3-25-01 Latest News

More Movie News from GAMA
Jincey @ 2:17 am EST

Uhlan reports in with lots more news from the GAMA show!

Hi, I have a significant amount of addendum to add to this story. I was also at GAMA last week and saw all the LOTR goodies that Titan saw. I also have photos (undeveloped), and I spoke to a store owner who has been chosen for some special promotions for the movie. Free tickets, special showings, the works.

But this is not the big news! When the Decipher/Games Workshop presentation was over they announced that some special footage would be shown later that evening in one of the meeting rooms. Qualified buyers only, which means store owners and distributors only! The piece was about 8 to 10 minutes in length, and consisted of the following: (please note I could not make notes and the excitement of what I saw made remembering details difficult.)

PART 1:
The original internet trailer with the additions that were revealed recently. Nothing new here.

PART 2:
A different trailer, but one with a similar format to the original. This one had some of the same interviews but showed different scenes, such as, the hobbits are in the Prancing pony and they try and avoid being being knocked down by other patrons. This is done with someone on stilts or who is very tall. The other memorable new bit was the scene where Boromir gazes at the ring as seen in the internet trailer. However there's a twist! HE SPEAKS! "It is a great wonder that a thing so small could cause such great trouble." I believe this is said at the council of Elrond and not in the mountains as shown in the film. The rst of this trailer had some cool bits but the details are now hazy.

PART 3:
Yet another minute and a half trailer. This one opens the same as the previous one does with a bit about Tolkien and LOTR's effect on the world of fantasy, while showing shots of art, comics, games and other stuff like that. It then shows a brief interview with Sean Astin where he talks about all the elements that make LOTR so great. Then it shows quick scenes including the chase to the ford, from a variety of angles. Including one awesome shot, the camera is looking back as if from Arwen or Frodo's perspective. Right there about to get them is a Ringwraith, with his gloved hand stretched out to grab the Ringbearer! Very Cool! It's like the nazgul is going to reach out of the screen to grab you! Then each major character from the film is shown with a caption. i.e. "Elijah Wood as Frodo" This trailer as with the other two ends with the same credits.

The man in charge then turns up the lights. I think that must be it, time to go. BUT WAIT! He's not turning the A/V equipment off, he's changing the video tape! The lights go down again and I lean over to one of the Decipher guys and ask "There's more!?!?!" His reply was "Now for the special secret sauce".

PART 4:
What follows has to the best of my knowledge never been reported on this or any site. The next tape was about 5 minutes long give or take. It had a brief opening title, which consisted of The Lord of the Rings in a different font to the one seen before. Then the fun begins! The first scene is one of a courtyard in what must be Minas Tirith and several soldiers of Gondor moving swiftly to thier posts. The next scene is one of a grim looking Aragorn donning some chainmail armour. This is followed by a quick shot of Grima Wormtongue, who looks extremely pale and slimy. Next comes a series of scenes that show the Riders of Rohan. Including one shot that looks like when they come across the party of orcs that have Merry and Pippin. Next is a series of shots from Amon Sul (sp) and the breaking of the fellowship. Including a head shot of Lurz the Uruk-Hai about to fire his bow, very similar to the toy seen at Toy Fair. There are also shots of Aragorn and Legolas frantically searching for Frodo. The next series comes from Helm's Deep. Lot's of shots of men or Uruk-Hai (I can't tell, it's dark and raining) with pikes. Lot's of general battle scenes involving our heroes and the men of Rohan against Saruman's forces. Most notably was a quick shot of Gimli wielding his axe and a strange, almost goofy shot of Legolas running along a battlement, picking up a discarded shield. Placing it at the top of a staircase and surfing down the stairs on the shield firing his bow. Yes I said surfing! (I've heard extreemly reliable reports that this scene was filmed, but may be cut -Xoanon) Just before this sequence was a brief shot of Theoden having armour put on. The helm's deep section closes with a shot of Eowyn wielding a big sword, cutting down several Orcs. This seems to take place in the caves at Helm's Deep. Next is more of the chase to the ford with Frodo and Arwen being chased by Nazgul. These scenes are again from a variety of camera angles and include a great shot of Arwen on one side of the river and all 9 nazgul on the other side, staring each other down. Also there is a shot of Arwen drawing a sword. The next sequence gives us a look at the magic duel between Gandalf and Saruman at Orthanc. Each is thrown back by the others magic until finally Gandalf is thrown against a wall and seemingly is imprisoned. The whole thing ends with a few shots of Merry and Pippin being thrown around by orcs and looking suitably terrified.

