The first thing to strike you as annoying here is the presenter, Jim Hickey. And this is in the opening moments. He’s like New Zealand’s answer to Jamie Durie, just older and crapper (if that’s possible).
He takes us on a Getaway-like excursion through New Zealand’s various local places of interest in which something regarding the film was shot. Or made. Or hinted at. The whole thing is scripted like an amateur kid’s news report which reminded me of the old Simon Townsend’s Wonder World and that’s pretty poor, considering we’re around 20 years on the other side of that show. There are even extremely poor ‘noddies’ spliced in which just look crap (for those who don’t know, ‘noddies’ are the little bits where the interviewer, in this case Jim Hickey - though it might be Ray Martin or John Howard elsewhere – nod appreciatively at the speaker. As only one camera is taken out in these roving wankfests, these get spliced in later to make it look like there are two cameras. It looks appallingly amateurish once you know this secret. Just watch a news report and see if you don’t laugh).
Anyway, Hickey interviews the casting director and Peter Jackson himself, plus various nobodies who all appeared briefly as Orcs or Hobbits or Duries in the film. He also speaks with the calligrapher who made all the maps and used his calligraphy magical powers to write Bilbo’s book and stuff. This is by far the most interesting part of the 43 minute torture fest designed to cash in on the incredible movie trilogy for those collectors who must have every piece of expensive folklore or a cigarette butt from the caterer’s truck or whatever.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking this has anything to offer you as a collector. It doesn’t give you much but the names of a bunch of folks who worked hard on a great series of films and show you a brief titbit of their lives. Before the end you will wish you knew where to find Hickey so as to strangle him into silence, particularly after his parting shot atop some nameless mountain in New Zealand. Here he tries to convince us the camera crew filming him went from two feet in front of him to a helicopter in an instant. What a loser. No collector, obsessive compulsive or otherwise needs this and it won’t rate much more than a single viewing. Rent it if this is your sort of thing, but I wouldn’t recommend purchase.
Made for widescreen tellies, this comes to DVD in the 1.78:1 unenhanced format and looks as good as TV made so recently should look. The colours are good and make the bad ‘noddies’ look fan-bloody-tastic. There’re also some poorly dubbed edits where characters appear to be talking but they aren’t synched to the voiceover track. Bloody morons. What do they take us for, zombies? Everything looks great anyway, and there are no real issues with any video troubles.
The sound is fine too and naturally presented in Dolby Digital stereo as most TV still is. There’s not a lot of music, but what there is dismally attempts to compete with the score for the films, and eventually just reverts to using that score because it’s better.
The dialogue is clear and easily understood, and there are tons of New Zealanders saying ‘sux’ when they mean ‘six’. While this will raise chuckles of course, there aren’t any deliveries for ‘fush und chups’, even though they talk to the caterers. Hickey asks nearly every person he interviews ‘So, how do you think this film has affected tourism in New Zealand?’ What a loser. What are they gonna say? ‘Nothin’ mate. In fact, I think it’s made things worse. Well, everyone’s seen the bloody place now, haven’t they? Now piss off Hickey, before I strangle you.’
That’s what I woulda said.
As to extras there’s sweet sod all, really driving that dollar further for this 43 minute DVD 5 offering. Kerching! You poor myopic Lord of the Rings fans, we’re gonna take your money and give you bugger all in return. But, to our credit, we do have Middle-Earth on our DVD case in real big letters. And a sorta shoddy leatherbound-look type of thing.
If you are the kind of LOTR fan who absolutely can’t be without a single item about the trilogy, then this has been aimed directly down your throat. You’ll get it, watch it, yawn a bit and cast it into the pile of other LOTR disc sets and disc extension packs and God knows what else where it will never be watched again. If you’re smart though, you’ll catch yourself in time and save your money for something important.
Like a Frodo doll.
