LotR RotK Premiere Today In New Zealand 279
donnz writes "Things are getting a little out of hand in Wellington today. For those of you who have not spent the night sleeping on the sidewalk CityLink have been wiring up webcams all over the place. Keep up with all the news and links on Stuff.co.nz. Just to show we are twice blessed, the sun is shining."
LOTR ROFK Premier... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:LOTR ROFK Premier... (Score:3, Funny)
Using Linux and KDE (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:5, Interesting)
Much of the battle at Helmsdeep, for instance, is AI program vs AI program. Awesome.
*of course, the first time they tried it, the humans broke ranks and just ran away from the orcs. What does that say?
RD
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually according to TTT extended version DVDs, the AI's in the back just started running away from the battle. The reason being that they had programmed the AIs to start running in random directions if they coudn't see an enemy AI, hoping that like this the AIs would run into an ennemy sooner or later. If your AI is at the back of a 10000 people uruquai army, then this strategy won't really work, so they changed it...
nothing to see here, move on....
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:3, Interesting)
Yet another excuse to plug Interface, the VUW Computer Club [interface.org.nz], which ran that event (or more accurately, took it over from the CS department): if you're a CS student at VUW, you really should become a member.
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like that commercial was right "when the courage of men fail"...
Good thing we had Aragorn eh
That humans are more intelligent than orcs? (Score:2)
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:2, Funny)
That evil will always triumph because good is dumb?
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:2)
--They weren't running away, they were executing a "strategic retreat" in order to set up an ambush. Breaking ranks was just to make it look convincing. (whistles innocently)
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:2)
As much fun as the urban myth about the kangaroos shooting the helicopter down cos they forgot to remove the stinger missiles from the infantry models that were converted to kangaroo figures???
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:4, Informative)
Acording to snopes [snopes.com], the core of this story actually happened, but the story has been elaborated extensively. The programmers did re-use the "infantry" models in the simulation for kangaroos. As a bit of fun early in the project they intentionally left the ability of the kangaroos the kangaroos to fiure back intact, but the kangaroos did not fire stinger missiles. They fired beach balls at the helicopters.
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:5, Informative)
Linux is a pretty popular platform in the industry. Maya seems to be a little slower on Linux than Windows (don't flame me: talk to Alias). And expect to find tens or hundreds of nodes of Linux-based renderfarm all over the place. All our shots for Matrix III were rendered on Athlons running RedHat.
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:2)
Now that it's over, what are you up to these days? Still working for them or have you moved on? Might have to update my profie so it's not so horribly out of date and we can move this conversation elsewhere.
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:5, Funny)
Everybody knows they could have done this faster and cheaper if they were running BSD.
*ducks to avoid flames*
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:5, Funny)
Well, they could... if BSD weren't dead already. :)
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux loses to Windows on the desktop in the *range* of apps that is available and in the *range* of hardware that's available.
Linux is not useful to Windows Geeks who inhabit slashdot because it doesn't have all the cool hardware support provided by leading edge hardware supplier. Still there is lots of cool hardware that *does* work well with Linux.
Linux loses on the 20% of corp desktops that need a range of sophisticated apps. It loses in the consumer market because it doesn't come pre-configured and Johnny -down-the-street who maintains Joe-blows Windows box doesn't know Linux yet.
Once a beachhead on corp desktop is established for 80% of machines that just do routine things, other opportunities will become available.
KDE or GNOME are both excellent desktop environments.
Re:Using Linux and KDE (Score:2)
Good for NZers (Score:5, Insightful)
Premier for the Stars (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good for NZers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good for NZers (Score:5, Interesting)
Really I would.
Need books first (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Good for NZers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good for NZers (Score:3, Funny)
If you don't understand this joke... (Score:3, Informative)
LOTR prequels? (Score:2, Funny)
I'm waiting for the prequels: The Hobbit, episode 2, and episode 3, however the Tolkien family and Peter Jackson decide to write them.
Re:LOTR prequels? (Score:2)
Re:LOTR prequels? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good for NZers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good for NZers (Score:3, Informative)
If you're from Europe or North America you'll get a tourist visa at point of entry.
