September 2000 Update

The bones of Minas Tirith are really taking shape now, raising new walls and domed turrets around the old walls of Helm's Deep in Wellington.

Meanwhile Edoras was completed and made it onto New Zealand's TV1 news with some spectacular views. As the E!Online report says, Edoras is one of the great triumphs of the production so far. By the end of the month filming had begun with 220 extras and 100 horses. The film company threw them a big party at the end of filming, thanking them for working under tough conditions.

The third week of September brought us news of a whole new location down in the South Island at Mavora Lakes, and a spy who was in the area got some wonderful pictures of a scene with the actors and one of the delicate small boats the Fellowship uses. Dark high hills and drifting mist added to the magic of the scene. A few days later we got some other images from some small but feisty newspapers who got shots of a big mob of orcs in armour doing the massing-armies thing.

The news media has been throwing round more figures concerning the size of the the Rings' budget, with Vanity Fair adding it up to $US270 million.

Cast news included the fact that New Zealander Joel Tobeck was no longer being considered for the role of the young (and non-CGI)Gollum. Young Gollum? These films are certainly including the essential backhistory to the main story! The E!Online report for the end of the month mentioned Theoden at his son's funeral, showing how even recent background will be woven into the story.

We celebrated Bilbo's and Frodo's Birthdays on the 22nd by setting up a contest - Gollum's Riddle Challenge. As usual we hoped it'd go on for days and days, but you people proved too smart and once again it was over in a matter of hours. We should get the winners to design the next one.....

Barliman's chat room and TheOneRing.net messageboards are lively places these days, and both forums are looking at organising big real-life get-togethers for their inhabitants.

Those people who love a bit of nostalgia got together for a Hall of Fire chat on the 16th and reminisced about their first encounter with Tolkien's work, and how it's grown on them since then. The next Hall of Fire celebrated the publication of 'The Hobbit' with a discussion of its impact on the world.

In Gaming news, Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings Board Game started rolling off the presses, and we posted some good-looking pics of their cards.

As the month ended we were still awaiting confirmation of the first showing of a Lord of the Rings trailer in the movie theatres. There's a rumour that it could come attached to New Line's Dungeons and Dragons movie which comes out on the 8th of December.