The cast and crew have been reassembled for eight weeks of what has been dubbed "supplementary shooting". It was something Jackson did for Fellowship and will do again for Return of the King, not to fix a malfunctioning movie but to enhance the storytelling-the director evaluating his rough assemblage of The Two Toers and shooting and reshooting scenes to make the final film clearer and richer.
"We're shooting about another 25 minutes of stuff, although some of it is to replace other scenes," enthuses Jackson, who is thoroughly enjoying the family reunion, especially now he knows the world too has fallen in love with his vision of Tolkien's work. "It was a process I always planned on. It's a great way to shoot, like handcrafting a film, aloowing you to figure out over time. For instance, there's completely new scenes with Sam and Frodo. Since we finished we really wanted to make the Gollum story more psychological, things we thought of later."
By the time of Empire's arrival in New Zealand for a visit, the Hobbits have been and gone, leaving the world of men and Wizards to their side of the now multi-faceted adventure. This morning the unit are gearing up for a small scene to make sense of a hanging emotional note. Prior to the battle of Helm's Deep, Gandalf and King Theoden have split on a furious disagreement, but Jackson felt he had no resolution to this. So now he cane sompy shoot a new scene that settles the relationship, makes it feel complete. In other words, this is not simply about plot logic, it's emotional aswell. Those values that have raised the project to the status of great filmmaking. Not that it's an easy process.
"It's been a challenge," Jackson continues, gesturing to the complex web of stages and sets that tower around him, "For instance the Golden Hall scenes (Theoden's grandiose, Viking-style royal palace) are two years old and we are just trying to insert one line of dialogue. I have already cut the sequence that we shot before-now we have to match the camera move so it fits exactly. So I can immediately cut the new host in with the old. It's like a very complicated jigsaw."
Also, The Two Towers is proving the most demanding of the three films. More footage has been required, more has been developed and enhanced from the book. As Jackson explains, it's the least dramatically rounded of the three parts, requiring him to expand on relationships and narrative lines Tolkine only insinuates. "This is the one we've had to do most work to," he admits.
And by association, the one purists may rail against most?
"Oh, I think they'll like what we've done," he smiles, "I think this is better than the first film."
The next day-indeed the day England are due to slot three comfortable goals into a Denmark net-Viggo Mortensen is proudly displaying this homemade Denmark shirt to Empire. There were none available in downtown Wellington, where The World Cup is of only a passing interest, so being the artist, he's daubed red chevrons down the sleeves of a white sweatshirt and accompanied them with elaborate Elvish symbols for a bit of-as it transpires, unfounded-luck.
"What do you think?" he enquires, raising an eyebrwo.
Empire, treading a fine line between patriotism and politeness takes an honest tack: "Very nice, but you're still going to lose."
By the following morning, Mortensen will be proud enough to still be wearing his D.I.Y. football shirt, but he has also donned a black armband. Which won't stop Bernard Hill stopping to remind him of the score, every three minutes or so.
The atmosphere brims over with good feeling and confidence. Laughter is everywhere, as are commemorative fleeces declaring mid-point (May 18,2000) in the original, epic shoot. You get the feeling they would all be happy to carry on making The Lord of the Rings for the rest of their natural lives.
"It's interesting," considers Jackson, now prepping a short scene for Brad Dourif's loathsome Wormtongue, "We've got to the stage where difficult is easy. We all know what we're doing-at the beginning it was all new. There is so much confidence now. We have all been involved in the hardest thing we will ever do."
He goes on to give Empire a quick update on where the production process is up to. Howard Shore, having just completed extending the music for the Special DVD edition of Fellowship, is now writing the music for The Two Towers, which will be scored in London in August: "There are returning themes and overlapping styles. He's also created new themes for Rohan and Gollum-it's a mixture of the familiar and the new."
Meanwhile, the special effects process, including creature shops, minatures and digital work, will go on, day and night, right up until the release in December. In real terms the shooting of The Lord of the Rings has continued ceaselessly since October 1999. and won't finally come to an end until the release of the DVD of Return of the King, sometime in 2004. But now that it is a task bathing in the warm glow of financial and artistic triumph, the world is as addicted to the Ring as snivelling, desperate Gollum himself. Surely that makes The Two Towers the definition of a "sure thing"?
"Just in terms of Peter shaping the story," agrees executive producer Mark Ordesky, who has guided the project from conception, "and he is as terrific in the editing room as on the set-it is as close to a sure bet as one gets in Hollywood. The great thing is that film one was hailed as this visual epic, and films two and three are so much bigger. In film two, to make a Star Wrs analogy, you have got a much more Empire Strikes Back structure, meaing you've got Merry, Pippin and Treebeard in Fangorn, and Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas at Helm's Deep, and Frodo and Sam going to Mordor-it's like an aperture that opens wider. I mean, they literally get to the Black Gates-you get to see the Black Gates with these gigantic cave-trolls pushing them open."
Looking forward to Christmas yet?