This is as much as I can remember reasonably clearly. There is other stuff but it's too hazy to describe clearly. There are shots of Hobbiton, Gandalf showing Narsil in it's scabbard, a quick shot from inside what I think could be Moria. Unfortunately a clear memory is not something I possess when excited. Even after watching it twice.

Whoa! I forgot the biggest coolest part! I saw Treebeard!!!!! Only his face as Merry and Pippin approached. Imagine a large gnarled oak, that suddenly opens it's eyes and looks up at you! VERY COOL!

Thanks Uhlan!!!

More on Jim Rygiel's Past Work
Xoanon @ 10:17 am EST

From: Daniel G

A lot of this is pretty techy stuff, but it does show this guys attention to realistic detail, which will be great to have on the Rings movies. I can't wait to see what they cook up. Personally I'm dying to see how they do Treebeard.

This is a good deal of the article, as Rygiel is commented throughout the whole thing. The dog they are referring to in the first half is Oddball, the spotless dalmation. The mag goes on to say...

"The actual spot removal technigue was one-part procedural and one-part by-hand artistry. 'The first step was to take a shot through a procedural, which would get rid of any stright-on spots,' explained Rygiel. 'we utilized combustion by Discreet Logic, which could track indivdual spots, clone a white area next to each one, and fill it in procedurally. As long as the spot was side-on, pointed toward the camera, the process was fairly simple; but as soon as the dog started moving - which meant that the spots were moving and changing perspective - it became more complicated.'"

"Nintey-five percent of the spot removal shots required a second, hand-painting phase. Compositing supervisor Brian Leach was in charge of determining which shots should go through procedural, and which should go diriectly to Sandy Houston's paint department. 'The challenge was not so much in the indivual approach for each shot,' explained Leach, 'as it was just the sheer number of shots we had to deliver.'"

"'As a general rule,' Rygiel noted, 'they pushed all of the shots through procedural - becuase any shot that procedural could get rid of would help. Then the spots that were not straight-on to camera would be hand-painted out. We'd get spots piling up on the edge of the dog's body, for exampleforming a kind of black line, just because of the perspective. It took an artist to paint those out and maintain consistency from frame to frame so the hair didn't chatter like something out of the original Mighty Joe Young. For each spot, we had to find a patch of fur next to it that was the same color, then clone it and track it, making sure all of the hairs moved in the same direction. It had to be perfect.'"

"The dog's ears, often flopping around wildly throughout a shot, were especially problematic, requiring additional steps beyond procedural and paint. 'We would rotoscope the ears utilizing Elastic Reality,' said Rygiel, 'then warp textures onto them, adding back in shadows, and all the correct lighting. If the ears were moved too much in the frame for Elastic Reality to handle, we'd model and animate 3d CG ears, then track them to plate.'"

"One of the worst spot removal scenes, in terms of level of difficulty, was one in which Oddball rolls around on a copying machine, hoping to pick up some balck ink that will give her a faux spotted coat. 'The dog they used for that scene was particularly black,' Rygiel remarked. 'When when I saw it on the set I thought, 'the crew back home is going to kill me when they see this dog.' Not only did it have a lot of black on it, it was rolling around all over the place. In most of the other shots, the dogs would stand there and maybe turn a little bit. But this one was flopping around as if it was on a rotisserie - which meant the spot perspectives were changing all over the place.'"

