New Zealand — the setting of the most epic movie trilogy ever
I want to be honest with you… When I joined this class there were only a few things I knew about New Zealand:
1st: New Zealand is a country far far away, somewhere next to Australia.
2nd: The epic ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy took place there.
3rd: Its landscape is incredibly beautiful.
Yes, I know — that’s not really much and I’m not proud of it. But I have never really put any effort in getting to know New Zealand better — I thought that it was just like Australia’s little sibling.
So by know, I don’t have much to blog about, but I decided to give it a try.
New Zealand — also known as middle-earth
So in my first blogpost, I would like to tell you something about the awesome ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy — I’m not going to get into too much detail, but let’s just have a brief look at the main settings in the movie and where you can actually find them in New Zealand.
So first, there is Hobbiton with its farming landscape — home of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. It’s such an idyllic place, far away from all the war and chaos. The Waikato town of Matamata, which is on the North Island, was used to portray this beautiful region of middle-earth.
One of the rather not-so-peaceful places in middle-earth is Isengard, home of the evil character Saruman and his army of Uruk-Hais.
They filmed this near the village of Glenorchy which is located on the South Island.
Other places in New Zealand where the trilogy was filmed are Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury and Mackenzie Country.
So I think even if you have never watched one of the movies, you can clearly tell why the whole trilogy was entirely filmed in New Zealand — the landscape is just breath-taking and makes you want to go on adventure.
http://www.newzealand.com/us/feature/the-lord-of-the-rings-trilogy-filming-locations/
http://www.doc.govt.nz/lordoftherings
