like a whiny little shit who was tripping off his power. But we can all agree Denethor was a cunt. Potentially worse than Sauron. Sauron would never have eaten like that. Eugh.
I still think that for the most part the CGI stacks up. Like there are still movies/series being released which don’t look as good as these +20 years later. I hadn’t noticed that part when they’re prancing on the green screened mountain. Something to look out for on the next rewatch.
I propose a support group for those of us who have a mental block on being able to watch protracted cult "classics" (yes, I put quotes around classics and not cult - deal with it 😉).
I haven't watched any Star Wars or Matrix movies and am almost universally derided for it - especially considering I spent 20 years working in IT. Apparently all nerds are supposed to love these things. It's a form of prejudice and I won't stand for it!! 😂
Through different industry connections I saw short preview (like 20 minutes or so) of both Matrix and Avatar when they were respectively just pre-release and that was sufficient for me. Same for the Marvel saga...
I think my tendency to like movies with no explosions and slow plotlines, where often little actually happens*, leads to most movie trailers informing me what to miss, rather than exciting to see.
* Favourites include '2OO1: A Space Odyssey' and Local Hero