"In a handful of cases, te spot removals were so difficult, the effects team began to think it would be easier and more effective to replace the live dog - or at least a portion of it, such as it's head - with a computer animated model. 'Rather than beat our heads against a wall, trying to remove the spots in those situations,' Rygiel commented, 'we thought, 'Why not just replace the live dog with a CG dog?' We considered it seriously after we started getting plates back from production that had these really black dogs in them.'"

The article states that Maya was used in creating the CG dog and that they refrenced dog photos for a realistic match. That CG oddball got extreme closeup shots. The model was devised by building in layers ie. bones, muscles, skin, all from photos and x-rays and video footage, so that the CG dog moved and acted like a real dalmation.

Pretty impressive stuff.

Originally appeared in Cinefex magazine - number 84 by editor Jody Duncan for Cinefex.

Weekly Cast Watch
Xoanon @ 3:08 pm EST

Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn)

The Thin Red Line (1998) UK
Psycho (1998) UK
A Perfect Murder (1998) UK
The Portrait of a Lady (1996)
The Prophecy (1995)
The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995)
American Yakuza (1994)
Ruby Cairo (1993) UK
Carlito's Way (1993) UK
The Young Americans (1993) UK
Young Guns II (1990) UK
Fresh Horses (1988) UK

Liv Tyler (Arwen)

Plunkett & Macleane (1999) UK
Cookie's Fortune (1999)
Can't Hardly Wait (1998) UK
Armageddon (1998) UK
That Thing You Do! (1996)

Ian Holm (Bilbo)

eXistenZ (1999)
Alice Through the Looking Glass (1999) (TV)
The Fifth Element (1997) UK
The Sweet Hereafter (1997)
Dance with a Stranger (1985)
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Time Bandits (1981)
S.O.S. Titanic (1979) (TV)
Robin and Marian (1976)
Shout at the Devil (1976)
A Severed Head (1971) UK
Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)

Sean Bean (Boromir)

Ronin (1998)
Shopping (1994) UK
Patriot Games (1992) UK
Stormy Monday (1988)

Hugo Weaving (Elrond)

The Matrix (1999) UK
Babe: Pig in the City (1998) UK
Bedrooms & Hallways (1998)
The Interview (1998)
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

Miranda Otto (Eowyn)

The Jack Bull (1999) (TV) UK
The Thin Red Line (1998) UK

Elijah Wood (Fodo)

The Faculty (1998) UK
Avalon (1990) UK
Internal Affairs (1990)

Cate Blanchett (Galadriel)

Pushing Tin (1999)
An Ideal Husband (1999) UK

Ian Mckellen (Gandalf)

X-Men (2000)
Gods and Monsters (1998)
Apt Pupil (1998) UK
Jack and Sarah (1995)
I'll Do Anything (1994) UK
Last Action Hero (1993)
Six Degrees of Separation (1993) UK

John Rhys-Davies (Gimli)

Secret of the Andes (1998) UK
Cats Don't Dance (1997)
The Protector (1997)
Bloodsport 3 (1996)
The Great White Hype (1996)
The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter (1993)
Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Framing (1992) (TV)
Victor/Victoria (1982)
Sword of the Valiant (1982) UK

Andy Serkis (Gollum)

Topsy-Turvy (1999) UK
Among Giants (1998) UK
Mojo (1997) UK

Harry Sinclair (Isildur)

Heavenly Creatures (1994)

Bruce Spence (Mouth of Sauron)

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

Sean Astin (Sam)

Icebreaker (1999)
Kimberly (1999)
Bulworth (1998) UK
Dish Dogs (1998)
Safe Passage (1994) UK
Encino Man (1992) UK
Where the Day Takes You (1992) UK
Toy Soldiers (1991) UK
The War of the Roses (1989) UK
The Goonies (1985)

Christopher Lee (Saruman)

