Today we took a trip down to a town called Matamata. For those of you who may have a life and don't know the significance of Matamata, I'll fill you in. On a farm outside of this town is the site where the "Hobbiton" set was built for the Lord of the Rings films. We spent two hours in the Shire today! How many of you can say that? Like I said, I know I'm a dork.
This is something I really wanted to do before we even arrived in New Zealand. After we got here we found out that one of the kids in the church we're working with is a huge LOTR fan as well so we invited him to come along with us. He was very excited. I think for John today was like an early Christmas. He was cracking us up with his enthusiasm.
The Hobbit holes you're seeing in these pictures are the only sets remaining from the LOTR films. According to the contracts, the film company was supposed to dismantle all the film sets and return them to their natural state. They were about half way through demolishing Hobbiton when bad weather halted the demolition. The owners of the property realized what they were sitting on and asked New Line Cinema to leave what was left of the Shire intact. New Line agreed but due to contractual issues the owners are not allowed to improve on the remains (which is why they look so barren) since New Line technically still owns them. Ahh, the joy of legalities.
Our tour guide escorted us around the property and told us all about how this place was selected and developed and blah, blah, blah. Most of the Hobbit holes were just facades but we actually got to go inside of Bag End (again, for those of you who have lives, that was Bilbo and Frodo's home). It was interesting finding out little bits of trivia about the process of set construction. Apparently Peter Jackson is a very meticulous director. For example, in the book there is an Oak tree on the top of Bag End but there were no Oak trees on the actual property they were filming on. No problem. They drove 30 minutes down the road and bought an Oak tree that was on someone else's property, cut it up into numbered pieces like a huge organic jigsaw puzzle, then hauled all 2 tons of the Oak jigsaw pieces back to the set where it was carefully reconstructed with wire and bolts by University students. One other thing, the tree was dead when they bought it so it didn't have any leaves. No problem. Peter Jackson ordered artificial Oak leaves and had them imported from Taiwan and they were then wired to the reconstructed tree. Did I mention that this particular Oak tree only has about 11 seconds of screen time in the films?
While the Oak tree was no longer standing the Party Tree was. If you don't know what the Party Tree is I'm not gonna take the time to explain it. It's in several scenes of the film and is a fairly significant landmark in the books. It was one of the only natural pieces of the set that was not imported, besides the hills themselves. Anyway, we saw all that remains of the set as well as hundreds of sheep. The farm that Hobbiton was built on is an active sheep farm and there were many active sheep roaming about. There was also quite a lot of evidence of their presence all over the ground if you catch my drift.
Overall it was a good time, though I do think it's way overpriced. The adult fare is $50 (we each got a $5 discount because we had a coupon and we have the luxury of converting the price back to the American dollar which means we only paid about $30). They have quite a little bank roll going here if you think about it. First, they were paid however much money by New Line just for the use of their land in the first place. Second, when I asked him, the tour guide informed me that they easily get 300 people a day during the Summer season. Do the math, $50x300x30=$450,000 a month. Three months in the Summer season equals around $1,350,000 (remember, that's the total for one season). Third, imagine what will happen if this same land is used when "The Hobbit" is made into a full-length film. Suddenly I'm wondering if the Alexander family is looking to adopt any adult children.
Am I glad we came? Yes. Will I visit Hobbiton again? Not unless they do film "The Hobbit" there and actually leave more of the set this time. Would I recommend you visit Hobbiton if you get the chance? That depends on whether you're as big a dork as I am.
