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The end is
nigh. And everywhere you turn there's a party going on. As
supplementary shooting on The Lord Of The Rings : The Retun
Of The King ebbs to a close in July 2003. New Zealand life
continues to mirror J.R.R. Tolkien's eloquent prose. The cast
and crew are heads down tinkering with the hard-won victory
scenes during the day, while by night the set has been buzzing
to a procession of farewell shindigs as each returning actor
completes their duties beneath those familiar costumes for the
very last time. Both in the battle-scarred realms of
Middle-Earth and at Stone Street Studios, the air is pervaded by
a strange blend of joy and melancholy.
Hobbit extra
Peter Eastwood (no relation, Clint), a naturally diminutive tax
inspector from Auckland blessed with startlingly large eyes,
stubs out his cigarette and grins from ear to pointy ear.
"I was going to be Sean Astin's stand-in" he announces
to anyone in the vinicity whom he suspects is a member of the
press, "but I've been a Hobbit, another Hobbit, and a Dwarf
at the council Of Elrond, and now I'm that first Hobbit
again."
During lunch, waiting to be rustled back to finish a secret "Shire party
scene" for the end of movie, the Hobbits tend to stick together. This
bunch, fully bedecked as squat English country gents, enjoying a fag break in
the soft Wellington sunshine, are so accustomed to the relaxed but determined
procedures on Peter Jackson's mammoth shoot that there is no sense that they
are, infact, merely extras borrowed at regular intervals from the P60s of daily
life for a quick fix of Hobbiton. Mr. Eastwood is just a part of the extended
Jackson family enjoying his final fling on the record-breaking Tolkien
triple-header.
A Dwarf's dash
away on Stage A, currently disguised as Rohan's Golden Hall, a
different party is going on. Sir Ian Mckellen's Gandalf and
Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn are laughing at some off-camera
hi-jinks (Gimli is, in fact, teaching Legolas to drink at the
Helm's Deep aftershow), but their weather-worn faces darken as
talk turns to Frodo's chances of survival. Solemnly uttering his
final line in the Wizard's smoky, thoroughbred tones, now as
familiar as Brando's gravelly Don Corleone or James Jone's
rasping Vader, McKellen turns to the camera and pulls a double
thumbs-up and cheeky-chappy grin more reminiscent of Jimmy
Krankie's squeaky "Fandabidozil!" catchphrase than the
mighty demeanour of Mithrandir, greatest of the Istari.
Sprawled in his
ever-present armchair behind his ever-ready bank of monitors is
Peter Jackson, the man who shot J.R.R... Lost in concentration,
he rubs his beard. There is equally no sense that this is the
man currently occupying the position of "world's favourite
director" - there's far too much to do to swallow such
trifles. He's smiling at his star's antics, but is not yet
content with the scene.
"Let's go
again, Ian," he hollers accross the crowd.
McKellen nods,
shares a secret word with Mortensen and resumes his position,
and in a blink the Wizard's noble mantle slips back onto his
face and they go again.
There is the
slighest twinge of tension in the air. They've got a lot to get
through and it's Mortensen's farewell bash this evening. Still,
Jackson's been up against it for eight years all told, and he's
not about to be fazed by the workload. Besides, this is a breeze
- he's only working on one film now.
"Everything
is under control," he agrees. "It feels very relaxed.
It's the most enjoyable post-production of all three, although
in a sense it is the most complicated in terms of what digital
has to do. I guess we've had the first two films to practice.
And that's what it feels like at the moment, that the first two
films were merely practice for this one."
He takes a
glance at his actors, awaiting the next set-up sneakily within
earshot of their director's outpourings, and smiles contentedly.
Film three - as
everyone perfunctorily refers to it - is where the entire
trilogy comes together. The dizzying number of plot strands will
unite again, as the good guys finally face off against the
massed ranks of Sauron's slavering Orcs and screaming Nazgūl,
Aragorn gets his royal comeback, and Frodo will shinny up Mount
Doom at last. Not to say that everything goes exactly to plan.
Overall, the message is clear from all concerned : buckle up,
this one is the big one, the best one, the one where the shit
really hits the Fangorn.
"The first
film was entirely exposition," confirms Jackson.
"Everything
had to be built around explaining who the seperate characters
were, what they were doing and why it was so important. The
second film, like any middle movie, was adding complication. In
a way it was still just exposition. We've gone through two
entire movies, and six hours of exposition, and now we get three
hours of pay-off."
The Return Of
The King is Jackson's favourite. He's been feverishly
anticipating this stage - no more introducing characters, no
more cliffhanging endings as the camera swoops into the sky to
tease us with a glimpse of industrial hellhole, Mordor.
"I've come
to realise that the third film is the reason why you make ths
first two," he continues. "You want to get to this
one, you want to finish it. Also, when Film Three is released
you get this other dynamic - at that point it will probably
become, in most people's minds, a nine-hour film."
Plus you get
Aragorn passing through the Paths Of The Dead. Pippin and Merry
taking up arms, more Gollum, more Gandalf, Frodo's confrontation
with a monstrous giant spider known as Shelob, the pearly-white
spectacle of seven-tiered citadel Minas Tirith, and not one,
but two enormous conflicts.
"If Helm's
Deep was an epic battle unlike anything seen in cinema before,
the battle at Minas Tirith is ten times that," raves Weta
Digital Effects Supervisor Richard Taylor. "In the case of
Helm's Deep we had 10,000 Uruk-hai fighting 150 Elves, and with
Rohan we are talking about 200,000 Orcs going up against the
city. The numbers are exponentially increasing."
"I think
this is the one - everything is bigger," squeals
screenwriter Philippa Boyens, dangerously close to a fit of the
vapours. "Peter has been storing up this stuff. I saw the
charge of the Rohirrim and was like, 'Oh my God! You're kidding
me.' This is, like 6,000 horsemen charging at the camera. The
ground is shaking, their swords are raised. It's just
incredible."
And while the
spectacle has been ramped up ten-fold, the emotional content is
going to fly pretty close to devastating. Pack your hankies, for
even the rough-cut has had them snivelling in the aisles.
"One of
the things I worry about in Film Three is that it is so
emotional," says Boyens, "that you start to worry
about how much people can handle. You've had two films to set up
these characters; people love them. There is one line I think
will become one of the great film lines, which Sam says to Frodo
on the slopes of Mount Doom : 'I can't carry it, but I can carry
you'. I was just crying and crying."
Just one thing
- it may be a tad longer than the first two.
Jackson bursts
into laughter : "On the first two movies we had this
absolute edict from New Line that they couldn't be longer than
two-and-a-half hours, which we kind of ignored. This year we had
an edict saying it mustn't be longer than three hours. We are
making progress. More than that, though, this is the one I am
most proud of, and will give it the room it needs. It's just
great - we are heading towards an ending, a climax!" Out
: Dec. 17
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