Sleepy Hollow (1999) UK
Jinnah (1998) UK
Death Train (1993) (TV) UK
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) UK
Mio min Mio (1987) UK
Safari 3000 (1982)
The Last Unicorn (1982)
Bear Island (1979) UK
1941 (1979) UK
Arabian Adventure (1979)
Return from Witch Mountain (1978) UK
Airport '77 (1977)
The Four Musketeers (1974) UK
The Creeping Flesh (1973)
Nothing But the Night (1972)
One More Time (1970)
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) UK
Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968)
The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966) UK
The Face of Fu Manchu (1965) UK
The Gorgon (1964) UK
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
Private's Progress (1956) UK
Moulin Rouge (1952)
My Brother's Keeper (1948) UK
Scott of the Antarctic (1948)

Bernard Hill (Theoden)

True Crime (1999) UK
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) UK
Shirley Valentine (1989) UK
Gandhi (1982) UK

Brad Dourif (Wormtongue)

Urban Legend (1998) UK
Bride of Chucky (1998) UK
Best Men (1997)
Death Machine (1995)
Phoenix (1995)
Murder in the First (1995) UK
Amos & Andrew (1993)
Cerro Torre: Schrei aus Stein (1991)
The Exorcist III (1990) UK
Graveyard Shift (1990)
Hidden Agenda (1990)
Spontaneous Combustion (1989)
Ragtime (1981)
Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) UK

Peter Jackson (Director)

Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Bad Taste (1987) UK

Howard Shore (Composer)

The Cell (2000)
High Fidelity (2000)
eXistenZ (1999)
Dogma (1999)
Analyze This (1999) UK
Crash (1996) UK
Striptease (1996)
That Thing You Do! (1996)
Se7en (1995)
Single White Female (1992) UK
Prelude to a Kiss (1992)
Postcards from the Edge (1990)
She-Devil (1989) UK
Dead Ringers (1988) UK
Places in the Heart (1984) UK
Silkwood (1983)

2001 Chicago Flower & Garden Show Report
Xoanon @ 8:59 am EST

No, we haven't become greenthumb.com, but if you remember a few weeks ago we reported that this years show has an entire section devoted to LOTR and The Hobbit. Well Ringer Spy (can you really be a spy at a flower show?) Odo IV sends us the pics and a report!

I happened to be in Chicago for the weekend with my wife, and rushed over to check-out the "Hobbit's Garden" at the 2001 Chicago Flower & Garden Show.(I got to see something LOTR - *and* score points with the Missus! Cha-ching!)

The display was VERY well-done, incorporating signage with appropriate quotes from the Hobbit, but more impressively - they used many of the plants and flowers to which Tolkien was so fond of making reference.

As you can see in the photos, the hole itself came complete with a round, green door (brass knob in the exact middle, of course!) and a nicely done stone chimney. (Apologies for the lo-res photos, but my digital cam only does 640x480, and the lighting inside the pavillion was terrible.)

I was impressed with the size of the display - it goes a full 360 degrees around the "hill" ... bounded by a nice little hand-made fence. There was a stone path, a miniature hay-wagon, a few walking-sticks leaning about, and even a small stone statue of a dragon!

They really put a lot of work and care into this, and the display won two of the show awards. It seemed to be drawing a fair amount of attention, and there were many obvious Tolkien fans about the place.

Although the tickets were a bit pricey (at $11 USD for adults), it is worth checking out if you are in the area. Just the thing to get you in a "hobbity" sort of mood.

Took me right back to fourteen-twenty, it did - and that's saying something!

sign me ...

Odo IV

John Howe talks LOTR!
leo @ 5:01 am EST

The latest issue of SFX Magazine holds an interview with conceptual artist and worldfamous Tolkien illustrator John Howe. He talks about his involvement in the building of the sets and such, and he never stops praising Peter Jackson and his crew for the great job they are going to do, it's a very interesting read! [More]

Text below: (Thanks to Jakob for the text!)

