LotR!!!
So...we didn’t end up going to the gondola last night. Lucy wasn’t feeling well, and when we decided to go, I checked the time it runs in my New Zealand book. Supposedly, the gondola stops running at 6:30 and it was about 45 minutes prior. D’oh. (Though, I think it runs much later, as it was still moving very late last night.) Instead, we decided to check out the one Mexican restaurant in town. The place was a bit more cheesy than the average Tucson place, and the pronunciations in the menu sure gave me a giggle or two. I got a chicken enchilada, medium heat. It didn’t taste like Mexican, but it was really good anyway. There was no heat at all. Hee.
I didn’t realize how far south we are until I realized it was 8:30 and the sun was still up. O.o The sun finally set around 9:15 pm, and at 10:00, I was still able to read outside without artificial lights.
And I’m annoyed I still haven’t seen the Magellanic Clouds yet. I did see the Southern Cross from the plane (LA to Fiji), though, and it was beautiful.
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So! On to the LotR tour! We took the “Trails of Middle Earth” tour by Wanaka Sightseeing since the one I really wanted to go on-Edoras and Helm’s Deep-is up in Christchurch. :-[ Had I been thinking ahead, though, I would’ve known there’s a bus that goes from Queenstown to Christchurch multiple times a day…and we still could’ve done it. Grrr. Oh, well. Gives me something to do next time. :-] If it’s still here, anyway.
Still, our tour was pretty cool. The following is a summary of the scenes we saw. I know it isn’t jack without pictures, so if you don’t want to read a semi-massive wall of text, you can wait for me to put the pictures up on my webpage. I’ll have similar descriptions with the photos. For now, I just want to make sure I don’t forget anything. :-]
We went to the woods in Arrowtown, a nearby gold-rush village, to see where Isildur is riding through with the ring just before he’s ambushed. Only a few yards away is where he jumps into the water (actually, a fake rock makes the splash). The same river is used in some of the shots where the Nazgul are washed away by the water. (If you look closely, you’ll see the background change from steep, grey rocks to a lighter, more grassy area and back again. The light, grassy area is where we stopped.)
Next was the Aragonath. No, of course, the kings aren’t there, but the river leading up to and somewhat behind the Aragonath is. And it’s that same pretty blue-green color. (Just beside the film shots was a bridge where people were bungie jumping. Hee hee.)
We then got to play with replicas of weaponry and a real prop cloak, doing silly poses and all that. Hee. They think the cloak was Sam’s since his brooch faced the opposite direction from everyone else’s.
We then went up to the top of a mountain nearby where almost all the scenes were shot of the Rohan refugees from after they leave Edoras (Gimli’s talking about Dwarf women), through the Warg battle, and to where Eowyn leads the refugees to Helm’s Deep, as well as some scenes of the Rohan horsemen and Gandalf riding to Minas Tirith.
First, we stopped along the way to the top to see where they filmed Aragorn falling to his knees in despair after the ghosts turned him down. Turns out, his “view” of the corsair ships on the “river” is actually Lake Wakatipu (the lake that Queenstown sits on). They made the ships super-huge so the lake would look very small. Then, we looked at where Gandalf rode to Minas Tirith at the beginning of FotR and then overlooks the city; the same ridge is used when Gandalf and Pippin ride up to overlook the city again in RotK.
Next was the Warg battle scene. We saw where Gimli is talking to Eowyn and then falls off, where the Warg battle begins and ends (Legolas shooting arrows before launching himself up into the saddle, the Wargs coming over the hill, the horsemen riding to meet them, the place where the two meet, etc.). They actually shot that entire scene up there, so we stopped at lots of places all around. We checked out where Gimli was piled underneath two Wargs and an Orc, and where Aragorn rode up, grabbed a spear, and killed the second Warg that landed on top of Gimli. After that was where Aragorn was knocked off his horse and drug over the edge of the cliff. (We got pictures of us looking forlornly over the cliff edge. Hee.)
Um, let’s see…. There were multiple other places where the Rohan riders camped on their way to Helm’s Deep in TTT (Eowyn giving Aragorn the terrible soup) and Minas Tirith in RotK (Eowyn talking to Merry about the coming battle).
At the very end, we saw the cliff face where Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas come out of the Dimault (sp?) Road and see the corsair ships.
Um, I think that’s basically it. There were many places where the landscape was only one part of many layers, such as other scenery and CG, of what’s seen in the movie. Most of the scenes were also flipped horizontally for the film, making some of the places a little more difficult to place. Thankfully, our guide had screenshots so we could compare the landscape directly to the film, and a DVD player showing other scenes (and Easter Eggs) while we were driving.
It was a cool tour, and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Queenstown. Wanaka Sightseeing also does the Edoras tour (and other fly-over tours) in Christchurch, and I’m sure that one is even more spectacular. Just Google Wanaka Sightseeing. (I’d link it, but I don’t want to use up my $2/20min Internet time.)
Interesting LotR things we found out:
1. When Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas think Merry and Pipin are dead, Aragorn kicks a helmet in frustration, yells, and falls to his knees. The kicking of the helmet was planned. The rest was because Viggo Mortensen had just broken a toe kicking the helmet.
2. When Aragorn headbutts the Orc (where he gets dragged by a Warg and goes over the cliff), he ends up hitting the guy playing the Orc’s head so hard that he actually split it open (through two layers of rubber material).
