[Evil Agent]

Did anyone else go to this? I went last week, when I was just finishing up my 8 week trip to Europe.

Being a LOTR addict, I found it pretty awesome, and I was surprised to find I spent over 2 and a half hours in there, which is longer than I last in most museums.

They had a HUGE array of real props and costumes from the movie, including basically every main characters costume, as well as generic costumes for all the other races of man (i.e. Rohans, Gondorian soldiers, Easterlings, Haradrim).

They had tons of weapons, crowns and rings and cloaks of the Nazgul, statues of Treebeard and Lurtz (made especially for the exhibition), all of the Rings of Power (except, oddly, any of the dwarven rings), and the One Ring itself.

They had the shards of Narsil, the Evenstar, Aiglos the spear of Gil-Galad (which I snuck a touch), Glamdring (Gandalf's sword, who's runes apparently say something about Turgon the mighty king of Gondolin wielding the sword!!!), and more. They even had the full size costume for Sauron, from the prologue of the first film.

I paid 3 pounds to get my picture scaled down to Hobbit size as well, which was a bit corny, but still looks hilarious.

The one thing that sucked is that TWO things were gone from the exhibition, temporarily, for reshoots of Return of the King!!! These were Gimli's costume, and the huge 10-feet-tall-or-so model of Orthanc! Which is weird, considering the recent revelation that Saruman has been removed from the third film. Why would they need Orthanc for reshoots???

Just wondering if anyone else has been, or whatever.

[Hobbit]

Evil....pleased to see you've made it on your legendary world tour, so far. :)

I would really like to see the exhibition, (make that REALLY REALLY like), but the costs of travel and the ticket entry price for a family of young Hobbits, not to mention the rumours of LOOOOOONG queues at weekends (when I would only be able to go) has made it an impossibility, sadly.

The Orthanc materials will be in the extended version of RotK, though, as you say, not in the cinema version.

Christopher Lee is not very happy about that, by all accounts, and has allegedly withdrawn from all publicity for RotK as a result...

Hobbit

[Evil Agent]

I know, it's really a sad situation!

But Mr. Lee is really being rude about it, he just said that he didn't see the point in attending the premiere, which makes sense.

I hope him and Peter Jackson can work this out. It's really a shame since Jackson obviously loves Lee, and was grateful to have him in this film. I, too, am a bit stunned, since Lee's Saruman was so good and I'm sure the removed scenes are great.

But, in this as in all else, I think we are just going to have to TRUST Peter Jackson. I mean, think of all the worry so far, and for the most part the films have turned out better than we could have hoped. I think he knows what he's doing, and when we see ROTK next month, most people will understand.

[Hobbit]

Agreed. I'm still hopeful that, despite the changes, Jackson can pull it off.

Am now waiting for the extended Two Towers to arrive in the post any day now..... *drool*

Hobbit

[Dominus]

I'm going to go pick mine up tomorrow.....mmmm.....extended......43 min..........mmmmm........

[Evil Agent]

OOPS, I meant to say that Mr. Lee is NOT really being rude about it. Just wanted to say that for the record.