Re:Good for NZers (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, that 20 minute drive can be a real pain in the ass...
The only hard part is the flight to get there, after that it's pretty easy. The impressive part is that you can go from the beach, to snowcapped mountains, to a rainforest in a day. In fact, if you're a real masochist you can compete in the Speights Coast to Coast, a race from one side of the country, over the Southern Alps, to the other, and see some very impressive scenery on the way. Serious competeors complete the race without stopping. Normal people do the race as a 2 day event.
Jedidiah.
Re:Good for NZers (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but given that most of the film crew were New Zealanders that's not that surprising. A lot of people dont seem to realise, this is largely a New Zealand film. The production money is from New Line, and that's US, but the director (Jackson
), screenplay writers (Jackson, Walsh, Boyens), casting, film crew, locations, costume design, and even the special effects (Weta Workshops, and Weta Digital) etc. are all New Zealand based. Even a large number of the actors are New Zealand actors - the leads, are, of course, big names from overseas, but many of the minor roles, Haldir, Celeborn, Denethor, Eomer etc. are all New Zealanders.
And what's the easiest way to get a large army of orcs for battle scenes? Yes, that's right, they used the New Zealand Army!
New Zealand provided far more than the landscapes - these films are (except for the money) New Zealand films.
Jedidiah.
Re:Good for NZers (Score:2, Informative)
Primer from the CIA World Factbook [cia.gov]:
Re:Good for NZers (Score:2)
The streets here in Wellington are closed for almost two days so we can have a parade of all things. I'll just make sure I take my LOTR DVDs in the hope of getting them signed by someone important (then, EBAY!) and a camera for boasting purposes. This will be, after all, the first and last time this kind of thing happens in Wellington, I'm sure.
Re:Good for NZers (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't realize the New Zealand Army was made up of orcs. No wonder they have never been defeated. Any opponents must be terrified. People just aren't used to fighting orcs.
Re:Good for NZers (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, but they normally truck in senior people from overseas for direction, production, cinematography, senior camera techs etc. and have all the set and costume design done back home. They usually ship all the film stock back to wherever their from for post prodiuction, special effects, and editing.
All of these things were done in NZ.
As I said, the only thing not from New Zeland was pretty much the raw cash from New Line.
Stop and think for a moment. People are happily calling Weta Digital's work on par with ILM. Weta Digital is a little wee New Zealand company. That alone is a pretty significant achievement for a country as small as NZ.
At the end of it all, when you watch the opening credits for the film, you'll see "A Wingnut Films presents" - and Wingnut films is Peter Jackson's NZ film company. You'll see the very same words on the intro to "Bad Taste".
Jedidiah
Some more webcams (Score:2, Informative)
Some more webcams (Score:5, Informative)
These don't seem to be
-
Downtow Courtenay Place [citylink.co.nz]
- Uptown Courtenay Palace [citylink.co.nz]
- The red carpet (live 12noon NZ time)
Camera 1 [citylink.co.nz] and Camera 2 [citylink.co.nz]
Unfortunately there aren't any cams running from *inside* the cinema as yet.If you live in NZ, you can get some visit live streaming cams from the link above [wellingtonnz.com].
LotR RotK? (Score:4, Funny)
Jackson Says Best of the Series (Score:5, Informative)
Here's hoping he's right. November's been a bit of a let down. Matrix Revolutions blew chunks (but nice CGI), Cat in the Hat is outright stupid and Timeline was underwhelming. Kill Bill Vol 1, however, was very cool and I'm looking forward to Feb. 20 to see Vol 2. (Did anyone else think of Sergio Leone's work while watching Kill Bill?)
Re:Jackson Says Best of the Series (Score:2)
New respect for TTT (Score:5, Funny)
If Jackson says it's the best, I'm willing to take his word for it. (Until I see it for myself, and even then I'll probably agree with him, because I have done so in the past.)
I've been watching the making-of interviews and listening to the commentary tracks on the Extended Two Towers DVD With Extra Ass-Kicking And Shiny Bits. Jackson and Walsh explain their reasoning behind the "controversial" decisions (Elves at Helm's Deep, no Shelob, Faramir's initially a jerk, side trip to Osgiliath, etc). The decisions are actually all chained together. And now that I've heard the screenwriter's/director's side of the story, instead of just /. ravings, I have to admit that they probably made the right decisions.
