Wellington, New Zealand

Wednesday, December 16, 2009     Wellington

This was the day for the Lord of the Rings excursion.  Director Peter Jackson's home is in Wellington, as well as his movie studios and the WETA Workshops and affiliated companies.  WETA did most of the props, costumes, prosthetics, and computer graphics for the films, and is clearly one of the top creative organizations in the world in all of those specialties.  Before we came to New Zealand we had rented and watched the entire Extended Release DVD set of the Lord of the Rings, which included something like six additional DVDs of documentary and explanatory material, in addition to several important additional scenes that had to be cut from the commercial theater release.  Paula also bought a single-volume paperback edition of the Tolkien trilogy to read over the next few months (Tyler had already read Tolkien several years ago.)

The following is for our special friend Rachel.

Mt. Victoria is a large park reserve and high point on the outskirts of Wellington.  Several forest scenes were filmed here.

We had a great 360 degree view of Wellington from the top of Mt. Victoria.

Kaitoke Regional Park was one of the most beautiful locations we visited.  Besides having a lovely babbling brook, it is set in a bowl, just as described by Tolkien for Rivendell, the settlement of the elves.  The name Rivendell is now officially and indelibly attached to this place because of its use in the movie.

There is nothing left of any of the movie sets in any of the natural filming locations (i.e., the sites out in nature, not in a studio building or lot).  Peter Jackson and crew really went out of their way to document the site before they started work, and to preserve and restore it after they were finished.  In addition, in many of the sites they spent additional time and money to add trees and other enhancements for the benefit of the public.  As a consequence, you really need to see the sites with a knowledgeable guide and a good imagination.  Our guide was very good, and carried a notebook of photographs showing how the site appeared in the movie.  He would point out the corresponding trees, for example, and also explain what was altered on the site or added post-production by the miracle of editing, superposition, and computer graphics.  He told us that he was the only professional actor in New Zealand who did NOT appear as at least an extra in the movie.  Several of the other guides with other bus groups had served as extras, but I doubt that those groups got any better narrative than we did.