wildyams

Lord of the Rings Weekend

I went to see Return of the King with Cookie and Amy and her boyfriend Andrew, and at which Peter Jackson (the director), Fran Walsh (writer), Philippa Boyens (writer), Mark Ordesky (executive producer), and Robert Shaye (head of New Line) all spoke. Yesterday I saw The Two Towers at which Elijah Wood (Frodo), Sean Astin (Sam), Howard Shore (composer), and Ngila Dickson (costume designer) all spoke. At both events the panels of people all spoke for about an hour or so, and both times there were some interesting things that were said. Here's some highlights:

- Elijah Wood has apparently never read The Lord of the Rings, and Sean Astin had never heard of it before he found out that Peter Jackson was making it (although he's since read it).

- Sean Astin compared auditioning for a movie to dropping your pants and asking a girl "if it was big enough" for her, and then if she said no to saying "well you'll call me if you're ever looking for a small one then, right?"

- Yesterday Howard Shore was working on the score for the Extended Edition of Return of the King, and today he won the Grammy for the score for The Two Towers

- Peter Jackson and co. first approached Mirimax about doing these movies, and after a series of meetings the Weinstein Bros. said they wanted to make them into one movie that was not to run over 2 hours in length, with such adjustments as removing the entire scene in Moria; having only one king instead of Theoden of Rohan and Denethor of Gondor, and having one Hobbit die.

- Robert Shaye came to Weta in New Zealand to help show international investors what they were doing to try to raise money for the project, and upon seeing the posters there for some of Jackson's earlier works like Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles, wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into by giving Jackson so much money to make these movies

- Peter Jackson just won the Director's Guild award for Best Director for Return of the King.

- Elijah Wood got the part of Frodo in large part because he rented a Hobbit costume and went up in the hills surrounding Los Angeles and acted out scenes from the book while his friends video taped him.

- When Ian McKellan asked Peter Jackson why Gandalf would take to fighting orcs hand to hand instead of using magic on them, Jackson (who said he thought the idea of wizards using too much magic was a "cheat" or a "cop out") told him that Gandalf's staff was out of batteries, so Gandalf had to resort to hitting people with it.

- Near the end of production they had so many costumes stored away for reshoots that they practically needed a "costume librarian" to keep track of where they all were.

- Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens started out the project most identifying themselves with Arwen and Eowyn, respectively; but ended up most identifying themselves with Gollum and Shelob, respectively (Shelob was the giant spider, FYI).

- Fran Walsh kicks ass at Risk, and Mark Ordesky sucks at it.

- Peter Jackson apparently didn't bring anything else to wear on his trip here to LA cause he was wearing exactly the same thing today that he was on Friday (or he is like Seth Brundle and Albert Einstein and his whole wardrobe is the same set of clothes for every day of the week).

Ok, that's pretty much it (I'm already being quite ridiculous by even writing as much as I did), but all in all it was a great time this weekend, and it was great to see the trilogy again. I doubt I'll watch any of it again until the DVD for Return of the King comes out (which is in May, I believe).

After the movie, Cookie and I (he had picked me up to drive us there so as to split the cost of parking) walked over and had dinner at Hamburger Hamlet, which he had been wanting to go to, and which I am always up for. Cookie said he hadn't been there in probably 5 years or more, and was kind of curious to try the mini-cheeseburgers he'd read about here on my blog, so we both got those. Anyway, this entry is long enough, so I'm gonna say goodnight.