They said, at the beginning, if your draw it, we can build it,² says Tolkien artist John Howe. As Howe¹s been a penciller and painter of Tolkien related pics for many years, it was only natural that Peter Jackson should come to him and fellow artist Alan Lee for pre-production designs. Though he¹d never heard of Peter Jackson, and was not entirely convinced the film could be made, Howe jumped at the chance.

³I¹d heard of the rumours, I knew it was coming up,² he says, his Canadian twang undimmed by 20 years of living in Switzerland. ³When the phone call came, they did a huge sales pitch, they had like ten people on the other end of the line, ready to convince us that is would be a good idea. I was just waiting for them to finish so that I could say yes! I wasn¹t sure it could be done, and there was that feeling you might get involved in something that won¹t work, but it¹s easy to sit back and sneer; the real challenge is to take a deep breath and jump in.²

Though originally commissioned to work on landscapes and buildings ­ ³All the stuff they had to build, because there is nothing in New Zealand except the landscapes² ­ Howe¹s enthusiasm for weaponry and armour meant he was soon helping design the harness and wargear of Middle-earth, and many of the creatures have something of his and Lee¹s work about then, being originally inspired by their paintings.

³We drew some crazy stuff. The Dark Tower is something like a thousand feet high. I always thought of Middle-earth as somewhere where everything is too big, too huge and breathtaking. One of the most exciting things, which may not be all apparent in the film, is this layer upon layer of civilisations in the book. It¹s full of ruins, Middle-earth, because it¹s much less populated than it was in the second age.²

He also found the challenge of having to incorporate sets into real locations a new and exciting challenge. He mentions Hobbiton as an example.

³It was this place in North Island, and we wandered round these fields saying, well, Bag End can go here, that can be our party tree; it was very exciting. It¹s almost even more fun to have a location imposed upon you, because you really have to get down to brass tacks and figure it out, imagine it on paper. It¹s a real illustrator¹s job.²

Howe is full of nothing but praise for Jackson, the cast and the crew. He says the Kiwis will take any problem in their stride, mentioning the carpenters unfazed by the rounded Hobbit burrows, and the new technique they came up with to make realistic looking chainmail out of plastic.

³Peter Jackson¹s filmmaking skills will make it or break it. He¹s such an amazing man, so skilled at filming people. And you¹ve got a wonderful set of actors. I think there was an atmosphere of enthusiasm practically unheard of on a movie set. No huge actors being flown in for two weeks and flown back out again. Everybody took it to heart. People like Christopher Lee, who is passionately interested in the books, would be going to talk to the sculptors all the time. It would have been a disaster had it been done in the States, it would have been impossible to do it in Europe. It is an incredible set of circumstances for Peter Jackson to do it.² He¹s sure there¹ll be some people who are unhappy though.

³There will be hue and cry of ¹traitor¹ and ¹what has he done to the books?¹

But the power of the books is such that though the script was originally quite wide of the book, each rewrite brought it back closer and closer. Some people you can never please. I get this all the time ­ ¹He doesn¹t look like that¹, so I¹ll say ¹What¹s he like?¹ and they¹ll say 'Not like that.' But that aside, I think Peter¹s actually going to fix a lot of the imagery once and for all.

Weekly Cast Watch
Xoanon @ 2:05 pm EST

Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn)

The Thin Red Line (1998) UK
Psycho (1998) UK
A Perfect Murder (1998) UK
Albino Alligator (1996)
The Portrait of a Lady (1996)
The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995)
American Yakuza (1994)
Ruby Cairo (1993) UK
Carlito's Way (1993) UK
Young Guns II (1990) UK
Fresh Horses (1988) UK
Witness (1985)

Liv Tyler (Arwen)

Cookie's Fortune (1999)
Plunkett & Macleane (1999) UK
Can't Hardly Wait (1998) UK
Armageddon (1998) UK
U Turn (1997) UK
Silent Fall (1994)

Ian Holm (Bilbo)

