Miggie writes, “Today I found a LoTR Teacher’s Guide at collinseducation.com, that, according to the site, is “full of great ideas for KS3 English with suggestions for reading, comprehension, discussion and essay questions, as well as vocabulary work. Also biographical information on J.R.R. Tolkien and extracts from The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien on Middle Earth and its residents, providing lots of motivating material to work with in the classroom.”
It’s a 1.45MB download and a great resource for J.R.R. Tolkien’s fans who also happen to be teachers. But also great for finding questions if you feel inclined to create a home-made LoTR Trivial Pursuit. 😉 Go here and search on their ‘Free Downloads’ page.
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We used to get a lot of these are the kind of spy reports that really get the rumour mill going. It’s always fun to speculate on what might have been…..Bear in mind that these films are made with dozens of possibilities that are filmed, developed and discarded before the final cut. We KNOW Arwen started out at Helm’s Deep….but didn’t stay in the final theatrical cut. But…will she reappear in the DVD? I don’t think so myself – it seems like an idea that the filmmakers toyed with and then decided, once they saw the rushes and did some of the first edits, that it really didn’t work with the direction they wanted to take the characters. However, here’s some evidence about some of the versions of Arwen’s role that they played with in the beginning.
Ithil Draug wrote in: “One of my friend’s cousins actually helped work on Lord of the Rings and when I saw the report on the possibility of Arwen at Helm’s Deep, I told him about this and told him to ask his cousin. About a week later he told me that his cousin said Arwen was indeed at the Battle of Hornburg. Arwen was supposed to have run away with Asfaloth from the Elves going to the Havens and joined the Rohirrim riders with Gandalf. He further went on to report that New Line was going to have a scene with her riding down the hill and talk[ing] to Aragorn saying something about her “choice” or “I am with you.” New Line [or Peter Jackson, perhaps – Tehanu] cut this scene out and decided to put her scene in the background in order to make it look like many riders charging down the hill.
She may be clearly visible or say the lines she says in the special edition DVD or she may have a large role to play in RotK(the battle and the mortality stuff) but don’t quote me on this. My friend’s cousin is a reliable source but my friend says he isn’t positive about her appearing in the special edidtion or in battle scenes in RotK but at one time Arwen did have some lines and is at Helm’s Deep so my friend says.”
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How good is Gollum’s animation? REALLY good, according to Ringer spy Lisa, who wrote in:
“Now that my husband and I have seen the movie more than once, it occurred to me to pass on to other fans a somewhat different observation of Gollum.
As nearly everyone who has seen TTT can attest, the CGI work of Gollum is extraordinary. However, there is another aspect of that work, too. My husband has a 65% hearing loss in both ears, wears hearing aids, and does not use sign language. Instead, he reads lips. Cartoon characters and all CGI characters have always frustrated him because he has never been able to read their lips.
Until Gollum. After we saw the movie the first time, my husband said, “I have never been able to read a CGI character’s lips before. Gollum’s were exactly as if he were a human being.” I cannot think of higher praise for all the people involved in creating Gollum than to tell them that a hearing impaired person was able to follow Gollum’s speech exactly, just by lip-reading. Kudos to the dedication of the Weta staff! “
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The Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa’s LOTR props exhibition has extended its stay and is ‘on track to be the single most popular exhibition.’ [More] Thanks to Ataahua for the link.
Meanwhile, Ringer spy Nancy did some work to find out when and where the LOTR exhibition will go next when it leaves NZ. She wrote to Te Papa and got this reply from Te Papa staff: “The list that I have tells me that the Lord of the Rings exhibition will be on in Boston from approximately the beginning of August 2004 until the last week in October 2004. However, please don’t take what I am saying as being ‘official’ as I’m not sure that all of the red tape has been signed off . Th exact dates of staging the exhibition will be determined by the museum in Boston, not us. It is quite possible that the museum in Boston will not be making an announcement yet. I suggest you check with them closer to the time. The current travel plan for the exhibition is, after Wellington – London, Singapore, Boston, Sydney – Boston being the only USA venue at this point in time. “
Nancy did some more detective work and found out, “The venue in Boston is the Museum of Science. In London it will be the Science Museum in South Kensington. The approximate dates I have for London are September 2003 until January 2004. The whole of the exhibition will be on tour – in fact there may be more items ( not less ) in the travelling exhibition. “
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Tanya sent us this transcript of a radio interview from a local NZ radio station …AGES ago…. blame me [Tehanu] for losing the info about WHICH radio station. Here, Elijah Wood definitely gets down off any pedestal you want to put him on…..
Male Interviewer [M]: Hey, um, how are the fingernails?
Elijah [E]: Right into it — look at that go.
M: We’ve only got like about 8 minutes, so I thought we’d… I read in a magazine that it was your New Year’s resolution to stop biting your nails. Do you still bite your nails?
E: We’re not at New Year’s yet, so I’m still biting them.
Woman Interviewer [W]: What about your toenails? You used to bite your toenails, didn’t you? Can you still do that?
M: Can you bite your toenails? Who wants a demo? Come on, Elijah —
[Sounds of Whooping — Oh my god!]
M: Elijah Wood just put his leg over his head. Unreal!
E: I’m pretty flexible.
M: Do you bite and chew or bite and spit?
E: Chew for a bit and then spit, yeah, yeah.
M: Nice one.
E: Not a detail I’m sure most people want to hear… So…
W: Are you still living at home?