(Okay, maybe not about the Elves showing up. I'm still on deciding that one. The lack of Shelob (leading to the trip to Osgiliath) makes more sense now.)
There's a great comment by Bernard Hill, who played Theoden. (Background: Many of the desired accents changed during the course of filming, and of course there's script rewrites and background noise and whatnot, so almost every actor had to go into a soundbooth at the end and record some overdubs of his/her previous lines.) Anyhow, Hill was recording the lines where the Elves walk into the fortress and he comes running down the stairs. As a joke on Peter Jackson, instead of "How is this possible?", he recorded:
"Who the fucking hell let you lot in the gate?"
Re:New respect for TTT (Score:3, Insightful)
Err, the screenwriter's/directors side of the story was on the screen. If their reasons have to be clarified by a commentary then they were the wrong reasons. This is a movie, not a seminar.
TWW
Re:New respect for TTT (Score:3, Insightful)
Answer 2: The movies were not seminars, but the commentary tracks sort of were. Hence, a seminar-like approach was appropriate.
Answer 3: Making a movie requires thousands of individual decisions, each of which can be individually justified (or not) without crossing the line from movie to seminar.
Re:New respect for TTT (Score:3, Insightful)
Osgiliath is idiot-plotting at its worst: it only works if you assume that everyone involved, Faramir, Frodo, the Nazgul, a
Re:Jackson Says Best of the Series (Score:2)
At least the restaurant scene is not far off from a fray involving Groo - many body parts are always severed...
I'm here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Nevertheless, some of the buildings around Wellington look fantastic, a few adorned with giant models from Weta. I believe the red carpet is over 400 metres long, spanning the length of Courtenay Place, one of our largest streets.
Should be interesting, but really the hype is almost unbearable.
Just letting Slashdot know not every Wellingtonian is so damn excitable!
Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but then you did just post to /. about the story, so...
Here is your chance! (Score:2)
Don't have a website... get one! Plenty of free!
Don't have a camera? Borrow one!
We are waiting
Re:I'm here... (Score:2)
Beats being mistaken as part of Australia all the time ;-)
It's even better publicity if you remember the Matrix films were mostly shot in Sydney!
Re:I'm here... (Score:2)
In related news... (LOTR onion-style humour) (Score:5, Funny)
Dwarven metal-detector only turns up bottlecaps, shattered armor of comrades.
Isildur, eldest son and heir of Elendil, was dissapointed late afternoon last Monday when his attempt to find the ring which slipped off his finger failed. "I was lookining all through the muck, between the reeds and shrubs, and I even wrestled a Gladden Gator to see if it accidentally swallowed it." The King of both Arnor and Gondor then employed his three sons to aid in the search. After much searching amongst the reeds, Elendur, eldest of Isildur's four sons, shouted in the gloom, "I have located it, father!" Unfortunately, upon putting the ring on, Elendur did not dissappear, leaving the red embarrasement on his face plain to the eye. "Must be some other ring," he grumbled. The many corpses strewn across the Gladden Fields did not help the endeavour either. "All of this cracked and broken armor is really throwing off the metal detector. It's like trying to find a needle in a bloody, corpse-strewn haystack. I can only hope my insurance covers this." When pressed for comment, Lloyd's of London only said that "Insurance for rings of power laden with the capability of invisibility is not available, not even for a king of the Numenoreans, largely because "invisible rings" are a huge source of insurance fraud." Later on in the day, the heir of Elendil was slain by an orc. "I can only hope the One Ring is not found by some scheming, hideous halfling-like creature which eminates bubbling-like noises, or else all is lost," he said in his dying words, before another arrow punctured his larynx.
