Zurbaran1
09-08-2004, 09:34 AM
This past weekend I was fortunate to see the Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy Exhibition. The exhibition is being held in the Museum of Science in Boston. Tickets are available on a timed basis. You buy the ticket for a specific date and time. Once in you can stay as long as you like. If you leave the exhibit you can't come back in. The exhibition runs through October 24th. You can pretty much take in everything it has to offer in 2 hours. If you are a LOTR fan and movie buff I cannot recommend this highly enough. It's awesome!
The exhibition is set up in one large wing of the museum and it is broken up into several areas. All of the major characters are accounted for by items of their's from the film, including costumes, jewelry and weaponry. There is an entire area of the exhibit which showcases the armor and weapons wielded by the various combatants from armor worn by Orcs to the sword brandished by Arwen. It's really amazing to see these costumes and weapons all lined up in a long row. These ain't Sideshow statues folks but the real stuff used in the film.
As you walk into the exhibit the first thing you see is a huge sculture of a cave troll and goblin which was specifically made for the show. There are areas for Hobbits, Middle-earth, Magical World, Armour & Weaponry, Warfare, and Creations of Evil. There is a room in the center of the exhibit which contains the one ring. You walk into this dark room and their in the center is an illuminated cylinder in which the One Ring floats. Outside that room there is a lifesize model of Sauron and a large model of Orthanc. There are also areas set aside where you can try out three techniques the filmmakers used to create some of the films special effects: 3-D scanning, motion capture and the scaling illusion.
Within each area there are video screens showing various short clips about the films, characters and the whole creative process. They are well worth watching and I made sure to see them all. They are all quite interesting, especially the ones about Gollum and warfare. In the Warefare area they had videos on how the massive battle scenes were created. Fascinating stuff. They literally built a software program which was aptly named Massive. This program was used to render the thousands of digital combatants that appear in the amazing battle scenes. The software was inbued with AI where combatants were turned loose and would then fight each other. The battles were not specifically choreographed. The software program took over once the basic parameters were entered. They showed some of the initial battles rendered by Massive. One of the most interesting and funny things was that, at first, the AI was apparently too smart. When thrown into battle a good number of the combatants decided "screw these odds, I am out of here". If you looked at those scenes you could see at the edges of the battle droves of combatants fleeing the scene. This was not good and they had to tweak the software.
On the way out they have a LOTR gift shop. This was the most disappointing part of the whole thing. I'm sure my sights were set too high. The shop didn't really have much to offer. I was hoping for some of the Sideshow pieces that are getting harder to find. I even fantasized finding a Balrog box tucked in a corner somewhere. Well, no such luck. They only had three Sideshow pieces and those were way overpriced: Nazgul Steed bust ($129), Saruman bust ($99), and Arwen Statue ($169). There were also some books, refrigerator magnets, posters and jewelry. Slim pickings if you ask me but, then again, I'm spoiled from the hobby. I did pick up a cool book written by Andy Serkis about his experience as Gollum.
Anyway, you should get the idea by now. If you happen to be in the Boston area or live nearby, find the time and go see the exhibit. You will not be disappointed. I was under the impression that this is the only U.S. stop for the exhibition but that could be wrong. I sure hope so, it would be nice for this to go around so that a lot more folks can experience a truly awesome creation, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
The exhibition is set up in one large wing of the museum and it is broken up into several areas. All of the major characters are accounted for by items of their's from the film, including costumes, jewelry and weaponry. There is an entire area of the exhibit which showcases the armor and weapons wielded by the various combatants from armor worn by Orcs to the sword brandished by Arwen. It's really amazing to see these costumes and weapons all lined up in a long row. These ain't Sideshow statues folks but the real stuff used in the film.
As you walk into the exhibit the first thing you see is a huge sculture of a cave troll and goblin which was specifically made for the show. There are areas for Hobbits, Middle-earth, Magical World, Armour & Weaponry, Warfare, and Creations of Evil. There is a room in the center of the exhibit which contains the one ring. You walk into this dark room and their in the center is an illuminated cylinder in which the One Ring floats. Outside that room there is a lifesize model of Sauron and a large model of Orthanc. There are also areas set aside where you can try out three techniques the filmmakers used to create some of the films special effects: 3-D scanning, motion capture and the scaling illusion.
Within each area there are video screens showing various short clips about the films, characters and the whole creative process. They are well worth watching and I made sure to see them all. They are all quite interesting, especially the ones about Gollum and warfare. In the Warefare area they had videos on how the massive battle scenes were created. Fascinating stuff. They literally built a software program which was aptly named Massive. This program was used to render the thousands of digital combatants that appear in the amazing battle scenes. The software was inbued with AI where combatants were turned loose and would then fight each other. The battles were not specifically choreographed. The software program took over once the basic parameters were entered. They showed some of the initial battles rendered by Massive. One of the most interesting and funny things was that, at first, the AI was apparently too smart. When thrown into battle a good number of the combatants decided "screw these odds, I am out of here". If you looked at those scenes you could see at the edges of the battle droves of combatants fleeing the scene. This was not good and they had to tweak the software.
On the way out they have a LOTR gift shop. This was the most disappointing part of the whole thing. I'm sure my sights were set too high. The shop didn't really have much to offer. I was hoping for some of the Sideshow pieces that are getting harder to find. I even fantasized finding a Balrog box tucked in a corner somewhere. Well, no such luck. They only had three Sideshow pieces and those were way overpriced: Nazgul Steed bust ($129), Saruman bust ($99), and Arwen Statue ($169). There were also some books, refrigerator magnets, posters and jewelry. Slim pickings if you ask me but, then again, I'm spoiled from the hobby. I did pick up a cool book written by Andy Serkis about his experience as Gollum.
Anyway, you should get the idea by now. If you happen to be in the Boston area or live nearby, find the time and go see the exhibit. You will not be disappointed. I was under the impression that this is the only U.S. stop for the exhibition but that could be wrong. I sure hope so, it would be nice for this to go around so that a lot more folks can experience a truly awesome creation, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.