Alice Through the Looking Glass (1999) (TV)
eXistenZ (1999)
The Fifth Element (1997) UK
The Sweet Hereafter (1997) UK
Dance with a Stranger (1985)
Time Bandits (1981) UK
Shout at the Devil (1976)
The Fixer (1968) UK

Sean Bean (Boromir)

Airborne (1998)
Ronin (1998)
Black Beauty (1994) UK
Stormy Monday (1988)

Hugo Weaving (Elrond)

The Matrix (1999) UK
Bedrooms & Hallways (1998)
The Interview (1998)
Babe: Pig in the City (1998) UK
Babe (1995) UK
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

Miranda Otto (Eowyn)

The Jack Bull (1999) (TV) UK
Dead Letter Office (1998)
The Thin Red Line (1998) UK

David Wenham (Faramir)

Dark City (1998) UK

Elijah Wood (Frodo)

The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (2000) UK
The Faculty (1998)
Flipper (1996) UK
Avalon (1990)
Internal Affairs (1990) UK

Cate Blanchett (Galadriel)

An Ideal Husband (1999) UK
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
Pushing Tin (1999)
Elizabeth (1998) UK

Bruce Hopkins (Gamling)

Lawless (1999) (TV) UK

Ian McKellen (Gandalf)

X-Men (2000)
Apt Pupil (1998) UK
I'll Do Anything (1994) UK
Six Degrees of Separation (1993) UK
Scandal (1989) UK
Plenty (1985) UK
Alfred the Great (1969) UK

Mark Ferguson (Gil Galad)

Every Woman's Dream (1996) (TV)

John Rhys-Davies (Gimli)

Secret of the Andes (1998) UK
Bloodsport 3 (1996)
The Great White Hype (1996) UK
The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter (1993)
Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Framing (1992) (TV)
The Seventh Coin (1992)
Canvas (1992)
Secret Weapon (1990) (TV)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Waxwork (1988)
King Solomon's Mines (1985)
Victor/Victoria (1982)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Andy Serkis (Gollum)

Topsy-Turvy (1999) UK
Among Giants (1998) UK
Stella Does Tricks (1997)
Mojo (1997) UK

Harry Sinclair (Isildur)

Heavenly Creatures (1994)

Bruce Spence (Mouth of Sauron)

Dark City (1998) UK
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

Sean Astin (Sam)

Icebreaker (1999)
Kimberly (1999)
Bulworth (1998) UK
Encino Man (1992) UK
Where the Day Takes You (1992) UK
Toy Soldiers (1991) UK
The War of the Roses (1989) UK
White Water Summer (1987) UK

Christopher Lee (Saruman)

Sleepy Hollow (1999) UK
Jinnah (1998) UK
The Odyssey (1997) (TV)
Death Train (1993) (TV) UK
Treasure Island (1990) (TV)
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) UK
Mio min Mio (1987) UK
The Last Unicorn (1982)
Safari 3000 (1982)
Arabian Adventure (1979)
1941 (1979) UK
Bear Island (1979) UK
Return from Witch Mountain (1978) UK
Airport '77 (1977)
The Creeping Flesh (1973)
The Three Musketeers (1973) UK
Horror Express (1972)
Nothing But the Night (1972)
Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968)
The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968) UK
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) UK
Theatre of Death (1967) UK
Psycho-Circus (1966)
The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966) UK
The Face of Fu Manchu (1965) UK
Beat Girl (1960)
The Crimson Pirate (1952) UK
My Brother's Keeper (1948) UK

Bernard Hill (Theoden)

The Loss of Sexual Innocence (1999)
True Crime (1999) UK
The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
Shirley Valentine (1989) UK

Brad Dourif (Wormtongue)

The Progeny (1999) UK
Bride of Chucky (1998) UK
Urban Legend (1998) UK
Best Men (1997)
Murder in the First (1995)
Escape from Terror: The Teresa Stamper Story (1994) (TV)
Color of Night (1994) UK
Amos & Andrew (1993)
Cerro Torre: Schrei aus Stein (1991)
Hidden Agenda (1990)
The Exorcist III (1990) UK
Spontaneous Combustion (1989)
Mississippi Burning (1988)
Wise Blood (1979) UK
Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