E: Yes… [Speaks to the woman] Do you wanna sit down sweetheart?
W: No, I just wanna lean in.
E: oh okay, Are you sure you want to lean? It’s kind of uncomfortable.
W: No, no I’m fine.
E: okay…
M: Now I read on the internet — there’s so much bullshit out there — that you drive a red Ferrari. Now is it true? Or is that just an internet thing?
E: Oh my god, no, it’s so not true. Yeah I don’t — I don’t know, … nor would I ever, I would never buy a Ferrari.
M: What about the nicknames Monkey or The Funny? Are they real? Or… How’d you get those?
E: They are real. Well, Monkey kinda comes from when I was younger, I used to climb all over things, and had kinda boundless energy, so mom deemed me Monkey. And then The Funny kinda was something I created when I was a little bit younger.
M: Now you did whiz in the [Cuba Mall?] fountain, did you take a dump anywhere that we should know about?
[In background: Oh God!]
E: Ah, no.
M: Are you really going to buy houses in New Zealand? Or is that just something you’ve been saying to keep the New Zealand media happy…
E: Um. Aw mate, um… No, I think, yeah, I would love to buy a place here.
M: I got a little place in Palmerston North if you want to buy it off me. It’s not really a booming property area, but you’d get it real cheap.
E: Well, I would love to. I’ve been talking about that for a while only because we’ve spent so much time here. We do have a natural love for the country, and specifically Wellington, because, you know, we’ve essentially lived here. Most of the time.
M: Tell us about the tattoo — you’ve got a number nine, an Elvish nine, on your side? That your first tattoo? You gonna get another one?
E: Yeah mebbe — tattoos I like when they’re significant to an experience or a moment — so it would have to be —
M: So did you get a dolphin tattoo after making Flipper?
E: Dude.
M: Sorry.
E: The question is good. So, all right, to answer your question because I want to answer it — but no, nothing. No tattoo after Flipper.
W: So can we see your number nine then? If you’re gonna show us how you can bite your toenails, you might as well show us your tattoo…
W: [I think she moans in appreciation]
M: Aw yeah that’s cool.
W: It must have hurt!
E: **** yeah.
M: Tell us about the Oscars this year, because we’d seen you on tv and you looked bored sh*tless.
[laughter]
E: Tell you what man, it was nearly five hours sitting in that chair.
Five ****ing hours of that. I mean, I didn’t, look. I went because you know, I wanted to be there for the movie, and that sort of opportunity doesn’t come out often that you’re part of a movie that gets that kind of recognition, and you want to support it. And I was so glad to be there.
But tell you what, it’s so much better to watch it on television.
I nearly — I was falling asleep too and that was terrible because they always — because we were all sat — the LOTR crew essentially was sat in the front and the second row from the front, so we’re all in one pocket. So they had the camera there the whole time. So they had, you know, they had these guys, these little crews running around with cameras to get, like, reactions because we were there and we had tons of awards. And they wanted to get our reactions on the things, so they had the cameras right there, and I would be just sort of sitting there like you know, nodding off. Which was terrible.
Yeah, better just to watch it on television.
M: On the [Not sure what TV show] the other night, Elijah, you and Peter were quite close. He put you in a headlock and started, you know, rubbing the top of your head — how close are you guys — tell us about your relationship — are you always keeping in touch, or is it just for these sorts of things that you touch base?
E: Wouldn’t that be terrible if I just was like, every once in a while “Hi Pete, how are you — let’s make it seem like we’re friends…”
Uh no, I love Pete, I love Pete — he’s been so busy– and you know the thing about it, the nature of friendship is, when you’re really close with someone, specially someone that you’ve been through an experience like that with, you don’t always call and you don’t always keep in touch.
And that doesn’t necessarily have a bearing on the relationship or the friendship or the closeness, because no one can take that away — you know, we had that experience, everybody did with Pete and with everybody else — so we’ll always be linked by that —
I mean I don’t keep regular communication with him but he’ll be in my life and the rest of my life in some way, so, you know…
M: Thank you very much for your time. when do you leave New Zealand? Will you be in New Zealand for Christmas?
E: No, I leave tomorrow.
M: [Something…] So you’ll be in LA for Christmas?
E: That’s right.
M: Have a good time.
E: Thank you mate. See you guys.
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Lonestarr here: I had an opportunity this last weekend to go the brothers Tim and Greg Hildebrandt art exhibition and signings at Every Picture Tells A Story gallery, in Santa Monica, CA. It was a lovely day (as usual), and when I arrived on Saturday with my father, who is himself an artist, the small gallery was filled wall-to-wall with their most famous ORIGINAL Tolkien/LOTR paintings from the 1970’s – what a treat! They even had on display all original, rare thumbnail and pencil sketchings of pre-painting and character designs. And what nice gentlemen, giving free signings and openly talking about their work history and influences – they even said they loved the first LOTR movie: casting, direction, design, everything, but haven’t had a chance to see TTT yet.
As dad and I roamed around and spoke to them in length, Greg and Tim said they like seeing other peoples’ art work and asked to see my dad’s paintings. We came back the next day to show them his portfolio, and they graciously commented on how much they enjoyed his work. Anyways, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the Bros. Hildebrandt artwork, they helped bring Tolkien popularity to the masses around 25 years ago in books, calenders, etc. If you’re in Southern California, they will still be around till the end of the week…
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