Replicas of sets used for the magical mega-hit movie on display

By BRUCE KIRKLAND, Friday, November 1, 2002

TORONTO -- J.R.R. Tolkien's magical Middle-earth is back in Toronto. The Lord Of The Rings: Two Towers: The Exhibit opened yesterday for a one-month run at the Royal Ontario Museum.

This Toronto-only exclusive exhibit is a reprise, and an expansion, of the spectacular show that the makers of the movie trilogy and the Canadian distributor, Alliance Atlantis, put on last year to mark the launch of The Fellowship Of The Ring.

"It's just bigger and better, like any event that carries on year after year," actor Dominic Monaghan (who plays the Hobbit Meriadoc Brandybuck) tells The Toronto Sun this week just as New Zealanders Dan and Chris Hennah worked feverishly to put the finishing touches on the exhibit for Wednesday night's invitational gala opening.

The Hennahs also organized last year's exhibit at Casa Loma. Dan Hennah served as senior art director for Kiwi director Peter Jackson's movie trilogy while Dan's wife, Chris Hennah, was the art department manager.

"This is bigger than last year -- way bigger," says Chris. "We built our own sets," says Dan Hennah. "We didn't really build any sets last year." Instead, artifacts were displayed in various halls in the cavernous Casa Loma estate.

At the ROM, the Hennahs took over the defunct planetarium, which had been reduced to just a shell. Working with a crew of 10 for the past six weeks, the Hennahs then supervised the construction of a series of movie set-like environments that replicate sets used for the filmmaking.

Visitors now can visit the Isengard Caverns, the Glittering Caves, Saruman's Chamber, Fangorn Forest, Arwen's Room at Rivendell, the Osgiliath Ruins and other locations.

Inside the environments, amid clouds of movie mist and smoke, are plasma TV screens showing movie excerpts and hundreds of costumes, suits of armour and artifacts -- the real props used in the making of the trilogy. The Toronto exhibit got first pick of the key pieces while another exhibit -- the one organized by the Museum of New Zealand which is set to open in Wellington and travel to London, Boston, Singapore and Sydney -- got second choice.

Key characters whose artifacts are on display in Toronto include Wormtongue (Brad Dourif), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Gandalf (Ian McKellen), King Theoden of Rohan (Bernard Hill) and, of course, the Hobbits.

Dan Hennah says the exhibit focuses on characters who feature prominently in The Two Towers -- but not the mysterious cave dweller Gollum (Andy Serkis). "There have to be some surprises," he says with a chuckle.

Actor Billy Boyd (who plays the Hobbit Peregrin Took in the trilogy) joined fellow Hobbit Monaghan for the Toronto opening. He is hugely impressed by the exhibit.

"Just from looking in this morning, I think the thing that struck me is that people will really get to see the amount of details and work that went into this movie," Boyd says.

"Just to look at the amount of work that must have gone into, say, Aragorn's hunting dagger, that in a normal movie would have been rubber because no one's really going to see it. It's just hanging on his waist and you'll just glimpse it.

"But, in this movie, these movies, they went to the trouble to make sure it was a real hunting dagger. If it was described in the book, it would be exactly how it was described.

"So this exhibition will show you the art that went into this. It's not a normal movie and, even without a movie, these pieces would be seen as art. It's just incredible."

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