The feature is now available for the world to view on Tourism New Zealand’s Facebook page ‘100% Pure New Zealand’, consumer website
newzealand.com and You Tube channel.
Tourism New Zealand’s Chief Executive Kevin Bowler says the feature will provide destination New Zealand with immeasurable exposure.
“
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is enormously popular having passed US$1 billion in box office takings, and the endorsement New Zealand receives from the international cast in this new feature on the DVD release is amazing.
Bowler says the feature reinforces the message that while the movie is fantasy, the locations are very real and that’s borne out by members of the cast, with Sylvester McCoy (the film’s Radagast the Brown) exclaiming: “It’s real. It’s the real countryside… at first you think, ‘Wow, what a great job they did,’ but… it’s the real thing.”
Setting off from Hobbiton in the lush rolling countryside of Waikato in New Zealand’s North Island, fans get a true picture of why New Zealand is the perfect Middle-earth.
“This is the Middle-earth I had always pictured” says Sir Ian McKellen, who stars as the Wizard Gandalf the Grey.
Hobbiton Movie Set is a permanent tourist attraction open to the public and is the reality of the fantasy for movie fans. Sir Ian McKellen says people can relive the films by going and actually knocking on Bilbo’s door.
The Middle-earth feature continues from location to location through New Zealand, giving the public an insight into the contrasting landscapes from north to south.
Piopio, also in the Waikato region, was clearly a cast favourite, and Graham McTavish, who plays the Dwarf Dwalin in The Hobbit Trilogy, says the sheer cliffs of volcanic rock and ancient native forest that formed the backdrop for the Trollshaw Forest scenes look like something out of Jurassic Park.
Journeying south, the DVD feature moves on to the Canterbury location of Twizel above Lake Pukaki where the Dwarves are chased by Wargs - which Peter Hambleton (who plays Dwarf Gloin) describes as “Everything you could hope for in an epic adventure”.
McTavish tells viewers he took a photo while filming in the area and sent it to friends with the message ‘Dwarves on vacation’. “They refused to believe that this was an actual photograph, that I hadn’t photo-shopped it,” he says.
Sir Peter Jackson tells viewers that Aoraki, Mount Cook, also in Canterbury, is New Zealand’s highest mountain and is where Sir Edmund Hilary trained to climb Mount Everest. “It’s a little less than half the height of Everest so basically he had to climb Mt Cook twice as he practised.”
At the time of filming wild lupins in varying shades of purple were flowering and The Hobbit Trilogy cast say they were “blown away” by the scenery.
“Nearly everyone on the crew said it was like doing a recce for an amazing road trip they are going to do in the future,” said Andy Serkis, who reprises his role as Gollum in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and served as second unit director for the Trilogy.
The remote landscapes of Strath Taieri in Central Otago were a favourite location for Sir Peter Jackson, who said he loved the idea of filming a chase there and chose it for scenes where Wargs chase after the Dwarves through rocks and across the wide open countryside.
“It’s what’s glorious about this place – you can do 360 degrees and not a satellite dish in sight,” said Sylvester McCoy.
Queenstown, New Zealand’s No 1 tourist destination brought the most reaction from cast and crew who talked about the dramatic alpine valley of Earnslaw Burn, which is surrounded by cascading waterfalls and only accessible by helicopter.
“You know when we all went to Queenstown I’d never been there before and it was just astonishing- I mean a beautiful jewel, really, at the bottom of the world,” said James Nesbitt, who plays the Dwarf Bofur.
The region was also Sir Ian McKellen’s favourite spot. He talks about the “famous holiday place” and how he enjoyed escaping up the lake and into the mountains.
Over a series of shots from rolling hills in the north to the mountains and fiords of the South Island, Martin Freeman says the world’s impression of New Zealand is a landscape that’s “got everything in it”.
The New Zealand feature finishes with Martin Freeman: “Meanwhile, the backdrop is so beautiful, people will think it’s CGI. It looks too perfect. You can use that as an advert for New Zealand if you want!”
About The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first in Peter Jackson's highly anticipated trilogy adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The trilogy tells a continuous story set in Middle-earth 60 years before
The Lord of the Rings, which Jackson and his film-making team brought to the big screen in the blockbuster trilogy that culminated with the Oscar®-winning
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
The adventure follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug.
Ian McKellen returns as Gandalf the Grey, the character he played in
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, with Martin Freeman in the central role of Bilbo Baggins, and Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield. Also reprising their roles from
The Lord of the Rings in
The Hobbit Trilogy are: Cate Blanchett as Galadriel; Ian Holm as Old Bilbo; Christopher Lee as Saruman; Hugo Weaving as Elrond; Elijah Wood as Frodo; and Andy Serkis as Gollum.
The international ensemble cast of the Trilogy also includes James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Sylvester McCoy, Barry Humphries, Aidan Turner, Dean O’Gorman, Graham McTavish, Adam Brown, Peter Hambleton, John Callen, Mark Hadlow, Jed Brophy, William Kircher, Stephen Hunter, Lee Pace, Benedict Cumberbatch, Manu Bennett and Conan Stevens.
The screenplay for
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. Jackson also produced the film, together with Carolynne Cunningham, Zane Weiner and Fran Walsh. The executive producers are Alan Horn, Toby Emmerich, Ken Kamins and Carolyn Blackwood, with Boyens and Eileen Moran serving as co-producers.
New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM), Present a WingNut Films Production,
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. All three films in
The Hobbit Trilogy, also including
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and the final film,
The Hobbit: There and Back Again, are productions of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM), with New Line managing production. Warner Bros. Pictures handled worldwide theatrical distribution, with select international territories as well as all international television distribution handled by MGM.
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” will be available on Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray and DVD from Warner Home Entertainment. All disc versions feature more than 130 minutes of bonus content.
