The Dominic Monaghan Resource - The Canadian Press, 31 October 2001

The Canadian Press, 31 October 2001

Articles & Interviews - 2001

Middle-earth returns to Toronto in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers exhibit

By ANDREW FLYNN

October 31, 2002

Hobbits are a rare sight in Toronto but it seems some, like Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, are willing to pop in during late fall to relive some of the splendour of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

For the second year in a row, Alliance Atlantis, the distributor of the blockbuster Lord of the Rings trilogy, is bringing a little of Tolkien’s fantasy world to the city by presenting an exhibition of props from the films.

For Monaghan and Boyd, who starred as the diminutive hobbits Merry and Pippin, it’s an excuse to party and to reunite with others who worked on the production.

But their visit on Wednesday was also one of the first publicity events for the film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which opens Dec. 18. Both are eager to see what fans think of the second instalment of the trilogy.

‘‘I’m sure we’d be disappointed if people don’t feel it’s as good,’’ says Boyd. ‘‘It’s really like one movie for us, the three filmed together, and hopefully that’s the way it will work out, the buzz for it will remain because it’s a fantastic story.’’

And neither is terribly surprised the first film, the Fellowship of the Ring, met with huge international success. It took four Oscars and is currently ranked as the fifth favourite movie of all time on the Internet Movie DataBase (www.imdb.com).

‘‘I think we all knew it was going to be big, considering the source material,’’ says Monaghan. ‘‘I think that was one of the things that really pushed us as a cast, the idea that you had to, if not live up to, at least present an acceptable version of these characters for the fans. They’re really timeless.’’

It’s one thing to make a story come alive on the screen. But the creative forces behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy — from New Zealand director Peter Jackson to the design team that created the 20,000 or so props used in the films — have taken film-set realism to extremes.

Last year’s exhibit, which attracted 4,000 people on its opening day alone, featured in glass cases hundreds of the intricate and beautifully crafted swords, spears, daggers, leather jerkins, helmets, banners, books, pipes, glass, arrows and other oddments made for the film.

The props are there — and more — but this time around, the film’s supervising art director, Dan Hennah, has also recreated at the exhibit the mythical sets of The Two Towers in the former McLaughlin Planetarium.

Walking through a corridor transformed into the deep and dank Fangorn Forest, it’s hard to believe that the massive oak trunks are sculpted out of Styrofoam. Water splashes from a woodland spring into a giant stone basin — again, Styrofoam. Ghostly bodies float in the stagnant waters of the Dead Marshes. Not Styrofoam, but certainly not as horribly real as they appear.

That kind of obsessive attention to detail explains in part why moviegoers found the film, which has grossed more than $850 million US worldwide, so visually captivating.

But the creative team that designed and built its sets and costumes insist they were doing more than turning out usable props for the film. They were paying homage to the spirit of Tolkien’s vast vision of an enchanted land of great beauty pushed to the brink by a dire evil.

The swords look and feel deadly. A rough-hewn wooden shield could have been prised from the hands of a living Viking and unless you pick it up and inspect it minutely it’s impossible to tell it’s plastic. Cloaks and tunics are woven from spun wool.

‘‘It’s not the level of detail you need in a movie and there’s no way you can see this detail on the screen. No way,’’ says illustrator John Howe, walking through the exhibit.

‘‘A lot of these pieces are museum-quality. Almost all of them, in fact.’’

Howe should know. The Vancouver-born artist is one of the world’s premier Tolkien illustrators and an expert on medieval arms and armour. He and Englishman Alan Lee, another world-famous Tolkien artist, helped design many of the sets, costumes and props used in the three films.

‘‘First of all, the craftsmen who created them made them a labour of love, as we did when we drew them,’’ he says, pointing to a battleaxe based on historical Viking weapons that bears a tiny ornamental flourish on its blade.

‘‘The interesting thing about it all is the depth in this whole thing. That’s really appealing to an illustrator because it gives you a chance to bring in a depth that you’ve acquired of your own.’’

Lee agrees, and adds that his personal vision of Tolkien’s vast mythological world of hobbits, elves, dwarves, wizards and orcs hasn’t been at all affected by his part in Jackson’s films, nor by seeing it in action on the screen.

‘‘It’s enriched it,’’ says Lee. ‘‘I think Tolkien creates this entire mythological system, this alternative world and the film that Peter has made is but one version of it. Tolkien’s novels are another version of it, his artistic interpretation of it. This, like any great myth, will be endlessly interpreted.’’

Howe says he believes the actors benefited from being given props that aren’t just ‘‘the typical Hollywood plastic junk.’’ Being decked out in homespun wool garb, historically accurate chainmail, leather belts and gloves and handed shining metal weapons, they were given a physical connection to Tolkien’s fantasy universe.

The exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum’s McLaughlin Planetarium runs from Oct. 31 to Dec. 1. Admission is $15, $12 for students and seniors, $7.50 for children aged five to 14.