Have you read Saruman's Diary? (Score:2, Funny)
Here's another (Score:5, Funny)
Late Thursday evening, local hobbit Ted Sandyman was only mildly surprised to see the Witch-king of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgul, riding down the road leading up and over The Hill. "Aye, sir, I was a-walkin' down the road to go do some fishin' at the Bywater Pool when up comes this surly fellow all in black," the miller's son commented. "He says to me, he says 'Where can I find Bagginsssss' in a real gruff voice, as if he's the Lord of Angmar, much like. I give him the ol' long look and says straight to his face, 'If it's Baggins you want, then go up-on The Hill. But you look mighty famished, sir, as if you didna' eat for a few centuries.' I then offers him to come over to the mill for some biscuits and the like but 'ee says he hasn't 'et anything for a few centuries 'cuz he's been dead for a few centuries. Than he went a-gallopin' up to the Hill, not even bothering to bid me a good day." Another hobbit, Millo Burrow, also saw the forsaken slave of the second dark lord stroll through the town. "It musta been noon-day when I sees him. He was a-ridin' a black horse, and so at first I thought it was old Mr. Butterbur come from Bree on an errand, but no: I look closer and, bless my hide, it's the Lord of Angmar. I shrug my shoulders and go on my way, seein' as it's no business of mine as to what an eternally damned witch king is doin' in town. Prolly buying some fine Hobbiton cheese, no doubt."
Re:Here's another (Score:2)
The biggest creche in Wellington (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The biggest creche in Wellington (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The biggest creche in Wellington (Score:2)
"And in today's story, the birth rate here in sunny New Zealand has suddenly and mysteriously shot right through the roof..."
It's the little touches (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's the little touches (Score:5, Funny)
See if your cellphone is now on the PalantirNet[tm] service plan. If it is, try not to touch it if the LCD screen shows a glowing eye, okay?
Re:It's the little touches (Score:2)
First time I saw this happen was in Turkey; "ANZAC Cove" cellsite becomes a flashing "ANZAC ceremony" between 6am and midday on ANZAC day, visible all over the Gallipoli penisnsula.
A gift from Turkish Telecom to Kiwis and Aussies apparently.
Review that's not really a review... (Score:4, Informative)
Sooo .... Are the Saruman Scenes In? (Score:2, Redundant)
I was a petition signer, and hope that the scenes made it back into the theatrical release. Of course I'm still undecided if that is a big enough issue to not see the film in the theatre. (Perhaps the number of small children in the lobby will be the stronger deciding factor)
Re:Sooo .... Are the Saruman Scenes In? (Score:5, Insightful)
CityLink's webcams: Anycast (Score:5, Informative)
They've got servers in Wellington and Auckland, plugged into both of the (CityLink-run) peering exchanges there, and they've got a box in the US advertising the same prefix (202.7.4.0/24) - so if you're in NZ, and your ISP isn't crap, you'll get the local servers: everyone else will get the box(es?) in the US.
There are more details here. [waikato.ac.nz]
Anycast is also used for other stuff: the F (IIRC) DNS root server is anycasted for redundancy, and one of the IPv4 to IPv6 transition mechanisms uses anycast to locate a nearby hop-on point to the IPv6 network.
LOTR Saturation (Score:2)
I just turned on TV One - New Zealand's main TV channel, and they have a LOTR backdrop in the news studio.
Paul Holmes, our equivalent of Larry King, is reporting live from the red carpet.
Is it just me, or is New Zealand going a bit over the top here?
I wonder if it's because of our inherent insecurity about being a small and ignorable country. Whenever we get some vaguely worldwide event (America's Cup, Y2K) we go totally over the top. Does anyone not in NZ really care?
Re:LOTR Saturation (Score:4, Insightful)
After all, we are talking perhaps the most expensive and complex project in the history of motion pictures, one that would have cost 70 to 100 percent more if it had been done in the USA or the UK. The fact just the box office revenues from The Fellowship of the Ring more than covered the cost of the entire project (and then some! =) ) means New Zealand should be proud to be the place where one of the most profitable movie projects in history was made.
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:4, Funny)
-GWB
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:2)
Well, intelligence indicates that the new zealanders posses an elvish weapon of mass destruction code named the one true ring...
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Only in the zoo.
Despite the fact that our countries (Australia and NZ) are geographically close we have vastly different flora and fauna. Additionally our indigenous people only share the same skin colour.
Not that close! (Score:2, Interesting)
Geographically close? The distance between Auckland and Sydney is considerably more than say London to Rome, or New York to Miami. And there is nothing between the two countries except water. It'd be a hell of a long swim.
