So this past weekend was the much anticipated moot here in Wellington for TORN posters in New Zealand. All I can say is that there is not a better place to hold the moot. I'll try to make this somewhat short and not include too many pictures...
First up was our own 'Friday Fiesta' at one of the mooters house in a Wellington suburb. It was great fun--I was able to meet new people, see my friends here (whom I met last September) again and catch up with one of my tour guides and her husband whom I hadn't seen since the tour. It was also the start of 'Flat Frodo's' adventures here in New Zealand--he had quite a busy weekend.
The next morning was the long drive to Fernside Estate where they filmed leaving Lothlorien and the Smeagol/Deagol scenes. This is private ground so the only way you have access to the gardens is through the tour or by staying as a guest (which I think would be very priecy). I had been here before but happily handed over the required money to visit again since I had fallen in love with it before. And I've fallen even more in love with it. Out of all the locations I've been to (a lot), this is my second favorite. It's just so magical...The trees have started to turn to shades of red and orange for fall which is fitting. The light was perfect and the reflections in the lake were beautiful.
Next up was a fairly long drive to the Putaringa (sp?) Pinnacles where they filmed Path of the Dead stuff. We followed the "trail" along several streambeds for awhile and finally came to the canyon where it started getting really cool--and the air got colder as well. We climbed up about as far as we could before we weren't sure we could get down, so we stopped there and turned back. It's a really cool area that I had not been to before. Definitely rather erie--perfect spot for POTD.
That night most people went to see "the Hobbit" play which a friend and I had already seen (still can't believe they cancelled it--but at least I saw it!). The next morning we played LOTR trivial pursuit (with a 5 questions per turn limit to make it more fun) since it was lousy weather. That afternoon was seeing ROTK at the Embassy Theatre. I had seen it there once before, but seeing it with a group of fans was even better. And amazing the details you noice when you see it on the big screen...That night was our group dinner at a Wellington restaurant.
Finally, Monday morning came with the promise of the best yet--a tour of WETA (now you can all be even more jealous...). Thanks to a family connection by one of our group members, we had gotten permission to get into Weta and see some stuff. Daniel Falconer was our connection, I had met him before and he remembered me immediately. He ended up spending a little over two hours with us, showing us around and talking with us. He's a huge Tolkien geek himself so he seemed to love being with a group of similar people.
We started the visit by signing a confidentiality agreement (ooh...), and yes, there was some stuff I'm not allowed to talk about
Then we went into the boardroom which has all the Weta awards, the full range of slideshow products (every single LOTR item) and various cool photographs, many of which we had never seen. One of the first things Daniel did was take out the four oscars so we could hold them.
There's a reason winners hold them with both hands--they are heavy! And the BAFTAS even more so. While we were getting a group picture with Daniel taken, in walked Richard Taylor!
He stayed and talked with us for about ten minutes about LOTR and what weta was up to these days. After that it was time to go to one of the downstairs rooms to see WEAPONS!!
Richard had given Daniel permission to cut down any weapons we wanted to play with
Almost all (the exception being some of Leggys stuff) are actually perfect replicas, as the originals are too valuable for Weta to keep (they could not afford to insure them). Daniel spent time going over all the weapons with us and telling us tons of interesting stuff about them and their use in the movies. Then it was time to play...
First up was Narsil. It's almost as tall as I am, but I still want it.
Then Glamdring. Not as long and still a beautiful weapon
Then I tried on Merry's Rohan helmet (for his scale double I believe) which fit pretty well. Although having that thing in front of your nose would take some getting used to.
Since Daniel had to put every weapon back up, we restricted our playing to just one more: Eowyn's sword.
It wasn't nearly as long as the others and had a smaller grip (?) since it was designed for a woman. For these reasons I really liked it, it was a beautiful sword as well. A little while later we reluctantly left Weta after profusely thanking Richard and Daniel, who also got a moot shirt.
We had lunch at the Chocolate Fish Cafe--absolutely delicous! Not exactly cheap but well worth it-yummmy
Those of us left after this ended up watching the original King Kong upon recommendation from Daniel. It was pretty funny and much more gruesome than we had thought. However, I am so excited for PJ's Kong after seeing it. The actors are perfectly cast, and Adrian Brody really is an inspired choice. Weta is going to have too much fun doing all the dinosaurs. I can really see why PJ wanted to remake it.
Our final activity was for the remaining five of us (three of us living here in Welly) to go get dinner at a Fish and Chips shop. I had had fish & chips delivered from there, but had not been to the place. Imagine our delight at discovering that it was Viggo's favorite fish and chips place--there was an article on him and two pictures.
The weekend was over all too soon, but not without promises of another moot here iin NZ. Hope you all enjoy the report and pics (which I thought were smaller)! If you want specifics on some of what Daniel and Richard said, just say so!
