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The Evening Post
April 9, 2000Welcome to Jackson's
Middle Earth
Post Reporter
Ever wanted to know what an orc looks like?
More than one million Lord Of The Rings fans around the world
logged on to the internet at 7pm last night to find out, jamming the preview as soon as it
was posted. This is the first time fans have been able to have an official look at the
$360 million trilogy being made by Peter Jackson's Miramar-based film studio.
Film and theatre director Ian Mune tried to log on without
success last night -- he was like many others going to try again today. He said every hit
on the Internet site was a sold seat at the cinema. "Its extraordinary. [Jackson]
must be rubbing his hands with glee."
The Holmes Show was poised to catch the two minute preview
live last night, but could not get past the home page of the official site. Lord Of The
Rings publicist Claire Raskind said the server screening the trailer could accommodate up
to one million hits simultaneously. Ms Raskind said it was hard to gauge the level of
interest, but the website was overloaded as soon as it came on the Internet. "People
were waiting at their computers to log on. People got up in the middle of the night to log
on," she said.
Auckland-based LOTR fan Erica Challis said she was most
impressed with the Internet footage, after waiting more than an hour to download it. The
orcs were monsters made to look almost human, a difficult effect to achieve. Shrinking the
hobbits on the screen lookedvery convincing and many special effects were very subtle, she
said. "A lot of things were done without you noticing it." Other effects were
less ornate. The black riders were simply shadowy figures wrapped in black, tattered
robes." |