Oh and in response to the earlier " They do have kangaroos in New Zealand, don't they?", no we don't, but Wallabies [doc.govt.nz] are a somewhat similar species (albeit smaller) that was introduced here a long time
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:2)
Everybody else seems to agree that being the first people in an area and predating everybody else by a few hundreds or thousands of years is enough to get you classified as "indigenous".
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:2)
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Kiwis will have the first opportunity to see it when it is officially released to. Comes from being on the right side of the international date line, it's the official date for release a good 12hrs ahead of the US. Also makes for good new years celebration, the first to see in the new year and it's the middle of summer to (so big outdoor parties etc.).
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:2)
Yeah, except that the turkeys at New Line decided to release it here on the 18th (and in the states on the 17th) so we get our first chance about the time the Cali crowd is finishing up the film. We're 21hrs ahead of CA at the moment due to daylight savings down here, so midnight of the 18th he
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Because it is a New Zealand film, and Peter wants to have the first screening in his home town? Seems pretty fair to me. I remember when this decision was made - it was at the New Zealand Two Towers Premiere with Peter making a speech to the crowd (and there was a huge crowd). He got Mark Ordesky (high level New Line exec) up on the platform with him and put him on the spot with "And the Return of the King world premiere will be here in Wellington, wont it Mark". Ordesky, faced with the possibility of pissing of the 10,000 or so gathered people sheepishly said yes. After that Jackson just used that as New Line, saying on public record, that the premiere was going to be in Wellington so New Line couldn't work their way out of it.
This is a huge thing for New Zealand. Pretty much everyone I know from Wellington (even me) was involved in making the film in one way or another. The whole country collectively got behind the production of this film - they deserve a little something in return.
Jedidiah.
Re:WHAT!!! (Score:2)
Re:This can't end well... (Score:4, Informative)
I think, and I may well be wrong, that there is no description of multicasting on the server. Certainly most of NZ's Internet infrastructure isn't multicast capable, and I never did see how they were going to manage to stream this.
There was a brief effort to get Akamai involved. But
Dave
Re:Big deal! (Score:4, Insightful)
It all ways amazes me that people claiming to be "true fans" do whatever they can to ensure that there wont be any thing for them to pirate in the future.
I'm starting to think that the RIAA may have a point, that's a disturbing thought. Must get drunk now.
Re:Big deal! (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh get a grip! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Oh get a grip! (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's people BUYING products that drive profits up. I'm tired of people blaming companies for trying to make money instead of treating all these customers like the lemmings they are for buying into whatever is out there.
Re:Oh get a grip! (Score:2)
Yes. The companies are not obsolved of guilt even if a lot of people don't realise they are being swindled.
Re:Oh get a grip! (Score:2)
I'll be sure to make sure my operating expenses are large enough to drown out the amorality of my income to appease the amateur economist Slashdotter who told me so.
Re:Oh get a grip! (Score:2)
You are entitled to your opnion of course.
And the more profit you make, the more "sick" and "amoral" you are.
That on the other hand is true, glad you see it. It is the ultimate abuse of other people.
I'll be sure to make sure my operating expenses are large enough to drown out the amorality of my income to appease the amateur economist Slashdotter who told me so.
A "professional" economist is simply someone who has devoted their life to rationalize their inhumanit
Re:Oh get a grip! (Score:2)
Taking a big risk is admirable when they are trying to save someones life. But when its just tryign to make odles of money on a basically corrupt system, its not so admirable.
Re:Big deal! (Score:2)
Re:Big deal! (Score:2)
It's also interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Except (Score:2)
Odd also that most people appear to have a file named "Return of the King - Crack" in the same directory as the three CD images. If I remember correctly, media files don't need cracks. Yet, at least.
For those of you unfamiliar with the scene: This is not a DVD screener, it's some game based on whatever people wanting to make money off the franchise decided. Save your bandwidth.
Re:Windows only web streams? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hobbit? (Score:2)
New Line would love it. People would flock to see it in droves. But Peter Jackson is all LotR'ed out after writing, directing, filming and post-producing for years on end. So one should expect that he'll move on to other projects at least for the near future.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)