One GPS to find them all
Detroit Free Press feature on Rings tourism recommends Ian Brodie’s Lord of the Rings Location Book. One for the truly dedicated, the guide offers the exact coordinates of incidental sites for those equipped with…
Tag Archives: Lord of the Rings (The)
Voters Under Ring’s Influence
The Lord of the Rings trilogy was voted second most influential movie/s of the last 75 years in a poll for BBC News Online, ahead of Citizen Kane, the Godfather series and 2001: A…
Jackson fan club continued…
Michael Scragow, former staff writer for The New Yorker and Rolling Stone, airs his opinions on this year’s Oscars. “I am just floored that Peter Jackson was not nominated for best director … I…
Winning-over Delhi bellies
The Taj Palace Hotel in Delhi held a NZ food festival in honour of The Two Towers‘ Indian release. The event, organised by the NZ Trade Commission, aimed to win the hearts of…
Blown Away by Windy City Styles
“Dull (never)” The Australian takes in the sights, sounds and tastes of Wellington in a glowing weekend feature. On a “perfect summer’s day” they breeze through cultural institutions (Pataka Museum and Te Papa), funky fashion (House of Hank,…
FX to rule them all
The Two Towers cleaned up at the Visual Effects Society awards in L.A, winning 8 of the 9 categories for which it was nominated. Towers streaked ahead of Star Wars: Episode II to…
Crowe KO’s the Competition
Empire‘s 2003 awards had a strong NZ flavour, with Russell Crowe picking up Best Actor and Peter Jackson and The Two Towers winning Best Director and Best Film. In other Crowe news, the NZ-born…
Precious Guests
Gollum and his maker are to share star-billing at the University of Teesside’s annual animation festival. Weta Digital’s lead animator, Jason Schleifer, will be on hand to deliver a series of lectures and workshops.
Rolling With It
The best supporting location features in the Observer‘s list of 20 dream holidays for the 21st century. “Hobbit fever has made NZ one of the hottest destinations of the new century, and there is still one…
Pleasure Island
Scotsman travel writer leaves the Southern Alps to Frodo and heads for the sunny shores of Waiheke Island, where bach culture and Gucci collide. “All kinds of homely structures are clinging to the hillside All have…
Hobbits air-borne
Air New Zealand has launched its second “hobbit plane” with a maiden voyage to Los Angeles. The fuselage features Rings characters Aragorn and Arwen, as well as picturesque NZ scenery, in a canny marketing…
When Fact and Fantasy Collide…
Confused travellers the world over are trying to book holidays to Middle Earth’s fictional locations. According to popular internet site Yahoo Travel, Rivendell and Mordor are frequently entered as search commands. Yahoo Travel’s Morgan Williams: “Personally I’d…
NZ: Lonely Planet Hot Spot 2003
Proving that NZ is not only destination of choice for Louis Vuitton carrying America’s Cup acolytes, Lonely Planet, bible of the young and Birkenstocked, picks NZ as the grand winner in its annual survey of hot spots….
