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"I've seen the second movie - the short three hour version...... and it's GORGEOUS!" - Brad Dourif (Grima Wormtongue)I've just arrived at the Bonn Maritim. "Have you come far?", I politely inquire of my fellow passenger in the hotel lift as I make my way from reception to my RingCon allocated room. "New Zealand" replies the passenger. "Four of us have come over", he elaborates. A quick read of the name badge would have told me of course. "Cameron Rhodes", it says. Which is another way of saying that I'm in the lift with the movie franchise's Farmer Maggot, albeit without his petrified, Ringwraith-threatened, black dog. This chance encounter is to be the first of many at the German 3 day event that is RingCon 2002. |
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Checking in for the conference, and attending the first session - a lecture from
Rene v Rossenberg entitled "Tolkien's Golem: a study in Gollumology" - the convention takes on a slightly
schizophrenic Gollum vs Smeagol air. Is this a rather serious Tolkien Society -type event or is it a fun fan convention?
Perhaps more importantly, is it a German event or an international one? At this stage it's hard to tell.
The impressively fat press pack, together with most of the instructions (particularly those for the meal tickets, all of which
are paid for but
seemingly unusable on day 3 of the convention), many of the talks, and, crucially, the all-important daily notifications of
event changes are all in German language only. On the other hand the event's web site, all of the guest
panels, and a fair number of the lectures are in English. The show's MC, the highly entertaining and very sharp-witted
Marc B from FedCon, hails from Orlando Florida and speaks hardly any German. It's all very confusing!
Language issues aside, the convention got off, for me, to a disappointing start. But bear with me because things soon got better - a LOT better! First up, event wise, was the afore-mentioned lecture on Tolkien's Gollem, given by Rene v Rosenberg who, I'm told, runs tolkienshop.com online and is apparently something of a national Tolkien guru in Holland. His talk, which seemed to be well received by the majority of the audience - particularly the Americans - lasted slightly over half the advertised time and appeared to be 10 minutes of jovial introductory banter, with an outrageous amount of name-dropping and general bragging, 10 minutes on Shelley's Frankinstein and maybe 10 minutes on the main subject - a smoke and mirrors exercise in "proving" a link between the Jewish Golem and Tolkien's Gollum. If this critique appears too judgemental I should point out that in his introduction the speaker told us that when respected Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey heard the lecture he declared it to be "complete bollocks". Frankly, for me he was bang on the button! This sort of "lunatic humour" (deliberately intentioned or not) was done so much better by the likes of "The New Tolkien Newsletter" and Robert Giddings some 20-odd years ago. Other lectures may have been far more relevant or interesting, but I'm afraid this first taste was enough for the British contingent to concentrate on the other activites and not darken any more lecture halls with our presence for the remainder of the convention. So it's back to the main registration desks, where we learn that about 800 fans have pre-booked for the event - the vast majority of them being German - with the final weekend tally probably just tipping over 1000. But it soon becomes clear that the stalls and events laid on would be more than enough for a gathering several times that number. It's all most impressive. |
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I've seen Games Workshop at
several Tolkien-related events now (click on the Web Logs button at the top of this page for other reports)
but those have been as nothing compared to the size and scale that was evidenced here.
Incredible recreations of Mordor, Helm's Deep and other locations are laid out in a huge room, with Craig Parker
(Haldir from the movie) taking time out from his busy schedule to promote the game for Games Workshop and taking part in a
couple of battles (the first of which he won, the second of which he lost - a point that will be commented on in Day 2's panels!)
Further investigation of other stands on show reveal a wealth of goodies to be had. There's everything here from weapons to Weta statues to mugs to t-shirts to hobbit pipes to.. well anything vaguely Middle-Earth related really. And quite a few things that aren't, although some of my party seemed to be convinced that both Spider-Man and Blade WERE actually in the movie, albeit lurking in the shadows in the Mines of Moria! What's really confusing is that on the one hand some things are superbly organised and quite breath-taking in their magnificence (the opening show, for one - of which, more in a moment), while others (arrangements for press interviews, explanations of how we can use the tickets we've paid for to get some damned food - do I sound tetchy yet?!) are, to be blunt, worse than shambolic. |
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The guest list for this event could have been a disaster, particularly with John Rhyss
Davies (Gimli) pulling out because of film commitments elsewhere. With three cast members having mere seconds of screen time
in the first movie, and a fourth having more only in the extended cut, the outside observer might have wondered how on earth
such actors were going to be able to keep an audience of several hundred entertained for the best part of the hour each had
to host as a public panel. Any doubts were dispersed immediately Mark Ferguson (Gil-galad and the Witch King) stepped on the
stage. Highly entertaining, and extremely knowledgeable since many of his scenes were cut but he had been on set for many days,
his hour was one of the many highlights of the entire weekend. The old pro had people eating out the palm of his hand, from the
moment he stepped on stage with his own video camera to film the audience. He was witty, fun and frank about the problems of
filming ("people were literally in tears. Eveyone hears about the cast problems, but they had days off, the crew didn't and it
went on day after day after day for 18 months!"). He spoke a lot about how Peter was really a technical director with the
grand vision that became the movie we all love, but how other directors really supervised the acting. This point was later
emphasised by Brad Dourif, who said that his best scenes were those "filmed by Fran Walsh" and that she was the toughest
director, but one who got the most out of his performances. Mark talked about his suspicions that Peter Jackson never slept, that he
was constantly supervising six separate shoots with different directors, and what a joy it had been to be associated with him
and the project. Throughout his talk Mark dealt professionally and humourously with every question, no matter how banal. We didn't
get "the Tom Bombadil question" but we did get nonsense like "Do you think hobbits and elves could be real?"
(a question which, to add insult to injury, was then addressed to Sarah McLeod during her panel session too!).
After Mark, Sarah had a tougher ride than Mark, with questions being extremely difficult to answer with much more than a "Yes" or a "No". Her charm and warmth won through and she made many new admirers. If ever there was a "female Sam" she was it. Among the startling revelations she made (more of which will appear in the fan club magazine version of this report) perhaps the most shocking was that not only do hobbit women have hairy feet, but that they shave their legs as well! The opening ceremony followed the panels and was a real humdinger. Eight (just like the movie ;-)) black wraiths scared the bejeezus out of the audience appearing from the back of the hall in total darkness before slowly wending their way to the front stage where the music soared to a crescendo, fog poured out around the Weathertop scenery... and a spotlight revealed something dark and menacing emerging from the misty darkness and light. |
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| It's late and takes time to process all the photo's I've taken, so more details of the show, and how
an Elf Warrior got suprised and nearly pounded by a Dark Lord's mace will have to wait until tomorrow's report, which
includes a fascinating two hours with oscar-nominated actor Brad Dourif. To whet your appetite (gotta tease you all
somehow!) a little quiz from Day two quotes of the convention:
Who was it who said: "Peter Jackson has enough blooper material to blackmail the whole cast" "I challenge anyone with a long blonde wig not to look like a drag queen" "Does my ass look big in this?" "Rivendell was done wrong. I wanted to see elves smoking and drinking gin and tonics - it should have been like the British Raj in India" (Clue: a dark haired actor who played an elf!) And, finally, just what was it that Brad Dourif said about the second movie that caused his agent to walk on stage, whisper in his ear and have the actor announce "I'm sorry. Apparently I'm not allowed to talk about that stuff"! On to second report..... |
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| Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk |