Bliss and the Retiree: The Hobbit premiere

Showing posts with label The Hobbit premiere. Show all posts

Friday, December 21, 2012

Gandalf hat from "The Hobbit" premiere

At the world premiere of "The Hobbit" part 1" in Wellington last November, they threw out into the crowds, Gandalf hats. They had the premiere name, date, etc on them. I expect the other premieres around the world will have the hat thrown out, too, but with different dates and venues on them. They are made from felt and they made beaut sunhats on the day.

I had my 4th swim for December at Hataitai Beach today. I need five swims this month to make it a minimum of five swims a month all through this year. Even if there's a hurricane, a typhoon, a tsunami, the worst, coldest storm in history every day until the end of December, I still have to get in one more swim, otherwise every swim this year, including all those terribly cold winter swims, will have been for naught. Darn it, J has already done her five swims for this month. We decided that this month only (being December when we didn't know if we could coincide with each other) we would be allowed to swim singly (rule book rule).

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

More Hobbit premiere

Hi there

At a specified time yesterday when the audience were invited to count down, the Air New Zealand 'hobbit' plane flew overhead. It has paintings of the Hobbit cast, designs, settings, etc, on it. I was lucky enough to be walking around Miramar the other day and it went overhead as it left the runway, gaining height, and so I had a great view. Not such a great view as it flew over at the premiere, naturally, because it was so high in the sky. Actually, I can't understand why I'm even attaching a plane photo. It reminds me of those photos we've all taken where we think we've got a shot of a beautiful island that's not that far away, and when the photo turns out, all you can see is a tiny dot way, way, way in the background.

Arriving in Wellington from England, the plane had picked up Hobbit actors in both London and America to bring them here. Personally, I think the designs on the original LOTR plane were more stand-y out-y. Some flight attendants from Air New Zealand walked the red carpet. Several of the women had added Hobbit tiaras to their uniforms (like in the Air New Zealand tv commercial). The women were all beautiful, but the men, OMG, they were... gorgeous; I wanted to vault the railing and ravish every one of them.

We edge-of-the-red-carpet-sitters-and-standers kept looking at the countdown clock on the top of the Embassy theatre to see how long it would be before the happenings started. Here's a pic of the end- result clock.

"The Hobbit" World Premiere in Wellington, New Zealand

Okay, yes, I've now learnt that premier has an 'e' on the end of it so, henceforth, I will try to remember to type the word 'premiere!

I got down to Courtenay Place about 9.45 a.m. Most of the front rows were taken but I managed to find a front row possie just around the corner from the red carpet and opposite the stage which was all done up to resemble a hobbit burrow in the side of a hill, and had two hobbit doors. The band playing a couple of times during the wait was Neil Finn's who is singing the 'mountain morn' song on the soundtrack of "The Hobbit". He's one of NZ's favourite top evergreen singers. Check out his pedigree.

It was very very very hot. There were over 100,000 of us squashed together. There were lots of people dressed up, mainly as hobbits. They looked so good. Thousands upon thousands of tourists who had come expressly for the premiere. Red Carpet Tours had a group there and they seemed to be really enjoying themselves.

I sat on the ground, then stood up, then on the ground, then stood up... and it continued like this until 3 pm. After the first few hours a maintenance crew came out with ladders, tools and posters. They immediately transformed the traffic lights in front of me into a giant Gandalf monolith , thereby blocking half my view. I managed to squeeze sideways a couple of feet away from the monolith. After another couple of hours, a very very big camera on a crane took up residence in front of me in my new position, blocking a lot of the stage. Then some security guys stood in front of the one bit of stage that I could now see. From 3 pm until 7.30 I stood up, and please remember I had a sore foot!

I hardly saw a celebrity on the red carpet because right beside me on the corner was a group of PETA animal rights campaigners complaining about mistreatment of animals on the movie set (this is complete rot because the SPCA was on the set all the time and they said the animals were treated very well) and they waved placards. They did not reveal themselves until the last second. Naturally the stars scooted away from these people, so no star really came near where I was standing. After a while, a group of security people stood directly in front of the PETA people holding up their own (Hobbit) placards trying to block off the PETA ones, but not before the press had had a field day taking pictures of the PETA folk.

I did spot James Cameron, director of "Avatar" for a brief moment. He's a NZ citizen now and lives in the Wairarapa, somewhere near Peter Jackson's estate. All the 'dwarfs', too, were there, but honestly, there were so many of them that I got all muddled up with who was who.

At 6 pm, the speeches began and I managed to get some photos (well about 50 actually and here's just a few of them) but by now the sun was lowering and it was shining in the wrong direction. Oh dear. I truly don't believe I'll go to any more premieres. It's just not worth it anymore, what with the long wait, the heat, and having waited 8 hours I only got to see folk on the stage for a short time and by then I was almost on the verge of collapsing (hey, old person here, remember?).

Elijah Wood (See a PETA placard being held a-high over to the left?)

James Nesbitt

Peter Jackson emerging out of hobbit burrow onto the stage.

Peter Jackson with MGM and Warners reps. Thank you reps for finally letting us make "The Hobbit" in New Zealand. But you almost gave us all nationwide heart attacks for a week or so!