Media Alert: Epoca Magazine.
Tehanu @ 3:37 am EST

There's been complaints from South American Ringers about the lack of interest shown in LOTR by the mainstream media - but Dunadan wrote in with some news today:

"This week's Brazilian edition of the 'Época Magazine' brings a cool report about the re-edition of the 'Lord of the Rings' books. It also brings something about Tolkien and his books, and the influence he has over other writers like J. K. Rowling. At the end of the article there's some information about the movie production and Peter Jackson.

In the same page of this article, there is a ranking for the best sellers in Brazil. Tolkien's 'Fellowship of the Ring' is 10th place! "

Brazilian fans can visit Pelennor.com for more info! Cheers!"

Link direct to the article in Portuguese here

New Translation for Stern Magazine article
Quickbeam @ 3:07 pm EST

Our initial report on the German magazine "Stern" appeared just last week. They had a delicious article with some prominent images reproduced from earlier New Line promotional material (stuff we've already seen, kids). We are lucky to have a very clean translation from the German. Here it is in full:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
by Karsten Lemm

One Ring to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them
In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie

Three lines, almost 50 years old, still magical in power. Whoever knows them, whoever reads them, disappears momentarily out of this world. Submerges in the memory of a distant, strange land, long before our time, in which little people with furry feet called Hobbits move out to conquer evil. Black riders, wizards, dwarfs, strange creatures, half-human half-tree—Middle-earth in all its intricacy, so authentic as if it were more than a fantasy world immortalized in one of the most successful books of the 20th century: The Lord of The Rings by the British linguistics professor J.R.R. Tolkien.

Every year since the 3-volume fantasy epic appeared in 1954-55, this world has existed exclusively in the minds of its readers. 50 million people had 50 million different conceptions of how Gandalf, Frodo, Gollum and all the other figures looked. Hollywood undertook a halfhearted attempt to film Lord of the Rings in 1978 but fans despised the result and with that, things calmed down.

Now, however, someone is again making an attempt to do the impossible. In an unprecedented undertaking the New Zealand director Peter Jackson (hereafter PJ) is filming the entire work of over 1200 pages, all three parts of the novel, at the same time. One after another they are to arrive in theaters at intervals of 12 months, respectively.

The first film, The Fellowship of the Ring, is due on 19 December in the USA and one day later in Germany. For the Tolkien family the only thing to do is to go into hiding. "I expect bother without end when the film comes out" groans John Tolkien, an 83 year-old retired, Catholic priest—and he is probably right.

Months before the premiere there is as much commotion about The Lord of The Rings as there was in the late 60's when hippies discovered the ecologically inspired epic and pasted Gandalf for President stickers on their rusted VW's (Gandalf, for the uninitiated, is a wise wizard protecting Middle-earth from the long arm of Evil).

No one has a greater interest in pushing the monumental fantasy into the stage lights than the film's producer New Line Cinema, who until now financed films with predictable budgets but now is letting itself take a gigantic gamble. The original estimate of $180 million for all three films has, according to insiders, expanded to $270 million—a good 550 DM. However thoughtful the decision may be to film all 3 parts parallel, it is also very risky. "Whoever produces 3 films should rather watch out that the first one is good," warns veteran producer William Goldman (The Untouchables). "If it is not good then nobody will care about the 2nd and 3rd parts any more."

With such thoughts the producers have been struggling since day one. Even the choice of director was considerably risky. PJ is not a director for popcorn cinema. His biggest public success to date was the puberty drama Heavenly Creatures with Kate Winslet—by Hollywood standards intimate theater.