Precious Acclaim: Two Films Tower Over Rest
“For the first time in a century, Hollywood was beaten in the big budget fantasy stakes. Jackson and his team delivered better special effects and better story-telling in what could be the new millennium’s…
Pick of the critics
Peter Jackson has received a nomination for best director from the London Film Critics Circle for his work on Lord of the Rings. The prestigious awards are chosen by London reviewers and are to be presented…
Marketing Middle Earth
“Historically isolated by geography, NZers are working to reap a publicity bonanza from , marketing their nation around the world as a destination for family tourism and ‘a second Canada’ for…
News Lexicon
“The real Middle Earth” features in the annual BBC round-up of new additions to the media lexicon. The official definition: “The country formerly known as New Zealand. An NZ government minister has been appointed unofficial ‘minister for…
Muss vs. Hollywood
“It is not just Lord of the Rings that is ushering in a golden age of Kiwi cinema. Everywhere you look, NZers are taking over Tinseltown.” From Peter Jackson, Lee Tamahori and Vincent Ward,…
“A Little Madness Helps”
In an NYT essay Peter Jackson describes the 14 months it took to film the Rings trilogy as a “protracted bout of willful madness with seven units shooting multiple elements simultaneously for the…
Frodo Air
An Air NZ Boeing 747 has become the latest (and largest) Lord of the Rings billboard. The plane sports a 36m image of the hobbit leads down either side of its fuselage. The advertising is part…
Middle Earth to the Masses
Te Papa’s Lord of the Rings exhibition (opening 19 December) is set to go global. The interactive collection of costumes, props, sets, and gadgetry mounts a two year international tour from February 2002, which includes stop-offs…
Ringing its Praises
“A rare perfect mating of filmmaker and material” (NY Times). The Two Towers has been released with a series of glitzy premieres and press reviews which more than match the hype. Variety: “It’s hard to imagine…
Tyler no diva
Liv Tyler talks to The Scotsman about making movies Middle Earth-style. “It was a labour of love for everyone. There weren’t a lot of perks. We didn’t have these huge trailers and all these excessive…
Great southern (is)Land
The South Island was ranked fourth on the BBC‘s “50 places to see before you die,” clocking in behind the Grand Canyon, Great Barrier Reef, and Disney World. The list was compiled via a phone…
NZ: High-end Bottom of the World Destination
Turning conventional wisdom upside down New York Times finds that:”isolation, long an obstacle to international tourism, has become a plus in the post-Sept. 11 world. New Zealand, long promoted as clean and green, is now adding “safe.”…
LOTR
The Fellowship of the Ring won the Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation at the World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, California. In attendance for the ceremony were Sean Astin (A.K.A Sam Gamgee) and NZer…
The blink and you’ll miss him sex symbol
“Lord of the extras: Elfin charmer nets fans.” A pout like that and musical and comedic talent! Wellington musician Bret McKenzie (The Black Seeds, Flight of the Conchords) has found internet fame via…
Airborne Frodo-philes
“They can visit Lothlorien They can smell the smells and see the sights that Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee felt.” After months spent ferrying cast and crew around NZ, Milford-based Glenorchy Air is now offering Tolkein…
Scene stealing
The LA Times surveys an “invasion of American films by directors and stars from Down Under. The biggest star now working in American films who began in his native New Zealand is Russell Crowe…
Peter Jackson
How on (middle?) earth did one of the Twentieth Century’s most mythic and popular works of literature, JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, end up being translated into cinema in the largest movie…
Best Haul
Ironically for Lynn, NZ was once again voted “Best Long Haul Country” over Australia, Cuba, Japan, Thailand et al by Guardian and Observer readers – they must have got off the bus and visited at…
Journey to Middle Earth
Following in the tradition of cine-tourism success prompted by such films as A Passage to India, Out of Africa, and Crocodile Dundee, New Zealand is enjoying its busiest ever summer tourism season, due in part…
Tower de force
Pictures from Two Towers, the second instalment of Lord of the Rings, can be viewed in this Sun Online special.
Best Supporting Landmass
Tourists lured by LotR: “Too bad they don’t give Oscars for ‘best supporting landmass’. If they did New Zealand’s role in Lord of the Rings would have swept that award”, reports travel editor Anne…
Wellywood Story
LA film producers look to the edge for inspiration in an attempt to reverse the trend of productions increasingly being shot in foreign locations to cut costs: “Los Angeles is not like Wellington”, says…
Oscar Post
They’ll need a nui kete: The technical and creative talent of the NZ film industry acknowledged with Oscars. The Andrew Adamson directed Shrek takes best animated feature. Peter Jackson’s first installment in the Lord…
King of the Rings
“New Zealand has always reserved its greatest adulation for sporting giants like Richard Hadlee and Jonah Lomu, but a place must now be found on the victory dais for director Peter Jackson What…
Bafta – Remembered Gold
Lord of the Rings is ready to cast its spell on the Oscars after bewitching the Baftas with five awards, including best film and best director, for Peter Jackson: “I wanted to make films…
Are You Looking at Us?