Other notable film things we saw:
1. The remains of a North Korea (?) set from the 1980s Disney film The Rescue.
2. Right next to that was where they are currently building Logan’s Canadian hut/house in the upcoming Wolverine X-men prequel.
3. Lake Wakatipu (the lake we're on) is also the site for the water scenes in The Water Horse.
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I didn’t realize how far south we are until I realized it was 8:30 and the sun was still up. O.o The sun finally set around 9:15 pm, and at 10:00, I was still able to read outside without artificial lights.
And I’m annoyed I still haven’t seen the Magellanic Clouds yet. I did see the Southern Cross from the plane (LA to Fiji), though, and it was beautiful.
---
So! On to the LotR tour! We took the “Trails of Middle Earth” tour by Wanaka Sightseeing since the one I really wanted to go on-Edoras and Helm’s Deep-is up in Christchurch. :-[ Had I been thinking ahead, though, I would’ve known there’s a bus that goes from Queenstown to Christchurch multiple times a day…and we still could’ve done it. Grrr. Oh, well. Gives me something to do next time. :-] If it’s still here, anyway.
Still, our tour was pretty cool. The following is a summary of the scenes we saw. I know it isn’t jack without pictures, so if you don’t want to read a semi-massive wall of text, you can wait for me to put the pictures up on my webpage. I’ll have similar descriptions with the photos. For now, I just want to make sure I don’t forget anything. :-]
We went to the woods in Arrowtown, a nearby gold-rush village, to see where Isildur is riding through with the ring just before he’s ambushed. Only a few yards away is where he jumps into the water (actually, a fake rock makes the splash). The same river is used in some of the shots where the Nazgul are washed away by the water. (If you look closely, you’ll see the background change from steep, grey rocks to a lighter, more grassy area and back again. The light, grassy area is where we stopped.)
Next was the Aragonath. No, of course, the kings aren’t there, but the river leading up to and somewhat behind the Aragonath is. And it’s that same pretty blue-green color. (Just beside the film shots was a bridge where people were bungie jumping. Hee hee.)
We then got to play with replicas of weaponry and a real prop cloak, doing silly poses and all that. Hee. They think the cloak was Sam’s since his brooch faced the opposite direction from everyone else’s.
We then went up to the top of a mountain nearby where almost all the scenes were shot of the Rohan refugees from after they leave Edoras (Gimli’s talking about Dwarf women), through the Warg battle, and to where Eowyn leads the refugees to Helm’s Deep, as well as some scenes of the Rohan horsemen and Gandalf riding to Minas Tirith.
First, we stopped along the way to the top to see where they filmed Aragorn falling to his knees in despair after the ghosts turned him down. Turns out, his “view” of the corsair ships on the “river” is actually Lake Wakatipu (the lake that Queenstown sits on). They made the ships super-huge so the lake would look very small. Then, we looked at where Gandalf rode to Minas Tirith at the beginning of FotR and then overlooks the city; the same ridge is used when Gandalf and Pippin ride up to overlook the city again in RotK.
Next was the Warg battle scene. We saw where Gimli is talking to Eowyn and then falls off, where the Warg battle begins and ends (Legolas shooting arrows before launching himself up into the saddle, the Wargs coming over the hill, the horsemen riding to meet them, the place where the two meet, etc.). They actually shot that entire scene up there, so we stopped at lots of places all around. We checked out where Gimli was piled underneath two Wargs and an Orc, and where Aragorn rode up, grabbed a spear, and killed the second Warg that landed on top of Gimli. After that was where Aragorn was knocked off his horse and drug over the edge of the cliff. (We got pictures of us looking forlornly over the cliff edge. Hee.)
Um, let’s see…. There were multiple other places where the Rohan riders camped on their way to Helm’s Deep in TTT (Eowyn giving Aragorn the terrible soup) and Minas Tirith in RotK (Eowyn talking to Merry about the coming battle).
At the very end, we saw the cliff face where Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas come out of the Dimault (sp?) Road and see the corsair ships.
Um, I think that’s basically it. There were many places where the landscape was only one part of many layers, such as other scenery and CG, of what’s seen in the movie. Most of the scenes were also flipped horizontally for the film, making some of the places a little more difficult to place. Thankfully, our guide had screenshots so we could compare the landscape directly to the film, and a DVD player showing other scenes (and Easter Eggs) while we were driving.
It was a cool tour, and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Queenstown. Wanaka Sightseeing also does the Edoras tour (and other fly-over tours) in Christchurch, and I’m sure that one is even more spectacular. Just Google Wanaka Sightseeing. (I’d link it, but I don’t want to use up my $2/20min Internet time.)
Interesting LotR things we found out:
1. When Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas think Merry and Pipin are dead, Aragorn kicks a helmet in frustration, yells, and falls to his knees. The kicking of the helmet was planned. The rest was because Viggo Mortensen had just broken a toe kicking the helmet.
2. When Aragorn headbutts the Orc (where he gets dragged by a Warg and goes over the cliff), he ends up hitting the guy playing the Orc’s head so hard that he actually split it open (through two layers of rubber material).
Other notable film things we saw:
1. The remains of a North Korea (?) set from the 1980s Disney film The Rescue.
2. Right next to that was where they are currently building Logan’s Canadian hut/house in the upcoming Wolverine X-men prequel.
3. Lake Wakatipu (the lake we're on) is also the site for the water scenes in The Water Horse.
-