The Tolkien fans are eyeing the project with much more suspicion than the film world. For most, The Lord of The Rings is not simply a book but a passion. They are organized by the thousands in clubs, readings, and roundtable discussions on questions from the Tolkien universe. "Naturally we do not want the book secularized or made trivial," says Mike Foster, American representative of the Oxford based Tolkien Society.

The bands of fans were especially watchful during the 15-month filming which ended 24 December 2000. At more than 100 film locations PJ's crew, which consisted of 1700 workers, transformed the landscape of New Zealand into Tolkien's Middle-earth, used 1000's of gallons of paint, used 1000's of cubic meters of wood and plastic, had fashioned by smiths 40 golden rings and 900 suits of armor and all the while Tolkien disciples looked over their shoulders, nervously prepared to announce to the world via internet, the slightest deviation from the original.

Among the few fans who were permitted on set was the German Stefan Servos. He runs Herr-der-ringe-film.de, the online news center for German Tolkien fans. Servos, a 25 year-old journalism student, received the opportunity from German Kino World Library to walk through the sets of Tolkien's city of Minas Tirith, to shake hands with the 4 Hobbit actors and to talk shop with PJ, the director.

"PJ was genial," beams Servos. "He was quite relaxed. There was no stress although it was just before the end of the filming." When Servos' report appears online Kino World will decide. The film company was fishing for fans as advisers when his web site became a hit (on an average of 300,000 hits a day!). "Nothing that I learned from Kino World is allowed on my web page," says Servos. Nonetheless he could answer a few of the hotly discussed questions from his friends: Does the Balrog have wings? What does Gollum look like? Servos has also seen a 22 minute-long preview for cinema owners and marketing partners. But he will betray nothing. Only so much as to keep fans calm: "PJ has done it! He has captured the magic of Middle-earth."

"It made the Kino World partner in Hollywood a little nervous at first that the Germany Company had a fan there," says Servos. But it fits in with the marketing strategy that the producers have OK'd for their risky project. Instead of leaving fans to their spying New Line works closely together with them. "It is clear to them that everything we do raises attention to the film," says Cliff Broadway, who writes for the fansite TheOneRing.net under the name Quickbeam.

First place for news is still the official web site: Lordoftherings.net. It is difficult for the fans to get any information now that the filming is done and the filmmakers are back inside the studio working on over 1200 special effects. A tasty tidbit which the studio put on the net last April—a preview mix of scenes not even 2 minutes long, was sucked up by hungry fans right on the first day: 1.7 million downloads, and at the end of the first week the number stood at 6.6 million. Star Wars father George Lucas could turn Yoda-green with envy.

The trailer to Episode I of the Star Wars saga—clearly inspired by Tolkien—brought 1.1 million downloads on its first day. But does that mean The Fellowship will win at the box office in December? "You know," grumbled a jealous studio boss to the New York Times, "The 1.7 million people who downloaded the trailer on the first day, I think that is the entire public for the film." But the fans see it otherwise. "These films will out perform Star Wars by far," says Cliff Broadway. "We have waited so long for this! Three or four generations of readers adore this book."

Just the book. Whatever Hollywood does with The Lord of the Rings, it can only make the subject more popular.

"I have the greatest hopes that the film will be a success and bestow on Tolkien a new generation of readers," says Clay Harper, Tolkien project leader for US publisher Houghton Mifflin. "And as strange as it may sound, I envy these people. I would give anything if I could possibly read the book again for the first time." Harper, 42 and a life-long Tolkien fan, admits that he was among the first who on 12 January slipped into the Cinema at noon to view with astonishment the new film Trailer [in front of Thirteen Days - Ed.] but he is also afraid that the images on the screen could supress his own. Then Gandalf would forever be Sir Ian McKellen and the Elven queen Arwen would look like Liv Tyler. Personal mental images would be replaced by the filmmaker's.

"I feel like a person running around with two heads," says Harper. "One head belongs to the 13 year-old in me who wants to be sitting in the cinema on the 19th of December and the other head belongs to the 42 year-old who would like to protect his fantasies."