PJ helmed, NZ-made Lord of the Rings…Russell Crowe in Beautiful Mind…Andrew Adamson co-directed Shrek. The Oscars go antipodean as the edge gives Hollywood a prod in tandem with a strong Australian presence. LotR is…
Paradise Found
The Southern Alps. The Tongariro volcanoes. The Fiordland rain forest. “There is something archetypal about the scenery here, as though someone copied the planet’s most distinctive landscapes and jammed them all on two islands….New Zealand is the…
Rings Cleans Up Awards
Lord of the Rings wins Best Film, Best Debut, and Best Actor at the Empire Awards 2001. “It was the greatest experience of our professional lives, going to New Zealand and working with Peter Jackson…
Middle Earth homestay
“I just want to stay in NZ making my stuff.” PJ interviewed by PBS’s Charlie Rose. Listen to the interview here for a fascinating conversation as Peter Jackson talks candid camera for an…
South Sea’s Start-up
Stephen “Warehouse” Tindall, (Forbes: “the Sam Walton of the South Pacific”) backs NZ technology innovation in Red Herring. Citing do-it-yourself Kiwi advances in biotech, multimedia and software (the world’s leading agricultural bio-tech research and the…
Fans Flock to Tolkien Trail
“Thanks to a bunch of elves, orcs and hobbits”, New Zealand is “one of this year’s most fashionable tourist destinations”. Experts believe the trilogy will boost NZ’s tourist industry by a third. On the edge we’ve always…
Great Escape
The Times lists New Zealand a hot destination, due to scenery witnessed in Lord of the Rings. United Kingdom travel companies report 20 per cent increases in travel bookings since the film’s release. .
Top Honours and Front-runner in Oscar-quest
The Lord of the Rings wins Best Picture, Best Digital Effects, and Best Production Design at the American Film Institute Awards. Closer to home, Peter Jackson is named Companion of the New Zealand Order…
Movie of the year
“The most heartbreaking thing about faithful movie-going is that awe, beauty and excitement, three of the things we go to the movies for, are the very things we’re cheated out of the most. The…
Heavenly Creatures
“Director Peter Jackson knew something Hollywood did not. He knew that his home country was more than a match for the imaginative breadth of Tolkien’s vision. The Lord of the Rings blows the secret – there is…
Lord of the Screen
“The Lord of the Rings is easily the best film of the year” – The Times. “Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the fantasy classic is as near to perfection as makes no difference” -…
Floored by the Rings
“The real star of The Lord of the Rings is New Zealand. The scenery, ranging from snowbound mountain passes to rolling grasslands, has a beauty of jaw-dropping quality and it is all lovingly captured…
Oscar front-runner
“Oscar is no great fan of fantasy. But the Lord of the Rings, with such Oscar heavyweights as Ian McKellen and Ian Holm, may carry enough high-class baggage to over come that prejudice”.
Awesome Enthusiasm
It’s awesome,” enthuses Middle Earth’s biggest small man, Elijah Wood about upcoming Lord of the Rings. “It’s a really, really incredible group of people and a very brilliant, talented group of artists who…
“Trust me: it is magnificent”
“At the end of this first film, Frodo and Sam are separated from the rest and row across the river, destination Mount Doom: on even a scratchy video, Elijah Wood and Sean Astin are…
All that is golden…
The Lord of the Rings (the book) – boyish fantasy or “true myth” that is a modern masterpiece?
Rings Actors Awestruck
“It seems that those involved are only starting to realise just how big a movie project with which they have been involved. The actors were awe-struck by look of the movie and the spectacular…
